SEO for Large Sites Part One

Although phrase based indexing and retrieval is a prime method for extracting relevance and context, there are multiple layers involved ranging from site architecture, internal links, external deep links and accessibility that all contribute to the formula that decides (based on the least common denominator) which pages are the best match for any given query.

To Assist Search Engines We Suggest that You:

• Define Ranking Objectives.
• Plant Seedling Keywords.
• Determine Preferred Landing Pages
• Reinforce Competitive Keyword Categories.
• Strengthen Internal Linking, Consistently.
• Use Succinct Titles and Meta descriptions (as they can pull their own rankings alone).
• Manage Site Wide Duplicate Content (Custom templates, Noindex, Follow, 301 Redirects, XML Sitemaps).

Define Ranking Objectives - Depending on your keyword positioning and ranking objectives, you will need to select the best method to accomplish them. For example, if your focus is on the Long-Tail of search (meaning less competitive keyword combinations), then link prominence (links from other sites only to the homepage) and flat site architecture (all the pages in the root folder) will work just fine for accomplishing this type of result.

If the market were more specialized and you had less competition (like a high ticket item like MRI equipment), then you could elect for a smaller site with key nodes of relevance (like tips of an iceberg) to wrap up singular, plural and other popular keyword combinations over time.

By adding a series of keyword rich naming conventions and using pagination such as breadcrumb navigation you would reinforce 2 out of the 3 primary metrics search engines assess for relevance (url naming conventions and anchor text) within your own site to subsidize off page ranking factor.

The more work or more streamlined and granular your layers are optimized the less dependent the site becomes on getting a jump-start from other sites and the faster it develops its own authority (to rank on its own coherence/merit).

This strategy would differ from a large ecommerce site with thousands of SKU’s (stock kept units) which means that the model numbers would be the keywords and there would be a large degree of duplicity across the website due to generic mfg. descriptions, etc.

Each keyword has a threshold and tipping point and term frequency within a document, how clearly the hierarchy is promoted within your own website and how large of a footprint your website and link profile make (compared to your competitors) all determines how buoyant your rankings will become.

Plant Seedling Keywords - With keywords, keyword research, modifiers and action words the last thing you want to do is work backwards after the fact. Keywords are the foundation of organic optimization and are the wireframes that eventually support the schema of what a strategic page acting as a piece of the puzzle can accomplish based on its position in the pyramid of relevance.

That pyramid is (1) stable site architecture (2) relevant landing pages based on keyword continuity and (3) a strong internal and external link profile. However, before you can progress to stage 2 or 3, you need to have your hit list of keywords ready to engage the market and search engines alike.

There is no need to recreate the wheel, just look at search trends, related searches (in Google in the footer), keyword research tools and common sense to find a nice cross-section of relevance to use as your blueprint to frame out the site.

If you have a site that lacks coherence, it is not too late to add a new segment to consolidate the ranking factor, execute 301 redirects, add new naming conventions and implement a clear structure that implies a hierarchical method of consistency.

We often implement a an optimized blog on clients sites to concentrate ranking factors that allow us to bypass poorly implemented errors or dated site structures which omit crucial metrics for search engines (such as meta tags, internal links, a one size fits all template, etc).

By baking SEO into the template or new section, you know it is only a matter of time if you manage the areas which impact relevance over time. A stable search engine ranking for a competitive keyword can take anywhere from 4-12 months, but you have to remain focused on the ranking objective over time.

It is not uncommon that when you finally give up and think you have done everything possible to acquire a competitive position (and just relax) that it takes a top 5 or #1 position. The main thing is not to get frustrated or abort inadvertently since you may not see the real result without patience.

So, instead of targeting a handful of keywords, target an entire set of keywords to build the relevance for that subject/topic. By adding internal links to reinforce each other, your pages can implement the buddy system to feed off each other and steamroll the competition since you are using a tight niche of keywords.

To provide a more thorough overview, here is a post from the past on keywords and keyword modifiers that will explain the importance of alternative and supporting keywords and what role they play. This post on theme density will also aid in getting the point across that by concentrating your topics intelligently, rankings are a by-product of great content.

I can see clearly that this topic will require more elaboration, so, if you haven’t already, I encourage you to subscribe to our RSS feed to catch a follow up video and the rest of the topics outlined in this post above. This is a great topic and should have more than just an overview with bullet points.

In the follow up video and posts, I will break out each segment below in greater detail with examples to provide clarity:

• Determining Preferred Landing Pages
• Reinforcing Competitive Keyword Categories.
• Strengthening Internal Linking, Consistently.
• Use Succinct Titles and Meta descriptions (as they can pull their own rankings alone).
• Managing Site Wide Duplicate Content (Custom templates, Noindex, Follow, 301 Redirects, XML Sitemaps).

