The Mayday Headlines

The “Mayday” moniker for this Google algorithm seems altogether appropriate.  We picture people on a sinking ship yelling “Mayday”.  And there are many people on this proverbial sinking ship.  Witness a few of the latest headlines:

80% Traffic Drop Since Mayday, Less Crawling And Less Indexed Pages

On june 2 our site lost 80% of it’s organic traffic (30.000 visits/day) and till now there is still no improvement noticeable…

43% Of SEOs Say Traffic Down Since Google Redesign

I ran a poll asking you if your Google referrals have changed since the redesign. With over 200 responses, I decided to post the results. In short, over 43% of you said your referrals from Google have declined since the redesign…

Google MAYDAY Update - SERP Changes May 2010

“Think this is the current status: Lost around 25% of power/traffic somehow…I’m in the same boat, traffic dropped 50% in a few days, 100,000’s of long tail k/w…90% of my traffic’s gone!”

The Mayday Update:  What Happened?

As you know, Google frequently updates their algorithm to improve search results.  The Mayday update carries with a significant change for how Google returns search results for “long tail keywords”.

An example of a long-tail keyword would be something like this:  “Apple iPod Touch 32gb 3rd generation review.”

In the past, a page that was optimized for this long tail term might win the battle.  Here is how this would be accomplished:  The SEO optimizer would create a page with that exact name and he or she would sprinkle the long-tail keyword liberally throughout the article (which would probably be filled with non-original content). They would then create several inbound links using this exact long-tail keyword as the anchor text.

The goal with a page like this would be to attract visitors looking for iPod reviews and then have an affiliate link through which the visitor would then buy an iPod.  Ideal Result:  This page would rank above a site with better, more original content and, most importantly, earn money!

The Google Mayday update is designed to prevent someone from easily leveraging a long-tail keyword like this.

Matt Cutts, the man who presides over the Google algorithm updates, spoke frankly about the Mayday changes affecting long-tail keywords saying, “this is an algorithmic change in Google, looking for higher quality sites to surface for long tail queries. It went through vigorous testing and isn’t going to be rolled back.”  For more on Matt Cutts explanation, you can view this Youtube video about the Mayday update:

Want to see the affects of Mayday in action?  Well, let’s take a look at the results of our keyword example:  “Apple iPod Touch 32gb 3rd generation review.”

As you can see, all “above the fold” results (what you see without having to scroll down) are authority websites such as Amazon.com and Cnet.com.

Google Mayday Update:  Is it Fair and Balanced?

As many people are found on the edge of the sinking ship yelling “Mayday”, let’s ask the question:  Is this Google Mayday update fair to the SEO practitioner?  Is Google putting SEO specialists in an untenable position?

Though the Google Mayday update disconcerts many in the SEO circles, it is certainly fair.  In the example above, would you rather see a suspect site with duplicate content about iPods or a great, legitimate site such as Cnet.com?

As an SEO practitioner, you do not want to abandon the idea of long-tail search terms.  You simply want to make sure that the resulting pages are a great match for the searcher with highly relevant and quality information.  And no, your Amazon rip-off product page, no matter how much you “reword it”, is not a worthy of high results.

Google must provide the best results and is doing everything that they can to accomplish this.

The fact is that Google still makes 80% of their revenue from search engine results.  All of the other cool Google stuff-can you say Google Earth?– is funded through the monies generated by their search engine.  If Google ever loses the search engine battle, they will be the ones yelling Mayday!

There are two characteristics that make someone a great technical trainer:  Most trainers have the first one covered.  The second characteristic is one that distinguishes you from the rest.

The first characteristic is self evident:  a fascination with technology.  Obviously, if you are considering a career as a technical trainer, you should be someone who is intrigued and passionate about technology.

This does not mean that you have to be someone who spent everyday in front of a keyboard from the moment that you learned how to type.  In fact, when we discover the second characteristic, you will learn that these people who do nothing but sit in front of their computers all day often do not make great technical trainers.

