Note: If this post seems like it was mish-mashed into the current series, it was. It’s really my rabbit trail about how sometimes, you do have to be careful what you say. Or everyone could think you’re a big fat liar. Also, the SEO tip that I learned from my own harrowing experience.

Remember the post in which I (sort of) called myself a big, fat liar? Currently, when you search for “Sarah Bray” (one of my top searched-for keywords), here’s what comes up:

Google, you are a cruel, cruel mistress.

Why you should talk about yourself in the third person sometimes

Because it’s very likely that people are going to eventually know who you are and Google your name (a fantastic thing). And if you talk about yourself in the third person, that’s likely what they’re going to see on their search result. It’s kind of a nifty way of crafting your own search engine entry.

“Sarah Bray is the awesomest.”

“Sarah Bray is the coolest person ever.”

“Sarah Bray knows her stuff, and is more honest than Abe himself.”

Take that, Google.

So this is the final myth we’re going to dispel before moving on to something…besides SEO (I get so tired of hearing that word, don’t you?). And this is one that people who *think* they know search engine optimization often make the mistake of believing — and even perpetuating.

Myth #8: I’ve got to repeat my keyword as many times as possible in my content.

You’ve seen these guys, right? It’s so obvious that they’ve got their SEO hats on that you’re tempted to comment, “Hey buddy, how’s that working for you?” They’ve got their keywords all over the place — in their titles, their meta tags, their permalinks, their links…and most blatantly, about a zillion times in their content. Half the time, the article isn’t even helpful. Just keyword-y.

Sometimes these guys pass through with flying colors. Google seems to ignore their screaming attempts at swerving the system in their direction. But guess what? Most of the time, they get banned.

Use your keywords…the good ole honest Abe way

That is to say…use them wisely. Keyword density is not about saying your keywords as many times as you possibly can while also forming complete sentences. It’s about getting a good ratio of keyword to article length. There’s really no magic formula for this, no matter what people may tell you. But trial and error has shown the following to be a good measure of thumb:

1. Use your keyword(s) in your title. We’ve already covered how title tags are crucial, so I won’t repeat. But yes, use them here.
2. Use it once in the first sentence. That way Google knows you’re continuing the theme in your content — it’s not just the name of the page.
3. Use it one to two other times in the first paragraph, but no more. A strong start seems to do well with the search engines, but don’t overdo it.
4. In the rest of the article, a sprinkle will do you. Here’s where a lot of people go wrong. They continue using their keyword two or three times in every paragraph. Don’t do it. Your article will have spam written all over it.
5. Finally, use it in the last sentence or near the end of the article. You know…just to remind them that you’re covering the topic thoroughly.

Could it be any more practical than that? Sure, there are other search engine optimization strategies, but I’m not about to write for six months on the topic. You will be forever and beyond where your competition dreams of being if you pay attention to these…and I’ll be so proud.

Don’t forget, guys

• Myth #1: Link-clicking
• Myth #2: Link exchanges
• Myth #3: Jam-packed meta tags
• Myth #4: Keyword equality
• Myth #5: Google Adwords
• Myth #6: Internal links
• Myth #7: No-follow tags
• Myth #8: Keyword density

Today’s post is written by a local-to-me guy, Zach Roth. He’s an SEO expert coming to us from SEOP, a search engine optimization firm in Orange County. His myth-busting is right on…have a read.

Of all the misconceptions and myths fluttering about the SEO industry, this has to be one of the top repeat offenders. If I had 5 cents for every time someone told me they were planning to block a page on their website by adding a “No-Follow” tag to it, I’d probably have about $10.85. That’s a good bit of coin for simply witnessing a sadly confused and frustrated search pioneer at work. That’s why I’m going to prove to you that a no-follow tag is more like a piece of chewing gum than anything else, bust Myth #7, and show you the steps TO follow to properly incorporate this crucial SEO element into your site.

Let’s first start by directly addressing the common myth that is often muttered from a webmasters lips:

Myth #7: “I don’t want this page getting indexed, so I’ll just no-follow all links pointing to that page.”

The no-follow tag has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not a page will get indexed into Google. In no way, shape, or form does this tag “hide” anything from Google.

Instead, this tag simply tells Google “Do not pass any authority to the page I am linking to”. It is a tool which web masters and SEOs can use to help control the flow of authority through the site.

So what if I don’t want Google to know about certain pages?

With regards to blocking Google from indexing the page: Google indexes very aggressively, there really is no way to 100% for sure hide something on your server from their spiders. The best suggestion I could make is in addition to the meta NOINDEX and NOFOLLOW tags to the head tag of a page is writing a proper robots.txt block as well.

