A New SEO Era is Upon Us
I recently broke all the SEO rules and still got a brand new website's web page and a some posts from a new blog high search rankings for their main keywords. I share how I did it in this post with screenshots of Search Results to back up my claims. You will learn that a new SEO era is upon us.
This article is about how I recently broke all the SEO rules and still managed to get high search engine rankings for web pages and blog posts. I even got some into the sacred Google Top 3 including all three for the same keyword phrase.
In March of 2016, Google’s “Guidelines for Ranking Websites and Blogs” were published. This 160 page manual explained to Google employees how the new ranking algorithm works. This was not a mere tweak of the old rules Google has used for many years. It was a complete overhaul of the way sites get ranked. Named the “E – A – T” which stands for “Expert” - “Authority” – “Trust”, these new standards dictate whether a web page and blog post get ranked high or low by Google in its keyword search results.
Surprisingly, it appears that few web designers, webmasters, and even self-anointed SEO experts know about the new Google “E – A – T” guidelines.
Since April, I followed these guidelines in my writings resulting in a large number of my blog posts getting into Google Top 10 (first page) Search Results for several keyword phrases within a week. I published online articles about these phenomena and received skeptical comments from “SEO gurus” claiming that these high rankings were probably due to the age of the website and blog or the numerous incoming links and back links from reputable relevant sites rather than the quality of the content.
How I tested the “E – A – T” guidelines
Meeting the challenge posed by these SEO experts, I decided to experiment by using a brand new (three weeks old) website with no incoming or back links and no online reputation. The only visitors are me and the staff doing maintenance on the website. The name of the website is “Pana Thriller” (http://panathriller.com/) which will be providing speed boat tours in Panama. That’s right; they are not even open for business yet! This is the type of website that search engines would never rank high for its keywords. But, take a look at the screenshot below which is a Google search conducted on October 23, 2016 just five days after the web page I wrote the content for was uploaded on the internet. The keyword phrase is “Panama Bay Night Cruises” and went online on October 18, 2016. In just five days, Google ranked it #9 for that keyword phrase.
Just how in the heck did Google rank a five day old web page on a three week old website with no links and no visitors at #9? The only explanation is the quality of the web page content which meets one of Google’s E – A – T requirements: “Authority”.
Now the SEO critics will claim that it was just dumb luck to be ranked #9, a fluke which will not last long. Take a look at the next screenshot of Google’s Search Rankings for the same keyword phrase conducted on October 31, 2016 (just eight days later) the ranking increased to #6. It ranks higher than the popular "Expedia" travel website.
Today is November 7, 2016. Look at the screenshot below of Google’s Search Rankings for the same keyword phrase and you will see that my client’s web page has moved up from #6 to #5. So, another eight days and Google has increased its ranking to #5.
Forget the old ranking rules
Stop worrying about getting thousands of incoming links from relevant and respectable websites. Don’t waste any more time with back links or internal site linking as Google just doesn’t seem to care anymore. That’s because linking has been abused with so many companies advertising how they can create thousands of links for your websites and blogs. Every time Google algorithms come out it does not take long for companies to find ways to get around them or to abuse them like linking.
I did another experiment
I decided to continue with my experiment. I have a personal blog with a real estate website called “Bigger Pockets” which I use to promote other articles and blog posts I write online. It has no visitors (except me), no keyword meta tags or meta description and it is only a few months old. I decided to publish an article about “Clean Coal Mining Practices in the Midwest” on October 26, 2016.
Look at the screenshot below of the Google Search Results for that blog post. Notice the date of November 1, 2016. It only took Google six days to rank my blog post as #1. In addition, #2 was my Bigger Pockets Profile and ranked #3 was my Google+ posting which promoted my #1 ranked posting. That’s every Google Top 3 Search Rankings for the same keyword phrase all written by me!
Today is November 7, 2016 and I did another search of the same keyword phrase and as you can see below in the screenshot of the Google Search Results, my post is #1 and #2. However, my Google+ is no longer in the Google Top 10. This shows how rapidly Google Top 10 changes.
In addition, today Google also ranks the same blog post for the keyword phrase, "Proper Coal Handling Practices in the Midwest” as #1. See the November 7th screenshot below.
In addition, today I performed another Google search for the keyword phrase “Clean Coal Midwest” where my blog post is ranked #4. Notice all of the government and organizations sites in Google Top 10. My blog post ranked #4 is higher ranked than the U.S. government and the States of Illinois and Ohio organizations. See today’s screenshot below.
My final experiment
Finally, I applied for a content writing job which required a free sample article on a title provided to me. I did not get the job. But, I decided to make this another experiment by publishing the sample article in a website called “Hub Pages” where I had published seven other articles before. None of my past articles there got into Google Top 10. The main keyword phrase is, “Where email is headed as a business tool”. Google ranked it #1 as you can see from my screenshot below on November 1, 2016.
Today, November 7th I did another Google search of the same keyword phrase. It is still ranked by Google as #1 as you can see from the screenshot below.
Conclusion
A new SEO era is upon us.
I broke all of the old SEO rules and still got my web page and blog posts into Google Top 10 with many ranked as #1.
All of the screenshots above prove that Google now gives high rankings to web pages and blog posts in spite of their age on the internet. It no longer matters to Google how many visitors come to the site nor how many links come to or go from the site.
What matters to Google now are the “E – A – T” criteria. Hire “experts” to write your blog posts. Or, be an “expert” on your own. Write with “authority”. Either be an “expert” regarding the topic of a web page or blog post or be an “authority” on the topic; then Google can rate your website or blog along with individual web pages and blog posts as being “trustworthy” for higher rankings.
Copyright © 2016 – Steven Rich, MBA