Google is like an excellent journalist - only less corruptible

The key to ranking high on Google is not to satisfy the search engine, but to satisfy your target audience: You have an interview for a job. Your fingers are itching to show your best side: A little of this, a hint of that, but not too much - but not too little either. A touch of sexiness, a hint of traditional prudery - but definitely professional. You behave in a way that you think is expected of you, and at the end you walk out of the room having put on an ultra-artificial toothpaste smile the whole time, which would make very few people feel trustworthy - neither you nor the other person. It feels about as uncomfortable as a non-latex fetishist putting on a full-body latex bodysuit - no one will buy it.How journalists evaluate articlesMedia relations and search engine optimization (SEO) work in roughly the same way. If you don't primarily want to pick up the relevant target group in terms of content and authenticity, it won't work.Journalists generally don't publish articles because they judge them subjectively and think they are good. Articles are published in a magazine or newspaper if the readers of the medium find it relevant, interesting and topical.Keeping an eye on the target groupI notice time and again that the target group - namely the reader and not the journalist - is completely "forgotten" when writing content. Search engine optimization (SEO) works in exactly the same way when it comes to the frequently expressed desire "to be ranked at the top of Google." Compared to a journalist, Google is simply an artificially highly intelligent machine that (the longer the more) is even less willing to compromise or even bribe than a journalist made of flesh and blood.Why Google does its job wellGoogle is the top dog for a reason and dominates the global search engine market with almost 90 percent. It actually makes sense that Google is the market leader. Because the company does one thing very well in particular: Google is interested in providing its users with relevant, up-to-date and interesting content within a fraction of a second. If Google didn't do an excellent job at this, we users would get annoyed - and look for an alternative. And lo and behold, Google would no longer be the top dog. For those who are now crying out loud: "Yes, but with Google AdWords you simply pay Google a lot of money - and you still appear at the top". Unfortunately not. The same rules apply to paid advertising (Google AdWords or SEA).Why trick Google?Some call Google a nasty black box, others believe they can trick the search engine's artificial intelligence with the average human IQ. Both approaches are perfectly legitimate and sometimes understandable - but generally not very helpful. Activating normal common sense can be much more helpful.And this is how it works:1. take time to get clear about your actual target group.2. visualize it and, ideally, create so-called personas on paper (a detailed definition of the target group).3. write your content (whether for web or print) for exactly these personas and for no one else.Actually simple, right?