How do you know if you have a “fascination” with technology?  It is often defined by a curiosity, amazement, and inquisitiveness about what technology does and by always wanting to know more.  For example, if you have ever asked yourself a question like, “How does email get from one place to the other?” and then sought the answer out of sheer curiosity, you have this fascination.

The second characteristic of a great technical trainer is in large demand and in short supply.  If you have it, you will be better than 90% of your contemporaries.

I will share this characteristic through two examples:  one negative and one extremely positive.

When I was just out of college and hired to work in the networking department for one of the largest consulting firms in the world, I was selected to attend a one-week class on something called the OSI Model, the theoretical model from which all computer networking is derived.

Do you know what the professor did?  He read, almost directly, from the text books that we were given.  He was not unenthused but he added little value beyond what could be found in the text. It was, perhaps, the most boring week of my life.

One year later, this same company was sending everyone to a class to learn the foundations of the Microsoft Windows NT operating system.  At the time, this was Microsoft’s new networking platform and the company wanted everyone to get familiar with it.

Guess what the topic was the first day?  The OSI Model…again.  The instructor was required to begin with the OSI Model so that students would understand the foundations of networking before he delved into the intricacies of the new Microsoft operating system.

As I resigned myself to another week of dreadful boredom, the teacher began the class this way:  “Ok, everyone, I want you to take your books and close them.  This-the OSI Model–is a theoretical topic, but the problem with theories is that you can’t touch them.  Today, we are going to touch a theory!”

During that week of class, I learned more from this teacher than I learned from any previous technical classes.  He obviously had trait number one to be a great technical trainer-a fascination with technology, but he also had the second characteristic that most technical trainers don’t have:  the ability to communicate ideas in an exciting manner.

A great technical trainer is often someone who, like the students he or she teaches, has divergent interests.  This trainer talked to everyone, find out what their interests were, and used real-world analogies to which everyone could relate.

So, do you have what it takes to become a great technical trainer?

Well, if you have the “fascination” with technology, you’re off to a good start.  But if you have the ability to communicate this to a room full of people, you can distinguish yourself in the field.

Last week, I wrote about SEO and Golf. In that article, we established that both SEO and Golf seem easy at first…until you try them. SEO seems easy because it is comprised of two basic principles:

1. Create a well-written page using a few select keywords and ensure that the page has solid on page SEO (OPSEO) with the use of proper titles and tagging.
2. Create inbound links to that page using the few select keywords as anchor text.

Thus, as we look at the Seven Deadly Sins of SEO today–the common SEO mistakes, we will break them into on-page sins (OPSEO Sins) and off-page SEO sins.

The Seven Deadly Sins of SEO | Common SEO Mistakes

The numerous sins that you can make performing SEO can all get you into trouble. One wrong move and you can go from the page one results on Google to an invisible page 10 or worse, a complete de-indexing of your site in Google.

Ironically, many of these sins are committed because of your level of commitment. In a desire to achieve a high-ranking, you work tirelessly performing the duties that you think will achieve high-ranking. And, in the end, your hard work gets you nothing, or in many cases, less than nothing.

These SEO mistakes are things that you may have overdone or not done at all. This list will help you focus your energies in the right direction, achieving that balance of neither over-performing or under-performing your SEO duties.

OPSEO Sins: On Page Search Engine Optimization Mistakes

#1: Heading Tags, Meta Tags, Images Tags, Titles, and Page Name

There is no excuse to make OPSEO mistakes! This is one area in which you have absolutely control. Every page should have proper Heading Tags (H1,H2,H3, etc.), Meta Tags (especially Meta Description), Alt Tags on Images, Titles, and file names. Each of these should include your keywords for the page. If you commit this sin, you will lose. These are basic OPSEO practices that your competition will implement.

#2: Effective Linking Within Your Site

You cannot always control how others link to you but you can have ABSOLUTE control on how you link to yourself. If you are in a non-competitive keyword arena, effective inter-linking within your site will bring you visitors.

