I’m currently doing some research into the use of Blog Directories as a means to marketing your blog. Perhaps the best resource I have found online so far is Joost de Valk’s blog on Wordpress SEO. Very well written and an incredibly content-rich resource. I’ll post more later when I have a chance to organize my research.
Those “in the know” about search engines are far too familiar with the phrase “Content is King”. Search Engines tend favor large, dynamic sites to smaller, static ones. This is primarily because larger, dynamic sites are more likely to contain fresh information of value to the search engine’s audience.
Over the years, we have worked with some of the world’s largest online media companies such as Forbes.com and CNET Networks who are widely considered leading sources of information within their respective subject matters. Both entities have achieved “authority” status with the search engines and thus are typically “crawled” deeper and more often than smaller sites with similar information. Not surprisingly, they also find it much easier than the average Joe to rank for more competitive search terms.
If you think about it, it makes perfect sense for Google to want to be there when Forbes breaks a story on say, a trading scandal… or when CNET breaks a story on the first review of the latest, soon to be released tech gadget.
Maintenance isn’t just a term used by SEO agencies to create a recurring revenue stream. Maintenance in the SEO world can and should include services such as the process of keeping new inbound links increasing, the addition of fresh content, and making onsite adjustments just to name a few of the key maintenance services a firm should be suggesting to their clients. As a firm’s knowledge about search matures and changes there is always a need to go back and review what has worked, what is working, and what new potential opportunities might exist in the SEO channel for any given client.
When most customers start down the SEO path, with an agency, they don’t have the search engine rankings they desire so they spend time admiring and often studying what their competitors are doing. Months later when firms, like this one, have helped them achieve their rankings they forget that other firms with other clients are just waiting in the wings to knock them off their rankings pedestal.
When writing content for Search Engines it is important to consider the selection and placement of keywords to ensure that the search engines categorize your web pages correctly and display them prominently for related search queries.
Search Engine Basics:
The relevancy algorithms that determine search engine rankings consider two types of factors in deciding who ranks where; “on page” and “off page” factors. On page factors consider the placement of Keywords within the HTML of your pages including Title Tags, Keywords in Document Text, Meta Keywords, Meta Descriptions, Header tags, etc. The two most heavily weighted “on page” factors include title tags and visible document text. Off page factors are related to quantity and quality of the web pages that link to your site from external sources. For the purpose of this document, we will focus on “on page” factors.
I’m a pretty analytical guy. In fact, if I could break a good sweat using MSExcel, it would likely replace my treadmill. I like to measure my measurements just before and after I measure things to make sure my measurements are accurately measured. Sad I know… but true nonetheless.
Let’s talk keyword rankings for a minute, shall we? There are plenty of software applications on the Internet that can scrape the engines and tell you where you rank for as many keywords you would like (my personal favorite is IBP by Axandra). For obvious reasons, the engines frown on this. In case it’s not obvious, it’s because it skews their search statistics and eats up unnecessary bandwidth. I’m sure there are other reasons, but let’s leave it at that.