KeithO
04-12-2005, 11:00 AM
I was introduced to the world of SEO end of December 04 when hired for my 1st true technology job (can't say as I'd count phone sales for Dell). After bookmarking and spending hundreds of hours on the company dime researching and hording all the information I could gather about effective SEO techniques, I still realize that tricks and shenanigans gain nothing. I want to at least get some validation or clarification of things I suspect to be tried and true to benefit my clients.
Currently, as far as SEO, my company focuses on keyword selection and biweekly reporting of those rankings. In my short tenure, I've noticed this seems to be important for clients, but not in the grand scheme of things. We use WPG 2 and it works alright. I'm trying to coax them to move to WebCEO after having tried it and being impressed with its clearer (and more accurate) reporting. But this really doesn't benefit the clients. Its the same, to me, as getting awarded a medal at an award ceremony; it validates the effort but doesn't really help any particular client. Now seeing as how it is extremely difficult to get many of my clients to follow the recommendations I provide (many have rare updates to their content, image heavy pages with little text, and poor copywriting), I constantly fear losing some here and there with not enough new clients joining up.
I've read about the Florida update (seeing as how I live smack dab in the crosshairs of 3 of the 4 hurricanes that came through and enjoyed about 15 days total with no electricity), but haven't really gathered much on what was involved here. Could I get a cliffs notes edition please?
When the alleged Google patent became public last week, I went through the 1st 'what is claimed' section and made many, many notes. I've read many, many ascertations and analysis of the document, some I agree with and some I do not. I actually went through and created an outline (ala middle school, 5 paragraph essay style) to help my coworkers skim the essentials rather than getting bored to tears (as I did, as least in part, at times). My core breakdown was:
-Google appears to be utilizing their toolbar to influence the rankings through cookies, bookmarks, history, cache, and temp files.
-The age of a document is an important factor. Google sandboxes brand new sites, reducing their positioning greatly.
-Frequent updates are important to maintaining a high ranking. This is why blogs rank so high in SERP’s
-Must be attractive to a user to click through and stay.
-The domain should be on a reputable server with a respectable name
-Steady growth of the site and maintaining the rate of expansion
-Obtaining quality, stable inbound links from high ranking websites. Never use a link farm
-Google’s huge datacenters track and analyze traffic, changes, and history of pages.
If this is a clear window into the mud that is Google's corporate transparency, then what the hell? There seems to be so much that is missed or taken advantage of. 1st off, from a paranoia standpoint, the fact that they imply they are utilizing my cookies, cache, temp files, google toolbar, bookmarks, favorites, and anything else they desire to determine weather a site is worth its weight in salt or not really disturbs me. I clear my computers regularly with ad-aware and spybot, cleanse my system of cache, cookies, and temp files weekly, and don't necessarily bookmark sites I visit often. So we have also got the fear that Google may be scanning your email to determine ad relevancy. These tricks scare the crap out of me. But in the world of SEO, how are we supposed to also conveinience our clients that Google also considers CTR of adSense to be worthwhile component of their ranking algo thus they should put them on their site? Do we want an internet dominated by 'ads by goooooooooooogle' text based advertising and having that help influence if a site is authoritative or not? Do we want Google to be the supreme authority for who we can buy products from?[/end soapbox]
IBL's seems important as well. I believe in submitting to the directories and having them list the site. The way the major players are going with their inclusion of ads into SERPs, I may start going to human controlled directories to find what I need. As I can tell by the sticky, there are hundreds of directories as well. In my reporting cycles, I was told I should submit when WPG recommends it. I've stopped doing that. I agree with some that it’s a waste of time. I see it as the equivilant of watching the monkey sniffing his finger video ad nausem; looks fun, seems like a good idea, but does nothing. So is focusing on submitting clients sites to relevant directories a good idea rather than cold emailing campaigns trying to get reciprocal links?
META tags, clients still ask for them. I put them in as I think it does help. I see them as a mini-site map for the single document. Gives the spider something to look for on the document. Am I accurate?
The hardest part, I believe, is keyword research and analysis. So many of my clients have such poor content that I've got better chances of being recognized as King of Antarctica than getting them ranked on the 1st 5 SERPs for any of the engines. I've utilized Overture's tool and it’s nice (when it works). Is there something about keyword phrase selection I am not getting? I feel as though all the clients I have want all the results with none of the effort (like Anna Nicole's "marriage" to the old oil guy) and that’s going to be the downfall. Is client stubbornness to listen to us a catch-22 or rising threat to the SEO market?
