SEO What the Hell Happened?

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I think I figured out exactly what is going on with my website and why it lost so much ranking. It has nothing to do with content vs ads, amount of content on a page, page speed, or any of that other stuff webmasters have been talking about.

It is a combination of a few things: authority, web address, and links.

Authority:
My website doesn't have too many links to the homepage. Other sites ranking higher have more links to the homepage and less on the inner pages. To remedy this, I need to simply get more links to the homepage.

Web address:
Sites ranking higher have the keywords in their web address. Mine only has partial. I'm not going to change this. I'm sure this is something Google will tweak sometime anyway.

Links:
Some of the links which were giving the website so much power are now gone (host went offline or directory listing deleted) or the links have been given less power by Google for whatever reason. Either way, I can't control it. I can only try to get more links.

I've been hitting my head against the wall ever since the Panda Update to find out what the hell happened to the website. But these seem to be the only true reasons.

SEO: Think Outside the Box

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I created this blog as a way for testing SEO theories; however, I have found myself doing more seo tidbits than anything else.

Even though I have an internet marketing blog, it has been used to write longer, more though out posts. This blog will be a way for me to write short posts and get my word across quicker and more easily than if it were posted there.

That brings me to this: Think Outside the Box

There are many bloggers and website owners who continue to do the same routine daily. They write a post about the general subject of their blog, they maybe bookmark it and link to it from various sources, then move on. Be creative!

Owning a website (blog) isn't about following the norm. It is about releasing information! Even affiliate marketers and shops are giving out information on the products which they wish to sell. The only difference is they are doing it to gain direct (in case of the shop owner) and 2nd-hand (in case of the affiliate marketer) money; whereas, you are most likely trying to earn money through a 3rd party (like AdSense).

Look at it as an advantage. Shop keepers must only sell the products in their store. Affiliate marketers can only market the products they can find through shop owners. You on the other hand, can market anything you please, even if it doesn't exist.

Because of this, you are able to think outside the box. You don't have to market a product 24/7, but you do have to market yourself and your blog. This gives you the ability to create new and exciting ideas.

If your blog is about pigs. You can write anything about pigs. You aren't limited to selling the pigs like the other guys. You can write something bad about them, something good about them, something fake about them, and give out as much factual information as you please. You don't have to write every page to rank and you don't have to write every page for link bait.

That is your advantage. Use it!

SEO: Not Every Page is Specifically for Ranking

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This annoys me. Not every page I write, you write, or Janitor Fred is or should be for search engine rankings, at least not directly.

If I post a funny picture or release news, I don't necessarily expect to be in the first 3 pages of the SERPs, nor should I.

Pictures and short messages don't have to be for search engine rankings. They just don't. If I write something entertaining that gives value, why should I care about what Google or Live Search thinks about its placement? Besides, those types of posts are more for receiving links and popularity within a community, not for direct rankings in search engines.

It is called link bait for a reason.

This is one of the problems with many web site owners today. They feel each and every page has to go directly towards one single goal and must be one single way. This just isn't the case.

If you've never seen a flow chart, you might want to take a gander. There are many ways to get to the end.

Creativity is key. Of course, don't just write to write. But instead write to give value to someone. If I post a unique photograph, that is giving value to someone. If I announce a new release of a product, that is giving value to someone. If I say what something is, value.

The value doesn't have to rank, but just give information to someone, somewhere.

Think outside the box.

SEO for Blogspot: No Real Excerpts

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One of the reasons why I chose to make a blogspot blog was so I could test out its capabilities. In the past I have ragged blogger, saying it is hell for SEOs. However, I have noticed many quality changes since the last I tried out the system.

There are now SEO friendly URIs, ways to change the title, and a better help section for creating layouts. Although, I still think the API is a bit hard to understand compared to WordPress, it is definitely a plus to have the information out there.

Back on topic! Bad Gary!

One problem I just encountered is the lack of ability to use 'real' excerpts on the homepage. Blogger along with many other sources say to use a 'hack' which is simply CSS and javascript put together, so search engines still see the full post. This is not exactly what I want.

One reason to use excerpts is to reduce duplicate content. Although Google claims to be able to detect pages like categories and archives and to not hand out the duplicate content penalty, in my experience they still do (at least with WordPress).

Of course, there are more search engines than Google anyway, so even if Google can handle duplicate content issues with Blogger, I have zero faith in MSN Live or Yahoo to do so.

So here we (members of Blogger) are stuck with full posts throughout my labels, homepage, and archives.

Testing Purposes

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This blog will be mainly used for testing SEO and other purposes. Hopefully we will find out some things we haven't known before. And of course, by 'we' I mean me.

I normally don't like to talk in first person plural, but hey, we all gotta do it sometime, right?