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Basic SEO

Tip: Check Your Google Snippets!

Nov 1st, 2011
by Greekgeek.
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When Google lists your page, it lists a "snippet" -- a small excerpt of your content. This snippet will be one of two things:

  • Your META description tag. On Squidoo, this is the first 255 characters of the lens introduction.
  • OR: an excerpt from your page showing the first instance (usually) of the keyword the Google user searched for.

You can't predict what people will search for. But you should at least do a command-F when viewing your article to see where your top keywords appear. Do the few words on either side of it make someone feel that your article is useful, relevant, and may possibly answer their questions? Or are they vague, poorly written, and don't give a good impression of what your page is like?
Also, do this for your business name or blog name. Here's an example. My main mythology blog, Mythphile, gets enough Google love to receive the special Google table-of-contents treatment. (Search for Mythphile and you'll see what I mean.)
However, recently I finally clued into the snippet description that was showing in search results. I forgot to take a screenshot, but what it said was:

Mythphile by  is powered by WordPress using theme Tribune.

WHOOPS!  That doesn't tell us a THING about this blog or the content on the page. That's from the footer at the bottom of the blog. Apparently, I don't have the blog's name anywhere on the blog except in the Header and navigation links (e.g. "What Is Mythphile?"), and the snippet tool does NOT excerpt the header, when it's one word and too short to be a useful snippet.

So I ran to my blog template and added a widget in the upper righthand corner of the sidebar. Now that blurb is what displays in the Google snippet:

What Is Mythphile? Mythphile is a blog exploring the intersection between mythology and modern culture, timeless symbols and current events.

Moral: Make sure that the first instance of your top keyword, username, and brand name/business name/blog name appear in a meaningful sentence, because that's likely going to be the only data web searchers have to go on when trying to decide whether to click your link in a page of search results.

Yes, this is yet another example of my SEO axiom, "Make Search Results SEXY!"

Bing Still Uses the Meta Keywords Tag!

Oct 14th, 2011
by Greekgeek.
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Uh, oh! Bing still uses the META keywords tag!

META tags. Gotta love 'em. They are pesky bits of HTML code hidden on (some) webpages to give information about each page. Ten years ago, search engines consulted META tags to help them learn what search phrases each page was relevant for. Then people started manipulating META tags to try and convince search engines their pages were the best pages for particular topics by virtue of their META tags saying so. Search engines wised up to this elementary trick (or went bust).

Not that META tags are completely, utterly, totally dead. On rare occasions, Google still uses the META description tag as the page excerpt it quotes in search results. That is, if there's not a better and more appropriate quote that fits the search query better.

The META keywords tag, however, was buried several years ago, when even Yahoo/Bing apparently had abandoned it. Keywords as in...

<META name="keywords" content="spam, spam and eggs, spam and bacon, spam spam spam and bacon, and oh hey bing this is the greatest webpage ever on spam, so let me repeat the word spam a few more times, spam spam, spam, spammity spam">

Squidoo fills in the META keywords tag on each lens with your Squidoo tags, by the way. It's quaint that way.

However — wait! Stop the presses! Our old friend Danny Sullivan has checked with Bing and discovered that Bing still uses the META keywords tag as a signal! 

 

Woo!

 

Whee!

 

Ha!

(more...)

Multiple Backlinks from One Zazzle Store

Aug 20th, 2011
by Greekgeek.
1 comment

NoFollow backlinks aren't that useful, but people and Google do follow them. (Yes, Google does follow NoFollow Links, and in fact counts them a tiny bit for Pagerank.)

Also, it's possible that search engines may take notice of how many different domains link to a page. We don't know, but it's no more foolish counting backlink diversity than counting backlinks with no idea which of those backlinks are actually weighted as relevant to a particular search.

In that context, I was intrigued to discover through SquidUtils' Backlink Checker that when you build a shop on Zazzle.com, it propagates on Zazzle.co.uk, Zazzle.de, Zazzle.fr and Zazzle.pt. (Where's that?) Now, links in Zazzle descriptions are nofollow, so the backlink on my Mythphile Shop is not passing much pagerank.

Google is probably sophisticated enough to realize those multiple domains are not totally independent: they're obviously part of an international network of sites. Also, it sees the duplicate content. (I think the duplicate content scare triggered by Panda has set off a bit of hysteria... a few mirror sites won't send your content off the Google SERPs, it's just they may not rank quite as well, or maybe only one will rank well in each country. Oops, tangent.) Nevertheless, those links have to count as least as much as forum signature links, which Google is also sophisticated enough to recognize as (a) self-promotion, not an unbiased recommendation and (b) a forum signature -- multiple posts with it shouldn't be weighted any more, or much more, than a single post.