Whipping your PageRank into shape using no-follow tags

Using the no-follow tag on specific links throughout your website is also called PageRank sculpting. Ultimately, it allows us to divert the authority that is saturating unnecessary pages we don’t care about ranking, and re-consolidate it to strengthen the pages we actually WANT to rank.

When I’m explaining the no-follow tag to people, I like to paint a quick portrait in their minds that I often find helps. Just for a second, pretend that the inbound links (also called backlinks) pointing to your website are droplets of rain pouring down into a series of buckets stacked like a pyramid. Water is literally the authority, PageRank, or “link juice” passed to a website. Some of these drops (or links) will be fatter and carry more weight, or authority, while others will be rather weak and not contribute to the total volume of the buckets.

Imagine this rain is all flowing in to the very top bucket first, the homepage. This first bucket is completely riddled with holes (internal links) through which the water passes to the buckets below (interior category and subcategory pages). The authority hits the homepage and flows through the links accordingly like a stream of water.

In this scenario, a no-followed tag would literally equate to the piece of gum you clog one of the holes with to prevent water from flowing to the specific bucket below. What this does is help water to build up in the bucket above.

When thinking of PageRank like water hitting your homepage, and then literally flowing through all of the internal links on your pages; we see that the no-follow tag really is an authority dam. With this in mind, it would be senseless for us to waste our precious “water of authority” by dumping it in to pages we could care less about ranking such as:

• Pages that are primarily image or flash based
• Any sort of dynamic login page, registration pages, forgotten password pages
• Pages containing submit forms and request quote pages
• Terms and Conditions
• Shipping Policy
• Privacy Policy, etc.
• Any other irrelevant or content-less pages

The proper way to incorporate this tag is by applying it in the rel property of an A tag for which you do not want to pass authority. Therefore, if I was wanting to no-follow the privacy policy on my site I would craft every link pointing to it on my entire site to look like this:

<a href="http://www.domain.com/privacy-policy/" rel="nofollow">Privacy Policy</a>

Whether you are hiring a professional search engine optimization firm, or planning to take on tackling SEO yourself, please take a minute to ensure you aren’t wasting your precious site authority by letting it leak into meaningless pages. Use the no-follow tag on your site not to prevent Google from indexing any pages, but rather to tell its spiders to not pass any link juice to them. You’ll thank yourself later when you see your target keyword rankings in the SERPs for your more important pages.

Check it out…more myth-busting action

• Myth #1: Link-clicking
• Myth #2: Link exchanges
• Myth #3: Jam-packed meta tags
• Myth #4: Keyword equality
• Myth #5: Google Adwords
• Myth #6: Internal links
• Myth #7: No-follow tags
• Myth #8: Keyword density

Okay, so this really isn’t a prevailing myth (wallop me for not being able to fit everything into my nice little myths analogy), but if I had to create a myth out of this little-known fact, it would be:

Myth #6: Internal links don’t matter.

Internal links are links that go to another page within your site. And they matter! This is probably the easiest link-building strategy you could use, because you have complete control over the links that you make to yourself. Hooray!

So why does Google care if you link to yourself? Isn’t that…too easy?

Well yeah, it is. But it makes sense. If you write articles on peanut butter sandwiches, and you have a lot of them on your site all linking to each other, Google sees you as more of an authority on the topic. All of your internal linking makes you (to them) the peanut butter sandwich king.

A practical example

When I get done with this series, I’m going to add links at the bottom of each article to all of the other articles in the series. At the end of it all, I’ll have seven to ten links on each page. Once Google figures out that I have so many articles related to each other on the topic of SEO myths, I’m likely to rank much higher for that particular keyword. Which equals yay for me. And yay for readers, because all of the articles will be easily accessible from each post.

Oh yes, and double yay for you if you take this concept of internal linking and apply it on your own super-awesome site. Send me some links if you’ve done it. I’d love to give you a ginormous pat on the back.

Even more myth-bustin’

• Myth #1: Link-clicking
• Myth #2: Link exchanges
• Myth #3: Jam-packed meta tags
• Myth #4: Keyword equality
• Myth #5: Google Adwords
• Myth #6: Internal links
• Myth #7: No-follow tags
• Myth #8: Keyword density

Maybe you’re NOT on a shoestring budget. Maybe you’ve got money to burn, and you think to yourself, “To heck with Sarah’s stupid SEO advice. I’m just going to buy some Google Adwords and be done with it.”

