SoloSEO

The Fate of the Keywords Meta Tag: Misspellings

Posted by Michael D Jensen on October 31st, 2007

Meta Tags were once a major player in SEO. With the advancement of search engine algorithms, meta tags become less and less significant. The description meta tag is still used for your search engine snippets, but the keywords meta tag has been disregarded by all the major search engines.

In my SEO blog reading yesterday, I first found a post by Danny Sullivan about meta tags. Then just this morning I read a post by Matt McGee also about meta tags and he makes the same point:

The Keywords meta tag is useless, except for misspellings.

If your page has a product, service, or keyword that can be misspelled, instead of intentionally misspelling the word in your text, use your keywords meta tag. It won’t get you page 1 placement necessarily, but it definitely makes a difference.

If I had say in the Googlerithm, I would tie the spelling functions with the search functions, and if a page ranked well for a certain phrase, but the user misspelled the phrase, I would certainly give more relevance to a page that had the misspelling on it (albeit in a keyword meta tag).

With that said, I would certainly not focus much time at all working on the keywords meta tag, but while you’re under the hood making changes to your site, it wouldn’t hurt.

6 comments Visited 1372 times October 31st, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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In SEO - Be A Tortoise, Forget the Hare.

Posted by Aaron R Stewart on October 30th, 2007

On Aaron Wall’s site www.seobook.com, Aaron Wall makes a statement which makes me chuckle every time I read it, not because it isn’t somewhat true, but because I can imagine how it must drive others crazy. Aaron states,

“SEO is not hard, Anyone can be successful at it with the right information.”

While I agree that anyone can be successful through SEO, if they have the right information and the right tools, I don’t think SEO is “easy” for everyone, not even for most people. I personally have only met Aaron once, and have heard him present on a few occasions, and just based on those observations I can see why Aaron would see SEO as easy, I think for him SEO is easy. But for the rest of us, the average humans, SEO is tough work. It is especially difficult for those who are running more traditional/non-technical businesses. There is so much to do as a small business owner, and the entire organization relies on you and your efforts. Quite frankly you don’t have the time to sit down and work with site optimization all day, or dedicate enough time to learn how to make the required changes to web site pages in just a day or two. It is going to take more time than that. How much time really depends on not only your available time, but also on how good your information and tools are.

With accurate information, like from Aaron’s SEOBook, and excellent SEO tools, like we have developed here at SoloSEO, the SEO process can become more manageable, that much is true. But please never let anyone convince you SEO will be easy, unless you are a technological genius, and there are more than few using SEO as a profession. This hard work revelation probably isn’t what anyone with aspirations of quickly making it big online wants to hear, but I wouldn’t feel good about giving the impression SEO is some magic online wand, which when waved, instantly delivers more traffic and orders than a site can handle. It just doesn’t work that way. I am sure there are many out there who have heard and believed the claims of this “SEO ease,” then got in, got to work, and became quickly disenchanted with the SEO process, perhaps even felt frustrated at their inability to quickly grasp the “simpleness of SEO.” If you have felt this way, you are not alone, it is common, it is okay.

As perhaps some of you have done, I have spent my life as a very average person, not overly smart, not overly quick, not overly fun, not overly funny, not overly thin, just not overly impressive in almost everything. Fortunately I came to grips with my total averageness a few years ago, and I realized my only chance to get ahead in this world, was just to work harder than the naturally talented and smarter people were willing to. I can’t compete with the “blessed ones” one on one, hour to hour, but if I only sleep 4 hours, and they sleep 10, then I have picked up 6 hours a day on them, and my chances are better. I have no problem seeing myself as a tortoise, and I have always loved that story. I think most my fellow slower folks have too.

I think most entrepreneurs, who have created and succeeded in their own business, have either worked harder, or are “blessed.” For most of us it is simply a matter of out-working the competition, we may never be the biggest, or grow the fastest, but we can be successful, and live a comfortable life by out-working the others. And if we work harder, using the best tools and information, we can not only increase our chances of success, but shorten the time required. The same is true with SEO.

