Optimizing Tips From An SEO Expert
I headed to an SEO seminar (Search Engine Optimization, making your site appear higher in search results) last night feeling confident that my site’s SEO was pretty awesome thanks to previous experience and all the how-to blogs I read. I know, alarmingly ridiculous right? I’m only about six weeks old!
Anyway, the seminar here in New York was called: Google Made Billions With Search Engines, So Can You! hosted by Mike Moran, who’s an IBM Distinguished Engineer (yup, that’s his title; I am now rebranding myself Distinguished Blogger) and SEO expert.
The room we were in for the 3.5 hour talk was unbearably stuffy and one woman actually took a little nap. I think some people may have been a bit thrown by all the jargon and one woman was near tears because she’d paid a fortune for her Flash site which search engine spiders weren’t picking up, but the others seemed fired up and eager to learn.
An awful lot was covered in a short time, but here’s what I found most useful:
1. Never stop trying to optimize your site. Google results change. Your competitors change. Your users change. You need to change too.
2. Keywords are everything. Choose your site’s keywords very, very carefully. Don’t go for the same ones the big sites are using as you’re unlikely to beat them. Go for those niche keywords that fit you exactly. What can your site offer that the others can’t? (But also be wary of going for the unpopular keywords no one is searching for.) Make sure your keywords are prominent on relevant pages.
3. Consider your primary keywords and secondary keywords. For example, ‘rich minx’ might be considered my primary keyword but until people have heard of me it’s useless. So I look at secondary keywords like ‘money blog’ and ‘blog writing’. All keywords have subtle differences. Consider your demographic.
4. It’s about conversions, not ratings. Your conversions are the ‘results’ you want from your site, be it a purchase or a newsletter sign-up. What are your conversion goals? My main goal is to increase my RSS readers. They are my valued readers who come back to see what I’m up to. A click on an ad is a conversion too, and is certainly welcomed, but my readers are more valuable right now as I really want to grow my traffic and make people feel like this site is theirs too.
5. Sometimes your visitors aren’t sure what they need. Try and capture people at the ‘learn’ stage and offer information. This is something I need to work on. I think I have many useful how-to articles in me. Watch this space.
6. To appear higher in Google’s organic search results: remove spider traps, like long urls, too much JavaScript, Flash or other rich media on your pages and improper url redirects. Make sure your site is clearly mapped out for Google and friends (Yahoo!, Ask etc) to index easily. Use content lists, like Categories or a sitemap.
7. Check and analyze your stats. I think I do too much checking and too little analyzing. Check referral links, search queries to your site from Google, search queries within your site, conversions, entry and exit pages. Check all your pages have a good page title, article title and keywords in the text with relevant links. If you’re not already, use Google Analytics which is a free stats tool with a hell of a lot of information about how people use your site. Don’t make assumptions about your users.
8. Make yourself a link magnet by supplying useful content which people can learn from. Offer some kind of unique tool that people will link to.
9. It’s not just about short-term profit it’s about Lifetime Value. Will your customer/visitor return? Aim for repeat business.
Anyway, I’ve got a few new things to think about and the rest was good reinforcement.
Mike asked me to mention the seminar in case anyone happens to be in NY. Normally tickets for his appearances cost hundreds of dollars and last night cost me $45. So I highly recommend going if you can. He’s a very dynamic speaker. Check out his site for information, as well as some free advice and tools.
Was this useful to you? Any questions? Let me know.
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Wednesday, May 30th, 2007 at 10:08 am
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I haven’t really focused on keywords. I guess I should. I feel like it’s too late, though. I’ve been writing for seven months without putting a thought into keywords. Will it even help to start working on keywords now? Also, I find doing research for key words extremely daunting, so I just put it off.
May 30th, 2007 at 11:44 amBrett, it’s never too late to improve. Research the keywords now and use that knowledge as you write in the future. Obviously you don’t become a slave to keywords–keep up your naturally good style of writing or else no one will want to read you–but if you know that more people say “laptop” than “notebook,” you can decide to use the more popular word. Just start somewhere and do a little bit better every day.
May 30th, 2007 at 12:14 pmHi Brett. I need to work on my keywords more too. I guess yours would be along the lines of “law student blogs”, “student finance advice”, etc?
I use inventory.overture.com to test keyword popularity. It’s free.
May 30th, 2007 at 12:45 pmI have a few tips for keyword research on my Web site: http://www.mikemoran.com/skinflintsearch/keywords.htm
May 30th, 2007 at 1:12 pmHi, I found your blog through Blog-Buzz. I agree with the advice given in this post and would like to offer some additional information:
Optimize blog posts for search engines in seven easy steps:
May 30th, 2007 at 2:45 pmhttp://www.blogworks.org/archives/2007/03/optimize_blog_p.html