Pagerank sculpting, which as defined by Matt Cutts is simply trying to change how PageRank flows within your site using different methods such as the “nofollow” tag, is still plausible, however, in his post “PageRank Sculpting” he tells us why he doesn’t think you should bother doing it. Here’s an excerpt of his post on pagerank sculpting.

I wouldn’t recommend it [pagerank sculpting], because it isn’t the most effective way to utilize your PageRank. In general, I would let PageRank flow freely within your site. The notion of “PageRank sculpting” has always been a second- or third-order recommendation for us. I would recommend the first-order things to pay attention to are 1) making great content that will attract links in the first place, and 2) choosing a site architecture that makes your site usable/crawlable for humans and search engines alike.

So when is pagerank sculpting useful? According to Matt Cutts it is useful to use the “nofollow” tag for some pages such as links to a shopping cart or links to log-in pages but only “because those pages are different for every user and they aren’t that helpful to show up in search engines.” Other than that it would pay more if you spent your time optimizing your site in other ways.

Again make sure you make the best use of your time by giving attention to your site architecture and to your site’s actual content. Make sure that users find the info they need just a few clicks away from the main page and make sure that all pages you want indexed are crawlable.

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Every single link counts. That’s my motto when it comes to link building. While it is true that some links pass more value than other in my opinion you still shouldn’t overlook opportunities to get a backlink, whether it’s just one or a couple or a whole load of links. This is also true whether the page rank of the linking page is zero or ten. A link is still a link.

However, when link building remember that while links always count it can count AGAINST you. We all know what I mean by this – those links that associate you to black hat methods that will get you penalized by the great Google and the other search engines. A clear example of such links is links that you got from link farms. Make sure you do not sabotage your efforts by joining link farms. Getting backlinks by paying websites to link to your page(s) is also a big no-no IF you do this to get link juice passed on to you. You can only solicit paid links if you make sure that those links don’t get to pass value to your pagerank. So I guess in SEO terms there’s absolutely no point in doing this. However if your motive is to simply generate traffic to your site or create awareness then there is no problem. Just make sure you specifically ask webmasters of the sites with paid links to your site to use the “no follow” tag.

Again, remember every link counts so make sure the back links you get count in the way you want them to.

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Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft all came together early this year to support the use of canonical tags. But what are canonical tags and what’s the use to us?

Canonical tags were created to help address the problem of duplicate content. We already know that there are already existing ways to address this problem such as 301 redirects and the use of sitemaps, however, in many instances these solutions are not enough. To make life easier for webmasters canonical tags were created. The tags help with duplicate content by telling search engines what URL you want them to index in place of a page’s uglier URL version. The syntax is also very simple and makes use of only one line that needs to be typed into the HEAD part of the page document. For example if you have a page with a URL like http://www.somepage.com/ example.html?sid=54321 you of course would prefer the search engine not to index that URL, especially if you have a nicer duplicate URL like http://www.somepage.com/example.html. So what do you do? All you need to do is type in:

<link rel="canonical" href="http://www.somepage.com/example.html"/>

And search engines will automatically honor your wishes. No sweat. Duplicate issues resolved. Now that’s one less problem you won’t need to worry about.

You can also watch Matt Cutts’ interview with WebProNews last February to learn more about canonical tags.

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In my last post about images I gave some tips on how to optimise images. There is said that you should:

• Store images in a single directory;
• Use keywords in the file names; and
• Use Alt text.

These still hold true and are very sound ways to make sure that your images on your pages help your SEO efforts. Aside from these though here are more tips. They’re mostly common sense but like in most things the obvious once are the very things we overlook.

• Use relevant images only – Make sure each image you use is relevant to the content near it.
• Size matters – I’m talking about the actual size of the image and not the file size here. File size does matter but you want it to be smaller to make loading pages faster. On the other hand for the actual image size note that search engines think that the bigger the image is the more relevant it is to the site’s content. So do not go making a non-relevant decorative image larger than the important ones.
• Image quality is important – You want to choose good quality images over poor ones. The quality I’m referring to is the clarity, contrast, etc. Of course you have to compromise between quality and file size. Find the right compromise.
• Place important images at the top if possible – This affects not only SEO but also user-friendliness. However in cases where the images accompany a certain paragraph as illustration it is more important to place it near that paragraph since you want the image near the relevant text.

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Learn a lesson from big brands. That’s how I view the recent changes in Google’s ranking algorithm that resulted in more branded sites appearing among the top results in Google’s SERPs.

Though it might appear that Google is biased towards branding the good performance of these sites carrying brands is actually the result of the quality of the site’s content. After all they are the pages that are able to deliver the search users the results that they need, and Google is all about giving users the best results possible. As Matt Cutts said in his You Tube video, “I don’t think of it as putting more weight on brands. We really don’t think about ‘brands’ in Search Quality that much. It’s not that we try to always return brands. We try to return whatever we think the best results are for users…we think a lot about trust, reputation, authority, PageRank.” It just so happens that creating a brand is also about the same things: trust, reputation and authority. Established brands even before they went online already tackled the three issues to get where they are. This is what you should do and the pagerank will follow.

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In the last post, I showcased two of the most annoying SEO myths – at least in my mind. I am not quite done yet! If you enjoyed being annoyed at those myths, then here is more for you to read.

