SEO Hosting Blog

After blogging for over three years I have learned a lot of things about search engine marketing and keyword ranking. And one of the things that I have learned is that it really doesn’t take a lot of content to rank for keywords in Google. Granted, there are a lot of contributing factors towards ranking for keywords, but I am finding that the amount of content written doesn’t really hold too much weight in the equation.

Content adds quality to a page. It adds value, and typically, it provides people with what they are looking for. I believe that that is what Google and other search engines seek. They seek, index, and rank pages that they feel will be important to people. In doing so, that makes their search engine favorable because people find what they need. So, in most cases, as a publisher, writing content is what’s needed to achieve ranking. But the question remains, “How much content is needed?” Many publishers feel like a lot is required, when in many cases, it’s not.

A large amount of content isn’t always necessary to achieve ranking. Content is very important, but publishers should be aware that thousands of words on a page isn’t always required to achieve keyword ranking. The point I’m aiming to get across here is that writing content is difficult, takes a lot of time, and requires a lot effort. So, putting in more resources than what’s needed is a waste. With many jobs, it’s the duty of managers to control costs and expenses, to manage payroll and control hours, and oversee that excessive materials are not being used to complete the job.

The same should apply with content writing and search engine ranking. Don’t assume that content is always “King” when it comes to targeting keywords in Google and other search engines. I have learned that the “King” is with identifying alternative keywords and phrases that have low levels of competition with high search counts. The second part is identifying what it will take to rank above the existing competition on the search result page.

When you have it set in your mind that you want rank for certain keywords and phrases, take time to study your competition on the search results page. Ask yourself, “How did they rank for this keyword?” and investigate. Once you discover how your competition achieved their ranking, then you will have a better idea of knowing how much of your own resources you’ll need to use towards ranking above them.

My point is this: The amount of content is only a small factorization in the equation of search engine ranking. Content is much like butter on toast, milk in cereal, or sugar in coffee. Content really only adds flavor to a page. And with keyword ranking, it’s your job to figure out the ingredients needed to make toast, cereal, and coffee. After you do that, then you’ll know exactly how much butter, milk, and suger to add.

As you may already know, I am doing a multiple post series on how to research keywords without buying software. If you haven’t already read the first post, then I recommend doing so. After you read it, I encourage you to stay tuned for the second post in the series coming up in the next few days. In the mean time, I want to offer some advice and guidance on building blogs and websites for profit.

Before I begin, I want to be clear about something. There are multiple reasons why people do keyword research. And as mentioned in my first post, the reason why I do keyword research is so that I can successfully build profitable sites that earn money. So, providing you with tips on building websites for profit go hand in hand with my multiple post series. In other words, it’s kind of pointless to learn how to research keywords unless you can successfully build sites off the topics you have researched.

That said, I have done quite a bit of digging in the SEO Hosting blog archives, and I have come up with a list of articles that will teach you some vitally important skills that you’ll need to learn if you want to be successful with building websites for profit. I have broken them down into two categories: Web Design Tips and Copywriting Tips. It’s important to understand that lacking strong skills in both web design and copywriting negates the whole purpose behind researching keywords.

Years ago, people were able to profit from building low quality sites. However, that is not the case today with the increased levels of competition and new sites being launched, as well as the constant adjustments search engines make towards fighting spam and controlling quality. Below are references to 16 articles previously published on the SEO Hosting blog that will provide you with concrete tips with copywriting and web design.

Copywriting Tips – The content you create has a huge impact on the overall success of your site. Writing the content can be tricky because it has to be written in a way that captures the attention of people, keeps them on the page, and delivers what is expected. It also has to be optimized so that the page can appear in search engines above other competing sites the cover the same topics.

1. The Importance of Research in the Copywriting Process
2. Pros and Cons of the Different Types of Content
3. How to Write Better Headlines
4. How to Improve Your Headlines Instantly
5. Tips for Using Bullet Points in Your Copy
   
6. 23 Copywriting Rules To Live By
7. How to Make Sure You Aren’t Keyword Stuffing
8. 5 Simple Tips for Proofreading Your Copy

Web Design Tips – Just like the content you create, your web design also plays an active role towards the success of your site. The inner workings of a properly coded website fortify the optimizations made to the content you create. It also captures the attention of people with the use of appealing colors, graphics, and styles.