There are many tools which can assist you with effective interlinking within your site. First and foremost, you need to use a sitemap. However, this alone is not sufficient. You should also have a sitemap page (consider the Dagon Design Sitemap Generator). Secondly, you should always have related posts beneath your articles. This will generate positive Latent Semantic Indexing for your pages. Thirdly, you should use a tool that will create automatic links within your posts and pages (read about WordPress Link Plugins for more). Finally, consider the amount of inlinks versus outlinks. Outlinks to quality, relevant sites are not bad. But remember, too many outbound links with few inbound links to a page are not a good thing.

#3: Keyword Usage

You should never write a page without keywords in mind. You may write a great article that nobody will ever find because nobody searches on the terms that you use. I use three tools for keyword research before I write any article that I wish to be popular for search engines: Wordtracker, Google Keyword Tool, and SEO Elite.

These tools will help you choose multiple keywords for your article (don’t go with just one keyword!). Once you obtain these keywords, your goal now is balance–don’t use the keywords too much or too little. If you use them too much, it will be considered keyword stuffing. If you use them too little, the search engines will not take notice. And remember: You want to place your keywords in the heading tags (refer to #1) to let the search engines know that these words are a priority.

Off-Page Sins: Off Page Search Engine Optimization Mistakes

#4: Too Many Links Too Quickly

When someone launches their new website, they are overcome with the energy and enthusiasm to make it great. They read that inbound links are what will get you to the top of the Google results. Thus, they embark on a mission to get lots of inbound links quickly. While they may achieve short term success, their site quickly disappears from the search engines and gets placed in the Google sandbox.

This situation happens all the time. Too many links too quickly is the most common SEO mistake. After putting in so much time, new website owners are left disillusioned and feel hopeless. Thus, they cease their inbound link campaign thinking that they are done for. The site will then die a slow death.

Every new website owner must be in for the long haul. If you’re not, march toward the door marked “Exit”. A website, unless it catches on like wildfire with links from authority sites, takes a long time to succeed. Your inbound links must occur naturally over a significant amount of time.

It requires patience, lots of patience.

#5: Anchor Text Mistakes

In all likliehood, the new website owner mentioned above also committed SEO Deadly Sin #5: All inbound links use the same anchor text.

Remember, Google is seeking patterns that look unnatural. One pattern that is highly unnatural is that everybody links to your site using the same anchor text. If there are no “click here for more information” type of links, then your inbound links will appear unnatural.

Recall from step #3 above, each of your pages should have multiple keywords. Use these varying keywords as anchor text while including some other variations. This will ensure that the anchor text used in your links is natural.

#6: Types of Inbound Links

Your inbound site links should come from a variety of sources with a varying degree of relevance and importance.

Many people create one-site, or multiple sites, to link in to their principle site. This will only achieve a modicum of success and may get you banned entirely on Google. For example, if all of your inbound links come from the same IP address or IP address block, Google will discover this. If all of your inbound links come from shady sources (like paid link farms), or all from page rank 0 sources, Google will also discover this.

Your site may achieve temporary success with sketchy strategies, but your treachery will be unearthed over time. And then you are left with…nothing.

#7: No More Inbound Links/Inconsistent Inbound Links

As mentioned in Step #5, the initial excitement of creating a website causes many to create inbound links to fast. After their site goes into the sandbox, they give up. In fact, this happens to most website owners.

When they give up in defeat, they are not creating any more inbound links. Thus, their place in the sandbox is assured. This is unnatural and inconsisent.

To avoid this fate, implement a consistent strategy for obtaining inbound links.

SEO: The Seven Deadly Sins | SEO Mistakes | Summary

SEO demands adherence to strict rules. It is a delicate balancing act between doing too much and not enough. You must work wisely, consistently, and never give up.

By avoiding the Seven Deadly Sins of SEO, you will avoid the most common SEO mistakes and your site(s) will be well on the way to the first page of Google.