Annoying myth #3: All you need is one huge burst of effort and you’re done.
This kind of attitude irks me and I am not only talking about SEO. You know those people who, when starting a project, are so into it? They put everything they have into the project and then after some time, they suddenly seem to have lost all their interest. This is the kind of attitude that some people have towards SEO. They think that you only have to exert effort for a limited period of time in the beginning and that once you have gotten the results you want, you can stop and sit on your laurels. FALSE. Try doing that and see what happens to your SERPs in the long run!

Annoying myth #4: You HAVE to submit to search engines.
This is annoying only because I keep seeing ads about submitting to thousands of search engines. It is even more annoying because they want you to pay for the submission. I guess there is some basis to this myth because it used to be that you really had to submit to search engines. These days, though, you do not have to do this. I did not submit my personal blog to Google or any other major search engine but I can find my blog using some keywords.

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I am a person who is easily annoyed – I have to admit to that.  Not that I show my annoyance easily, I actually keep it to myself most of the time.  When it comes to SEO, I have been annoyed so many times I cannot even begin to count them.  I think that it is about time to share some of this annoyance with you guys.  After all, misery (annoyance in this case) loves company.

Annoying myth #1:  SEO is all about tricking the search engines.
There are those people who think that the word “optimization” in search engine optimization is a euphemism for “trickery.”  They think that SEO is simple trying to get one over on the search engines.  If you have every dabbled in SEO – legitimate SEO – then you would know this to be totally false.  SEO is all about providing the search engines with excellent web sites that adhere to their standards and this takes legitimate work, not trickery!  It is debasing to even think that SEO is nothing but a sham.

Annoying myth#2: PPC highly influences SEO.
So why is this annoying?  I have heard countless theories which some people hold to be true.  Some say that a web site owner has to pay for a PPC (pay per click) campaign in order to get the best SEO results.  Others say that if you have ads running on your web site, your SEO efforts will be lost.  They are both extremes in the spectrum and they are both false.  SEO is based on other things NOT the presence or absence of ads.

More myths in the next post.

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If you are quite serious in your efforts to understand SEO and learn about its ins and outs, one of the things that you can do is to get a how-to guide in the form of a book. There are many ways to learn about any topic – from web sites to blogs to magazines to pod casts, and so on. Sometimes, though, I prefer to browse through books – whether in paper form or on e-book form – simply because books have a certain structure to them. If you think linearly – like I sometimes do – then a book would be good for you to at least organize your thoughts.

I came across Craig Killick’s free e-book on SEO, entitled Let’s Cut to the Chase, on his blog. To be honest, I have never really heard of him before but after browsing through his blog, I got quite interested in the e-book and since it was for free, I went ahead and downloaded it.

So what does Killick have to offer in his e-book? The book basically documents his journey in the world of SEO and I like that fact – it is very easy reading and most anyone can relate to it. The way he shares and presents his ideas are quite easy to understand and implement. As he himself said in his blog, he does not claim to be THE expert on the matter and his e-book may not be as comprehensive as some might like it to be but the fact remains that his e-book does have something to offer that would change the SEO process for your small business for the better.

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I never thought I’d write something with this title. I am particularly adverse to exploiting this aspect of humankind to make waves. After reading SEOSMARTY’s post on SEO Slogans (Cool, Sexy, and Not Only That..), however, I think that I am willing to make an exception for this case.

He points out that it is a common knowledge that in branding one’s company, it is essential to come up with a catch phrase or a tag line that will stand out and be associated with your brand. Most articles and posts on this topic will tell you the same thing – be unique, catchy, short, succinct, etc. SEOSMARTY points out unique ideas though:

Consider language differences
You are catering to the whole world as your market. You may want to expand your horizons and think about people who may not be able to relate to language particularities. So as much as possible, make your slogan universally understandable.

Exploit English clichés
Some writers would say that this is a bad practice but for slogan writing, it just might do the trick. Of course, you’d have to tweak the cliché a little bit to suit your company.

Don’t overlook look slang and urban lingo
A word of caution when doing this, however. Slang may be specific to a particular geographical location. Another thing, some slang may be a bit on the rough (rude) side so be careful of this as well.

Coming up with a slogan (whether it is for SEO or not) is not an easy matter. Some have the knack for it while others don’t. If you are not sure about what you’ve come up with, don’t hesitate to bring in others on it.

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If you ask different people involved in SEO for a list of the best tips with regard to this activity, the chances are that you will get a host of various answers. The idea behind SEO is simple. As we re-established it in the last post, SEO is all about creating web pages that will get good rankings, no more, no less.

Actually implementing strategies and techniques to achieve the results that SEO aims for is another story altogether, however. Different experts would have their own takes on the subject matter so it is hard to say which ones are the “right” ones. Here are some basic tips to help you get reacquainted with SEO principles.

Keywords
If there is any commonality between varying opinions on SEO techniques, the knowledge of keywords would probably be it. I like how Mike Wayde says it in B2B Insights Blog. He writes:

A good SEO partner will have the tools to evaluate the right keywords that your audience is using to search for you. Just because you think your audience will search for you using a particular keyword or phrase, doesn’t mean that they will. Proper research will go a long way towards reaching your full audience.

I totally agree with this. Research is one of the most important steps when it comes to SEO – you have to know what people are using as search terms. You cannot merely guess or take it for granted that you know which keywords are hot.

Let’s look at other basic tips in the next post.

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