SEO, or Search Engine Optimization is always of the highest importance for most businesses with a presence on the web, and rightly so; good search engine visibility and Google rankings are the backbone to success on the Internet. Sometimes however, people tend to go that step too far, either through bad advice from specialist SEO companies, or just by becoming so caught up with optimization that they neglect the core principles of web usability. Here’s five of my own SEO pet hates, that inhibit the general performance of your site more than they benefit your precious Google ranking.
Stuffing your title with keywords
The <title> element is the SEO’ers most cherished tool, as it’s the item Google takes the most notice of when crawling a web page. Including important keywords in the page title is a good move for bumping up your website rankings for your desired keywords but don’t forget what the title element is actually for – describing the page content. Some people stuff in every keyword and phrase they can think of, which ends up looking more like a Thesaurus entry than actually providing any useful information.
Remember that the title element is seen by the user when viewed in the search engine results page, so make it short, concise and enticing.
Littering your body text with keywords
It’s common SEO knowledge that if you want to rank highly for a particular search term, this term should appear as keywords in and around your page copy. This usually this happens naturally with good copy, but you can always give a helping hand and insert an extra keywords in here and there. Unfortunately many people take this way too far and drop in keywords between every other sentence. The result is page copy that either makes you sound like a robot when reading out loud, or a sufferer of some kind of obscure tourettes syndrome.
Remember to read your copy out loud, if there’s a littering of keywords and phrases in there just for SEO purposes have a tidy up to make your pages naturally easier to read.
Not using your real name on comments
Generating as many links back to your website is another crucial aspect of gaining good search engine rankings. Many people seem to think this is pretty easy, after all there’s hundreds of high pagerank blogs out there openly allowing users to submit a comment that links to your own website. All you need to do is enter your most treasured keywords instead of your real name, then you’ve got an extra backlink for the Googlebots to tally up against your website, right? Wrong. What many people don’t realise is that blog comments by default include the rel="nofollow" attribute on anchor elements, which means the bots don’t follow the link, and the pagerank isn’t passed on, meaning there’s very little SEO related benefits.
Remember to use your real name on comment forms, it will make you much more personable than ‘Cheap squirrel repellent’. Unless that is your real name of course…
Excessive interlinking of words and phrases
We’ve talked about links from other websites, but what about the all important same-site links? These is your chance to get those keyword rich links to your pages without pesky nofollow attributes getting in the way. Providing a descriptive link to another page of your site or an old article where appropriate boosts the usability of your site, making it easy for users to find information. Sometimes people go that little too far and link to every page in their sitemap whenever those words appear in the content. Any scenerio where you have almost as many colourful linked words as plain body text is never good!
Remember to provide same-site links in your content where appropriate, but don’t go overboard. You don’t need to link the words every time they appear.
Sending link exchange request emails
There’s only so many directories a person can submit to before going insane, and we’ve now learnt that comment spam doesn’t get us anywhere. How else can we get those all important back links? Why not just email the owners of other websites and ask them to link to your site, you could even reciprocate with a link in return, or offer a cash incentive. Start this email with “Dear Webmaster” for best results. As friendly website owners we all enjoy linking to our friends and sites that we frequently visit ourselves, but when 30 link request emails a day land in your inbox from sites we’ve never heard of it can get a little tedious. Accepting these requests would put you on the fast track to link farm status.
Remember to spend your time on posting quality and sought after information on your site, rather than wasting it emailing the same old link request message. You’ll see major improvements in your traffic in no time.
Good article….thanks…
I really think that many people done this mistakes. For days ago i have read an ironical article about this stuff.
Chris,
I found this article by following you on Twitter. It’s very informative and easy to understand. It looks like I have to do a lot of work yet.Thanks
What’s ironic is that you’ll still get so many people commenting on this article purely to get link backs to their website. Their comments will probably look just like the first comment on this site :-)
I didn’t include a link to my website for this so I didn’t sound too hypocritical!
Although the squirrel avatar looks coincidentally suspect given the examples in this post at least you’re using your real name, Patrick :-)
Feel free to drop in your website link.
NO that’s FUNNY. I also didn’t add a link to this comment.
sorry… this is going to bug me… NOW that’s funny!
Squirrel!
Thank you! I definitely agree with the points you underlined.
Thanks Chris, nice article. The first example was crack up, there are some real muppets out there lol
Dude… you rule, Chris.
But why do you approve the "obviously spam" comments?
Comment moderation could be a full time job in itself with the number of comments submitted each day so I just rely on Akismet to flag up the most blatant spammers.
Unfortunately this does mean some slip through the net.
True. I thought of that after I commented. Anyhow… you still rule! I send my students to your site quite often.
Thanks. Very useful.
:)
LOL =)
Dude, I suggest reading the article before leaving your <strike>spammy</strike> ironic comment!
He was being sarcastic, Eric.
Eric is obviously an American. haha
Hi Chris, I have to do and see this a lot. I’m interested, how do you work with SEO? Do you work with an SEO company or handle it yourself?
SEO is a big part of my work, but it’s more of a necessary evil rather than what gets me out of bed in the morning. I also find that often SEO can be a hindrance to usability as it means headings and content just don’t make sense.
