SEO David James Blog

Optimising your website for natural search will aid your website with improving your web traffic from natural search, as well as improving online conversions and reducing promotional costs.

It is important for website owners to acknowledege the methods that can be used when implementing SEO on your website and to avoid any unethical tactics that could have your website penalised or risk gaining a reputation amongs spaming sites. Thus, it is important to play by the rules when optimising your website for search.

Google is highlighted below.

What are the Google Guidelines?

The Google Guidelines are the terms and conditions that are set out by Google for webmasters to adhere to with using Google and optimising for Google search.

What Is White Hat and Black Hat SEO?

White and Black hat SEO are referred to as the types of ethical SEO practices that can be used to improve your search engine ranking positions on Google. Essentially, it refers to those methods that are ethically (white hat) or unethically (black hat) used to achieve the search engine ranking positions.

Why Is It Important To Follow Google’s Guidelines?

It is important to follow Google’s terms and conditions and adhere to white hat SEO practices. Websites that use unethical SEO methods can achieve rankings in the short term, but most likely will suffer penalisations from Google. The effects of the penalisation can see the website completely removed from the Google index; which will see the website have a vast reduction in traffic levels and conversions from organic search.

Recommendations?

It is best practice to adhere to white hat SEO to avoid any threat of penalties to the website that you are optimising for. A common way websites tend to play the line fine with white and black hat SEO is with their onsite optimisation and use of doorway pages or internal links. With websites off page optimisation, the different link building tactics used vary between websites. It is best practice to adhere to Google’s Terms and Conditions to ensure that the optimisation complies with white hat practices.

Image Source: Dan Taylor

I had a question in regards to PageRank and just wanted to give a bit more clarity.

So is PageRank not that important anymore? Google removes PageRank from its webmaster tools – http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=6a1d6250e26e9e48&hl=en

Google removes PageRank from its webmaster tools?
The PageRank has been removed from Google’s WebMaster Tools, but PageRank can still be seen via the Google Toolbar.

What is PageRank?
PageRank is a score assigned to a web page by Google. It can be found in the Google Toolbar as a green bar typically at the top of the page.
The score given is between 1-10 ( although, if the bar is grey, SEO’s tend to give the web page a score of -1. A grey bar on the web page can indicate that the web page has not being indexed or gained any authority with Google.{This is common for pages that are new on a website}). Even if a web page doesn’t display PageRank, it doesn’t mean it won’t rank in the search engine ranking positions.

What is the role of PageRank?
PageRank can be used as an indicator  towards the quality of web page that is on a website.

What kinds of factors contribute to a quality web page?

• The age of the web page
• The age of the domain the web page is on
• The content that is on the web page that is readable by the search engine spider (Titles, Headings, Hypertext links, Alt Tags)
• The web pages that are linking to the web page
• The keywords that are used in a link to the linking web page
• The ‘authority’ of the web page and web domain that is from the linking web page

(For a web page’s visibility in natural search, search relevancy is important within the web page structure. The use of targeted keywords and semantic keywords will also influence the web content relevancy for search .

Furthermore, the authority of a domain and web page relevancy  also has significance with  identifying quality websites and web pages. )

What are some examples of authorative domains?
High Quality Directory
Yell.co.uk

Press Release Newswire
PRWeb.com

Online News websites
Independent.co.uk

Social Bookmark
Digg.com

Is PageRank not important anymore?
Web page PageRank is not important for solely gaining search engine rankings. Some SEO’s in the past have used PageRank as a prime focus for developing a web page’s importance (authority)  for  ranking higher in the Google search engine results by passing ‘ link juice’ from those web pages to the targeted web page to increase the web page’s PageRank.

Inbound links from quality websites (websites with authorative domains) and quality web pages (in terms of search relevancy and the web page authority) are favourable with Google for improving a web page and website’s authority for search.

