SEO Hosting Blog

It would be silly to write posts on this site and be all high and mighty about black hat SEO practices.  The truth is black hat SEO works or else it wouldn’t even be an issue.  And people employing black hat SEO tricks aren’t all done by spammers who send out countless emails about how to improve your…I’m not even going to finish that sentence.  So let’s look at black hat SEO with a more reasonable eye and not just make blanket statements like black hat = bad.  I’m not advocating black hat practices, just outlining why people do it.

First off, why do black hat tactics even work?  Why do people even risk a banning by using these strategies?  One, because banning is not as bad as you think.  If you scrub the site of the bannable offense, the site can be listed again.  Of course, this is a drawn out process that can lead to months of down time and lost profits, but banning isn’t necessarily permanent, as some believe.  However, committing bannable offenses again and again could lead to a stricter ban.  But for many the rewards outweigh the risk, especially if a ban can be overcome.  Many black hatters just cut their losses and move on to create a new site.

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Although every prominent SEO blogger has been saying for years that Google PageRank doesn’t matter, all you have to do is spend a few minutes in any SEO or Internet marketing forum to see that the obsession with that little green bar is alive and well.  From bloggers to website developers, people all over the Internet can’t seem to get past the idea of PageRank.  The reason that PageRank has remained so prominent in the minds of many in spite of the fact that they have been told they shouldn’t worry about it is that it’s visible and available for every website.  It takes time to really evaluate a website, and PageRank is viewed by many as a really easy way to gauge a website on a scale of zero to ten.
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If you haven’t heard of Google Suggest yet, it is time for you to listen up.  At the beginning of last week, Google added a feature to their homepage called Google Suggest.  If you have ever played around in Google Labs, you have already seen Google Suggest (which has been present in Google Labs for quite some time).  If you haven’t tried out Google Suggest in Google Labs before, all you need to do is head to the Google homepage and start typing in a search query.

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Commenting on blogs is a good way to increase your brand exposure while building your authority in the industry. Unfortunately, most commentators waste precious opportunities by writing comments that add little to the conversation. Not only is this wasteful, but it can also hurt your online reputation.

Follow these tips to get more results from your blog comments.

• Don’t Promote Yourself- Even though commenting on blogs will help build your brand, you shouldn’t treat the comments section of a blog as an opportunity to advertise your company. Blogging is a social activity. The comments section is a place for healthy interaction. If you’re constantly pitching your products, people will view you as nothing more than a spammer. Obviously, this will hurt the image of your brand.
• Stop Keyword Stuffing- Like I said before, blogging is a social activity. You don’t need to make your username a keyword your website is targeting. No one wants to build a relationship with someone named “Used Ford Mustang Steering Wheels.” People connect with people. Use your name, and if you really want to, follow it with your company name.
• Add Unique Insight- I read a lot of blogs on a daily basis. The one thing I see that drives me crazy is pointless comments. Simply saying, “Good post,” or “I agree,” adds nothing to the conversation. Instead, you should make your comments stand out from the crowd by adding relevant, compelling information to the conversation. Unique, insightful comments capture the attention of the blogger and the other commentators. They spark interesting conversations, and they go a long way to building your authority online.
• Consistency Counts- The best way to get more results from your blog comments is to build relationships. You can do this by consistently commenting on the same blogs. If you’re a loyal commentator, you will establish a rapport with the author and his followers. Over time, they will begin to pay more attention to your thoughts. This will give you credibility in their eyes. Consistent, hard work always pays off.

Always remember, blogging is about building relationships with others interested in your niche. Use your social skills, and you’ll be just fine.

One of the mistakes that search engine marketers make is concentrating too much on the SEM aspects of web content and not enough on basic readability.  You can see this in the conversion rates of web content.  People are savvy to garbled, keyword-driven content.  And if your average web surfer does not yet know that those keywords are put there for a reason, web surfers are certainly getting more savvy…and more cynical.  So your best bet is to first craft your content with readability in mind, not just to trick search engines into ranking the content.  Search engines may be tricked, but real, live people won’t be.

Web content is a much different animal than other types of writing.  Personally, I don’t understand how anyone can read an entire novel on an e-book reader.  Believe me, I’m a person who spends an enormous amount of time, but reading on a computer can be tiring on the eyes and increase people’s short attention span.  This isn’t a small thing.  The Atlantic even had an article recently, titled “Is Google Making us Stupid?” I mean, there have been days where I’ve spent so much time online clicking around between sites that when I get out in the real world, I actually have the instinct to click things so I can get them instantly – you mean I actually have to drive in this traffic?  Can’t I just click a link and end up somewhere else?
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