How Did I SEO From Nothing to Page 1?

Prior to January 1, if you sought me on the Internet by searching “Jennifer Ellis” you wouldn’t have had much luck.  To find me you needed to add additional terms such as esquire or PBI.

Now, two short months later, if you search for “Jennifer Ellis” you will find me on the first page of Google, right behind an Opera Singer, a Jazz Singer and some broad Social Media results for Jennifer Ellis.

By the way, a search for “Jennifer Ellis” in Google provides 163,000 results. Jennifer Ellis without the quotes gives 1.9 million results. Clearly my parents were not very original when it came to my name.

How Did I Obtain My Search Ranking?

Rather easily.

1. On January 1, 2011 I started a Blog.
2. About a month later I created this Website
   1. I provided good, solid content on both my Website and in my Blog
   2. I entered my Website in the appropriate search engines
3. I utilized appropriate keywords, including my own name, in my content and in the headers of my Website
4. I took advantage of Social Media sites to further my ranking

What Does This Mean?

In the end, SEO promises from salespeople aside, nothing beats good content with solid keywords that will help search engines such as Google and Bing to find you and give you a high ranking.

I am assisted by the fact that Google has adjusted its algorithm to increase the ranking of sites that actually provide solid content, but I noticed my Website showed up on the first page of Google results prior to the announced changes.

Why Do the Other Jennifers Do Better?

The main difference between me and the Opera Singer and the Jazz Singer is that they happen to have Jennifer Ellis in their domain names.  I do not. I just registered the domains jenniferellis.net and jenniferellis.org.  We will see how having those domains affect my rankings in the next few weeks.

I Breath a Sigh of Relief

Strangely, I have to admit to being a bit relieved I am not first in the results.  The idea of knocking a Soprano Opera Singer off the primary spot somehow seems like a bad idea.

Of course, having viewed Ms. Ellis Kampani’s site and listened to her extraordinary voice, I am sure she is a lovely woman and hopefully will not take offense at my joke.

As it happens, I am quite fond of Baroque music.  Perhaps I will send my name sake an email to say hello.