In Fundamental Principles of Off Site SEO I said that I probably would not say much more on the topic. Of course, there are days when I’m stumped for ideas so I figured I’d talk a little more about this.
Know where your browser is taking you
Off-site search engine optimization takes you into many different directions. For example, Dink’s SEO blog asked how PCs can magically reconfigure themselves to show you different search results. It’s happened here at work more than once for what appear to be several different possible reasons.
That your PC suddenly starts using the wrong DNS server and thus points directly at one specific IP address for a search engine (rather than relying on the search engine’s load balancing technology to figure out where your PC should go) can have serious implications for your search optimization. You don’t want to find yourself looking at results your clients cannot see. You don’t want to invest your energy in modifying search results that may not be capable of moving (because the IP address you’re looking at may in fact be for some sort of test system).
Knowing where your PC is looking for search results, and where your clients’ PCs are looking for search results, and where searchers’ PCs are looking for search results is very important to the optimization process. You cannot win the game if you’re playing on a different board from everyone else. It’s a good idea to check your PC’s Internet connectivity 2 or 3 times a year just to be sure you haven’t forgotten to undo a temporary “fix” that resolved some transient issue for you.
Know where you’re sending your browser
When people move Web sites to new hosting services they may use their computers’ HOSTS file to force the new IP address to resolve for their browsers — or the old one. I’ve been in situations where I had to force the new IP address to look forward and then I’ve had to force the old IP address to look backward. If you don’t reset these forced IP addresses, you’re no longer looking at your Web site the way everyone else is.
Keep your server healthy and search-visitor friendly
Sometimes people complain that “Googlebot visits my site but it’s not getting indexed”. Some SEO forum admins are pretty good at going down the list of possible technical reasons for why a site may not be indexed. Your server’s connection speed may impede crawling. You can get an idea of how good (or bad) your server’s connection is for robots by looking at tools that give you feedback. Google’s Webmaster Tools now even tell you how long it takes them to download content.
You can reset your PC to connect at different speeds — or use a tool to test server speeds. It’s not just important to know how much of your site a robot sees but also how much of your site everyone else is seeing. If you’ve placed your really good gizmos and content “below the fold” and your pages don’t fully load, you may never attract the links you’re hoping you’ve baited. Gizmo-loaded pages tend to load and render very slowly (and you need to understand the difference between page load time and page rendering time).
What most people perceive as slow page loading is usually slow page rendering. Your browser may be running on a Quad Core with 4 Gigabytes of HyperRam but most other people’s browsers are NOT. You may have a superfast cable or T1 connection most people surfing from work have to share their bandwidth. A good T3 connection can run slower than DSL when everyone is hauling down megabyte-sized files.
Take advantage of competitors’ poor design optimization
When you’re designing your site you have to look at your competition to see what their site designs entail. What burden does the competition place on the surfing audience? If you can match their magic with less overhead you’re more likely to surge ahead in the search results because more people will recommend your site than the other guys’. It’s a subtle difference, one that most SEOs don’t pay attention to.
Remember, every plus in your column versus every minus in your competitors’ column makes it more likely that third parties will link to your site. And we all know that links help when everything else is equal.
Furthermore, if you’re competing with gadgets and gizmos, knowing that the other guys are dependent upon inbound link anchor text empowers you. The more relevant text you embed on your fast-rendering pages, the better your advantage is. Besides, people tend to hit that BACK button quickly when they’re staring at a blank browser window. Make the best first impression possible.
Use strategic link placement instead of “link building” tips
Strategic link placement doesn’t entail sending emails to strangers and asking them for links. It starts with your own site, of course, but you have to quickly move off site with strategic link placement. Regardless of how you build links, you need to focus on creating good content for the links you build. If your link building consists of swapping links, buying links, dropping links, asking for links, etc. there is nothing strategic about it.
If you participate in a social community the best way to build a link is to write killer content for that community that not only excuses but absolutely justifies and demands a link to your site. That’s not so easy to do. Just look at all the boring content most of us place on our Web sites to begin with. Seriously. How many SEO Theory articles can you name off the top of your head? After “20 Hard Core SEO Tips”, you may be hard-pressed to think of anything you haven’t read in the past week or two.
Strategic link placement focuses on building value in the content around the link. The link may pass anchor text and PageRank but it absolutely must pass traffic, credibility, and visibility. Links and visibility should go hand-in-hand. If you cannot get people to talk about your contribution you’re wasting your time.
Strategic links can be placed in press releases, too. Most press releases are run-of-the-mill sandpapered mush. So-and-so proudly announces blah-blah-blah who-gives-a-flying-flip. You published the press release because you thought it would get you a link. That’s not strategic, that’s just typical SEO link building.
To be strategic, a link has to be embedded in a press release that people actually link to, talk about, refer to, discuss, and care about. It happens. Don’t believe me? That’s because you’ve never written an interesting press release. Once you write one, you get the idea. Of course, you want to avoid the mistake I made — be sure to include the right link to the right site in your awe-inspiring copy because you probably cannot go back and put it in later.
It’s a rare press release that actually goes hot but if you develop good press release writing skills you can write press releases that don’t look like press releases and then you can pretty much put them anywhere: mailing lists, forums, news media submission forms, etc. Natural language, unambiguous “press tips”, “event announcements”, and pointers get more traffic and attention than you might believe. And they help shape the message you want people to see.
Tell people what to search for
Traditional search engine optimization principles teach us to do our keyword research first. Find out what people are searching for, pick a query whose space you can probably invade with some measure of success, and then create content for it.
Of course, most business sites (and non-business sites) are built without keywords in mind. SEOs usually address this disparity by reshaping the copy on the sites and building links that use the desired keywords as anchor text. But you can use tried-and-true branding techniques to build interest in new query spaces.
Yes, telling people what to search for actually works. After all, search engines tell us that every month as many as 20-25% of all their query traffic is for expressions they have not seen before. People are using new queries all the time, so you might as well optimize the searchers’ habits as well as the Web site.
People may not know who you are but if you make a name for yourself they will search on it. That’s as true of any business or organization as it is of any individual. If your company or organization creates print advertising, broadcast advertising, event banners, product packaging, etc. that mentions your company name, use those media to tell people “Search for XYZ Widget Co. on the Internet!”
They’ll do it.
You can use classified ads in newspapers and magazines to tell people what to search for.
You can use Christmas cards, post cards, class reunion mailers, free swap newspaper ads, and neighborhood promo flyers to tell people what to search for.
There are a few companies that arrange monthly advertising for restaurant menus in large cities. You can use those menus to tell people what to search for.
You can give radio interviews, television interviews, etc. Hold up a banner at a football game when the television camera pans by that says, “Search for SEO Theory today!”
But wait, there’s more!
There is so much more to off-site optimization. It’s all about helping people find your content when your content is what they are looking for. If you’ve buried yourself in link building you’re missing the boat. Get out of the links and get into search engine optimization the way it was meant to be done: build value, build the perception of value, build visibility, build credibility.
The more often people see your name the more credible you become to them.
The more often people see a query that leads to your content, the more comfortable they become with that query. Queries of discovery can become navigational queries. It happens all the time. It just doesn’t happen on your Web site.
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