I know what your thinking, that sounds impossible right? After all, if you totally ignore Google, how can that help you get high search engine ranking optimzation? Well, I will get how to do that in just a minute, but first, let me ask a question.
Have you ever been slapped by Google so hard that it hurt for months? I mean slapped so bad that you could swear it left scar tissue ?
If so, you aren't alone.
If it hasn't happened to you yet, and you are still relying on search engine traffic, then just you wait. It's bound to happen eventually. Luckily there are ways to get around all this, and Ileane here has hit the nail on the head. If you didn't check out her post over at Comluv about Why You Don't Need SEO, you better run on over there and check it out.
Go ahead….
I will wait right here until you get back…
Done reading it yet?
Good.
Okay, so, once you know you don't need SEO, where does that leave you? A blog with no traffic …. Right?
Nope, actually you are in the perfect place to get higher search rankings that you crave more than a chocolate cake and cold pizza for breakfast… ( okay, so I have the worst diet in the world. Sue me!); and you can get the traffic you want without them at the same time
How to Get Higher Search Rankings Without SEO
You see, I found that by using a few tactics that pretty much ignores what others teach, I still get higher search rankings, and I don't waste my life away on spammy tactics that leave Google listing full of bile.
Okay, we won't totally ignore Google, but we will ignore most of the “Google Experts” and still find a way to succeed.
At the same time, you can get loads of traffic to your sites, (built one up to over 500 visitors per day this way myself) without even having any search listings at all.
I have loads of traffic tips, but there are 2 main ways to get traffic that I want to mention here, and they tie in together.
- Commenting on blogs within your niche to get loads of targeted traffic, (look for commentluv blogs to get ones with super cool SEO backlinks to your site)
- Going back to those blogs you comment on, and getting a guest posting spot. (which gives you even more exposure with people who like what you have to say which can lead to even more guest posting success)
Now, each one of those could get a weeks worth of posts in and of themselves and there has already been a lot said about how to use each one here along with lots of other blogging tips. But before you can even start using them, you gotta learn where to find them.
Now, I know a lot of you are hanging out on blogs about blogging, and maybe a few IM forums…
(if your not sure that you fit into that category, here is a test… IF YOU CAN READ THIS YOU ARE READING A BLOG ABOUT BLOGGING! 😀 )
But, the problem is that most of the bloggers I know aren't actually in the blog marketing niche. Although it's cool to hang out with the super cool blogging dudes like Hesham of Famous Bloggers or even Andy Bailey of Comluv, it's not necessarily going to give you the best traffic to your blog about underwater basket weaving.
Don't get me wrong, we love having you stop by, and you can leave all the comments you like, but the traffic you get probably isn't the traffic you want.
(kinda like heading out to the Arizona desert to go deep sea fishing. You might get lucky after California falls off…)
How do you find these sites to get free traffic?
Well, Ileane asked this of me a few weeks ago, so I put together a short little video about how to find niche blogs to comment on just to show you how its done. (if you don't have 15 minutes to watch it now, make sure you bookmark this post and come back to watch it later. It will really help you get going much faster…)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZv0Uw7KjqA[/youtube]
Now, this was just a quickie. Generally I will go through this process several times using specific keywords from my niche research, and build up a list of 20-30 blogs to follow. While I am doing that, I keep the Google Reader open, and subscribe to their RSS feeds so that I can quickly find them whenever they are needed.
Then, it is just a matter of visiting those sites on a regular basis, like every time they add a new post, and commenting on them.
How To Get Higher Search Rankings:
When you make a post yourself, do some light SEO. Generally, I put a keyword in my Title, the first sentence of the post, and maybe the description of the post. Any other times it shows up are great, but those are really all you need.
As you comment, your keyword will be in the comment luv links.People on those blogs will follow your links, and comment on your blog as well. Often, they will tweet it to their fans, stumble it, digg it, and share it with their followers on facebook.
All this engagement will catch Google's eyes, and you will start to see some traffic trickling through from the search results. Keep it up long enough, and that trickle will explode into a flood.
What ever you do though, don't stop just because Google started ranking your site. Keep the relationships going, so that if Google decides to drop dead, you won't be out of business like all those SEO marketing experts.
So How do you get traffic and increase rankings at the same time? do you have a trick that you don't see others talking about? Share your ideas in the comments below..
