Ask Kalena

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Dear Kalena…

I was hoping that you could help me with the following debate.

What is suggested SEO-friendly punctuation for the following examples:

keyword/keyword or keyword / keyword (ie. using a space before and after the slash or using no space)

and

blah blah-blah blah … or blah blah — blah blah (ie. space or no space between — and the words)

Also, if you would recommend an article on the subject of punctuation for SEO, that would be great!

Thanks and best regards!

Laura

Dear Laura

Different types of punctuation and where/how it is used will have varying impacts on your SEO. Some punctuation is completely ignored, some should be avoided although doesn’t strictly have an impact on SEO and some can make minor differences when the search engines are indexing your content.

In the examples you’ve provided, it doesn’t make much difference at all. I personally would put spaces between the dash and slash, but that is purely to make the text more legible and doesn’t really impact on the indexing of the content.

When naming files, I tend to use hyphens instead of underscores and spaces. For instance I’d name the “Contact Us” page on a site: contact-us.htm instead of contact_us.htm or contact us.htm (as the later example would end-up looking like contact%20us.htm after it’s been parsed by the webserver/browser. The same applies to adding any other unnecessary punctuation (such as inverted commas, quotation marks, ampersands, exclamation marks, commas etc. etc.) as this can also create some funky looking page names.

If you were optimising a page for the keywords men’s hats vs mens hats - this slight variation (with or without the apostrophe) would have an impact on how Google indexes the content and while you’ll still rank for both terms, you’ll obviously rank better for the term that matches what you’ve used in your content.

As you’ll probably use your chosen keyword more than once on the page, you could choose to use punctuation most of the time, but “accidentally” leave it out on a couple of occasions to cover both bases.

Generally speaking, your best bet is to adhere to the standard grammatical rules for punctuation and when in doubt, err on the side of the reader and not the search engine as usability and readability far outweigh the very minor benefit that could potentially be gained otherwise.

If you’re looking for some good articles that pertain to punctuation and SEO, here’s a few to check-out:

How Google Treats Punctuation
How Punctuation in Keywords Affects Google Results
Does punctuation affect SEO?
Watch Your Punctuation Online

Hope this helps

Peter Newsome
SiteMost Search Engine Optimisation

Popularity: 2%

Dear Kalena…

I’m on the verge of starting an apartment mega site mixed with social networking kind of like Rent.com meets Myspace, where people can list property for rent, etc.

I need tons of traffic and was going to start this off strong by targeting the keyword “apartments”. I have heard from many people to go more targeted but I need the massive traffic as I will be running Adsense as well. What would be the perfect way to tackle this?

I currently have someone writing 1,000+ articles with the keyword and derivative of it so I’m set in that arena.

Thanks again and any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cathy

Hi Cathy,

The first challenge any SEO faces isn’t how to improve the rankings of a website, but more-so how to manage the clients expectations.

While I acknowledge the need for massive amounts of traffic for your website to work effectively, it’s also important to remember that taking-on very generic keywords and wanting to compete with highly authoritative websites will take a lot of time and money. There is no cheap or easy way to accomplish this and if you don’t have a substantial (and really, that’s my polite way of saying HUGE) marketing budget covering a mix of both online and offline advertising along with the patience of a Tibetan Monk, you’d better stop reading here.

At the time of composing this post, there are roughly 181,000,000 sites indexed by Google.com for the word apartments. Rent.com has over 9,000,000 inbound links. The number one site ranked for the term ‘apartments’ has over 11,000,000 inbound links and the sites in the other top 5 each have well over 100,000 inbound links (all according to Yahoo’s Site Explorer).

So the first challenge will be finding a way to attract over 100,000 good quality links.

The next challenge will be the age of your website - each of the top sites in this niche have been around for over 10 years. Google looks at the age of a site as a sign of trust and authority, so if you setup a brand new website on a brand new domain name, it could take years before Google even considers your site in the same league as the sites you’re targeting.

