Els schreef:
> tonnie wrote:
>> Els schreef:
>>> tonnie wrote:
>>>> Els schreef:
>
> [http://locusoptimus.com/css-trickery...-on-hover.php]
>
>>>> - no headers
>>> You mean h2, h3? The pages are very short - where would you have put
>>> headers in?
>> I agree that there is not mucht text, but still, you could consider to
>> change this:
>>
>> The problem they experience, is demonstrated here:
>>
>> Into:
>>
>> <h3>The problem IE users experience with hovering on an image border:</h3>
>
> I'll think about that one, cause it may be good for SEO, but I don't
> find it as natural sounding as the sentence I had.

Just mentioned it as an option to get more structure in the text and the
propper weight to a few lines that do stand out imo.

It even makes it easier for a visitor, the text gets more accessible.
Just think of it as a helping hand to some one that is 'scanning' the
text to find the most important parts.

> To add a header, and keep it natural, I'd perhaps do it like this:
> <h3>Problem Demo</h3>

Why not make it <h3>IE Problem Demo</h3>

After all it _is_ a problem in IE

> <p>The problem IE users experience .... </p>
>
> That would be good for the visitor's overview of the page, but
> wouldn't add any SEO effect afaics.

Just a minor one. One of your keywords is 'problem' together with 'IE'.

>>>> - make your title as short as possible
>>>> no need to use this @ Locus Optimus &copy;2005
>>>> put it in the description or place it on the page in a footer
>>> I know there is no need, but I like it that way. Is it bad for SEO or
>>> any other reason?
>> The more text in a title, the weaker its components get.
>
> This is where I'll sacrifice SEO :-)

Oke. On the BBQ with it.

>>>> - to me there are, i can see you use johns technique of 'no menu'
>>>> on the page, not enough further options.
>>> No, I don't know of John's 'no menu' technique.
>> Ah, i see. Just jumped into conclusions then as i did read somewhere
>> Johne helped you out to optimise this one.
>
> That was this page:
> http://locusoptimus.com/css-trickery...lative-bug.php
> But I only took some pointers from him wrt to the content and titles,
> not the page set up or layout.
>
> This one is also influenced by John btw, and does rather well:
> http://locusoptimus.com/css-trickery/ie7-hover-bug.php
>
> Is no.1 for keywords 'new bug ie7', 'css rollover bug', 'ie7 rollover
> bug' and no.6 for 'new bug IE'. (all without quotes)

Jepp seen it. Nice!

>>>> all more or less minor points, but this one isn't:
>>>>
>>>> - to long dokument name
>
> [snip]

[snip strong words - small versus large dokument name]

I did mention his article just for those last lines. The long domain
name he gives as an example. It might not be seen as spam now, but in
his words i taste a little 'be cautious' and that sounds to me like it
could well be in the future.

A little paranoid i know. :-)

> [language flags]
>> That was years ago and discussed in niwo. That discussions did make an
>> impression then, didn't they.
>
> Surely did. It also helps that it gets repeated about every 3 months
> :-)

Hihi, niwo is a group of old habbits.

> [z vs s / US vs UK spelling]
>> I know, still figuring out what would be best. Catching them all in a
>> few pages or writing more to promote them. Hm, in fact i know what to
>> do. But hey lazy ...
>
> Go on, it won't take 10 minutes ;-)

I know, just as everything else just takes 10 minutes.

>>> (I take it you're still gonna add the instructions that are already in
>>> the Dutch version and partly in the German version?)
>> Yes, all of it has to be translated. But for the moment i am writing to
>> much in Dutch and having almost no time left to translate the rest.
>
> 15 minutes a day. (advice that I preach, not currently practise, but I
> know it works). Just take 15 minutes, and then stop. Don't get sucked
> into doing 16 minutes. Just 15 a day.

I'll try i promise.

>> App. 200 pages are still waiting to be translated into German and most
>> of them into English.
>
> I have the reverse problem. Wrote everything and anything in English -
> now I want to make a Dutch version. I used to have plans to translate
> LocusMeus into both Dutch and Portuguese as well, but I've since given
> up on that idea. Just too much work :-)

Hey, it just takes 15 minutes. :-D



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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.

> 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.

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.

> 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.

> 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.

> 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 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.

> 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.

