Greatson Media – Saco, Biddeford Maine Website Design & Hosting

The rules of SEO seem to change on a continual basis, and techniques that work one month don’t seem to work the next month. Strangely some website owners refuse to cotton onto this fact and so they continue to use the tools they’ve always relied on and that used to assure a good search engine ranking – even though a lot of these so called ‘tools’ have now fallen into the SEO myth category.

So what are the SEO tools and techniques that are now widely considered to be myths?

1. The higher the keyword density of your website content the better your search engine ranking will be.

This used to be true to a certain degree, but because spammers realized that keyword stuffing boosted ranking they took it to the extreme, with the result that now keyword stuffing can earn you a website review or even worse a ban. The same goes for the continual repetition of a single keyword. Any website that focuses exclusively on a single keyword will often be classed as a sp@m site and disregarded by Google and the other big search engines.

It’s much more advisable from an SEO point of view to concentrate on several keyword phrases that you know (through research) are searched more than most in your niche.

2. Putting your main SEO keyword in your Meta Tags will boost your search engine rankings.

Again this used to be true, but the spammers took this to excess as well. Now it doesn’t really matter whether you include your main keyword or keyword phrase in your Meta tags, they will be overlooked by most of the main search engines.

3. You should concentrate on just one keyword per website page.

This myth is related to the first one in that concentrating on a single keyword per page can lead to you inadvertently getting flagged for spamming. You only need to exceed the recommended keyword density by a relatively small percentage to get yourself noticed by the search engine spiders and bots.

Hence, it is again advisable to have a main keyword per page but also to include several popular alternatives as well.

4. Website SEO only needs to be done once.

This is probably the most frustrating SEO myth ever! Obviously if the rules of SEO are constantly changing then the SEO you use on your website needs to change accordingly. It’s pointless having useless, generic content stuffed with keywords on your site if the search engines now blatantly ignore such content. It’s also pointless sticking with old keywords when internet users have refined their search terms e.g. they may have searched for ‘iPhone’ when you initially did your website SEO, but now they probably search for ‘iPhone4′ or ‘iPhone3GS’ etc.

Website SEO is an on-going process and although you don’t need to update your content on a daily basis you do have to work at it on a regular basis to stay with the competition.

5. Trading links helps to boost rankings.

At one point website owners used to trade links with other website owners simply because they knew search engines such as Google looked favorably at sites with incoming and outgoing links. These huge scale linking strategies are now frowned upon by most search engines, and especially when the linking websites are seen to have absolutely no connection with each other i.e. they are totally unrelated in every way.

This SEO myth is one of the funniest because some website owners still believe that search engines won’t be able to recognize a useful link from a spam link. Non-useful links are easily caught and discounted by search engines and as a form of SEO they are now valueless.

6. My home page will always rank highest so I should concentrate my SEO here.

Search engine spiders and bots no longer read and index your home page more thoroughly than the rest of your website; a fact that means you need to SEO your entire website with just as much effort as you do your home page.

It isn’t uncommon for internal website pages to rank much higher for certain keywords than home pages so in order to cover all bases you must SEO your entire site – and this includes contact pages and other seemingly un-index-able pages.

7. All search engines use the same parameters to rank websites.

Again this is a huge myth that people tend to forget. Google uses over 200 factors to rank a website and it’s possible that Bing uses over 200 as well – but you can be sure they don’t use the same 200 factors.

The result of these differences: the SEO tactics you use to achieve a high rank on Google may not get you the same high rank on Bing or Yahoo or any of the other search engines. It’s important that you don’t try to satisfy every search engine with your SEO techniques or you could end up in a big mess and ranking low everywhere.

There are of course numerous other SEO myths floating around the internet, but these 7 are the ones that never seem to disappear. The sooner they do however the better for every website owner interested in getting their SEO just right.

By K Damian Qualter (c) 2012

Keyword Optimization…Overlooked Keyword Research and Processes!