Some useful link building methods to improve a web page & and website’s authority include:

• Listings in high quality directories
• Link baiting in Social Media
• Link baiting in Social Bookmarks
• Published web content (articles, press releases, reviews, editorials)

Image Source: Husin Sani

In the world of SEO, we know that keyword rankings are extremely important to a website’s traffic and ranking success.

It is common for other companies to benchmark their search engine positions as a part of their online success. However, some companies/web site owners do get upset when other websites rank higher than them for their desired keywords.

Below is an example of an upset webmaster and their threats to blackmail the other website.

What some webmasters and companies fail to understand is that it is the search engine that determines your ranking position, regardless of you being an industry leader. Also using blackmail to get rid of a competing site isn’t something that is good to use in good practice neither.

Image Source: Badlogik

SEO Letter source: Search Cowboys

The use of Doorway Pages is a tactic that is used in SEO and can be used in both an ethical and unethical manner.

What Is A Doorway Page?

Doorway pages is another word for entry pages to a website. However, doorway pages in the strict sense only serves useful to search engines for web page listings in the search results and does not really benefit the web visitor in any way.

How Bad Can The Doorway Pages Affect Websites?

It depends on a couple of factors. The first is how you use the doorway pages. If it is purely set up for search engines and not for the user, then in the long term, you may experience a backlash with your search rankings and website authority.

Secondly is how many doorway pages you have set up on your website. For websites that have thousands of entry pages purely set up for keyword entry purposes, then they can expect that their website will be affected in the natural search engine rankings and their website possibly penalised by Google for unethical use of doorway pages.

What Is An Example Of A Doorway Page?

If someone was to type a search query such as “Best car insurance online”, an optimised doorway page will have the web page built.

• The Title Tags would show the exact keyword phrase.
• The Hyperlinks in the page would show the exact keyword phrase.
• The Content on the page would be purely structured around the keyword phrase and there would be frequent use of the keyword phrase. (For example, ‘I’m so glad that I found the best car insurance online at carservice.com. I recommend them for the best car insurance online.)
• There would be a high probablility that the web page wouldn’t make much sense.

More information on doorway pages can be found at Google’s Terms of Service.

Image Source: Johnson Cameraface

In SEO, the age of a domain can play a significant factor in improving search engine positions.

What Is Domain Aging In SEO?

Domain aging refers to the age of the domain since it has been established on the internet.

What Impact Does It Have In SEO?

Domain aging has more of a weighting these days in SEO compared to in the early 2000’s. Search engines (in particular, Google) use the age of a domain as a factor in gaining a website’s trust and authority.

Why Is It A Factor In Gaining Trust?

Domain age has become more of a factor nowadays in gaining trust with search engines. In the early days, unethical (SPAM) sites would buy domains and optimise their sites to gain rankings and then they would tend to disappear shortly after. As a result, search engines such as Google now use the age of a domain to determine whether a website has established a credible web prescence on the internet and can be deemed trustworthy to provide to Google users or whether it may be a website that may only be online in the short term.

Where Do You Tend To See The Impact?

Typically, you will see the age factor impact the search engine rankings for competitive keywords. (For example, insurance keyterms, single and specific keyword phrases).

The long tail keywords aren’t affected as much as the specific keywords, however, over time the ranking positions should increase.

Are There Search Engines That Give More Of A Weighting On Domain Age Than Others?

Google gives the heaviest weight on domain age for search engine ranking. If a domain is brand new, it is highly unlikely that it will rank well on Google in the short term as it has no trust with Google. However, over time, there will be improvements in the natural search engine rankings as the domain ages.

Some Good Practices To Follow For Domain Aging.

1. When registering your domain, register the domain for the longest period available.

• .com – 10 years
• .co.uk – 2 years

2. If you intend to rebrand your web domain and you have had a web domain that has existed previously, redirect the old domain to the new domain.

3. Let your domain name age steadily. Domains over 2 years old or more tend to have a better advantage with ranking improvements than younger domains.

