One would think that by now most website owners would have figured out that trying to trick Google is a bad idea, but some may have done things months or years ago that they did not think would matter because “it’s the WWW and everyone lies, cheats and steals, right?” No, everyone does not. It is time to undo those SEO mistakes and bad ideas.  For many, un-overoptimizing (huh?!) is going to mean undoing a lot of goofy things that were done in the name of better search engine positions.

Keyword obsession, ill-advised tips and bad advice 
Forget what you “read somewhere” about keywords, density, interlinking, blog networks, link exchanges, link velocity, hyper-something-or-other… ugh! Too many to get into. In short, if you read something about SEO and it seemed like the writer just made up his own buzzword or it sounded like a crazy scheme, don’t let it take up space in your brain – and don’t add it to your online marketing plan.
As a matter of fact, forget that there is any such thing as a search engine algorithm. Forget for a moment that you are doing business online and think of the web the way you would phone solicitation, direct mail or any other form of offline marketing.  How much sneakiness and bizarre behavior would your potential customers tolerate in the “real” world?  Your online marketing should be no different.
Stop thinking “what will this mean for SEO?” every time you add something to your website. Instead, think “what will this mean to the people who visit my site?” or… 

“Would I do this if there were no search engines?”
If you went to your website for the very first time, would it make sense to you? Or would it look kind of strange – repetition of the same few phrases in the titles, the copy, the navigation, the links to other pages, etc? This is especially important in the title element – the text that shows up as a link to your site in the search engine results. Keyword-obsessed webmasters will often fill up the title with their favorite keywords in order to rank well, declare victory, and then wonder why there is still no traffic coming to the site. That is because while you may think search engines want a list of almost random words, people do not. And Google wants to give people what they want. You may get a higher position with nothing but keywords, but a well written title is much more effective at getting users to click through to your site. Do put your most important target terms in the title, but you don’t need to repeat it so much that you left no room for branding. Yes, being on page one is still so much better than being on page two or lower. But if you are ranking within say, the top 5 to 7 spots, being attractive to users becomes just as important.
Think about your own web browsing habits. When you are searching for something, do you click on the very first search result without thinking? No, because you are not a robot. You usually take a second or two to get some idea of what the page you are about to view is about, and go to the site that looks not only the most relevant, but the most attractive to your interest, or possibly the easiest to understand. Now look at the titles of the pages on your site. Would the title make sense to you, as a rational human being who has no idea that search engine optimization exists? Or would it look like Google served up some sort of table of contents listing of tags or keywords?   

You can also apply this to your meta description tags – the text Google usually shows under the links in search results. Do you have a list of keywords in the meta description or awesome advertising copy? Since the content of the meta description doesn’t mean much to search engines but does to people, don’t be afraid to be a little clever in your descriptions – especially if you are in a competitive marketing niche where everyone is saying the same keyword-stuffed nonsense in their titles and descriptions. Titles and descriptions that read like a good advertisement will bring more traffic to your website – and it will be users who are more likely to stick around and absorb your message. And if that isn’t enough to break your keyword stuffing habits, think about that looming Google penalty for being “overly optimized.” 

The takeaway here for those who are addicted to keyword position as a key SEO metric: switch to click-through and conversion rates. Those are a much healthier way to lose sleep over your web marketing. For content, focus on topics or themes rather than key phrases.  Write well, use a variety of words that mean the same thing as your beloved keywords and use the best SEO keyword research tools available – a thesaurus and rational thought.  (Didn’t we say we are not your typical SEO company?)

Link Building for People Not Search Engines
Article marketing, blog networks, “thousands of directories” and just about any other link you might get solely for the SEO value… OK, when have you ever found a really excellent website or business from any of those? Of course some sites will still need lots of  good incoming links to do well, but don’t count on those easy to get but hard to justify links to count for much.

Just how stupid do you think Google is people are?
Maybe you are thinking, “I have to rank #1 so I am going to put comma separated keywords in my title element instead of something people would like. Screw Google’s guidelines”

Hey, it’s your website. If you feel that being #1 is a more important goal than reaching your target audience and showing them how good your products or services are without looking like a spammer, that is certainly your prerogative.  And guess what – Google is getting smarter every day, getting better at recognizing even the more subtle attempts at manipulating the results, and recognizing things that make sense to people, not just search engines. Before long, that top spot that seems so important will be taken by a website that conveys its message well – to people. 

