The unSEO

Have you heard the latest SEO theory? It's called VEO (Visitor Enhanced Optimization) and it's the anti-SEO. Author and affiliate marketer Colin McDougall has written a book called the VEO Report in which he will share with you the secrets of this revolutionary "new" way of gaining higher search engine rankings.

I haven't read the report (just can't bring myself to shell out $79 for a 64-page ebook, call me cheap), but reviewers who have read it say that with VEO, you don't chase the algorithms, you don't worry about keywords in the copy, you don't use tricks like duplicate content etc.

Instead, you -- are you ready? -- try to please your site visitors. You become an expert in your field so you can fill your site with relevant and helpful articles, and publish those articles far and wide to get the backlinks (and traffic) you need. Create a strong brand and then softsell your stuff.

He calls it the un-SEO guide and I can see why. This is good, sage web marketing advice which has always been rewarded, over time, by the search engines. It isn't SEO although the end result might be better rankings and more traffic. Most of us who are in business for the long term and for the love of it, have been doing it this way for years.

The only downside? It's time consuming and requires a deep knowledge of your product or service. But if you don't feel a passion for the widgets you sell or you aren't a natural-born writer, promoting your site through articles and building your site into a resource mecca isn't going to be easy. You may have to outsource both the passion and the website content writing chores.

But, like the man said, this kind of white hat marketing will have longer lasting effects and you won't risk being penalized for search engine sorcery. Original content has always offered multiple rewards!

Hmmm, sounds like we've been beating the same drum, only Colin had the smarts to turn his strategy into a "Strategy". Well done!