Written by in-the-trenches practitioners, The Website SEO is a well-written step-
by-step guide providing sensible and practical advice on how to implement a
successful SEO program. The authors have created a readable and straightfor-
ward guide filled with concise and easily adopted strategies and tactics any
online business can use. I now have a great resource to recommend when
people ask, `Know any good books on SEO?

An amazingly well-researched, comprehensive, and authoritative guide to
SEO from some of the most well-respected experts in the industry…highly
recommended for anyone involved in online marketing.

In The Website SEO, Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin, and Jessie
Stricchiola have taken on the daunting task of compiling a comprehensive,
step-by-step walk-through of what it takes to rank well on search. They go
well beyond the usual tactical aspects, addressing fundamental challenges like
understanding user intent, integrating an SEO culture within your organiza-
tion, properly measuring success, and managing an SEO project. This is a
deep, deep dive into the world of organic optimization, and you couldn’t ask
for better guides than Spencer, Fishkin, Enge, and Stricchiola. Clear a place on
your desk, What Is Necessary about website seo.

The Website SEO will delight and inform the next generation of skilled SEO prac-
titioners. The author lineup is the search industry equivalent of the classic
musical supergroup–think the Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young of search.
The disciplined and scientific practice of natural search engine optimization is
critical to brand awareness and new customer acquisition. The Website SEO has
transformed what has historically been a misunderstood and mystical market-
ing strategy into an easy-to-comprehend, actionable guide to understanding
and navigating the inner and outer workings of SEO.

If you do a search in Google for `search engine optimization,’ `SEO,’ or any
similar term, you will find countless outdated articles that promote practices
that are not very useful these days–website submissions, link exchanges,
altering meta keyword tags, etc.

These seemingly useful tactics do very little for the ultimate goal of an effective
SEO campaign–to drive meaningful traffic. Because search engines have
changed significantly in the last 10 years, many of these practices are no longer
necessary, while some, like massive link exchanges, are actually considered
search engine `spam.’ If these are what you are expecting from The Website SEO,
you will be positively disappointed. Sure, this book is about everything you
will ever need to know about SEO now and in the near future, but after my
personal technical review of all its merits, I can guarantee you that I couldn’t
find a single piece of nonsensical advice. If you only want one book, get this
one.

You can start from zero and become a SEO master in record time.
In The Website SEO, these four industry leaders have left no stone unturned in
their quest to deliver one of the ultimate resources on search engine optimiza-
tion that has ever been published.

DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. Please. I beg of you. If you compete with us or any
of our clients, do not buy this book. It’s become our go-to source for any-
thing–and everything–we need to know about successful search engine
optimization.
The Website SEO is an extraordinary book chock-full of the most current wisdom
on the constantly changing world of search. This is the one resource you need
to help you build a strong foundation for success with SEO.

There are no better guides through the world of SEO–the combined experi-
ence of these authors is unparalleled. I can’t recommend highly enough that
you buy this book.

If the person who holds your domain name isn’t willing to remove their name as the registrant  well good luck! Depending upon how much that domain name means to you, and/or many other factors, you may want to resort to legal means to try and get it back.What Is Necessary about website seo.

f your name isn’t listed, I encourage you to pick up the phone and ask the other person if they would be so kind as to sign the domain over to you. If they say “Sure, no problem!” … great! All you need to do is contact the company listed as the registrar and find out what you need to do to make the name switch. Many companies have an online form that can be filled out with the information for the changes, and that’s it.

He thought he would just take all the existing content and copy it over to his new domain name and then he’d not have to worry about “bbfred.com” being held hostage. And that he’d then have a leg up over the unethical webmaster. “Oh no”, I told him. I discussed that he couldn’t start up a new site which contained all the “old” content from the first site. There’d be a mess in more than one way AND major duplicate content problems in the search engines.

Now, I have no idea why the individual feels the need to not politely sign the “change of registrant” form which would allow the domain name to now be registered in the good doctor’s name, but the person won’t. I asked him, but he was a bit evasive with his answer. So I figured something else was going on, and it wasn’t my business. After all … Dr. Fred wasn’t a client, he was a prospective client.

