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Web Site Optimisation Tactics Explained
By Stuart Ayling
(This article has been edited from a longer
discussion with a client who was reviewing their SEO tactics with their
web design person.)
This is a deep subject, so brief answers can sometimes be tricky without you having full knowledge of the components. And we need to be very specific with use of terminology, as it is easy to be general and inaccurate. (It's a bit like a doctor explaining the 'flu, or pneumonia.
The symptoms could sound similar to the average person, but in fact are very different.) Having said that disclaimer, let me begin...
1) The 'keyword' meta tag:
I agree that this specific meta tag is dead. But not all meta tags are
dead. This has been the case since 2002, but it is only the 'keyword' tag
that is now disregarded. There is lots of information around about this if you want to read up on it. As an example is
this article which explains the importance of the 'Title' meta tag and 'Description' meta tag. These two tags are definitely worth using now.
So I'm not sure if your web person is confused about the difference between all meta tags and the keyword tag, or if they really think all meta tags are useless (which is certainly incorrect).
2) Density of keywords on each page:
The comment from your web person about needing to make the page unreadable for humans to achieve the correct keyword density is just rubbish. Read the
main article from this newsletter by Jill
Whalen, a highly respected SEO consultant (see midway down page).
The text on your web pages should feature key-words and key-phrases, but in a logical manner, not by 'stuffing' them on the page to be unreadable by humans.
3) Using 'static' HTML pages in addition to
'dynamic' database pages:
Yes, static pages do attract traffic to the web site if they are written correctly. Search engines love HTML pages with lots of information and terminology about a specific topic. So make sure you use
plenty of standard HTML pages for evergreen information, even if most of your page views are for the
dynamically generated search results from your listing database.
However, be careful if your web person is suggesting you use what are called Lead-In pages, or 'doorway pages'. These tactics are website spam techniques to try and trick search engines by having special code (or pages full of word 'stuffing'). These can get your site blacklisted, and removed from the engines. Each engine has its own rules on this and you can
read more about it
here.
Search engines started penalising sites for this way back in 2002, when they got smart about the spammy techniques many people were using on web sites. The end result lowered the value of search results for users - hence the engines getting tougher.
4) Inbound links and link swapping:
These days the idea of creating reciprocal link swaps to increase traffic to your site isn’t really worth much, unless the incoming links are:
* Related to your sites content.
* Come from a respected/high traffic site.
* Use key-words in the actual text link to your site.
* Are on a page on other site that is prominent (many link pages are buried where readers and search engines don't find them).
This is why articles are a great marketing tactic on the internet. They are content rich and are posted on sites that are usually related to your business.
Bottom line is… there are numerous ways to improve the ranking of your web site. And there are numerous other ways to promote online.
Reciprocal links (from lots of smaller sites) is one of the most unproductive things to do.
Pay per click ad's could be cost effective if you can convert people to buy on your site, or you have something to offer that is a bit unique.
It comes down to monitoring and tweaking pages to get better results. Rome wasn't built in a day!
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