You are doing Over Optimization For Your Blog ??
Stop this now! ;)
Because SEO Over Optimization Rings Troubles For Your Blog.
Blogging starts with the basics which is why this article should be considered as an eye opener for those who think that italicizing their keywords or using all them in H1, H2, H3 headlines would mean they would achieve the top spot in Google.
Google can turn your blog upside down if it senses any diversion on your page. So, through this article I will be conveying the important message of where to put a full stop when it comes to handling the SEO of your blog articles.
SEO or search engine optimization has been misused a number of times. You will come across a number of websites or blogs that use jumble up keywords in their article’s headline, body and meta descriptions in order to sneak past others in Google search results. This measure used to warrant a top spot for a lot of them until recently Google took all this into account. The Google Penguin update is the latest algorithm update which tends to push these websites down to the bottom. A number of these ‘over optimized’ websites are no longer even indexed on Google.
So, the question that arises is that where to put the full stop in order to prevent the page from getting SEO Over Optimization?
The truth is no one knows that. Even in case of Google, you might notice some anomalies in the search results with some of the seemingly over optimized websites, covering the top. Even the best of the SEO experts have to bang their heads before fully understanding the search capacity of search engines like Google.
In all these circumstances, our job is to adopt the best practices possible and abstain from crossing the limits. Here are 3 things that I would suggest you should do in order to prevent your blog from havocs of over optimization and saving yourself from the Google Penguin attack.
1. Stop Following the traditional Rules:
Google algorithm has been upgraded way beyond thinking. In order to keep yourself into the competition, start thinking differently. Stop using the same keywords in your headline tags over and over again as to even a normal reader these look really awkward. Forget about keyword density, concentrate on writing quality content. If a sentence requires that keyword and cannot be completed without it then only use that keyword.
2. Stop Writing for Bots, Start Writing for People:
Yes, Write for your blog readers not for bots! ;)
A search engine bot might span your content but it is read only by a human being who is fully capable of judging your content. Not that bots haven’t got the intelligence for judging your stuff as I have discussed earlier the advancement of Google’s code. So, in order to attain the best results start writing quality stuff for readers and in return the search engine bots will favor you as well.
Read : 12 Tips For Writing Engaging Content For Readers
3. Limit your Blog’s accessibility to Google crawlers:
Each blog has a number of units ranging from categories to pages. Nowadays, even the attachments get a separate page and URL. In order to prevent these useless pages from getting into search results, you have to limit access to your blog. The reason I called these useless is because categories and pages links never get exposure in the search engine while attachment URLs might increase your Google image search traffic but in the long run it will damage your overall traffic and trust of your readers who would be simply looking on some bunch of images with no text.
Recommendations:
In order to follow these leads, you will require some basic SEO tools and plugins.. SEO for Yoast plugin is my favorite as it gives a deeper insight of links from your pages, keywords concentration and most importantly it redirects your attachments post to your main article page in which this attachment was in the first place. You can also use the SEO pressor plugin.
Have I missed any points about seo over optimization? Do let me know in comments! Happy Blogging! :D
It is really hard to say what is optimized and what is over optimized, lets see google is not only one search engine and some sites get more search traffic from them than only google. so their is no clear boundary of blog optimization and anything else. But what make a blog click, that its user friendliness, i have seen many blogs which do not garner traffic from google but sole popularity among their readers. so going with your second point, writing content for people always work in long run.
Awseome article and i agree with you seo wants new ideas …thanks for sharing
Google Penguin and Panda updates will continue to roll out, what we need to do to avoid to be hit is start building links coming from authority websites and deliver content for the benefit of the user not for the search engine. Giving best user experience is the key.
Google is really alert these days. Too many back links which were once considered great is now considered as penality
I think now most of the bloggers focusing on only keyword stuffing more than what exactly the readers need and visit the blog for. blogs need very less seo whereas product sites need huge effort for seo.
Yes I am agreed what you said Usman as google have new updates of penguin and panda and now it is more intelligent then before copy past or spam use of seo techniques may now kill the site and I have read a comment about google penalty and that is yes its is now in the position of implementation and soon you will see what happen to the site world over as I have so many cases in my knowledge who lost there site on google and now they have redirect there URL.
So as usman said I am totally agreed with his words.
Kudos! you just nailed it. I see people running for SEO only forgetting the content. I now feel glad because I am not good at optimizing ;)
haha thanks Ramsha
hi,
I feel seeing all the things that you shown upside is really a great mean because it tells us that we should avoid the spammers and we should not allow any bad person to our blog…I am totally agree with all above commented..thanks for this..it was very nice..
Luckily, I don’t think I’ve been doing this. Strange though, I had been feeling like I was missing out.
Very true, Jenna. Over optimization is definately going to be the key factor… Or say it’s already started. Beware SEO maniacs! Put more weight on quality contents. It’s not just about links all the time. Create the source for links, and that is definately the quality content….
SEO needs something different right now. I really agree with your statement above. Thank you for nice sharing
Writing for people is very important, that really is my main target. I recently joined a website to submit a guest posting, I had to hit so many SEO targets that changing to post to fit in more keywords etc would make it confusing and hard to read… that might help their site in the rankings but as a writer, who would want to click through to my site after reading a garbled article that made little sense!
Andi
hi Usama bro….u are absolutely right. I am agree with you. Thank you so much for explaining answer of my comment so nicely. Would like to read your other posts too.
Thanks Sandeep. You can read my articles over on my blog. Cheers!
Hey if my blog is in another niche and if i am commenting on different niche blogs then it will affect on ranking of my blog, any comments ?
No it doesn’t. Although it’s better if you comment on same niche blogs but giving authentic comments anywhere would do more good than harm to your blog.