Stay tuned for more from SEO Design Solutions Blog, where we share free search engine optimization tips, tactics and strategies that you can actually use to get ranked.

Also, if your haven’t already (shameless plug), many of features we discussed are already available in our SEO Ultimate All-In-One Plugin for WordPress (hint, hint). This SEO plugin is definately worth checking out and is modular based so, we will continue to add functionality over time to expand its capabilities each week.

The Trinity of Relevance SEO, Traffic and Conversion!

Search engine rankings are to websites what the stock market is to businesses, they are a metric which others use to measure the degree of peer review, acceptance and impact they have on the collective marketplace as a whole.

In many instances, the position of your website in search engines communicates the degree of authority your website has vested within it about a particular keyword or topic. Yet, despite the topic, if the visitor fails to see the value in that authority or does not take action, then it will not matter what keyword they used to reach your site.

Aside from relevance, search engine positions are based on a moving target of criteria. These criteria have specific thresholds and demands that require a seer like intellect to divulge the source of which variables are more important than others (titles, supporting pages/links, domain age, pecking order within the site, accessibility, etc). Get them right and you remain intact, fail to impress search engines (or visitors) and metric will not matter as that visitor will simply move on to find a better offer.

In addition, with newcomers challenging established search results in every competitive vertical online market, it is no secret that Google is shaking things up and re-weighting the SERPs and changes the face of business as we know it each week with new updates and tweaks to their algorithm.

Consider it an extended update where stability has taken a backseat to the authority sites with new found focus or new kids on the block who finally figured out that title tags really do work….

Whatever the reason for the new entries (the old sites had stale metrics, the market is expanding or the relevance weights have changed) all we know is that the SERPs have been displaying a unique array of results for the past couple of weeks.

The trend, authority sites with link weight and popularity to spare taking a bite out of other markets when sparsely mentioning a keyword in the title, description or sparsely throughout the site.

I would rather not get into name calling, but, let’s just say that if you have been resting on your laurels for the past few months, that may not get your website the first page exposure you became comfortable with in the past.

The new algorithms are looking for new and exciting metrics to deduce the signal to noise ratio online. Your website really has to emphasize an authoritative position and reinforce it from multiple angles (web 2.0 / social media engagement, videos, press releases, RSS directories, Unique RSS Feeds, Article Syndication, and more).

In essence, you need to be visible in Universal search by being universal in scope to reach a broader cross-segment of where markets, users and attention are all intercepted by your website or websites. A successful online business requires a trinity of metrics in order to gain traction in a maket place; SEO (for visibility), search engine traffic (for qualified leads or visitors) and conversion (from visitors finding what they are looking for).

Keep in mind, there is no shortage of competition, if you do not own your space, then you will not occupy it very long. Just call it the law of averages which can work for or against you, depending on how you embrace the metrics of search engine positioning and engagement from prospects.

Any lapse in any of the fundamental areas search engines use to assess relevance could mean slipping off the grid of organic search and being upstaged as a result of temporal differences or thresholds for relevance or engagement being challenged by competitors.

Managing your sphere of influence:

So often we get caught up in the vanity plate keywords or ego boosters’ vs. expanding baseline traffic. This is where analytics comes into play and really digging deeper to see significant trends in regional or local keywords, bounce rates and engagement times or specific advanced segments or goals.

As a result, we can do more with less effort by seeing what signals search engines have already earmarked for your domain so that you are essentially not going against the grain when it comes to expanding on keywords already handing close to the top results.

Taking a month for example to examine keywords on the fence and push them from dangling by a thread in the 20’s into the top 10 is a far more beneficial practice than starting on an entirely new campaign or new organic keywords. The notion is to promote keyword stemming then broaden the range and scope of topical synonyms.

From there parse your contents highlights that receive consistent traffic and start looking for affiliate programs to generate income from a friendly referral from your website or funnel that traffic back to your preferred landing pages to propose an offer for engagement and conversion.

The simple takeaway is, you never know which metrics will gain or fall out of favor with search engines which is why you must thrive to re-create your online relevance model in order to stay ahead of the bell curve.

The more flexible your approach is and the ability to scale content or reinforce older pages with authority, the higher probability of maintaining or acquiring a larger percentage of organic search engine traffic.

Also, remembering that conversion optimization is just as important as search engine position and conversion is the real yard stick that measures was it all worth it at the end of the day. Increasing traffic without being as astute with analytics or layering your offers in context to the purpose of your website or web pages will only leave you scratching your head when your competitors have mastered the art of the squeeze page, PPC landing pages or solid organic content.