--
Els http://locusmeus.com/
accessible web design: http://locusoptimus.com/

Now playing: Jethro Tull - Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day

"canadafred" wrote ...
> This sounds like very good advice Andrew except that it limits Els'
> ability to challenge other keyphrase competitors in the SERPs, at this
> stage of her game. She needs to get her pages to qualify for the top
> positions in a bigger arena. Sure, she could spend years regimentally
> standardizing code to her highest calibers and eventually have
> accumulated a substantial enough amount of incredible standardized code
> to sustain good SERP positions, The again, maybe not, maybe it'll be
> SERP oblivion for her web pages. She wants more keyphrases at the top
> than what she has already established and I would suspect she wants
> them this century.
....
> Els, do you want to design, optimize or both?

Fred, I hear what you are saying, but I don't agree; short term gains, if
really that important, can be achieved using standard (and straight)
paid-for methods.

There's never a need to take a risk with your main site; indeed, nine tenths
of keyword research and application would be no more useful than simply
adding quality unique content, ensuring good internal navigation, getting
into quality directories - and paying plenty of attention to design detail.

Many would argue that SEO=Design=SEO - they go hand in hand. Any time or
money spent on design that does consider SEO from the outset, could very
easily be wasted (and often is).

Most of the supplementary listing problems are a combination of bad design,
poor attention to detail (and basic rules) and not enough content; all of
which require an SEO with common sense rather than one with risky techniques
up his sleeve.

Finally (I promise!), some sites do take risks and do OK - or very well -
but never forget the many, many more that took risks and disappeared. On a
quiet evening, you can hear the screams ....

All the best,

Andrew

Andrew Heenan wrote:
> "canadafred" wrote ...
> > This sounds like very good advice Andrew except that it limits Els'
> > ability to challenge other keyphrase competitors in the SERPs, at this
> > stage of her game. She needs to get her pages to qualify for the top
> > positions in a bigger arena. Sure, she could spend years regimentally
> > standardizing code to her highest calibers and eventually have
> > accumulated a substantial enough amount of incredible standardized code
> > to sustain good SERP positions, The again, maybe not, maybe it'll be
> > SERP oblivion for her web pages. She wants more keyphrases at the top
> > than what she has already established and I would suspect she wants
> > them this century.
> ...
> > Els, do you want to design, optimize or both?
>
> Fred, I hear what you are saying, but I don't agree; short term gains, if
> really that important, can be achieved using standard (and straight)
> paid-for methods.
>
> There's never a need to take a risk with your main site; indeed, nine tenths
> of keyword research and application would be no more useful than simply
> adding quality unique content, ensuring good internal navigation, getting
> into quality directories - and paying plenty of attention to design detail.
>
> Many would argue that SEO=Design=SEO - they go hand in hand. Any time or
> money spent on design that does consider SEO from the outset, could very
> easily be wasted (and often is).
>
> Most of the supplementary listing problems are a combination of bad design,
> poor attention to detail (and basic rules) and not enough content; all of
> which require an SEO with common sense rather than one with risky techniques
> up his sleeve.

hey Andrew how are ya'

I would agree with that, in non-competitive keyphrase environments
only. In more challenging SERP operations wheras the top positions are
occupied with web pages that are well optimized, the one who takes no
risks leaves the party early. Innovativeness is a key component in
separating the good from the great. Sustaining a top position for a
meaningful keyphrase will continuously demand for imaginative
solutions. Implementing solutions is a things that an SEO must figure
out himself as each SERP situation is different.

That's probably why I am so difficult to hear sometimes. I don't have
any easy SERPs. I get no gifts from the search engines. Top positions
in my keyphrase contests are not for the wishy washy. I must get my
hands dirty. Maybe the day will come, when content alone and content
presentation sufficed to determine which web page was most credible to
be delivered for a keyphrase search. That day is not today.

Sometimes when I have a web page stuck, a quick analysis of the
competitors usually reveals both design and SEO weaknesses. An good
search engine optimizer should be able to pick them out fairly rapidly
out of experience. Now he sees an opportunity to progress in the SERPs.
If the SEO wants to exploit challenger weaknesses, he needs to devise a
plan. So he does. What I do is go fishing. The plan comes. Now do I sit
on this plan losing more confidence in it by the minute or do I take
the risk and deploy the plan. In my game, that's the difference. There
is no sitting still. perhaps in yours the case is different.

> Finally (I promise!), some sites do take risks and do OK - or very well -
> but never forget the many, many more that took risks and disappeared. On a
> quiet evening, you can hear the screams ....

