Successful Blog

SEO–Five Traits of Relevant Content

by

Practical SEO for Every Blogger

Five Traits of Relevant Content

Relevant is the keyword. Content without “relevant” is less than content. Who would want to post something irrelevant? Here are five traits of relevant content.

Relevant content is text.
Search Engines love quality relevant content. They love quality content because readers do. Content here means text, not graphics or photos. That’s where search engines and readers see pages differently. Readers “read” photos and graphics; search engine spiders crawl right past them. So under that photo or graphic include a caption explaining what’s in it.

Relevant content is fresh and free-flowing.
Search engine spiders are demanding creatures. They want original, relevant content to list for their readers–and lots of it. Provide original content with accuracy and frequency about topics readers search for, and your posts will be born relevant.

Relevant content is formatted.
When your document follows a structured format, a search engine can follow how topics relate. Relationships between topics establish that keywords aren’t just mentioned–they are connected and relevant.

  • title
  • h1–subhead that relates
  • paragraph(s)
  • h2–subhead that relates
  • paragraph(s)

Relevant content is linked–Links in, links out, and links to yourself are relevant.
Spiders crawl the web by following links. Links draw spiders to related pages from blog to blog and within your blog. Connections in content are inherently relevant.

Relevant content is error free and accessible.
Open HTML tags, gross errors in spelling, and unnecessary plugins trip spiders. Enough said.

Relevant content is what readers are searching for, what spiders are crawling for, what bloggers are blogging for–right?

I’d rather not blog than be irrelevant.

I think there’s a t-shirt in that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Yaro on Meta Tags and Keywords

by

Practical SEO for Every Blogger

Etched in ice and not concrete . . . There are people on the web who know much, much more than I do, and so I went to find one whom Eric and I can trust–Yaro of Entrepreneur’s Journey another 9rules network blog.

Yaro, besides being a phenomenal researcher, is a teacher and a leader. Here’ s what Yaro says about meta tags in his document, Do Meta Tag Keywords Matter Anymore?

Should you be using meta tag keywords at all?
Yes and no. It definitely should not be prioritized and if you have other, better SEO things to do worry about don’t spend time on your meta keywords. If you insist on using meta keywords use them sparingly, only a handful, about 10 maximum, and keep them very relevant to the page content. Less is more in this case.

Meta keywords are a legacy of web 1.0 and are slowly being phased out completely. Your title tags, heading tags and content play a much more important role and really if you have time to spare to work on SEO you should be writing great new content that people will link to, not cramming your pages with redundant keywords.

So there you have it. Meta keywords have a minor use, if used sparingly, but by no means should they take priority over content that people will link, because they most certainly are on their way out.

Hey, we don’t mind learning, especially from a generous teacher. Thanks Yaro, for telling us what works, instead of what we’re doing wrong.

Sorry I took the long way home on this one. But I got here, and the car’s not wrecked.

Gosh I feel so much better now. 🙂

–ME “Liz” Strauss

SEO The Secret Life of Search Engines

by

Practical SEO for Every Blogger

Search Engines, Directories, Topical Search Engines

Ask what a search engine is and you’ll probably hear “It’s the way you find things on the Internet.” That’s true enough, but I like to know a little more than that.

Most people know there are lots of search engines and lots of directories. It’s common knowledge that search engines index information and directories list sites and locations. Everyone seems to know the big three search engines: Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Fewer folks have heard of the Open Directory Project aka the DMOZ or Zeal.com, another large directory.

Some Basic Definitions

  • Search engines are computer programs that use “spiders” (crawlers, bots) to crawl from link to link across the web indexing information. Each search engine sets up its own criteria for what and how much gets indexed from each location.
  • Directories are run by human beings who collect the information, review, and index it. In place of criteria for spiders, they write guidelines for those who wish to submit their blog or website to be listed in the directory.
  • Topical Search Engines are also called Vertical Search Engines or Internal Search Engines. These are really search engines, directories, or databases of listings about one topic or specific discipline compiled by humans who know something about that topic or discipline.

