Everyone understands the importance of search engine optimisation.
But not everyone seems to grasp the fact that it’s an ever-changing field of marketing. As search evolves so do the complex algorithms the search engines use to determine which sites are relevant to which search terms.
Why the constant changes?
That’s mainly down to the less than white SEO ‘experts’ out there who find a technique to boost their website’s rankings and exploit it.
For example, as a result of websites with poor content that wasn’t relevant, Google’s Panda came along. Hot on its heels was the mighty Penguin to battle against keyword stuffers, cloaking, duplicate content and those participating in link schemes.
In the world of SEO you have two choices: keep doing what you’ve been doing for years and watch your website disappear from view; or move with the times and adopt new techniques.
SEO Techniques to steer clear from
To get you on the right path, here are just a few old SEO techniques that should be consigned to the rubbish bin.
1. Keyword density
This is a phrase that should never be mentioned again.
If you’re not sure what it is, it’s a dreadful practice old SEOers once employed, claiming you have to have a certain percentage of keywords in your website copy in order get ranked for that particular search term.
Wrong.
If it were that simple, the world would be full of websites that were complete gibberish and only contained one or two phrases repeated again and again.
The right way to create effect SEO copywriting is by writing high quality content that is written naturally.
2. Numerous press releases
Online press release outlets were seen as a God send to many.
The result was numerous press releases that had absolutely no substance to them whatsoever being blasted across the web in the hope of attracting a back link or two.
The main problem with this is that you’re putting out substandard releases for the general public to see, which is hardly going to put your company in a good light.
There’s nothing wrong with issuing press releases, but only when you actually have some news to tell.
3. Content spinning
Once upon a time, marketers would write an article, spin it using some software and post it out to numerous websites. Worse still, they would send out the same article to hundreds of websites creating vast swathes of duplicate content.
That is such a bad idea.
If you want to put content out there make sure it’s original, of high quality and offers the reader something. After all, if you want to generate links, it has to be some pretty awesome content.
4. Meta tags
Once upon a time (there’s a pattern forming here) SEO was linked to your meta tags because they helped the search engines determine the relevance of your website. Surprise, surprise, this resulted in numerous SEOers stuffing their meta tags (they appear in the <head> section of your website’s code) with keywords.
The search engines are far cannier these days, and use other tags (e.g. title tags and alt tags) and the actual content of your website to determine what your web page is about.
As you can see, throughout the history of SEO someone finds a loophole and exploits it. That’s why it’s important you keep updated with the latest SEO techniques and news to make sure your efforts continue to bring you the results you want.
But what I want to concentrate on in this post is the use of your keywords.
Going right back to basics, keywords are the words and phrases your customers type in to Google’s search box when looking for your products and services.
In the bad old days, ‘SEO experts’ would have you believe that to be highly ranked, you had to cram as many of those keywords/phrases into your copy.
The result…well, you can imagine; page after page of complete drivel.
Thankfully, those days are gone (but be warned, there are one or two dinosaurs still around touting keyword density as the Holy Gail of SEO copywriting) and marketers are far savvier.
Be natural
Natural writing is the key to good rankings.
By keeping your copy focused on your reader and the benefits you can offer them, your writing will engage and naturally contain your keywords and phrases.
But there is one caveat here: your key phrases do not have to be used in their entirety throughout your web page.
What do I mean by that?
For example, let’s say you sell “designer leather dog collars”, rather than using that phrase in its entirety everywhere in your site, you can break it down using single words such as “designer” and “leather” or combinations “dog collars” “designer leather” “leather collars” etc.
You get the idea.
You see Google looks at your page for synonyms too, so splitting your phrase down will really help your rankings.
Of course, you still need to use it in its entirety somewhere to show Google exactly what your page is about, perhaps in your:
Headline
Sub headings
Alt text
Anchor text links
Remember, writing SEO copy is an art form when it comes to understanding Google’s likes and dislikes, but the overwhelming aspect of it is to write naturally and always for your reader.
Keep them firmly in your mind when writing your copy. If you start to think about the search engines your content won’t do its job.
