14 comments (Add your own)

1. Mauricio wrote:

I am glad that you included info about adding keywords into the content of a website. This is making me re-think the content of my site. How do you suggest the best way to go about this? Should I write the content then use these key words or should I find out good keywords and write my content around that information?

A lot of knowledge packed into this book. Its been a good investment!

Thu, August 5, 2010 @ 1:59 AM

2. Christopher Nelson wrote:

Thanks!

Well, in the guide and in this FAQ I do talk about how to do this quite a bit. You can click on the "Text Content" link above or use the menu to the right to find the topic in the FAQs.

Basically you're going to want to write your content in natural sounding language, being as helpful as you possibly can be for your visitors. Ideally, the content should automatically include your keywords for the specific page you are writing content for, since that will be the subject matter you are writing about.

Go ahead and add your keywords throughout the text if you have to, otherwise just bold or italicize some of the ones that are already there. I would recommend only emphasizing (italic or bold) once per keyword or keyword phrase. You don't want to spam your visitors OR the search engines.

Do NOT stuff your keywords. Forcing keywords down the throat of visitors or search engines alike is likely to get your website penalized or worse. Simply write naturally, in the most helpful and useful way possible, emphasizing keywords where they naturally show up in your content.

Good luck!!

Thu, August 5, 2010 @ 2:04 AM

3. Nick Lipow wrote:

Hi, first let me say thanks for writing a great book on SEO that was easy to read and understand. I started building my website quantitativereasoning.com with no knowledge of SEO tactics and it shows. Right now I am in the process of a complete site rebuild and paying particular attention to SEO. I think my SEO problems are somewhat unique in that inherent in the design is tons of similar/duplicate content. My first offering of multiplication flashcards is a perfect example of this: hundreds of pages each with a different problem but otherwise very similar content. In my desire to rank well on the multiplication flashcard page I don't want to simply most of the pages because my thinking is that page traffic is a significant factor in SEO and future potential revenue generation, and by prohibiting the bot from indexing well trafficked pages I would be drastically cutting into my statistical success.
Next there is the question of meta tags and page text (page text being more of a factor in the future for more complex concepts). Since these will also be inherently almost identical, should they be duplicated across the multiplication pages or left out (leaving out the page text for more complex concepts will not be an option) altogether?
Any help regarding these issues would be greatly appreciated.

Mon, June 6, 2011 @ 7:44 AM

4. Christopher Nelson wrote:

Hi Nick,

It looks like the sheer amount of pages your website is (and will be) capable of is pretty impressive. I would definitely not recommend using "noindex". The amount of pages will help your standing in the search engines... however...

I like that the page titles are specific to the math problems on a per page basis, but there is very little need for meta data. Any auto-generated or repeated text you have on these pages will be duplicate. If in doubt here, simply don't use any meta data if it's all going to be the same on most if not all of these pages. An obvious exception would be the page title (as I mentioned above), which seems different on every page depending on the math problem being solved.

What you do need is content. You need a home page, some kind of contact page with a contact form, an about page, and maybe even a blog. Obviously the site's content is pretty evident. But to Google and other search engines, it's not. All there is for content are some numbers for the most part. You may think, "what on earth am I going to write on those pages?". Every website author has thought along those lines at some point. If you really think about it, you can write at length about almost anything. Then you'll be able to have paragraphs full (well, not TOO full) of key phrases like "multiplication flashcards". Remember to follow the advice in my book as far as how to use keywords and key phrases in content and the meta data, and you should be good to go.

If you want to stand out in the search engines, you need to at LEAST have a home/landing page with text content that explains what the site is. Just remember - the more helpful you are to your visitors, the more Google and other search engines will like you. The more informative and useful, the better.

Hope that helps!

Mon, June 6, 2011 @ 9:19 PM

5. Nick Lipow wrote:

Thanks for your fast response, I did find it to be very helpful. Concerning the page titles, would it be better to have a title of 'multiplication flashcard 5x6', or '5 multiplied by 6', instead of just 5x6?