Here is our suggested reading list (to stay ahead of the curve) as well as emphasize potential areas in your website you may have overlooked while inadvertantly obsessing over rankings. Online marketing is holistic and diversity is the key to longevity and depth to offset dependency on any one metric.

The Following Posts are to Assist The Triad of SEO, Traffic and Conversion:

• Uncommon SEO Metrics
• Create Traffic or Optimize Existing Traffic
• How to Use Action Words to Increase Traffic and Reader Response
• Internet Branding - Brand Imaging & Brand Identity
• Assessing Competitors with SEO Market Analysis
• SEO is Great, But Conversion is Even Better
• SEO Delivers Traffic, But What Happens Next?
• Increase Conversion Not Just Traffic
• SEO Visibility and Conversion
• Facilitating Value Based Conversion

For those of you who have installed the SEO Ultimate SEO Plugin for WordPress from SEO Design Solutions and are have patiently waited for information about the feature-rich dashboard and configuration settings, we managed to extract the developer John Lamansky from the lab long enough for him to provide you with an in-depth video tutorial on how to unleash its pure on page potential.

SEO Ultimate allows you to transform your WordPress blog into a finely-tuned Search Engine Friendly content management system in minutes with an intuitive and easy-to-use interface.

NEW FEATURE: The Linkbox Inserter

In the spirit of upgrades, we have added another feature today,  The Linkbox Inserter -  a feature that encourages linkbuilding activity by inserting textboxes containing link HTML.to your posts or preferred landing pages. The Linkbox Inserter functions like a post within a post or adds another area for strengthening internal links to related content while preserving the quality of your original post.

This All-In-One SEO Plugin has 6 modules so far, each adding another layer of customization and features that would require hours of set up time to implement any other way.

Experience the power of SEO Ultimate with new SEO modules, features and functions being added on a regular basis. For more information, visit our product page for updates, new videos and additional information on this up and comming plugin which is sure to be a staple in everyone’s SEO toolbox.

SEO Ultimate is compatible with WordPress Themes ranging from Version 2.7 and up.

Here is a quick list of the features currently activated….

• Title Rewriter - Lets you format the <title> tags of posts, pages, categories, tags, archives, search results, the blog homepage, and more.
• Noindex Manager - Lets you add the noindex meta robots instruction to archives, comment feeds, the login page, and more.
• Meta Editor - Lets you edit the meta descriptions/keywords for your posts, pages, and homepage. Also lets you enter verification meta codes and give code instructions to search engine spiders.
• Canonicalizer - Inserts <link rel="canonical" /> tags for your homepage and each of your posts, Pages, categories, tags, date archives, and author archives.
• 404 Monitor - Logs 404 errors generated on your blog.
• Linkbox Inserter - Encourages linkbuilding activity by inserting textboxes containing link HTML.

Stay tuned for the next update or join the SEO Design Solutions RSS Feed to get the scoop on the next SEO module as it is released, or you can download the plugin directly from WordPress or visit our plugins information page.

In fact, since most traffic to a website (aside from your brand or brand name) are long-tail keywords (meaning they have 3 or more words), are you focusing on the wrong tact for your natural search engine optimization campaign?

Competitive Keyword Relevance Thresholds and the Conversion Funnel

Search engine optimization (also known as SEO) is all about positioning, and the more competitive a keyword is (meaning the more results listed in the top 1000 results in the search engines index) the more optimization, time and finesse is required to acquire a top ranking position.

So, the dilemma presents itself as a dichotomy such as (1) do you focus on the most sought after competitive keywords? Or (2) do you target keywords within your reach, set up superb conversion funnels and then over time spread the net wider to encompass more and more competitive keywords?

The logical answer is #2, but let’s explore why:

1)      Not all traffic converts

2)      The user expectation must match the page they land on to communicate a relevant hit.

3)      Search engines assign more trust and relevance over time to a large body of documents.

With this in mind and your website being a work in progress, this presents opportunities to scale your content and topical relevance based on competitive market intelligence. The marketplace is a great place for feedback and this feedback can be translated into market share, KPI’s or keyword objectives. Most businesses neglect the notion that by devouring less competitive keywords not only does your base-line traffic increase, but the site begins to stem over time and now you have hundreds if not thousands of new keywords delivering curious prospects to your landing pages.

