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Comment posted on Top Google Rankings: Straight From the Horse’s Mouth by Steve@Internet Lifestyle
A great list of things to be concerned about Ana. There is no better place to look for the “writing-on-the-wall” according to SEO than the wall where google is currently writing it.
These are all great factors and I would assume, since Google is spending the time to talk about them, they will be the ones that will become the increasingly more important factors as time progresses.
Recent comments by Steve@Internet Lifestyle
- Article Spinning: You Spin Me Right ‘round, Baby, Right ‘round
Ugg. The intro almost killed me. That song by dead or alive is my Kryptonite. I hate it with a boundless passion.Anyway now on to what matters. I have read all of Pats, Roberts and Alexes views and experiences with UAW. I also have tried to use it in the past with mixed results.
Longterm I say that unlike yours my results then (pre-panda) I just simply didn’t use it ‘enough’ for the cost and though I think it helped in a “pat flynn” type link-building effort for the niche sites I used it on, I was not impressed with the time to result ratio. (I was spinning each of the three copies to get a really spun output)My concerns now are very inline with yours. I want to see the results now…as well as the results a month from now.
Like Alex said, it may be something worthwhile for a Niche site, but nothing that I would want pointing toward “my” site.
Again so much of it comes down to effectiveness vs time for me.
- Duplicate Content Phantom: Don’t Be Duped, Be Informed
Ana,Great post and wonderful research. Since Panda Dup. content is something that has been on my mind, as I am sure it has been on many other peoples minds. thanks for all the research and sharing the good info here.
- Link Building Tip: How to Do It the Smart Way
Ana,Another wonderful tip on how to fully utilize market samurai. A very ingenious tip on back-linking.
I was wondering where the proof for the chart came from, but i saw Randy already answered that in comments.
Have a great weekend!
- How My Optin Email Marketing List Got Cut Down in Half in One Day
I agree 110% that double opt-in is the only way to go. For both the legal reasons stated above in comments and for the practical reason that anybody who is going to be willing to actually open your e-mails and act on them is going to be willing to do a double opt-in.Thanks also for the gentle reminder of doing some spring cleaning on my list. It has probably been a few months since I’ve gone through the steps of decreasing the list deadweight.
- Matt Cutts on All Things SEO: Speed, Link Buildling, Domain Names and More
Ana,Some great tips from the lips of Googlemiester Matt Cutts himself. What more could a man ask for? All of these “little” bonuses like site speed and internal linking end up adding up to the big difference between a page 1 SERP and a Page 2 SERP. Quite an important difference, even if it is only a “little” one.
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I am a wife to a great husband of 13 years (here ya go, now I have to make changes to this sentence once a year), a mother to a beautiful and, no doubt, genius little girl, and a successful internet entrepreneur. I also devoted my life to Jesus Christ many years ago, and He remains my true priority, focus, and hope.
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This is priceless, Ana …
“I won’t bore you with the event details because, frankly, I don’t know them…”
Thanks for the highlights. I used the validation tool you suggested in the post. Holy wall of errors, Batman! I thought my site’s code was pretty clean until I saw this report. I’m just going to pretend I never saw it.
I noticed that on both my site and yours that the post titles are H2 tags instead of H3. I think that’s the way Thesis sets them up (not sure though). How much of an impact does it make with Google if we don’t follow the ideal suggestion above?
Brad Harmon @ Big Feet Marketing invites you to read: Don’t Let Your Website Be Held Hostage
Well said, nothing new, knowing it is not the issue, DOING it is
You got it, Bjorn.
As for site speed, you might want to check out the WP Cache plugin, it generates static files from your content for serving your visitors instead of building the page from the database with PHP.
I think putting your keywords into the alt attribute of your images can also help your onpage seo.
Peter@Health Articles invites you to read: Dental Implants and Its Advantages
Thanks for the tips, Peter - I do talk about them in the articles I included in this post.