1. The Anatomy of a Website: Which Pages Should Be on Your Website?
2. How To Be a Successful Web Designer
3. 5 Tips for Overcoming Web Designer’s Block
4. Tell-Tale Signs Your Homepage Sucks
5. Don’t Let These 8 Web Design Mistakes Kill Your Website
6. 23 Web Design Rules to Follow
7. How To Increase The Performance of Your Website
8. 8 Essential Website Maintenance Tasks

I believe that if you are serious about learning how to research keywords, then you will have a strong interest in developing, enhancing, or strengthening your copywriting and web design skills. I encourage you to read the articles referenced above. They will provide you with the highest level of advice and guidance.

Additionally, I invite you to ask questions and voice your concerns with past experiences. And lastly, I want to remind you to stay tuned, because in the next day or so I will publish my second article in the multiple post series that teaches you how to research keywords without buying software.

My head literally had only hit the pillow for about 30 seconds before I re-realized this thought again. Second place is truly the first loser. And I came to realize that more than ever just a few moments ago. My son lost is cell phone in the snow last week and it stopped working. What I should do is probably punish him and not purchase a new phone, but because I am a common idiot father, I am going to replace his phone with something even better.

So, I logged into my AT&T account and like always, they offer an array of free add-on phones for my family plan. Many of these phones were actually pretty cool. One of the phones that I thought was nice was the Motorola Karma. I can get this phone free. But at any rate, in the process of reviewing these various phones, I decided to jump over to YouTube to see if there were any reviews.

Here’s the part where I re-realized that “second place is the first loser.” When I was doing my searches for these various phones, I felt very strong at clicking the first result. What’s crazy about this situation is that many hours later — once again, head crashed on pillow only 30 seconds — I was able to fully understand the power of ranking #1 for something.

In the case with the YouTube videos, I was clearly able to see the view count of each video on the search result page. In a few cases, the second and third result had more views and in fact seemed even more relevant than the #1 listing. Yet, what did I do? You guessed it… I clicked on the first result and watched that video. Reflecting back on why I did this, I remember saying to myself, “Well… if YouTube thinks this one should be #1, then that’s the video I need to watch to get the best review of this particular phone.”

Was that true? Well, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is the fact that I clicked on the #1 result, and so do most people. So ultimately, the key to success is ranking #1. And this helps another point I have made many times before in the past. And that it is better to rank #1 for a keyword that only gets 100 hits per day than to rank on page two for a keyword that gets 10,000. No one looks at page two on Google. Not many people even look at the bottom first ten results.

Ranking #1 is the key. So that being said… when it comes to doing keyword research, or targeting various phrases, etc… remember to choose keywords, titles, and phrases that you feel you have the most chance at ranking number #1. Anything below that are simply losers…

In this article we’re going to help answer the question: What is ALLINTITLE search. As you may know,  in my last article I explained about advanced and basic search operators in Google. I then explained how understanding these operators can help you have a better understanding of SEO. In this article we’re going to further this lesson by showing you some specific examples of search engine optimization and how these efforts are visible in the search results.

Most programs such as WordPress automatically generate dynamic HTML pages, so unfortunately, many bloggers don’t understand the elements that make up a web page. It’s very important for bloggers to know and understand HTML. If you don’t know HTML, don’t worry, it’s very simple to learn. But again, it is something that you should totally learn.

Doing so, quite honestly, will give you a huge boost towards understanding SEO. That said, one of the first elements we’ll look at is the HTML <title> tag. (more…)

Google is quite powerful and amazingly accurate when it comes to helping people find things. However, not many people know that Google can be used in different ways to drill down even deeper towards finding information. These are called Advanced Search Operators.

You might not realize this but, performing a simple search for a keyword phrase or topic is an example of a Basic Search Operator. The part that may impress you is that even the basic search operators do quite advanced things. The advanced search operators, well using them can produce even more impressive results.

All in all, it’s quite important to learn the operators and commands. Doing so will allow you to find more accurate information. But there’s a bonus. If you’re learning about SEO, understanding many of the Basic and Advanced search operators can help you learn quite a bit about search engine optimization.

Let’s take a look at a few of them and see how they work, and also let’s see how they can tie into your SEO. (more…)