So, there must be some deeper reason the registrant isn’t willing to give him his domain name.

website seo

, I guess unscrupulous people are all over the place, aren’t they?

So I asked him “Do you or your webmaster understand what will be entailed in moving all the existing web pages onto the new domain, and how to implement redirects?” His answer really surprised me – not about redirects and what is entailed in changing domain names – but about his webmaster.

I asked if he wanted a domain name change in order to be more targeted or specific in some sort of way as compared to the domain name he was currently using. He said he wanted to change it slightly, feeling the “new” domain name would be better sounding and easier for his patients to remember than the existing domain name. I could partially see his point and we briefly discussed that issue.

I was recently contacted by someone who is interested in my SEO services. I will refer to this person as “MR.zhou”. During the course of our conversation, I was told that MR.zhou has had a website for quite a number of years, but was thinking about changing the domain name.

Often, this means the person they hire will also handle the actual registration of the domain name; possibly provide the hosting service; and most probably will provide webmaster services.

For this post, I am specifically referring to business people who hire someone to give them an online presence – which usually means they hire someone to design a website and put it on the internet. More often than not, the business person has NO CLUE about what it takes to get a business website up and running, nor how to purchase a business domain name, etc. So of course the business owner must hire someone to do these things for them.

Issues like the one I’m going to write about today really make me angry. I dislike it intensely when honest, trusting people get completely taken advantage of by unethical people!

The learning of a search engine generally comes from the uber-geeks hired by and the users of the search engines. Once a factor is taken into account and programmed into the algorithm it them moves into the “knowing” category until the next round of updates.

Arguably, one of the single most effective means of accomplishing this task it to write good articles about your industry and publish them online to various authority sites. Articles written by your company are excellent advertisements and prove that you know what you’re talking about. If a potential client is doing their research into you and finds an article written by your staff on a credible authority website you will have won extra points.

The Learning – Once it is understood that search engines rank documents based on a specific understanding of the way the Internet functions, it then follows that in order to insure that new document types and technologies are able to be read and that the algorithm be changed as new understandings of the functionality of the Internet are uncovered a search engine must have the ability to “learn”.

Similar to the way we process an article from a newspaper based on our current understanding of the world, the search engines process and rank documents based on what they understand to be true in the way documents are organized on the Internet.

While the search engine spiders are crawling the web they are grabbing the stores of data that exist and sending it back to the datacenters, where that information is processed through existing algorithms and spam filters where it will attain a ranking based on the engine’s current understanding of the way the Internet and the documents contained within it work.

The Knowing – Search engines know by crawling. What they know goes far beyond what is commonly perceived by most users, webmasters and SEOs. While the vast storehouse we call the Internet provides billions upon billions of pages of data for the search engines to know they also pick up more than that. Search engines know a number of different methods for storing data, presenting data, prioritizing data and of course, way of tricking the engines themselves.

The instinct of a search engines is important to understand however once one understands what can and cannot be read and how the spiders will crawl a site this will become instinct for you too and can then safely be stored in the “autopilot” part of your brain.

The Instinct – The instinct of a search engines is defined in it’s core functions, that is the crawling of sites and either the inability to read specific types of data, or the programmed response to ignore files meeting a specific criteria. Even the programmed responses become automated by the engines and thus fall under the category of instinct much the same as the westernized human instinct to jump from a large spider is learned. An infant would probably watch the spider or even eat it meaning this is not an automatic human reaction.

The Brain – The brain of a search engine, like the human brain, is the most complex of its functions and components. The brain must have instinct, must know, and must learn in order to function properly. A search engine (

website seo

) must also include these critical three components in order to survive.

The Eyes – The eyes of the search engine are the spiders (AKA robots or crawlers). These are the 1s and 0s that the search engines send out over the Internet to retrieve documents. In the case of all the major search engines the spiders crawl from one page to another following the links, as you would look down various paths along your way. Fortunately for the spiders they are traveling mainly over fiber optic connections and so their ability to travel at light speed enables them to visit all the paths they come across whereas we as mere humans have to be a bit more selective.

The Arms & Legs – Think of the links from the engine itself as the arms and legs. These are the vehicles by which we get where we need to go and retrieve what needs to be accessed. While we don’t commonly think of these as functions when we’re considering SEO these are the purpose of the entire thing. Much as the human body is designed primarily to keep you mobile and able to access other things, so too is the entire search engine designed primarily to access the outside world.

The Lungs & Other Vital Organs – The lungs of a search engine and indeed the vast majority of vital organs are contained within the datacenters in which they are housed. Be it in the form of power, Internet connectivity, etc. As with the human body, we do not generally consider these important in defining who we are, however we’re certainly grateful to have them and need them all to function properly.

To gain a true understanding of what a search engine is, it’s simple enough to compare it to the human anatomy as, though not breathing, SEO will let you exchange the pass for any SES Event in 2010. it contains many of the same core functions required for life.

If we consider for a moment how a search engine functions; it goes out into the world, follows the road signs and paths to get where it’s going, and collects all of the information in its path. From this point, the information is sent back to a group of servers where algorithms are applied in order to determine the importance of specific documents. How are these algorithms generated? They are created by human beings who have a great deal of experience in understanding the fundamentals of the Internet and the documents it contains and who also have the capacity to learn from their mistakes, and update the algorithms accordingly. Essentially we have an entity that collects data, stores it, and then sorts through it to determine what’s important which it’s happy to share with others and what’s unimportant which it keeps tucked away.

To rank a website highly and keep it ranking over time one must optimize it with one primary understanding, that a search engine is a living thing. Obviously this is not to say that search engines have brains, I will leave those tales to Orson Scott Card and other science fiction writers, however their very nature results in a lifelike being with far more storage capacity.

So if we cannot base our optimization on a set of hard-and-fast rules what can we do? The key my friends, is not to understand the tricks but rather what they accomplish. Reflecting back on my high school math teach Mr. Barry Nicholl I recall a silly story that had a great impact. One weekend he had the entire class watch Dumbo The Flying Elephant (there was actually going to be a question about it on our test). Why? The lesson we were to get from it is that formulas (like tricks) are the feather in the story. They are unnecessary and yet we hold on to them in the false belief that it is the feather that works and not the logic. Indeed, the tricks and techniques are not what works but rather the logic they follow and that is their shortcoming.

It is possible to secure top positioning for your company name without spamming the search engines. Doing so requires a significant investment of time, however the payoff can be seo techniques.

Google Analytics users now have better campaign tracking and subscriber consumption statistics for their Feedburner feeds. This week we’re looking at analytics. No, not the normal stuff you probably pay attention to, but a few sneaky little metrics that can give you some great SEO insight.

You’ve probably used the Advanced Search Operator Guide (it’s a useful resource if you haven’t), but Garrett French’s compilation includes 21 advanced queries used by expert link builders to identify link opportunities.

I just started working on a website that didn’t have all of its internal links pointing to the Index Page. Their “home” link was pointing to a seperate version of the index page (very confusin). I redirected all of these links to give the website more juice from internal links.

Dan Siroker left Google to become the Director of Analytics for the Obama Campaign. In his hour long presentation he shares some amazing statistics & interesting tactics they used to help Obama win the election.

I find that’s a useful way to segment search analysis all by itself. If you can separate out the two, you can clearly see trends in the growth of your brand versus the growth of your search relevance. Of course, this assumes you’re 100% relevant for brand-related searches to begin with, and that

website seo

is distinguishable from your important keywords.

How should you track success on sites like Twitter? In a forward-thinking post on social media analytics Avinash offers several suggestions. On a related note, Econsultancy also has a list of 35 Social Media KPIs worth looking over.

There’s still time to get your FREE SES Chicago Pass by purchasing a year of PRO! We’ve only got about a dozen passes left, so you should probably hurry. SES just raised their prices to $1995 for a pass, so $799 for an entire year of PRO and a full-access SES Pass is an awesome deal and if Chicago’s not your thing, SEO will let you exchange the pass for any SES Event in 2010.

This week we’re looking at analytics. Google Guidelines – These are the guidelines, but a few sneaky little metrics that can give you some great SEO insight.  Since it’s now officially the “Holidays,” I’m not going to reveal too much; rather, I’ll let the video serve as an early gift, ready to be opened! Suffice to say, prepare to start looking at your referral traffic, abandonment rates, browse rates, and more in a whole new light.

Total Optimizer Pro – This is the primary SEO tool we use to determine optimal keyword densities and to analyze backlinks.

High Rankings Newsletter – This is a newsletter put out by veteran SEO Jill Whalen. While I may disagree with some of her advice, overall she is one of the best SEO’s in the industry and her newsletter (to which I am subscribed) is a great resource for anyone learning to optimize their own websites.

Google Guidelines – These are the guidelines that Google has set out for webmasters. Read them and add them to your Favorites (make sure the website’s white hat and black hat). Visit this page and review it at least once a month.

Insuring that your content reads well, is organized properly with indicators in place to tell the engines (and the visitors) where the important content is and with easy navigation will help the engines know your site is built for the visitor and highly relevant to the search query. And what more do you want the engines to know than that?

The search engines themselves are getting much better at determining characteristics of a website that will provide a solid visitor experience and this ability is increasing every day (or at least, every update).

De-optimization is not so much the reduction of the ranking factors insomuch as it is a return to the original intent of a website which is to cater to the visitor. As the end goal of the search engines is to provide the best possible set of search results for a specific query it logically follows that websites should strive to attain an excellent visitor experience in order to attain and maintain high rankings.

Insuring that there is a solid use of your main keywords across as many of your pages as possible while keeping the visitor experience enjoyable and informative will create a stronger overall site and further increase your ability to rank that site for multiple related phrases as well as your primary phrase.

This is the one area where de-optimization does not apply and can be viewed as the balancing factor. While you are working to de-optimize your individual web pages you will want to simultaneously build the overall relevancy of your site to your targeted phrases.

The key here is to use these formats when appropriate. It should be noted that if you are targeting a phrase like “google” there will be spots in your text where you will naturally want to bold the text to draw the visitor’s eye to the phrase they have searched. For example, you would likely use special text in a sentence at the top of your page that reads, “Google: The Way The World Searches.” Whereas if further down your page you had a sentence the read, “Then one day I was sitting at my computer and Googled …” you would be much less likely to need to use any formatting outside the usual used for your general content.

For this reason special text is highly powerful from and SEO-perspective (and for all the right reasons as it’s highly effective from a human visitor perspective). Based on the article noted above we have noticed people bolding every instance of their targeted phrase on their site. This might have worked back when the engines were first calculating this in as a factor however as with any trick that’s used, it quickly got detected and filtered.

As with keyword density, done correctly there’s the added perk of ranking well for a variety of phrases.

For example, in a link to the Beanstalk site we may use “seo services” much of the time but if all our links appeared this way it would be far less effective and thus, we also use anchor text like “seo service”, “search engine positioning services”, “seo firm”, etc. to insure that we don’t have too many identical backlinks but at the same time promoting our core phrases throughout.

The same principle applies to backlink anchor text as applies to keyword densities. Having 10,000 links to your site all with the same keyword phrase in them is going to look suspicious to say the least. Altering your text is obviously useful to help you attain rankings for multiple phrases but when you have only a couple of key phrases it helps to use plurals or otherwise altered forms of your main keywords.

Let’s say you’ve found that in your industry the optimal keyword density is 3.5% on Google but you don’t necessarily want to target the high end of the spectrum. Using variations of the keyword is the easiest and most effective route to go. Rather than using the word “google” 7 times in that 200 words it will be more effective to use the word “google” four times, “googled” a couple times and perhaps, “googling” once. Plural, past tense, etc. are used by the major search engines as similar but not identical keywords.

First, let’s note that a 10% keyword density is WAY too high to begin with. I can’t specifically give an optimal keyword density in an article as there’s a good chance it will be read months from now when the densities are different. The ideal way to calculate optimal densities is to figure out what the densities of the current top 10 are and target appropriately.

website seo

For those not aware of the concept of keyword density it is the overall percentage of your page content that is made up of the targeted keywords. A simple example would be a 200 word page on which you are targeting a single keyword such as “google”. If you use the word “google” 20 times on the page you would have a keyword density of 10% (keywords / words * 100 = keyword density).

With these areas addressed properly a site stands a much higher chance of ranking for the phrases being targeted and perhaps more importantly, holding those rankings over time.