The SEO experiment
Some time ago (in a galaxy…yeah yeah), I wrote 2 posts about how through complete coincidence I was ranking number 1 in Google for the search phrase worlds most brainy person and how I wanted to take that a step further and try for number 1 for the phrases worlds best web designer and worlds best brand consultant.
Now the first result was complete coincidence thanks to a post about a spammer who got caught and my sarcastic comments, but the other terms have turned into a bit of an SEO experiment and I just wanted to issue a bit of an update on how things have developed since.
So how am I ranking? Well, first off, try typing in Brainy person and see who comes up. Yep, me, it seems based on my resulting posts and traffic Google has focused in on just those 2 words within the original phrase. Now I’m not exactly sure why, it could be that the Google algorithm tries to truncate search phrases and has identified the 2 most important words of the phrase, based on peoples searches, and adjusted the results accordingly.
What about the other phrases? Well as I haven’t blogged as much about them, they aren’t doing quite as well, for example worlds best web designer only ranks me number 1 for ‘pages from the UK’ and has me 14th for ‘all the web’ which is interesting as I am based in the UK, even though my primary domain is .com. The other phrase worlds best brand consultant is the least featured and hasn’t had a dedicated post (with title, which does make a difference) and is still ranking really well, 8th for ‘the web’ and 3rd for ‘pages from the UK’.
So, as you can see, without paying for any advertising, using well thought out phrases, good web design and a bit of coincidence it is possible to get Google to work for you. Indeed this post will now affect the search rankings and probably improve them based on Google taking note of increased content of the phrases and keywords. As web designers we are always looking for insights into how Google works and it’s only by experimenting we can see exactly how it reacts and so the experiment continues.
David Jackson said:
How’s tricks mate? The website looks sweet - all those hours at Scottish Life must’ve paid off!! How’s the new job goin? You’re now only the 7th “Worlds best web designer” in the UK. I hope this is sent over an SSL connection seeing as it’s got my email address on.
Darren Alawi said:
Hi Dave, cheers, glad you are visiting. Job is great, busy, but really good. My listing has dropped recently because I re-organised my blog. Give it time and it will get back up there. Your email is sent via Secured SMTP, so you don’t have to worry!
Francisco C said:
Great Stuff! This is great, i’ve always known that theres no super crazy thing about SEO (maybe i’m still missing it) but it seems that if you write your code using h1, atl, etc. you can get pretty high. SEO is an option our clients are afraid of because of the $ but they want it somehow someway. Great find though. I think I will try “Los Angeles best Web Designer”.
Darren Alawi said:
It is simpler than most think and clients who pay so called ‘SEO specialists’ are being cheated really. Give it a go, keep things simple and let Google do the work for you, good look.