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2009 Hot SEO Topics
By Find2k | February 20, 2009
I like this blog post from SEO theory about the Hot SEO topics in 2009.
Read some and Enjoy:
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.
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.
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).
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.
Traffic estimator - Okay, this is closely related to an expression I targeted, but it’s not exactly what I went after. Real Time Web Traffic Estimator Tools is still a good article if you haven’t read it. Real-time traffic estimation is a powerful SEO technique, albeit one that is entirely dependent upon the tools available (for competitive analysis).
SEO multiple domains - I have written about this topic a few times so it makes sense we get some traffic for it. I suspect that Google’s PageRank push has driven people to think more about microsite networks and how to optimize search for multiple domains. Frankly, if you’re that desperate for links, you should just check out Fantomaster’s 10 Links A Day program. There is no better link building methodology available for today’s search engine optimization needs.
Link analysis - A lot of people check out the SEO Theory link analysis article I wrote a year ago. It’s not very scannable so people who insist on reading only scannable articles should ignore it and go back to reading articles that tell you to analyze links through Yahoo! Site Explorer and SEO toolbars.
Blog farms - What is it with people’s fascination with blog farms? I have only mentioned them casually. It’s not like I endorse the concept. Nor have I ever tried out any of the blog farming software. If you want to know what a blog farm is, think of a link farm where you own all the sites (blogs) and where you populate those sites with scraped content.
If that’s the way you want to get your links, please make sure you leave my content OFF your scrape lists.
SEO steps - This query reminds me of the famous thriller, The 39 Steps. In Alfred Hitchcock’s film adaptation an answer man astounds audiences with his amazing encyclopedic knowledge. He even knows the answer to the question, “What are the 39 steps?”
There are two SEO Theory articles that are relevant to this kind of query. Neither of them actually ranks very well for it. SEO Checklist: Fundamental Steps For Every SEO Campaign is one of the few SEO Theory articles that would easily fall into the “Beginner SEO” category.
Advanced SEO: The 4-step Campaign Process is, obviously, a more advanced article. There are no mysteries in these articles.
Subdomains and SEO - I did write about subdomains and SEO only a few months ago. I wrote the article after seeing consistent traffic for the expression “subdomains and seo” (as well as a related expression, “seo for subdomains”). I figure I might as well write something specifically about that topic, since it was pretty coherent.
SEO analysis - This is what I call an incidental brand keyword. SEO Theory is actually called “SEO Theory and Analysis Blog”. This is an example of what has been referred to as “power keyword optimization” — a method of combining simple keyword expressions into longer, more complex expressions. Instead of repeating words unnecessarily several times, you just use them in a tight, efficient expression.
You’re not going to rank equally well for all variations on an expression but your optimization — if applied consistently — should provide plenty of good rankings when you work with power keyword expressions. Ann Smarty recently provided a concise example of how to do this.
SEO metrics - I wrote about SEO metrics a year ago, using Google’s Supplemental Index to illustrate how we can development measurements for data that is hard to capture.
Over the past year the SEO metrics discussion in the industry has drifted away from Google’s Supplemental Results and toward measuring conversions. Old metrics that are being given less and less credence include Toolbar PageRank, ranking reports, and backlink reports. New metrics that are being given more scrutiny include MozRank (SEOmoz’s response to PageRank), relevant search referrals, and conversions.
The best you can hope to accomplish is to track the hottest topic trends in your own sites and respond to shifts in reader interests where appropriate.
Read more here :SEO-Theory
Topics: Google, Internet Marketing, Internet Marketing and MSN, Search Marketing, Yahoo |