How to Get to Page One of Google (Roadmap Architecture)

If you thought that all you have to do is set up some meta tags and hide some keywords in background colors that match the text colors of said keywords, you would have had a chance of getting to page one of Excite or Infoseek. BUT only in the early days when there were only 30,000 total websites on earth!

Google has more computer science PhDs than Stanford and MIT Universities FROM STANFORD AND MIT AND CAL AND HARVARD. They are smarter than your hired “SEO or SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERT.”

So to get through this gate, you have to be smarter than the gatekeeper.

Being smarter than Google PhDs is not as hard as you’d think. For one, Google uses an algorithm. This is a one-size-fits-all formulaic strategy to keep only deserving sites in page one status. What this method leaves are narrow but totally useful and wholesome windows of opportunity.

This is how you climb through a window.

1. Google Favors Their Own Web Properties in Any Search.
Opportunity: If you want to curry Google’s favor, focus on promoting a url hosted on Google’s servers. WordPress, Posterous, and Tumblr aren’t them.

2. Youtube is Still Projectile Bleeding Green Benjamins.
Opportunity: Have you noticed that recently, no matter what you search for, there’s always some Youtube video associated with it at the bottom of the page? Google has to drive traffic to Youtube to make that $1.65 billion investment pay back. Help Google help You. The most slickly greased upwardly mobile google stable urls start with “youtube.com/watch?v=” So if you’re going to spearhead any url for Google love, do a Youtube url. From there, a big smile can redirect all viewers to any other website you desire.

3. Your Competitors are Stupid
Opportunity: (AS AN EXAMPLE – APPLIES TO EVERY SEARCH CAMPAIGN) Adriel Hampton just hit me on a thought about getting to Google’s page 1 under Gov 2.0. He is right on the money. In the Google backend screen grab (I tried to avoid stringing those two words into one sentance) below, you notice something peculiar. “Gov 2″ has 300% more search demand around the world but Marketing and SEO EXPERTS are all competing for the term “government 2.0.” In fact, 300% more people are fighting for that 1/3 size pie. This means that if you focused on getting to page one under the term “government 2.0,” your uphill battle would be 900% tougher (partially because even if you got to the top of the mountain, you’d only get 33% of the traffic you’d get from the “gov 2″ mountian).

enlarge

4. The Top Dogs Are Fangier Than You Think.
Opportunity: None.

If based on #3, you thought you found a golden path into Googirvana, although you’re right, it’s of no value because those pearly gates are guarded by fanged St. Peters: 1) O’Reilly Media 2) Wikipedia 3) The REAL United States Government 4) Techcrunch 5) Microsoft etc…

UNLESS you think smarter than Google’s Phd’s and the fanged St. Peters.

5. You Have a Devout Passionate Niche Base.
Opportunity: 100% Guaranteed to be on page one of Google. I know this from personal experience. It took me 8 months to topple Wikipedia, Sprint, and Verizonwireless to get to page one number one under the term “wireless internet.” This is how I did it.

A. Estabilish base strongholds. Before you compete against 177,000,000 websites,

enlarge

completely dominate your foundation basecamps that are at much lower altitudes.

enlarge

But make sure that the base strongholds are build on the epicenters of passionate evangelists like the above search for “gov 2.0 tweetups.” Notice that you only have 66.100 competing websites for the top spot?

If you’re not buzzing with excitement right now, you’re missing the whole point. Dominating a base camp is not the point. It’s what your basecamp can do that is game changingly exciting. If you become the Prime Minister of all Gov 2.0 Tweetups, you’ll be able to provide a value proposition, an offer they can’t refuse, so that every single passionate Gov 2.0 evangelist will link back to your blog. You will rapidly defang Sts. Peter, Paul, and Mary.

Now, our work is cut out for us.

Adriel, how many unique websites and bloggers can you curry to link to one Youtube video? This will give us an inventory of our firepower. Here’s the first shot: Gov 2.0

UPDATE: Phase One Complete. Adriel in Page One of Google under “Gov 2.0 Meetup” Via this video listing entitled “Gov 2.0 Conferences Meetups…”

NEXT: SEO is a S.C.A.M.