Wizard's Place

Archive for the ‘Other Sites’ Category

It isn’t easy to get to the top. It’s even harder to stay there… sometimes!

A few years ago we did some SEO work for Beautiful Fairhope. It was a custom site that provided a place for local (Fairhope, Alabama.) photographers to display their images of their town and the surrounding area.

Our client wanted us to optimize and, hopefully, get great placement, as in page one, first spot, for the following search terms:

pictures of Fairhope
photos of Fairhope
Fairhope pictures
Fairhope photos
Fairhope photographs
Fairhope photographers
Fairhope photography

and, if possible, they wanted to at least be on the first page for these two additional terms:

Fairhope, AL.
Fairhope, Alabama.

Of course we couldn’t guarantee anything but we took on the project. At the time returns ranged from several tens of thousands to several millions depending on which the first seven terms you checked. Fairhope AL gave up nearly a million returns and Fairhope Alabama nearly ten million.

We worked for a little over six months to get most of the first seven terms on page one and somewhat over twelve months to get the last two there. By the eighteen month point all terms were on the first page with all the photo, photographs, and pictures, ones in the first spot.

Fairhope AL and Fairhope Alabama were on the first page in position three behind the City of Fairhope website and Wikipedia’s entry for Fairhope. Those two would be pretty hard to beat for the such a broad term.

These were all pretty good results in the time expended.

The project ended and the client had us do nothing more for a little over a year. The client himself added periodic, though less than regular, pictures and text updates. after a dozen months results for some of the terms saw the site had slipped to page two. The city/state terms had dropped to the third page. SEO is not permanent. Two new players were occupying multiple positions on the first page. It was getting competitive.

We were called back in and did just one major thing. We converted the site from the custom package that had been in place since before our original product to a new WordPress CMS site. We transferred over the existing content and made only minor adjustments to the WordPress package.

The focus of the site changed slightly as well. Where the original site featured photographers by name the new site dropped this content and added local information about the city and the region. The client began a regular process of adding new pictures and making regular blog posts.

In less than three months the site had bounced back to first page for all the search terms with five of the seven photo terms being in the first spot, the city/state terms being once again in the third spot and only Fairhope photography and Fairhope photographers being down the page (4 and 7 respectively).

These were great results.

For almost another year now site has remained solidly in the positions for those search terms for which it was originally optimized and now additionally finds itself on the first few pages for several new desired keywords that have been used in content but for which the site has neither been optimized nor has any off-site SEO or social media marking (SMM) been done.

A solid foundation is always a good place to start. A system with history is good. WordPress is also a very good good choice for SEO, visitor comfort, and ease of management. Regular, new, relevant, content is great and WordPress makes this easy. The results since the change to WordPress have been excellent!

Lora and I may be hired to work our magic on the site in respect of the new search terms the client is exploring but either way we’ll be keeping an eye on this site.

Getting to the top of the search results is important, of course. Additionally, though, it helps to have more spots on the first page than just one. Let’s look at returns on Google for custom dog figurines, one of the more common search terms in the dog gifts industry.

As we can see on the screen capture (link above), with a little less than 70 thousand returns, Dog Lover Store is in the second position on the first page. That’s very good. But they are also on of three sites included in the Shopping Results special section which is also very good.

Additionally Dog Lover Store is represented on the first page, sixth spot, by their blog site, http://msmosites.com/dogloverstore/. This means they control two of the ten regular spots and have a featured place in the special section. Having more than one site can be very helpful. You can provide relevant back links and control additional spots on the SERPs.

Keep this in mind when deciding on your online business strategy.

I get spam emails all the time promising me just that: first place on page one. Of course, no one can honestly promise first page results for almost any keyword. Unless you have a very good site in a very obscure niche it’s going to be a fight to the top and many just won’t make it. Remember, there are only ten spots on the first page of any Google search return and there are thousands, even millions, of sites working hard for there place in one of those spots. Even if you get to the first page there will be just as many sites trying to take the spot from you. It sucks but that’s reality.

The thing is, with the right effort, over time, your site can be on the first page of Google (or awfully close to it). It does take work and you need to know what you are doing. You can likely get there but no one can guarantee it. In this post and the next two I’m going to look at some specific examples.

First, let’s consider this e-commerce venue (mall) site, Main Street Mall Online and lets see how it fairs in a Google search for the term main street mall. (Hint: click that last link to see a screen capture of the search results at the time of writing this post)

“Of course,” you might say, “if you search for your own business name it will come up at or near the top of the first page. Duh!” Well, maybe not. Note first that I am searching for main street mall, just three words, not the four words in the business name, main street mall online. See below for more information.

