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By webdev2 on
I am looking to up my SEO and want to use one or the other of Content Optimizer OR Keywords projects. Which do you prefer?
Comments
Neither.
To be brutally honest, all of the SEO modules will soon be outdated, if they're not already. Anytime you follow the instructions given by an SEO program on how to better-optimize your page for given keywords, the only things you're accomplishing are: 1) you're making your pages less readable and less natural-sounding to your site visitors, and 2) you're setting off a red flag in the eyes of the (smarter, i.e. Google and soon Bing) search engines. Search engines are smarter than you think. They're making huge leaps in terms of understanding how people actually write and how words are associated with each other.
You really don't need a fancy module to tell you how to write a page about a certain keyword, as long as that page is actually about that keyword. Just follow the mantra that if a page is about a certain keyword, that keyword is probably going to be in certain places, like in H1 or H2 headers, and variations of that keyword are going to be in outbound and inbound links. This would all naturally occur if that page is really about that keyword.
If you really want to improve your SEO, do this: 1) don't use programs to tell you how to do your SEO. They make your site look silly to your users (thus decreasing the quality of your site) and they can set off red flags in the better search engines. 2) what you SHOULD do: create natural "buzz" about your content. Make it interesting, so people will link to it. If you want to target a certain keyword, write some high-quality content having to do with that keyword, with your end-user in mind. Then, get that content noticed (this is the hard part, but there's no get-rich-quick scheme when it comes to search engine rankings).
This might sound like a bunch of old-fashioned hot-air, but I've been in the SEO industry for about 5 years now and I've actually seen it progress in many ways. I can now say that many SEO methods that worked just 2 years ago don't work anymore, and SEO methods that work today won't work in 6 months. The only sure-fire way to rank highly for a keyword is to create good content related to that keyword, and then get that content noticed by people that are likely to link to it.
P.S.
P.S. - If you want to use the latest SEO methods (even though some of them will surely be outdated in just 6 months or so), check out these sites: seobook.com and seomoz.org. Those are my 2 favorite SEO sites, but you have to actually follow them regularly to find out what's currently working and what's not. Methods soon become outdated, which is why the best approach for someone not actively involved in the SEO industry is to actually create high-quality, link-worthy, somehow-marketed-to-those-who-would-care content.
many thanks for your time in
many thanks for your time in writing this.
one of my sites ranking varies between #1 and #3 on yahoo.com but that does not mean it generates tons of traffic for a meaning and somewhat broad phrase. It just means it's high quality content. it's not why I started the site but now I'd like to monetize it if I can and thought one of these mods might help. I'll look at building meaningful links.
Thanks again.
A couple more thoughts
That's good that your site is ranked highly in Yahoo for some terms. Just keep a few things in mind about that:
-Just about every site has some #1 rankings. That's pretty much a given. The question is whether or not those are "good" keywords. There are really 2 different factors that go into how good (i.e. profitable in the long-run) a keyword is: how many people actually search for that term, and how profitable that term is (the typical conversion % for that term, meaning that a keyword like "free articles" wouldn't be too good for an e-commerce website). Sometimes, you'll want some keywords that excel in only 1 of these 2 factors. For example, you might want to target a whole bunch of low-traffic but high-ROI terms so that you're not directly competing against the big guys (this is known as the "long-tail" approach). Or, you might want to target some terms that are high-traffic but not very high-ROI. Again, some of the "big guys" in the industry might not value these terms as much, so you can sneak in there and use this low-ROI traffic to just build up your traffic numbers. This could be good for you because of its effect on your overall site exposure, or it could simply allow you to charge advertisers on your site more ("Look at these big traffic numbers, advertisers!")
-Yahoo isn't really what you should be targeting. About 75-80% or so of searches happen on Google. This number might decrease a little in the future as Bing usage increases, or it might even increase in the future since Google is currently completely re-vamping (dramatically improving) its entire search algorithm. Either way, Google should be your primary concern. Your secondary concern should be Bing. Don't worry about Yahoo - not only is it now partnered with Microsoft (so it will soon use Bing's algorithms anyway), but it knows it's not as good as Google, so it will continually try to make its search results mimic Google's. Therefore, if you're doing well in Google, it's only a matter of time until you do well in Yahoo. (Besides, currently, when you're working to be good enough to do well in Google, chances are that along the way you'll do well in Yahoo as a side effect).
I'll leave on this note: 98% of the "SEO knowledge" out there isn't effective anymore. It's true that in the past, certain tricks/strategies worked and got you high rankings, but as the knowledge of those tricks spread, search engines like Google caught on and improved their algorithms so that those tricks wouldn't work anymore. They do this in an effort to have their SERPs (search engine results pages) only display the highest-quality, most-relevant content that a user actually wants to see. Because the algorithms are software-based, there will always be a few obscure exploits that will temporarily get you higher rankings, but those methods will only last a short time and at times, following those methods will hurt you once the search engines catch on. So, the only long-term SEO strategy that works is to actually make your content high-quality, highly-relevant, and link-worthy. The "link-worthy" part is what really matters these days, and what the good SEOs really focus on. You're going to have to expose your content to the public (to the people that would actually like it and link to it). This has always been, and will probably always be, the #1 way for the good search engines to determine whether certain content is actually "good" in the eyes of web users.
Here's a great quote from Wayne Gretzky that can easily be applied to the field of SEO:
"A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be."
good explanations and thanks
good explanations and thanks again for your time. I wasn't striving for high ranking, I actually just looked on yahoo one day for what I thought my visitors would search for and I was #1.
It has not equated to high traffic.
I want to monetize what traffic I have so I need to select good advertisers, if any, and worthy affiliates, I guess.
Many thanks again.
I would normally agree with
I would normally agree with your sayings but I recently saw a direct competitor with a site almost identical to mine (concept wise) and suddenly when he used a TAG CLOUD and a /tags page he beat the hell out of me in Google results.
This is why I went to find "Keywords" (actually Tagalicious -> Keywords) (I used keywords to make a Tags Vocabulary)
I can't agree more about
I can't agree more about writing naturally and with original content if you want to get high rankings in the long-term.
If you provide great quality content which people find useful and which is easy to read then all the keyword stuff will take care of itself.
So many people get hung up about keyword density, LSI etc whereas imo what they need to concentrate on is the content first and foremost.
Yes there will always be seo tricks you can use but at the end of the day it's all about getting quality relevant backlinks which will be a damn site more likely and will happen naturally, if your writings and genral content is good.
Thanks for sharing
Andy