Some SEO Advice: I Love Pickled Mackerel and Peanut Butter

I see this a lot on ActiveRain blogs and-- embarassingly enough-- on people's actual business pages. If you are somebody that thinks "SEO" means repeating keywords (keyword stuffing) and/or putting those keywords in bold, please let me try and talk you out of it.

Before I continue though, allow me tell you about my favorite food combination. I love pickled mackerel and peanut butter. I really like the combination of the salty fish mixed with peanut butter. That's why I love pickled mackerel and peanut butter. It's just so delicious, I don't know how to put it into words...but I will: I  love pickled mackerel and peanut butter. Furthermore, it's great for dinner parties...

Now, about an hour after I write this post, I will come up number one in Google for the search phrase: "I love pickled mackerel and peanut butter."

So what does that prove?

Nothing. It proves absolutely nothing. It does not mean that I am some kind of SEO super-genius, as I have actually seen some people blog about after they hit number one for a ridiculous phrase using this technique. 

Writing a search phrase over and over and putting it in bold is wrong for so many reasons; but here are the three biggest:

#1.) It doesn't really work..

Sure, if you are trying to be on page one for something very unique, like "pink condos on Miami Beach that allow dogs"- and you do it from a powerful blog like ActiveRain- it will probably work. Just like it will work for this blog. But how many people search for that each month in Google? Zero, right? So, what good does it do to be number one for a phrase that nobody searches for?

"Oh but Mike-- I am number one in Google for a silly phrase, and I got there using that exact same technique!"

Correlation does not equal causation! Remember that. It's a good thing to remember, with life in general, and especially when you are getting SEO advice.

For example, you can say that people who smoke a lot of marijuana also eat a lot of Doritos. But if you go around saying that "eating Doritos causes drug addiction", you may have trouble proving that theory. 

There is a correlation between Doritos and marijuana usage, but there is no causation.

If you are number one in Google because you wrote the same search phrase over and over and in bold type: It is because yours was just the best choice available. Just like this page will be the best choice available for my peanut butter and mackerel combo.

It does not mean that putting everything in bold and repeating it fifteen times makes me "know SEO." There are still people actively doing this, writing about it, and even claiming to be SEO consultants and giving this as advice- and because of causation- others are following the Pied Pipers. If you think this works, and you are currently doing it or your SEO person is doing it, let me issue a challenge: Write a post about Mitt Romney or President Obama and repeat words over and over and over again, and see if you can make it to page one with your ActiveRain blog.

You won't. And why not?

Because there are thousands of decent articles that Google would rather give then a keyword-stuffed one!

#2) It makes for a very unappealing landing page.

One of my competitors for Google positioning repeats search phrases over and over and over again. They are right up there with me in Google, but not because they repeat words. It has to do with their inbound links and domain age. They could remove all that crap and still be on page one.

They are also confused about correlation and causation... I hope they never fix it though. Their page is boring and insulting and they just keep repeating the same thing over and over and over again. It's actually unreadable.

#3) Repeating keywords over and over is considered SPAM by Google and could get you penalized for spamdexing.

If I wanted to, I could report my aforementioned competition for doing this. Actually, I report search engine spammers now and again...

Read about repeating keywords over and over right here. (The article is titled "How To Get Your Website Banned From Google.")

However, I will not report my competitors for this particular violation; because when clients land on their poorly designed and unreadable webpage, they will hit the back-button and return to Google anyway.

What good is top ranking in Google if your landing page doesn't convert leads into clients?