Forum Moderators: open
Widgets: am no. 180, down from no. 130
texas widgets: 2-3
red juicy widgits: 1 - 3
I am following all the "rules" :
widgets features in 90% of anchor text of inbound links
widgets features in title
widgets features on the page, infact all over the site
widgets is clearly the theme of the site.
my overall site PR moved up a point this update and all my 2,3,4 word combinations are doing very nicely. However, am losing rank for the main word. I was no. 60 in Nov. and am down every month and am now no. 180!
How? Now my PR is better than all the sites above me!
PR is just one small factor out of about 100 that determines where your listing will show up for any given keyword search.
Instead of focusing on your competitor's site's PR (and why yours is higher), focus on your competitor's use of actual keywords in the Title/Description/Body Text. Find out how that compares to what you're doing, then adjust your content to mimic what your competitor is doing. (keyword position in text, keyword density, etc...)
Your competitor is beating you in the SERPS for a reason, and its obviously not the PR.
Perhaps Google is trying to make up for my other site that should've been a 5 or 6 that's now a zero.
Has anybody noticed that a PR 0 is not a completely white bar? It actually has two green pixels in the top left. Is this significant of anything?
Even on the optimisation front they don't look like they have done much for this specific keyword.
I am doing well for send widgets; and widgets online. Widgets by itself is doing poorer each month.
Here's a question. Do you need to do well for widgets? Maybe your business could be better served by going for niche widgets or widgets niche as keywords?
I have the same issue on my site. I am getting truly creamed for widgets, but have achieved number one ranking for at least 7 other search terms that are nearly-widgets. To me, I can live with that as it seems that most of my competitors are fighting for widgets which, given that the topic is diverse and not well defined.
I have been looking at the search terms that come into the site(s) I own and have noticed a pattern that says to me that people searching for widgets are actually increasingly searching for niche widgets and widgets niche.
Whiz, I am implementing the outgoing links as we speak...funnily though the sites above me don't have much of outgoing links.
Question: will it help if I put links on my inside pages leading to my homepage with the word "widgets" as the solo word in the anchor text? Currently, all the links to the homepage are a lame "home". What happens when you have 2(or more) links from a page to another page with different anchor text?
Big deal. So few people drill down to #60 on a SERP I'd consider that basically close to invisible at Google. You really need to be in the top 20 or 30, and MUCH better is in the top 10.
What is the average file size of your web pages?
If more than 32K (HTML size) this limits you.
Lots of junk code (like comment tags, on page Javascripts, CSS or font elements) can suck the life out of a web page.
I have the same issue on my site. I am getting truly creamed for widgets, but have achieved number one ranking for at least 7 other search terms that are nearly-widgets. To me, I can live with that as it seems that most of my competitors are fighting for widgets which, given that the topic is diverse and not well defined.
on-page stuff like meta title, description, & keyword, H Tag Titles, title attributes, & keyphrases in body text is better for 2, 3 or 4 word keyphrases. Off-page stuff "all anchors" pointing to... are better as singular words... where the relevancy is can be assisted on many different keyphrase.
e.g. - >> widgets << as link would relevant to any type of "widgets".
Diversifies to targeting many, many keyphrases plus the primary keyword rather than just one.
Point noted about page size...I never really paid much attention to it. Will work on it now.
1. Reducing the weight of pages to less than 32K
2. Giving outbound links to other sites with decent PR
3. Isolating the keyword in anchor text of inbound links
4. Keyword density, improve it
What else?
Thanks.
Can anyone else confirm regarding external links.
#3 in your "to do" list is probably going to help you more than anything else..
Anyone that says PR is low on the "Totem Pole", and factors in with about 99 other variables, is "way off base"...
PR is not the only factor, but it makes Dave's Top 10 list... :)
There are about 10 different weighting factors that make up the majority of "ALL" SE's algo's.. And if you have a PR7 then you should be doing well..
What is the sub pages of your site PR wise?
Focus on "widgets" for your main page.. Get the link text point from other sites to your main page, shortened to just "widgets"..
Get some text links for "blue widgets", "online widgets" pointing to some sub pages... (more filtered keywords probably have better conversion ratios, but it's hard to ignore the volume of traffic that widgets can bring)...