I think I covered everything and not bored you to death. Thanks in advance.
Currently, as far as SEO, my company focuses on keyword selection and biweekly reporting of those rankings. In my short tenure, I've noticed this seems to be important for clients, but not in the grand scheme of things. We use WPG 2 and it works alright. I'm trying to coax them to move to WebCEO after having tried it and being impressed with its clearer (and more accurate) reporting. But this really doesn't benefit the clients. Its the same, to me, as getting awarded a medal at an award ceremony; it validates the effort but doesn't really help any particular client. Now seeing as how it is extremely difficult to get many of my clients to follow the recommendations I provide (many have rare updates to their content, image heavy pages with little text, and poor copywriting), I constantly fear losing some here and there with not enough new clients joining up.
I've read about the Florida update (seeing as how I live smack dab in the crosshairs of 3 of the 4 hurricanes that came through and enjoyed about 15 days total with no electricity), but haven't really gathered much on what was involved here. Could I get a cliffs notes edition please?
When the alleged Google patent became public last week, I went through the 1st 'what is claimed' section and made many, many notes. I've read many, many ascertations and analysis of the document, some I agree with and some I do not. I actually went through and created an outline (ala middle school, 5 paragraph essay style) to help my coworkers skim the essentials rather than getting bored to tears (as I did, as least in part, at times). My core breakdown was:
-Google appears to be utilizing their toolbar to influence the rankings through cookies, bookmarks, history, cache, and temp files.
-The age of a document is an important factor. Google sandboxes brand new sites, reducing their positioning greatly.
-Frequent updates are important to maintaining a high ranking. This is why blogs rank so high in SERP’s
-Must be attractive to a user to click through and stay.
-The domain should be on a reputable server with a respectable name
-Steady growth of the site and maintaining the rate of expansion
-Obtaining quality, stable inbound links from high ranking websites. Never use a link farm
-Google’s huge datacenters track and analyze traffic, changes, and history of pages.
If this is a clear window into the mud that is Google's corporate transparency, then what the hell? There seems to be so much that is missed or taken advantage of. 1st off, from a paranoia standpoint, the fact that they imply they are utilizing my cookies, cache, temp files, google toolbar, bookmarks, favorites, and anything else they desire to determine weather a site is worth its weight in salt or not really disturbs me. I clear my computers regularly with ad-aware and spybot, cleanse my system of cache, cookies, and temp files weekly, and don't necessarily bookmark sites I visit often. So we have also got the fear that Google may be scanning your email to determine ad relevancy. These tricks scare the crap out of me. But in the world of SEO, how are we supposed to also conveinience our clients that Google also considers CTR of adSense to be worthwhile component of their ranking algo thus they should put them on their site? Do we want an internet dominated by 'ads by goooooooooooogle' text based advertising and having that help influence if a site is authoritative or not? Do we want Google to be the supreme authority for who we can buy products from?[/end soapbox]
IBL's seems important as well. I believe in submitting to the directories and having them list the site. The way the major players are going with their inclusion of ads into SERPs, I may start going to human controlled directories to find what I need. As I can tell by the sticky, there are hundreds of directories as well. In my reporting cycles, I was told I should submit when WPG recommends it. I've stopped doing that. I agree with some that it’s a waste of time. I see it as the equivilant of watching the monkey sniffing his finger video ad nausem; looks fun, seems like a good idea, but does nothing. So is focusing on submitting clients sites to relevant directories a good idea rather than cold emailing campaigns trying to get reciprocal links?
META tags, clients still ask for them. I put them in as I think it does help. I see them as a mini-site map for the single document. Gives the spider something to look for on the document. Am I accurate?
The hardest part, I believe, is keyword research and analysis. So many of my clients have such poor content that I've got better chances of being recognized as King of Antarctica than getting them ranked on the 1st 5 SERPs for any of the engines. I've utilized Overture's tool and it’s nice (when it works). Is there something about keyword phrase selection I am not getting? I feel as though all the clients I have want all the results with none of the effort (like Anna Nicole's "marriage" to the old oil guy) and that’s going to be the downfall. Is client stubbornness to listen to us a catch-22 or rising threat to the SEO market?
I think I covered everything and not bored you to death. Thanks in advance.