In Today's Issue
Search Marketing Q&A
---> SEO Copywriting Tomfoolery
---> Same Article on Blog and Website
---> SEOing a Live Site
---> XML Site Maps
---> Many Domain Names for SEO
---> Difference Between SEM and SEO
---> Inbound Links
High Rankings Happenings
---> Custom Link Building Roadmap
---> In-person SEO Training Classes
---> Affordable SEO Website Review
Twitter Question of the Week
---> What will you be doing differently...?
Stuff You Might Like
---> New Press Release Package Discount!
Advanced SEO Forum Thread of the Week
---> Increase PageRank from PR2 to 3 or 4
Advisor Wrap-up
---> 1 Seat Left for March SEO Training Class Introduction
Hey everyone!
It's been quite awhile since we had an SEO Q&A Bonanza issue (since HRA 264 to be exact: ). I've accumulated a lot of SEO questions since then and figured it was time to share the answers with you.
Enjoy! – Jill
Search Marketing Q&A
++SEO Copywriting Tomfoolery++
Hi Jill,
Do you have any info on the issue of spamdexing – specifically the practice of adding keywords into text unnaturally and then emphasizing just the keywords (for example, boldfacing and/or italicizing them)?
My boss is making me pick one keyword phrase for each blog post, insert it in each paragraph, boldface the first reference, and then italicize every subsequent reference. To me, it looks spammy and my eye "trips" over the emphasized text.
Is it something that the sites could be penalized for, or are the SE algos not rigged that tight? It's hard to not feel proud about my work, but if I'm actually harming our clients' sites, I can't continue to do this. When I walk away I feel that I am, but I thought I'd ask a more experienced SEO.
Thanks,
Anne
++Jill's Response++
Hi Anne,
While it's unlikely they'd get completely banned for such stuff, it could be hurting more than helping. It's certainly going to hurt more from the visitor standpoint as well. And honestly, it's tomfoolery of that sort that gives SEO copywriting – and SEO in general – a bad rap. It's what many clients think they will get when they hire an SEO because too many of them do it that way. But of course it never has to (nor should it) be that way.
I think my Art of SEO article sums up this issue.
Hope it helps!
Best,
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here.
++Same Article on Blog and Website++
Hi Jill,
Is it OK to have the same articles on your site as you do on your blog? And, if not, is it better to have a blog with a link back to your site, or to put the article directly on your site?
Also, I'm assuming that RSS feeds from a blog are not seen as content by search engines. Is that correct?
Thanks,
Faye
++Jill's Response++
Hi Faye,
It's fine to have the article in both places if you think it's most helpful for your users that way. You may want to use your robots.txt file to exclude one of them from being indexed, but you don't even have to do that if you don't want to.
If you're worried about splitting the link popularity and resulting PageRank between the two articles, you might consider adding Google's "canonical link element," pointing to one or the other of the versions as the "real one."
As to RSS feeds, it depends. When you view the source code of the page that the feed is on, do you see the content or just some JavaScript? If you see the content, chances are the search engines do too. When in doubt, you can also view Google's "text cache" to see what they see.
Best,
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here.
++SEOing a Live Site++
Dear Jill,
When you begin optimizing a website, does it have to go down while creating meta tags – title, description, keyword? OR do we need to back up the website first?
John
++Jill's Response++
Hi John,
If you have a content management system (CMS), you can just go in and make your changes there on the live site.
If you just have static HTML pages that have to be changed by hand, you should download all the files via FTP, make changes locally on your computer to those files, and then upload them when you're done.
Best,
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here.
++XML Site Maps++
Hi Jill,
Is an XML sitemap mandatory if you have a CMS?
Carolyn
++Jill's Response++
Hi Carolyn,
An XML sitemap is never mandatory. As long as you have created a logical structure for your website, you'll gain no additional advantage in having an XML sitemap, in my opinion.
The only caveat is if you have millions of products that are getting updated on a daily basis on your website.
Hope this helps!
Best,
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here.
++Many Domain Names for SEO++
Dear Jill,
I own many domain names related to my business. Would I have a problem with Google if I made one-page websites with good related copy on these domain names and linked the one-page websites back to my main website?
Thank you for your time.
Rick
++Jill's Response++
Hi Rick,
You wouldn't be in trouble, because you can put whatever sites you want online, but I doubt that it would help to bring any targeted traffic to your website, unless you thought people were typing the domain names directly into their browsers.
As I've said in the newsletter and forum nearly every day for the past 10 years, you're much better off having one great, all-encompassing website than lots of little doorway domains. It's one of the oldest tricks in the book that Google is well aware of.
Best,
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here.
++Difference Between SEM and SEO++
Hi Jill,
I was wondering what the differences are between SEM and SEO.
Thanks!
Steven
++Jill's Response++
Hi Steven,
SEM stands for "search engine marketing" and SEO stands for "search engine optimization."
SEM is the all-encompassing broad phrase that includes SEO as well as paid search activities such as Google AdWords purchases.
SEO, on the other hand, is simply a subset of SEM.
Some people mistakenly think that SEM = PPC while SEO = organic. SEO does equal organic, but as you can see by the definition above, SEM does not equal JUST paid search.
Best,
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here.
