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5 SEO Principles I Learned Over The Years - DailyBlogTips

5 SEO Principles I Learned Over The Years - DailyBlogTips

5 SEO Principles I Learned Over The Years

Posted: 05 Jun 2012 04:59 AM PDT


I don’t consider myself an SEO expert, but I have been in the trenches for many years already, and managed to build some fairly successful websites when it comes to search engine traffic, with a couple of them breaking the one million monthly visitors mark.

Over this time I came across many SEO tips and tricks, but those come and go. On the other hand there are some basic principles that never change, and I want to talk about some of them.

1. Clichê as it may sound, content is still king.

You probably already know this, so I won’t waste too many words on this point. But yeah having unique and useful content is still the cornerstone of any SEO strategy. Without it no sophisticated SEO tactics will be able to drive a lot of organic traffic to your website.

2. You have to partner with Google, and not compete against it.

When trying to optimize your website for Google you have basically two approaches to follow: you either co-operate with it or you try to out-smart it.

Out-smarting it involves trying to find loopholes in the algorithm, ways to trick the search bots, methods to artificially increase your rankings and so on. The so-called blackhat SEO. In my opinion this is the worst approach you can follow, as it might work in the short term, but in the long run you’ll probably have a lot of headaches.

If instead you play along with Google you’ll be building a more solid asset out of your websites, and in the long term you’ll receive a lot more traffic from it. You can read more about this on Danny Sullivans’ post No, Advanced SEO Does Not Mean Spamming.

3. Understand Google’s business model

In the previous point I talk about partnering with Google, but what does that mean in practice? It means that you should understand Google’s business model and support it with your websites.

Essentially Google makes money by serving search results that match exactly what people are looking for, and by serving ads both on those search result pages and on partner websites that have content matching the search queries.

In other words, if you want to rank high in search results you need to make sure that your content will match and satisfy the needs of whatever your visitors might be searching for on Google. If you get this part right half the battle is already won.

There’s a post on Blogging Tips with 3 ways you can use to increase the relevancy of your posts.

4. Unique and useful content is not enough

As I mentioned in the first point, having unique and useful content should always be the first part of your SEO strategy. Even if you have buttloads of high quality content, though, this alone will not be enough to drive organic traffic to your website.

Why not? Because simply writing and publishing that content on your website doesn’t mean that Google will know about it, let alone trust it. You can achieve this will the point below.

5. Get people talking about your content/website

The second half of the SEO equation (the first one being having unique and useful content) is to get Google to know and trust your content. Without getting technical, you can achieve this by getting other people to talk about your content and website.

For example, if you write a highly articulated post explaining what caused the latest financial crisis it’s likely that many financial bloggers will link to your post, people interested in finance will share and like your post on Facebook, others will retweet it, so on and so forth. Google tracks all those mentions, and it will figure that your content is probably top notch. The result is that your post will rank high when people search on Google for related terms.

If you want some practical ideas of how you can get people talking about your content check out this article: 4 Steps to Increase Your Blog Traffic.

Wanna make money with your website?

Original Post: 5 SEO Principles I Learned Over The Years
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ProBlogger: What George Orwell Taught Me About Blogging

ProBlogger: What George Orwell Taught Me About Blogging

Link to @ProBlogger

What George Orwell Taught Me About Blogging

Posted: 04 Jun 2012 07:04 AM PDT

This guest post is by Trevor Ginn of Hello Baby.

Having written masterpieces such as Animal Farm and 1984, George Orwell is considered one of the greatest writers of all time. 

In 1941 he wrote the essay called Politics and the English Language in which he criticised the “ugly and inaccurate” contemporary use of English and offered six elementary rules for good writing.  The medium may have changed but these rules are as relevant to the blogosphere as they were in Orwell's day.

If you want to be understood and read widely, using effective language should be your top priority.  The web is full of mediocre blogs, so make sure yours stands out.  Good writing matters and by following these rules you can rise above the competition and clearly communicate your ideas.

Rule 1: Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print

Familiar phrases such as “on the same page” or “think outside the box” come quickly to mind when writing.  However, using these hackneyed phrases will lead to boring blog posts and groans from your readers.  Take time to craft postings which are interesting, inventive and original.  Never resort to clichés.

Rule 2: Never use a long word where a short one will do

Using long words may make you feel clever, but they do nothing for the readability of your posts.  Your blog should be easy to read and aimed at a broad audience.  After all, nobody likes a show off.

Rule 3: If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out

Great blog posts never waffle but are short and punchy.  Your posts are competing with a myriad of other distractions both online and offline and so you need to get your point across with brevity and emphasis.  Less is almost always more.

Rule 4: Never use the passive where you can use the active

When you blog, you should use short, impactful sentences make your points.  To this end active phrases are shorter and more direct.  For example, “the man wrote the blog” is punchier than “the blog was written by the man.”

Rule 5: Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent

Aim to use plain, jargon-free English to appeal to the largest possible audience.  You should always aim to write for the average reader, although admittedly for technical subjects this may be difficult.  Do not drone on with excessive explanation but try to help people understand what you are talking about.

Rule 6: Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous

Above all, be sure to use your common sense!  These rules are easy remember but hard to apply and the key is to care about making your blog easy to read, accessible, pithy and cliché free.

Trevor Ginn is an entrepreneur who runs the online baby shop Hello Baby and ecommerce consultancy vendlab.  You can follow his antics on his blog or@trevorginn.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
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What George Orwell Taught Me About Blogging
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