SEO-Ward
Jim Seward – SEO Myth Buster
90% of quality links are paid links…full stop
Published January 19, 2012 | 
I’ve been thinking which is always a dangerous things to do and I’ve come to an earth shattering conclusion….
90% of quality incoming links are paid links.
Let me explain. Back in the olden days when Google was starting out and it first started looking at the linkscape, I would say that 95% of the links coming to any site were completely natural which was why Google’s algo worked so well. People did things for the love of doing them, created content for the love of it. Someone came across it, thought “hey, that’s cool” and linked to it. What a great idea and what a lovely innocent time.
Fast forward to 2011 and what I’ve realised is that the linkscape that affects people’s rankings now is 90% bought. I’m not talking in the somewhat callous “Here is £300 for a link on your mozrank 8 website homepage” although obviously that can be a very effective way of link building for some but if you consider the amount of time and money that goes into proper outreach and link building. Continue reading
Incoming links from spammy websites can harm your rankings. #seo
Published November 16, 2011 |
There’s a lot of talk on the internet that you are judged by the company you keep, the concept of being involved in a bad neighbourhood would harm your rankings, may even get you banned from Google. There’s talk of roving gangs of marauding black hat SEO’s threatening to Googlebowl your site by linking to it from thousands or millions of bad neighbourhoods. So the question is, is this a truth or a myth, can other people harm your website simply by linking to it? Continue reading
Using dynamic keywords in Google Adwords landing pages to increase clickthrough, quality score and reduce CPC.
Published October 10, 2011 |
Now, before I start this post, let me make it perfectly clear. I am not a PPC expert, I am through and through an Organic SEO but occasionally I end up setting up the odd PPC campaign or two and I think this is probably one of the coolest things you can do with adwords so I thought I’d share.
It’s possible to create dynamic Google adverts containing your keywords, this is fairly common knowledge but let’s go over it just so we all know we’re on the same page.
The syntax for Google AdWords Dynamic Keyword Insertion is {keyword: }
You can also use the following capitalisation on the work ‘keyword’ to get different effects:
- keyword – no capitalisation
- Keyword – First word is capitalised
- KeyWord – Every Word Is Capitalised
- KEYword – EVERY letter in first word is capitalised
- KEYWord – LIKE Above But With Each Word Capitalised
- KEYWORD – EVERY LETTER IS CAPITALISED
Make sure you put a generic “catch all” phrase after the : so make sure it shows something if your keyword string is too long for example {keyword:Jim Is Awesome}.
Now, here’s the very clever part and what separates the PPC men from the boys or the PPC Women from the girls.
Posted in Crazy code snippets, Google, PPC, Search Engines | dynamic landing pages, pay-per-click, ppc | 
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Leave a commentHaving a #sitemap and submitting it to #Google improves your #rankings
Published October 7, 2011 |
I received a tweet this morning from @neha_pandkar from a link to a blog telling me how to submit a sitemap to Google and learn about SEO, I’ve never heard of this person and looking at his twitter feed, he’s sent the same tweet to multiple people so I’m imagining it’s automated.
The blog in question has made it onto my list of world’s worst SEO blogs, a short article on how to log into Google webmaster tools (YAWN) and submit a sitemap surrounded by lots of advertising but it’s this wonderful opportunity to look at another in my myths and legends series. Google sitemaps come up a lot so does having a Google sitemap and submitting it to Google do anything to increase your rankings.
Your Organic #Google Rankings are influenced by how much you spend on #PPC
Published September 14, 2011 |
If I got paid every time someone asks me this question. Oh wait…I do, but let’s talk about it anyway. Here’s how it goes.
People think:
- Google wants people to spend more on PPC, and so depress people who spend in the organic rankings so they spend more
- Google like to reward their high paying PPC customers so give them an artificial boost in the organic rankings
Well, what do we think people, truth or myth?? Continue reading
Posted in Google, Search Engines, SEO Myths & Legends | pay-per-click, ppc, quality content, seo, seo myths | 1 Comment
1 CommentBuying paid links can harm your #rankings
Published September 12, 2011 |
Ah, the age old debate of whether to pay for links or not. It’s an interesting debate, according to Google, you shouldn’t pay for links in order to artificially manipulate the serps or your page’s PageRank. This produces the idea that you will be penalised if you do it and dropped out of Google, or some sort of penalty applied if you do this. So what do people think, is this a myth or is it truth. Can buying links harm your rankings? Continue reading
#Metatags are vital to your ranking
Published August 22, 2011 |
Anybody who’s been in the SEO industry for any period of time knows all about meta tags. Back in the early days, they were helpful for the search engines when the spiders and algorithms weren’t as advanced, to work out what a page was about. Search engines figured that if a site used a term in it’s description or keywords tag, then that was what the page was about. There’s no way that people would be dishonest and stuff keywords in there….was there???
And yes, that’s exactly what happened, so that’s why these days, it’s a big stinking myth, or should I say it’s outdated and the search engines have moved on. Obviously there are piles and piles of meta tags which will add value to a page beyond affecting your rankings so I’m not poo pooing meta tags completely. Continue reading
Posted in Bing, Google, Search Engines, SEO Myths & Legends, Yahoo | description tag, keywords tag, meta tags | 1 Comment
1 CommentSEOld Man Google – (Or Old Man River for the modern SEO)
Published August 12, 2011 |
Inspired by some news I got today and my follow up tweet, I got the song in my head and got a bit meloncholy…obviously not comparing the plight of SEOs to the plight of the slaves on the banks of the Mississippi here, but here it is:
SEOld Man Google (Or Old Man River for the modern SEO)
SEO’s work on the superhighway
SEO’s work while the clients pay
Makin those links from dawn till sunset
Gettin no rest ’til the rankin’ day
Don’t get up and don’t get down
Don’t ya make that client frown
Over the keyboard you bows your head
optimise that site until it’s time for bed
Let me go ‘way from the superhighway
Let me go ‘way from the .htaccess
Show me that site called the River Google
That’s the old site that I long to best
Ol’ Man Google, that Ol’ Man Google
He must know somepin’, but he don’t say nothin’
He just keeps rollin’, he keeps on rollin’ along
He don’t rank scrapers, or they’re near the bottom
And if he ranks em, they’re soon forgotten
And Ol’ Man Google, he just keeps rollin’ along
You and me, we sweat and strain
Minds all achin’ and wracked with pain
Panicked by the latest panda update
Ya gets a little drunk if you drops past eight
I gets weary but I loves the challenge
I’m tired of optimisin’, but won’t give up tryin
And Ol’ Man Google, he just keeps rollin’ along
Posted in Google, Jim talks shite, Personal stuff, Search Engines | Google, old man google, old man river | Leave a comment
Leave a commentTo rank well in Google, you need to get a high PageRank
Published August 12, 2011 |
Ah, PageRank, that little green bar that makes people instantly judge whether a site is any good or not. So it’s a good question, is PageRank essential for rankings.
It is a myth, wasn’t always a myth of course, in fact, in the early days PageRank was essential for how Google operated, without it, Google wouldn’t be where it is now but modern Google actually has very little space for PageRank. In fact, a poorly optimised high PageRank page can easily be beaten in the SERPs by a well optimised lower PageRank page. PageRank is one of over 200 signals that Google now look at for deciding it’s rankings and I don’t imagine it’s the major one being replaced with trust and authority. Continue reading
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