[tweetmeme]I was recently invited to the NEC to give a 20-minute seminar to those gathered for the annual PROMOTA trade show.

It was an interesting day as I was also called in as a “Business Expert” to provide free, hands-on advice to attendees.

The only question everyone asks me at these kind of shows is: How can I get to the top of Google? My answer: stop trying!

It may sound a little simple and stupid, but in most cases, the people asking have neither the time or budgets to make it worthwhile.

If you’re a small business with the goal of being at the top spot (or close to it) in Google, in certain cases you will need more than a couple of hundred pounds every month to get there!

In other cases you might not need a thing: Google “professional connections” and look for www.xon.cc… that’s a client of mine who hasn’t paid a penny for SEO!

So what’s the solution? Well, there’s no easy way to say this… be content with the position you’re in.

I’m not saying that being number one won’t bring you more sales… statistics show that it does. But don’t let your desire for the podium allow you to become disappointed in your lacklustre performance.

Remember, enterprising small businesses have made a decent living way before Google and will continue to do so.

If you can find the time to work on improving your online presence yourself (or with resources within your organisation), do it. There’s plenty of advice online to guide you in the right direction and many small companies are succeeding with this.

No matter what position you have on Google, sales aren’t guaranteed – after all, people only buy what they need/want and being at the top of a search is no guarantee of quality or competitiveness.

Also, being at the top of a results page for a particular Google search is still no guarantee that you’ll be seen or that users will click through!

It’s like having your company name on a slither of paper at the top of a pile of other names on similar slithers, in a box with a label on it, stowed away in an old library basement archives section – sat there… waiting in earnest for someone to dig it up.

Even if you managed to get the archivist to put you on top, there’s still no guarantee that anyone will see your label or that they’ll do anything with it when they do!

Image: Andersen library archives © dancypants

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UPDATE 11.03.2010:
Some interesting related articles were published today that you might find useful. I feel they back up my point quite well. Check out Nick Pettit’s SEO is a terrible idea and Paul Boag’s response to the question Does Google Personalised Listings Affect Your Ranking?

UPDATE: We’re opening it up to a greater audience. So even if you’re not tech/web related, feel free to come along anyway.

Yesterday whilst I was in the office (also known as The Vortex), I was reading my Twitter stream — as I so often do — and I came across this tweet from @bostinbloke.

As the office is not far away from where he was, I invited him over for a cup of tea.

To my surprise, just moments later, I got a tweet from @hollie_matthews — another Oldbury native.

To cut a long story short, this started a day-long conversation which resulted in our founding a new #tweetup and our first get-together is next Thursday.

Here’s the full run-down:

9.45am Thursday 3rd December 2009 @ Network Si
3 Demuth Way
Oldbury
West Midlands
B69 4LT

Entrance is free, but we only have about 25 spaces so leave a comment or tweet me and I’ll let you know if you can come along.

As this is the first meetup, we’ll be starting with tea and hopefully biscuits and just see what everyone wants to do. Nothing too formal, just a bit of networking with a heavy focus on tech and web.

Let’s see how it evolves!

Sponsored by FlipStorm and Network Si