SEO is about your customers not the search engines
Nope, we haven’t gone mad; search engine optimisation really is all about your customers.
Most SEO companies are now playing nicely and not condoning devious techniques such as link buying, hidden text and generally exploiting every loophole and short cut they can find.
Why?
Apart from the fact that they were attracting hefty penalties for their clients, they’ve now realised that search engine marketing is more like social marketing and everything must be centred around the customer not the search engines.To be successful on line today, your strategy must include not only general keyword optimisation for your website’s structure and content, it must also involve social media marketing aimed at your customers.
No, that doesn’t mean sending out a raft of marketing messages every minute in the hope that you’ll wear down your customers and make them buy from you. Instead it’s about engaging with your audience, providing them with useful content and information and optimising your web content to reflect your customers’ needs.
For many start ups all of this can be quite confusing so this 10 minute video by Maile Ohye of Google might help. In 10 minutes she talks you through some basic search engine optimisation techniques for start ups to help you get on the right track.
A facebook Business Page is great for your business.
Once indexed by the search engines, it gives your business greater visibility, you can tell your fans about special offers and events really quickly and you can engage with them. Plus, as there are 500 million users (and growing) on Facebook you can drive an awful lot of traffic back to your website.
And that’s just for starters.
But how can you maximise your chances of your Facebook Business Page being found in the search results?
Well, Facebook have posted a video on their website, created by Distilled.net, to teach you the basics of SEO along with a few suggestions on how to improve the ranking of your Facebook Page in the search engines. You can view it my clicking on the image below:
The video lasts about 7 minutes, but is well worth watching.
Distilled.net have also put together a PDF on SEO for Facebook Pages, which you can find here.
Link building is probably, the most important element in your search engine optimisation strategy.
Why?
Well, it is the most important factor Google uses when working out how relevant your web page or website is for ranking purposes.
When someone types in a search query, Google heads off to find the most relevant pages that satisfy the query. It ranks them in authoritative order and the factor used to determine that is, you guessed it, its link profile.
The ayes have it
Every inbound link that points to your website and web pages is seen by Google as a vote for it.
The more ‘votes’ it has, the higher its perceived authority.
The higher its perceived authority, the higher it’s ranking.
But not just any old links will do, Google’s far cannier than that. Every link must have:
Relevance – it must come from a site of the same, or closely related topic
Authority – the site should be seen as authoritative in its own right
Trust – the links pointing to the initiating site should be good quality links
So the key is to attract authoritative links from related sites. But how do you do that?
Attracting link love
Knowing you need to attract links is one thing; actually getting them is something else entirely.
Where do you start?
First, there are links from directory submissions, but make sure you opt for directories that are relevant to your industry or market.
Then you need to produce great content that people will want to link to. Generating a lot of high quality, useful information can be time consuming, which is why many companies choose to contract it out to professional copywriters. However it is created, make sure it offers expert advice, opinions, and demonstrates your authority.
Once this has got out into the search engines it may well attract links straightaway, but you may also have to do some legwork. If one of your articles compliments another authority site, get in touch with them and direct them to it to see if they want to link to your content.
You should also hang out on the same online forums as your target audience. This is a great way to interact with other industry experts and could lead to a few links.
Another method is by writing guest blogs and articles. Authority bloggers always need great content, so if you write something that’s targeted for their readers that’s well researched and put together, they will publish it and include an all important link back to your site.
Link building campaign
Setting yourself a link building strategy is vital as it should be an on-going process.
Your campaign should look at attracting:
Links from authoritative sites
Links from a number of different domains (50 links from 50 different sites is much better than 50 links from 1 site)
Deep links – i.e. not just linking to your Home Page, your other pages need links too
Anchor text links – where you keywords are used as the link text
Local links – don’t forget local directories and your Chamber of Commerce as they will help with your local rankings
But one word of warning, never ever be tempted to pay for links. This practice is well and truly frowned upon by Google and any short-term gains you may experience will soon be lost once Google discovers what you’re up to.
A natural link building strategy is by far the best way to go. Try to build your strategy into your working week to make sure it is a constant process.
