zevWorks

I managed to have a chat to Greg last year on the boat ride, he’s great, awesome to see him back again. Let’s hear what he has to say on Avoiding Search Engine Penalties.

google.com.au/webmasters-Greg’s most important take away

• Ranking is the process by which S.E’s order results. In 2009 google released 500 ranking adjustments
• Penalties are downward ranking adjustments, reserved for removing spam, malware, phishing etc
• Penalties are a tiny fraction of ranking changes.

SPAM= Sites Positioned Above Mine. if you are making pages only for S.E’s you are on the wrong track.

Sneaky redirects are a form of cloaking. Poor quality links and paid links that are not disclosed are also examples of spam. Google is ridiculously good at this (according to Greg).

Avoid

• Reciprocal links
• Hidden links
• Bad neighbourhoods
• Outgoing links that could affect your reputation

Bad links simply won’t pass any value.

How Google handles spam

• Google will tell you through GWT that they think you are being spammy. Fix it and then submit a re-inclusion request.
• Prevent spam through captcha, moderating and being careful with logins and passwords.

It was a little disappointing that Greg’s presentation was almost exactly the same as last year, good for people who haven’t heard it, a little boring for people who have.

Most people use a keyword suggestion tool when they try to find new keywords for their campaigns. While keyword suggestion tools are good, they should not be the first step in your keyword research activities.

Before you use a keyword suggestion tool, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What problems can your product or your service solve?
2. Which questions do potential customers ask?
3. Can you offer unusual solutions?
4. Which products and services do you offer?

As you can see, the products and services that you offer are the least important. A person with a headache might not now that the Shiatsu that you offer will help them. They even might now know what Shiatsu is and if they know it, they might not be able to spell it properly. The same applies to all other services and industries.

For that reason, it is important that you focus on the first three points before using your products or services in the keywords.

Keyword Research

1. What problems can your product or service solve?
In this example, the problem that your product or service can solve is a headache. Create a list of words that describe the problem:

headache, racking headache, migraine, vicious headache, splitting headache, migraine, constant headache, etc.

2. Which questions do potential customers ask?
People type different things in Google’s search box when they try to find a solution to their problem. Here are some real queries that have been done on Google :

• why does my head hurt
• why does my head hurt when I cough
• how to get rid of migraines without medication
• how to get rid of migraines when pregnant
• why can’t i concentrate on anything

The problem that your product solves creates certain circumstances (fatigue, temper, concentration problems). Address these circumstances in your keyword phrases.

The problem can also be connected to another factor (for example migraine and pregnancy). Create keyword phrases that are related to these factors.

3. Can you offer unusual solutions?
Most people will take a pill when they have a headache. In this example, you offer a solution that many people don’t know about (Shiatsu). The following phrases would work for you:

• get rid of migraines without medication
• get rid of headache without pills

The unusual solutions that you offer can also be used in your AdWords ad copy and on your web pages. For example, you might create web pages around the following topics:

• How to get rid of headaches without using Aspirin
• An unusual way of healing migraine without medication

4. Which products or services do you offer?
Of course, you should also use the names of the products and services that you offer in your ads and SEO campaigns. In this example, this would be:

shiatsu, shiatsu massage, etc.

When you try to find new keywords, tell a short story that describes the problem and the solution: “A person has a racking headache. The person cannot concentrate because of that headache and the person is tired. Instead of taking a pill, there can be other solutions. That solution is my Shiatsu service.”

By doing this, you’ll find many keywords around which you can create new web pages and PPC ads. Of course, you can also combine this method with keyword suggestion tools.

Google has announced that they do not consider the Keywords Meta Tag at all in their search algorithm. The Title tag and Description tag are still important. Google will rank your web page or site based on the text it finds on your pages and backlinks (links from other websites).

Matt Cutts in the video below announces that he does not recommend spending any time crafting and creating your sites keywords tags. They are now ignored by the search engines.

Where did the Keywords the Meta tag originate?

In 1995, the search engines Infoseek and AltaVista began promoting the use of the keywords attribute as a way of categorizing web pages. In May 1996, the major search engines got together to discuss and set standards for Meta data. That meeting is where the standards for the Meta robots tag and the Meta description tag were established. The Meta keywords tag was discussed but no standards were set.

The search engines quickly saw abuse of the Meta tags, particularly the keywords tags as a way for webmasters to hide irrelevant keywords in an effort to draw in website traffic. The keywords tag was often the most unreliable and misleading of the Meta tags.

The search engines responded by discounting the value of the keywords Meta tag. Today the keywords tag is now obsolete and holds no real value in search engine optimization.

We have been having some periodic problems with the commenting system at the BCA blog. I think we have just about cracked the problem, so comment away all you fantastic readers.