Google has been testing a new search algorithm since Fall 2009 called ‘Caffeine‘. User testing reports have indicated that the following areas will be very important: higher keyword density, faster site speeds, more current content, videos, real-time search from sources like Twitter for example, keyword in the domain name, social media link bait. So here are search engine optimization strategies to focus on this coming year to ensure that your seo efforts don’t go to waste.
** Big thanks to Jason Prescott @ Imedia Connections for the original content – search engine optimization strategies for 2010.
1. Site speed Enhancements
Google’s new algorithm is super quick and it will be expecting quick speeds from the sites that it indexes. If your site is currently slow then you need to put some work into speeding it up.
Here are some brief suggestions to get your thinking on this topic:
host with a reliable and fast VPS or prefebably with a cloud hosting service. Use a CDN to cache your images, javascript, and css across multiple cloud locations around the planet. Use optimized xhtml/css layout instead of tables wherever possible. Optimize images down to the smallest possible file size without sacrificing perceivable quality. Reduce javascript useage wherever possible. Combine multiple css files into one file wherever possible.
2. Create Fresh Content
If you haven’t noticed yet, Google, and now Yahoo index real time Twitter and Facebook status updates in their search indexes. Fresh news headlines jump to the top of search results often. Because of this focus, it’s now more important than ever for businesses in competitive markets to maintain a quality blog, facebook fan page, and twitter profile.
3. Video SEO optimization
Video links are more likely to be clicked than normal text links in SERP results. Because of this google will putting more importance on videos in search results.
Create a video launch page and keyword optimize with keywords in the filename, title, tags, and URL (as usual). Also create a description that contains your ideal keyword. Make sure there is supporting content on the page with outgoing anchor text links containing highly related keywords. Lastly, ensure that your site has an xml sitemap and the video page is included in this index. Ideally, that page should have comments enabled, reactions from from tweets, and facebook shares etc.
After posting the video launch page on your site, bookmark, ping, and tweet about your video posts (sparingly) and then wait a couple days. Then post the same video with slightly modified title, keywords tags, desciption to video sharing sites like Youtube, Google Videos, Vimeo, and MetaCafe. Make sure your video description contains a live link back to your original video post on your own site.
4. Social Media Link Baiting
Social media such as twitter, bookmarking sites, facebook, fourSquare (and thousands of other platforms) are excellent ways of generating quality backlinks to your website. But your content has to be compelling, quality, timely, engaging, relevant to your community, andnot outright spammy promotional. You have to be engaged in social communities and not just spam them with your meaningless promotional messages. You need to engage your communities and actually chat with them; ask questions, answer questions, retweet, help and give back to them.
Get working on your site right away. Don’t wait until you start dropping out the first page listings before you start reacting to the changes that are coming.
Related posts:
- Simple On Page Search Engine Optimization for Local Business Websites
- Social Media Traffic Optimization – Becoming as Important as Search Engine Optimization
- Quick Keyword Research Method for Search Engine Optimization
- Speed Up Your WP Blog & Get Better Search Engine Rankings With this Tool
- Why Page Rank Doesn’t Really Matter to Local Business Websites
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