Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Friday, July 6, 2007
SEO and The Human Element
So, some of your pages ended up in the supplemental results. Now what? How do you get them out? Well, the popular short answer is this: "Build page rank!" The obvious next question is: "How do I build page rank?" Again, the popular short answer is: "Build links!" The question that naturally follows is: "How do I build links?" Well, now we are getting somewhere! You could buy them, but that is taboo, and everyone knows it is cheating, but whether you admit it or not, eventually it will lead to trouble.
So, what's a webmaster to do? There is really only one correct answer to this one, and once you know this and really understand it it will be the answer to almost every other page rank problem as well. One simple word, "content!"
How do you get content? You obviously have an interest in a subject. What is your site all about? You probably know quite a bit about your subject, at least some of which, other people might like to learn, so, write about it! Publish it on your site. Publish it in an ezine. Both things will help.
If you don't think you can write about your subject in a way that would engage your audience, hire someone to write your thoughts for you. The money spent on such a project would be worth a lot more than hiring someone to help you fool a search engine, which would eventually backfire on you anyway!
Many webmasters are so busy trying to figure out how to fool the search engines into thinking that their pages are important, that they have forgotten what makes them important. They end up like the guy at work who spends more time and energy avoiding work than he would have spent if he had just done his job to begin with.
If the goal of the search engine is to find useful content and arrange the links to that content in such a way that the searcher can find the good content in the easiest way, and it is, and, if the internet end user is a human being, it stands to reason that websites designed with the human end user in mind, would do well.
If the site has keywords that match what an average human being would type into the browser to look for that particular type of content, and arranged in such a way as to make it easy for a human being to find the content that he or she is looking for on the site, the site should do well.
If this site has links to useful content on site and off, was designed by a human being, for a human being would end up ranking pretty well. It also stands to reason that a sight designed by any other method, is trying to skew the process by means that would, in any other field of endeavor, be considered dishonest!
Search engines exist to serve people by providing accurate results. These accurate results consist of information that people want and need, whether that is a place to buy merchandise, find services or acquire information. Any attempt to fool the search engine is inherently "black hat."
In the end, the internet is about human beings, for human beings, and the human element should never be left out of the equation.
James Burns writes on internet and social issues from a different perspective, from his home in Tyler, Texas, and his home page can be seen at http://www.dotcomrevolt.com
He is a licensed outdoor pest professional, and also writes on home garden, and environmental issues at http://www.rationalenvironmentalsolutions.com
So, what's a webmaster to do? There is really only one correct answer to this one, and once you know this and really understand it it will be the answer to almost every other page rank problem as well. One simple word, "content!"
How do you get content? You obviously have an interest in a subject. What is your site all about? You probably know quite a bit about your subject, at least some of which, other people might like to learn, so, write about it! Publish it on your site. Publish it in an ezine. Both things will help.
If you don't think you can write about your subject in a way that would engage your audience, hire someone to write your thoughts for you. The money spent on such a project would be worth a lot more than hiring someone to help you fool a search engine, which would eventually backfire on you anyway!
Many webmasters are so busy trying to figure out how to fool the search engines into thinking that their pages are important, that they have forgotten what makes them important. They end up like the guy at work who spends more time and energy avoiding work than he would have spent if he had just done his job to begin with.
If the goal of the search engine is to find useful content and arrange the links to that content in such a way that the searcher can find the good content in the easiest way, and it is, and, if the internet end user is a human being, it stands to reason that websites designed with the human end user in mind, would do well.
If the site has keywords that match what an average human being would type into the browser to look for that particular type of content, and arranged in such a way as to make it easy for a human being to find the content that he or she is looking for on the site, the site should do well.
If this site has links to useful content on site and off, was designed by a human being, for a human being would end up ranking pretty well. It also stands to reason that a sight designed by any other method, is trying to skew the process by means that would, in any other field of endeavor, be considered dishonest!
Search engines exist to serve people by providing accurate results. These accurate results consist of information that people want and need, whether that is a place to buy merchandise, find services or acquire information. Any attempt to fool the search engine is inherently "black hat."
In the end, the internet is about human beings, for human beings, and the human element should never be left out of the equation.
James Burns writes on internet and social issues from a different perspective, from his home in Tyler, Texas, and his home page can be seen at http://www.dotcomrevolt.com
He is a licensed outdoor pest professional, and also writes on home garden, and environmental issues at http://www.rationalenvironmentalsolutions.com
Three Myths of the Mystical Kingdom of SEO
Myths. They are everywhere. No where are they more prevalent than in the mystical land of SEO! Some SEO experts seem to encourage an air of mysticism about them and what they do, much the same as the masters of other mystical arts throughout history have used to carve their domains from the lack of knowledge of others. The information that I gleaned from reading hundreds of articles on the subject was so confusing and often contradictory that I eventually gave up. When I did this, and just put the information that I wanted to get out into a logical, people friendly format, I found that I had page rank, and traffic! I am developing a mantra, which goes like this: "Build your site for people, and the search engines, will reward you". I have taken the liberty of listing some of these myths below.
