I agree with Andy basic SEO will get you a long way, and if you think meta tags are yesterdays news, try 'view source' to take a peek at the HTML on the eBay homepage or any other internet giant... They don't miss tricks.. One other helpful hint if I may make so bold, is to 'tag' your pics and name your pics with keywords...
Hate to inform you but the meta keywords element has not been used in major search engine algorithms for awhile now due to major abuse in the 1990s. General HTML markup is the main reason people do this, plus many ad generating scripts use the meta tags to pull relevant ads.
Like I say... check out eBay, if you think meta tags are not used... truth is some search engines still use them, I know this, eBay knows it... Of course everyone is aware that they do not have the 'clout' that they used to, but there isno reason on earth not to use them sensibly. 'hate to inform you' sounds awfully smug, if it makes you feel any better you did not inform me...
Good input from everyone here........I say if 80% of the stuff on this board works...them's good enuf odds 4 me and I don't need no steenkin spel chekr
So..... are you trying to say that this is the only form of link building that you think is benfecial for SEO? Strange theory.
YES! I would agree that for you have to have higher search engine ranking basically the focus is on the articles and the keywords linked within them. Try to work out the content of your article, a good and and very relevant content so that you can even drive hundreds, thousands or even more desired traffic into your website.
snappingpig - thank you for pointing that out Paul Teitelman - i can do about 100 an hour on directory submissions and there are many tools to help in this area. libertines - try and read all the posts before you comment. we wouldnt anyone to think your stupid, i added a 6th point on link exchange.
Jeese how much testosterone is in here? No need to just humiliate and shit on eachothers theories. You don't learn SEO that way, trust me. Being friendly and helpful is much more advicable. Mr Andy Mayo: Libertines is by NO means stupid, he has a very good point. Directory submissions are not really the best way of link building, it doesn't carry enough "juice" to be of benefit. 1 link from a website with related relevant content to the website you are doing link building to is going to be of FAR better value than 100 directory submissions. Trust me! And when it comes to link exchange, I wouldn't bother. It's a bit like this "I have a beer, I give you my beer, you give me my beer back. THIS doesn't give us MORE beer!" I wouldn't do link exchange at all, not even if it was 3 way. When doing link building I would spend most of my time researching and finding the right site to target, write a VERY good link request letter instead of spending the time submitting to directories and exchanging links. Oh and by the way, Libertines is my Junior SEO and probably the best link builder I've come across. (2 university links in less than 1 month....now THAT's LINK juice!) Now, be nice to eachother and think before you start word bashing and less sarcasm please. And if you feel like replying with rudeness, I would STRONGLY recommend you refrain. Good luck everyone and happy link building =)
Lisadit i didnt know it was ask a peon day... my bad. But here you go, Firstly i did not say he was stupid did I. you may want to read that again. He said "So..... are you trying to say that this is the only form of link building that you think is benfecial for SEO? Strange theory." when i clearly said i use backlinks from other sites too. And you have contradicted urself here. "1 link from a website with related relevant content to the website you are doing link building to (Link exchange? if not we hijack there site right or pay?)is going to be of FAR better value than 100 directory submissions. Trust me! And when it comes to link exchange, I wouldn't bother ( o, right were not doing that now...)." Make your mind up.. thats for anyone who thinks this doesnt work and were on the 22 of april today so expect over a 1000 this month... yea link exchange is worthless and backling must be worthless too, that is if a link from a relevent site to mine which IS LINK EXCHANGE is useless, unless you pay them is also worthless.. I guess its God doing my SEO.. all i have said is balls, ignore it. Ok so heres my new approach to SEO, 1) pray to Serps the Google God 2) pray harder. 3) stop that directory submission and get back to number 2. For any more sarcasm please feel free to PM me. Click on my name and click send private message to andymayo nub. Look faward to your reply, Your close freind, - Andy PS. (2 university links in less than 1 month....now THAT's LINK juice!) what are you chatting, or have i missed something? u mean a university has linked to you twice? and this is a whole months work? link me the site which you seen to be so proud of please.
