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High Rankings Advisor: Optimized Copy Still Not Ranking Well - Issue No. 044February 19, 2003 ________________________________________________________
~~~IN TODAY'S ADVISOR~~~ *Introductory Comments: ----> Straight to the Good Stuff *Search Engine Marketing: ----> JavaScript Pop-up Links ----> Optimized Copy Still Not Ranking Well *This Week's Sponsor: ----> Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines *Other SEO News: ----> Overture To Buy AltaVista ----> Gimpsy Is Spiderable Again ----> Atlanta Seminar Details Coming Soon *Stuff You Might Like ----> Revisiting Past Stuff *Advisor Wrap-up: ----> Off to the Computer Hospital ________________________________________________________ ~~~Introductory Comments~~~ Hey everyone! I've got another full issue for you today, along with a long wrap-up, so let's skip straight to the good stuff. - Jill ~~~Search Engine Marketing Issues~~~ From: Paul Antico Hi Jill, I love your cut through the hype no nonsense, no bs style! I am a photographer with an image based website. The pages on my site, on the third level down, use javascript to open pop-up windows when viewers click on the thumbnails on those pages. Can/will the search engines follow those links to those pages? There are no other links to those pages. Does it matter if they find those pages? If it matters and they can't follow the javascript openwin() command, would a no frames tag be indicated or perhaps something else? By the way, just following your basic advice in ONE WEEK my site went from being one zillion to NUMBER ONE and TWO on Google (and by default, Yahoo) on some of my selected keyword phrases!!!! Wow! For some reason, on my other keyword phrase I show up as #65. Considering I was never found before unless someone typed in my actual name or business name, this is fabulous! All I did was change my title, add carefully written text at the top of the page where there was only a logo, adjust the description and keyword meta-tags, add/revise alt tags and link title tags and voila! Search engine success! Paul ++Jill's Response++ Hi Paul, Glad you like my style! It's great to know about your search engine success. I hear similar stories almost every day from my subscribers, and it definitely makes me psyched! If more people would simply remember that the key to high search engine rankings is to use common sense and to *think like a search engine* (or a search engine programmer), they'd find it's a lot easier than they might think. Regarding your JavaScript links to pop-up windows, no, the search engines generally can't follow those types of links. Does it matter? Only if you care whether the info in the pop-up windows is found in the search engines. If they're simply samples of your photos with no written content, there's really no need to have them spidered by the search engines. However, if there's info contained in those pages that you definitely want spidered, you should use the <noscript> tag and place spiderable hyperlinks in it. (You would not want to use the <noframes> tag, as that's only for framed sites.) As for the keyword phrase you're having trouble ranking highly with, most likely that phrase is more competitive than the phrases you're doing well with. By more competitive, I mean that there are more pages in the search engine's database that match the query. In other words, when you type in your highly ranked keyword phrase, there may be 5,000 other pages that show up in the search engine results pages (SERPs). But when you type in the keyword phrase you're having trouble with, you may find that there are 10,000 pages showing up. This means that there's twice as much competition for that phrase. Many people are scared to optimize for phrases that they consider *too competitive*. However, just because a phrase is competitive doesn't mean you shouldn't optimize for it. It simply means that you shouldn't make it the cornerstone of your optimization campaign. Think about it...if you had optimized only for that one elusive keyword phrase, you'd be sitting there thinking that you stink at search engine optimization. Since you were smart enough to optimize for some easily attainable phrases, you have gained confidence in your SEO skills. Now that you've seen what works for the less competitive phrases, put it to work for you on the more competitive phrase. In order not to ruin what you've already accomplished, you may want to optimize other pages of your site for the more competitive phrase. The more competitive a phrase is, the more times you'll need to use that phrase within your page copy, Title tags, Meta tags, and links. Larger, more informational sites also seem to have an advantage with competitive phrases. The more pages of information you have for your site visitors, the better chance you'll have of ranking highly for your best phrase or phrases. As long as you have optimized for a variety of phrases within the pages of your site, go ahead and shoot for some competitive ones too. Why not? You've got nothing to lose! Jill __________________________________________________adv. Want to charge more for your copywriting services? __________________________________________________ Online copywriters who know how to write for the search engines as well as for site visitors make *more* money. It's true! Writing for the search engines doesn't come naturally to most copywriters. Yet, if you're already a great online copywriter it's an easy skill to learn. The copywriters I've personally trained learned to write with keyword phrases in mind after practicing with two or three pages of copy. Complete your SEO copywriting training through my new special report, "The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines" </seo-writing.htm>. __________________________________________________ ~~~Next Question~~~ ++Optimized Copy Still Not