How to Optimize Keywords and Landing Pages

During the early stages of optimization, it is not uncommon to depend on the authority of the homepage to act as a “catch all” page for your websites most coveted keywords. However, the homepage has been proven as one of the least likely places to facilitate conversion.

Considering that rankings are “by the page” the real objective of search engine optimization is to identify and solidify on page factors to communicate a hierarchical chain of relevance within a website to convey which pages are optimal for the keyword or key phrases in question.

One way to do that is through unifying four vital metrics within the site architecture and on page metrics.

1)      Allintitle: a metric that assesses the local and global term weights for keywords in the titles.

2)      Allintext: a metric that assess the local and global term weights for keywords in the body text.

3)      Allinanchor: a metric that assess the local and global term weights for keywords in anchor text (both from within the site and from other sites to individual pages).

4)      Allinurl: a metric that assesses relevance based on mirroring keywords in the URL naming conventions, subfolders or sub domains.

Follow the link ror more information about allintitle, allintext and allinanchor or how to use Google search operators for SEO.

By consolidating these prominent SEO ranking factors through structured search operators and employing SEO by design rather than trying to go back and fix a leaky bucket, it is possible to improve the relevance score for individual keywords systematically as a result of holistic structure, planning and execution.

Consider this your SEO ecosystem which allows each seed (keyword) to become fertile, nourish itself and bear fruit.

In this case, the fruit is to appear in the top 1000 results of Google, make its way to the top 100 and then either use other pages to reinforce topicality and buoyancy and move into the top 10 spotlight.

Step 1: For a landing page to have the proper on page signals to capture a competitive keyword it will require structured dedication and citation such as:

• Enough content on the page (based on the keyword).
• Enough content within the site (to cross the tipping point).
• Enough links from within the site (to establish the internal pages hierarchy)
• Enough links from other sites (if the on page elements are not enough).

Step 2: Planning -Finding the competitive keyword thresholds is not difficult, but assessing your own websites ranking potential is a mandatory step. We call this gap analysis (determining the objective and where you are at present).

In order to navigate the gap, it will require time, content, links and patience; and the more competitive the keyword, the more time, content, trust or links you will need to offset the barrier to entry.

Ideally, the most competitive keywords should be supported by:

• Primary navigation
• A keyword-rich subfolder
• A keyword-rich page naming convention and title

Other metrics for consideration from a standpoint of relevance are:

• Time: how old is the content, is it still relevant?
• Popularity: How many citations are linking to it?
• Supply / Demand: How many times has the page been accessed based on other pages in your website.
• Value: Is the information authoritative, academic or educational or commercial (search engines are programmed with preference).

Step 3: Execution –Map a tiered site structure using theming and siloing to produce the necessary dynamic to propel your pages to the top of the SERPs (search engine result pages).

For your pages:

• Use Exact Match keywords in titles for your primary keyword first, then add secondary or plural search engine proven synonyms (not exceeding three keyword variations).
• Use Relevant Mata Data (Including Information only relevant for that page).
• Use the exact match keyword in the H1 tag, and plural variations in H2 tag if needed.
• Build internal links to that page from other pages that have theme relevance for the keyword (in the title). For example, link similarly themed pages using the anchor text you want the target page to rank for.
• Use the keyword in the first 50 words of the page, and use it at least 2 other times in the document. Preferably you should employ alternate synonyms to reinforce topical relevance (without resorting to spam / keyword stuffed content).
• Acquire inbound deep links to the page from other websites to provide sufficient peer review from search engines (since they measure citation as a favorable metric).

Taking the on page SEO to the next level implies sculpting relevance through the proper utilization of link equity, selecting your preferred landing pages and pairing those pages with a suitable value proposition, call to action and conversion action to facilitate the sales funnel.

Put simply:

1. Choose a main category page for each dominant keyword.
2. Use subordinate product or article pages to provide structured inbound internal links to support the main category pages.
3. Build links to those 3^rd or 4^th tier pages to provide buoyant ranking factor to the entire keyword cluster (the aggregate semantic collective of related keywords). By building links to the deeper pages in a website, each page in the site above in the hierarchy or the root folder benefit as well.