Image Source: Felix42 contra la centura

Links on and off site play a functional role in achieving your natural search ranking positions and SEO success. Managing your links will play a pivitol role in the implementation of your SEO strategy and your website’s natural search outcomes.

What Are Broken Links?

Broken links are those links with URL addresses that still exist, but the web pages have been deleted or removed. When this happens, a 404 error page is displayed.

Why Is Managing Broken Links Important?

If the link address no longer exists, then the address should be removed from the search engine ranking positions. From a users perspective, it is ideal that they are sent to an address that will provide them with the information that they are looking for.

A website that has many broken links is typically frowned upon by search engines (in particular Google), as the website is seen to have poor link management, website link structure and could further lead the website to be deemed untrustworthy by search engines; seriously affecting the website’s ability to improve search engine ranking positions.

How Can You Check Your Website For Broken Links?

You can monitor your website’s link structure with Google Web Master Tools. These tools will be able to tell you if your website has any broken links that appear on the website or on links that are coming into the website and you can then repair the web links as needed with redirects, new pages on the existing address or allowing the link to become de-indexed and allowing a 404 error to be pinged to the search engines for that URL address.

Good Practice For Error Pages From Broken Links.

In cases where the URL address no longer exists, it would be ideal for the website to provide users with a custom default page (a 404 error page) that would aid them with finding the content that they are looking for on the website.

Image Source: TrackRecord

One of the worst outcomes of being penalised by Google is when your website gets sandboxed and fails to be listed in the natural search listings.

The effect of being sandboxed can impact web businesses heavily if  a large amount of their web business is generated from natural search visitors.

However, for your website to be sandboxed by Google, your website would have been flagged for some unethical activity that has ultimately contributed to the website being sandboxed.

What Is The Google Sandbox?

The Google Sandbox is when a website gets removed from the search engine ranking positions .

How Do I Know If My Website Is In The Google Sandbox?

There are a couple indicators that can suggest that your website has been sandboxed.

1. Type your site’s URL into Google Search. If it doesn’t appear in the search results, your site is sandboxed.
2. The PageRank that you had no longer exists. Where you had a green bar previously, it is now a grey bar that states that it is now ‘unranked’.
3. Copy and paste ‘exact text’ from your site into Google search and the your site should come up in the search results. If it doesn’t, then it’s likely that your website is sandboxed.

What Type Of Things Can Contribute To A Website Being SandBoxed?

According to Google, if a website directly engages in activities to directly influence search engine rankings  (unfairly), then Google may penalise the website.

Some common malpractices include:

• Doorway Pages – Whereby a website has several entry pages which are built purely for search engines and add little or no value for web users.
  

• Duplicate Content – Creating multiple pages with identical content will contribute to getting your website sandboxed.

• Keyword Spamming – This is loading your web page full of keywords that you want to rank for. Often, new webmasters place keywords in their page with a density that is higher than 6%.Additionally, there may be a bunch of keywords which have been placed on the site purely for ranking purposes. Both of these can contribute to having the web page flagged for keyword spamming.
  

• Participating in  Text Link Schemes -  Participating in text link schemes (such as the infamous TNA Network) to soley improve your website and web pages PageRank and search engine position.
  

• Cloaking Hyperlinks – Having links on your web page which is invisible to the human eye, but readable by search engine spiders.
  

• Linking to Bad Neighbourhoods and Link Farms – Gaining inbound links to your website from websites that aren’t credible or relevant can adversely affect your ranking and get you sandboxed.
  

• Sending Automated Queries To Google – Do’t send automated queries to Google with software robots. (This usually refers to softwares that check on Google rankings for websites such as WebPosition Gold. Google typically penalises your IP address for around 24 hours. )

• Don’t provide malware – Don’t have malware such as Trojan’s or viruses on your website.
  

(Note: For more specific information, please visit the Google Guidelines and Google Terms of Service.)

How Can You Get Out Of The Google Sandbox?

