Remember buffets? While they may be a thing of the past — for now — with current safety precautions, you can still have a “buffet mentality” when thinking about your SEO efforts and rankings.
With this post I'm going to have some fun with how we think about garnering those much desired search engine rankings. Just think all-you-can-eat buffet!
Ready to setup your WordPress buffet?
Everyone wants “top 10 rankings” for their WordPress sites. The reality is that now you need top 2-3 to hope to be above or in many cases right below the fold due to recent layout changes. Ads now cover the top half of any SERP (search engine results page). Above the fold is the viewable area without having to scroll.
Seems like an impossible task, right? Well, it pretty much is. A very difficult hill to climb. Especially considering most folks I talk to have a higher opinion of their sites than probably most site visitors — or search engines will have.
Are you serious about doing what is necessary to work towards those rankings? If so, let's turn things around a bit…
Don't Chase Search Engines
Let them chase you!
I can hear you out there… “Yeah, sure!” Well, it's not that difficult of a methodology really. It is is actually an accurate analogy to getting your site on the right path.
All you have to do is think differently than all the hype, amateur consultants and unscrupulous marketing “gurus” have led you to believe about how getting found works. Then, put that to work.
There Are No Tricks or Secrets — Only Great Sites
First off, what search engines like is fresh content that caters to searcher intent –and lots of it. That's the fuel for their fire so to speak.
So it goes without saying that if you keep adding new tasty content on a regular basis that will encourage search engines to visit your site. All because you'll have a fresh buffet of tempting entrees. See where I'm going here?
How do search engines know you have new content?
Certainly not by osmosis.
If you take the simple steps described below search engines will get a whiff of the appetizing content you have to offer. They'll then behave like they are at an all-you-can-eat buffet. They'll keep coming back for more.
Your site will be like Mama's house on a Sunday afternoon. You know what I mean; dinner smells so good everyone in the house can't wait to get a plateful. That's how it goes with search engines and content.
If you don't have savory content, why should onliners or search engines visit you? Do you go to a buffet if the food is not yummy, fresh and piping hot?
Consequently, you should not expect search engines to give you higher rankings over those who serve up a delicious gut-busting Sunday dinner every week.
All it takes is for you to be prepared to gather the appropriate ingredients, then cook and serve.
- Mix up a new article…
- Cook it to perfection…
- Season with a images…
- Serve it up to the hungry onliners and search engines.
- Do so at least once a week.
That's not too much to ask to succeed online is it? If it is, well, maybe you should work on your mindset.
Now let's setup your buffet!
- Setup a WordPress blog that you post to consistently with flavorful and enticing content you know your visitors want. Craft titles that will make a potential visitor's mouth water.
- Setup a subscribe feature so visitors can get notified by email when you dish out a new post.
- Offer RSS and/or podcasting feeds of your Blog posts so that visitors can get your tasty content in as many flavors as they choose.
- Interlink relevant posts within your new posts. Visitors (and search crawlers) follow the links to those other scrumptious articles on your site. They're going back for seconds. Longer time on your site; happy visitors. Happy visitors tells search engines to chow down.
- Make it super easy for visitors to “like” your articles, Tweet about them and link to them. Incoming links to your site; lip smacking good! Thanks to WordPress you have a choice of social media plugins to choose from to assist with that.
Can you see what is happening?
We are creating a feeding frenzy.
This interactive medium called the web is now more interactive than ever. At first when it all began, “interactive” meant some flashing this or moving that.
Now interactive means just that; you need to interact and be involved by creating a buffet of your own. Or you'll be left in the dumpster by those who do.
One thing is sure; chasing search engine algorithms is a futile effort at best. But when you have the nourishment they want, tasty content, search engines are hungry little bots and it's hard to keep them and site visitors away.
Food for thought? You bet. Open your own buffet today and feed the beast.
At your service,