In the 3^rd example above, this alone becomes a priceless component of any SEO strategy. Under the notion that your website is only as strong as its weakest link, as long as each page is nurtured, connected through virtual theming (internal links) or a sitemap or secondary navigation, it can contribute to the global ranking potential for the entire website.

Don’t waste time or opportunity from relying on any one page in your website to do the heavy lifting. Instead, endow each page with vigor and ranking potency by adhering to the solid principles of SEO by design.

SEO Tips for Site Architecture

Does is take 5 pages of content to rank for keywords with 50K competing pages, 25 pages if content and 15 strong inbound links for keywords with 500k competing pages, 100 pages of content, time, age and links for 1MM competing pages?

This is primarily impacted by 3 things:

• The vertical market
• The age and SEO Prowess of the competition
• The degree of relevance, trust and content your website has

Aside from these preliminary metrics, it is merely a matter of identifying where your website algorithmically fits in (in the top 1000 results) for the given keyword in search engines.

The Vertical Market

Some markets only have a few major players; others have hundreds competing for each vital online keyword. You also have to consider the grandfather effect whereby sites that existed pre-Google or are 10 years or older often have the depth or trust from some of the most trusted structural links on the web.

The Age / Grandfather Effect

There were not always millions of new websites being added daily, and older sites often enjoy the benefits on ranking higher with less on page optimization.

Although this type of insulation exists, it can still be overcome through applying SEO holistically across a plethora of critical metrics (internal links, themed content, deep links and trusted editorial links from other relevant or authoritative sites).

Content Trust and Relevance Thresholds

After building a solid platform for your website, the more content and or relevant links your pages acquire, the more trust it can acquire.

Trust is the ultimate objective of SEO, a site with trust can rank from a mere mention of a keyword or merely tack on a sub domain or sub folder and literally dominate a market (even through the topic may be an auxiliary topic) as a result of the domain’s authority.

So, if you have a new website, a moderate amount of pages, no significant inbound links, poor site architecture or strong competitors in your market, here are some solid SEO tactics.

As a preface competitive keywords or the definition of competitive starts at 2 million competing pages (just type the “keyword” in quotes in a Google search query).

A keyword less than 2,000,000 competing pages can be acquired as a result of ambient on page factors such as domain trust, topical content, internal or external links; however for pages that encroach on definitive markets, the barrier to entry can be fierce.

Blending Content, Site Architecture and Links

Build your most competitive root phrases into the site architecture, navigation and contextual internal links.

Don’t try to make generic pages or an overabundance of similar pages based on the exact same keywords, use modifiers and stem rankings (like a branch of a tree connected to the trunk) to populate a variety of landing pages tailored to each specific modifier and variation (affordable “keyword”, leading “keyword” services, “keyword” company, best deals on “keyword”, etc.).

Chose a champion page for each respective keyword, then link to it contextually from other occurrences of that keyword in other documents (as applicable).

There is no need to overdo it (like Wikipedia) but, if you can find relevant pages to provide internal links to the pages designed to rank for those keywords, then it is merely a matter of time and / or relevance before your pages become more buoyant.

Keep in mind that rankings take time and sometimes recede or get stuck due to fluctuations in crawl data, shifts in algorithms and other external factors such as competition.

You have to establish authority by chipping away at the more competitive keywords, while ensuring that you refine the relevance on a page by page basis (while eliminating duplicity in your site, theme or template).

Know When to Adapt

If a keyword has more than 500,000 competing pages fighting for the top 10 results, then consider adding a sub folder and adding at least 30 related posts which you can string together as respective branches on the topic. This way, you blanket the market and rank for the whole cluster.

For 750,000 competing pages add 20-30 overlapping pages based on a relevant keyword cluster or synonym, for 100,000,000 competing pages 50-70 pages of themed content.

When the site grows to a point where you have reached the top 20 results for ambient rankings for multiple top tier keywords, then you have to eliminate penalties and confusion about which page should rank for what variation of the keyword or key phrase.

Mapping out a sufficient array of deep links to reinforce the topicality of each page is the next respective metric for improvement. Click here for more about the site: command to theme your pages, content and / or links.

And last but not least, using sufficient navigation or internal links to feed a site as it grows is even more important.

Make sure you don’t neglect or orphan site segments or exclude pages with potential. Periodically go back and sift through pages with trust (9 months or older) to see which changes can create a positive outcome and work as a dynamo to fuel other areas of the site.

