5 replies to this topic

[Doodah]

I wanted to try using the good SEO techniques I've picked up here and just test how it works. So I took a page that was googled for a phrase that wasn't really relevant. This is an older page before I knew anything other than keyword stuffing in the meta tags.

Let's say the original phrase (page one, because it was a phrase not searched much and I only discovered it in reading my stats) was green frisbees. The page wasn't really about green frisbees, but I did mention them offhandedly in the title and on the page.

So I've rewritten the page, optimized and my phrase (with no competition) for blue widgets in Kalamazoo.

Google and Yahoo crawl and for several days nothing changes. The old page is still cached on Google. Then it disappears altogether. Google (and Yahoo) still crawling regularly, but you can't find the page via green frisbees OR blue widgets in Kalamazoo.

It's been a week since I changed the page. Is this standard behavior? Is there a time frame I could expect to see my new results?

[Jill]

Yeah it's standard. Give it 4-6 weeks and make sure it's linked to throughout your site or it won't stand a chance.

[Doodah]

Yeah it's standard. Give it 4-6 weeks and make sure it's linked to throughout your site or it won't stand a chance.

Thanks, Jill! That's kind of what I thought, but wanted to make sure I hadn't done something wrong. I'm just kind of trying things out to see how it all works before I go making any major changes on my site.

When you say "linked to throughout your site," what specifically do you mean? My site probably has a thousand pages at least, so I can't have links to every page on the main page. What I have done is break everything into categories, and category pages then have excerpts and links to all of the articles underneath. Is that good enough? Oh, and I do have a sitemap.

[Jill]

If the page is only linked to from one other page of the site, it will take a lot longer for it to get indexed and ranked. If there's at least a section of the site that links to all the pages within that section (they all link to each other), that will have much more "oomph."

Remember, the way you link to your pages is how you explain to the search engines (and your users) the importance of the pages within your site.

If you think about it that way, it's easier to determine how to set up your site architecture and the overall hierarchy of the site.

[Doodah]

If the page is only linked to from one other page of the site, it will take a lot longer for it to get indexed and ranked. If there's at least a section of the site that links to all the pages within that section (they all link to each other), that will have much more "oomph."

Remember, the way you link to your pages is how you explain to the search engines (and your users) the importance of the pages within your site.

If you think about it that way, it's easier to determine how to set up your site architecture and the overall hierarchy of the site.

Printing this out and sticking it on my wall...LOL.

This has been extremely helpful info, Jill. Thank you so much.

This is such a great place to be.

[Jill]

This has been extremely helpful info, Jill. Thank you so much.

You're welcome!