SEO Myths, Tricks, and Trials

Power To SEO!

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most uttered terms by webmasters, bloggers, and web enthusiasts. We all know what it is, but we have diverging, even contradictory opinions on how to best achieve this.

At one time, SEO “experts” encouraged page optimization for all of the major search engines. Today, Google is the most important — perhaps the only — search engine worth optimizing for. Granted, Yahoo, MSN and Ask each have their place, but Google is dominant and is in many markets exerting more influence then all of its competitors combined, thus rendering everyone else to a distant second tier status.

A big portion of what I do every day is built on SEO: I build links, work on back links, add fresh content, tweak existing content, digg, stumble, and work my way on and on and on. At times it can be tiring, seeming somewhat pointless, but when I check the SERPs (search engine results pages) and learn that a customer has discovered me due to my hard work it all becomes worthwhile.

Allow me to cover some of the myths, tricks and trials of SEO. Some of what I am sharing is simply my opinion, while other methods have a proven track history — steps I do over and over and over again.

SEO Myths

You must saturate your article with keywords. Granted keywords are important, but anything over 2 or 3 percent is plain wrong. This means that if you write a 500 word article you will use “diamond necklace” between 10 and 15 times. Um, that is plain silly…boring to read too. Better: use a particular keyword or phrase three, perhaps five times in the article. That is all you need to do.

Limit your articles to 250 words, submit them to the article directories. No and no. The premise with the first part is that a page with less words on it will load quicker. In some cases, maybe so. But, there isn’t much that can be said in 250 words that makes sense. As far as the article directories go, be very selective: they aren’t all equal — I have two directories that I really like, but I use them with care.

Tags do not matter. Some do, some don’t (as much). META tags aren’t all that important, but Title, Paragraph, and ALT tags are very important. Use them with care and you’ll succeed. (note: see comment below by SEO Ranter who disputes my finding with a comment by me linking to a site which explains their effectiveness today).

SEO Tricks

Writing good content is essential. Well, so is writing jibberish. Seriously, the search engines are not grammar police — I’ve seen many pages do very well that are poorly written. Sure, if you want to engage your readers, you should work on well you write, but that won’t necessarily stop your page from performing well. Focus on writing a lot of unique content too. Quantity isn’t tops, but it can be important.

Add a Site Map. Always a good idea — make your site easier for the search engines to spider. Besides if links break or other problems arise, you can check your site map and quickly correct the problem.

Build Links. Having an excellent internal link structure is important. Wherever possible, point to some of the articles and categories within your site, not just outside links. Point to related sites you control and share some link love with sites outside of your control as well. Exchanging blogroll links is good. Better: set up a separate link page and link from that page. You’ll avoid the clutter and not duplicate links across your blog.

SEO Trials

Oftentimes, feedback is difficult to gauge. Sure, SERPs can be followed, but are people clicking on your pages, reading what you published, and taking additional action such as buying your product? Some people are sniffers, others are lurkers, while still others are shoppers — you want to snag the latter.

SEO can be tiring. Yes, but it is very necessary. SEO should be habit-forming and the part of everything that you write. Good habits equal good results; the opposite is also true. Which method do you want to follow?

Sure, there are other tips and tricks I could mention, but then I’d be giving fodder to my competition.

Meanwhile, familiarize yourself with the many tips and tricks out there and give the good and safe ones a try. Yes, there are some shady ways to do SEO, but I am not covering those. Let your white hat go a bit gray, but wearing a black hat can come back to bite you.

Revisiting Article Directories & Their Usefulness Today

I recently started to go through some of the articles that I have posted to the article directories over the past three years by updating some, deleting a few, while deciding that I would renew my effort to post to directories again.

Unlike in times past when I would post one article to as many as 20 directories, I’ve decided to change my tactic and limit my distribution to just two directories: Ezine Articles and Article Sphere. I know both both owners, Christopher Knight and Larry Lim, respectively, and know that they provide a consistent and reliable service. I wish I could say that about most of the other directories, but I cannot.

With my current initiative each directory will start receiving fresh articles beginning in May, articles which will not appear on the other directory nor will they have been published elsewhere. I plan on testing the effectiveness of this approach, but I suspect that it will work: quite a few of my articles on Knight’s site have received PageRank, offering excellent link juice for me.

Speaking of link juice, this is the primary reason why I have decided to revisit the issue. I have built or am in the process of building or overhauling several sites and they could use some back links. Submitting articles to article directories allows me to place as many as three back links to three different URLs, a great way to empower any site.

I realize a number of articles will be picked up and posted elsewhere, therefore if the publishers keep my back links in place I’ll get additional link juice. If not, I’ll be content to gain the links from Article Sphere and Ezine Articles as they are both solid sources for this type of marketing.

BTW, both directories are featured on my side bar — the only two.