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For about two years now there has been a debate raging in SEO circles that far too often got far too heated. The Guru has always been a little surprised how some people can get so emotionally attached to an online discussion that it causes them to lose their tempers.  He’s pretty sure it has something to do with people sometimes being desperate to be right. Or maybe it's that they are desperate to not be wrong. Whatever.

If you’re not familiar with the term or the concept, the Guru recommends this post http://www.twospots.com/web-articles/21/. It explains what most of the industry THOUGHT it was at the time. You’ll notice that it describes what it is and what it does in a manner that automatically assumes it as a fact. It is not a fact and never was. But the article is concise and it does a pretty good job of describing the position of the yes-there-is-a-sandbox faction.

In spite of the fact that Googleguy himself told everybody there was no sandbox, http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3605961,  the assumptions of the above article seemed to satisfy the conventional wisdom and even the Guru freely admits something had changed in the way sites and pages were being indexed and placed for keywords, but during the entire debate, the Guru was still having new sites get indexed, placed and delivering search traffic faster than ever before. So, something was different but it was not a blanket penalty on all new sites that kept them from being found for keyword searches until they could establish trust.

Bob Massa offered proof of no sandbox  in an interview he did for Seobook http://www.seobook.com/archives/001819.shtml. It may have been seen as a kind of joke, (he does like to tickle the funny bone when given the chance), because it referred to bathroom spamming, but the point was no joke. It doesn’t take 9 months to get search engine traffic!  

That was almost a year ago, and that brings us to today.

Today on Google, a search for:

Ask the SEO Guru #1

Ask an seo #3

SEO Guru #8

How to steal clicks #31

(I mention this one because if you read the post from the 17^th

http://massa.techndu.com/CommentView,guid,59dbb266-0afd-45a1-8e24-6cd42b4ba38b.aspx#commentstart

in the 11^th comment I mentioned that I was #39 but it would move up and today it is at #31)

These placements did not take 9 months. They barely took 9 MINUTES! They were there in less than 24 hours and started moving up. There are several other terms in the top too but this should be sufficient. Those terms don’t generate a lot of traffic. The guru was just making a point. The only one that is bringing any traffic is the ask an seo and that is more of a pain in the backside than it’s worth.

This Techndu domain is less than 30 days old. This blog is less than 1 week old. It was not submitted to any directory, article submission service or press release service. It was not submitted to Google sitemaps. It was not submitted to anything, anywhere. There’s no anchor text targets other than a clever title, (read the post about the title tag from the 17^th of August), in fact, I can not imagine how anyone could do any less to promote a website or blog than the Guru did with this blog.

Naturally, there was a plan and a purpose for the blog and how it would be put up and why but it was not to teach seo or prove the Guru could get any site into the top of search engines. It was to teach how to make money online and prove to the world, (especially my customers and partners), that if the Guru could do it, anybody could do it.

ANYBODY CAN MAKE MONEY ONLINE WITHOUT HAVING TO BE AN SEO

I recently have become involved with a free hosting service focused on the Indian market. That is why I’m here in India and plan to be bi-continental for several years to come. My job is now to see that our hosting partners learn as much about how to make  money online as fast as possible and the Guru is well suited to the task. THAT is why he wanted to kill the sandbox debate. It is just a step in the process.

So, if your site is not generating any traffic and you tell yourself it is because of the sandbox, (or any other reason you choose as an excuse to not make any money online), you are throwing money away. If you don’t have any placements anywhere for any terms that would attract the demographic you are targeting after several months, you did something wrong. The quicker you accept that and start addressing the reality, the quicker you can start telling your friends how you like to make money online in your spare time.

Just think – one day soon you could be just like the GURU.  

Don’t you just hate feeling like someone is cheating and winning while you play by the rules and lose? How good would it feel if you knew you were playing by the rules and winning for a change? Well, I’m about to tell you how you can do just that.

When I was first starting out placing websites in the tops of search engines like most I spent a lot of time in forums asking questions and reading the advice of the other people just starting out. One tip that you could get on any seo or web promotion forum was PUT YOUR KEYWORDS IN YOUR TITLE.

Well like most things SE0, conventional wisdom seemed to be if one is good, then more is better. So, almost every search you would do started returning links that had the exact the same thing you searched for repeated over and over in the big blue links in the results. THAT’S how smart search engines and webmasters were back then.

Now over a decade later webmasters and search engines both are much smarter and realize repeated keywords in a title tag does not a relevant result make. With internet marketing now hitting the financial scale in the 10 digits the world knows now that a powerful marketing message and a value driven call to action is much more effective for a commercial search.

