bk071
Elite Member
- Nov 24, 2010
- 3,302
- 8,845
There has been a lot of fuss about post penguin SEO lately... some said SEO is dead, some said BH techniques won't work... blah blah.
In this series of SEO threads, I'll try to address different issues that have risen after the Penguin and Panda updates.
Note : This thread is targeted more towards newbie SEOers who are thinking too much about this Penguin / Panda crap... So don't blame me if you don't find the secret magic to rank your sites in this thread. That said, I'm sure many experienced users will find it useful to refresh their knowledge.
Lets get started...
Okay, so first let me bust some SEO myths that a lot of people might have in your mind.
Myth 1 - SEO is dead
A lot of people seem to think that Penguin update is the end of SEO... tell you what, this is the funniest sh*t I've read about SEO.
Blackhat SEO is NOT dead... and it will NEVER die... PERIOD!
You still can rank your sites on top of Google and you still can make TONS of money with SEO... outranking sites like Amazon and Wikipedia is still very much possible... I've done it and you can do it too.... read on!
Myth 2 - SEO Tools have become useless
Again, with the recent Google updates, many people think tools like XRumer/Scrapebox/AMR have become useless... this is completely wrong. These tools are still very useful and I use all of them on daily basis.
Myth 3 - Blog Networks are dead
Even though Google screwed BMR and ALN too got a big chunk of their network deindexed, blog networks are still profitable and still very effective. Its all about quality... Having your own blog network is your best bet if you have the budget. Just don't post spun gibbering and DO NOT leave any footprint at all... you'll be fine!
Myth 4 - You can't rank a new site without getting sandboxed
I was talking to a client (not from BHW) who just launched a site the other day and he was like... "start the backlinking and we'll monetize the site after it comes out of sandbox"... I was like "WTF" lol. Seriously, stop worrying too much about that stupid sandbox thing... I have successfully ranked quite a lot of micro niche sites that were one week old without getting any sandbox or 'over-optimization' whatsoever. Read on and I'll tell you how.
Myth 5 - On page SEO doesn't matter anymore
Since Google's Penguin update was mostly about off page SEO and had a lot to do with your anchor text, pages linking back to you, footprints... mostly off page stuff.... most of the people started to forget about the on page basics that are still very important. There were blog posts by some SEO 'gurus' spreading misleading information that on page SEO "doesn't matter anymore.. Google can detect what the page is about itself.... blah blah".
Sure G have improved (or should I say "messed up") their algorithm but that doesn't mean you should stop caring about your on page tactics. On page SEO is still very relevant... in fact, more relevant than it ever was.
Now that you have your doubts clear, we can move on to the first section of this guide which is...
Having that said, bear in mind that G's algo is way smarter than it used to be a few years ago. Gone are the days when you could rank your site by just stuffing a bunch of keywords in your title and meta description. There is way more than that to on page SEO now...
Section 1a - The basics
Clean HTML & CSS code:
Pretty simple... bad code = bad site rankings or even a penalty... If you're using wordpress, use themes that are clean and do not contain any malware.
The <title> tag:
Your page's title is one of the most important on page factors. A good title is what describes what your page is about and at the same time, smartly uses your target keyword in it.
Do not make it look spammy or you'll leave your site to be vulnerable to a Google Penalty.
For example, if you're targeting "make money online" a good title would be
"Discover different ways to make money online at *yoursite*"
And a bad title would be
"Make money online - make money on the internet - make money taking surveys"
See the difference? In a nutshell, do not stuff your keywords in there... Google's bots are smart enough to detect that kind of crap in a blink of an eye. And besides that, a Good title helps you get a better clicks-through rate. A user is more likely to click on something that actually makes sense than some spammy gibberish.
The meta <description> tag
Pretty much the same story here... Be smart and summarize your page in approx. 155 characters while using your target keyword at least once.
This, again, is not only important for your SEO but also helps you get more clicks in Search Engine Ranking Pages.
The meta <keywords> tag
Stop worryin about it... Google does NOT use the keywords tag as a factor to rank your sites.