The Secret Life of Search Engines–Hybrids
Hybrids Search Engines are partnerships, alliances made between searchers with different competencies. A tradtionial search engine might form an alliance with a human-powered directory to refine its index further to be sure what looks relevant truly is.

Don’t like Google and the results it gives you? Going to AOL instead? How about Ask Jeeves? Guess what? Yep, you’ll probably find Google working for you still. Most search engines and directories have partnership agreements working behind the scenes.

This chart from SearchEngineWatch.com, about halfway down the page, is dated 2004, but still gives you an idea of how many alliances there are and how they connect. You’ll find a similar layout, from 2002, at searchengines.com . Again I point out the problem with SEO information changing faster than it’s being updated.

So now we not only have each body’s algorithm, but the layered tests of more than one core group reviewing the information. Talk about six degrees of separation. Has everyone worked with everyone–except Kevin Bacon?

How does that saying go? You can’t tell the players without a program? To think I didn’t know that some of these searchers were even dating.

ME “Liz” Strauss

SEO-Title and Description Tags

by

Practical SEO for Every Blogger

At the top of the list and the top of your template are your blog title and the description of what it’s about. Here’s how to write ’em and how to tag ’em.

Title Tags

Call It What It Is. Snappy titles are fun and clever, but they often don’t communicate. If you choose to go that route, know that you’re asking people and search engines to process more. Music Marketing Blog might not sound exciting, but it communicates more clearly and more quickly than Razza-Jazza ever could. If you’re set on a funky title, consider a subtitle. Always make your description explicitly clear and straightforward.

On my writing blog I have a nondescript title, Letting me be . . . random wandering and philosophy with a subtitle, Storytelling that Makes Memories, on the blog to explain it. Eric’s title includes a subtitle–a phrase with three keywords: free, blog, and promotion. (He’s recently edited it to better reflect his blog content. The keywords now are funny, blog, promotion.)

How do you write that?

  • Keep the title short and clear.
  • Include keywords.
  • If you go Eric’s route–space 2 colons space–know that a direct hit listing will show that way.

How do you tag that?

Here’s how it looks for Eric’s blog.
< head >
<title> Teh Blogfather :: Free Blog Promotion </title>

Which in Google looks like this.

TBF SE Listing

Description Tags

Keep It Short and On Target. The description tag is the <meta> tag that we all agree still has use. I use mine as dual promotion–not only as search engine data, but also to entice readers to visit once the listing does come up. My description tag is packed with keywords that are relevant–words that people look for, words that reflect themes that I write about. The description evolves over time. I tighten it, true it up about every six weeks.

How do you write that?

  • Keep it short, tight, and accurate.
  • Use keywords to describe your blog.
  • Tell readers what to expect.
  • Be sure you can deliver on what you promise here.

How do you tag that?

Here’s how it looks for Liz’s blog.
< head >
<title> Letting me be . . . </title>
< meta name=”description” content=”ME Strauss skews the world slightly wondering about crayons, conformity, feelings, friends, idiosyncrasies, imagination, heroes, yo-yos, and that person reading the paper at Starbucks. Take a second to let yourself be.” />

Which in Google looks like this.

Title tags and description tags–two tags at the top of your template–keep them relevant, accurate, and attractive to your readers. They are your blog’s name and personality. They’re the first things that people know about your blog.

ME “Liz” Strauss, Eric Mutta

7 1/2 Googlicious Steps to BAAAD SEO

by

Not to be outdone by Successful Blog or by Lifehacker, our friend and colleague, liberal cowboy next door at jackofallblogs released his own list of 7 1/2 Steps to a Googilicious Website, and I have to give his post a 10.

I’ll translate his 7 1/2 steps for you here and you can read them in his own fine prose over at his blog. Please note that these are tips for websites, not necessarily for blogs.

