Just continue writing content or put focus on creating more links?

[Fiky]

Hey guys

My site is 1 year old, my home page ranks 1/10 and most of my content is ranked 2/10 not bad because ive only worked on it for 6months of that whole year and ive begun writing more, 5 articles a day so far with quality in mind.

I get about 600 page impressions with a click thru rate of 3.64%. A very large majority of my visitors are from search engines and social bookmarking sites.

Now my question is, should I focus on only writing content and adding articles to social book marking sites and let nature take its course with regards to links? So far its worked fine - do you think my page rank will increase as I add more and more good content?

Thanks

[MrSpeed]

The theory goes that as you create content it will attract natural links.

However considering that your site is a year old and only a PR2 I would consider gathering some inbound links a little more aggressively.

[zampik]

Hi Fiky,

I am on the same route with you with a 1 year old site... What I do is, I concentrate on writing content/adding new pages 70 % of the time and leave a 10% to analyze my stats and look new keywords that i should be considering to increase the number of people that i may get from search engines. (It is interesting to see what people put in to search engines to find what they are looking for, and sometimes you have to adjust your site accordingly...)

The 20 % left over time is used to gather links from related sites that my site may add value to for their visitors if they added a link to my site.

So far it has worked great...

[MarkWolk]

You have a relatively low CTR, suggesting that your site has quality content (it contains the answers looked for, so there is no need to look further). What seems important now is to get quality links from half a dozen to a dozen good directories; pay the submission fee if necessary.

[Fiky]

MrSpeed: Thanks for your input it is noted

Zampik: This is also what ive been doin0g that also, using the Google keyword tool is great, lets me write about lots of things that I know people are searching for!
But I have a question for you, getting inbound links from related sites isn't that difficult arnt related sites in essence competition?

Mark: Thanks, but please - what directories would you suggest I submit too. Reasonable price and perhaps decent return is all I ask for...

With directories you pay for, do you have to keep paying to continue being listed?

Thanks fellas!

[lgn1]

Yahoo has a recurring fee, some directories give you a choice between a one time fee and a recurring fee with the one time fee being higher.

Most directories are however still one time fee.

Don't forget DMOZ which is free.

[edited by: lawman at 9:53 pm (utc) on June 27, 2007]

[Killah]

There are lists of thousands of paid directory services, many of them with small inclusion fees. If you take $2-3k and invest them into 150-200 of such sites, what's your experience on the return of this? I don't want to ask if it's worth it since that depends on what your website is all about, but would such massive inclusions bring a stable amount of visitiors and do they really improve your se-rankings? Maybe G gives you even a penalty for such non-organic inbound-link creation.

[trinorthlighting]

I would keep writing, links will come naturally and I am sure google is already tracking the natural link growth. If you start being overaggressive google might hit you with a penalty. Unique content is the flavor of the year, look at a lot of sites that are in the top 10 and you will see a lot of them do not have that many backlinks.

[MarkWolk]

The best directories for your site may depend on your niche. The list on <snip> is very often quoted; there are several other such lists.

[edited by: lawman at 9:53 pm (utc) on June 27, 2007]
[edit reason] No Link Drops Please [/edit]

[zampik]

Zampik: This is also what ive been doin0g that also, using the Google keyword tool is great, lets me write about lots of things that I know people are searching for!
But I have a question for you, getting inbound links from related sites isn't that difficult arnt related sites in essence competition?

Hey Fiky,
I try to only gather inbound links from related sites/pages where I really believe that I can provide additional value for their visitors. (Ex: If they wrote about how to do x and y in one fashion, i only contact them if i have additional tips or have a better way of doing x and y).

If I see that they are in for this mostly for the money and their main concern is not to provide useful content for their users, i do not bother with asking for a link.

I have gathered very valuable links using the method above. The time I have invested in this very targeted link requests have definitely paid back.

Also analyze your own website logs to figure out how people coming from the search engines end up on your site too. See which keywords they use etc. even the not so popular ones. Sometimes you will start to show up on 3rd 4th page on a keyword that you never guessed people would use and you can then optimize your site for those new terms too and get some valuable amount of visitors. This is a step I took after i started to show up 1st on my main 5-10 keywords.

Basically the idea is don't get stuck with 4-5 keywords. Alyways Analyze and expand... Google keyword tool can help you with the initial keyword targeting but i now believe that the real information sits right inside a website's own logs.

Hope it helps...

[frakilk]

I would maybe look into submitting your articles to article submission sites. They can be a great generator of quality backlinks if your articles get reprinted on other sites.

[McMohan]

Fiky, Google tells us to just concentrate on links, else all the pages will go supplemental, no matter what a gem of a content you may have.

It is a unique idea that attracts links from good sites and at a decent rate, not just a good collection of articles. I have been through that path and Google told me to mend my ways and just be bothered about links. And in the process if you can put together some unique content, thats just fine.

[edited by: McMohan at 5:03 am (utc) on June 28, 2007]

[Marcia]

>>The theory goes that as you create content it will attract natural links.

Agreed, it's a very good theory. But so is "if you build it, they will come." If the site isn't PR3 or PR4 (not hard to do) after a whole year, it hasn't happened yet.

[Halfdeck]

Is your site finished? If not, finish it.

If your site's ready to go, don't sit and wait for the links to pour in. If people really dig your site, they'll link to you naturally, but you gotta do some marketing to speed up the process.

Don't go for higher home page TBPR, trust, or "authority." Just try to stir up some buzz. If your site is cool, that's enough to get the links rolling. If your site sucks, marketing will be as effective as pouring money into a pocket with a big hole.

[Fiky]

Thanks guys, yep my site is finished ill deff start to try build some good inbound links.

since i started writing more articles ive almost tripled my earnings and the overall ctr is higher then before

cheers

[loudspeaker]

MarkWolk wrote:

You have a relatively low CTR, suggesting that your site has quality content (it contains the answers looked for, so there is no need to look further).

This is a very interesting point. I was pondering that myself - seems like in some ways, the better your content becomes the worse your site will be doing advertising rate-wise (especially in niches where all contextual advertisers are essentially screaming "Hey! I have a similar site on the same topic, too!"). But on the other hand this is ABSURD! Is that why thin-content sites are doing so well - people don't have any choice but to click on something?

How do you think one might be able to escape this vicious circle? I was thinking the answer lies in moving away from contextual stuff and toward demographic-based ad sales.

[eltercerhombre]

The advise on writting more content is OK but... go and get and idea/service that makes people come back.

This will get you links.

In the meanwhile: go write some content and get some links.

[Fiky]

loudspeaker: Well I've found putting ad blocks at the end of articles is the best idea that way they can checkout similar topics elsewhere for more information.