Forget About SEO

Well, maybe "Forget About SEO" is a little inflammatory. Perhaps a more accurate way to phrase this would be: "refocus your attention on content and user experience."

There are many websites and SEO gurus that have much to say about keyword density, header balance, and dozens of other SEO gimmicks and tricks. Are these really just gimmicks and tricks? Or, are they sound advice? That all depends upon you the reader. If you are looking for a magic wand that will transform your website with a flick of the wrist, then they are gimmicks and tricks. However, if you have laid a firm foundation of solid content and optimized user experience, then the gimmicks and tricks are transformed into sound advice.

Step 1 -- Solid Content

Begin with content. If you do not have good, solid, worthwhile content then why are you building a webpage?

Once upon a time it was possible to:

• grab some fluff and nonsense, 
• make a website from it, 
• apply search engine gimmicks and tricks,
• get yourself at the top of the search engines, 
• monetize the website with click-throughs, ads, and affiliate sales, 
• then sit back and make a fortune.

Those days are gone guys and gals. Are there people that still manage to accomplish the above market skimming? Yes. But, if you are looking for advice on SEO and Marketing you do not have the qualifications to play the game in that way. The game has changed. Newbies and wannabees cannot penetrate shyster marketing at this time. The shyster game is much more difficult to play than it was back in 1999 to 2001. The heyday of easy to find, easy to attract, easy to sell internet fodder is over.

So my advice is, get real or get out. Either have something that is real to you, something that you care about, something that you have a passion for, or find something else to do. Otherwise you will end up spending time, money, and effort following a dream that will only serve to fill the pockets of weekend SEO workshop moderators.

Assuming that you one of the folks that have something that is real to you, something that you care about, and something that you have a passion for, then all you need to do it create content. Create content any way you can. If you can write, write. If you can speak, then speak. If you can make movies, then make movies. Use any and all media that you feel comfortable with to create your content.

After you have raw content it will be time to massage it and flesh it out. This blog is already too long. So let's talk about the process of massaging and fleshing out content later.

Step 2 -- A Good User Experience

Given a solid foundation of content, now it is time to focus your attention on the user experience. Sometimes just the act of focusing your attention on the user experience is enough. Just looking at your content from this perspective will give you the clues you need to modify your presentation to create a better user experience. Both are important: content and presentation. 

After you think you have constructed a website that offers a good user experience, watch another browse your website. There is no substitute of user testing. It is just not possible to anticipate or imagine all of the twists and turns that an actual user will throw into the mix. Watch, watch, watch. See what they do. See how they do. Ask for their impressions.

A bunch of users are your best source of information about how your website is working -- for them. However, a bunch of users is NOT your best source for advice on how to fix your website. Do not use focus group as a replacement for your own common sense, or the talents of an actual designer.

If you discover a problem during your user testing that you have zero clue how to fix, then go hunting. If you know how to fix something, fix it. If you have zero clue how to fix something, go fish. Dismissing a question because you have no answer for it is silly. And it is equally silly to take random advice for a problem just because you, yourself, don't happen to have the answer. Put in the research.

Look for websites that look like they solved the problem you are experience. Do a search. If users were complaining that the text was hard to read, then do a search on "text is hard to read" and see what happens. In this case what you will find is a bunch of folks whining about certain video games and youtubes with hard to read text. To fix that, modify your search. YES, modify your search. Add the two words "web design" to your original search. Now you will get a bunch of results with advice on how to fix hard to read text issues.

Step 3 -- Revisit Your Content

After you have worked on your user experience for awhile, revisit the basic content. Remove what can and/or needs to be removed. Add whatever is missing. Massage the remainder. Basically, take your content to the next level.

Step 4 -- Refine The User Experience

After putting yet more time into refining your content, revisit the issue of user experience. Do a little more testing, solicit more feedback, maybe even fix those things you were not quite ready to fix before.

Step 5 -- Apply SEO Rules, Formulas, & Techniques

Now, after the above double passes on content and user experience, it is time to worry about SEO rules, formulas and techniques. You will find the application of SEO techniques on a real website much easier than a site created from fluff.

[NOTE: If you find a conflict between content and SEO rules, the content wins -- every time. If you find a conflict between user experience and SEO rules, the user experience wins -- every time. This will take you far.]

Helping A Friend With Their SEO

Today I received an email from a friend asking my advice about a comment posted on her website. The comment was from an individual giving her advice on what she was doing wrong with the SEO on her page. AND, advertising his or her services at the same time. Below is my response.

First and foremost (please take to heart what I am saying) you are already doing something right. With zero concern about SEO you are doing well in organic searches. You seem to have a knack for doing something right. We don't know what precisely. But, you can see the results in the SERP (Search Engine Results Pages).

