Category — SEO

Yes folks, you read the title correctly.  I said that you cannot beat good old fashioned HTML.  What am I referring to?  Try to remember the times before Google when everyone was using WebCrawler, Alta Vista, and Yahoo while almost all sites were static and hand-updated with quality, innocent information.  This was a time before affiliate programs and internet advertising was very young.  Yes, those were the good ol’ days.  Now, web content has a higher value than newspaper articles and affiliate links run rampant.

What is the point of this post?

I am going to admit, there are new alternatives in website design utilizing CSS and PHP that can outrank and out perform any static HTML site in a heartbeat, but people with old content-rich static HTML websites are still reaping some profits from the early days of the internet.  There is a reason these sites have done so darn well over such a long time!

Old school HTML is basic, static, and time consuming to make changes.  However, it’s so simple that all search engines can easily crawl and index any content.  Making the crawling easier gives you the first shot at rankings and improves your chances of getting ranked for existing topics and terms.

I’m not really sure how to word this post without pissing a bunch of people off, but basically what I am trying to say is - Based on my personal experience, and historical data, some of my static HTML sites are still outperforming my much larger and more popular CSS, PHP, and dynamically driven sites (Wordpress, Drupal, etc.) that have several more hours of SEO work done to them.

I’d like to get the opinion of what others think about this?  Obviously I am not saying let’s all ditch what we have learned over the years and start creating static HTML sites again, I am just pointing out how successful my older sites have been and still are.  I think the old K.I.S.S. (”Keep It Simple Stupid”) strategy is at work on the internet too!

Many search marketing professionals will echo that quality of content is a very important, if not the MOST important, factor in search ranking.  I strongly believe that you must develop sites and online assets with consumers in mind.  I don’t mean consumers as in people who will buy something, I mean consumers as in INFORMATION consumers.  People use the internet every day to consume information of sorts.  Even when someone is searching to buy something online, they are still trying to consume information on the best deal and the best product for their needs.  We need to start developing our websites with the information consumers in mind and not advertising or money.  The money and compensation for work will come no matter what, as long as you provide a great source of quality content.

This brings me to another topic:  How to monetize the traffic that our high quality sites and content have brought in.  I will be posting on this later.

While there are many important dynamics to SEO, there is one thing that will eventually get you to where you want to be no matter how much link building, campaigning, and strategy you execute.

When you provide an excellend resource for the web, including that of pictures (which I do lack here), information, stats, lists, etc. The web will come to you.  It’s really that simple people!  Google will not let a great piece of infomation go unseen.  It’s their job to make sure that your great resourceful website gets indexed and shown to thousands of people.

While there are some modifications one can make to his or her work that might “speed up” the process, or make it easier to emphasis the micro-topics within a larger document, it all comes down to your work connecting with someone who needs it.  Every day that passes, Google becomes smarter and more detailed with it’s algorithms.  Eventually, Google will be spam free, and people with honest and resourceful sites will prevail.

I just thought I would give my input and remind many of you SEOs and SEMs out there that is does come down to quality of content and not budgets.  A budget might offer an alternative, but once Google or searchers find something better or more informative, you can kiss all that hard work goodbye.

I want to talk about something that has helped me become successful and also set me apart from other SEOs over the past few years.

The Value of a Domain Never Went Down

You will read or hear a lot of SEO professionals talking about how the domain has lost its SEO value.  I strongly disagree with this theory because a domain is a major determining factor to the subject of a site.  Google knows that if you are going to buy Airplanes.com then obviously you are going to have a website all about “airplanes”.  This is common sense.  If you don’t, then you probably won’t rank for “Airplanes” when your site is all about mortgages and auto insurance.

The only exception to my rule is parked domains.  Obviously that domainer would be banking from any type-in traffic, but most normal surfers and people like me use search now.

When You Park a Domain It Gets Pulled From SERPS

It’s really simple - When you go to Sedo, DomainSponsor, GoDaddy, or any other domain parking service, you are basically asking to have this domain name taken out of the SERPs.  The best thing to do with any domain is to develop it into a topic that is on target with the domain’s subject.  If you own LCDTVs.com - Then develop it into a site or store with information about LCD TVs.  Apparently this particular example has made good use of their domain and done just that.

I personally believe that the theory behind why domains don’t hold as much SEO value as they used to is due to cyber squatting (or whatever you want it to be called).  SEOs try to justify their theory on this with examples like “Girls” and “TVs”.  The reason they appear to be right is due to squatter’s sitting on undeveloped goldmines rather than throwing up a search worthy page full of content.  I bet if TVs.com was developed into some sort of review site about LCD, Plasma, OLED, and DLP TVs, it would be ranked somewhere on the front page of Google for SEVERAL search results in a matter of months.

Buy Dot Coms - Even If That Means from a Reseller

I do believe that dot com has more weight in the SEO sense than any other extension.  I have tested this theory before and my results always come out the same.  A dot com with less (although relevant) content than a dot net with similar but more content will usually outrank at first.  My theory stands true until I start factoring incoming links and a long list of other SEO techniques into the equation.  But if you are looking for that head start - then dot com is the way to go.

Where to Find Quality Domain Resellers

There are a few forums and websites that I would recommend if you are trying to find quality domains to start your next website.  I have listed a few of them here:

Sedo Marketplace - They have TONS of domains in their catalog all being sold by squatters and domainers alike.  This is where you will find a large amount of those pesky parked domains for sale.

DNForum - A haven for domainers and domain name enthusiasts, they have several sections on their forum for buying domains at fixed prices or areas where you can make an offer on domains.  Also a great place to get the names at wholesale rather than a retail price.

BuyDomains - A bit more expensive than the last two, but BuyDomains has managed to accumulate a very impressive and keyword rich catalog of domain names.  Be aware that you CAN negotiate the price considerably when looking to make a purchase from them.  The mark-up on these names is absolutely through the roof!

Just remember, the domain name IS important.  The SEOs telling you otherwise probably never had a good name to do any testing with in the first place.