Start-Up Optimization: Getting Over the Mysteries and Getting on With Link-Building
When you’re working in SEO at a start-up, your emotions can quickly run the gamut from “delusions of grandeur” to “utter despair”. On the one hand, the entire fate of the endeavor depends on you; without your optimization nobody sees the site, and everyone’s efforts are fruitless. On the other hand, some days at the SEO desk come with complete disillusionment and frustration. You’ve included all of your tags, submitted all of your sitemaps, but a big chunk of what really matters for SEO occurs outside of your control. The greatest horrors can come every couple of months, when Google updates the PageRank on its toolbar and you learn whether or not your efforts have paid off. To see a page you’ve spent weeks optimize and building links for only drop in the eyes of Google’s toolbar can be an earth-shattering experience for a Search Engine Optimizer.
Why You Shouldn’t Panic
One fact that easily slips out of mind is that toolbar PageRank isn’t the real deal. The toolbar number is a simplified derivative of Google’s actual rank, and is meant to give only a ballpark figure, not to quantify your work. In addition, PageRank itself isn’t even the whole story. Google has an untold number of other tools and algorithms under its belt that go into your site’s ranking in search results, and if your efforts have been anything beyond handing flyers out in the street, odds are that they’ve made a difference.
Traffic Tells All
Working in Search Engine Optimization at FindTheBest.com , I’ve watched our toolbar PageRank range from one, to two, back down to one, and then up to four, and none of this seemed to correspond directly to back-links I had been receiving. With each change came the sinking feeling that the hours spent cold-emailing, blogging, and link-bait building had been wasted. Our sites traffic, however, was constantly increasing at a very healthy rate, and the majority of that was consistently coming from Google. Obviously something was working, even if that something wasn’t affecting our PageRank. In the end SEO is all about bringing in traffic, and traffic numbers are a far more important validation than anything your toolbar can tell you.
Stick to Your Guns
In the end, no matter what your toolbar tells you the optimization you’ve been doing really is crucial. Optimizing your site and soliciting back-links will improve where your sites stands with search engines, and eventually the traffic with show it. If you can stay sane through the process, you’ll have made a critical contribution to the success of your site.
Category: SEO
About the Author (Author Profile)
Christopher Michaels is a fourth year Economics and Accounting and Technology Management student at UC Santa Barbara. Christopher works in business development at FindTheBest.com, a new comparison website based in Santa Barbara, California, and plans to continue working in the entrepreneurial field after graduation.Subscribe
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Pagerank Toolbar definitely isn’t the big deal it once was. I know many PR 5 and 6 sites that have very low traffic. The big thing is the keywords you target, and the relevance of the links you get.
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I have the same thoughts too. PR is good, but the more important factors are the keywords and how you promote your website. Good article!
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Sure! as working on the contents of blog is like King and working on SEO like Queen. Sometimes working on SEO have much effective than concentration on content………..!
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People should concentrate on the content first and foremost. Traffic will come
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No doubt…! the example of King and Queen is completely fit on this upgrading work of a site with SEO techniques. And the effect of Queen is much more than King in this upgrading strategy………!
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Twitter: Jajodia_Saket
says:
All matters is how much traffic you are getting specially from Search Engine… When you are getting good amount of traffic from Search Engine all your effort not got wasted…
Saket Jajodia recently posted..How To Embed PDF File Using Google Doc Viewer On Your Blog Or Website
Twitter: pradctgign
says:
yup..mate i agree with you, but keywords is also an essential thing..if you have good keyword then surely the traffic will be from the search engines..
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Twitter: Jajodia_Saket
says:
Ya, Agree…
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I don’t think that there are any mysteries, just people don’t understand that this require time and consistency. That’s why most attempts of junior SEO practitioners fails.
Patience is a very important factor in the SEO game. You need to have patience in order to be ranked high in search engines if you publish a website now. Even if you have thousands of dollars marketing budget, be prepared that it may take 6 to 12 months before your site gets traffic from search engines for keywords with moderate to high competition.
I think most people think SEO is just to hard and time consuming and get frustrated and give up, but if start at the beginning and learn the basics it is not all that hard.
I’ve worked with people in the past who remain convinced that anything that does not produce immediate results is a waste of time. It’s hard to convince people that any SEO methods they implement are working if it doesn’t immediately translate to higher page rank, sales, analytics, etc. Unfortunately, it just isn’t always that easy to measure the exact amount of Google juice being produced.
I think in the last 10 years nothing have really changed and link building is still the most important part of SEO and higher rankings.
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targeting one keyword at a time with proper text linking and high quality content that will allow natural linking from other blogs helps in getting into top SERP
Sourish
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Right now I am starting a brand new strategy for link building, I have never try it before, but I hope it will work well, mostly it is based on article marketing and press releases.
Andy recently posted..Affordable SEO Professionals And What To Consider
SEO is an ever running process and most people do not have the patience to wait for so long and that is why they fail.
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Twitter: mahendra1270
says:
The main factor is traffic even if you have 0 page rank you can make in first page of google
No doubt…….! the main point is to get running n unique traffic, even any pr site. Both strategies are important and useful.
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I think most people think SEO is just to hard and time consuming and get frustrated and give up, but if start at the beginning and learn the basics it is not all that hard.
The success of seo depends largely on your patience – if you can wait (sometimes wait for a long) and not give up, do the same things (maybe rather monotonous) – you will be rewarded in the end.
But unfortunately, many people lack this patience.
SEO requires a lot of time and reflexion. Patience is an essential factor in SEO, someone can’t be a good SEO consultant without that.
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Great Guide
I know SEO become headache To Us.
Thanks..
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Does page rank have much to do with it if you can make it to the top of google even if you are page rank 0?
I don’t know how these guys do it lol!
The green bar “PR” does not have anything to do with how your site rank on Google. PR is more on incoming links while ranking on Google involves both on page and off page optimisation.
A great post about search engine optimization and link building strategy explained in a simple way to upgrade our sites and blog. Thanks for nice sharing……….!
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Now a days Google is very powerful search engine. Google is the center area of attraction for Search engine optimization.
High PR is very useful for increasing advertising value. Yet keyword rich content is the one that gets you high ranking on SERPs.
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Well it depends on the niche of startup. If you are starting up a company in high competition area you might need to spend a lot of money on SEO.
SEO takes time, it takes a while for SE to rank your website for particular keyword so i would suggest have patience.
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Get links from everywhere you can get it you won’t go wrong. This is the way how websites reach top rankings. Massive link building from authority and high PR websites.
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Great point about toolbar PageRank. It is a common misconception but toolbar PageRank often has a poor correlation with rankings and is updated rarely. I often prefer SEOMoz Domain Authority as a metric of a site’s general authority.
Everyday a new thing is said about the way SEO should be done but the basics remains the same. Hence the basic shouldn’t be tampered consistent good work would definitely result in good rankings and huge success for the sites.
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SEO work is definitely a rollercoaster ride! I can empathise with that feeling of success when the work is going well but also the despair that creeps in sometimes!
A lot of new sites work very hard to achieve good rankings on the different search engines. There are times that they find themselves in the wrong path in the attempt to quickly achieve high rankings. Ultimately, I think what’s important is not being crawled but by being indexed.
Search Engine Optimization is a hectic process. No one really knows how Google algorithm works, except for Google though. But one thing is for sure, just keep on building backlinks and keep a positive thinking.
An absolute necessity in today’s online world. One must go one step at a time link building and trying to find HIGH page ranking blogs to post on. This will at least have you working smarter rather than harder in the SEO process of getting some quality link juice.
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