I remember once when my sister got scraped and my Dad attempted to clean the wound and cut off dead skin. My sister gave a hissy fit and wouldn’t let him touch her, in fear that it would hurt. I recall the look of frustration on my father’s face (which almost comes as a sense of accomplishment for a kid).

Every now and then (call it karma), I get the same treatment. I am specially trained and keep up-to-date on internet marketing and SEO. Still, people (the very same who come to me for advice) have a natural tendency to either disregard, or supersede my advice with their own knowledge. Or lack thereof. It would be comical if it didn’t get on my nerves.

Here are the top reasons we don’t do the SEO that we should (and why we should get over it):

1. The perfectionist. Websites become an art-form. That’s fine; nothing is wrong with your website being pretty. Just don’t get so involved in the esthetics of your site, that it gets in the way of making practical business changes. A good-looking site means absolutely nothing if it won’t be seen by anyone, or convert to leads or sales. Make sure that you have a clear, noticeable call-to-action. And no whining if it messes up the “fung shui” of the website.

2. But this guy said… Most of the time, two opinions will agree with each other and be based off of good principals. Sometimes not so much. Some SEOs have outdated information, as the industry changes rapidly and constantly. Someone who read a book five years ago isn’t going to be as capable as one who stays abreast of industry changes. Also to consider, the advice from an SEO expert may not make sense when taken out of context.

3. It’s not that important. A lot of SEO tactics may appear small or insignificant. After all, how much difference will it make to change a single word on just one page of a site? Honestly, it won’t make a big difference. However, once you start adding up all the small things, they speak louder.

4. It’s too hard! First of all, it’s probably not that hard. There have been situations where I thought something would take hours, and a coworker shows me how to perform the work in a mere five minutes. Some web changes will be unavoidably inconvenient though. It’s not fun having to rearrange the whole site structure. Especially when it only helps a little bit. Now think long term. The benefits will last for as long as you keep the site. It might hurt now, but the advantages will be  noticeable.

5. It’s too expensive! On occasion, I begin working on a brand-new, fresh, out-of-the-box website, and have to tell the proud owners that their site is practically unusable for SEO. Having spent considerable money on design, they have a difficult time spending additional funds to resolve blaring SEO problems. In these cases, remember that the money already spent is a sunk cost. Consider the benefit of fixing the problems, and receive a return on the costs, rather than cry over the spilled milk.

This is when my first-grade reading abilities kick in- the skill where pictures speak a thousand words. After walking around for a bit, bumping into people and finding some random store I never knew existed, I exit and realize I parked on the other side of the building. All the way back to my car I’m cursing under my breath, vowing that I will never return to this labyrinth.

My experience with malls is not much different from the way search engine robots might feel when visiting websites. We lay-out what we believe is a perfectly logical website. A search engine robot visits the site, and some weird anomaly in the navigation confuses it, causing the site to be abandoned after a partial index. After a period of having the site live, we realize not all of the pages are indexed in Google.

So, what do we do? Add a sitemap.

Unfortunately, a site map written in Klingon doesn’t help the search engines. Just as I need a readable map in a mall, search engine robots will usually index a site quicker if you have a sitemap they understand.

When optimizing a site, it’s important to include a sitemap in a format that Google and other search engines can navigate. One of the most common is the XML-sitemap.  Another option is the URL list, which includes a text file with one url per line, and is saved as urllist.txt. If you have videos on your site, you can submit a sitemap with all the videos. The same thing applies to sites that provide geo data, samples of code, and news. Google can also use RSS 2.0, Atom 1.0 and mRSS feeds as sitemaps. There are even sitemaps for mobile pages.  As each XML sitemap should contain no more than 50,000 URLs, multiple sitemaps are sometimes required to index an entire site.

As of last December, Google made submitting a sitemap easier. You no longer have to specify the file type. Google will detect the file type and handle it appropriately. There are three different ways to submit a sitemap- which I’ll discuss in my next post.

]]> http://www.seo.com/blog/sitemaps-and-seo/feed/ http://www.seo.com/blog/the-hunt-for-the-seo-sasquatch/ http://www.seo.com/blog/the-hunt-for-the-seo-sasquatch/#comments Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:41:26 +0000 Mike Hasson http://www.seo.com/?p=3209 Recently, some of us at the office have been discussing one of the most popular American folklores of all time, the legend of Bigfoot or Sasquatch. In fact, there was a recent headline in the news about a famous Bigfoot hunter who claimed he found an actual Sasquatch carcass in the backwoods of Georgia. The claim generated so much excitement for Bigfoot believers, that the quest for Bigfoot has since recaptured the interest of hunters who abdandoned their search many years ago. Unfortunately for them, the case turned out to be another classic Sasquatch hoax. Still, many Bigfoot fanatics are doing all they can to keep the myth alive (or are just having fun with the myth). My favorite example of this can be found in the form of this sweet Bigfoot watch – also known as the “Sasqwatch.”