Myth #5: Google Adwords are an easy alternative to search engine optimization. Also, they’re more effective.

This is sort of a one-two punch in myth garbage. First, let’s tackle the first part.

Google Adwords are anything but easy

Let’s say you’re a typical new Adwords user. You sign up (easy). You pick your keywords (easy). You make your ad (easy). “So what’s not easy about this?” you ask. “Sarah Bray is a big fat liar.”‘

Wait a month. Oh geez, man. The keywords you picked are super expensive. $5 for every click! That’s outrageous! And nobody’s buying! What the heck is going on here?!

It is your fault

The truth is, Adwords can be a super-powerful part of your marketing plan. But you’ve got to be an Adwords pro to be able to utilize it correctly. Or you’ve got to have a bunch of money to burn as you figure out what the heck kind of words are going to work for you without costing you $5 a click, how to get people to actually click on your ad (and get unqualified leads to NOT click), and how you’re going to convert a large number of those clicks into customers or clients.

The point is, running an effective Adwords campaign is not any easier than search engine optimization. It’s a whole lot more expensive and just as involved. So you might as well roll up your sleeves either way.

Truly, good SEO is more effective than Google Adwords

Getting on the front page of Google is tons better for you than showing up on the front page in an ad. If someone got to your site by an ad, they may be won over by your lovely copy and your brilliant design, but deep somewhere in the recesses of their brain, they’re thinking, “These people are out to get my money.” They’re immediately on their guard.

Some people may want that. “Hard-hitting sales professional” may be part of the image you want to convey. Maybe you’re selling an eBook with one of those miles-long sales pages that is obviously a huge sales pitch. (In that case, you better price that eBook correctly, or you could end up paying most of your profits to Google.) But most likely, you’re not.

In that case, it’s far better for you if the person finds you themselves. They click on your link from the front page (or second page) on Google, and they think, “I found this super cool person. I’m totally awesome.” You want them to feel good about themselves and about you. It gets the relationship off on the right foot, and you’re much more likely to get their business.

So yes, use Adwords. But first, teach yourself some good SEO practices or hire someone to do it for you. Make a profit that way in the beginning (kind of like trading stocks on paper before doing it in real life…except you’ll still make a profit. And perhaps an even better one.) Then you can use a lot of what you learn about keyword effectiveness to actually rock at the Adwords thing when it’s time.

Side note: Back from my trip. Had a blast looking at cows and horses, walking in the rain, and fishing. Yes, fishing. Well, sort of fishing. Watching people fish. Same thing nearly. Thanks for all of the well-wishes while I was live-tweeting the trip up there. Mountains are awesome.

Boy howdy, we’re cracking the whip on SEO

• Myth #1: Link-clicking
• Myth #2: Link exchanges
• Myth #3: Jam-packed meta tags
• Myth #4: Keyword equality
• Myth #5: Google Adwords
• Myth #6: Internal links
• Myth #7: No-follow tags
• Myth #8: Keyword density

“So what do you want to be found for?”

“Oh…nothing much. ‘Clothes’, ‘Shoes’, ‘Fashion’. Maybe ‘Celebrities’. And ‘Style’.”

Most of my conversations with new clients start out like this. It’s a good place to begin. But almost immediately, it puts me in the position of having to dash more than a few of their search engine dreams.

Myth #4: All keywords are created equal.

When I search for the word ‘Shoes’, there are 287 million results. That means that you are competing with (at least) 287 million other websites for a high rank on that particular keyword. That’s some heavy competition.

Even if I could get you on page 30 (which would place you above 99.9999991% of your competitors), how many people are going to scroll that far to find you? Not many.

Think small

There are other keywords that you will be able to compete for effectively. Maybe a particular brand or type of shoe. Maybe “how to pick the right shoes for a job interview”. Not only will you be able to rank highly for them, but you can probably do so in a short amount of time. (Days or weeks…not years.)

Why this is a good thing

If you were number 1 for the word ’shoes’, yes it would be completely awesome. The sheer number of people looking for that keyword would ensure you some level of success.

Still, unless you offer every type of shoe and shoe resource under the sun, then a lot (if not most) of your visitors are going to be looking for something other than what you have to offer. Your keyword would be so general, that a lot of the people coming to your site would not actually convert into customers, subscribers, or clients.

However, if you are able to be competitive for something more specific, like ‘the hottest shoes in 2009′, you’re going to be attracting a pretty specific type of person. A trendy, fashion-conscious one. And if those are the kinds of people you’re writing/creating/selling for, then bingo — you’ve done something great for your business.

