The Dark Art Of Search Engine Optimization

The title of this article is designed to illustrate the point of this article. Today we won't be taking a look at black-hat search engine optimization tactics. Admittedly, I've toyed with them in a "know your enemy" kind of way but I'm no expert on advanced cloaking techniques nor effective link sp@mming tactics. What we're going to cover here are the hidden (i.e. dark) areas of effective optimization strategy.

I've written numerous times in past articles and blog posts that using tricks to rank your site highly is, in the end, ineffective as tricks imply a manipulation of the ranking formula and will eventually become obsolete as the search engines work to advance their algorithms and shut down such possible abuses. But here I'm going to illustrate some of the tricks we use to drive traffic to our site. Is this a conflict? Not really; these "tricks" aren't so much directed at search engines as they are website owners and visitors. These are marketing tricks, not SEO tricks - they just happen to help you with your rankings.

Google+ and the Potential Impact on SEO

Although you can only join by invitation at this point, you've no doubt heard of Google+, Google's latest attempt to join (or, in time perhaps, completely overtake?) Facebook and Twitter as a must have social networking tool. In the months before Google+ was launched, Google also began implementing the "+1" button as a usable option for users to signify that they enjoy a particular site or page in an attempt to gather as much raw data as possible about the popularity and social value of sites and content before Google+ was rolled out for the masses. Preceding the Google+ and +1 button was the introduction of real time search, which was able to incorporate search results from Twitter, blogs and Facebook. Google, it would appear, is realizing the immense value of social media and the impact of social media on web search.

Search will continue to have a social element infused into it as the addition of the +1 button will change search results, as will live feeds from Google+ pages, much like Facebook "likes" and Twitter "tweets" are currently affecting search results by influencing user decisions due to their value as endorsements of certain sites and content.

Google Commands for SEO? Are you familiar with these?

All SEO Google Commands

 

• cache:www.themarketingweekly.com
• related:www.themarketingweekly.com
• info:www.themarketingweekly.com
• allintitle:www.themarketingweekly.com
• intitle:www.themarketingweekly.com
• allinurl:www.themarketingweekly.com
• inurl:www.themarketingweekly.com

Here I have taken www.themarketingweekly.com as an example. Whenever you are using these commands, just simple replace www.themarketingweekly.com with your website URL

Lets look at these commands and few more, a little more in detail, and see what are they all about.

WWW or No WWW: Which is Better for SEO?

 

“Should I use www or no www in my URLs?” is a question that I see almost daily from new webmasters in search engine optimization (SEO) forums around the Internet.  The same question gets posed many ways, but basically they want to know which version of their URL is best for SEO. 

So I thought I would take the time to answer it here to save myself a lot of typing in the future when responding to forum posts. Yeah. I am lazy… err… efficient like that!

Is using www or no www better for SEO?

The search engines do not care whether you use www or no www in URLs on your site.  There is nothing in their ranking algorithms that causes them to rank a www version of a URL higher than a non-www version of the same URL (or visa versa).   So the www and non-www are treated exactly the same by the search engines from a ranking perspective.

Hyphens in URLs: Good or Bad for SEO?

People frequently ask whether or not using hyphens in a URL is good or bad for SEO.  It is probably one of the most frequently discussed topics on SEO forums around the web and is often one of the first questions asked by new webmasters. So I thought I would do what any red-blooded SEO would do… and toss out my opinions on the topic. 

Hyphens in URL folder and page names – The Good! 

I like using hyphens as word separators within folder and page names in the URLs of my sites.  I do so primarily for the benefit of my users.  I also do it to give the search engines a hand by explicitly indicating how they should parse my URL’s folder and file names into their targeted keywords.  After all, I wouldn’t want them interpreting “expertsexchange” as “expert sex change” when I meant it to be interpreted as “experts exchange”, or visa versa I guess!

Since search engines typically display your URL as part of your organic listing in the search engine results pages (SERPs), a keyword rich URL can give users strong clues about what they can expect if they click on your link.  In other words, it can affect click-thru-rates and therefore traffic. Using hyphens in the URL to explicitly separate words in the folder and file names makes it VERY easy for a user to read the words in the name of your folders and pages.  URLs without hyphens are not always so easy to read if youcramthewordstogether. 

Free Keyword Analysis That Is Actionable

Keyword analysis CAN be free!  You do NOT have to spend money buying tools or subscribing to a keyword analysis service in order to obtain accurate and actionable information on keywords to target on your site.  All you really need is a web browser.  It doesn’t get more free than that!

Keyword analysis should be the first step in on-page SEO when creating a new page on your site.  You should identify your targeted keyword phrase(s) before writing a single line of content.  The process outlined below details one method of analyzing topics and determining which keyword phrase(s) you might want to target using free tools readily available on the web. Let’s get going!

Keyword Analysis

There are many reasons to perform keyword research and analysis.  But the most common reasons are:

Google Snippets: How Google Chooses Your Search Result Snippet

Have you ever wondered how Google determines what to show as the snippet of text between the title and URL for a listing in the organic search engine results pages (SERPs)?  Most people think there is no method to Google’s madness for picking snippets.  However, if you spend a little time doing searches, looking at the SERPs, and then evaluating the HTML of those URLs being presented, you can quickly see that there is a pattern.

Google snippets

Three sources of Google snippets

It is important to understand “how” Google picks the snippet that they display in the SERPs so that you can use it to your advantage.  With the exception of the last source mentioned below, Google’s seems to pick the source of the snippet based on their desire to highlight ALL of the keywords from the search phrase in the snippet.

Site Performance: New Labs Feature in Google’s Webmaster Tools

Google has added a useful new feature to the Labs section of its Webmaster Tools (WMT) called Site Performance.  If you haven’t already done so then I would suggest that you signup for a Google Webmaster Tools account and go through the Google site verification process for your web site(s).

Once you have an account, log into WMT. Once you click on your site on the WMT home page and go to that site’s dashboard, expand the +Labs in the left navigation to reveal all of the Labs utilities.  You should see the new Site Performance feature listed as an option.  Click on Site Performance in the left navigation and the new Site Performance page will appear as follows:

Site performance in Labs left navigation of Google WMT