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How Other Sites Are Linking to Yours

As we discussed earlier, search engines need human help in their Eternal Quest for that

perfect ranking algorithm. They look for links to your website, not only to follow

those links and find you, but also to determine more information about you. Does

someone else link to your website using the words

Click Here to Find Very Fancy Fox-

hounds

? That’s giving the search engine a clue that your website just might have some-

thing to do with foxhounds. And the search engine may go even further, looking at

other words surrounding the link for more clues. If the linking page also contains the

words

fleas

,

fur

, and

Finding a Breeder

, it’s reinforcing the notion that your website

will be a good destination for that foxhound-seeking searcher.

It’s Not Just about Rank

While your ranks are the easiest aspect of SEO to grasp, don’t let them be the only thing

you care about. We don’t mean to be dismissive of people who really, truly live and die

by their Google rank. We know that there are industries that are so cutthroat and spe-

cialized that this

is

the only thing that matters. But we have found this to be true:

Remember, good ranks do not guarantee conversions! As you learned in Chap-

ter 1, “Clarify Your Goals,” your business goals for your website may range from

online sales to political persuasion—whatever it is you want your visitors to do. Your

keywords must be chosen to directly match these goals. You could easily gain some

high ranks for, say, the term

hydroplaning monkey

because nobody else is optimizing

for it. Of course, nobody’s searching for it either. Likewise, if you make some iffy

choices regarding your top-priority keywords, it’s possible that you’ll track top-10

ranks, month after month, and have no conversions to show for it.

Ranks Change

Let’s say you are lucky enough to be getting good organic ranks for a coveted, competi-

tive term. Congrats, but don’t take these ranks for granted; any number of factors out-

side of your control could send your site on a nosedive:

Competitor activity

Many times, SEO success is achieved not by brilliant optimization

but rather as a result of the laziness of a site’s competitors. If yours is the only site in

your niche giving SEO any effort, you’re going to come out on top. But you never

know when the other guys are going to get their act together and start a successful

SEO campaign.

Pearl of Wisdom:

The vast majority of businesses do best when they use a holistic approach to

SEO, combining elements of organic and paid search with a healthy dose of good writing and usability.

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