Web Moves Blog

Even if Google has been tweaking and fine tuning its search engine algorithms almost daily since it started last November, one thing remains constant: there are things in SEO that you need to do and others that you absolutely need to avoid.

Here are my 10 commandments of rigorous SEO techniques that I practice. As fast and furious as Google ‘dances’ have been lately, these 10 commandments have, to this day, kept my clients out of trouble while helping them to continue enjoying priority rankings in the results pages.

I strongly believe that if you practice ‘safe SEO’ such as the ones described in these 10 commandments, then you should get equally positive results.

SEO Commandment Number One

Thou shall not write invisible text

It continues to surprise me that some people are still trying to get away with this! Just last week, we had to ‘clean up’ a mess that somebody else did who had inserted lots of invisible text on most of the pages in that site. As a result, and as might be expected, the site got banned by Google. We had to remove it, properly optimize the site for its main keywords, utilize Wordtracker and resubmit to Google and the other search engines.

Just to be certain, I also wrote an email to Google advising them of the ‘clean up’ we conducted, with a thank you note for their consideration in re-instating the site back in their index.

SEO Commandment Number Two
Thou shall always use Wordtracker

If you are really serious about getting your site higher in the rankings, don’t waste your time with tools that are just not accurate enough. The only serious tool by today’s standards in the SEO industry is Wordtracker. Optimize a site with the wrong keywords and you will end up with a site that ranks high, but for products or services your company may not even sell! Correctly identifying your ‘right’ keywords and search terms using Wordtracker is the ONLY way you will be successful at targeting your real audience, and your real prospects.

SEO Commandment Number Three
It’s a known and proven fact. I see it everyday. Sites that continually add new content and new pages everyday ultimately get the best rankings all the time. What’s more, when search engine spiders visit your site and find newly added or updated content, they will come and visit you more often! The more often they come, usually the higher and better your rankings. Always remember the search engines are always on the lookout for fresh new ‘meat’ all the time. Surprise them everyday with new content and watch your rankings go higher.

Also, and this is a very well kept secret in the SEO industry: With all else being equal, the greater the number of pages in a given website, the higher the PR (Page Rank). This is a mathematical formula. In combination with the number of links pointing to your site, Google’s Page Rank algorithm uses the number of actual pages in a given site to calculate its final PR value. This is performed once a month during every major Google dance. Contact me if you need to know more about it.

SEO Commandment Number Four
Thou shall never link to bad neighbourhoods

You can’t control who links to you, and, for the most part, no search engine will ever penalize your site if someone links to you, since they know you have no control over it. But you do have control of the sites YOU link to. If you happen to link to a site which some would call ‘a bad neighbourhood’, you might get penalized by some engines for linking to them. Examples of this would be sites that have been penalized in the past (or still are) for prohibited techniques such as invisible text, invisible links, gateway (or doorway pages) or, in some cases, sites that are really nothing more than a bunch of affiliates sites that are heavily cross linked.

If you feel suspicious before linking to a site, it would help to make a few investigations on your own. Make a search of who’s linking to them. Are they penalized too? I like to think it is ‘Linker Beware’ and proceed cautiously before you do, just to keep safe.

SEO Commandment Number Five
Thou shall not spam the meta tags

It’s a known fact that most search engines today don’t even care to look at meta tags anymore, since they were spammed and abused so much in the past. The only search engine today that places some importance on meta tags is Inktomi. Since Yahoo is about to drop Google’s search results any day now, it will exclusively use their own search results produced by their own search property, Inktomi. If you decide to write your meta tags, just write your main keywords that are on that particular page. If the page is about blue and red widgets, then that is all that should be written in the meta tags. Don’t ‘stuff’ them with useless words that have nothing to do with the actual text written on that page.

SEO Commandment Number Six
Thou shall not use Doorway or Gateway pages

You should never even think of using doorway or gateway pages, since they are frowned upon by most search engines. If you implement any kind of software or program that needs to know the IP address of a search engine robot, you are making use of spam tactics that will have your site penalized or banned. Gateway pages serve different pages to search engines than they do to real human visitors, which is a big No-No in the SEO industry!

Some people suggest ‘trusted feeds’ or XML feeds or similar variations. Depending on the exact nature of such implementations, such techniques could be accepted, if certain basic conditions are met. But in almost all the cases I have seen, doorway (or gateway) pages are a bad idea and you should always stay away from them. To give you an example of how doorway pages are hated by the search engines, on January 25, Google changed most of their IP addresses in many of its data centers, as ammunition against this sort of practice.

SEO Commandment Number Seven
Thou shall build the best site you can

Last week, I wrote an article about the importance of usability in any website. If new visitors visit your site in good numbers but then leave just as fast, there is something very wrong with your site! High rankings won’t compensate for a site that has little usability features. Does your site take too long to download? Did you know that even today, about 80% of people are connected to the Internet using slow dialup modem phone lines? This is especially true in rural areas and in many parts of Europe.

Did you know that if your menu system isn’t clear or if your homepage fails to give the slightest clue as to what your website has to offer, they will leave faster than you can say goodbye!

SEO Commandment Number Eight
Thou shall write compelling sales copy and body text

Writing for the Web is a bit different than writing for print. If you want visibility in the search engines, you will have to include your important keywords a few times at strategic locations in your pages, writing text that flows well, but at the same time that is rich in keywords and key phrases. Without sounding repetitive, a normal page with about 750 words on it needs to contain from two to three times your keywords for that page. Also, as stated in the following commandment, make certain you write a proper title tag that is descriptive of that page, and be sure to include your keywords in the title tag.

SEO Commandment Number Nine
Thou shall always write good title tags

This is one of the most neglected activities of SEO, and yet it is still one of the most critical because it can make such a big difference! A well-written title tag has two functions: it helps your users know what the page is all about before they click on your link in the search results pages (SERP’s) and it also helps the search engines better index your page.

To get a better idea of what I mean, type in any meaningful keyword or key phrase in Google or Yahoo and look at the first 10 results that you see. Note that most (if not all) of these sites have a good description of what the page offers, all in the title tag. The title tag is the underlined snippet of text that you actually see written for each result. It is also what you see in your browser at the top.

SEO Commandment Number Ten
Thou shall always keep up to date in SEO news

More than ever today, the search engine optimization (SEO) industry is advancing at a breathtaking pace. Just witness what has happened over the past year and you get the feeling that it will continue to accelerate.

Whether or not Google goes public, the search industry today is one of the fastest growing industries and it is revolutionizing the way companies advertise their products and the way consumers buy them.

Subscribing to good SEO newsletters, reading search engine industry portal sites such as this one and staying current of the news in this rapidly growing industry and you will be certain to remain one step ahead of your competition.

Author:
Serge Thibodeau of Rank For Sales