It’s interesting that people can become so engulfed in this old tale, that they spend considerable time looking for this monster, when there has never been any solid evidence. Sure, there are plenty of blurry photos of dark objects in the woods, and several audio recordings of unidentified howlings in the mountains, but there is no tangible proof of Bigfoot’s existence.

The same can be said about SEO practices. There are some common SEO myths that generate lots of excitement, but shouldn’t be given as much attention.

One of these is page rank. For some reason, many SEO consultants persuade their clients to use the page rank estimation of their site, as a primary means for assessing ranking potential and progress. The Google page rank estimator is fun to watch, and it gives an idea of how a site might be perceived, but in reality, it shouldn’t be given much weight when evaluating the success of a given SEO project.

The actual site page rank cannot be known by anyone except Google. We are only given an outdated version of page rank and cannot know the current status of any given site. We know that page rank does help sites pass link juice to other pages within the site and other sites that it links to. However, sites with a high page rank may not rank well in the SERPS, while sites with a lower page rank may show up really well.

My point is this: like all the excitement over a potential Bigfoot sighting, some SEO page rankings should not be given undeserved momentum. There are many who fabricate Bigfoot stories just to generate attention and make money. This is, of course, unethical. In the same way, SEOs should not lead people to believe SEO services are working, based on single tactics like an upgrade in estimated page rank. A true SEO company will help increase the site’s conversion, not sell clients individual tactics that don’t provide results.

How to Know if you are Banned from Google

Sometimes it’s not so easy to know if you are banned from Google. So I’ve started a “You Might be Banned from Google if…” list. Feel free to add to the list in the comments.

• If yesterday you were ranking on the first page of Google and today your site is nowhere to be found in the SERPS, you might be banned from Google.
• If you do a site search (site:yoursite.com) on Google, and it brings up no results, you might be banned from Google.
• If yesterday your page rank was 5 and today it is 0, you might be banned from Google.

Common ways of getting banned from Google.

Now, of course, if you’ve been banned, you probably already know why it happened. But just in case you’re still in a daze, here are some common ways to get your site banned from the ever powerful Google search engine:

• Hidden text or hidden links – when you think about how this is done (making the color of the text the same color as the background that it’s placed over, how hard would this really be for Google to detect with a small piece of code in their algorithm?
• Use of cloaking or sneaky redirects – and yes, Google calls them “sneaky.”
• Loading pages with irrelevant keywords – aka keyword stuffing.
• Creating multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.
• Creating pages with malicious behavior, such as phishing or installing viruses, trojans, or other mal-ware.
• Producing “Doorway” pages created just for search engines with little or no original content. The key to this is “little or no original content.” If you’re actually adding new content to the web then this shouldn’t be a problem.

There are also some “back-door” ways of getting your site banned from Google, such as including several links to sites that are known for spamming, thus causing Google to draw the conclusion that you’re affiliated with them.

Should you feel the urge to read more on this topic, visit google.com for a few more tips on creating a “Google-friendly” site.

If anyone knows of any other sure-fire ways of getting banned from Google, let me know in the comments!

So what if you do get banned? Then what?

How to remove a ban from Google
The thing to remember with a Google ban is that it is not always permanent. In fact, most of the time, you can just change whatever it was that got you banned and then submit a reconsideration request. To resubmit to Google, visit this link, which will take you to a page within the Google Webmaster Tools. From there they will walk you through the process which can also include sending an email to Google regarding what you have changed and why you feel you should be included in the search engine once again. Remember when you compose this email that there will be a real person reading it on the other end. Be kind and business-like in your request and you will have much more of a chance of getting the ban lifted and once again being indexed in the largest and most used search engine on the web.

When it comes to SEO, there are a few things that can be done to transform a campaign. These are what I call the transformers of SEO. Instead of transforming from a car into a robot, these elements, when properly optimized, will transform a good SEO campaign into a great one. When not used properly, or not used at all, getting top rankings may seem to be next to impossible.