Another standard name of spamming is over optimization which has already cleared by Matt cutt(Head of Google’s spam team) in his recent video release.
Gary Adwords keyword tool matters a lot because you need to see which article is going to have greater impact on the search engine.
Keyword research is of utmost importance but using that keyword appropriately in article is important.
I have read article stuffed with useless keywords and you seriously don’t want that. Google is trying to push us to something that is good here.
Must say and awesome article Usama. It changed my mind.
Thanks man :)
I know many people that have been hit by this. I think the most important part is like you said, writing for people and not for bots. It is very hard to steer away from something that we have been taught for so long. But we must do that if we want to continue to grow in the rankings. I still bring out Adwords Keyword Tool on many posts. :[
Ya! Right Nasir… Over SEO optimization can trouble a site… You are right Google algorithm has changed a lot… Traditional header meta keywords are no longer important as it was earlier instead we need to keep concentrate on common tags in the article posts…. Thanks for the great tips…
Thanks PJS remember although the Header meta tags don’t matter now but pay real attention to the Meta title and Meta description for your articles. That is very important.
On the on-page SEO side, that is pretty much about over optimization.
But if you are talking about Penguin Algorithm, I think there are more on the off-page optimization where most large site got penalized for building side-wide links, e.g. the links from the footer of a theme.
I personally consider spinning articles and submit to hundreds of article directories is a form of over optimization as well.
However, the tips above is sufficient to comply to Google Penguin on the On-Page SEO part.
Correct!
I had a discussion with one of the SEO guys over the Goolge Webmaster and he told me first about the dangers lurking in the footer area of a blog.
The themes we use give their own links from that area and even that is not good for SEO. One should always try to avoid duplicating links on the homepage.
Great post. seo is very important for our site but the way we go about it really matter. thanks for sharing
Thanks. Indeed it is but remember quality content is even more important than SEO. If you write quality, people will read your blog through and through.
Hi Usama,
Thanks for sharing these useful tips about over optimization. But Can you explain why some over optimized blogs are getting top positions yet ?
By the way I am fully agree with your idea ” Stop writing for bots, start writing for People”. This will definitely help people to return to our blog. Also this is evergreen SEO technique because google wants to give credit to such stuff. And they are only working for that by all their updates.
Sandeep the top position on Google depends on many things. Most of the blogs which get the top position are ofcourse the trademarks in the industry like engadget, mashable etc. These blogs are getting SEO recondition by a team of experts who are simply optimizing them ob hourly basis.
Competing with these blogs is insane as it requires investment of thousands of dollars. Other blogs that you see on top are those that have been running for 2 or 3 years now.
i tell you a secret here. Time is the best friend of a blogger. Just take time to write stuff, spread it and then wait for the response. All those serious bloggers whom are earning thousands now have worked day in and day out before reaching this stage.
I have started Androidome 5 days back. Lets see how long it takes to get established.
One thing I always say to my readers is that it’s time we should stop caring about SEO and concentrate more on SMO. The reason is simple. SEO is an ever growing and changing subject. It’s unpredictable. Although long term success does depend on it but if you can lure in readers through SMO, your blog SEO will automatically gets better.
Ya almost all points where completely covered by Usama.
I really liked your first point – google always changes its self and we cant ever predict what is going on in the google system so best is write for peoples and not for google or any search engine.
Exactly, one of the blogs I recently started is the Androidome. My first article on it was about using Android device over iOS and it received over 1200 hits in two days. I simply bookmarked it on techspy and it received a lot of appreciation.
If you take a look at that post, its a simple well written article which coveys a useful piece of information and is without any grammatical mistakes.
The best blogging practice is to improve your writing style. I tell you people love awesome articles. They share it, they digg it. But seldom among us write something of that calibre.
Take your time in writing articles, scrutinize them for as long as you could. Edit even the slightest of mistakes and most of all try to improve your style of writing.
These things matter alot.
Commenting on other blogs adds to the value of website. It doesn’t depend on niche rather it depends on PR. Moreover, if I comment using name as my article title which many people does then that is considered as a spam link and Google takes that into account. So, its best to comment as your own name and then link to whatever article you want. Comment love is a good way of creating backlinks.
Hello Usama,
I heard that Google also warned people who use SEO plugins for getting ranking keywords for their posts. Is that true?
SEO plugins like yoast, or all in one actually help you make nice meta descriptions and titles which are very important. Putting your keywords in those areas are necessary. About the keyword tools like easy SEO or the SEO presser, I had a detailed talk with one of the Google experts.
He said these plugins create trouble as they lead you to over optimization. Using your keyword in all the headline tags, Concentrating it all around the body of the article, bolding your keywords, all these practices can lead to over optimization.
If you see my article above, I used heading tags but didn’t use any keyword in their. Also my keyword concentration in the post is nearly 2-3%. In short I have written a user friendly article which is also preferable to Google.
So, I would suggest you to stop using SEO keyword tools. Just ensure that keyword is coming in your Metas and where ever it is needed inside your body.
Remember internal linking is very important!
Firstly I would try to optimize properly then will head to the over optimization. These tips really help me forever in the blogging arena. The tips are really simple and effective as it seems. BTW hope for the best. :)
Does Commenting On Other Blogs with not the same niche as yours considered over link building or optimization ?
No, I don’t think so. However, it is not worth your time unless you are just really interested in that niche or its a very high PR of 6-8. One relevant blog comment can be worth hundreds or even thousands of non-relevant ones.
Google released the Penguin update for this very reason to penalize the blogs that are over optimized.
When Matt Cutts talks the Digital world listens. And why not, he is an important man for the SEO and SEM community. Recently, Matt disclosed that the search engine behemoth Google is working on a search ranking penalty for Websites and WebPages that are over-optimized or SEO too much