  • 1. Get a domain name. Google doesn’t like subdomains names.
  • 2. Use a content management system to keep the code clean.
  • 3. Write original content and lots of it.
  • 4. Careful how you use the “more–>” feature if you have one. It doubles page your page views, but require you optimize your pages as two.
  • 5. Write titles that attract attention.
  • 6. Link to your own documents.
  • 7. Get other folks to link to your documents too.

and the last is one I never knew

  • 71/2. The cowboy says he’s not a genius.

Darn, why didn’t I think of that one?

ME “Liz” Strauss

A Side Note–

PS–To all my new friends who visit here from the one link to this page.

Though I’ve made my share of mistakes–they’re on the meta-tags page–this page always was a JOKE. It’s a take off on another post. I see now that it’s dangerous to joke about SEO. Sorry about that.

Meanwhile, the nachos, Jack Daniels, and refreshments are in the sidebar under the ads. Pull up a chair and stick around as long as you want. We like people here.

🙂 –Liz

SEO Optimizing Blogs

by

Practical SEO for Every Blogger

It didn’t seem like a good idea to trust my instincts and pure research on a topic like SEO. I’m just not qualified to sort the information, into the good, the bad, and the ugly. I didn’t trust myself to tell which parts of a documents written in 2002 are still valid and which are way out of date.

Lucky for me a programmer and all-around good-guy, Eric Mutta, came to the rescue. He agreed to work with me on this series to make sure that I got the facts straight and to fill in the details that I was missing. Let’s let Eric have a word.

Eric, Tell us something about yourself and your experience with SEO.

My name’s Eric Mutta, though I am known online by some of my many alter egos, the most popular one being Teh Blogfather. I’ve been blogging for nearly a year now on topics in writing, computer programming and recently, just plain comedy.

I approach SEO from the perspective of a computer programmer researching search engine technologies, as well as from that of a blogger who’s trying to rank highly in the popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

As a programmer I could tell you the mechanics behind search engines in general. As a blogger trying to make the top ranks, I could tell you about some techniques I’ve been using that have worked well.

Eric, what is SEO and why do people care about it?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. That’s a bit of a misnomer, because SEO from the perspective of bloggers is not about optimizing search engines, but about optimizing blogs for search engines. . . .

Optimizing search engines would be equivalent to asking “how can I make Google produce better results?” Optimizing our blogs for search engines is equivalent to asking “How can I make my blog rank highly in the search results when a user types in a particular keyword or phrase?” The former is practically rocket science and Google’s rich because they cracked it. The latter is not rocket science and is something you and I can do by following some simple but effective tips.

SEO is important because when you rank well in search engines, more visitors can find your blog, visitors who can be converted to full-time readers.

Where would you tell bloggers to invest their SEO time?

HTML <title></title> Tags. The text you use for your page and post titles is one of the most important things in SEO. Search engines place a lot of importance in titles. Darren Rowse of ProBlogger talks about in his article The Importance of Title Tags in Search Engine Optimization.

<META> Tags. These tags contain information that is invisible to the user but used by all sorts of internet software, with search engines being the software of interest here. HTML tags are used for various purposes including describing your site, specifying keywords for your content, and copyright notices. Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineWatch.com explains it well in How Search Engines Rank Web Pages.

Content content content. People always say content is king and they are right, but they should in fact say targeted or relevant content is king. Search engines only go looking for what people want. If you don’t have that, they become blind to whatever content you have. In other words, blog on material that people search for frequently. Look at all the top blogs and you’ll see them doing this (e.g they cover politics, gadgets, celebrity gossip and even shoes in the case of the Manolo of Shoeblogs.com.

Thanks Eric!

Title tags, I’m still shaking. We’ll actually lay out some code you can copy and adapt in tomorrow’s piece. In the meantime you might also explore . . .

Search Engine Optimization Definition

UPDATE: SEE Yaro on Metatags and Keywords
deep dark blue strip A

ME “Liz” Strauss, Eric Mutta