So, in my opinion, you could safely disregard SEO advice. However, if you want to improve your page content generation, I would recommend the following:

Step 1) Generate your content. Say what you want to say with zero regard for SEO mumbo-jumbo. Just get your message on the page. Say whatever it is you have to say. Offer whatever it is you have to offer. Ask for whatever it is you want to ask.

Generation of worthwhile content, expressed clearly, that provides a good user experience should be your only goal.

After your content has been generated, you can consider SEO through the following steps.

Step 2) Handling complaint #1 "you do not use all three H tags in your post":

H1, H2, & H3 can be used to help organize your page into main topic, sub topics, and sub-sub topics. Personally, I find H1 and H2 easy to apply to almost any page. The H3 level of outlining can be a bit of a pain. Keep in mind, outlining is basically what you are doing with the 3 Hs.

Look at your page. What is the page about? If the page is about "Finding the best vet for your dog" then make sure that is used as your H1 -- your top (#1) heading.

Scan through the rest of the page. Typically you will find two or more sub-topics in the page. Make these your H2s. You can do this by simply inserting the appropriate sub-topic as an H2 heading above the paragraphs relevant to that sub-topic. This will help readers find their way through your page. If you want to go further with H3 that is perhaps a good idea. I say perhaps because you did not have the Hs in your page to begin with. If you are not the type of wordsmith that automatically adds headings to your page do not burden yourself with too much detail -- fixing the SEO. The more painful the process the less likely you will be to do it well. Another friend of mine uses the expression "Pick the low hanging fruit." I take this to mean, do what comes easy and gives you a good return on your effort.

Step 3) Handling complaint #2 "you are not using bold or italics properly in your SEO optimization"

Warning: in case it's missed your attention, everything I say in this article is personal opinion. Some of my opinions others happen to agree with. Some of my opinions others find odd. Some of my opinions others find down-right stupid -- by their standards. I recommend you form your own standards and apply them to whatever opinions you happen to stumble across -- no matter the source.

In the case, of bold and italics, I say ignore all SEO optimization considerations. Apply bold wherever you feel it cab help draw the reader's attention to key concepts. Remember that typically only 10% of your page is being read. So give folks a clue and make stuff bold when you feel like it.

As for italics, I recommend following the advice of your high-school English teacher. Or, ignore them. But, don't get all caught up in SEO considerations for italics. 

Step 4) Handling complaint #3 "your keyword must appear in the title, and, it must appear in the URL"

If your keyword(s) do not appear in your title ask yourself the following question: "Does my title tell the reader what the posting (page) is about?" If your title clearly indicates to the potential reader what your posting or page is about, then leave the title alone. First and Foremost your goal must be to clearly communicate to readers what your content is. That is the role of the title. The role of the title is not to trick search engines, the role of the title is not to trick readers, the role of the title is to clearly communicate the nature of the posting's content.

Since you are using wordpress the URL of your page will almost always be the title. So if the title is handled properly the URL will be.

If you can add your keyword(s) to your title without losing clarity, you really should. It is a good idea to have your keyword(s) in the title. Just don't let "good ideas" push you around.

Step 5) Handling complaint #4 "You have to optimize your keyword and make sure that it has a nice keyword density of 3-5% in your article with relevant LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing)."


The way to deal with this complaint is to flat out ignore it. Just ignore it. BUT, take the opportunity to re-read your posting. Read the posting from the point of view of the reader -- not the point of view of the writer. Look, hear, read with the mind of the reader. This will help you cleanse your posting of unnecessary material. This will help you find and correct typos. This will help you reformulate content for clarity.

In the process of refining your content for clarity, you should automatically find yourself adding your keyword(s) periodically. Since your keyword(s) are supposed to relate to the real purpose of your website, these keyword(s) should be popping up in your postings. If your keyword(s) are not popping up in your organic postings, then you should look at your site and evaluate whether you have the proper keyword(s).

Step 6) Handling complaint #5 "the alt tag must have your keyword(s)"

Sure, look at your alt tags and put keyword(s) -- IF it makes sense and helps the clarity of your content. The prime directive is good content that provides a good user experience.

Step 7) Handling the self-serving promotion of the complainer's automatic wordpress SEO plugin.
I recommend that you never use a plugin that is not stored and downloaded on the wordpress.org website. On the wordpress.org website you have a chance that the plugin is not out and out hacked code -- a chance. It is still buyer (or downloader) beware. The kinds of things that can happen to a plugin are the following:

• The maker uses the plugin for SEO spamming of their own website.
• The maker puts a back door into your website to steal passwords.
• The maker puts in code to send email addresses and personal information to himself or herself.
• The plugin be a bad programming job and break your theme.
• The plugin be a bad programming job and break your other plugins.

