I’ve been in web development, design and publishing since the mid 1990’s. I think I’ve seen just about every optimization trick in the book. There are many nuances to search engine optimization but if you follow some overarching guidelines, I promise you will grow healthy exposure to your site.
This past month I’ve seen thoughtsparks.net traffic increase by 22% from the previous month. I’ve also turned-up number one on Google in search phrases like "nine random facts" out of 1,130,000. Professionally, it is not uncommon for many of my key search phrases to turn-up number one as well. It’s no big secret, just do the right thing. It turns out that Google and other search engines look for sites with integrity and reward them for it.
First, let’s look at the do’s. If you follow these guidelines, the don’ts will be irrelevant.
SEO Do’s
- Do write original content. Search engines are like people, they are searching for relevant information on a topic. If you create useful, interesting and informative content, people will pick-up on it and therefore search engines will too.
- Do develop each page as if it were the home page. The idea of a "front-page" is very much an old way of thinking about web publishing. If every post or page published is crafted to speak as a standalone page, then search engines will recognize it.
- Do employ User-friendly URL’s. One of the best features in WordPress is the user-friendly URL page name convention that can be set. I recommend changing from the Page ID immediately on install.
- Do use relevant keywords that relate to your topic. The URL, the title, alt tags, meta tags and content should reference keywords that you would want to return a result in Google.
- Do use alt tags for your images. Remember that folks will not only find your site via text search but image search as well. Alt tags and image names give more information for Google to use for search indexing.
- Do validate your HTML. Yes this affects search optimization. A well-formed page affects how search engines crawl the site.
- Do employ a translator on your site. I am amazed at the amount of international traffic I get to my blog. A full 40% of my blog traffic is from outside the United States.
- Do test your site in alternate browsers. I still forget to do this sometimes, but if funky display of the site in a standard browser will significantly reduce traffic and affect your ranking.
- Do keep and analyze web stats. If you study your site traffic, you will begin to understand how folks are finding you in search engines.
- Do show patience, page ranking takes time. It can take months for a site to gain prominence. One metric for ranking is the age of a URL. The longer you are around the more credible you are to search engines.
- Do employ legitimate Web 2.0 processes. Blog comments, online communities, microblogging on Twitter and Jaiku, professional listings on LinkedIn, ranking sites like Tecnorati are all legitimate tools to improve your ranking.
- Do build meaningful relationships, online and off. Page ranking is the result in part of people choosing to link to your content.
Now let’s look at the don’ts.
SEO Don’ts
- Don’t take short-cuts. This is the over-arching rule. You will only hurt your efforts in the end.
- Don’t pay someone to list your site. If you want to throw your money away, give it to me! I’ll find a use for it. You don’t need to employ someone else to do what you can do yourself. In many cases they have little positive affect. In fact you may find yourself worse-off than before.
- Don’t do stupid page tricks. If your site sniffs of dumb tricks like multiple redirects, hidden keywords and other bogus gimmick’s you may find yourself banned from Google’s results which would definitely be counter productive.
- Don’t participate in online link gimmick’s. Reciprocal links have much less value than one-way links. Google recognizes meaningful links in context and will weight those much higher.
- Don’t spam people. Leave meaningful comments on peoples blogs and online profiles like MyBlogLog. Too often I see comments like "hey, check out my site" or some derivative on multiple peoples profiles in MyBlogLog. This leaves a negative taste in people’s mouth and is a major turn-off.
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12 Comments
I remember my delight when I found that if you type ’sky divin’ my site is amongst the first three that come up…and this from someone who
knows none of the do’s you listed… I was insanely excited… naive I know…but I wasn’t aware of SEO still don’t know how it works….
Random, yeah it’s a learning process and different search engines use different metrics. Google keeps their algorithms under wraps for the finer points. It’s a collection of factors. Main thing is to do the right thing and keep watching your stats.
These 8 things are so helpful that I just went out to google search. I typed in the names of a few of my posts and they popped up! I realize that it was the exact name but your info will really help me get it all worked out. I am glad a found your blog!
Bowrag, that’s wonderful. It really is a fun discovery to see what shows up in Google. You will be amazed as you continue to post that your exposure will naturally grow. There are legitimate aggressive steps to take, but following the do’s I’m recommending will go a long way towards raising your traffic.
Superior post, Phil. I’m extremely glad you are persisting in eloquently educating others that this business of cutting corners by doing gimmicky things to drive traffic to their sights is annoying. I blog to write. I read others blogs to enjoy their writing. I meet people, find things in common, and learn. And thanks for your assistance yesterday. I’ve decided to just try a new theme. Again. *sigh* Until I find one that is more workable, the current one is staying. I did check out that link you sent where they validate a site and laughed when I saw how many errors and warnings mine had. Goodness.
Kelly, Thanks for the comments. Yes, like in most worthwhile things in life, cutting corners just doesn’t work. BTW, go to your admin, click on presentation and theme editor. Click on header link about half-way down the page which should bring-up the header.php page. You should see some code with the open title tag followed by some php tags with a closing tag only missing the word title in it.
I’m pretty sure that’s the problem you are having w/ the IE issue. If you fix that tag, it may do the trick. Ping me once you got it fixed and I’ll take a gander in IE 7, that nasty browser. Best of luck.
If that doesn’t make sense, copy the header.php text and email it to me and I’ll send you back an edited version of the code to replace.
Phil, these are very good comments. I’ve been quite disappointed of late by the “viral link tag” gaming going on to impact both Technorati and Google. I think that those resorting to this type of cheating are going to be in for a little surprise when the search engines catch wise. I wrote about this quite a bit yesterday: Technorati Needs to Stamp Out Viral Tag Spam Now
Louis, You’ve written an excellent post and commentary on the subject. Yes, plain and simple, honesty and integrity always pays. Short-cuts will not have lasting value and many of these folks will someday soon have a rude awakening. They will also frustrate themselves with the volume of time they’ve spent on futility. I see a steady growing readership because I focus my energy on publishing information that people find valuable on some level. That, in the end, will result in more traffic, but is that really the ultimate goal? Would one rather have volumes of traffic to a site that adds little to peoples lives? What is the true end in mind. Blogging is just no get-rich quick scheme no matter how tricky one may be. And even if you are successful, does one achieve that end at the cost of personal integrity?
Great stuff. I am a 25 page ebook due soon that touches on this topic. I’m going to add a link to this page I think.
Matt, thanks for the thought to link to post. I look forward to you ebook. I’m sure you have some really great information to share.
Hey! Nice article. I wouldnt call myself a full time blogger… but I try and I love reading new and innovative posts. Really gives you ideas and shows you the thinking of so many people. I totally agree with your Do and Donts list. however, I thinking building traffic to your blog is extremely important too. If you get bogus visitors that is of no help or use to you. and your purpose of the blog is lost. For that I have found this tool called MyPRGenie ((http://www.myprgenie.com/technology/). Give it a try. I use it and am a big fan. It resolves all PR and marketing related issues. REally nice!
Kenneth, thanks for the reference. I’m always on the look-out for new tools.
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[...] written for ease of use by readers is actually deceptively simple. Going hand-in-hand with my post Search Engine Optimization Do’s and Don’ts, this post will give you a few simple steps to advance your web publishing [...]