Google Algorithm Change - My Perspective

Who cares?

Yes, you heard me right - who cares?

The people who care are the ones who are very reliant on search engine rankings to create awareness for their organization.

I would characterize this situation as an OVER-RELIANCE on search engine rankings.

Here's why.

I'll pick on my own site for a minute - www.TheWebForBusiness.com.

I personally don't really care how many people find the site in the search engines. Why? Because it is not my primary marketing tool. I have relied on the "old-fashioned" methods of getting the word out. I focus on word-of-mouth and personal networking. It has kept me busy enough over the years and when I need more work, it arrives.

I also have a moderately-sized e-mail database so direct, targeted e-mail works for me as well.

The site is currently #21 in Google for "website design niagara", #20 for "niagara website design" (or #11 if you count the businessniagara.ca directory) and #1 under "niagara internet marketing". It's also #8 under "niagara seo" and #4 under the longer version.

I'm putting these stats here so I can go back in a future blog post and see how these have changed based on Google's algorithm change.

Why don't I sweat the algorithm change? Because in the big picture, my brand - the story I tell and people tend to believe - is fairly strong. People know who I am and I get referred a lot.

Now, this devil-may-care approach may not work for everyone. I have clients who are deeply concerned about their search engine positions. I'm still not stressed about Google's change - because the sites that have been around for a while at the top of the heap are probably still going to be there when the dust settles. There's always a chance that some of our client's sites will even improve their rankings when it's all over. One never really knows, does one...

The point is - if you've done your homework over the past several years you probably won't have much of a problem. What do I mean by homework?

• creating quality content for VISITORS to your site instead of merely creating spider-bait
• working on getting inbound links from quality resources instead of link-farms
• keeping your site up to newer technical standards to make it as search-engine-friendly as possible

Let's see how this shakes out.

#1 in Google

"I want my website to be #1 in Google."

I hear this a lot.

Okay - I'll bite.

"For what?"

"Huh?"

"You know #1 in Google for WHAT?"

"Oh. Umm..."

And so the story goes.

I used to have the #1 website in Google for the term "Lake Ontario Squid Fishing". It was consistently #1. Of course, there are no squid in Lake Ontario, but that didn't stop us from having the top rank. Did anyone look for that term? NO! But that's not the point - we were #1 in Google.

Quite often, people want to be #1 in Google for very generic(and competitive) terms. Car sales, for example. That's admirable. For a mere $10K or $20K per month, you can probably be #1 for your generic term. However, you can be #1 for a whole bunch of less competitive terms that are perhaps more relevant to your target audience which will get you BETTER ROI than the more generic term you wanted to be found under.

Also, keep in mind there are more ways to get (and keep) the attention of your target audience than search engines.

Just my $0.02 worth today - with thanks to Larry Anderson for the inspiration.