Alright, this is for all those who are complaining of low traffic and bleak revenues from their websites and will do anything to get the top three ranks for their keywords. Read on…

Well, somehow most of us have the “notion” that SEO is all about getting top ranks for the first three/five keywords for their websites. And we all know about – a) Keyword Research Tools b) Keyword Analysis c) Keyword Competition d) Keyword profiling and all that ! Also, we’ve done all that we can to get that numero uno position for “the keyword”.

Well, things looks okay for now, but there is a problem we cleverly ignore here.
And that’s the obsessive compulsive disorder of doing everything around your primary keyword.

Yes – one glaring mistake many of us do is to focus too much on the primary keywords and waste your time in trying to rank number one for them.

Why waste – you ask. Good question.

In fact, trying to rank number one for a particular phrase is not the problem. The problem lies in the fact that you are ONLY optimizing towards that keyword/keywords.

The fact is that if it’s search traffic from the search engines that you are targeting, then it’s the long tail keywords that will help you more than the top primary keywords.

For instance, if you are targeting the keyword “free softwares”, you would’ve definitely used one of those keyword research tools for the keyword “softwares” and they threw up “free softwares” with 1 million search – so you picked it !

Technically, this is the right decision. But when it comes to reality, you’ll find that the 1 million search traffic has already been ploughed upon by other big giants and you don’t stand a chance to rank number one for it, in the near future. (In SEO, future means three months or next Google PR update.)

So the problem here is that,

• Even though that traffic generated for top keywords is huge, it’s not easy to tap all of that immediately.
• You can tap into that traffic volume only with a number one or two ranks, nothing below it.

So basically, you waste your time optimizing the content for a keyword that won’t give you any traffic.

Now, a wiser strategy.

In the same example, you find that “free softwares” is worth 1 million searches, but there is immense competition for it already, so let’s drill down to even precise data. You find that there are 50,000 searches for the keyword “free software downloads with reviews”, and there are only 20 guys really  working towards it. So, wouldn’t it be better idea to rank for a couple of lower traffic volume keywords (long tail keywords)  that are easy to break into rather than trying to rank against download.com for the keyword “free download”?

The goods about SEOing for longer keywords is that,

• Easier to break into the league of first pagers.
• Shorter time frame to rise up in ranks
• Possibility of getting more traffic from numerous longer keywords.

So basically, the long tail keywords are the ones that give you little traffic for each keyword, but on the whole give you a huge chunk. Optimizing pages towards long tail keywords (longer keywords/phrases) are easier and quicker that trying to rank for “the top keyword”.

If you’ve been mad about your primary keywords and have been stuffing it around everywhere possible on the blog, think again. you might want to give some space for the long tail ones too.

So who said keyword research tools are always right ? someone ?

I mean it. Really.

Vanessa Fox (ex-googler) explains why there are two Page Ranks, and why the real page rank is not what you see on the toolbar, and why the toolbar PR is irrelevant at least when calculating your SERPs positions.

The two pageranks are -
1 – The toolbar PR (what you and me are allowed to see) and
2 – The internal Google PR (which seems to be more a mystery)

Okay, I know that both you and me knew about this, but let’s discuss this now.
Because as we get more explanations from googlers and ex-googlers on this, things are only getting more intriguing.

Image courtesy - Hongkiat

Question – If there are two page ranks and the toolbar page rank is not the real page rank, why is it there out in public, in the first place?

Possible answer from Google – Because we have a algorithm in place which calculates the authority and link value of a website purely based on the number of inlinks it has.

My reply (possibly) - Fine – But why don’t you simply put the “real pagerank” on the toolbar ? Wouldn’t that help the webmasters and public both equally in “grading” websites? And since the real pagerank isn’t completely based on links, there is no question of SEO’s becoming successful in manipulating it, even if they try.

I’m inclined to believe that the “real pagerank” is non-existent. Of course, we all know that Google has it’s n-number of factors that helps it in “grading” a website, but that isn’t anything close to page rank, it’s an algo more complex.

Google pagerank, if I’m not mistaken is best described as below.

PageRank reflects Google’s view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that Google believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.

So…..I don’t think there should be even be a case of internal/toolbar pagerank.

If there is at all a Page Rank, why can’t it be public ?

Note: I’m not implying that Google Page Rank is the sole reason for a websites SERPs rank, but trying to clear the ambiguity here between the different versions of Page Ranks and the reasons to why they exist.

High traffic keywords are always an addiction. Write a good, optimized copy targeting the high traffic keywords and sit back enjoy the traffic coming in.

