SEO TOPICS

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Hot SEO Topics in 2009
The following list of topics are taken from the search referral data
for this blog, so they only represent the topics that are hot for
content included on SEO Theory. It would be a good exercise for those
of you who write SEO blogs to compare these queries to your own blogs?
query data.
Keep in mind that with the exception of ?SEO Theory? none of these
keywords really means anything to me. If you want to optimize for
them, do so, but you?ll miss out on the object lesson in this article.
In fact, there are several object lessons. The first is that your
recent ?hot? referral data should match your rankings pretty well.
Unless you are totally into the long tail of search (even I optimize
for brand value, so that takes me out of the long tail on occasion)
you will have pages that are optimized for targeted expressions.
If you find a ?hot? query for which your rankings suck, ask yourself
how you managed to pull in that much search traffic (this is what I
call the Golden Page Effect). But before you start optimizing with
dollar signs in your eyes, do some keyword research to see if you
benefitted from a spike or if you?re sniffing the leftovers from a
productive query. That?s lesson two.
Lesson number 3: Do not optimize for spikes that you cannot predict
well in advance. Clients often ask us how to optimize for upcoming
news events ? events that will happen next week, tomorrow, or (my
favorite) ?this afternoon?. I always want to say, ?You got a blog??
The immediacy of the need for search optimization limits your
available resources, but if you control a blog network (and if its hub
is a pretty popular blog) you could probably link-bomb your way to
some sort of mediocre overnight success. Do that too often, however,
and you?ll pay the piper one way or another.
So let?s look at these referral strings:
SEO Theory - ?SEO theory? is consistently the expression with the most
search referrals month-by-month, usually day-by-day. That tells me
that there is brand value in the name ?SEO Theory? (although it did
not exist when I started this blog over 2 years ago on Blogspot).
Brand referral data can help you gauge how popular and relevant your
brand is to the market. If you see a growth in brand referrals or a
decline, you know your brand value is changing.
Google meta tags - There are months when this query brings in a lot of
traffic to SEO Theory and there are months when it?s way down the
list. It probably spikes more often after Google reconfigures itself
than at any other time. Google has been very erratic since early
January (in my opinion) and we?ve seen a consistent amount of traffic
for this query.
SEO Theory does not presently rank in the top five results on Google
for ?Google meta tags?. I suppose I could optimize for that expression
(for example, I could link to a relevant Google meta tags article) but
anyone out there who thinks he can count coup by taking a ranking away
from me will probably drop 10-20 links to his own Google meta tags
blog post. It?s not worth fighting over, so you?re welcome to outrank
me still.
Link-poor site - This is one of those ?huh?? referrals. I?ve discussed
link wealth and link poverty in over 100 articles. The query itself
tells me nothing about what people are looking for. So what is the
point in optimizing for it? I don?t even rank for it right now, so I?m
not sure the search engine can figure out what people want.
Maybe this is a query someone can build brand value in. Think about
the irony you can play on, writing a link bait article about how you
are running a ?link-poor site?.
Seo tips - Everyone and their pet dog wants to rank for ?SEO tips?,
although I honestly don?t know why. Many years ago I searched for ?SEO
tips? and found the same crappy advice dominating the search results.
The advice may have been upgraded a bit but it?s not like someone
ranking for ?SEO tips? is going to be able to help me improve my
search traffic (the tips you find still pretty much suck).
The really curious thing here is that this blog ? which is NOT an ?seo
tips? blog ? gets a lot of traffic for ?SEO tips?. It probably has
more to do with the annual ?20 Hard-core SEO Tips? articles than
anything else.
I?ve always been curious about how much money is to be made in giving
out free SEO tips that can be found on every other SEO blog and
forum?.
Nofollow SEO - Search Engine Roundtable did a live poll during one of
the sessions of SMX West last week and 50% of the respondents said
they were ?sculpting PageRank?. To date, no one has published any
credible evidence which shows that ?nofollow SEO? works as advertised.
I?m sure it does something, but I?m equally sure it does nothing
useful.
I?m still waiting for someone to deliver a believable case study on ?
nofollow SEO?. All the SEO bloggers who just say it works appear to
unbelievably convinced of their own rightness, because they sure ain?t
offered any data to back up their claims. None of the case studies I
have read have made their cases.
Good luck with your ?nofollow SEO? queries. There?s still nothing but
bad advice out there on the topic.