Find the right balance

To get your website seen in the top of the the search engine result pages (serps), you need to choose the right keywords and key phrases before you even begin creating your site. (see my article: All in one Web Design and SEO)

When people make a search they will type in 2-word phrases more than 3-word phrases. 1-word phrases get fewer searches, as do 4, 5 or more, the keyword phrase getting fewer uses the longer it gets.

That means that long keyword phrases get less traffic.

But because longer keyword phrases are more specific, they are therefore more targeted.

So there is a trade-off between long, specific, targeted keyword phrases, and traffic.

The longer and the more precise your keyword phrases are, the quicker you’ll get your traffic because its easier to optimise a site using a specific phrase. However, you’ll also get fewer visitors too, but – they are there because they were looking precisely for your keyword phrase, so they will also convert more into customers.

The best solution is to use three-word or even four-word key phrases that express your visitor’s needs.

The market is full of tools that promise the top 10 positions in Google, 1000 backlinks in seconds and so on.

Here is a list of things NOT to do in a link building strategy.

1 . Do not submit your site to more than 50 directories in a month. These should be types of directories where are you are sure that your site will appear.

Submit to more and you will get the sandbox effect on your site – that is pages that are in sandbox drop lots of positions and end up on the bottom of the rankings and stay there for a lot of time. (see here for more)

2. Do not make link exchanges site-wide. Site wide means with the whole site. You will see it doesn’t help you more than a link exchange with a relevant page that is positioning good in SERPS (Search engine result pages).

3. Do not place your link in forum signatures.You will see no difference in SERPS.Why? Its like the site-wide link exchange but more irrelevant.

4. Do not make link exchanges with sites that have more than 100 links on a page (internal links and external links). First of all Google will see that page as spammy.

Another reason is that the PR juice (- the benefit of connecting to pages with a high ranking) be divided into 100 pieces and you will have 1/100 of the “cake”.

5.  Do not use stupid anchors. If you submit your site to a directory articles or somewhere else. Only use the Keywords that you want to optimize.

6 . Don’t use the same anchor more than once on a page. In exchanging links, if an anchor is used on a page more than once to different sites, there will be a problem. What should you do? Add a dash “-“ to the anchor if  you can’t use other keywords. Why? If you search seo or seo – in Google you get same results.

7. Do not make lots of backlinks in a short time without them being completely relevant!! You will get the sandbox effect! (see 1. above)

8. Link exchanges or one way links MUST BE MADE only with relevant content to your site. DONT LOOK for Page Rank.You need higher ranks in SERPS not a bigger PAGE RANK.

9. In exchanging links, use URLS that have keywords in them. This is crucial.

10. Do not create more than one site on the same IP just for exchanging links between them. There’s no value in that.

11. Do not just make link exchanges with the home page of the site. Use internal pages from your site.

Source: How to not start link building for a site – mistakes in seo

optimising your site has everything to do with what text goes in

Did you know that when you get your web site designed, you should also get it search engine optimised at the same time? Why? Because optimising your site has everything to do with what text goes into your site, in the headers, body text, image alt tags, meta tags, and meta descriptions – and how it fits with what key words you want to optimise for.

There’s no point having all your text pre-written before you know what key words you want to use, because if that goes into the site, then you would have to get it re-done to get the best search engine optimisation (SEO).

That would normally cost you a lot more, and also waste your time. Its best to use a web design company that can create an optimised site as they go along. There is some pretty good software now that can help the experts find and keep track of the best key words for your site, and they can analyse how your site is doing on a day-to-day basis for your chosen search engines too, so that they can tweak the site to keep it up the in the search engine rankings.

Getting seen in local search is more important than you may realise

Back in May 2009, David Mihm reported on a survey he conducted on the factors most helpful for ranking well in the Google and Yahoo Local algorithms, as well as techniques to be avoided. Here is a summary of the top nine most helpful factors:

Importance of General Factors

1. Verified Local Business Listing.
   You need to register with the local listings for Google and Yahoo. This places you as a verified local business/ organisation.
2. Off-Page / Off-Listing Criteria
   You need to establish your website’s authority, with Geo links from directory sites, local review sites with listings that have user submitted photos and web-references, and sites in your niche.
3. Customer Reviews
   Find the sites of authority in your niche and location, and getting reviews of your site on them is important, but slightly less influential than getting reviews directly inside Google maps or on yahoo local.
4. Traditional On-Page Criteria
   In highly competitive markets on-page factors become more and more important and should not be ignored. Apart from that, other than the business website being recognized as the authoritative source of info about that business, traditional organic SEO factors on that website don’t have much influence on the local, non-organic, rankings.

Significant Positive Factors

1. Your Local Business Listing Address is in the City of Search
   The importance of having an address inside the search city depends on the type of business you have. A plumber would not have to worry as much as a Chinese take-away.
2. Citations from Major Data Providers
   ‘citation’ or ‘web reference’ is a reference to your business on some other website. It is not necessarily a link  and always contains your business address and/or phone number. Citations and web references from well-known local directories, such as Yell.com or Thomson local etc are equivalent to getting good links in non-local seo. Here is a great list of where to list your business for UK Local Search.
3. Associating Local Business Listing with Correct Categories
   Make sure the category that you’re listed in is correct, and if you can also include your page’s keywords this improves your ranking.
4. General Importance of Claiming a Local Business Listing
   Registering your business in the local listing also involves including extra information about your business, which leads to better targeting and ranking.
5. Your product or service Keywords in the Local Business Listing Title.
   It is important to make your keywords fit naturally; obvious keyword stuffing will end up bringing your ranking down.