Els wrote:
> canadafred wrote:
>
> [me and my SEO]
> > She has come to us wanting to know how to achieve more keyphrase
> > dynamicability.
>
> Pardon?
>
> Let me state what I think I was doing here:
>
> John said I should be listed on your site as a SEO expert. I said I
> shouldn't since I'm not. I think I've written several messages, all
> stating the same thing, being that I do SEO for as much as it is
> naturally the result of writing good pages for visitors. Even debated
> the difference between a by-product and a coincidence.
> The conversation then went on with TJ suggesting we should all submit
> a page to talk about different SEO techniques, to which I submitted my
> page.
>
> I did not come here for advice, I got involved in an experiment. Two
> different things afaik. The reason I'm reading this ng at all, is to
> become aware of ideas I may not have considered before. Like for
> example the suggestion to use alt text on the image where I have
> alt="" now.

I can't seem to dig out the past thread where all this originates. I
was under the impression that you were not staisfied with performing
well with only one variation of keyowrds and you were open to
suggestions as to how to diversify your keyphrase presence in the
SERPs. Was it not you that hoped to rank better for variations of the
order of the keywords? Like I said, maybe I am confused. It is not
generally a good idea for me to stick my neck out and perform SEO
critiques. That was the intention of moving the thread to a new one. To
open up the code to SEO critique.

> > The web site needs to become dynamic, evolving too from
> > being more search engine friendly during this initial period of time to
> > being more visitor friendly during another period of time.
>
> No, it has to be visitor friendly from the start, and remain visitor
> friendly always. I prefer a couple of good links from people who think
> I wrote a good tutorial, than a higher SERP in Google while people
> have trouble seeing through the SEO on my page.

Just because a web page is well oprtimized doesn't make it a bad
visitor experience by proxy. This is what SEO is about. It is an
illusion of sorts whereas nothing appears to have changed yet
everything has changed.

> BTW - I'm not doing badly in the SERPS - why would I jeopardize that
> by trying to get even higher? I mean - even 'border image ie' gives me
> no. 9 out of 30,300,000 in Google.nl, and a 17th place out of
> 24,400,000 in Google.com. If I swap it around to 'image border ie',
> it's no. 3. No keyword stuffing, no disguised headers, not even an alt
> text, and using too long titles.

Hey, if that satisfies you, then that satisfies you.

> > Ultimately,
> > a balance needs to be met whereas both are very satisfied with the
> > content of the web pages. This balance we hope Els can discover soon.
>
> That balance is already there, unless "both" means you and T.J ;-)
> As said before, there's a couple of things I will change in that page
> as a result of the comments I got here, but it's nowhere in the
> direction of spammy or black hat.

.... both in this case means your web visitor as well as the search
engines ( emphasis on the trailing "s" in search engines )

> > If today Els decides to empower her web site with acceptable techniques
> > that the search engines request us SEO to use properly, then only they
> > can truly determine if its ethical nature.
>
> Who's 'they' in that sentence? Sorry, the grammar of it didn't parse
> with me very well. Assuming it is me, then sure, only I can determine
> what I find ethical to write on my site.

In SEO, only the search engines can judge your presentation.

> > To our eyes it may appear spammy or it may not appear to be spammy.
> > That really doesn't matter now does it?
>
> It certainly does, to me at least.
>
> > It all boils down to how the
> > SEO techniques are applied and how the search engines respond to them.
> > Els will need to find her own balance, in time.
>
> True. For as far as I hadn't found it already.

I get this feeling that you are intentionally trying to limit your
capabilities.

> > I say get innovative and push it Els. Live on the edge until you haver
> > established the web site's credibility, then adjust over time by
> > carefully observing the search engines' ( not just Google )responses.
>
> No, I will stay well clear of the edge. I will take some of the
> pointers into consideration though, as I obviously didn't explore all
> the options yet, even away from the edge.

I realize that you are not an SEO. If you were, you would already know
that "thinking out of the box" to derive a solution when faced with an
SEO weakness is mandatory. Risk taking at the expert level means the
difference between having a future in SEO or not. A bad risk will
destroy an SEO. Well beyond anything I could possibly say to you today
Els is the underlining reality that: in order to be the best in
anything in life one must push one's limits to the max. This is the
nature of competition. I think in SEO, that those that feel the highest
awards to difficult to reach and settle for just having a place in the
lead pack are but a breath away to being throned.

Looks at the number Els. #1 gets 13% of the keyphrase traffic, #2 gets
11%, #3 less etc. on it goes. You have 30,300,000 web pages behind your
position. How many of those do you think want the top place in the
race? The day that web design alone determines rankings is not here.

> > This is a discussion about SEO and it's relationship with design
> > standards and the response of Els' SEO from the search engines. SEO
> > stands for search engine optimization which originally meant
> > optimization of code for the search engines.
> >
> > Els, do you want to design, optimize or both?
>
> I want to design accessible web sites, and optimize them for as much
> as looks, feels, sounds natural to myself and my visitors. I stated
> from the beginning: I'm not a SEO expert, nor do I advertise myself as
> such.

Happy SERPs.

--
Fred
http://canadian-web-site-promotion.blogspot.com/