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Search Engine Optimization Tips and Tricks – Learn how to increase visibility in Search Engines – Part 13 – Steps to avoid for SEO

ashish — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:06:03 +0000

In the previous post (where to put keywords in the post), I wrote about where keywords need to be included in the post, including the title, the headings, near images, and so on.
In this post, let us take a negative point. Sometimes people go overboard in trying to influence their search engine rankings, and end up making changes that have a negative effect. As I have said earlier, search engines look for posts that are relevant to their users, and if there is a page that has characteristics such as over-stuffed with keywords or keywords phrases, then these are really not liked by search engines and they can even penalize such sites by reducing their position in the rankings. In extreme cases, search engines can even remove such sites from their index altogether, and such a situation can be a death knell for a site in terms of the number of visitors that come to a site.
There are also sites that resort to techniques known as ‘black hat’ techniques for SEO optimization; consider that search engines also have skilled people dedicated to learning about techniques that people use to try to game the search engine, and when these cross a certain line, the search engines start reacting. Some of the techniques that can cause an adverse reaction from search engines are:
- Keyword stuffing. In previous posts, I have emphasized the fact that keywords should be used in the content to between 5-7%, not more. Beyond this, the text becomes unwieldy, and search engines react negatively. Write your text in a way that it makes sense to your readers, making sure that keywords are there in the content
- Duplicate content. Duplicate content, especially when search engines are able to determine that the content is duplicate and meant to try to increase occurrences in the search engine results, can result in the search engines lowering the ranking
- Sites that link to you can increase your chances of getting higher in search results, especially in the cases when the site ranking to you is highly ranked; however, if your site seems to be linked from link farms, or from sites that charge for linking, or other such unnatural linking, then this can count negatively against you. Of course, you cannot stop a site from linking to you, but search engines such as Google have addresses of link farms and other commercial linking networks, and your site appearing on them is not a positive sign
- Using techniques such as leading search engines to one page optimized for them, and normal users to other pages is not recommended at all, and can again cause problems to your site
- Using text in the same color as background, repeating keywords at the bottom of the post, and other similar techniques may have worked a long time back, but now serve to have a negative reaction

If you use an external consultant to provide you SEO services, then remember, it is your site that is getting evaluated by the search engines, so make sure that you have some knowledge of search engine optimization techniques, learn about what your SEO expert will do, and ensure that they do not use Black Hat techniques.

Search Engine Optimization Tips and Tricks – Learn how to increase visibility in Search Engines – Part 12 – Where to add keywords

ashish — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:39:11 +0000

In the previous post (Learn about keyword density), I explained what keyword density is, what should be the amount of keyword density (including the main keywords and secondary keywords), and tools that help you measure your keyword density. In addition, there is an emphasis on making sure that you do not stuff your keywords too much into the site, since that leads to readers getting turned off and search engines putting possible penalties on the site.
In this post, I will talk about moving ahead with keywords, and defining areas of the post where you can add these keywords, as well as some rules for the same. I had talked about this in an earlier post as well (Part 5 of the series), but will provide some more details in this post about how to do more detailed optimization for ensuring a higher search engine ranking. These tips consist of where to place the keywords in terms of the structure of the post and the site. Some of these are more speculative in nature (since there is no confirmation or different search engines treat such behavior differently) and some of these are sure fire tips that work to improve your search engine ranking.
(Warning: None of these will do magic! Search engine ranking improvements through such optimization can take weeks or months to achieve, and you need to be patient)
- Try to ensure that the keywords are not too tightly bunched in one section of the page, although there are conflicting views on whether it makes some benefit to slightly increase the keyword density in the top section of the post content
- Keywords in anchor text. This may not be clear to some people, so consider this. You have got an option to get a link to your page from some other site, and if it is a well regarded site, then your site can benefit. However, if you do get an option, make sure that the link is something like (camera phone reviews) rather than (click here). Getting keywords in an anchor text can do a lot of good to search engines belief in you as a credible source
- Page Title. Put keywords in your page title, with the keyword appearing earlier in the title
- Images. If there are images / video on the page, then add the keywords as part of the alt/title tags of the image, and also as part of the text that forms the description of the image / video
- In the URL. Most blogging platforms give you a way to modify the URL that will be formed, and you should ensure that you have keywords as part of the URL. Typically, the title of the post is used as the URL, but consider having one set of keywords in the title, and another set of keywords in the URL
- Domain name. It is difficult to get domain names that have sought after keywords, since they are all gone. Try different variations of the keyword as part of the domain name until you get it right. You may have to make some compromises in this process.
- Title of the blog. In the head section of the blog code, you can modify the title of the blog. Be sure to include keywords as part of the blog title.
- Headings. Headings are a good way to segregate your blog into sections, and search engines also like it if you add keywords in your headings.

And of course, if you know more such tips or believe that some of them need to be modified, please leave a comment.

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Search Engine Optimization Tips and Tricks – Learn how to increase visibility in Search Engines – Part 11 – Keyword density

ashish — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:54:43 +0000

The previous post (identifying keywords for your site) contained information on how to determine keywords appropriate for your site. This also includes determining the keywords that are more valuable, for the purpose of ensuring that your advertisements reflect the keywords that have a higher value.
This tip is meant more for the person who does not know about the benefits of using keywords appropriately on a page, and it is certainly not meant for advanced users.
How do you determine whether the amount of keywords you are using in your site are adequate or not, for search engine purposes ? Well, now we are moving to a zone that is called ‘keyword density’, which is the total number of times that a keyword or keyword phrase is used in the site. For an initial user, the temptation is strong to write text in which the keywords occur frequently, so that it would seem that you get a better ranking in search engines. However, this is not the case. Understand the logic of search engines. They are built to cater to their users who want to search for relevant sites, and not go to sites that are only trying to attract search engines, so there are penalties built into the usage of search engines (penalties means that a site that seems stuffed with keywords will occur lower in a search engine ranking).
The ideal way to cater to your users is by writing text that makes sense, looks unique, and is something that your users would want to see. Once you have such a text, you should try to make it keyword rich by adding more keywords, and then checking for keyword density in the final finished post. Most people will try to use multiple keywords in one post rather than depend on only 1 keyword (use the alternative keywords you would have defined in the process described in my previous post); so define your principal keywords, ensure that these are anywhere between 4-7% of the text content, and other minor keywords are between 1-2%. Any more keywords, and you will find that your content will start to become stiff and unattractive to your readers, and you know how search engines treat such text.

It is recommended that you run your posts in a keyword density tool such as these:
Keyword Density tool at SEOChat (link)
Keyword Density tool at SEOTools (link)
Keyword analysis tool (does not need a URL) (link)

Keep in mind that different search engines have different mathematical formulas for treating keyword density, but it is generally believed that they give some credence to keyword density (keep in mind the warning about not stuffing with keywords).
Also keep in mind that keyword density is different from the effects of placing keywords in different locations on a site (such as the title, in headings, in meta tags, etc); keyword density just checks the number of times of occurrences of keywords in the post.
You need to work at the right placement of keywords for additional benefits, and that is something that I will cover in future posts.

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