In golf, the concept is simple.  There is a little white ball, not even moving, and you need to hit that ball straight and to the proper distance.  Simple right?

The concept is simple but the implementation is much more difficult.  In fact, most first time golfers cannot even hit the immobile ball their first few times.  They swing, and swing again, only to strike air.  The bottom line is that it takes a lot of time to master the game of golf.

Similarly, Search Engine Optimization appears easy as first.  There are really just two main ideas:

1. Create a well-written page using a few select keywords and ensure that the page has solid on page SEO (OPSEO) with the use of proper titles and tagging.
2. Create inbound links to that page using the few select keywords as anchor text.

Simple right?

About as simple as hitting a little white immobile ball!

A friend of mine, David, recently had an idea for a website.  He wanted to capitalize on a keyword phrase that had little competition and was used primarily by residents in England (a phrase that is not used in America).  He then had a product that he would sell on the website that related to this keyword term.

I recall his excitement when he began this endeavor.  He was going to make millions!  ”I’ll be able to quit my day job in a few months,”  he told me with the enthusiasm of an early retiree who would be able to play golf for the rest of his life.  Little did he know the correlation at the time.

Early success bolstered his confidence.  Sales increased every day to give him this notion of early retirement.  He had a decent looking website, a popular, competition-less keyword phrase that he found on Wordtracker,  and visitors were clicking and purchasing his product.

It was all so easy…just a little, white immobile ball that he was hitting.  He wondered why everybody didn’t do this.

And then one day,  as often happens in golf, his game disappeared and he could hit the ball no longer.  His keyword term disappeared from Google and his visitors dropped to practically nothing.  His dreams of retirement sank like a golf ball landing in water.

What happened, he wondered as his hopes faded…

It so happens David unknowingly committed one of SEO’s Seven Deadly Sins–too many inbound links too fast using the same anchor text.

There are countless David’s out there who have dreamed of making millions online.  And there are many golfers who are wannabe Tiger Woods.

The reasons why David failed at proper SEO are the same reasons why most golfers cannot break 100.

It’s just not as easy as it seems.

PS:  To automatically receive my upcoming article, The Seven Deadly Sins of SEO, signup for my website feed below.

If you answered nothing, you are correct.  In fact, it might be fair to say that they do less than nothing with their WordPress Category Pages since the All In One SEO Plugin, which most tend to use,  will by default  add the “no-index”, “no-follow” to your category pages.  This means that you are telling the search engines:  Don’t look at this page!  Don’t index this page!  This page is not important!

Nothing could be further from the truth.  Your WordPress Category pages may be the among the most interesting pages on your site.

In this article, I’ll explore the duplicate content penalty with WordPress Category pages, why we should take our WordPress category pages off auto-pilot and customize them, and how to make WordPress Category pages one of the first stops for our visitors instead of a “no-indexed” afterthought.

WordPress Category Pages:  “NOINDEX” and the Duplicate Content Penalty

One of the principal reasons that the All In One SEO Plugin sets the “NOINDEX” and “NOFOLLOW” tag on your WordPress category pages is to address the duplicate content issue.

WordPress Category pages are often set to show the entire content of articles within that category.  Thus, a WordPress category page will have the exact same content as a post that you have written.  This may incur a duplicate content penalty within google on either the category page or the post page.

By customizing the category page, we can remove the potential duplicate content penalty, set our category pages to be followed, and create a host of rich content pages that our visitors will love.

How do you know if the All In One SEO Plugin has set your category pages to not be indexed or followed?  Simply view the source of the web page and you will find this line:

<!-- all in one seo pack 1.4.6.15 [430,472] -->

<meta name="description" content="" />

<meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow" />

<!-- /all in one seo pack -->

But wait!  Before you go remove the check mark in the All In One SEO Plugin to have your category pages indexed, you need to customize your WordPress Category pages to remove any hint of duplicate content and make keyword rich WordPress category pages so that when the page does get followed, it will be brilliantly indexed in the search engines.