Basically bad things can happen.

To help avoid this (no promises) use plugins that come from known reputable sources such as wordpress.org

If you are an expert and can determine the health of a plugin for yourself, then you should. If you are a newbie, stick to wordpress.org for your plugins until you learn better. That's just my opinion.

Why I Don't Trust Link Popularity

First of all it does not matter that I do not trust link popularity. I'm just whining in the wind on the off chance that someone from google will happen by and bother to read my blog.

Link popularity is measured by the number of links that point to a website.

I like amazon.com, I use amazon.com, I would recommend amazon.com to a friend. I have zero self-generated links on my websites to amazon.com. (Please note, at bottom of article we will talk further about links to amazon.com)

Since I have no links to amazon.com that means that even through I have high-esteem for amazon.com they receive zero page ranking as a result.

Now Scum Brothers Spam Marketing Corporation have zillions of contrived links that point to their website. That is because they use white-hat, black-hat, no-hat, and toupee SEO methods to make sure they have zillions of links to their website. Does this mean SBSM Corp should be held in high-esteem. No this just means they are very adept as using the system to get links back to themselves.

I have clients and friends that read this blog. But, they do not count when it comes to link popularity because they have my blog bookmarked. They don't put links to this blog on their websites. They put more intimate bookmarks on their computers.

There is something not quite right about a system that rewards tricky dicks that know how to work the system in preference to average joes that just get along.

A little more talk about Amazon.com's links.

Something that Amazon did that was very helpful with SEO (even before SEO existed) was to use an affiliate program. Because I am an affiliate of amazon.com that means that on every page of my blog there are three or four links back to amazon.com. Not of these links are self-generated. All of these links are created by widget bots that work for my affiliate program.

All the same, amazon.com has four links on my page that count toward their link popularity. I venture to guess that 99.99% of all amazon.com links are from affiliate sales links. Good going Amazon.

SEO Check List

Things that help:

• Keywords in your website address (URL)
• Keywords in all your page <title> tags
• Keywords in link text of internal links.
• Keywords in link text of inbound links (external links leading to your site.)
• Keywords in link text of outbound links (your links to other people's webpages.
• Keywords in <h1> & <h2> headings
• Keywords at the top of the page (in the beginning of your text)
• Keywords in image <alt> tags
• Where inbound links come from.
• Links from sites similar to yours
• Description Metatag
• Unique content for each page of your website
• Frequent change or addition of content
• Site Accessibility
• Sitemap (html or xml)

Things that do NOT help:

• Keyword spamming & stuffing
• Keyword dilution (optimizing too many keywords)
• Hidden links (such as 1px image links)
• Deliberate Cross-linking
• Duplicate content (10 pages of the same stuff does not make your site look bigger)
• Doorway pages (
• Serving search engine different page than public
• Invisible text (too small to read or color same as background)
• Stolen Content
• Flash
• Frames
• Redirects (301 and 302)
• Telling robots to go jump in the lake (robots.txt bans)
• Dynamic pages with session IDs

Keywords in Anchor Text

Before we can talk about Keywords in Anchor Text we need to define what in the heck this Anchor Text is.

Anchor text is also known as: link text, link title, or that stuff in between the <a href=""> thing and the </a> thing.

Here is an example: <a href="http://www.galaxywebsitedesign.com/">Galaxy Website Design</a>

The http://www.galaxywebsitedesign.com is the link url. The Galaxy Website Design is the link text (or anchor text).

When another website creates a link that points to your website that is a good thing.

Google, and other search engines, consider the fact that someone bothers to create a link to your website as a vote of confidence. So if want to bad-mouth a website do not include a link. Google will interpret the link as a vote of confidence in the linked to website.

So what about the "Keywords in Anchor Text" thing?

Quite simply, if someone links to you with the following:
<a href="http://www.yoyodyneindustries.com">Crystal Quantum Meditation Devices</a>
then Google will assume from this link that you consider yoyodyneindustries.com to be related to meditation devices. So not only will you increase the page rank of the yoyodyneindustries.com website in general. You will also add credibility to the keywords meditation and devices (as well as crystal and quantum).

Thus not only are links to your site important. It is also important what text is used in the link text (anchor text). If possible, find ways to encourage the use of keywords in anchor text used to link to your website.

Social Marketing Truths

Here they are in the nutshell:

• Social media enables you to open up a dialogue with perspective customers.
• When you have a dialogue with a prospective customer, they grow to trust you.
• Once they trust you, they're more likely to buy your product or service.

The above three truths come from my notes taken during a seminar by Jamie Turner. These little tidbits were dropped on the path as he was making his way to the main topic of the seminar. However, I felt these were gems worth mulling over a bit.