“But what about my keywords? Don’t I have to have extra special secret keywords in every title on every page and use them somewhere between 2 and 7 percent of the total text so I can be #1?”
Seriously, forget everything you ever “read somewhere” about keywords.

Google Penalties is from: Ker Communications

Oh how I wish I had a HTML tag to indicate sarcasm.  

The panic over Penguins and Pandas is spreading like wildfire. Please, relax. The sky is not falling. Legitimate SEO is not banned by Google or “dead” in any way.  
Creating a website that is easily navigated and understood by people and search engines, and has quality content which is promoted effectively and sensibly throughout the internet will not get you banned from Google.  
In case you didn’t know, what I just described is what SEO is – NOT all the silly tricks and schemes that people have been doing to game the system and manipulate the search results. That is “webspam” – the stuff Google’s penguins and pandas don’t like.

But please don’t take my snarky comments and arrogance to mean that I don’t sympathize.
Everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes it is just because you didn’t know better – and that is very likely since many of the so-called SEO experts out there are either clueless or flat out lying to you.  

If you have seen your website’s position in the search engine results drop since April 24th, take a deep breath or two, get a clear head. Understand that looking for the easy way out and taking second or third hand information and running with it is probably what got you into this situation in the first place. Instead of taking anyone’s word that Google is out to destroy you or that your competitors could now spend thousands to make sure you never outrank them, or even taking my word that Google is trying to improve what they do for internet users in general, read it from the source.  The Penguin webspam update is designed to enforce the Webmaster Guidelines that have been in place for quite a while. Google, does not hate SEO. Google does however hate webspam. Apparently, many people don’t know the difference and think that SEO is all about finding loopholes and being sneaky. Or maybe people just thought it must be easy to do because they read some blog post with 6 easy steps to “dominating the search engines” or some such nonsense instead of reading Google’s own SEO Starter Guide.  

For those who still want to find a simple step-by-step way to handle the not very simple discipline that is SEO, here is a three step program to start to recover from whatever you have been doing that got your site penalized.

• Step One: Admit you have a problem. Take an honest look at your site. 
• Overusing some keywords instead of writing sensibly about your topics? 
• Repeating those keywords in your page titles in a way that no human would ever think it made sense?
• Attach those keywords to every navigation item, alt tag, and everything else you could think of?
• Did you think about keywords than you ever thought about what a reader would take away from your content? 
• Posting recycled, stolen or just not very interesting content because you read somewhere that you “need” to blog X times a week? 
• Step Two: Look at your incoming links. Have you done things like:
• Paid for some links? 
• Put links on your site to some other site that links back to you as a “reward” for traffic you send them but otherwise has no value to users?
• Used the same keywords as the anchor text in nearly every link where you had any input on the matter? 
• Own several blogs that serve no purpose other than being somewhere to post those hundreds of poorly written keyword rich articles you bought for peanuts but didn’t verify that they were original (and dropped in some exact match anchor text links to your main site of course)?
• Reposted much of your original content to crappy article marketing sites? 
• Tried Linkvana, BMR, or some SEO company’s private blog network?
• Have a page dedicated to trading links with just about anyone who will link to you?
• Step Three: Read Google’s webmaster guidelines and SEO starter guide. If you read them before, read them again. Apply what you have learned to everything you found in steps one and two.  If you read them and still think you deserve to rank much higher than you are now, seek professional help. A professional SEO (a good one) will be able to find things that you may not know about or understand, or that you just can’t see because it is your own site and sometimes it is nearly impossible to see all of the flaws in one’s own work. Go ahead and fill out the “I shouldn’t have been penalized“ form. It couldn’t hurt and might help. But before you do, make sure that if Google has someone do a manual check of your site they won’t say “yep, it most definitely is low quality and the links are all spammy.”  

Now, can we please get back to the fun and excitement of helping businesses grow online through legitimate inbound marketing or dare I say “SEO”?

