Actually, it's not exactly a mistake. That site is powered with a php script that automatically generates the pages through conditional arguments, the same way the HT forum works. Unfortunately I'm using phpBB for the forum script, which does not come with the native capability to edit meta tags.

There is, however, a mod (more like a hack) available that can do dynamic build-outs of meta tags, but it's version specific. Moreover, each time the board is upgraded to a new version the meta tag hack is overwritten, wiping out the changes. I can't really ignore the upgrades, since they are all at least partially security upgrades, so the mod keeps getting zapped.

Quite frankly, I've grown weary of keeping up with the mod. I get most of my members through word of mouth anyway. If it were a commercial site it would be different, but that forum happens to be just for fun.

Getting listed at Google in an hour.
 

Well, it’s been 2 days and he hasn’t come back. I guess he’s mad. I don’t blame him because I was a little hard on him. This was a good lesson though. Everyone’s an expert these days, if you know what I mean.

But we have business to discuss. I made a promise to you that I would tell you how to get high rankings at Google within an hour. I know that’s a tall order, but I assure you that it can be done and that you can do it.

First, let me warn you that this method won’t be available forever. The old saying that ‘you have to make hay while the sun shines’ is even more true in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) than it is in making hay. You snooze, you lose. The reason for this is that your interests are dissimilar from Google’s interests. You want free advertising, while Google is in the business of providing meaningful searches. So you & I will get our stuff at the top, while a not so small army of Google techs will work overtime to find ways to put us back in our place. Google coming out on top is the natural order of things, so it's bound to happen eventually. That just SEO for ya, it's a never ending cat & mouse game between webmasters and Google. Just so you know.

Let’s get started.

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Okay, so we all know that good standings at Google are difficult to get these days. That’s become a whole lot worse the past few months. The reason is that we’re seeing a lot more media results in searches, which push ordinary web pages farther down in the results. The exploit here is to take advantage of those media listings.

Google eventually indexes any new content that you add to your web page, but it takes weeks (sometimes up to 2 months). It’s even worse with new domains, where Google doesn’t index new domains for 6 months. People in the SEO game call that being "sandboxed" by Google. Google may crawl your new domain every day, but it still won’t be in any search results for at least 6 months. However, there's a problem with Google doing that; people had to go elsewhere to find contemporary information. But Google wanted those people to stay at Google, so to remedy that problem Google classified some information as “priority content”. That's the buzzword I want you to remember and understand.

As an example, let’s say that you heard people discussing Octomom at work or here at HT, so you wanted to learn more. If you search at Google you will find tons of listings for Octomom, and some could even be news articles just released today. That’s made possible through priority content, which is content that’s indexed immediately after Google discovers it. When the term “Octomom” first hit the newswire, you would have been able to see the first results at Google within an hour or so. That’s because all of the major news sites (CNN, MSNBC, FoxNews, etc.) are all declared priority content by Google.

What you want to do is to get your product or service promoted as priority content. I know what you’re thinking; which is that if Matt Lauer of the Today Show was calling you up inviting you on his show to do an interview about your product or service that your advertising problems would be over. You would be correct in that assumption. But admittedly, that’s probably not going to happen. Fortunately for us, Google recognizes several other media types as priority content. Those include certain blogs, social networking sites, and audio/video content sites. It’s the video content that is the easiest for us to exploit.

When you submit a video to youtube.com, it will be indexed in Google within hours. Google will also use the title and keywords you provide as the basis for search standings. And it’s not just youtube that’s considered priority content, it’s dozens of web sites that support video hosting. Google has to take you at your word on the keywords and title, since their crawler robot can't watch clips. I suspect that Google also depends on other members of the video web site to complain and have the clip taken down when the clip content doesn't match the keywords.

