When it comes to on page SEO, by that we mean the stuff you can deal with yourself on your own site to improve its rankings for your keywords, the title is very important. As is the description. So here are a couple of website title and description SEO tips.
1. The title should be related to your keywords. This is a blog about SEO, so 'SEO' is in the title. Have the more important words to the front end of the title.
2. You total blog title should not exceed 66 characters. Keep it under this for maximum SEO benefit.
3. Your description can include other keywords as well as reiterate the ones you have used in your title.
4. Your description should stay under 150 characters.
5. Meta keywords don't matter! Not for Google at least, though some of the smaller search engines still use them. While it should not do any harm to keep them in, make sure you do not repeat the same keyword over and over and keep to a maximum of perhaps ten key phrases. This should prevent Google from deeming your meta keywords to be spam.
Sunday, 22 November 2009
Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Is Link Building Unethical?
There's so much talk of link building being unethical. Questions are frequently raised about whether or not it's ok to pay someone to link to your site from theirs. In my opinion link building, when done right, is perfectly ethical.
Let me clarify. There are a number of companies out there doing massive scale link building for next to nothing - for a nominal fee they will just stick your link on hundreds or thousands of sites, varying in both quality and content. This type of building, in my opinion, is unethical for a number of reasons. First of all, companies offering to do this for owners of businesses often fail to tell those whose sites they are performing this link building for, that links on blacklisted sites can detrimentally affect ratings to your own site. If a website is involved in massive scale link sales of this nature, it's a pretty reasonable bet that it won't be long before they are penalised and potentially even blacklisted by Google. But aside from this, I really think this type of link building is basically just spam.
Although long winded, manually sourcing decent websites with related content and offering cash in exchange for a link is, I believe, perfectly ethical and legitimate.
Anyone who disagrees with the morals of this type of link building really ought to be questioning the morals of marketing and advertising on the whole.... and anyone questioning that should probably be questioning the ethics of capitalism... and well, let's not get into that!
Let me clarify. There are a number of companies out there doing massive scale link building for next to nothing - for a nominal fee they will just stick your link on hundreds or thousands of sites, varying in both quality and content. This type of building, in my opinion, is unethical for a number of reasons. First of all, companies offering to do this for owners of businesses often fail to tell those whose sites they are performing this link building for, that links on blacklisted sites can detrimentally affect ratings to your own site. If a website is involved in massive scale link sales of this nature, it's a pretty reasonable bet that it won't be long before they are penalised and potentially even blacklisted by Google. But aside from this, I really think this type of link building is basically just spam.
Although long winded, manually sourcing decent websites with related content and offering cash in exchange for a link is, I believe, perfectly ethical and legitimate.
Anyone who disagrees with the morals of this type of link building really ought to be questioning the morals of marketing and advertising on the whole.... and anyone questioning that should probably be questioning the ethics of capitalism... and well, let's not get into that!
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
SEO Myths 2 - Any and all links will do!
This one is a major one. Most people know that the key to building some site authority is to have plenty of other sites linking back to your own website. The tendency for those who know no better (or for those who just don't care) then is to just get as many links as possible on any old sites, with any content - good, bad, hideous and really, really, hideous sites.
This will not work.
You get the most benefit by having a site with RELATED CONTENT linking to yours. But what is perhaps more important is that if a site is blacklisted for a pretty bad reason and they are linking to your site - this will be of DETRIMENT to you. Yes, it will NEGATIVELY IMPACT your rankings.
So what does this mean? It means the only way to go about a sustainable link building campaign is to manually source our links from relevant sites. Long winded, yes. But by far the best way if you seek long term results.
This will not work.
You get the most benefit by having a site with RELATED CONTENT linking to yours. But what is perhaps more important is that if a site is blacklisted for a pretty bad reason and they are linking to your site - this will be of DETRIMENT to you. Yes, it will NEGATIVELY IMPACT your rankings.
So what does this mean? It means the only way to go about a sustainable link building campaign is to manually source our links from relevant sites. Long winded, yes. But by far the best way if you seek long term results.
Monday, 9 November 2009
SEO Myths - Number 1
The first in what will be a series of SEO myths (busted) is the good old, 'meta tags matter.'
They used to. They no longer do.
