This is obviously quite a basic point from any experienced seo guru, but for a lot of seo newcomers to the industry there has been a lot less emphasis on the importance of page tags.

Back in the late 90’s and early 00’s these tags were ravaged to death with keyword stuffing and abuse, after various Google algorithm updates they dropped the importance of Meta descriptions and Meta Keywords a considerable amount. What about the title tags though? From my point of view many years ago when I was young and new to the web design industry, title tags were just a method to explain page content with less emphasis on keywords.

Last week I assessed SeoUnique’s title tag for the homepage, I originally set it as:

Seo Recourses Blog | Social Media | Seounique

I followed some basic standards, not making the title contain too many characters, including important keywords and most of all making the title description as relevant as possible to the page content. As I have been busy with my day to day management of clients seo I have neglected to benchmark my own keyword positions. Last week I looked at two phrases that I considered important to rank well in for this blog. The first being “Seo Blog” and the second being “SEM blog” – both phrases perform well according to Google trends and the posts I make should be picked up by people looking for information on those subjects.

I of course looked for my current positions under the terms, I hoped to be listed somewhere in the top 20-30 pages of Google for “Seo Blog” but knew I wouldn’t rank anywhere under “SEM Blog” simply because that term is very rarely listed anywhere on the blog or in backlinks anchor text.

Last Week Positions:

Seo Blog: Page 54 rank 532
Sem Blog: Not in top 1000

Obviously I was disappointed with the results even though I knew in the back of my mind that it was an accurate representation of my efforts. Don’t get me wrong, I perform very well for my blog posts subjects, often making first page top 3 but obviously long tailed keywords don’t drive enough traffic day to day. I looked at my websites content and decided to go for the direct approach, once again giving an accurate representation of the pages content:

Seo Blog | Sem Blog | Seounique

I decided to cut the length even more and just contain the keywords I wanted to perform well in. I waited 5-6 days and once again checked my positions for the phrases:

Seo Blog: Page 18 rank 176
Sem Blog: Page 5 rank 43

Nothing else was changed on the blog at all, only the title tag. These rankings have held for over 4 days so it’s not an “updated content” ranking.

So why has the Google Rankings improved so much?

I should have put “Seo Blog” as my first keyword in the title description because essentially that’s what the site is, it’s the most accurate description of the content listed plus it’s the keyword I wanted to do well in. The second keyword was a gamble because I knew the terms were listed throughout the site on previous posts but rarely did the terms “sem” and “blog” run side by side with each other. I would say that again it’s an accurate description of the site so its justified.

Overall I moved 356 positions for the phrase “Seo blog” and staggering 953 positions for the phrase “sem blog”, I have already seen a natural increase in organic traffic for both terms, so next time someone says to you backlinks, backlinks, backlinks – reply title, title, title!

Firmly a few weeks into the new year I’ve decided to hold a small contest. I would like to make a “2008 SEO tips list”, obviously I could just write the list myself but am feeling generous and creative. I will be holding the contest for 14 days from today and will accept entries up to the 23th January 2008.

Rules:

1. You must post an SEO tip that you think will be valid for 2008

2. It can be any SEO tip you personally think will be true

3. Only one entry per person

4. Entries must be posted as a comment

Winners:

I will use any tip submitted for the final list if I think it’s valid for 2008. The top 3 tips will each receive a $10.00 Paypal payment as a prize. All tips that make it too the list will receive a link to their web page or blog as a point of reference. I thought maybe a small cash offering to buy a few cups of coffee or to help with your sites sever cost might be a nice incentive, you can of course spend it how you see fit!

Why should you bother?

It would be nice to get some feedback from the SEO community as a whole as to what they think will be happening in 2008 and the possible trends we might start to see. It’s also a bit of fun!

Good luck with your entries and please read the rules before entering!

Reports of a new Google Page Rank have hit the long seo shores already. Before everyone started with the blasphemy, I couldn’t care less if it is or not.

Page Rank thread on Digital Point today had at least 3 or 4 people based in North America reporting changes in different sites. Screenshots were provided for different sites and people were assured this wasn’t a bug issue. Like I mentioned I have no interest in PR, I think it’s dated and does not accurately represent a websites true rank for anything.