Mon, June 6, 2011 @ 9:39 PM

6. Christopher Nelson wrote:

I like "multiplication flashcard 5x6". The more words used to describe something in SEO rather than numbers, the better. However, I wouldn't spell out the numbers.

Mon, June 6, 2011 @ 9:50 PM

7. Nick Lipow wrote:

To clarify the question: I will definitely be making a text rich multiplication flashcard homepage with the title 'multiplication-flashcards'. Will it still be helpful to name the hundreds of following pages "multiplication flashcard 5x6", "multiplication flashcard 8x4", "multiplication flashcard 9x2"...?

Mon, June 6, 2011 @ 10:23 PM

8. Nick Lipow wrote:

I guess that last question was already answered in your first response. Thanks again for all your help. This forum along your book has definitely saved me a lot of time and given me focus and direction for proceeding with my project. Keep up the good work!

Tue, June 7, 2011 @ 8:52 AM

9. Christopher Nelson wrote:

Normally I would say no in order to reserve the key phrase for your home page to give it more weight. However, in this case I'm treating it like a business name or overall website title that can be found on every page of a website. In short, you can use "Multiplication Flashcards" on every page if you want to treat it as your website title.

Thanks for the incredibly kind words - and if you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Tue, June 7, 2011 @ 10:03 AM

10. Nick Lipow wrote:

Actually, although 'multiplication flashcards' is the theme right now for the entire website this will change soon. Next I'm adding adding simple single digit addition and subtraction flashcards which will look identical to to the multiplication flashcards. After that I will be moving on from the realm of 'flashcards' altogether to more complex addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems, with plenty of examples in each category. As you cans see these organic SEO issues concerning similar 'page title' and content need to be resolved before I start writing and publishing all this material, and if you have any further advice that you think will help me I will be deeply grateful.

Tue, June 7, 2011 @ 2:02 PM

11. Christopher Nelson wrote:

Well, think of the "multiplication flashcards" as a pseudo-title for that section of the website. I'd still keep it for those specific pages. Since you're going to have different sections for different types of maths, you can give their pages similar page titles as well - the key here is that they'll have no meta data and they'll also have the specific "problem" as part of the page title. I'm guessing the site will also have it's own, overarching name that may be part of the title on every page too. Like, "Math Flashcards" or something along those lines. That would be fine.

Tue, June 7, 2011 @ 8:06 PM

12. Nick Lipow wrote:

Thanks again for taking the time to help me get off on the right track, I can't overstate how much time and stress you have saved me. I believe I have one last issue to resolve before I plough ahead with my site construction. All of my flashcard pages are composed mainly of graphic images. An example of the alt text for most of the pages with a little variation in the numbers is: navigation graphic, navigation graphic, multiplied by, 3 equals, 3, 0, 6,0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, navigate to quiz one, navigate to quiz three, 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, navigate to drills, navigate to contact page,multiplication flashcard quiz 2, menu, back, next, CORRECT!, try again, graphic overlay, try again, graphic overlay, answer. My questions concerning this alt text are: should I go back and spell out all of the numbers?, and will it negatively, or positively affect my SEO to have some of my keywords (quiz, drills, multiplication flashcard) duplicated in the same fashion over most of these pages?

Wed, June 8, 2011 @ 7:38 AM

13. Christopher Nelson wrote:

No, I don't think you need to spell out all of the numbers. Also - as far as the graphics go, since they will be the same graphics used for each of these pages, you'll be safe with the alt tag on each to be the same, so you're covered there.

Wed, June 8, 2011 @ 5:37 PM

14. Fabio wrote:

a bunch of other people feel the same way, such as Deb from Just a Mom's Take on Things (thanks Deb!): The tobtom line: The Little Lala and Little Lala’s ABC’s iPhone apps are a

Fri, March 23, 2012 @ 7:37 PM

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