I don’t tend to offer SEO services as such, but a well coded website sets you up for good results anyway, especially if tailored slightly to particular keywords. I’d employ all the tactics mentioned in this post, but at a very mild and acceptable level!
Well said, I totally agree with this
So what would you say is the best way to get backlinks then?
a timely post for me. SEO has been one of the main topics of discussion with during the last week and it’s ensuring to see someone else drawing the line. So many clients demand better rankings without understanding, that although people may find their site, they won’t stay long because it’s so tedious. Now can I get a backlink please ;)
Exactly, it’s a shame that to most clients, the term SEO itself means ‘stuff as many keywords in as possible’.
Comment moderation may be a full time job in itself with the number of comments received each day, so they rely on Akismet to inform the most egregious spammers. Unfortunately, this does go through some of the network.
Hey squirrel people, the guy that owns http://www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/ hates squirrels!!
On-Topic : Good article!
P.S : Damn ,you really must hate squirrels.
Haha I love squirrels, especially the flying variety. So much that I made them mascots for this post ;-)
i like them
Truly some cringe-worthy examples Chris, very nice.
The hilarious (and sad) thing is that if anyone is still employing tactics like this then they’re simply wasting their time for 2 reasons.
Stuffing keywords will get you quickly flagged as a spammy site, and of course no user in their right mind would actually enjoy reading content like that. They’ll probably bugger off somewhere else.
Plus backlinks from comment sections, forums, link exchanges etc. are only really worth it when the linking site or page is relevant. I don’t think for example that a link from a web design blog to a squirrel extermination site will carry much weight with Google.
The sad thing is that if SEOs are still using tactics like this then people are being tricked into paying for their ‘services’, and the only site that will suffer is the client’s.
Hopefully the better Google & Co. get at spotting and penalising this stuff, the faster dodgy SEO will disappear (but not for quite a while I fear).
Exactly right. I’m sure there are plenty of creditable SEO companies out there, but unfortunately the only ones I’ve seen have injected a bunch of crap to the client’s website.
Let’s hope Google does speed up their processes.
Hey Chris – I get the impression that you wrote this article to vent some frustrations. Especially the last point… I bet you get hundreds of emails from the likes of webmaster@wolly.biz, all asking for a link exchange with your blogs.
Haha kind of, I’m pretty sure the post idea came when deleting a link request email :-)
The funny thing is a couple of these examples were actually copied from live scenarios, one of them being the link request email.
Can’t disagree with anything you have said here Chris, all tactics I have bene using recently.
Thank you Chris, great article. I have just a question, how do you insert keywords in the text?
Funny but serious stuff! Keyword stuffing is down right obnoxious and can make your copy look like it is written by a moron!
I was fed up with the spam comments coming through on my blog despite the use of Askimet so I added a Captcha code with has resolved the problem 100%. I saw quite a drop in readership as the spammers unsubscribed but they were not quality readers so no loss.
I actually don’t like squirrels very much! I had a flying squirrel in my attic a few years ago who would visit every night and basically go nuts throwing himself around up there.
Loving the article man.
Thanks
Interesting angle on SEO,… haha. If I may add to what you’ve covered above, #’s 1, 2, and 4 will get one penalized by most major search engines. There’s a certain ration of keywords to words (somewhere around 5% – 7%) that many copywriters and SEOs keep in mind.
i exterminate squirrel, please contact Squirrel Exterminator to exterminate your squirrel..
ha ha..
i hate SEO people who do these 5 tactics.
Good article, nice squirrel exterminators for hire read.
Thanks for your share.
it is very useful
I’m scared of squirrels! Now, I will always associate bad SEO techniques with squirrels therefore I’m now scared of bad SEO techniques!
Is this what you were trying to acheive? Haha
People with less SEO knowledge always performs the points mention below, they should understand seo is not just keyword stuffing, it is a well planned work that needs to be executed.
I totally agree with the last point, now I have a reason to my friend, why I hate link exchange request email.
Thanks…
I’ve been saying this for years! Seeing copy written for robots rather than humans really grinds my gears.
The way I see it we spend so long tweaking our designs to make the site a beautiful thing to behold. Why, then would we give all that work the finger by stuffing our sites so full of key words and phrases that it looks like Rainman wrote the copy on his way to buy underwear at K Mart?
If you write good copy that is pleasing for humans to read, your keywords will more than likely appear plenty enough times anyway so there is absolutely no need for it.
Haha, I found this hilarious. Good job Chris!
I get so many emails from people saying that can bring me 30-45,000 unique hits a day if I exchange links with them. Very annoying! From now on I’m directing them here before hitting the delete button! :)
Promoted!
I’ve just developed a site for a Squirrel exterminator and you’ve just single-handedly destroyed my #1 Google ranking.
Thanks, Spooner.
I also cringe when I see keywords stuffed into alt and title attributes..
As you say, a well coded site from the ground up should lend itself to good results anyway.
Chris question for you. I get the whole personal feeling with the name and all but what if we go by another name? Most of my clients when they start out have a hard time remembering my name, (I guess have one of those names that just rolls through the ears.) so most of the times i just go by That Graphic Guy.
is it wrong that I leave my name as that graphic guy?
