Understanding Google for better SEO

Truly effective Internet marketing strategies have one thing in common. They create a clean path for users to solve their "pains." I’ll define pains as any problem a customer has that your product or service can ease. Each of the eight (SEO, SEM, SMO, SMS/Mobile, CRM, Email Marketing, Copy/Content, and Analytics) elements of Internet marketing is in place for that sole reason. To help users solve their pains quickly and easily. When the customer solves a pain, you create a conversion.

The catch is: if your product doesn't solve a pain, it will not convert consistently. This is the reason why Internet marketing is not going to help you sell a crappy product or service. And if your customer solves a pain on your website without you converting, you are missing out on opportunities for sales.

Google seems to have this implied in their mission statement, "to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful." What do we get out of this? What's this mean?

Information is everywhere; today we are overwhelmed by it. Information overload can lead to a typical case of burnout that many entrepreneurs may experience. Often this leaves them no choice but to unsubscribe from all 37 of their newsletter subscriptions. Most people don’t even look past the first page of Google search results. New cool startups like Qwiki and Blekko have figured this information overload out as well and they are coming up with creative new ways to organize and deliver information. With semantics web and social media colliding we are getting personalized and context relative search results and access to information.

What does this mean for Internet marketing? It’s simple. Google (and new content aggregators) are going to keep fighting to deliver highly organized and highly relevant search results to their users. That is the reason people use these tools anyway and that is how they ultimately make their money.

What about all the get traffic quick schemes? Google will figure out the schemes and adjust accordingly. Google’s algorithm was updated over 400 times last year alone! Many of these “get to the first page of google” and “get tons of traffic to your website” products are short-term fixes or scams altogether. There is simply no room for long-term growth with these products and many can actually negatively impact your search results over time. Many of these unethical products and practices are considered “blackhat” SEO and they often lead to short term numbers and long term failure. Google is fighting to give users highly relevant search results, which means they want to help customers more quickly solve their pains. If you want to make friends with Google, do just that; help solve customers’ pains and be highly relevant and targeted. That’s the secret.

There is no magic sauce for Internet marketing. The “get-traffic-quick” tools are mostly garbage. It's all about having a kick ass product or service and reducing noise along the line so visitors can solve their pain by buying what you have to offer. The “blackhat” tricks might work for short term bursts in traffic, but they are not reasonable as part of a long-term internet marketing strategy.

Bottom line? Have a really good product and build a strategy around your digital presence to make it useful, relevant, pain solving, consistent and professional. Then, the conversions will come and you will generate positive ROI with your web presence.