Although this is contrary to the blinder based “only the keywords at the summit matter” mentality, the rewards of occupying the path less traveled in this scenario can be lucrative if leveraged properly. As you dig deeper into the long tail, the clarity of the sales cycle becomes clear (1) people are more descriptive when looking for specific products or services (like using colors, model numbers, etc), as well as (2) the need to drive more traffic becomes less significant as the conversion ratio’s increase.

Understanding the Competitive Keyword Threshold:

Point#1: People surf for many different reasons, hence, the more aligned your content is with their original intent, the higher probability of conversion your pages have to   transform inbound traffic into customers.

Point#2: Traffic that bounces signifies a negative relevance signal. Either fine-tune the content for the keywords it corresponds to or use the page as a hub/subordinate page that funnels the reader to the real champion landing page.

Point#3: A larger body of pages with a higher percentage of relevant content equals a larger volume of keyword saturation search engines can use to invoke relevance using inverse document frequency.

Reversing the conversion funnel:

Leveraging your relevance threshold in an inverted fashion is often overlooked by most. What this implies in layman’s terms is this… If you rank for a root phrase or keyword that has 1,000,000 competing pages, your website has already exceeded the threshold of 100k-999K competing pages for that root phrase algorithmically.

Scaling a relevance model from the onset (starting with keywords with 50K or less competing pages) and then acquiring more competitive keywords is typical. However, over time keywords stem and the optimized website starts to develop authority for a variety of terms.

One method we suggest is to (1) sift through your analytics and find the top 100 keywords driving traffic to your website and (2) look at the bounce rate and engagement time on the page to determine if people are genuinely interested in finding out more information on the topic.

Based on the data consumption rate of 200 words per minute for most, if they are spending 2 minutes or more on the page, then that page is a candidate for stemming a plethora of related keywords and synonyms from either higher or lower in the keyword food / relevance chain.

With this in mind, you can go back and broaden the array of keywords your sales funnel engages by setting up primary landing pages for second and third tier keywords you could acquire with a fraction of the effort.

Using the chart above (which is based on personal experience) you can see the relative competing pages and link threshold required to acquire nationally ranked keywords. Although this will vary depending on the quality of the links and the authority of the domain (since not all sites are dependent on backlinks for rankings). It was really designed as a model to emphasize the value of each threshold applied over time.

For example, in order to rank for a keyword with 1,000,000 competing pages, your domain should have at least 5K strong links and have an established link profile and ample amount of content on the topic in order to outrank your competition. Each variable may change, but the chart above is to provide the gist. The missing part of the model is the amount of pages, the amount of internal links required, etc. However, that will changes depending on the market and the competition.

The Takeaway

Whoever said that keywords with less competition do not convert or have less conversion potential does not understand the marriage of matching a long-tail keyword or key phrase with an emotionally charged landing page.

The take away here is, you can add another dimension to your educational pages and invest them with links to less competitive keyword phrases to elevate those landing pages in the SERPs (search engine result pages) to mop up the market with a blanket of relative landing pages.

For example, if your page ranks for “SEO“, the core root phrase, then you could also rank for SEO company, SEO services, SEO consulting, etc… with a fraction of the effort since you already have relevance on file (in the search engines index) so to speak.

Consider this SEO Credit that you can spend as you wish. Scaling your relevance model, from the bottom up or from the top down is an integral step in devouring market share (which is the ultimate objective for SEO). Remember, once you reach the top of a keyword threshold, anything below it is fruit for the picking to funnel even more relevant traffic to your web estate.

How To SEO: Off Page SEO Tips

When you consider the ranking factors that influence a website on a page by page basis, search engines have to parse millions of pages to sift through the bag of words and assign relevance through an advanced grading system.

Based on the signals search engines deem significant from within the site and from other sites, they apply a grade, much like an “SEO score” or “optimization score” to pages that exhibit certain tendencies. Based on those tendencies they then determine where that page ranks in contention to other websites and pages contained in the index.

When a search query is conducted in a search engine search bar, the search engine puts its internal dynamo to work in a serious game of concentration to sift and sort through the index and match that search query to the most relevant document from an alarming number of online documents/pages.

The algorithms and binary sorting mechanism has to determine which website or web page has enough authority, relevance or combination of on page and off page SEO factors to cycle a competitors’ page to the side and elevate the page with the highest significance into the ranking results.

This happens every time a search is conducted, where the query retrieves a match from the index/ repository. So, what are some of the signals search engines use to assign a higher degree of relevance to those documents in the repository? The answer is co-occurrence and citation, hence the higher correlation your pages have within that context, the more significant they appear to the sorting mechanism/algorithm.

1)      Accessibility - Can Crawlers Access your Pages?

2)      Consolidation - Is there a Clear Champion/Preferred Landing Page?

