Search Engine Optimization: Three Rights Make A Right For Your Blog

Since word tidbits tend to make my professional ghost blogger’s heart proud, I can’t resist mentioning a seed commercial I heard on the radio the other day.  The announcer was urging farmers to order their seeds now for next spring’s planting, explaining there’d be more time for the seed company’s agronomists to custom-design exactly the right seed mix for each farmer’s needs. The tag line went like this:  “Right time.  Right seeds.  Two rights make a right!”

Now, I concede that, of the thousands of radio listeners who heard that tag line, I’m probably the only one to make a mental leap from seeds to search engine optimization.  Seriously, though, I sense a metaphor here.  More often than I’d like, when I’m enthusiastically explaining how the blogs I write for my clients help them “win search” and get to Page One of Google, Yahoo, or MSN, the response I hear is “Oh, so you’re fooling Google?” (NOT!) 

Adam Sandler warns that “You Don’t Mess With The Zohan“, and I’m sure the same is true of Google.  Aside from that reality, however, I’m tempted at that moment in the conversation to offer a review lesson in Economics 101:  When two parties each possess something the other wants, and they make a fair exchange, that’s called commerce, not “fooling”. Search engines, I hasten to explain, are in the business of providing content.  The reason so many online searchers return to a particular search engine to find products, services, and information, is that they’ve found what they were looking for on that site before. Because Google provides the content people want, it is able to draw visitors, and thus sell more ads. 

Bloggers provide Google with what it needs – content.  Google rewards content providers by indexing their blogs and moving them higher on the search list towards the top of Page One.  Bloggers (or in my case, my business owner clients who’ve hired me to post business blogs) who provide relevant content frequently and over sustained periods of time are rewarded with the highest rankings.  Meanwhile, online searchers are the real winners, finding exactly the information, products, and services they need.  Everybody wins.  Two rights may make a right in seeds, but three rights make one very big right in blogs!