When a page reaches a particular ranking threshold, it can then pass along that excess (like a cascading glass of champagne glasses spilling over) to create a distinct type of “ranking credit”.

Where you spend that credit and ranking factor is entirely up to you; however sites with magnitude also understand the importance of expanding their base.

Which is why it is important to have a firm understanding of which type of site architecture works well for your business model; flat site architecture for e-commerce, tiered or themed and siloed site architecture for companies with various topics or market channels, or sub domains for those with vast arrays of segments within the channel they operate within.

Letting Go of Flawed Pages

There are two schools of thought with SEO, the first is “build it right the first time” add content and links, or the second is based on “going back to fix a leaky bucket” and trying to get another 3 years of those dated pages.

You have to know which pages are worthy of consolidation, which pages need flattened (in the root folder), or which websites could function better themed.

Sometimes starting fresh or adding new segments to a website are the best solution to augment existing rankings from legacy components (such as a dated CMS).

There are an abundance of solutions (like WordPress) that are fully customizable with website themes and SEO plugins to fine tune settings.

You can benefit from a hybrid strategy of salvaging pages with the highest degree of relevance and strength, as well as create new fully optimized sub folders or sub domains to stem rankings.

Suggested Post:

This SEO Behind the Scenes Video – How to Discover Competitors SEO Strategies teaches you how to unravel your competitors SEO tactics and surpass them.

On the contrary, web 2.0 is based on the premise of using other websites for positioning or conversion aids by sending visitors to your “money site” or various web properties.

The Pros: SEO instills value and authority to your own online property.

The Cons: Web 2.0 marketing leverages existing traffic inherent within a respective ambient community or authoritative property (but you don’t own the channel).

Even though Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Myspace and others come to mind, the web is local, national and international phenomenon, so there are thousands of sites capable of yielding traffic to your cause.

This type of promotion, typically known as web 2.0 marketing involves using the inherent strength and presence of an online community and its audience and then uses a post, article, video, page or link to pass that traffic along to a preferred destination / landing page.

Depending on if that landing page is a tended property of your own, or if it is being leveraged by you is merely a matter of preference, positioning and market penetration.

A typical web 2.0 campaign looks something like this.

Step 1: Identify the most powerful web properties online.

Tip: Use WWW then look in order of importance

• www AND share
• www AND submit articles
• www AND social bookmark
• Use Alexa or Dmoz as a benchmark:

Alexa.com is a great way to ascertain the validity and popularity of a potential web property. If it has a low Alexa rank (the lower the better) since 1 is the #1 site online measured by the top 1 million websites. This metric can help you gauge traffic or potential levels of engagement.

Step 2: Compile Your List, Create Accounts and Map out your keywords.

• Conduct keyword research.
• Identify lucrative keyword variations based on intent.
• Create your landing pages (infused with those keywords) but geared toward conversion.
• Create collateral materials (videos, articles, guest posts, etc.).

Step 3: Promote Your Content (Create a Viral Buzz).

• Use the top article marketing sites to create the first wave.
• Follow up with Videos across multiple web aggregators (like www.tubemogul.com ).
• Send social media to the videos, posts or articles.

All the while all of the aggregate sources have links back to your main web property or properties funneling traffic into your unique selling proposition and conversion funnels.

These funnels could also be affiliate offers which pass that traffic along to yet another step or node of the conversion funnel.

Web 2.0 Pros: Although we are SEO’s at heart, you could see how a company or individual could rinse and repeat this process in any competitive vertical or for any product or service. And since the ranking factor is already inherent from the web 2.0 properties, even if you do not own a website, you could still profit from proper segmentation.

Keep in mind these types of strategies often push the boundaries of the terms of service for most social media sites and / or web properties “if tactless shameless self promotion does not bother you”…

It also can be rather tedious to implement without automation to some extent (which only pushes the boundaries of moral turpitude, stature and premise.

Who is to say that one’s content is not worth sharing any less than the next persons (since content is subjective), just keep in mind the underlying value of the product, service, offer or promotion and don’t do anything to abuse the agreed upon standards.

SEO provides a far more conducive method for tracking which metrics are required to overcome a particular barrier to entry or threshold; and once you own that traffic, your own web property becomes an asset, vs. relying on the authority of other sites to perform the heavy lifting.

