Entries Tagged 'SEO Saturday' ↓

Search engine optimization practices can be categorized in three ways: SEO practices to include, SEO practices to avoid, and SEO practices that can get your site banned from search engine indexes. Today’s post sorts 39 common SEO practices into the three categories so you’ll know which ones to put into effect and which ones to pass on.

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It sounds innocent enough. You get a simple email or blog comment: “I just visited your website. I linked to it on this site. I would love it if you linked back to mine.” Or perhaps the offer is more bold and exciting: “Get thousands of FREE one-way links . . .” Inbound links? Free? And links are the life-blood of search engines, right?

Not all links. Offers like that are promotions from link farms — a means of spamming search engines in order to artificially build incoming links to a site. This link-building method stems from the days before Google’s algorithm, when search engine results were based solely upon inbound links. (Remember the miles-long blogroll trend?)

Today, the game has changed, and bloggers need to be aware of which areas of the Internet are considered “bad neighborhoods,” because links generated from link farms are labeled as SPAM by search engines. This means bloggers who exchange links with link farms may have their search engine rankings penalized.

If you are approached by another site owner with a request to submit your site, here are some things to consider: Continue reading →

Google “link building” and you’ll get a list of typical suggested tactics, are the usual suspects the best methods to employ? We all know we’re supposed to build links, and today’s post will touch on why, what to do, what not to do, and introduce you to a few not-so-typical link-building tactics that we’ll be discussing further over the next few SEO Saturdays.

Benefits of  link building Continue reading →

The ultimate goal of keyword research is to increase traffic to your site. The reason we research to identify keywords and keyword phrases is because search engines match search strings against keywords to determine your site’s relevancy to the user’s search. In order to be a good match, we must pick the right words, include the right amount (keyword density), and put them in the right places on our site.

Your goal in keyword research is to come up with perhaps three strong keyword phrases that a normal reader would type into Google (think: long-tail search) and optimize your blog for those keywords and phrases. Soon, you will OWN those phrases.

There are five things to consider when selecting keywords and phrases: Continue reading →

This is part two of the series: Getting Started with Keyword Research.

There’s a lot of talk about conducting keyword research, but what is the purpose of keyword research, anyway? There are three primary reasons for conducting keyword research: more website traffic, better sales, higher search engine results page positioning. So, whether you’re an Internet Marketer hoping to peddle a product or a blogger who wants to spread her message across the globe, learning how to conduct effective keyword research is essential to the success of your blog.

Whether you’re developing your list of keywords to increase organic search results or to conduct an ad campaign, thinking like a detective will help you in the process. The first four questions a keyword research detective should ask are:

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