To me SEO is similar to the process of digging for gold. There are many technologies we can use to find gold now, and those technologies get better all the time. With today’s technology we simply don’t have to head out with a shovel and start digging hither and thither until we find something shiny, there are better ways. But even with all the modern tools and technology, when it comes right down to it, getting the gold out of the ground is going to take work. We can dig with a shovel, we can dynamite, we can use large equipment, and we can hire an army of miners, but it is all work and it is required to reap the eventual reward. No way around it.

There is no doubt SEO can be worth much to a company looking to increase sales, it can take a struggling company trying to make any sale at all, and turn that company into an online success story. Where they once wondered if they would convince anyone to buy at all, they now they struggle with cash flow, barely having enough cash on hand to pay vendors, so they can barely stay ahead of the orders onslaught. But to experience this kind of transformation in online sales, the SEO work must happen. We are going to need to focus on our site’s Keywords, Content, Links and effort must be spent to put it all in place. No way around it. We can use all kinds of great tools, and have the latest information to make our efforts as efficient and effective as possible. We can even hire others to do our SEO for us, but SEO is the price for long-term online rewards. SEO isn’t easy for most people, it isn’t a get rich quick scheme, there is nothing magic or extraordinary about it, but if the SEO work is done well, then success is more than likely, if not virtually assured. I like that about SEO, we can work harder at it than others do, and see success for our efforts. And as for all the other tortoises out there, I know you will like that about SEO too.

4 comments Visited 1063 times October 30th, 2007 Aaron R Stewart

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Instant Testimonial Page, Just Add Blog Post

Posted by Michael D Jensen on October 22nd, 2007

Recently I noticed a few backlinks to our blog coming from HitTail, a long tail keyword tool. Instead of being some spammer that puts up a temporary post that pings our blog, HitTail is collecting “testimonials” about their service from virtually any blog (that pings it), and delivering this list in a nice clean way. Even a link in the comments will trigger an “entry” into the HitTail quotes and testimonials page.

I love the idea to automatically collect who talks about your site, and then to post it as a quotes and testimonials page. I track what people say about SoloSEO using Google Alerts, but maybe this is a great way to not only track it but also share it!

This is also a great way to create “user generated content” without users having to directly interact with your site!

The only downside is they are essentially giving away a free link from a PageRank 4 page.

Update: Although it appears to still be very automated, there is definitely someone weeding out the entries that get on the page.

3 comments Visited 1131 times October 22nd, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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Learn SEO Basics: Long Tail Keywords

Posted by Michael D Jensen on October 18th, 2007

As you’re learning about search marketing and SEO, you will definitely run into the phrase “the long tail”. Let’s turn this odd term into a familiar one by looking into long tail keywords.

What are Long Tail Keywords?

When you are identifying keywords for your internet marketing (both SEO and PPC), the metric used most to compare keywords is its popularity. If you put all the keywords that “exist” into a graph, it would look something like this:

The y-axis is the popularity and the x-axis are the keywords themselves. On the left hand side we have the most popular keywords, which are also highly competitive. Because these are the “opposite” of our main topic, long tail keywords, we call these just “keywords” or for fun, “short tail keywords”.

On the right hand side of the graph are the long tail keywords (looks like a tail doesn’t it?). Despite these keywords being less popular, they are still used every day by searchers around the world. And the exciting part is, they are (1) less competitive and (2) easier to rank well for without a ton of work!

Recently a company shared their long tail vs short tail keyword data, and they showed that almost 70% of their search engine traffic came from the long tail. This company is not alone, long tail keywords can be powerful sources of search engine traffic for any site!

Is it a Keyword or a Long Tail Keyword?

Separating out short and long tail keywords is best done by counting the number of words, although there can easily be overlap between the two. Short tail keywords are often 1-2 words in length, sometimes 3 words. Long tail keywords are typically 3-6 words in length, but they could be even longer than that!