Don’t be your competitors (most of them have terrible aim)

So maybe you get this. Maybe you’ve been springing for some of those more specific keywords and you’re hoping to eventually rank highly for them. But you’re pretty sure it’s not working.

The truth is, it might BE working

You may very well be #1 for ‘the hottest shoes in 2009′. You could just not know it yet…because nobody is searching for it. If nobody is searching for your keywords, then you’ve missed the boat entirely.

Tools to help you aim well

• Google Keyword Tool
  The Google Keyword Tool allows you to look up any keyword and get an overview of how it compares to similar keywords. I’m not going to go into detail about how to use it (we’ll leave that for another day), but if you enter in a broad term like ’shoes’, you’ll see a list of related keywords, how competitive they are (as far as paid advertising goes…not necessarily search results), and a general idea of how many people are searching for the word. It’s good for giving you a general concept of your keyword competition, but its general-ness leaves a lot of room for error.
• KeywordSpy
  KeywordSpy has a free and paid service that allows you to see what keywords your competitors are using, as well as do research on those keywords. I personally don’t like it because of the sneaky angle…I’m just not cut-throat enough, I guess. But I can see how it would be useful for keyword research.
• WordTracker
  WordTracker is the service that most SEO professionals (including me) use for their clients. It’s got advanced-level features that allow you to actually see the effectiveness of a particular keyword…in other words, how likely it is that you can compete for that coveted #1 spot. You’ll also be able to see in numeric terms how painfully unrealistic it is to put all of your eggs into a general keyword (like ’shoes’). If you know how to use it (or hire someone who does), you’ll be able to find keywords that you can completely corner so that you’re bringing all kinds of free traffic to your site.

All of this is not to say that you’ll never be found for the word ’shoes’. In fact, I’ve got more than a few specific hard-core strategies up my sleeve that can help with that. We’ll leave those for later. For now, think small. And most especially, research until your fingers start to rally in protest.

In case you’re not sick of Ess Eee Oh

• Myth #1: Link-clicking
• Myth #2: Link exchanges
• Myth #3: Jam-packed meta tags
• Myth #4: Keyword equality
• Myth #5: Google Adwords
• Myth #6: Internal links
• Myth #7: No-follow tags
• Myth #8: Keyword density

Meta tags are those lovely things in your code that tell search engines a little more about your site. There are a couple of them that are commonly used for search engine optimization. They look like this:

<meta name="description" content="My company does this thing for these people." />

<meta name"keywords" content="fun things, special things, cool things, company things, fabulous things" />

Basically, the “Description” meta tag describes what your site is about. The “Keywords” meta tag says what search engine terms your site is related to. And that brings us to…

Myth #3: Jam-packing your meta tags with as many words as possible is going to make you rank higher in search engines.

Not at all true. Most search engines actively ignore your meta tags, and if they do use them, they serve only to describe your site to visitors…not to come up with your search engine ranking.

In fact, if you have 100 keywords in your meta tag, it screams “spammer,” and your ranking could actually suffer for it. So if you care to use meta tags, make them short and to the point. Include 5 or 6 keywords, and make sure that they actually relate to what your site is about. (Yes, there are people who try to bank on popular keywords even if their site has nothing to do with that term. Can you see why Google largely ignores them?)

Do this instead

Make sure that your URLs have your keywords in them. If you’re writing an article on stamp licking, make sure that the URL is something like http://mysite.com/stamp-licking. Not http://mysite.com/1230948234. You can even make variations of your keywords in your URL so that you’re capturing multiple keywords. For example http://mysite.com/stamp-licking-how-to-lick-a-stamp. (Note that a lot of people search for “how to” terms…”how to lick a stamp”, “how to wash a car”, “how to be a pop star”.)

Do this in conjunction with having your keywords in your “title” tags (like we talked about before), and you’ll be light years ahead of nearly everyone in your industry. Unless your industry is search engine optimization. In which case, you need to be looking for some ultra-competitive keywords, which we’ll dig into next week. (Ooooh…a cliff hanger. I bet you never thought I’d stoop so low.)

A whole lot more myth-busting prowess

• Myth #1: Link-clicking
• Myth #2: Link exchanges
• Myth #3: Jam-packed meta tags
• Myth #4: Keyword equality
• Myth #5: Google Adwords
• Myth #6: Internal links
• Myth #7: No-follow tags
• Myth #8: Keyword density

“I’ll share your link if you’ll share mine!” It sounds pretty good…after all, you know Google looks for other people linking to your site to see if your stuff is useful. But does link exchanging work?