Amen! I really don’t focus too much on SEO other than a well-crafted title, paying attention to my first sentence, and maybe a header or two in my blog itself. Other than that, there’s really not much that I’m capable right now of really focusing on, so I just don’t sweat it. And yeah, I’ve been slapped by Google so hard that it makes me squirm years later just thinking about it. Some mistakes you can only make once, y’know? =)
Delena
Thanks Delana, I know what you mean. My very first site was an “seo site” where I followed all kinds of linking tactics trying to increase my rankings. took me months of work to get ranking and then I lost it all overnight and had to start over. I vowed never to rely on Google for traffic again after that. And since then, my rankings have improved across all my sites,
Hi Delena, did you not complete the major portion of SEO by doing all those steps you mentioned? A well-crafted title, paying attention to first sentence, and maybe a header or two in blog itself are the best SEO any blogger can do to his/her posts PLUS a little bit of linking 😉 ??
I think the article is great, but I dont agree on the concusion.
All you mention in the article is what I and most otheres consider to be SEO linkbuilding.
You can call it ignoring Google, but we all know Google dont ignore anchored dofollow backlinks.
I also think you have a good point in not paying to much attention to the search results, because it takes a long time
to get rankings. I think Also by thinking if comments as a way to get to know and share with a communety, and not just as “link building” it is
a lot more fun:)
hey Bjorn. thanks for your comments. My point is that the focus is not on SEO, but to take advantage of the linking oportunities available while doing things you would naturally do anyway. I see so many people wasting time on “SEO link building” and not providing any value.
<My focus isn't on the SEO links, and in fact some of my posts get more traffic through the commenting than they ever see from Google. Its about going to relevant sites and getting the direct traffic they give you.
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I’ve already seen a lot of blogs which rely mainly on the traffic coming from their readers and just a few from SEO .. now I really believe the humor about it. You dont really need SEO for your blog. Actually i only do comments from Comluv enabled blogs .. i havent done any SEO on my blog either …
Hey Argie, thanks for your comments. Its all about the value that you provide. I don’t just do this with commenting on blogs either. I am active in a lot of forums and social networking as well. Some of those forums are private forums with paid products, and they aren’t even indexed. But, I have one that although it does nothing for my SEO, I get about 200 visitors to my site every week through that forum, and they are all proven buyers coming into my funnel. I use the same mindset as I go through there. it isn’t helping my SEO at all, but still with the traffic and sales I have gotten its still worth every minute of my time.
Well I see.. i also tried to engaged into forums before but i was just too lazy to stick in and be active .. moreover, i’m a bit busy and havent have the time to do so.. i only do blog commenting and social media ..
Hi James,
Nice post, but we can’t ignore google. Link building activities like blog commenting, blog post, social bookmarking and other link building activities are part of seo techniques. Any how it effect our keyword ranking and page rank of website as per google guidelines. We don’t have to mention it, google taking care of this things.
You don’t really have to have google at all, if you do this right. I know lots of people with no rankings, that get loads of traffic through effective commenting. My main point is that so many people I talk to only think about Google when it comes to traffic, and they don’t look at the loads of other free traffic available to them.
I agree with the post, My blog hasn’t had much SEO work on it, maybe around 2 hrs, but I have done a lot of commenting and a lot of guest blogging and now my blog posts rank very highly in a lot of search terms getting me over 400 views per day without me doing anything! that’s not to say this was a quick-fix as it took time and effort to get as far as I have.
Thanks Adam. I agree. Some people just put too much emphasis on SEO when they are trying to get traffic. Although I will take everything Google Gives me, I don’t want to rely on any one source of traffic for my business.
I must admit that I have not done much SEO on my site except for the past month when I am using Keyword Winner. Commentluv brings me good traffic, and it is good for my search engine rankings. Well, I think I am already ignoring Google. Nice read.
Cheers,
Jane.
That is a great strategy for full-time bloggers. The reality is that most bloggers are not. Many have day-jobs and side hustles – and blogging is just one of those side-hustles. Others have a full range of activities to run their business, and barely find the time to post to their blogs once a week, let alone stop by to comment (where I find the time, I really don’t know!) And bringing traffic into one’s blog won’t bring customers into the money part of the site…except if your blog is about blogging, in which case it is the money part of the site.
hi drew, the thing is, when you are starting out it is really hard to do, but that doesn’t mean that it is impossible. sometimes, you have to decide what is important.
When I started, I was working 12 hours/day at my job, coming home and spending 5-6 hours a day on my blog. On my 1 day a week off, I was online from the time I woke up until I went to bed, marketing my blog.
It was hard work, and I had to make a lot of sacrifices that were really hard to make, but because of that I am now a full time blogger, running 3 blogs, and only 1 in the IM niche. Actually, I just recently started taking the IM niche seriously. Most of my time has been in the dating niche and personal development niche.
I use these same tactics there, and they work. It is true, your comment Luv links won’t get people to your internal pages, but if you do your job right on your blog, with proper internal linking, that will happen as well.
hey Jane, nice to see you 🙂 Haven’t tried keyword winner yet, how is it working for you?
