This is a really interesting article that I stumbled upon by a gentleman named Matt Siltala. All credit for this material goes to him. The original article can be found here.
Sneaky SEO
I am calling it sneaky SEO, cause I am tired of hearing it referred to as SEO Overkill. In my opinion Search Engine Optimization and Overkill should never be used in the same sentence. Let me explain why. I have been involved in SEO and internet businesses for the last 9 years and I have never stopped implementing good SEO on my websites. It is not OVERKILL its just good marketing practices.
I know why it is refered to as SEO Overkill, but I want to re-define it and call it what it is SNEAKY SEO.
Lets get more familiar with how users view webpages first. 79% of users scan a web page and 16% read word for word. What are readers looking for?
- Headlines
- Meaningful sub-headings (not keyword spam)
- Bulleted lists
- Headers
- How the Content is Arranged
- Worthless text (for density) or informative text worth reading?
When you have a site that is professionaly designed and full of content worth reading you gain credibility and web browsers will stay longer on your site. Random people I survey tell me the most important things to them on a website are:
- Is the layout easy to understand
- What kind of font style? (is it the same on all pages)
- What kind of font color? (again, needs to be the same-don’t fall into the rainbow text trap)
- Font size all the same?
- How is the navigation of the site?
- Does the site have a site-map?
Write for humans not search engines, and remember that search engines rank pages not websites. Getting back to the SNEAKY SEO, lets list the things we need to avoid on our websites:
- Hidden text (any kind, anywhere)
- Domain Stuffing (example – www.HowToGetRichUsingTheInternet.com)
- Don’t try to get rankings for 400 keywords all at once.
- Keyword stuffing folder names
- Keyword stuffing page names
- Keyword stuffing the title tag (keep it to about 5-7 words long)
- Keyword stuffing the meta tag description (keep it to about 25-30 words)
- Keyword stuffing the meta tag keywords (keep them to about 10-15 words)
- Skip misc. meta tags (they do nothing for you search engine wise)
- Don’t over-do visable text with so many keywords its not readable. (write for humans not search engines)
- Dont keyword stuff or overuse header tags
- Don’t include visible text in places it does not belong.
- Don’t keyword stuff your site maps. (site maps are essential, but avoid stuffing keywords and limit the site map to 50 links max.)
- To much visible anchor text.
- Don’t keyword stuff your link title attribute with keywords.
- Don’t keyword stuff your alt tags.
- Don’t built up links to fast. (avoid link farms)
- Avoid duplicate content by avoiding gateway, or doorway pages.
- Don’t stuff your div tables with keywords
Make sure to avoid these tactics of SNEAKY SEO’s, and do your part to keep the term SEO clean. If you play nice, the major search engines long term will reward you. You may find some using these tactics have good rankings, but it will catch up to them so please do everything you can to avoid any kind of SNEAKY SEO practices. You started an internet business for the long term and remember that any time you get tempted to fall to the dark side.