There are seven points marked with red arrows on that image. I’ll discuss each one in turn working from the top down.

1) there are nearly 8 million returns for these four words. Now, not all of those returns will have all four three words, nor will the words they do have be together in the same order because I didn’t put them in quotation marks or parentheses in my query string. There are a bunch, though, that do have all three words together in the same order. It shows one thing: you need to consider your business name when opening an online busienss!

2) the home page for mainstreetmallonline.com (the target of this excercise) is in the first spot on page one. That’s not too bad.

3) but not only is it in the first spot on page one there is a link just below it that says More results for mainstreetmallonline.com and clicking on that link (the one in the search or the one here) opens another page with over 5000 returns. Most of those are pages on that domain (on that site) that have been indexed. More than 5000 pages. That’s not too bad, either.

4) the second spot on the first page is held by the sub-directory site that is one of the malls (Sewing, Needlework, Patterns & Fabric) that comprise the Main Street Mall Online site.

5 & 6) the sixth and seventh spots are held by mainstreetvintage.com which is a domain name mapped directly to one of the sub-directory sites that is also one of the malls (Vintage Clothing & Accessories).

What’s the point of all this? Simply that despite the number of main street mall returns in search engine results pages (SERPs) it is possible not only to get to the first spot on the first page but to control four out of the ten spaces on the first page… and more.

This is a fairly easy example but, as you’ll see in my next post it can happen for more specific key words in an equally saturated marketplace.

7) and one more thing: the last return on the first page has the domain name main-street-mall.com which speaks to the myth that word-separating dashes in your domain name are critical to your success on Google (or other search engines). This particular site is on the first page, but it is beaten out for the top nine positions by other sites, some of which don’t even have the search term in the domain name.

SEO is a matter of many small pieces of a very large puzzle all coming together over time. I like to think of it as a dance, a ballet if you will, wherem sure, the prima is important but so are all the others including the chorus. If any are missing it is not complete but many parts could be missing without bringing the show to a close. And most of the individual dancers think, incorrectly, that they are the one that will make all the difference. They forget one key thing: most parts have an understudy.

SEO is a lot like that.

I keep hearing horror stories of people spending huge sums on SEO and getting nothing for it. I sometimes pick up clients who have been through this experience and I see nothing, or very little, on their websites to indicate any real SEO program was ever undertaken on their behalf.

So what’s the real story? SEO, after all, is made up of two broad components, on site and off site. Generally the whole program isn’t worth much if the on site part isn’t taken care of first. And taken care of correctly.

I also hear people talking about their fears of being penalized and blocked from Google if they do this one thing or that one thing, mostly innocuous things that have little or no bearing on their SEO efforts at all. Most often they are quoting purported axioms they have picked up on discussion forums posted by wannabe SEO experts who have only learned the same worn out myths and urban legends.

There are things to be concerned about, things you should do, things you need to do, things you shouldn’t do, and even a few that may get you penalized, but mostly the only penalty you will experience, especially if you only do the right things, is finding yourself not as far up the pages as you would have hoped. And typically this lack of performance is simply because you aren’t doing enough of the right things, often enough, and over a long enough period of time.

The first, and probably the most important thing you should learn about SEO is that it is not a one time thing. It is not a quick fix. It is a process that takes time. You should expect to sped up to six months of seriously applied positive (white hat) activity before seeing any serious results and up to a year of sustained application before your results are secure.

The second thing you need to know is that SEO is a never ending story. It requires some application all the time, each month at least, for as long as you will keep your website. Without it you will slip from the first page and, perhaps, out of sight. The good news is that most of the on-going SEO, after the first, intensive, six months to a year, is easy and you can do it yourself.

You can also do all the heavy lifting yourself, if you like. There is nothing in the SEO process that is mystical, magic, or something you cannot actually do yourself, though many SEO professionals want you to think there is. It is, however, often cheaper to hire it done; not only in raw dollar cost but also in regard to the impact it will have on other areas of your business if you spend the time learning and delivering good SEO over the necessary six months to a year period it will take to be successful.

My next three posts will deal with three particular cases that show some interesting issues and important information in the SEO process.

I’ve often said there are four things a person should have if they are going to sell online:

1 – their own domain name
2 – their own website even if they aren’t going to sell from it
3 – an eBay account
4 – an account on at least one other venue

These days there are a lot of good sellers leaving eBay because they have been caught in the DSR trap and lost the ability to get the lower listing price in the second tier store package. Often these sellers are angry, fed up with eBay, and cut all ties with the venue that previously was their primary source of income.

With reference to the don’t put all your eggs in one basket adage it is certainly better to have options in place before push comes to shove but even for those who don’t, cutting and running may be the worst approach. eBay can still be a valuable market for the seller who migrates most of their business elsewhere.

eBay does have a lot of traffic and it is still the biggest player in the venue market. To cut ties with them is the proverbial cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. Far better to keep a presence and at least make use of the numerous free services eBay offers. The forums are a great place to keep in touch and promote your business — indirectly, of course — and About Me pages are a potentially powerful advertising vehicle. Auction listings, for the member without a store are free and 30 day fixed price listings are still cheap, if not as cheap as they once were. An eBay account is a great way to get exposure for your off-eBay business.

But way another venue? Simple: people shop at other venue. Sometimes people who shop at other venues don’t shop at eBay. It’s just one more avenue of exposure. You really should list your items — at least some of them — at one or more of the many venues available in the marketplace today. Those that offer free listings provide, if nothing else, free advertising for your business. Those that allow you to link to your website are even better.

Main Street Mall Online is one of those places that provide free listings (the free mini-store offers ten completely free listings — no store rental, no listing fee, no final sales commission — FREE!) and allows you, indeed encourages you, to link to your own website. That’s a link for people to follow end a back link from a relevant site for SEO. Certainly w

A friend and client from Australia, Tim Mooney, contacted me today about a page he needs added to his website and a little SEO work he would also like to have updated.

I always enjoy his wonderful aerial photography. Mostly he does real estate related work — you know, expensive property views — in and around the Sydney, NSW, area, but he also shoots fantastic scenery, including a lot of spectacular coastline views.

To me Australia has always presented some of the most spectacular scenery on the planet. I am always keen to see what Tim has captured recently.

The Amazon affiliate program is fantastic and the astore opportunity is without equal on the ‘net, however astores don’t allow for much personalization and you can’t take advantage of things like blogging or niche content for SEO.

Free blog sites are okay and some of the free website hosts will allow astores but you are at the mercy of their “deal” changing without notice. Sometimes sites ban commercial use altogether (sorry folks, an affiliate monetized site is commercial!) and often those that do allow it will require an expensive commercial upgrade at some point. They get you hooked and then, if you are successful and don’t want to change, they get your money.

Even good deals tend to leave you out there pretty much on your own. The Internet can be a lonely place!

In conjunction with MSMOsites website community (http://msmosites.com) I have created a structured website, based on the WordPress website engine, that provides a home page, an astore page, an about page and an integrated blog. The site is installed and configured for you. There is no installation or setup fee and no contract period. The site rental is just $3.99 per month. You can cancel any time you wish.

You can add additional pages, easily add your Amazon astore iframe code to the astore page (see image to the left), and add widgets and other ads to the sidebars. You can have different sidebar content on each of the four included pages and the site will support other affiliate ads as well. Learn more here:

http://msmosites.com/astores/

This is a solid starting point, and a great base upon which to grow, for anyone seerious about building Amazon (and Google or eBay!) affiliate revenue streams. The website is not free but it’s eminently affordable. If you are not prepared to spend a little you probably aren’t committed enough to do what needs to be done anyway.

Oh, and one more thing: I provide tech support and marketing advice (by email) without charge to anyone renting one of these Amazon Affiliate Astore websites.

There are hundreds, indeed thousands, of old WordPress themes around. Most of them are free. A lot of the old themes were designed before many of the new WordPress features and functions existed. Some of them contain what were completely new concepts at the time which have since been incorporated into the WordPress core system albeit in a somewhat different way. The long and the short of it is that many old themes just don’t work — or don’t work completely — with the current WordPress structure.

Dan Therrell is a good friend of mine who owns a web services company called Zfish (formerly Blue Mullet Web Services). Over the years we’ve collaborated on a number of projects. He recently came across an impressive free theme called Notebook Chaos which he decided to use on his main Zfish.com site.

Immediately upon installation Dan discovered that the theme didn’t work the way he was hoping. Pages weren’t functioning as expected and some content wasn’t showing up where planned. It wasn’t that the theme was broken. It was just that it was coded in such a way that a number of typical (today) WordPress concepts either weren’t included or they were hard coded into the pages so they couldn’t be adjusted in the usual fashion from the WordPress management Dashboard.

I was fortunate enough to be talking to Dan about another matter at about the same time as he had added this theme to his site and he asked me to have a look at it. I found it to be made up of clean code that was easy to edit and between us we sorted out the things necessary to make an old theme work on a current WordPress installation. And sometimes the results are really worth the effort!