How Can I Find Long Tail Keywords?

Finding keywords is pretty easy, there are lots of tools available, from Google Adwords to WordTracker to our own tools that aggregates several of these keyword databases (free trial). But before you get too excited, there is one important thing to know:

YOU WILL NEVER IDENTIFY ALL THE LONG TAIL KEYWORDS

Why is that? The main reason is that new searches happen every day, a lot more than you would think. Google has said that 20-25% of searches haven’t ever been seen before. That is amazing! What that really means is that there are tons of opportunities for you to get traffic, and with keywords that aren’t highly competitive!

How Can I Capitalize on Long Tail Keywords?

Let’s make this one into a step-by-step process:

1) Today’s Long Tail Keywords - Start figuring out what long tail keywords people are using right now to find your site. I recommend HitTail. They have both free and paid services that track who hits your site. You can do it with Google Analytics too, but I like HitTail’s interface and focus on just the long tail.

2) Tomorrow’s Long Tail Keywords - (a) Brain storm by yourself, with co-workers, friends, and family for long tail keywords. Email a bunch of people you know asking for 10 searches they would use to find your product or service. (b) Use keyword search tools (like ours) to find keywords that are 3-6 words in length. Start with a popular keyword and see what comes up. Add it to your list of keywords but mark them in some way that they are “new”.

3) Unique Content - You’ll find it rather tough to rank for a long tail keyword without actually using that keyword in your content. Either write or pay someone to write content (like one of our companies) based on each of your keywords, one per page. I suggest doing no less than 250 words, and 350 words is probably better. I wouldn’t worry about keyword density, but have it in there 3 or so times, as well as in the title and header (h1) tag.

4) Internal Linking - The easiest links are internal links! Of course they don’t count the same as external links (backlinks), but they are useful and make a difference. Make sure you link to your new content in some organized way (Read about theming by siloing), preferably more than just one link on one page to your content. Site-wide links should probably be reserved for your “short tail keywords”.

5) New, Fresh Content - After getting content for your site with your “new” list of long tail keywords, you need to stay on top of your game by constantly adding fresh, new, unique content. We started our content company, Applied Content, two years ago for just this reason. If you can’t afford to buy new articles weekly (we recommend 3-5 new articles per week), there are other options. Starting a company blog is a great way to do it, and you can share the writing between yourself and other employees. Have a set day to post so everyone knows to have a post ready. If you don’t want a company blog, then just write articles and expand your site. The point is to have new content with new phrases and potential long tail keywords.

Armed with the steps to capitalize on long tail keywords for your site, you can be well on your way to realizing the hidden potential of long tail keywords!

For an advanced look at the topic of short and long tail keywords, look at my post about Links vs Content.

18 comments Visited 3574 times October 18th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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Image Isn’t Everything, But It Is Something.

Posted by Aaron R Stewart on October 11th, 2007

Taking a look at the corporate logs in the image to the left, how do you feel about those brands? Do you feel anything? Much in marketing is focused on influencing the public’s perception of our companies, our products and our brand. We want others to think our products/services are high in quality, a good value, safe, reliable, fun, entertaining, satisfying, or simply the best. So how is this done online, is it different when compared to more traditional ad mediums? For, example in TV commercials we have just about seen it all, from diet cola commercials, which appeal to our hip and healthy side, to luxury cars like Lexus, BMW and Mercedes, which tout their extreme quality, and attempt to impress us with their prestige. All this presentation created simply to influence our perception toward these brands. And with TV being so visual, the advertiser can use all sorts of techniques to spin their products in a very positive light. Many are now wondering if TV advertising is as effective as it use to be? I’ll bet there are a million or two Tivo owners who will tell you it probably isn’t, but that is a discussion for another day, but does suggest a need to come up with other methods to improve our corporate image.

