Common sense advice for SEO

oregongal · #1 (**permalink**) 08-22-2007, 12:36 AM

Hi,

It may sound almost too simple, but I like to study other successful sites in my field or areas of interest and take hints from them. Reading comments on blogs can be enlightening also.
Just my two cents worth!
Diane

miles · #2 (**permalink**) 08-22-2007, 12:41 AM

Oh absolutely. I love learning about how successful people find their way to the top, especially in my own niche. But I'm not quite sure what you mean in terms of SEO. These days, SEO in the sense that we once knew is fading away. Yes, meta tags and targeted content is helpful but if you're talking about getting good search engine rankings, a big part of it is how many quality sites are linking back to you.

So when you say you look at other sites in your field do you mean in how they optimize for their targeted keywords or get traffic in general?

oregongal · #3 (**permalink**) 08-22-2007, 08:11 AM

Hi Miles,

I'm talking about a little of everything. Keywords I believe still play a part. Seeing how their site is structured gives me good ideas too. Like some blogs invite discussions. People use different techniques and I feel like we can learn from them.
Diane

lisa · #4 (**permalink**) 08-22-2007, 11:09 PM

You bet oregongal. I am constantly getting ideas from other successful sites, no just for keywords, but particularly how to write and communicate with my audience. The approach I tend to take is "What can I do differently" or "What did they leave out that I could add that would appeal to my audience?" and then go from there.

PosterBoy · #5 (**permalink**) 08-27-2007, 02:20 PM

Maybe one day you can enlighten us with your SEO knowledge. I found your page www.2createawebsite.com/build/templates.html as it was #1 on Google's search results for 'free html templates'... and it's not even your index page, it's your deeper page. You must be an SEO expert.

lisa · #6 (**permalink**) 08-27-2007, 04:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PosterBoy

You must be an SEO expert.

Hardly the expert and you know... I really try to avoid the term "SEO" because I believe the traditional SEO as we once knew it is dead for the most part.

There are several factors that are involved in making a page rank high and it first starts with the reputation of your site as a whole.

My site 2createwebsite.com is 5 1/2 years old, and for a website these days that's considered somewhat mature. I have a ton of backlinks from other sites and my site has a bunch of pages all centered around website building, promotion, etc.

When I create a page I use meta tags just like any other webmaster, but as far as using some formula where I sit and try to decide how many times to use a certain word in a page or making sure I mention the target phrase in the first paragraph, etc (I call it old school SEO). I really don't do that anymore. That's why it's important to build up your site's reputation in whatever niche you have. The search engines will begin to respect you and it will be easier to rank higher for certain keywords.

I was in a forum the other day and these guys were arguing over what google looks for in the keyword tag and how far in advance you should add a keyword link, etc. It was crazy. Back in 2000 all that stuff mattered, but now it's all about your site reputation as a whole.

Of course you still use the meta tags and mention your targeted keyword and variations of it throughout your page, but I really don't spend much time trying to rank high. I just write for the humans (instead of spiders) and it seems to work best.

PosterBoy · #7 (**permalink**) 08-29-2007, 04:01 PM

Thank you very much for your reply. I figured that you wouldn't be trying to tweek each page for search engines. I believe that as your site has been around a long time + provides useful information it must have a lot of links pointing in and have a good reputation. Too bad there's no short-cuts to getting higher on Google / Yahoo / MSN.

lisa · #8 (**permalink**) 08-29-2007, 09:07 PM

MSN HATES my site.

Most of SE traffic is from Google and Yahoo.

Lajocar · #9 (**permalink**) 10-01-2007, 01:25 AM

It is always a good idea to look at successful websites and to get fresh ideas.

PosterBoy · #10 (**permalink**) 10-01-2007, 11:38 AM

Besides looking at top performing sites, like Lisa's, it's also a good idea to read through forums such as this one to get fresh ideas. Sometimes others have a lot of great advice and a new perspective.

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