Banned or Penalized by Google?

If you do something on your site that gets you penalized by Google, you have wandered off into a deep swamp! That said, you have to figure out what to do about it to repair the damage, if that is possible. Matt Cutts, the well known Google "insider" blogger, has some information about the process in this very long thread.

"First off, what’s a reinclusion request and why would you want to do one? If you’ve been experimenting with SEO, or you employ as SEO company that might be doing things outside Google’s guidelines, and your site has taken a precipitous drop recently, you may have a spam penalty. A reinclusion request asks Google to remove any potential spam penalty."

Matt provides a link to the site where you file your request, but there are a lot of important unanswered questions that you have to deal with. First of all is the question of how you know that your problem is the result of something that Google has identified as spam? Second, how do you find out exactly what behavior is considered spam so that you can fix it? Third, how long do you have to wait to get any resolution after you have cleaned up your site and filed your reinclusion request? Fourth, is there anything you can do to acelerate the process?

I read a lot of the postings on this link and found a lot of discussion and even more questions, but never really found the answers to these questions outlined above.

The lesson here is that it is important to create a clean website and to make every effort to avoid the techniques that can lead to such problems. Once you get into trouble, you have a huge task ahead of you (possibly) to get it resolved. It will absorb a lot of your time and energy under the best of circumstances, and looks like it will impact your site performance for at least six to eight months (this is only a guess!)

What are the things to avoid? Well, there is a long list, and lots of them are obvious, like hidden text, keyword spamming, etc. The activity that seems most likely to create problems for you inadvertently is the pursuit of an aggressive linking strategy that involves you with the wrong sites or generates too many links too quickly. As we have talked about in our classes many times, go after good quality links, not after sources that promise lots of links in a hurry. The other point that one might consider important is to pay close attention to whomever is implementing your link strategy. Someone you hire to help you might do a great deal of damage to your business by making a mistake.

Using Keywords Effectively in Copy!

"One primary goal is to write copy so that the keyphrases are virtually undetectable when read by someone with no knowledge of SEO. "

Here is an article with some nice tips on how to utilize keywords in the copy that you write for your web site.

As we point out in our clinic, the point of your copy is to provide valuable information to your readers, and not to offend them with padded or unreadable content. The author of this piece, associated with Wordtracker, one of the sources of keyword information on the web, makes some very useful suggestions about how to write copy that makes use of keyword focus without being offensive to the reader.

Her suggestions?

• Keep It Sounding Natural
• Don't Use Keyphrases To Describe Your Products/Services
• Add A Word
• Break It Up

Natural: Keeping it natural is common sense. If it doesn't read right to you, it won't to your reader Don't feel compelled to add in keywords to meet some quantitative measure.

Keyphrases: "DON'T use keyphrases to describe your own products or services. Instead, use them to describe what your product or service is not, or what it is similar to or what it is better than."

Add: "The phrase "web design for small business" seems out of place because, most often, we would use the plural term (small businesses) when we were writing. To correct the problem, just add a plural word to the end of the phrase. Perhaps you might talk about web design for small business startups or web design for small business owners. "

Break: "One keyphrase I had to work with was "Texas Hill Country real estate." That would get pretty cumbersome if it were left as it is seen there. But by breaking it up with some punctuation, it sounds perfectly natural. Here's how it can be done."

There is no more beautiful place than the Texas Hill Country. Real estate listings in this area are filled with stunning homes that …

Note that the search engine will not notice the period. It will consider the phrase to be coherent.

*****

Always remember that you are writing to the reader (while considering how the search engine reads).

How to Use RSS on Your Site

RSS, accoding to this author, is "... this decade's answer to business-to-consumer (B2C) e-mail; ..."

There are various creative ways to utilize RSS feeds on your site. A few suggestions from this article make the point. They include:

• Blog and article comments.
• Errata sheets.
• Shipment tracking.
• Newly released and sale items.
• Updated user agreements, policies, and practices.

In our clinic, we have discussed use of RSS primarily in the contextof the first item only. As with any marketing on the web, it pays to be thinking of the client and what the client needs, wants, or can use. Each of these suggestions points to a different kind of value that RSS can provide for the users.

Remember the lesson: "If you help your clients, they will help your business!"

