This type of “productization” of my knowledge is one of the goals I push my clients toward regularly (you know who you are!).  I, too, have suffered from the malaise that my most meaningful content is hard to separate myself from.

Perhaps this medium can allow me to do so.  Now, onto the meaningful SEO tips !

Search Engine Optimization Tips

Today, we’re going to learn about the most important part of SEO, the on-page content.  First, content should be written for people, and not for the search engines.  But, your content should be written in such a way that the search engines can tell what your site is actually about.

In order to do this, make sure to use the <title >, <h1 >, and <h2 > tags to contain your targeted keywords.  Also, make sure to use your keywords in your text.  Your target keyword density should be between two and four percent.

Unfortunately, there’s no “perfect” density. But, too scant a density, and the search engines won’t realize that your page is relevant.  Too high a density, and Google will penalize you for spamming.

One easy way to increase or decrease your keyword density, is replacement of pronouns.  If your density is too high, replace your keyword with a pronoun and reduce the density.  If your keyword density is too low, find your use of pronouns when referring to your keyword, and use your actual keyword in its place.

What other Internet Marketing questions can I answer?  Leave a comment and tell me your ideas for future blog posts!

What is Keyword Density?

Keyword density is simply the percentage of your text that consists of your keyword or your keyword phrase.  For example, if your keyword phrase is “internet marketing ”, and you have 100 words on your page.  A singular occurrence of “internet marketing” would be 2% of your copy.  Say it twice, and now you’re up to 4%, very close to being considered “spammy”.  A quick way to dilute your keyword density is simply to add more copy.

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• What the heck are permalinks
• Why would I care about optimizing them?
• Will I have to undergo expensive surgeries in order to optimize?

What’s SEO?

Search Engine Optimization is the science, or art (in many cases) of tweaking things in your favor with the search engines.  No one can “guarantee” top rankings on search engines, because the method by which Search Engines work is not completely known and changes constantly.  In fact, Google even employs real people to validate search engine results – they dig through popular search terms to make sure that people aren’t accidentally getting “bad things” to the tops of the ranks and ruin their good name.

Which brings us to the …

Two Types of SEO

Off-Page SEO

Off Page SEO is when you do things to build in-bound links through any of a variety of methods.  Things like link-directories, link-swapping, and article marketing are all effective ways of building inbound links, thus off-page SEO .

On-Page (or On-Site) SEO

On-page SEO is the type of optimization you can perform on your page of which you are in complete control.  This type of SEO pertains to things like using good keywords in the body and title your pages, having sufficient keyword density and linking to other pages within your site using frequently sought keywords, and the like.

Google takes a look at many on-page factors when determining what makes a page relevant for a certain search term.  One of those factors is the URL of the page itself.  If the URL of the page contains the words that people are searching for, Google lends just a smidge (since there are so many factors) more weight to the likelihood that your page will be found as relevant for the sought keyword.

Here’s an example:

http://Using-Twitter.com/blog/How-To-Retweet

Now, when people are searching for things like “Twitter How To Retweet ” or “Using Twitter Retweet ” or similar phrases, that page will be considered more relevant for those terms because those words (and sometimes complete phrases) are matched perfectly in the URL.

Knowing what you know now… how does a URL like THIS compare?

http://Using-Twitter.com/blog/?p=7

Exactly. ICK!   Which brings us to…

What’s a Permalink?

“Permalink” is an abbreviated form of the phrase “Permanent Link.”  In WordPress, it’s simply the URL someone would use in order to directly link to a specific page in your site.  It’s also the URL that Google will (or won’t) send people to when they search for your targeted keywords.

How do I optimize Permalinks?

WordPress is very configurable, and as such, there’s an easy way to set your URLs to be far more meaningful to the search engines.

1. Open the URL “<YourBlogUrl>/wp-admin/options-permalink.php”So, for the site mentioned above, the link would be

   http://Using-Twitter.com/blog/wp-admin/options-permalink.php

2. In the “Common Settings” section, select the radio button marked “Custom Structure”.
3. In the big text box over to the right of “Custom Structure”, enter this value: “/%postname%/” (without the quotes)
4. Click the “Save Changes” button at the very bottom to put those new setting in to effect.
5. MOST IMPORTANT: Visit your home page and click a few URLs to make sure the new ones look like you expect.  If not, repeat the steps above more closely.

PLEASE NOTE: If you’re using a crappy hosting provider (such as GoDaddy), you will have to wait about 10-15 minutes for your changes to take effect.  Make sure to make these changes during slow traffic periods or after hours.  Better yet, switch your hosting company to one that doesn’t suck .

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After years of running an article site using ASP that I wrote from scratch (my development language of choice as the time – as there weren’t many on the market at the time), I decided to start running with one that had more of the features I was looking for already built in, rather than having to develop them all from scratch.

I’ve started dropping my old Type A habits and picking up some help here and there to get me through some of the stuff that doesn’t require my specific attention.  With all of that said, my Editor brought this article to my attention.  I was flummoxed by how horrible it was.

It was as if someone shoved a perfectly good article into a paper shredder at the same time as a thesaurus.  There is a popular product out there for randomizing your content called Content Spinner, or something like that.  This article looked like Content Spinner got ahold of it.  When I searched for the content on the page, very few actual results came back — so I’m thinking that the bulk of the articles posted in this manner were not accepted or have been deleted.  It would appear that some article marketers believe it’s more important to get links without any effort than it is to actually get links.

I’ve already deleted this flotsam from my Article Directory out of repulsion, so you won’t be able to find it there, but I found it elsewhere.  Read the article for yourself — You absolutely HAVE to read this .

http://www.allbestarticles.com/family/hobbies/extreme-basics-of-indoor-gardening.html

So…

• If you decide to run an article directory — which you may very well, even if it’s simply to drive traffic to your local business site, never ever let an article like this get on your site.  Absolutely everyone will hate you for it.  Children in Bosnia are crying because AllBestArticles.com (sic) posted that tripe.  You don’t want to make the children cry, do you?
• If you decide to give article marketing a shot, and you don’t hire me to handle it for you, absolutely make sure that you never end up with articles that look like the one above.

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