3)      Does the On Page and Off Page Optimization Reinforce Integrity?

Search engine optimization is a collection of multiple layers and processes all united for a common goal. Depending on how coherent the layers are implemented as well as how you use indicators to aid search engines in categorizing your content in order of importance also determines just how reciprocal they are when it comes to assigning a higher relevance score / relevance signal to your pages.

1: Put your best page forward - Help crawlers find your content with sitemaps or relevant internal links. Make sure your URL strings are not full of dynamically generated garbage and try to keep the naming conventions for your pages, the titles and descriptions as relevant and succinct as possible to impress the search engine spiders. They have a memory (at least the repository does) so, your first impression can typecast your page, so, better to have all of the right ingredients and recipes in place so you don’t have to go back and try to convince them later that it was not your original intent.

2: Create an island of relevance using a preferred landing page - Don’t try to make one page rank for everything, just create a specific page that would be the most relevant page a visitor should see for that keyword, then add a singular, plural and few synonyms to the page, title or meta description to augment relevance for that “core phrase or keyword”.

Then, link to that page from subordinate/supporting pages to reinforce the path of least resistance for search engines to find it.

3: Help search engines discover the page - You do this by diversification of off page factors. For example, you can cement relevance from (1) using diverse array of IP addresses to build back links (links from other sites) and (2) diversify the anchor text that have your main shingle in the linked/anchor text that refer to your page.

The question is, does the off page reputation augment or reinforce shingle variation or diffuse it? In other words, if you are trying to rank for the keyword SEO company for example, then you do not just want to have back links from other pages with the anchor text “SEO company”, you need to mix it up so you do not penalize your site.

You should have variations in your inbound anchor text such as:

• Search Engine Optimization Company
• SEO Companies
• Professional SEO Company
• Search Optimization Company
• Company for SEO
• As well as just the URL http://www.yoursite.com/page.html

Etc…

Then, over time increase the percentages of links and overlapping keywords until the on page SEO and off page SEO create the signal that allows that page to cross the threshold and pass the tipping point for becoming buoyant and rise to the top of search engines.

Depending on (a) the competition (b) the depth of their SEO (c) the time, strength and authority of the domain or pages in front of you and (d) the strength of your SEO and domain/page authority all determine the timeline for reaching the top results (granted search engine crawlers can index the page in question).

The takeaway here is, don’t assume search engines are stupid or need to be spoon fed relevance. They can assess from the gaps where your website and pages fit into the link graph and relevance model for any given query on the fly.

Just make sure that all of your signals overlap in a way that contributes to a higher relevance score for each layer that you introduce and implement to acquire a dominant keyword position for a specific page.

SEO, Press Releases and Building the Buzz!

It is safe to say that content without context or relevance falls on roving eyes or click-happy trigger fingers ready to abandon a website in a moments notice to find a more enticing offer.

The great thing about search engines and search engine traffic is, search engines deliver pre-qualified opt-in visitors, since the algorithm already determines what content to showcase to visitors who are already viewing related content. All this juncture, the emphasis is to align your offer and value proposition to match the expectation of the viewer to encourage engagement.

From another angle, people and search engines (since they are programmed that way) are externally curious and there is nothing like news to intrigue readership to a website or blog struggling to make an impression.

We know that the key to effective marketing is exposure, and despite the different species of traffic and visitors, relevance is the one thing they expect to buy in to the buzz and pass it on. In fact, presenting the concept, building the buzz “both online of offline” and managing the conversation are essentially the premise of large scale successful businesses.

So why not apply a scaled down version of this fundamental truth on your website as a mechanism for feedback, a way to extend your customer base, build a brand or target a new audience for an introductory product, service or prospective. This is where the SEO part comes into play.

Search engines pride themselves on finding the most articulate and refined content that is relevant and recent. We call it the content freshness factor in SEO and it can provide tremendous leverage for slouching sales, company morale or landing pages conversions.

Knowing this, if your website is still trying to pass off stale pages as significant (although they might be), there is nothing like adding fresh relevant news or information from your industry or niche to let search engines and readers know that you are a contender for the top 10 spots that represent the helm of your business model.

Search engine optimization has a very specific function, to drive relevant traffic from search engines to increase visitor engagement, sales and conversion in a method that can be replicated on a granular level.

Yet, SEO is dependent on popularity as a metric, which means that you could have the best website in a niche, but unless you broadcast it enough to gain critical mass to cross the tipping point, the exposure, trust and authority that search engines give it will be limited.

This process is known as peer review and essentially it is like running the gauntlet and the sites linking to your own act as agents of change that solidify your website or web pages position as a result of them vouching for your credibility online.