.... and also, don't forget the millions and millions more that are
taking risks right now to overthrow your positions. Some of these web
pages will succeed. Ultimately the choice to compete and how to compete
is up to each one of us. Web pages are not intented to attain a
position and keep it forever. I sure wish that was the case. After
reaching the top, a web page immediately begins a downward spiral into
SERP oblivion. I cannot understand how not taking risks becomes a
solution to this. Feeding the spider more content is a risk, not
feeding it is a risk, tweaking content is risky, everything that a web
page has used in optimizing that page is taking a risk. It is all a
risk.

I have had web sites banned before. I am a master of getting out of the
penalty box. ( this incidentally become a specialized skills in SEO ) I
am not ashamed to admit being guilty of pushing the limits too hard.
Failure is a good teacher. Are you afraid to fail?

--
Fred
http://www.rezultz-web-site-promotion.com/

tonnie wrote:
>> Note to self: re-read pages on an
>> early morning about a week after a 'nightly build' ;-)
>
> Jepp, do that, everything looks better

Up to here I was agreeing...

> with a nice cup of coffee

... and then you spoilt it!

Nothing will look good with a cup of coffee, regardless what time of
day. Coffee is bad! ;-)

> in the morning. Not to early that is.

Indeed. Too early in the morning is just as bad as late at night.
Tea helps though. Not coffee (yuk!) but a good mug of strong Tea with
milk and sugar. Or two.

>>>> This is where I'll sacrifice SEO :-)
>>> Oke. On the BBQ with it.
>>
>> Yummy! <g>
>
>> I think it'll go nicely with those frames we've been burning ritually
>> :-)
>
> I still have that page of a nice frameset BBQ, we could throw in some
> SEO-parts as well. :-D

Yup. Like black hats...

> Yepp still got it: http://vision2form.nl/Temp/niwo-frames-ritueel.html
>
> For non Dutch you probably can't read it, but hey you'll get the point.

It's better with translation - although some of the humour may be too
Dutch for them:

"NIWO's day out
Ritual burning of the EVIL frames
NIWO's sub(-sub-sub)group 'Evil frames' invites you to celebrate the
last dance with us. On this day out, all invited will enjoy the
opportunity to dance around the bonfire of the burnt frames at least
once.

YOU WILL JOIN TOO, WON'T YOU?

Gas cookers and framesets will be supplied.

You are encouraged to bring your own food and drink. It will be a nice
American[1] party. You too will come to burn your framesets and other
related evil things too, right?

More information... "

(kwisnie wa'k met een polonaise aanmoest in 't Engels, dus die heb ik
maar ff weggelaten ;-) )

[1]- I believe that what we call an American partu, Americans may
actually call a Dutch party. It should mean that everyone brings their
own. As in going Dutch?

>>>> Go on, it won't take 10 minutes ;-)
>>> I know, just as everything else just takes 10 minutes.
>>
>> Yup, but you must choose one thing only - therein lies the secret :-)
>
> Thank you for sharing that with me. It is truly the truth. :-)

You're welcome. Now if only I'd follow my own advice once in a
while...

>> I knew it! (some things are sooo easy to predict <g>)
>
> Hm still have that glass bulb do you. LOL!

Glass bulb? You mean crystal ball? <g>

Speaking of bulbs - how many SEO's are needed to screw in a light
bulb?

--
Els http://locusmeus.com/
accessible web design: http://locusoptimus.com/

Now playing: King Crimson - Elephant Talk

tonnie <t.prasing@chello.nl> wrote:

> John Bokma schreef:
>> tonnie <t.prasing@chello.nl> wrote:
>>
>>> A few points i noticed:
>>>
>>
>> [..]
>>
>>> - make your title as short as possible
>>
>> I have so far always used either the same as I use in h1, or a longer
>> version. Works for me. I doubt it gets better when I make them
>> shorter (IIRC it got better when I made some longer).
>
> Might be, i have seen slight shifts in ranking if the title was to
> long.

I see my pages shift ranks very often without doing a single thing.
Experiments like this are extremely hard to do, because there are so
many unknowns that are not pinned.

[title]
> In Els case i meant the copyright notice and name of the site. These
> do weaken the keywords in the title.

