No, that is not a sexual innuendo. Last night I started doing the thing that I have been dreading the most, looking through my long list of sites and looking to see if the exact monthly searches have dramatically changed mush and whether or not I should keep the sites to work on them or drop them like a bad habit. I only managed to get through 69 sites with another 25 to go. To my surprise, I only have 19 sites that are not worth pursuing at all. Meaning the GAKT was now showing ridiculously low exact monthly searches than when I first researched them. One site went from once upon a time having 2.9k exact searches to now showing a big fat -. A” -”, really?? But then to my surprise most sites that had original decent numbers of 3k exact monthly searches were nearly twice as much and one site even has 40k+. Insane!!
So as I went through my list of sites and looked at the numbers, the other 2 components to influence my decisions for keeping the sites or dropping them as renewal time approaches is 1.) what’s the page 1 competition like? 2.) Where am I currently ranking? I have about 14 of these 60ish sites that are severely sandboxed still and would require quite a bit of effort in backlinking to get them ranking again but they have really good potential. Not a one of them has below 2k exact. In fact they sit more at the 6k-12k bracket.
As I was examining the competition for these particular 14 sites, I would come across plenty of one page xfactor-like sites and see that they could easily rank on the page 1 for my keyword with hardly any backlinks (although when using SEO for Firefox to view backlinks, it is using YSE and lately YSE cannot be trusted for true backlinks represented). So, I am thinking surely something must be wrong with my on page SEO. Either my keyword density is not enough or I am maybe not incorporating enough LSI terms…something is wrong. Maybe I really know nothing about SEO as I once had thought and I am thinking I could use a refresher course. So if anyone has any suggestions on a good SEO article/tutorial or whatever, please sent it my way.
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Sara,
Check out the plugin from Daniel Tan – the SEOpressor plugin. It is a paid plugin however I just watched the video for some tips to implement manually. As for a quick SEO guide you can check out http://mattsmarketingblog.com/seo/increase-google-rankings/ for some other onpage seo suggestions.
HTH
Thanks Tammy. That post does help. I never thought about linking to my own page of content somewhere within the content. I will definitely try these suggestions and I’ll have to check out Daniel’s plugin. I love his products so I am sure its a good one too!
Drat! I should have gotten an aff link from you for that SEOpresser. I am doing the trial and already I am seeing how freakin’ awesome this puppy is. I’ll be doing a review on it after I have some improved rankings to share.
SEO Scribe and SEOPressor can definitely help. They basically check the standard on page SEO factors and let you know which ones you are missing.
Also, as another reference, James did an SEO series over @ SEOSage. It’s basic stuff but I just want to shamelessly self promote since you asked! =)
http://seosage.org/seo-basics-learn-seo/
If you want to check it out i’d love to hear your feedback. We are working on an SEO Link Building series now..
Matthew DC recently posted..SEO Link Building – Suggested Websites Part 1
Plug away Matthew.
I’ll be checking out your link now.
Great. Tell me I suck privately, pls…
The ebook/report will be geared toward newbies, and I’d really like feedback on that, too – when I get it done.
Tonight. (Meaning: I’ll get it done, give it to Matt, tonight – not: give me feedback tonight.)
::biting nails::
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..IM Awesome – Losing AdSense and Respect
Daniel Tan’s Rank Mover WSO is excellent as well.
Bryan recently posted..Best Electric Guitar Strings
I have no doubt of that Bryan. Daniel knows his stuff and really thinks out of the box with his methods to help rankings.
As for on-page tutorials, I’d go with an analysis using WebSite Auditor – free download at http://link-assistant.com, or you might already have it?
I no longer support the plugin by Daniel Tan…
His plugin will have you stuffing your keywords, it green lights too much IMHO. For example, I wrote a product review that I ranked #2 for…except I wasn’t trying. I looked at my content, and I mentioned the term, “Does XXXXX work?” once. A later sentence I answered, “Yes, XXXXX works…”
That was enough to rank me at #2.
With SEOPressor – although I do own it – I find I stuff too much. Does it work? Sure – but it’s too lenient, and Google doesn’t do density like it’s 1998…
Anyhow, Aaron Wall’s 7-day SEO course at SEOBook = the cat’s meow.
Same with WebSite Auditor (with SEO PowerSuite – my review is at hxxp://theaveragegenius.net/free-seo-download-save-999-get-seo-powersuite-free/ and some other places).
The WSA is free to use and gives good competitive analysis.
A last place I like to use (not in terms of importance, just another place) is:
hxxp://www.webseoanalytics.com
They have several tools to check your on-page SEO.
Oh, and what Matt said – but I wrote that with newbies in mind, really.
OH! The best place I found is this one:
http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/internet/google-ranking-factors.htm
(I left the link live because it’s got high PR)
That is HANDY.
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..How To Determine Market Value Online
http://knol.google.com/k/seo-basics#
Sorry – just had to add that one in. Aaron Wall’s bloody genius. This is short and sweet, but I’d really recommend his 7-day tutorial (sign up at SEOBook.com).
