ask a seo genius anything thread

[namealot]

Hi do you find you need all meta tags e.g description, keywords etc as I notice you don't use them on treadmills I thought they are quite important is it less so now?

 

[WigWam]

What would you say is the minimum amount of word content per page in order for it to be effective in the eyes of google? Since the launch of google panda, how many keyword mentions or referrals would you need in said content?

Hi Wafty.

Personnaly I would recommend no less than 400 words per page otherwise the page seems to get less weight. The launch of google panda was designed to limit the amount of high rankings BIG article sites such as ezine, ehow etc were getting. Unless your site has 10,000+ pages of content I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Hey WW

I have a site that, before the Panda update came in, had just crept on to page 1 for main keyword (which is also URL). Now since the update and the noticeable impact it has plummeted out of the rankings altogether.

I have had a look at the site again and:

1. Cleared up text that appeared the same across all pages;
2. Added ALT tags to each image;
3. Added H text tags to home page;
4. Started increasing the amount of words per review (I assume this is now a factor based on Panda for 'review' sites??);
5. Removed the repitition for keyword on home page (I have probably removed around 5-6 occurances);

I need to start linkbuilding (just not the best at it and the least fun part of a site build)

Anything else you can see that you would do to rank again and start competing with the .org.uk which seems to be doing very nicely

www.pressurewasherreviews.co.uk

Cheers!

Hey cc976a,

The work you have done already sounds good. Remember to do the following though.

Create both a .xml sitemap and static one
Interlink between pages


I notice the site has only 3 backlinks, and most of the other sites have 100+. This is probably where your problem is. You have my email address, if you send me a half decent article I will put it up on this pr6 site I am an admin on free of charge with a backlink to your site on it.

Cheers and good luck with the site.

WigWam

 

[WigWam]

Hi do you find you need all meta tags e.g description, keywords etc as I notice you don't use them on treadmills I thought they are quite important is it less so now?

Hi,

That treadmill site cheaptreadmills.org.uk is a development in progress. I bought it from a fellow member here a month or so ago (where it has virtually no rankings) and have started seo'ing it myself. It is already page 6 for "treadmills" and is n1 for "cheap treadmills". It gets around 300uv's a day now even though it isn't anywhere near finished

Cheers

WigWam

 

[vizzo]

You mentioned getting squidoo links.
Some of my links from Squidoo seem to be dofollow, some seem to be nofollow.
Any thoughts on this?

 

[WigWam]

You mentioned getting squidoo links.
Some of my links from Squidoo seem to be dofollow, some seem to be nofollow.
Any thoughts on this?

Hi Vizzo,

How many links are you putting per page?

Also I *Think* they have auto-nofollow on some terms such as viagra, poker etc.

Do you care you give any examples I could take a look at?

Cheers

Steve

 

[vizzo]

This lens http://www.squidoo.com/driving-lessons (not mine) has a list of driving school links - a link to one of my sites is at positon 12 and is flagged up as no follow.

I have another link to a different site in another one of these lists on a different lens - so maybe it is the link lists that are nofollowed by squidoo

 

[wb]

This lens http://www.squidoo.com/driving-lessons (not mine) has a list of driving school links - a link to one of my sites is at positon 12 and is flagged up as no follow.

I have another link to a different site in another one of these lists on a different lens - so maybe it is the link lists that are nofollowed by squidoo

All links in that Squidoo numbered list are showing as no follow, not just yours.

 

[vizzo]

All links in that Squidoo numbered list are showing as no follow, not just yours.

Does anyone know what the criteria are for squidoo nofollows? Is it just the link lists that are no-followed or any others?

 

[WigWam]

Does anyone know what the criteria are for squidoo nofollows? Is it just the link lists that are no-followed or any others?

I think that what squidoo does it is in content links are do-follow and link "cells" are nofollow due to the large amount of links in them (and to stop link selling).

Cheers

WigWam

 

[wb]

Here's a question for you.

I bought a domain from Sedo, and the parking page was indexed in Google. When doing a search in Google for "Domain.co.uk" without the quotes, the top result was the domain along with parking page. Since I bought the domain this has been changed to a single page of decent content, which was then updated in the search results within a couple of days.

This was a few weeks ago. Now for some reason it doesn't rank when searching for the domain, but it's still indexed when using the "site:" operator. Nothing spammy has been done, and as of yet no link building has been done either.

I've done the same on a few domains before which were bought from Sedo (i.e. the Sedo parking was previously indexed and there were no backlinks) and this has never happened. Hoping it hasn't been penalised for some reason already, as it wasn't exactly a cheap domain and I want it developed soon... Any ideas?

 

[cc976a]

Hey cc976a,

The work you have done already sounds good. Remember to do the following though.

Create both a .xml sitemap and static one
Interlink between pages


I notice the site has only 3 backlinks, and most of the other sites have 100+. This is probably where your problem is. You have my email address, if you send me a half decent article I will put it up on this pr6 site I am an admin on free of charge with a backlink to your site on it.

Cheers and good luck with the site.

WigWam

Cheers for that! I've added the sitemap. Thanks for the offer of listing an article - I'll ping one over.

 

[WigWam]

Here's a question for you.

I bought a domain from Sedo, and the parking page was indexed in Google. When doing a search in Google for "Domain.co.uk" without the quotes, the top result was the domain along with parking page. Since I bought the domain this has been changed to a single page of decent content, which was then updated in the search results within a couple of days.

This was a few weeks ago. Now for some reason it doesn't rank when searching for the domain, but it's still indexed when using the "site:" operator. Nothing spammy has been done, and as of yet no link building has been done either.

I've done the same on a few domains before which were bought from Sedo (i.e. the Sedo parking was previously indexed and there were no backlinks) and this has never happened. Hoping it hasn't been penalised for some reason already, as it wasn't exactly a cheap domain and I want it developed soon... Any ideas?

Hi,

Bit of a strange one that, I have had a few clients ask me this in the past.

Odds are that since it has little / no links, google gives little value to it (hence the worse rankings). If it was listed in sedo (a high pr, authority site) it would have links pointing towards it that gave it some credit. Also sedo's sales holding page may have been 301'ed from their site which would make it part of an authority site. Remember that sedo pages have relevant text on them and although they have a high nfobl they are rather well designed towards the search engines.
I would advice that you start building links slowly, start with lower quality links such as directory & blog comments (less that 50 a day if possible), it should get back to n1 no problem at all.

Cheers

WigWam

Cheers for that! I've added the sitemap. Thanks for the offer of listing an article - I'll ping one over.

Cheers you have my email

WigWam

 

[peacock]

Any ideas why this site - MaldivesBargains co/uk just got dropped by big G?
Until very recently it had various decent rankings which brought highly relevant traffic in and now it's all gone and only ranks for the exact domain query.

Thanks a lot & best of luck with your consultancy.

Rob

 

[WigWam]

Any ideas why this site - MaldivesBargains co/uk just got dropped by big G?
Until very recently it had various decent rankings which brought highly relevant traffic in and now it's all gone and only ranks for the exact domain query.

Thanks a lot & best of luck with your consultancy.

Rob

Hi Rob,

Firstly you should reduce the amount of times "maldives" is mentioned on the front page (40), Google may see this as keyword stuffing so its a top priority to sort this one out.

Try adding posts to you blog, then interlink them using your keyword to your targeted search engine landing page (tselp). This will improve your rankings by you showing google what the page is about and showing that you think it is of value to to relevant content.

Try researching and creating a new homepage title tag that is more keyword relevant.

In your .xml sitemap you have given your "contact us" a 60% priority. Since it wont be changed try giving it a 30% priotity with a monthly change rate (google appreciates honesty). Also change the blog to daily (approving comments ect) count as a change. Remember to add relevant weekly content to your blog (add a few categories and give them different sitemap priorities too) - it helps show google which page you love the most .

Ofcourse another reason you may have noticed a reduction in your google rankings could be due to loosing a few high quality links. Try to re-gain a few good quality links from news sites etc (using link bait, viral marketing and news worthly stories... press releases will help you promote them). Also bookmark all of your sites in digg, stumpleupon ect as many blog writers get ideas from them and may reward you with an article linked to your site (remember the alot of theviewers of social bookmarking sites are bored webmasters who are looking for a story to break).

Adding your site to relevant (free) relevant travel directories will also help boost your rankings but ensure to use your keyword as the title when submitting.

Try changing all of these and you should notice a difference in your G rankings.

Cheers & Good Luck

WigWam

 

[fish]

Adding a forum

I've just recently added a forum to one of my sites (see sig) hoping that the forum posts (giving unique content) will get indexed by goog. All the listings you see on main part of site are from a feed (so dupe content).

