Page layout and structure play an important part in the search engine optimization process. This was driven home the past couple weeks when I made a major change to this blogs layout. Prior to this change (using the format you now see) x7SEO.com consistantly showed up on the second page of Google for the searches “learn seo” and “seo techniques”.
That was not to be with the new theme. After Google crawled the site it fell to number 47 and you know what that means; traffic took a definite hit! So I have switched back to this WP theme called “Seashore”. It is a simple format and may not look as good as others, but it presents the information in a simple and clear way to the reader and it would appear is “spider” friendly.
If you opt to expirement with different layouts and themes on your WP blog, be willing to see fairly substantial flucuations in your rankings. Now I must wait until the next Google crawl to see if this blog comes back up to the second page. Then it will be time to work on moving it to the first page for the search “learn SEO’.
What have your experiences been when changing layouts? Have you seen a drop in rankings and what did you do to get back up to where you were?
I am selling one of my websites at Sitepoint.com
ShipsCaptainAndCrew.com is a yacht crew employment information site that has been on the first page of Google for its primary search term “yacht crew jobs” for more than a year.
Selling as I no longer have time to devote to it. This site has a lot of growth and income potential. I get emails weekly from individuals seeking to post resumes on the site. That would be good income stream in addition to AdSense and private advertising.
Site has a PR2 and is all custom………no templates and all original content. Check out the auction at SitePoint.com and make a bid.
9 days ago i added a plugin to this blog so that each of my entries would go to my Twitter account. During the past 9 days I have started to see more and more traffic coming to this blog from various twitter based sites / programs. While Twitter hasn’t affected by ranking on Google (still on second page for “learn seo”) the added traffic is certainly welcomed.
I have seen a lot of debate lately on whether or not Twitter is a viable marketing tool or if it just a social phenomenon that will quickly pass. My initial impression is that if used correctly it could be a good way to communicate with followers about what is happening at your website. This type of function has already proven itself for me with MySpace. The MySpace message system is an excellent way to send out a blast to all your followers about the latest happenings at your site.
Normally when I start working with someone to develop an SEO strategy one of the first things I have them to consider for the off site aspect of it is to start a blog and let that blog feed links back to the site. I think I am going suggesting that a Twitter account be started as well. Like MySpace a Twitter account used for business purposes must be closely monitored. On my MySpace account only those people interested in barbecue are allowed to be followers. That way I know when I send out a blast message it will be of interest to everyone. The same will be true for Twitter. I am going to set up a seperate Twitter account to go with my barbecue oriented blog and website and that will add an entire new group of people who are interested in the world of bbq.
I am sure this may be old info to many who have been on the Twitter train for a while but I admint I am still learning the ropes of SEO and any time I learn something new that works I intend to pass it along.
What are your experiences with Twitter driving traffic to your site?
To some people multi-level marketing leaves a somewhat bad tasted in their mouth. Whatever your feelings toward the world of MLM they do understand the power of friends and referrals. While on site SEO is important and plays a crucial roll in how your website places on the search engines, we shouldn’t forget all the people we know that can generate traffic for your sites.
Most MLM companies use the power of 2 to build downlines of representatives. You probably already know this, but for those that don’t the power of 2 is when you refer 2 and they refer two more and they refer two more, etc…. Soon you have the following numbers – 1(you) then your 2, then they refer two each and you have 4 and they refer two each and you have 8 and on to 16. 32, 64, 128, 256, etc……… You can see how your visitor count could jump very fast.
How do you tap into this referral power? Simple, just ask your friends to view your site and then send it to their friends and so on. Of course your friends probably have more than two people to tell so the numbers could grow very quickly. Then of course you have your friends on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. Don’t neglect those individuals. In order for this to work however, you need good or should I say excellent content on your site. Your site will need to provide something they want. In this day and age your best bet is providing a website where you can show them how to save money such as a “best deals” type of site.
Don’t be shy in asking. My experience in sales has shown that most sales are not closed simply because the sales person is afraid to ask for the money. The worst someone can say is no, then you move on. If they say yes then thank them and show them how your site can make their life easier on a daily basis.
In summary:
- Build a quality website with great content that will make your friends life easier.
- Tell your friends about your site and encourage them to visit.
- Ask your friends to tell their friends about it.
- Place a “share this site” link on your site.
- Use your social network contents in the same way ( A WORD OF WARNING – DON’T SPAM THEM TO DEATH )
- Reward your friends periodically by sending them to a landing page that will show them how to save money on what they like ( example: your friend is an outdoors person – make a landing page with affiliate sales links for Bass Pro Shops or Gander Mountain – they will love you for helping them save money and you will get an additional commission)
Share your experiences with offline networking to increas visitors to your site.
OK I admit the title of this post is a little awkward sounding. This blog post is more of an expirement than anything. What I am wanting to know is what effect having my primary keywords, “learn” or “seo” in my URL more than once will have on my search engine ranking.
Currently x7SEO.com is on the second page of Google for the search term “learn SEO”. Of course SEO is part of my domain name and Google picks that up. I have my WP permalinks structure set to show the URL then the title of the post. I have used the following custom setting on the permalinks setting: /%postname%/ hence the somewhat odd name of this post.
The url for this post will be http://www.x7seo.com/learn-seo-and-put-your-keywords-in-your-url/ So SEO will now be in the indexed url 2 times and learn will be in the url 1 time. Now I need to wait and see if this particular page moves onto the front page of Google for the search term “learn SEO”. My initial though is that it will not have an effect. Why did I decide to do this? I noticed that most of the sites on that were above me for my particular search had the keywords standing alone somewhere in the URL whether at the root level or the individual page level. Since my url has an x7 right next to SEO i wondered if that caused a problem even though Google highlighted it as part of the found returns.
Time will tell. I am not a big fan of trying to play the system or attempting to manipulate or fool the system because that always comes back to haunt you. What this will be good for is know what words to choose and how to place them in future domain name purchases.
What are your thoughts on this??
