Today is the first anniversary of this blog. I’ve enjoyed it, I’ve ignored it, I’ve used and abused it. I thank you for the interaction, and the support. Now…I will be making some changes around here very shortly, and if you’ve been reading regularly or have subscribed, you may want to stop now.

After the surprising increase in traffic during my most recent Google Garbage™ experiment, I’ve decided for the time being to spend some of this blog’s precious PageRank on more such specious pursuits.

The fact is, posting a bunch of nonsense is good for business. I supposed the television networks figured this out decades ago, didn’t they?

Putting up posts on hot topics and/or “long-tail” niche keywords has made me a pretty nice little chunk of change over the past few months, here and elsewhere. Apparently this is how kids can make money these days. Since I don’t particularly have the time to do much else, that’s what I’ll be using this blog for, at least for the foreseeable future.

This is just to announce the change to the handful of readers who have stuck around through the garbage posts. If I have anything interesting to say or show, I’ll probably post it at my Tumblr blog.

Again, I suggest you unsubscribe and stop reading now, or you’ll find yourself reading about car radiator repair, rapid drug detox, natural snoring remedies, home surveillance cameras and Bowling Green State University.

Thanks all!

Though I will say the gay porn actor turned cat burglar was a pretty spicy story.

OK, back to work…

If you’ve read this series thus far, you have one or more of what we’re calling “Google keywords” to target. Let’s take your top target, and start optimizing. This entry will consist of the absolute basics of on-page SEO, essential to search engine ranking.

There are two types of content we’ll be concerned with: that which is visible to the reader (the text on the page), and that which is invisible (the behind-the-scenes code that people don’t see, but that machines do). To tweak the code you’ll need to work with html or whatever software you’ve used to build your site.

The URL

Your web address may already be established, and out of your control. But if you are just choosing it now, try to include your entire primary keyword, preferably at the beginning of the URL. If your Google keywords are going to be “Italian sports cars”, try to get italiansportscars.com. Since that’s probably taken, start adding suffixes until you find one that’s available, e.g. italiansportscarsinfo.com. One or two hyphens are fine; four and up looks spammy. Use Nameboy Domain Name Generator to quickly generate ideas, and snag an available name quickly when you find a good one.

Page Title

Assuming we have the web site set up, we move on to tweaking the main page. The title of your main page should be your primary Google keywords – nothing more or less. It should be between ten and 60 characters, with no hyphens or other special characters. Don’t get fancy.

Description and Keyword Meta-tags

These are code elements, not seen by the user when browsing your site. You can set them in whatever software you use to build your site. They are not terribly important to Google, but they are to some other search engines. However, the description is often shown in your Google search results, so make it a reader-friendly pitch for your site. Sound informative, not salesman-like. Give a taste of your content; often the first couple of lines of the page work well.

The keyword tags are no longer relied upon by Google, but may affect your ranking in other engines. Just put in your primary Google keywords phrase, and nothing else. Humans won’t see this.

Keyword Density

Probably the most important on-page SEO factor is keyword density. This means what percentage of your text is actually made up of your Google keywords. Too little, and the page won’t seem relevant to the topic. Too much, and you’ll be seen as a spammer, as I apparently was (an update on the site referred to in that link: using the techniques on this page, I’ve moved the site back up from number 107 to number 10).

Use your keywords as naturally as possible, but fit them in somehow. The goal is generally considered to be from three to seven percent of your text. You can check this on the fly using this plug-in for Firefox. Simply highlight the keywords, and use the contextual menu to “Check Keyword Density”. I like to shoot for five percent of the body text. This plug-in will also let you know if you’ve achieved some of the other goals on this page.

H1, H2 and H3 tags

These are text formatting “headline” tags (of descending importance), so Google believes they imply relevance. Without too much explanation, the best advice for most pages is to place your keyword phrase near the top of your page, enclosed in H2 tags. It will be seen by the reader as a medium-sized headline, so make sure it works with your design. Don’t use H1, or Google will once again think you’re trying to game them.

