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• Can Talk Tech is the tech blog of Rhodilee Jean Dolor. I wanted my blog to be named something else. Thanks to domain squatters, I ended up adopting Can Talk Tech and up to this day I still wonder whether I have to change the title of my blog.

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4 Sites to Search for the Most Popular Keywords in the Internet

There are several SEO advantages if you know the most popular keywords in the internet, you will learn what people search for which will give an idea what’s hot and what’s not in the world wide web. To put it simply, knowing what the most popular keywords are will allow you to drive traffic to your site.

Here are four sites that can be used to research for the most searched items in the internet:

Yahoo Buzz. Yahoo buzz identifies the most popular stories through a buzz score that is based on people’s searches, votes and emails. Hot items are often displayed as feature stories in the yahoo page but the yahoo buzz site itself provides an hourly update of the top 10 keywords on yahoo.

Google Zeitgeist Hot Trends. Googel displays its top 100 keywords at the Google Zeitgeist Hot Trends.The keywords are based on US searches. Country specific top keywords can be found here. The results for the top 15 keywords by country are updated monthly.

Lycos 50. Lycos features its top queries on a weekly basis in the Lycos 50. Particular terms are excluded from the list such as country names, automated queries, pornographic and four letter words. Misspellings and plurals are also considered when counting the searches for a particular keyword.

Technorati. Technorati does not only display the most popular blogs and sites in the internet. It also displays the top 15 searches, top videos. top movies and top news.

The most popular keywords in the internet may be very competitive. This is why I suggest using related keywords when writing about these popular search engine terms.

Posted in SEO | No Comments »

How to Make Your Keywords Work

Keywords used in the visible text of a blog post are considered as among the big factors that determine how a site will rank in the SERP. Using keywords effectively can therefore increase a site’s chances of “getting noticed” by the search engines. Here are ways on how to make keywords work for a web page:

1. Use descriptive keywords with lesser competition. Many people advice the use of keyword research tools when writing articles but top ranking keywords may not always be the best as there can be tons of people using the same keywords. Using single word keywords can prove to be very competitive so the use of keyword phrase will be a good option. Another way to do this is to “localize” your keyword (e.g. Davao Jobs instead of Jobs). This post provides tips on how to best localize a keyword. Remember to use related keywords and synonyms.

2. Do not break your keyword phrase. Keyword proximity refers to the closeness of your keywords in your page or article. The closer the keywords in your article are, the better. This is best applied when using keyword phrases. It is best not to put stop words such as “in” and “at” between important keywords in your article. Example:

Eden is one of the best Davao tourist spots

is better than

Eden is one of the best tourist spots in Davao

Another good example of using keyword proximity is here. Proper use of forward and reverse proximity must also be observed (eg: optimizing website vs website optimization) because they may have different ranking results.

2. Place your important keywords in the beginning and end of your article.This is otherwise referred to as observing keyword prominence. Important keywords, particularly the keyword that you want to rank on should ideally be placed in the beginning of the first paragraph. Using the primary keyword in the last paragraph is also advised.

3. Emphasize your keywords.The v7n blog says that bold texts have more weight than regular texts. Italized words words are also given more emphasis than regular words in your article so use bold or italic texts in your target keyword. Remember not to abuse the use of these specialized texts though, highlighting a keyword once or twice is enough.

4. Avoid over stuffing your article with keywords. I have noticed that I have been using too much keywords lately particularly in my sites that display google ads. Nevertheless some SEO experts already say that keyword density is useless as this is not related to keywords’ proximity and prominence. On the other hand, some SEO people also say that overstuffing articles with keywords will have undesirable results. Search engines reportedly penalize the use of excessive keywords and see this as a form of “keyword spamming”. So what is the ideal keyword density? Garry Conn says 3% to 6% for keyword density is ideal. This tool can be used to check a page’s keyword density. Nevertheless, I want to take heed of this advice from bigoakinc.com: If too many keywords make your article sound silly, then take them out. You should after all, write for humans and not for search engine robots.

5. Use alt tags. Search engines “read” texts so make your images “readable” by using the alt tags. Alt tags are used to describe an image and serve as a text keyword. The general format for the alt tag is <img src="image.jpg" alt="keyword phrase" title="keyword phrase" />. According to searchengines.com, the search engines do not penalize overstuffing alt tags with keywords. Nevertheless, better be careful than sorry so be cautious when using alt tags in your image.

6. Optimize keywords one at a time. Do not optimize a number of keywords in one article or page. Concentrate on one keyword one at a time. You can use related keywords in your post but make sure that you focus on one keyword that you will use in your title tag, emphasize and place in the beginning of the article.

7. No black hat please. Be careful not to use “hidden texts” by avoiding text colors which are of the same or near the color of your background. Many consider this as a popular form of black hat SEO which can result in your site being penalized by the search engines.

This article is part 2 of CTT Blogging and SEO Series

Posted in Blogging, SEO | 4 Comments »

4 Ways to Optimize Title Tags for SEO

The title tag is considered as one of the most basic and most important factors that can contribute to how well a site places in the search engine results page (SERP). Search engine searchers are also more likely to visit a site with good title tags than sites without title tags at all. The ability to optimize a title tag will therefore make a site loved by search engines and visited by more people. Fortunately, optimizing title tags is now much easier with new tools such as the wordpress SEO title tag plugin. Here are some ways on how to optimize a title tag for SEO:

1. Make your title tag keyword rich. The title tag should contain important and related keywords that best describe the site article. Note: do not use keywords that are NOT related or visible in the content or text of your post. Keyword phrases are better used in title tags than single keywords because competition is not as stiffer. Keywords can also have better variance when geographical terms are included in your title tag.

2. Make title tag as descriptive and catchy as possible. The title tag should not only be a bunch of keywords but a free standing phrase descriptive enough to give an idea what the post is all about. Many do not advise repeating keywords in a title tag because search engines may consider this as a form of spamming. Nevertheless, you can use secondary versions of your keyword in your title tag. A good title tag makes a searcher know what to expect from the post. Remember to use proper capitalization because title tags in all caps are difficult to read. Bloggers and webmasters can also take advantage of catchy title tags to entice search engine searchers to visit their site. Here is a good post on how to make catchy and descriptive title tags: HTML Title Tag Defines Your SEO Strategy.

3. Make the title tag unique. It is not advised to use the same title tag for every page of your site and while it is recommended to write your title tag based on the contents of your article, it is not a good idea to use an exact phrase or sentence from your article as the title tag. Similarly, it is also advised to do away from generic title tags such as “page” and “home”. A unique sentence or phrase should be separately made for use in the title tag.

4. Know the character limit of your title tag. Google limits the title tag to 66 characters only and yahoo can cater up to 120 characters. Using “&” instead of “and” can help in decreasing the number of characters in the title tag. (Using a title tag that is different from your blog post title is therefore ideal if you have a lengthy post title). Because search engines display limited numbers of characters from the title, it is ideal to place the more important keywords near or in the beginning of the title. You can make a title tag work for both yahoo and google by creating a primary title tag for google and a secondary title tag for yahoo. This post will explain this in detail. Shorter title tags (not more than 10 words) are also reportedly more effective than title tags with more than 10 words.

This article is part 2 of the CTT Blogging and SEO Series. The articles under this series are compilation of things that I am learning about blogging and search engine optimization.

Posted in SEO | 3 Comments »