IIRC she is aware of that. Sometimes we do things because we want them
:-)

> Next to that, a title is meant to give the page a theme. If it is
> trying to catch a large amount of keywords, each seperate keyword will
> get less important. All IMHO.

I agree with you on not putting words there that have nothing to do with
the page, unless you want branding. Each of my pages on my personal site
has john bokma in the page. I do get hits for people looking for:

bokma rss
bokma perl
etc.

:-D

Although not enough to move bokma to the title IMO.

[ copyright ]
> There is a lot of fuss about it. And some say it is necessary to
> explicitly mention it on a page under English law. Others say it
> isn't.
>
> Any way, i feel it doesn't belong in the title.

With the latter, yup. With the former:

"If it doesn't have a copyright notice, it's not copyrighted."

This was true in the past, but today almost all major nations follow the
Berne copyright convention. For example, in the USA, almost everything
created privately and originally after April 1, 1989 is copyrighted and
protected whether it has a notice or not. The default you should assume
for other people's works is that they are copyrighted and may not be
copied unless you know otherwise."
http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html


Sadly it doesn't stop people, and getting the copy off a site can take
up a lot of valuable time (been there).

>> "My" "no menu" technique often has Related links at the bottom of a
>> page or section.
>
> Jepp, but mostly few.

Yes, for two reasons: more is not always better (in choice, I always
think of menus in restaurants, the more is on it, the more time it takes
me to decide :-)) Second reason is that it takes me now quite some time
to link to related pages on my site (or off for that matter). Will
change that soon, but that also takes time :-)

>>> It's oke to give a good hint in the name of the dokument to tell
>>> what it is about. This one however is to long IMHO
>>
>> Question is: do SEs care about the length? I don't see that my long
>> names score worse. Nor if they repeat a part of the uRL (e.g.
>> perl/perlprogrammer.html) In short: I doubt it. The visitor doesn't
>> care about length that much.
>
> I as a visitor don't care about it either. But i always have a little
> 'be carefull' when someone points at this, espacially if it is some
> one like Matt.

On the page you provided a link to I only saw warnings on too spammy
domain names. I can imagine that the same holds for long path parts in
URLs, e.g:

/perl-programmer-perl-programming-hire-freelance-programmers.html

is probably not a good idea for the same reason that a title like that
isn't a good idea. I often use a hyphened version of the title (with now
and then some changes) as the filename.

>> I have seen wordpress blogs creating urls very similar to the one Els
>> is using. I probably have longer ones. I wouldn't worry too much
>> about it.
>
> I am still testing and tend to the short ones.

I just pick what I like at the moment of creation. Some are short,
others are long. I will check next week if I see a trend, but I can't
recall this.

--
John Freelance Perl programmer: http://castleamber.com/

Firefox Keywords: http://johnbokma.com/firefox/keymarks-explained.html

Els <els.aNOSPAM@tiscali.nl> wrote:

> T.J. wrote:

[..]

>> and if you don't want them to look
>> like headers set the stylsheet accordingly
>
> I call that a dark black hat.

Odd, since you have no problem with hiding a link from people who can see.

For the same reason it might be good to have a header for semantic
purposes without having it stick out as such.

--
John Experienced (web) developer: http://castleamber.com/

Textpad quick reference card (pdf): http://johnbokma.com/textpad/

Els schreef:
> tonnie wrote:
>>> Note to self: re-read pages on an
>>> early morning about a week after a 'nightly build' ;-)
>> Jepp, do that, everything looks better
>
> Up to here I was agreeing...
>
>> with a nice cup of coffee

Sorry, forgot you don't like coffee.

But as an alternative this:

> Tea with milk and sugar. Or two.

Yukkkkk


>> Yepp still got it: http://vision2form.nl/Temp/niwo-frames-ritueel.html

Thanks Els for the translation, its online now.
>
> (kwisnie wa'k met een polonaise aanmoest in 't Engels, dus die heb ik
> maar ff weggelaten ;-) )

Ik zou 't ook nie weten.

> [1]- I believe that what we call an American partu, Americans may
> actually call a Dutch party. It should mean that everyone brings their
> own. As in going Dutch?

>>>>> Go on, it won't take 10 minutes ;-)
>>>> I know, just as everything else just takes 10 minutes.
>>> Yup, but you must choose one thing only - therein lies the secret :-)
>> Thank you for sharing that with me. It is truly the truth. :-)
>
> You're welcome. Now if only I'd follow my own advice once in a
> while...
>
>>> I knew it! (some things are sooo easy to predict <g>)
>> Hm still have that glass bulb do you. LOL!
>
> Glass bulb? You mean crystal ball? <g>
>
> Speaking of bulbs - how many SEO's are needed to screw in a light
> bulb?