Speaking of design, this is a good place to point out that text contained in graphics are invisible to search engines. The robots read your page as text-only. So you can have your keywords a foot long across the top of your page, but if they’re contained in an image, they might as well not be there. Set the “alt” tag of the image to whatever the text says, but don’t rely on that as a replacement. The H2 headline is your best bet.

Font Styles

The first couple of mentions of your Google keywords within the text should be in bold or italic. This lets Google know they are an important element of your content. Make sure this doesn’t look silly on the page. Look at it as if you were a reader, and make it fit in.

Order and Proximity

Multi-word keywords should be in exact order, without other words in between. You can get some secondary Google juice from slightly-rephrased versions (e.g. “Italian made sports cars”), but the main goal is to get them in order and next to each other.

Anchor Text

Anchor is a fancy word for “link”. If you link to a page on the same subject (especially one within your own site, which is highly recommended), the text the reader sees should be your keyword or a close variation. Google thinks this means the page is on-topic. A page on “Italian sports cars” that has links to “office furniture” looks suspicious to them.

For internal links, try to make sure the page you link to actually has the keyword in its address. If you have the Google keywords in your domain name, you’re set. Otherwise try to get it in the page address, like http://example.com/italiansportscars.html.

As for external links, we’ll cover that in a future post, but a few bits of advice: try to link only to quality, non-spammy sites. Don’t participate in link-trading schemes. You can trade links with friends and associates, but bad-quality or off-topic links can make you look bad to Google. Keep your links constant – Google doesn’t like “link churn”, or constantly changing links. Don’t ever link to link-trading, free-for-all link type sites. Nor should you pursue incoming links from these sites. Google sees these as “bad neighborhoods” and will think less of you. Finally: never pay for a link. Just don’t do it.

Site Structure

Try to structure your site so that you can reach any page in only two clicks. Anything buried deeper than that will be considered less important, both by readers and by Google.

File Size

Keep the entire page under 100k. If you’re using images, compress them as much as reasonably possible for a fast loading page. Again, this is good in terms of both Google and the reader. If necessary, remove images. Yes, I know it hurts.

There are many other tips to be had, but these are the essentials. Do everything here, and you’ll be in good shape to start with off-page SEO, which is a topic for another day…

Let me share the story of a site I built recently. I had settled on a particularly good phrase for my Google keywords. Google’s top results were weak – the top ten all had low PageRanks (for background on PageRank see here). I acquired a domain name consisting entirely of this phrase. I set up my site to be optimized for it. I wrote the content, and squeezed in my Google keywords everywhere I reasonably could, without making the content appear spammy. Everything was set.

Under normal circumstances, I would expect to wait several months to see decent search engine results. After all, the domain was brand new, the site was starting out from square one, its PageRank was beginning from zero, and there were no other sites linking to mine. And all of those factors are negatives to Google. All I was starting with was a good domain, and a site that was highly targeted. I submitted my site to Google and waited.

In a few days, I checked how I was ranking for my keywords (you can do this with a site like this, or this Firefox plug-in). I was shocked to see that, despite everything going against me, I ranked number 17 on my very first indexing. This was an amazing result. With a few more pages of content and a few incoming links, getting into the top ten seemed like a sure thing. Number one was even within reach.

I got back to work on the site, being careful not to upset the balance I had established, and got ready to celebrate. In a few more days, I checked again to see how much better I was ranking.

The site had dropped from number 17 to number 107.

So what happened? I had over-optimized. Or to use the less graceful term, I was guilty of “keyword stuffing”. Keyword stuffing, simply put, means using your targeted Google keywords too many times. Google’s algorithms are designed to reward pages that focus on something specific, but also to punish anyone who might put up a page stuffed full of the same words just to achieve good position in their results. And I had apparently crossed the line – though interestingly, it took them a second pass to notice.

So where is the line? If anyone claims to know, they are lying (unless perhaps they work for Google, but Google guards their algorithms like the formula for Coke). However, it has been that the optimum keyword density is somewhere between three and seven percent. That is to say, your keywords make up no more than that portion of your content. You can check your keyword density with many different tools (just Google “keyword density“).

