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July 4th, 1776

God Bless America!

Thanks to the comment made this morning by a client of mine, I thought I’d share her misconception with you, in order you can LEARN what will or won’t happen to your rankings if you include a hyperlink within your content, pointing to another very popular website.

The client and I were discussing some possible subjects to write about in her blog. One of the ideas we came up with had been recently highlighted on Oprah’s TV show. So, yes, the subject matter is a hotter topic right now, since Oprah has such an incredible influence on her viewing audience.

My client said “I know what I can do! I’ll include a hyperlink in my post to Oprah’s site and I’ll increase my blog’s rankings!!”

STOP! “No”, I told her, “it doesn’t work that way! It’s the other way around!!”

I told her the only thing at this point the hyperlink would do, would be to point her visitors to some interesting information that pertains to what her blog post would be about. It would be a benefit to the visitor, but NOT of ranking benefit to her.

Putting aside hugely popular sites, and focusing on the “rest of us” that normally work hard over the years to increase the visibility and ranking status of our sites … if my client’s blog carried some ranking strength, then that hyperlink would benefit the OTHER site the link pointed to.

If Oprah Was Placing A Hyperlink On Her Site To My Client’s Blog

Now, if Oprah linked to my client’s blog, THEN my client would get a nice bit of “ranking juice”, or a boost, of sorts. We couldn’t be guaranteed that a link pointing to our site from a hugely popular and highly ranked site such as Oprah’s would guarantee we’d be propelled to the top of the SERPs, but it sure would help. Especially if the link on Oprah’s site to our site was based on a relevancy between the keyword focused content on both our sites.

So in conclusion … in order to help boost your website or blog’s overall rankings, you want other highly ranking sites placing hyperlinks on their sites, pointing to your website or blog. And if the hyperlink is keyword focused and is placed within content that is very relevant to what your site or specific webpage is about, all the better.

When you place a hyperlink pointing OUT to another site … 99.99% of the time you are doing it for the benefit of your visitor. And really, that is the best reason to do so!

Remember, keep the content focused first and foremost for the reader’s benefit. Your ranking considerations take second place.

I am working with a new client who has been selling a great product for years via her website, and finally realized that she needed to do something to improve the level of sales generated by her site. One of the main problems is that she has very poor to basically non-existent SEO implemented. Unless you type in a very very specific query into the search engines, you’ll not find her website appearing in even the 30th ranking position for her product.

Anyway … yesterday we were discussing how she is to utilize the optimization reports and implementation strategy that I researched and provided her with. One of the optimization tasks she has to do is rewrite much of her content using the targeted keyword phrases I found via my research.

In thinking about our conversation, I thought it would make a good post for today. How to best utilize the targeted keyword phrase in each page of content is always a question I get from my clients.

SEO Is More Like An Art, Than A Rigid Scientific Formulation

I explained to my client yesterday that there are no hard and fast SEO rules that one must adhere to. However since she is starting out as an “SEO beginner” I’d give her some pointers that wouldn’t hurt her, and have proven to be good advice to help steer newbies in the right direction.

I have utilized these methods myself in my early years of writing online copy, and was able to achieve very nice rankings in due time. So, I can personally say “I’ve done this, and it worked more often than not.”

The ethical methods and techniques I teach to my clients, and here on my blog, have always been proven (or disproved) on my very own sites. I use my own sites as guinea pigs at times, to test out various strategies. Clients then benefit via my own true experience.

As time has progressed, I have learned the “art” aspect of SEO. And with many more years experience, I am more well versed with other SEO strategies and such to help improve rankings. But for a person new to writing well SEO’d copy, I see no reason to not encourage them to keep the following things in mind as they are writing each page of content.

A Few Keyword Optimization Tips To Help You

Please note I’ve not just said “guaranteed”, nor “proven beyond a doubt”! Since my client is a beginner to SEO techniques, and probably so are you, let me provide you with a few good tips that will help, and certainly cannot hurt, your rankings.

Keep the following in mind for each page of content you write:

• It is a very good idea to use your keyword phrase in the file name (such as: “keyword-basics.html”; or “bass-fishing-lures.html”).
• Insert your main keyword phrase into the headline (or call it a title, if you wish). Normally this is an H1 or H2 tag.
• Sprinkle the keyword phrase, and modifiers of it, throughout the copy. Use the keyword phrase just a tiny bit more than you would if you were having a conversation with another person. But, don’t use it so much that it is jumping off the page! You will NOT be ranked higher the more you stick the phrase into the copy. Just use it a little bit more, period.
• If you are inserting an image or photograph into the copy, insert the keyword phrase in the alt attribute, if it makes sense to do so. (Some nice traffic can be generated via image searches.)

“Wow, Claudia, is that it?? Ummm … aren’t you kind of missing a whole lot of other important must-dos for keyword usage??”  Nope.

You see, there isn’t a formula as to how to properly SEO each page. If there was, then we’d all be in the #1 ranking positions!

I must mention (in case you re brand new to SEO) that yes … there are other factors involved in order to achieve great rankings. Though keyword usage is important, it is not the only thing the search engines take into consideration.