Keyword optimization, better known as Keyword Research, is the researching, the analyzing, then the choosing of the most suitable keyword phrases for your content. Keyword research and optimization done right will create a funnel of qualified and targéted traffic back to your site from the search engine results pages (SERP’s).

Proper keyword optimization is the finding of those targeted and profitable keywords and keyword phrases that your potential visitors will enter into the search engine’s Search box, which will bring up the most relevant sites to a particular subject.

This process will play a large role in determining where you will land in the Search Engine Results Pages… it could mean the difference between not being found anywhere on the Web, or being the first site that users click on when performing a search.

This keyword optimization procedure is NOT a onetime thing… this is something that needs to be done each and every time you decide you want to bless the World with your brilliance of the written word.

Choosing the proper keywords for your site is absolutely critical for SEO… finding yourself within the search engine results pages (SERP’s) for keyword phrases that you are targeting isn’t too shabby either. However, proper keyword research and optimization is probably one of the most common areas overlooked by online marketers.

Overlooked Keyword Optimization & Research that Search Engines Use!

The whole purpose of the list below is to familiarize yourself with crucial optimization elements that are often overlooked by the average blogging professional, yet the search engines look for while crawling your site.

Best SEO Keyword Research Practices!

Let’s Start with the Long Tailed Keyword Phrase: Long tail keywords are a way of expanding on a core, generic word to be made into a more specific targeted keyword term. Example: A Generic Broad Keyword – “Knives”; a more targeted, Long Tail Keywords Phrase – “Handmade Damascus Knives.” What you have done here is narrowed down the visitors search by giving the specific information that you are offering for “Knives.”

Since the Google Panda Update was developed “to give people the most relevant answers to their queries,” it might be in your best interest to target keywords that are related specifically to your content. You might consider this your best method to find your main targeted keyword phrase suitable to your article topic.

You can use the Free Online SEO tools like the Google External Keyword Research tool to find the keywords that potential visitors will associate with the information you are offering.

Keyword Variations: This is just another way of saying that not each Internet searcher uses the same words to find information… you need to think like your visitors and create some different variations of your targeted keyword phrase adding words at the beginning, the end, the middle, etc.

Example of keyword variants from the above long tailed keyword phrase: “Custom Damascus Knives,” “Damascus Hunting Knives.” These types of keyword phrases you can put within your written content where it sounds right and makes sense.

Keyword Synonyms: Fairly self-explanatory… these are words that have similar meanings and the search engines are looking for word association within your content.

Keyword Stemming: This is the growth of one keyword phrase that is related to your website article by using suffixes, prefixes, or adding pluralization. This is another way of making one keyword phrase into many additional new keywords that you can use in your article.

Example: blog, blogs, blogger, blogger’s, blogging, weblog, weblogs… you get the idea!

Semantically Related or Relevant Keyword Phrases: The use of these relevant keyword phrases in your content will allow the search engines to determine relevancy by the subject matter, rather than keyword density. In the world of organic or the natural search, semantically related content refers to words that are connected thematically to a specific search query.

For example: Canon Cameras, Nikon Lenses, SLR, Zoom Lenses, Tripods, etc., can all be synonymous with the word Camera. Creating sentences and paragraphs using semantic keyword variations in your article can improve its relevancy score in the search engines’ ranking algorithms.

Best SEO On-Page Keyword Optimization Practices!

Let’s Start with the URL Structure: URL, which stands for Uniform Resource Locator, essentially is an address which is used to find your website pages. Without them there would be no means of navigating from one page to another.

Making your URL file names relevant to the content contained within the page is not only an important organization factor, but both search engines and your visitors associate the name of the page with the content that it contains. Just as it makes sense to have relevant keywords within your web page for the topic you are writing about, you should name the file URL after your main keyword phrase.

Your URL file name needs to contain only the keyword phrase that you are targeting. It does not need to be the full sentence of the main article headline… the shorter, the better!

