There is nothing more confusing than trying to understand SEO (search engine optimization). For every opinion found about SEO, a counter argument is sure to arise. And make no mistake, SEO is vital to internet success. Anyone who has been following my website knows that I have been putting all of my research on self employment ideas to the test. I even purchased a set of tutorials from a well reviewed expert to expedite my business start-up. So, how is it going?

In my last article I mentioned that I was rapidly moving-up in Google’s rankings for my specific keyword search. Well, I not only cracked the top twenty websites for my keyword search after a couple of weeks, but I actually earned a few dollars from clicks on my site. I knew this had to be too easy, and it was. The following morning my website fell off the map when I typed in my keywords. I could not find it, anywhere. It was time for more research.

I visited several forums to find answers to what had occurred. Possible causes ranged from being sandboxed by Google to an interesting theory presented by a few expert posts. My first response to the information that I acquired from my research was to revisit Google’s webmaster guidelines. After determining that I had not violated any of their guidelines, the theory presented by the "few experts" I mentioned earlier became more plausible.

The theory is that Google actually gives a boost to new websites after their initial launch. Unfortunately, the honeymoon soon comes to an end. The theory then postulates that the website must now stand on its own. Although know one can be sure of any search engine’s precise methods, it would appear to be the case in my circumstance. It became clear that I needed to further employ the techniques learned from the tutorials I had purchased.

My first step was to determine whether my site was still indexed with Google. To my relief, it was. Now, I needed to find-out where my site could now be found. For this I enlisted the help of a tool that I discovered online. It turns-out that my site was now on page forty-eight for my keyword search on Google. This is not good, but considering the time that elapsed while I conducted my research into the matter, this may be a huge improvement from where my site originally fell-to after the honeymoon ended. So, where is my website ranked right-now?

As I write this article, my website has moved-up to page thirty-nine. It seems to be moving-up very quickly. I, of course, am adding new articles and content to push my site up in the rankings, as well as to attract new traffic. This is just further proof that there is no magic bullet when it comes to internet marketing. The only real success, when searching self employment ideas online, comes from testing, optimization, and cold hard research. As I mentioned earlier, SEO is vital to internet success. Beware of any advice that suggests otherwise.