It’s an SEO Battle!
Like any business person would do, I spent a few hours last night researching my competition’s SEO techniques to see who I felt would get and keep the viable lead. I got a few great ones, and a few poor ones, but all of them could be improved (myself especially). Now today, I read a comment from Forest on SiteFlipU.com and decided that in the spirit of helping everyone learn a little more, I’d post my results here for you guys and gals to read. Question? Ask away!
Act High Brow
Title Tag: acthighbrow.com = Lacks Common search terminology. Try something like “High Society News“.
Description: 993 characters = This is too many characters for what would be considered a ‘robot friendly’ web page. Reduce the number of characters by 50%.
Keyword Accuracy: 36% = Try reducing the number of keywords to bring your average up higher. Remove “fluff” words or “stop” words like: your, and, of, is, to, the, in, how, i, why‘ as they are stop words and ignored by the most search engines while diluting actual relevancy.
Robots Meta: No Robots tag found. = Consider adding them to help entice “crawl” frequency. For example, adding a “revisit” tag, would help control the speed in which your content will be indexed… in this case quicker.
Content Rank: The top ranking term is “2008″ = Consider adjusting your blogs output of date and time stamps.
Anchor Text Rank: The top ranking term is “read the rest” = Consider editing your theme files to output search relevant text. For example: “More news from high society…”
Travel Tips Digest
Title Tag: frugal zeitgeist = 100% relevant to your content so well done!. If you’re looking to improve, I’d Consider “adding” long tail search terms for example: “location”, “type of travel” “summer travel tips” or “seasons”
Description: 498 characters = Great job! No changes needed.
Keyword Accuracy: Good = Try removing “fluff” words or “stop” words like: your, and, of, is, to, the, in, how, i, why‘ as they are ignored by the most search engines while diluting actual relevancy.
Robots Meta: No Robots tag found. = Consider adding them to help entice “crawl” frequency. For example, adding a “revisit” tag, would help control the speed in which your content will be indexed… in this case deeper.
Content Rank: The top ranking term is “luggage” = Consider adjusting your content to contain more of your “Long Tail” search terms.
Anchor Text Rank: The top ranking term is “WordPress” = By adjusting your own link’s anchor text, this can be quickly and easily fixed.
Frugal Zeitgeist
Title Tag: frugal zeitgeist = Lacks Common search terminology. Try something like “Your Resource for Coupons, Discounts, and Freebies!“.
Description: None found. = Almost every search engine uses description tags. Add a description tag immediately!
Keyword Accuracy: 2101 characters found and are 56% content relevant = Try removing “fluff” words or “stop” words like: your, and, of, is, to, the, in, how, i, why‘ as they are ignored by the most search engines while diluting actual relevancy as well as removing all but about 20 terms.
Poisonous Words: “Forum” = Remove this word from your keyword tag.
Death Words: “Free”, “Best”, and “Great”. = Remove these words from your keyword tag
Robots Meta: No Robots tag found. = Consider adding them to help entice “crawl” frequency. For example, adding a “revisit” tag, would help control the speed in which your content will be indexed… in this case quicker.
Content Rank: The top ranking term is “frugal” = Consider adjusting your content to contain more of your “Long Tail” search terms.
Anchor Text Rank: The top ranking term is “General Articles” = By adjusting your own link’s anchor text, as well as changing your theme’s output text, this issue can be quickly and easily fixed.
So what about the rest of the contestants?
Well the top three optimized blogs are listed below. They are ranked in order of accuracy and completion. The hands down best was by a mile! So good going Blogger Search! However, what would a top contender list be without the worst contender as well. It wouldn’t… so the hands down worst, is my own “Blog Fluff“. Blog Fluff has had a really rough start, and now that I’, weeks behind, I’m not sure that I have a shot in hell. That said, when it launches, Blog Fluff will be a totally awesome resource for bloggers of every niche with almost any goal. Just stay tuned… it’s gonna be good!
I hope that you all learned a little something about your blogs. I’m trying once again to share a little knowledge with you all to see every one of you succeed. No body can ever say I’m not a team player! I appreciate comments, even if they are in a question form, so please feed the need and show me a little comment love… things have been a little bleak in that department over the past few days. This goes for Non-Contestants as well.
July 13th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Hey PB,
So can I change most of this within the SEO plugin??
When you say remove fluff words, do you mean from my tags?
If I remove the fluff from the said tags is it right ot assume that I could still rank for them longtails as Google ignores them anyway?