Why You Should Customize Your WordPress Category Pages

WordPress category pages have the potential to be of high-interest to your visitors because they are filled with articles similar in nature.

For example, suppose someone is going through a divorce due to infidelity.  They may want to know about divorce, infidelity, and any applicable divorce laws that may apply to infidelity.  One article will usually not suffice in this case.

However, a category page with all articles on all of these topics is just what this person wants.  Here is an example of a good page about divorce and infidelity.

Now, let’s look at what can happen when a page has been limited by the All In One SEO Pack.  Let’s say that you live in Ohio, are going through a divorce, and there may be custody issues with the children.  Thus, you may type into google:  Ohio, Divorce, Children…or something along those lines.

One of the first pages that should come up is this page entitled Children’s Issues | Ohio Family Law Blog.  This is a category page on a very professional, high page rank blog focused on Family and Divorce Law in Ohio.  Why will this page not appear?  It is being blocked by the All In One SEO Pack which is commanding the search engines to “NOINDEX”.

How To Customize Your WordPress Pages

Now that we know the Why to Customize WordPress pages, let’s look at the how.

WordPress provides a great explanation on their Category Templates article. Essentially, you will find out the hierarchy of your WordPress files and then rename the appropriate file to Category-X.php.

What Should You Customize On Your WordPress Category Pages

The first thing that is often missing in a category page is the proper keywords. When you customize a category page, you are then permitted to add text above and below the list of posts which will give more definition, and keywords, to the page.

In the example above, The Ohio Family Blog would add keywords to their category page such as Ohio, Divorce, Kids, and Children.

You will also want to make sure that the customized category page shows post excerpts rather than the full article to eliminate duplicate content.

To do this, find where it says:

php the_content();

….and replace this line with…

php the_excerpt();

(NOTE: These commands are within the php code.)

I also like to add pictures to category pages as this adds to the look and feel of the page and allows you to add “alt” content if you would like to augment your keywords.

Customizing WordPress Categories: Summary

WordPress Category pages can be heavily trafficked, valuable pages or NOINDEXED, duplicate content throw-a-ways.

Which would you prefer?

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to turn your WordPress Category pages into an SEO gem.

To make your WordPress Category pages extremely valuable, keyword-rich pages, you need to customize them using the steps outlined above and summarized below:

1. Customize the page using the strategies outlined on the Category Templates page on WordPress.
2. Add quality, keyword rich content and photos.
3. If you show full articles on your category page, make the changes outlined above to only show excerpts. This, combined with your added keyword content, removes the trail of duplicate content.
4. Finally, remove the All in One SEO Plugin’s command to NOINDEX category pages.

Now, build an inbound link campaign to your category pages and watch them become some of the most valuable pages on your blog.

PS:  As with most of my articles, I give live web-site examples in this post.  Bear in mind, it’s always possible that the authors have read this and updated their content.

In the past (and still today), many SEO professionals find a popular keyword, fill the page with that keyword, and create a massive amount of inbound links using exactly that keyword.

This technique still works today.  In fact, I recently had a frustrating experience with it.  I was searching for Airfrance Flight 447, the plane that crashed over the Atlantic, because I wanted to find out more information as I had a friend who may have been on this flight (luckily he wasn’t).  The fifth entry down in google looked promising so I clicked it and it took me to a page that wanted to analyze my system because it “appeared” to be infected.  You know that game…they then tell you that you need their program to get rid of the malware on your system.  This is bad for the web and even worse for google.

Enter Latent Semantic Indexing.

Latent Semantic Indexing

Latent Semantic Indexing is a technology employed by Google in an attempt to give you better, more natural, search results.

Google is in the business of providing the best search results.  In spite of the fact that they make extremely cool products and give them to us for free (think Google Earth), 80% of their revenue still comes from their search engine.

Thus, if I search for a term, and receive only useless pages filled with ads, I will be a frustrated user and might look elsewhere for a search engine that provides better results.

