When SEO goes slightly haywire…
Yesterday I let you inside my Google Analytics for a peek at what’s frustrating my visitors the most. Running with this behind-the-scenes theme, here are a few more of my all-time favourite visitor keywords.
Things I can help you with:
- “stickies widget that dont look stupid”
- “make your own scattergories game“
- “steps for proofreading“
- “define ballywick“
- “desk plant benefits“
- “kids white socks that stay up” (vindicated!)
- “canadian slang for urinate” (I’d go with “piss” or the more polite “pee”)
Things I can’t:
- “bailiwick tattoo supplies” (should I branch out?)
- “ballywick apple sauce” (you only have to ask…)
- “incest pit”
- “college drunk oops” (try Facebook?)
- “how should i hold the strings while raving” (um…. in your fingers?)
SEO Carbo-Loading
SEO is a whining, needy and bloody annoying child. To get – and keep – good Google rankings requires your near constant attention. I thought it was time for some chocolate-laden reward.
With a nod to the success of any good 12-step programme, read on for my official SEO Carbo-Loading programme. I welcome new recruits.
1. Choose a cake
Find a recipe that will really work. Need fudge? What about height? Is frosting real estate important to you? Where butter and sugar collide, why look elsewhere than nigella.com?
2. Make a cake
From scratch. It’s not hard. Betty Crocker’s gross and we’re all about learning new things here. Make a cake. Cool the cake. Circle it, examining its chocolatey perfection.
3. Get with the programme
Here’s the weird part you didn’t see coming: freeze it. We’re training now and you’ve got to earn that sucker. Why a cake you’ve made from scratch locked in the freezer?
- It’s immune to any cheating snack binges (girls?) because it’s frozen.
- You didn’t make it and then lose the chance to ever have it.
4. Sucky boring-ness
Compile a list of all your website’s current keywords. (Ya, ya it’s boring. Do it. Cake!)
Where do they currently rank? You can take a lazy estimate or an anal, scientific approach. We’re just lighting fires here.
5. Game on
Check in with Google Analytics for your keyword search results. Could they be better? Probably? Want some cake?
Scrutinise your results. Have a dig through Google and look at what’s in the way of your site now and where you want it to be. Narrow your eyes to slits. The enemy is at hand. In road race terms, what training have you neglected? What’s the hard, boring stuff, the lap repeats in the freezing rain, that you’ve been avoiding? Do you need new equipment? To cross train a bit?
Whatever it is, stare it down and ruin it.
6. Target practice
On a Post-it note, write down your targets.
- General traffic level?
- Bigger and better online presence?
- Fattened content section that does the work for you?
- Healthier rate of internet inquiry?
The note goes on top of the cake. Put it in the freezer and say goodbye.
7. Call in this guy
Pull out every SEO stop you can. Make sacrifices: give up some YouTube or Facebook time. Get up ten minutes earlier. All that crazy hardcore stuff that Olympian athletes brag about doing. It sucks, but do you have any idea how much cake Michael Phelps would eat?
8. Breakfast of champions
These 3 sites are a good start to a healthy regime:
SEO for people who love cake
9. No excuses
Do it. All of it! Like a maniac! Every day, uphill, through 5 miles of snow in the pouring rain (or whatever your parents used to say).
10. Are you winning?
Check on your results. Your eyes will either narrow in hatred to the damned man who has not yet relinquished your spot (OR) glaze over in greed: things are about to get chocolatey.
11. Victory?
12. You betcha
SEO techniques are tedious and gnaw-your-arm-off boring. It has to be a ridiculous game or you’ll go crazy.
Welcome to the club. Send photos.
Google keyword rank checks – Part 2 – the weaponry
Yesterday I wrote about this taboo game. Want to play?
In order of preference, here are 5 free tools that do the trick. Testing them yesterday, my results for the same keyword varied by a margin of 20. So the opposition’s right, Google rankings are always in motion.
My favourite by far. Clean site and encouraging comments on each result listing. Distinguishes between Google U.S. and UK and provides a direct link to the search result.
Ranks for: Google, Yahoo! and MSN and their UK versions
Positions: Up to 25 pages
Keywords at a time: 1
Places your site (if it ranks) amongst the keyword’s top 40 results. Measures keyword strength in title, URL and domain name.
