keyword density Archives by Mark Murnahan

SEO Tip: WordPress Category Descriptions Matter

SEO: It is the art and science of getting your website listed in search engine results for more search terms and listed higher than all the others. This is a pretty important factor to website success … and business success. So, it would seem tragic if you had done almost all the right things, but then you just forgot some of the basics.

Nobody is perfect. We all forget things. I want to give you a reminder of something that I frequently find overlooked by WordPress blog owners when they set up a new blog, and as the blog grows. The basic principle can apply to any website, really. The little things really do add up, and this is a quick SEO tip that you can use to improve your SEO so fast that you may wonder why you ever neglected it.

WordPress Category Descriptions

Sure, you have set up your categories, and you may add to them now and then. Blogs change over time, and so their focus changes. Categorizing your content is important, and so you probably did not forget that part. What I find that a lot of people do forget is to optimize WordPress category descriptions to match their content.

WordPress categories are a way to make it easier for people to find more information on the same topic. They also help search engines to better index your blog. It only makes good sense to have your category descriptions reflect the content of that category correctly, and keep it up to date.

The category description is where WordPress gets the page description for category pages to include in the meta description. If you do not have a description, or it is an old description that does not reflect changes to your blog and to the state of that category, your blog is missing an important element.

Using “Noindex, Follow” in WordPress Category Pages

You may say, “but I have a noindex, follow meta tag in my categories.” This is good, and I do, too. I use “All in One SEO Pack“, and I recommend it to others. It allows easy management of meta indexing directives.

I do not want search engines to index my categories, but I want them to know exactly what the categories are about and then follow the category page links to my article pages. It makes sense that I should give them a good meta description.

It may seem trivial, but when you consider it, many of the things we do to optimize our websites for search engine ranking really are just little pieces. Those little pieces add up to be one big picture, and until you get them all together, the puzzle is still not complete.

Managing WordPress Category Descriptions

Just to be sure I did not give you a great idea and motivate you to take action, but not follow through with a “how to”, I will tell you a couple of tips on where to go and do this, and also what to include.

First, for anybody unfamiliar with where to edit WordPress categories. Depending on the version of WordPress you are using, you will find it in your blog administration either under “Posts” and then “Categories” or under “Manage” and then “Categories”. From there, you will see all of your categories listed. Simply click on a category name and add or modify the description. I would not suggest changing the “slug”, because it would change the URL and upset your internal link structure and search engines would have to learn it all over again.

Now that you are ready to edit your blog categories, try to create a description that reflects the emphasis of the category, and how it relates to the overall content of the site. As an example, my “Internet Marketing” category description reads as follows:

“Internet marketing has many sub-categories and this information focuses on marketing content creation, SEO, and social media marketing.”.

As you can see here, it reflects the blog category, but it also reflects how it relates to the overall subject of the blog.

I hope you have found this to be useful. It is sometimes easy to forget the little steps, but they all matter.

For more useful WordPress-specific tips and tricks, I recommend my friend, Ruhani Rabin‘s blog. Here is a link directly to his WordPress category where he has a lot of useful articles about tweaking WordPress blogs.

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Overkill

I just read a blog post about search engine optimization that made my head hurt. It talked about how important it is to be found in search results, and how it is a far more effective way to reach qualified potential customers for your service or product. This is all fine and good, and also very true. After all, if you are selling, let’s say “weight loss” for example, you will reach a lot of thin people by advertising it on television, radio, banner ads, or other methods. When you reach them in organic search engine results, you will clearly reach a much larger percentage of people who are overweight or at least looking for ways to lose weight. Reaching the right people with your message is the beauty of Internet marketing.

Here Comes the SEO Overkill

What the blog post failed to mention, or give any consideration to at all, is that repeating the same keyword phrase over and over is about the last way you will ever achieve high search engine rankings. It is against the rules, and should be carefully avoided. It is a form of Web spam called keyword stuffing, and it is one of the most effective ways to have your Website blacklisted by search engines. Nobody will call you on the phone or send you a nice letter to warn you about it. You will simply disappear from search engine response pages (serps), and your efforts will be put into reverse.