All of this means that you might as well open a Zazzle shop, if you've got some visual assets related to your niche.

What kind of assets?

Have you taken your own digital photos related to your topic? Are they photographs of public landmarks, nature, or out-of-copyright (pre-1920 should be safe) products or images? (See this "Legal Pitfalls of Using Photographs" copyright FAQ for more info on what's allowed.) Commercially-licensed Creative Commons images are also permissible, with credit and a backlink.

Consider making postcards or small prints with them. (Don't be misleading and print ordinary-sized images on a poster when the original picture is 600x800 pixels; it'll look awful blown up to poster-size.) Write keyword-rich descriptions. And tie it in somehow to your topic, as I did with my Mythphile Shop. Plant the backlink. It's not much link juice, but it's a little. It's worth expanding your online assets and footprint while creating a possible venue for money-earning.

(This is where I plug my Zazzle tutorial.) Anyway, it's a thought.

 

A Good SEO Article to Ponder

Aug 16th, 2011
by Greekgeek.
2 comments

One of the places I browse often for SEO wisdom and trends is SearchEngineLand. Here's a good article they recommended: 33 Ways to Get Penalized By Google. Nothing earth-shattering there, but a good reminder of core best practices.

In other news, Fluff points out that Hubpages is back on Quantcast, and shows a slight uptick from the July 23 Panda 2.2 update. Way to go, HP! I don't expect it ever to regain the hyper-inflated numbers it had before-- I honestly do not believe its quality/spam ratio is more than double Squidoo's-- but I expect it to be fairly comparable.

SEO Mojo: How'd He DO That?

Jul 18th, 2011
by Greekgeek.
1 comment

Here's another riddle.

Google "Greatest SEO" if you don't mind somewhat strong language from a crass but knowledgeable SEO guy.
1. How'd he do that?

(Highlight for answer: Meta Description tag, which on Squidoo is supplied by the Introduction module.)

2. It's ugly as Trump's toupee, but it's effective search engine optimization. It's a tacky version of my mantra, "Make search results sexy." It stands out in a page of search results, it's liable to attract clicks, and, very importantly, it demonstrates that the website excels at what it promises: SEO.

So what can we learn from this? There are ways to do extremely powerful SEO that don't involve backlinks or promoting your site. They don't even involve keywords. They involve catching the customer's attention, proving you have and know something they're looking for, and then following through by delivering the promised content when they reach your page.

SEO Tip: Save the Date

Jun 10th, 2011
by Greekgeek.
1 comment

Sorry to post so much today, but I wanted to share this Squidoo tip before I forgot. Old hands know this already: where relevant, use the year in your page title (but NOT in your URL, since you'll want to change the title each year.)

Users who search for product reviews, news or information often include the date ("best flatscreen TVs 2011").  People sometimes do this to filter results which are eclipsed by another similar but different search ("2004 eruption Mt Saint Helens"  as opposed to the 1980 eruption). For certain topics, people may even include the day and month.

I noticed my new Volcanic Eruptions Update lens is getting a lot of date-based hits, so I added the month/year to the end of the title. The catch, of course, is that this only works for pages which you update substantially and often enough to justify the monthly (or at least yearly) title change.

Hubpages vs. Squidoo Traffic: Holding Steady

Jun 3rd, 2011
by Greekgeek.
1 comment

With all the hullaballoo lately I haven't had much time to follow my pet project, the impact of Google Panda on Hubpages and Squidoo (there's another lens that needs rewriting before page breaks vanish, sigh).

I just wanted to post a quick follow-up. I was actually checking to see if Squidoo traffic is down across the board, because I and a number of members have seen a very slight drop. But traffic drops every summer. But here's Hubpages traffic vs. Squidoo traffic, measured directly via Quantcast:

The Feb 24 and Apr 11 Panda Updates are visible on Hubpages' line. They've implemented a lot of changes, but it may take a while for Google to recrawl and reassess. The problem is (I believe) that part of Panda is a special algorithm that evaluates the quality of a domain/site, and from that derives a handicap which it applies to pages on the site. When someone asked how long before traffic came back after one totally re-tooled a site, Matt Cutts said the Panda algorithms have to be re-run. If I'm interpreting that correctly, it means that the site penalties are being updated less frequently the daily crawl to find/index content.