Main Article Headline: Capture the visitors attention with a compelling and relevant headline in regards to their search, or lose them. You have less than 10 seconds to grab their attention before they move on. And, of course, you will want to place a keyword phrase describing your content within the article headline.

Keep in mind that your Article Headline is a brief summary of the content contained, it does not need to be more than 5 to 7 words long.

By John Engle (c) 2012

Even though there are numerous search engines available on the internet we all know that Google is the one that counts when it comes to rankings. This means that if you want your website to be successful you need to aim your SEO campaign at Google, but how exactly can you do this if you struggle to understand the complexities of the subject?

1. Create Content That Isn’t Time Sensitive

Putting good quality content on your website that won’t go out-of-date in a few weeks or months is an easy way to boost search engine optimization. By making the content you use useful now and in the future you won’t need to remóve it and replace it over and over again – you can simply add to it on a regular basis.

A website with very poor content or very little content is an SEO no-no if you want good search engine rankings so get your typing head on and create some content that people will be glad to read now and in 10 years’ time.

2. Think About Your Customer’s Needs

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and think about the actual words they may type into the search box in order to find your website. Then check how popular these words are with an SEO keyword tool, such as the free one supplied by Google. One of the quickest and easiest ways to achieve good SEO is with good keyword selection. Then all you need to do is include your SEO keywords in your website content.

3. Do Some Guest Blogging

Google loves links so the more quality websites you can create guest blog posts for the better your SEO campaign will be. Make sure that the guest blogs all link back to your website and that they are relevant to the subject of your website. You should also make sure the content is top quality so that readers want to follow the link you provide.

4. Links, Links and more Links

As the above tip points out Google loves links – but only when the links are genuine and they link to and from other authoritative sites. You run the risk of blacklisting your website and ruining a good SEO campaign by either purchasing links or blogging on unrelated sites and linking back to your site. There are loads of other SEO techniques available so don’t go down this route.

5. Create an Informative Video

Informational videos with backlinks to your website are another great SEO tool. Businesses can make a short video explaining what they do, who they are etc. while vendors can demonstrate their products if appropriate. If you can, distribute your video over multiple platforms then watch as your Google rank increases.

6. Update Your Website on a Daily Basis

If you can add content to your website on a daily or bi-daily basis, Google and the other big search engines start to recognize your site as an authority in its niche. By changing your choice of SEO keywords on a regular basis as well you will begin to rank highly for a good selection of keywords and eventually the majority of keywords related to your site’s topic (or your business) will get your website noticed and ranked among the leading sites.

If you don’t have time to create new SEO oriented blogs on a daily basis, hire a blog writer to do it for you. On-going content creation is one of the easiest SEO techniques to master and one that will improve your Google rank over time.

7. Concentrate on Your Article Titles

A simple SEO tip that many people forget, revolves around the wording of their content or article titles. A lot of search engine spiders/bots initially read the first few lines of a webpage to determine the topic of the content. If you can include your top-ranking keywords in the title of whatever you’re writing, it will help your site’s SEO no end.

8. Avoid Flash-based Websites

Flash websites look lovely and stylish and expensive, but they don’t sit well with Google or your SEO efforts. It takes a number of sophisticated tricks to make Google notice Flash websites and so it makes more sense to use another platform, if you want to improve your rankings.

9. Use Article Submission Sites

Article submission sites are a great SEO tool as they distribute a single article written by you to hundreds of article directories with the aim of getting it published and noticed. The articles you submit can be published for free but any websites that choose to publish it have to include your bio and a link back to your website. Most article submission sites do charge for the service, but they can cut months off your SEO campaign.

10. Hire a Professional SEO Agency

The nine SEO tips mentioned above are quite simple to put into place but they take time, effort and patience. Not everybody has an abundance of these qualities so it may be worth hiring a professional SEO agency to do the work for you. Of course this will cost you money but if it gets your business website onto page 1 of Google within a few weeks it’s definitely a price worth paying.

By K Damian Qualter (c) 2012

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