The 10 Commandments of SEO ÔÇô Part 1

10 Commandments of SEO

from http://www.sitepoint.com/the-10-commandments-of-seo-part-1/ by Kristen Holden

All too often, internal marketing teams or “the tech guys” at any given company think they know exactly what’s best for a website’s SEO strategy. This developer mindset is based on a view that’s considered programmatically correct. It’s quite often the way things have always been done, and continue to be done; “search” is given little value, as it’s attributed to being a marketing function.

 

For example, many developers are of the opinion that changing a site’s structure—adding in new content pages, editing title tags, and so on—makes no difference.

 

WRONG!

There are some fundamental rules that can be applied universally to any website, and they simply cannot be ignored. So, without further ado, let me climb atop my mountain of SEO wisdom and expound some of these gems to developers and marketers across the globe.

 

1. Thou shalt have content as close to the top level of thy site as possible

 

Every website has a certain “siterank,” which is the overall level of authority or trust attributed to a domain. For every given level (subfolder or page) that you drop down in your website’s architecture, you will lose some of that overall siterank, making that folder or page less valuable to a search engine. (This is looking purely at siterank, not the authority of individual pages based on their own incoming links.)

This may sound like a no-brainer when it’s laid out this simply, but it baffles me how many times I’ve had to butt heads with dev groups, management, or marketing teams at big companies. The key issue is that companies genuinely don’t understand why content and structure needs to conform to external search best practices.

 

A point to note: If you have a link from your home page to one that’s five levels deep within your site (with optimized anchor text), it’s still a powerful signal to a search engine that the content is important.

A simple but effective way to judge this is to look at how many clicks it takes to get from your home page to any given piece of content. The more clicks required, the less siterank will be attributed by external search engines. It’s that straightforward.

 

If your content isn’t sitting as close as possible to the top level on your site, you’re throwing away valuable siterank and losing traffic to your competitors.

 

If you want to read more on this area, here’s a great post about Site Architecture from Rishil.

 

2. Thou shalt group content into logical “buckets” based on topical relevance

 

Search engines try to think as much as possible like visitors. They go through your website, categorizing your content into themed groups, and developing associations between pages. If your content is spread out all over the place, each part of your site has less topical authority.

 

Let’s use an example. When you visit the supermarket, do you expect to have to go to the fruit section for one particular brand of cereal? Or the frozen foods section to pick up tinned tomatoes? This method wouldn’t make much sense, being likely to confuse customers in a supermarket, and it’s the same with your website. Essentially, all you need to do is use some common sense when grouping content on your site. If your company sells widgets, place all widget-related posts, pages, Q&A material, and anything else you have on the topic into a single area (folder). This will vastly improve your overall topical authority for widgets.

 

Think about your site from the top down. Pick the most generic topics that you need to cover and make them your “master categories.” From there you can split the content into areas that make sense to your users.

 

3. Thou shalt make it as easy as possible for users to share content

 

SEO isn’t about submitting to directories, spamming, and manipulating users’ actions (not anymore anyway!). The social buttons you see alongside almost every blog post on the Internet (including this one) are there for a very good reason. Gone are the days when link graphs only included basic elements.

 

The more that users share your content, the better that piece of content will rank. It’s really that simple. Sure, you still need a good syndication strategy; you need editorial and brand-based links from a diverse range of websites. But, ultimately, you need your everyday users to be sharing your content as much as possible across Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Digg, and various other popular networks.

 

It’s not difficult to do. If you run a WordPress site, install ShareBar or one of the hundreds of other social plugins. If you manage your own website on another platform, install plugins like ShareThis or AddThis. It only takes five minutes.

 

If you write great content and your users are given the option of sharing it with their friends, you will naturally acquire great backlinks and social authority.

 

4. Thou shalt not buy links or spam

 

I have bought links in the past. These types of practices work in the short term. Every day, I see sites flying up the rankings, using questionable practices. So let’s be clear, spamming still works, despite Panda updates and spamming crackdowns. Paid links still work very well today, too.

 

Back in the “old days” (around 2001), I used to have thousands of domains with millions of pages of indexed content. All the sites were interlinked—all from different Class C IPs; basically, a very sweet spammy setup. It worked exceptionally well for approximately 12 months, making thousands of dollars per day with next to no effort. I know the dark arts and have applied them in the past, but these days you could say I’m very much a reformed gray/white-hat SEO person.

 

Sitting back and watching your competitors use these sites today can sometimes be depressing. Knowing they’re taking advantage of everything that they can—and if you just bought a few links or took short-cuts, your website would be much higher in the rankings—that will leave you frustrated and annoyed. Let me give you a word of advice having been there and done that: shortcuts cost you in the end.

 

Google, Bing, and other search engines invest enormous amounts of time (and money) recruiting some of the smartest people in world to find and slam spammers, as well as punish paid links. You can be sure that although paid links and spam may work today, the industry is fighting against it, with the potential for you (or your clients) to lose a whole lot more than what you gained in the short term.

 

Assume that the search engines are smarter than you. Don’t try to game them. Focus on building long-term, sustainable traffic while delivering real value to users along the way.

 

5. Thou shalt always create high-quality content for users, not simply for search engines

 

We have all come across content on websites that ranks exceptionally well for its chosen search term, but when you land on it, you’re left wondering what the point of the page was. So, despite being a highly relevant page according to a search algorithm, users find little to no value in the content—and they leave.

 

I have a great example. Many years ago, I managed search for a large corporate entity (who shall remain nameless) through an agency I worked for. Their in-house contact had a bunch of content production outsourced—content that ultimately was published without any approval. The product was air conditioning systems, which ended up ranking rather well for some generic keywords relating to air conditioning. The problem was that the content read like it was taken out of an air-conditioning manual: technical, obscure, and highly detailed on the specific elements involved. I’m sure that’s just what users searching for “Air Conditioning Installation Melbourne” were after, right?

 

Needless to say, the conversion rate was horrible and the bounce rate was huge. It’s the worst possible outcome, as the traffic was completely wasted.

 

The moral of the story is this: having the most optimized piece of content with the highest LDA score counts for nought if users who visit your site find no value in it.

 

To drive traffic that will convert into sales, you need to write relevant, high-value content for your users on topics they want to read more on. This has the natural flow-on effect of vastly increasing the uptake in sharing and, consequently, rankings.

 

Add a new page to a website if you think the end user will benefit from having visited that page. Always ensure that the page and its content are optimized for conversions and rankings.

 

Summary

 

Ethical SEO isn’t rocket science. Build a website with content that is aimed at your end users. Group that content in logical ways that makes it easy to associate with specific topics. Make it easy for users to share your content with their friends. Resist the temptation to take short-cuts when building links or outsourcing work, and ensure that your site architecture is up to scratch.

 

If you can focus on these five points, you’ll be ahead of 90% of your competitors; long-term, your websites and those of your clients will receive the benefits. If you take short-cuts, eventually you can expect to be slapped by one of the numerous factors that devalue questionable practices. Stay tuned for Part II, where I’ll preach the remaining five rules you need to know to stay on top of the SEO game.