Title Tag (Optimus Prime):

The title tag is like Optimus Prime; it can be the anchor of a well-optimized website. The title tag appears at the top of the browser when browsing the web or visiting a site. Of all the HTML elements, the title tag carries the most weight in search engine algorithms. Properly optimized titles should contain keywords that are relevant to the page, and should be no more than 70 characters long. It should be a well-written sentence formed from the targeted keywords and should not be just a list of keywords.

Meta Description Tag (Ironhide):

The Meta description is like Ironhide, and can give the website a tactical advantage when used properly. When optimized, this tag can increase the click-through-rate of a site listing in the search results. The Meta description tag is not displayed on the website page. It is placed in the head section of the HTML code, usually right below the title tag. Meta Descriptions have no influence on search engine rankings. However, if if they contain the same terms of the search query, then they are normally displayed for the description in the search results.

A good Meta description should contain the targeted search terms and describe the website page. It should be about 160 characters long and contain a call-to-action that will entice a searcher to visit the site. Meta descriptions should not be a long string of keywords separated with commas. This is referred to as the Meta keywords tag, not the Meta description.

Internal Links (Bumblebee):

Bumblebee had an important role to play as an Autobot. Like Bumblebee, internal links have a critical role in an SEO campaign, and can impact site rankings if optimized. To optimize a Website’s link structure, the site should have navigation using HTML text links. The links can be formatted to appear as buttons using cascading style sheets. They should use keyword targeted anchor text and should match the targeted keywords of the page the link is pointing to on the website. Links created with JavaScript, Flash or Image rollovers without optimized anchor text, or the ability to be crawled by spiders, should be avoided.

A good SEO campaign should not neglect the optimization of any of these site elements. Including them can often make the difference in a second page or a first page ranking.

It’s great to have so many wonderful tools to build sturdy marketing campaigns and evaluate the results, but they should never detract our attention on our end-user, the customer. Here is a bit of advice that was common knowledge before the internet, but is often forgotten now: Know your target market.

It sounds like obvious advice, but many online marketers fail to grasp this principle. They’re too often consumed with mass amounts of data produced from keyword generators and analytics. Business owners often fail in getting down to the level of their customers. I’m talking about asking questions of your target market. (Selecting your target market is a huge task in itself. I’ll cover that in a later post).

A great place to learn about your target market is in your own immediate and extended family. Is any member of your family in your target market? Below is an interesting and fun test that you can do to improve your SEO and capture the interest in your target market. In effect it is a way to create a simple focus group from your family. Jennifer Laycock from Search Engine Guide introduced the Mom Test to improve conversion and usability for website users. For help in explanation, I’ll pretend we’re running a website, selling shoes to women in the baby boomer generation. One obvious market audience member in my family would be mom. For this specific example, I’m naming my test after mom as well.

My “MOM” Search Test

First, I would sit Mom down at the computer and invite her to look for some shoes that she’d like to buy. Here is the key to the test: be quiet and watch closely to see what she does:

• What search engine does she use?
• What keywords does she use to search?
• How does she navigate the SERP (Search engine result page)? Does she simply choose the #1 result?
• How quickly does she bounce back to the SERP?
• What other searches does she perform?
• Does she click on any of the paid-search ads?
• I’d then ask her to check out her favorite social site for a few minutes (yes, mom does have a Facebook account). Does she click on any of the ads there? What groups is she apart of?

Of course, because this is only one person, you can’t generalize your entire marketing strategy from this test alone. However, the point of this test is to help you find some interesting information that you never realized about your target market. It may spark some ideas that you would want to further research. It can even confirm that you are on the right path.

For this example test, I’d personally, find a few more moms and repeat the test if possible. I’d then go to my keyword tools and analytics reports to make better SEO predictions.

So next time you start keyword research, first try a test like this. You will receive insights that will make your keyword research and other SEO efforts much more valuable and knowledge-based.

How wrong I was! Not only is there a world of difference between the terms ‘mommy blogger’ and ‘mom who blogs’ the cultures of these two groups of women can only be explained with the use of a video:

Whether you were able to finish the video or not, the main message is R-E-S-P-E-C-T. You show respect to any blogger and you will live a long and prosperous life online. The peculiar thing about showing respect to the mom is that it is so easy (and so worth it) to make the right approach on first contact. And I’m going to show you just what to do, to win them over the first time.

Step 1: Research their blog posts, their bio, their followers, their Twitter feed, their StumbleUpon activity, and any other social networking efforts they are part of. This will give really good direction on whether a particular mom blogger will even be relevant to your product. Do this before you even think of getting in touch with them.