Trust is paramount when information is presented and notably search engines reward websites with a deep understanding on a topic or websites which are highly sought for educational purposes. This is one reason why Wikipedia rankings dominate the majority of competitive keyword verticals with ease.

Now, for commerce the best way to sell your product or service may not be through preaching about it through white papers, case studies or the like; however, there is a fine line that you can leverage to build brand equity while attracting new eyes to your ROI laden offers.

Rather than get into online promotional techniques, in this instance tactics would be more suitable. The idea behind building the buzz is to create an affinity with news aggregators or align your business topically with trends.

If you increase your websites news worthiness, you can increase your crawl rate (get search engines visit more frequently), you can create deep links (links from other websites to specific page) as well as gain exposure to thousands of readers using Google’s unique broad match algorithm (which will already display your site whenever a similar topic is typed in a search engine).

This is the power of the press release, the power to syndicate your message means that is can influence the influencers on common ground (their own / opt-in discretion). As a result, the press release serves as a medium to bridge the gap, create the buzz and provide a feedback loop for your pages. Yet the links, traffic and engagement that result in their wake can also bolster search engine rankings for specific landing pages. Not to mention, you can attract some links that have substance from webmasters who manage authority sites.

Just like search engines and SEO, you can spend all the time in the word optimizing your site for search engines, but at the end of the day, it all boils down to influencing the people that arrive (to take action). Humans not search engines pay the bills and so make sure your SEO has a purpose (to communicate a point).

Action and action alone is what truly impacts the bottom line, not just rankings but conversion from people facilitating your proposition from the emotional appeal of your offer.

Authority or Rankings Which Matters Most?

In the wake of Google’s last page rank update (something I think was to conceal dramatic new algorithms shifts), many websites are making their debut in the top 10 results out of left field. This is a clear example of those websites who focused on search engine result page positioning getting upstaged by web pages with more domain authority.

In order to compete, you need both; the reason being, you never know when the metrics will change and website authority provides insulation to stave temporal shifts in term weights or other operators being tweaked for relevance.

When search engines reweight the SERPs, (reassign the relevance model) many things that seemed as if they were rooted into the very fabric of the web can slip off into obscurity (past the first page or more) and have to battle it out with the new found relevant / newcomers.

For example, out of the blue today SEO blogger (a tool from Wordtracker) hits the first page for SEO in our datacenter. Is this typical? Absolutely not, when you look at the page in question with its 9 pages in the subdomain and 700+ deep links to that page, how could they simply pass up pages who have been rooted in the SERPs for years or struggling to raise the mark for relevance?

In essence, they did not…as it is a temporal rift that may or may not stick…

Yet, according to Google’s weighting method, the domain authority for the root folder (the main site wordtracker.com) has that type of authority and by them simply choosing to follow known aspects of optimization were able to funnel that into a specific relevance model capable or leap-frogging  others who stood in between them and the top 10.

Think of authority like credit, the more you have the easier it is to distribute as you please to leverage other assets, which in this instance was a search engine result page position for the keyword SEO. Yesterday adobe ranked in the top 10 for a sparse mention of the word “SEO” in a tag and the day before that opencube.com with only 8 pages in their site referring to the keyword, so do you see the correlation?

As search engines look for other ways to ascertain the validity of their results, authority under the right circumstances can overcome weeks, months or even years of struggle to get to the top vs. just targeting keywords alone.

This leads to the million dollar question when considering that all metrics only have a limited time-line before replaced, that question being, is it better to focus on authority or rankings? Our vote is to focus on website authority (so you can rank any page you need to through leverage), but ultimately it’s up to you to decide.

SEO Ultimate Version 0.5 Is Unleashed and Available for Download!

We have taken many of our cutting-edge SEO techniques and placed them all into a customizable dashboard that easily allows anyone with a WordPress Installation (version 2.7 or higher) to harness the “Pure On Page Power” of SEO through an easy-to-use interface.

Version 0.5 for the SEO Ultimate All-In-One SEO Plugin for WordPress boasts the following new features:

• New feature: SEO Ultimate can export its settings to a file
• New feature: SEO Ultimate can import one of its own exported settings files
• New feature: A button that can reset the settings to “factory defaults”
• Two bug fixes
• Version 0.5 restores backwards-compatibility with WordPress 2.7

With version 0.5, SEO Ultimate settings can be transferred between blogs, and SEO Ultimate works on WordPress Version 2.7 again as well as for all WordPress Versions of 2.8 as well.

In case you missed the previous updates, here is a listing of the SEO modules installed so far.

