How to spot bad SEO advice.
December 30, 2007
I'm constantly shaking my head at the stuff I read on blogs or sites run by people claiming to have some knowledge about how Google works.
Here's two quotes from a blog I happened across the other day:
Unethical and dishonest SEO techniques will result in one of two things happening:
* Your website will actually lose rankings and drop like a brick in the Ohio River, or
* Your website will be banned from search engines.
"
Further down in the post he says:
I won't mention any of the bad techniques here, but if they have to do with creating extra pages in your website; stuffing your site with links, hidden links or hidden keywords, they you are going down the wrong path.
"
There are a lot of problems with these statements. Let's talk about them so you will know how to avoid such material when you inevitably come across it (and let me tell you, there's A LOT of this kind of stuff out there).
Problem #1: Ambiguity.
The author's BIGGEST problem with his entire blog post is ambiguity.
He refers to "Unethical and dishonest SEO techniques" but fails to give any precise examples of what that might include. He gives a few vague examples in the second statement I quoted above, but none that are precise enough to be useful to anyone who's actually trying to do well in Google.
In fact, he even says:
"
I won't mention any of the bad techniques here
"
Um, why not? The post is supposed to help people know what to avoid when building their site, but he purposefully won't say what to avoid. That doesn't make much sense.
In his vague list of possible "black hat" techniques, he includes:
1. "creating extra pages in your website"
Okay, so we shouldn't add content to our sites because that's "black hat"? Stop writing those articles boys! Again, a statement that makes no sense.
2. "stuffing your site with links"
I give you Wikipedia.org and About.com. Both are CHOCK FULL of links and do very well in Google. Google's own webmaster guidlines say:
"
Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).
"
That means that if I have a 100 page site with 50 links per page, Google is fine with those 5,000 links.
Where is this guy getting his information?
3. "hidden links or hidden keywords"
What is he thinking constitutes "hidden"? Does he mean links and keywords placed on the page so they won't be noticed by HUMANS? Or using the same foreground and background color for the text? Or using stylesheet settings to hide the content? Or what?
There's WAY too much ambiguity going on here.
Any time anybody starts making very broad statements like this, BEWARE. There are black, white and gray areas all over the world of SEO. If you're going to make a statement like this, it MUST include precise examples or it has no credibility.
Problem #2: Zero Proof
The owner of this blog apparently expects us to believe that his words are the undeniable truth. I have to assume that because he gives no proof or examples to back up his statements.
Now, if he was Matt Cutts (a well known Google Search Engineer), he could do that with some authority. Guess what: he's not! He's just some guy out there on the web making ambiguous statements about Google. There's nothing wrong with being "some guy out there", but if you want to be believed, provide proof and evidence.
MOST of the rumors about Google are started from posts like this which SEEM to come from credible sources, and SOUND reasonable, but which show very little (if any) proof to back them up. When people make statements but fail to back them up with evidence, BEWARE!
Don't Take This Wrong
I'm not trying to bash the guy who wrote the post. He's probably a great guy who's honestly wanting to inform people about what he THINKS is true about Google. The problem is that the wealth of ambiguity and complete lack of proof only causes confusion and raises questions.
There is a MOUNTAIN of this kind of "information" on the web about search engine optimization (especially regarding Google). Avoid it like the plague. Look for PRECISE examples and PROOF of accuracy. If either one is lacking, move on.
It's this kind of "information" that motivated me to write Search Engine Myths Exposed! Look for the full report on January 9th. It obliterates all kinds of myths about Google with precise examples and a wealth of proof.
Please post your thoughts and comments below.
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Make your Google results stand out!
December 21, 2007
Getting ranked well in Google is a wonderful thing. If you choose your keywords right, it means a steady stream of free traffic to your web site. That means sales and ad revenue, and I'll take that all day long! However, I see so many people squander their rankings in Google by not taking advantage of Google's favorable view of the meta description tag.
You see, when Google shows search results, it will very often display whatever is in your meta description tag underneath the title. I've found that Google will always display the meta description content if it contains the keywords being searched for.
If you don't set your meta description tag, Google will extract pieces of the page that match the query, and it just looks awful.
Take a look at the top search results for "stereo headphones":
Let's compare the descriptions under the results:
#1 - dealtime.com
Rating: Great!
"Compare shop for stereo headphones at DealTime - read reviews and compare prices from stores all across the Web."
Now THAT'S a good description! It really nails down what the searcher will find if they click through to that site, and it draws the searcher in.
#2 - audiogear.com
Rating: Okay
"Our stereo headphones, wireless headphones and headsets by Sony are from high-quality manufacturers. Since headphones are most used by recording studios, …"
This description is okay, but it could be a lot better. The site owner is squandering the whole second half of their description because their meta description is TOO LONG. Keep your meta description under 150 characters long or else Google will chop it off.
#3 - ehow.com
Rating: Good
"How to Buy High-End Stereo Headphones. Headphones enable you to enjoy music without bothering others (or having others bother you)."
ehow's meta description provides a solid understanding of what the user will get if they visit the site, but it could be a bit catchier to really draw in the searchers.
#4 - zzsounds.com
Rating: Awful!
"AKG K240S Circumaural Stereo Headphones. Semi-Open. 55 ohms. Removable plug-in cable. Item: AKGK240STU. New. Pricing. $119.95; List: $159.00; SAVE 24% …"
Yuck yuck yuck! That description does NOTHING to pull the searcher in (in fact, neither does the title tag). The meta description on that page does not contain the keywords "stereo headphones", and so Google is pulling text from the page that matches the query instead.
Being in the top 5 is great, but you need a good click-through rate!