At this point you should probably watch a clip that describes the process and demonstrates the results better than I can. But before you watch it, understand that they are selling a product. Specifically they are selling a video content posting service. It’s not cheap either. It’s $1 to try it for 30 days, but $99/month after that. That’s pretty steep in my opinion, and I suspect that you would be just as well off listing manually. Also, the guy in the clip is an irritating dweeb, but you should expect that from a guy in La Jolla. Finally, the mechanics of listing and the viewing of results are towards the end of the clip, so be sure to watch it all the way through. If you’re in a hurry and can only watch half of it, just watch the second half. But if this concept is new to you, I encourage you to watch the entire clip.

http://www.trafficgeyser.com/frank.html

You can produce a short, informative clip with any digital camera and a tripod. If you make it in segments and need to crop & paste video segments together, you should download VirtualDub (it’s free). The idea is to make a clip, then upload it with a title, description, and keywords that fit the theme of your web site. You will also have your web address on the page with the clip, that will hopefully drive interested customers to your website. You'll then submit it to a number of web sites that will list the video clip at Google within hours.

There really is a lot of traffic that can be generated by videos at youtube. I posted a clip at youtube towards the end of July about a wind generator I made. It already has 22,000 views, and I didn’t really promote it. It just happened. At that rate I'll be getting 50,000 visitors per year, just to my youtube page. Here’s the clip.


There is some science behind which keywords you’ll want to select, so I’ll cover that in another installment.

Keyword Selection
 

In order to make the most of the video submission technique I described above, you will need to select effective keyword phrases that reflect the theme of your web site.

Keyword selection used to be little more than guesswork. It’s also been years since single keywords were realistically attainable. Today you need to target specific keyword phrases. But which ones?

Eventually we had tools that we could use to tell us which keyword phrases were searched for most often. Google offers that free in the Google Adwords keyword utility.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

But it isn’t enough just to know which keyword phrases were searched for the most. The missing element is competition, or in other words; how many web pages are targeting the same keyword phrase will you be competing with for position? Obviously, the fewer web sites that are competing for the same keyword phrases you're using, the better your chances will be of getting results.

A great service called WordTracker does competition analysis for you. To illustrate this point, take a look at the results for the keyword phrases concerning an abscessed tooth (I was doing a promotion for dental plans when I did this).

http://windowrock.com/abcess.jpg

This was an exceptional search, in that it reveals some very interesting information. Before we discuss the technical aspects of the results, lets first consider that the first two phrases in fact have the word ”abscess” misspelled (the "s" is missing), yet had more people searching for those phrases than the second two, where it was spelled correctly. Accordingly, it makes the best sense to misspell it, at least from a SEO point of view. If you were a dentist who didn’t want to look like an idiot you would probably spell it correctly, but as a promoter you would want it spelled incorrectly. That was a result that I didn't expect, and I never would have guessed it without WordTracker.

Note that this search was done a long time ago, before Google corrected spelling in search strings. I only showed this as an example of the power of count and competition analysis. There are always going to be surprising results found at WordTracker.

Here are what the columns mean:

Count – The actual number of times that phrase appears in their database.
24 Hrs – The calculated number of times that phrase should be searched for at MSN each day.
Competing – The actual number of web pages that target that particular phrase.
KEI Analysis – A calculated index (based on count and competition) that shows how good of a keyword it is. Anything over 10 is workable, and anything over a few hundred is a gift. The first two are terrific, but the last two you wouldn't fool with.

That data is available at wordtracker.com. It’s a commercial service, but it’s the only place to find that information. It’s very easy to use, and you can try it for free. (Hint: use a different email account and try it again for free, and again, and again...).

So by referring to the results above again, you see that with misspelling you not only benefit from the increased number of searches, but also in having less competition.

The point is that guessing at keywords just doesn’t make sense anymore. There are tools that take all of the guess work out of selecting keyword phrases. There’s no excuse for not targeting the most likely keywords to attract traffic.

First, we were talking new webmasters with new websites. Many, having no idea where to start. Nevada provided some valid points for new webmasters. I don't personally consider a blog hosted at blogger a traditional website. One, I have very little control over how it's run other than the content that I input. I think there is a meta mod for blogger blogs, but I don't care to go to the trouble as it is just a hobby blog. There are other ways to work around without meta content (be it blogs or websites), but for the new webmaster it would be best to stick with the basics. Following good SEO practices is not dishonest. In fact, it is very big business. I may not agree with how some SEO firms operate, but I think it is best left to the search engines to decide what will and won't be allowed as it is their service that they provide to their users. Basic SEO practices should be part of any new webmaster's arsenal in competing on the internet.