Tag: Search Engine Optimization

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Branding Yourself is the Way to High Organic Placement

What website owners used to do to get organic search placement simply does not work anymore pre or post Panda! I’ve found a great article that really says it all when it comes to explaining why. I think you will find it interesting reading.

These are things that have worked in the past for organic placement (some are really old) that do not work now:

  • keyword stuffing into html comment code
  • keyword dense domain names
  • home page with a high level of keyword density on one or two phrases
  • submitting your website URL to hundreds of directories
  • link to your website from forums or blog comments

Now what works is to consolidate your web efforts, no more spin off websites that are keyword dense on one service and are only five pages deep and no more websites that just have a listing about what you sell or service.

What works for placement today is:

  • an information rich website with content that is updated frequently
  • a website that blogs on domain that earns inbound links slowly over time
  • a larger website meaning more pages that inform customers and educate them
  • a more text oriented and less graphically complex website that has a super speedy load time
  • a website that uses smart architecture that allows for keyword named directories
  • smart activity in social media like Twitter and Facebook pointing back to the parent website

It’s time to consolidate your efforts and market your business and services as a brand. A brand that has a strategy to inform, entertain, and interact with prospects and readers while providing unique information written with an eye on selling your product/services features and benefits. Need someone who can do just that, check out our website for more information.

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Search Engines – What You See Is Not What I See

Just this past week I’ve had two prospect call saying they need to be number one on Google and what would it cost to get them there. Sigh, this is a “brave new world” people! What you see on a search engine is not what I see, nor what your neighbor sees, nor what someone in California sees. There is no longer owning top organic spots. We used to be able to do this, but not any more.

Welcome to the new world of personalized search history and pervasive cookies. In many ways, in regards to personally satisfying search results, personalized search is a huge step forward. It makes results focused on what you have searched for before and is targeted to your location. What it makes for website owners is a big headache.

To learn more about this topic, I recommend that you read this interesting and insightful article that explains in depth why what you see will be different than what I see.

Search engines collect users’ browsing history in 2 major ways:

(1) by tracking signed-in users’ activities and
(2) by planting cookies into signed-out users’ browsers.

So even if you’ve signed out of your Google.com accounts, Google still knows who you are and where you live and continues to deliver personalized results. Besides logging out of all Google accounts, logging out of all social media accounts, clearing your browser of all cookies and your cache what you see then on Google.com would be data that no one else may ever see as they are logged in to everything!

Top placement organically is now a target you can strive for, but one that is hard to document and reproduce across varying users platforms due to our new world of personalized search.

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What Meta Tags Do Search Engines Use?

It is well known that all search engines no longer use the meta keyword tag, but what other tags are currently in use? I read an article recently that said Google was not even using the meta description tag, so what are search engines using?

First, it is true, the meta keywords tag is dead. Don’t bother loading in page keywords or adding that tag. I don’t think that it will come back either. Search engines are just too sophisticated now to be spoon fed your selected keywords. They will find their own in your content.

Second, in the Google Webmaster Help website, Google states that it understands the meta description tag, the title tag, the meta robot tag, Google site verification, and refresh tag. What they didn’t say was they were using them all. As of 10/14/11 Google was using my own meta description tag as my information in a Google.com search AND they were using my meta title tag.

Third, how about Bing.com? Bing is using my meta description tag, but not my meta title tag, they are creating their own from my content. In fact they are using one of my H1 tags verbatim, but not from the top of the page but rather from the middle of the page.

Another thing of note to mention at this time is that some browsers such as IE9 now don’t show the meta title of a page in the top chrome of the browser just above the address bar, they used to, but not anymore.

Things change on the Web. Over the years I’ve seen the meta description tag not used and then after a year or two used again by Google, but I don’t think that the keywords meta tag will come back. When you do a search for your own business, do you see your meta description tag?

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Keyword Density on Your Page Best Practices

It used to be for websites that needed to be competitively placed on search engines that we would strive for about a 7% keyword density of one or several search phrases per page, but now search engines are getting smarter. 7% density when you read it, is very repetitive. In fact for some clients simply unreadable and unacceptable, however at this point in time on Google it can still get results.

As I watch the Web, Google’s algorithm changes, and chatter from other webmasters, I feel that high keyword density website may be eventually filtered out by Google and maybe even this year based on the information Google is putting out on there various blogs. Over the last several years we have seen a direction less of strong keyword density to more readable text with good content and link building programs (typically the links will come from blogging on-domain.)

I recently reviewed an attorney’s website where I considered the content on his page bordering on excessive keyword density and to the level of keyword stuffing. He told me that his site had been dropping since the Google Panda/Farmer update had rolled out. As a savvy professional, I see the writing on the wall, it is time to review your content and start minimizing keyword dense content in advance of algorithm changes that will drop your organic placement.