Ranking Well++ From: Pete Kever Hi Jill, Love the newsletter. Nothing like good, common sense, truthful stuff in this sometimes noisy and confusing marketplace! I have enjoyed learning from you. Here's my question: Knowing that good content is the best way for a search engine to effectively index a website, my question would be...where do you go after you have "filled up" your website for a particular term? For example, I have effectively optimized each relevant page on a client's website for a specific term, let's say "computer desks." Of course, only the pages that are relevant to computer desks are optimized for that term. But the client is still not ranking high enough for computer desks. My intent is to add more pages that relate to that topic. I suppose I could also further flesh out more existing pages for that term, but after a while I begin to repeat myself! What's more, how can one pontificate on "computer desks" for very long without borrrrrring the end user, or even getting myself blacklisted somehow? As I am sure this topic has come up before, I am quite positive you will have some advice for me. And I thank you for your time and consideration! Sincerely, Pete Kever ~~~Jill's Response~~ Hi Pete, This question actually fits nicely with today's first question, and is a problem that I have to deal with a lot on the sites I optimize. There are two parts to the equation. The first depends on whether your pages are truly optimized as best as they can be for the given keyword phrase. I've rarely seen a page (except for those that I optimize!) that has all its on-the-page bases covered. Make sure you haven't missed any opportunities to work your keyword phrase into the copy or tags, where it makes sense to do so. If you've eked out every available keyword spot within the copy, the next step is to see if you might be able to place your keyword phrase into the internal links that point to the optimized page. In other words, is the phrase "computer desk" being used in most of the navigational links on your site that point to the page about computer desks? Or do they say "click here" or "more information" or something like that? A simple change in the hyperlink words can sometimes be the tactic you need to push your site up in the SERPs for your keyword phrase. The second part of the equation is the addition of as many high-quality outside links that also utilize your keyword phrase. Requesting links can help, but these days links are at a premium; many site owners are reluctant to give them away to just anyone. I don't blame them, either. Personally, I trash every link request I receive because they're all sent through automated programs. If the people (or programs) sending these think they're fooling anyone into believing they've actually visited your site and they really like it, etc., then they must be dopes. (Or if you actually believe those emails, then you must be a dope!) The best way to get *real* links -- the ones that really and truly mean something to you in terms of traffic they will bring and improved link popularity -- is to create a site that is worth linking to. It's not easy, nor is it something that can be done overnight. It may even take a full year or more to begin to see results. You may even need someone working on your site full-time who will be in charge of adding content on a regular basis. The bottom line is that people link to sites that provide great information and that seem to be an authority in their field. To become an authority, you need to prove that you know what you're talking about. One way to do this is by writing articles and adding them to your site. Another way is to request permission to reprint other people's articles on your site. Or how about starting a weekly or monthly newsletter, and then posting each one in an archived area of your site? If you look at many of the top-ranked pages in Google, you will see that they are generally informational sites. Again, nobody said this would be easy. You have to be willing to invest the time and/or money it will take to do it right. Google has set the bar pretty high. Give them what they want and you will find that over time, others in your industry will link to your site (yes, even your competitors!). This, in turn, will increase your PageRank and your rankings in the SERPs. This method works best if your on-the-page optimization is already in tip-top shape. However, it can even work without tons of keyword-rich copy on your site. This is why you'll often see sites with home pages that are nearly all graphics ranking highly for competitive keyword phrases. Personally, I find it's easier when you have your on-the-page stuff down pat. <shameless plug> That's why I wrote my new report, as this is exactly what it was designed to teach you to do. If you're not sure whether you're maximizing your keyword phrases within your current copy, I strongly suggest you purchase "The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines." </shameless plug> Good luck! Jill ~~~Other SEO News~~~ ++Overture To Buy AltaVista++ So I was surfing around at some search engine forums last night, and saw a post that Overture was planning to purchase AltaVista. I had to blink and rub my eyes to be sure of what I was reading, and then went to the news sites to see if it was true! It was and is true -- to the tune of $140 million in cash and stock. As with the impending Yahoo/Inktomi deal, the speculation began within hours after the announcement. Personally, I've been wracking my brain trying to understand what Overture would want with AltaVista. I've read other people's guesses, but none of them hit the mark for me. The one thing that I keep thinking (and I'm not sure if others have mentioned this) is that perhaps Overture wants to add relevancy into how they position their PPC ads. For instance, with Google Adwords, you don't bid on a