In my case, the various tools agreed that my Google keywords had a density of around 15%, making me look to Google like a medium-grade search engine spammer, and I was automatically penalized.

Although every use of my keywords was justified, and my writing included them gracefully, Google’s robots didn’t care. And there’s today’s lesson. You are writing for both people and computers. Be careful not to annoy either one of them, or you’ll be ignored by both.

I’ll report back as I make progress in clawing my way back up.

After the last part of our Google keywords series, you should now have a spreadsheet of possible keywords for your site, sorted by “keyword difficulty”, with your best targets marked in bold. What these represent are your best opportunities to appear in high positions in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for these keywords. When a user searches on your chosen keyword, you want to appear as high in the results as possible.

What we’ve done so far is narrow down your possible Google keywords to the ones with the best ratio of competitive pages to search traffic. Lots of search traffic and few competing pages = big, fat target.

The next few steps take a bit of work and some creative thinking, but they’re worth it.

Keyword Relevance

Now we want to take the possible Google keywords we’ve identified, and find the ones that will work well with your site. Look at the bolded keywords in your spreadsheet – are any of them already prominent in your site? Is one in the title? Is one the subject of many pages/posts? Is one a synonym for something you write about frequently? Answer these questions for each of the top keywords in your spreadsheet, and mark the ones most relevant to your site’s content in red. Now we’ll check the answers more scientifically.

Current Site Indexing

Before we proceed, we need to make sure your site has been indexed by Google, especially if it is relatively new. You can check by following this link, and then substituting the URL of your actual site for “yoursite.com”:

Google search: site:http://yoursite.com

If there are no results for your site, you haven’t yet been indexed. If that is the case, take these two steps:

1. Go to Add Your URL to Google’s Index and add your URL. You’ll have to wait a while for it to show up, so the sooner the better.
2. If you have FTP access to your site’s files, make sure you have a file called robots.txt in your root folder. If you want your entire site indexed, its contents should read only as follows:
   

   User-Agent: *
   Allow: /

   If you don’t have access, don’t worry – this is generally set by default anyway.

If there are results for your site in the above search, you have already been indexed, which means we can now check the Google keywords you’ve marked in red.

Current Keyword Indexing

Return to the site-specific search, site:http://yoursite.com, and add your first keyword phrase (in quotation marks) to the front of the search query. For example, if the first red keyword in your spreadsheet is “merchant services”, search Google for “merchant services” site:http://yoursite.com.

If the results are accompanied by a message that “In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 5 already displayed,” click the link to ”repeat the search with the omitted results included”.

Note the number of results. Near the top of the page, look for a line like this: “Results 1 - 6 of 6 from yoursite.com for “merchant services“. Create a new column in your spreadsheet, and type in the number of results next to your keyword. Repeat this process with all of those you’ve marked in red.

Now you know exactly how many times you’re indexed for each of these possible Google keywords. If you’re already indexed many more times for one or two, these are natural targets, since you’re mentioning them frequently already. If this happens, put a box around these in your spreadsheet to mark them.

The Dirty Work

If no natural targets emerge, start breaking up your keyword phrases, and repeating the search on the most important word. In the example above, you’d try just “merchant”. If you get more results, consider whether the references to “merchant” in your site could be tweaked to use the keyword “merchant services” instead or in addition.

If you’re still not coming up with results, look at your red targets, and try to think if you’ve used any synonyms on your site. Can you replace them with the keyword version, or add the Google keywords into the same content without disrupting the flow of your writing? If this is feasible for your site, repeat the above search using these currently-used synonyms. If you get results, mark the spreadsheet appropriately, with a note next to the results column indicating what synonym you searched on.

Repeat this until you get two to three keywords marked in boxes. Rank these according to difficulty, general relevance to your site, and current indexing, and determine a top keyword, a second and possibly a third. These will be your final targets.

Next time, we will integrate the selected Google keywords seamlessly and elegantly into your content and site design.

By now, you should have repeated the steps in part three until you have a long list of possibilities listed in your spreadsheet. Depending on your subject, try to get to a list of at least 20 possible keywords (remember that the term “keyword” refers to a word or phrase).

