Side note: the point I make in the following paragraph
is quite important if you do not wish to waste a lot of time in your SEO
efforts. In a similar vein, the last
paragraph is also very important in this respect.
There are no advanced SEO techniques that I can give
you that will overtake the fundamentals of search engine optimization. In the same way that there is little point in
teaching hand brake turns in a car to a person who can only drive a motorbike. Instead I will expose you to a few rules of
the Google algorithm, so that you can better test the system, and work out
which of your own techniques are going to put you ahead of the
competition.
The portion of algorithm I will expose you to is the
pet of the year in the SEO field, namely the penguin, and I'm not referring to
those podgy birds that keep getting stolen from British zoos. I speak of the Google update that is
brightening the lives of bloggers, and that haunts the nights of many webmasters
who do not always use clean techniques to promote a certain website.
Webspam such as keyword stuffing and link spamming are
great ways of getting your website ranked lower through Google PageRank
penalties. They refer to link spamming
as an “unusual linking pattern" which kind of gives you a clue as to how
they identify it.
Firstly, Penguin is going to pick out unusual behavior
and the best way I can describe it is with a Twitter example:
Did you know that
if you follow a lot more people on Twitter, than follow you, then you are
weeded out as a spammer (i.e. suspected of being paid to follow others).
A similar rule works for the Google algorithm. If your site links to a lot more websites
than actually link to you, then you will be looked upon with suspicion. Also, if you are linked-to by a lot of sites
that seem to do little else other than link to other sites (legitimate
directories not included) then both your and their sites will be viewed with
suspicion.
Unusual linking patterns as defined by Google are:
1. Duplicates
2. Many multiple redundant links
3. Many links which are not
useful to a deepening of the text.
On point 3, if your links are pointing to citations
within your content, and pointing to the material you referenced to create your
content, then the more you are accredited and worthy of the first page
status. Do not be afraid of being
accused of black hat techniques if you are linking to relevant information. Be more afraid if you are linking your
citations to adverts.
Search Engine Optimization is not evil, if it is
understood as a way to increase in the availability of a website by and for
users. White hat speeds up the pages
indexing and ranking if you create great content into the bargain.
The sites which are subject to penalties via the
penguin update are those that violate Google's quality guidelines.
Do no cloaking
Do not use hidden text
Avoid keyword redundancy
Avoid doorways
Do not spread viruses
Insert affiliations relevant to your target (do not use banner sewing machines
adverts in a site that is about Emo music) - at least don‘t do it too much,
because I can see how Emo kids may need to sew up their gushing wrists.
The best advice I can give you is to test the Google
system. Figure out a trial and error
plan and monitor the resultant clicks on a routine basis. You do not even need to buy software to do
it. Google offer free traffic monitoring
/ methods / techniques / data for your web pages. There are even a few open source and/or free
programs that help you monitor internal and external links too. Try a few things, monitor the results via
both page clicks, at what times, on what days and the resultant conversions
from clicks to sales/enquires. I will
end the article with this. NOBODY is
going to give you ALL the secrets to ranking highly on Google. Even Google doesn’t tell people. There are companies that charge massive
amounts to get people ranked higher on Google and there are people willing to
pay those fees. They are not going to
give up those secrets, irrespective of whether they say they will. Firstly read books like the dummies guides to
SEO. They will give you all the
groundwork information. You must then
test the Google search engine with your own webpages and outside links to see
which increases your rank and more importantly your web traffic.
