Many people come to us, discouraged and puzzled about why their site has fallen in the ranks even though their site is optimized for all the right keywords. Others reach out to us for help with keyword optimization of their site’s text, mistakenly convinced that this is the only thing their site needs to succeed. Here are five reasons that gaining ranks with standard ranking tactics is harder than it used to be for the average site owner:

Keyword Optimization Isn’t as Important

Identifying keywords and using them to optimize your text used to be two of the easiest SEO tasks for the layperson (as well as the not-so-technical SEO). If you were a halfway decent writer, and could figure out the right keywords to include in your text, you used to be able to make some headway in the ranks. However, where there used to be a relatively straight path from keyword optimization to improved ranks, there are now several complicating factors. Now your thoughtful keyword strategy is also vying with:

• Personalized search in Google, which causes a searcher’s past behavior to influence their search results
• Real-time results in Google, which sometimes give fresh content and tweets an edge over older pages
• Better contextualization: Type “corwin” into Google and you’ll get decent results for three very different Corwins: the publisher, the Animal Planet celebrity, and the town. Type “out of league” and Bing reasonably matches your query to results for the movie “She’s Out of My League.” The search engines have gotten much smarter about contextualization and phrase matching, and their ever-improving intelligence is becoming just as much of a rankings factor as your keyword optimization. (And, on a related note: remember when people used to optimize their sites for misspellings? The search engines make that irrelevant now.)

You’re Overloaded with Tools

You used to have only a few optimization tools to work with. Meta tags – go optimize ‘em! Links – go get ‘em! Thankfully, as SEO has gotten more complex, search engines are now giving you more tools and information to work with. But unfortunately, these tools and information can overwhelm and confuse. Canonical tags are extremely easy to use, and also very easy to mess up. Webmaster Tools give you tons of information, and at the same time lead many of us down the wrong path. (For example, with the data now available, you may be tempted to believe that a decline in site speed caused your ranks to plunge, but you’d probably be wrong.) With all of these elements to analyze and address, it’s difficult to identify what’s most important, which skills to brush up on (or outsource) and what’s worthy of your time and energy.

Web Technology has Outpaced SEO-Friendliness

E-commerce tools, blog publishing platforms and content management systems, AJAX, mobile devices, the proliferation of video…all of these technologies and more have made the web more exciting and dynamic! But in many cases, these features require specialized technical skills to prevent or remediate significant search engine indexing handicaps.

Everybody’s Doing It

After years of marginalization, SEO is finally on every website owner’s radar. SEO awareness has evolved to the point where most people are addressing keyword optimization and site indexing concerns when they build and maintain their sites. And I haven’t met a new client in years who isn’t already thinking through a link building strategy. Having an SEO-friendly site isn’t a competitive advantage for you any more; it’s a requirement. And, if my decade-plus in SEO has taught me anything, it’s this: when everybody is doing something, that thing becomes less powerful as a ranking factor. (See above – “Keyword Optimization Isn’t as Important”)

Rapid Evolution

“Hi, I’m Google, and I’ll be your search engine today. Our algorithm change du jour is the ‘Chef’s Surprise.’ Depending on your site, it will either be delicious or leave a foul taste in your mouth. You’ll be trying it whether you want it or not.” Yep, Google changes every day. I used to eschew algorithm-chasing, and refused to participate in obsessing over SEO gossip on a daily basis.  I knocked it as a pointless way of life, but these days I’m convinced that it’s important to embrace that mindset, at least a little bit. This is something that SEO specialists have built into their schedule, but it’s not as simple for the average site owner to find the time to keep up with latest developments in search.

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It’s harder than it used to be to influence your site’s ranks using keyword optimization and link building tactics. So what should you do about it? Do what we do: Think big picture! Once you’ve nailed the basics: a search-friendly site, optimized text, and a well-targeted message, try something new to achieve a well-rounded online presence. Branch out into social media. Encourage positive reviews. Maybe shoot a little video if it’s a good fit for your audience.  And use the information you glean from your analytics to make real changes on your site, not just to gain better ranks, but to improve engagement for the visitors you have.

Q: Hi! I’m very confused about outbound links. I was told by a SEO firm that outbound links were A Bad Thing as they canceled out your inbound links. But it seems this is not the case.

A: Outbound links are not A Bad Thing and they don’t cancel out your inbound links.  In fact, a “natural” linking profile for a quality website would normally include outbound links, as it is natural for  most quality sites to provide links to other resources.