However if you must, I suggest using the most authoritative properties to (a) capture the most competitive keywords in your vertical (such as a viral video leveraged on multiple properties and communities) or (b) use them to provide tangible link flow back to your web properties and conversion funnels.

Articles have links and those links can impact rankings (or even rank on their own in the right authoritative article marketing site). Videos carry significant weight in the SERPS (search engine result pages) and can appear in the top 10 for multiple tags and related queries.

The best strategy is a synthesis of all things internet marketing such as press releases, articles, white papers, free tools, widgets, plugins, themes, blogs, e-books, video and social media engagement. To look past one for another is short-sighted. It boils down to relevance and choice or which yields the most significant selection of opportunity.

After viewing this insightful SEO Video, you will have a firm idea of which metrics to data-mine, reverse engineer or which metrics to ignore.

Metrics:

1. Use SEM Rush (for mapping most competitive keywords).
2. Use Xenu Link Sleuth to assess links and site architecture.
3. Use Relevant Naming Conventions in Tandem with Flat Site Architecture.
4. Assess Website Size to Determine Content to Keyword Saturation.
5. Assess Inbound links and Deep Link Ratio.
6. Are there Content Silos? (Clearly Delineated Sub Folders).
7. Assess Links in to Links out (from Top Tier Pages Down).
8. Assess Aggregate Rankings (SpyFu, SEM Rush).

Application:

• Flatten site architecture for massive sites
• Use keyword rich descriptive URL’s (category last ) ex. /exact-match-keyword-category
• Ensure titles match descriptive URL’s and are reflected in H1 tags and first 50 words (in the body copy).
• Ensure that internal links from other pages match URL and title (to reinforce relevance).
• Ensure links leaving optimized pages link back to root or homepage with the main keyword/shingle.
• Ensure the homepage links to the main category pages only (to establish hierarchy).
• Then that categories feed subordinate products and other relevant landing page tiers from intelligent linking.

Related Posts:

• SEO Tips to Find Competitors Keywords
• SEO Tips to Spy on Competitors
• Market Research and Finding Competitors Keywords
• SEO Tactics to Outwit Competitors
• SEO Tips to Step Over Competitors
• How to Optimize Meta Titles and Descriptions

If you found the video or the information provided useful, then please pass it along to others via Twitter, FaceBook, Sphinn, StumbleUpon, Mixx or your favorite social media community. Or, you can keep these tips to yourself  and subscribe to our blog’s RSS Feed or have posts delivered daily via email.

SEO Ultimate Version 1.6 from SEO Design Solutions

The importer can move your data from the All in One SEO Pack (AIOSP) plugin to our SEO Ultimate plugin. This data includes the custom titles and meta tags of your posts and pages. No need to re-enter all your data. With this new importer, making the jump to SEO Ultimate is easier than ever.

How to Switch to SEO Ultimate

Here’s how to do it in 4 easy steps:

1. Install or upgrade to the latest version of SEO Ultimate.
2. Go to Settings, then click SEO Ultimate
3. Scroll to “Import from Other Plugins” and click “All in One SEO Pack”
4. Adjust the parameters as desired, then click “Import Now”

The default import parameters won’t make any changes to your All in One SEO Pack setup, so you can easily revert to AIOSP if desired. Or, if desired, you can tell the importer to delete AIOSP’s post meta entries after the import is complete. (Be sure to backup your database before running the importer, just as you would before any other major database change.)

10 Reasons to Switch

For AIOSP users, there are many reasons to consider migrating to SEO Ultimate. SEO Ultimate provides these benefits over the All in One SEO Pack:

• Track “page not found” errors with the 404 Monitor module
• Edit robots.txt and .htaccess with the File Editor
• Access investigative search engine tools with the Competition Researcher and the Internal Relevance Researcher modules
• Encourage natural linkbuilding activity with the Linkbox Inserter
• Optimize post continuation anchor text with the More Link Customizer
• Enable advanced canonicalization options
• Increase in-URL keyword potency with the Slug Optimizer
• Enable/disable the above features as desired with the Module Manager
• No ads or donation nags
• No need to manually re-enable after every upgrade

All in One SEO Pack offers none of the above features. With the new migration tool in the latest version of SEO Ultimate, you can easily make the switch. By default, the importer retains all your AIOSP data, so you can easily switch back if you want.