We all know TV ads aren’t real life, and although I doubt there is any girl that choose to hang out with a guy because of the type of diet cola he drank, at least I hope not, we all know some people drink certain brands of soda or diet soda because they believe they are being perceived by others to be cool, sophisticated, wealthy, discerning, or concerned with their health, etc. Many choose to use these brands because of the brand image they have in their own head, will hopefully be identified by others as the product is consumed. My wife loves Diet Coke, and I mean LOVES it. She says it tastes better than all the other diet beverage choices out there, without question. I personally disagree, I think Diet Coke tastes like licking dirt off a pitching wedge. She also thinks Diet Coke portrays a certain image, say of an attractive blonde girl cruising along a beach-side path on roller skates, bopping to the music as she enjoys her Diet Coke. But while I like the commercial quite a bit, and it matches the image of my wife well, I personally still see Diet Coke as the drink of choice for attendees of a 1929 high school reunion, held last weekend, and not the drink of anyone remotely hip. So this ad, although excellent in my opinion, has not changed my perception of Diet Coke one it, or its brand, it is still yuck, but many others feel differently. So when we work on our brand, we attempt to positively influence as many as we can, knowing full well we can’t change everyone’s perception, and that is ok.

Online we obviously don’t have the ability to visually create an image as well as a TV commercial can, although with YouTube and others we are getting closer. So we instead have to rely on other marketing opportunities to influence potential clients. In search marketing, our prestige and our perceived value are currently tied to how well we do in the SERPs. Many of us know that being on page 1 of a SERP isn’t necessarily the best way to determine if the particular product or company is the best (no offense to Google and Yahoo). And we know a high ranking it is not a guarantee of a good quality product or of excellent customer service either, but there is no doubt we notice the sites on page 1 more quickly, and we take a look at sites on page 1 more often than potentially better products and sites buried on subsequent SERP pages. So in a sense, the work of SEO directly influences the perception potential clients and the public will have on our businesses, at least initially. If we are ranking well on the results page, then we will be perceived as being market leaders, the most popular, the most cutting-edge, the highest quality, whatever, whether it is reality or not. The better we do on the SERPs, the better we will be initially perceived, and they more clients will visit our site. Then it is up to us to make sure our sites are designed well enough to deliver what client needs. We need to ensure visitors can easily find the information they need, that they feel comfortable with us, and we need to be sure they can easily order when it is time to purchase. Online, SEO should be seen as our ability to influence the initial perception of searching clients. SEO can be online marketing and online PR, all wrapped up into process, and really our opportunity to make a better first impression.

When considering the benefits of SEO, we need to remember that through the SEO process, we are improving the perception of our companies to potential clients. It isn’t just a matter of gaining more traffic to our sites, it is a matter of promoting and influencing the long-term image of our company and products. If we can make them initially believe we are great, then prove it to them with our site, products and customer service, then we have won a tough online battle.

Add comment Visited 981 times October 11th, 2007 Aaron R Stewart

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Doing Good, with Good Content, is Great Branding

Posted by Michael D Jensen on October 8th, 2007

Earlier this year I wrote about Doing Good As LinkBait, specifically about a movie theater company giving a discount to our troops. Last week I also wrote about how great content is really at the heart of SEO. Well, Xerox has gone out of their way to “do good” by creating LetsSayThanks.com, where on their dime you can send a letter and a note to a member of our armed forces. Xerox has created great content, worthy of talking about, sending to others, and linking to. It made me go out of my way to tell you about it, and I’m curious if you’ll do the same.

Whether or not you agree with the war, our troops deserve our love, prayers, thanks, and support. Send them a note today:

http://www.letssaythanks.com

Add comment Visited 904 times October 8th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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Can you do SEO with just Content?

Posted by Michael D Jensen on October 5th, 2007

Michael Martinez has a great blog called SEO Theory and recently wrote about the myth about search engines favoring large domains. When I read this my first thought was it was a response to Rand’s post (from the day before) about Why it pays (in search) to be big and popular compared to small and niche. In some respects Rand is right, there are definite benefits to being big and popular. However, and this is the point that I think Michael Martinez was making, it is not impossible to do very well in search having a small and niche site.