Hm, 2 ?



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Website Design: http://vision2form.nl/websitedesign/
Being found: http://vision2form.nl/websitedesign/being-found.html
Css templates: http://vision2form.nl/websitedesign/css-templates.html

canadafred wrote:
> Els wrote:
>> canadafred wrote:
>>
>> [me and my SEO]
[...]
>> 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 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.

Well, yes and no :-)
I think I have caused the confusion myself, by saying that I wouldn't
mind to be no.1 for all the possible key phrases, and also by saying
that I did rank high for my key words, but only in a certain order,
while obviously, I'd like to rank equally high if the visitors
searches those words in a different order.

I guess I didn't make clear enough that SEO is only a small part of
what I think is important in web design. Yes, I was interested in
ideas and suggestions. Just I didn't turn up here seeking advice. If
T.J. wouldn't have started the critique idea, I'd never have asked
anything.

>>> 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.

But when I see through this illusion, I suspect my visitors will too.
I want to avoid that, at all cost. Yup, including ranking.
I have nothing against SEO, but I do object to too much SEO.(for
myself that is, I have no problem with what others do on their pages)

>> 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.

It does :-)
Of course being no. 1 would be better, but I don't want to sacrifice
my idea about readable pages for it. Nor do I want to venture into the
various shades of hats in this field.

>>> 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 )

Okay, misread that the first time. Yes, I agree there needs to be a
balance. For me though, I think the visitor's side needs more weight
than the SEs' side, to have a perfect balance.

>>> 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.

From a SE pov, of course. But I can't look into the future, so what
might be just on the limit today, could be past the limit tomorrow. If
I write for visitors (I believe that's a Google advice btw), I won't
be penalized now, or in the future.

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

Depends how you look at it. I know I am capable of a lot more than I'm
currently doing. I chose a certain field to work on though, therefore
the rest is intentionally limited. I can't excel in many things at the
same time, and SEO wasn't one of the things I chose to work on. I
certainly pay attention to it, but I have no plans to be the best SEO
expert. I would like to be the best at accessible web design. SEO is a
means to become known, but it's only one of many.

>>> 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.

That holds for anything, not just SEO.

> 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.

Yup, but being a professional SEO isn't one of my goals.

> 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.

Unless they pay attention :-)

> 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?

All of them?

> The day that web design alone determines rankings is not here.

I know. But ultimately, it's not my rankings that pay my rent. It's
the work I do, and it doesn't matter if people come to me via a search
engine, or through a link from another site, or if they're referred to
me by a friend.

Don't get me wrong: I like being no.1 for a key phrase. Partly cause I
think perhaps someone will find me and hire me, and partly pure ego
tripping.

Besides all the above - I haven't even determined yet with which
keyphrase I'd like to be no. 1. 'new bug ie7' is all good and dandy,
but it doesn't get me people who need me to design their website.
I'll have to determine what key phrase is used by people who are
looking for a designer who values the W3C recommendations and
accessibility guidelines, and then I need to write pages with that
phrase in mind, without looking spammy. Now.. once I've done that, I
will certainly drop by here for advice, cause that's what would matter
more to me than the SERPS I already have. (but even then, I'd give the
visitor more weight than the SEs)

> Happy SERPs.

Thanks :-)

--
Els http://locusmeus.com/
accessible web design: http://locusoptimus.com/

Now playing: King Crimson - Thela Hun Ginjeet

John Bokma wrote:

> Els <els.aNOSPAM@tiscali.nl> wrote:
>
>> T.J. wrote:
>
> [..]
>
>>> and if you don't want them to look
>>> like headers set the stylsheet accordingly
>>
>> I call that a dark black hat.
>
> Odd, since you have no problem with hiding a link from people who can see.

Where?

> For the same reason it might be good to have a header for semantic
> purposes without having it stick out as such.

Take away the stylesheet. Does the header make sense? Then it is a
header, and I would also style it as such. If it doesn't, it doesn't
deserve to be a header. Looking like one or not.

--
Els http://locusmeus.com/
accessible web design: http://locusoptimus.com/

Now playing: King Crimson - Prozakc Blues