So you say SEO is not important yet you say that the Title is important.
I disagree with you in that irrespective of what method you use, internal page structure and internal SEO is important.
You can succeed with external SEO (link building) by using Social Media for e.g.
Hi Infonote. My point with that is that I do really light seo on the post, and my link building is focusing on getting direct traffic, not fooling google into thinking I have a site worthy of a high ranking.
All of this relys on having really good content that engages people, and sometimes pushes their buttons on your own site, and then using content that is just as good if not better off your site.
For example, most people doing comments leave a one or two line answer. Read through some of mine here. some of them could be a whole post in and of themselves.
Really Nice information, Thanks for sharing
Hey, thanks for your comments. When I do My blog posts, I try to make some light seo on site, but when it comes to link building, I don’t focus on the search rankings the links bring. My focus is on the direct traffic that I can get through the process, not on inflating search rankings.
For example, I see loads of people commenting on blogs just to get a link, and not adding any real value to the post. I see people in forums that are really just doing it to inflate their post count and get their signature links in the post. I see people submitting crap articles to worthless sites just for links.
I see people building Hubpages and squidoo lenses with a short 400 word article just to get a link to their site, and not engaging in those communities, or providing any real value to the sites.
All of these are totally worthless tactics, and people need to focus on value and trying to get more direct traffic than getting search rankings. its about the mindset more than the technical things you do. if your focus is only on Google, you will do things differently than if you are thinking about the users on the sites that you use for links, and how to best connect with them.
Almost 60% of my traffic comes from SE’s, & the rest from Social Media referrals & direct traffic. So I don’t completely rely on Google as I do comment on really good blogs. But if one is looking to monetize a blog, then Search Engine Traffic is a must. Else he/she has to go with Affiliate Marketing.
Hi mani, I have to disagree with you there. In my opinion, and experience, that is absolutely not true. I have monetized my sites i a variety of ways and never relied on SEO. people think they do because they listen to the FAKE experts who try to sell you on SEO gimicks. I have even helped local business blogs build up their following using social media and various other methods.
Traffic is traffic, and it doesn’t matter what the source is. if you target the right demographic for your traffic you can monetize your site however you want. I have done it with products, affilaite offers, services, adsense and a variety of methods.
Awesome James. The method is really convincing and works great. But while going through your post I could not get what you refer to by the term ‘ranking’. Does it mean the ranking on SERP? If so, do you intend to argue that commenting on keywordLuv blogs is sufficient to rank higher in search results? Can I really ignore Google?
Hey Suresh, n when I mean ranking I mean search postition rankings and specifically Google Search ( I can get good rankings in Bing Too, but thats a whole nother ball of wax. )
Commenting is just one easy to use example, if I were to go into a discourse on how every llink building tactic could be used, this post would be about 5 times longer than most Ebooks.
The thing is, if I get traffic, through commenting, I wont just have those comment links, but the other links that that traffic does for me. I am all about allowing my visitors doing the link building for me, which is really what Google wants anyway.
So, i do some good commenting, and I get say 100-200 visitors to my site through commenting. On top of that, I also have the regular readers who read my feed.
I have people who follow me on FB, Twitter and other networks as well as a weekly update to my email list of that weeks blog posts.
Out of those people, generally several will digg them, stumble them retweet them, riff post and link from their blog etc… building loads of natural links to my blog from people who like what I have to say.
IF you focus on the direct traffic, and the engagement with that traffic, the natural linking that Google wants will happen, and google will rank your site higher.
That’s true. If you have good content and direct traffic, any crawler is forced to respect the post for ranking. I love your suggestions, Its just the title that confused a bit 😉
I build links like others, but my focus isnt on whether those links get me rankings.
For example, one of my earlier comments mentioned that I use forums much the same way. some of those forums I get the best traffic from are private forums with products. Those pages are nnot indexed and do me no good for SEO, but I get a lot of traffic and sales from those links.
I’m glad others are finally picking up on this, blog commenting, on CL blogs, has been my #1 traffic source for years now. 😉
Min too Denis. Thanks for stopping by. how many comments do you do a week?
Per week? A few hundred.
Dennis Edell wants you to check out..100 Down Thousands to Go!
Oh ya! forums. I’m been engaged with blog posts and commenting so much that I’ve not been with forums. I used to love NamePros, ddBoard and webMastersForum but its been ages. Do you have any good forums to refer that you are in currently?
within the IM niche, I started learning IM at Affilorama, and although I don’t follow all their training as much as when I started, I am an active member there. The training there is more targeted to static affiliate sites, but I got started there, and I am good friends now with the owner, mainly because of all the time I spend helping his new students out. Its actually where I got started in the IM niche and for over a year was the primary source of traffic to my blog, before I started taking the IM niche more seriously and started actually promoting that site.
I also am a member at BlogSuccess, and am active on the forums there as well. REally, I spend less time on the IM niche than other niches though. I generally only recommend using 2-3 forums in each niche. You can get caught up and waste a lot of time there if you aren’t careful. I did that for a while. Its all about the relationships you build on those forums, and really getting in there to help people.
I don’t generally think about the direct benefits I get out of it, although I have been really successful with both of those forums.
Thank you James. It was a worthy discourse for me. And thank you Ileane too for this guest post.
I think, it will take lots of time to get any traffic from search engines using these method…So, you wont have the organic traffic which is the most important for the long run
Hi, thanks for sharing your opinion. Honestly, I have found since I started doing this that my search rankings go up faster than other methods of link building, and I get loads more traffic than by relying on Google. Anyone who relies on any one source of traffic is asking for trouble. I see people who share your opinion all the time, and they are usually screaming and blaming Google for them losing business every time Google changes their algorithm. I also find that the people who follow these strategies only get better and better results because they rely on relevant linking and natural links from the readers.
Hi James,
It’s very important to create your network in your niche with other bloggers. This will certainly help you to get targeted traffic and reputation. I totally agree that blog commenting certainly help in getting good ranking.
Hello James,
Thanks for sharing the technique to find dofollow niche blogs. During blog commenting I have found many commentluv blogs are now provide nofollow links.
BTW great video to find niche blog posts! During my blog commenting experience I have found that comments plays important role in search rankings.
Thanks James, glad you liked it. I actually made it in response to a request from Ileane in a guest post I did over at Blog Engage a few weeks ago.
In my humble opinion, and as a SEO Specialist, there’s no way out to Google. There’s no other search engines like Google. I believe on their mission to provide us a quality, highly relevant and authorized search results. Not that I’m too loyal to them, but I really experience that in my job, in my researches, and studies.
SEO is Google’s reward, and we must not pollute SEO by messing up BIG G’s search engine results.
Thanks for sharing. I agree with you regarding some good alternative sources of traffic while having a high rank on search.
Hi Kira, I personally avoid the claims of being an expert at anything. Most people think this hurts me, but it frees me from having to constantly prove myself.
I believe in their mission to provide quality results, but the fact is the mission and the reality are miles apart. As a searcher, I actually prefer to use Bing myself.
Although Google has been the dominant force for years, I really think if Bing keeps it up, they might knock google off of their high and mighty pedastal.
I totally agree with you that Bing is better than Google for search results.
Google hasn’t been delivering the best quality for quite some time. And their actions show that they are less concerned with the best quality results and more concerned with making money.
But I also believe that Google will not lose it’s position for a long time. Maybe if your audience are techies or at least computer savy then it might shift a bit to other search engines. But for example look what is still the most used internet browser: IE. and they have s*cked for years!
Of course it is great to get referral traffic, but if you can get much more traffic from the big G, then why not focus on that. Then when you get it you can focus on other ways of getting traffic.
The problem is 90% of the people that I talk to Are wasting time trying to GET google traffic, and getting nowhere. The whole point was to focus on direct traffic tactics, and get loads of traffic without relying on Google. Yes, you should take what they will send you, but don’t rely on them. Too many people are so caught up in SEO that they forget the whole point of seo is to get traffic to your website.
OK. Just for the fun of it, I just Googled for the term “how to ignore google” and guess what… out of 30 million results, your post came in #1. How does that feel? LOL
Anyway, I agree with you that SEO should not be ignored in its entirety, as there are other ways to rank well as you mentioned here. Good and effective blog commenting and guest posting on that same blog you commented on are definitely something worthwhile investing time on as it works and works very well indeed. Unfortunately, my guest posting ventures has not yet taken off as I would like it to be, but hopefully soon, I will remedy this. Thumbs up and speedlink bound 🙂
Hey Di, pop one up at my place, we’ll make ya famous! 😉
Thanks DiTesco, Aint it grand to show up in search? too bad that particular keyword doesn’t get a high search count LOL.
I find that by really getting out there and pounding the pavement, I get better results and faster.
When I started guest posting, I did it by giving myself a weekly quota, and making myself stick to it. I do 2 guest posts every week now, across various blogs that I follow. That gives me enough to write, and still have time to engage those blogs as well as keeping up on my own.
I don’t have an original strategy, but a regular and slow link building (for a new site) is my main advice. Google WILL end up noticing your site and rank it in the SERPs. All you need is patience…
I agree. patience is crucial. It can take a long time to get a site ranking, especially with a new blog. I find that after a site crosses the 1 year mark, it suddenly gets more traction though, and will begin to rank faster with new content added.
Great post, thank you!
I am still a rookie blogger but since becoming more involved here I learned so much. This post just filled my head with good ideas but the line the spoke to me most was:
“When you make a post yourself, do some light SEO. Generally, I put a keyword in my Title, the first sentence of the post, and maybe the description of the post. Any other times it shows up are great, but those are really all you need.”
Going back to a few post to see how well I am doing with these three SEO keyword thoughts..
Hey, bodynsoil, thanks for your kind words 🙂 When I started out, I put too much emphasis on SEO, mainly because some big name experts told me to. When I started doing just light on page optimization, and focusing on the customer rather than the search engines, my rankings, traffic, and conversion rates across the board went up.
Thank you for responding to my comment, I am trying to find a nice middle ground between SEO and creating great experience for my readers.
If only I could find a perfect world to play in.
Well, I am following the first point you’ve mentioned in the article. But, at the same time, working on SEO from all aspects. It is true that Google might slap you one day, but I think we can’t underestimate the potential of Google in making our blog a big success. Working on both strategies: SEO and commenting is a must.
Just my views.
I’d been reading articles and watching videos for months now where the Google guy Matt Cutts says that you should be structuring your content to please humans anyway (and not robots)…
I watch his videos all the time. In fact, I have posted quite a few of them on my blog when I am talking about SEO. I never understood why people want to get higher search rankings, but don’t listen to what they say about SEO.
I only just discovered that it was possible to add ComLuv to Blogger. I have tried. I think I did everything right but it doesn’t work. Any ideas or advice, anyone?
Anne, Here’s my video tutorial for installing CommentLuv on Blogger. Once you go through all of the steps, you should CommentLuv the next time you publish a post
Hey James… Surely I have been slapped by Google always. That’s painful man! hey I tot guest posting is really a great way to increase the exposure of my business. I’m working towards tis direction. Cheers!
Guest posting is awesome. I got started on it last year, and it has been the best thing I ever did. Just from guest posting 2 times a week, I get over 500 visitors a week to my blog. that doesn’t count what I get from commenting, forums, SEO, and other methods I use.
Honestly, I could quit doing everything but commenting and guest posting, do more guest posts/week, and still run a full time business, even if Google decided never to rank my sites.
Can anyone help me with getting a higher pr for my blog. Have 37 links coming in and Alexa of 200k but still rank Pr0. And somehow that ranking is stunning my business.
Honestly, PR is a Joke. It doesnt’ do anything for your rankings. Most of my sites are PR0-PR2, yet I outrankd PR 7 sites on all of them. Also, Everyone pays attention to the PR of the main Domain, when that doesn’t matter for your inner pages. PR used to be a factor in rankings but so many people learned to game the system it isnt relevant anymore.
You can also use forum posting to boost traffic. No Google needed and you can tailor your contents so that people get exactly what they need. All you have to do is find a forum with high traffic. 🙂
That is true. In fact, when I first started almost 80% of my traffic came from forums.
They also don’t have to be really high traffic forums to work, but they do need to be active. In fact I have one that sends me about 200+ visitors a week. I spend an hour every day there helping people, and networking with other business owners to get traffic to my blogs.
Last year, I got involved with a product launch that made me over 5k that I could directly track to forum marketing alone, not to mention the other sales I made from commenting, and guest posting during that launch.
I totally agree that we all need to get traffic from other sources other than Google, however when you do have natural search engine traffic, it lasts longer than other methods. When you cement your rankings in Google search, and you know that your blog has great content that people want to read, then the SEO of the website can be toned down.
Once you stop guest posting and promoting your website the natural Google search rankings are there to keep a backbone of traffic to your website.
Hi Mitz, I agree. I even stated that Google was important, but it shouldn’t be the focus of your link building efforts.
My motivation behind writing this post came from talking to a lot of newbies who are spending months building links and not seeing any results, because they are so focussed on Google traffic that they ignore all the direct sources they could get.
Also, although Google is a strong steady source of traffic I would still never put myself in a position to rely on them. As I said earlier, although I can get High search rankings, less than 20% of my traffic is from Search traffic. I wouldn’t rely on more than that.
IF you are blogging in a niche that you truly love, you won’t want to quit networking anyway.
James,
Very interesting points. So many people worry about the picayune aspects of SEO when the their limited time may be better spent trying to comment on the “right” blogs. Getting links from related blogs is a far better way to increase both direct traffic from the blog as well as indirect search traffic from the links and organic ranking.
Thanks for pointing out the great ways to find these outside of the typical keyword/comentluv searchs
Hey Steve. thanks, I am honored to see you comment on my post. love reading your blog 🙂
Some people seem to not get it, but glad I am not the only one that sees it. Although I used blog commenting to ilustrate it here, I use other methods as well. But everything I do, I focus on the direct benefits I get from it, not the Search benefits it gives me. I pretty much ignore PR, Do follow, and all that stuff that people waste time on. I focus on “Can this link benefit the users on this site?” and “Can this LInk benefit me?” if I can answer yes to both of those questions, it is worth it.
Hi James,
I believe traffic may achieve in many factors. As you have mentioned, it also draws readers’ attention. Isn’t great that all contributory factors will be used? May it be in Google or leaving comments.
Great article there, I will be trying this in a couple of days. Thank you so much for sharing and this has been a food for thought for me. I will be looking forward to your next article!
I think build backlinks is the most important. That’s the key to get a higher ranking.
Where you really want to get #1 ranking ? Google ? So why we would ignore it ?
I’m sort of ignoring SEO already as it took too much time and effort. But to be honest, I still have to rely on search engines as my main visitors (which is bad, as I got slapped hard somehow by the Panda). Commenting and guest postings are great ideas – it’s all back to time, time, and time 😀
hey Michael, it does take time, but think about this. how much time are you spending on SEO? how many hours and days and weeks are you spending trying to get higher search rankings? If you forget about search, and apply that time to just doiing 1 guest post a week, you would get a lot more traffic, and you wouldnt have to rely on google for it. guest post. I try to do 2-3 guest posts a week. total time to write those posts is about 3-4 hours.
Most common SEO tactics would take 3-4 hours per week for several months to get the same results that one guest post on a popular blog will bring.
Hmm..fair enough. I haven’t really tried writing a guest post on a popular blog to compare but I see that you’ve got experiences on that. Cheers – I’ll put a deep thought about your feedback
With SEO your blog has no life.Post are the different way for the presentation.
really…really…worth reading article !
earlier i thought…. ” is he freaking insane : “ignoring GOOGLE ? ” what does he mean by it ?” after reading on i really found it useful and the best part is that it is completely unique ! totally different perspective ! awesome ! 😀
Thanks. I was hoping to get some people’s attention with that headline. Glad you liked it. and hope it helped.
Sorry but the search in the commentluv site is searching only in the commentluv enabled sites :). So if you are searching for that kind of sites, this is only what you need.
And if you want keywordluv sites, you can search in google for “fashion YourName@YourKeywords” for example :).
Ah, to ignore google…I love the idea! I think this article has done wonders for those reading it. Its as though we are all chasing the carrot, but not thinking about the track or the finish line. I can’t speak for everyone, but I for one will certainly start putting some of your ideas into motion. Thank you so much for the insight.
Thanks for your comments . After my first 8 months of SEO and getting google rankings, then losing them all overnight, I decided to focus on direct traffic rather than inflating my rankings. Since then my rankings have gone up on all my sites, but I have found that I don’t NEED them anymore.
I think backlinks is the most important to get higher ranking.
your blog help me a lot in my professional, i wanna be a good seo, thanks for sharing such nice information.
James,
I have always felt a little “dirty” focusing solely on SEO.
My traffic generation method in based on compelling content and engagement. First, I do my best to write stuff that people actually want to read/watch/hear and then I engage with my readers and others in my “niche.”
It’s refreshing to see some more ideas in this area. Thank you for the reminder.
Cheers, Adam.
Hey Adam, thanks for your comments. I agree. if you focus on content and engaging people, you will get a lot more in the end. thanks for your comments.
Great post James, I’ve learnt plenty and perhaps to emphasise less on ‘SEO’, but it just seems that much of everything we do to promote our blogs or website has something to do with SEO regardless, list building, using social bookmarking, press releases perhaps not so much.
Great post James!
I have that problem myself. I rely 99% on Google for traffic and once that drys up my blog will just die. I’ve taken some of your advice already and comment a lot more on blogs that relate to mine but haven’t done any guest posting yet.
I guess that is next on my blogging list.
James, thank you, really. I’ve been looking for some ways to help me increase my site’s traffics since my site has been blocked from Google Search, which I haven’t found out yet why. Now I’m relieved as I knew now, other ways to help getting the traffic. Awesome!
Though pretty ironic in the title, yet informative in the end. Its not just about google, though its most popular, people still use many other search engines. Now what we have got to understand is that we have to do it in a search engine friendly way, not Google friendly way!
Hey Joshua, thanks for your comments.
Its not just about search period, although you are right there, you can find loads of search platforms out there that people use.
When I wrote that title, I wanted to get people’s attention and make them think. It has worked pretty well based on some of the responses I have gotten.
Yeah! True!
