SEO tips
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Facts About Title Keyword Density
Page Optimization, Google, MSN
If you’ve done much SEO work for your website, I’m sure you’ve realized just how important it is to include the right text in the <> tag of each page.
As discussed in this article, it is a good idea to build each of your pages around its own primary keyphrase, and somehow incorporate that keyphrase into your <> tag. The question is, of course, what’s the best way to integrate it? The problem is that each search engine has its own unique answer.
MSN (aka Live.com) is generally thought to reward very high keyword density, and often grants top-five rankings to pages with 100% density in the title (that is, pages where the primary keyphrase is the only thing in the title bar).
Google, on the other hand, seems to make a point of devaluing pages on keywords that exactly match their <> tag. This measure was most likely introduced as a way to fight search engine spammers who over-optimize for a single phrase, by excessively placing it in their content, headings, and title.
Overall, you need to make an informed decision about which optimization route you want to take for each of your sites. As mentioned in the algorithm summaries, MSN is a good choice for driving short-term traffic and revenue, while Google has a lot more potential for long-term sustainable content websites.
If you want to optimize for Google, my advice would be to go for title keyword density of around 50%, and no greater than 75%. For example, if your primary keyphrase is three words long, you many wish to add another three-word phrase to your title, consisting of secondary keywords.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help Yourself: Link Back Home
Category: Page Optimization
This is pretty obvious from a design point of view, but it’s important to remember the SEO benefits as well.
When designing a website, you should try and have a text link back to your homepage on every page of the site. Flash and Java navigation is (usually) okay from a user point of view, but can’t be used by search engine spiders, meaning that you should always include a text link as well.
Where possible, use relevant anchor text in your home page links (dropping in a primary site-wide keyword or two), rather than just using a boring and non-descriptive “Home” link.
As the most important page in your site, there is no doubt that the home page deserves a good backlink from each and every page in your navigation structure. This is one of the easiest ways to create a good internal linking arrangement, and make it easier for search engines to index your site.
Keep in mind that this strategy isn’t just limited to your home page, but can also be applied to other important pages of your site. For example, if you have a blog and want to increase the ranking of a particular article, you could give it a side-wide link on all of your previous post pages.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Truth About Meta Tags and SEO
Page Optimization
The meta description and keywords tags are often seen as some of the most basic ways to optimize. But are they so basic as to be obsolete?
The short answer is that meta tags are no longer a requirement, and serve very little practical purpose in SEO. This is because they serve absolutely no role whatsoever in the ranking algorithms of Google or MSN, and play a very small part in the algorithm used by Yahoo.
This does not mean, however, that adding meta tags is completely useless. Even though it doesn’t count towards ranking, Google sometimes shows it to users on SERPs (search engine result pages).
Meta keywords are, if nothing else, a good organizational tool. I for one am a great believer in the value of sketching out lists of keywords and keyphrases that you want to optimize for, and keeping track of them on a page-by-page basis. So what better place to put them than on the page itself? This is an especially handy touch for plain HTML sites with no database, where you have to edit each page individually.
Despite the fact that meta tags are virtually obsolete for ranking, there is no doubt that they still have a few useful side benefits. Whether it is worth it to add these tags needs to be decided on a site-by-site basis, and largely depends on the amount of time involved.
As long as you use them in moderation, meta tags won’t damage your rankings. They won’t help them either, however, so if you are adding them to beef up your keyword density, you will almost certainly be disappointed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Google Search Algorithm
Generally thought of as the “smartest” (and strictest) search engine, Google invented the link popularity system that many other algorithms are based on today.
Despite plenty of competition, Google has always managed to stay ahead of the game, delivering what are widely accepted as the most accurate and reliable results.
How Google ranks a site still depends largely on its incoming links, but the system has evolved and shifted a number of times over the years. It now depends a lot less on raw quantity of incoming links (pagerank) and more on quality, that is how targeted and relevant each link is to the site’s content. The anchor text of incoming links is also given a high importance.
