They're not secret--You should know these SEO facts!

Many webmasters spend a great deal of their time looking for fast and under-the-radar tactics for getting their websites to rank highly. Let me tell you why this strategy so often results in abject failure, and suggest what you can do about it.

Simple SEO Facts

It’s been said to death, but here it is for those who missed it:

1. Google and the gang simply hate gimmicks. If they even think you’re trying to pull the wool over their eyes you’ll get penalized in a heartbeat.
2. A good solid SEO foundation cannot be shaken by a fly-by-night technique that is destined to fail sooner, rather than later.
3. Paid links, no matter what an SEO tells you, will never be equal to an organic link that provides anchor text that his highly relevant to your site (read, uses your keywords here). If users love you and link to you, then the search engines will too.

And now here’s 5 bonus tactics for getting your SEO strategy right first time:

1. Check how long your SEO has been in business. I’m not saying everyone with a new shingle is fly-by-night–they might be legit but simply new to the game. But chances are if they’re brand new they may have found a gimmick that they think will make them a lot of money without any hard work. Simply, they’re gonna fail pretty soon.
2. If your SEO has been in business continually for five years or more, and you can find lots of material written by them on SEO across many SEO or marketing websites, you can be pretty sure they’re the real deal!
3. Take some time to get your keyword research right because nothing pays off quite like keyword research done right.
4. Now take some time to create really outstanding content written around your chosen keywords. Content is still king, and will be for the foreseeable future. Everything revolves around good content. If you do it right, the links willl come and the traffic willl come. Good content is a gift that keeps on giving.
5. Looking for SEO gimmicks? Quite simply, do yourself a favor and forget them. Put in some initial hard work as I’ve just mentioned and you won’t need gimmicks. In the bargain, you will continue to outshine those poor souls who have bought into a gimmick: they will have ultimately wasted their investment of time, money and energy.