Change is a major piece of working in the online space.
jill wisehart
For the past 15+ years we have seen the constant evolution of SEO (search engine optimization) on the Internet. There have been thousands of articles and hundreds of books written on the subject. White hat, black hat, grey hat… it has been easy to find proponents that have reached at least semi-‘guru’ status as they dole out advice.
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The biggest question many have faced is: “Who do you believe?”
SEO hasn’t been added to Merriam- Webster Dictionary as a new word, so I turned to Wikipedia to see what it has to say:
| “Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s “natural” or unpaid (organic) search results. In general, the earlier (or higher ranked on the search results page), and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine’s users. SEO may target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, video search, academic search,[1] news search and industry-specific vertical search engines.” |
One of the reasons YellowSchmello decided to include SEO in our mix is SEO is no longer primarily a black hat tactic. Now that SEO can more readily become organic we believe, this product is important to include in every business’ online toolbox.
So… what changed? SEO is no longer just a way to “game” the system. It has become, if used the right way(s), a method to safely grow visibility, your brand and your traffic.
Here are four SEO old school and new school tactics.
Old School SEO
- Keywords are repeated many times to get the attention of search engines.
- Give the writer a list of keywords to use when writing copy.
- Get a bunch of links, have them direct to your site and traffic will appear.
- Anchor text should be used for keyword stuffing.
New School SEO
- You should have one main keyword or phase to support the thoughts and contents of each website page or blog post.
- Give your writer a topic and let them write a story or article around that single topic.
- Link building needs to be strategic and used not only to grow traffic but also to increase visibility. The days of ‘link farms’ are over where you bought just any old link from a service. Links today need to be tied to quality and authority.
- Anchor text is now used as a way to use keywords to brand a business but NEVER use anchor text to ‘stuff’. Opinions vary, but you never want to use your URL as anchor text more than 40% of the time (and less is more). Believe it or not, a ‘Click Here’ in underlined blue as anchor text is often more valuable than using your URL to send readers to the same place.
Change is a major piece of working in the online space.
You need to stay on top of changes. They will make or break your web presence. It is important to keep in mind it will always take organic SEO longer than black hat tactics, but you will also sleep better at night.