Is this a waste of time / is there a better way to approach the dupe content issue?

Thnx

><(((o>

 

[WigWam]

I've just recently added a forum to one of my sites (see sig) hoping that the forum posts (giving unique content) will get indexed by goog. All the listings you see on main part of site are from a feed (so dupe content).

Is this a waste of time / is there a better way to approach the dupe content issue?

Thnx

><(((o>

Hi Fish,

I normally advice against using feed to post plugins (dupe content issues). Have you considered writing the about the products yourself and then have a product feed (in an iframe with affliate links) or a using the ebay app so it adds a relevant product to a box below (no dupe content issue) and you will get more traffic.

The forum posts should get indexed quite quickly if they are on your feed or pinging google.

Cheers

WigWam

 

[wb]

Hi,

Bit of a strange one that, I have had a few clients ask me this in the past.

Odds are that since it has little / no links, google gives little value to it (hence the worse rankings). If it was listed in sedo (a high pr, authority site) it would have links pointing towards it that gave it some credit. Also sedo's sales holding page may have been 301'ed from their site which would make it part of an authority site. Remember that sedo pages have relevant text on them and although they have a high nfobl they are rather well designed towards the search engines.
I would advice that you start building links slowly, start with lower quality links such as directory & blog comments (less that 50 a day if possible), it should get back to n1 no problem at all.

Cheers

WigWam

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah it's a strange one, I would have thought it would at least rank for the full domain name as I've got a few domains with no backlinks at all which rank fine for theirs.

On a separate note though for another website, if you've got a pricelist for your services yet drop me a PM.

 

[WigWam]

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah it's a strange one, I would have thought it would at least rank for the full domain name as I've got a few domains with no backlinks at all which rank fine for theirs.

to be honest most will rank for their own domain name very easily. The only time it "could" be difficult would be if you owned "smith.me.uk" and someone who owned "smith.me" had a ton of backlinks, but still half an hours simple link building would fix that.

On a separate note though for another website, if you've got a pricelist for your services yet drop me a PM.

Still working it out (along with designing the site) . I am trying to make my prices as simple as possible so they will probably be around the £55 an hour for onsite seo & £35 an hour offsite seo (although packages will be made available - bulk discounts ect)

That is still ALOT cheaper than 90% most seo guys with my experience in the UK , but it isn't about the money... its more about working for myself & helping the smaller businesses compete against the giants lol

At anyone time I only want around 5 / 6 clients if possible so I can get them all the best results I can without having to worry about too many clients. Also I am only going to take one client/website per niche.

What do you think about this?

Cheers

WigWam

 

[defcon1]

Make your title tag more optimal. Do not repeat feeding.co.uk twice. Start with your top target keyword, push domain/brand to the end. (Undertake Keyword research first)

e.g Title : Feeding Animals, Birds and Widlife - Feeding.co.uk

Avoid using pipes in your title, they look nice but Google truncates them. Use a known separator such as a hyphen.

• Include a Meta description
• Include a sitemap xml (define it in your Robots.txt file)
• Include a <h1> tag . e.g <h1>Feeding Animals</h1>
• Add an alternative description on your logo source. (Can be generic, avoid over optimisatioN)

Install a wordpress no category base plugin, remove /category/ from your urls, 301 redirect old paths to new paths.
Instead of http://www.feeding.co.uk/category/chinchillas/ , render it as http://www.feeding.co.uk/chinchillas/
Increase the content & code to text ratio accross all your pages
Install an auto internal link plugin
Create a user facing sitemap, link it from the footer of your site
Apply a No Follow attribute to the sites listed under 'The My Sites Network', ps : fix grammer..

Device a contextual footer, with internal links to your top pages, use targeted anchor text. Pass value from the home page to the deeper paths.

Regards

Hi WW,

Just wanted to wish you all the very best of luck with your launch, I'm sure you'll be very successful with your new venture.

I've posted here before about Feeding.co.uk - of which I'm still struggling to rank with the term 'feeding', despite having made some recent improvements. The site features totally original content and work too.

I'd be grateful for any ideas or suggestions you may have - many thanks.

 

[WigWam]

Install an auto internal link plugin

As I said earlier... Their is a nice one of these for wordpress pre-built into seo ultimate plugin.

As for changing the category name ensure that you redirect the old categories to the new ones and then run a 404 check on the whole site (dead links don't go down well with the googlebot) .

Cheers

WigWam