Step 2: Choose your target mom blogger. Basically, there are three groups of mom bloggers. Group 1 includes the moms who’ve got a blog hosted on Blogger or Wordpress, post pictures of their kids and family, and update their blog every month or so. They probably don’t have a lot of followers, and probably aren’t too picky about what they post about, but also don’t have much time to spend writing blog posts. Group 2 may host their own domain, but also could be hosted on Blogger or Wordpress. The main difference is the frequency and content of posts. If these women post a lot about different products they’ve used, and are posting more than twice a week, these women will have a pretty decent list of followers, and you will have to either pay them cash to review your product, or give them an equivalent value of product for them to review. Usually they’ll mention somewhere what their rates are for reviews. If they don’t, ask them right out of the gate, before you even pitch your product. This lets them know you mean business and will compensate them for spending time writing about your kid proof diaper pail. Group 3 are the serious moms who consider themselves (and rightly so) bloggers/techies first and foremost. Their blogs probably bring them enough revenue per year to allow them to be selective about whose product they review, and how much time they want to spend being courted by Huggies, Walmart, Kraft, etc. If you don’t have a killer product, enough compensation, and the proper connections with other mom bloggers, don’t contact these women. They are super busy, and they might even tweet about how dumb you were when you pitched them on your baby proof diaper pail by sending them one in the mail.

Step 3: The approach. After you’ve chosen your mom blog audience, and know what they like to blog about, either email or tweet them and start a conversation. There are a couple really good mom blogs I’d like to mention to get you started on the right path. They haven’t paid me to mention them, but I’ve worked with them on some projects, and they’ve made invaluable suggestions for this blog post and some of my social media campaigns, so that’s why I’m mentioning them here. Barb from Chaotic Communications has a ton of great tips and is very well networked. She is really good at getting back to you quickly and with honest feedback. Lucretia from GeekMommy is especially good at insightful comments about using social media and online media campaigns of any sort.

Step 4: After you’ve made contact with the mom blogger, give her as much support as you can to help her write about your product. She will be extremely busy, but a quick product description and some talking points will go a long way in getting you ahead of the list of people also wanting their product reviewed.

Step 5: Now that you’ve had success in working with mom bloggers, don’t forget about them. Continue to reach out to them with a newsletter or occasional tweet, and this will raise your stock in the whole mom blogger community, making your next project even more successful.

]]> http://www.seo.com/blog/what-aretha-franklin-teaches-about-mommy-bloggers-part-1/feed/ http://www.seo.com/blog/seocom-adds-five-new-team-members-in-the-month-of-june/ http://www.seo.com/blog/seocom-adds-five-new-team-members-in-the-month-of-june/#comments Wed, 24 Jun 2009 03:36:31 +0000 Dan Bischoff http://www.seo.com/?p=3196 The search engine marketing company adds four SEO specialists and a director of business development. The Utah SEO company has grown more than 300 percent since last fall.

PROVO, Utah (June 23, 2009) – SEO.com continues to buck the layoff-trend seen around the country by adding more top talent to its team. In June, the Utah SEO company hired five positions: four SEO specialists and a director of business development.

“I’m excited about the continued growth of our company. We hired a bunch of great people who are already contributing the success of our company,” said David Bascom, president and CEO.

The growth of the company, Bascom said, is also a reflection of industry strength. Especially in this economy, businesses are looking for ways to grow and keep expenses down. As a result, SEO and Internet marketing services are in demand.

“Search engine marketing works. It targets customers in a direct and effective way. For less than the cost of traditional marketing, SEO allows companies to reach potential customers at the precise moment when they are ready to buy,” Bascom said. “It’s measurable and yields a high return on investment.”

SEO.com’s growing clientele includes both large corporations and small businesses. The company’s success is bringing it more attention nationwide, including a top 10 national ranking by PromotionWorld. SEO.com manages more than 100 clients that range from small companies to large corporations like Dell Computers, Mrs. Fields and Alphagraphics.

“The new hires will enable us to maintain the quality of service we give to each of our clients, while at the same time, help us continue to add more, quality companies as clients,” Bascom said.

As a result of the growth of SEO.com, the company plans move to a larger office in Bluffdale, Utah this summer.

