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Great SEO is not a substitute for great content. If you're not writing useful, interesting copy then no amount of key word use is going to help you. That's a fact.

Human beings are not machines - and I'm convinced they look out for, book mark and stay with their favourite websites because they're practical, witty, entertaining, challenging, informative, or educational. Their favourite sites also show the human touch. That's one reason why blogs have become so popular. Blogs don't necessarily have to be part of the global, corporate media game. Some are very poorly written, but others have that spark of creativity and heart which can't be gained by search engine optimisation alone.

There's also the point that search engines review and change their rankings from time to time. You may work really hard on optimising your site, but once this happens you might well find yourself at square one and your ranking goes down again. So don't put all your eggs in the search engine optimisation basket. My understanding is that search engine optimisation needs doing repeatedly to have any effect. This is hard work. Otherwise you might as well forget it.

In terms of Internet marketing techniques search engine optimisation has a rival in the stakes - and that's viral marketing. It's an interesting term that - 'viral marketing'. The news about a particular website or blog spreads can spread quickly - like a disease! One person has a friend who tells a friend and so it goes. You build your traffic up exponentially in this way. There's an unusual cultish element about this one somehow. It's about finding what they call a 'niche'.

Mass media is mass media. A television programme is broadcast to millions and millions of viewers and everyone knows about it straight away. I suppose with viral marketing there's almost an element of elitism about it. 'I've found this piece of information which not many people know about, but I'll tell you because you're a friend'....type thing. That's why it's such a huge challenge to traditional search engine optimisation techniques. It can be very effective indeed.

An important element of viral marketing is the 'links' game. You'll find lots of useful information about this on the Helium site in the 'User Guide' section. Some links are supposed to be more valuable than others in terms of building traffic.

So whatever you're planning to write, in the first instance use your creative juices to craft good content. Learn what you feel you need to learn from the search engine optimisation gurus and don't forget the people power of information that's passed by way of word of mouth contact.

Learn more about this author, Frances Laing.
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