My recommendations to get out of the Google Sandbox would be to:

1. Remove any bad links that you may have obtained in your link building that may have contributed to your website being sandboxed.
2. Re-modify your website (and Google sitemap) and then re-submit your website to Google for inclusion back in the natural search results.

Image Source: Andres Thor

In SEO, you will come across the use of robots in on page optimisation. The robots aren’t what we know of in the general sense, but instead refer to a text file that is used .

What Are The Robots Used In Search?

In SEO, the robots refer to the search engine spiders that crawl web pages and websites to index content into their search engine ranking positions.

What Are The Robots Commands That Are Typically Used In SEO?

The two types of Robots Text Files that I use in my SEO practice include:

1. Robots Metatag
2. Robots Text File

What is a Robots Text File (robots.txt)?

A Robots Text File is a text file that outlines a set of instructions for visiting robots to a website. The Robots Text Files will permit or disallow a search engine spider access to crawl folders that are in your website.

The set of instructions that appear within the text file typically look like the following.

UserAgent:  googlebot

Disallow: /images/

This is a command to disallow any robots (spiders) to crawl the images folder that is on the website.

What Is The Robots Metatag?

The Robots Metatag is a robots command for search engine spiders for indexing web pages and web content into the search engine ranking positions.

The Robots Metatag will appear within the HEAD section of the HTML code.

An example of a Robots Metatag can be seen below.

<META name=”robots” content=”NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW” />

(Note: NOINDEX is for the web page not to be indexed into the search engine ranking positions . NOFOLLOW is for the links on the web page not to be followed through by the search engine spider.)

How Is This Beneficial In SEO?

By using the robots commands wisely, you can specify which content on your website should be indexed to improve your sites overall search relevancy and web page importance. Over time, you should see an improvement in your natural search rankings and traffic conversions.

Image Source: Ittybittiesforyou

I came across a post by Jennifer Laycock which emphasises six primary tactics to improve your oganic search success.

In the post, she emphasises the use of:

1. Keywords
2. Content
3. Code
4. Optimisation
5. Links
6. Patience

I find this post quite valuable for explaining the importance of SEO to people (such as clients) who have little or no understanding of SEO; as it gives good clarity into what goes into SEO, the procedure that will be undertaken throughout the implementation and the importance of the time factor (patience) and getting results over time.

You can read the full post by clicking the link below.

Six Tactics For Organic Success

Image Source: 917 Press

One of the most important elements in undertaking SEO is to determine which keywords or keyword phrases will best benefit your site in reaching its online goals.

What Is Keyword Selection In SEO?

Keyword selection is the process in which you select the keywords that will assist you in achieving your natural search goals.

Why Is Keyword Selection Important?

Keyword selection in SEO provides the core to your SEO strategy and your building your SEO success. After setting your goals  you can develop a list of targeted keywords that will bring traffic to the website.

What Are The Goals That We Will Be Aiming For?

The goals that you will be aiming for will be either or all of the following.

1. Conversions – In the form of information acquisition, quotes, clicks, referrals or sales.
2. Traffic – In the form of website hits, or visitors.

How Do I Go About Finding These Keywords?

There are some online tools that you can use to find keywords that can help with your website’s SEO. The biggest thing to keep in mind is to keep the keyword that you select relevant to the web page and the website that you are optimising for. Also, you should keep your web pages keyword relevancy as specific as possible.

Below are some tools that are quite useful in doing keyword research and selection.

Google Adwords Keyword Selection Tool

This is a good tool that gives an indication of the search volumes of certain keywords. Additionally, it is a free tool to use.

Wordtracker

Wordtracker provides one of the leading keyword research tools online and provides more insight then the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. They have a free version and also a paid version which gives more information and you can tailor it to different search engines as well.

Things To Remember

When you are doing your keyword research and keyword selection, remember to keep your keywords relevant to your web page and to select those keywords that will assist you in achieving your natural search goals.

Image Source: Ella’s Dad