Random Musings

As many SEOs that you interact with, so many strategies you will get, for getting your page on top of search rankings! Likewise, the latest “how to” is all about using Twitter for influence.

My own thoughts on both of these come to a common base.

Good, relevant content!

Let’s take search engines first.

In the increasingly competitive and changing world of search engines, the real game for the search engines is to give you, the searcher, 10 perfect results. So if you search for “Java”, the search engine should not give you a mix of programming language, coffee and an Asian island, but rather, the search engine must KNOW what you want to see, and accordingly, deliver all 10 results that you want. That indeed, is the goal that search engines must be working towards. And they are getting better at doing so.

This is called “personalisation of search”.  Catering to you – the individual searcher.

As soon as this gets more and more real, what happens to SEO? To a large extent, it goes for a toss! Especially that part of search that focuses on getting you high SERPs or Search Engine Ranking Positions. BECAUSE there will be nothing like “positions”!! At least not universal ones.

So if we extend the same simplistic example, and find three different people searching for the same word, “Java”, they are quite likely to see entire different sets of results, based on amongst other things, a) their location, b) their previous searches, c) their ‘history’ of other things done, sites accessed, etc. If different people are going to see different sets of results, for the same search phrase, then there is nothing like a SERP. So that’s what I meant by SEO going for a toss, in a way.

So what will be the strategy for website owners to reach their target markets, via the search engine route?

The critical factor here is “target market”. So far, in the world of SERPs, if you got on to the top rankings, you would reach your target market, and then, you will reach others as well. You may not mind, but your site will be wasted for those others!

Now, in the upcoming age (and I don’t know how far we are from truly personalized search results) of personalized search, you will need to be satisfied with your target market. And once you know your target market, and what they would want from you (on the subject of your website), if you make sure that you get GOOD, RELEVANT CONTENT for this target group, it will already include the right keywords, it will get popular and others will link back to you, and in short, you will rank up in the search engine results for those phrases, when searched for, by your target market.

This strategy will work now, in the days when SERPs are still valid, and it will work later too, when they are less relevant.

“Don’t try to be something for all of the people, better to be everything for some of the people!!”

There is a similar strategy for Twitter, and I will share the same in a following post.