Ana
Thanks for sharing these reminders, Ana. I do my best to implement them
All the best,
Mavis
Mavis Nong invites you to read: Blogging Success – The Magic Traits of Successful Bloggers
Hey Mavis - knowing the techniques is one thing, implementing it is quite another.
Ana | Traffic Generation invites you to read: Income Blogging Guide- Do You REALLY Know How to Blog
nice article ANA, I think that bold,italic,underline,Anchor tag also matter in google rankings. because googlebots love to feed that
Thankyou
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You may be right, Krishna - I haven’t seen any concrete evidence on that one though.
Doesn’t hurt to do it, I agree.
Ana:.
Heard from you some time ago that meta keywords held no water. So I believe you scooped Google.
Thats’s why I throw generic KW’s in my meta KW area. It also helps prevent the scalping of my money words.
Great post as usual<——random spam comment.
Talk soon my Russian superstar,
Lisa
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You can spam me anytime, ma’ dear!
And thanks!
Thanks for the heads up Ana, good stuff. I’ll be passing the header tag stuff to both my SEO and designer to be sure I got it all goin’ on.
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Oh, dennis, you already knwo you got it goin on!!!
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You are most welcome, Dennis.
Ana | Traffic Generation invites you to read: Improve Google Rankings- First Priority Link
Ana,
Thanks for the great tips, I wasn’t aware of proper usage of H tags either.
I think you’ve given me a list of jobs to do this weekend…Optimization here I come.
I am sure you’ll have fun with it, Jackie!
Thanks for the great summary! I think I am doing okay with a lot of that, but I am going to go through my site and double check some of it anyway, especially the heading tags.
Great to hear some of my readers are well-covered in these areas, Kristy!
Ana | Traffic Generation invites you to read: Income Blogging Guide- Do You REALLY Know How to Blog
I love the breakdown of what the H1, H2, etc. tags should be on your homepage vs. a blog post. Most people talk about using them, but no one really tells you how. Great information!
Kristi Hines invites you to read: 11 Incredibly Simple Tips To Spice Up Your Blog
I don’t think most people give it much thought, Kristi; however, there’s always a slight difference as to how we treat our headings depending on the page.
Ana
PS I love seeing more and more of you on my blog.
Ana | Traffic Generation invites you to read: Improve Google Rankings- First Priority Link
I lnow Ana, it’s lovely to see Kristi!!
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I think it’s interesting that Google doesn’t pay attention to meta keyword tags. (Disclaimer: I’m not an SEO. I’ve been roped into this whole thing by my new job. It’s a long story, but I’ve found myself doing all of the advanced SEO for this company. Before I started at where I am now, I knew basic HTML optimization techniques: meta tags, title tags, heading tags, title attributes, alt attributes…) So, that being said, I don’t think it’s a good idea to not use meta keyword tags at all. Google may be the biggest search engine, but there are still others, and people still use them. My rule of thumb has always been to do the things listed above, because they’re universally search engine friendly. Throughout the years, I’ve found that if you only optimize for Google and leave out the stuff that other search engines still use, you end up only getting Google traffic. It’s not really a bad thing, per se, since Google gets a lot of traffic, but it would definitely suck if someone were looking for you on say, Bing, and couldn’t find you. Personally, I think Bing is lame and giggle hysterically every time I hear about Microsoft’s latest attempt “outdo” Google, but professionally I collectively optimize for all. (Sigh.)
What do you think? Does it matter if you don’t use meta keywords, or should your SEO be universal?
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Great question, Elizabeth, and I hope other commenters will jump on this one as well.
I personally don’t use meta keywords. Mostly because I am too lazy.
Well, it’s more of a secondary reason, but my primary reason it that I don’t necessarily want to give away my keywords to my competition, since anyone and their uncle can look up your meta info via page source.
Granted, anyone with a brain can figure out what my keywords are by my title, description, content, etc., but that’s still work and not everyone wants to do it.
So I choose to blissfully believe that as long as I don’t add my keywords to meta info, they are more or less safe.
Back to you.
I also add meta keyword tag in all my blogs, Google some other search engine might consider it. Adding it wont take two minutes and the effect could be reaped as long as the site is live.