I think I am getting indexed within a few hours of posting so is the revisit tag needed? If I add it for every 1 day will this mean that the engines will ONLY come by once a day?
Lats thing (for this comment
), how can I check my keyword relevancy after I have made all these changes or do you own some expensive program.
The last few posts have been written and tagged specifically with long tails keyword phrases.
Thanks very very much. I know I need to do this kind of thing on a few sites. Some of them just naturally rank really well though…… it’s weird!
July 13th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
The “All in One SEO” plugin can change some of these for you. So if you don’t have it it might be a good idea to get it. If you do have it, you might want to play with the settings a bit to make it work better for you.
Fluff words… are ignored, however so are the keyword tags for the most part these days. I recommend using only a FEW keywords… but those few should only be used because it might be lacking in your content, but important all the same.
Actually, you are not being indexed within hours. You’re being listed. S
ee, Google’s ping service will list your recent activity if you ping it via a blog. However, a TRUE indexing can take weeks.
The revisit tag is for search engine spiders… not pings… there is a HUGE difference! Just because your latest post gets listed, does not mean that Google actually “spidered” your site, followed links, indexed content, and measured your relevancy. I always recommend a 3 day revisit, so that you have a change to change quite a bit of content in that three days… spiders like new content like fat kids like cupcakes.
If you’d like to insure your indexing, you should submit your site to the Open Directory project. Once there, Google will generally just include you out of principle.
I’m sure there are some freebies out there, but none of them are the same. Each service has their own idea of what is good and what is bad. Drop me a comment when you ready, and I’ll scan it again for you.
Tags… like tags you insert via your “write post” panel… those SHOULD NOT BE INDEXED! You should limit via robots tags, the following of certain things. Tags and Categories are just two examples.
July 13th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Thanks man…..
A few more Q’s if that is ok :)!!
I had always been advised to index tags before and use them as alternate long tail keywords.
I use the All in One SEO but have never added any keywords whilst writing my posts.
So the thing that is confusing me is…. if I never added any keywords, where are they listed. And if I never added them how can I go in and remove fluff?? Hope this makes sense!!!
July 13th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Sure it’s okay… I just rescanned and this was the result.
Title: Living in a frugal way
Title Relevancy to site content: 100%
Description: No Errors and reads: Your guide to living frugally in your life. With frugal advice, articles and regular coupons, freebies and tips to save money today.
Keywords: 82% relevancy with 5 words
GREAT JOB!!! You’re almost 100%… now just work on that in house anchor text as well as that Robots data and you’ll be good to go.
As for advice that was given to you… “Tags” can be indexed, but content, anchor text, backlinks, and Header tags are given more credit without the risk of looking like spam.
July 13th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Thanks very much, it is much appreciated.
You made me think of something actually……
The way I used to get ranked very high for my posts was to find a decent long tail and try and use this in the title of the post and drop it in the post text once or twice.
Then I would use seo tool to make the title to the article the exact long tail key phrase.
I never used to index tags and I would often rank in the top page within a day…… thinking about it now, since I started indexing tags I hardly ever rank that high that quickly.
Maybe I got sandboxed for spamming google with tags and now have to prove to them that I am legit!!!
July 13th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Wowza! My blog is the most SEO optimized. This makes me laugh, because i kinda know what im doing, and i kind dont.
Myabe i dont give myself enough credit. I dont know. There is alot of technicality behind blogging when it comes to SEO. (both onsite seo and offsite seo)
I wonder if maybe im the only one who has the All IN ONE SEO plugin installed. Maybe that is my edge? PB, let me know if that is it. Is anyone else using it. This plugin is suppose to automate alot of the SEO stuff on ones blog. I use it on all my blogs.
Once installed, it has a configuration screen in the wp admin dashboard. It is easy to install, dont get me wrong, but to be honest there are a few options in the plugin, i have no idea what they do. So i just leave these options untouched.
Another wp plugin i use is called, SEO Title. This plugin is suppose to automagically set up your titles correctly. It makes the blog name appear second in the title bar. Thats all i can intelligently tell you about this one. I also use it on all my blogs.
Good to know im doing something right. Sweeeet! Thanxs, PB.
If anyone needs anything, let me know. I’m here to help as well!
July 13th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Let me add, that trying to figure out all the ins and outs of SEO can make ones head spin. There is this one blogger by the name of Joost (Van De something or other) and he has a slew of advanced SEO plugins, but i cant even get into it, cause like i said above it makes my head spin.
Something about crawl-ability and onsite this and that, arghh, it is very advanced stuff. Atleast i think so. I just try and not get too fancy with it.
Below is a link to his site, if anyone wants a major headache. LOL.
http://yoast.com/wordpress/
He is good, he does know his stuff. I just find it all abit too advanced. But you can try it and see if you get it.
July 13th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
@ Missy: The Joost DeVolk is a great force in the WordPress blog optimization world. His plugins are some of the best and yes, though complicated, his advice is always something we should follow.
As for what you did, and what you didn’t do on purpose, I’m not sure of. What I AM sure of… is an old adage that says:
“Those who do not truly know, affect those who know, more than they both may ever know”
Yeh, pretty deep, but very true. See when you know something… or think you know something… you can over think, over plan, over react, and over due almost anything you’re set out to do. That applies to SEO as well.
You can try to hard. You can try to do everything at once. You can try to “understand” something that cannot be fully understood. Without slamming you… I’d say your lack of knowledge is probably what had you set up from the get go.
Why do I say that? Well… everyone to my knowledge is using the All-In-One SEO Pack. That means that everyone knows the value of optimizing our blogs at least has some working knowledge of the tools needed to make an SEO friendly website. However, each of us is on a little different level than the next making our choices when using them much different.
Oh… and just to let you know… Forest has now taken the lead for being the most SEO friendly blog in the contest! LOL… you better get crackin!
(Gotta keep the motivation alive!)
July 13th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
@ Missy: One more note. I tried commenting on your blog, however it required me to be logged in. There is no button ANYWHERE that I could find, so I could not comment. When I clicked “login” is still failed to provide me with a registration page!
I’d ditch that program right quick and open the doors for commentators!
July 14th, 2008 at 3:14 am
@ Missy: yeah I tried to make commments too and it proved all too hard. Agree with PB above!
@ PB: Spiders like new content like fat kids like cupcakes! LMAO. Good to see that I rank fairly well in terms of seo. I am not fully proficient at it but getting better all the time. Your posts are certainyl helping anyway. What did you use to check this? I always use seocentro.com they have a great meta tag analyser on there.
Anyway, in your expert opinion, what improvements do I need to make?
July 14th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Nice post PB, with some great advice for everyone, not just the contestants.
(Must go and check my meta tags on some of my sites now. Some are okay, some are garbage… oh well!).
I am eagerly awaiting BlogFluff.com so that I can link to it in some way (I have already done so with a couple here so far), but I see it’s down as I write this.
I guess you are working on the site right now… I hope so anyway!
Will be back to take a look and make a link later
July 14th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Oh my god, i wonder how many millions of comments i’ve lost out on, because of the problem you refer to above. Yikes!
Hmmm, i will have to look into it pronto. Was it asking for registration? Because as far as i know i didnt enable that. I usually allow comments freely and anyone can leave them. Let me take a look.
Thanxs for letting me know @PB and @AP.
July 14th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
@ Missy: There is a difference between “your comment is awaiting moderation” and “you must register to comment on this blog”. Registration means that I am given some sort of authoring rights to create or modify posts.
The registration page was no where to be found so the option to even create a comment was unavailable.
It appears you’ve got it working fine now, so maybe you’ll start getting those comments!
July 15th, 2008 at 7:31 am
Hey PB. Did you miss my question above?
July 15th, 2008 at 9:57 am
@ RG: You’re looking okay right now. Remove fluff words like the letter “A” in “A History of…” it’s a fluff word.
Your content compared to the Title is about 79%.
As for your description… it’s about 76% relevant. Remove references to things you would not search for. Like the long tails search term… “favorite reggae artists” the word favorite is something that will register poorly as well as dilute you entire site’s content relevancy.
Your anchor text is 100% and your Keyword Concentration is 80%… All I think you need to do, is revise the description a bit, and keep writing content. You’re doing really well.
July 15th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Hey, all:
I’m getting a 500 error page on SiteFlipU. Anyone else getting this?
July 15th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Hey Missy… problem will be fixed shortly (hopefully)… We’re having some database issues.
July 15th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Welcome back Bryan!
@ PB:Thank you my friend. I will get on it and truly appreciate the feedback. Not like you have not done enough for me recently or anything?!?! Cheers Mr Piss!
July 15th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Mr. Piss,
I have a domain name for my very own blog. What is my next step?
July 15th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Hey Bryan, glad to see you back. I hope you feel ok.
July 17th, 2008 at 9:33 am
New post! New post!
July 17th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
@ Daily Belle: Done with some good ones to come!