So Hubpages members need to stick tight a little longer and wait for Google to reassess what Hubpages has done to correct its problems. I'm hoping for their sakes (and mine; I'm trying to get a few irons in the fire over there) that they will have good news soon. Meanwhile, Squidoo members need to stick tight and see whether Squidoo has second-guessed itself in a wise or foolish way by implementing vast numbers of changes after successfully passing through Panda I and II unscathed. Most of them aren't content-related, but some are navigation-related; in particular we've lost a vast number of internal links with lensroll getting phased out. And I'm uneasy about the extra line of adsense above the fold. We'll see.

A quick survey of Panda news reveals nothing much, but M. Martinez has detected hints that Panda might unroll in Latin America next. To recap, Panda was implemented on U.S. Google results on Feb 24, all English-based Google results on Apr 11, and a minor Google update whose impacts I haven't been able to see in the sites I've studied. I shall be interested to see what happens when Panda is implemented for French, Russian, and especially German Google.

 

An Extended Riff on SEO as Poetry

May 3rd, 2011
by Greekgeek.
3 comments

Or at least, keyword-based search engine optimization, which isn't the sum total of SEO any more than backlinking is.

Under a vague sense of "buy low, sell high," I thought I might give Hubpages another go. Some years ago, I was so discouraged (and annoyed) after they locked all my well-trafficked, educational hubs on ancient Greece for being "overly promotional" that I abandoned HP for years (It also didn't help that I kept getting idiot comments like 'u wrote it wrong it wuz better in the movie' when I was recounting myths based on ancient sources). But despite the frustration over all that work down the tubes, I do understand that you've got to submit to the rules on a publishing site, or publish elsewhere. So I did. I moved that content to Squidoo and Mythphile.

However, I've been keeping a closer eye on Hubpages since Panda. I think I might learn something by experimenting there and trying out different SEO approaches, niches and/or writing styles on a site that's built just a little differently than Squidoo. I have a hunch Google traffic will come back over time. I want to see if my hunch is right. Also, since they favor non-practical creative pieces over there a little more than on Squidoo, I thought -- hey, let the inner writer off its chains and cut loose a bit.

This is triggered partly by a previous post on Squidbits and partly by seeing a writer over there divide the online publishing world between virtuous writers and SEO black hatters. I fear it's preachy and a little arrogant to be teaching, but I wrote a hub that's a tutorial on keyword optimization using the paradigm of writing poetry.

Two Thoughts About Traffic and SEO

Feb 24th, 2011
by Greekgeek.
1 comment

These aren't really big enough to deserve a post, but they've been sitting in my "Post Topics" box forever, so I toss them out for whatever they're worth:

Greekgeek's Maxim:

Traffic isn't everything, but everything comes from traffic.

I've become more aware that clicks, sales, and other factors are almost more important than traffic. Traffic quantity certainly isn't as important as some people think: attracting 5 people who are ready to buy what's on your page is better than 500 people who are just browsing, or even 50 Squidoo members who are ready to say, "Nice lens!"  However, you can't get clicks, sales, or anything else without first getting at least some people to the page.

Yeah, it's stating the obvious again, but I kinda like the maxim.

SEO Is NOT Social Media; Both Get Traffic

I've stated this before, but never clearly enough.

1) When you're doing SEO, you're optimizing your content and links so that search engines notice them. Use specific language, keywords, and keyword research (traffic stats) to refine your SEO.

2) When you're doing social media, you're talking to people. People respond to clear, exciting, brief writing, appeals to emotions, and benefits. (What's in it for them?)

Always ask yourself: which method are you trying to use at the moment? Each requires a different approach. The one you choose to use may depend on your topic:

1) Some topics get traffic most easily through SEO: product reviews, for example, are not very exciting, but when someone needs to replace or buy a Quixtop 234, by golly they're going to search for Quixtop 234.

2) Certain topics almost can't get search engine traffic. Your personal story, your opinions, your advice about important issues, your passions may not fit into some neat little label someone might search for. Then you have to rely on social promotion: putting out Tweets and Facebook updates and viral videos and other person-to-person content that stands out enough to tempt someone to click.

Social promotion requires skilled writing and a grasp of psychology. You're running up against human indifference — they're busy, so why should they read your page? You need to "be remarkable," as Seth Godin puts it, in order to attract visitors and word-of-mouth recommendations. It can be done. But it's not easy. Check out Seth's blog for one example of how it's done well.

What to Write on to Get Traffic

Feb 23rd, 2011
by Greekgeek.
1 comment

Apologies for stating the obvious (again), but yet another "just write on what you love, and the traffic will come" post in a forum inspired me to make this graphic:

How to Pick Topics That Get Traffic

Traffic does not come to read what YOU like to write about. Traffic comes to find what THEY are searching for. The key to getting traffic is to find the overlap between the two!

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