Weekly SEO news: 23 November 2010
Welcome to the latest issue of the Search Engine Facts newsletter.

The purpose of SEO is to get a lot of new customers through high rankings on Google and other search engines. If you have taken the time to find the best keywords for your website, you probably have a very long list with many keywords. How do you add that list to your website and what is the right number of keywords per page?

In the news: the latest search engine statistics, things you should know about Google Instant, reasons not to delete negative reviews and more.

Table of contents:

We hope that you enjoy this newsletter and that it helps you to get more out of your website. Please pass this newsletter on to your friends.

Best regards,
Andre Voget, Johannes Selbach, Axandra CEO

1. The perfect number of keywords for your website

The purpose of SEO is to get a lot of new customers through high rankings on Google and other search engines. If you have taken the time to find the best keywords for your website, you probably have a very long list with many keywords.

How do you add that list to your website and what is the right number of keywords per page?

many pages

Your home page is not your website: you have many pages

Many people try to optimize their home page (which is the index page of a website) for every possible keyword. That is not a good idea.

A single web page should not be optimized for more than one keyword. The keyword can consist of several words, for example "buy inexpensive golf shoes".

If your homepage has been optimized for 'buy inexpensive golf shoes" then you should not optimize it for another keyphrase.

It's much better if a web page is highly relevant to one keyword than somewhat relevant to many search terms. If you concentrate on one keyphrase per page then it is much more likely that your web page will get a top listing on Google for that search term.

Use one page for one keyword to get targeted website visitors

If you also want to get high rankings for your other keywords such as "brown golf shoes", "golf shop" or "golf equipment" then you should optimize other pages of your website for these keywords.

If a web surfer searches for "brown golf shoes" then a web page on your site that is all about brown golf shoes will convert much better than a page that is about golf shoes, golf balls, the latest golf news and golf clubs. It's nice to have these items on your website but they should be on separate pages.

Optimize different pages of your website for different keywords and you will get the best results with each keyword.

How to optimize a web page for your chosen keyword

When you optimize a web page for a keyword, it's important that the right elements of your web page contain the keyword in the right frequency. The easiest way to optimize a web page for a keyword is to use IBP's Top 10 Optimizer.

The Top 10 Optimizer will tell you in plain English how to change your web pages. Just follow the instructions and your web page will be perfectly optimized for Google (regional Google variations, Bing and other search engines are also supported).

In addition to the elements of your web page, the Top 10 Optimizer will also tell you if you have to work on the links to your website and how exactly you should change the links so that your website can get a page one ranking on Google.

Optimize for one keyphrase and get high rankings for many search terms

You should always optimize your web pages for a very targeted keyword that consists of many words. A keyword that consists of many words is called a "keyphrase". This has several advantages:

  1. It's much easier to get high rankings for targeted key phrases because the competition is not as fierce as the competition for one word keywords.

  2. Key phrases attract much more targeted website visitors. People who search for "golf" might be interested in magazines, clubs or even a car. People who search for "buy inexpensive golf shoes" are looking for inexpensive golf shoes and they are ready to buy.

  3. By optimizing your web page for a key phrase, you automatically optimize your web page for the parts of that key phrase. For example, your web page will automatically be optimized for "golf shoes", "inexpensive golf shoes" and other keywords if you optimize your page for "buy inexpensive golf shoes".

Optimize one web page for one keyword and optimize as many pages of your website as possible for different but related keywords. In this example, optimize different pages of your website for "buy inexpensive golf shoes", "find the perfect golf club", "country club", "golf sport information", "golf carts", etc.

The more pages you optimize, the better. If many pages of your website have been optimized for many related keywords then your website will look relevant to the topic of your keywords (in this example: "golf").

If search engines find that your website is relevant to a special topic then it will be easier to get high rankings for the individual keywords.

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2. Search engine news and articles of the week

StatisticsOctober 2010 U.S. search engine rankings (comScore)

"Google Sites led the U.S. explicit core search market in October with 66.3 percent market share, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 16.5 percent and Microsoft sites with 11.5 percent. Ask Network captured 3.6 percent of explicit core searches, followed by AOL LLC Network with 2.1 percent."

Related: Ignoring Bing and Yahoo costing publishers big bucks, Facebook.com generates nearly 1 in 4 page views in the US



Google Instant Previews: the first things you need to know

"Most previews will be too small to discern any significant copy, will your pages still represent your brand effectively? Can you communicate your value proposition in a preview? Is your site design compelling enough to entice users to click through? Take a look at some examples before you assume that the answer to that question is always 'Yes'".



A look back at Yahoo!'s 2010 search innovation

"For example, we added features like apps, intelligent shortcuts, and Yahoo! Search Assist updates to help you save valuable time and keep you more entertained, informed and productive than ever. And, in parallel, we were hard at work weaving search throughout the Yahoo! network and transitioning certain parts of our back-end technology to the Microsoft search platform."



Negative reviews5 reasons not to delete negative reviews

"While it may seem counter-intuitive, there are quite a few reasons why business owners want to resist the urge to delete comments and reviews that are critical of them. Sometimes, negative reviews can actually help, not harm, your business. Here are a few reasons why it's okay to let negative reviews lie on your page.



Google Instant Previews are being tracked as page views in Google Analytics

"I find it so hard to believe that Google rolled a robot-like tool that would be executing JS without a real page view, and neglected to add it to the filtered bots in our GA report. It's interested to see, for instance, how many times we've been previews, but I certainly can't use this for real reporting.

They aren't page views, I can't tell advertisers we had those numbers, I can't use them for behavioral analysis. It also records as a separate visitor every time, so even if someone legitimately clicked through, I wouldn't be able to tie that action up. It's just bloating metrics."



Search engine newslets

  • Bing seems to update the algorithm.
  • There's a bug in Google's AdWords Quality Score algorithm.
  • Google Places: are ratings the new reviews?
  • Google Places now requiring new "Places Profile" for reviews.
  • Google's own office blurred out on Street View.
  • Google warns Irish government against tax increase.
  • Whoa, Google, that's a pretty big security hole.

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3. Success stories

"Within 60 days we were on the 1st page of Google."

"I was at my wits end the first of this year, 2010, I was putting on as much content as I could to help with rankings and just could not get off page 4 with Google, then I ran across your software online. Always leery of something new I did a little research on IBP and it looked good.

A few weeks ago, we started using the software to make sure our pages were good with Google and I started linking like your information said, well within 60 days we were on the 1st page of Google and now you can see we have jumped some huge companies in my industry to take over the # 2 spot with Google.."
Chuck Magee, www.mississippi-landsource.com



IBP



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