With the release of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor not too far away I thought it was time to write a Blog about some mummified Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Techniques.

So I’ll be taking the lead role of Brendan Fraser (Rick O’Connell), whilst Jet Li (Han Emperor) will be playing the part of SEO techniques that need to be defeated for the good of us all!

Finding the Temple..

As I set out on my journey to defeat Jet Li the Emperor, it soon became apparent that I would have trouble finding his Temple. I searched Google for directions, clicked on a site which I thought had information; but to my despair it was nowhere to be seen.

This is what’s known in the SEO world as ‘Hidden Text’, which is a Black Hat technique.

People have used hidden text within a page on their website to get as many keywords as possible onto their web page. Many search engines have become wise to this technique, so if found doing it your page ranking will drop dramatically. Your site may even be banned, which is not a path you want to go down in defeating Jet Li the Emperor.

Entrance of Doom..

Being the one and only Brendan Fraser, I obviously found the Temple eventually using an old map printed off from ‘Google maps’ and a broken compass that didn’t even point North. I walked into the first room of the Temple that had a sign above the door saying ‘META’, and had to duck and weave my way through due to the amount of keywords that were being thrown at me. Just another SEO trap you may get caught out with so don’t make the same mistake.

META tags are a great way to tell a search engine what your site is all about. If like myself, a search engine is bombarded with keywords; it gives up and decides not to bother with your web page. Therefore, you do not get ranked and may even get banned because of the keyword spamming contained on your web page.

Don’t Trust a Sign..

After battling my way through the masses of keywords I found myself at a crossroads within the Temple. I decided to go down the path that said ‘To Jet Li the Emperor’ instead of the one saying ‘Exit’. After following this path it led me to the quarters of a captured Maria Bello (Evelyn). Who incidentally turns out to be my wife, this is definitely not what I expected or wanted whilst on a world saving expedition!

Many a time you may have clicked on a link from a search engine and got something very different to what you expected. This in SEO terms is known as ‘Cloaking’ and is another Black Hat technique. The search engine’s see that the web page is full off quality content and so the page gets ranked high. Until you click it and find that the content is full of advertisements that include adult content and other non-related content. This is especially harmful if a youngster is surfing the web. Luckily search engines know about this technique and sites get banned if this SEO technique is used.

Sorceresses Link Shop..

So as myself and Maria ‘The Wife’ Bello have been reunited, we decide to search the Temple together. We eventually arrive at ‘The Link Shop’, the lady behind the counter seems very nice indeed; her name was Michelle Yeoh AKA. ‘The Sorceress’. She promised us that if we bought some links off her that we would become more powerful and popular than anyone else. Which could only be a good thing if we were to battle against Jet Li the Emperor right? Well…that’s what I thought until I handed her the money. She then started laughing and in a poof of smoke had vanished.

In SEO terms, if you want to become popular and rank high in search engine listings to increase traffic to your site, you should never pay a site to put a link to your website on their website. Search engines know this trick and will discount this link, which means you have paid for something that is essentially worthless. SEO is about quality and not quantity to some point.

I Found a Friend..

So after the run-in I had with Michelle ‘The Sorceress’ Veoh, I decided not to trust the next person I randomly met on my travels within the Temple. Which I thought was a good idea, until after walking around and defying death every 5 minutes in an action packed manner I found my son walking around aimlessly. He’d obviously stole his dads notes and tried to save the world before me!

Luke ‘The Son’ Ford told me that the Temple was not where Jet Li the Emperor was hiding and that we’d need to get out. Luke told me he’d done some linking with some friends in the outside world in a bid to try and get out. He told me they were all quality links; Reciprocal and Triangle so he’d covered all the areas. In other terms everyone gets a good deal because he says nice things about them, and they in turn say nice things about him.

I later told him that it doesn’t work like this and the only way to go is back. What he needs is quality Backlinks! From an SEO perspective, all other links are worthless as search engines discount them and so they do not help your website rankings. Backlinks are links from other websites that think your site is worth linking to. Search engines reward this by ranking the sites with good quality Backlinks higher than others.

How to Defeat the Emperor..

In other words a summary. To defeat Jet Li the Emperor, all up-to-date SEO techniques need to be used. This will make your website popular and powerful. If the above 5 mummified SEO techniques are avoided, you are well on your way to defeating the Emperor and all of his Terabyte soldiers.