To date, ExactSeek is the only search engine which uses visitor stats as criteria for its rankings. But Google isn't far behind. We all know that Google specializes in taking a good idea and implementing and adapting it brilliantly. This is exactly what we'll see in this case. By combining link popularity and user popularity statistics, Google will be the only major search engine to consider both what other sites think of your website and what your visitors think of your website. And because they have the most advanced algorithms for assessing link popularity, and will soon have access to the farthest reaching, most accurate web stats to assess user popularity, its competitors will be a long time catching up.
So if that's the future of search, what's the future of SEO? The future of SEO is undoubtedly one where:
- one-way text links from relevant pages continue to be the most valuable links
- reciprocal linking continue to decline
- the 'shotgun' approach to link buying declines
- mass email link requests decline
- free directory submission declines
- niche directory submission increases
- article PR (article submission) increases
- article submission sites (e.g. EzineArticles, GoArticles, and ArticleBlast) play a much bigger and more important role in helping online publishers locate quality articles (due to the increasing article volume)
- user popularity is just as important as link popularity, which means:
- the quality of article PR improves in order to increase site traffic, credibility, and loyalty
- the quality of website content improves in order to convert traffic and encourage repeat visits
Clearly, the choices for SEOs will be pretty much limited to paying for links at niche sites and/or engaging in article PR. Being an SEO copywriter, I may be a little biased, but for mine, article PR is the hands-down winner in this comparison:
- It satisfies Google's criteria for relevance and importance. Linking site owners include your article and link because, in doing so, their site becomes more useful to visitors, and their business gains credibility and authority.
- It generates hundreds of free links quickly enough to make it worth your while, but not so quickly as to raise red flags at Google (in the form of link dampening).
- Links are permanent and you don't have to pay to keep them there.
- You get a lot of qualified referred traffic who already trust you and your expertise. This satisfies Google's visitor popularity criteria, while at the same time bringing you a lot of extra customers.
For more information on article PR, read How to Top Google with Article PR.
Conclusion
The lesson from Jagger is, don't try and trick Google! They've got more money and more brains than virtually any company in the world. It'll only end in tears! Don't spend time and money trying to make your site look important and relevant. Instead, spend that time and money actually making it important and relevant! Content - the real content behind the optimization - is the answer. After all, whether it's an article or a web page, it's the content that keeps 'eyes on paper', and that's what it's all about.
Happy optimizing!
* Glenn Murray is an advertising copywriter, website copywriter, SEO copywriter, and article submission and article PR specialist. He heads copywriting studio, Divine Write, and is a director of article PR company, Article PR. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit http://www.divinewrite.com/ or http://www.articlepr.com/ for further details, a FREE SEO eBook, or more FREE reprint articles.