Reality sat in when we figured out that Google didn’t spell luck like the rest of us, who would of thought that L.U.C.K. was spelled any other way. Let me explain our L.U.C.K. for just a minute, there are literally 100’s of company’s nationwide with the same name as ours. One company in particular lives just one state south of us with a piece of prime property that ran beside the busiest highway in the entire state.
He had a HUGE sign with his company name+ his state abbreviation (dot) com, you couldn’t miss it. But by the time the driver by got home to his or her computer they all but forgot to add in the states abbreviation which ultimately took his customer to my website. Now multiply this oops by a couple of hundred times each and every month and I started to think I was doing good, Until I Met Google.
Now don’t get me wrong, Google is so bright and colorful that you almost think it’s your friend and if you just give it what it wants then everything is going to be okay. When I met Google I found out that my luck was indeed dumb luck. My 10 year old domain name was ranked somewhere around 492 out of 1.3 million hits. Again, I’m feeling lucky!
My Google was like a little slot machine, sometimes sucking up to $ 400 dollars a day from our little company. I was all too happy to do it again and again when the money ran out because unlike our television ads we could watch our colorful friend suck the money right out of our pocket. Some of the money I spent went directly to web developers who fed my need like a bad drug habit. I would change my website almost monthly to make it look better or to lay it out differently instead of working on our ranking. After a year or so and $ 12,000 + dollars I finally accepted my work of art that sat mostly in my head until I finally saw it on the world wide web. It was finally done…now if I could just create a better logo instead of this space sucking banner.
I broke the addiction after I ran out of money because I didn’t have a choice. Five months later I came into a little bit of money and wanted to start another company related to my swimming pool construction company. Thankfully, I was scammed out of thousands from a so called developer who found my request on a commonly used bulletin board seeking a “know it all”. If it weren’t for that bad experience I would have never been introduced to my current developer who ultimately over delivered on his final product to our company.
Because of this new relationship I learned about PR ratings, domain age, article submission (what I’m doing now) and back links but none of it was a full class on what to do. After all, I was a blue collar swimming pool construction guy and he was the web geek.
The down economy has turned into a good thing in a way. I have visions just like any other entrepreneur but this time I’m on a very restricted budget. I have spent hundreds of hours reading and researching what and where I needed to go to fight my colorful Google friend. Google has kept my 10 year old domain at 492 (or what ever) for too long and I was determined to fight to keep it from sinking any further! My goal is to be on page 1 within 90 days. Today is mid August, 2009.
It’s not as if I refuse to pay someone $ 300 to $ 1500 per month to do it for me, it’s because I can’t afford to. Believe you me, if I could I would just to have avoided all of the bogus articles on software that was designed to do nothing but spin you into buying. I have purchased so much software that I have become an expert at being an idiot. I have learned one thing, when they emphasize on selling you on the fact that you can do it at home…it’s true. As long as you’re willing to do cross referencing research on what they’re talking about when you open the new toy. NOTHING has been a “push one button” golden sword and who ever develops it will rule the world!
In the last ten years I have built custom homes and 0,000 + dollar swimming pools and it’s nice to see those projects get accomplished. But I sit here to tell you that nothing felt better than when I realized that I moved from page 50 to page 1 on one of my key words. This was an accomplishment that most readers might take for granted, but to me it made Google look a little less threatening.
