Posted on Jan 6, 2009
Content is not king in the modern search engine era in which websites exist now. Links have a much greater impact on search engine results than one might want to acknowledge. Google bombing actually proves that links can play a much larger role than content regarding search engine ranking. Granted that in these Google bombing incident the results were later fixed and the sites return to their normal rankings, it still justifies the importance of linking. If a site that is unrelated to a keyword can rank first simply from links, then a site with related content to a keyword can easily rank first because of links. Acquiring the number of links to attain and maintain the first ranking may be a challenge but it is definitely a feasible option. Websites really do not need to have amazing quality content to rank first for their keyword and this can be seen in many Google searches. If you search a keyword phase, many of the sites in the top 10 ranking will likely address what you are looking for, but there are sure to be better more in depth website hidden further back in the rankings. Websites attain top rankings for keywords because of links and many websites remain as undiscovered paradises because they lack the links to achieve better rankings in the search engines. Content is not king and links are king, but we look at the other side of this issue in content is king.
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Posted on Jan 4, 2009
I recently realized on one of my sites that I needed to reoptimize my site for different keywords. Originally, long tail keywords were targeted with regards to seo, which consisted of the main keyword and 1 or 2 related search words. After glancing at my organic seo traffic report in Google Analytics, I noticed that I was actually getting more traffic from the main keyword than from all of the long tail keyword terms that I was targeting along with it. In Google, the site ranked 3-8 for the long tail keywords and ranked 17th for the main keyword. It was necessary to make some changes to the website in order to optimize it for the main keyword, which would greatly benefit the site regarding the traffic it would bring in. The title tag of the site contained the main keyword and the majority of the long tail keyword, which gave it a length of 6 words. To improve the seo of the website, the title tag was change to only include the main keyword. This was the only change that was made on the website, but the results were quite incredible. The website’s seo greatly improved for the main keyword to a rank of 9; although, the long tail terms did drop slightly to rank at 4-10. The amount of traffic that was brought in by this seo reoptimization definitely compensated for the small loss in long tail keywords ranking. It is sometimes necessary to look at a site’s optimization for keywords and the traffic that they bring. After comparing the keywords, it may be beneficial to reoptimize your website, so that you shift the keywords that the webpage targets. Even a small change can produce impressive results regarding seo while reoptimizing a webpages keywords.
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Posted on Dec 28, 2008
To find the broken inbound links in a quick manner, I suggest using the Google Webmaster Tools which provides a report that shows inbound links pointing to nonexistent webpages. Inbound links are an important factor in search engine rankings, so you do not want to link to pages that do not exist as this will have no affect on your serps. Additionally, broken links are not user friendly and can agitate your visitors. You may have accidentally created broken internal links by making your website have keyword friendly urls. To fix these broken inbound links, you can contact the sites that are linking to the nonexistent webpages, or the easier method is to just fix it yourself using 301 permanently moved redirects. It is essential that you fix broken links as your website’s full potential is not taken advantage of with broken links. By fixing broken inbound links, you can improve your visitor experience and improve your search engine rankings at the same time.
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Posted on Dec 24, 2008
Instead of buying links, which violates Google’s webmaster guidelines, you can buy existing websites that are related to your niche. Granted it costs more to buy an entire website as opposed to a link, this is a legitimate method of acquiring links to your website, but can also benefit you in other ways. You are not only acquiring potential links to your website when you buy another, but you are gaining all of the content, age, and authority that this domain may have. You can choose to simply add links on the existing website that you purchased to pass on some PageRank to your website, or you can slowly move the content to your domain. If you choose to move the content, then be aware that you should slowly 301 redirect pages over to your site; if you 301 redirect all of the pages to your website at once, then search engines will be suspicious. After you have moved all of the content to your domain, you should see noticeable changes in your existing website as the content, age, and authority will be passed on. By buying a website that is in a related niche, you can significantly improve your own website by slowly transferring the website, or by adding a few links to your website and maintaining the website that your bought. Both of these methods can have great impacts and improve your website through the acquisition of another.
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Posted on Nov 17, 2008
Buying links can clearly get you a large amount of links in a short period of time as opposed to organically building these links as your website grows and develops. “Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.” Although it may be tempting to buy links to gain an edge in seo, it will likely have greater negative effects than positive ones. Google has recently started to crack down on websites that buy and sell links. Websites can experience serious drops in pagerank and their serps due to improper link exchange. Of course Google will not punish for paid links if they do not find out, but Google is improving their methods for improper link exchange, and it is quite likely that your site will be punish if it engages in these activities. Instead of wasting time with paid links which will result in Google penalties, you may just want to effectively buy links by buying a website. Link exchange should be done in an organic manner as this will improve your seo naturally, and you will not have to worry about your website being punished for selling or buying links.
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Posted on Nov 14, 2008
Google recently released their SEO Starter Guide which discusses basic seo issues for webmasters who are just entering the industry. Some of the seo issues covered include:
- Page Titles
- Description Meta Tag
- URL Structure
- Site Navigation
- Creating Quality Content
- Anchor Text
- Heading Tags (H1s, H2s, etc.)
- Image Optimization
- Robots.txt
- Rel=â€nofollowâ€
- Website Promotion
- Webmaster Tools
- Analytics
- More Resources
Although, most experienced webmasters should know all of the things that Google covers in this guide, many of the topics mentioned may need to be refreshed in our minds. Overall, it is a very useful guide that addresses seo topics in a direct and basic manner.
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