All too often I’m exposed to ads guaranteeing number one page rankings on Google, or promising X amount increase in web traffic to your site in just days or weeks! You know the ads – I’m sure you’ve seen them too. Have you ever been skeptical of them? There’s good reason for you to be, and here’s why:

There you have it. Google changes their algorithm(s) on average around once a day. So when a company claims you’ll get dramatic results in short periods of time, they’re also claiming that they know all the changes Google makes to their algorithms daily.

One of the more popular things that so-called SEO (Search Engine Optimization) companies do is called link farming. One of the things Google and other search engines look at when ranking your website is how many other legitimate sites are linking back to your site. The more that link to your site, the more credible you are – or so the thought process goes. With this knowledge, many companies set out to trick Google by building their own plethora of websites that simply link back to their clients sites in an effort to boost page ranking. The process of building these sites and linking back and forth between them is called link farming. Here’s why you shouldn’t do it, and why it doesn’t work:

The video gets a little technical, but you get the idea. It really just gives you an uneasy feeling when he starts talking about all the different “fake” things you have to do and setup just to get started! Everything about it screams dishonesty and deception. Do you really want to build your customer base under these pretenses?

If you can’t trick the search engines, and you can’t use link farming, microsites or any other similar strategy, how are you supposed to compete? Content is still king – and as Google says, necessary! I’m not saying SEO is no longer needed, or that it’s not important, I’m simply saying that content is still king. You should still optimize your headings, include necessary metadata, and be sure your blog titles are the best they can be. But the content on your sites and blogs is still what’s most important. Worry about putting the best of what you’ve got into the web-o-sphere first, then take a look at this SEO top ten list for what you should think about next. In other words, SEO should be the second thing you think about, not the first.

So the next time someone starts singing this to you in the tune of Old MacDonald:

“…with a backlink here, and a backlink there,
here a link, there a link, everywhere a link, link…”

You may want to steer clear of that farm, stop trying to trick Google and play by the rules. What better way to do this than with a blog that offers fresh content weekly, contains great material, and is an integral part of a social media strategy, all while boosting your page rankings the right way? That was a run-on sentence, but it was honest, and it felt GREAT!