2013 is upon us and the SEO world is upside down. I can see Google’s faces grinning at us about the latest updates how they finally are getting a hold of the tactics gaming their search engine. It is only going to get worst unless we wake up and do what is natural.

I won’t deny never using gaming tactics. Over time when the Google algorithm was in its early stages, if you wanted to rank you were left no choice.

Starting as far back as made for adsense sites I witnessed massive changes to the search results that left me frustrated looking for relevant information that once was plentiful. I suspect I was not the only person feeling this frustration as well.

Let me give you an example that has stuck with me ever since the mass discovery of gaming Google. One of my past lives was working in the ornamental aquaculture industry. I got a phone call one day from a client about building glass aquariums for putting together a hatchery.

Part of the conversation was the lack of information about how to do this. My knee jerk reaction was just look it up in Google many many sites show how to do this. Their answer was WHERE! already done this.

I next looked it up and the whole world of search engines had changed almost overnight. I searched and searched and could not find one site that would show how to build a glass aquarium, not one. The search results was totally loaded with made for Adsense sites.

Where am I going with this, it seems everything has come full circle again. Do that search again and what is relevant is showing again.

Google’s goal is to show relevant results and the technology to fish out the gamers is slowly taking hold and eroding the gamers upper hand to rank top ten.

Here is another example of what once was that is coming around full circle.

This takes us back to what is working now

When you look how the search engines are displaying the new search results, you now see lots and lots of social sites ranking in the top 10 more than ever.

(This is going to date me) It reminds me more of the early days when people hungry for information looking for other people to interact with.

My point is simple, the internet is a place where people hang out.

We had hang outs in the old days of the internet called the usernet, email groups, chat rooms, and forums/bulletin board systems. Back then search engines did not exist. I remember to find sites and information everyone in our neighborhoods was passing information by word of mouth on how to reach others with the new medium of the internet.

Today more than ever hangout’s is where the action is happening, but they have different names like blogs, facebook, twitter, eBay and so forth.

Funny thing the early days was no different, the internet is a place of hangouts, it doesn’t matter what face you place on it like people hang out together it is a natural attraction for a hungry crowd to gather.

What Does This All Mean To You.

You need to have a totally different mind set on approaching organic search results if you want to get traffic. After all the bottom line is getting people to your website so you can pitch them for whatever your goal is for creating that website.

The solution is more than likely not the answer you want to hear, but is reality.

Stop looking at the Google Keyword Tool as your first choice of keyword research and expect if I plug all these numbers into what ever software it will magically come up with high search counts and easy to rank keywords.

I have been pushing this for quite sometime now if you continue to do this you will become outdated, just like the techniques still promoting this type of keyword research.

Next what I like to do is look at all the suggested keywords around your niche. Google, Yahoo/Bing, Amazon, and many more places have this feature built into their sites. They have them available to promote what is hot and relevant for the day you look.

After choosing a set of keywords, look to see who is living in those neighborhoods. I like to check the top ten results in the search engines for an idea of what types of sites dominate that particular keyword.

For example if you are trying to sell a nikon camera you will notice most of the results will be large eCommerce sites like Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Big Brand Names etc…

They are there because of name or brand recognition. Think about it for a moment. People will have a natural tendency to click what they recognize and trust. Having an affiliate site that is not recognizable is not going to get the clicks because of who you are not.

If you see something like that get out of there and put those keywords aside, you may never have a chance to rank for them.

If you see large social sites like forums, facebook, etc… take advantage of them. Leverage the traffic they have. I participate on a forum that has over a million members as much as possible. Their traffic is beyond passionate to the point of obsessive.

Many times some spots exist to rank in the top ten below these social sites for an opportunity rank in the top ten. I did this using the forum to shoot me into places below the forum and kicked out other websites by leveraging the traffic and the quality backlinks this particular forum provided me.

Now what do you do when you don’t see these big mega sites ranking? First you might of found a neighborhood you can fit. Next start investigating what kind of a site deserved to rank.

By the way a little self promotion I wouldn’t be an Internet Marketer if I did not do this. This process has been automated and you can get the software to speed up your research time by going here.

SEO Art of War – Allows you to battle the latest Panda and Penguin Updates

I work with an offline and online consultant. At first the concept was too simple, but we started to look at the results with the new software.

Right off the bat he started finding relevant keywords he had never seen using the Google Keyword Tool. This is the reason for using suggested keywords, relevant keywords for the time you are looking. People type in what is currently on their minds, where the Google Keyword Tool is data accumulated over time and not current.

Next we found search results that totally surprised him, sites that were ranking and had very little relevant information about the niche he was interested in. Content he could write with his eyes closed that would provide better info for the visitor than what ranked and the list goes on.

If you find blogs here is tip you must look for, check their comments. Almost without exception the ranking blogs have loads of comments not spam comments but real relevant comments. What real bloggers do is monitor their comments and interact with them almost to obsession. These types of blogs rank because someone is reading their comments. If you don’t have comments you will have to find a way to siphon traffic back to your blogs.

Here is what all the sites these days have in common to rank.

Freshness and Quality of Content – this goes without saying, make sure your original content is on your site before spreading it out across multiple channels

Relevancy – if you are drawing eyes to your pages, did you give the visitor what they wanted, did you interact with visitors in some form or another

Authority, Reputation and Trust – this is what big eCommerce and Brand Names provide to buyers

Bounce Rate – are you providing a way to keep the visitors to prevent them from hitting that back button and go back to the search results

Social Factors – do you provide ways for people to spread the word, gossip really spreads fast so don’t over look this

Here is some factors lower on the totem pole, factors not as important as above but do count.

Age and History – not so much a factor unless you are up against new sites and the other factors are on a even level

Speed – will your site bore your visitor while loading slow and cause them to hit that back button

Crawl – can the search engines crawl your site, they really don’t just judge your one page anymore they want to factor in all the other pages

I might of missed a few other items but if you focus on this I have been very successful in getting new sites into the top ten.

A little long winded but if anything you get out of this is – change that mind set of looking at the Google Keyword Tool looking for numbers to magically find your reasons why you are not ranking in the top ten. It is all about knowing your neighborhoods.

SEO for 2013 will be worst than 2012 if you don’t adapt.

Again don’t forget to check out the new software to help you speed your research.

SEO Art of War – Allows you to battle the latest Panda and Penguin Updates