lol...this is a bit ridiculous Andy! Let me give you a lesson in terminology: Link exchange refers to EXCHANGING links. Also called reciprocal linking, which is what I referred to as a WASTE OF TIME! They give you a link, you give them a link = doesn't give you MORE LINKS, you are just exchanging links. Hence my analogy about "I give you a beer you give me the beer back = doesn't give us MORE beer!!) A ONE way link on the other hand is what you need, and preferably not from a directory, but an ACTUAL website with relevant content (and preferably high authority with quality backlinks). And as for the stats you shared with us, it's not really that impressive. It's under a thousand unique visits, and how much of this traffic is from Google? And as for me being a "peon" that is true for this forum but this doesn't mean I'm NEW to SEO. That's a bit ignorant don't you think? After all it's quite a few other SEO specific forums out there. I'm actually Head of Search for an agency, I have been a speaker at both SMX and SES. I founded the blog SEO-Chicks and I'm also shortlisted for the Blackberry Women in Technology Award. What agency do you work for Andy? With this massive traffic you are generating. Now, happy praying
Meta Tags wont harm a website unless they are used wrongly (stuffing) As long as it doesnt harm a website being peanalised it is added advantage to have them for search engines that consider them.
I do seo for one single company with 20+ sites ranking 1st for all keyphrases. I will not at his point say which as i do not want the details on here. and for one way link exchange would you suggest paying? because i dont. also please expand on "university links". - andy
Everbody in this thread is an idiot. Except those that aren't. Andy - You've not revealed anything exciting or new in your original post. For somebody that's been here for a while and thinks 20% of what's written in this forum is a waste of time I'm pretty sure you've just wasted some more. There's nothing particularly wrong with what you're saying, although we're all aware of the steady decline in the usefulness of article submission and the gazillion [*apx] random directories that have sprung up. And seriously, Meta Tags as one of your top 5, I guess it's basic but Google > keyword stuffing. They are still used in other algorithms though, so by all means do it. Regardless my point is, at least in my opinion, these are not the best ways to be spending your time. Out of curiosity what are people searching for when the type in "massive gaming community"? I've played the odd MMO game and if I was searching for a forum or help that phrase would not be in my top 100 searches. Whilst you're first for that phrase you're nowhere for "huge gaming community" or "big gaming community". I rank first for "lolcat villain", wooo, that gets about 5 searches a month, I R teh SEO king, by which I mean I've actually done next to nothing other than call my page that. Still, not too bad if your 800 uniques are all search engine traffic. Let me deconstruct things a little. 1) No broken links. I agree, however having a template that you use for every page isn't SEO, usability maybe but the search engines don't overly care what your site looks like. 2) Directories. I'd rather spend an hour working on getting 1 good backlink than 100 dodgy directories. However should one in a hundred take off then you've gained just as much and if two in a hundred get somewhere then you've done well. I don't think there are more than say 1500 decent directories (I could be wrong I literally pulled that figure out of my... the air) so after your first 3 weeks work it's all just hoping to get lucky. 3) Article writing. Nothing wrong with it. Again I'd rather work on getting a good link these days than hoping an article will get picked up by the masses. Still there is some value here just that it's not staple SEO work as it's not suitable for everybody. As an aside I hope you don't actually write the articles :s 4) Indexing. Very important, I'll agree. The idea you've expressed though is pretty much how blogs work and we all know the value of them. Maybe it's something people haven't thought of if they run a static page site. 5) Meta Tags. Are just something that's done when building the page. Not disputing that you should have them, just it isn't 1990 any more. 6) Link Exchange. Exchanges don't work very well any more. Non-reciprocal is the future; as well as the present. Even 3 way linking is hard to fool the engines with. Also figures don't really show us anything. I cant get into awstats just now but going back to my stupid pictures of cats site [see sig] I have more uniques yesterday than you have for the last 4 months and again I've not done anything. To be fair a lot of my traffic the last few days is from Stumble but non-stumble traffic from the this month is still more than your last four and I don't even spend time praying to SERPS. As for rubbishing LisaDit's opinion, in a strange twist of fate I had never heard of her before today however I came into an email with a link to SEO-Chicks (to be fair I think the email sender has some sort of weird SEO fetish) and her first post showed more insight into what counts as a good backlink than every other one of yours. Although I admit I've fallen into the post bashing trap that she said we shouldn't be getting involved with. "and for one way link exchange would you suggest paying? because i dont." (too lazy to actually quote) Eh, a one way link isn't an exchange and paid for links aren't something anybody is recommending here. Also how do you not know what a .edu or, slightly more obscurely, a .ac.uk link is?
Meta tags are used by Yahoo and MSN but not Google. That's according to a leading SEO i spoke to last year.
J8Diamonds could you please tell me more about stumble.. i mde an account and logged in but then after it clearly says im logged in if i try and do anythin it tells me my account info is incorrect. anyway ill make a new account but how would i use this tool for SEO? (havnt really had time to look into it)