Yes, it doesn't matter if you're in the top 5 if nobody clicks your link because it's not appealing at all. Google, a machine, might think it's great, but remember that you're dealing with HUMANS, too. So be sure to set a meta description on every page of content, and have that meta description tailor-made for the keywords that you're wanting to rank for.
Especially in competitive markets, every little boost counts, and you want Google to show a nice, clean, appealing description underneath your page title in the search results.
Another little added bonus is that the keywords will be BOLD in the description, and that little extra bit of noticeable emphasis helps.
ADDED: I see that I've not shown you how to set your meta description on the page. Not everyone knows how to do this, so here's what you do.
Between the <head> and </head> tags on your page (where the title tag resides), post the following code:
<meta name="description" content="Your description goes here.">
That will set your meta description tag.
ALSO ADDED: If you want to see how I write my meta description tags, search Google for "Jonathan Leger". JonathanLeger.com, the ezinearticles.com page and jonleger.com are all mine.
Please post your thoughts and comments below.
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Avoiding the snare of trash traffic.
December 17, 2007
Let's face it: pay-per-click can be very expensive, especially if you're wanting to drive thousands of visitors to your site. There are few keywords that I've targeted with AdWords that cost less than 50 cents to a dollar per click that generate any real traffic. If the return on investment is there it may not be a problem, but what if you don't have thousands of dollars to float your costs while you wait for your affiliate commission check?
Because of how expensive PPC can be, many people turn to lesser traffic sources that promise a flood of traffic for pennies per visitor (or less). If you've ever been tempted to buy traffic from places that promise, for instance, "5,000 visitors for $67", perhaps my case study into these traffic sources will help you in your decision.
You see, there are a lot of brokers for this kind of "cheap traffic" at a popular forum I frequent. I kept seeing dozens of people buying from those vendors, and yet I knew that what they were selling had to be worthless. Why? Because why would anyone sell thousands of real, valuable visitors for a penny per visitor or less? Anyone who could drive that kind of traffic (if it was quality traffic) would be raking in the affiliate profits from it and earning (on average) a dollar per visitor or more.
So I setup a test landing page and started buying traffic from these brokers and redirecting the traffic to the test page. You can see the results here, but let me explain what you're looking at when you visit that page.
That page contains a list of 16 cheap traffic brokers. Most of the names in the list are the usernames of the broker from the forum, but a couple of them are other web sites I purchased traffic from to see if they were any different (or better) than the brokers from the forum.
The bottom line is that I ended up getting 41,499 unique visitors sent to my site (far fewer than promised by the vendors in most cases) and that I earned a total of about $25 from the traffic. Given that I spent around $200 for the traffic, clearly the return on investment (ROI) was not there.
In doing this, I tracked a lot of details about the visitors to find out what was going on. Here's a screen shot of the details I was keeping track of:
I tracked the time of the visit, the IP address, the host name of the IP address, whether or not the visitor's browser supported javascript and/or accepted cookies, the referrer, the length of time the visitor stayed on the page, and whether or not the visitor actually saw the page (meaning that the page loaded completely without interruption).
This list of "visitors" in the screen shot above is very typical of the cheap traffic vendors I bought from. First, notice that the referrer is the same for every single visitor. Most cheap traffic vendors do this, modifying the referrer so that you don't know where the visitors are really coming from. They do this because they know you would be a very unhappy customer if you saw where the visitors were really coming from (and how they were delivering these "visitors").
One broker forgot to turn on the referrer replacement, and so I got to take a look at the methods they were using to send "traffic" to the site. He promptly realized his mistake and replaced the referrer, but it was too late: I had seen the truth.
The truth is that what you're being sent are not visitors, not really. They're views, and not really even that. This particular cheap traffic source used what's called a "pop over", where a box appears on a 100% completely unrelated web site and displays your site in the box. It's very annoying, and promptly causes the "visitor" (who never asked to see that site) to close the box immediately.
That's why the above screen shot has a red "N" in the last column for 79% of the "visitors" — the viewer was so annoyed by the pop-over that they closed the box before it even completed loading my very small test page. Closing the box before the page completely loaded prevented the javascript I put on the page from loading (since it was setup to execute after the page was completely loaded, in order to track precisely this behavior).
The "TOP" column that shows the time a viewer spent on the page also reveals that virtually nobody spent any time on it at all. Why should they? It was an annoying pop-over that had nothing to do with the site they were visiting. There are a few really high TOP values that apparently are from the javascript failing to execute that ends the "visit."
Another thing you'll notice if you look through the list of host names and IPs is that many of the "visitors" are from the same hosts and IP addresses. This means that the broker was claiming to be sending, say, "5,000 visitors", when in reality it was the same visitors being shown the same pop-over again and again. No unique visitors here, folks.
The bottom line with traffic is that you get what you pay for. Yes, AdWords is expensive, but it is operated by a reputable source. My opinion is that any source of "traffic" that hides the referrer is really a "trash traffic" source and should be avoided like the plague. It's most likely a rip-off. If it wasn't, why would they need to hide the referring page?
I originally performed this test to help the members at that forum who were buying this trash traffic because they didn't realize that it wasn't real or quality traffic. I posted a long thread with my results from all of these vendors and got a lot of very positive feedback from doing it. I thought the information would be useful to you as well, in case you were considering buying from these cheap, bulk "traffic" vendors.
Please post your thoughts and comments below.
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Like what you see? Then subscribe to Marketing Insiders and reap big benefits! By subscribing to my free Marketing Insiders email list, you will regularly receive special member-only insider information, discounts and freebies. You will also be notified when new articles are posted here at the blog. It's absolutely free to subscribe, and you can leave the list at any time. For subscribing today, I will give you a valuable free gift as well! |
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Jonathan Leger has been earning his living online full-time since the fall of 2004. He regularly posts advice about search engine optimization (his current passion), AdSense and Internet Marketing. 
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