I'm not an SEO Guru. I don't even play one on TV. But lest your temptation to hit the Back Button overpowers your natural curiosity, you may take comfort in the fact that a lot of what goes into SEO is Educated Guessing, based on trail, error, and discovery—combined with good old fashioned common sense.
The famously infamous, Matt Cutts, Google's voice to the people, has let us know that there are over 200 elements that comprise the algorithm for where your website sits on the SERPS. For obvious reasons, Google keeps their exact criteria a secret. But some basic concepts have emerged that are universally recognized as among the things you need to do.
A proper treatment of the subject requires a book, not a blog post ;-), but I have found a few simple things that work for my own sites that have brought near instant increases in Google Traffic. These are easy for a small business to implement, and they don't require a great deal of time.
New Content almost daily
I know you've heard this one before. You also know not every situation is conducive to daily content. But not everything has to be about your product or industry.
You can include Human Interest pieces, possibly in a special section of your site. It may seem that Content unrelated to your business message would dilute Keyword Density. But there is an argument that each page of your site stands on its own in many ways, and besides, there are many ways in which you can maneuver General interest into a relationship with Targeted interest.
To be honest, if your business is boring, most of your customers aren't especially interested in reading your Core Business Message everyday anyway. Try giving them something uplifting in addition to product specs. They will soon look forward to stopping by to pick up a smile 🙂 If you can somehow tie that smile together with your product, you have a winner!
Short Posts
A daily Human Interest post can be pretty short. Add a picture and you can double the size on the page. Choose your picture well and that could be the most important part of your post's written Content.
It doesn't take long to put together a short post, and doing so can give Google a reason to Spider you daily. Daily Spider crawling gives them a reason to send you more Traffic.
Although these pieces may seem to dilute your message, giving your customers a pleasant reason to come by each day can reinforce positive emotions about your company.
Be sure to include some kind of business reminder somewhere on the page, as well. This could be a simple box with a short message.
Long Articles
This is where the bulk of your Core Message Content comes in. Meaty articles that really delve into your industry, your products, and solutions to your customer's problems. Google loves long articles as much as they love short, daily posts. The combination of the two can be an irresistible pairing.
Obviously, these are not something you produce on a daily basis. But they help to establish you as an expert in your industry. With just a little reworking, they can be submitted to paper & ink Trade publications (they need your Content, anyway), giving you much more exposure with little additional effort.
And this in-depth Core Content will give you the balance you need to offset any concerns about short fluff pieces diluting your site's Core Keyword.
Your goal here is to created articles that are so powerful that others in and around your industry will be compelled to refer and to link to them.
Tie to an Unrelated but Popular Search Term
We already touched on the idea of writing Human Interest Content. Now let's take that a step further with an idea that's a bit controversial. If you write an article comparing your machine tool widgets to a big Entertainment Star, and include a picture of the Star, you are virtually guaranteed some traffic.
This is not Targeted traffic, and probably won't help your sales any, unless you are in the music or entertainment industries 🙂 The more you can somehow relate your product to the Star, the more "Relevant" your post will be to your Core Message.
Traffic Begets Traffic. When Google gets into the habit of sending you traffic, they just can't help themselves, and they will find other reasons/excuses to send you more traffic.
Keywords in the Graphic Name and ALT Tag
People don't like to read articles so obviously stuffed with Keywords that the actual Content is obscured. But every graphic is supposed to contain an ALT Tag, which is not really seen by the reader unless the picture doesn't load to the screen for some reason. So I do my Keyword "stuffing" here. The article Title should always have your Keyword(s) for your page, so a very legitimate way to Name your graphic is with the Name of the article. This keeps your graphics well managed, and allows you to repeatedly use your Keywords without penalty. I also use the Title for the ALT Tag.
Example: seo-guru-typing-keywords.jpg alt="SEO Guru Typing Keywords"
In the example above I could have simply named the graphic, keyboard.jpg or typing.jpg, but this way I can see the file months from now and know exactly which article it belongs to. If your post is an unrelated Human Interest story, then use the Keywords of your site.
