SEO Training

It can seem like an impossible choice. SEO or Usability. Where is the compromise?

SEO is vital to the success of any website.  After all, if you can’t get found, then you can’t give your message.  However, once you have been found, it would be nice if people actually stayed on your site and read some of your content instead of clicking off somewhere else within seconds.  Content writing skills are extremely important.

Why are SEO and User Experience often opposites?

It all comes down to how the human mind works and how algorithms work.  Take pictures for example.  Google can’t “see” your graphics in the same way as humans do.

Despite huge improvements in search algorithms, the bottom line is that they still place a massive emphasis on original text content.

This contradicts what humans like to read.  We are the exact opposite.  We don’t really like reading online.  We like pictures and lots of them.

Heuristics – what have they ever done for us?

Jakob Nielsen is regarded by most as the father of usability heuristics (heuristics simply means that the rules are only loosely defined rather than strict).  It is worth reading through them.  What usability heuristics do is give us a rough template on how to not annoy users of both applications and websites (websites being a type of application really).

Keep Visitors Longer

By sticking to heuristic principles we have more chance of keeping our visitors for longer on our site, and of giving them an experience that in all probability they don’t particularly notice.  Not getting noticed in this case is a good thing.  We have all been frustrated on websites by not being able to simply navigate to where we want to go.  Mostly we just look for a new site when that happens.  This is the converse of heuristic principles.

This eye tracking study shows how we tend to read in a vaguely f shaped pattern online. This shows the importance of top google ranking too by the way.

How humans read web pages

We, as humans, read web pages quite differently to how we would read a book.  Broadly speaking, we scan down the left hand side of a web page, reading headings and only some of the words in the paragraphs below them.  How much depends on the level of interest the headline and the first few words invoked.

Thus, the way I wrote that last paragraph was not ideal from a heuristics point of view, since I essentially repeated the heading in my first line.  However that was ideal from an SEO perspective.  I train people to write like that.

Humans like short and snappy text, preferably backed up with pictures.  Google likes text, text and more text.  This is why content writing is such an artform.

How to please both humans and search engines with your content

I was recently working on a site relaunch for a recruitment agency specialising in Medical Jobs.  The website ranked really well for their chosen keywords within a very competitive niche market (no prizes for guessing who does their SEO!). However, the front page had a LOT of text on it that 99% of visitors would never read.

For the relaunch user experience was high on the list of priorities.  But we were faced with a problem.  A good user experience and lots of text on the front page do not good bedfellows make.

The solution was to turn to javascript and make the front page into a slideshow.  Not any javascript will do, and Ajax will not do at all.  The key to this is to make sure that when you view the source of your page, all the content is visible.  This means that search engines get to read all of your text.

Users get movement and interaction (which are plusses) while having the information broken down in such a way that they are more likely to read more of that text.

Did making a slideshow help keep visitors?

Yes it did.  Putting the information into a slideshow increased the average time on the front page of the site by 16 seconds straight away.  This means that people are actually staying to read the information, which is what you want if you have a website.

Benefits of Heuristics to SEO

Google take things like bounce rate and time on site into consideration for SEO too.  So, by providing a better user experience and keeping visitors longer through the use of heuristic principles, you are also improving your standing with the search engines.

How do I know if I should break up text on my page?

It is not always the case that text needs to be broken up for humans to appreciate it properly.  It is very simple to find out if your page needs help.  Use your analytics.  The key factor here is the amount of time spent on the page.  If it is really low on a page that has a lot of text then it stands to reason that your users are not reading it.  If that doesn’t upset you it should.  The only reason it would not upset you is if the content is really only there for the search engines.  In other words it’s spam content.  There should be nothing on your website that you do not want people to read.  Spam content can be recognised by search engines simply by measuring the time your visitors spend on your page.  If it’s too short for the amount of content, then the quality of the writing must be really bad. Thus at the very least, the page does not deserve to be ranked highly.

I don’t like slideshows (other ways to break up text)

If you have a lot of text on your page that you realise could not possibly be read in the time your analytics say people are taking to read it then you need to make some changes.  The following are ways of breaking up text in a page to make it more accessible…

• Lists.  Put your content into lists.  They are easier to read than straight paragraphs.
• Plenty of headings.  These hugely increase the chances of people reading more of your content.
• Boxes.  Place your content into bite sized individual boxes.
• Pictures. Pictures and picture captions are about the only thing that will distract us from reading down the left hand side of a page at the speed of light.  We love images.  However, stock images that we have seen before tend to be ignored.  Your pictures have to get attention too.
• Ruthless editing.  Big long sentences are bad.  Get rid of your verbose ramblings and stick to the point. (I could do with remembering that one).
• Highlight text. Using bold or italic text helps to get pertinent points noticed.

As always, remember that keyword stuffing is really annoying to users.  I don’t want to read about seo training in the latest seo training article on this seo training website.  Neither do search engines.  It may work to some extent, but it’s effect on users is to make you look bad, so don’t do it!

In my last post I wrote about on-page search engine optimisation.  Of course that is only half the story.  Unless you are lucky enough to operate in a vertical with no competition then you are going to need to do some off-page SEO too. Understanding how google works is imperative if you want to make progress in this area.

Build links to elevate your website in Google (SEO for SERPS)

Off page SEO is where most sites fall down.

Most sites fall down somewhere in their SEO efforts.  If you are happy that your on-page SEO optimisation is up to scratch then it is time to look at off-page optimisation.

How Google rates your site in plain english.

The currency of the web is links. Every link provides important information for search engines like Google. This information is used to rank your website in terms of importance when somebody does a search.
There are some key factors in establishing which sites are most relevant for whatever has been typed into the Google search bar. In establishing how important your page is relative to others, these are some of the more important factors: -

1. How many other pages link to your page? Look at it logically.  If I find a great bit of information on something I’m writing about then I will link to it.  If it is rubbish then I will link to something else.  Therefore, the more inbound links a page has then the more likely it is to be a useful page.  That makes it more important.
2. How relevant is the content on the linking page to your page? Is the page that the link is on covering a similar topic?  Indeed is the website itself generally writing on the same topic as your page?  If it is not then your link will carry less value.  There must be relevance.
3. How important is the linking page? How well does the page the link comes from rank itself?  If that page also has a high trust and multiple inbound links to it then it will increase the value of the link to your page.
4. How many people click on that link? Think of each click as a vote.  The more people that follow the link the better.
5. What do those visitors do when they reach your page? Do they stay and read for a while and visit other pages on your site or do they just leave straight away?  If they leave (bounce rate is high) then that will devalue the link too since it is obviously not providing visitors with a good experience.

Turbocharge your links

Ideally you want keywords in the link text.  This will turbocharge your links.  This site is about SEO training, and my main site also has a page on Search Engine Optimisation on it, so linking to it like that makes sense.  It is relevant to this site and provides a further resource for people who want to have their website optimised.  Because I have used the text that I want the page to rank for (in this case “search engine optimisation”) as my link text, I am telling search engines that the page I linked to is important for that phrase.

SuperTurbocharge your links

Don’t forget to add in your title text to your links.  This is another opportunity to tell both humans and search engines more about the page you are linking to.  In this example I have used the text “SEO consultant Wicklow”.  By hovering over the link this text will come up.  The code for doing this is <a href=”http://whatever.ie/whatever” title=”SEO consultant Wicklow”>

Where can I get links to my site?

At some stage every webmaster (that’s what you are if you run a website) runs into the problem of where to get links back to their site.  Here are six ways to get links…

1. Ask for them.  Ask people who run relevant websites to link to your website.  The worst they can say is “no”.
2. Directories.  Submit your site to relevant directories.  Some of these are useless, but some still carry a little weight.
3. Submit Press releases and articles to press release sites and article sites.  Many of these have just been depreciated with the so called Google Panda update, but as a rule of thumb if you can find a suitable site easily it probably has not been affected by the update.
4. Utilise social media.  You will not get a lot in the way of useful links from the sites themselves usually (most have nofollow attributes on their links), but by getting your content out there in the social world there is a higher chance of somebody else reading it and linking to it (organically the way all links should theoretically be made!).  It is also a good PR exercise, so no excuses for not using social media like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Digg etc.
5. Forums.  These really come under the social media category in some ways.  They are of limited use but can sometimes create a good stream of traffic which is never a bad thing.
6. Blog.  This is my favourite way.  Establish a good blog and it will become a resource in itself that will gain in importance.  It is a low cost way of building links for long term gain.  Commenting on somebody elses blog is less useful.  What about doing a guest blog post on someone elses popular blog?

Do NOT do this to get links!

Here are some things you should definitely avoid when building links to your site…..

1. Buying links: This is the number one thing not to do to boost your SEO.  Buying links is bad.  It goes against Google policy and you WILL be penalised for it when you get caught.  Think you won’t?  Trust your competitors not to drop you in it by reporting you when they find out how you got above them in the Google ranks?  Don’t do it.
2. Reciprocal Links: “I’ll give you a link if you give me a link”.  My next post will probably be on Reciprocal links for more information.  The short reason is that you want more links in to your website than out of your site.
3. Pay somebody else to build your links without knowing exactly what they are going to do: It may seem obvious but lots of people pay for others to build their links (I even provide that service myself), but many do not know where those links are going to come from or the methods used in getting them.
4. Go for quantity over quality: Leading on from the last point, you need quality links and quality is harder to get than quantity.  If you have many links from unrelated sites it could lower the level of trust in your site.  If you owned a search engine would you rank sites you trusted lower than sites you didn’t trust?

Link Building is not an exact science.

All your links are not going to be ideal.  What I have done here is give an overview, but there is quite a bit more to it.  There are times to break the rules and times not to.  I have paid for links because of positioning and only on specific, relevant sites.  This has been more to do with gaining traffic through them than what it will do for my own sites Organic Listing SEO.  I have never and will never bulk buy links (I learned from others mistakes there).

If you found this useful then share it!

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Do you want the content you have written for the internet to rank higher than your competitors?  Of course you do.  In order to rank highly you must first understand how Google works.  This should be a starting point for any SEO training.

Understanding How Google Search Algorithms Work in Simple English

Here is a simple version of how Google works in laymans English.  If you know how Google looks at a page then you can make sure that your content is written in a way that is complementary and therefore help you to rank higher on Google and other search engines.

At the core of Google is a set of mathematical algorithms.  Their purpose is to  try to determine the relevance of your page as opposed to other pages for a specific search term.  Imagine being given a billion pages of text in a language you don’t understand and having to give back the most relevant page for information on a word you also don’t understand.  You may know that there are pictures, but you can’t see them.  That is what it is like for the algorythm!

I am going to describe the process the Google search algorithms have to go through as if I was the algorithm.

If somebody was to do a search for “flabrat” then I am first going to look at URL’s to see if any of them have “flabrat” in them.  This is because flabrat.com is more likely to have information on “flabrat” than “globsheen.com”.  However, globsheen.com/flabrat.html is also highly likely to have some relevance.

Unfortunately there is no guarantee that a pages content has any relevance to its name without going and reading it.

Meta Title

The first information I will find on a page is the Meta Title.  This is the text that will be displayed in my search results.  Does this say “flabrat” in it?  If it does then I could be on the right track.

Meta Keywords

I’m going to take a cursory look at the Meta keywords too if they exist.  Not that I am going to put any weight behind them at all.  I’m just checking to see if they look spammy to me.  If they do I’m going to assume that the rest of the page is also trying to pull the wool over my eyes a bit.

H1 tag

Next comes the H1 tag.  This is really really really important.  The h1 tag is the heading for the whole page.  It is the heading that people will actually see when they view the page.  If the word “flabrat” is used in the h1 tag then there is a good chance that the page is actually about flabrat. See The importance of h tags for more information.

Other Header tags (h2, h3 etc)

These are sub-headings and should relate to the content in the text that comes after them.  They are not as important as the h1 tag but are still useful, particularly for breaking up your text and making it more readable for us humans.  The header tags used in these segments are h3 tags.

p tags

Not content with just looking at the title, like Google, I will then look at the actual content of your text contained in p tags or paragraph tags.  The first paragraph is particularly important, but if it was me I would be looking for the word flabrat throughout the entire document.

I would become suspicious if it appeared a lot though, so don’t overdo your keyword density.

Pictures

Google can’t actually see pictures.  Google can however read text associated with pictures.  For this reason your picture file names and alt text should both reflect your keywords.  Think of it as another way of getting your keywords onto the page without being overly spammy.  Without alt text in your images (img src=”images/picture.jpg” alt=”a flabrat in full bloom”) your pictures are doing precicely nothing for your Search Engine Optimisation.

Google search algorithms are a lot more complicated than that.

What I have just described is a very simplified version of what actually goes on to choose which page gets ranked highest in Google.  There are over 200 factors involved in Google’s search algorithm and nobody knows exactly what they all are or what weighting is applied to each one.

What I have done in this post is give you a foolproof method of ensuring your on-page SEO is good enough to help you get ranked higher.  Depending on what market you operate in, it could even be enough to get you ahead of some of your competitors.

On-page SEO is only half the battle though.  You will need to do some off-page or external SEO too if you want your page to rank in any but the very least competitive of markets.  My next post will be describe off-page SEO in simple terms.

On-page SEO is massively important.  It is the foundation to getting found online.  It is always my starting point.  Get it right and everything else you do will work better too.

Domaining, or the practice of buying other domains for SEO purposes used to be popular.  That was because it worked.  Now though, particularly since it is difficult to get relevant domains as .com, but also because of changes in search engine algorithms domaining is not as effective as it once was.

Brian Cowen Supports Domaining for SEO.... but it's still a good idea. (he may not actually know what I'm talking about)

Does this mean we should all give up on domaining?  Not at all.

Here are 5 reasons why domaining is worth doing.

1. Domain Typos

As an example let’s say I had a site called wortley.com.  Wortley happens to be my surname.  The trouble with it is that hardly anybody on the planet can spell it properly!  In Ireland the most common mis-spelling is Worthley.  So if somebody was to try and find my site, then typing in www.worthley.com would return them precisely nothing.

So if your company name is prone to typo’s then buying similarly named domains that people may type to get to your site makes sense.  You just redirect them to the correct site.

2. Your Company Name Is Often Shortened to Initials or has the word “and” in it, or other confusing letters.

If my company name happened to be Wortley and O’Connor Ltd for some inexplicable reason, then it is not going to be readily obvious what my website is going to be.  Is it woc.com, wortleyoconner.com, wortleyandoconner.com or even wortleyoc.com?

For this reason I will never name a company in this way.  Particularly since nobody can spell Wortley in the first place and the apostrophe in O’Conner sends people into a state of utter confusion.

If I was stuck with that as a company name I would be well advised to get all versions of it though.

3. .com or .ie

If my site was wortley.ie then (assuming people have learned how to spell it) how many people would type in wortley.com first?  A lot.  People assume .com endings.  You may notice that this site does not have the .com version.  You may also be amused to note what happens if you type in http://www.seotraining.com

If you do you will notice that you are redirected to a .org domain.  (probably won’t notice that first though).

If it is possible, then getting the .com, .net, .org and .ie versions of your site makes sense.  One other good reason to do this is that nobody else can come along and set up a near duplicate site to yours.  Imagine if your business is an online shop with a .ie domain name and somebody comes along and sets up the same domain name with a .com ending.  They could make the site similar looking to yours and sell similar products.  You would lose business.

4. Keyword rich domains

If you are in Ireland and do a search for SEO training then you will find that this site comes up at the top of google.  Why is that?  Well the domain name is seotraining.ie, the subject matter is SEO training and generally you will find references to search engine optimisation creeping into nearly every post.

I am using this domain to target those keywords.  My main site http://www.webshed.ie has no reference to seo in the domain name and it would be a lot harder to make it rank for that.

I have heard a lot of “professional SEO consultants” say that it doesn’t work anymore.  Well it does for this site (and a few others I have).  Also I have not put any effort at all into link building to this site.  It is all about the content.

5. Company Rebranding

My last post was about rebranding your website.  If your company is taken over, does a merger or simply wants to rebrand what happens to your website?  You will still have visitors going to the old domains.  You need to redirect that traffic to your new domain.

I live in an area prone to flooding.  Last night there was a warning issued and we were to be lashed by high winds with massive amounts of rainfall.

Myself and my neighbour discussed sand bags two days ago.  Having early warning is vital.  I prepared to move everything in the house to waist height.

Sure enough the winds started to pick up last night.  The rain came with the winds and it was cold enough for it to turn to sleet.  I went to bed wondering what the morning would bring.

Last nights' severe weather results in mild puddles. Put away the sand bags!

This morning I couldn’t believe it.  After battling my way through the sand bags (which had been deployed by councils in other parts of the coastline) I was confronted with what can only be described as mild puddling.  How could Met Eireann (Irish weather service) have got it that that wrong?

After the build up it was a real let-down.  It did bring to mind how people must feel when promised the earth by us SEO’s though.  DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE about SEO.  It can change your websites profile hugely.  But when people start to build up what they can do for you to biblical proportions, it is probably time to start ignoring them.  It is all too easy to get caught up in a whirlwind of vague promises.

The truth is that like the winds that circle our planet there are so many parameters for SEO to be taken into consideration that giving really accurate predictions is about as likely as Met Eireann getting the weather right.  As an SEO the best you can do is say that there is a probability of an event happening.  This ability to predict a probability based on actions results from experience.  It does not take into consideration what will happen as a result of those actions in 6 months time.  That is because the playing field will have changed by then.  Will it effect your actions now?  Maybe.  Maybe it will in a positive way and maybe in a horrifically tsunami like negative way.

So how do you protect yourself?  How do you differentiate between inaccurate forecasts and accurate ones?  Standards, that’s how.  The SEO consultant who tells you that he / she can’t guarantee you will get results, but that there is a likelihood based on past experience gets my first vote.  They get the contract if they also say that they will only operate within Googles guidelines.  If they also show you where to find those guidelines and are open about what they are going to do then you have found yourself a responsible SEO.

If on the other hand they keep their processes secret, will not talk in plain english to you and promise you the earth… well then break out your sandbags!

SEO for Dummies does exist, you can buy it. It is far from the best book on the subject though. If fact, books are generally outdated nearly as soon as they go to print!

SEO for Dummies. It is an attractive prospect.  It brings to mind a quick, easily digestible way to get your website to the top of Google. There are lots and lots of sites and people proclaiming to be able to show you how to do this.  These are the snake oil salesmen and women of our modern world.

Is there an easy way to learn SEO?

Frankly there is no easy way.  This site “SEO training” will be going for years and will never cover everything completely.  There are a few reasons for this:

1. SEO is a huge topic
2. The SEO goalposts keep moving

I really want to learn SEO though.  How can I get started?

The starting place for every budding SEO practitioner should be Googles’ Webmaster Guidelines. Go and follow all of the advice they set forth and you will be half way there.  I do mean all of it by the way.  There is no point picking and choosing which bits suit you.  This is the “white hat” SEO way.  It means that you are doing what Google want you to do.  Your reward shall be no penalties.  This does not guarantee you better ranking though….. Google Webmaster Guidelines are just a starting point!

Following Google guidelines looks like tons of work!

Indeed.  Making sure that your site is structured as Google would like it to be can be a lot of work depending on how  well your site was put together in the first place.  In some instances it is easier to start from scratch!

Google Guidelines seem very technical, is there an easier to understand version?

No. There is no easier version.  The Google guidelines are the easy version.

You said this article was about SEO for Dummies!

This article is about SEO for Dummies.  The point is that if you go and look at Google Webmaster Guidelines and find it too technical or do not have the time to put into learning everything there then you are better off hiring a professional SEO consultant. They do not have to do all the work for you, but they should be able to at least give you the tools you need and the understanding to be able to tackle the job yourself.  More importantly, they can bring you to the next level and bring you from conforming to performing.  To do otherwise would be dumb.  Here is the reason:

SEO starts with diagnosis

In the last post I wrote I mentioned the importance of SEO analysis.  You need to know what is wrong with your site before you can fix it.  When my car breaks down I sometimes have a fair idea of what is wrong, but I will bring it to a mechanic to find out for sure.  He is a professional.  He knows more about it than I do.  If I fiddle about with my car I am likely to spend money on parts I don’t need, waste time “fixing” the wrong thing and end up with a car that may be fixed, but in my case is more likely to be more damaged than it was originally.

The thing I am missing is an accurate diagnosis.  This holds for SEO too.  If I start tinkering with a site without knowing what I am doing then I am in danger of actually causing damage as well as not fixing my problems.  I need to know what to fix and why.

As a professional SEO consultant, the first thing I do is analyse the website I am going to work on.  That tells me where the sites strengths and weaknesses are and helps to ensure I target the areas that need it most.

SEO knowledge can be learned.  That is what this site is for.

I do not want to be negative about learning SEO.  It is not rocket science.  It does take time to learn though.  This post is really aimed at business owners or management who think it is a good idea to do their SEO in-house with no help from a professional source.  It is not a good idea.  I say that from experience.  I had to learn too.  I got as far as I could by reading everything I could and following guidelines.  Then it was time to get somebody to teach me.  I realised at that point that I could have saved a lot of time (and time is money) by using a consultant in the first place.

Since then I have learned a lot more from a lot of different sources, but the point is that using a GOOD SEO consultant is expensive, but prudent – it saves money in the long run.

When starting out on an SEO campaign where do you actually begin? How do you organise and prioritise? What is more important: social media, link building, content?

These questions are valid for everybody. They are particularly relevant if you have been charged with your company’s online marketing and are not 100% sure exactly what to do in order to get results that will get you a clap on the back.

Your SEO campaign needs planning to make you look good.

It all has to start with SEO analysis.  My granny used to knit a lot.  The house was littered with knitting patterns.  Try building a house without blueprints.  The same is true for online marketing and SEO.  Without a clear picture of what has to be done you will end up with a proverbial one armed jumper (an itchy one at that) or a house with architectural properties similar to that of my own (and the builders actually had plans!).

SEO analysis allows you to work out exactly where you stand right now and provides pointers for where you can achieve that all important traffic and Google rankings. Think of an SEO analysis report as an SEO blueprint.  A good SEO analysis report will tell you:

• What keywords am I using currently?
• Is my website standards compliant? (good code base)
• How can my site structure be improved? (for ease of use and for SEO)
• How does my site compare to that of competitors for SEO?
• What keywords are competitors using?
• What sites link back to my site?
• What sites link to my competitors sites?
• What are my sites Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses, Threats? (SWOT analysis)

A really good report will also bring in social media and assess what can be done there too.  It will also explain the effects of these different aspects on your websites online performance.

Webshed offer a SEO Health Check that incorporates these features.  That is because it is the essential building block of any online campaign.

If you are about to start an SEO campaign, do not go into it blind.  Have a clear plan based on facts and your life will be made that much easier and there is less possibility of spending lots of time on little return.

SEO is not too technical. Sometimes just because things are presented in a different way they seem more complex than they really are

Search Engine Optimisation is quite technical.  After all, it all boils down to mathematics.  Search engines have their equations for working out what page is most important on any given subject.

This site is about SEO training, so therefore it is more important for that term than other sites that do not concentrate on this one topic alone.  There is also surprisingly little competition for training.  SEO in general has plenty of competing pages.

Those are just two factors though.  There are over 200 ranking factors that Google take into consideration when ranking a web page.  To make matters more complicated, nobody has the actual equations (algorithms).

So not only is SEO technical, it is blindfolded too!  Makes you want to throw your hands up in despair doesn’t it.  It’s not really that bad though. Particularly here in Ireland.  Because of our smaller population SEO in Ireland is that much easier because there is just less competition.  That said though, it is getting harder all the time, as Irish companies become more and more aware of the power of the internet.

Many people, when faced with terms like keyword density, link building, page loading speed, and domaining, just shut off.  I’m not an electrician.  When I hear people talking about amps, kilowatts and maximum loads I switch off a bit too.  It is a natural human reaction to avoid conversations that sound technical in an area we have no experience with.  I can change a plug though.  I can put in a new lightbulb.  I have learned the skills that I need to have my house functioning.

In the same way you can learn to have a functioning website that actually shows up in search results without having to have an in depth knowledge of what is going on behind the scenes.  It does not have to get too technical. You can learn to do the basics yourself, and call in a SEO consultant like me for the rest.

SEO consultants like myself can analyze your current website, and then either train you and your staff to do what is necessary to improve its performance, or do the work for you.  Sometimes a bit of a mixture is the ideal solution.

Are your pages straining under the weight of keyword density and struggling to climb the Google ranks?

Keyword density is the number of keywords as a percentage of the total text on a web page.  Too little density and the search engine algorithms will presume that the page is not important for that keyword.  Too much density and the page will get penalised for keyword stuffing.

Since nobody has access to the search engine algorithms, how do we determine what the bounds are for keyword density?  What is the correct or optimum keyword density for your page?

If you have gone searching for the answer online you will have found the answer to be stated as anything between 1% and 8% (in general).  The truth is that keyword density is old news.  It just does not matter as much as it used to.  Nobody knows for certain, so this is just my opinion.  It is an opinion however, that is based on experience and experimentation.  Here is my view on Keyword density:

Forget about Keyword Density! The only check I do around density now is to make sure I have not gone too high.  I like to stick to not going over about 6% in general.  However, if the article reads well to me, then I’ll let it slide so long as it’s under 8%.  I do not have a minimum density.

Keyword Positioning is far more important than the number of times it is repeated.  I generally have the keyword in the title, and in the H1 / H2 tags and again in the body text.  This is particularly true of text immediately after headings.  I do not always keep the same word order, or even use exactly the same words.  I want what I write to be legible for humans.

Certainly I have repeated the words “keyword density” a fair bit in this post, more so than usual.  It is just how this particular post has gone.  I find it harder to write “SEO training” in posts, simply because it does not fit into the general flow of what I write.

A word of caution.  If you have a density that is too high, it may work for you.  It may get you up there in the google ranks… but not for long.  Keyword Stuffing is bad bad bad!  It worked back in the 90’s, and many SEO consultants in Ireland are still recommending it on a smaller scale than before.  I completely disagree with this.  Keyword stuffing is outdated now to the same extent that travel by horses has been replaced by cars!  Keyword densities are a factor still, but are not something to be pushed to extremes and do not hold the same weight as they once did.

Get found online

Getting found online is not all that difficult.  It is not incredibly easy either.  Of course it depends on how much competition you have.  Why do some sites show up above others? On Google it is a combination of over 200 factors!

In general these are split into two types of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – On page (the actual website itself) and Off page (links from other sites to your site).

For On-page SEO all you need to do is follow Googles Webmaster Guidelines.  Although, there is quite a bit to that, and it may take some time and patience to work your way through it.  There are other issues too.  Try looking up information on keyword density for example.  The web is full of different opinions.  The reason that some people will tell you not to exceed 4% density (4 percent of total text on the page) and others 8% density for example, is that nobody knows exactly how many keywords will get your page flagged for keyword stuffing.

Here is the problem…..

You want your site to get found online for specific keywords (SEO training in the case of this blog for example).  In order to show that the site is all about SEO training, it is tempting to use the phrase lots.  However, if I do that, then it will look like I am trying to influence search engines and they will penalise me for it.  This is not to say that it does not work…. but eventually the chances are your site will plummet down the rankings if for keyword stuffing.  I always advise clients to stick to the webmaster guidelines rigidly.

Off site SEO is where a lot of people come unstuck.  How do you get links to your site?  How many links do you need? Should you pay for links? Does it matter where the links come from?

It is a mine field.  Get it wrong and you will pay for it!  Get it right and your site will reap rewards.  By the way NEVER pay for links! It does matter where the links come from too.  What is more, external link building should be something that is an ongoing practice.  I will be posting more on link building in the future.

If you want to get found online, then it really does pay to get somebody who knows what they are doing to either train you, or do it for you.  This saves a lot of time.  Nobody knows it all (the search engines do not release the details of their criteria) but using a SEO professional who has gained experience from spending time on research as well as experimenting and finding out where some of the limits are pays off.