Archives for November 2007

In my last post, I talked about how to use SEO Digger to find keywords where you rank on the 2nd page of Google. Today, we’ll look at simple steps to move those 2nd page URLs to the 1st page of Google.

I find that people learn better with practical examples, so I decided to help one of my favorite business blogs, Strategic Profits Blog. Also, I hope to get a link from them 🙂

Using SEO Digger, I found a 2nd page URL. As you can see in the screenshot below, the keyword is “online business coaching” and the URL is www.strategicprofits.com.

(For more specific steps on how to find URLs on the 2nd page of popular keywords, check out my previous post, Find Great Keywords With SEO Digger.)

So, what can Strategic Profits to move their site to the first page? Here are some tips.

Change the Title Tag and the Meta Description Tag

The first thing I check is the title tag. In a survey of 37 SEO experts, the title tag was voted as the most important search engine ranking factor. Therefore, the whole keyword phrase should be in title tag.

The current title tag for www.strategicprofits.com is

Business Coaching For Internet Marketing Entrepreneurs

If they changed it to be

Online Business Coaching For Internet Marketing Entrepreneurs

they would have a better chance of ranking in the first page.

While I’m working on the title tag, I check the meta description tag and make sure the keyword is in there too. The meta description tag doesn’t help too much with rankings. However, it increases clickthroughs because the keyword is bolded on the description on the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Look again at the Strategic Profits result on the SERPs. See how “business coaching” is in bold text.

Strategic Profits can increase their clickthroughs by simply changing the description to

Find out how you can work less, make more money and have more time off with Rich Schefren’s online business coaching.

I just added the word “online” to complete the keyword phrase.

Insert the Keyword in the Body Text

I looked through the text of www.strategicprofits.com. I didn’t find the keyword “online business coaching”. They should insert that keyword 2-3 times in the body text.

Build Links with Appropriate Anchor Text

You can do this in two ways: link to the URL from your site (internal links) and get links from other domains (external links).

Internal links are easier to build but external links carry much more weight in Google’s algorithm.

Strategic Profits should use “online business coaching” as their anchor text. However, there seems to be a penalty for overusing the same exact anchor text. To avoid this penalty, they should also use keyword variations like these

internet business coaching
excellent online business coaching
excellent internet business coaching
online business coach
internet business coach
business online coach
business online coach
try online business coaching

Strategic Profits should link internally to www.strategicprofits.com with the above anchor texts. Probably the best place to do this is on their blog.

There are a lot of things you can do to build external links. To keep this post from getting too long, I’ll just give two easy-to-follow tactics.

First, I like to get links from the following sites because they’re free. All you have to do is submit a quality article.

squidoo.com
hubpages.com
ezinearticles.com

Second, I like to buy links.

Finally, build links in the content area of a site rather than sitewide links (like the ones on the sidebar and footer). Google likes content-based links more than sitewide ones.

Conclusion

It often doesn’t take much effort to move a URL on the 2nd page of Google to the 1st page. Follow the above tips and you’ll be on your way to a top 10 ranking. Good luck and feel free to leave a comment or contact me if you have any questions.

There was a time when I didn’t have any employees. In fact, there was a time when I was an employee.

So I know what it’s like to pretend to be busy, to inflate my productivity in reports, etc.

Now I have employees. Normally, I’m a real laid back kind of guy. I don’t like to micro-manage. I like to let artists do their work, unbridled.

But here’s the thing. I can’t shake the deep feeling that web professionals have this nasty habit of faking commitment. You know why? Because I used to fake commitment when I was working for people.

So let’s paint my picture of paranoia (I’m normally not like this, seriously). We’ll lay out the facts:

1. Working online removes temporal boundaries

The web professional can work at 2am just as easily as 8am. This is great. But it also creates a seductive time-warp in which the web professional thinks he or she can run an infinite number of side projects.

2. Working online removes spatial boundaries

Being close to one’s co-workers creates a sense of accountability to work. A person is expected to focus on his primary responsibilities when in an office. Sure, sometimes that means “faking it” – but spatial proximity enhances focus and singlenes of mind.

3. Working online creates infinite possibilities for making money for yourself

I admit it. I’ve suggested in the past that the best road to success online is to work for yourself.

Nothing like stabbing yourself in the back, eh…especially when your employees read everything you write;-)

So what do you think? Is my paranoia justified? Is it unjustified? Are there methods and structures to utilize these facts about the realities of online work to your advantage?

Help! I think I’m about to go delusional;-)

Let me introduce you to one of my favorite SEO tools, SEO Digger.

With this tool, you simply enter in a URL and it will give you the popular keywords that the URL ranks for in the Google top 20. If you become a registered member (it’s free), you can do a full search of a domain name.

SEO Digger has over 44 million keywords in their database. The keywords come from Wordtracker and Overture. If your keyword is not in the database, you can send SEO Digger your keywords and they’ll add them.

It’s not the most accurate tool. Some of the keyword rankings are inaccurate because the search engine results pages (SERPs) are constantly changing. Also, SEO Digger only updates the database every two weeks.

However, this tool gives you a quick overview of where you stand in the SERPs for popular keywords. I like using it to find keywords where I rank on the second page. These keywords are great because it often doesn’t take much work to move your site to the first page.

How to Use SEO Digger to Find Great Keywords

Here’s a quick example where I used SEO Digger to find a couple keywords on the second page.

I typed the domain name of one of the sites I’m working on, WatchPart.co.uk. I checked “Full search for domain name”. Remember you have to be a registered member to use the full domain search. Also, I clicked on “250 keywords” so I could see more keywords per page.

Here are the top of the results. “Pos.” is the position where your site ranks.

I looked at the keywords on the second page (11th through 20th position). Then, I picked keywords that seemed like they would have a good amount of search volume.

Here are two keywords I found.

Finally, I checked Google to get a more accurate ranking. For watch repair kits, the site is actually in the 14th position instead of the 15th. For watch repair kit, the site is in the 13th position.

To learn more about SEO Digger, check out the FAQ and manual.

In my next post, I’ll give you some simple tips for moving your site from the second page to the first page.