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One of the core aspects of search engine optimisation is the process of writing good copy for search engines.  This doesn’t mean that there is some hidden technical copy that you need to develop just for search engines - SEO copywriting is the process of writing good, compelling copy for your site that not only is useful for users, but is also in line with what search engines look for in good pages.

The key to this is the use of keywords or keyphrases - these are the terms that people use to search for websites via search engines.  Each of these keywords are unique markets with different types of people searching for different aims in mind (research, shopping, etc).

Through the initial SEO process, you (or your search engine optimiser) will carry out keyword research using a variety of tools.  This is the basis of your optimisation campaign.  From here, you can base your copywriting efforts on the identified keywords.

Search engine copywriting tips

• Try to keep your pages between 500 and 1000 words.  This isn’t an issue for SEO - it’s just better for users.  Although if you have lots of copy, then it’s useful to split it over many pages as you can use each page to target different, but related terms).
• Include your target keywords in all key areas of your page - the page title, H1 tag, in the body copy and within your Meta information.
• Your body copy should include your target keyword several times, although its important not to go over board - a “keyword density” of 4% to 10% is good.
• Don’t sacrifice the quality of your copy to get more keywords in there - would you rather covert 30% of 100 visitors or 1% of 1000?
• If you refer to related areas, then link to a page on your site that covers that topic.  And don’t worry about linking to other sites - if its good for your users, then its fine by search engines!
• Don’t try to hide keywords - search engines have no problems noticing white text on a white background, or text hidden off screen using CSS.  They will penalise your site for it!
• Its not necessary to optimise every page of your site!  Having good content that isn’t optimised can be just as beneficial - you are more likely to discover small markets (sources of traffic) that you hadn’t thought about.  Search terms with small search frequencies may not seen attractive when you research them, but if you hit them naturally, the traffic can add up.
• Don’t simply use the same text on multiple pages and change the keyword.  Write original text for your site.
• Use synonyms and related terms when writing your copy - if you are talking about “jogging” then mention “running”, “fitness”, “job”, “exercise” and so on.

A last note.  There may very well be a “perfect” formula for writing good SEO copy.  However, that would be easily recognisable by search engines.  And if this is the case - wouldn’t other sites be using the same formula and producing similar copy?  Is that what you want?

Original, interesting copy is the way forward - meeting the guides for “perfect SEO copy” is a distant second.

A “spambot” is an automated program that is used to find discussion forums with the aim of registering and posting a pre-defined post.  The purpose of this is to use forum profiles, signatures and post to add links to back to the owner’s site.

As we know, there are areas of link building that are deemed to be “unethical” and this is one of them.  Automated posts are a nuisance for forum administrators who need to take the time to review posts and moderate (edit or delete) inappropriate posts.  Plus, many sites which use spambots for link building are in highly competitive areas (such as casinos, porn or pharmaceuticals) which can lead to users of the forum being exposed to inappropriate content.

Spambots tend to target specific types of forums, so as an addition to our SEO tips section, I thought I would add some advice on protection your phpBB forum from spambots.

Tips to protect your phpBB forum from spambots

• Don’t allow guests (unregistered users) to post.
• Update phpBB and activate captcha authorisation (done via config in admin panel). This displays a random image (with text in it) during the registration process that users need to type in to register. Not a problem for humans but bots have trouble with it.
• Remove memberlist.php (or replace it with a blank page). A lot of spam bots go unnoticed because they simply register and use profile URL to get their link. Removing memberslist.php doesn’t stop them but it screws them which is almost as good!
• Delete or alter the phpBB reference in the footer - some spam bots use search engines to find this string of text to select targets. Doesnt stop all bots (some work from a list of existing forum URLs). You can check if this is happening via referral stats.
• Add a new variable to registration process - a simple question with toggle box answer - “are you human?” yes / no. Bots are pre-programmed for standard forum setup so will hit a wall with this.
• Use swearword filter to censor certain phrases - URLs of sites that spam and common spam words (porn, casino, viagra, etc). Wordpress has a nice list of spam words (http://codex.wordpress.org/Spam_Words).
• Activate admin authorisation of new users. A little time consuming to do for busier forums though.

Hope this helps.  It is important to take action against forum and blog comment spam - the less effective we can make it for the spammers, the less likely they are to do it.

Welcome to the first in a series of search engine optimisation tips.  These tips will start off covering some basic SEO issues and eventually move on to more complicated areas.

The topic of today’s tip is to whether or not use the www version of your domain (eg www.eflaunt.com) or the non-www version (eg eflaunt.com).

With regards SEO it doesn’t matter which you use - as long as you focus on one.

Search engines can potentially view both versions as different sites and while they are pretty clever at deciding which to favour in their results, sometimes the wrong version can be listed.

In addition, links from other sites can usually point to either version (usually the www version though) and therefore your natural link popularity is diluted to “different” sites.

The reason that this is the problem is that most webhosts will automatically redirect the non www version to the www version.  The methods they can do this are varied, but in some cases, search engines can interpret the redirection as another site altogether.

There are several ways you can get search engines to list your preferred URL:

301 redirects

A 301 permanent redirect can be implemented by your webhost if you host your site with a commercial hosting provider.  This basically tells browsers and search engine spiders which is the correct version of the domain to view.  Note that a 302 redirect isn’t sufficient as this is a temporary redirect and as such, search engines will continue to revisit the undesired domain.

Internal Linking

A simple prevention method (note: not a solution) - each time you link to your homepage, use the URL http://www.example.com instead of “index.htm” - ie, use an absolute URL rather than a relative one.

As said, this isn’t a solution - it won’t help older sites who have developed issues with the version of their domain being indexed.  It will however help newer sites start off on the right foot.

Google Webmaster Tools

Google now allow you to use their webmaster centre to specify which URL you wish to appear in their results pages.  This is a very easy way to resolve problems, although the service is new and may take a while for problems to be resolved.

MG