The most recent Google algorithm does not take into account meta tags. Place more emphasis instead on the likes of your title, description and well placed h1 and h2 tags.
They used to. They no longer do.
The most recent Google algorithm does not take into account meta tags. Place more emphasis instead on the likes of your title, description and well placed h1 and h2 tags.
Saturday, 7 November 2009
SEO Scam Number 1
Thinking of hiring a professional SEO company to do your search engine optimisation? Well here is the first of a number of 'no nos' when it comes to picking the right people for the job. Over the coming months I will post the common scams and warning signs, as more and more surface. This one certainly is not a new one but is a common one, to say the least....
"NUMBER ONE ON GOOGLE IN A WEEK."
This is a promise you've probably seen - and if not this one, then something similar. If any company has this on their website then you can automatically (and should automatically) question the operation of the company. The simple fact is that all the money and all the time in the world cannot even guarantee number one in Google for a highly competitive keyword. First page, perhaps - but number one no matter what? Impossible to guarantee. This is particularly something to be cautious of when on a website because this implies that this promise is being made before the company even knows what a potential client's keywords are. This is the type of company who will promise the world, take your money for a few months and then hold their hands up at the end of the few months, when no progress has been made, and say, "Ooops, oh well."
Also watch for word games! "First page of Google in a week," for example, is a common promise by companies who will imply that they will have you top of the results, but actually plough your money into Pay Per Click. So yes, you will appear on the first page of Google, as their wording promised, but you'll be in the SPONSORED LISTINGS. So they have kept to their promise and had you on the first page - but it's a short term cash injection and its effects only last as long as you are paying a premium for ads located on the top page. This is not SEO, but SEM (search engine marketing). Any reputable company should specify what they will be spending your money on and if 'Pay Per Click' is part of it, then it's not the same as embarking on an SEO campaign.
Be wary.
"NUMBER ONE ON GOOGLE IN A WEEK."
This is a promise you've probably seen - and if not this one, then something similar. If any company has this on their website then you can automatically (and should automatically) question the operation of the company. The simple fact is that all the money and all the time in the world cannot even guarantee number one in Google for a highly competitive keyword. First page, perhaps - but number one no matter what? Impossible to guarantee. This is particularly something to be cautious of when on a website because this implies that this promise is being made before the company even knows what a potential client's keywords are. This is the type of company who will promise the world, take your money for a few months and then hold their hands up at the end of the few months, when no progress has been made, and say, "Ooops, oh well."
Also watch for word games! "First page of Google in a week," for example, is a common promise by companies who will imply that they will have you top of the results, but actually plough your money into Pay Per Click. So yes, you will appear on the first page of Google, as their wording promised, but you'll be in the SPONSORED LISTINGS. So they have kept to their promise and had you on the first page - but it's a short term cash injection and its effects only last as long as you are paying a premium for ads located on the top page. This is not SEO, but SEM (search engine marketing). Any reputable company should specify what they will be spending your money on and if 'Pay Per Click' is part of it, then it's not the same as embarking on an SEO campaign.
Be wary.
Tuesday, 3 November 2009
What is SEO?
There's a lot of talk at the moment of 'SEO' and anyone with a website may well know that this is something they should be doing. But just what is it?
Well, SEO stands for 'search engine optimisation' and it's the process of, essentially, improving your website so that you appear higher in search engines such as Google, when someone searches for something that relates to your website.
So, for example, if you have a website that sells web hosting and someone searches in Google for 'web hosting,' you probably want that person to go to your site... that's because you know they are interested in or are even looking immediately to purchase something that you are selling. But you have a lot of competition. So if you want to appear above your competition, you would embark upon a campaign of SEO.
And that's pretty much what it's all about.
This blog will offer SEO tips, advice and search engine industry news.
Well, SEO stands for 'search engine optimisation' and it's the process of, essentially, improving your website so that you appear higher in search engines such as Google, when someone searches for something that relates to your website.
So, for example, if you have a website that sells web hosting and someone searches in Google for 'web hosting,' you probably want that person to go to your site... that's because you know they are interested in or are even looking immediately to purchase something that you are selling. But you have a lot of competition. So if you want to appear above your competition, you would embark upon a campaign of SEO.
And that's pretty much what it's all about.
This blog will offer SEO tips, advice and search engine industry news.
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