{"id":1767,"date":"2009-10-03T18:19:01","date_gmt":"2009-10-03T22:19:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/conference.journalists.org\/2009conference\/?p=1767"},"modified":"2009-10-03T18:19:01","modified_gmt":"2009-10-03T22:19:01","slug":"outwitting-the-algorithms-to-boost-your-sites-hits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ona09.journalists.org\/2009\/10\/03\/outwitting-the-algorithms-to-boost-your-sites-hits\/","title":{"rendered":"Outwitting the algorithms to boost your site\u2019s hits"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Austin Fast<\/p>\n

Search marketing experts Jennifer Groppone and Gradiva Couzin know a secret that Google and the big search engines don\u2019t want you know. They call search engine optimization a hidden entity that search engines try to keep quiet\u2014mostly because people can exploit it and boost their own rankings in search engine results.<\/p>\n

A mysterious search-ranking algorithm determines organic search results\u2014that is, results as they naturally rank. Groppone says we don\u2019t know exactly what this algorithm looks at when ranking results organically. But she offered some educated guesses at actions bloggers and online journalists can take to optimize their site\u2019s placement in organic search results along with some surefire ways to inadvertently sabotage those rankings.<\/p>\n

How to improve your Web site\u2019s rankings<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Place keywords in the HTML title and divorce it from the article title if necessary. Some article titles can be too specific for search purposes and will never be found. Use more general keywords in the HTML title that describe the article to attract more hits.<\/li>\n
  2. Use text keywords in the URL if possible. Rather than a string of numbers leading to a Web page, use the HTML title in the article\u2019s URL.<\/li>\n
  3. In article titles, use full first and last names, include proper names and locations; use numeric forms for numbers and include a meaningful descriptor. For example, use \u201cMovie Review: \u2018Up\u2019 Flies High\u201d instead of \u201c\u2019Up\u2019 Flies High,\u201d or include the word \u201cWatch\u201d if a video is on the page. Also, avoid abbreviations and alternate spellings.<\/li>\n
  4. Forget using Meta tag keywords in the HTML. Grappone says, \u201cIt\u2019s not going to hurt you, but you\u2019re wasting a lot of time on it.\u201d Couzin adds, \u201cYour time would be better spent doing something else.\u201d<\/li>\n
  5. Get people to link to your site. Search engines will see this as a vote for your site. Links from \u201cmore credible\u201d and \u201ctrustworthy\u201d sites boost your ranking more. However, not all links are created equal. They must not be paid links and any link on pages behind a login, like Twitter or Facebook, won\u2019t help rankings.<\/li>\n
  6. Track trends that people are interested in reading about right now. Use tools like Google Trends<\/a>, Google Insight<\/a>, Google AdWords<\/a>, Facebook Lexicon<\/a>, Twitter Streamgraphs<\/a> and Yahoo! Buzz<\/a> to find out what people want to see on your page.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    How to destroy your Web site\u2019s rankings:<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Have excessive duplicate content. Consider using canonical tags in your HTML code to cut down duplicate content in URLs.<\/li>\n
    2. Violate search engine spam rules with your content.<\/li>\n
    3. Have text in other languages that can\u2019t be read by English-dominated American search engines.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Austin Fast is a senior at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He is part of the ONA09 student newsroom<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      By Austin Fast
      \nThe big search engines are trying to keep a secret from you: how to improve your Web site’s ranking in search results. Find out ways to outwit the algorithms and boost your site to the top of the list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1863,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"start_time":0,"end_time":0,"moderators":[],"hashtag":[],"soundcloud":[],"scribble":[],"viafoura":[],"youtube":[],"vimeo":[],"facebook":[],"trint":[],"slideshare":[],"livestream":[],"resources":[],"video_embed":[],"first_name":"","last_name":"","title":"","organization":"","website":"","twitter":"","_sponsor_url":"","_sponsor_tagline":"","_sponsor_level":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[8,13],"tags":[79,80],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paaWrx-sv","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ona09.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ona09.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ona09.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ona09.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1863"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ona09.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ona09.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ona09.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ona09.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ona09.journalists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}