Feeding The Hungry Masses

With all the conflicting theories and tactics floating around,sometimes Optimising your Site for the Search Engines may seem more like Brain Surgery, than Simple Marketing Tactics. Let me Introduce you to the idea, that, Concentrating on Feeding Your Hungry Website Visitors is ALL you need to do to win the Search Results you are hoping for. I really do understand, that sometimes I may come across as a bit extreme in my points of view and take on search engine marketing, but nonetheless please dont allow that to make you think that I dont want my sites to be attractive for the search engines. I would love to attract a Search Engine spider! Perhaps it would like me to lure it with some Curds and Way, come and sit down beside me and whisper little secrets in my ear, Like Miss Tuffet. That would be nice. But seriously though, I do reap the benefits of having a nice offering for the spider when it comes, but do you think I put it there purely to give that little thing something nice for its dinner? Come on now, I really wouldnt mind either way, its not for them, they cant really give me any appreciation, I mean sure, they can report back to HQ, let everyone know theres some great stuff at my site, i'll get some good listings maybe at there parent engine, now thats nice and I cant deny that, so it is a form of appreciation, but they cant really write me a nice message, say "thanks martin, you left us some nice dinner" can they? If you read my article Forget about the search engines, then you'll know where I am coming from, and you can get the drift here anyway. Personally, I remember when I didnt even Use google, or MSN, or any other search engine for that matter. Yep, hard to beleive it, but there *Was* once a time when there wasnt really an easy way to search every single website round the world in seconds, so we all had to rely on one of a few different ways, which where - - Your Friend tells you - One day, some how, your friend tells you about this cool website, something that they really think you'll be interested in, so you get this information, either on the phone or face to face, in an email, or something along those lines. why would your friend do that for you? Simply because, they felt after visiting the site that YOU would also benefit from visiting that site, in some way or other, they thought you would like it. - OffLine Media - Perhaps, in a magazine, newspaper, or even TV, you have seen a URL and are interested in visiting that website. Obviously at first glance it would seem only people who have big budgets would be able to have a website bought to your attention via offline media, BUT, you forget about that little peice you read in the newspaper the other day, that happened to mention the website of a company related to that article, or that you heard on a radio show someone mention a website they had visited that day, and quite certainly the ONLY reason a website would Warrant a mention on such a Large form of Physical media would be because the Author/DJ/Newscaster feels that the information within the website is of benefit to their reaers/viewers/listeners. The final way I would have found a site, back In the Day, or without Google, would have been through looking at sites that are Linked off from the places I have visited from the Previous two examples. So why would a Site want to link to another site? Simply, if the Site we are visiting is a Quality Resource naturally they would want to share other Quality resources from other providers, done with Links. Overall, what does that have to do with Search Engine Optimization? Hold on, keep reading, you'll see sure enough. All those examples of how I may stumble across a site, all have one thing in common, and thats the factor that somewhere along the line, someone thought it was going to be interesting enough to share that websites address with someone else, someone thought that particular website was interesting enough to mention in a newspaper article they where writing. Each Time the website being shared, was a Quality Website that contained Good Quality information, resources or items of interest to a particular person or people, and for no other reason whatsoever was it shared. There are some simple tricks to have on your website to encourage people to share yours with others, Email this page tools etc, but NONE quite so powerful as to ensure that YOUR Website, Your Information, Your Presentation, stands out from the others and provides the Best Value to your passing visitors. People want to visit a website that will benefit them in some way or other, and quite simply the Content on your website determines that. Striving to become The Top Resource in your given field, will certainly give you a good chance of having people share your website, providing your target market with the most Concise, Up to date, Well Presented content catered for thier interests will make sure that they tell other people. How to do this, is qute simply by thinking of your Websites Visitors, or your target Market as starving hungry masses, who constantly crave feeding. It Doesnt matter What your area is, or what product your trying to sell, this rule applies to your website marketing,like it or not. If you want to sell a product, your market are going to want to be fed before they trust you, they want as much info on your product, people who have used your product, what you as a company know about your product, what you as a company know about the poeple who buy your product. People online Crave Information, and if you have the best of what they crave, the message will spread, with or without the Search engines. However it just so happens that the best way to keep your website appealing to your visitors, also appeals to the Search engines. When you leave out a Fresh Meal for your Website visitors, some fresh meaty New Content for them to indulge on, the spiders will come running, well they do tend to follow everyone else, so as soon as word gets out that you've got the meal of the minute, when people know dinners at your place then they'll all come running, Visitors, Spiders, Search Engine Listings the lot. If none of that makes any sense to you, I am sorry, sometimes, I know, I tend to go off on one and everything gets all philosophical. Summarise it like this. Feeding the Hungry Masses, and making sure you Care about the Catering, is your Best SEO Strategy. When you make sure that you are providing your target audience with Fresh, Quality Content, they want to visit more to get more. If you provide the Best information in a Given Field, then people will come, because you will be the "Authority" in that area. *Remember, as soon as you stop being regular and fresh, the authority status dissappears and all this is irrelevant.* If you are publishing regular authoritative content, people want to be notified often, people want to share your resource, people want to talk about what you have,and all this leads to Perfect natural Optimization. SEO gurus know that Natural Deep Links on pages relating to the content linked to, is the Gold Dust of SEO. With your Authority site, it will happen naturally, you wont need to ask for them, People will add your site to their RSS Feeds, people will Tell thier Friends, people will Discuss your site on Forums, People will Comment about your site on thier site. People will link to pages on your site. All that, and you werent even thinking about being Number One in google for your keyword phrase, but guess what, it just so happens that your pretty near, without even trying. You Feed the Hungry masses, feed them well, because the tips can payoff!!