Give SEO Ultimate a test run today. Download your free copy from WordPress.org. For an informative video and an in-depth features list, check out our plugin information page.

No complex installation routines. Just download, install, and configure. Click below to get started with the ultimate SEO suite for WordPress.

Are You Paying the Toll of the PPC Troll?

If you are a victim caught in the whirlwind of paying the toll of the PPC troll (no tens inpunded), then keep in mind that SEO is an investment that pays for itself over time.

When consumers are intent on purchasing, urgency and positioning are paramount to commerce. Your website is either a destination or a doormat to another website with a better offer as a result.

If consumers can’t find your website (since you are past the 2nd page) then how can they place an order?, or if they find your site too late, then it may be too late in the sales cycle to dissuade them from pursuing other purchasing options.

Despite the fact that your competitors are just as eager to carve out a lucrative niche and lay claim to keyword market share and dominance (regardless of your intent); the only thing standing between the number #1 position for your ideal keywords or their websites owning the spot is (1) time (2) content and (3) authority or SEO technique. Fortunately for you, all three are scalable.

What Matters?

• Relevance - Matching visitor expectations with appropriate content for consumption.
• Site Segmentation – having an ideal destination / landing page for specific keywords.
• Conversion funnels – having a distinct conversion objective per page.

Two things to keep in mind under the assumptions above (1) somewhere there is somebody, looking for something and (2) reaching them with the right message at the right time is priceless.

This is where most fail when it comes to targeting the most lucrative keywords for conversion for their organic optimization campaigns. Sure, you can pay per click, but once you prove a page converts, why should you have to if you understand the premise behind advanced SEO (ranking for what you want to regardless of competition).

With the ability to (a) map out which pages appear for which keywords (b) create as much content as needed to “own the apex of the conversation” and (c) having the bandwidth to see beyond limited distribution channels and reach multiple concurrent peaks of performance (such as video optimization, content syndication, brand management, site monetization and / or finding affiliate models to monetize existing traffic) there is no equivalent marketing method that rivals organic search coupled with extensive insight about keyword research, modifiers and consumer search behavior.

So, Why are You Picking On Trolls?

Think of keywords as “the gatekeepers of commerce”. To use an analogy, think about the troll who owns the bridge, since there is value for those on the path that need it (such as access to a village) it wouldn’t matter what the destination was, all who pass pay a toll in order to use it, to facilitate their needs (such as shopping, avoiding the long way around, etc).

Under the same auspices, online there are multiple paths to reach virtually any destination as search engines are the pinnacle or rather the point of convergence for supply and demand as the intersection of intent.

Even though they may be the troll in this instance, without them “letting others pass through” and taking a fee, your website could potentially experience a bleak or meager lonely online existence.

By carefully creating context through singular and plural variations in tandem with action words, active voice and benefit based hooks for queries, consuming a market or the most lucrative keywords in it is merely a by-product of a tactful internet marketing strategy using search engines as a medium to funnel traffic.

Considerations:

1. What is the desired conversion objective? – Short-term conversion, long-term repeat customer with multiple upsells or conversions?
2. What is the consumer’s life time value? – Can your website or brand encompass multiple needs?
3. What are THEY looking for? – The reason behind the “Why?” and…
4. How can you facilitate a satisfactory solution or destination? – Meaning, how can you provide a viable segue to an affiliate offer to volley that traffic where your site is merely a lucrative middleman?

Clearly having a monetization model is important or equally as important as the keywords you use to tell your story and attract visitors to your pages.

The takeaway here is to understand that (a) needs exist and (b) consumers will find ways to fill them one way or another. So, the question is, what role do you to play; the troll (conversion path), the tour guide (affiliate) or the village an ecommerce destination at the end of the path?

Supporting References:

• How to Create SEO Landing Pages that Rank Like PPC
• Motivated Buyers, SEO and Intent
• Attention Share and Value Based Conversions
• The Psychology of a Click Through
• Targeting Behavioral Keywords

Managing Link Equity with Links in to Links Out

Sculpting link equity within a website is what distinguishes that site from others targeting the same terms using SEO. For example, say for instance there are two websites fighting for a dominant position in search engines with nearly identical off page considerations.

