There is so much to-do around inbound links these days, it gets hard to decipher fact from fiction. Yes, inbound links are important, but they often get positioned as a silver bullet for getting your website ranked. In truth, they’re a valuable piece of the equation, but there is absolutely nothing that will help your site as much as a properly constructed one from the get go.

I hate to use a housing market example, especially given the state of the thing, but it’s a valid one. Putting a million links to your site is like sticking a bunch of “For Sale” signs all over the place. And with crappy providers, it’s like putting a “House For Sale” sign up in view of an unemployment line.

You can’t put your house up for sale with a bad foundation. I mean, you can, but good luck selling the sucker when the inspection takes place. Think of Google like your house inspector…it shows up and wants to see the goods. No meta information? It checks off the box for foundation defects. No keywords? No anchor links within the site? Lots of flash and images? It checks it off as faulty plumbing.

I see a lot of freelance listings for sites asking for a provider that will get them 100 inbound links. Then I’ll curiously check out their site, see that it’s not optimized at all, and feel bad for them. Obviously someone told them that inbound links are key, and they don’t even have a solid cement slab going on. Let’s set aside the fact that the type of site where the links come from, the words they use to get to you, etc are all important factors….these poor people are desperate to get their site ranked, and they think they’re buying a quick and easy way to do that.The best way is still a solid foundation with healthy text, and continually updated content. There’s just no way around that. With over 70% of people using search to find things, it’s obviously a very viable promotional vehicle for your website…but like any good tool to build a business, there’s no get rich quick scheme.

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This isn’t unlike finding and deciding on your keywords in several ways, believe it or not.

Some are bigger than others.

When people search, it’s like they’re at a doorway, and when someone enters their search term and hits “enter” 50,000 people want to charge through the entryway. Google is the hall monitor that helps arrange them in a more orderly fashion, but those other sites are still your competition.

When the dog sits there and waits for the ice cube, she’s going to gravitate towards the bigger ones…the problem is, if they’re TOO big, they won’t fit through the dispenser. They need to be ground down a little more.

Pick SEO keywords that are in the sweet spot.

If you pick something like “freelance design” for example, you’re going to have trouble unless you’re someone really well-known. Access to a robust SEO tool is your best friend when it comes to saving yourself time on competing for words that have insane competition. I always try and find what I refer to as the “sweet spot” for clients: words that get decently searched, but that don’t have the whole world as competition.

So take the previous example. Let’s say you’re a freelance designer, and there are a few thousand searches a day for that term, but millions of pages that you’d be competing with…get creative. Check into searches for freelance design specific to your area, or explore the option to add adjectives in front of the term like “affordable.” Granted, the search volume won’t be as high as something like “freelance design,” but you’re not going to get any of that traffic by trying to compete with the biggies anyway.

Start with the big ice cube, and grind it down.

Look at those biggies first. Don’t avoid the huge terms you know you can’t compete on, but use them as the big ice cube you whittle away at until it’s small enough to fit through a relevant search.

The eager searchers on the other side of the screen will snap you up when your smaller cube fits through the door.

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I’m not talking about crazy blitzing to get your site into the #1 ranking in some ungodly amount of time. I don’t practice that stuff anyway, though I’ve been asked to. What do you, as a business or site owner, need to understand about search? My puppy has the answer, thanks to her piles of sticks. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read the first entry already, wouldja?) Instead of how selecting her sticks is like marketing, let’s look at how it relates to search engines.

It might seem like the first question should be: Does Google even know you have a stick? It’s not. That comes at the end. Let’s start with the foundation.

What’s your stick all about?

The search engine only has a few precious ways to figure out what your stick looks like: what the site has on it, what other sites point to it, and when they’re pointing, what words they’re using.

The only thing you have absolute control over is the structure of your site and what you’re telling Google about it. When my pup looks at all the sticks in the woods outside (and trust me, there are plenty of them) she knows what she sees…some are bigger, some are smaller, some are brown, some are decomposing.

