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Getting onto google

I had a client ask me what she can do to get better rankings in the search engines, specifically, how to get onto Google's first page. Below was a portion of my reply:

In terms of SEO, there is no easy answer. There are programs you could use, but they would be wasting your time and money. You can hire an outside agency, but it would be a waste of your money and you'll see no results. If its a really really good agency then they may get SOME results, but they cannot gaurantee positions on google, it takes long and they will be VERY expensive.

Getting a spot on google does take time. This website has been up for years and we\'ve spent alot of time on SEO, but if you went to google and typed in "php web hosting", it probably won't show you this site! However if you search for "how to transfer a co.za domain name", I think this one will pop up quite high. What's my point???? My point is that the second search comes from a page in our blog section. If your clients want to get search engine results, they need to write many HIGH QUALITY, RELEVANT articles for their sites.

They can hire someone to do it, but it would be expensive. A good article could cost up to R1000 per article (yes, you can buy ones from some shady character who barely speaks english for R10, but you will get the image you pay for!!!).

I always encourage my clients to write their own articles because NOBODY cares about their business as much as they do, NOBODY is as passionate or knowledgeable about their businesses as they are. They have the inside scoop. It will take LOTS of effort and discipline, but will yield results.

What you personally should do is register with http://www.google.com/webmasters. Its free. In there, you can setup each website you are responsible for and you can then get info about search terms, problems with indexing, etc. In fact, I'd say as a web designer / web developer you cannot live without it.

For a little more info on why writing articles is so powerful, see here: http://za24.in/Q71

For some tips on what to write about, see here: http://za24.in/IN1

Hope this helps!

What do you think?

What is your opinion on getting great results in the search engines? What are your views on my views above (bearing in mind that I was answering a specific question and so this is a simple answer which does not cover social media, on site / off site SEO, domain age, location, etc)....

Please leave your comments, we'd love to hear from you!

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