First, you've probably heard of it, but do you know what Search Engine Optimization really is? I ask you this because it's much more then putting a few meta tags, or adding some "alt" tags to your HTML code, which a lot of people things SEO is.

The bottom line is doing SEO is a lot harder, or a lot easier then you might think -- depending on how you do it.

I've been studying Search Engine Optimization for several years now, and I'm still far from an expert. However, to narrow that down for you, I've specifically studied HOW Google looks at a websites and blogs and how they are always working to adjust the way they track your site (internal links / site map),

the sites associated to yours(external links), and how many of your links appear on all the external sources, as the Google Bot follows all that info along.

Certainly this is only part of the criteria. That's why it's important to understanding that doing one SEO thing, might not have the same results as doing several individually, or together.

Ever since I learned that Google constantly rewriting their algorithms based on the ever changing internet requirements, updates, etc... I've been a lot better with my success getting seen and picked up faster on

Google, and now hopefully I can help you too!

SEO With Google In Mind

Google is one of the hardest search engines to get a company or website listed on right away. Anyone who's spent the time learning this, can tell you it will take an honest to goodness six months or more to get top search engine rankings on Google.

You will not find immediate success unless you have A LOT of web presence previous to publishing your website or NEW work. Most new website owners don't realize that it takes people and search engines time for the search engines to find their website or blog. Even if they are using Crawlers, these themselves have their own settings, and likely do not "crawl" your site daily, unless you've set it up this way.

This is often why expectation of guarantees of being listed etc are false to most extent. The truth is that ANYONE can guarantee themselves or someone else top site rankings IF they do it the way it should be done.

The time to listing varies from Search Engine to Search Engine, but it remains the same, that nobody is instantly successful getting a listing on the top page, or even a few pages down.

In order for Google to find you, Google follows popularity in most cases. For instance if my link is part of Amazon.com or Youtube.com (Google owned), my link is likely to be found quicker via Google from Youtube.com then Amazon, because Youtube is owned by Google (Google putting themselves before a 3rd party company). Having a search engine running on their own servers means 1st priority on their own stuff when it goes to index the internet. Make sense.

When you are writing, you post your articles to blogs and forums and other "external links" that you use to post about yourself or your website. The more external links you have, the faster Google will find you. This is why "link exchanging" was so popular. The more links you had externally, this used to mean you were "popular" over another site with less external visibility.

Whatever you can do to spread the word, will benefit you long term, yes. The more word you spread, the more people, places, and things that catch on to you and what you're doing, which leads to becoming noticed by Google faster based on your link popularity.

For most people in general, the recognition process is going to take at minimum a few months to six months or more to get a hit in the first five top page links on a Google specifically.

Even with all the external links you can have, you still have ALL the other activities going on as well, which likely

take presence over you, because of their direct action with the website, or because of their already existing popularity. You still have to remember that places that are more popular and have bigger web presences are likely to reside over you all the time because they are CONSTANTLY doing something or changing something about their website or online presence. Not to mention they are VERY POPULAR places!

It's a statistic of the web, that if someone searches Google or another Search Engines for a product or service, they will most likely click on one or all of the first five links to find what they are looking for. Sometimes, but rarely, do we go to other links after that, and that's only when we haven't found what we want. Most of this behavior has to do with the popularity of a website. In fact, it could be relevant to say that somewhere around 80% of searches are based on popularity of a link and 20% are based on "specific terms or company name" referrals.

As an example, if you Google a common word, or a name brand, such as "Wal Mart" your first hit will be WalMart.com. You will likely find ads on the top and sides of Google where Wal-Marts paying to get "sponsored placement." These kinds of placements are guaranteed ad's that appear on certain searches or criteria based on your settings with Google Adwords. (Adwords is another article....)

Where as if you Google something less common like "Coco" who knows what you might find, but chances are your search will also be about "Cocoa" and perhaps even "Milk" at some point. Try to Google others, and see what you come up with.

For most small business types and start ups, money is always an issue, so paying for placement maybe isn't the best option, but should be considered. After all, paying is the only way to guarantee yourself placements. Paying sponsors are the ones that are highlighted in the various colors on the sides when you do a Google search. They are guaranteed a spot on the search or searches pertaining to what their company does for that industry the search is pertaining to. When you pay Google money, they profile your company; give you a marketing configuration set up with a login and password, tools, etc. You get a certain amount of "views and/or clicks" before you are removed from that ad spot for a designated amount of time.

For instance, if I had a.company.com and I was a paying sponsor giving x amount of dollars, Google would have a

designated number of "view or clicks" you can expect from users that would be allowed before my ad's were de-listed on that search criteria by the user. After that, the listing would go off that search and it would restart again after a new period of time.

So, how does all of this play into Writing with the mindset of Google?

Well, we use Google as the example because they are the one search engine that has an enormous list of tools you can use to HELP GOOGLE grab you, among other things. These are their Webmaster Tools. If you are not familiar with them, reach out and find some insight from us, or someone who is.

You should also know that Google is writing NEW algorithms almost daily. We also know that Google Servers attempt to index the World Wide Web nightly. It often takes them days to update all that information across all of their servers. This is often why you post a website article or blog article, and you cannot see it on Google for a few days (if you are already being indexed).

Google also writes algorithms based on EACH Country's OWN CRITERIA. So for example, "sales" searched here in the United States, may not yield the same top links or results as it would if you search "sales" in the United Kingdom. This is true for all of your major countries. Google openly announces these algorithms to vary between countries, sometimes a lot.

With this in mind, it's also beneficial to buy your domain names that have the country designations too, .ch .ru .us .uk etc etc ...

When you write your articles for your website or blog, or post links internally or externally to your website you should remember that Google will identify those thinks, compare them to more links on your site, and follow those links if they are "FOLLOW" enabled for BOTS.

By writing this way, and keeping this in mind, the next time you post your article or build a website, go through it and see what words, phrases, links, and other "common" talk and terms, are the same as other pages, blog posts, and websites. Then, when Google indexes you, it will also identify with those other links etc, ultimately making your website reach bigger, and bringing more visibility to how Google looks at you, your website, your blog, your article posts, or ALL OF THE ABOVE.

We hope you like this article and can use these tips and knowledge about Google to help benefit yourself, your customers, or your business!