But it’s also a fact that many of us don’t prefer to write content for the spiders, rather write for the users. I mean, how often can you write copies calculating the keyword density metrics (although they are irrelevant these days) ? It’s so boring.

But there is a work around to this. Write genuine articles for the users, but at the same time target the search engines and the high traffic keywords. Here’s how.

How to target high traffic keywords, without affecting the readers

Step 1 -  First off, using the Google Adwords keyword tool, find out the top traffic generating keywords related to your niche.

Step 2 – Go to your older posts, sorting them by the following criteria.
a) Page Rank – Find out the ones that have comparatively higher page rank, pick those first.
b) Text and Images – Select those articles that has lot of text and images used.

Step 3 – Go to the post and edit it either using “All in One SEO plugin” options OR the normal edit mode.(See screenshot)

Step 4 – Now replace all the image alt tags and title tags with relevant keywords related to that article and which are more inclined to the high traffic generating keywords.
Ex:- If “Tourist help” is the high traffic keyword related to tourism, you might want to select an article related to tourism and add the keywords in it.

Step 5 – Reformat the page title (Noted 1 in screenshot) and optimize it for the keyword.
Ex:- If your older title was “My traveling experiences”, you might want to change it to “Tourist help – tips and advice from a veteran traveler”

Step 6 – Additionally, you might want to change or add relevant keyword specific title tags to all the links in the article.

Step 7 – Also, it might be a good idea to add the relevant keywords and meta description. (Don’t spam, make it very relevant to the content you have)

I’ve found that if you do this to older posts that have gained some page rank and link juice already, they are likely to give you some search engine traffic.

And the advantages are that -

- Since your regular readers might have already read the article, the title change won’t really bother them.

- The older articles are probably getting traffic ONLY from referrals and search engines, so this is the best way to cash in on it.

While doing the editing just make sure that, you don’t edit the permalinks. Careful.

It’s always good to brush up your basics, even if you know it all, check it just for fun, and sometimes you may discover something new, if not, it’s just that – a cross check.

Today, the folks at Google have gathered up some information for us on what are technically – incoming links/inbound links – internal links and – outbound/external links.

Very clear information put up there.

Hey still thinking this is not for you ? Okay, what is an “inbound link?” If you are taking more than half of a second to answer, you should check out the article.

Sitewide links, Deep links, Sponsored links, Carefully crafted anchor texts, Blogroll link lists - Well, they are not probably worth tying together, but I’m beginning to think that they have some similarity of sorts and are more junk than anything else these days, that Google might be discounting them no matter how valuable they might seem. And I have the reasons.

With the September Page Rank toolbar stats update, we’ve seen more “downgrades” than “upgrades” right ? Many popular blogs have dropped by one point, some of them even further down.

Reasons are diverse, but let’s see if we can find a pattern.

I think with the new changes being implemented, there is clearly an indication that Google is once again sealing the concept that links are not any more just links. But a lot more factors goes into deciding whether a link is actually a “vote” or not.

Age old concept I know, but I think this is becoming more prominent.

Here are some factors I can think of to help Google decide if a link is actually a “vote” or not.

1. Content and nature of the site linking you
   More than the page and the content on the page linking to you, it matters more about, what is the content on the website that’s linking to you. Ex:- It might be wiser to consider a news site which has more authority and “value” link to you than a fellow blogger on hisname.com
2. Does the link come from your social network?
   Just like Digg, I cannot think of a good reason why Google should not discount the incoming links from a “friend” of yours.  A friend might be a common commentator on your blog, or a guest blogger, if he is related to you in some way, I think it’s fair for Google to consider that it’s a “favor link”. Even worse, what if Google knows who your friends are (it has the friend feed data remember?) and discounts all those links from the network ?
3. Are you guys too similar ?
   If your links are originating from same domains, which are too similar, won’t they be “favor” links ? Ex:- If you are a part of any Feedburner networks (like the feedburner technology bloggers network), why shouldn’t Google stop from discounting the links from all the blogs in that network?

Well, these points my sound lame, but I think there is a possibility to this concept, getting stronger as we go ahead and Google acquiring more “networks”.

If we look from Google’s perspective, it all makes sense, it only would want to take into consideration the genuine links and recommendations and not the “scratch me, I scratch you” networks that might be gaming the system.

It is also a fact that the networks and the user interactions will grow stronger, and the “favor” links will keep coming in. I can only guess, that they might only carry less value than earlier.

