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Install your very own personal BS SEO filter!

The old saying goes, “opinions are like…” and well, you know the rest.  Webmasters certainly have a particularly hard time lately to decipher which search engine optimization tactics are worthwhile, and which are nonsensical background noise.  Next time you’re at an SES conference, ask everyone who claims to be an expert in SEO to raise their hands.  Then make them keep their hands up if they’re actually engineers at Google or Yahoo.  Right, so how can the average webmaster weed out the BS?

One theme that remains a universal constant in SEO discussions is ‘content is king’.  Without relevant and timely information, you’re unlikely to succeed in the SERPs game.  Some search engines such as Google even go so far as to pledge to maintain a high quality user experience.  Any sites with content that do not uphold this same commitment are unlikely to succeed.

With that, let’s look at some of the most popular questions webmasters have about search engine optimization, from an end-user perspective:

• How important are meta-descriptions and meta-keywords in SEO?  Although some search engines still look to the meta-tags on a page, most will only use that information temporarily before the entire pages’ content can be indexed.  Meta-keywords and meta-descriptions do nothing to enhance your visitor’s experience because in the vast majority of cases they never see them.
• How can I get ranked #1 on Google for a single keyword?  This one is a gem.  In some cases, you can get ranked first overall in Google very easily, and in other cases the sheer competition of any given keyword may be enormous.  Win the smaller battles first by constructing clever content that includes phrases people may search for, and don’t forget to work on exchanging links.
• I need more links, should I pay another site to get listed?  The consensus of late seems to indicate that link buying is a definite no-no.  If you think about it, buying links on other sites doesn’t necessarily enhance the user experience.  It may get you better exposure, but not much else.  Besides, search engines know which links are paid, sponsored, affiliates, malicious, and which are genuinely wholesome.
• How long should I wait before rewriting my content?  A better question is, if your content is getting stale in your market in terms of newsworthiness, accuracy, or even in ROI terms, why wouldn’t you switch it up immediately?  Visitors want to know whether the gizmo you sell is outdated, has been phased out, or underwent a manufacturer recall.  Updating your content enhances visitor experience.
• How do I know whether the changes I made were effective?  In some cases, you may not know if your pages were even indexed by search engines for quite some time.  Keep a close eye on your analytics, get your sitemap uploaded to Google Webmaster Tools, have people write about your pages on blogs and social media sites, write up your own press releases on newsworthy events, be proactive.
• Is HTML and CSS validation important?  It all depends on whether your site is readable by both humans and search engine robots.  At the very least, you should ensure that your pages convey the same high quality user experience and are more or less consistent across the most common web browsers: Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Firefox, and Safari.
• I recently redesigned my site, and my links are sometimes broken, what do I do?  Research the use of ‘301 Redirects’ or modify your ‘.htaccess’ file so that users coming in on those old links find what they need.  If you’ve recently migrated to a content management system, there are scripts available to help you in this process.
• How do I know if what I’m doing is allowed in Google/Yahoo?  If you have to ask, it probably isn’t.  Google and Yahoo both have their own guidelines on what optimization tactics they deem appropriate and even include it in documentation on their sites.

I have only just touched upon the most common webmaster questions regarding SEO.  The golden rule continues to be that content will make and break your attempts at search engine optimization.  Ensure that anything you do works to maintain or improve user experience on your site and you’ll be well on your way to higher SERP rankings.

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