As I was reading Michael’s post the one thing that stood out to me was his stance on links, content, and social media. He is a big believer in content, and not one to buy links and spend a lot of time submitting to social media sites.

I agree 100% with his stance on the power of content. It is the blood of the Internet when you really think about it. Content is why you get on your computer, to read something, to learn about something, to be entertained by something. Content is what makes you go from one place to another. Your navigation is driven from what one content piece makes your brain think and what content it connects with. What Michael is saying is that if you build quality content, the rest essentially falls in place. I agree, but I do think there are situations where content isn’t all you need.

When Content Is Not Enough

There are industries where the topic does not drive links and traffic because of the audience of the industry. Let’s take the construction industry for example. We’ve launched a software company in the construction industry, and we have lots of relatives in the business, so we are familiar with it. Yes, a lot of construction companies and their subcontractors have Internet, but they aren’t Internet savvy. Most of them aren’t on Facebook, or Digg, or delicious, or Redditt, or anything like that. They check their email, read the news, watch a funny youtube video, buy from Amazon, and get a movie from Netflix. If that is the audience, how do you get your construction content to move, to get linked to, to get featured? It’s tough, and that’s why, the audience. For this situation you may need to buy links, you may need to do email marketing, you definitely need to do PPC, and you might find other ways (video advertising?) to get their attention. Even at a tradeshow, the product has to be very innovative (and useful, and cost effective) for it to spread by word-of-mouth.

So can you do SEO with just content? Yes, I really think you can. There are tons of things to consider obviously, not just writing something. It needs to be presented well, it needs to be found, it needs to be helpful, and it needs to be shareable.

1 comment Visited 1017 times October 5th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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Where are your priorities in SEO?

Posted by Michael D Jensen on October 4th, 2007

If you are a small business and you don’t read the Small Business SEM blog, it’s time to start. Matt McGee is one of my favorite SEO bloggers out there, he shares great search marketing insights and great finds in all of his blog reading. A recent post that was really a letter to small business owners, titled Put Down Your Ranking Reports really caught my eye, and is definitely worth reading.

It’s easy to just look at keyword ranking reports. It’s another thing to deeply analyze your site and figure out what makes for more traffic, better conversions, and happier clients. Ranking reports are nice because they have numbers, your brain easily reads and interprets them, and you feel informed. However, ranking reports can lull you away into a false sense of security. So they’re neat and fun, but step out and go beyond the ranking reports.

One of the problems, however, is you need to get an outside analysis of your site. You know it too well, you see it every day. You are way too familiar with it to give it the full kind of analysis it needs to get you to the next step. So, what do you do about that?

Option 1 (Free) - Ask your spouse, your jogging buddy, your Uncle Joe, or a good business friend to have a look at your site. Even try standing next to them as they go to your site for the first time and see where they wander, click, and how they accomplish a task (like look for one of your services or find a certain product).

Option 2 ($100) - Not that I have a lot of spare time, but for $100 I’ll give your site 30 minutes (contact me). I’ll dig as deep as I can and identify all the things I would change if it were my site. There are plenty of other SEOs qualified for this too, make them an offer for 30 minutes of their time and I’m sure you’ll get some takers.

Option 3 (More Money) - You can hire an SEO consultant or an SEO firm and this should be a standard part of their services. If you don’t have the time to do your own SEO or to do in-house SEO, this is the best way to go. It might seem expensive, but if you’ve found the right SEO it will pay for itself after time.

Thanks again to Matt McGee for bringing up the topic. At SoloSEO we have a whole slew of tools for analyzing your site, and not just rankings. For example, our Search Engine Viewer tool helps you to analyze the pages of your site to optimize the title and descriptions for best viewing in the search engine results. We have a built-in checklist and task management system that enables you to create your own customized checklists (for new sites, monthly or annual reviews, etc.), and then items that need addressed automatically go into your task list.

2 comments Visited 945 times October 4th, 2007 Michael D Jensen

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