SEO Basics: You Can’t Pay Google to Be 1st

I keep meeting people who still believe you can pay Google to influence search results. Well, can you? Yes and no.

When you make a search query in Google you get (a) unpaid “search results” and (b) paid “AdWords ads.”

Good positioning in the search results is impossible to buy. The way Google ranks results is based on an ultra-secret-super-smart algorithm and no one, except the ultra-secret elite, know what it is.

We do have an idea of how to influence it, however. Here are some things you can do to better your search results:

• Add original content regularly – duplicate content works against you.
• Choose and use your keywords throughout your site, but not too much.
• Name your pages, files, titles, pictures, and videos with words people can understand – i.e. instead of rerpt09.pdf name it annual-report-2009.pdf

Then you have the Google AdWords ads. Those you can buy 🙂