Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Well, we`ll have to completely disagree on that one. But we can agree on the idea that what a person perceives as real is what motivates them to act. :-)

I agree with Nikole that it`s more important what rankings you get on phrases people realistically will use to look for something.

If I`m looking for "boat hardware," that`s one thing. But it`s quite different than looking for "5-inch bronze boat cleat."

If I were looking for beef jerky, that`s what I`d type: "beef jerky." It`s a sort of generic term, and if HouseOfJerkyJanie shows up in the top 10, that`s a powerful value in terms of page rankings.

But if they only show up when I type in "house of jerky," that`s not so valuable.

"Interent marketing help" is a generic term, so if there are high rankings that`s very valuable. But "free copy evaluation" isn`t so generic. You`d have to know that "copy" and "writing stuff" means the same. So limited searching there, mostly by copywriters or people in the writing industry.

I definitley agree. Searching house of jerky means nothing, it`s just searched by those that know the name. Some of the searches I see from our stats mean nothing either, like, as you say 5-inch bronze boat cleat.

Let`s not make up phrases for ourselves for our keyword searches. :) There are definite keywords that are important.

When I say PR is over rated........ I think PR - the actual # that Google assigns, is only important to some "webmasters" or people "in the business" or those that are livng a little in the past.  Most viewers do not look for sites that have a specific PR#.

Long tail keyword searches - there is a practice of optimizing your site for "long tail searches". "Boat hardware" versus "5-inch bronze boat cleat" is an example of a typical targeted keyword versus a long tail keyword/phrase.  The theory of long tail searches is (1) long tail search phrases are easier to optimize for/ there is less competition (other website in the SERP) and (2) the total of hits/results from long tail searches can be as significant as the number of hits/results from a targeted keyword.

There is a tool to show you what long tail keywords are used to reach your site, but you can get a indication of them by looking at your website stats too.

~Roland

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Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter

I agree with Roland, that when you strip away all the gimmicks, tricks, and other stuff people use, it comes down to the historical bottom line. If you have an interesting product people want, they`ll find it, and they`ll buy it. If you`re trying to make something out of nothing, some people will likely buy it, but it`s an uphill battle.

Content, interesting presentation, professional transaction handling, and good customer communication routinely wipe out page rankings as being important. All the other stuff, it`s just playing around with getting visibility. But it`s no different than it`s always been.

Think about Suzy who sells Girl Scout cookies. She can plaster her name all over the place, and lots of people will call her asking about whatever it is she sells. But if she shows up at the door dirty, sullen, high on crack, or with a vacant look and mumbling, who`s going to buy the cookies?

If Suzy were selling Uncle Bob`s Gator Cookies, it wouldn`t matter how many people saw her name. They have no idea what those cookies are, or why to buy them. One or two might experiment, and if Suzy is sharp, speaks well, looks professional, then the word of mouth will get out there.

All this stuff about page rankings is an interesting variable---a factor in valuing a Web site---but it`s only 1 factor. And it depends on so many other factors, you can`t isolate it and assign a specific value or valuation process to the single factor.

Roland, you say that PR is overrated ... but when I search for your own tagline, you appear on the second page, and the top 10 (except for one) have higher PRs than you do. I`m not saying that`s a negative for you, because I don`t know if you get clients through Google (I don`t), just saying that ... although PageRank is just one factor for ranking search displays - it does matter to Google, along with relevancy and the quality of your landing page.

There is one serious thing that is being overlooked in discounting PageRank as well ... the GoogleBot uses PageRank to determine how fast your site is indexed. For example, I have a site with a PR1 which takes a month to get updated on Google when changes are made. However, changes to my PR5 blog are on Google within an hour. These 2 sites use the exact same software, platform, pinging setup, etc so the only real difference here is PageRank!

So if you have data that is time-sensitive (news, blogs, sales, etc), PageRank does once again become a factor.

Optimizing for long tail searches is really just silly. With the new Google Universal Search, you`re going to be rewarded for rich content, indexed organically according to relevance. That`s what the long tail is in a nutshell anyway - people finding you based on what you have on the page, not the keywords you tried to force. The long tail searchers also happen to be more reliable buyers, as they found your site naturally instead of through contrived means.

True, I do not optimize my vwebworld  page for my tag line. I use it to provide links to my clients while displaying the variety of my web design work. AND true I do not pay much attention to PR... I think that may be consistant with my belief that PR is over rated and not as important as other factors.

Over 60% of my traffic comes from referral links (I focus on relationship building), 17% from searches, and 23% direct.

While Google may "value" PR, the PR # you see is not a real time number.. it may be a day, week, or a few months old. BTW your website home page appears as PR3 when I bring it up.

Long tail searches... I did not mean to imply you would optimize for all long tail search combinations... as you say web page content essentially does this for you since it is usually the source of the long tail search result. However, I am suggesting it is a good idea to know your long tail search results.. it can indicate a strong market and indicate a direction to change your page optimization.

Exactly! "The long tail searchers also happen to be more reliable buyers". Another reason to check out your site`s long tail search results.

~Roland

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Web Design | Best Beef Jerky | ecommerce articles | Follow vwebworld on Twitter

So you don`t think people are searching for those less-popular keyword phrases? Well, you`re wrong.

More importantly, you`re missing the boat on thousands and thousands of relevant, second tier keyword phrase variations you`ve never even considered.

In addition to that, you`re leaving a ton of money on the table, because you`re not being creative and thinking outside the box, regarding potential keyword phrase variations you can use to help people find your website.

I didn`t just arbitrarily make up a bunch of keyword phrase variations. I researched every one of my phrases very carefully.

Granted, just one or two of these less-popular keyword phrases probably won`t make a whole lot of difference to your bottom line. But when you have hundreds or even thousands of them, the numbers can add up pretty quickly.

How do I know this method works? Three reasons:

1. I did my homework.

2. My stats don`t lie.

3. I ask and my clients tell me what keywords they used to find me.

The bottom line is this: Whether you choose to believe it or not, people do search for  less popular keyword phrases - more than enough to make it worth your while financially.

Dale King

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Who said that?

Roland - the PR5 is my blog, the one I actually use/update.

I might have mistakenly implied that ,when I said let`s not  make up keyword phrases. I meant it shouldn`t be that important to be #1 for EVERY phrase you can think of that could apply to your site, when other keywords are definitely searched for much more.  But I`m sure marketers and designers have people searching for their sites in many different ways. And the fact that they find you however they choose to find you is great! And as it`s been said, content, and knowing what they`re searching for is important.