Google’s algorithm is also very good at differentiating high quality content from spam, meaning that a page with little or no value won’t have much chance of ranking well, regardless of its incoming links. The system is designed to pick up red flags, such as abnormally high keyword density in a page’s title or content, and penalize pages that exhibit too many “spammy” attributes.
Another apparent trait of Google’s algorithm is that it is very tough on new and unestablished sites. When the engine first locates a new site, it often puts it under a temporary penalty called the “Google sandbox,” which prevents it from ranking for anything for the first three to six months. This doesn’t affect all sites, but is very common, and seems to be triggered whenever Google detects any red flags on a new website.
One thing that is know to trigger the sandbox is a sudden significant increase in your quantity of incoming links. In general, you’re much better off to build links to your site slowly and steadily if you don’t want to “spook” Google and incur the sandbox or another penalty.
All in all, Google’s ranking algorithm is one of the hardest to impress. Your site will probably need a good amount of high quality content before you can rank well for anything competitive, so don’t get discouraged if you don’t get instant results.
Once you do earn some strong rankings in Google, you’ll probably find them quite stable and sustainable compared with other search engines. The trick is to write good content, get a few highly relevant links, and stick with your SEO strategy for the long term.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo Search Algorithm
For years, Yahoo has striven to be more like its leading rival, Google, resulting in a ranking algorithm that looks very similar to that of the Mountain View giant.
Yahoo rankings are generally quite reliable and stable, and the SERPs don’t fluctuate nearly as much as those of MSN. Like Google, Yahoo places a lot of weight on inbound links, considering both quality and quantity of links, as well as anchor text.
Another way in which Yahoo and Google are very similar is the so called “sandbox” penalty, which often makes it difficult for new sites to get good rankings. In my experience, Yahoo’s penalty on new sites can last even longer than Google’s, and can affect even large and high quality sites for months after their launch.
One way in which Yahoo still trails Google is in its ability to differentiate between high quality content sites, and search engine spam. Yahoo is much more inclined to rank a low quality site simply because it has a high count of inbound links.
Overall, I find that Yahoo takes a quite a while to rank sites, but once attained, rankings aren’t hard to sustain, even for sites with a minimal amount of content. If you have the ability to point a lot of inbound links at your site, then wait patiently, you probably have a good chance at getting competitive Yahoo rankings.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MSN Search Algorithm
In my experience, MSN is by far the easiest search engine to work with if you’re looking for quick rankings with minimal regard for content quality.
MSN’s ranking algorithm seems to put a lot of emphasis on sheer quantity of incoming links, and very little on link relevance and anchor text.
In terms of page optimization, it is important to remember that Microsoft’s search technology puts a huge emphasis on certain parts of each web page. The <> tag, for example, is crucial for getting a good ranking, while the heading tags (<>, <>, etc.) also play a major role.
One thing that MSN seems to pay almost no attention to is keyword density, meaning that placing a single keyword many times over (within reason) on the same page is probably more likely to help your ranking than hurt it. Keyword density of over 10%, which would mean almost certain death in Google, will often result in a pleasant boost for your MSN rankings.
Unlike Google’s ranking system, MSN’s algorithm doesn’t seem to a very high keyword density in the <> tag. In fact, putting a short and to-the-point primary keyphrase (100% density) as your title is an excellent way to achieve top-three rankings for moderately competitive keywords.
The other benefit of MSN is its lack of a penalty specifically affecting new sites. Old and well-established websites have virtually no advantage in Microsoft’s algorithm, meaning that a brand new site can rank well in a matter of days, without fear of the crippling “sandbox” penalties inflicted by Google and Yahoo.
MSN is also a fresh content junkie, meaning that frequently updated sites have a huge advantage. Sites that aren’t changed for a matter of several weeks or months will see their rankings decline noticeably between updates. Because of this, as well as the generally unpredictable and volatile nature of the algorithm, MSN rankings are much easier to obtain, yet harder to sustain, than rankings in Yahoo or Google.
