Panda Backlink Questions
Any clarification here would be helpful. Many thanks . . .
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I had a look at your site and it looks really good! I like the way that you bring the solutions in with your products. It seems like you have great products. What I can recommend so far is to create a Facebook page and twitter account for your site. Get your site up there and start to build a following. And add all the relevant FB and twitter buttons to your site, including how many people like you and a feed of your tweets. This can really help to make more people aware of your site. If you want to take it one step further you can also create a pinterest account for your business and add a few infographic images about your topic and products. Go where you customers are and sell them!
With regards to writing a ton of articles and heavily doing back-linking, we did that for about 2+ years straight and did pretty good, until Google decided to unlike our site. We also made the mistake of only building up one site and not focusing a lot on the other sites. My advice would be to diversify and build up 3 sites (3 different niches) at a time. I could also look at your site and give you advice, if you like. :)
Regards,
Sumari
thys, I actually have three niches in mind, so I will consider that . . . Are your sites now doing better? Are they ranking again? Please, if you are able, feel free to look at my site. The link is below . . .
Although back linking is not going to give your site much in the way of improved rank, it can still give the Search Engine spiders a path to your site so that they can begin to crawl you.
Don't get me wrong, a high quality back link can give you a little boost in SEO, but nowhere near as much as it did before Panda and the updates Google has made in their ranking algorithms over the last year and a half.
The best way to get ranked is to let the Search Engines know about your site by doing a little back linking, but then it's up to you to keep the content flowing. You can rank very quickly if you are adding content to the site regularly!
And if you connect your site to the social media platforms like twitter, facebook and pinterest. You also get a great plugin for wordpress that helps with the SEO of an article, very helpful.
Hello Carson
Can you clarify something for me please. As I understand it, in basic terms, the old way of SEO was based on 1. On site stuff (Meta tags, H1's etc) and 2. The off site stuff (generating backlinks). I am assuming the on site stuff basically remains the same but what replaces backlinking for the off site stuff? Has this simply been replaced by generating lots of content on site (blog I assume) and sharing this content socially as far as practical? If this is the case I see no point at all in Article submission - may as well put the content on own website.
Thanks
SEO is all about ON-SITE "stuff", but it's not about meta tags and H1 tas etc. Google puts nearly ALL of their ranking focus on the "user experience".
This means writing naturally, writing with the purpose to INFORM people. Google can see right through a webpage or blog post on your site that is scammy. If you create pages and posts on your website with the intention to help your website visitors by offering them quality information, then you'll rank very well.
A few things to consider...
You do not need to stuff your content with the same keyword phrase over and over again. This used to be a sure way to get ranked for a keyword, but this is no longer something that you should practice. You can include a keyword or phrase in the title of your page or post, but there is no need to reiterate it in the content. Rather, you want to focus on writing highly relevant content to the phrase you're targeting. Google is very smart in determining if content is relevant and helpful, so try to focus on this.
Getting a few back links is still fine as it's a pathway to your site for the Search Engine spiders, but having 100's of back links are not going to get you ranked like they used to.
Your best spent time is to focus on the content on your site. Interlink your pages too. Within your content, make reference to other pages on your site with relevant content. Google loves this.
Carson
Thank you all for your responses. Wow, I'm really glad I asked, because I would have spent a lot of energy trying to write articles and get backlinks. I really struggle with the idea of promoting my site among my Facebook friends. Thus, is there a way to use these social platforms without trying to seem like you're trying to sell your friends something?
Carson, would you be willing to briefly look at my site, tell me what you think of it in terms of content and on what I should do to get it to rank?
Or, perhaps I should submit my site to Jay to see if he'd be willing to use it as an example in one of the Wabinars??
Thank you, Carson and thys! This is amazing! Here's my site: http://teachachildread.com/ I'm just looking for honest guidance, and I know you'll give it. If it's bad, and if I should ditch the effort, just let me know; I don't want to work on it if it's doomed! If it's okay, I'm looking for guidance on how I need to move forward to hopefully get it to rank . . . Thank you SO much! This means much to me. Thank you.
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I've had a look at your website and I really like the theme you've chosen. I do have a few concerns that I'd like to raise however.
1 - When people come to your page they are going to be looking for ways to teach their children to READ. Music, Math, and anything else is off topic and it will distract your readers.
What you want to aim for is to make the site 100% about teaching your child to read.
Different techniques
Why it's important for them to lear to read early
I'm sure you could come up with 100 things that you could talk about related to learning to read.
SO, here's my suggestion. Focus on READING, and take out the Math and Music pages. You should have a #1 ranked "learn to read" product page where you review it and tell people WHY you recommend it.
2 - Update the TITLE of your website. Currently it's "Teach a Child Read .Com", Change it to something like "Teach Your Child to Read!". You can update this in your wordpress general settings page.
3 - Give your readers some "Choice". You can start reviewing other "learn to read" products and ranking them on your site. People will like to see a list of "learn to read" products and if you have supporting content (a review) you'll start selling more than just one product. Your #1 recommendation, or #1 ranked product will always sell the most.
As mentioned above, the template is great, the writing is great, but my suggestion is to focus on ONE niche.
"Educating Children" is not a niche. "How to teach your child to read" is a niche. Currently you've got a number of niches.
Hope this helps! Keep us updated on how the site progresses and I'll give it another review after you've made some changes. You have accomplished a LOT so you should be proud of this! Just need a little reorganization is all :)
Carson
Great tips, Carson! It's extremely important to niche closely, otherwise you are competing with bigger sites.
Carson and thys, just now read your thoughts on the site. First of all, thank you so much for looking at it. My health has acted up this week, so unfortunately, I am a bit limited as to how much I can do right now. But I do want to send a couple of follow up thoughts before I forget. 1) I initially intended to do local marketing with this site. To visit preschools in the area, mothers groups and so on. Thus, I included math and music on the site as well 2) Teach a Child Read .Com was going to be my business name for the purposes of local marketing 3) I'm curious, if I ever get around to the local marketing (should my health cooperate) and if I left the site as is, would it almost be impossible to get it to rank in the current condition that the site is in?
I'm taking this feedback and I'm strongly considering it. For example, a review page would be good, changing the title might be the most fitting thing to do. Perhaps my niche is too broad . . . maybe going more social will be necessary. Why I'm strongly considering all of this is obviously you guys know what you're talking about! I think my trouble is that it's a very different direction than what I initially had in mind for the site, which is not a problem, it just may mean that I need to take a step back and reevaluate.
I guess my overall question is, A) if I left the site nearly the same for the purposes of local marketing, could I get it to rank, or not? If not, then I really do need to make the site just about reading. B) If I make the site solely about reading, how do I get it to rank? By interlinking, and by regularly adding quality content to the blog?
Okay, I think that's all. I really appreciate this feedback from both of you. It forces me to think differently, and perhaps that's just what I need. I really, really appreciate this. Thank you!