Previous Post For This Project
I’m on day 7 of this SEO project. SEO work is tough for me. I’m the guy that wanted it done yesterday and doesn’t mind working 20 hours a day to make it happen. I don’t want results tomorrow. I want them now!
SEO doesn’t work that way. A lot of the changes I have made to my project site have been small. There isn’t much for me to do except monitor, watch, and wait. SEO work is really a test of my patience.
I’m determined to do something each and every day for the next 30 days to make my project site rank better. My domain is already 1 year old, so I shouldn’t have any sandbox issues to worry about. I’m confident at the end of 30 days, my site will be showing on the radar for at least some of my targeted keywords.
When I started this project, I wanted to find a well known SEO expert to spend 6 - 8 hours pointing me in the right direction in exchange for $2,500 - $3,500. One of the experts I contacted was Dan Thies. Like every SEO expert I contacted, Dan wasn’t interested in my few thousand dollars. I figure these guys either figure me for a tire kicker that doesn’t really plan to pay for anything, or they make so much money from their mastery of SEO that a few thousand dollars is chump change to them. My guess is it is the latter.
Dan did take the time to look at my project sites and wrote this response.
Brent, these look like a bunch of 12-page web sites. Each individual piece of content might seem OK, but none of these sites is much of a resource in itself. Look at the search terms you’re targeting, look at the first page of search results, and check out how many pages each site has indexed.
Dan
Dan’s comment left me with a major question. Is it possible to rank a 12 page website if you are selective with the keywords you are targeting and have some good backlinks? I don’t know the answer to this question. I suspect that in some cases it is, but Dan’s comment leaves me believing that it could be a difficult task.
While Dan’s comments were short, they have led me to two major changes I am going to be incorporating into my project site.
1. I don’t want to have content written just for the purpose of targeting a keyword. My goal is to provide the searcher with the information they are looking for. For instance, if you were targeting the phrase “buy an ipod”, would it make sense to send the searcher to a page that simply included a basic article, but didn’t actually offer ipods for sale? Or would it make better sense to send the searcher to page where they could purchase an ipod and / or provided reviews and prices for other sites that sold them? The answer to this question is obvious.
I think I have been so caught up in picking out keywords that I considered easy to rank for that I missed the big picture. I’ve considered it acceptable to send searchers to a page that included an article with my list of on page optimization factors without taking the time to stop and ask the question, “Am I giving my visitors what they are searching for?”
2. Dan was right about the number of pages on my site. When I take a look at the number of pages indexed by sites that are ranking for my keywords, most have considerably more than 12 pages. The range is pretty broad, but a good average for my niche is 200 indexed pages. Adding USEFUL content is next on my list of things to do for my project site.
I spent some time this afternoon looking at other related sites and thinking about what information would be useful for a visitor searching for keywords related to this niche. I didn’t give any consideration to the number of monthly searches or competitors. Matter of fact, I didn’t even single out any keywords or phrases. I simply made my decision based solely on what information would someone interested in this niche find useful.
I’ve come up with ideas for 50 additional pages of content to add to my project site. I’ve already got one of my writers working on it and expect to have it on the site by next weekend. This is content that is being written for the searcher and not the search engines. I’m very anxious to see what type of results I get. As always, I’ll keep you posted.
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