SEO Optimization........A beginners guide !!! PENALTIES

Part 7 - Finally !! 

PENALTIES

Covering most of the things to do for SEO optimization like Content, Architecture, HTML, Trust, Links & Personalization, we have finally come to the final section of What not to do. Below is the list of activities that you should avoid if you don't want to get penalized.

Keyword Stuffing;

This is the most common & most old school tactic, to stuff your content with a lot of keywords so that your page ranks higher. 

While no one really know how much is too much. But stuffing too many keywords, which are irrelevant or out of context are heavily penalized by search engines.

Hidden Text;

To achieve keyword stuffing, without effecting user experience is to put Hidden text. 

What if I write fresh flowers on the page of my florist site 100 times & make it invisible to reader by keeping the color of these words same as that of background.

Search engines don’t like anything hidden. They want to see everything that a user sees. Don’t hide text, whether it be using styles, fonts, display:none or any other means that means a typical user can’t see it.

Thin Content/Shallow;

With the release of PANDA update by google its no longer about relevant content to the user, but weather the content does any value addition to the user.

This domain-level penalty targets sites with a predominant amount of so-so content and essentially treats it similar to overt spam techniques.

Read More on SEO - Google Panda Update

Cloaking;

What if tomorrow you saw some ad on the internet or TV, but the product & find it to be completely different from what is being advertised. Would you like it? No. 

Similarly search engines don't like when there is a difference in the site which they see & as seen by the user. This rigging your site so that search engines are shown a completely different version than what humans see is known as "CLOAKING". It’s a bait and switch and seen as a deliberate attempt to manipulate search results.

Read More on SEO - Cloaking & Doorway Pages

Ads / Top heavy layout;

When you place too much ads of your page so much so that finding the actual content becomes difficult, it is known as "TOP HEAVY LAYOUT". Google released its "PAGE LAYOUT ALGORITHM" to address this issue, and it penalizes those site where it is difficult for the user to find relevant content.

Read More on SEO - Page layout Algorithm & Google - Top Heavy Update

Link Spam & Paid Links;

Going around & dropping links with highly optimized ANCHOR TEXT, in hopes of getting higher page ranking will be treated as spam both in the eyes of visitors & search engines This can get you heavily penalized.

Similarly if you are trying to buy links your site will be heavily penalized by search engines especially Google. Infact, there is example when Google banned one of its own division (Japan) for 11 months for involved in link buying activities.

If you think & someone claims that there paid links are undetectable, they are wrong. So please avoid.

Piracy/DMCA Take downs;

With the "PIRATE" update google is working round the clock and rank down sited that have infringed copy right laws. It also  penalize sites who received a large number of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) take down requests.

It’s unlikely that most sites will have to deal with these issues, but you should handle any DMCA take down notifications that show up in your Google Search Console account.

Read More on SEO - Google Pirate Update.

SEO Optimization........A beginners guide !!! - HTML & PAGE TAGS

Part 3 - 

HTML & Page Tags

HTML Title Tag;

HTML titles have always been and remain the most important HTML signal that search engines use to understand what a page is about. Bad titles on your pages are like having bad book titles.

Imagine that you wrote 100 different books but gave them all the same exact title. How would anyone understand that they are all about different topics?

Imagine that you wrote 100 different books, and while they did have different titles, the titles weren’t very descriptive — maybe just a single word or two. Again, how would anyone know, at a glance, what the books were about?

So think about what you hope each page will be found for, then craft unique, descriptive titles for each of your pages.

Read more on SEO - HTML Title Tag

Meta Description Tag;

Meta description is like the blurb on the back describing the book. It allows you to suggest how you’d like your pages to be described in search listings. 

A meta description that contains the keywords searched for (in bold) may catch the user’s eye. A well-crafted meta description may help ‘sell’ that result to the user. Both can result in additional clicks to your site.

Be forewarned, having a meta description tag doesn’t guarantee that your description will actually get used. Search engines may create different descriptions based on what they believe is most relevant for a particular query. But having one increases the odds that what you prefer will appear. 

Read more on SEO - Meta Tag

Structured Data;

Behind the scenes, sites can use specific markup (code) that make it easy for search engines to understand the details of the page content and structure.

The result of structured data often translates into what is called a ‘rich snippet‘, a search listing that has extra bells and whistles that make it more attractive and useful to users. The most common rich snippet you’re likely to encounter is reviews/ratings which usually includes eye-catching stars.

All things being equal, a listing with a rich snippet will get more clicks than one without. And search engines are eager for site owners to embrace structured data.

Structured data has been around for quite some time in various forms. But recently search engines have begun to rely on it more with the advent of Google’s Knowledge Graph and Bing’s Snapshot.

Read More on SEO - Structured Data, Google Knowledge Graph, Google Rich Snippets, Bing Snapshot.

Header H1 & H2 tags;

Headline up at the top of this page? Behind the scenes, HTML code is used to make that a header tag. In this case, an H1 tag.

Sub-headlines on the page? Those also use header tags. Each of them is the next “level” down, using H2 tags.

Header tags are a formal way to identify key sections of a web page. Search engines have long used them as clues to what a page is about. If the words you want to be found for are in header tags, you have a slightly increased chance of appearing in searches for those words.

Header tags are useful when they reflect the logical structure (or outline) of a page. If you have a main headline, use an H1 tag. Relevant subheads should use an H2 tag. Use headers as they make sense and they may reinforce other ranking factors.

Read More on SEO - H1 & H2 Tags

SEO Optimization........A beginners guide !!! - PERSONALIZATION

Part 6

PERSONALIZATION

Now that we have covered Content, Architecture, HTML, Trust & Links. Next in the SEO beginners guide series is Personalization.

Personalization is offering content to visitor that is relevant to his location, past behavior or social interaction.

Localization;

Localization refer to delivering content that is relevant to consumer in your location. 

Take an example of world's most popular sport Football. It has two variants American & European, now if you are based out of America and talk about European football or Soccer as they call it, chances are that your site will be ranked lower.

This localization is not just restricted to country level, but infact goes much deeper or hyper local sometimes to city or to a specific part in city for large cities like New York, Beijing, Tokyo or London.If you want to appear when someone gets city-specific results, you need to ensure your site is relevant to that city.

Read more on SEO - Local Search Ranking Factors & How to: Local Search Marketing.

Personal History;

Personal history is created when someone visits or creates an interaction with a site. What type of links people click after their search? What do they share on social media? Which sites do they prefer? These all parameters are used by Search engines to rank search results.

Now there is no easy way to influence these interactions, but a rule of thumb or basic hygiene is to give your visitor the best experience in the most seamless way so he can make comes back to your site again & again.

Now since you can't create this experience to your audience individually, a better approach is to create it for your majority audience taking their behavior as a benchmark.

Social Connections;

Suppose you recommended Restaurant A for Pizza in your locality & one of your social connection is also searching for Pizza, the chances of Restaurant A getting higher page ranking are more than other restaurants. This is like asking for advice from your friends in an offline scenario.

If someone can follow you, or easily share your content, that helps get your site into their circle of trust and increases the odds that others they know will find you. Nowhere is this more trans formative than Google+, where circling a site’s Google+ Page will change the personalized search results for that user.