Social media enables you to open up a dialogue with perspective customers.

Social media enables you.... It is a tool. Like a hammer (or screwdriver) you have to know what you are doing with the tool and know what it is you are trying to accomplish. A hammer is great for driving nails into a board. But this is useless without some idea of where the nails need to go. Do you have a plan you are working from. Or, are you just driving nails in order to drive nails?

open up a dialogue... There are at least two little tidbits in this. First of all it is designed to be a dialogue. So work to have it be a dialogue. Encourage perspective customers to engage in the conversation. Get them involved. An active participant will get hooked into the process much easier and deeper than a passive participant. Second, fundamentally almost all dialogues in social media are perpetually in the "opening up" phase of the conversation. Dialogues have various phases -- including resolution and conclusion. The nature of social media keeps them bound into the beginning phases -- the opening up part. That's okay. Just be aware of it. You are not going to conclude your business in the social media itself. That will happen else where.

perspective customers... Treat the folks you dialogue with as bosom buddies, pals and friends. But, don't forget why you are there -- perspective customers.  If you forget you are hunting for perspective customers you may lose your posture, you may forget to actually redirect them to a place for conversion. And yes, conversion will happen else where.

When you have a dialogue with a prospective customer, they grow to trust you.

have a dialogue with a prospective customer... Again, have a dialogue -- make it a two way street, get them involved in the conversation. And of course the "them" we are talking about are prospective customers. If your product or service is empty having no value to the customer then this perspective of treating others as prospective customers will be hollow and basically yucky. On the other hand, if you are an ethical marketer and actually represent goods that are of value, then this perspective takes on a flavor of service.

they grow to trust you.... This is the goal, this is the hoped for result of the social marketing. Your ultimate goal may be to make sales. But, the goal ascribed to the social media part of the strategy is simply to generate a relationship with the prospective customer -- one in which they can view you as a trusted source of information and transaction.

Once they trust you, they're more likely to buy your product or service.

more likely to buy... The result of social media marketing is a prospective customer that has been brought to the state of "more likely to buy." That is a good goal and a workable goal. Let it be what it is. The goal of your "landing page" is to convert customers. The goal of social media is to predispose customers to the state of "more likely to buy."

By the way, keep your focus, stay on beam. You are looking to sell your product or service. You are not looking for ego boost or fulfillment of any other personal agenda item. When doing business, don't worry about your dance card, or your anything. It is not about you, it is about the customer. This is a subtle point. The best way to see it is in hindsight after a relationship has soured because somehow the energy was channeled into something personal.

Title Attribute

Warning:

This article is about the title attribute NOT the title element found in the header of your webpage.

First a bit of advise

This might resolve the whole issue of title attribute for you. If you're looking at it because you would like to improve keyword density and work on your SEO then there's no need to dig any further: Google and most other search engines do not take the title attribute into account when spidering a website.

Yep, that means that all of your title attributes only serve to bulk up the size of your page and give you more typing to do. Since google gives points for smaller/faster downloads, the title attribute will cost you a little in speed. Also, keep in mind that you never have enough time to do all the web design and update you want to do, thus monkeying around with title attributes will take that little bit of time from something else. AND, google will not use the title attribute for keyword density.

Finally Some Info About Title Attribute

W3.org says this about the title attribute: "This attribute offers advisory information about the element for which it is set."

The title attribute can be used with all elements except for base, basefont, head, html, meta, param, script, and title. BUT, it is not required for any -- there is no element that requires the title attribute.

Some browsers display title text as a tool tip when the element is hovered over. Thus if you do use title attribute text please keep is small. No one wants to see a huge tool tip. And, besides, some browsers will truncate the tool tip.

Some Possible Good Uses

Title attribute can be used to add descriptive text to links. This could be a situation where the link text does not  give the destination. Then the title attribute might provide that tidbit of info.  This can be useful for users not in the habit of checking the destination url in the status line of their browser.

This could also be used to provide additional information for an image. Remembering that the alt attribute is used with screen readers in mind, it is possible that something like a date which would not be essential for the alt attribute could go in the title attribute.

Another, and perhaps most productive, use of the title attribute is on input elements in a form. You can use the title attribute to explain to your visitors what the intended purpose of an input field in a form is.

Summary

"Could be used," "might be useful," or "allowed" are not stellar recommendations to bother with the title attribute. My opinion is that proper generation of page content and proper use of the alt attribute handle the situation nicely.

Since the title attribute does nothing for SEO (at the moment), I suggest to just ignore it. Later when we find out it was the secret, most important attribute on the page we can lament our choice to ignore it. But until then, I think I'll just concentrate on other matters.