ESWC06: SEO, Be seen, be sold

Dave Collins of Shareware Promotions and Sharon Housley of NotePage were next up with a search engine optimization presentation.

Sharon rushed through her slides to make more time for Dave, so I didn't really manage to take many notes. I just got a copy of the presentation by email, but I haven't had time to read it. The key points I did manage to take down were:-

• Everyone interested in SEO should read Matt Cutts' blog: There are at least one hundred factors that affect your search engine ranking.
• Obvious things you can control: Every page should have a unique title and description, H1 or H2 tags around the main headers, and keywords in the urls. If using keywords in the url, you should separate them with hyphens, not underscores. A good target for web site depth is 3-4 levels, and your hosting location can have an impact on your ranking in local search engines.
• Content helps, focus on quality, anything controversial can be a good way to get attention. You can gradually build content quite easily by using what you have and what you generate, eg. have a blog, put your press releases on your site, add knowledge base articles and faqs when possible. User generated content is even better, think forums, blog comments, discussion forums. These are great for boosting your keyword long tail, as users will talk about the same concept using different words and phrases.

Dave Collins started his presentation with his Golden Rule: "Never Listen to anyone who tells you there is a rule". "There are no rules". It's not just about links, it's not just about content. Other factors include the age of the site, your level of authority. You don't exist in a vacuum, and changes to your site ranking might have nothing at all to do with your actions. Sometimes Google re-arranges things, you just have to be patient and try to avoid myths, hype and speculation. Other highlights:-

• Don't be link obsessed. Don't randomly exchange links, and don't believe more links = more value, think of links as friends. Google is onto everyone, so anything spammy will eventually affect your reputation with Google. Create a site people will want to link to.
• Paid links should use the "nofollow" tag.
• Page Title and Description Meta Tags affect the way your site is displayed in Google search results, use them to stand out and entice visitors.
• Keyword density tuning is for dunces, it's probably a factor in site ranking, but an unpredictable one, just make the page human readable, the other factors will take care of it.
• There is an Aging factor, it's important to keep creating buzz and get natural links over time. If you find your site dropping off or disappearing completely, you'll probably have to be patient.
• Dangerous tricks carry risks. Don't use things like Cloaking (changing the page contents for spiders, showing different content to human visitors), you can lose all your Google traffic, see BMW for an example.
• Read Matt Cutts.

In conclusion, do your basic optimization and focus on quality and content (and your product, if you have one). There's no rule, what works for one site may not work for another.

From the Q&A, Sharon said the underscore vs hyphen issue came from Matt Cutts, and Google loves blogs. Dave will be posting his presentations on his Dave Talks site (there's already a lot of interesting looking stuff over there).

Tags: micro isv shareware eswc06 seo