Some random SEO thoughts from someone who ranks well

Here are some thoughts I have regarding SEO.



Disclaimer - I rank extremely well for several excellent (and expensive) keywords in a very competitive industry. I'm talking #1 to top 3.



My basic SEO thoughts are fairly "quaint". I feel Google (et al) logically wants to give searchers the best sites for their query. So I try and be that site. I don't care about whatever silly little tricks of the moment are out there - I just have a solid website that I feel is the best, most informative site for my industry, and I keep it that way. I truly feel that approach is the winning approach over time.

• I do all of the backend stuff, like page titles, descriptions, I make sure Google has my sitemap, etc. Wordpress has made this easy. I do admit to slipping on this a bit for pages I don't care about.
  
  
  


• For competitive industries, "time online" does matter. This is an opinion, but it's a strong one. I've been at this for more than a decade.
  
  
  


• I have good, clear content, and a lot of it. People actually read my website (at least the ones I want to read it do). I feel this matters too.
  
  
  


• My site is extremely easy to understand. No guesswork at all as to what I do.
  
  
  


• I do not spam keywords trying to get one page to rank for nine things (why do you people do this?) I basically make one page for each thing I'd like to rank for, and that's that.
  
  
  


• I update and blog on a fairly regular basis. Nothing crazy, but you'll never see my last blog post two months ago, either.
  
  
  


• I am patient. It took a long time to climb the rankings. If you need immediate traffic, try adwords. If you can't afford adwords, I question your business commitment. Sorry to all of you people starting a website with a $30 monthly ad budget.

Now, with all of that said, here's another thing I have found out:



Adwords outperforms even a #1 ranking



I have tested this extensively. There is no other conclusion I can reach - with competitive industries that have the full boat of ads (meaning three up top and a full list on the right) adwords beats organic rankings.



I *do* think that having a page one organic ranking *and* an adwords ad is a very strong combination. It lends a ton of credibility.

via Small-Business-Forum.net http://www.small-business-forum.net/search-engine-optimization/9491-some-random-search-engine-optimization-thoughts-someone-who-ranks-well.html