I recently received a private email from someone who had downloaded my free SEO guide The SEO Edge, trying to correct me that you MUST insert your keyword phrase a specific number of times; you MUST bold it a certain number of times, etc. etc. etc. … and then you’d be assured to get much better rankings. That this was a proven fact.

Ok then, I guess I need to rewrite all the top ranked pages I have on my websites, since I’ve not followed this individual’s “expert” strategies? NOT!

In closing, I can finish by saying this: if it makes sense to BOLD the keyword phrase in a sentence in the copy, then do so; if it makes sense to ITALICIZE the keyword phrase in a sentence in the copy, then do so; if it makes sense to use the keyword phrase in a hyperlink, or sub-heading, then do so!

But remember! Write for your human visitor first and foremost. Make sure you have properly optimized the Title tag, and Description and Keyword meta tags. Make sure you have written quality information.

By keeping this in mind, you are well on your way to building out what will hopefully be a very well ranked site in the long run. And that is what we want … good solid, long term top rankings.

I’m just touching upon the issue of link building today. I know that this is one of the things newbie internet marketers ask (and worry) about when contacting me to see how they can get their sites ranked better in the search engines.

I thought that I’d point you to a great website that belongs to the #1 “link expert”, Eric Ward. (Heck, people like Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com hire him to help get their online businesses moving in the right direction!) Not that I don’t provide ethical link building information here on my blog, but it is also important to know of other great (and even more respected!) sites to visit.

You possibly have not heard of him, and it’s one of those websites that you should bookmark, since he is who he is, and because you can believe what he says!

If you want trustworthy information about everything relating to links, then this is the guy to tell you. I’d read through his Q & A area: Link Building Best Practices. You’ll pick up good, solid advice.

Next, make sure to read another of his web pages — his ‘Top Ten List’ of sorts: LinkMoses Linking Commandments This is one great, and humorous article. Read it, learn and laugh a little, too!

That’s it for today. See ya later!

I recently provided a Complimentary 30-minute SEO Consultation to an individual I’ll refer to as “NOM” (newbie online marketer), who is trying to build a website to promote their computer accessory product.

NOM is very much a newbie, and I certainly can understand their frustration with not knowing how to deal with HTML codes, navigation, best-practice linking structure and similar issues. NOM was doing their best at targeting the few keyword phrases that exactly matched the product they were promoting. They had a few pages of descriptive content that I can say certainly did a good job of explaining the product, how to use it, what it cost, and how to order it.

But one thing NOM said to me was how they could not understand how “junk sites”, those that had absolutely nothing even closely related to the keyword phrases they were ranking for, could out-rank NOM’s website which did indeed sell a very specific product that was 100% related to the keyword phrases in question.

In other words, how come NOM’s Google ranking for “super duper computer accessory” wasn’t even in the top 100 results, but spam sites were ranking in the top-ten?

NOM’s comment, which is the reason I thought I’d share this with those of you who are brand new to online marketing and the reality of how Google determines ranking positions was this:

“I am going to package up my product and send it off to the owners of Google and tell them in a letter that I should be Number One for my keyword phrase “super duper computer accessory”! I actually make and sell a super duper computer accessory. Those others sites don’t!  How come they rank so highly?  They’re nothing but spam sites!”

Send your product with a letter to the owners of Google and demand a #1 ranking? 

No offense to NOM, but it was very hard for me to not break out laughing. (And if this individual is reading this, please … I mean absolutely NO disrespect by my comments nor by this post. I think your belief about rankings is not that unusual for beginners, and others can learn by your statement, and my reply.)

I had to reply that rankings were NOT, unfortunately, handled in that manner. That if sending a letter and your product to the big chiefs at Google was all that was necessary, well … maybe the organic search results would possibly be skewed more in the favor of “legitimate” websites. But yes, sometimes it just doesn’t seem fair at all as to how Google ranks one site above another.

So if you are brand spankin’ new to online marketing, and you are trying to learn (figure out) what “search engine ranking” is all about, here is a very very simplified way to understand it for now:

• your organic search engine ranking has to do with the relevancy of the content on your web page and to the keyword phrase you have determined to be what the content is all about;
• the number of webpages on your site containing quality content is taken into consideration;
• the age of your website is taken into consideration;
• the number of other quality, theme related websites that have a link on their site that points to your website helps your ranking position; and
• your attention to basic on-page SEO techniques is of great importance (please get a copy of my free guide “The SEO Edge” and learn how to write effective Title and Description tags, and content).

But here’s the kicker to everything I’ve just listed, and back to what NOM was angrily complaining about to me … somehow, junky spammy sites can rank above legitimate, quality sites. There can be umpteen reasons for this, of which I wouldn’t be able to answer unless I dug in and started to research each non-relevant website to the keyword phrase in question.

However, without writing a novel on this very subject, which trust me, one could easily do, I can tell you this. No matter how ‘unfair’ keyword ranking positions may be, I’ll bet you good money-$$ that ultimately those sites that right now rank well for keyword phrases which they really ought not to …they will drop-drop-drop down in rankings and soon will be non-existent ranking-wise for all intent puposes.

As my dear Grandma Sadie used to say, “Patience is a virtue.” And sometimes, in the search engine rankings wars … patience truly is a virtue! But in the end … our content rich, keyword targeted sites will  rank well.