Three Pillars of SEO

In his excellent recent post Ryan Deiss of DrivingTraffic.com talked about the three major elements of successful Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) in Google, which he called these the “Ranking Triad”.  They are:

1. Quality Content
2. Quality Inbound Links
3. Measurable Activity

I prefer to call these three elements the Three Pillars of SEO, because that is what they are.  They support the whole weight of SEO and, like a three-legged stool, they provide a solid and stable platform.

Quality Content

Content is important but it is no use if it is not of good quality.  But what is “good quality”.  The general definition of Quality is “fitness for purpose” and this is no different for content on your website.  It must be fit for purpose.  That means that it should meet the needs of your visitors.  If they are searching for dancing tutorials and arrive at your site and you are trying to sell them real estate, that is not quality.   Quite the opposite.

With Google’s current algorithms it is highly unlikely to occur and your site will not get ranked because Google checks for relevancy.  I describe in detail how to comply with Google’s relevancy checks in my post “Getting to the Top in Google”, which is coming shortly.

So Quality Content should be relevant.  It should also align to the “4Es“, in that it should Empower, Enlighten, Educate or Entertain.

Quality Inbound Links

Quality inbound links can be achieved in many ways but probably the three most effective are:

1. Making manual submissions to directories.
2. Writing blogs
3. Making comments on other peoples blogs

Directories

You can get you blog submitted to directories in order to set up inbound links to your site.  I would advise going for manual submission as these are seen as more “real” by Google.  You could do this yourself but it can be very time consuming.  Better to try a service like www.directorymaximizer.com, who can do this for as little as US$0.14 per directory submission.

I would advise only getting them to submit your site to directories with Google Page Rank of 3 or above.  Also make sure that you provide descriptions to be included in the directories that contain your essential key words and phrases.  Do NOT try and get all of your key words into one directory, use simply one or two key words and phrases per directory.  This will result in higher quality and more relevant links.

Writing Blogs

This is a very effective way of establishing inbound links as the blog, when it is indexed ,will be linked back to your site. If you are including quality content in your blog, then you will get even more links as people will like your content and link back to it. This is most effective if you are hosting your blog on your own site. If you blog is hosted elsewhere, Blogger for example, then all links back to it will be to the hosting site.  However, embedding links in your post, back to relevant pages on your site, will give you inbound links.

Leaving Comments on Blogs

Leaving comments on other peoples blogs is another way of getting inbound links.  Do not leave anonymous comments as they will be of no value to you for links.  Make sure that you provide your name, e-mail and the url for your website (make sure that you start it with http://).  If you leave a quality comment, not only do you get an inbound link, you also get credibility as an expert  in your field.  This in itself will bring people to your site – provided you have provided the link for them to find it!

Measurable Activity

Google loves relevant content and it loves current content.  So, if you have a lot going on on your site with lots of blogging, etc, you will provide the third and final Pillar of SEO – Measurable Activity.

This is where blogging is so powerful, because:

• It provides quality and relevant content
• It provides lots of inbound links
• It provides the activity that Google is looking for

Social Media

One major area that I have not covered for building inbound links is Social Media.  This is a subject for a complete post in its own right that I will publish in the coming weeks.

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