Let’s assume Site A has 100 pages and relies on the homepage as the primary page and houses 90% of the inbound links to the site and then randomly distributes (or rather squanders) the link equity in the site by relying on the home page and primary navigation.

On the other hand, let’s assume Site B has 100 pages with 9 sub folders that use relevant naming conventions, SEO-friendly URL’s (website.com/descriptive-folder/main-keyword.html) and 10 pages in the root folder. Site B also uses contextual internal links to link from relevant page to relevant page whenever a keyword appears on a page in the site (to thereby sculpt an internal link preference for each keyword).

Also, site B does not have 90% of the off page ranking factor pointing at the homepage (*which is often the least likely page for conversion), on the contrary, links are distributed evenly throughout the site to either the individual pages with the highest contextual relevance to the keywords in question or the sub folder which houses the content (10 pages or semantically related content) which then redistributes that link equity to the pages as needed.

Which website do you think will rank higher for a given array of keywords? My vote is for website B…

Not to say that either site is incapable of conquering a competitive vertical or an array of keywords. The main distinction is the inherent differences in how each website’s referential integrity conveys a distinguishable preference for specific keywords vs. taking a wild-west approach and crossing your fingers and simply swapping out meta tags and expecting dramatic shifts in rankings.

Ironically, site architecture and internal linking are often thought of last in the process of scaling a website; much like finishing a building, then forgetting to add the plumbing or electrical; it will cost you more to improvise and create workarounds than just starting fresh (or at least creating a new site segment of beacon) to consolidate a tiered and structured approach to rankings.

Rankings are a byproduct of (1) a programming platform that is conducive of adding relevant content (2) a pliable content management system or pliable array of templates to accommodate the market focus of each page and (3) the extent of the internal linking and cross-linking of pages, segments or off page inbound links from other sites (deep links) to validate the degree of peer review and internal relevance capable of conveying a semantic structure to search engines.

Falter from this model and you may have a strong site that ranks for everything you don’t want, with the inability to capture the more competitive keywords and key phrases that have the highest potential for return on investment and positioning for a given market or market segment.

You have 100% control over your own website, also, there is no penalty for creating content, however the extent of indexation depends on how unique the content is, what the degrees of consumption are from search engines, social media and other online sources as well.

The main takeaway here is that your own website after it reaches a climactic threshold (based on keyword co-occurrence) can provide vital ranking factor to other pages and provide buoyancy with a fraction of external links from outside sources.

If you understand the depth of this implication, with content, your website can cross that tipping point and (a) serve as a primary destination from search engines (after they crawl and index your content) as well as (b) those pages can provide primary ranking factor for new pages in the site.

This is how Wikipedia dominates the web (1) a powerful CMS (2) relevant content reinforced by strong internal linking and (3) an aggregate collection of deep links (links from other websites) to specific pages with themed / related keywords which correspond to the on page content.

Sure, you could build a website the old fashion way and rely on links to the homepage (to carry the site and rankings) or, you could diversify the link equity in the site, create a topical hierarchy and consume the web one keyword cluster at a time.

So, the premise of links in to links out is more than just a catchy saying, if you have strong internal links feeding a page, you should limit the amount of times you link out from that page to unrelated content or allow the navigation to seep potential link flow away from vital pages.

The more links that you have leaving a page, the less ranking factor that page has (unless augmented by other internal or external site links). So, the moral of the story is, make each link count.

After watching the video, I suggest reading the power of RSS aggregation and syndication to ensure that your CMS (content management system) has what it needs to blog and ping its way to the top of rankings.

Also, don’t forget to add relevant tags your content to produce visibility. Tags and syndication help influential media sources and bloggers find your site which can translate into links.

Building SEO into the Core of Your Website

To conquer competitive verticals using SEO, you need to build topical nodes of relevance from the core of your website. This involves a holistic approach whereby the keywords are not mere extensions of fallacy or a wish list of sorts but rather dedicated regions of the site backed by solid site architecture and internal and external links.

Rescuing languishing of lackluster rankings from common SEO inadequacies is one of the multifaceted responsibilities of a skilled SEO. In specific, acquiring competitive keywords involves synthesizing keyword clusters, content and mirroring a similar core throughout the site architecture that is strategically unified to overcome common barriers to entry.