All things considered, MSN is still an evolving entity, and isn’t anywhere near as popular as Google or even Yahoo. The Microsoft engine is a good bet if you’re looking to drum up some quick, cash-generating rankings, but for a long-term and sustainable stream of traffic, you’d be better off to focus your SEO efforts on Google and/or Yahoo.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5 Quick, easy and effective SEO tips for bloggers
This week I’ve been carry out some much needed SEO work on Blogstorm to make sure the site has everything in place to continue to rank well in 2008. Here are some of the tips you can follow to make your site rank higher this year.
Carry out a site audit
Visit Google and do a search for site:yoursite.com. The only pages that come up should be your post/article pages and any other high quality pages people might want to find. You shouldn’t have archives, search pages, category pages, tag pages or any other pages that are unlikely to rank highly on Google. Remove them from the index using the following meta tag:
Stop keyword cannibalisation
Many large blogs such as and Engadget link to their category pages such as http://www.engadget.com/tag/iphone/ from every iPhone related post. Notice how the tag page doesn’t rank when you search for “iPhone” but a real article ranks in 6th place? That’s because Google wants to rank stories highest and not category pages. If Engadget was to link all posts about the iPhone to a real page instead then they would rank second. If they did the same with all products the effect would be huge.
Carry out some keyword research and figure out what pages you want to rank highly and then make sure any other post referencing that topic is linked to the target post. For example if I wanted this page to rank for the query htaccess I would find every page on my blog mentioning the word “htaccess” and turn each word into a link to the target article.
Optimise your results
Look back at the keywords that have been sending you the most traffic and examine the search results for those keywords. If you aren’t number 1 then point a few more links at the page to improve your rankings.
Next look at the other results compared to yours. Is your title appealing to searchers? Does the snippet make people want to click? Are you even writing about the subject people are looking for?
Change your titles
A blog post title has to fulfil several roles. In the first week it has to attract as many readers and links as possible and maybe get traffic from social media. After that you should look to changing the title to target certain keywords. For example you might publish the “Top 10 Best Methods to Fix an iPhone” which would be good for getting traffic but not so good for ranking. As Graywolf said earlier this week you should look to changing your page title to “Fix an iPhone - Top 10 Methods” but keep the h1 tag as it was before.
Promote top pages
Check your logs to find the most popular pages on your site. Have they all been submitted to StumbleUpon and Digg? Try submitting them with social media friendly titles and see if you can make them even more popular.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What's an SEO? Does Google recommend working with companies that offer to make my site Google-friendly?
SEO is an abbreviation for "search engine optimizer." Many SEOs and other agencies and consultants provide useful services for website owners, from writing copy to giving advice on site architecture and helping to find relevant directories to which a site can be submitted. However, a few unethical SEOs have given the industry a black eye through their overly aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to unfairly manipulate search engine results.
While Google doesn't have relationships with any SEOs and doesn't offer recommendations, we do have a few tips that may help you distinguish between an SEO that will improve your site and one that will only improve your chances of being dropped from search engine results altogether.
- Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue.
Amazingly, we get these spam emails too:
"Dear google.com,
I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories..."Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engines as you do for "burn fat at night" diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.
- No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.
Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or through the Google Sitemaps program, and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever.
- Be careful if a company is secretive or won't clearly explain what they intend to do.
Ask for explanations if something is unclear. If an SEO creates deceptive or misleading content on your behalf, such as doorway pages or "throwaway" domains, your site could be removed entirely from Google's index. Ultimately, you are responsible for the actions of any companies you hire, so it's best to be sure you know exactly how they intend to "help" you.
- You should never have to link to an SEO.
Avoid SEOs that talk about the power of "free-for-all" links, link popularity schemes, or submitting your site to thousands of search engines. These are typically useless exercises that don't affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines -- at least, not in a way you would likely consider to be positive.
