Search Engine Optimization

When many people think of SEO, they think of some geeky person noodling around with code in the background of the page, of making sure their pages are keyword dense, or of linking externally. Well, I'm here to tell you that SEO is those things, but much more.

SEO is a synergistic system.

It includes on-page factors, such as the keyword density, strategic linking, and site structure.

It includes off-page factors, which is basically linking.

It includes articles, with strategic linking.

It includes blogging, also with strategic linking.

Each of these aspects work together to get your site ranking higher in the search engines, and I'll talk about each one of them.

Today, let's start with keyword density.

It's pretty much dead.

Oh, I know you're probably clinging to the idea that the more you use the keyword the better, but that's become a bad idea. Using a word too much, even more than 2% of your blog post, your web page, or your article is probably too much.

Why?

Because all factors lead to the idea that Google is using latent semantic indexing or LSI. What that means is that Google's spiders aren't just seeing words that are used repeatedly, they're taking the whole context of the written material into consideration when deciding what it's about.

And here's the kicker: If the spiders find your keyword a little too often, they'll see your material as spam.

Nobody wants that! So, try to be a little less obvious about what you're trying to do.

For instance, I write about ADD a lot for Tellman. When I'm writing, rather than use the term over and over, I'll use words like attention deficit, disorder, condition, ADHD, and so on. When I'm done, I take the article to Live-Keyword-Analysis.com and if I see that any word is used more than 2%, I'll use synonyms to take the density down to its appropriate level.

That's a lot easier than trying to stuff articles with keywords, which was always frowned upon, anyway. But the tactic is working. At least it seems to be.

We have no direct proof that Google is using LSI, but several months ago, a patent they applied for included verbiage that indicated that the search engine was moving in that direction. So, I'd rather be ahead of a curve than behind it.

And what? You don't care about what Google wants? Well, you ought to. Google converts better than any other search engine. Period.

So, stop worrying so much about keywords and more about the people that read what you write. That's important for SEO and for popularity. Who wants to waste their time reading material that's stuffed with crap and makes no sense?

Not me.

Good on you, Google. (Maybe.)

SEO Book: http://seobook.com
This place has many great tools, but check out the keyword suggestion tool. It's a great alternative to Overture

Live Keyword Analysis: http://live-keyword-analysis.com
Write an article and plug it in to see your keyword density in a flash.

Aaron Wall's META tag Generator:
http://www.search-marketing.info/meta-tags/make-meta.htm
Easy way to get your METAs written without writing all the code. So, I'm lazy.

Domain Status Tool
http://www.search-marketing.info/meta-tags/make-meta.htm
Get the skinny on your competition.

Go2Web20.net
http://www.go2web20.net/
Directory of all things Web 2.0