Internet Marketing & SEO

Do you gone overboard with your keyword density?

Sunday, April 8th, 2007 | Issues, SEO, Search Industry | 2 Comments

At Seodays, we talked about keyword density and how important keyword density is when optimizing your content. However, not everyone understands how keyword density works… and how going overboard with keyword density can sink your entire page to the bottom of the search engine results, if it even ranks at all.

Keyword density is a tricky one because the percentage you should have can vary depending on the market area. In a non-competitive area, you don’t need to worry much about it too other than to make sure those keywords are on the page, preferably in the first half of the content rather than the second half. But if you are in a competitive area, you need to hit certain percentages of keyword density, and placing them at specific places within your content, without crossing that invisible line where your content becomes so keyword heavy that it becomes spammy.

So what exactly does keyword density mean? It refers to the number of times you use your keyword on the page when compared to the overall total number of words on the page. Keep in mind that it will include any text in the headers, footers and navigation. If you don’t want to figure it out yourself, there are many free keyword density checkers available on the net. Also keep in mind that it is useful to use it to check your competitor’s keyword density and the sites that are ranking at the top for your most important keywords.

After I have written carefully crafted content for SEO, the first thing I do is take a step back and look at the content. Then, I read it out loud. Don’t worry, you will only sound funny to anyone within earshot if you have gone overboard on your keyword density. When you read it out loud, does it sound natural or does it sound odd or fake? If it doesn’t sound natural, then chances are good that not only will readers think of it as spammy, but the search engines could too. So change up your keyword density a bit, or replace some keywords with similar related words instead, in order to get it sounding natural rather than spammy. Then read out loud and repeat the process.

Dave has another technique, although it might not quite catch the subtle nuances that reading out loud can bring to light. Dave prints the content, then takes a highlighter and highlights the keywords. If it looks like more highlighter than white, you need to tone those keywords down a bit too.

If you are hiring authors to create content for you on certain keywords, you will definitely need to pay attention to that density. Especially if you are picking up content for $5 an article, the keyword density will either be non-existent page or will be so high that it would trip even the most basic spam filter. It is definitely a case of getting what you pay for… content writers who can do this correctly are worth their weight in gold when it comes to writing quality content.

The most important thing to keep in mind when crafting content with appropriate keyword density is that while you need to have the bots in mind while creating it, the visitor who lands on your page is the one the content should be written to. If the content is over clocked with keywords, it is extremely easy for them to hit that back button and go to your competitor’s site instead. So pay attention to your density and use the ways listed above to check that it isn’t too spammy :).

Should a favicon be part of your online branding & marketing presence?

Sunday, April 8th, 2007 | Issues, SEO | No Comments

You know those little favicons, where people try and make something resembling their logo appear in a teeny, tiny 16×16 pixel image. They show up in the navigation bar of many browsers and also appear in browser bookmarks or favorites (hence the name favicons which was shortened from favorites icon). But while they definitely have the coolness factor, especially if you manage to capture your site’s look successfully in the favicon, does your site really need to incorporate one? The answer, surprisingly, is yes.

A few years ago, favicons were only seen on a handful of sites, either super geeky ones or big brand ones. But since then, favicons have been becoming more mainstream and much more common to see. So while they have been gaining popularity, some savvy marketers are using them for branding as well as to encourage repeat visitors. But how, you might ask?

Favicons is a visual branding opportunity that many people are missing out on when planning their marketing campaign. People tend to dismiss using them as being too geeky, too much work to create or just lack of knowledge on how to do it. But the visual branding and reminder of your site is the most important role a favicon plays, and one you definitely shouldn’t miss out on.

Have a look at your favorites list. At a glance, which ones stand out? In Internet Explorer it is definitely the ones that have a colorful favicon next to their name rather than the IE “E” on a piece of paper. And it is worth noting that while IE6 only updated the favicons when you visited a site, and then would need to be revisited to display on subsequent browser sessions, IE7 automatically updates them and now shows them in the address bar.

Favicons also appear on the tabs of tabbed browsers, such as in IE7, Opera and Firefox, as well as many of the toolbars that create tabbed browsing in IE6, such as the Yahoo toolbar. Again, this is an additional branding opportunity while people have your site opened in a tab, even if it isn’t the site they happen to be viewing at the time.

Favicons also appear in the address bar of multiple browsers (although not in IE6 unless the site is bookmarked) for additional branding within the browser.

Favicons can also create better usability for your site, as visitors to your site can easily and quickly identify it in browser tabs without even having to read what it says in the tab, which is especially useful if you are using your titles correctly and are not starting all your site’s pages with your site name.

When designing a favicon, definitely avoid using the color blue. Unfortunately, even if your site’s theme is blue, the icon will end up just blending in with all those blue “E”s and you have lost valuable branding and visibility.

If you have a logo that easily translates into something 16×16, your best branding opportunity is to use it. This is how Nike and Apple quite successfully create their favicons.

Does a favicon need to be fancy? Not at all. If you can’t recreate your logo, or part of it, within those 16×16 pixels, consider creating an icon using just the first letter of your company name using your company’s colors to do it. Many sites do this for their favicons, and this is how both Google and Yahoo display their favicons for surfers, as well as Amazon.com.

Along the same lines, you can also use something like an exclamation mark or an asterisk as your favicon, again something that will catch the eye of surfers.

Flickr.com created their favicon by utilizing two colored circles, derived from the same colors featured in their logo. So abstract images utilizing site colors is also a way to create an identifiable favcon for your site.

So how do you create a favicon? It is actually easier than it sounds. Simply take your 16×16 gif or jpg and save it as favicon.ico (which is supported by many graphics programs today, such as Photoshop) and upload it to your root directory. Then add:

That’s it!