Test, Test and Test Again
The key message in this post is, do NOT listen to all the so-called experts unless what they are telling you can be backed up by solid evidence to support their claims and this can only be done by testing.
That does not mean they tried something once or even twice and it worked, therefore it is 100% proof.
Testing requires a number of things. To start with you need to have a control. Something to test it against. You need to run a number of tests to make a comparison.
An example would be to test content on 2 pages where you use formatting like bold and underlining of keywords on one and not on the other.
Not A Fan of SEO for SEO Sake
As some of you might know, I have not been a fan of SEO (for SEO sake) for a while and my last article on the topic really ruffled some feathers and I got blasted and harassed and, whilst I expected it to create some controversy and even maybe a heated debate, I was surprised at the vitriol that it caused.
Not that it changed my opinion or has stopped me from writing again on the subject of SEO. I don’t mind people being pi**ed off at me.
What I do know is that whilst it is, of course, possible to rank a website in the top SERP’S and there are strategies and techniques that you can use to give yourself the very best chance of ranking for certain keywords.
If you are in a highly competitive niche and there are a lot of well put together and established websites then you have more chance of finding rocking horse droppings or chickens teeth than you have of getting to the top of google.
These days and, if you want longevity then you have to take a holistic approach and use all of the tools at your disposal and forget about organic rankings. If you do all the other things properly then this will come.
Using the holistic approach will mean that if you do get to rank your site for a profitable keyword and all the other things are in place then nothing will stop it and you should see your site ranking for a very long time.
If You Are Going To Optimise Your Site for SEO Purposes – Do it Right
There is a big difference between and SEO enthusiast and the SEO Expert
An SEO enthusiast tells you about the latest technique they read on MOZ and then there is the SEO professional who tells you about something that they just tested. by Kyle Roof @ www.seointelligenceagency.com
Having A Strategy in Place – The Holistic Approach
It is imperative that you have a strategy and process in place and that you make a note of what you do and measure the results. If you do that consistently then you can see what works and what doesn’t.
Google are not known for their forthcomingness (is that really a word?) when it comes to divulging their algorithms and how to get first page rankings. They have even been known to mislead the SEO community. Can you believe that? (shock horror)
Following basic rules when writing an article or post
Using various methods to get your content out there as well as build links back to your site. Use, video, guest posting, slideshows, pdf repositories, web 2.0, forums, groups and other social media platforms. These will get eyes on your content to promote your products and services as well as having the secondary benefit of ranking your website over time.
In other words, instead of link building to rank your site. Build a reputation and get known by putting out great and useful content to as many places as you can think of (unique content not duplicated from your main site).
As more and more eyes see your content and they like, share and comment you will find that the numbers of visitors to your site will grow and people will spend more time on your site and magically, google will take more notice and in turn, this will improve your overall rankings in the SERP’s.
That way you build a solid foundation. If google decides to drop you from their pages, you will still have other avenues of traffic that will mean you still have a business.
Be Careful of The Chinese Whispers 
A lot of the opinions are exactly that opinions and hypothesis rather than based on confirmed evidence using rock solid testing methodology, an entry control and measured results.
Most of the information out there on the internet about SEO is crap. Spouted by fools that have absolutely no idea of what they are talking about. They simply repeat what they hear and read on forums, FB groups or self-confessed guru or they have some miracle software tool that will magically rank a website for any keyword that your heart desires.
I don’t know if any of you have ever played Chinese whispers and I have no idea why it is called that but, the idea is that you take a room full of people and you whisper a short message into the ear of the person next to you who then repeats the message to the person next to them. This goes from one to the next until it comes back to the person that whispered the first message. The results are often very funny and usually totally different from the original message.
This is I believe the problem with peoples thoughts on SEO. Theses messages get passed around until they become totally unrecognisable from what they started out as. And, quite often they were wrong in the first place 🙂
The Best Site for Testing I have Come Across
If you still want to find out what works and doesn’t in the world of SEO then you won’t find a better place than SEO intelligence Agency. It will save you so much in the way of time and money.
These guys are nerds to the extent of being totally ‘anal’ when it comes to testing SEO methods and I mean that in a very good way. They go to great lengths to test all of the SEO theories and strategies and I was amazed at the results of some of their tests.
Here are some recent questions that they put to the test.
- DO LINKS FROM YOUTUBE VIDEOS PASS LINK JUICE?
- DO GOOGLE DOCS PASS LINK JUICE?
- WILL A PAGE WITH SCHEMA MARKUP OUTRANK A PAGE WITHOUT IT?
- DOES PAGE SPEED MATTER?
You will be amazed by the results!
You can download the methodology and the test results in pdf format below.
How To Do A Test – Methodology
They did a brilliant webinar which shows their methodology as well as several tests and the results that they had.
Here is the video of the webinar.
Check out the website at www.SEOIntelligenceAgency.com
What I do For SEO
Whilst I used to do a lot of work to rank my websites, I do not spend as much time as I once did striving to get my pages in the top 10. The reason is that I cannot control what google or bing do next and so why put time, energy and money into something I have little control of.
I do use social media as well as a lot of paid marketing. Paid advertising on the internet is so much better than leaving it up to google to grace you with a page one ranking which, as we know they can take away just as fast.
If you pay for advertising especially pay per click, you have 100% control. You can switch it on and off at will and monitor it live and make as many edits and changes as you like to test just about everything.
What I do do is to make sure that I follow the basics on websites that I want to rank.
- I try to write for the reader not search engines.
- I use the keywords in the title
- I use LSI (Latent semantic Indexing) or words associated with my keywords and topic to ensure that there is no misunderstanding on what the article, page or post is about.
- I add meta tags, keywords and descriptions
- I use H tags
- I add images with keyword based file name and alt tags
- I add video if relevant
- I add outbound link to high authority site (sometimes follow and sometimes no follow to make it look natural)
- I link to other relevant posts on my site from within the article and also using a related posts plugin.
As far as offsite SEO is concerned I do the following
- Post a link on relevant FB groups and pages
- Press release if relevant (like new product, service or event)
- Post link on my FB page.
- Post using onlywire that has about 40 to 50 accounts on it.
I also add a video to youtube if I have time and add a link back to the article from there.
Thats it.
