I read recently that the maximum # of outbound links on a homepage is set at 120, unless you have had your domain for longer than 2 years. But, after a ton of research on Google, and in respected SEO services, I couldn’t find any other mention of this claim. Did this “rule” get pulled out of thin air?
How many times does someone need to profess that they are an SEO expert before the public starts to fall for it?
Does using inflammatory words, like Hell, Hate, Porn, and Whore help your site get found in the search engines, or do they just make your site look creepy?
If a self-proclaimed SEO expert fell in the woods, and no one was there to hear it, wood Google notice?
Today I am going to be your SEO expert. My business blog gets some traffic and has a page rank, with about 60% of my readers finding me through the search engines. It is time for me to start sharing instead of keeping all my secrets to myself.
Here is the deal. Google is not an algorithm in a computer somewhere. Google is an actual living being and should be treated with the utmost care. If you dis Google in a curse will be put upon your blog and it will forever stay in the kitty litter box.
Google is not that hard to please. Jonathan Dalton likes to sacrifice dead goats to Google. Personally I don’t like to do anything quite that messy. Maybe I am just too much of a lady to actually kill something. . although there are days when the thought does cross my mind.
Here are some of my tips:
Throwing salt over my shoulder before I write a blog post has been very effective. I make sure that I never wear a black hat while I write a post because Google might see that as black hat SEO, and I will be struck dead at my keyboard, which could create some problems for my husband, AKA “Boomer”. . . and I am sure it would take him months to clean up the mess without my supervision.
Duplicate content is very bad. People who publish duplicate content can be thrown into Google hell, which is just like it sounds. It is a room filled with fire where 1’s and 0’s dance around and throw sparks at the bad blogger. . . even if the blogger does it once, and sometimes even if the blogger just thinks about duplicate content.
Ticking Google off on a regular basis can have major penalties. The blogger and the blog can be cursed for all time and I have heard it said that the curse may land on the first born of all future generations for all time.
You think I am making this up? Yup I am. Yet you believe other posts you see on the subject without question. . Google is about people on keyboards searching for information. If their searches match the content of your blog, they may just land on your blog.
One of the very best ways to get traffic is to write a post every day. The more posts, the more likely someone will find your blog. They don’t have to be long but should be focused. A focused post for a local blog is one that is about real estate or a local market area. Not about what you had for lunch or what your buddy five blogs over wrote about last week. Writing can be a challenge, worrying about SEO is easier than writing posts. That is how and why the SEO witch doctors are able to frighten bloggers into hiring them.
For people who would rather obsess over SEO than write posts there is help: Goggle has a blog. Use Google to find information about Google, type: “how does Google work” and read. Don’t forget the other major search engines. As hard as it is to imagine even the best real estate blogger may not be an SEO expert. Look for information from the pro’s. You probably think the computer geek should call you when they want to buy a home, they most likely think that their blogs are a better source of advice on SEO than ours are.
My apologies to Mr. Dalton for divulging the SEO secrets behind his most excellent blog on such a public forum. Check his blog he can write so well he could probably just stop with the goats and finish washing my car.
Note: it is absolutly OK to write off topic posts. I do that every Friday and they work well for me. I just don’t do it everyday.