Thats it for this section... in a nutshell : DO NOT MAKE YOUR SITE LOOK SPAMMY BUT AT THE SAME TIME, DO USE YOUR TARGET KEYWORDS IN YOUR TITLE AND DESCRIPTION.
Section 1b - The Content
It has been said before and I'll say it again... content plays a great role in your SEO campaign and not only that, its also crucial to make money from your site.
Here are a few things you should keep in mind when creating/outsourcing content for your site.
Who to write for... humans or search engines?
Now, all white hats will tell you to write for humans and not search engines... don't care about your keyword density etc etc... Guess we're on BHW right? So lets do things the smarter way and kill two birds with one stone.
The answer to this question is... BOTH! Yes, write for both... the search engines and humans at the same time.
Like I said before, the good old days when you could rank a site with just a spammy title, a crappy article and a few thousand XRumer links are long gone... Google has become much smarter and that in turn requires you to be smarter than G... which is really easy!
So.. back to the topics, your content should be engaging as well as perfectly optimized for your target keyword(s). Here are some pointers for optimization.
Keyword density
With all the over-optimization thing going on lately, you have to be very careful about your keyword density. From my tests, it seems that 0.5-1% seems to be a good idea... just use your keyword wisely and smartly in your article.
LSI keywords
LSI stands for "latent semantic indexing" and you can Google it to read more about what the term is about... but to give you an idea, LSI keywords are the ones that are closely related to your main keyword. For example,
If your main keyword is "weight loss" then some of the LSI keywords would be... 'lose weight fast' 'how can you lose weight' 'weight loss supplements' 'tips to lose weight'.... you get the idea.
The key is to use a lot of LSI keywords in your article WITHOUT losing the flow of it... make sure your article is still perfectly readable by humans after using LSI keywords a few times in it.
Types of content:
Okay so you've got the basics covered.. now its time to learn how to create good quality content (articles) that will attract a lot of long term traffic.
There are different types of content... some of them are:
1) Informational : this includes 'general' informational articles like "5 tips to burn fats in two weeks"... the kind of articles we all read everyday.
2) Factual : a very good example of factual content is this - notice how they've layed out FACTS about the sun? It is absolutely possible to create factual content in almost every niche out there... just takes some research.
3) How-to's & tutorials : Pretty self explanatory. Some examples would be "How to fix registry issue in Windows 7" or "Your 11-step guide to baking a cake".
4) News and evens : Like "Miami Heat beat Boston Celtics in Game 7" or "Osama Bin Laden killed in Pakistan"... this type of articles seem to get a lot of traffic but that traffic is not long term and will eventually die off in a few days/weeks.
Your best bet is to create a lot 1st, 2nd and 3rd type of content discussed above. Its still a good idea to post the 4th type to get your website some exposure.
How many articles?
Many of you would be asking yourself how big your site should be? Well... the bigger, the better. It makes a lot of sense to have 100s of articles on your site since one article costs you only $5-7 and you'll most likely make that money back within two or three months from that single article (on average)... anything you make from that specific article on your site is pure profit.
Search engines seem to hate thin 'one-page' sites so be sure to expand your site as much as possible... it'll pay off in the end.
How long should the articles be?
I keep my article length to be AT LEAST 450-500 words... not a word less. And many experienced SEOers would agree that 600-800 word articles tend to rank very well... you can make your article longer than 800 words but I suggest splitting them into two for the sake of your site's size.
That it for section 1b.
Okay, folks, that is pretty much it for now... In part 2, we'll discuss about off page SEO. Feel free to ask any questions in this thread and I'll try my best to answer them for you.
Off to a walk now.
In this series of SEO threads, I'll try to address different issues that have risen after the Penguin and Panda updates.
Note : This thread is targeted more towards newbie SEOers who are thinking too much about this Penguin / Panda crap... So don't blame me if you don't find the secret magic to rank your sites in this thread. That said, I'm sure many experienced users will find it useful to refresh their knowledge.
Lets get started...
Okay, so first let me bust some SEO myths that a lot of people might have in your mind.
Myth 1 - SEO is dead
A lot of people seem to think that Penguin update is the end of SEO... tell you what, this is the funniest sh*t I've read about SEO.
Blackhat SEO is NOT dead... and it will NEVER die... PERIOD!