Thanks
I was going to mention this in the post but it must have slipped my mind. I know a lot of people go by their brand name and I think this is perfectly fine. After all it’s still a recognisable name, whereas ‘Web Design Dallas’ would be a little pointless considering there’s no SEO benefits.
It’s a similar situation when creating usernames on social sites. It all depends how you want to be recognised, I started off creating usernames as ‘spoongraphics’, but soon moved to ‘chrisspooner’.
now this is valuable content
THNX
Poor Squirrel he’s just trying to get a nut.
I often use "McConnell Group" as my name and sign the comment at the bottom, but for this post I wont use my moniker.
Good Post Chris
Shawn,
Thanks Shawn, I just touched on this in a response to Ryan’s comment above just now but I suppose another benefit of a real name is that personal touch, Shawn McConnell is that little more approachable, but there’s no harm in using McConnell Group to link in with your overall brand name.
Agree with most of your points Chris, although I would say that the client tends to tread as close to keyword stuffing into page titles and body content as they can for better indexation.
Whilst it is not ‘nice’ to see sites that are written for robots rather than humans, for an online store in a highly saturated industry, being 1st rather than 2nd can mean the difference between 40% of the traffic and 28% (if my memory serves)
The difference in placements on the 1st page of google is significant for your traffic, and the 2nd page is not worth being on at all in many cases.
Thanks Paul, that’s really interesting. I wonder if Google does have any specific rules and guidelines on the amount of keyword stuffing.
Does the benefit of stuffed pages outweigh the risk of being blacklisted, or is this risk pretty low?
I think it’s more effective to make your page readable. Get your keywords in once and maybe put them in bold text. Using keywords in paragraph headings is also helpful.
Google doesn’t get real specific in their guidelines, but I think you’re right on with your post.
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66358
Quality post. Not only was it a good read but i also had a good laugh at some of the points.
Great work
Amen! Now only if the SEO douches would read the article and change their dirty ways.
As a person who used to have a website full of cartoon squirrels, I think I’m scared of these Palin children (only a Palin can be called Cheap Squirrel Repellent) spamming me if I leave a link here. :O
All jokes aside, as a person running a website in the niche where too many people show such amateurism, I had a lot of fun reading this.
Nice article, very hepful…I’m just learning.
thanks,
Patrick
By the way, tweetmeme returns an error, saying that the URL’s pointing to the wrong story. Chris, you might want to look into that or report the error to them? I knew there was something odd going on when I saw that there are only 0 retweets, yet there are so many of them in the sidebar.
Nice, Chris! btw… I never would have expected the title from you. Good article man.
hahah. This seems like a website built by someone with a very high DBI Rate = Douche Bag Index.
But at the same time very good tips on how not to get your site banned by users or Google.
Also, its good to know so when you can contacted from an SEO company what not to pay for.
Good post.
SEO == douchebags
There is no ‘white hat’ or ‘black hat’ or whatever they call themselves. It’s all, without exception, snake oil.
I’m no SEO expert but it is a necessary evil I’ve had to learn over the last few years.
There is a huge difference between whitehat and blackhat SEO techniques, blackhat being the ones that are likely to get you banned.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve used our company name as the "name" field when leaving comments.
I’ve stoppped doing that because it also happens to be a keyword and so blog owners might consider it spam.
I don’t consider myself a deuche, just a small business owner trying to compete with the megacorps with an SEO department.
My comments are usually on topic and useful to thhe person reading it.
thats cool stuff thx
Good quick read. The squirrels made it even more entertaining
Haha! I love #2! I see it all over the place when I’m shopping for Hawaiian coconuts in Hawaii at the Hawaii Coconut Shop. The Hawaii Coconut Shop has lots of Coconuts from a Hawaii Coconut Plantation located in Hawaii where you find great coconuts… Coconut Coconut Coconut! :P
Nice job Chris. These are very small tidy things but can get huge benefit only if implemented in the right way.
Spectacular clipping job on that squirrel under the Excessive Interlinking subhead!!
Great article, too. #1 will soon render the description meta useless by Google.
Can I say AMEN to this post.
Dude, I am tired of people who stuff their comments with keywords. Its not only bad for your branding, but it really doesn’t benefit you in terms of SEO because 9/10 times those links will be NOFOLLOW!!!
People are morons. If I can say one thing that I learned in SEO over the past 6+ years is "The more accurate you are, the better it is for you".
Treat the Search Engine like a person, and it will be your best friend.
Poor squirrels!!
Good article indeed. What I would like to say is that, along with the SEO, the designers must have the knowledge of usability and user experience. This would provide a bigger space to design the lay out better. In fact SEO and designers must work with hand in hand. Exchange of ideas would leave a prominent footmark on design.
Um…take a look at your ‘name’. You just did the exact same thing advised AGAINST in the article. I’m sure you’re not being ironic either.
really nice article – thanks :)
Nice article.
But in some website of "strict" people, they don’t like if we put our website’s name in the comment. They think we’re spamming and delete this comment. I’ve seen some webmasters do that. It’s bad for our SEO :)