Monday, June 30, 2008 at 12:31 PM
You may have noticed that we recently rewrote our article on What is an SEO? Does Google recommend them? Previously, the article had focused on warning people about common SEO scams to look out for, but didn't mention many of the valuable services that a helpful SEO can provide.
The article now notes some of the benefits of search engine optimization, and provides some guidance to site owners who are considering hiring an SEO. We'd also like to get your perspective: how would you define SEO? What questions would you ask a prospective SEO? What advice would you give to an inexperienced webmaster who's considering whether to contract an SEO? We'd like to hear your thoughts and incorporate your feedback if there's important advice that we should add.
53 comments:
I've posted my thoughts here: http://www.promo-ho.com/2008/06/seo-guide-for-rest-of-us.html
My SEO tip: Create unique, useful and interesting content. Do not steal content from others.
First decide is you have the time, interest or inclination to educate yourself on SEO. If yes, write interesting readable content focusing on a handful of search terms and pray to the search gods for enlightenment.
But if your time/money are better spent doing other things hire an expert to do it for you. Oh yeah and NEVER steal or post content of others without attribution or permission.
Drift Web Design
Do not let anyone tell you they "know how google does what they do" because they're lying.
Don't let anyone sell you on "off-site" SEO. This is one of the number one ways sites get blacklisted. Once you are blacklisted, its almost impossible to recover from that.
Don't ever let any have your FTP account information so they can "evaluate" your site. It is not necessary to have direct file access in order to determine what the site could do to improve its visibility.
www.stranskydesign.com
A SEO Strategy is just one component of comprehensive digital marketing plan. SEO is important but so is site usability, content, etc (all of which fit well into SEO). Half your goal should be to drive traffic to your website - the other half should be keeping them coming back.
Develop targeted traffic to your site through other means (advertising, blogging, related communities, etc) before your SEO efforts bare fruit that way your business or site is successful without them. Once that is achieved good rankings will only enhance your site/business and not be your only hope for success.
Unique Content is KING
Other than unique content, For the budding webmasters I would suggest:
1) Focus on your post title-- Have proper keywords in your post title. It seems Google gives a lot of importance to them
2) meta description tag --- have a unique meta description tag for each and every page of your site. Again G gives v much importance to them.
3)Images -- Don't leave "alt" tag blank.
4) Make your site user friendly--If it is user friendly in all probability it is SE friendly bots as well.
5) Paid Links-- make sure to have paid links only which are relevant to your site content, also don't forget to append "nofollow" tag to them.
These were the imp ones...I can think atleast 20 off my head...will write about it sometime later...
It's great to see Google embracing us SEO's. I had a conversation a few days ago with a friend that told me a story of how a high power executive of a large company in Seattle (wont say who) told him about how SEO was just a bunch of "smoke and mirrors".
I say, "The proof is in the pudding". I have been optimizing sites for as long as I have been developing and know if you make your website search engine compliant that you will see great results and qualified traffic.
Not to mention how us SEO's help bring quality results on the SERP by demographically targeting what our users are searching and optimizing the pages so that those results are served appropriately.
Whoa Ankur I just read your post... Meta tags don't affect your rankings but will help click throughs if the title and description is relevant to what your user is searching.
And never, ever pay for links...
If you post informative or "link worthy" content the links will just happen naturally.
Search Engine Optimization is a process to build a website such that it appears on top positions in search engines. SEO process consist a set of tools and techniques. If you want to optimize the website then create Search Engine Friendly URL, unique and interesting content.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) may handle complaints about deceptive or unfair business practices in the USA but please don't forget the rest of the world! Can you tell us where we should complian if we are in the UK for example?
You can read my SEO CheatSheet (in PDF - 168kb)
Couple of tips from experience:
- Never, ever allow the SEO consultant to directly modify the site. As a consultant, s/he should advise on what needs to be done, but only *you* should actually modify pages.
- Watch out for SEOs that ask for root access (or any kind of access) to your server
It's more than a tad amusing to see SEOs using the commenting feature of this Google Blog in an attempt to gain some Google juice.
Oh well, nature teaches us that even parasites can have parasites!
google rewards spam blogs and scrapers ... so what is the point of giving them advice ... i doubt they really care .. they make money even from bogus sites
I've always taken the approach that it's Google's job to give people the most useful and relevant return for their search and our job to make sure we have useful and relevant material and arrange it in such a way that Google can access it.
SEO is important but only in the context of smart web design and a coherent and well thought out internet marketing strategy. Scam artists who come in and do SEO without checking the analytics data and consulting with the client about their business strategy will not help the site in the long run.
I like the "What's an SEO" page. I think I'll link it from my site as a useful "this is not what I do" resource!
http://www.martinkelley.com
Are there web site owners out there who see a need for a consultant to work them or their company marketing departments for training to use all the google tools not only for webmasters but also for all the business solutions that may apply?
I agree with Martin, SEO is not a matter of "tricking" the Search Engines. SE's attempt to provide the most relevant results based on the information available to them from content, tags, linktext, backlinks, etc. Therefore making your site and content relevant to the keyterms you are targeting and categorizing your content and pages so that the spiders can easily crawl and index them is the way to go.
I would like to add that Google is tailoring the results based on the generality or specificity of the keyterm so it is best to structure your site and your keyterm distribution in this manner. Your homepage is for your more general "governing" keyterm(s)and they become more specific as you drill down to the specific content. A good SEO should help you make your site and content as relevant as it can, not use tricks or irrelevant terms just to drive traffic. They should also be ale to show you real successes. Best of luck!
~Jeff Chance | Meteorsite SEO
My main advice for all who are considering to hire a SEO is to listen carefully what this person is saying and to try to learn at least the basics, if he or she will work only temporary for you. SEO is not only one time issue. Its main purpose is not only to put your website in the top results (for the searches relevant to your content), but to keep this for long time.
There are quite a few views on what an seo is.
The uniform opinion has for me always been the focus on writing good copy that best fits the sites products or services, but never taking away that it is the visitor you are writing for, not the search engine bots.
Providing and receiving links of relevant content to help the visitor is the only linking strategy.
Having a guide to finding a good seo, that meets a budget is far too hard for your average site owner, i have been working on such a site since the beginning of the year (www.website-by-design.co.uk). The SEO community just did not get it, but thatnk you Google guys you have reaffirmed my faith in what i am trying to achieve.
My experience has been positive in terms of SEO relevancy when i followed these rules
1) Unique and well written (customer oriented) content
2) Good usage of metatags (unique descriptions, title pages)
3)Link factor (site:www.admiradn.com) Make sure your page is linked externally in "good and important" sites
4) Update factor: contents must be relevant and updated on a regular basis
5) Spider factor: make a good site internal links using the relevant key words
6) Traffic is key ! Find ways to build your site traffic.
7) Use google tools: analytics, maps, etc.
Good luck to all !
Thank you Google
>how would you define SEO?
An SEO is that professional that examines your site, finds with you the potential improvements that can be done to unveil its potential in relation to your business goals, and then works to advice you on how to:
1) Remove barriers that prevents search engines robots to properly index your site
2) Optimize your site in order to make it more appealing to its customer's language and needs
3) Promote your website in any legit and convenient way to reach your goals
4) Read your traffic data and find out further improvements
5) Solve problems.
Of course this is a simplification, but it's a good summary in my opinion of what a SEO is and of what should he suggest to its clients.
Not every webmaster/business owner has the time or will to learn how to properly optimize websites... here's the SEO value.
If you think of it, it also helps search engines to reach their goal of making available information on user's requests.
When you hire a dedicated SEO, you are assured that someone is working on the internet marketing of your websites throughout the year.
for more details: http://outsource-to-india.com/search-engine-marketing/seo-sem.htm
Try
Analyze
Learn
Optimize
* Repeat
It's very interesting to see each person’s view of SEO-ing websites. It's clear to see how poorly defined the industry, but maybe that's a good thing...
I for one, would suggest it's primarily founded on solid analysis of site performance, especially in regards to how visitors respond to the content.
For example, if your site has got a poor bounce rate, relatively low time on site, low pages/visit...(etc, etc)...it's more than likely that you're not presenting the right information to both the search engines and visitors - to cover things such as good quality descriptive mark-up, content, and of course presentation...these are the factors that feed into relevancy that search engine's hope people provide.
The other side to it, once the above has been done, is the presentation of the site mark-up to promote access / crawlability of the search engine spiders, (.ht access, robots.txt, sitemap.xml, inter-linking relevant content, inbound links with relevant content and anchor text, etc) to the parts of the site that are, again, most relevant to your sites visitors.
Targeting visitors with relevant content should therefore be the name of the longevity SEO game. It’s obvious, when you build it into every part of web development and promotion, it really works! …The right visitors in the right place – my next tag line, surely!
Joke of the day:
Two fish are in a tank, one says to the other: “you man the guns, I’ll drive”…
Be POSH and Use Valid semantic html
http://microformats.org/wiki/posh
The Spanish translation of a parragraph of the new article is not accurate.
* Reviewing and providing recommendations on your site content or structure
* Technical advice on website development: for example, hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript
* Content development
* Managing online business development campaigns
* Keyword research
* SEO training
My Spanish version:
* revisar y proporcionar recomendaciones respecto al contenido y la estructura de su sitio web,
* asesoramiento técnico en el desarrollo de sitios web: por ejemplo, alojamiento, redirecciones, páginas de error, uso de JavaScript, etc.,
* desarrollo de contenidos,
* administración de campañas online de desarrollo de negocio,
* estudio e investigación sobre palabras clave y
* formación SEO.
