Google has become a household name. People young and old know that you only need to ‘Google’ whatever it is you want to learn and you’ll have instant results. People are using the search engine on their computers, phones, other mobile devices and even on their television sets. As an Internet marketer, it is important to learn how Google serves the consumer. This will give you firsthand and applicable knowledge that you can implement with all current and future online marketing campaigns to make them even more effective.
Deliver Relevant, High-Quality Content
That right there is Google’s ultimate goal: to deliver the most relevant content and the content that offers the most value for the keyword term the search engine user queried. This could be a website, a video, an Amazon listing or a combination of the above.
Google knows that search engine users want to be informed, educated and entertained. If the person is looking up “How to change the plug on a dryer,” the last thing they want is a video that shows them how to fix a washing machine and they certainly don’t want pricing on new dryers. The consumer wants a video or an article on how to wire the plug on their dryer and that’s it. Google will scour all indexed web content and will do what it can to deliver the most relevant and highest quality content.
Lesson For Online Marketers: Be Better
How can this help you, as an online marketer, knowing that Google’s intent is always to deliver the best and most relevant content for their keyword terms? You can take away the lesson that you need to always be better than your competitors.
Do this simple exercise: Google the first few keyword terms for one of your current campaigns. Next, visit the first few listings for those keywords. Is your content better than the content on those pages? Is your writing better? Does the writing offer more tips, techniques, hints, updates and/or news? Is the video content better produced and does it offer something the user can take away, even if it’s just a funny and memorable clip? Your content must be better than the competition if you hope to gain Google’s favor.
The lesson here: Never cut corners on content. Google will know when you’re trying to get ahead by doing minimal work.
Search engine users will click and remain on the pages that prove to be most useful to them. Google will likely notice this and will rank the pages accordingly. Keep high rankings in your future by always giving it your all when it comes to content.
Weed Out Spam
Another way Google serves the consumer is by getting rid of all the useless noise known as SPAM. If you have a blog and it only has three entries on it and Adsense ads, in other words you’re trying to make money off of it, Google will likely see that as SPAM. Websites that aren’t complete, sites that are nothing more than money makers, content and link farms and useless salesy web pages are all included in this SPAM web.
Google has unveiled several major algorithm updates in the past couple years, most notably Panda and Penguin, that sought to wipe out a majority of these SPAM sites. Unfortunately, this apparently isn’t an exact science and some legitimate webmasters and online marketers were affected by lower rankings and by complete sandboxing altogether.
The Takeaway
If you hope to dominate Google SERPs and you always want to remain in the search engine’s good graces, pledge yourself to always remain white hat. Earn your backlinks organically. Post on social networks manually. Submit links, articles and press releases manually and keep a gradual, regular pace. The search engines like to know that you are steadily building your online marketing foundation over time. Google hates cheaters, link buyers, keyword stuffers and otherwise scammers.
If you always remember that the search engine user (or consumer) comes first and then Google comes second when optimizing your online marketing campaigns, you should have no problem avoiding the Google ban hammer.
Google Serves Consumers Immediately
Google has provided us with unlimited information at the tips of our fingers. For consumers, this means that anytime they need shoes, anytime they need a good place to eat or a new bedspread set for their bedroom, they know they can turn to Google to deliver the content at the push of a button.
Just like Google, your ultimate goal should be to please your consumers. Do that and you’ll always remain in Google’s good graces.