Search Engine Land reports Google testing image banner ads on Google Image search. Aaron Wall has a confession to make and a question for you  - Is buying links stupid ? If you’ve been thinking if Google ever forgives a penalized site, you better read this. Bill Slawski has a list of suggestions for blogging beginners – good read !#

Stephan Spencer spoke at the Startonomics on SEO, and he has a good video for you. (It was not that all good quality for me, see if you get a good full session, but insightful talk there)

Brett Lane has a very interesting post on the five things to consider while hiring a Social Media Consultant, seriously interesting one that.
And here is my favorite. Eric writes about why and how he thinks that Google weighs the anchor text less and the content of the linking page more. I cannot disagree with him.

While selecting a domain name, what is your preference ? Would you go for a perfect keyword match or a brand name that has a better recall value?

Before jumping into a conclusion, let’s see what are the options we have.

Of course, there is no thumb rule that says one is better than the other but, there might be a few factors that you want to evaluate before deciding on a domain name.

1. Site content
   A lot depends on what your content type is. Do you have a content rich website, or a community website where pages just fly by? When the content itself is the USP of your webpage then, the domain name takes a backseat, and you can get away SEO’ing the pages. In such cases the domain name is pretty much irrelevant assuming that your pages are itself strong in SEO and helps you develop that authority you need.
2. Site volume
   How much content do you think will go in? Will you be having a few thousand content rich pages by next year? In that case, you don’t have to worry if you didn’t get a perfect keyword match.
3. Scalability
   Are you planning only for a 10 page website that will have static pages and nearly no content update ?  You might want to get a closer keyword match because the real estate you get to do SEO are limited, so cling on to every possible smaller details you can find, and that might include a domain with perfect keyword match.
4. Promotion
   If you have a long term strategy with strong promotions and advertising campaigns in mind, then the content pages would take care of relevancy patterns with Google and you have the luxury of going for a funky domain name. Because, you are going to build on the brand positioning and recall value with the promotions, and as the traffic builds up, you don’t have to completely rely on the search engines.
5. Website type
   That’s a very general term to use right ? But yes, what category does your site belong to, is it a one page marketing site, a forum based community, a CMS based site, a blog or a static page site – really matters while selecting a domain name. If it’s a one page marketing site, then there is no other go but to select awkwardly long keyword match domain names, if it’s larger community based sites, then you have more luxury of going for “web 2.0” type domain names,

There are probably more pointers out there to help you select a domain name, more complicated and finer details, but generally, I think that with the new algo changes on Google, keyword match domain names are certainly not favored as they had been favored earlier. So it isn’t something you should put on the top of the list while buying a domain name. No definitely not !

Google takes us back to 2001, with it’s nostalgic search engine here. Interestingly, there was no SEO then.

And there are “SEO Experts” around who have more than 12 years of experience!

Cheers to all those wonderful black, blue, grey and everything in between hats out there. Here are the best posts this week from the best SEO blogs on the internet.

Aaron just found that Google is actually recommending people to download a torrent of his SEO Book. Now, how cool is that? I know how you feel, Aaron.

If you are a blogging consultant, or simply runs a blog yourself (which I believe all of you are), watch out for this video, Rand is all bright and shining with his corporate blogging tips on the White board Friday. He’s always good at it !

Terry Heath has an interesting post on Snow White and the seven outsourcing dwarfs. Now, you go find out what that story is all about.

If you’re in paid search a.k.a blowing up your money for no reason, check this article where you can learn on how to tarnish your reputation with paid search.

Twitter is the rage, and you’ve seen the umpteen number of posts on how to benefit from Twitter, yea right..now if you want some true wisdom on Twitter, check out this article by Tony.

And, while you read this post (on reader/the blog) do you have Digg, SU, Delicious, Reddit on open tabs? If any one of those are open, you must take this quiz. I did, and I regret, now I want you to.

Happy weekend !

Happy birthday Google !

On it’s 10th birthday, today Googleplex is all excited with it’s pet project - 10 to the 100th (10^ 100).

Where Google is asking you and me, ideas on improving others lives. May the one who helps most, be the winner says - Google. Now that’s a very simple yet brilliant idea !

Google invites ideas to the following categories.

• Community: How can we help connect people, build communities and protect unique cultures?
• Opportunity: How can we help people better provide for themselves and their families?
• Energy: How can we help move the world towards safe, clean, inexpensive energy?
• Environment: How can we help promote a cleaner and more sustainable global ecosystem?
• Health: How can we help individuals lead longer, healthier lives?
• Education: How can we help more people get more access to better education?
• Shelter: How can we help ensure that everyone has a safe place to live?
• Everything else: Sometimes the best ideas don’t fit into any category at all.

If you have an idea that could make people’s lives better - submit it here