Please, read my blog for further details.
There's a great diversity of opinion in the comments above, some of it suprisingly heated!!
Let's get it straight - SEO helps everybody find the content they need - surely that's a good thing?
I think the problem stems from the lack of transparency around the subject, clients don't want to feel they are paying for something they don't need, SEO experts don't want to feel under-valued. Hopefully dialogue like this can find us all meeting in the middle somewhere..
Good post Nantucket Artist...
"I think the problem stems from the lack of transparency around the subject, clients don't want to feel they are paying for something they don't need, SEO experts don't want to feel under-valued. Hopefully dialogue like this can find us all meeting in the middle somewhere.."
The transparency point is certainly worth highlighting in this commentary.
This is why we must firstly (as deric loh, so wisely summarised)…
- Try
- Analyze
- Learn
- Optimize
* Repeat
Presenting this process, and the associated results, should tick both client and SEO gratification boxes…
Be patient. Just like starting up a business it takes time for it to grow.
Keywords in title and description etc. are just minor tactics.
Link building is about promotion and outreaching yourself.
The holy grail is about good contents that can interest people to stay, read and return.
For most small businesses important:
The combination of geographical area and delivered products and solutions.
For example
Munich car service
Munich air condition service
Munich winter tires
Can any body help me in updateing tiltle in Google search. i have changed the tilte 2 weeks back but still in serach its showing old title
Concentrate on original material keep article short and concise. Start a new paragraph after every 3sentences. Make it easy to read.
Advance you content from simple to more complex in an orderly time line progression. Share ideas with others.
Give more than you receive. Think long term. Constantly refine you content. Write and publish articles.
We try to help people make great web sites and put down the SEO fairy dust.
Michael Guy http://www.1seoexperts.com
There are no short cuts and it's not a dark art...just get good, quality content on your site, make sure you've got it tagged and then promote it via other sites in your niche.
Unique contents and updating them every now and then is the key. Also do not forget to keep a tab on your site's performance by checking your links frequently on webtools like http://tools.khrido.com/ and http://www.dnstools.com
Great
your notes and the replys help me alot
Thank you
Thank you too much
http://www.ibb7.com
منتديات موقع برامج دليل مواقع اناشيد
SEO is very important not only it helps website to organize the content correctly by also helps to realize the apporiate keywords.
We site Translation also helps to improve your web ranking, I tried with one company called www.techpubinc.com and got got results for my website calculatoredge
nothing new, I think Google want new tips.
My first recomendation is to read Google FAQ and documentation abour SEO but if you want a faster way:
1.- write original content, correctly written and well organized
2.- tell the world that you're alive
That said, SEO is a marketing tool, why would it be free? If you really need content positioning, hire an expert (like me).
Before the big Google time, I told my customers to optimize for an abstract optimal search engine and not special for a specific search engine.
My proof for this claim had been the changes from the default search engine at Yahoo. Yahoo changed several times the default search engine until 2000.
Infoseek, Altavista, Inktomi, Google
My traffic from the default search from Yahoo had been within +-15% stable over all the changes. This was my proof, that I optimize with equal quality for all this 4 different search engines.
SEO - search engine optimisation is actually a wrong term. Semantically it means "optimisaton of the search engine", basically Google itself. And they never tell what else they have "optimised", but stay mostly black box. It is either unlikely at all that search engines will be able to understand what they are sifting through or a matter of a very distant future. Frequency count on "romance" and "tragedy" in Shakespear's "Romeo and Juliet" does not capture the essence of the play. People do though. Optimise your texts for them, not machines and hope they will link to it.
I think initial keyword research and competitor analysis pays dividends in SEO. It's much harder to get good rankings these days, simply due to the growing ammount of websites, and the increased webmaster knowledge. Therefore finding a niche, or a particular phrase that might be overlooked by the competition can provide results quicker than you may imagine. I agree with many comments below, and an honest approach is always a good idea.
Storm Website Design Company based in Aberdeen
I am a little new to the SEO world and had a question that hopefully someone can help me with. When it is said to have "unique" meta decription tags, how unique should they be. I ask because Im working on a website that has the same products, but for different brands. So the description is the same, but the brand name in the discription. For example.."large selection of hoses for budd vacuums" and "large selection of hoses for eureka vacuums". My question is, is that unique enough or are they to similar?
Per the Blog post line item: 'Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?'
It is important to ask the SEO vendor to show you their work or success stories across International, National, Regional or Local results', as they relate to your own SEO end goals!
Cheers,
Rick Vidallon
create a useful site. buy adwords.
wii
this nice tips.
regards
Search engine optimization
working for seo tips.
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