first-place, second-place or third-place position. Your position is determined by your bid price PLUS the relevancy of the words in your ad PLUS your clickthrough ratio. Maybe Overture wants to do something like that and needs a relevancy algorithm to set it up? Danny Sullivan has some other ideas in his Search Engine Watch article here: <http://www.searchenginewatch.com/sereport/03/02-altavista.html>. ++Gimpsy Spiderable Again++ Lately, I've been advising companies to submit their sites to some of the up-and-coming general directories such as JoeAnt <http://www.joeant.com>, GoGuides <http://www.goguides.org> and Gimpsy <http://www.gimpsy.com> because they're much easier to get listed in than Yahoo and DMOZ. They can bring traffic in their own right, and the links often count towards your overall link popularity with the spidering search engines. Unfortunately, the Gimpsy directory had made some navigational and structural changes to their site at some point which made their link listings un-spiderable. This meant that a listing with them didn't have all the same benefits as a listing with GoGuides or JoeAnt. Luckily, the people at Gimpsy have been working diligently on this problem and have resolved it nicely! You can read about the recent fixes and enhancements at the Ihelpyou forums: <http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=714 9l>. A quick check at Google doesn't currently show any of the directory listing pages; however, you can expect that to change over the next few months. Good luck, Gimpsy! ++Atlanta Seminar Details Coming Soon++ Yes, I will definitely be presenting my half-day search engine optimization seminar in Atlanta sometime in the spring. I was hoping to have the finalized details to you today; however, we're still choosing a date, time and venue. I promise to have the information to you by next week's newsletter. ~~~Stuff You Might Like~~~ ++Revisiting Past Stuff++ Here's a quick rundown of some past "stuff," with links to my reviews: "Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines" by...me - a special report to teach you where to place those pesky keyword phrases within your visible page copy </issue043.htm#stuff>. "Step-By-Step(tm) Copywriting Course" by Karon Thackston - a full-blown copywriting course disguised as a PDF file </issue009.htm#stuff>. "21 Techniques to Maximize your Profits on Google AdWords Select" by Andrew Goodman - a special report that shows how to do exactly that </issue006.htm#seonews2>. "Search Engine Optimization" Report by Mike Grehan </searchenginereport> - This is the one that's rocking the search engine world by providing solid facts on how search engines work. While the rest of us have been using trial and error to determine how to get high rankings, Mike's been interviewing the people that invented search engines! Read my full review here: </issue018.htm#stuff>. "Search Engine Optimization Fast Start" by Dan Thies - an SEO ebook for very busy people </issue013.htm#stuff> (and you can read my interview with the author at </issue014.htm#stuff>). "Search Engine Yearbook 2003" by André le Roux - an attempt to compress the entire search engine world into a book <http://www.pandecta.com/jw>. Please note that those are my affiliate links, and I get a percentage of any sales that may result from your visits using the links. It's a nice way for you to support the Advisor and also gain some extra SEO information! ~~~Advisor Wrap-up~~~ I hope those of you who celebrate them had a nice Valentine's Day and President's Day! I don't really believe in Valentine's Day, so that one is a non-event in my household. (And besides, I get plenty of chocolate from you guys!) We did take advantage of the three-day weekend, however, with a mini-trip to the Boston Science Museum. They're having a special exhibit called "The Quest for Immortality" <http://www.mos.org/quest/?rd=209>, which we enjoyed. We also stayed overnight at a nearby hotel. The kids had a blast playing around on the transparent elevators, and met a number of other children doing the same thing. Apparently, the hotel folks must be used to it, because nobody yelled at them to knock it off or anything. The cool thing about the hotel was how the rooms were all around outside of the center atrium, so you could easily find your kids as they were running themselves ragged in the halls. My husband and I were able to have a few drinks in the lounge, and still keep our ears and eyes (somewhat) on the kids. (Before you call Child Services on me, don't worry -- they're old enough to be wandering around a hotel by themselves!) Unfortunately, we were driving home just as the blizzard hit. The Mass. Pike was covered in snow, making it a stressful ride back. To add insult to injury, when we did finally get home, I tried to download my 750 spam emails and got a "cannot reach the server" error. My Internet access was totally gone! After hours on the phone with technical support (I made a nice friend there during all the rebooting time), my problem was still not resolved. The next day I decided to purchase a new network card to see if that might solve the problem. When it didn't, it suddenly hit me that perhaps the wireless network I had installed about a month ago was the culprit. I bypassed the wireless router, and bam, the Internet connection worked! Duh, duh, duh! Could have saved myself a trip to Best Buy had I thought of that the day before (or thought to tell the support guy). So today I reset the router and the modem and basically reinstalled the network. So far, so good! Now if I can just finish this newsletter off, I can pick up my laptop from the computer hospital where it's receiving a keyboard transplant. With my kids home from school this week, we need every computer we can get! And with that...I'm outta here! See you next week. - Jill    |
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