You said you have links on your sub pages pointing back at your main page.. How many levels is your site layout?
Make your 2nd level pages count for your targeted 2/3 word phrases..
Make your 3rd level pages count for more "niche" terms...
Have 3rd level pages not only pointing back at your main page, but also at your 2nd level pages...
This ain't rocket science.. Anybody trying to fool you into believing that you need a Cray computer and an Engineer that majored in Regression Analysis to nail Google's algo, or any other SE's algo, is full of it... :)
It's just hard work, testing, and staying organized in tracking your results/failures/(and hopefully successes)...
Problem w/ G is that you got to wait awhile to see the results of your testing... :)
I have 4 levels:
Main - Widgets - PR7
Level 2 - Widgets Online; Widgets Europe - PR6
Level 3 - Niche: Texas Widgets - PR5
Level 4 - Nice, but less Important: Red Widgets - PR4
The more important of the Level 3 are linked straight from home and have a PR6
I have already implemented Widgets from all sub-pages to home page in isolation. Am now trying to implement it from other websites.
Have also worked on Keyword denisity of a Level 2 page that was no. 11 for it's targetted keyword. Being a PR6 page, it should be freshbotted soon and we'll see if it does any better.
Very intersting thread about <H*> tags: [webmasterworld.com...]
Will report back on how the results as soon as they become visible.
And if you have a PR7 then you should be doing well...
hmmm... way off base eh?
Why my better PR is not beating competitors?
pr7 is featuring no 180 while all above are lower PR!
The title says it all... "should be" doing well is not the same as actually doing well.
Lower PR sites/pages commonly beat higher PR sites/pages.
And not by accident! :)
But last few days I have been closely looking at the sites linking to my competitors and I find that it is not true that the anchor text to them is "widgets"; the links are made up of all kinds of words, widgets being one of them. Many of their links are images!
My study is pointing mainly to Keyword density. And like I have said in my earlier post, I am going to experiment with this in a PR6 page.
Even "Dave's Top 10 list" does not cut it.
PageRank by itself is simply a "measurement" and alot like determining how smart a person is by measuring their hat size.
Consider this as a war. The battle field is Google's index, and each variable for good ranking is are the battles that you must win in order to defeat the enemy (your competition).
If 100 battles will hands down win the war... considering only a few... defeats the purpose of going to war.
The list of "must" considerations... including content, good professional copy, minimum and maximum total words, keyword positioning (on the page), word density for specific words, anchor text (internal & external), similar content in promitity of anchors (internal & external), relationship of adjacent pages, number of internal pages, internal link structure, file size, validation, H Tags (and proper use), bold, italic, meta titles, meta descriptions, meta keywords, title attributes, alt tags in image links, number of inbound external links, quality of external link (PageRank, sharing of PageRank, and Passed PageRank), theme of external sites linking, outbound links to authority sites, domain name, domain name of linking sites, external inbound links of linking sites (who's linking to them and the quality of those links), even distribution of link through site, number of out-going links per page, competitiveness of keyword or keyphrase... and a bunch more.
Each of these is important and none will do the job itself.
Note: if you are attempting to target something that your site in it's current form can not compete with others current forms -- your task will be in vain.
As for anything that could/should/or maybe calculated -- you need to think with a PhD when writting correspondence.
My site is moving up a few notches every month for my main category keyword and is now #4 in 2.5 million results. The following has worked for me:
1. Begin your title with the keyword.
2. Keep the title to 8 words or less.
3. Begin your description with the keyword and keep it tight.
4. If your keyword is not part of your domain, make sure that it is featured prominently in the anchor text of your links.
5. Get reciprocal links with at least PR4.
6. Try to get one way links as opposed to reciprocal links (use software like Arelis).
7. Use your keyword in the first sentence of your first paragraph.
8. Make sure that the very first sentence or header that the spiders read, have this keyword.
9. Use H1-H2 headers.
10.Keyword density.
How old is your website, and how old are the websites of your competitors? This month I have seen many perplexing result positions and the only reason I can attribute to them is that Google seems to be giving a lot of weight to older websites. To me this is unfair and unreasonable, but it helps explain many odd results.
Joe