SEO.com June New Hires:

Jared Winger, director of business development.
For the past five years, Winger owned a successful marketing and promotion company where he specialized in designing and incorporating referrals, sales, and loyalty programs to increase sales. From groups of 500 to the individual business owner, he has trained thousands in sales and promotion strategies and tools. He has first-hand experience with SEO from the business owner’s perspective, and is excited to help companies see how SEO can help their businesses succeed. He will focus on building business relationships and will be heading up a new partner referral program at SEO.com.

Rick Hardman, SEO Specialist
Before coming to SEO.com, Hardman was an SEO specialist for Orangesoda.com. He became an Internet marketing specialist in 2003 with Bright Builders. There, he also worked as an Internet business coach and shared his Internet marketing expertise with more than 2,000 clients. He lives with his wife and four kids in Pleasant Grove, Utah.

Suzanne Smoot, SEO Specialist
Smoot is currently studying advertising at BYU, and plans on graduating in 2010. After being introduced to search engine optimization in one of her early classes, she knew that SEO would become paramount for any business to succeed. She brings a combination of advertising expertise with knowledge of SEO.

Nathan Blair, SEO Specialist
Blair has turned his hobby of blogging, social networking and optimizing Web sites into a career as an SEO specialist with SEO.com. He has a degree in history at the University of Utah, and spent a few years working in real estate and software marketing. Blair is currently earning an MBA at Westminster College.

Andrew Chesnut, SEO Specialist
Chesnut has been in the Internet marketing industry for the past year working for IoVentures, Inc. and other freelance search engine optimization projects. He is pursuing a degree in Information Systems at BYU. Before working in SEO, Chesnut was an RPO recruiter working contracts with Wal-Mart, McGraw Hill and Palm.

About SEO.com
SEO.com is an Internet marketing firm that specializes in organic search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising (PPC) management. SEO.com has helped numerous clients climb to the top of Google for their targeted keywords. Clients range from small, startup businesses to Fortune 100 companies. For more information about SEO.com, visit http://www.seo.com.

First, discover your target audience. Look at your website and choose the best words to describe what your target audience would be searching for if they were looking for your products or services. Since I have a passion for aquarium fish, I will use aquarium fish as an example for this post. I built a site that offers information on keeping aquarium fish, but more specifically it focuses on freshwater aquarium fish. So, I just identified my target audience as people interested in freshwater aquarium fish. This gives me my main search term.

Having decided what my main search term is, I can now build a list of related search terms that will also be appropriate to target in my keyword research. Some good terms might be types of freshwater aquarium fish, breeding freshwater aquarium fish and freshwater aquarium fish tanks. A great tool to build a list of search terms is the Google Adwords Keyword tool. As you come up with different ideas for search terms, you can enter them into the tool and it will provide a list of additional terms that are closely related.

With a growing list of search terms, my next recommendation is to avoid becoming distracted by search volume numbers. It is easy to enter a search term into Google’s keyword tool and become distracted by all the terms the tool provides. Keep in mind that while large numbers look impressive, the terms may not be the most targeted relating to your website. Ranking for those terms could result in a huge bounce rate and wasted hours of optimization work.

Consider this example: I have a site about aquarium fish and Google’s tool tells me that the term “fish” is related and achieves 30,400,000 global monthly search volume. That’s a big number, but the term fish is very broad and will be difficult to rank for. Even if I do get my site to rank for this term, everyone searching for “fish” won’t necessarily be searching for what my site offers. When using the Google keyword tool, be sure to look at search volume numbers using exact match. This provides a more accurate number of how many people are actually searching for a specific term. Changing the match type to exact on my previous example changes the search volume from 30,400,000 to 1,500,000. It is still pretty big but not as high as the first number.

My last suggestion is to use long tail terms. For those readers who are unfamiliar with the term “long tail,” it refers to search terms that contain multiple words and are more specific or targeted. Long tail search terms have a lower search volume than the broad terms, but are less competitive which makes them easier to rank for. They are also more targeted which provides a higher conversion rate. Long tail often include the broad search term within them, targeting both terms. Referring to my aquarium fish site, I determined that freshwater aquarium fish was a good search term, because my site is about freshwater fish and has no information on marine fish. The bonus to targeting freshwater aquarium fish is that the term “aquarium fish” is contained inside the longer search term.

Keyword research is vital to SEO and can determine if the SEO campaign will succeed or fail. Don’t get lost in search volume numbers and don’t forget those long tail search terms.

