SEO: What’s Hot, What’s Not
The world of Search Engine Optimization is about to change, hopefully for the better. Google is working on making a lot of changes to how it ranks web sites, and will be making more open annoucements in the coming months. So, here is what you need to be focusing on, and you need to make sure you are not wasting your time on.
What’s Not
- Article Marketing – A lot of people are very high up on this now, but honestly it’s a waste of time. There is no reason to write original content and give it away to other people. You may get some links, but probably not good ones. The backlink:amount of work ratio is not a favorable one.
- Directory Submissions — Honestly, who uses directories anymore? yes, a link from DMOZ is a good thing to have, but it can take years to get into some directories now. A lot of them are not kept up to date. You’ll just be spinning your wheels most of the time.
- Landing Pages – Google has recently changed it’s rulings on landing pages. These may have worked in the past, but can get you delisted these days.
What’s Hot
- Google Analytics — Google is going to start using data from Analytics to judge sites, looking at things like bounce rate to judge how much users like your site. It stands to reason that sites that have Analytics installed can only help your case (unless you run a really crappy, spammy site, but it do it any way so we can be rid of you)
- Sitemaps — it suprises me how many websites I see from people that don’t have a sitemap, which can prevent you from getting all of your pages indexed. You can generate one here: Free XML sitemap
Hopefully this can help make some modifications to your site to help you out.