The Truth About Search Engine Optimization That the SEOs Don't Want You to Know
Blending Good Copywriting and Search Engine Optimization
Don't be among the many FAILED business owners who never look beyond merely optimizing their webpages.
The search engine optimization industry wants business owners to believe that they have tricks that will guarantee top rankings for their sites. But the game has changed dramatically.
Sadly, the website owners who become obsessed with trying to manipulate the search engines aren't helping themselves at all. Search engines are getting increasingly better at weeding out the over-optimized pages and at identifying pages that are well-written as well as well optimized.
Writing better ranks you better
I noticed while optimizing pages in the past that each search engine algorithm change seemed to force me to write better for humans.
What I mean is, as I tried to conform to the recommended keyword densities and positioning that each change brought, I found myself cutting out more stuff that I had written strictly for optimization purposes. The more I tried to match what the search engines favored, the better my pages read for humans.
And the real kicker came when I had a bunch of pages that had ranked in the top 10 in Google suddenly lose their rankings. Not wanting to mess with pages that I considered well-written for human readers, I left them alone and concentrated on building traffic to them through other methods.
A couple of weeks later, those pages regained their top ten rankings without me changing a thing. So much for the futile game of 'chase the latest algorithm' that most SEO firms play.
Clearly, the time has passed for constantly tweaking pages to keep up with the algorithms. The time has come to write well for humans, but with the search engines still in mind.
Plan your keywords
First of all, plan what keywords you're targeting. You're looking for keywords that people are searching for, but that relatively few competitors target.
You want to make sure each page clearly communicates that it is relevant for the keyword you target on it. Rather than flooding your page with keywords, you want to use them how and where they'll do the most good.
Know where to put your keywords
Make sure you put your most important keyword in your page title. The title appears in the blue bar at the top of your browser. Most webpage building tools let you designate your title.
Search engines consider the title to be by far the most important element in determining what the page is about. It is essential, therefore, to get your keyword in the title.
Next, make sure you use the keyword frequently in the text of your page. Use it in headlines. Use it in outgoing links. Use it captions and alt text for images on the page.
But don't force things. Write so that what you write sounds good to the reader. Avoid the temptation to use the keyword just for the sake of using it. Using it in ways that sound awkward will hurt your credibility with your readers AND hurt your rankings.
Yes, the search engines are getting THAT GOOD at detecting over-optimization.
Get your keyword into incoming links
If the page is an important page and the keyword an important keyword for your site, make sure you use that keyword in your internal links that lead to that page.
And get links into your important pages and keywords from external sites. Submit articles for syndication and put a link in your About the Author box that contains your keyword and links to your page.
Or buy incoming links that contain your keyword. Having keyword-rich links from other sites is becoming crucial to getting high rankings. As a matter of fact, you can rank well for pages that don't even contain your keyword if you have a high number of keyword-rich incoming links to that page.
Final thoughts
In all, the key is to write well for your readers, while being perfectly clear what your page is about. The search engines are looking for relevant pages that searchers will find useful. And the best way to get them to rank you well is to provide exactly that.
Helping you become the successful business owner you want to be.
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