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What You Need To Know About SEO In The Age of AI
Search Engine Optimization Is Easier—and Harder—With AI
Wes Schaeffer
March 03, 2024
I can get you on the first page of Google. Just pay this fat fee and keep paying this fee and we’ll do some things and you’ll be on the first page of Google…until you aren’t…then you can pay us some more…and [GOOGLE SLAP!]”
Hello. Hello? HELLO!!!!
On September 4, 1998, Google was incorporated.
Six years later, they went public. Today, it seems they control our lives.
Entire companies and industries now exist to do nothing but fix or supercharge your SEO so “the google” can find you.
What we forget in our intentional or unintentional SEO attempts to game the system is that:
Real humans are the ones using Google to find you.
Really smart humans at Google work tirelessly to help humans find you.
Those same really smart humans at Google will zap you off the digital face of the Earth if you attempt to outsmart them.
What this means for honest companies and business owners that write good, honest content that rewards their readers is that their efforts will be rewarded in two ways:
You will be ranked higher in search engine results because you are good.
You will be ranked higher in search engine results because the bad guys will get slapped and made invisible!
I’ll be writing more this week on Google’s Author Rank but I wanted to get this out now so you can start researching it for yourself.
The bad news is this will be a lot of work for you.
The good news is your work will be rewarded because the cheaters are going away.
I GUARANTEE you a first-page listing on Google…”
That became the 2018 version of “You’ve got mail” from the ’90s…and it’s still being used today!
The reason it’s a big deal is that you can literally get free traffic to your site for weeks, months, or even years if you pay attention to a few key points, which I’ll address in this post.
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Recognize, though, that SEO is a moving target for three reasons, which will never change:
Evolving technology.
Bad guys wanting to game the search engine system.
Changing usage patterns of users.
Since the days of the early search engines—Excite, Infoseek, AltaVista, Yahoo! Directory (two years before Google!)—both honest and unscrupulous website owners have been trying to be found online above their competitors.
I know half of my advertising is wasted; I just don’t know which half.”
Wanamaker amassed a fortune of over $100,000,000 from the late 1800s to 1922. That dude knew marketing, and he knew how to sell.
He would’ve given his right elbow for the free Google Keyword Planner Tool, WordPress, free SEO plugins like Yoast and PPC (Pay Per Click), and SEM (Search Engine Marketing.)
In today’s digital age you have the power to know—if you accept this challenge—exactly what works and what doesn’t with your advertising and marketing efforts, which means you will never have to repeat Wanamaker’s quote about your own marketing.
So, what is SEO? It stands for Search Engine Optimization.
What’s a search engine?
It’s the librarian of the web.
It’s a computer program that searches the web, reads or “crawls” every page it can find and indexes all of the important or main or keywords it finds. (Thus the name “keyword.”)
Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. then make those results available to you via the web.
How cool, huh?
Compare your current research efforts to the conversation you used to have with your school librarian:
You: “Hi, Mrs. Jones. I’m writing a history paper and need some reference books.”
Mrs. Jones: “Ancient world history or modern history?”
You: “Ancient world history.”
MJ: “Europe, Africa or Asia?”
You: “Europe.”
MJ: “British Isles, Central Europe, Italian Peninsula or Eastern Europe?”
You: “Central Europe.”
MJ: “Pre or Post-Middle Ages?”
You: “Pre.”
MJ: “The books are on the second floor, 4th row, top three shelves. Europe begins with 940; Central Europe/Germany begins with 943. Audio and movies and images can be found in the multi-media section on the first floor but you’ll need to have an escort to get in and you can only stay for 15 minutes and you can only check out one CD and one DVD at a time. NEXT!”
What a pleasant experience, huh?
You had to stand in line behind all of the other procrastinating kids.
The librarian treated you like a pimply-faced, irrational, hormone-raging teen (which you were).
You had to thumb through whatever books were still left and make your choices based on which ones had the most pictures and the fewest pages.
Then you had the schlep them all to an open table, lay them all out, roll your eyes and get to work.
Melvin Dewey was an organized dude and since 1876 there have been 23 major revisions to his system, which is now in use by 200,000 libraries in 135 countries.
How would you like to be the librarian that has to make new labels and tape them on all of your books when a revision comes out?
Thanks to search engines you don’t have to do that IF you follow fundamental SEO practices because, like the librarian, search engines are there to help your prospects find the information you want and need them to find..YOU!
But, Wes, with Google’s Panda and Penguin and other ‘animal algorithm’ updates, how can I keep up?”
It’s simple, really.
Don’t try to game the system or “beat” Google, produce quality content on a consistent basis, and follow SEO fundamentals, which include putting your keyword in your:
title
headline
image
caption
content several times
metadata
tags
post/page Category
That’s it.
Take your time to write good content with good usage of keywords regularly and watch your listings increase in the search results.
The Ultimate SEO Playbook: 10 Critical Plays Every Entrepreneur Must Know
The newest and greatest SEO tips, tricks, and techniques are getting thrown around every day with the promise that everyone should understand them, but the gap between people who are using SEO right and those who are using SEO wrong is widening substantially.
And more often than not, these seemingly simple tricks to up your SEO game are actually a dangerous practice and run the risk of hurting your reputation.
In this video tutorial below on understanding and using SEO correctly, I cover information you must know to increase your search engine ranking, repair any damage to your online reputation, and stay abreast of the latest SEO changes.
You’ll also learn how to differentiate between white hat and black hat SEO strategy, why localized SEO matters, the importance of keeping your reputation spic and span, and simple steps that you can take to improve your search engine ranking.
Market like you mean it. Now go sell something! 👍