Does Google Hate SEO and Want To Punish Your Website? is from: Ker Communications

One would think that by now most website owners would have figured out that trying to trick Google is a bad idea, but some may have done things months or years ago that they did not think would matter because “it’s the WWW and everyone lies, cheats and steals, right?” No, everyone does not. It is time to undo those SEO mistakes and bad ideas.  For many, un-overoptimizing (huh?!) is going to mean undoing or removing a lot of goofy things that were done in the name of better search engine positions.

Keyword obsession, ill-advised tips and bad advice 
Forget what you “read somewhere” about keywords, density, interlinking, blog networks, link exchanges, link velocity, hyper-something-or-other… ugh! Too many to get into. In short, if you read something about SEO and it seemed like the writer just made up his own buzzword or it sounded like a crazy scheme, don’t let it take up space in your brain – and don’t add it to your online marketing plan.
As a matter of fact, forget that there is any such thing as a search engine algorithm. Forget for a moment that you are doing business online and think of the web the way you would phone solicitation, direct mail or any other form of offline marketing.  How much sneakiness and bizarre behavior would your potential customers tolerate in the “real” world?  Your online marketing should be no different.
Stop thinking “what will this mean for SEO?” every time you add something to your website. Instead, think “what will this mean to the people who visit my site?” or… 

“Would I do this if there were no search engines?”
If you went to your website for the very first time, would it make sense to you? Or would it look kind of strange – repetition of the same few phrases in the titles, the copy, the navigation, the links to other pages, etc? This is especially important in the title element – the text that shows up as a link to your site in the search engine results. Keyword-obsessed webmasters will often fill up the title with their favorite keywords in order to rank well, declare victory, and then wonder why there is still no traffic coming to the site. That is because while you may think search engines want a list of almost random words, people do not. And Google wants to give people what they want. You may get a higher position with nothing but keywords, but a well written title is much more effective at getting users to click through to your site. Do put your most important target terms in the title, but you don’t need to repeat it so much that you left no room for branding. Yes, being on page one is still so much better than being on page two or lower. But if you are ranking within say, the top 5 to 7 spots, being attractive to users becomes just as important.
Think about your own web browsing habits. When you are searching for something, do you click on the very first search result without thinking? No, because you are not a robot. You usually take a second or two to get some idea of what the page you are about to view is about, and go to the site that looks not only the most relevant, but the most attractive to your interest, or possibly the easiest to understand. Now look at the titles of the pages on your site. Would the title make sense to you, as a rational human being who has no idea that search engine optimization exists? Or would it look like Google served up some sort of table of contents listing of tags or keywords?   

You can also apply this to your meta description tags – the text Google usually shows under the links in search results. Do you have a list of keywords in the meta description or awesome advertising copy? Since the content of the meta description doesn’t mean much to search engines but does to people, don’t be afraid to be a little clever in your descriptions – especially if you are in a competitive marketing niche where everyone is saying the same keyword-stuffed nonsense in their titles and descriptions. Titles and descriptions that read like a good advertisement will bring more traffic to your website – and it will be users who are more likely to stick around and absorb your message. And if that isn’t enough to break your keyword stuffing habits, think about that looming Google penalty for being “overly optimized.” 

The takeaway here for those who are addicted to keyword position as a key SEO metric: switch to click-through and conversion rates. Those are a much healthier way to lose sleep over your web marketing. For content, focus on topics or themes rather than key phrases.  Write well, use a variety of words that mean the same thing as your beloved keywords and use the best SEO keyword research tools available – a thesaurus and rational thought.  (Didn’t we say we are not your typical SEO company?)

Link Building for People Not Search Engines
Article marketing, blog networks, “thousands of directories” and just about any other link you might get solely for the SEO value… OK, when have you ever found a really excellent website or business from any of those? Of course some sites will still need lots of  good incoming links to do well, but don’t count on those easy to get but hard to justify links to count for much.

Just how stupid do you think Google is people are?
Maybe you are thinking, “I have to rank #1 so I am going to put comma separated keywords in my title element instead of something people would like. Screw Google’s guidelines”

Need Google Penalty Help?