Each keyword has a tipping point as each keyword cluster builds tangible ranking momentum. The more unique relevant content that features keywords based on the co-occurrence matrix (simply put related keywords found from authoritative sites on the topic) score you extra points for a given cluster of  keywords.

Thinking of your website like each page is capable of passing along some specific facet of ranking factor from page to page (like the buddy system); through carefully managing these on page assets, you can elevate select pages as the champion page for each topic.

Over time, once a relevance threshold has been exceeded for a given keyword, key phrase or combination (theme) a website can produce a type of “ranking credit” like having money in the bank, except for in this instance that currency is “pent up ranking factor” that can be applied through expression on other pages within the site.

You should understand when this occurs (to ensure that you are mapping out the progress of each keyword campaign for maximum ROI) as well as what the precursors are so you can produce results on Que.

Rather than reaching into a hat and treating keyword research as a veritable wish list, in order to “rise to the top” for competitive keywords, there are specific fundamentals to keep in mind.

Avoid:

1. Rambunctiously off-topic or sparsely written topical content. If the conversation is not about your core keywords, then consider using selective indexation (via noindex, follow or noindex, nofollow in the meta tags) to keep the sites’ semantic theme intact.
2. Nesting content in frivolous sub folders pushing pages further away from the root folder.
3. Lack of sufficient internal links. You have to manage link equity wisely (since competitive keywords may take hundreds or thousands of internal links).
4. Lack of sufficient inbound deep links to critical landing pages from other websites (get 10 links or more from other websites to pages that matter).
5. Lack of anchor text diversity (don’t use the same anchor text excessively to build links) unless you want to risk an over optimization penalty.
6. Proper distribution of link equity; prevent orphaned content (use sitemaps, alt attributes and internal links as well as rss feeds to bolster each pages link profile).
7. Gestation time (let the chrysalis occur like a caterpillar to butterfly) don’t expect changes to get indexed and rankings to change overnight.

In addition, titles and meta data should be transformed from a keyword wish list to a keyword specific summary of the contents of THAT PAGE and that page alone. Failure to do so squanders link equity and diffuses the theme of the pages (making them weaker and less capable of ranking for specific shingles (keyword groups).

Encourage:

1. Relevant tiered linking based on keyword continuity (cap outbound links per page and make them count).
2. The use of separate templates to increase usability, conversion and SEO simultaneously.
3. Keeping key content either in the main navigation or closer to the root folder.
4. IP Diversity and deep linking from a variety of authoritative sites.
5. Frequent content to reinforce your websites topical theme.

The Takeaway:

The larger a website becomes the more potential there is for it to produce more traffic. However, it must coincide with your objectives for ROI, so, collaborate copy writing with SEO to maximize short term and long term monetization via traffic.

Also keep in mind, the more competitive the keyword, the more content and assistance your pages will need from site architecture, navigation and links in order to secure a stronghold in search engines.

SEO Tips to Increase Indexation

If one day your ranking on top of the world and the next it was as if someone turned off the tap, then it may be times to see how many pages you have indexed in Google, Yahoo or Bing.

If you see a sharp drop of your pages in the search engines index, then don’t panic, but you may have tripped a filter and reached your websites’ index cap by creating a null set and need to rework a few metrics to appease search engine spiders to get back in the main index.

Solutions to Aid Indexation Include:

• Adding a new template with new navigation.
• Capping and control excessive links leaving each page.
• Adding canonical tags to your pages to recapture lost link flow.
• Getting a variety of fresh deep links to pages that may be starving from link-attrition.
• Adding content to stale site segments (increasing post frequency).
• Redirecting dated content to new pages, subfolders or site sub domains (to create a new relevance threshold).
• Building a master sitemap (or ROR sitemap) and ensuring that it’s included site wide in all templates to encourage a deep-crawl from search engine spiders.
• Building authoritative links to languishing subfolders.
• Rewriting lackluster titles, meta data and / or similar content by choosing a primary keyword for each page.

Just like they say, “you have to crawl before you walk”, your website needs to get crawled, before you rank.  So, make sure to cover the SEO basics to keep your websites’ indexation cap on the up and up to increase the number of relevant pages in search engines for your website.