++Inbound Links++
Jill,
Inbound, good-quality links are a struggle for me. I can sort though all sorts of tech stuff resulting in a good-looking, professional website, but link building is a real challenge.
Partly it's a challenge because of tiny budgets, but also because of some lack of experience in doing this, especially with brick-and-mortar businesses that don't have much going on. They might be a member of a Chamber of Commerce, probably no other professional organizations, certainly not in the news, don't have much to say other than the fact that they do a job. They're not social bees, as neither am I...so I can empathize. Coming up with 5 pages is a challenge in itself.
Do you have any suggestions, anything you can point me to?
Bob
++Jill's Response++
Hi Bob,
I definitely feel your pain! Unfortunately, today, in order to be successful for mildly competitive keyword phrases, you do have to have something on your website that goes beyond your products and services. Many small businesses are not willing or able to do that.
If they're not, then they should still be able to do okay with the not-so-very-competitive keyword phrases. You really only need a handful of links to show up in a local market for those types of phrases. Getting them into all the directories available should take care of that.
But if they want to take things to the next level or if they're in a competitive industry, they'll probably need more than that. In which case, they'll need to have a blog or a resource section, free whitepapers, videos, or anything else on their site that gives others in their industry a reason to link to them.
It shouldn't cost that much to have an intern or someone aggregate industry news and post a few thoughts about the interesting stuff on a blog each week. Those types of posts can also link out to the other bloggers in the field and create relationships whereby they may link back to your site as well.
If you're really stuck for ideas, we're offering a new "Link-Building Roadmap" service where we do the research and provide a boatload of places that would be a good fit to link to sites in your specific niche.
Of course, as previously mentioned, you do need something worth linking to for this information to be worthwhile.
Hope this helps!
Jill
Share your comments and thoughts here.
P.S. If anyone would like to republish the above articles, please email me your request and where they will reside, and I'll send you a short bio you can use with it for your site.
Stuff You Might Like ++New Press Release Package Discount!++
Our friends over at 24-7Pressrelease.com just emailed to let us know about a new PR package they're offering as well as a discount
code for all of you awesome HRA subscribers.
Here's what they've told us:
"We JUST (literally as of this weekend) introduced a NEW package which includes further distribution to 6,500 newspapers, trade
publications and magazines (3,500 that we send out to, but only relative to a particular industry – that is, someone in the automotive
industry would not receive a release about food)."
So if you want to get press for your business, this package looks to be pretty killer in its scope. The price is $139, but HRA subscribers
can get it for only $109 using the coupon code "hr139."
Full details about what's included in this package can be found here:
New Press Release Package
Happy PR'ing! – Jill
Twitter Question of the Week This week I asked my Twitter followers:
++What (if anything) will you be doing differently with your SEO strategy this year?++
Here's what they had to say:
Shadowdaddy: Adjusting metrics to better align with other campaign channels for more accurate comparative performance tracking.
MCIMaui: I'd like to delve more deeply into the local search arena, and I'm always looking to prioritize my time better!
Englischbox: Probably employ you. I am stuck.
Forestsoftware: This year will be much the same as before, good-quality local links for clients.
Writingace: Learning more about the SEO tools available.
Freelancemomcom: Incorporating more social media for real-time reputation management and reviewing analytics over rankings.
TechLH: Several of my clients have decided not to renew (or to drastically reduce) their YellowBook and to put that $ into link building and SEO.
LiquidWholeFood: Gotta do something diff with my reciprocal linking. Very time consuming when trying to focus on content!
Thewebguyf: I am going to try using WordPress for sites and the plug-in they have. Changing link strategy.
Casieg: More page optimization vs. new content creation (A/B testing, reducing load time, bounce rates).
Leebrinckley: Take into consideration real-time searches...
Katywmw: Better use of analytics, usability testing and back to basics with site objectives about 1 hour ago from web.
Wendychamier: Assessing how/if social media real-time search will impact optimisation techniques for my clients.
How about you? Are you planning to do anything different with your SEO this year? Share your comments here!
Want to participate in the Twitter Question of the Week?
Follow @jillwhalen on Twitter
Advanced Forum Thread of the Week ++Increase PageRank from PR2 to 3 or 4++
Forum member "krisflex" wants to know how to increase his or her PageRank.
See what other forum members had to say about that. Can you guess what my answer was before you look? ;)
Advisor Wrap-up
That's all for today!
Thanks for all the great comments on the decade wrap-up of SEO from last time. It was a lot of work to put it together, so I'm glad that many of you found it interesting.
I also wanted to let you know that we have only 1 seat left for our March 2010 SEO class! I expect it to go any day now, so if you want in...don't delay!
If you miss out, we do have another SEO class scheduled for April that currently still has all 6 seats available. Here's more info on the SEO Training.
Catch you in two weeks! – Jill
 Today's issue is also available online in the newsletter archives. If you prefer RSS/XML please feel free to use our newsfeed here. Feel free to forward this email in its entirety to anyone you feel might be interested in it. Paid sponsor ads are clearly marked as advertisements and neither High Rankings nor Jill Whalen take any responsibility for the claims made within these ads, nor the websites they point to. Paid ads do not constitute an endorsement for the products, services or companies advertising in the newsletter. Please visit our sponsors and use your own due diligence for any purchases you make on the Internet.
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