In my last post I talked about a website which is perfectly targeted for ‘digital camera review’ as a broad search term and for specific search terms for individual camera models, for example ‘Canon SD700′.

If you enter either of these phrases into Google’s Search box you’ll see a couple of sites which rank equally highly for both search terms. Give yourself a pat on the back if you picked out ‘cnet.com’, but give yourself a gold star if you correctly identified ‘dpreview.com’.

It is the latter which is my favorite site whenever I need to know anything about digital camera performance. But that’s not why I’m recommending you look at this site.

www.dpreview.com is, in reality, the perfect targeted website. Why so? Take a look at the home page. Here’s a site that is very obviously aimed at the digital camera user and chooser. There’s everything from news, views, in-house reviews and user comments. Switch to the individual, specific camera reviews and you’ll see a wealth of detail on each camera.

So is dpreview.com a site that deliberately sets out to follow the SEO rules? I would say not. There’s no studied repetition of keywords, no intentional highlighting of keyword search phrases, no RSS generated or article scraped info pages. Just good quality content that’s easy to read and full of valuable information.

That, then, is the key to receiving a high ranking in Google’s eyes. Generate a website which offers valuable information to the Internet surfer, target it at a specific market or niche, use the home page to meet the broad search term for your niche, and add information pages that fulfil the specific search terms too.

I’m not suggesting that you ignore SEO guidelines but if you concentrate less on SEO ‘rules’ and more on creating a website that people want then you are more likely to benefit from that free Search Engine ‘love’!

I’ve just been reading a long, and convoluted, pdf which is (claims to be) a run down on what Google Quality Raters are looking for from a ‘quality’ site.

If you haven’t got the faintest idea what a ‘quality’ or ‘authority’ site is in Google’s eyes then here’s a precis. A ‘quality’ site is one where the pages provide information relevant to the query the surfer enters into the Google Search Engine.

Or, to put it another way, Google rewards sites that provide information that matches what the searcher is looking for. As an example consider what happens when someone types in ‘digital camera review’ into the Google Search box. The pages they might expect to be taken to could either be sites which offer information or reviews on digital cameras or could be a list of digital cameras for sale in an online catalog with comparative reviews. All of these sites would be ‘rewarded’ by Google by high search result placement.

But what if the searcher was more specific? What happens if, for example, the search query is ‘Canon SD700′? Here Google expects the surfer to be taken to a page with specific details about that product, or a sales page that gives more information, or a review site with that product featured.

The difference between these two searches is that one (‘digital camera review’) is termed a ‘broad’ search while the other ‘Canon SD700′ is considered a ‘specific’ search. Google will list a different set of sites for each type of term, unless…

Let’s say you were acting as an affiliate for a digital camera store. You could put up a review site which, on its front pages, gave information on how to select a digital camera to suit your needs, what you should look for in a digital camera, how to use a digital camera and so on. Then you could put up pages which gave more information on specific cameras or offered a comparative review of certain classes of digital cameras.

In that way your site would satisfy both the broad search and specific search criteria, and would be rewarded by Google with a high Search Engine Ranking as a result.

I’ve used this as an example because there’s a site I’ve been visiting for years which offers excellent info on digital cameras. I’m not going to tell you what it is, yet. Try entering the two search terms I’ve used above and see if you can guess which site I’m talking about!

What’s the purpose of this? I’ll tell you.

If you are selling anything, whether it is as an affiliate or as a product creator, then getting a high Search Engine ranking depends wholly on giving exactly the information that Google, or any other Search Engine come to that, wants to see the user receive for both broad and specific search terms.

Cartoon by Dave Walker

Now don’t go out of your way to try and develop a site specifically to suit Google. You’ll probably spend hours researching keywords and struggling with keyword relevance, often to no avail. Why? Because it is much simpler to start putting together a site that you feel would suit the searcher, not Google.

If you focus on the needs of the searcher who puts either a broad or specific phrase into a Search Engine query box then you’ll automatically build a site that ranks highly. This could be a blog, a review site, a forum, an online catalog, it doesn’t matter. Center on building an information based site and you won’t go far wrong.

In my next post I’ll reveal the site I frequent, and how it attracts a high Google Page Rank.

Oh, and that pdf I was reading? Do a (‘specific’) search for ‘quality rater guidelines’ and you’ll find it.

Yesterday I received 23 emails on the same subject – Mike Filsaime’s The 7 Figure Secrets.

Did you get them too? Well not 23 maybe, but one or two?

Well it wasn’t me who sent you even one email about The 7 Figure Secrets. Even though I have huge respect for Mike Filsaime.

Why not?

Maybe it’s just me, or perhaps I just don’t like jumping on a bandwagon, but I’m not really interested in sitting down and watching a DVD of a ‘condensed’ seminar. (You can bet all the best bits have been left out, right?).

Now if Mike was sending out a step by step guide to the real meat of his ‘Workshop’ I’d be really interested. Because Mike has learnt the hard way how to make it from filing for bankruptcy to creating a 7 figure business.

But you’re only going to get that sort of help if you continue with the membership program you’ll be joining (free for the first 45 days) when you request Mike’s DVD. And, as I haven’t seen the full value of that yet, I can’t honestly recommend it.

You DO get the Butterfly Marketing manuscript, though, and that IS worth having. But I already have that. If you don’t then by all means go ahead and get it here, along with Mike’s free $297 DVD…

http://the7figuresecrets.com/yours-free/4013

Maybe it IS just me? Perhaps I really am the odd one out, but I much prefer reading an instructional eBook or, at worst, watching short, to the point, video training that offers me some real, get-down-and-do-it-now, help.

Which is why I introduced you to Tim Godfrey’s Profit Praxis yesterday. Because Tim’s program really does meet my requirements for a training course that offers Real Value and Fast Results, and you can get started today.

Now that is something I CAN recommend!