Google’s Traffic Estimator tool suggests that advertisers are paying up to $3 per click for the word ‘apartments’ and the recommended daily budget (as suggested by Google) to achieve the maximum number of clicks through their PPC system would be approximately $39,820. This would bring you anywhere between 21,819 - 27,364 click every day.

So if that’s the amount of traffic you’re hoping for - it’s simply a matter of putting aside $1,200,000 a month on Adwords.

Now the Yahoo! and Google data above is bound to change and should only be used as a guide, but based on this information, it clearly indicates that a few thousand keyword-rich articles and a well optimised site isn’t going to cut it.

My advice would be to focus on more specific keywords (perhaps targeting different locations), try and create a range of viral/linkbait articles that will help generate slightly higher-than-normal link quantity while building relationships with other prominent (and industry-relevant) sites to get the link quality in there. To utilise social media effectively, you should also start to build an online profile within some of major networks and start creating genuine connections with people through comments, guest blogging, submitting other great articles (not written by you) etc.

Be prepared to pay for some online advertising through systems like Adwords and banner advertising or sponsorship deals with other high-volume sites. And although I probably shouldn’t be endorsing offline advertising on an SEO blog, you should also use mainstream media to gain greater exposure for your brand.

If you consistently roll-out great content, focus on managable keywords, form the right partnerships with the right websites, be prepared to put in the time-and-effort with social media and embrace the old adage “you have to spend money to make money”… in a few years time, you might be in a better position to try and tackle the major players.

If all this seems like too much hard work… maybe making money online isn’t for you.

Hope this helps!

Peter Newsome
SiteMost SEO Brisbane

Popularity: 5%

Hi Kalena,

We’re having a debate here - what’s the difference between a (bad) doorway page and a (good) landing page? Is hosting an informative 1 page on a topic (eg:www.bluewidgets.com) and having that point to multiple pages on a related, parent site (e.: www.widgetes.com) frowned upon by Google, and does that technique fall under the landing or doorway page title?

Thanks for your help!

Cindy

An excellent question Cindy.

At their extremes, the differences between a spammy doorway page and a good landing page are usually pretty obvious to us humans. A “doorway” page has been designed specifically to appeal to search engines and rank well for a particular keyword phrase (or phrases) is typically stuffed with keywords, makes little real sense when you read it, and adds no real value to the user experience, whereas a “landing page” has been optimised for search rankings, but also aims to be useful and appealing to human visitors, and encourage them to take an appropriate call to action.

It can be much more difficult to determine the difference between a well crafted doorway page and an over-optimised landing page - not only for humans- but also for Google.

Google has to algorithmically determine the difference between these types of pages and uses a whole variety of factors to decide whether or not a particular page deserves a good ranking or a penalty. The types of factors taken into account could include - keyword density, duplicate content, inbound and outbound links, number of similar pages,

Ultimately the difference is probably a matter of intent - If a page has been created to be useful to visitors it will probably be treated by Google as a landing page, if the page has been over-optimised to a point that it becomes of little real benefit to users, then it will be treated by Google accordingly. This is one of the dangers associated with over-optimising a page or even an entire site. Even though it may have started out with a clear and useful purpose, over-optimisation could result in reduced rankings.

In the example you’ve provided I think the important word is “informative”. It is quite legitimate (and in fact encouraged) to link from a useful page on one site to relevant pages on another site.

Hope that helps.

Andy Henderson
WebConsulting Web Optimisation & Design

Popularity: 6%

Hi Kalena,

I have recently been working on SEO optimization where we promote our trainings to the individuals, we have implemented certain algorithms to optimize certain pages which is working but how can I make my contents more relevant so that I can reduce my bounce rate & increase conversion rate.

Best,
Chetan

Hi Chetam,

A great question, as it highlights that optimising your site to improve Traffic is really just a part of the overall optimisation process. Increasing traffic through SEO is a great way to start, but you also have to ensure that you make the most out of all the traffic that you do get.