Outbound links are only bad if they are done as a part of a link exchange or if you’re being paid for providing links that are not tagged with “nofollow.”  In that case, your site could be penalized by search engines.  I would certainly get rid of any outbound links that you may have created as a part of a link exchange scheme of any sort.

You should also check your outbound links periodically to make sure that they aren’t pointing to “bad neighborhoods.”  Sometimes good sites go under, and the domains are taken over by squatters, spammers, malware, porn, etc.  Your site’s status on search engines could be damaged if you link to these – not to mention your credibility with your human audience!

Lastly, it’s reasonable to link to your own website pages as a priority, rather than other sites.  For example, if you have a page on your site that features “tea cozies” it certainly makes more sense from an SEO perspective for your home page text to link to your own “tea cozies” page rather than pointing to some other site’s “tea cozies” page.

My advice is to link out to sites if you think they will benefit your human visitors.  This might include sites that offer related, but not necessarily competing services or products. For example, if you market tea cozies, you might link out to your favorite brands of tea. Outbound links  are also important as part of an overall strategy of social marketing and participatory blogging.  Outbound links can also be linkbait – for example, let’s say you link to a travel blog while criticizing it for missing the mark on the most charming high tea destinations. People in your target audience might be drawn into a conversation.

Naturally, if providing links to other resources feels forced or unnatural on your website, or if you don’t think it will benefit your human visitors, then you shouldn’t do it.

As of December 4, 2009, Google’s search results will never be the same. Seriously, they’ll never be the same, even from one computer to another.

Google’s expanded personalized search is a game-changer in search engine design. It’s a big deal but it has gone largely under the radar. All Google searchers will now get customized results that are influenced by past searching and clicking behavior, bookmarks, and other factors. Any time a user clicks through from Google to a website, it gives that site a boost in that user’s future search results. Organic search results – previously considered an “objective” third-party viewpoint – now differ based on who is doing the searching.

Personalized search is activated for all Google searchers whether they are logged into a Google account or not, unless they opt out. We don’t expect many people to opt out.

Why isn’t this making more headlines? For one, we’ve all grown comfortable with seeing localized results (“bakeries near San Francisco, California”). Plus we’re all starting to get used to more and more personalization in advertising, particularly on Facebook screens (“37 year old woman in San Francisco California? Click here”). Enhanced personalization of search results is a natural evolution.

Personalized search will affect your business

The full ramifications of this change are still unknown, but here are our preliminary thoughts on what personalized search means to website owners:

• When you check Google, don’t assume that the ranks you see for your site are the same as what your customers are seeing. To turn off personalized search, opt out, or add the tag &pws=0 to the end of the Google page URL.

For example, if you search for “early reader comic books” in Google you may get a URL like this:

http://www.google.com/search?q=early+reader+comic+books

But you’ll get unpersonalized results with this URL:

http://www.google.com/search?q=early+reader+comic+books&pws=0

• Personalized search will increase the importance of search queries that occur early in the buying cycle. If people click on your site during the browsing, comparing, and information-gathering phase, you’re likely to get increased Google exposure later, when they’re ready to buy. Does your site offer a good destination for keywords containing “compare” and “review?” Do you know what people search for in the early stages of buying your product?
• The advent of more personalized search places a higher value on clickthrough rate (how many times a person clicks from Google search results to your site). Your clickthrough rate can be improved with compelling, well-written titles, URLs, and meta descriptions.
• Personalized search may increase the percentage of site visitors who are repeat visits. Does your website offer something useful for the second and third visit and beyond?
• Do you have a website with an easy-to-remember or easy-to-guess domain? Lots of people are probably typing your URL directly into the browser instead of finding you in Google.  This is very good for your site traffic in general, but now there is a down side to having an easy-to-remember domain name: if users are less likely to use Google as a navigation tool for your site, you  might be at a disadvantage in personalized search.
• It isn’t clear what percentage of Google search results are personalized. If personalization is very heavy, it may be more difficult for newly established websites to use SEO to gain market share from already-established business.

Can personalized search results be influenced? Certainly. Your website’s ranks in personalized search results will be improved by any method that encourages people to navigate to your site using a Google search.

In our next post, we’ll discuss ways to influence personalized results.

Q: If I’m using a keyword such as “planet orbiter” or “planet orbiters”, do I need to focus on both words for meta searches, PPC, etc. or can I focus just on “planet orbiters” and trust that a good enough campaign will yield results for the singular “planet orbiter” search as well?

