Is it Possible to get Traffic Without Rankings? - What Users Want
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Users want their needs met, without much fuss and as quickly as possible. Webmasters want to provide their users wit content that meets their needs. A web site that fails to deliver resources to its users will soon lose those users. Sites like Jchq.net and Phpjunkyard.com meet the needs of their users first, webmasters second and search engines last.
Plenty is only found in empty places. Poju Oyemade
Traffic First, Always
You really want traffic? Then there is only one way to generate constant traffic: look for where there is a need. The founder of http://www.jchq.net/ finished his Java Certification exams and was "appalled" at the lack of material online on Java certification exams; he also wanted to fast track his programming career. With no previous experience in Java and an obvious need for Java certification material online, he decided to create a recourse for individuals going for their certification. The presence of Sun Microsystems and various computer science departments did not make "Java" a niche key word, so it was not just a case of picking a variation of a popular keyword. With no deliberate thought, and no concern for monetary profit, he moved into an empty space and filled it.
The traffic came flooding in, taking advantage of this "one stop shop" which contained tons of relevant resources, mock exams and whole books teaching Java (totally free of charge). If you are wondering at how the traffic found him without his getting top rankings, consider that the best evangelists are always satisfied users. Word of mouth alone would have made him a cult figure in programming circles. After the traffic came the web masters, and with the web masters came the links. And of course, finally the search engines gave him his due.
Sleeping With the Enemy
The above sounds easy, but not quite. Users are encouraged to drop links to other Java certification resources; these links are checked and are added to the list of resources that jchq.net offers to its users. This is more or less giving votes to their competition, but this trend of supporting the competition is one I see on a lot of top ranking web pages; just check out all those Wikipedia pages.
Apart from the out bound links counting as positive marks with the search engines, users are relieved that they don't have to go anywhere else. Sites like emulatorzone.com and even blogs like searchengineland.com have quite a comprehensive listing of "competing" sites on their blog roll.
Traffic First, Rankings Later
This is the trend that occurs with all organically optimized sites. Rankings are a reward for their efforts, and not the end in itself. Search engine optimization is all about the search engines; hence it's all about rankings. But why are some of the best optimized sites owned by stay at home moms, young men who dropped out of graduate school, or programmers with day jobs? Simply put, they give users what they want, then give search engines what they want. And when all is said and done, it's all about the content.
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