A catchy title to get people to your words! Nice idea and it looks like it has worked pretty well for you! Thanks for updating.
Hi James,
I really enjoyed your post and video. Thanks!
I’d like to sign up with Blog Engage to try out some of your suggestions. Could you or someone you know possibly send me an invite?
Thanks again!
To get an invite, you need to follow the instructions brian has. last I checked, he was the only one who could invite people, and he has the instructions there on how to go about that.
Buying a list of sites, not so much. There are just too many niches out there. However, everything I showed in the video can be outsourced. You could go to Odesk and hire someone to do it for you.
Thanks James,
When you refer to niches do you feel that having a backlink on a relevant site is that important? I know some bloggers say a link is a link no matter where it is. I guess I don’t have a solid answer for this question.
Hi, I have been looking for blogs that I can comment on that is relevant to my niche when I happened to stumble on your blog. In fact, I have blogengage open in a different tab and trying it out right now. I am thinking of looking at those blogs for a chance to comment or share ideas as well as do some guest posts! Thanks!
Google eyes as you say it is more hard to get then you realize especially after the last updates from Google. If you use a low competition keyword most of the time what you have suggested will work. But if you trying to reach first place with a keyword that has more competition it will be more hard.
Of course that writhing for Google is a bad idea, but always you need to have a good SEO optimization if you want to accomplish something. If you are ignorant then you will not reach far.
These are great points James. I definitely believe in commenting on her people’s post. I have read many interesting and helpful posts also. I never seem to learn it all.
i feel that guest blogging on blogs you comment on is an awesome idea,
sometimes things just click all of a sudden.
still we can’t ignore Google.. and yes commenting and guest posting is a good way to get good refferal traffic 🙂 Happy Blogging 😀
With the drastic algorithmic changes by Google, it’s a great way to diversify your traffic sources. If you completely rely on search engines for traffic, you are about to fail as a blogger or a webmaster.
i needed most of this infos for my seo campaign, thanks for your share
James,
This is really helpful in the planning stages of building a new site and the implementation of new pages. People get too caught up on blackhat seo just to rank well but if a person follows your recommended points they should get good rankings and it will come in a natural way.
Writing great articles also helps, but the best practice to use when doing article building is to never go over the two link limit. Putting too many links inside the article will be both confusing to the reader and inadvertently spammy.
Thanks for the pointer Dave. Two links are plenty in an article and should generate traffic if they links are placed appropriately and the copy is interesting enough.
With the rise of social media taking a bigger precedence these days, it’s important to be active on Twitter, Facebook and other syndicate blog streams to help promote your product. I agree with you that there are ways outside of reliance on Google to help improve your visibility to the online community.
Okay guys, what is going on with the anti-SEO sentiment here? LOL
This is a great article. I particularly like the parts about commenting on other blogs within your “niche” or focus areas.. And cross-promoting and guest blogging. All VERY good stuff that brings you more engaged traffic!
I think the problem with how people view SEO is that they’re looking at the bad apples. It’s not about link building, spamming, black-hat techniques, and all the other junk that goes around.. When I deliver SEO, I look at building quality content and helping the right people find content they care about. That helps with conversions and it also helps you retool content, adding more polish and building upon consistent sucesses.
The bigger piece of the SEO puzzle is measuring results and being able to interpret and correlate them with the successes. But you need to have tangible goals, things you can track.. Get S.M.A.R.T. with your goals, as some will preach.
Ironically, the stuff that is suggested here is all part of the SEO service I provide. Not to rain down on the party for fellow SEOs but just focusing on rankings, increased traffic, and link-building alone is not enough.. but it’s a good start. 8)
Again, it depends on your goals, no? I suppose heavy traffic is better for those that are flipping sites around for sale or those that rely more on residual income (and like to play the numbers game).
What do you think?
I invite you to challenge my thoughts here – please disagree!
http://unbounce.com/seo/the-adaptive-seo-approach/
(Again, hope I don’t come off as spammy or smarmy.. But I think this really builds upon the points made here.)
I am trying to get my blog higer ranking. I started my blog Allglamallthetime.blogspot.com about 5 weeks ago. I am constantly posting , and it is in the search engine on google. It is not yet on Yahoo although , I have submitted my site name. I will try to add these tips to see if it helps . Thanks!
hey Shadei, Thanks for coming by. 5 weeks is no where near long enough to get ranking for most search terms. Often, Yahoo and bing especially won’t trust your blog until at least 3-4 months have past. Also, it depends on how well you do your SEO, how many links you have, and how well you engage people.
