Best SEO Practices
-
I've been doing SEO for quite some time now but with the recent updates I've been told that I'm doing some things wrong now. I just want to make sure that I'm not missing anything from a SEO standpoint, let me know what your thoughts are.
On-Page
Max of 3 keywords on homepage linking to internal optimized pages
Links to these pages on other pages using your keywords
XML and HTML sitemaps
Using only WWW or no-WWW version of the site, make sure this is also set in .htaccess and google webmaster toolsEach optimized internal page should have this:
content is king, write for readability
max 2 keywords per page
keyword in slug or html page name
keyword density of 3-5%
keyword 2 times in title and meta description (preferably at beginning and end)
keyword in bold, italic, and underline
keyword in h1
keyword in h2-6 if possible
keyword in image alt tags
low code to text ratio
valid HTMLOff-page
Link directories
article directories
social media links and likes/+1s
web 2.0 links
forum profile and signature links
pdf links (slideshare, google docs, pdfcast, scribd)
social bookmark links
blog comments on related sites
yahoo answers
edu and gove links
authority sites carry much better link juice
build backlinks to your backlinksFrom what I understand forum profiles and web 2.0 aren't as powerful as they used to be, is all of this correct?
-
Latent dirichlet allocation is the newest school of thought on content: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/lda-and-googles-rankings-well-correlated
Essentially focusing on contextual clues to reinforce the idea of what a page is really about.
Writing about Jaguar the animal, talk about fur. Writing about Jaguar the car, mention spark plugs.
Here's a followup article to SEOMoz's that's quite informative: http://www.seangolliher.com/2010/seo/185/
It get's into the actual math of the data.
-
I would drop the "keyword in bold, italic and underlined" as well as worrying at all about density. I would only do that if it enhances the page for the reader rather than bolding etc... a word simply because it is your targeted term for the page. Also - alt tags are very important, yes, but remember to describe the image, don't just throw keywords in. I think will all of the recent talk about 'Over Optimization' those are things that the algo's could potentially be looking for etc...
-
Thanks for the info!
-
Hi Terry,
It is important to include exact match keywords and related keywords in each page's meta data, headers, and content. As for an exact keyword density, we do not use this as an on-page factor anymore. Just make sure you use the keywords you want to show up for in the meta data, headers, and content, while keeping the content user focused.
-
Hi Terry,
It is important to include exact match keywords and related keywords in each page's meta data, headers, and content. As for an exact keyword density, we do not use this as an on-page factor anymore. Just make sure you use the keywords you want to show up for in the meta data, headers, and content, while keeping the content user focused.
-
Thanks, I forgot about that one. Are the on-page factors still important such as the keyword density or has this changed too?
-
Link directories and the web 2.0 backlinks to backlinks strategy is not very effective anymore. Blog commenting is typically marked with a nofollow link, so that will not do much for you. Many of the other
Several of the elements on your list are still very important for SEO, but knowing this is only the start, especially regarding off-page. Knowing where to get the links is good, but the more important factors is knowing how to get the links, which is best done through out reach and creating things for your link targets that merit a link.
Also, your off-page list is missing one very effective link building tool which is guest posting. This is a great way to acquire quality links.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Will Huge bounce rate from social media visits affect SEO or website Ranking according to Google algorithm factors?
We have one website and have posted our blog post url in the social media sites and got almost 5k visits in 3 days’ time, with 11sec avg time on site, zero conversions and with 97% bounce rate. This in turn reduced the total conversion rate for the same month to less than 0.5%. According to google algorithm, these are factors affecting website ranking. Can anyone guide me whether which visits from social media affect our website in any case based on these Analytics factors? Please help me out on the same! Note: Blog post topic was related to latest technology update and the landing page also based in the respective topic as well.
Social Media | | zco_seo0 -
Best way to utilize a BBC television appearance for Internet Marketing
I was just contacted by BBC and asked to appear on a breakfast program talking about psychotherapy. It is not certain that it is going ahead but more likely than not. Assuming it does what would you say would be the best way to utilise this opportunity through marketing (particularly internet marketing) afterwards? If this goes ahead I would be at the studio for 7am or so and be gone by 9am or so. My website only gets a few hundred visitors through organic traffic and my Twitter and other social media accounts were only started recently so have fairly low levels of followings.
Social Media | | LighthouseC0 -
Does Twitter and Facebook feeds help SEO
For a new site, I want to feed in Twitter updates and Facebook posts onto the page. I regularly update these feeds. I'm using PHP to directly integrate with the two sites API and grab the data. Is this a good idea? Will it help SEO as its fresh content? Is it a good or bad idea to have a social media feed page on the site that grabs content from these sites?
Social Media | | gazza101uk0 -
How does Social Media really Impact SEO?
It's become a common refrain that social media is critical to SEO. Taking this literally, I have been examining the impact of social media on specific pages and topical areas within my site. Specifically, I am looking at pages and content areas that we promote and link to via social media and I am seeing zero correlation to SEO success. Social media is not impacting my rankings at all. And we have a sizable social footprint. Has anyone else done this type of analysis and seen different results?
Social Media | | AmyLB0 -
Does buying thousands of Facebook Fans/Likes affect SEO?
To begin with, please pardon me if this question is ignorant. I'm completely new to this whole social media thing, and somewhat feel it is overhyped. I find it really difficult to believe that social media will actually help the majority of small business owners out there like me, and that most of them are probably being misled about the powers of social media to increase sales. Because it's mentioned so frequently, I've decided to delve into it a bit more to see how this could possibly help me business. Over the past few weeks, I've become familiar with a company that sells Facebook Likes, Twitter followers, as well as YouTube and SoundCloud plays. Since my official Twitter and FaceBook accounts really didn't have that many followers, I decided to buy a few thousand followers for each account. Initially, I bought them because I wondered what would happen if a customer that visited my online store happened to go to those Twitter and Facebook pages. If I personally see a Facebook page with few followers, I probably wouldn't give them my business. I would want to go with a company that seems to generate a bunch of traffic to their pages. Originally, I only had about 200 Facebook followers (now called Likes, it seems) and maybe 25 Twitter followers. I now have over 12,000 Twitter followers and 2,000 Facebook Likes. I may end up buying more since the service was pretty quick and affordable. I'd like to know if Google factors Likes and followers into it's formula for creating SERPS. Will my website rank higher if I have 10,000 likes, rather than only 200? If so, would it be a notable increase? FWIW, I found that more people organically started following my Facebook and Twitter accounts once I had more followers. I didn't change anything about how I maintained the page; I just had more people following them. One other thing of note: these companies are almost certainly using fake/hacked accounts to like various pages around Facebook/Twitter. You can tell because my Facebook page says some city in Croatia has the most amount of 'likes' of my page. Do you think this might come into play at all? Thanks for any and all help!
Social Media | | CHEATERS0 -
Employing Pinterest for SEO gain.
Hi I wanted to see if the SEO team have had any feedback from members who have started to use Pinterest. I've had it for a month or so now and I've been adding pins every day since - (quite addictive actually). What is interesting is the gender element to the people who are following and repinning my pins and boards i.e. female. It would be interesting to understand why this the case, why is it so popular with female users. Ultimately I'm tyring to guage the benefits of employing Pinterest for SEO purposes and whether its worth keeping it in my arsenal of social tools. Any insights welcome. http://pinterest.com/visualizations Best David
Social Media | | David-E-Carey0 -
What's the best way to get links from images?
I have a few images that I have taken recently and I was wondering what might be the best way to use them. Ideally I would like to get a few links or some interest via social networks. I know I've a few options including: adding images directly to the website adding images to Flickr or similar adding images to Google+ adding images to Facebook adding images to twitpic or similar I was also intending in keeping some images to include directly in posts. Should I concentrate posting images directly on the site or use social networks? Which social networks work well for images? How can I use images to get links?
Social Media | | andywozhere0 -
What are current SEO Treads to improve your ranking
What are current SEO Treads to improve your ranking and increase the website Au What are the factors impacting SEO and how?
Social Media | | diyawards
How do you win over these Factors to ensure you get good results?
How do you measure these Factors (tools you use)?0