Understanding the True Value of a Resource Library for Your Website

"The most common objection a search engine optimization company hears when recommending that a site add a resource library is 'I want to sell my product, not educate.' However, this is shortsighted. It is important to reach buyers at all stages of the sales cycle. "

Here is someone who understands and explains the importance of CONTENT on a web site! In the quote cited above, the author addresses the principal objection and misunderstanding that one encounters when trying to get site owners to support creation of content.

He points out quite clearly what the benefits of this material can be to the site, and provides illustrations of sites that employ the technique successfully. For a good example of how this can be implemented effectively look at one of the web sites we discuss frequently in our clinic, Jason's site dealing with air tools. Jason also carries battery chargers and jump starters, so he provides an article on "How to jump start a dead car battery".

When you look at this page, note the references on the page to additional informational articles provided on the site. Also note that the article provides an easy step for the viewer to get to the listing of the products related to the article content.

To reiterate the authors points, this content does three things for the site. It provides a good reason for visitors to return to the site, it can attract important inbound links from other sites and blogs, and it can boost rankings on important keyword phrases. This last point is particularly relevant for phrases buried in what we refer to as "the long tail" of less frequently used search phrases.

As we say in every class, "Content is King!"

Check Your Google Links Now!

"You can view the links to your site by selecting a verified site in your webmaster tools account and clicking on the new Links tab at the top."

Finally, we have a way to get a good count of what Google knows about pages linking to our sites! Many of the tools I have tried recently that count external links to sites simply do not report much information about Google links. Even the Google "backward links" tool on the toolbar does not provide satisfying results. This uses the "links:..." operator that works for other search engines, such as Yahoo.

Now, Google has offered the ability to check on your own links through the Webmaster Tools interface. Too bad, this will not help in checking Google back links to other sites (unless you own them, or at least, have access to the sites). but it is a big step forward in helping to collect information about sites that you do control.

To use it, you have to get into the Webmaster Tools site, which requires registering, but it is free, so, no worries. Once there, you must set up the site(s) you want to check. This will require posting a file or some code to the site to verify that you have that kind of access, so there are several steps involved the first time you go in. After that, you have access to a nice set of tools to explore and analyze various aspects of your site operation.

This is also where you register sitemaps for your site, another Google supported tool for helping you to improve your site performance.

If you have not done so yet, you must go to the Webmaster Tools site and get yourself established and begin using this toolkit to help you manage your site

Report Endorses Our Clinic Techniques!

"Two such areas where retailers should pay special attention include shopping search and search engine optimization (SEO), according to a new report from TrafficLeader, a search marketing consultancy and subsidiary of Marchex.
By adding these elements to the marketing mix, a retailer can boost traffic and conversions, increase lead-generation, and improve cost efficiencies of search marketing efforts, says the '2007 Search Marketing Insights for Retailers' study.
Many retailers are struggling to get the basics. Their Web sites are geared toward selling, not being an information resource. But those are the kinds of sties that rank well in search engines,..."

A recent analysis of retailer site performance points out several techniques that may retailers overlook to the detriment of the performance of their commercial sites. These are the very techniques that we repeatedly emphasize in our clinic sessions.

Note the three critical points in the quote above: listing in shopping search engines, search engine optimization of content pages, and being an information resource for the searcher. The first point we usually cover under the concept of obtaining beneficial links. We have often talked about getting your site listed in directories and other related sites to increase links. We have spent less time on specifically getting listed within the various shopping search engines, but there is a clear correspondence in intent.

The second two points are recommendations that we stress in almost every session of the clinic. Our motto has always been, "Content is King!" What that means is that the site that provides useful content to the searchers will always have a natural advantage over those sites that do not emphasize being useful.

Further down in the content of this article, the writer says, "Another challenge for some retailers is the lack of a text-based navigation system, which leaves search engine spiders unable to access many of the products on a site."

Note the important points: text-based navigation system, and the idea that search engines need these to find pages within the site! We have sessions that are devoted entirely to the concept of linking structure and the importance that it has in making sites navigable and in allowing the developer to emphasize the important elements or areas of the site.

We have long known that these techniques make a crucial difference to site owners, but it is always nice to see documentation of the concepts from other sources!