subject: Blogging For Profit - Crack The Google Code - Not! [print this page] If you've decided that blogging for profit is something you'd like to take a shot at then you've probably already read a ton of stuff on how to do SEO and how to make your website or blog as attractive as possible to Google. And there is a perfectly logical reason for expending that kind of energy into a single task. Google remains the largest and most popular search engine on the internet and can potentially send you tons of free targeted traffic.
Now you've probably seen claims that somebody has cracked the Google code or somebody knows just how to manipulate Google to get an insane amount of traffic overnight. Just remember this. Google is a huge and vastly rich company. Google employs some of the smartest brains in the world to develop and run its business. Google is not stupid. And lastly, Google can be very vengeful.
Now do you really think that the guru who claims to have cracked the code can outwit Google and prevent it from performing its primary task for anything that resembles permanently? Or even for a few months. Or days.
Here's a couple more phrases that you will run across. Google slap and de-indexing. This is the vengeful side of Google who does not like to be spammed or tricked and is quick to drop any site or series of sites that it believes is guilty of trying to manipulate search returns. If your site is de-indexed it basically falls off the face of the earth and any investment you had in it is lost.
Think about it for a moment. What business is Google in? Google wants to be the preeminent search engine and the way they plan to do that is to return the absolute most relevant site to each query. Now in the past they set up a set of criteria that was based on the popularity of a site and what they thought was relevant wording. Hence all the effort to create links to a site and stuff the content with keywords.
As Google matured, it increased its ability to mimic human language and has now reached a point where it can interpret content naturally without relying on keyword counts and all the other old hoopla. True you still need keywords in meta tags and titles to attract the Google spider but the ultimate decision to present your page appears now to be based on the quality of the content.
So what does that mean? It means that today you should just focus on your reader and write your content with an eye to deliver maximum value. Don't sweat keyword density just write the articles like you were writing for print.
It also means that articles that are full of filler and fluff like so many spun articles or poorly rewritten PLR articles have, are going to have a difficult time ranking in Google.
This apparent switch by Google is actually good news to the serious blogger. Now you can do what you do best and that's writing about the niche that you are passionate about without worrying about keyword density and really without having to worry about LSI because your style will be LSI by default.
So forget the gimmicks and the sure fire traffic generators because it looks like this whole internet marketing thing is going to look very similar to offline businesses. It means he who provides value wins the consumer.