Google needed a better way to provide search results that could not be so easily manipulated as in the example above.

Latent Semantic Indexing:  A Quick History

In 2003, Google purchased Applied Semantics, a company dedicated to delivering more effective advertising for web sites.  Initially, this purchase was a move to thwart one of Google’s largest advertising competitors, Overture, who has since been purchased by Yahoo and has become known as Yahoo Search Marketing.

Over time, Google has taken the engineering concepts from Applied Semantics and implemented them into their core search functionality.

This fundamental shift marks a move away from keyword-focused searched results to theme-focused searched results.

Latent Semantic Indexing:  How It Works

LSI does not look exclusively at the keywords a webpage uses but at the theme of a page.

For example, let’s assume that you are creating a webpage with the keywords being download top music.  In the past, you would create the page using this term frequently and perhaps some variations on the term like download music, music downloads, top music downloads.

This strategy will no longer be as effective with the new LSI implementation.  LSI uses an algorithm to look for related keywords to determine the value of your page.  This approach provides better results.

In looking at this music example, can you identify other words that you should use given this new LSI paradigm?

We can begin this process by asking some questions.  Where do people download music from?  In what format do people download music?  How much do people want to pay for their music?  What are other names for music?

Can you see where this is going?  In asking these questions, we come up with related terms like online, Internet, mp3, mp4, free, inexpensive, songs, tunes, etc.

Thus, LSI increases the value of a webpage with these related keywords and devalues a page that simply has variations of the keyword such as download music.

This has great SEO implications.

LSI and SEO:  Brothers in Arms

You need to be aware of how LSI works in order to do effective Search Engine Optimization.

As we see in the example above, you must expand your keyword research efforts beyond what you would have in the past.  No longer can you simply use 4 variations of the same term.  You need to know all the related terms on the subject.

How can you discover related terms?  Well, in the music example, we simply asked basic questions to come up with some common sense answers.  There is a much quicker way though.  Wordtracker provides a related keywords feature that expedites this process.  (I actually used it to formulate the questions above.)

The term Latent Semantic Indexing has gained a lot of momentum in recent months as google continues implementing features.  But the real question is:  How will LSI affect my page placements within google?

Well, we have seen how you should create your future pages–simply make sure that your pages reach beyond just the keyword that you are targeting by using many similar related keywords.  This will result in a page that is more theme-focused and less keyword-focused.

But what about the pages that you have already created?

We know that re-doing web pages is an arduous task and you don’t want to have to do this.  There is good news and bad news.

The good news is that you should have been doing your pages this way for the last several years.  In the SEO community, we have known for some time that a page with just one keyword or phrase, and inbound links focused solely on that keyword, will eventually get your page penalized.

Google always attempts to weed out unnatural sites over time.  A webpage with the same anchor text on every inbound link is unnatural.  What are the chances that everyone links into a page with the same anchor text?  If you have been using one or two keywords or phrases, and inbound linking solely on those terms, you are in for a world of hurt.  You either need to revise your pages and create new related keyword inbound links OR watch your pages slowing disappear from their current google standing.

However, if you have been practicing solid SEO by creating informative pages with naturally relevant related keywords, your pages will be fine and you do not need to do any revisions.

Latent Semantic Indexing and SEO:  Summary

We often like to assign big, fancy terms to relatively simple concepts.  Latent Semantic Indexing, or LSI, falls into this category.

Essentially, it means that your pages need many thematically related keywords, not just your targeted keyword.

Frankly, SEO experts have known this for a long time.  A long detailed page about any topic, combined with good inbound links, will always yield the best google results.  On top of that, a long detailed page will always, naturally, have an abundance of related keywords.

Thus, Latent Semantic Indexing is nothing new and you should not need to considerably alter your SEO approach.

However, if you are narrowly targeting one or two keywords or phrases, with skimpy, shallow content, you need to know this.

You must change your SEO strategy…or change your career!