Free blog platforms are also harder to rank than a self hosted blog. The only benefit is that it is free. Search engines don’t like them, and they dont really do that well with readers. Most people recognize that it is s afree hosting platform, and it is harder to brand yourself as an authority in your topic if you can’t even make enough money from your expertise to afford hosting and a domain. also, as a business blog, if they choose to change the monetization rules (which has already happened several times…) you can lose your entire business over night. I have seen it happen many times in just the last few years with people relying on a blogger blog.
Personally, I only use free blogs to build links and funnel social traffic to my own site. they are not a good idea as your main blog.
James, I’m with you on this one. The majority of traffic I get to my blog is from other bloggers, whom I take the time and comment on their blog. Sure, SEO still works, but commenting on blogs in your own niche works wonders as well.
hey Ben, thats so true. One thing that I find is that early on, the traffic is a lot of the bloggers themselves. Now, these aren’t great visitors when you want to look at sales, since they are your competition, but if they like your blog, they will start linking to you and sharing your blog with their customers. that is where it really becomes powerful.
I am a newbie to this website. This post explains very interesting points that how to get higher page ranking without using Google. Its my pleasure to visit your website. Thanks for sharing this useful post.
I think we should separate Onsite SEO and Offsite SEO for clarity.
On site SEO means taking care of your titles, descriptions, keyword density, inner links site structure and many other factors. It all seems like much but there are graet tools that can lead you to performing all neccessaty tasks.
Off site SEO is whatever you do to get traffic and links to your site.
You do not need to fully optimise your site to get traffic, or even rank high on search engines but its easy to do and very rewarding.
hey Tobi, that is true, you need to look at the differences to on page and off page seo factors. I pay more attention to the on page factors, and let the link building naturally take care of itself as I drive direct traffic to the content.
I am new to blogging. This post explains very interesting points that how to get higher page ranking without using Google. I really enjoyed your post and video.Thanks for sharing this useful post.
Oh man, I was hit hard by Google and it completely derailed my desire to blog. I had been following all the advice of bloggers you mention only to suddenly see my ranking sliding into the realm of the unknown – so I turned my back on the process..
I stopped blogging.
Now I realized that walking away wasn’t the solution, working harder at rebuilding my backlinks and following what others in my niche are doing would put me back in the rankings.. So excuse me if you see a lot more of me in your comments again because I am back to fight my way to top once again..
Sadly a lot of people give up just like you did. Glad to see you decided to come back and try again. What I usually tell people is that it isn’t the overall strategy but generally small things with how you use it that will make a big shift. look at what sites you are getting links from, and how many links you need. also quality of the llinks is more and more important in your seo. also, I would focus on more direct traffic like the blogs and social media. Since you blog more about fitness, find other fitness blogs to follow comment on and guest post on. they will be one of your best sources of traffic.
I wasn’t familiar with BlogEngage. This is a great tool that I possess added to my growing arsenal of SEO resources. It’s a tedious procedure to locate these types of blogs in order to discuss. It is possible to source exactly where we can purchase a listing of websites to visit? It would probably be well worth the money in order to save the time.
Is it really possible to just ignore Google? I haven’t tried it yet but based on your explanation, it seems effective. And I agree that Commenting on blogs within your niche is a great strategy to use.
This is so “right on”, I got put in the sandbox for building backlinks to fast and despite that my rankings on Yahoo and Bing kep climbing and my traffic went up by using the right methods.
There is no question that Google is a monster that is good to appease but you have to know how to get things done if the monster decides you look good for dinner.
Taking some time browsing such sites that is truly related to your niche is a must. I guess first is that both of you are similar to each other’s need. A give and take relationship between similar niche you are in. Taking some time to comment and placing appropriate links is a good strategy in optimizing one’s blogs.
Hi James. Great info shared here. I have a question though – is it really possible to ignore a very popular SEO like Google? I mean infinite browsers use Google to find the smallest information on the Internet. So is it really possible to find blog sites without the use of Google? The probability is very little in my opinion.
Don’t be fooled by what all the “marketers” sell you about Google being so grand. After 3 years of blogging, and running a full time on line business, less than 20% of all my traffic comes from Google, and that traffic honestly doesn’t convert as well as the direct traffic that I send.
Google is nice, but contrary to popular belief, I know MANY successful marketers getting loads of leads and traffic while not even ranking in Google search. With the contstanmt changes they are making, even many of my long time friends who have preached SEO for years are now focusing on alternative sources of traffic.
Hi, this is great, James, an excellent post. Well done! Putting too many links inside the article will be both confusing to the reader and inadvertently spammy.I definitely need to find time to book in! It’s a tedious procedure to locate these types of blogs in order to discuss. It is possible to source exactly where we can purchase a listing of websites to visit?
You can always hire a freelancer to compile a list of sites for you, but eventually, you will need to check it yourself to ensure that you are only using reputable sites within your niche.