Ana Thanks for another great post! I’ve never thought about ranking for possible misspelled queries. This sounds like there would be very little competition of you found a misspelled search term that has a lot of searches. Off I go to find a few!
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It’s definitely a viable strategy; just don’t overdo it.
Thumbs up for this great roundup Ana. It is really all here and the only thing that remains is for “us” to implement. No brainer there as SEO only works that way. I still do not understand why many continues to say that all that matters is to write quality content. To me that’s a given. Crap even with tons of SEO will take you anywhere.
As for site speed, yeah, you are right, its all over the place and practical solutions are widely available. I seriously believe that it is amongst the top 10 ranking factors that Google is using nowadays. I might be wrong, but … There is always a but, right?
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You’re right, SEO does work - but it’s no use getting all the people to your site and then leaving just as quickly. It’s the good quality content that keeps them there and brings them back again and again.
Ana | Traffic Generation invites you to read: Keyword Winner- Keyword Research is Back with a Vengeance
I still think that the best out of all SEO methods is to simply write good, linkable content. A friend of mine has a blog which gets thousands of uniques daily - he’s done absolutely no optimisation to it at all, uses a free wordpress theme, yet he ranks highly for some very competitive key phrases.
I’ll take your word for it, Sam. Most of us with great blogs are not so lucky.
Ana, You’re right, nothing much new for knowing it. For doing it - yes. I’m getting there. I’ll have to revisit heading tags and make sure they fit the criteria. You always have such great advice.
I guess it makes sense to ignore the meta keywords, as long as the content is keyword rich. I still like to err on the side of caution.
Thanks for keeping up on the newest.
Connie
No problem with being cautious. The difference between success and failure is not knowing it, it’s about implementing it. All the best!
Ana | Traffic Generation invites you to read: Friday Tips for Keeps- How to Entice Your Readers to Retweet Your Content
A great list of things to be concerned about Ana. There is no better place to look for the “writing-on-the-wall” according to SEO than the wall where google is currently writing it.
These are all great factors and I would assume, since Google is spending the time to talk about them, they will be the ones that will become the increasingly more important factors as time progresses.
Steve@Internet Lifestyle invites you to read: A Beginner’s Guide to Internet Marketing Success
Did you mean to be funny in your first paragraph, Steve? Because it was very clever-funny.
Right you are, of course.
Ana | Traffic Generation invites you to read: Improve Google Rankings- First Priority Link
You are right, Steve. We need to stay on top of the changes they are making if we want to rank at the top.
Ana | Traffic Generation invites you to read: Keyword Winner- Keyword Research is Back with a Vengeance
Hi just descovered your site. Thank you for the Google info, especialy the one about H1 tags (I’ve got mine totaly wrong). Bookmarking you now
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Welcome to TGC, Phill - glad I could help!
Ana | Traffic Generation invites you to read: Keyword Winner- Keyword Research is Back with a Vengeance
Google still have rules in place from back in the 90′s and still people can’t get then right..if you listen to Google then you can rank higher..trust me..
“Black Seo Guy “Signing Off”
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Good point!
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Ana
Excellent summary.
Re: site speed. I’ve completed a lot of speed improvements on my blog recently. Although I have improved load speed by over 50%…I’m still not happy!
I am seriously thinking of moving to a dedicated server.
Andrew
Andrew @ Blogging Guide invites you to read: Experience Greater Peace Of Mind Knowing Your Backups Are Secure
I am with you, Andrew.
I optimized a few months back, but as my blog grows, etc. it seems like I need to stay on top of my speed at all times. Who has time for that?
Let me know if you choose one; I’d like to check them out.
Ana
Ana | Traffic Generation invites you to read: Income Blogging Guide- Do You REALLY Know How to Blog
Well I am with HostGator at the moment and service / reliability has been excellent. Their prices for dedicated servers are also very reasonable.
Andrew
Andrew @ Blogging Guide invites you to read: Experience Greater Peace Of Mind Knowing Your Backups Are Secure
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