Content Optimization
Published September 30, 2010 | 
There are different aspects of the optimization process that with time gain and lose importance, and content optimization is no exception to this. Through the many changes that take place each year to algorithms, the weight given or scored to the content on your pages naturally rises and falls. Currently incoming links you have been able to establish appear to supply greater advantage than well-written and well-optimized content. So you might wonder why do we take time to focus on the content optimization?
Keep in mind the goal for anyone is to build and optimize a website that will rank well on the major search engines, and more difficult and far more important, be able to hold those rankings through sometimes frequent changes in the respective search engine algorithms. 
While currently developing a bunch of incoming links from high Page Rank sites will position your on Google rankings, you must also give careful consideration to what will happen to your rankings when any weight given to incoming links drops, in addition to how your website might fare on many search engines other than Google that actually don’t place the similar importance on incoming links.
Web page content should ideally only be organized from the perspective of human visitors, but as you know technology has made it possible for people with visual disabilities and machine to browse the Web and extract information they are looking for. Therefore, a well-designed Web page should take every potential visitor into consideration, as content organization is sometimes confused with content preparation, but understand that presentation is achieved quite independently of organization and optimization.
In the more general or broader, content is optimized when it can convey its most important points first, and then leads the visitor through a process of discovery that is both illuminating and very compelling. 
Machines might abandon a page simply because it contains formatting errors that impede their ability to extract information, but people will also leave pages because they realize the content is not what they are looking for, or perhaps because they become bored with the content even if it is what they were looking for.
Finally, keep in mind the bottom line is well-optimized information can either be broken or just plain boring, and it still remains a well-optimized page.
Role of Inbound Links in SEO
Published September 20, 2010 | 
Let me start by saying that while on-page optimization is a good first step, ultimately you will experience much more leverage by having links from other sites to yours. There was a time when inbound links was viewed as just be a source of referral traffic, but now, inbound links influence your search engine rankings as well.
In looking back, Google was the very first search engine to use links as a significant ranking factor, as they viewed a link from one site to another as a ‘vote’ for the target site, and of course the more votes you have, the more authoritative your site is considered for ranking.
To be more specific, there are really two main benefits gained through each link including better Search Engine Optimization authority of the linked-to page along with an increase in authority of the site as a whole and increased relevancy of the page for the keywords used in the link’s anchor text.
Understand that the anchor text is the clickable text of a link. Let’s look at an example, to help your understanding of a page linked to in the following two ways:
- Bob’s Furniture Store
- Buy Children’s Beds at Bob’s Furniture Store
Judging between the two options, the second link (often referred to as an ‘anchor text rich’ or an ‘anchor text specific’ link) is the most likely to help Bob’s store rank for the keyword phrase ‘children’s beds.’
You should also make note that not all links pass value, as Webmasters can add a ‘nofollow’ attribute to an outbound link in order to achieve this. 
Popular sites like Wikipedia have links for example, that are all no follow, and to verify whether a link passes value is to check its HTML. Understand this is possible in different ways through various browsers but is usually doable.
Previously we discussed how to identify the search terms that your site would benefit from targeting. Slightly different link building tactics might be required, depending on the level of competitiveness of a particular keyword.
Beating the Competition
Published September 7, 2010 | 
Once you’ve made your decision and pick your arena of battle, you need to determine how to beat your competition within that arena, and the way to go about this is for your particular site to gain both authority and relevance for those terms.
You assess authority through understanding the link profile of your site compared to the other sites ranking for the specific keywords you are targeting.
Also, understand that external links from other sites are the single most important and powerful ranking tool among the current major search engines, and when examining the links the three most important elements of these linking factors are:
• Number of links to your website (more is better)
• Number of links to the specific page you hope will rank for the term in question (again, more is typically better than less)
• The anchor text of links to the specific page
It’s easy to understand that links are the biggest factor in gaining authority and search engine rankings.
You should remember as a rule of thumb, your site could compete for rankings (in the short term) with other sites that have similar link profiles, and understand tackling sites with more powerful link profiles requires both your time, and dedication. The bigger the gap, the more time, effort and budget is needed.
Finally, be mindful of the fact that when a large gap exists between two competing sites in the number of inbound links, it is simply very difficult for the site with less links to make-up ground and compete for any keyword opportunities.
Choosing Relevant Keyword Terms and Phrases
Published September 4, 2010 | 
After you have determined all keyword possibilities with sufficient search volumes, you should then filter the keywords for relevancy. Remember that you don’t just want to pull in traffic for traffics sake, so it’s important your goal should be to ensure your traffic is of high quality, simply because quality traffic helps conversion of your visitors into customers at a higher rate.
You should see the data as free or low-cost market research for the proper mindset to proceed to formulate a content strategy that just might have a shot at ranking well, and remember, before Google will like your content, people need to.
Here are some essential things you need to always cover when researching keywords:
Research Tools – According to some, Google’s Keyword Tool is all you need for research, and others use another free option that is Aaron Wall’s SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool, which makes use of Yahoo! Search data as well as other useful metrics. 
Of course, paid tools might be superior choices to those provided by search engines including Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery.
Be Specific – “Keyword” is just the term that gets loosely tossed around, but in most cases what you’re really after are keyword phrases. For example, a real estate attorney in Abilene, Texas would gain little actual benefit from ranking highly for the single word “attorney,” but consider that specific keyword phrases based on geography and specialty (“Abilene real estate lawyer”) would yield much more important highly targeted traffic.
There is Strength in Numbers – Be a little skeptical of the reported number of monthly searches provided by any particular tool, but do pay attention to collective popularity among search terms. You really want to be sure enough people use your selected phrase when thinking of your niche to make it worth the time and effort, especially if this term is a primary search term you have targeted for your site.
At the same time, you should be realistic, and if your goal is to rank in a very competitive sector, aim for a smaller attainable milestone first, or make sure that a certain keyword combination can rank for an easier phrase before attempting the more competitive term.
Highly Relevant – You should make sure that any search terms you are consider using are highly relevant to the eventual goal, and if you are selling specific products or services you provide, keyword relevancy may be easier for you to determine. 
Other goals might require much more careful consideration, such as subscriptions to content publications and contributions to charities, to name a few.
Develop a Resource – Finally, here’s the key element and question. Can a particular keyword phrase support the development of content that is a valuable resource to your readers?
Keywords versus Keyword Phrases
Published September 3, 2010 | 
Let’s take a look at how one creates a keyword list with the example of a website selling real estate in Texas, where the immediately obvious keywords are items such as ‘property’, ‘real estate’, ‘Texas’ and ‘Texan’. These can also be combined into phrases such as ‘Texan property’ and ‘property in Texas’. In general, focus should be on ranking for keyword phrases rather than for keywords.
It is true that ranking well for ‘Texas’ will give a thousand times as much traffic as ranking well for ‘Texas Property’, but understand it would cost a 
hundred times as much investment to rank for ‘Texas’ as to rank for ‘Texas Property’ very simply because competition is many times more heavy for individual words then exists is for phrases. Additionally, most of the traffic for ‘Texas’ is for topics (such as Texas Revolution, Texas Flag, Texas Food) largely irrelevant to the business, so the majority of the traffic is of no value to the business.
Consequently, in most cases, you will achieve a much better return on investment by simply focusing on relevant keyword phrases or targeted keyword phrases, than by doing Search Engine Optimization for individual keywords.
A related point you need to keep in mind is that ranking well for individual keywords in no way means that a keyword will automatically rank well for phrases that include these keywords. 
For example, a site might rank well for ‘Texan’ (perhaps resulting in lots of traffic about ‘Texan Food’) and rank well for ‘Property’ (perhaps resulting in lots of traffic for ‘Australian Property’), without ranking well for ‘Texan Property’ (which is what we were after in the first place).
In fact, many targeted keyword phrases, are more often than not the best investments in terms of attracting website visitors searching for the precise product that you might be offering. So imagine if you are selling ranches in Texas you might find the best Search Engine Optimization investment is ‘Prestige Texan Property,’ whereas if you are selling run-down ranch houses to people looking for inexpensive seasonal homes they can fix up you might find the best Search Engine Optimization investment is ‘Cheap Texan Ranch Houses’. 
So admittedly, the actual amount of traffic for these lengthy phrases is most likely low, the probability of the resulting visitors buying is much higher than for the more general phrases, and the cost of Search Engine Optimization is a small fraction of the cost for more general phrases.
Of course there will be such cases when ranking for individual words makes more sense. Let’s look at a website which provides international property rather than property in just one country that may find it cost effective to rank for ‘property,’ and likewise, websites that focus on niche topics identified by a single word. However, the fact is for the majority of websites, keyword phrases are not only more cost effective, but also tend to attract the specific type of visitors that actually match the products being sold.