SEO Ultimate features:

• Title Rewriter - Lets you format the <title> tags of posts, pages, categories, tags, archives, search results, the blog homepage, and more.
• Noindex Manager - Lets you add the noindex meta robots instruction to archives, comment feeds, the login page, and more.
• Meta Editor - Lets you edit the meta descriptions/keywords for your posts, pages, and homepage. Also lets you enter verification meta codes and give code instructions to search engine spiders.
• Canonicalizer - Inserts <link rel="canonical" /> tags for your homepage and each of your posts, Pages, categories, tags, date archives, and author archives.
• 404 Monitor - Logs 404 errors generated on your blog.

Download SEO Ultimate from WordPress Today!

Download SEO Ultimate Now!

PR Sculpting Technique Provides Alternative to Rel="nofollow" Tag!

Page Rank Sculpting Overview:

Over time the links you use as anchors become prominent as each page in your website takes on more authority. Not only are links just a way from getting from point A to point B within a website, but they also inherently hold the keys to search engine rankings as search engines use links and anchor text to assess relevance.

Search engines crawl links (within your website) to determine context and align the on page data (what the page is about) to other pages in the site and off page data (what other sites say about your pages).

Sometimes, by using the same links consistently across large areas of a website (such as navigation or a sidebar or template), you unintentionally diffuse the topic of the context or context of that segment. Page rank sculpting allows you to minimize the negative impact or hemorrhaging link flow, while consolidating the most significant links from the most significant sources within your website.

The Dilemma: Structuring Which Links Pass Value

The reason why the no-follow tag became popular was for sites linking out to others, the no-follow tag suppresses link flow from leaving the site providing the link to the site being linked to (in case you do not care to vouch for them or let them rank off your domain authority).

Seeing the benefits of this, some SEO’s began using the no-follow tag to sculpt the way that Google’s crawlers sifted through their pages. The premise was that by adding a no-follow tag to a link that it would become invisible to the crawlers and then proportionately provide more link juice to the remaining links on the page, this is page rank sculpting.

Much to the dismay of SEO’s (who were possibly some of the only people using no-follow to begin with), Google changed the way they processed the no-follow tag and suggested that instead of the link being invisible and the remaining link flow going to other links (which the link flow from the link) in the no-follow tag simply evaporated.

As a result, those who used the tag internally essentially have disrupted their own internal link graph not to mention could incur dips in rankings due to the amount of trust moving from page to page being diminished.

Now, for the Technique

As promised, here is the link to an “old school” advanced SEO technique hailing from the, pre-nofollow tag” era. In addition to using javascript links (which are now crawled from search engines), here is one no-follow alternative that you can employ in minutes courtesy of renowned SEO expert Charles Hefflin from SEO2020.com.

For those unfamiliar with the technique, the no-follow tag is a tag you can implement within the html code that allows a website to “link out to others” and not incur one of two things (1) theme diffusion or (2) a potential penalty from Google.

This tactic uses a minor modification to your robots.txt file and /cgi-bin/ directory and redirects links from a /cgi-bin/ script that elects to block spiders from crawling from the robots.txt via an exclusion command like the one noted below as an example.

User-agent: *

Disallow: /folder/

This is one of many techniques you could employ, but this one is quick, effective and preserves the link equity you have within your own website.

In the event you are curious to what the reference is for theme bleeding (it is covered in Charles’s post), or you can refer to our post on theme density and theming and siloing for a larger overview as an effective alternative to using flat site architecture (keeping all files in the root folder vs. subfolders segmented by topic)  for search engine optimization.

Hat tip once again to Charles Hefflin on this priceless SEO technique that places the power of “page rank sculpting” back in the hands of webmasters who can appreciate the simple beauty and impact of this effective on page SEO technique. That is of course, if you elect to use it…

SEO Techniques to Improve Search Engine Rankings

SEO Technique#1: Mapping Term Weights to Landing Pages

Keyword to content continuity - Term frequency dictates that the more relevant content you have about a topic within your website, the higher chance search engine spiders will latch on to it when they observe your pages as “a bag of words” and reverse the funnel of your site for relevance and look at “global term weights” in contrast to the volume and prominence of your content.

For example 100 pages of relevant content sparsely covering a topic versus 2 pages of relevant content about a topic each have different results in the SERPs (search engine result pages) when you start mapping out deep links (inbound links from other sites to pages other than your homepage) and selecting a “preferred landing page” to promote as the champion page for specific search engine rankings.

You can either (1) concentrate ranking factor across several pages for long-tail domination (such as each page ranking for an array of keywords) or (2) create more compelling in depth content (such as 10 solid pages of content based on the keyword/topic) and then use those 10 pages to consolidate the rankings for a more competitive array of laser-like keywords (only focusing on top level root phrases and keyword).