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..IM Awesome – Losing AdSense and Respect
Before you spend any money on more tools Sara, you might just want to use SEO Smart links plugin. This is great for interlinking. You just type the keywords you want interlinked and it will automatically create hyperlinks as soon as you create a new post. You can also set it so that all external links are nofollow and open up in a new window. You can also limit the number of times you want it to hyperlink just so that the page doesn’t seem cluttered with links.
Def worth trying out. I use this on pretty much all of my sites. I haven’t really specifically tested it but its free and worth trying before you part with any cash. Whats good about this as opposed to implementing any ‘related posts; type plugins is that links are integrated in your content which I think certainly helps your serps.
I don’t think you need a refresher course, you have the knowledge already. Just jot down all the onpage factors you can think of on a sheet of paper and create a checklist, thats what I do and I tend to find that it helps a lot. I was going to mention ‘SEO Book’ but I think James has already mentioned Aaron Wall! (Was accidently going to type Aaron Hall)…lol
Nettech recently posted..Focus and Consolidation time
Well said – and for the record: I only use the free WebSite Auditor. I didn’t pay for it – which is why I mentioned it versus SEOPressor, which costs about $77 or so and (hate to say) isn’t worth it.
I’ll have to post about it.
Anyway – the SEO plugin I prefer (which creates inner linking, too, I think – I always hand code anyway in Notepad++ so it doesn’t matter lol) – is Ultimate SEO
OR
SEO Ultimate…I can’t remember the order. It makes AIOSEO cry. Just sayin’ – I actually learned a lot from the plugin.
It has Whitepapers (a link in the admin panel) – takes you to SEODesignSolutions.com I think it is – the group is very much SEOBookish: marketing mindset, no bull, straight up know their game and those whitepapers are priceless.
Alright – finishing up this ebook for Matt. Stop distracting by being a community, would you guys?
Can’t get anything done…
If Matt asks – this is JAMES’S MOM! My son is working on your ebook!
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..IM Awesome – Losing AdSense and Respect
Well James, I am going to have to disagree with you about SEOpressor in regards to not being worth it. Its been about 9 hours since I implemented it on one of my sites today. This site was #31 this morning and now, 9 hours later it is #13. That’s pretty amazing considering I have not been able to get that site to budge for the life of me since June. I had changed the site over to wordpress, changed the layout over to use the Thesis theme and then I gave it a few article submissions in June as well. Nothing!
As I was going through my posts, each post was saying I had .50-.76% keyword density. When I looked up my competitor, whom has the .org of my KW, is also an xfactor site, has only 3 backlinks (all profile backlinks) and with only 5 pages of content as well, he has held onto the #1 position since about August. I noticed today his KW density is 2.46%. (You can check your competitor’s KW density with SEO Firefox plugin or by using SEO Tools KW density tool. So after I ran SEOpressor on my site, my site now has a KW density of 2.86%. So, hopefully this is the kick in the pants I needed.
Also, this review by David was helpful. Originally in his post, he stated that this individual post ranked in the first 5 pages without any backling effort etc. just purely using SEOPressor. Well, now this post is not even in the first 5 pages of the SERPs but rather page 6. Still that is not bad considering the competition is 2.8mil for the term “SEOpressor”.
That’s awesome! I’ve used it on my sites, and still do, actually – but find I go back to WebSite Auditor and get great results, which was free.
FINE. I’ll stop trying to save you money.
I didn’t know you had it already. Anyhow – it “works” but I still find it too lenient on keyword density, green lighting up to a five percent KW density where things really start sounding spammy.
I’ve had similar results (I wrote a review on the Amazonian Profit Plan and SEOPressor Ranking Experiment) – but again, find WebSite Auditor to be less inclined to the stuffing.
Darn that Daniel Tan. Knows his stuff. Thanks for the report, Sara.
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..IM Awesome – Losing AdSense and Respect
That is very interesting. Keep us informed if your site sticks.
I usually try not to overuse my keyword, but if it is going to help then I will start a stuffin’.
Carrie recently posted..Site 1 Focus – Week 2 Update
It seems to be helping Carrie. I am seeing improvements on the two sites I used it on yesterday. *does happy dance*
I would say to aim for at least using your words 1.5-2.5%. You can check your percentage with this link below.
http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword-density/index.php
SEOPressor has had fairly good reviews from what I have managed to find online. SEO Scribe is a very similar product but has a monthly fee I believe rather than the set fee of SEO Pressor and limits the number of scans you can do. I am still trying to find someone I know who can give an honest opinion on SEO Scribe, I was thinking about just buying it and giving it a shot.
Does SEOPressor let you do keyword research from the interface like Scribe does?
Matthew DC recently posted..Bridge the Gap by Understanding the Members of Your Club
To be honest, I don’t read the reviews no more unless they are from ‘REAL’ sources such as websites like this. Most people will review it and not really test it properly since all they want is that affiliate cheque!
It does sound good though!
Nettech recently posted..Article Writers – A Love Hate Relationship
I totally agree with you Zaheer. I tend to only try products people also directly tell me about.
Unfortunately, SEOPressor does not have any KW research capabilities.
