Forum Moderators: martinibuster
My suggestion would be to keep the resource page AND work at adding articles, contextual links, and so on.
I need to convince my boss to get rid of his resource page and optimize his main site in a more effective way; contetxtual links, articles, etc.
It might help if you tell us why do you think this needs to be done?
anybody have convincing points
If you have no measures of return on investment, then who cares? If you do have any such measures, take a look at how that resource page is performing. Most likely, it does pretty crappy. For example, probably a larger-than-average percentage of free SE referrals immediately leave that page, because they thought they were going to land on a page devoted to the topic they were searching for.
Doesn't mean you should get rid of the resource page, just means it probably shouldn't merit much attention.
I still need reason to convince him to embark on contextual links and articles as a way of link development.
Think, test, measure, repeat. Again, if you're making no effort to measure the effectiveness (whatever that means in this particular website's case), then you might as well do anything or nothing at all -- no one will ever really be able to say whether it mattered.
If you devise some realistic measures of effectiveness, then you can just tell the boss "Hey, I would like to do a small test case to see what kind of content is more effective." That's an easier case to make than "I think we should do it my way."
Personally, I think resource page is an amateur approach to seo;
I'm sure there are many here who would take offense to that, me included. ;)
A well thought out and structured resources section is going to be of great benefit to your visitors. And, in a lot of instances, company personnel may use those pages as a reference for their own purposes. ;)
Maybe i should reconsider my stance on resource pages. Perhaps after some testing.
do any of you have links on a resource page that drives in a good amount of Traffic?
...do any of you have links on a resource page that drives in a good amount of Traffic?
Yes.
From a user perspective it is clear that a nice, tidy and not excessively large single page of resources relevant to my website's topic would definitely be beneficial to my users. On the other hand, since I am still a PR0 I got no chance of other websites willing to link to me without anything in return so a certain degree of link exchange seems unavoidable. What disappoints me is the fact that an increasing number of websites out there have become 'link farms' paying no attention to their audience whatsoever. Some of them even have 20+ link categories which has been plagiarised from LinkMarket and similar websites. I was initially a LinkMarket member for couple of weeks and I noticed that link exchange requests came in by the dozen each day, making me think 'wow - they really do like my website!'. After I checked my website's counter, I realised that nobody actually visited my website during those days, leading to the bitter conclusion I mentioned above; people just kept sending me link exchange requests without even having visited my website! And even if I came to a point that I would like to exchange links with some of those websites, the keyword stuffing in the links always drove me away. Having a link in my resources that looked like
"Example Company - Travel, Flights, Deals, Hotels, Cheap, Discount"
so that it boosts their PR on those keywords, I decided not to have it at all. Besides that would be confusing to users, as it is not objective at all (see ODP guidelines for suggesting a website). As many people on this forum would agree, link exchange could be good both from a SEO standpoint and users, but that doesn't mean that we should be going desperate for it for the sole purpose of PR.
So, my route will be to keep adding content, keep existing one up to date, and generally enhancing my website. Who knows, after a while someone might even link to my website just because it is a useful resource and not because I asked them to. I think keeping a link page (or more appropriately call it 'resource page') is worthwhile, but I will keep it simple and only with resources relevant to my website.
Just my point of view.
Do any of you have links on a resource page that drives in a good amount of Traffic?
Hmmm, that might be a violation of the TOS. ;)
So, how do you develop a Resources page? What elements make up a quality page.
The Pages
Resource pages shouldn't be treated any differently than any other page of your website.
The Links
Linked text should describe the destination of the link. It could be the company name along with a few keywords.
The Descriptions
You need to describe those resources to your visitors. Treat the description as if you were writing a meta description. Use 140-180 words in a natural manner to best describe the linked resource.
The Branding
Treat your resources page as a high value proposition for your visitors and your resources. Put their logo in with their listing. Show them some love.
The Structure
I prefer using lists when setting up pages that contain resources. I'll usually use <ol> so that they can easily be referenced. I'll break the resources up by category using <h2>. So, I end up with a page that is semantically correct based on my interpretation of page structure.
The worst thing you can do is just show a bunch of keyword rich links that are there to serve as just that, links. It's a links page. Very little value in that type of page environment.
do any of you have links on a resource page that drives in a good amount of Traffic?
I think this statement speaks to a common misunderstanding about links/resource pages. That being that they are always only for PR purposes. They aren't.
Ok, I don't know what "a good amount" is in this case. I suppose the actual number could vary a lot depending on the topic and still be "a good amount".
My point though is that folks have become so used to thinking of links from a PR point of view that they have forgotten that good links send traffic.
So what's a good link?
It's a link on a relevant page people actually visit. That doesn't mean the page has to rank well in the serps. It means people can AND DO find it on a site they visit and then they follow the link to your site.
It could be on a content page or a links page, what matters is that people can and do find the link and recognize it's value to them.
As far as the "links on links/resources pages" vs "links on content pages" issue goes, my personal opinion is that there's been a whole lot of self interest and "other crap" passed off or "sold" as informed advice on that score.
piatkow
My view is that "The Association of Widget Manufacturers" must have a resources page. An individual widget manufacturer should link to its trade association.
Hmmm.... that's an interesting statement. Is ther NO room on a manufacturers site for other outbound links?