Weeeeeelllll  you might think so but take a look at this results page for hotels in London

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hotels+in+london&btnG=Google+Search

Out of the entire list of  some 20+ results, (counting both the paid and organic), the closest thing to a marketing message are the words discount, cheap and budget in about half of the listings. OOOHH, we’re selling now! <extreme textual sarcasm

I’m not saying SEO’s have done anything wrong. Obviously since Google highlights the matching words in the title and description, it must be a big part of the ranking algorithm right?

Wrong! I have long said that the blame for poor results and lack of relevancy lies not so much at the feet of the webmasters who are only doing what they think the engines want them to do, but at least some of the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of the engines themselves.

Those words are highlighted not because it is tipping the hand of the algorithm, they are highlighted to give the searcher the impression that the engine has located relevant results.

GASP! SEO Guru, are you actually implying that the keywords in the title don’t play a part in an engine determining relevancy??? <multiple question marks to signify shock and disbelief<

No. I’m not implying anything. I’m telling you that:
#1. the keywords in the title tag don’t play nearly as big a role in the placement factors as the majority of people in the web marketing community believe and
#2. what difference does it make if you are not #1 and #1 gets over 70% of the clicks. And we can’t all be number 1 all the time for every keyword.

 While I’m talking about getting clicks, I’ll address the fact that there is no question that results on the first page with keyword repetition in the title do get clicks, but my contention is that they get the clicks because they are on the first page NOT because the message offers value or has a clear call to action. This may be the single biggest factor to the entire web marketing world thinking that a 2.5 conversion ratio is pretty good.

Search engines have done such a good job of public relations that the general consensus is that if it’s on the first page it MUST be relevant. In spite of the fact this is a misconception, it is actually a good thing because that is what enables a complete newbie to kick the butt of SEOs and steal their clicks.

Let’s take a look at another search term. Granted this one is not as commercial and therefore not as competitive, so that will leave plenty of room for argument, (I actually enjoy the arguments but then I also enjoy bus fumes), but there can be no question that it shows keywords do not HAVE to be in the title to rank on the first page for a search.

Let’s do a search  for rabbit husbandry. A VERY popular search term with young, affluent, adult male rabbits.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=rabbit+husbandry&btnG=Search

Notice that four of the 10 results do not have either word in their titles yet they are on the first page. Also note that there are highlighted references to the words in the description but that goes back to the engines trying desperately to “prove” to the searcher they found “relevant” results. We’ll discuss that a little more later.

Also, check out a search for trajectory of the moon.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=trajectory+of+the+moon&btnG=Search
Now 6 out of the ten top results have neither word in the title. Obviously, keywords do not HAVE to be in the title to be on the first page.

GASP! Are you actually advising us to not put keywords in the title SEO Guru???? <there’s that shock thing again with the multiple question marks>

NO! If you omit the keyword from the title tag and description tag, the engine will have to hunt really hard to find matching words to highlight to give the impression that it found relevant results. This is the main reason, (well this and the fact that page rank is a little flawed and it needs some real help), that you don’t see your description tag in the results the way you write it.

You used to be able to sell with your description tag, but those were the good old days. Now they have to show highlighted words from the search terms or it looks like they made a mistake so they will butcher your description or even use weird places in your text to accomplish this. Which means selling anything is tough but the engine looks good to the searcher. No problem. Remember, that which doesn't kill us only makes us stronger --- and more money if we do it right.

The take away of today’s article is how to steal those clicks and what I’m telling you is that if you try to get more occurrences of your target term in your title tag which is limited to about 150 characters or so, including spaces, you are blowing it and letting the number 1 guy win. Use the space to make sure you have your target term in your description and text, (the anchor text of your inbound links actually have more to do with what gets highlighted from where on your site than your tags do), BUT if you want to steal the clicks from number 1 then sell the title tag!

What if your title tag said
Where do celebrities stay in London?
Riverviews of the Thames from your hotel room
Londons’sexiest concierge at your service
etc, etc, etc.

The point is almost anything besides Hotel London, london hotel, hotel discount in London, is going to stand out like a sore thumb and attract the eye.

If you focus on selling with your title instead of stuffing the keywords into the title tag, any newbie can steal those clicks.
 

Peace
Massa

 PS
If you’re thinking, “ok fine, SEO Guru,  but how do I get the top 10 away from all those seo’s in the first place?” Well, over the next few days, I’ll discuss how to use this strategy with long tail keywords and show you EXACTLY how.