Ideally, each page should be viewed as a solution to a potential problem or serve as a landing page that can either (a) provide insight (b) solve a problem or provide educational value or (c) convert a prospect or act as a springboard to another page that is more defined and capable of accomplishing conversion.

Having said that, you need to determine the barrier to entry for each keyword you are targeting and then provide ample content within your own website to provide a foundation for current and future rankings. This can be done from extracting data from competitors websites (yet that is another post in itself), yet once accomplished, you then have a blueprint to start scaling your internal relevance model that you can then use in tandem with deep link mapping.

SEO Technique#2: Providing Sustenance to Landing Pages

Deep Link Mapping - Deep links are links to specific pages within your website. Although the homepage serves as a catchall, it is not the best place for conversion.  This is one reason why so many people just fork over thousands of dollars for PPC since they know that traffic from visitors has a higher conversion rate when they land on pages specifically crafted to appease the educational or commerce based solution that the person using those keywords is seeking.

Through mapping out user intent with an array of predetermined keywords, this puts you in a unique opportunity to (a) match user expectation and (b) elevate specific pages in your website to satisfy their needs. The solution is through providing a plethora of deep links by varying the anchor text and volume of anchors to the respective landing pages.

Granted, each page has a different threshold, for example a page with 50,000 competing pages or less should only require 3-5 links from external websites mapped specifically to the most relevant landing page within your website.

Pages with 100,000 competing pages (”use quotes” around keyword in Google and conduct a search) should require 10-15 links over time in addition to internal link mapping to accomplish a top 10 position, etc. By strategically augmenting your websites internal and external link profile to “pre-selected” landing pages (based on keyword research) which were crafted with the keyword array and conversion objective in mind, you can then create and implement this strategy on a scalable level.

SEO Technique#3: Using Co-Occurrence to Solidify On Page Relevance

Internal link augmentation - This is essentially using anchor text from pages indexed with a specific intent to transfer ranking factor through the use of internal links to other pages within the website. After you select the preferred landing page for a keyword, use the site:yourdomain.com keyword search operator in Google to see how many other pages Google sees as relevant to your query.

After you have the total number of pages listed that are candidates for that keyword, then link then all to the preferred landing page (preferably higher up in the body copy) using a variation of the keyword you want the preferred landing page to rank for.

We know that a link from a relevant page to another relevant page (either through allintitle, allintext or allinanchor) can augment rankings more than off topic inbound anchor text. It is not to say that you won’t need some internal or external link diversity eventually, but you also need to make it clear what the intention is for each keyword you map out and to which page that relevance will flow; this accomplished that objective.

Creating your own islands of topical relevance through using keyword to content continuity (providing enough content to cross the tipping point) and then augmenting the internal links allows your pages to rank higher with less dependence on off page SEO factors (mainly other links).

You should use co-occurrence whenever possible to shore up keywords within your own website and if your links are absolute http://www.yourdomain.com/page.html versus using relative internal links such as /page.html/ from page to page in your site architecture, those absolute links will eventually become backlinks (since PageRank and rankings are evaluated on a page to page basis).

This is also why you can see up to two results from one website on a page for a specific query as well as If there is a sub domain that can provide up to two listings on the same page for one query. You could occupy multiple spots on a page if you map out your objectives in advance (although one above the fold should be suitable).

SEO Technique#4: Using Sitemaps to Augment Rankings

Sitemap Optimization - Most think of sitemaps as a tool to aid crawlers in discovering your content. Sure, they are that indeed, but they also play a more significant role in SEO. Sitemaps can act as hidden navigation or secondary navigation to bridge link flow from one segment of a website to another to provide augmentation.

For example if I have 5 solid landing pages I want to promote I would put them in a sitemap. That sitemap (even though it only has 5 links leaving it) would serve as a hub for providing ranking factor. If I then put a link to that sitemap (using a relative keyword) from the pages that have the strongest affinity with that keyword (such as 20 other supporting pages that now link to the sitemap). I can then control the reputation and internal ranking factor through using the sitemap as a hub.

In addition, you can also use the sitemap to build external links to as well and implement a noindex, follow tag in the meta data so it does not compete with your preferred landing pages.

The mentioned SEO techniques and tactics above are priceless when implemented on a grand scale. Don’t believe me, then try competing with Wikipedia who also uses similar tactics to devour market share using a fraction of the time, regardless of the keyword, market or niche due to the granular coherence of internal to external link mapping in contrast to keyword to content continuity.