Tag Archives: engine
Effective Article Writing for Successful SEO
Article writing has becoming an important part of Internet Marketing and Search Engine Optimisation over recent years, long gone are the days when you could merely use the keyword meta tag and stuff your website with the same keywords to get an excellent ranking, search engine algorithms are more intelligent these days and the main search engines don’t even take a blind bit of notice of the Keyword tag, even link building is becoming unproductive since the last few Google updates, I’m not saying that it’s a waste of time but the search engines, Google especially ,now focus on quality over quantity, no longer does the site with the most one way links reign supreme and countless websites dropped pages and pages recently because of this, If this happened to your website then its down to lazy SEO on the part of your Search Engine Optimisation company.
So this leaves search engine friendly website code and article posting as the main force when it comes to getting your website ranking high and staying there, I’m not going to go into search engine friendly code and content in this article, that’s down to you or your website designer, a competent web design company should produce valid SEO friendly code anyway. This leaves article writing as the main focus.
Articles are the key to successful Internet Marketing when it comes to achieving page one results, but you simply can’t string together five or six hundred words and stick your keyword link either in the article body or in the author bio, this doesn’t work. Your article has to be relevant to your website or niche and must be written in good English, remember what I said earlier, search engine algorithms are more intelligent these days and can filter out poorly put together articles and poor incoherent English.
If your using a Search Engine Optimisation company then make sure that their first language is English and that they are writing your articles in house and not passing this task onto a team outside the country. Don’t be naive about how SEO Agencies work, Yes a Manchester SEO company that claims to have 120 staff will be telling the truth but 100 of these employees will be based outside the UK where labour is cheaper in countries such as India, but a professional company will write articles professionally in house and simply pass on a list of tasks such as sites to post to and links to build to their teams outside of the country, this works fine, but if they pass on the entire project to these teams then your SEO will be poor and this practice has been known to have negative effects.
Your SEO Company should be able to produce any articles that they have used to promote your website along with their monthly reports, if they don’t, ask to see them and then read through them, articles written by a non-English person are easy to spot and do not make very good reading, Spun articles are also very easy to spot, a spun article is an article written by someone else, copied off the internet and spun by software that changes the verbs to produce a unique article, these spun articles used to get past the search engine quality and duplicate content checks but this is no longer the case. So if an SEO company provides ‘spun’ articles, then you should avoid them, as articles need to be unique.
The best articles are the one’s that are written from scratch, if you are good at literature then write your own, is going to take a couple of hours tops and who better to write about your business or product than you? and your know that they are unique. Even if you are using an SEO Company to distribute your article you can always negotiate with then to get a reduction in their fee because you are supplying your own articles, so what are you waiting for? get typing.
How Not to Do SEO in the Age of Penguins and Pandas
In light of Google’s recent major updates, Penguin and Panda, it’s a shame to see how many questionable Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) “experts” and agencies are still risking their reputations and doing more harm than good to clients by attempting to use dodgy techniques to boost site visibility and traffic. They are demonstrating precisely the kind of behaviour that Google and other search engines have been aiming to eliminate.
To avoid ending up in search engine black books, steer clear of dubious schemes and methods, and use only genuine, tried and tested means to enhance your website’s SEO credentials. If looking for ideas and inspiration, visit blogs and forums with a good reputation in the marketing world, such as Econsultancy, SEO Moz, and Graywolf’s SEO Blog.
If you have the budget, don’t hesitate to hire a team of professionals for the best results. This form of marketing is worth investing in so don’t be tricked by low prices. Quality services don’t come cheap.
In brief, the Google Panda update was launched to penalise websites that look and feel “spammy”, while Penguin deals with sites showcasing an unnatural looking backlink profile.
Copy
Long gone are the days when websites stuffed with keywords outperformed others in search engine results pages. This will actually damage your website’s performance rather than improve its chances.
To help realise the severity of this faux-pas, put yourself in a site user’s shoes. It’s very easy to tell when copy has been written for search engines rather than the human eye. This really doesn’t leave a good impression on most customers, and is likely to result in a high bounce rate.
Linking
Diversity has never been as important, and natural diversity at that. Paying for links and getting involved in link farms is to be avoided at all costs unless you fancy getting penalised by the likes of Google who can now smell dodgy scams from a mile away.
Instead, time should be invested in developing relationships with bloggers whose backlinks can mean a lot to sites of all proportions. Though a somewhat aged method, it’s also still worth submitting sites to credible business directories.
Social media strategies can greatly assist in acquiring natural backlink profiles as people share content according to their interests.
SEO must also consider internal linking structures. Similarly to keyword stuffing, internal linking musn’t be exaggerated either. Again, put yourself in a user’s shoes to see whether a link seems natural, and whether the anchor text fits the context. Awkwardly positioned internal links stand out like a sore thumb to both users and search engine spiders.
August Activity: Google Algorithm Changes and SERP Updates
August seems to be the month for shaking things up when it comes to Google search engine rankings. We have come to terms with the often chaotic realities of the Internet Marketing game and assume a comfortable position on the tips of our toes. On any given day weve got our helmets strapped on tight and eagerly await any curveballs that may come our way.
Thus far weve seen new adjustments happening on a daily basis. While there have been rumors spreading like wildfire, we received confirmation of change straight from the source earlier this month.
Google announced a new signal of ranking within their search algorithm in the hopes to “deliver legitimate, quality sources of content more easily.” Depending on the nature of your website and your SEO efforts thus far, these changes could be very beneficial. More often than not, they will have the opposite effect.
These updates are aimed to discourage copyright infringements and will target websites with a high number of valid removal notices. Google will utilize Digital Millennium Copyright Act “takedown” requests to determine the websites that have been repeatedly reported for such violations. When these piracy penalties were released the first site that came to many peoples minds was YouTube, which is the target of many DMCA requests. Those of you addicted to videos of cats or babies laughing have no fear! Google has explained YouTube will not be penalized based on these updates:
“Requests for products other than Google Search (e.g, requests directed at YouTube or Blogger) are not included.”
Now that you can sleep easy knowing that your favorite 90s music video compilations are safe, lets move on to another Awesome August Alteration! See what I did there? Who doesnt love a good alliteration every once and awhile?
News is circulating that Google has been testing a transition away from their traditional 10 listing display. Rather than displaying 10 results per search query, in some cases only 7 are being shown. For example, take a look at my search for “Overstock” earlier today (I like bargain shopping)
Dr. Peter Meyers at SEOmoz explains that while SERPS with less than 10 results arent necessarily a new thing, they have never been as frequent as the increase weve seen in August. Historic frequency ranges between 1-4% whereas now, about 20% of the search engine results pages on Google are showing only 7 listings.
While 20% may seem high, in retrospect its a very small portion of SERPs. Meyers continues on to describe the correlation between this “shrinkage” and the presence of “sitelinks” within listings. Essentially, 7 packs will be displayed if the word used in your search query matches your domain and displays sitelinks.
So, what does this mean for you and your website search engine ranking? The most obvious of challenges comes with the decrease in ranking opportunity. Keywords should be analyzed and adjusted accordingly to give your website the best chance of ranking during this turbulent time. Simply being aware of these changes is the first step in overcoming them. Check back for the play-by-play and rain delays. LocalResults will be keeping our ears close to the ground and our eyes peeled for fly balls!