1. I keep seeing this one come up. "Don't put any words on the page 'under the fold'". This seems to indicate that people are incapable of scrolling down the page. What I think is really behind this is that, people will not scroll down the page if the information that they have read so far is not useful to them. According to the word counter on this editor, I have written over 100 words up to this stage, which by the standard set up by most SEO pundits, is more than enough for a page! What I have found is that people will continue to read as long as what I am saying interests them and has bearing on what they are seeking to know.
2. Google penalties for... You name it! "Google penalized my site for..." This one usually has to do with duplicate content. I have found that Google does not punish me for repeating the content on more than one site, the secondary site may not get as much page rank, or popularity, but if it is needed in that location, say, I put the information on "non native plant species" on my business site for my customers, and also on a purely informational site, somehow the big G seems to understand the need for the information to be spread around, and doesn't seem to discount it's value in either place. Now, if you have five pages with the same article on the same site, four of those pages will probably end up in the supplementals or not indexed at all. Can anyone say "DUH"? I have yet to see a "penalty" for anything other than what appears to be, blatant misuse. Having pages listed in supplemental results is not a penalty, just a place to list pages of less importance to the user, usually because they are amazingly similar to other pages.
3. Almost everything ever written about "links". According to popular opinion, you can not attain to the "Kingdom of Page Rank" with out crossing the "Mote of A Thousand Links". To this I say: "Dragon Dung!" Certainly, links help, but the only links that help, are relevant links. Thousands of irrelevant links do not impress search engines. A highly relevant outgoing link will probably do more good. Linking internally is a real help, because, (and this is the real key to the kingdom,) it helps the "User" to navigate the castle. This should teach us something. The key to the kingdom of SEO is user usability! The good outgoing link is a link to help the site user. The internal links are to assist the site user, the incoming links mean that someone else thinks that their users can gain helpful information from the site. This is why buying and selling links for page rank is such an atrocity to Google, and should be considered so by all. It manipulates the search results and sends people down the wrong path. At the end of the day in SEO land, it is the user who should be King!
James Burns is a licensed pest control professional, has been a Certified Professional Turfgrass Manager for more than 16 years, has a lifetime of experience in horticulture and agriculture, and is the owner of Rational Environmental Solutions, an IPM based pest control company in East Texas. He also has many helpful gardening tips at http://www.texpest.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_F._Burns
1. I keep seeing this one come up. "Don't put any words on the page 'under the fold'". This seems to indicate that people are incapable of scrolling down the page. What I think is really behind this is that, people will not scroll down the page if the information that they have read so far is not useful to them. According to the word counter on this editor, I have written over 100 words up to this stage, which by the standard set up by most SEO pundits, is more than enough for a page! What I have found is that people will continue to read as long as what I am saying interests them and has bearing on what they are seeking to know.
2. Google penalties for... You name it! "Google penalized my site for..." This one usually has to do with duplicate content. I have found that Google does not punish me for repeating the content on more than one site, the secondary site may not get as much page rank, or popularity, but if it is needed in that location, say, I put the information on "non native plant species" on my business site for my customers, and also on a purely informational site, somehow the big G seems to understand the need for the information to be spread around, and doesn't seem to discount it's value in either place. Now, if you have five pages with the same article on the same site, four of those pages will probably end up in the supplementals or not indexed at all. Can anyone say "DUH"? I have yet to see a "penalty" for anything other than what appears to be, blatant misuse. Having pages listed in supplemental results is not a penalty, just a place to list pages of less importance to the user, usually because they are amazingly similar to other pages.
3. Almost everything ever written about "links". According to popular opinion, you can not attain to the "Kingdom of Page Rank" with out crossing the "Mote of A Thousand Links". To this I say: "Dragon Dung!" Certainly, links help, but the only links that help, are relevant links. Thousands of irrelevant links do not impress search engines. A highly relevant outgoing link will probably do more good. Linking internally is a real help, because, (and this is the real key to the kingdom,) it helps the "User" to navigate the castle. This should teach us something. The key to the kingdom of SEO is user usability! The good outgoing link is a link to help the site user. The internal links are to assist the site user, the incoming links mean that someone else thinks that their users can gain helpful information from the site. This is why buying and selling links for page rank is such an atrocity to Google, and should be considered so by all. It manipulates the search results and sends people down the wrong path. At the end of the day in SEO land, it is the user who should be King!
James Burns is a licensed pest control professional, has been a Certified Professional Turfgrass Manager for more than 16 years, has a lifetime of experience in horticulture and agriculture, and is the owner of Rational Environmental Solutions, an IPM based pest control company in East Texas. He also has many helpful gardening tips at http://www.texpest.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_F._Burns
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