To this very day, years after Excite, Infoseek, and Altavista are done and gone, I still hear prospective clients tell me that they are considering working with an "SEO expert" who will "optimize their landing page" and their "meta tags" so that they get millions of "Google eyeballs" from the "information super highway."

Excuse me while I go barf (and gag) (all at the same time).

So I decided, once and for all, to lay down this manifesto of 9 Dark Trade Secrets of Google SEO. This is actually very selfish move on my part. I'm doing this so I don't have to keep explaining how SEO really works to my marketing clients every single time we have our first "getting to know you meeting."

From now on, this blog post will be required reading for anyone who wants my firm to take them online and sell.

the 9 Dark Trade Secrets of Google SEO

1. Google does not care what you say
 When Google says that they want to approximate human ranking by using a scalable algorithm, they mean it. Let's say you meet a gorgeous woman and she tells you she's a fantastic cook. Do you believe her? Let's say you're a woman and some greasy Italian dude comes up to you and tells you he's a lover fantastico. Do you believe him?

Google doesn't care (much) about what you say on your site. This means meta tags are worthless. Google cares what other people say about you (much more).

2. The client (you) are always wrong
When I ask a client what keyword term they want to own in Google, not once has a response been a phrase that anyone would actually search. A biotech client wanted me to get them in page one of Google under "prostatitis." Nobody but clinicians and med students google "prostatitis!" The average 50 year old Italian dude google "prostate problem."

When selecting a key term, work from the perspective of the seeker--not the seller.

3. Use Google Adsense tools to select your target key words
Google has this nifty tool that tells you exactly how much traffic any key word gets. Use it. It not only tells you how many people (relatively) search for a term, Google even tells you how many of your competitors are trying to show up under that same search.

So strategically, I always start with medium competitive terms with moderate search volume to get my clients some immediate revenues. Then after I've locked them down, go after the really big boys.

4. It takes 3 days to show up on Google Page One Results 
It doesn't take 3 months. It doesn't take 6 months. If you were told by some SEO Expert that he needs a retainer for 6 months to get you on page one of Google under any term, run. Fast.

High competition terms do indeed take months to build up to. But any low to medium competitive term takes only 3 days.

5. Blog comment spam is worthless
If you have a wordpress blog, you know how many people spam you with comments linking to their sites. It's all worthless. Most all blogging platforms now come with new and improved "REL=NOFOLLOW." This means that Google will not spider follow any links in the comments of any blog. Worthless. And yet, "SEO Experts" still do it.

6. Reddit follows. Digg doesn't.
If you want to submit your site to any of the crowdsourced larger news sites like Reddit and Digg, pick Reddit. Digg is plagued with the infamous "REL=NOFOLLOW" tag. Reddit is not. 

7. Twitter is exceptional
Twitter is almost 100% NOFOLLOW. But... just because Google and Bing doesn't follow a link doesn't mean it won't inventory every instance of that link. In other words, if you've been following http://twitter.com/journik ... you've noticed that many times, I don't shorten a link. I just tweet out the whole link. Well, I do that because links pushed out through Twitter get indexed in about 3 minutes--even if they don't help your PAGERANK.  

8. Organic DNA: Google reverse engineers their Algorithm
This sounds way more complex than it is. In fact, it's so simple, it's beyond most people's comprehension.

Think about it. If you were to naturally, socially, and organically get tons of press leading to your website. What do you think the link dispersion would look like?

a) you'd get a lot of blogs talking about your site.

b) you'd get a lot of forums discussing and shibba talking your site.

c) you'd see tons of tweets about it.

d) and you'd probably see hundreds of mentions of your link in sites like facebook.

Sure, facebook and twitter are nofollow... refer to #7 again.

Here's the part most people never realize and overlook... you'd also see your link in emails. Your link would streak across the web like snails on your patio window after a rain.

If your SEO campaign forgets to include email links, you're obviously a counterfeit. It's a simple criteria but true. After all, why do you think Google went to such extremes to control email with Gmail?

To Be Continued... Gotta run into a meeting

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