Algorithm Chasing Results in Better Search Rankings
01 February 2010
Today’s search engine algorithms are more complex than ever, and 'algorithm chasing' really pays off when you’re looking for top rankings. This is especially important with Google News rankings. Onliners who want their news stories to outrank competitors need to research social media and other online news feeds to find the most popular terms for keyword optimization.
Understanding searcher behaviour and using written content that attracts searches is often just as important or even more important than employing the vast array analytical tools available to today’s optimization gurus.
Headlines are key to triggering emotional reactions and interest, and it is well worth spending extra time on your headline to get it right. Semantics play a key role in people’s reactions. There are so many ways to be misunderstood in our modern, worldwide culture, especially when trying to find that perfectly-short headline, that careful attention to language and its implications and emotional impact is crucial to getting the attention you want.
Social media is the place to look for hot topics and the words that are being used and searched for on the internet. If your article about the recent extinction of an animal species uses the term 'going' extinct and everyone else who is talking about the topic has started using the term 'becoming' extinct, you’d better update your article fast. If your story about a recent terrorist plot uses the term 'kidnapping' and everyone else is calling it an 'abduction', it’s back to the drawing board. Continual monitoring of headlines and twitters will reveal how your keywords are doing.
Since Google News is now using 'recrawl' to check for updates at previously scanned sites, updating as often as time allows is well worth your while. Visiting as many websites as you reasonably can to glean these terms and phrases, and including them in your headline, article, or blog is the solution to low search rankings, and using terms that website visitors are actually responding to is the new strategy for better results.
