Domain Age Checker

The guys over at WebConfs.com host a plethora of pages to plug in info and get the data you need. Unfortunately, while domain age matters, with older websites seen as more trustworthy by search engines and more difficult to knock out of the top ten search results for a keyword, their Domain Age Tool flat out lies. So bad, in fact, that it can be as much as 6-7 years off! Given the Internet only really started booming in the 90′s, that’s a huge margin.

Lucky for us, SEOLogs.com hosts a similar program that actually reports good estimates. Of course, if you want the best information, you can always look up the domain at www.whois.com.

Traffic Rankings

For years people heralded (and man still do) Alexa as the gold standard when it came to traffic rankings. When considering the ability to rank a page for a keyword, domain strength and popularity matter, the volume of inbound traffic matters. As a webmaster for multiple clients, I can easily cross-reference actual traffic and Alexa’s rankings. I can tell you with certainty that Alexa at times gave clients who received triple the traffic a lower score and position in comparison to clients who received substantially less traffic. It’s a faulty system that sometimes works and many a time does not. People need to stop promoting it and using it. The same goes for Compete.com.

Quantcastdoes much better, but that’s because it requires a script much like Google Analytics, and then can only serve people when comparing sites within it’s own circle. So unless Google releases it’s own Alexa, it’s a crapshoot trying to sort out rankings amongst these three resources. Google’s PageRank might be the only alternative, but with a range of 0-10, it’s hardly precise enough.

Keyword Generator

First off, do not buy a program to generate keywords for you. You know your market best, you know the lingo being used, you should build your own list and then branch out from there. Second, do not bother with Wordtracker’s Free Keyword Suggestion Tool. The tool only gives you data based on people who type words into the tool, not into search engines! You can guess that only people concerned about keywords then, not your actual market, would be feeding it information. Wordtracker does not even supply an ample list. For example, I typed in “SEO Tips” and it gave me three phrases “seo tips,” “free msn seo tips,” and “seo copywriting tips.” I don’t know which search engines they’re useful for, what my competition might be like, nothing.

Your best free option, straight from the source, would be Google’s AdWords: Keyword Tool. Originally designed for Adword campaigns, it uses search information directly from Google, directly from 67% people searching online, for it’s estimates. It tells you the monthly search volume, the current search volume, and how many competitors target the word (assuming businesses know their stuff, high competition means difficult to rank for due to high website usage of the term). It also lists many variations of the phrase, related phrases, and even slightly related phrases. It truly lets you know whether or not you’re wasting your time trying to rank for keyword phrases people rarely search for. It also lets you specify results by language and region and you can even get recommended terms pulled directly off websites. It’s awesome and the best keyword tool you’ll find!

Lastly, Don’t be a Tool Yourself!

There’s plenty of dishonesty and bad SEO practices going around. Don’t let some SEO specialist or consultant pull your chain and waste your money. If your gut starts giving you the signs and you don’t see any good results, it might be time for a second or even a third opinion! And remember, I’m always around for a bit of handholding too. Feel free to send a question my way!

Some of the alleged top Google listing tips, tricks, and services are just flat out wrong, misleading, and can be harmful to your online business. If you really want to increase targeted traffic to your website, you should ignore the following SEO advice…

What to Avoid and Ignore When Optimizing Your Website for Search Engines

1. Hiding lists of links on your page to be picked up by web crawlers.

Google looks for keywords in specific areas on the page. Mainly in the title and within the content itself. Listing a bunch of keywords somewhere outside the content, especially in a way that cannot be seen by visitors, won’t help you and might even get your website penalized. Tags being an exception.

If it doesn’t read like a decently formatted narrative, then the web crawlers probably won’t think it is either. That’s what they’re designed to do - decipher which webpages contain the information to help people typing in queries in their search engine to get to what they’re looking for.

2. Believing that filling your meta tags with keywords will help you.

Don’t be naive enough to think that you can tell the search engines what your webpage is about, which is what many meta tags do. Google and the other engines don’t even use them to determine page ranking anymore (Google never did), and so it’s already an obsolete method. Google also uses the text around keywords in the content to determine the page descriptions, so its not necessary to include. However, if you want a more standard description for search engines, you can still use the description meta tag and Google will pick it up to be displayed in listings.

3. Using link exchanges to create backlinks.

It’s true that inbound links from other webpages greatly enhance your high page rank probability, but only if they’re from related sources. Google won’t consider a link back from a website about hiking as reliable if your website is about role-playing games.

The web crawlers have gotten good at cross-referencing content and they know the difference between an apple and an orange.

People will usually only go to related links as well, so most people visiting the site giving you the link will not visit you anyway.

4. Trying to rank for keywords that are not related to the content on your page.

Just because you use the keywords, doesn’t mean you’re going to get ranked for them, especially if your page talks about something completely different. Just like the engines cross-reference between websites, they also cross-reference within topics. If you tried to place keywords for “American literature during World War II” to be picked up and the page really discusses “How YouTube became popular,” your page will probably just get buried in the depths of cyberspace.

Again, even by chance you do rank for the term, once people see your site does not match their search, they will either not click on it, or immediately leave the website once the land on the first page.

5. Falling for schemes that will submit your website to “thousands” of search engines and directories.

There are only a handful of search engines out there and anything else is most likely already controlled by Google, Yahoo!, Bing, or Ask. The first three comprise of almost 100% of the searches on the Internet. The web crawlers for these search engines are also very efficient at what they do, so as long as you’re already linked in to the Internet (have at least one inbound link) and made your pages accessible to visitors, your website will get indexed (listed) anyway. You don’t need to submit to anyone, let alone pay for it.

6. Falling for schemes that guarantee or promise number 1 spots on search engines.

There’s much you can control to get ranked - keywords, optimizing your website for crawlers, content, and some inbound links. There’s much you cannot control as well  - inbound links of competing websites and pages, the strength and popularity of the competitor’s domain, and the age of pages to name a few. In the end, the only people who know exactly how the web crawlers operate are the web crawling programmers. There’s countless variables used to determine page rankings that we just don’t know about, so no one can guarantee or promise high rankings. At the very least, a good SEO specialist can give your pages a higher probability of being ranked on the first page, but not much more.

Start thinking organic and natural.

If you come across anything that sounds like it’s a cheat, a work-around, like it’s trying to pull one over the web crawlers and trick them into getting your page ranked, then it’s probably a bad idea. It won’t work and the search engines might even punish your page for the attempt to fool them.

You need to start thinking organically, thinking how your page would succeed naturally.

Make sure you always…

• Write content on pages that bring real value and useful information to your visitors.
• Use keywords that relate directly to your subject matter.
• Get links from websites in your own market or field and hope that others will also find your information worthy for them to share with others.
• Stay away from SEO specialists and consultants that tell you to use any of the methods to avoid mentioned here. Trust your gut on their advice and don’t be afraid to get a second opinion.

The search engines want to find your useful information and pages to share with the world. Start writing about what you know best and format it the best and most accessible way you can and you’ll already be ahead of most of the game ]]> http://warrensamu.com/google-listing-tips/feed/ 9