Unique content is King. Search engines love new, unique and updated content. If you produce new content at a rate of just one reasonably sized page per day and tied in with the other advice throughout the site, I can almost guarantee you will get good listings. Remember though, write for the visitors but cater for the search engines. If your field of expertise fits into a niche in the market, all the better for you but you must get unique content all you will fall behind.
Page Structure. Search engine bots can sometimes get confused with poorly coded html, javascript and other web languages. If the bot has to wait too long or cannot decipher the web language then it will just abandon your site and move on to the next, even if it manages to get through the code it usually leads to poor search engine indexing of your website. You should also keep to widely used file extensions like .htm, .html, .php, .asp for your pages.
Loading Speed. The loading speed of your website should be kept to a minimum, if it takes long than 5 seconds on 256kb+ connections then you lose visitors - both real and search engine bots. There are a variety of reasons why pages can load slowly, it may either be your web server, poorly coded server side code like php or client side code like javascript which can slow or even stop your page from loading.
Visitor Navigation. This is more an aesthetic feature of your website focused at real visitors but you need to have some sort of standard navigation that is the same throughout your whole site. People can be put off and leave your website if they find it difficult to browse easily, search engine bots may also miss links if they can only be found deep within your site. Try to make as many internal links as possible available on each page.
Site Hierarchy. Site hierachy can be great for adding keyword density to your web site. An example of site hierachy working effectively would be this page, seo-advice.php. The full link contains SEO twice - SEOAssistance.com’ target=’_blank’ class=’navigation’>www.SEOAssistance.com
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Winning the (right) race
In every race there are winners and losers. Sometimes though, winning is about choosing the right race. Recently there was a Youmoz post asking if the A-list was closed. Apparently the author feels that he has written some great content but has not received any mention or link love from the big boys. I am […]
Source: feeds.hamletbatista.com
Slow and Steady SEO
Posted by vingold
Well, the big page rank brouhaha last week caused me to take a good long had look at all of my sites. Not just their PR (relatively unchanged) but their SERPs, objectives and overall long-term strategy.
I have a lot of varied interests (boating, real estate, SEO, travel, super heroes, video games, etc.) and I’ve always felt it was better to have a lot of individual blogs or niche sites to play around in these areas, as opposed to just one or two "catch all" sites.
As a result, I’ve created way more websites than any one person - or even a small team of people - could properly attend to. For my real estate related lead-generation sites, I’ve always thought it was better to have a lot of small neighborhood sites rather than one or two large regional authority sites. Then I interlinked all of these smaller sites in a way that would hopefully increase their link weight - but in actuality had very little impact because they were all so small.
All I see when I look out at my 20+ sites is unused bandwidth, half-built pages, and an overall weak linking strategy. Not a lot to be proud of after 3+ years of even mediocre part-time effort. One thing I did notice is that the sites where I’ve had the greatest success (as measured by inbound links, SERPs and most importantly - conversions) are the ones where I have made a long term commitment to steady posting of good content. I’d like to say "great content", but I’m not a full-time writer and if I tell myself I have to post something of value everyday - the best I can hope for is "good." Or at the very least, average. Sometimes even that bar was too high for me. Even when I have faltered and these sites have gone unattended to for a period of time, their traffic has still increased.
Sometimes I get caught up in the immediate results of a post. I look back at something I did a month ago and wonder why my traffic didn’t go up with that one great post. How come no one linked to it? Why is it not even showing up in Google etc. Meanwhile, the smaller sites - even the less interesting ones - grow steadily when content is put out there. I have to remind myself: Traffic will follow content - eventually.
Well, as of this week, I’m repenting and changing my ways, the first step being to admit you have a problem and all that. By the way, one of the final deciding factors in all this was one of Rand’s old posts "what not to blog about" that I found from reading his post today where he patiently answered a lot of our questions. Another factor was when I boasted to my son "I’m ranking for the search term ‘New Orleans Goldsmith!" and his reply was "and does that make you any money?" Gotta love those 15 year olds.
I’ve already started making some changes - taking down old sites, combining content, grouping content in ways that it will be useful to users, doing 301 redirects, etc. I’m sure in the short-term my SERPs will suffer - and my hosting providers will wonder why I’m breaking up with them - but I know from experience that in the long run I’ll be better served.
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Source: www.seomoz.org
A Google Allegory
When John Chow s rankings dropped a few months ago, a lot of SEOs believed, and continue to believe, that Google banned him for selling links and wanted to set an example. It seems that many ignored his review for a link back campaign, which was clearly designed to game Google. It was also the main […]
Source: feeds.hamletbatista.com
Advanced Keyword Research The power of understanding your visitors
As search marketers, I think sometimes we underestimate the power of understanding our visitors. One way we can do this most effectively is through keyword research. Essential keyword research not only helps determine the success or failure of your whole search marketing campaign, but it can also provide a way of understanding your visitors and […]
Source: feeds.hamletbatista.com