You still can rank your sites on top of Google and you still can make TONS of money with SEO... outranking sites like Amazon and Wikipedia is still very much possible... I've done it and you can do it too.... read on!
Myth 2 - SEO Tools have become useless
Again, with the recent Google updates, many people think tools like XRumer/Scrapebox/AMR have become useless... this is completely wrong. These tools are still very useful and I use all of them on daily basis.
Myth 3 - Blog Networks are dead
Even though Google screwed BMR and ALN too got a big chunk of their network deindexed, blog networks are still profitable and still very effective. Its all about quality... Having your own blog network is your best bet if you have the budget. Just don't post spun gibbering and DO NOT leave any footprint at all... you'll be fine!
Myth 4 - You can't rank a new site without getting sandboxed
I was talking to a client (not from BHW) who just launched a site the other day and he was like... "start the backlinking and we'll monetize the site after it comes out of sandbox"... I was like "WTF" lol. Seriously, stop worrying too much about that stupid sandbox thing... I have successfully ranked quite a lot of micro niche sites that were one week old without getting any sandbox or 'over-optimization' whatsoever. Read on and I'll tell you how.
Myth 5 - On page SEO doesn't matter anymore
Since Google's Penguin update was mostly about off page SEO and had a lot to do with your anchor text, pages linking back to you, footprints... mostly off page stuff.... most of the people started to forget about the on page basics that are still very important. There were blog posts by some SEO 'gurus' spreading misleading information that on page SEO "doesn't matter anymore.. Google can detect what the page is about itself.... blah blah".
Sure G have improved (or should I say "messed up") their algorithm but that doesn't mean you should stop caring about your on page tactics. On page SEO is still very relevant... in fact, more relevant than it ever was.
Now that you have your doubts clear, we can move on to the first section of this guide which is...
Section 1 - On page SEO
Like I said above, on page SEO is still very relevant and it is one of the most important building blocks of your SEO campaign.
Having that said, bear in mind that G's algo is way smarter than it used to be a few years ago. Gone are the days when you could rank your site by just stuffing a bunch of keywords in your title and meta description. There is way more than that to on page SEO now...
Section 1a - The basics
Clean HTML & CSS code:
Pretty simple... bad code = bad site rankings or even a penalty... If you're using wordpress, use themes that are clean and do not contain any malware.
The <title> tag:
Your page's title is one of the most important on page factors. A good title is what describes what your page is about and at the same time, smartly uses your target keyword in it.
Do not make it look spammy or you'll leave your site to be vulnerable to a Google Penalty.
For example, if you're targeting "make money online" a good title would be
"Discover different ways to make money online at *yoursite*"
And a bad title would be
"Make money online - make money on the internet - make money taking surveys"
See the difference? In a nutshell, do not stuff your keywords in there... Google's bots are smart enough to detect that kind of crap in a blink of an eye. And besides that, a Good title helps you get a better clicks-through rate. A user is more likely to click on something that actually makes sense than some spammy gibberish.
The meta <description> tag
Pretty much the same story here... Be smart and summarize your page in approx. 155 characters while using your target keyword at least once.
This, again, is not only important for your SEO but also helps you get more clicks in Search Engine Ranking Pages.
The meta <keywords> tag
Stop worryin about it... Google does NOT use the keywords tag as a factor to rank your sites.
Thats it for this section... in a nutshell : DO NOT MAKE YOUR SITE LOOK SPAMMY BUT AT THE SAME TIME, DO USE YOUR TARGET KEYWORDS IN YOUR TITLE AND DESCRIPTION.
---------------------------------------------
Section 1b - The Content
It has been said before and I'll say it again... content plays a great role in your SEO campaign and not only that, its also crucial to make money from your site.
Here are a few things you should keep in mind when creating/outsourcing content for your site.
Who to write for... humans or search engines?
Now, all white hats will tell you to write for humans and not search engines... don't care about your keyword density etc etc... Guess we're on BHW right? So lets do things the smarter way and kill two birds with one stone.
The answer to this question is... BOTH! Yes, write for both... the search engines and humans at the same time.
