Forum Moderators: mack
Okay, so you get your site in the top X-number of search engine results. Just for argument's sake, let's say you got the #1 spot on the top five search engines for your intended search phrase.
Then, you try a couple of closely related search phrases, and your results don't even make it to the top fifty.
So then, what do you do? Pack in more meta tags than you have user content?
Right now, if you ask a certain search engine to "Find me a guy who does such and so" then I see myself on page one.
After looking at the search phrase, it became obvious to me that "a guy" should really be "someone" or "somebody".
When I asked the (exact same) search engine, "Find me somebody who does such and so", then I'm unseen and unknown.
Changing "a guy" to "somebody" totally eliminated me.
Okay, I can live with their software not figuring out that "a guy" is "somebody".
So then,,,
Am I supposed to make another page on my site, using phrases like...
..instead of "a guy"?
With respect to all this, my brain is clearly not where I want it to be right now.
Good advice; simple advice; effective advice; (if such exists in web development) is welcome at this moment.
Back to the immediate brass tacks: How do I get the 10 or 20 most likely phrases to produce similar results?
I reading your posts and I'm sensing that you want to see top producing results across a number of terms, and that you want those top results... quickly.
Before November 2003 that was possible. Since then, search algos have been tuning out the 'get rich quick' methods, for the most part. Getting the results that you want will take some effort, and quite possibly some time.
There are some things that will work to your advantage right now. The maturity factor of your site generally works in your favor. The maturity factor takes into account the age of the site and the number and quality of inbound links. If you already have this on your side, I'd tell you that half of your work is already done.
Identify your keywords. I'm in an industry defined by a single word. When I started this gig I had no idea that there could be hundreds of valuable keywords in my niche. But there are, and today I go after the long-tail as well as the short. There are stats programs that will churn through your raw logs and give you the keywords you want. By time that you've mastered those, you'll most likely have discovered a few more.
Where using "a guy" may make more sense to you, it's quite possible that the rest of the world uses "somebody". Those stats will answer that question for you.
Use your keywords judiciously. Build your content around the words you want to promote, without excessive stuffing. Put those keywords not only in your content, but also in the page description, title and keywords meta tag. Do your best to make those items unique for each page. At this point you need to be thinking about individual pages, not whole sites. The more focused your pages are the better your site will be..IMO.
Anyway, I'm just going on. One last bit of advice that I can offer for getting to the top. Build your pages for your visitors, first, and for SERP's, second. You can take that to the bank.. or not :)
I'm also reading about "density", and guessing what it means via the context of the sentences in which the word is appearing.
So, I need to know more (and I thank each reader here for your forbearance with my questions which have probably already been asked a thousand times elsewhere) about this matter of pages and density.
What are the ramifications of these various approaches?...
"...search algos have been tuning out the 'get rich quick' methods, for the most part...."
That concerns me, and in fact, worries me a lot.
Am I coming across as a person who has that attitude? If so, please; cancel cancel cancel.
I like guys like Greg, who, in spite of disadvantaged odds, set up a very specific goal, arrange a shop appropriately, and develop a specialty. Indeed, it's all the Gregs in this world who figure out something on the somewhat weird edges of some techno-biz, and then work at it to make their living, whom I admire more than the more popular and highly "successful" big-bucks businesses.
Indeed, that's what I want my site to do; not attract a broad market, but attract the less-prevalent individual who wants a very specific [product¦service¦whatever]. I don't want a zillion hits because that would be just as bad if not worse than zero hits. (If I got zero responses, then I could focus my time on doing something else; a zillion hits would produce a time sink.)
I'm thinking of places that advertise things like,,, Your website tonight, before you go to bed, with automated shopping cart,,, sales tomorrow morning when you awaken... and have this feeling in my brain and guts; an almost fear; that I am looking like a person who belongs in that tribe. Even more disastrous is the probability that my site has already been classified by the search engines' automated software as being exactly that: an internet dingbat.
grandpa also mentioned...
"... Getting the results that you want will take some effort, and quite possibly some time. ..."
If time and patience are all I need, then please let me know that. I can spend other time and get other things done while waiting for the ("almighty"?) search engines to digest my requests and make decisions on whether or not I have a legit site or if I'm a lamprey. I'm really really concerned; almost upset, that I may be setting myself up with a profile of the get-rich-quick dorks.
So,,,,
I need to be clever, shrewd, accurate, and focused. Duh; that doesn't look like it will be easily executed with one document; at least not with my current skills (or lack thereof) at the moment.
I just want to connect the very few people who want a green car painted by the best green car painter in Greenville with the guy named Greg, who is indeed the best at that one thing.
In the mean time, everybody (including me?) is actively trying to continually yell "Pick Me! Pick Me!" to the search engines.
So here's Greg, who really is the best at painting cars green, yet the search engines are sending traffic to Roy G. Biv's CheapColorCars site. (And Roy is the guy who drives over the AutoZone to get spray cans)
Big big question here: When consumer Joe really and truly wants to find the best green car painter in Greenville, can Joe really hope to find Greg with a search engine?