A: Since search engines recognize a difference between singular and plural words, we think it is best to represent your keyword in both singular and plural forms on your website.

Despite Google taking great pride in the fact that it returns meaningfully different results for “apple” and “apples” (people searching for the single word “apple” are more likely to be seeking the company and not the fruit), for the vast majority of searches, most people would agree that there isn’t a whole lot of meaning in the difference between singular and plural searches. If you think that your searchers could be querying both words, you should optimize for both too.

This is even more important when it comes to symbols such as apostrophes and dashes in words. Search engines provide different results for mockingbirds and mockingbird’s – as well they should. Be sure to do your research to determine which is the most popular form of your favorite keyword.

For pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, it’s usually a good idea to target all variations of a multiple-word keyword phrase (“mockingbird songs” “mockingbird song”, “mocking bird song”). In the rare instances when we sponsor single keywords, we usually only sponsor the singular version and make sure broad matching is enabled so that the plurals and other variations are represented. But if this is a critically important keyword for you, it’s probably worth your while to go ahead and sponsor individual variations. Again, though, it’s not always a great plan to sponsor single keywords, so make sure that you track carefully to make sure the traffic you pay for is converting at a reasonable rate.

You may also be interested in our previous “Ask the Experts” answer about targeting variations of multiple-word keyphrases.

Q: I know I have a lot of other sites linking to mine. But when I do a Link:mysite.com search on Google I only see a couple. What’s going on?

A: We’ve probably received half a dozen emails this year asking the same question. The answer is simple: Google does not show all of the links to your site (also called backinks and inlinks). It doesn’t even show all of the links that it knows about.

Adding to the confusion, MSN stopped showing backlinks in early 2007 – in fact MSN Search no longer supports the “link:www.mysite.com” format at all.

But don’t despair! There are several ways that you can gather intelligence about links to your website (and that of competitors):

• Using the Yahoo! search engine, search for “link:www.mysite.com” (no quotation marks). Here’s an example. Yahoo! will take you to its Site Explorer, where you can review inlinks to an entire domain or to a particular page. Site Explorer is Yahoo!’s equivalent to Google Webmaster Tools, where you can submit a site map, view last crawled date, and a other features.
• Speaking of Google Webmaster Tools, sign up, get verified, and this fab tool will provide a comprehensive list of inlinks to your site. Google’s popular engineer Matt Cutts has posted an explanation of how you can use Google’s Webmaster Tools to view all of your backlinks.
• A few geeks in shining armor have built backlink checking tools that you can use online. Try these on for size: We Build Pages Backlink Tool, SEOMoz Page Strength tool, Aaron Walls’ backlink analyzer, Backlink Watch.

Lastly, to answer another commonly asked question: Are links really all that important? You bet they are. Shun Google and MSN — and use more accurate tools for backlink checking — to know just where you stand.

Welcome to the Banana Channel. We’re testing video RSS and video search optimization. Enjoy!

This is an SEO test page. We are learning how search engines index videos on the web. For more information please read How to Get Video Thumbnails in Google.

Check out our video MRSS feed

Video Pages:

• The Monkey Diaries V
• The Monkey Diaries II
• The Monkey Diaries IV

The day began quite normally for Monkey Subject R5-Q17 (otherwise known as Hooble). But as he scratched his furry beard and wondered “how will I ever get across this flooded jungle floor?,” the answer, he realized, was hydroplaning. A hydroplaning monkey? What a sight to behold.

There is currently limited information on hydroplaning monkeys in the wild. This page was created to fill this gap in our knowledge as a global community. Our dream is to form a hydroplaning monkey foundation so that this phenomenon can be studied more closely.

The Shocking Monkey Barnacles

4.0 stars out of 5.0

based on 11 reviews

For more information, please visit our Monkey Videos page. or enjoy our Monkey Videos feed! You can also put the Monkey in your Google Results!

Update: We’ve been receiving a lot of letters from monkey-lovers that are very concerned about Hooble’s well-being. We want to assure you that Hooble is doing just great. He’s decided to get rid of the furry beard and go with more of a goatee look for 2007; and we needed to put him on a little diet after a few too many monkey banana love orgies. But other than that, Hooble is entirely healthy and will certainly never be harmed or endangered in future hydroplaning experiments. We thank you for your concern.

Lucky the Rat Joins Hoobie – but is he a friend or a foe? Only the Marlboro Man knows.

This is an SEO test page. We are learning how search engines index videos on the web. For more information please read How to Get Video Thumbnails in Google.

