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Holiday Tales: 10 SEO Search-Ranking Myths

By Tola Ajayi in Featured

SEO myths become larger every year. Some are based partially in reality, and others have spread because it’s often difficult to prove what particular SEO action caused a resulting search engine reaction.

For example, you might make a change to something on a page of your site, and a few days later notice that your ranking in Google for a particular keyword phrase has changed. You might naturally assume that your page change is what caused the ranking change. But that’s not necessarily so. There are numerous reasons why your ranking may have changed, and in many cases they actually have nothing to do with anything that you did.

Mixing up cause and effect is one of the most common things new SEOs do. If it were affecting only their own work, it wouldn’t be so bad, but unfortunately, the clueless often spread their misinformation to other unsuspecting newbies on forums and blogs, which in turn creates new myths. It’s always interesting to see how people are so willing to believe anything they have read or heard without ever checking it out for themselves.

Myth 1: You should submit your URLs to search engines. This may have helped once upon a time, but it’s been at least 5 or 6 years since that’s been necessary.

Myth 2: You need a Google Sitemap. If your site was built correctly, i.e., it’s crawler-friendly, you certainly don’t need a Google Sitemap. It won’t hurt you to have one, and you may be interested in Google’s other Webmaster Central Tools, but having a Google Sitemap isn’t going to get you ranked better.

How to Optimize Copy When You Can’t Use Keywords

By Karon Thackston in Featured

What’s the first thing you think of when writing with keywords? Probably one of the first is that keywords and phrases are descriptive of the products and/or services you’re writing about. But, what happens in those circumstances where you can’t (or don’t really want to) use your chosen keyphrases descriptively?

Is Your Product/Service Really Cheap?

One of the primary things that causes this dilemma is the word “cheap.” There’s a big difference between somebody typing “cheap travel insurance” into a search engine query field and you calling your own insurance cheap. Nobody really wants “cheap” insurance. That brings up images of companies that go out of business, don’t return calls, fight you on paying claims, etc.

What customers want is inexpensive or affordable insurance. Problem is, in their haste, they type in the first thing that comes to mind. Average Joe doesn’t understand that search engines are (in part) matching the words in their query to words on web pages. “Cheap travel insurance” may be the keyphrase you want and need to target, but you certainly don’t want to label your own product as “cheap.” What else can you do?

Use that search term with the opposite meaning.

Perhaps your copy could read something like this:

Affordable? Budget-friendly? Absolutely! But this is certainly not cheap travel insurance. Coverage is underwritten by one of the most trusted and well-respected companies. With this policy, you’ll find benefits comparable to more expensive coverage, but with rates at, or below what the cheap travel insurance companies charge.

See the difference? Instead of writing “We sell cheap travel insurance,” and degrading your product in the eyes of your customer, you actually use the search term to elevate your product to a higher level of quality.

Legalities That Get in the Way

Another issue with many keyphrases is that they violate government regulations if used to describe a product. You find this often with health supplements. The FDA (and other such agencies around the world) has a long list of what manufacturers can and cannot say with regard to their products. This is mainly in an effort to protect the consumer against snake oil salesmen who make fraudulent claims.

For instance, you cannot call your supplement a cure. In many countries you can’t even call your product a remedy. And so, you face the issue with those ever-popular search terms that use “remedy” and other such words within them.

One of my favorite techniques is to ask questions that incorporate these keywords.

You can’t legally say, “Here’s a new heartburn remedy we’ve just released.” But you can ask questions like:

Tired of that same old heartburn remedy that doesn’t work? Wish someone would create something new?

Looking for a heartburn remedy that doesn’t require a prescription?

Is your heartburn remedy falling short?

You’re not saying *your* product is a heartburn remedy; you’re just asking questions about what the customer might want or need.

When you’re writing with keywords, you really have to think outside the box. We typically get stuck and have tunnel vision when we write SEO copy. The keywords get inserted the same way over and over. But there are so many different methods (like the one listed above) for using search terms when you write.

If you diversify your SEO writing skills, you’ll find your copy becomes more natural-sounding and is able to communicate its message better. Why stick to just one ordinary way to write with keywords when there are so many to choose from?

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Stop struggling to make keywords fit. Do it the easy way with Karon’s 11 proven techniques for writing naturally with keywords. http://www.WritingWithKeywords.com

How to Optimize Your Site for Search Engine Traffic

By Mike Row in Featured

Yes, that’s right – not every approach to search engine optimization will work as well as others. There are things that work; and other things that don’t work. In order to be a successful optimizer, you have to learn what works and then actually do it – again and again.

As most search engine optimization experts will tell you, there’s basically one important rule of thumb when it comes to optimization. Other than that rule of thumb, everything else boils down to technical details that are subject to change over time.

So what’s that rule of thumb? Basically, try to create a site that is visitor-friendly – i.e. one that provides useful content for people interested in your particular niche. In general, search engines try to create algorithms that find and reward sites that are visitor-friendly and relevant. If yours fits these criteria, you’re probably on the right track.

How can you do this? One basic approach is to try not to over-think things. Instead, focus on creating content that will be useful to your visitors; and try to tightly-focus your site around some particular niche, so that you appeal to a certain crowd.

Another approach – which is the polar opposite – involves starting with the niche-finding process. Rather than starting with a site idea or a product, start by performing keyword research to see what products and services people want to buy (i.e. niches for which there are a lot of searches, but few sites available).

Once you’ve performed this keyword research and have selected a niche, you can then go to work creating sites that will perform well. From here, you will have to start paying attention to some technical details.

The first thing you will want to target is your site template. You should try to use your target keywords in your title tags, header tags, and meta tags. Try not to over-use keywords, as that can get you penalized, but if you can use the right keywords reasonably often, then you’ll notice an improvement in your site’s ranking positions over time.

The next thing you will want to do is target your site content. Without rich, relevant site content, you cannot expect to rank highly in search engines. For this reason, you will want to consider purchasing a batch of high-quality, keyword-optimized articles (350 to 500 words in length). This will buoy your rankings over time, as search engines spider these articles and update their rankings.

The last thing you will want to do is start looking for linking partners. Try to find people who have relevant, but non-competing sites; and ask them if they are interested in exchanging links. By exchanging links, you can both increase the perceived values of your sites (in the eyes of Google, Yahoo, etc.)

And there you have it: a step-by-step template for search engine optimization. All you have to do is optimize tags, optimize content, pursue a solid linking strategy; and, above all else, try to make your site visitor-friendly. If you follow these steps, you’ll find that you’ll not only rank well now, but you’ll continue to rank well after algorithm changes.

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Mike Row – If you also aren’t interested in learning how to earn money online then don’t click on the secret link below where you’ll have access to an absolutley free guide that hundreds of others have gladly paid $19.95 for at the home page of my website. Again if you’re not interested then don’t go to http://www.make100perday.com/secret-page.html

How to Optimize for Google – Part 1 of 3

By Scott Van Achte in Featured

In today’s online world search engine rankings can make your business succeed, and while rankings in Yahoo and MSN are very valuable, their combined market value is still less than that of Google. This makes achieving top rankings in Google that much more important.

In this three-part series on How to Optimize for Google we will touch on a number of important aspects for top Google rankings including website optimization, links, Google Webmaster tools, and a number of other considerations.

The focus of Part 1 will be with on page website optimization.

THE RIGHT KEYWORDS
This article is not about keyword research so I will not spend too much time on this topic, however, I felt it was important to at least brush on this slightly. If you are interested in reading more please see Keyword Research for Organic SEO.

Make sure that your targets are achievable. If you select the wrong keywords it can make your entire optimization experience essentially a waste. Choose keywords that are attainable but yet still offer a reasonable search frequency for your industry. Your phrase selection should also be targeted to bring qualified traffic to your site.

Using the hotel industry as an example, targeting the word “hotel” would make very little sense but by narrowing it down to “Victoria BC hotel” you now have less competition, and a more qualified audience. Keep your targets in perspective and go after the obtainable rankings.

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