Why “Perfect” Optimizing Doesn’t Always Mean More Traffic
You may already know how to do your
keyword research and find the right phrases to target for your site,
but did you know that too much of a good thing can actually do more
harm than good?
Search engines are complicated,
anyone who’s diligently followed their progress on Google for weeks,
testing and tweaking without much results will agree. Well, we’re
not going to tell you how to figure out Google’s algorhythm, but we
will tell you that the one thing you want to be doing when it comes
to SEO is making your pages look as natural as possible.
Your pages should be written with
the reader in mind. As SEs get more and more sophisticated they are
able to pick up patterns of optimization which have been obviously
set up for the search engines and not human visitors. This won’t win
you any points with the people whose business is to provide the most
accurate and helpful search results for their customers.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t be
doing your keyword research or optimizing your pages… after all how
will the search engines find you in the first place? It just means
that we have to get the optimization balance right.
Here are a few tips to help you:
When you set up a page it’s
important to have keywords for that page but you also don’t want
your pages to have a set pattern to them. You want to think more
along the lines of “natural optimizing” rather than getting it just
right.
One way to do this is to slightly
change your H1 (header tag) to be different than your keywords and
title tag. For example, if your keyword and title tag is: parenting
toddlers
You may want to slightly change
your header tag to look like this: Help and Advice for Parents of
Toddlers
It’s a variation of the keyword
phrase but you’re still including important relevant words and it
looks much more natural than just repeating “parenting toddlers”
You can also slightly change your
title tag to look like this: Resources and tips for Parenting
Toddlers
Although you’re still using your
main keyword phrase “parenting toddlers” you’re adding a little to
it and making it look much more natural in the process.
This is just an example but
basically you want to change things slightly, so you don’t have
“parenting toddlers” a bunch of times on the same page and in all
your tags.
When you move on to write your
page, try to write first for your visitors without over thinking the
optimization part of things. Once you finish writing your page, go
back and read through it. If your writing is based on your keywords
you should naturally have used that keyword phrase and related
phrases throughout.
It’s important to keep things as
natural as possible while still using targeted keywords. If in doubt
go back and read your page. Does it make sense? Does it flow
naturally? If it does and you still have your keywords in there,
chances are you’ve found the right balance.
Alice Seba is a full-time online
business owner that thrives on helping others say good-bye to their
J-O-Bs forever. Sign up for her “Internet Marketing Prescriptions”
to cure what ails your online business:
www.InternetMarketingPrescriptions.com
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