Money Secrets

You know, just when you think you have something all figured out, they go and move the goalposts. Not that I would ever be dumb enough to think I actually had SEO figured out, but I did kind of think I had enough of the basics under my belt to be able to get my websites ranked for chosen keywords.

After all, Google herself kindly provides webmasters with a basic guide to SEO. And it’s pretty damn hard to fail at it when you have it all laid out in front of your very eyes. Even more so when none of it requires any great technical or intellectual skills. KISS is definitely the way to go when it comes to anything remotely related to SEO.

But now, it seems there’s yet another SEO revolution on the way. And all the work we webmasters have done in relation to on and off site optimization can be undone in the twinkling of an eye. Yes, that quickly. Because Googl’es new algorithm includes the ‘load’ time of your site. And if you’re a ’slowcoach’, you can expect to see a dramatic drop in your rankings.

Actually, it’s nothing to do with how quick you are. More to do with how quick your site is. Load times are all part of Google’s “caffeine” and if you haven’t paid much heed to how quickly your site loads before, then you’d better start getting a handle on it.

Of course, any visitor expects to not have to wait around for a website to complete loading. But how quick is quick? How do you cut down the load times? Especially, if you’re a non techie webmaster, the simple idea of having to mess around in the coding of your site to make sure it loads as quickly as possible can be pretty scary. Certainly is for yours truly.

I’ve tested out a few of my sites, and luckily, they seem to be on the right side of the speed curve, though they could still do with some tweaking. Unfortunately, I have no idea at all how to tweak them!

If you’re in the same position, I suggest you gather in some favours from your more techie friends, talk to your webhost, start studying…. in essence, you need to figure it out. Because SEO is now not just about the basics, it’s not just about how many backlinks you can get, it’s not just about the structure of your site and which pages link to which other pages…

SEO is moving into the fast lane. And if your competitor’s site loads up a second quicker than yours, then all else being equal, guess who’s going to get the ranking? Hmm, somehow I never figured on being a racing driver when I got into this IM malarkey!

I figure it’s time to address an issue that a lot of folks seem to be having with SEO. Actually, it’s p*****g me off big time. You may have to forgive the following rant, but it needs to be said.

Lately, I’ve noticed a lot of folks wasting their time by leaving crappy comments on Money Secrets. And trust me, when I say crappy, I mean CRAPPY!

Leaving spammy comments on a blog in the hope of getting backlinks to your own crappy site isn’t going to work. Well, it may work on other crappy sites that don’t give a shit about their own linking strategies, but it certainly isn’t going to work here on Money Secrets.

Good SEO certainly involves links to and from other sites. And leaving comments is a great way to get those links. But trust me, if all you can write is some pathetic quote that has nothing to do with the post you’re commenting on, or worse still, leave a comment that just says, ‘great post’, then you’ve as much chance of getting it approved as a snowflake in hell.

If you’re going to use commenting as a part of your SEO strategy, (and I highly recommend that you do), then at least take the time to read the damn posts that you’re going to be commenting on.

It’s just as easy to add a valuable, related comment that contributes to the post, as it is to write something totally gibberish. Of course, that’s assuming you’re actually bothering to write the comments in the first place. Which of course, you’re probably not, because you’ve been sold down the river and bought some piece of crappy, automated, commenting software that promised you zillions of backlinks with it’s super shiny, set it and forget it hype.

Lord save me from the ‘easy way to riches‘ crowd. Ok, maybe I shouldn’t be so harsh. I was once one of those people myself. I know how hard it is to make money on the Internet and I know how frustrating it can be when you’re trying your damned hardest and nothing seems to be working. But you need to get over it people. I had to. And so did every other successful Internet Marketer.

Take the time to learn your craft. Go read all the blogs, grab the information, learn from someone who’s already made all the mistakes you’re now making. In the long run, it’s actually quicker because you don’t have to repeat the same mistakes.

SEO isn’t hard. Some of the experts who charge a fortune for their services may try and tell you it’s really technical stuff, but I promise you they’re lying. How else are they going to stay in business? Actually, Griz puts it so much better than me:

So my view has always been that everything else is just fluff or the owners of SEO sites are trying to make money providing services to people who don’t know any better. I’ve said this before - if I charge you $10,000 to get your site ranked well in the search engines I have to convince you that what I do is “complicated” and involves “lots of work”

I highly recommend you check out the rest of his post on what makes for good seo.

Good SEO is about two things.

Now yes, there’s a whole lot to learn about each of those and getting either one of them wrong can stuff up your whole SEO strategy. But there’s more than enough information on the Internet for you to be able to learn this stuff and put it to good use.

Spamming isn’t putting it to good use.