It could be argued that the you can simply double your sales by doubling your traffic, and this may be achievable for low traffic volumes, but as your traffic increases the effort required to double it also increases. Once you are getting a reasonable volume of traffic to your site, it can very often be more efficient to work at improving your conversion rate than increasing your traffic.

Your sites Conversion Rate is the percentage of visitors that purchase a product, or make an enquiry, or signup to your newsletter, or undertake whatever activity it is that you want them to do. The process of improving your conversions is called Conversion Optimisation (or Conversion Rate Optimisation), and there are many many strategies that you can use (see Conversion Rate Experts - Google Website Optimizer 101 – a quick-start guide to conversion rate optimization for a list of more than 100 different techniques).

Your bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to your site that look at a single page (the landing page) before leaving. A high bounce rate can be an indication of a relevancy issue as you have suggested, but it is not necessarily so. A high bounce rate could also indicate that the visitors to your site are not really interested in your products/services in the first place, and the keywords targeted, or the strategy you are using to drive traffic (PPC for example) is not working properly. You can make use of your site usage stats to take a closer look at the visitors that do convert - Do they predominantly come from a single source, or a certain group of keywords ? If so, focus your SEO strategies on these.

A high bounce rate could also be an indication of problems with the look, or functionality of your site. If your site is slow to load, or difficult to navigate - if your product/ service offerings are not clear, or your call to actions are not obvious or enticing enough, your bounce rates are likely to be high, and your conversion rates low.

Try some usability testing - sit someone down at your site and watch over their shoulder while they use it. Very often they will use your site quite differently to how you expect them to. On the basis of this usability testing compile a list of changes that could be made to your site, that you believe will improve the user experience, and make it clearer and easier for visitors to get to your call to actions.

When implementing changes to your site make sure that you test and monitor the results. If a particular change (or batch of changes) decreases your bounce rate and improves your conversion rate it is probably a good thing. There are tools available such as Google’s (Free) Website Optimizer that can help you with testing and monitoring the impact of changes to your site.

Have Fun with Conversion Optimisation - it can have dramatic impact on the effectiveness of your website.

Andy Henderson
WebConsulting - Website Optimisation Services

Popularity: 7%

Hi Kalena,

wanted to ask you a question regarding ‘website auditing. 1.Is it good to audit the website using the tools or its good to audit the website manually. Can you please suggest some good auditing tools.

Tamali

Hi Tamali,

The best tools to use for an SEO Audit largely depend on the purpose of the Audit.

If you want a quick status update to see how an optimisation campaign is going, or the CEO has asked for SEO information on the corporate website (and doesn’t want the detail), than a single SEO tool that provides an overall score might be OK.

Usually however, when undertaking an SEO Audit, you will be looking for much more than an overall rating. The aufit process you use should highlight a range of issues, and identify a number of areas where optimisation can be applied. For a proper SEO Audit, I would recommend using a variety of different tools, and a number of manual processes as well - each focused on a particular aspect of the site and optimisation strategy.

As you are probably aware, there are many many SEO Tools available (try a Google search for “SEO Tool”). Like all things in life, some of these are better than others - depending on your specific needs.

When evaluating an SEO tool, I suggest that you try it out first against a site with which you are very familiar - and see how it goes - are the results what you would expect ? Are the recommendations reasonable ?. Also, try to dig into the detail to understand what a tool actually does and how it does it - Don’t blindly accept the data and recommendations made by any tool - or you could find yourself spending lots of time and effort “optimising” your site - with little real benefit.

SEOMOz has a range of very sexy SEO Tools (some are Free , others are only available to PRO Members).

You could also take a look on Search Marketing Standard at a recent series of articles on Conducting your own SEO Audit - by Rebecca Appleton. This series of 3 articles provides a good outline on the types of areas that you should be examining as a part of an SEO Audit.

Andy Henderson
Ireckon Web Marketing

Popularity: 6%