Search Engine Spamming Never Pays

If you think that you may be clever enough to get away with search engine spamming, think again. Detecting over-use of keywords, although only one small element of Web spam, is about the easiest challenge for Web spam experts. Repeating yourself over and over again is not nice when you are talking to a person face-to-face, and it is just as annoying when you do it on a Website. A lesson I learned a long time ago and have tried to teach people is to write the way you would as if search engines did not even exist. Although you may want to phrase some things differently for keyword proximity, your overall message should never be an awkward read just because you want it to rank highly in search engine results. Spamming is not nice, and it does not pay. If you got really lucky, may see a surge in rankings for a day, week, or month, but it may be at the cost of losing it all and being sharply penalized.

Is Matt Cutts Watching?

As long as there have been search engines, there have been people trying to cheat them with clever trickery like keyword stuffing, doorway pages, hidden text, and so many other methods it is hard to count. For each of these tricks, search engine anti-spam professionals like Google’s Matt Cutts, who is in charge of Google’s Webspam team, have an answer. These men and women are working hard and smart every day to eliminate useless content that tries to cheat their search engine algorithms. They are watching, and even if it does not exclude your content from their search engines, it will have a bearing.

Quality Website Content Always Wins

When you think about all of the ways you may be able to reach your market, try to remember what I am telling you here. Good website content will always be the best way to share what you know and will always be the best way to be highly indexed and well regarded by search engines. There are thousands of pages of content that I have written over my decade in this field, and thousands of keywords in that content. Many people read my articles, and many people link to them. This is how it works, and this is how it will always work: Do the right thing, and it will always come back in your favor.

Author Mark Murnahan is the Chairman and CEO of YourNew.com, Inc. and provides SEO consulting services to companies and non-profit organizations. Mark Murnahan may be reached toll free at 866-A-Web-Guy (*REDACTED DUE TO AGING WEBSITE*) for consultation.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Art or Science?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a term that many people may recognize, but seldom clearly understand. Most people exposed to the term grasp the fact that search engine optimization is designed to help bring more traffic to their Website, but that is where their knowledge ends. Without a good understanding what search engine optimization is, many people are destined to either fail in their online marketing pursuits, or alternately throw good money out the window by paying the search engine optimizer with the best sales pitch … the SEO with all hat and no cattle. First things first, I want to address the title of this blog post “Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Art or Science?”

Is SEO an art? The answer is clearly and undeniably “yes”.
Is SEO a science? The answer is clearly and undeniably “yes”.

If this sounds strange, let us look at each of these aspects of SEO so you can decide for yourself.

Search Engine Optimization as an Art

While you read this article, you can surely see the art. After all, I am writing to you in a conversational form, and the way in which I choose my every word is work that surely does not seem scientific. All the while, I am writing an article that will likely be plucked up by search engine spiders for inclusion in their databases and returned in many search results on this topic.

Search Engine Optimization as a Science

This is an area where many SEO firms will try to sell you. It is the wizardry and hocus pocus of the SEO industry. Some companies will try to tell you that they have special technologies to bring or keep your Website at the top of search engine results. Technology is certainly an important aspect of SEO, and cannot be overlooked. Factors I have written about such as keyword research, keyword proximity, keyword usage, keyword density, and many other search engine optimization technology practices are hugely important to the success of any SEO campaign. We must know what keyword phrases people are actually searching for, how competitive it is, how to format contents of a Website, and much more.

Which is More Important in SEO – Art or Science?

The art and science of SEO are both important for top search engine results, and I mean more than just finding your company name in a search engine. Without the science, you face an uphill battle against huge odds. At the same time, without the artistic part, it is like a house of cards. The truth is that the artistic part is more important to the overall results. I have been writing on the Internet for so many years that I often find that when an article is completed, I have met all of the science of search engine optimization, such as keyword usage, keyword proximity, and programming concerns without even trying. Most important to a search engine is the visible text content of the Website. The information is the most important part of this Information Superhighway. You may have noticed that I am writing about search engine optimization here, and not tractor tires and fishing lures. My content is on-topic and keyword rich.