Forum Moderators: open
THANKS to everyone here at WebmasterWorld!
Here is the chronology:
July 22 - posted newly designed site (gray bar - not indexed)
August 2 - indexed, showing PR 0
August 16 - indexed, showing PR 1
August 29 - indexed, showing PR 4! whippeee!
How did I do it?
I have read so many posts here that my eyes have started to bug out! That's
Here were my priorities:
1) Build good, "original" content - total site is 50 pages now, grows each week
2) Add new content every week
3) Links - every week, added more inbound and/or reciprocal links
4) Optimized every page for a particular keyword or phrase with page title, inbound link text, large H1 and H2 headings, first sentence of first paragraph, and filename path, meta description and meta keywords.
5) Keyword density = I used a minimum of 9% for all pages. Some are higher (13-15%).
Some other basics that I applied:
A) Kept pages small to load quickly, using CSS and tables to avoid code bloat.
B) Outbound link on every page to one or two high PR ranking sites.
C) Added a "link to me" page with detailed instructions on how to do it - Title, anchor text to use, thorough but small description, my contact info, my location (city/state), my email and my phone number if they need to call me.
D) Added a simple form for people to submit their site for me to link to them (suggested, but did not require, a reciprocal link), asking for the information above in #C except for phone number. Before, I requested info via an email. When I did this form, I got 20 TIMES the amount of requests because it was easy for the user!
So, what will I do now? Continue with #1 thru #5. After all, Content is King - just ask Brett or anyone else here!
BTW, I am not using any pay per click and pay for inclusion stuff at this point. We'll see with the future changes at Yahoo and Ink when the time comes.
Have a great day! WFN :)
A better question is where is your site for the keywords that you did the SEO for? Are you in the top 20? PR4 means very little it seems these days.
Tropical Island: Hey, getting excited on a PR4 is typically not that big a deal for the pros posting here, but it is exciting for me, as this is my real first go around with SEO. And yes, I have several PR5 sites linking to me. As for my ranking for my top 15 keyword phrases, I am showing #1 through #12 on all but a couple phrases.
The important thing I am learning, after Brett's 26 steps, is going back through the logs and seeing what people search for. I then post a new page with that phrase, this has really helped.
Hope this helps some other newbies out there, struggling (as I was) with a new site and a PR 0.
WFN :)
:)
Scott
If it's 1 a day, it's more than it would have been before putting in all that hard work on the site. And if it's 2 a day next week, that'll be double the traffic.
Confucious:
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.
And yes, thanks for the encouragement. We all started someplace.
Five and a half years ago my daughter taped a note up on a computer monitor with an arrow pointing, saying "Mom, first you push the button on front - and this is the Windows START button. You point the mouse and click on that... "
[edited by: Marcia at 8:07 pm (utc) on Aug. 29, 2003]
Go for it
Now, I'm not trying to be everything to everybody on my site. My very small hits per day is acceptable to me (and I believe is beating my main competitors who pay for clicks), as I am just getting started. The above is posted here to help others gain from the experience, because everything is possible.
Another important point: write good copy to keep their interest and make the reader perform an action.
My results, and in particular, my very high ROI make this work for me at this point in time. When I start with PPC and PFI, as a business owner, I have to know I'm going to get what I expect to pay for, with a good ROI.
Thanks all, WFN :)
I'm in pretty much the same boat. Launched site around July 10th - indexed by Google around the 17th - PR4 popped up today on the toolbar - I've got about 100 pages indexed so far, some of them are forum pages though, I'm not doing great on the main keywords I was going for as they are competitive (2 million + results for the query and i'm down at about #150 - but it's early days) but i'm getting about 350 referrals a day on related queries and a lot of people are hanging around for 5 - 10 mins.
As you said content is king - i'm really pleased so far - and for anyone new to this area, bretts 26 steps - [searchengineworld.com...] - are a must read - and thank you all for the great advice on webmasterworld.
You're doing everything right - in a few months time you'll be advising the other newbies on here about anchor text (trust me!) and backlinks, page titles etc and you'll be PR6 and 1000 visits a day.
And then, beyond that, the sky's the limit.
Enjoy.
TJ
I wish I was as successful with PR. I started my site January 26th got indexed in mid Febuary and I am still at PR0. As of this latest update the few links I have showing with the links command have dissapeared.
Good work on your PR4
Harwich
Go take a look at Brett's post about the 26 steps to ranking with G in one year, that is the primary start I used (my summary above is just what I did). This could be a best seller if it were a book!
Brett's 26 steps can be found here:
[webmasterworld.com ]
Great info if you follow the rules! Hope that helps!
WFN:)
Frank
Everyone who knows more than I do has helped me by posting on this site. From Brett, to GG, to /claus and WFN, you all have added to enjoyment of developing my site.
THANKS!
Goober
Now it's a matter of tweaking the text descriptions for better optimization. I gotta use that "link to me" thingie. Thanks:)
Kris
Keep it up and you'll be so confident in your skills...you just keep doing what your doing.
This is a great thread!
and the others that got a better PR in this latest "update," congratulations!
Now, if the last major update at G was nicknamed "Esmerelda", how about calling this minor update
"Fluorescent" because I believe many are starting to see the light!
PeterD I know, I can't change my name at this point, but I think after 150 posts (almost there!) I'll at least be a "full member."
Hardwood Guy Glad I could help with that on the "link to me thingie," because it does work and I got the idea in one of the posts in the Link Development forum here at WebmasterWorld. (I read every post there, took me about 3 hours, wheww...)
Keep up the work, and when you need a boast in moral, come back to this thread or many of the others here at WW - it will change your attitude AND your PR!
WFN:)
I can't say enough..I'm delighted with the progress of my site's activities. PR doesn't impress me as much as getting near the top in search queries. Having spent alot of time the last 5-6 weeks tweaking and adding pages, my traffic has gone from 2200 visitors per week to about 4600. I just need to naildown that top two word search phrase that has me around 42 on google.
I'm happy for everyone's great progress. I probably would have lost interest in this if I hadn't found Webmasterworld last November. Only problem is, I'm beginning to run out of subject matter...but I get ideas if I step away from it for a few days. I don't use any PPC either..can't afford it...waste of money IMO for the time being. I'll have to work on that "first sentence." Kinda forgot about it.
Thanks!