Like I said before, the good old days when you could rank a site with just a spammy title, a crappy article and a few thousand XRumer links are long gone... Google has become much smarter and that in turn requires you to be smarter than G... which is really easy!
So.. back to the topics, your content should be engaging as well as perfectly optimized for your target keyword(s). Here are some pointers for optimization.
Keyword density
With all the over-optimization thing going on lately, you have to be very careful about your keyword density. From my tests, it seems that 0.5-1% seems to be a good idea... just use your keyword wisely and smartly in your article.
LSI keywords
LSI stands for "latent semantic indexing" and you can Google it to read more about what the term is about... but to give you an idea, LSI keywords are the ones that are closely related to your main keyword. For example,
If your main keyword is "weight loss" then some of the LSI keywords would be... 'lose weight fast' 'how can you lose weight' 'weight loss supplements' 'tips to lose weight'.... you get the idea.
The key is to use a lot of LSI keywords in your article WITHOUT losing the flow of it... make sure your article is still perfectly readable by humans after using LSI keywords a few times in it.
Types of content:
Okay so you've got the basics covered.. now its time to learn how to create good quality content (articles) that will attract a lot of long term traffic.
There are different types of content... some of them are:
1) Informational : this includes 'general' informational articles like "5 tips to burn fats in two weeks"... the kind of articles we all read everyday.
2) Factual : a very good example of factual content is this - notice how they've layed out FACTS about the sun? It is absolutely possible to create factual content in almost every niche out there... just takes some research.
3) How-to's & tutorials : Pretty self explanatory. Some examples would be "How to fix registry issue in Windows 7" or "Your 11-step guide to baking a cake".
4) News and evens : Like "Miami Heat beat Boston Celtics in Game 7" or "Osama Bin Laden killed in Pakistan"... this type of articles seem to get a lot of traffic but that traffic is not long term and will eventually die off in a few days/weeks.
Your best bet is to create a lot 1st, 2nd and 3rd type of content discussed above. Its still a good idea to post the 4th type to get your website some exposure.
How many articles?
Many of you would be asking yourself how big your site should be? Well... the bigger, the better. It makes a lot of sense to have 100s of articles on your site since one article costs you only $5-7 and you'll most likely make that money back within two or three months from that single article (on average)... anything you make from that specific article on your site is pure profit.
Search engines seem to hate thin 'one-page' sites so be sure to expand your site as much as possible... it'll pay off in the end.
How long should the articles be?
I keep my article length to be AT LEAST 450-500 words... not a word less. And many experienced SEOers would agree that 600-800 word articles tend to rank very well... you can make your article longer than 800 words but I suggest splitting them into two for the sake of your site's size.
That it for section 1b.
---------------------------------------------
Section 1c - More on page SEO
Interlinking
Structuring your site so that each page on your site interlinks to some other page/homepage is a very good practice.
Here are some basic pointers that you should keep in mind when designing/creating your sites:
Have a top menu with pages like Home - Privacy Policy - Contact Us - Blog etc. Make sure the links in that menu are do-follow (99% of the time, they are by default). This is very basic practice but it would benefit you in the long run once your site gains some age and authority, Google will more then likely include "site links" in SERPs for your site. They look like this:
Other than that menu thing, try to include a sidebar with your latest or most popular posts on it.
There's a plugin called "Yet Another Related Posts Plugin" which lets you include a widget right under your post that displays related posts and links to them... its a very smart way to interlink your whole blog and Google is perfectly okay with that.
Using Images and Videos on your site:
Again its pretty basic advice (like the other ones) but don't underestimate the power of media. A blog/site with only text bores not only people but google bots also tend to love a site filled with different types of content e.g. text, images and videos etc.
You can find relavant images to use in your posts/pages on on Google images.
A little optimization is required when using an image.
Use proper alt text and title your image properly. Every once in a while, link it back to some other page on your site... while linking an image, make sure you put your exact keyword in alt text field.
Site speed does matter
Google ranks sites based on a lot of factors of which one is site loading speed i.e. how much time does your site (page) take to load.
The faster your site loads, the better.
