Search engines are mysterious and unpredictable. One day you might be on the top of the SERPs and the next day you might be on page ten. The most frustrating part of the sudden change is that you did everything you thought they wanted. You've submitted your site to hundreds of directories and spend a lot of time doing link exchanges. Isn't that what they want? A lot of links?

After hours and hours of hard work you now have to start over. You have to try to read the search engine's mind and guess what they want from you. These sudden changes remind you of dating a very attractive yet temperamental maniac. Your whole livelihood depends on the traffic that comes to your website. When your site disappears from the front page of the SERPs the affects are financially devastating.

The worst part of the whole thing is that you can't ditch the search engines…or can you? Much like dating a temperamental maniac, the less you act like you need them the more they cling to you. The moment you turn back and pay them attention the more they don't want you. It's a confusing and frustrating cycle and the only way out of it is to get out all together.

The first step to ditch the search engines is to redefine your motives. Your motive in the past might have been to make the search engines happy. From now on you need to focus on making people happy. Instead of spending hours and hours building links (that nobody clicks on) with link exchanges and dead-end directories, spend hours and hours thinking of and writing great content. This content should be published on your website and on the Internet with links back to your site. As you write great content and publish it people will recognize your name and your sites name. Those same people will pick up your articles and will give you even more backlinks (without all the headaches).

After you've switched to being people focused find where your target market hangs out. If you are starting a photography website you might consider posting pictures on Flickr and other photo related websites. Next search for forums and other places where enthusiast are actively communicating with each other. After you've found a forum and you've made your presence known try to find some blogs that are related to your topic. Consider contacting the Blogger who leads the field in you area of interest. Try to swap links with them if you feel your website will truly benefit his readers and vise versa.

As you leave comments on communities, forums, and blogs make sure people can read more by adding a link to your website. Think of these links as your only way to get traffic (because you've ditched the search engines remember). The more targeted and relevant your links are the more traffic comes from them. The more obscure and unrelated the less traffic will come.

If you follow these steps to ditch the search engines in the end they will love you. They love sites that post great content regularly, have relevant links, and that build links over time. By ditching the search engines you get more traffic from more places. And if the a search engine ever leaves you again, you won't care, because you've got so much love coming from so many other places.