“Damn homie! How do you do it?”
That’s the question my good friend and design/media expert Steve Lemus recently asked.
Steve Googled “stuttering” and I was the second hit from the top.
He’s not the only one.
I get emails and comments from tons of people in my network all the time saying, “Dude, every time I Google something that has to do with marketing or motivation or social media or entrepreneurship – you’re always one of the top hits!”
Funny thing is, this doesn’t surprise me.
Their next question (just like Steve’s) is, “How do you do it?”
Well, I wish I could say I’m some SEO guru (but then I’d be lying, just like 99% of the ‘SEO gurus’ out there), but in reality, I’ve done 2 simple things.
1) I Use Very Specific Sales-Type Copy & Keywords In My Metadescriptions
Like I mentioned in point number 9 in my blog here, you can customize the message on every single headline & description for all blogs you write.
Most search engines will use a maximum of 160 characters for your post description on their results pages. If you don’t create a meta-description, a search engine will often take the first 160 characters it finds on your page instead.
A tool I use is a free plugin called Yoast. Once you install it, a new box will appear under your blog posts where you can edit the meta descriptions of your pages and blogs.
I use this plug in to highlight specific keywords and maximize the SEO potential of my post – you should do the same.
However, this tactic would be ineffective if I didn’t follow it up with my second strategy…
2) Connect With As Many Human Beings As Possible On Google
Google runs the internet – there’s no secret there.
Google’s purpose is to serve you content it thinks you will find most useful and value most.
Usually the content that is most useful is the one with the most hits, traffic, comments and good SEO.
And usually the content you’ll value most is that from your friends or connections.
Why do I bring this up?
Because the reason I showed up so high on Steve’s search is because I’m connected with him all over Google.
We’re connected on Google Plus and I have him in my Gmail contacts.
So, Google – trying to serve you as best it can – gives you relevant content from your search that people in your Google network have published.
Google is not only giving you the content from the hot shots, it’s also giving you the most relevant content from your Google contacts.
THIS is why it is so incredibly, hugely, gravely important to expand your Google network!
Connect with more people on Google Plus, comment on YouTube videos, add more people into your Gmail contacts, use Google Docs/Maps/Analytics, etc. – whatever it takes to increase your efforts on Google, do it.
Google is king of the interwebs, so in order to organically show up higher in searches, we need to play in their fields.
Trust me, I didn’t show up in Steve’s – or my other contacts’ – searches so high because I’ve gotten 10,000,000,000 views on my blog or because I drive paid traffic to this blog.
I showed up high on their searches because I have a good – working on great – Google network, and because I’ve done some easy SEO work on the backend so that when people in my Google network search for keywords relevant to my blog posts, I’ll be high on their search results.
Easy, peasy right?
What simple SEO tips and strategies do you use for your content? Let me know!
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