How to Google Proof Your Website With Propinquity Marketing

Inbound Marketing is overly focused on winning page one SERP (Search Engine Results Page) on Google and to a lesser extent Bing. Inbound Marketers preach that if your company can rank your website for your keywords, then leads, conversions and sales will follow. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t really want you to rank organically and that creates a huge problem. One inbound marketers are ignoring.

Today I want to offer you an alternative strategy — Propinquity and help you understand why Propinquity Marketing is more likely to create success over the short- and long-term for your company by Google Proofing your website.

You’re At War With Google

Google’s mantra may be to do no evil, but when you think about it, their long-term revenue strategy for search ads is diabolical. 91.7% of Google users never go past page 1 of a Google Search [source]. That means, that for ANY keyword, only 10 websites (not companies… web pages) will win the war with Google. So ask yourself if you’re good enough to consistently win that battle.

And it is an ongoing battle. What do a Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird have in common? They’re each a major update that Google pushed since 2011! Three major updates to the SERP algorithm in just THREE years. [source] And that is the point — Google is (and has been) in an ongoing battle with companies that are trying to win the first page of organic search results. And that’s why you must Google Proof your website to ensure the long-term viability of your internet sales strategy.

Google doesn’t make a dime when you’re company web page earns page 1 status. They do however earn money on the 10-13 ads from companies that pay to ensure page 1 placement.

So for Google’s revenue model to work they have to instill fear in companies — fear that failure to reach page 1 will negatively effect revenue. So if you think Google’s going to make it easier to rank, you’re living in a fantasy world. Google will continue to push to deliver 10 great search results and if you’re one of them, you’ll reap the rewards of your content marketing investment. Everyone else though, will pay for the opportunity to be seen because they believe their revenue will suffer if they don’t. They can’t afford to give up that incredibly valuable real-estate to you or their other competitors.

Use Propinquity to Google Proof Your Site

Propinquity Marketing is based on a simple theory. There have and will always be companies and people that are really good at creating audiences. Think about newspapers, magazines, hollywood studios, television stations, bloggers and web sites. That is a special skill and not everyone possesses it or will ever possess it. But Google values them and their communities and rewards them with high SERP results for their content.

A propinquity approach leverages that truism to remove the necessity of winning the Google SERP war for your own content. So instead of trying to win a war you likely can’t win, instead, create relationships with those organizations that have developed target rich audiences, what I call Propinquity Points, and place your content there.

Let those organizations fight the Google fight — chances are because they are bigger, have more social sharing and inbound linking to them than you’ll ever create — they’ll stand a better chance of winning the Google war. So let them win it — with your content.

Think like a Taco Truck, not a restaurant. They both offer the same thing — a meal — but one spends time and money trying to convince diners to come to the mountain. The other (the taco truck) simply takes the mountain to Muhammad and saves a lot of those marketing dollars and time in the process.

Treat Every Blog Like It’s Your Blog

And lastly, when you do publish content on someone else’s website or blog, treat that blog like it’s yours — for that day. Share the content, respond to comments on the blog post, thank folks on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and G+ that share it, etc. Because here is the secret — on that day, there blog IS yours!

And here is an added benefit of this approach. It endears you to the propinquity point owner. They love to see content creators that give back and help promote their website vs just taking advantage of the eyeballs their platform provides to the content creator.

Want to learn more? Go buy my new book, The Invisible Sale, where I’ve given you a field guide for winning the battle for those invisible buyers that are hiding behind the anonymity of a Google search.

I give you a step-by-step process for identifying your Propinquity Points, classifying them and then an entire (almost 100 pages) section on creating the content you’ll need to supply them in order to beat Google and grow your business right now.