You probably would like to rank higher in Google, this is how…
Solve a problem
Let me explain. You may not know this now, but there is no better advice anyone can give you in SEO other than “solve a problem”. Ask Matt Cutts, ask anyone, if they are being real, they will tell you that advice is right.
What problem should you solve?
The simple answer to this is to think about what your website is about and what you wish existed in the subject of your website. The more impossible the problem is to solve the more value you will get by solving it.
Solutions are hard, information is easy
Websites that are successful always solve a problem, but most websites or blogs out there merely offer information. If you sell shoes (or any other item, I just happened to see shoes on my floor), you may think that offering the most shoes possible is a great idea, but it isn’t. Everyone who buys shoes knows there are a million shoes out there, the challenge to the consumer is to choose the shoes they want from this impossible amount of choices.
Everyone knows there is information out there in limitless quality (like type or amount of shoes). Access to information is already there, everyone have limitless access to information and they know that. This is not a problem that needs to be solved.
The problem is not “there are not enough shoes to choose from” the problem is “there are too many shoes to choose from”.
There is too much of everything on the internet
The challenge of too many things is solved well by Google. There are too many webpages on the web, there is no possible way for me to know which one to go to or find. Google has solved that problem well. You tell it what you want and it tries to give it to you, and it does it pretty well because Googles’ goal is the same as yours, to give you the best result for you.
You are not solving problems if you are only doing it from your perspective alone or using your products alone (or only those that profit you).
One big problem that would be great to solve is to have an algorithmic solution for shoes (or any other item). A shoe search engine that is actually trying to provide shoes for consumers that they want, not just the ones you are selling.
Merchants hardly ever do this, so it is a great opportunity for someone else to do it.
I am not saying that search engines are the answer, I am only trying to illustrate something
The thing I want to say here is that the best way to decide what your next web project should be based on three things:
- People
- their problem
- your solution
Your solution should actually solve their problems, your solution should not exist already and your solution should be based on actually talking to people and seeing if it would help them.
This is especially true of an affiliate marketer
There are a million websites out there that are basically the same. In the affiliate world, this is even more true as at least part of your content is the same content that other affiliates are using. This is a good time to read and understand one of the newest Google guidelines:
“Think about what makes your website unique, valuable, or engaging. Make your website stand out from others in your field.”
The absolute best way to stand out is to solve a problem for people, and to solve it well
Recently I made a tool that covered all the serial numbers for Schwinn bicycles from 1948 to 1980. This tool allows a user to put in their serial number and the tool displays what year, month and sometimes even the day their bicycle was built.
The information for this already existed. There are many sources of Schwinn serial numbers, many lists for this year or that. It was terrible to have try to identify a vintage Schwinn (one of my hobbies) because you would have to look through this list and that list and there are literally millions of serial numbers out there that fell into around ten thousand groups or so.
I really wished there was a way to just enter a number and get it back.
I wanted to build it, but I didn’t know how, I asked some people who knew how and they looked at it and said that the issue was to long and the problem was to hard (Schwinn used the same serial numbers twice, for example, they also put the serial number in several places over the years) and there were literally tens of thousands of lines of code that would likely have to be written. So I had to teach my self some things like php, programming, logic, regular expressions, etc.
The bottom line is the tool exists now.
It was alot of work, and it has provided me with alot of benefit because it solved a problem that was quite common for my audience. Everyone knew the problem (there were entire areas of websites dedicated to trying to figure out what year a bike was made, and everyday several people ask the question “What year was my bike made?
I solved their problem. Even people who don’t want to link to me still have to tell their customers about my tool because it is the best solution that exists.
Google and your competitors can not keep a good webpage down
I often have heard and in the past I myself had said..,
if only Google would rank me higher I would succeed
But I realized that anything I did would be ranked high by Google if I did a few simple things, and none of the things had anything to do with SEO. The things are…
- Think about people
- think about their problem
- provide a useful and unique solution
If you do those things, Google has to rank you. Even if they didn’t, you would still have traffic because people talk about and recommend useful things. Links, social mentions, likes, tweets, etc. are not the goal.
People are the goal
If you amaze people, they will talk about you.
If you are sick of Google being in control then do something so amazing they HAVE to rank you.
Google can not keep a good site down. It is there job to provide useful relevant results. If you are the most useful relevant result then they have to rank you.
Solve a problem that is harder than you you think you can solve
The reason most problems go unsolved is because most people don’t want to solve them because they require work. That is why someone who actually does take the time to understand the problem and to provide a great solution are so notable.
The skills you learn to solve that problem will allow you to solve more problems
If an average person in the SEO field took a year to learn javascript and php they would be unstoppable and rich.
Everyone in a community knows what the problems are.
If you want to own a community, research it enough to know what the problems are and then solve those problems.