Q: I recently asked a relevant website with a high Google PageRank value if they could link to a page on my website. They said they would gladly add a link if I could add one to their site somewhere on my website. Would this be damaging to my site? I have thought about setting up a links page with a noindex, nofollow tag so that Google will not pick up the link on our website. What should I do

A: Great question, but first a disclaimer: As you may know from reading our book, we really don’t keep too close an eye on the many ins and outs of Google’s algorithm. We are more likely to focus on what’s good for your site visitors than what’s good for your Google PageRank [Wikipedia]. Having said that, technically speaking reciprocal linking can put you at risk for diluting your PageRank.

We came across a recent quote from Matt Cutts’ blog (Matt is a “celebrity” Google engineer; he is Google’s unofficial ambassador to the SEO industry). Here, he talks about sites that he was reviewing as part of a panel for a conference:

“Several times during the session, it was readily apparent that someone had tried to do reciprocal links as a “quick hit” to increase their link popularity. When I saw that in the backlinks, I tried to communicate that 1) it was immediately obvious to me, and therefore our algorithms can do a pretty good job of spotting excessive reciprocal links, and 2) in the instances that I looked at, the reciprocal links weren’t doing any good. I urged folks to spend more time looking for ways to make a compelling site that attract viral buzz or word of mouth. Compelling sites that are well-marketed attract editorially chosen links, which tend to help a site more.”

See Matt’s full post here.

In our opinion, you’re talking about one link to a relevant site. You’re not setting up excessive reciprocal links, so we don’t think you’ll be penalized. Will you algorithmically “lose” a little RageRank value by linking back to the PR 6 site? Probably, but we think that you have more to gain than you have to lose by linking. There are so many sites out there that link back to each other due to true relevance, we’d be shocked if one or two reciprocal links could knock a site’s PR down significantly.

Regarding making a links page with a no index, no follow robots META tag, we don’t recommend it, for a couple of reasons. First, it’s not really in the spirit of what you’d be agreeing to do for the PR 6 site. They want a link that the search engines will see. And secondly, who knows, the PR 6 site will probably check your site and could drop your link due to the no index, no follow tag.

You say it’s a relevant site. In our opinion, relevance is the bottom line. Therefore, PageRank issues aside, if you think that the website would be helpful/useful/interesting to your visitors, we say go ahead and provide a link. If not, then don’t do it for the PageRank, because there are lots of other ways to drive targeted traffic to your site.

So you want to start a link building campaign? You need a good link request letter, one that’s friendly and professional, and that won’t be offensive or annoying to site owners or webmasters.

Inbound links to your website are one of the most important factors in search engine ranking algorithms today.  In our book Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day, we tell the story of how one of our link requests got into the hands of a vengeful blogger, and how his attempt to humiliate us fell flat because we wrote a “bulletproof” link letter.

Here’s a sample link building letter that you can adapt to your own needs:

Dear Ms. Alphabeth, [always use the person’s real name if you have it],

I’ve greatly enjoyed looking through your pet plankton website, especially the “Plankton of the Month” photos.  I have a website on a related subject and I think it might be of interest to your readers.  It’s “Care and Feeding of Pet Plankton” on ZappyCo.com.  This page provides a detailed plankton care plan, including homemade algae snacks, tank maintenance, and even a section on how to set up a trust fund for your plankton. The page is located at http://www.zappyco.com/planktonics [use the exact URL that you want the site to link to].

I thought a good place on your site to link from would be on your “links” page, here: http://www.planktonlove.com/links [use the exact URL that you hope the site will link from].

Here is a description that you can use if you like:

ZappyCo’s Plankton Care and Feeding Tips
Recipes, tank cleaning instructions, and tips for keeping plankton pets happy.

I hope you find this link appropriate and useful.  We at ZappyCo would certainly appreciate a link from your site.  Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

Sincerely,
Harlan Zappy
Web Marketing Manager, ZappyCo
[Use your full name, title, and if possible, use an email address from the site requesting the link.]

What’s good about this letter? For starters:

• It doesn’t employ hard-selling techniques.
• It’s personal and specific. It doesn’t require any guessing or composing should the recipient want to provide a link.
• It doesn’t promise a link exchange.  If the link is appropriate and your site has high-quality content, you shouldn’t need a link exchange.

In Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day we give additional pointers on writing a bulletproof link letter and making your site more “linkable.” We also walk you through the steps of starting and maintaining a long-term successful link building campaign.  Follow these pointers and you’ll be sure to bring in those red-hot inbound links that your website needs and deserves!