Is it even worth it to bother with Google?

Understanding the basics of SEO and trying to rank is always worth it in my opinion. SEO is not the only way to get traffic though, so consider other means of promotion too such as social media.

Ranking well may be a lot more challenging than it was several years ago, but it is still possible.

I am pretty bad with SEO in general, but it is definitely more strict these days to rank.

I found that ranking for a lot of really low competition long tail keywords is a great way to bring in traffic to your site or offer.

Are we talking SEO, or Google Adwords (paid traffic/ppc)?

For SEO, IMO, just add content, and do the basic SEO tricks and don't go overboard. I wouldn't strictly rely on Google as a sole traffic source.

What exactly does "strict" mean?

Google's algorhithms are designed to help real human beings find the content that they find the most useful. So when people talk about Google being "strict" or "hard" or whatever else, usually what it means that it's no longer easy to rank mediocre pages above actual pages of quality with a few tricks and tweaks.

But to me that's good news. No longer do we need to try to try to read Google's mind or to speculate on all sorts of nitty-gritty details that matter only to machines and do nothing for the actual human beings that we're trying to reach. Now all we have to do is do what we should be doing anyway: focus on the user in order to give him or her what they need, whether that's great content, a useful tool or something else. If we do that -- and do it better than the competition -- then Google's engineers will take care of the rankings for us.

Obviously it's not quite as simple as that -- there are little things here and there every site owner should do to optimize their sites for search engines. But it shouldn't be a huge focus -- instead focus on the user. Those are the people who are actually going to break out their wallets and buy, after all. And it's no accident that all those tricks and gimmicks that aren't necessary anymore -- such rendering content unreadable by packing it with keywords -- are often the types of things that turn off real humans anyway.

We're doing very well with basic SEO. We follow some very simple rules.

1. SEO Optimized WordPress Title
2. At least 1000 words of well-written content. Nothing spun, ever.
3. We throw an embedded video in there as well.
4. 2-3 Images with related ALT tags (LSI keywords)
5. 3 Posts per week on average
6. Sharing on social media pages and with email list weekly.

We don't bother with PBN's or backlinks. By sharing the stories on social and the email newsletter, it makes it way around organically and grows due to the quality we're producing.

Pat Flynn takes, on average, 3 days to write one post. That's the type of quality you should be shooting for these days.

These days Google my ex-girlfriend IS paid traffic,

but still its worth a shot to crash their party at number 4
(previously known as #1) with SEO. But why not do both?

Adwords is the fastest way to be the True no1 in Googy-Darling

"Baby come back to me, you faithless little b****"

There's only two core things on the Google Search algo., followed links + text. Everything else is optional.

It really isn't complicated.

Well optimized quality content seems to work: http://www.warriorforum.com/search-e...en-trying.html

I didn't do anything but share on social media. The above post was intended tongue-in-cheek.

It might have something to do with this:

Paid traffic, as mentioned earlier, is definitely the way to go, especially if you are unwilling to spend months or years that it takes to get to the top of the search engines. For example, I'm running a pay per click campaign for one of my products and making a good profit on it. That would have taken many months to rank the site even to page two or three.

SEO is something very tricky and its not worth messing around with unless you have all the time and patience and no other choice.

I do blog commenting, forum posts and I do post links on other sites in my niche.

But I don't do it to rank high on Google. I do it to get genuine targeted visitors and it works well for me. I don't think anybody should depend on Google's algorithm for their business.

Hope that helps.

There are ranking strategies that have worked with Google since the beginning and are still working now. For example, if you try to rank for a low-competition, low-search-volume keyword while posting unique and high-quality content on your site, then you should succeed. Of course it will get more difficult to rank on the first page as competition and search volume get higher, but it still works. I believe the only change that could impact your ranking is the 'mobile-friendliness' of your site.

Ranking for an affiliate site, a shopping site, or other kinds of site is different, but if you know and follow the right way, then Google should reward your efforts.

I know I sound like Matt from Google here but if you make great content that is easy for Google to understand then you don't really have to think much about on and off page SEO anyways :-)

It depends what you are wanting to rank. If you are just wanting to rank on Google's first page and it isn't a specific page that you're wanting to rank then consider focusing on ranking Youtube videos. They are SUPER easy to rank on Google's first page. Obviously you need to target the right keywords though.

Local keywords are also pretty easy to rank for. I just recorded a couple of case study videos for my customers the other day showing lots of page 1 local keyword rankings using just 5 social accounts for links and signals.

It depends what you are wanting to rank. If you are just wanting to rank on Google's first page and it isn't a specific page that you're wanting to rank then consider focusing on ranking Youtube videos. They are SUPER easy to rank on Google's first page. Obviously you need to target the right keywords though.

Local keywords are also pretty easy to rank for. I just recorded a couple of case study videos for my customers the other day showing lots of page 1 local keyword rankings using just 5 social accounts for links and signals.

The trick is not to over complicate it.

Unique content and high quality backlinks still work, and ye it does worth to spend your time and effort to rank on Google, it pays off.

SEO is king, If you can do a good SEO you'll be able to get traffics. Increase your good backlinks that might help you.

I used never bother about SEO until I realized that google has changed a lot over the past year or so, I've seen 800 word articles rank for 11,000 keywords..

So yes google is well worth bothering with

Free traffic! You better be using Google. Don't put all your eggs in one basket and just focus on google.

Every piece of content I create or have created I make sure that it is google search engine optimize just for the benefit of extra free traffic.

The short answer is that if you give Google what they want, they will give you what you want. Waste time and money trying to game the system, and all you'll end up with is wasted time and money.

One of the benefits of doing things this way is that your links show up for people who may be interested in what you have to offer. I could spin the page counter by teasing people that they'll see pictures of women getting out of cars without their underpants, or popping a boob loose at an inopportune time, but if I was selling quilting patterns or MMO plans, I wouldn't get a lot of sales or leads.

Don't just aim for "traffic", aim for getting the right eyeballs on your pages.

I think Google is just one of the Search engines in the internet, beside of that we also have Yahoo search, Bing, Ask,...So don't depend all on Google. You should focus on doing SEO for long term keywords development and do it on many other platforms not only for Google.

Quality is the new SEO

if you want to rank number 1 for the term "tasty yellow cream cheese recipe"

google search that, check out the top 3 results and create content that destroys what they have.

if they each have 14 recipes, well then provide 20! dont forget to include images (and video, if possible..)

just practice the basics and put SEO in the backseat

dont forget to be actively promoting your content on social media.

Like others here, paid traffic is enough to establish costumer base that can produce organic traffic. My unpopular opinion is that SEO is too complicated, time consuming, and/or expensive.

SEO doesn't have to be all the doom and gloom that people make it out to be. You just need to put in a bit of work and be patient. I found great success with having a Facebook page for the website and posting something once a day that related to the website e.g Product 1 - Link to that Product on website - some basic info about the product and 1 picture. I kept it simple but I really saw a surge in my Google Ranking in a short few weeks.

Of course it's worth it. Just don't rely on it exclusively. Build an email list

If "strict" means that google now is choosing better and longer articles then do that!
Be the authority of your niche & when you're sure that your content rocks, then start building backlinks.

In short: Feed what the algorithm needs.