Search Engine Optimization – Page 27

August 29, 2013August 24, 2013

Google Says It Hates Keyword Stuffing But Why Do Top Sites Still Use It?

Google hates keyword stuffing and clearly addressed this SEO tactic in the Panda update last year. In fact, Google actually states this in their webmaster guidelines about keyword stuffing:

“Filling pages with keywords or numbers results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site’s ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context.

Examples of keyword stuffing include:

Lists of phone numbers without substantial added value

Blocks of text listing cities and states a webpage is trying to rank for

Repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural, for example:
We sell custom cigar humidors. Our custom cigar humidors are handmade. If you’re thinking of buying a custom cigar humidor, please contact our custom cigar humidor specialists at custom.cigar.humidors@example.com.”

Here are some sites online that are using keyword stuffing so you can take a real world look at this technique in action:

http://www.ranchland.com/
Take a look at the footer to see the stuffing in action? But although this site is clearly in violation of Google’s rules, it is still getting top placement on important industry specific keywords. Take a look at the content and you’ll see that it is in some places nearly unreadable for keywords interspersed in the content. So why has this site not been penalized? There simply may be more at play than we know that is keeping this site in the top spot.

Keyword Stuffing in action.

http://www.bowcolabs.com/
Here’s another site that is using the tactic that Google has clearly disavowed at the bottom of the page just as an example. Although this site does not have top 60 result placement, it is a fine example of what to steer clear of in regards to keyword stuffing.

So back to the topic, if Google hates keyword stuffing, why are top sites still using it and why have they not dropped in placement? Although these sites may have slipped through Google’s filter, there may be other factors at play that are keeping top sites using stuffing still at the top. Or it may also be that Google simply has not caught up with sites using these tactics. Whatever the reason, for sites that are using this stuffing, I would recommend a slow revision to remove it while improving content and user engagement.

I personally don’t believe that using just these disavowed techniques will get any site top placement. What gets placement is a combination of quality content, some degree of keyword density (1% to 2%), quality inbound links, and shareable content.

August 15, 2013August 10, 2013

Google Wants the Fastest Web Pages to Rank the Highest

Google has a new team that is King for now, it is the Making the Web Fast Team headed by engineer Ilya Grigorik. You’ll be hearing a lot about this new team in the days, weeks, and month ahead.

Speedometer showing excessive speed. — Google is all about PageSpeed now.

To understand how important this new thrust into page speed is for Google, I recommend watching Ilya’s recent presentation on the topic. The bottom line is that Google is serious about website page speed, and has even come out point blank to say that PageSpeed (a new term coined by Google) is now part of their algorithm used to rack and stack websites in the organic results.

Google is so fixated on speed that they want you to be as well and so as a result has set up a new tool where you can check your own PageSpeed online: http://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/. Using this tool – the PageSpeed Insights Tool, Google will quickly spider your site as well as your mobile site and give you a score as well as tips on how to improve your site speed.

So just how important is PageSpeed to Google?

Well this is what Google says specifically, “Fast and optimized pages lead to higher visitor engagement, retention, and conversions.” That means that Google feels that to keep its own search engine in the number one spot for users the sites that it returns in the organic results had better be FAST!

Okay, how fast is fast?

Google wants speeds of 2,000 milliseconds or less for page load time. If your page loads in about one second or less, Google should be happy with your site. If your site loads in over one second, I would recommend you start looking to drop images, compress image files, enable http caching, and strongly looking at ways to speed up your page load time.

Here are some great resources from Google to help you improve your PageSpeed.

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/ developer tools provided by Google

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/service a beta by invitation PageSpeed improvement service

http://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ pagespeed testing tool

https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/psol page speed optimization libraries

August 13, 2013August 10, 2013

On Page Optimization Only Affects Organic Placement by 25%

Google has really mixed up and turned upside down how website owners now go about trying to get organic placement in this past year. It used to be that on page optimization was the first and foremost thing to do to improve placement on Google.com. Now on page optimization only impacts organic placement by a meager 25%.

Build web authority and trust to place better on Google.com.

So what are the big impacts that bump up organic placement on Google now?

Sharable content that other blogs and users want to link to for more information.
Resources that speak about you and your site as authorities and experts in your industry.
Social media chatter about your business and content.
Followers that become advocates for you and your services through social engagement.
Authority websites that link to your content.

With only a 25% impact coming from on page optimization, is it worth the time and trouble to update your meta title and meta description tags? You bet! Although this is now a small part on what it takes to get ranking on Google.com, it is one of the easiest factors for you to update quickly and may give you the “bump” in placement you need to move above your competitors.

Sure the other 75% of factors are tough, really tough to impact, but with great content and being active in social media, you can work to engage others and start buzz that will directly impact placement on Google over time. Personally I believe that having a great content strategy is the very first step.

In this strategy you’ll want to look at the following:

1. Set a schedule for creation of sharable white papers to be done on a monthly basis. This gives your site something unique to push in social media and provides value to readers. I would not necessarily lock this new content down behind a gateway, but rather allow it to be used free and widely as long as links back to your site are maintained.

2. Set a schedule about how frequently you’ll self-promote in your social updates. Typically we recommend one soft sell update a day out of five updates.

3. Make sure your blogger is focused on supplying content for your target audience. The days of pushing your service in each and every blog are long gone. Now you’ll want to provide something of substance in your blog posts that others you want to have become customers will consider real value.

4. Monitor your progress. You won’t know if what you are doing is working if you don’t have a starting benchmark and check regularly (monthly) to see if what you are doing is impacting your organic placement.

5. Know that everything you do now should be to improve your user experience and not to cater to search engines. By putting your customer and prospect first and foremost in your new strategy organic placement is sure to come over time.

If you need top level, but down to earth practical help with your content strategy, it all starts with our initial SEO evaluation. Take a few moments to find out if we may be a good match for your needs.

August 8, 2013August 3, 2013

Matt Cutts from Google on Link Building

In a recent interview done for an article by Eric Enge at Stone Temple Consulting, Matt Cutts, the lead Web Spam engineer for Google, tells the industry that “link building is not illegal.”

However, in the same interview Matt goes on to state that there is a link building tactic that Google now considers web spam.

Links from press releases that are really written just to build links are no longer valued by Google. However if links that are generated by a news resource reading the press release and then contacting the business to write an article which then linking back to the businesses website would be a great way to build links. So press releases are not dead persay, just now more what they were intended to be; a way to let the press know of something newsworthy. Not a link building strategy unto itself as SEO’s have previously used them as.

Matt and Eric agree that one of the best Google-approved ways to build links is by having great sharable content that is followed, talked about, and cited on social media sites like Google+, Twitter, and Facebook. But, they both agree that just vomiting out links to your content on social media is not what they intend; rather audience engagement that is built around content which is then shared throughout followers networks.

If you are looking for a new content strategy for your blog and social media, we invite you to visit our website to find out more about how we can help you.