Over the past couple of years I have been repeatedly asked for the secret to building a successful online business.  It is funny, because every time I give my answer, the questions is usually just repeated again like I had never responded in the first place.  Now I realize that a question like that can have lots of different answers, but, my online business success has been based on organic search traffic, so my answer always revolves around a search business strategy.

My answer is always the same, I tell them that it is like building a house.  Forget about all the "extras" that would go into a house building project (like the color of the carpet or what kitchen cabinet to purchase).  Concentrate on the foundation, the common components that define the structural strength and quality of house.  Relating to  online business, that means stop looking for the next hot software, strategy or private membership program that will make you rich.  Work on your foundation, build strong walls and a solid roof.  Once you have completed those tasks successfully (and yes, there are ways of easily knowing when you have done that correctly), you can move on to more advanced techniques.

You see, most of the times when I am asked to review some one's online business, I find that the roof is leaking, the walls have holes and the foundation is cracked.  The house has no hope.  Yes, you can always temporarily create the image of success by overwhelming the search engines with to much ranking factor of one type or another.  But, as we all know, that type of success is very fleeting and it is only a matter of time before your website is back to producing little or no results.  So, it seems that instead of finally addressing and fixing the basic structural flaws, many Internet marketers want to jump on to the "next big thing".

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not one of those anti-guru people.  I am in no way implying that these hot products are not adding some value.  What I am saying is that it is a complete waste of time focusing on something like Web2.0 strategies when a search engine spider cannot properly read your site.  Just to drive the point home, at least 70% of the sites I review have major on page problems.  Problems that will significantly impact the ranking potential of their site.  These poorly constructed websites would be lost in the search engine rankings except for one thing.  The significant majority of their competition have as many if not more problems.

So, what are we left with? 

First page search engine rankings that can best be defined as the "best of the worst".  No wonder most of the top rankings today are being covered by non-commercial sites.  If these trends continue, the first three pages of search engine results will be nothing but .edu's, .gov's and wikipedia.

So, what to do….what to do?

So, I have decided to start this little blog.

To shed some light on some basic concepts and principles that can dramatically impact both your organic and paid search strategies.

(hum…what does paid search have to do with organic?)

I will occasionally even make some product recommendation.  Products that I use on a daily basis and have given me a multiple return on my investment.

But, that is for later.

Right now there is a lot of information and ideas that I would like to cover.

Starting with two basic questions:

"What Do The Search Engine's Want?"

and

"How Are The Search Engines Going To Get What They Want?"

Two very simple questions.  You would think that if you had their secret formula you could dominate any niche you wanted.  Just reverse engineer their algorithms and your golden.  But, that is not the answer to the question.  Why concentrate on the "secret formula" when you could potentially better understand what the formula is trying to achieve.  You see, reverse engineering the algorithm is fine.  It gives you a perfect frozen picture of how the search engines are ranking for your niche.  In fact, there are some incredibly bright marketers online who do a great job with that strategy.  But, what if you could develop a strategy that did not fully require that in depth knowledge?  What if you could develop a site that was always ahead of changes to the search engines algorythems?

You can…..

"What do the search engines want?"

They want to understand content and relevancy the deliveries good unique information in response to a search query.

"How are the search engines going to get what they want?"

By building a system (a methodology) that mimics our understanding of language.

Now here is the real beauty of the complete answer.

There are rules to language.  People have been studying these rules for hundreds if not thousands of years.

Some of the best universities in the world have whole departments dedicated to the study of language.

Now, you do not need to be a PhD. to get your arms around this concept (and actually be able to apply it to your online business).   You can tell by my stream of consciousness grammar that I am definitely not a language major.  What I do know is that there are some very basic principles to understanding content and relevancy.  I also know that if you apply these principles to your web site structure you can achieve amazing ranking results with the search engines.  In addition, these results stand the test of time because the evolution of the search engine algorythems is always moving towards those same basic principles of understanding content and relevancy.

So if you find these ideas interesting….stay tuned, there is a lot more coming.

All the best,

–Nicolas