SEO FAQ 9

Should I create a blog for SEO purposes?

This parrot that I talk to in the pet store told me that I should create a blog for search engine optimization purposes. Can you speak to this?

Blogs have no special powers of high rankings. What they do have (if done correctly) is fresh, unique content. Search engines do tend to like that, regardless of the format. If they know any given site is adding new articles on a frequent basis, they will come around often to index it. Blogs are certainly one way of easily adding new information to your site. Newsletters archived on your site can provide a similar benefit, as can archived press releases, or a popular forum.

The "pinging" done by most blog software these days also seems to help get blog posts spidered and indexed very quickly, which is a plus. In addition, blog posts will also show up in blog searches such as Google's Blog search, and Technorati Blog searches.

Can SEO companies really have special relationships with the search engines like some of them claim?

A company called me while I was cooking dinner and said they have a special relationship with the search engines, and they will place my site in the first position at all of them for X amount of money. I couldn't talk to them because my dinner was burning, but I'm curious as to how they can do this and whether it's something I should learn more about.

Most likely this company is simply buying the sponsored PPC ad spots and will then resell them to you with a high markup. Nobody has a "special relationship" with Google, and you can't buy your way to the top of the natural results. I would suggest politely hanging up on any telemarketer that tries to tell you otherwise.

How can I find out how much traffic my competitor's site receives?

Our minister told me that I can find out how much traffic my competitors get. Do you know how to do this?

It's impossible to find out exactly how much traffic your competitors get unless they somehow have their log file statistics out in the open. Sites such as Alexa.com can give you some comparative data, but they will never give you the exact amount of traffic that your competitors receive. The only sites you can get that info from are those to which you have log file access, or those on which you have installed some tracking code. Nobody can just install this sort of thing on their competitors' sites, as they'd need server access to do so.

That said, there are some tools that can provide you with some competitive analysis such as Comscore, KeywordDiscovery competitive Intelligence, and Hitwise.

Should I optimize for the plural or singular form of my keyword phrases?

Both the plural and singular form of my keyword phrase are searched upon often according to Wordtracker. Which one should I choose?

Both. Keyword phrases such as the singular and plural forms of your words, which are related, are extremely simple to use within the visible copy on your pages. When we naturally write or speak, we use both plural and singular forms of words, so why restrict yourself to one or the other?

Never optimize a page or a site for just one keyword phrase. That is the equivalent of SEO suicide in my opinion. Every site has hundreds if not thousands of phrases that someone might use to find it. Figure out what they are, and then use them to your advantage to bring highly targeted visitors to your site.

If I have an all graphical page, where can I place keyword phrases for the search engines?

My boss has a gigantic head and has spent $50,000 for an all-graphical home page. Will it help if we place keyword phrases in [alt tags] [comments tags] [a hidden layer] [text the same color as the background at the bottom of the page]?

I'm afraid that using keyword phrases in any of those places won't help get your home page found in the search engines. Alt attributes (alt tags) are ignored on images that are not clickable, so those won't help. Comment tags have nothing to do with search engine optimization, and are not indexed by the spiders, so don't bother with those either.

Hidden layers may actually help, but would most likely be considered spam by the search engines unless the content in them is exactly the same as on the graphical images on the site. If you simply hide keyword phrases in a hidden layer, be sure to look over your shoulder constantly, because your paranoia about one day getting penalized isn't all that paranoid; it could very well happen! If you like to sleep at night, this may not be the best route for you to take.

Your alternatives are to simply use the power of your Title tag and the power of the links pointing to your home page. You could also concentrate more on the inner pages (assuming they are not all graphical) and optimize them for the keyword phrases that are important to you.

Don't forget that you can always just use PPC ads and not worry about the organic/natural results. That is a very real option these days, and for those not willing to compromise a wee bit to gain natural rankings, it's probably the best one.