So far, on a scale of 1-10, I would rate SEOpressor as an 8. If it had a method to “suggest” additional LSI words or allow you to do further KW research at the touch of a button, this baby would definitely be a 10+!
One additional feature I wish it offered was if somehow while you were viewing all your posts, that you could see the PR for each individual post. So then with a quick glance you could take advantage of posts that had good PR and link to your own posts to pass the juice. (I did see this feature with Web Auditor that James recommended. I did download it but quickly was turned off by it. Sorry James.
)
If Daniel considered doing these things, his product would easily be worth more than $97! Hmmm…maybe I should make some suggestions to him.
P.S. I just thought of another feature that would make it uber! If while looking at all your posts, it told you the SERPs ranking for your main keyword of each individual post. *drools*
(Replying down here as the upper thread isn’t letting me)
Yeah, I used that tool you suggested to check the two competitors above me. My KW is 4 words and the tool wasn’t showing that for anyone, but I noticed some of the words within the phrase were low so I tried upping those. Thanks for sharing that!
It’s remotely possible that you just updating those pages caused the upward movement so that’s why I am interested to hear if they stick. I hope they do.
So if you think the KW densities were a big help and SP doesn’t do that, what is it that you like so much about SP?
Carrie recently posted..Site 1 Focus – Week 2 Update
This is basically what the plugin tells me as I go in to edit a post.
- You are missing your keyword in an H1 Tag
- You are missing your keyword in an H2 Tag
- You are missing your keyword in an H3 Tag
- Your keyword is not in the first sentence
- Your KW is not in the last sentence
- Your KW is not listed in the ALT tag
- You are missing an external link to your site (i.e. find a kw within your body and link it to the same page as your content you are editing)
In addition it is telling me what my KW density percentage is and it will be a red number until I hit a certain percentage in which the color will change green meaning that its at a good amount now.
Its also nice for editing older sites (which is basically what I am doing) and REALLY good for larger sites. Once you install the plugin and look at the screen that displays all your posts within the admin panel, you can quickly enter the main KW for each post it will instantly highlight the posts that have unsatisfactory SEO “ratings” as well as display the onpage SEO rating for every post. Even thought posts with a 50% rating is not highlighted in order to stand out to you, but obviously you could strive for a higher rating. So it makes it easier to oversee where you stand for every post. Posts with below a 30% for on-page SEO will be highlighted in red to get your immediate attention. I’ll have to do a quick review and take screen shots to explain this further.
Sara, Matt, et al:
Has anyone used ContentMania from Incan Soft? They do a lot of this for less (content analysis for SEO) – I’ve been meaning to get it but might just have to “make do” with what I have (as if I need another SEO anything at the moment).
And – besides Michelle – has anyone noticed a serious drop lately?
Like me? Or is it just me? I think someone mentioned that here.
[http://theaveragegenius.net/losing-backlinks-ranking-seo-woe/]
Wow. CAPTCHA’s Xrated…won’t say what it is, but…hm. Pretty bad.
James, yup been using ContentMania on and off for a while, I’ve mentioned it here before.
I initially thought it was an article spinner and didn’t really use it much until MAYDAY! Thats when I learnt how powerful it can be as a writers tool with regards to LSI. I used Conten tMania to tweak my articles so they fell between the 1.5-2% kw threshold. A lot of my articles were above that and so it did help to an extent.
Nettech recently posted..Article Writers – A Love Hate Relationship
@ James – I only kept my 5 most recent Adsense sites when I sold off my empire to build SEOSage. Those 5 are averaging $5 a day (between all 5). I only kept those ones because they wouldn’t sell for anything worth the time it would take to sell them. But as per your question, I haven’t noticed any drop in rankings or position on any of those 5 or my 2 authority sites.
Matthew DC recently posted..SEO Link Building – Suggested Websites Part 2
I’ve lost rankings in one of my keyword baskets – my most profitable. Interestingly, my articles (from an MS blast) are taking up the real estate on the front page. I’d say more but I just posted.
JamestheJust on Elance recently posted..Losing Backlinks And Ranking SEO WOE
Yeah, read & posted on your page.
After reading what Aaron said, it seems like maybe it’s nothing too much to worry about. Worst case scenario, give it a few more blasts and the pages should get their rankings back. It’s much easier to re-rank a site that was previously page 1 than it is a new site. Sometimes older sites just need a little activity to jump back up.
I’d give it a few days and see if the numbers stay low. If they do, then I would consider doing a little link work and maybe refreshing the content to get Google interested again.
Matthew DC recently posted..SEO Link Building – Suggested Websites Part 2
i’ve had similar problems with some of my sites, i don’t think it’s the on-page factor that your sites get sandboxed (penalty – dropped to last page). it could be the anchor text that you’re using for your links… were they all the same? did you mix them up a little? were you using wordpress or xsitepro for your sites? if you don’t mind you can reply to my email and perhaps we can discuss more about this, i would like to find out what exactly causes this because i hate getting sandboxed… it’s taken several months for my sites to get out while my competitors are staying strong at #1 with crappy profile links, i’m losing time + money