Now return to Firefox, and open up your “Google keywords” bookmark folder in tabs, so that all the pages are open in one window.

Google Keywords Research

Copy the first keyword from your spreadsheet.

First we’ll check for additional related terms based on search traffic. Go to the second tab in your Firefox window, the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Paste in your Google Keywords in quotation marks, type in the CAPTCHA text if necessary, and click “Get keyword ideas” to see the results.

Next, in the “Match Type” dropdown menu, select “Exact”. Click the “Approx. Avg. Search Volume” header to sort by search popularity. Be sure to use the average search volume – this is a monthly average for the past year.

Look for additional related keywords with similar amounts of search traffic, and add these to your spreadsheet. Scroll down to “Additional keywords to consider” and look for additional related, popular keywords. Add these as well. Leave this window open, you’ll be returning here. If you are informed that you have been logged out upon returning, simply refresh the page.

Assessing the Competition

Click the “SEO for Firefox” icon in the bottom right of your Firefox window if it is grayed out, making sure it is activated. When your research session is over, be sure to turn if off again so that your IP isn’t banned for too much activity.

Now go to your third tab, Google search. Paste in your Google keywords in quotation marks, and click search. In the results, note all the additional information added by the SEO plug-in.

Look through the top 10 results for your keyword phrase, and check the first bit of added info, “PR”. This is the Google PageRank at the time of the last public update, denoting the “strength” of the page with a number from zero to 10. With some solid SEO and link building, you have a great shot at beating 0 – 2 ranked pages, a decent shot at 3 – 4, and 5 and up will be tough. Note an approximate average PR for your front page competition (figure the exact average if you like), and type this in the second column of your spreadsheet next to the keyword.

Next, go to the third tab, Wordtracker GTrends. Paste in your Google keywords and click “Hit Me”. If your keyword appears in the results, click the graph-style icon and wait for the query to complete. This returns the number of competing sites for that keyword, and the approximate daily traffic to the number one page. Note Wordtracker’s recommendations. If you get one green checkmark, type an X in column three of your speadsheet. If you get two checkmarks, this is an excellent target, and place two X’s in your spreadsheet.

Go to tab four, the Keyword Difficulty Check Tool. Paste and click submit. Note the difficulty rank that is returned – the lower the better. Type this number in the next column in your spreadsheet.

Sorting the Results

Repeat the above steps for all of your keywords. Now sort your Google keywords spreadsheet by the last column, the Keyword Difficulty rank, from lowest to highest. Look for the lowest difficulty rank, with the highest number of XX’s in the previous column, and the lowest average PR competition. These are your best opportunities to achieve a high ranking. Highlight these in bold and save your spreadsheet.

Next time, we’ll refine our list, and get more information about our selected Google Keywords. I know this seems like a lot of work, but stick with it – it will be worth it.

Note: most information you’ll find on these techniques is about making money. The idea is to target Google keywords and then build a site around them, with the purpose of gaining traffic and raking in money. But I’m going to explain the reverse – taking the site you have, finding the right keywords to target, and optimizing your site so that people organically find your content. However, these techniques can be adapted to either goal. Perhaps in the pdf version I’ll explain the money-making aspect as well, but for now let’s just get an audience for your site.

Note for linguists: in this arena, the term “keyword” can apply to a word or phrase, although it is singular. For example, we refer to “Italian sports cars” as a “keyword”.

Now, having assembled the tools described in part two of this series, you’re ready to do your research. First, brainstorming:

1. Open up a fresh spreadsheet (pen and paper will do if necessary, but we’ll want to sort the results later).
    
2. Place your cursor in the first cell on the second row (leaving the top row open to place headings later).
    
3. Imagine you are asked the question by a stranger: “What is your web site about?” Answer this question in a short phrase. For example, “victorian furniture”, “1970s punk rock”, or “the meaning of life”. Type it in the box and hit return to move down one cell. If you think of several answers, repeat this as many times as necessary.
    
4. Imagine this stranger asks you to be more specific. Enter your answers, for example, “late victorian furniture”, “1970s New York punk rock”, or “the meaning of life in Greek philosophy”. Get creative with phrasing, and think of terms you mention frequently.
    