Ranks for: Google, Yahoo and MSN
Positions: #1-40
Keywords at a time: 1
Plots your results in a handy chart. A bit slow.
Ranks for: Google and Yahoo!
Positions: #1-100 only
Keywords at a time: A few, but if you make it do too much it tries to force a registration.
Not the prettiest site, but displays your search history in a grid for easy comparison.
Ranks for: 6 search engines, DMOZ and Yahoo! Directory.
Positions: #1-100 only
Keywords at a time: 1
Despite its name, you can’t check your Google rankings on this site unless you have a “SOAP API” key that Google stopped issuing 3 years ago. Still, you can check up to 1,000 Yahoo! results (in case you care).
Ranks for: Yahoo!, MSN, Ask
Positions: Up to 1,000
Keywords at a time: 1
Google keyword rank checks – let them be your dirty secret
Google keyword rank checks – do they sound innocuous? Sorry, matey – on this playground they’re a contentious issue indeed. The big kids have told us:
It’s time wasted, you’ve got better things to do, it doesn’t mean anything, it’s fluid, you’ll be duped into false security…
Yep, all true. Might happen. Positive rankings don’t imply success. Got it?
Checking your keyword ranking is like weighing yourself – taken alone, the number has no bearing.
So why own a scale? While more useful data – your BMI, diet, blood pressure and fitness level – are needed to confirm your health, weight remains part of the assessment.
Few hop on the scale daily, but a casual check every so often confirms all’s well. When you don’t like the number, you’ve got new motivation to make positive changes.
I check my rankings as a weekly ritual. They’re sobering proof that if I get lazy with SEO, things slide.
When I get Google keyword results I like, it doesn’t mean I’ve won. It doesn’t mean I can stop marketing or that my business will be any more successful. It doesn’t even mean to expect more traffic.
So why check? Because doing so…
flags unexpected, lukewarm results. When a “B+” result pops up out of nowhere, it’s a signal to get going; there’s not much distance between a B+ and an A-, then an A. The message is, “for now, something’s working so keep it up.”
suggests next steps. My site was stuck on page 3 for a back-of-the-pack, afterthought keyword I hadn’t used to great effect. Now I’ve got a little science project to work on in my spare time. It’s just for fun, but good practice.
is encouraging for new sites, small sites or for those just starting to dabble with SEO. If your trek begins in total obscurity, a weekly check-in provides a good growth chart. Won’t your mummy be proud!
might just boost your ego. As I tell my clients, “it has to be fun or you’ll go crazy.” Make a game of it, bet with yourself and enjoy the up & down ride.
Nothing wrong with the occasional indulgent dabble, so say I.
Help for the computer averse – how to get your Google on
As with a lot of expats, dinner conversation with family friends often turns to their villa or rental properties spread around the globe. Over a few bottles of wine the truth is guaranteed to come out.
“That $@*#$&% house!” A recent comment floored me.
The friend continued, “we picked the worst possible name for our bloody house. The worst! No one types it into Google – it’s a made up word! We’re screwed.”
This from the galavanting dynamo who’d practically built the property herself. She didn’t “do” computers. Somehow, she’d missed the internet’s biggest secret: the addiction of SEO.
I often tease my mum as she types with two fingers. She’s brilliant – a research scientist and general genius – computers aren’t her thing, either.
I wonder how many similar, computer-averse types have given up on their abysmal Google results, certain that’s their lot. They’d stick to paper and pen if we let them.
Is this you?
“Search engine optimisation” is the term you need to Google now. Run, don’t walk.
What is it? A slow and steady application of a few basic principles – not an exact science. Make it a game and it can be fun.
For a lot of people (who love, love, love computers), SEO is their very reason for being. From them, we can learn a lot. Some of my favourite, friendliest sites for learning the basics are:
-
- About.com’s introduction to SEO page
- Site-Reference.com
- SEOmoz.org
- Winning the web
- And, of course, there’s a Search Engine Optimisation for Dummies
Is this your friend or family member?
Mention “keyword meta tags” and the blank stare you get in return will tell you all you need to know. I’m going to be asking my people, those I suspect might be missing out on their Googley goldmine. Do the same and help a friend out!