Hey, it’s your website. If you feel that being #1 is a more important goal than reaching your target audience and showing them how good your products or services are without looking like a spammer, that is certainly your prerogative.  Google is getting smarter every day, getting better at recognizing even the more subtle attempts at manipulating the results, and recognizing things that make sense to people, not just search engines. Before long, that top spot that seems so important will be taken by a website that conveys its message well – to people. 

“But what about my keywords? Don’t I have to have extra special secret keywords in every title on every page and use them somewhere between 2 and 7 percent of the total text so I can be #1?”
Seriously, forget everything you ever “read somewhere” about keywords.  

Avoid Google Penguin Penalty for Webspam (Bad SEO): Start Making Sense is from: Ker Communications

(audio)

A surprising thing about this announcement is that there is reason to believe that some penalties like this already exist. While there is no official word from G on existing over optimization penalties (except maybe this 2009 video where Cutts says there is no penalty), there have been many instances where a site will suddenly see its position for certain keywords drop from the top of page one to somewhere in the 30′s or 50′s. Websites which use too many of the same keywords as anchor texts on incoming links to the site, or overuse particular keywords in their on page SEO will see their ranking limited to a SERP position no higher than page 4, or in worse cases page 6. Some call this the +30 or +50 penalty, since it seems to take a site’s current ranking for a given keyword and add either 30 or 50 to it. Even if those 30 and 50 barriers are myths or no longer in use, we have recently seen a few sites that have fit the profile – spammed their way to the top, then quickly dropped off the radar for certain keywords. In many cases, we have been able to help undo the damage of a Google penalty.

It remains to be seen whether or not Google’s new penalty for overly optimized sites is an extension of this, is something completely new, or is simply a PR maneuver. And of course there is much discussion of the meaning of this algorithm change.

Don’t Panic
There will undoubtedly be people claiming that “SEO is dead” (again). It seems that many people still don’t know the difference between modern SEO or inbound marketing, and low-grade link spamming and the other crap that people try to pass off as optimization. Do it right – with a focus on improving your site, your content and your presence online and legitimate SEO should be just fine.

What can you do to avoid an over optimization penalty?

Here are some common problems that can be prevented with common sense:

Stop keyword stuffing!

Have you used your favorite keywords on the page more times than would make sense if you were handing it in as a homework assignment? You might want to re-think that. Many people go a little keyword crazy and seem to think that more is always better. If your copy reads as if you never heard of a pronoun or synonym, grab a thesaurus and come up with some other words for whatever it is you are selling. Google is pretty smart and will recognize words with similar meanings, so you don’t need to be very repetitious. If you use a variety of words instead of the same ones over and over, you will also get some traffic from people searching for those, too. It can’t be said enough – build your site and create content for people, not search engines.

Mix Up The Anchor Text

Anchor text, the words that actually appear in a link, have historically been a big part of off page SEO or link building. If you want to rank for a keyword, it is generally a good idea to have at least a few links to your site that use that keyword or phrase. Like most things in search engine optimization, people often take a little knowledge, run wild with it and get hundreds of backlinks (either legitimately or paid for) – all with the same anchor text! The site will often rank well for a little while, then virtually disappear from the search results for that particular phrase.

Be Good, Be Real

If you are keyword stuffing or overdoing it with text links, stop now. Focus more on making your site the best it can be, both technically and in its content. Any future link building should be spam-free and user friendly. If you are going to put your business in a directory, use the name of your company or website rather than your favorite keywords.
Behave the same as you would offline. 
Let’s say you are opening a pizza shop. Is it better to make really good food and do what you can to spread the word – or just buy a bunch of generic frozen pizzas and print up thousands of flyers claiming you have the best fresh pizza in town, hoping nobody notices?  Filling your site or blog with purchased or stolen filler articles and relying on spammy SEO is like the frozen pizza option – you may do well for that opening weekend, but nobody is coming back and they are not going to recommend you to anyone. Instead, publish useful content and use SEO and other inbound promotion to make sure the search engines – and people – are able to do the publicity for you.

Already Penalized by Google?

