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40k uniques per day
600,000 page views per day
None of my competition is even close in PR or do they even seem to bother to do much SEO-- #1 and #2 aren't bad but the rest are unoptimized. The keyword (example) "scissors" does not have a plural form. The wordtracker numbers are 20,000 searches and a KEI of 690. It is not a highly monetized word and is not very competitive, though it is popular-- 2,200,000 results.
I own all the applicable 2-word phrases for "scissors" -- using scissors, sharpen scissors, cutting with scissors, how do I sew using scissors, etc. I rank #1 to 5 for all of those and I get highly focused traffic from Yahoo & Google with the listings. However I've always done poorly for just "scissors" and I'm intent on fixing that. My PR of 7 is better or equal to anyone competing-- 5, 6, and 7 are the highest ranking pages for "scissors." They are, in general, not very well optimized and should be easy to beat.. however I feel like I've exhausted all backlinking possibilities-- I'm in every directory, every guide, every links page for the topic.
I feel my hardest goal to overcome is HOW these people link to me. I have a well branded site.. it's not scissors.com, but rather brandname.com and I get lots of people that search for "brandname." It's actually my highest ranking at #1 out of 330,000 since it is a common english word as well and people searching for it are usually looking for my site. All of my backlinks are in the form of:
(a href="http://www.brandname.com") BRANDNAME! (/a)
While all of the people ranking in the top 10 for "scissors" have links coming in differently because they have the word "scissors" in their company names:
(a href="http://www.blah.com") Scissors Policy Project (/a)
Am I stuck trying to get my link changed? My link popularity comes from LOTS of PR 4 and lower. I have a few PR 6 links but nothing above that-- there really aren't any high ranking pages on the topic. I am the highest I've ever seen at PR 7 so adjusting a few incoming links that are PR 4 doesn't seem like it will make much difference.
Help! I've done my optimizing (added H1-H3, fixed title) for "scissors" and I'm waiting for Cassandra. But I could use ideas on getting from #87 to at least the top 10. Thanks-- sticky info available. It is an adult site, not porn, but not suitable for work browsing.
(a href="http://www.brandname.com") BRANDNAME SCISSORS(/a)
That should get you up there in time.
BRANDNAME Scissors! does not make a sensible phrase.. since I don't actually sell scissors. I talk about how people use and make scissors. It would be like saying you should link to "Playboy Naked Girls" instead of "Playboy" or "Playboy Magazine"---- it is a magazine, they do not sell naked girls. The best they could hope for is "Playboy Naked Girls Magazine."
I'm trying to use my "pull" in the industry (laughingly) to try and ask the webmasters to change their links.. but since the phrasing doesn't make any sense, it's a tough sell.
Scissors are plural, and "non-plural" is also known as "singular".
A scissor is one of the blades in scissors, when you put 2 scissor blades together to make a useful cutting tool you get scissorS.
A PAIR of Scissors.
You could have used WidgetS - widgetS would be a better non-singular example.
BGumble, I'd bet the key for you really is in the link text. Are you using internal links with your target word? You should at least be doing that. Getting external linkers to change their text should also help. Also, do you have good keyword density on your pages compared to other sites that rank higher?
Based on what you've said so far, there isn't much for you to do unless you cross over to the dark side.....
Link text Nirvanna occurs when the majority of natural links on the web include your desired keyword(s) in the link [example.com]
re: internal links
I have the same problem there. I have a sitewide header at the top of every page, but the link back to the main page is "Magazine" and not "Scissors" or "Scissors Magazine" since that is what makes the most sense. On the advice of a good user here, I changed the alt text from
"Scissors sharpening" to just "Scissors"
---- UPDATE! At least some update.. Inktomi moved me from #63 to #27 for "scissors" with their most recent update-- so some of my recent changes have had an effect. Like everyone else, I'm waiting for Google to see how much effect they've had there. It's my first update since reading webmasterworld so I'm confident I will move up at least a few dozen slots.
>>keyword density
Is pretty good for the 1-word term. I'm denser than any of the top-3 sites for "scissors" yet I don't think I'm overdoing it. Here is a comparison with one of the top-3:
1.5% keyword density in visible text vs 0.94%
5.1% overall vs. 1.86%
Try for at least 7% keyword density. No wonder you are doing so bad for this single word.
If that's what it takes, I will have to think about it. As it is, my index page looks a bit stuffed with the keyword already. It is a functional page first, not designed with ultimate SERP in mind. Neither are the competition's but they have the advantage of the keyword in their name.. so if I want to compete I will have to increase density. Thanks!
Title:
There are 7 words in the title.
Frequency in the title = 2
Weighted Keyword Density in the title= 28.57%
Description Meta Tag:
There are 24 words in the description.
Frequency in the description = 2
Weighted Keyword Density in the description= 8.33%
Keywords Meta Tag:
There are 6 words in the keyword meta tag.
Frequency in the keyword meta tag = 1
Weighted Keyword Density in the keyword meta tag= 16.67%
Body Tag:
There are 240 words in the body.
Frequency in the body = 11
Weighted Keyword Density in the body= 4.58%
Heading Tags:
There are 68 words in the Heading tags.
Frequency in the Heading tags = 4
Weighted Keyword Density in the Heading tag= 5.88%
Alt Tag:
There are 48 words in the alt tags.
Frequency in the alt tags = 16
Weighted Keyword Density in the alt tag= 33.33%
A HREF Tag Link Text:
There are 109 word(s) in the href tags.
Frequency in the HREF tags = 9
Weighted Keyword Density in the HREF tag= 8.26%
A HREF Tag URL:
Frequency in the href tags URL = 2
HTML Comment Tag:
There are 17 word(s) in the comment tags.
Frequency in the comment tags = 2
Weighted Keyword Density in the comment tag= 11.76%
Total:
There are 284 word(s) in the entire page
Frequency for the page = 65
Weighted Keyword Density for the page= 22.89%