- Some SEOs may try to sell you the ability to type keywords directly into the browser address bar.
Most such proposals require users to install extra software, and very few users do so. Evaluate such proposals with extreme care and be skeptical about the self-reported number of users who have downloaded the required applications.
- Choose wisely.
While you consider whether to go with an SEO, you may want to do some research on the industry. Google is one way to do that, of course. You might also seek out a few of the cautionary tales that have appeared in the press, including this article on one particularly aggressive SEO: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2002002970_nwbizbriefs12.html. While Google doesn't comment on specific companies, we've encountered firms calling themselves SEOs who follow practices that are clearly beyond the pale of accepted business behavior. Be careful.
- Be sure to understand where the money goes.
While Google never sells better ranking in our search results, several other search engines combine pay-per-click or pay-for-inclusion results with their regular web search results. Some SEOs will promise to rank you highly in search engines, but place you in the advertising section rather than in the search results. A few SEOs will even change their bid prices in real time to create the illusion that they "control" other search engines and can place themselves in the slot of their choice. This scam doesn't work with Google because our advertising is clearly labeled and separated from our search results, but be sure to ask any SEO you're considering which fees go toward permanent inclusion and which apply toward temporary advertising.
- Talk to many SEOs, and ask other SEOs if they'd recommend the firm you're considering.
References are a good start, but they don't tell the whole story. You should ask how long a company has been in business and how many full time individuals it employs. If you feel pressured or uneasy, go with your gut feeling and play it safe: hold off until you find a firm that you can trust. Ask your SEO firm if it reports every spam abuse that it finds to Google using our spam complaint form at http://www.google.com/contact/spamreport.html. Ethical SEO firms report deceptive sites that violate Google's spam guidelines.
- Make sure you're protected legally.
Don't be afraid to request a refund if you're unsatisfied with your SEO's performance. Make sure you have a contract in writing that includes pricing. The contract should also require the SEO to stay within the guidelines recommended by each search engine for site inclusion.
What are the most common abuses a website owner is likely to encounter?
One common scam is the creation of "shadow" domains that funnel users to a site by using deceptive redirects. These shadow domains often will be owned by the SEO who claims to be working on a client's behalf. However, if the relationship sours, the SEO may point the domain to a different site, or even to a competitor's domain. If that happens, the client has paid to develop a competing site owned entirely by the SEO.
Another illicit practice is to place "doorway" pages loaded with keywords on the client's site somewhere. The SEO promises this will make the page more relevant for more queries. This is inherently false since individual pages are rarely relevant for a wide range of keywords. More insidious, however, is that these doorway pages often contain hidden links to the SEO's other clients as well. Such doorway pages drain away the link popularity of a site and route it to the SEO and its other clients, which may include sites with unsavory or illegal content.
What are some other things to look out for?
There are a few warning signs that you may be dealing with a rogue SEO. It's far from a comprehensive list, so if you have any doubts, you should trust your instincts. By all means, feel free to walk away if the SEO:
- owns shadow domains
- puts links to their other clients on doorway pages
- offers to sell keywords in the address bar
- doesn't distinguish between actual search results and ads that appear in search results
- guarantees ranking, but only on obscure, long keyword phrases you would get anyway
- operates with multiple aliases or falsified WHOIS info
- gets traffic from "fake" search engines, spyware, or scumware
- has had domains removed from Google's index or is not itself listed in Google
If you feel that you were deceived by an SEO in some way, you may want to report it.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) handles complaints about deceptive or unfair business practices. To file a complaint, visit: http://www.ftc.gov/ and click on "File a Complaint Online," call 1-877-FTC-HELP, or write to:
Federal Trade Commission
CRC-240
Washington, D.C. 20580
If your complaint is against a company in another country, please file it at http://www.econsumer.gov/.
Posted by gzleus 4:35 PM
0 comments:
