[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The three biggest web search engines (Photo credit: Wikipedia)"]
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When I started in this business, keywords and long keyword tails were the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) technique that was the most popular as a way to compete. Now keyword stuffing has become frowned upon as a way to get your website at the top of a search.
There are various techniques used for SEO. One way to group them is by using a hat terminology: White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO. White Hat is said to be ethical, while Black is said to be unethical.
White Hat SEO is for website owners who intend to be at this site for the long haul and want to see that their site shows up at the top of a person’s search. So the very idea implies that the site owner is focusing on a human audience, not web spiders or crawlers.
A White Hat SEO website owner uses techniques that include keyword search and analysis. He also uses backlinks, link building, and content writing for human readers.
These new techniques are very important because if you do not compete, you will get lost right out of the search. No one wants to be found on the third page of a Google search.
[/caption]When I started in this business, keywords and long keyword tails were the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) technique that was the most popular as a way to compete. Now keyword stuffing has become frowned upon as a way to get your website at the top of a search.
There are various techniques used for SEO. One way to group them is by using a hat terminology: White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO. White Hat is said to be ethical, while Black is said to be unethical.
White Hat SEO is for website owners who intend to be at this site for the long haul and want to see that their site shows up at the top of a person’s search. So the very idea implies that the site owner is focusing on a human audience, not web spiders or crawlers.
A White Hat SEO website owner uses techniques that include keyword search and analysis. He also uses backlinks, link building, and content writing for human readers.
- Let’s start with the idea of content writing for human readers. In the old days, with keyword stuffing, the content was just a platform for as many keywords as possible to get the search engines to find the blogs. Today we spend a lot of time expressing the need for creative, interesting, informative and entertaining writing to hook readers not search engines.
- Internal linking is a method of linking one page of the site to another page of the site. Search engines like this because it tells them that your site is unified in thought and shows that the website has multiple pages.
- Backlinking is how you show people and search engines that your site is interesting and that people share it with each other by bookmarking and sharing. Some ways you can do this include having your site listed in directories, posting in forums, blogs and article directories. It is not acceptable to link from one site to another owned by the same person like a link farm, linking to spam sites or any sites that purchase links in bulk.
- Another good way to get backlinks is to join blog comment tribes. Here people choose to read each other’s posts and make comments. Comments on a blog post are well received by search engines. This is different from spam. The remarks have to be specific to the post or they will wind up in the spam folder.
These new techniques are very important because if you do not compete, you will get lost right out of the search. No one wants to be found on the third page of a Google search.
Jaco Grobbelaar is the owner of BroadVision Marketing. BroadVision Marketing works with business owners to put in place inbound and outbound marketing strategies that consistently secure new clients. The BroadVision Marketing Training Center is located in Petaluma, CA and primarily serves companies in the San Francisco Bay area.
Jaco can be reached at jaco@broadvisionmarketing.com or 707.766.9778 or connect with Jaco on Facebook - www.facebook.com/broadvisionmarketing - and LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/JacoGrobbelaar.