Myth #2: Getting put on someone’s “Links of people who link to me” page is going to make Google happy.

Link exchanging in this manner does NOT work. Google has a nose-up-in-the-air reaction to link directories whose sole purpose is to link to people who have linked to them. They might even dock you a couple of points…just to prove a point.

And the point is?

It’s too easy. It’s too controllable. These websites are not (necessarily) related to what you do. They just want a link, and you want a link. Google sees this as link manipulation and feels like you’re going behind her back.

Let’s make an honest guy/gal out of you

Let’s get serious here. You DO need links. Number and quality of backlinks are one of the biggest determining factors in your search engine ranking. You need highly relevant, Google-approved websites to link to you in a natural, not-suspicious way.

How?

Well, it’s not easy. In a nutshell, you follow the same rules as for building your site’s traffic.

1. Write good stuff. Write stuff nobody else is writing, or at least write it in a way that nobody else is writing it.
2. Be unique. Be yourself…in a way that nobody can forget. Take your strongest qualities and BE those things. All the time. Or you know…build your personal brand.
3. Don’t view every interaction as a pitching opportunity. None of us like to be pitched to. It feels like “Let me lick your toe so that you’ll make me some money.” Eww…who wants their toe licked? No one. Not one person in this entire universe likes toe-licking. I hope.
4. Do something that’s actually going to benefit the people that you want to notice you. So toe-licking is out. What about mailing a hand-written note thanking them for bringing their awesomeness to the world? How about sending them an article that solves that “what-kind-of-pet-to-get” dilemma they were having? Don’t expect them to link to you. Just do it out of that authentic place inside of you that wants to really get to know and appreciate these cool people.
5. Be involved in an online community. Whether you’re connected on Twitter, Facebook, or some other place where a bunch of people get together, be there. Don’t be there for five hours a day (after all, why would an awesome person like you spend most of their time in the proverbial break room?) But spend 15 or 20 minutes building great relationships.

There is no “get-links-quick” scheme

Sorry. It takes most websites 2-3 years to get to that “Oooh…that website is so totally cool, and I MUST link to it” stage. But to get there, you’ve got to do the work. And go ahead and get rid of your links page, unless it’s a hand-picked collection of relevant resources that will be fabulously valuable to your audience — because that, you know, is who this is all about.

Let me tickle your myth-busting fancy

• Myth #1: Link-clicking
• Myth #2: Link exchanges
• Myth #3: Jam-packed meta tags
• Myth #4: Keyword equality
• Myth #5: Google Adwords
• Myth #6: Internal links
• Myth #7: No-follow tags
• Myth #8: Keyword density

I get a lot of questions about search engine optimization (aka: doing stuff to your website so that it shows up highly in the search engines). What it is, how it works, etc. I’m sure you’ve done research on it, talked about it, or at least nodded vaguely when someone else mentioned that lovely acronym — SEO.

When a client comes to me about search engine optimization, my first question is usually “What are you currently doing?” I’m often shocked at the answers. Clearly, there is some confusion about what works and what doesn’t. For the next week or so, I’m going to clear the air.

Myth #1: If I click on my own links a bunch of times, Google will be tricked into thinking that my site is awesome.

Errrmmm…no. I wish. Well, no, actually I don’t wish. Can you imagine if all we had to do to get ranked higher was to click on our own links? The number one ranked sites would be spammers who build auto-clicking robots. It wouldn’t work.

This one’s closely related to the “If I search for my name a bunch of times, Google will think I’m super popular” myth. Sorry guys. That’s not going to work either.

Stomp the myth

An infinitely better use of your time would be to change the titles on your pages to include the search engine terms that you want to be found for (preferably, keywords that are well-researched so that you know that you have a chance of competing for them).

Your title shows up between the <title> and </title> tags in your HTML. When you’re looking at your website, it usually shows up at the top of your browser (if you look at mine, you’ll notice it says “Web design that excites people: S.Joy Studios”). Use your keywords first, and then put the name of your website and the title of the page. Your titles may end up being long and potentially strange-looking, but no one cares in the slightest (except the search engines…and they like it a lot.)

These myths are going down

• Myth #1: Link-clicking
• Myth #2: Link exchanges
• Myth #3: Jam-packed meta tags
• Myth #4: Keyword equality
• Myth #5: Google Adwords
• Myth #6: Internal links
• Myth #7: No-follow tags
• Myth #8: Keyword density