Example: financial-security-happy-customer.jpg alt="Financial Security"
Everyday SEO
One last tip: Whenever you have contact with a customer or prospect, invite them to visit your website. Google will take notice of the Traffic you are generating on your own—and reward you by sending you more.
My recommendations are based on my own personal experience. And like I said at the beginning, I'm not an expert, I just know what has worked successfully for me. In any event, your own mileage may vary. But these ideas are simple to implement on a daily basis, and have certainly made my own site Google friendly. When I publish a new article, they are often Indexed within 2-3 hours depending on time of day. This shows that the Spider pays me a visit on a daily basis, looking for new Content to give to their hungry Searchers.
It's nice to know that there are simple things you can do for yourself beginning today!
Great tips Rick. Really did not bother much about short and long articles before as I just go with the flow until the message is across 🙂 Anyway, it is something to think about. Good to know that there are less complicated issues that average people can tackle with to improve their SEO.
Hi DiTesco,
For a site that publishes consistently, the Short and Long articles are probably not so important, as you are generating lots of content anyway.
I do believe that Core Content Long Articles are important. I put these together with Google specifically in mind, as it is that long-term continuous traffic I am after for those pages. They set you up an an Authority to your readers and industry, but to Google, as well.
Yes, I agree, that for the “everyday” site owner there is a lot they can do to improve traffic on their own.
Thanks for coming by!
Hi Rick,
I would like to add a few point.
New content on daily basics. Hmm. I see only SEO companies, and blog business companies do that. Why? More pages, reputation…. SEPR positioning.
If you have a “physical” business (let say – furniture store), do you have a lot of time to write the articles everyday? I think NO.
If you run a web site to support your business via online channels, it is a very bad idea to write about something not related to your business (ex.: life, feeling… personal experience… ), even if your put a big and pretty photos. Nobody care about that. Only your products, quality of your services and reputation.
Hi Dimitry,
If SEO companies publish new content on a daily basis for better SERP positioning—not to mention, better Reputation—that sounds like a good thing for the little guy to emulate.
As far as the time factor, you get what you invest.
The whole point of SEO is better positioning in the SERPs, so if a local business isn’t interested in that, then they can invest the time in areas where they feel the most potential return.
As far as “unrelated” content, my view is that all traffic is good traffic, but Targeted traffic is great traffic.
Google will not penalize you for getting your own traffic, and Human Interest does bring traffic.
I see it sort of like handing your business card to a zillion people. Most of these people will not be your customers, but some of them will give your card to a friend or associate who is looking for your type of company.
BTW, I am on page 1 of Google for a term that has 27,000 searches a month, and 28,000,000 competing results—for an “unrelated” subject.
When I get traffic from this, I simply say, “Thank you” 🙂 This has not hurt my site; 35% of my monthly unique visitors come from SERPs.
Thanks for stopping by with a contrary opinion.
Rick
Rick – thanks for a great post and bringing things back to basics. So much is written about SEO and while there are definitely some best practices as you describe here, the best SEO strategy that gets you 80-90% of the way there is simply to write naturally and be active in your online sphere of influence. It’s kind of ironic, really.
papalogic.
Hello, Papalogic,
As much as I agree that writing naturally is great, it takes very little additional tweaking to make it better for Search.
My second largest single source of traffic comes from Social Media, so I totally agree with you about your sphere of influence.
The techniques I talk about here are designed to expand that sphere. People come from Google to my site, then follow me on twitter. Next thing you know they’re retweeting my content.
On-page and off-page SEO should work in harmony for the best results.
Thanks for taking the time to comment 🙂
Great article, Rick. I think this line “based on trial, error, and discovery” speaks volumes. SEO experts are always an interesting read online because they tend to indicate that they know exactly how search engines rank pages. As you pointed out, Matt Cutts has mentioned that Google has over 200 elements for ranking a page in their SERPs.
I try not to overthink SEO, and just keep it simple. I include the keywords in my title, URL, and a few times throughout my article. From there, I just let Google do its thing. Much like you, I get indexed within a few hours. SEO doesn’t have to be complex unless you make it that way.
Hi Paul,
Thanks for the Thumbs Up 🙂
To me, I think that if Google wants to visit every day, they believe we have value.
And obviously, superbly good Taste 😉
The whole Google thing is an Artificial Intelligence algorithm—we just need to give it some food, served in a form it can easily digest, and can in turn, easily re-serve to its audience.
Ha. Since you mentioned it, I always seem to get in the most trouble when I engage in the most over-thinking 🙂
Thanks for your comment, Paul.
Rick
Rick,
I had not thought of doing short posts like this. You could also use video this way.
Changing your image alt tag is such a quick simple idea that I just started to put into action. It is those quick ideas I really like.
Hi Sheila,
I like fast & easy too 🙂
I always figured that if I want to turn things into rocket science, I should go off and be a Rocket Scientist.
I think it makes sense to always do those things that are quick and simple. Every little bit adds up!
Thanks for coming by to comment. And thanks for the retweets, too 🙂
Rick
I try most of these, trying to get a short post up every few days, if I don’t have time for a longer one! I’m considering doing a daily post, but obviously save the bigger ones for every few days. Is it quite easy to do a daily post, but have them not show up on your homepage and main RSS feed? Maybe have them in a sidebar, so only people who really want to look at them have to?
Thanks,
Simon Duck
Ha, I have to ammend that last bit. I walked away and realized you can create your short posts as Pages, ranter than Posts, and they will not show up in the RSS. I have done that as well.
Sorry for the Ooops 🙂
Rick
One way to do that would be to create a second blog by making a new folder/directory, with a new install of WordPress that duplicates the look and feel of your main site.
That’s what I have, so they are two separate feeds altogether. Set the feed for the second blog to the same as the first, so subscribers will always only get the main feed.
Unless you hand code each entry/post in the side bar as part of Text Widget, the content will be part of the feed if it is, indeed, a post in the blog.
Thanks for stopping by, Simon.
Rick
Hi Rick
Some great tips here. A lot of what has been written about SEO has left me with more questions than answers! You make things easy to understand.
I always find your posts helpful, and this is no exception. Thanks Rick. Appreciated.
Patricia Perth Australia
Hi Patricia,
Thanks for kind words.
Sometimes it seems that practicing good SEO is like trying to draw a picture on water.
The latest algorithm, which seemed to me to have no rhyme nor reason in the past, is equally baffling now, as some of my positions have been bouncing all over the place this last week.
That’s why I have always said to do what you can as far as SEO, but also do your best to get your own traffic.
The simple, foundational things are what you can control, therefore, control them well 🙂
Thanks for stopping by.
Rick
Hi Rick,
I almost agree of all aspects, however, the daily post is a bit hard to implement, but I am still doing it.
I notice big difference if I post daily and twice or third a week.
Indeed posting daily is a benefit, but hard to do 🙂
Thanks
Daily posting can be hard to scale but you can take baby steps getting there. Start with 1-2-3 posts per week, consistently. Get into the habit of doing your post, then writing another one. Could be shorter but always: 1 published, 1 written for later. Turn things you do or research into short descriptive posts.
Once you’re in that rhythm it becomes hard to limit yourself and the ideas for posts just keep flowing in!
Hi Kimi,
What Ruud Said 🙂
The idea behind daily content is to entice Google to spider you every day, and, to get people into the habit of coming by on a regular basis.
Like Ruud suggested, it doesn’t really have to be EVERY day. What’s more important is Pattern and/or a consistent inflow of new material. Each new post gives Google a little bit more fuel for their Search algorithm. The more posts you have, the more traffic Google can send you because they have more to work with.
Hope this helps 🙂 Thanks for coming by!
Rick
@Ruud and @Rick!
Thanks for the reply and clearing things up, guys!
Yes, I guess the pattern is very important, I am trying this pattern in my blog, and I have noticed Google seems to know what time I post usually.
I guess I am a blogging junkie LOL because one day I don’t follow my pattern, I feel so guilty..
Thanks!
Good post Rick and very interesting. I have always been told to stick with the topic of your blog or you will be committing suicide. Guess things are changing.
I don’t post everyday but I do 3 times a week. I have 2 blogs so it’s hard to post every day. But you do make a good point.
Have not thought to name my picture the same as my title, that’s a really good tip. I was just told to name it period. See, I’m learning something new and your suggestions are from your own personal experience. Good to know.
Appreciate the post and all these helpful tips.
Adrienne
Hi Adrienne,
I’m sure many would disagree with me about “straying from your keyword,” but from my experience, if you have a page that contains what people are searching for, that’s all that really matters.
I will add a few caveats to that statement.
Google will send that page traffic if the content is unique enough to stand apart from the vast sea of your competition.
The Page itself must stay on topic within itself. Think of each page as it’s own mini-website, and do all the correct things regarding on-page SEO.
And of course, someone must actually be searching for the topic 🙂 But that is not as important if such pages are for your repeat visitors.
If you plan on doing a lot of “off topic” stuff, I would devote a specific section of your site, with a special category and title.
Example: “Smile for Today: Cute Puppies” and each day have a new “Smile for Today.”
It may be a good idea to add an Anchored link at the bottom that leads to “On Topic” content. That would sort of serve as an Ad for your main Content, and help tie it all together.
Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Hey Rick,
I’m a bit late to the party :(. But here I am anyways.
These are some great tips for “seo challenged individuals” such as myself ;).
I didn’t know that naming your image the same as your title would help. I usually name the image according to what it is. Sometimes it corresponds to the title and sometimes less so. I’ll make sure to remember that. Thanks for this good tip.
I’m also relieved to know that Google favors the longish posts lol. I think I should be okay in that sense. But as you said – and as I sometimes try to do – a mix of both is a good thing.
As for the daily postings, well I don’t think I’ll make that one happen but I think if you can remain consistent then the crawlers will continue to stop by.
Thanks for making this easy to understand and implement.
Excellent write up Rick :).
Happy Thursday
Cheers
Hi Ingrid,
Not the worry, the Party never really starts without you 🙂
Not every piece of what I proposed is necessary. I certainly don’t post every day.
Each item can work on it’s own. I have proven each one separately, at least to my own satisfaction.
The more of them you do, of course, the greater the impact.
If I had to make a choice between In-depth, Long Articles every so often, and Short Posts (nearly) every day, I would choose the Long Articles.
Short Posts each day help you build Content quickly. Google loves lots of content.
But once you have “enough” Content to be “Real” it’s not so important, just so long as you are adding enough Content so that Google can see that you are Active.
The more “Real” Google considers you to be, the more Traffic they send you.
Thanks for stopping by to comment!
Rick, aloha. Great article. I always appreciate your idea of putting off topic articles in another section. Doing that along with a short article & photo has a lot of appeal for me. Thx for the idea. Aloha. Janet
Hi Janet,
Thank you for the Thumbs Up 🙂
For a blog, especially, I don’t like mixing articles that are important with posts that are not so serious.
With a standard site is much easier to keeps sections separate. With my Marketing WordPress blog I actually have two blogs in the one site, so it’s a lot simpler to do things like that.
Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Rick
Hi Rick, that last passage about Google knowing about the direct traffic going to your website is a bit puzzling. I have heard that before, but the implication is that, unless you have Google Analytics code on your site, Google has a way of knowing about people typing your address in the browser bar and visiting your site that way. Sounds to me like we’re transforming Big G. into Big G. Almighty 🙂 Am I mistaken?
Cheers
Hi Aloys,
I do assume Google Analytics, which I was remiss in not mentioning. Even if you don’t use the Analytic data itself, I think it’s a good idea to have it installed because I believe Google will send you more traffic if you have it. The reason being that they more traffic they see coming in from your own efforts, they more they will send you—because your Trust Level is higher. Just my opinion.
But considering that Google knows where I live, what I look like, what my house looks like 😯 it does get a little creepy…
Aloys, apart from Google Analytics Google can estimate or make other traffic assumptions by looking at industries displaying Adsense, via their toolbar, their browser, clickthrough rate on their search, social mentions, etc. Ask.com, which no longer works on its own algorithmic search, has a patent outlining how something like that could work.
Both CTR and traffic are considered “noisy” signals in the web search industry. Not only can they easily be manipulated but CTR and traffic aren’t always proportional to the relevance of a page.
What remains true is that when you do things well, traffic generates traffic: people will reference you, post about you, talk about you, link to you, etc.
Hi Rick
Nice blog you have here. Thank you for the tips. Good idea to mix a couple of short post in between the long once to make the “Google spider” come visit more often. I am always trying to giv my images good names and good Alt tags.
Thomas, thanks for dropping by.
I think too that beyond search engines the constant stream of content keeps people at your side. You know when you stumble upon a TV series your really like or a series of books you can’t get enough of? Waiting for the next installment is just killing. You want more of the good stuff and you want it now.
Blogging is like that. When you stumble upon a good blog(ger) and you like the voice, having a steady stream of content come in from that site prevents you from switching your allegiance to another blog 🙂
Not sure I agree with the last tip about good rewarding better rankings based on traffic.
Any references I could look at for that one?
Hi Dan,
Lot’s of Traffic will not necessarily improve your position on the SERP, or your Page Rank number.
But Google, from my personal experience, does reward you for bringing your own Traffic. They see Traffic coming in, and consider you “safe/reliable” and then send you Traffic from their SERPs.
A daily test of one of my Keywords shows that I am not always on page one of Google. Sometimes I am, and sometimes I’m not. This term, as I write this, has 26,000,000 competing results. That number has fluctuated wildly over the last few months.
This tells me that “rankings/positions” are a lot more fluid than many would like to believe.
The fact that I get Traffic each month from that one Keyword is interesting and important, so that’s where I focus.
Thanks for your comment 🙂
Rick
Hi Rick,
Thanks for taking the time to respond to my comment.
When you say, “Google does reward you for bringing in your own traffic.” What exactly does that mean? What sort of reward does Google give you, and how do you “bring your own traffic”? To me, traffic signals can be easily manipulated. Additionally, Google has said several times that they don’t look at Google Analytics data as a signal for rankings.
I’m not sure what 26,000,000 competing results has to do with whether or not you’re on page 1 of Google or not. The number of websites listed for a query (26,000,000) is an estimate of pages that are related to the term. In fact, if you skip to the very last page, you’ll notice that the 26,000,000 number changes drastically. It’s really not useable even for the broadest of metrics.
Don, I think that what’s Rick talking about is traffic first, then, maybe, rankings. Freely translated, in his experience when you work at getting traffic, traffic seems to beget traffic. I chalk this down to exposure: if you get 10 people to see your article and 2 mention it in a forum, 1 links it in a blog post and 1 tweets it, chances are the thing will start to spread and, thus, Google will follow.
The tie-in with the number of results is that while the number of results and his position within it fluctuates, he still receives more or less consistent traffic on it.
That’s what I think was being said. Ruud the blue helmet peacekeeper out 🙂
Hi Dan,
You said:
When you say, “Google does reward you for bringing in your own traffic.” What exactly does that mean? What sort of reward does Google give you, and how do you “bring your own traffic”?
OK
I am not an SEO expert.
All I know is that when I bring my own Traffic, via Social Networking, Backlinks that get Clicked, Friends on the local level that go to my site, and people that type in the URL from any number of methods I use to get them there…
I bring my own Traffic by telling people about my site, and getting them to sit at their computer and type my URL, or click on my Link.
I know I guy who did nothing more than wear a T-Shirt with his URL and he got enough Traffic to get Google’s attention.
I always assume a website has Google Analytics on board.
When Google sees real people:
– Clicking on some link
– Typing the URL
These are Traffic roads that give Google the knowledge that your site is worth “Sharing.”
As far as 26 Million Competition?
I get Traffic. I get visitors.
Yes you are correct. The competition has nothing to do with my results.
The Number of Searches, on the other hand, may..
According to Google, there are 27,000 Searches a month for my Keyword.
27 Thousand Searches and 28 Million Results — and I’m on Page One.
What more can I say? 🙂
Rick