It won't be free, but we can help you get out of Google Jail and help you stay out of trouble

It is a bit of a nightmare if you rely on search traffic – your website has virtually disappeared from Google.  
Get real SEO help from a legitimate, proven professional.  
That doesn’t mean reply to one of those spam emails you get promising top ranking for very low prices. That just may be how you got in trouble in the first place.  Removing a penalty and doing damage control will take time and expertise, so now is not the time to cut corners.  Treat it as if you were arrested for a crime, and it really looked like you were involved (whether you really were or not doesn’t matter).  You would want to hire the best attorney you could find to keep you out of prison. If you have been hit with a Google penalty, who you choose to help get your website out of search engine jail can be just as critical. 
Get in touch if you need help undoing whatever got you in trouble and getting back on top.

Over-Optimized? Google’s New Penalty for Too Much SEO is from: Ker Communications

Just when you thought you had your Facebook business page all fixed up with special tabs and a fan gate to encourage Likes, Facebook has announced the rollout of Timeline for business pages.  While this is not going to be much more than a cosmetic rearrangement for many pages, if you have a highly customized business or fan page, there are some things you will need to know.

One of the biggest changes from a marketing perspective is that, as of now, those “fan gate” pages that many use to hide content unless the user has Liked the page will no longer work.  This, of course, has upset a lot of people who were relying on this type of custom tab to grow their following.  While there will probably be a workaround in the near future, this is a good opportunity to examine whether or not it was a good idea to force users to Like your page.  On one hand, these reveals are a good way to get more likes from curious users and those who may not always remember to give the thumbs up. On the other hand, some may see it as being pushy and resent being “tricked” into endorsing something without seeing it first.  They really aren’t very user friendly and kind of side-step the “social” part of social media and remove some of the personal feel and replace it with something like the spirit of email capture forms that leave the user feeling like they have to sign up for something just to read an article. In terms of user experience and generally making the internet a friendlier place, the disappearance of Facebook gateways is a good thing.  

Stop The Fake Like Madness!

In the long run, it is better to have real interactions, followers, friends and endorsements. Have you ever visited web page and noticed their Facebook widget that shows thousands of people who ‘Like’ the business; yet you know that would have to be every single customer they have ever had along with all of their extended family members?

Otherwise, no sense in complaining about the change to Timeline. Instead, let’s get to know what’s new before it becomes mandatory at the end of March 2012.

Here are a few of the more significant new things about Timeline:

Cover Photo
The most obvious new feature is the Cover Photo.  This 851 pixel wide banner allows you to really make an impression visually. There are some restrictions on what you can put here – no phone numbers, URLs, coupons and that sort of thing – so read the notice when you upload.

Sticky and Featured Posts
With Timeline, you can stick a post to the top of your Facebook page for up to a week.  If there is something you really want people to know, like a weekly special at a restaurant, you can continue posting updates without worrying about pushing the really important post down too far to be noticed. You can also change dates, which will allow you to further fine tune your message and you can also hide those random blurts you don’t need to delete, but don’t want to be your first impression.  Timeline posts can also be featured so that they take up the full width of the page.

Company Milestones
You can add company milestones to your Timeline, which is a good way to highlight your company history. Milestones can also be used for events like new store openings or product launches.

Admin Panel
The new admin panel is a big improvement. Previously, tracking activity through Insights could be a little confusing and hard for some users to find and manage.  Facebook page activity stats are now easily found on the admin panel.  Private messages to your company are also in the Admin panel, which will help keep complicated customer service issues or complaints out of public view. There are times when you don’t want to be 100% transparent.  The Notifications tab shows your notifications about comments and Likes so you can check on them on your time, and not just when your email inbox is overflowing with notifications.

Test Drive
If you haven’t already seen the notification on your Facebook page, you can take the tour now and see what your new Facebook Timeline will look like before the mandatory switch on March 30th.  If you like what you see, you can make the switch now and get a head start on finding your way around.

What do you think?

Is Timeline going to change how you use your Facebook Business Page?

Like it, hate it, don’t care or planning on closing your account?  
Let us know in the comments section below or on our rather minimalist Facebook page.  

And if you need help reworking your Facebook page, be sure to contact us. 

Timeline Coming Soon to Facebook Business Pages is from: Ker Communications