5. Now try to get even more specific, like “pseudo-oriental Victorian”, “1970’s Greenwich Village punk”, or “Aristotlean Nicomachean ethics”. Try to keep these phrases as short as possible. Do this for a few minutes, but don’t spend too much time. This is just the beginning, and we’ll refine our choices later.
    
6. Save your spreadsheet as “Google keywords” or the title of your choice.
    
7. Open up your site and look around. Were your answers accurate? Are you really writing about what you thought you were? Add more entries to your spreadsheet if more answers strike you.
   Now we’re ready to start using our toolbox.
    
8. Open Firefox. In the toolbar, look for the “Google keywords” folder you created in part two of this series. Click this once, scroll down and click “Open All in Tabs”. Numerous tabs will load, containing all of your research tools.
    
9. Go to the first tab, the Google Search-based Keyword Tool. This is actually a tool for advertisers, but it suits our purposes very well. Copy the first keyword from your spreadsheet, and paste in the “word or phrase” text field. Click “Find keywords”.

You may only get one or two results. If so, try removing a word from your query and clicking again. For example “late victorian furniture” returns one result, but “victorian furniture” returns 69.

Look down the list and see if any of the results might be reasonable answers to the question “What is your web site about?” If so, these are possible Google keywords.

10. Leave everything right where it is, and go to part four of this series, when published. There, we’ll talk about which of these are worth targeting and why.

Again please note this post is 600 words long, and mentions “Google keywords” six times.

1. Download Firefox. This is not a matter of personal browser preference; it’s the only browser compatible with the tools we’ll be using to research and refine our Google keywords. The fact that it’s also the best browser around is coincidental.
    
2. Download the SEO For Firefox add-on. This browser extension will add all the research capabilities we need, and then some. Click “Install” when the dialog box opens, and then click “Restart Firefox” when you are given the option. When Firefox restarts, you’ll see an SEO icon in the lower right corner of the browser. Left- or control-click this, and choose “Options..”. 
    
         

   In the SEO for Firefox preferences, uncheck “Enable/Disable SEO For Firefox”. Yes, we want this disabled by default until we turn it on. We’ll be setting this to automatically pull some information, so if we leave it on for normal browsing, we risk having our IP banned. We can activate it with one click when we need it.

   For now, you can leave the next box, enable/disable of ‘nofollow’ links unchecked.

   Finally, in the “Mode” column, change “PR” and “Age” to “Automatic”. Everything else can remain as is. Close the Preferences window.

3. In the top Firefox menu, click “Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks..”. Click on “Bookmarks Toolbar”, and then in the drop-down menu above, choose “New Folder…”. Name this “Google keywords“, or the term of your choice. You’ll see the entry in your toolbar. If you don’t, click “View > Toolbars > Bookmarks Toolbar”.
    
4. Navigate to each of the following sites (it will be easiest to open the page you’re reading now in Firefox, so the links open there). Upon reaching each one, click “Bookmarks > Bookmark This Page”. In the dialog box, look for “Folder”, and click the down arrow, choose the “Google keywords” folder you made in the previous step, and click “Done” to add the bookmark to that folder.Go to each of these pages, and bookmark into the new folder:

   Google Search-based Keyword Tool
   Google AdWords Keyword Tool
   Google Search (with quotation marks)
   Wordtracker GTrends
   Keyword Difficulty Check Tool
   SEO Book Keyword Tool
   Nameboy Domain Name Generator
   Ontology Finder – Related Keywords Lookup Tool
   Synonym.com  

   We’ll only be using Nameboy if we happen to need a domain name, but it’s good to have it in there just in case.

5. Finally, you will need to keep track of your research. I highly recommend using a spreadsheet program. There are a variety of them out there, including free, open-source choices. You won’t need to be a wizard with them for our purposes. All we’ll be doing is some entering and sorting.

That’s it for today. Next time, down to business.

Note: this post is exactly 500 words, and mentions “Google keywords” five times. Are you getting the idea?