What I will say for anyone interested in PR (shame on you) is that before the last update in October 2007, there were reports of websites listed in different countries receiving an update before others. This could mean an update is on the way for certain people.

Before you start jumping for joy or begin preparation for a noose, just bare in mind that page rank holds very little weight on search engine rankings. You should always build and maintain a website for your customers and readers to provide them with the best online experience you can offer, the rest will come free!

Stage 1 - Research

The first stage of a successful social media strategy should involve identifying industry related areas of the web that will provide opportunities to create a buzz online for your clients industry. These include looking at niche social bookmarking sites, blogs, forums and social networking sites. You should have records kept on file of what sites work well for which industries, this will save you time in the long run, this file will eventually get very large (trust me!).

Stage 2 – Registrations

Once sites have been identified that meet the projects criteria the long registration process entering clients details in profiles takes place. This will usually involve entering a “homepage” URL, company logo and a brief summary of what the company’s goals are. Any additional promotional material would also be useful to help build up the brand within the different communities.

Stage 3 – Building trust

The key to creating a successful social media strategy is the relationships you build and the trust that you earn. When suggesting sites or information it should not immediately be the clients site or link bait, it should consist of industry related material. Commenting on related blogs, starting forum threads about the industry should also be created. This should be maintained for a period of time before moving on to the next stage. You should take a genuine interest what you comment on and write about, no-one likes a fibber!

Stage 4 – Release link bait

Once there is a level of trust associated with the company profile that is the time when the link bait or urls should be posted. Using this method will ensure that the information that is posted will not be labeled as spam by the various site administrators or site owners. By this time the profiles created will already hold some weight within the various communities which will ensure a level of traffic.

Stage 5 – Generate traffic + links

Once the urls and link bait have been posted this should immediately create incoming traffic to the client’s site or landing page. The secondary goal of such a strategy or possibly primary goal depending on client will be the natural links generated as a result of such a strategy. If like minded users find the link bait interesting then by all accounts they should then bookmark the link on their own social media site, be it a blog, social bookmarking site or forum. This will additionally create more incoming traffic to the site and generate a number of links that will help with the clients search engine positions for selected keywords.

Stages 3, 4 and 5 should be maintained over a longer period of time to keep impacting the search engine results positions. If this is not repeated throughout an extended time period then the increase in search engine positions will only be temporary.

By the way it’s my Birthday today so wohoo to me!

Link Baiting – with the paid links debate clearing up, it’s clear that obvious link purchases will result in penalties to your site. Reciprocal linking holds very little weight too these days so alternatives must be suggested for a link building strategy. I won’t go into exact details of link baiting but even a simple piece of interesting information can result in hundreds of one way links to your website.

Blogs – That’s right, corporate and e-commerce websites should have a blog associated with the business name. It’s 2008 and blogs are bigger and stronger than ever online, creating and managing a blog will open up opportunities for one way links, returning traffic and updated fresh content (“yum yum” says Google). More companies are starting to do this as it’s also a nice experience to offer some sort of relationship to your customers. I know I’d prefer to buy a product from someone I had some degree of trust with, be it through brand recognitions or online relationship – writer to reader.

Social Media – I’ve been blogging about this for a while too so just to cover this briefly. Create profiles on all social media/bookmarking websites and hire someone to manage the accounts all day long. It’s an investment that should be considered for a long term strategy, branding, relationship building and link generation are all positive outcomes from investment.

On site optimization – Still a very important investment from an SEO point of view. Seomoz recently posted a great update on title tags, Meta data and URL structures. All traffic increasing methods and should be maintained to the highest standard.

Analytics and traffic analysis – In my honest opinion you don’t need to fork out for highly priced analytic programs. Google Analytics offers a very comprehensive package for the amazing price of…nothing. An investment should be made into setting up clear goals for your website and then using the data to optimise your site structure and content. An increase in sales or conversions will be a guarantee and a clear understanding of where your traffic originates can help producing domain traffic reports.