Don’t let Google think your site is of the decomposing variety…splintered, unfocused, and basically dead and useless. (Unless that’s your thing. Hey, on the Internet there’s room for everyone.)

Let’s assume you want to be brown and full of yummy bark (which, by the way, she skillfully peels off and spits out.) Your bark is that outside layer, the first thing the search engine looks at. It sees your url, which nowadays, can be very hard to make straightforward and relevant. It looks at your page titles, your meta data, and what your pictures are named. It’s peeling away the bark, and trying to figure out what pile you belong in.

The first thing I see a lot of clients rush toward is the body copy and keyword-stuffing in that regard. That won’t do you much good until Google looks at your site’s foundation first and figures out if you’re a log, a twig, if you fell from a Maple or a Spruce. Make the process easier for it (and better for you) by using those precious keywords here FIRST.

You’re reading one of the most impatient people on Earth, who wants to jump into customer-facing content like it’s a drug habit. I get it. But, you have to think bigger picture and in a more methodical manner when dealing with search engines. They were written by engineers for goodness’ sakes, so get in that mindset and make the behind-the-scenes foundation solid before you do anything else.

Stayed tuned for Lesson #2 of the Puppy SEO Series this week: finding your keywords.

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What followed was one of the more pleasant conversations I’ve had with a potential client in awhile, and I was actually slightly bummed to hear they’d keep me on file and to take care. It’s ok, it happens. One of the things they asked me was interesting, and it got me to thinking. I was posed the same question later by another group that I may do some SEO work for, and it showed me the way in which I’m different for my marketplace.

“I see you do SEO work. Tell me your best story about getting a business to the front page.” This surprised me momentarily, but I understand why it was asked.

Rewind to a few months ago, when I posted an ad for an SEO person on Guru. One of my regular gigs was overflowing with SEO requests and we needed an extra hand. The replies we got astounded me. It seemed as though 99% of the applicants couldn’t speak in layman’s terms, but the other part was the bragging about ranking for certain sites.

Look, it’s not that I don’t understand that. SEO is hard, ongoing work, and I’ve worked with a lot of uber-SEO people and that really is their ultimate goal. It was apparent to me in these phone talks I had with potential gigs and clients that they’re very used to hearing that stuff.

Here’s the catch.

If you’re thinking about doing SEO and get a list of sites and search terms to check out from a potential provider: click on the link. What does the site look like?

In my experience, there are the uber-SEO people, and then there are the regular ol’ people like me. I understand SEO, but I also use it as part of an overall marketing strategy. I can run really extensive reporting, and give you the really tired textbook suggestions and myths. But if your site looks awful just to show up on the coveted first page, you’ve accomplished very little. I see listings all the time for “Need SEO company with first page Google guarantee ASAP.”

I don’t even know how to start helping those people understand, but you’re obviously an intelligent and charming person because you’re here reading me, so that gives you a leg up:

1. Be wary of any place that guarantees you any kind of placement. White hat SEO won’t work that fast, and you black hat SEO tricks will get you nailed right quick. 

2. If you secure a company like that, be prepared for the fact your site will be coated in text, linked to from a ton of completely irrelevant sites, and will generally just annoy people in general.

3. Most importantly: if you make the first page of Google and everyone abandons ten seconds after they click your link because their eyes start to twitch, what have you accomplished?

SEO is simply a piece of the marketing puzzle, not the whole enchilada. Would you want an enchilada that has the world’s softest, warmest, yummiest tortilla and plastic meat on the inside? No. (Wow, what an analogy, even for me.)

Yes, SEO is important. I would never say it isn’t. (And if I do, remind me that it’s part of my livelihood.) But it’s not the only important thing when marketing your site.

What’s an enchilada with no meat, cheese, salsa, sour cream and guacamole? It’s an incredibly crappy site that can claim “But hey, I’m on the first page of Google.”

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