]]> http://www.seo.com/blog/so-many-keywords-so-little-time/feed/ http://www.seo.com/blog/who-is-john-galt-i-mean-who-is-matt-cutts/ http://www.seo.com/blog/who-is-john-galt-i-mean-who-is-matt-cutts/#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:29:38 +0000 Jon Cuevas http://www.seo.com/?p=3138 When first introduced to the world of SEO, I began scouring the Internet for information to become familiar with current topics and ideas. I had a lot of questions. Some were impractical and merely amusing, like: “Is there an SEO God and do they really care about my PageRank?” “Why do bad rankings happen to good SEOs?” However, one question in particular interested me. It can be formulated in so many ways, but basically it translates into, “Who, or what, defines the rules for the SEO world?”

If you are familiar with the text of Ayn Rand’s classic Atlas Shrugged you may recognize the infamous question, “Who is John Galt?” This phrase carries a deeper meaning than that of a simple question but it also provides a subtle introduction to a heroic, yet elusive figure named John Galt. Suffice it to say, his labors and influence impact the world and society as a whole as he threatens to bring the “motor” of the world to a halt. So what does this have to do with Matt Cutts and SEO? I will expound upon this shortly.

During my online reading I continually encountered a name everywhere in statements like, “Matt Cutts said this,” “no, Matt Cutts says that,” and “we are waiting to hear what Matt Cutts says.” And as a newbie in the industry I wondered, “Who is Matt Cutts?” I would not endeavor to construct a profile on Mr. Cutts. Nor would I pretend for that matter, to answer all of the questions posed here. Who is Matt Cutts? Well, I can easily know what any Internet search will tell me. But oddly enough, asking this question triggered a comparison to Ayn Rand’s iconic phrase, and cultivated my earlier thoughts, “Who, or what, defines the rules for the SEO world? Does Mr. Cutts determine and control what is good SEO? Is he the motor of the SEO world?” You can draw your own comparisons here as well, but while this post may not be as instructional as it is inquisitive in nature, I would like to share several ideas concerning these questions.

Search Engines are the Key are They Not?

I know I am preaching to the choir, but obviously search engines determine page rankings through their algorithms. However, I wonder if said algorithms are really so simple anymore. We have the tendency to think that we feed the data into one end and receive a magic page score out the other. It seems that there is a lot more to it than that. Regardless, surely if we only knew Google’s algorithm, we could then perform excellent SEO based upon that knowledge, right? As great as this might sound, however, I guarantee the major search engines are not about to spill all their inner algorithm beans and guidelines. Does this mean we are left to swing in the dark only hoping to land a correct SEO hit every now and then? Not entirely.

We can acquire valuable SEO information from various sources. Individuals constantly strive to reverse engineer and piece together the puzzles of search engines. Through trial and error experimentations, and industry experts closely tied to algorithms themselves, we can discover further bits of information and insight into what search engines are looking for. You be the judge on what is credible and what is not.

And then we have Matt Cutts with an industry seemingly at his behest, throwing out SEO candy to eager ears awaiting further knowledge on how to improve their SEO efforts. In any case, I believe it is essential to learn all we can about the Search Engines and be able to adapt to the continual changes they present. Part of that process includes staying informed on present day topics.

Stay Current and Be Informed

I think it is safe to say that serious SEOs know what is happening in the industry today and not merely what happened yesterday. I confess that my browser is not set to auto refresh on Matt Cutts’s blog. Nor am I giddily awaiting his next revelation to clarify an aspect of SEO doctrine (no offense to anyone who might be). Regardless, whatever the methods, seeking out credible sources of SEO information to stay current is essential in understanding what works and what does not. One can then adapt accordingly using correct practices.

Use Good Time Tested Principles

Adherence to correct principles creates a foundation for success. We may not understand or know everything Search Engines might do to rank pages, yet we can exercise proven practices that we know to work. What exactly these principles consist of can be left for another discussion. Utilizing good and basic SEO principles can provide a foundation upon which to build. In this manner, as we incorporate other methods, we still have the confidence that at least the foundation is Search Engine friendly.

Will we ever be able to completely piece together the continually changing SEO puzzle? Perhaps not, and maybe we don’t really need to. But like the saying, “the hinge of a door that is constantly opened never rusts,” we cannot stop asking questions, searching for answers, and learning. Otherwise, one day we may come to find an SEO door rusted shut.

So who really determines the rules and directs the SEO world? Again I won’t pretend to answer, but if Matt Cutts announced that Google will penalize any site that doesn’t have “Google is the best” in the title, and “change your titles now,” I wonder how many would comply? And if one day Matt shrugs and says “I don’t know anymore,” what then? Does he or anyone else possess the influence to bring the SEO world to a halt?