Internet Building Codes Blog

David Letterman just said that New York City is the #1 tourist destination in the U.S.  That made me think about a post I did last week where I was discussing how you’d need to optimize a site for the phase, “New York City Vacations.”  I was discussing how an inexperienced search engineer would link to that page using a phrase like, “Things to do in New York” rather than linking to that page with the phrase, “New York City Vacations.”

In addition to that alignment, it’s also wise to consistently use that phase in your external and reciprocal link-building campaigns.  Rather than getting other web masters to link to your site using your domain name or worse yet, “click here,” use the optimized phrase.

So not only have you created an optimized page, you’ve aligned your on-page SEO strategy with your linking strategy.  There are dozens of other small ways that you can align your strategies so be cognizant of your site’s alignment when you’re implementing them.

Chadd Bryant

SEO malpractice is rampant these days.  It’s everywhere you look.  I see blatant examples of SEO malpractice everyday, but fortunately, the majority of it is the result of ignorance, rather than intentional harm.  So what are some of the most common issues?

I don’t see a lot of the old-school mistakes any more, like white text on a white back ground.  But that used to work pretty well, until Google caught on to it.  If anyone’s still trying that trick, they’re either a fool or are just trying to ruin your search ranking forever.

While I’m not seeing a lot of those types of tricks any more, I am still seeing a lot sites that just seem to miss the point of SEO.

It’s not just about filling your pages with keywords.
It’s not just about using keywords in your headlines or titles or even in the meta tags.
It’s not just about using your keywords in the right location on the page.

It’s about doing it in a strategic, calculated way.

It’s not just about getting lots of sites to link to your site.
It’s not just about creating lots of hyper links within your site.
It’s not just about bolding your text or using footer links.

It’s about doing it in a strategic, calculated way.

It’s not just about building a huge set of thousands of keywords.
It’s not just about finding words that get lots of traffic.
It’s not just about writing compelling headlines.

It’s about doing it in a strategic, calculated way.

It’s about aligning all of your efforts at the same time.  If you get 50% of the things right, that’s not going to get you top rankings.  You have to fire on all cylinders.

So how do you do that?

Align everything.  If you’re focusing on a particular phrase, optimize a page for that phrase.  Then point hyperlinks on other pages of your site to that optimized page using the keyword as link text.  Re-read that last sentence until you get it.  Inexperienced SEO companies neglect that simple point all the time.  They create silly links that say things like “click here” as the link text.  All that does is help your page rank better for the phrase “click here.”

Then build links from other sites into your site, using the keyword as the link text, pointing to the optimized page.

Don’t optimize a page for something like “New York City Vacations” and then point links to the page that say “Things to do in New York.”  That’s not aligned.  An aligned site would use links that say “New York City Vacations.”  That reinforces the content on the optimized page and let’s Google know that an outside source have confirmed the content on the page.

Hope that helps.

Chadd Bryant

SEO isn’t rocket science, although some SEO firms want you to believe that.  After all, if they keep you in the dark and make you believe that they know something that’s so difficult and so complex then you’ll be willing to pay extraordinary prices.  But the fact is, SEO isn’t that difficult.  Sure, it requires knowledge and diligence, but none of it is something that a high-school kid can’t do.  If they can take chemistry and calculus, they can most certainly handle SEO.  It’s just a matter of following the rules, or best practices.  So next time, an SEO agency or a search engineer tries to convince you that they’re working magic behind the scenes, don’t fall for it.  They may try to confuse you with complicated math (yes Google uses a complicated algorithm) but to get a site ranked at the top of Google doesn’t require you to even understand anything beyond 6th grade math.

Beware of folks who try to confuse you.  That’s a common sales ploy.  If you can’t get your head around it, then you’ll be more willing to pay high prices.  But if you can arm yourself with a basic understanding of SEO, you’ll be educated and won’t fall for their schemes.  Education is power.  And we’re here to give you power.