Well, I am not sure that paradox is the right word to use, but I was just looking at some rankings in the DP Keyword Tool and had to laugh. You see, I have not really worked at getting anything to rank for anything in the past 3 to 6 months. Well, I mean to say that I would like things to rank, I put things into motion 6 months ago, but I have not really touched them since them. As a matter of fact the sites that have some sick rankings right now, of which I am speaking, I have not done anything to content wise or linking wise in at least 6 months. However, 6 months ago, I put some “drip” link campaigns into effect for a couple of sites and they are paying off big time right now.

So, what does all of this have to do with SEO and paradoxes? Well, I think most SEO types pretty much have the attention span of a dumb dog. A dumb dog changes his thoughts as soon as the wind shifts direction. Most of my SEO friends have ADD, ADHD or are in denial that they have one of the two. All any SEO/SEM wants is to get great rankings for a particular set of keywords and keyphrases. But, greed, ADD and a host of other things usually cause them to blow their wad when it comes to techniques that they know they need to employ to get rankings (sorry mom, I couldn’t think of a better way to say it). If everyone had a long time line for rankings, then they would most likely have a stable of high ranking sites that enjoy those rankings for a long time. Most of my friends don’t. I know there are plenty of people out there in the SEO world who understand this and have the patience of a 92 year old grandmother, but I typically don’t. All I can say at this point is, if you really want long-term rankings, you better get some patience.

My Google Search Ranking Tip of the Week (possibly the month):

For long-term rankings in Google, and just about anywhere else, you need a few items:

1) A good domain name.

A good domain name does not have to have .com on the end…but, I would prefer it. I am just as happy with a .net or .org name. I think you can get rankings with others, but the “Big 3″ seem to work best. Oh, and no hyphens please. Non-hyphenated domains have been working very well for me, especially when they are new.

2) Solid, non SEO’d content sites to link from.

Yes, forget about link exchanges and all of the BS ways that worked for a while when it came to building links. Here is what you need, 5 to 10 100% non-related (to the site you want to rank) websites that can link to yours…preferably from their home page. When I say unrelated, I do not mean unrelated as far as content. I mean unrelated as far as linking. Different IPs, different backlinks from sources that have nothing to do with the backlinks that any of these sites have. You need virgin links. This is probably more important than anything to me for long-term rankings IMHO.

3) Patience

This is perhaps the most important thing. Don’t just fire up 10 links right away. Make them appear randomly over a 10 week period, or something totally random. The key is to show some restraint and actually try to appear like there was no plan in how these links were acquired. If something looks random, then it most likely cannot be detected.

These thoughts and this plan are nothing earth shattering and new. Try them for 6 months and see what happens. Each of the two or three Google updates that have transpired since I put these sites together, have brought very nice boosts. I am sure that if I add another 5 to 10 home page “in content” links over the next year, they will be at the top for all of the terms I want and stay there. Good luck.

tags: google, marketing, paradox, patience, search, sem, seo