Archive for SEO articles

What Standards?

Apr 42008

published by Hannah in General | SEO with 6 comments

I really liked the comments in the previous post on SEO Standards because they got me to thinking more about the issue. I see that mostly people DO NOT want standards because…

having standards wouldn’t stop black hats anyway
of problems with enforcement
resistance to being policed

While it is true that it won’t fully stop black hats I believe that it will at least make things more clear so that people (including the clients) will be able to distinguish black hat from white hats.

Regarding the problem with enforcement and resistance to being polices or being under a governing body I think this will be solved by coming up with a consensus of WHAT KIND OF STANDARDS we exactly need. According to Ian McAnerin there are four kinds of standards:

Morals: Personal, code of conduct for the self
Ethics: Social. Code of conduct related to interaction with others
Standards: Documented agreement on specifications, rules and norms
Guidelines: Documented agreement on general principles and processes, usually to clarity or provide context for Standards.

According to the classification above Matan Media is right in saying that we already have SEO standards although they are not yet spelled out so that we can refer to these standards as code of ethics. However I do believe that it will be good for the industry to spell things out. It will take the SEO industry to a more professional level and though SEO Ranter may like less quality competition ^_^ it will help give clients a level of protection. There’s no need to worry about those that will suddenly brush up on their techniques because those too lazy to do so still won’t but the point is that clients will at least be able to distinguish those that adhere to standards and don’t.

Greg is very right though that it will take A LOT of work to arrive with an acceptable industry-wide standards. In the meantime I simply subscribe to adhering the the spoken and unspoken code of ethics.

Popularity: 25%

The SEO Standards Debate

Mar 312008

published by Hannah in General | SEO with 7 comments

Last month’s SMX West Search Insights track topic “Is it time for Search Marketing Standards?” sparked a debate not just on SEM standards but also SEO standards. On one side we have Jill Whalen of Search Engine Land telling us that we DO NOT need SEO standards. On the other hand we have Lisa Barone [...]

User Habits and Keyword Selection

Mar 242008

published by Hannah in Keyword Research | SEO with No comments

I have been posting about keyword selection in my last two posts and I thought that this would be a good time to discuss how and why you should factor in user habits when selecting keywords.
First of all I want to emphasise that internet users’ habits evolve rapidly. This is probably both a reason and [...]

Keyword Competitiveness

Mar 232008

published by Hannah in Keyword Research | SEO with 1 comment

On my last post I discussed how targeting keywords that are related to simple primary keywords are important, especially with the advent of Yahoo! search assist. Even without search assist though you should also give attention to more specialised keywords. Why is this?
As we all know very generic keywords, though they do have a very [...]

Related Keywords and Yahoo! Search Assist

Mar 212008

published by Hannah in Keyword Research | SEO | SEO Tips with 1 comment

Though Yahoo! Search Assist was launched in Yahoo! Search US back in October, Yahoo’s announcement (just a few hours ago!) of search assist being rolled out in other countries made me remember the importance of choosing your keywords.
One of the biggest mistakes you can commit in SEO is choosing only primary keywords that are too [...]

Flesch, Formulas and Highfaluting Fluff

Mar 202008

published by Hannah in Article Writing | Copywriting | General | SEO with 1 comment

I was reading Randfish’s list of common features of spam domains. I was thinking about ticking each feature off and seeing how well we do but this one caught my eye:
“Rarely contains high grade level text content (as measured by metrics like Fleisch-Kincaid Reading Level)”
The geeky part of me fondly remembered my college days when [...]

.EDU and .GOV Links

Mar 192008

published by Hannah in Link Strategies | SEO with 5 comments

.EDU and .GOV links are usually prizes in the SEO world because they pass on very good link juice. Here are a few ideas on how to get these types of links.

Advertise or be a sponsor - Look for university and government sites that accept sponsors. You will be doling out cash but then it [...]

Popularity: 33%

Continue reading “.EDU and .GOV Links”

How’s Your Reputation?

Mar 192008

published by Hannah in Rep. Management | SEO | Social Media with 2 comments

That is a question each SEO should ask. In this industry, just like in any other industry, your repuation is very important if you want to attract customers. I also believe that it is even more important in SEO and other web-based industries because a lot of times customers learn about you without even getting [...]

SEO Your Images: Enhanced Image Search

Mar 162008

published by Hannah in SEO | SEO Tools with 3 comments

We already know that ALT tags should be used for relevant images (I say relevant because you can skip putting ALT tags for images placed in your page for purely aesthetic and/or organisational purposes such as borders). However, what many neglect to do is to take advantage of Google’s enhanced image search. The enhanced image [...]

More (Useful) Content for More Links

Mar 122008

published by Hannah in Link Strategies | SEO with 1 comment

We all know that one of the main reasons why websites add blogs to their site is to be able to provide fresh content and thus hopefully get more traffic and links. If you do not have the time to update a blog regularly though or you find that adding a blog to your site [...]