Some basic pointers on how to improve site speed:
You can use this tool to test your page speed : https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/
Some wordpress plugins to help you out:
Most of us tend to use wordpress over any other CMS platform due to its ease of use and flexibility/scalability. Many people wonder what are some of the best wordpress plugins for SEO.
Here are a few that are on top of my list (some are not directly related to SEO but they help quite a bit):
Yoast SEO for Wordpress (Free) - you can use All in one SEO or Platinum SEO but Yoast is my favorite so far.
SEO Smart Links (Paid) - this for interlinking. There are free alternatives out there, just google it
WP Super Cache or W3 total cache for wordpress... this for caching which makes your site load a lot faster.
In addition to those three essential plugins for every wordpress blog, check out this thread to learn how to make your WP blog secure... not directly related to SEO but you don't want to see your SEO'd blog getting hacked do you?
Thats it for now.. I wrote this post in 10 minutes so I'm pretty sure I've left out some points worth mentioning but excuse me for that and feel free to add your own below.
Thanks everyone.
PS: Part 2 coming soon... this time I mean it by "soon"
Section 1 over.
---------------------------------------------
Section 1c - More on page SEO
Interlinking
Structuring your site so that each page on your site interlinks to some other page/homepage is a very good practice.
Here are some basic pointers that you should keep in mind when designing/creating your sites:
Have a top menu with pages like Home - Privacy Policy - Contact Us - Blog etc. Make sure the links in that menu are do-follow (99% of the time, they are by default). This is very basic practice but it would benefit you in the long run once your site gains some age and authority, Google will more then likely include "site links" in SERPs for your site. They look like this:
Other than that menu thing, try to include a sidebar with your latest or most popular posts on it.
There's a plugin called "Yet Another Related Posts Plugin" which lets you include a widget right under your post that displays related posts and links to them... its a very smart way to interlink your whole blog and Google is perfectly okay with that.
Using Images and Videos on your site:
Again its pretty basic advice (like the other ones) but don't underestimate the power of media. A blog/site with only text bores not only people but google bots also tend to love a site filled with different types of content e.g. text, images and videos etc.
You can find relavant images to use in your posts/pages on on Google images.
A little optimization is required when using an image.
Use proper alt text and title your image properly. Every once in a while, link it back to some other page on your site... while linking an image, make sure you put your exact keyword in alt text field.
Site speed does matter
Google ranks sites based on a lot of factors of which one is site loading speed i.e. how much time does your site (page) take to load.
The faster your site loads, the better.
Some basic pointers on how to improve site speed:
- Use simple and clean wordpress themes... Many themes have shitloads of features like sliders and this and that but guess what, it all adds up to decrease your site's loading speed.
- Delete unnecessary plugins - the more plugins you have activated, the slower your site will load.
- Get a good host - for small sites shared hosting is fine but if your site gets a lot of traffic you better get a decent VPS. I recommend Berman Hosting (not affiliated) for VPS as they have top notch machines for a fraction of what the big companies are charging you.
You can use this tool to test your page speed : https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/
Some wordpress plugins to help you out:
Most of us tend to use wordpress over any other CMS platform due to its ease of use and flexibility/scalability. Many people wonder what are some of the best wordpress plugins for SEO.
Here are a few that are on top of my list (some are not directly related to SEO but they help quite a bit):
Yoast SEO for Wordpress (Free) - you can use All in one SEO or Platinum SEO but Yoast is my favorite so far.
SEO Smart Links (Paid) - this for interlinking. There are free alternatives out there, just google it
WP Super Cache or W3 total cache for wordpress... this for caching which makes your site load a lot faster.
In addition to those three essential plugins for every wordpress blog, check out this thread to learn how to make your WP blog secure... not directly related to SEO but you don't want to see your SEO'd blog getting hacked do you?
Thats it for now.. I wrote this post in 10 minutes so I'm pretty sure I've left out some points worth mentioning but excuse me for that and feel free to add your own below.
Thanks everyone.
PS: Part 2 coming soon... this time I mean it by "soon"
Section 1 over.
---------------------------------------------
Okay, folks, that is pretty much it for now... In part 2, we'll discuss about off page SEO. Feel free to ask any questions in this thread and I'll try my best to answer them for you.
Off to a walk now.
Last edited:
