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Affordable Search Engine Optimization - Making Google Happy

Guest post by: James Hussey

Article Overview: Anyone in the SEO trenches knows about the dreaded Google Panda update for 2011, as many webmasters were penalized out of the blue (me included). But rather than complain about how Google evolves, expect it and work with them. Here are some tips to keep on top of search and get more free traffic to your web properties.

Affordable Search Engine Optimization - Making Google Happy

Affordable search engine optimization does not have to cost an arm and a leg. I had to learn this the hard way, after investing in plenty of tools I no longer use or in strategies that could get my websites penalized.

Like many, I ran into a Panda-penalty thanks to the Google Panda update of 2011. It came unexpectedly, killing my best-performing website out of the blue. Luckily I was able to make on-site improvements and resurrect the site from #900 in Google back to #1-10, where I began.

SEO is Largely Giving Google What They Want

There is no bigger source of free traffic from SEO efforts than Google, that may never change. Fine, give Google what they want.

1. Pay attention to keyword stuffing - and stop treating your website like some Thanksgiving Day turkey. Never stuff keywords in. If you use tags on your blog, then do not let them show (admit it, you do it to stuff your keywords in). Same with a tag cloud. (Who uses those really?)
2. Watch Matt Cutts on YouTube under username, since he is really looking at web spam and penalties, questions from webmasters, and has a lot of good tips. Listen carefully to what he says and what he does not say. Watch the videos under GoogleWebmasterHelp at YouTube.
3. Never use hidden text to stuff your keywords (see #1). This is called cloaking, where googlebot can see the keywords, but human eyes cannot.
4. Make yourself familiar with the Google webmaster guidelines. Simply do a Google search for Google Webmaster Guidelines and you will find it.
5. Google is now using blocked content signals in Google Panda. What this means is if someone visits your site and hits the back button in their browser, Google asks the user if they want to block all instances of this domain. Google is using this signal to determine their quality of search results (i.e. taking out the offending sites). So watch your bounce rate and lower it.
6. What is above the fold in your site? Do users have to scroll down to get to the content? If so, this may be viewed as a negative user experience, again a signal that Google is watching in a post-Panda world.
7. Does your web page deserve to be at the top of search for your keywords? Is it really the best there is on the net?

That last question is really the sum-total of living in the shadow of a quality-assurance algorithm. Every page you publish should be the best you have read about that particular set of keywords. If not, then address the low-quality issues and make sure users love your content.

There are other things that comprise affordable search engine optimization, such as the proper placement of keywords and ensuring the keywords are relevant to the content. You may be targeting dog training, but if you give more weight to the topic dog breeding in your content, you will have a harder time ranking for your target keyword.

Context matters both in your content itself and in your backlinks.

Always get quality backlinks that make semantic sense to your content. If you have a dog training website, are you getting more links from fitness-related web pages? Do all your links come from off-topic pages?

Content may be king, but context has to be emperor - make sure you get relevant links from authority websites in your market.

Finally, use a content management system like WordPress to make your life easier. WordPress is free and easy to use, is entirely flexible to suit any need, and offers benefits that static HTML sites cannot offer without some time-consuming efforts.

Benefits include really simple syndication (RSS), easy ping integration (to tell the search spiders to crawl your content) and WordPress can be made lightning fast with simple modifications and technologies. WordPress SEO strategies are almost too easy to implement, which is why all my websites run on WordPress.

What Google wants is a quality index, with quality content. They provide a lot of videos, tutorials and tips to help ensure you know what they want from your web pages. Otherwise, it helps to find a guide that makes affordable search engine optimization an easy-to-follow plan.

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Article Tags: affordable search engine optimization, Google, SEO, WordPress, WordPress SEO



Related Forum Posts
What Do You Want To Be Taught? - Hi, My name is Jeff Foster, I will be moderating this new section. I want to get your opinion on topics you would like to discuss & be taught on. I see a great need for small business owners to learn how to perform basic Search Engine Marketing (SEM) which would include the basics about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). What do you want to be taught on? Jeff
Re: Search Engine Optimization - If you are interested to get more information about Search Engine Optimization you can visit Search Engine Watch site gives you a great way to keep up with what’s going on in the search engine world. This site provides a ton of information about a very wide range of subjects related not only to search engine optimization, but also the flip side of the coin; subjects related to searching online.
Re: Can someone explain Search engine optimization to me? - Search Engine Optimization (SEO) could be compared to a big popularity contest: A High School Computer Geek and a High School Football Captain who are trying to promote a party. The computer geek tells everyone in school & even hands out 100's of flyers about his party Friday night...what happens? his friends end up showing up and a few new people...even the new people leave right away because it is not what they are looking for. The High School Football Captain ends up just telling a few good buddies, and within hours the entire school not only knows about it, but everyone wants to come, and everyone does come & stay. One defenition of "optimize is "To make as perfect or effective as possibe." How effective are your article marketing campaigns? Could you be distributing content (that is what search engines index) more effectively? In a perfect world, who would you want promoting your website, web pages, and web content? Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is determining this perfect & effective way to do this. Jeff
Re: How do I engage seo works to be done for my site? - I read "Search Engine Optimization" for dummies. Gave me a real good foundation on which to build my sites. Really helped a lot.
Re: How to Promote Your Business Online - Apart from using Search Engine Optimization or SEO for promoting websites, I also find Pay per Clicks (PPC) to be a very good way to do. Why? For me it doesn't open only one oppurtunity for you, in fact it opens 2! You can generate your awaited traffic even w/o saying stop, ready and go and gain a maximized profit too.


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