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And that is what his keywords, descirption, and title say. And he is ranking #1 in google for his primary keyword. He only has about 6 backward links. So does this mean that less content is good for google?
thanks
[edited by: NFFC at 1:59 am (utc) on Jan. 4, 2003]
[edit reason] Please, no specifics [/edit]
Do you all really depend on drawing traffic with your top level page? It seems counterintuitive to try and feed the engines with your home page, instead of your content pages.
Funny you should mention this. I have been looking at my stats for the link words and phrases that people have used. A by far the majority searching through google are coming directly to a great variety of content pages. All my pages are set so a visitor can easily find other related pages on my site. So I am really happy with that aspect.
I still want to honestly optimize my top-level page as well as possible. For one thing a lot of people do use the more general search phrases that will lead to that page. Other pages don't have the PR based on back links that my top-level page has. The general phrases like "widget history" and "history of widgeting" would be lost in the serps if they were dependent on my content pages.
Also if some find me through the general term 'widgeting' hopefully I will get new people interested in "widgeting history'. And new links of course. I am 22 in the serps on that and would dearly love to get under 20.
Anne
I find the same thing, annej, but to some extent it is a function of not quite hitting top serp on your general key phrases so your sub-page traffic is relatively more important.
If, like me, your site's sub-pages are content rich, Google will give you great traffic off all sorts of phrases it finds on them (sometimes weird and amazing little phrases you forgot were there).
I always use my index page for incoming links as, if you improve its PR, every page in your site goes up accordingly, thus improving your serps on the more general keyphrases and overall.
I think it is a function of controlling which pages they link to. I have several public relations pages that generate no revenue but bring related traffic to the site (e.g. a linked list of non-profit widget promotional organizations). I find people link to them without being asked and those pages' PR ends up being equal to my entry page. This may help in a general sense but wasn't really my goal.
In fact, I know that I come up the top on several keyphrases where few of the searchers would actually be interested in my pages. I think I get them from people who hit "I feel lucky".
So far in January, I have gotten 3550 referals from the SEs with 1820 different search terms. So I suppose that my site is a bit different than many of the commercial sites. But it is so much easier to pick up the *forgotten* keyphrases, and when you do that it really does help you out eventually on your main keyphrase.
If you make sure that no link to your site ever goes 404, using RedirectPermanent, and you have good internal navigation, you should go out of your way to pick up those deep links. Getting #1 on "fuzzy blue widget" with one good deep link is worth far more than using that link to move you up to #26 from #29 on widget. And it will probably move your score on widget up to #28 with the deep link.
Specific searchers are almost always better to get anyway. Think about the word "tire". It can mean a wheel covering, attire, or to grow weary or bored. But "truck tire", or "easily tire" will get you they eyes that you really want.
In most cases you are better off to just forget "the keyword" and concentrate on all the others and let "the keyword" happen in it's own sweet time.
In reality, "the keyword" that would be associated with my site would give me the worst traffic. It is a word that means many things, so I would be off topic to most people who would type in that term.
This is the case for just about everyone... however long-term goals for growth (if growth is your intention) means developing for the future.
For most "software companies", -- "software" would be pretty much useless producing mega traffic - 90% of which don't want what you have.
Your conversion ratio would be 0.0001% and the bandwidth cost would reduce your obvious much higher sales profits to near zero, but...
In saying that, if I was #1 for "software" I would be fast developing partnerships in every software area around collecting 10% commission "minimum" on every sale they made... and for not doing anything.
Forwarding think is better than always believing you're "off-topic" and never realizing the potential.
Funny you should mention this. I have been looking at my stats for the link words and phrases that people have used. A by far the majority searching through google are coming directly to a great variety of content pages.
That's been my experience, too, over seven years of operating content sites. And it's one reason for having a lot of content: Every page is a new point of entry for users.
I still want to honestly optimize my top-level page as well as possible. For one thing a lot of people do use the more general search phrases that will lead to that page.
I rank anywhere from #1 to #4 for many of my top general keyphrases, and I still find that most traffic arrives via "inside" pages. It isn't that people aren't searching for the general phrases; it's just that far more people are searching for specific information.
And if you are one of those people that are complaining about the SERPs for your main keyword being full of spam sites, you have even more reason to concentrate on the more alternate keyphrases.
The single keyword itself has limited value itself. But what is does provide is an common "anchor" thus as time does on the common singular keyword it repeatly targeted with more descriptive word in association.
Widgets is to:
blue widgets
buy widgets
widgets online
and so on, thus if you continue using that singular common keyword you can produce results in every 2, 3, and 4 keyphrase with "widgets" in it.
