Too broad of a question. This is like asking "How do I run a successful restaurant". Get in the top 5 by applying all the knowledge you get from this thread is the best answer I can give.
Your second question is too broad too. Yes, maybe and no is the answer. It's like saying "Will I get get hit by a truck if I go out today?"
Web 2's struggle to index. They have for a long time. Add more unique content to them to index them. I don't bother with web 2's because I start with aged domains.
Don't bother submitting web 2's to gsc. Too much work. Too much effort for no gain. Create a few, put a little extra content on them and move on.
Test your writers first with a custom piece piece. Never accept 'samples' other than an initial screening.
Always train your writers. Give them guidelines and examples. A well trained writer is like gold.
Yes, I do. I display the first 15-20, then use an ajax load more for loading the older ones.
Yes it matters, otherwise it's not siloing. Well, it's not physical siloing, it's just a form of virtual siloing. Physical are the most powerful.
Follow A1 and it'll be setup correctly.
Again, this one is too broad. It's unanswerable. Follow all the knowledge contained in this AMA and my other guides.
You shouldn't have immediately removed it. When you make changes it's common for a page to drop a few spots then rise up higher. Always give your on page changes 10 to 15 days before re-tweaking. But I don't recommend changes like adding a bolded word. In fact, I don't recommend changing ANYTHING on-page for pages that are on page 1/2. Page 3, sometimes, page 4+, yes. Here's some guidelines:-
Q5) What kind of on-page changes do you recommend I make to existing pages that are ranking?
A5) Multi-part answer..
1. For pages on your site that are on google page 1 and 2, don't CHANGE anything on-page.
2. Page 3. Depends on the keyword and page. It's a maybe.
3. Page 4+ you can change things.
HOWEVER. This doesn't mean you go changing all your page 4+'s. It depends on how competitive the keyword is. If it's low comp and you're on page 4-10, then something is probably wrong. If it's medium comp and you're page 4, you're probably ok, and if it's page 7+, then there may be something wrong. Understand? It's quite situational. You have to ask, and you can only do this with experience: "Should my page naturally fall here based on a) the difficulty of the keyword, b) the topical authority I have for the topic of this keyword and c) the overall strength of my site"
Hence the above are general rules. Especially 1. Never change anything for something on page 1/2.
Now, when you ARE changing, you generally want to de-optimize keyword density.(See A6) and especially deoptimize sub-titles(h2/h3/h4's). Don't do weird things. Just de-optimize when changing.
Now, notice I used the word "CHANGE". What you can always do, to any page on your site, whether it's number 1 or page 8 is ADD to it.
You can always add another paragraph, or add another section.
The exception to this is if you've got a list of something that needs to change like, "Shops you can buy X in", where you might be adding and removing.
After any change or adding, expect results in 3 to 20 days. Usually 7 to 12 days you'll see movement and it is common to DROP before you rise. A drop from #8 to #11 after 3 days for example, then it maybe dances between 8 and 13, then after 15-20 days it goes up to #6-7. This is common in google, with on page changes and adding new links. It's part of the algorithm to add confusion. Delays and dancing. If you made a change and 1 hour later you rose 2 spots, it would be VERY easy to figure out the algorithm. This is also why when you remove something, you won't just snap back to where you were. It makes it hard to pin-point specific changes to movements.
See this Google patent: http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph...8,924,380.PN.&OS=PN/8,924,380&RS=PN/8,924,380
Q6) What keyword densities do you recommend?
A6) The quick answer is < 1.5% for trips and < 2% for pairs. I'd even say go for < 1% for trips and < 1.5% for pairs these days.
The most important thing here is. You do NOT rank with keyword density. AT ALL. 0.2% or 1.5% there is no positive correlation between ranking. What you ARE doing here is de-optimizing. So when I'm talking about keyword density, I am helping you to not over-optimize, and this is only ever an issue if you have an "SEO writer" or a low quality writer.
The longer answer..
You want to use as many "LSI" keywords as possible. You really don't need to mention a keyword more than once. If it shows up more than once naturally, that's fine. A good article written by a good writer will naturally be fine. Avoid "SEO writers" like the plague. Avoid writing "for SEO". A good, deep article will contain a ton of topical relevance and juicy keyword variations(LSIs).
The more variation you have in keywords the more topical relevance you build. So if you're writing about "drone reviews for teens", then you'd want to say, teens, teenagers, young adults, 13 year olds, 14 year olds, 15 year olds, reviews, top, best, great, amazing, our picks. Everything closely related. The days of ranking for a keyword are LONG LONG LONG LONG gone. Google is so advanced with content. I'll write about this in more depth another time, but for now just know you need natural, plenty of keyword variations and depth in your content.
Keyword density is an old, dated metric from before hummingbird and the knowledge graph, when google would rank based on keywords. It does NOT rank based on keywords now. It ranks entities when the following occurs:- A page matches a search intent. It's also worth mentioning here, if one page more closely matches searcher intent than another stronger page, it will outrank that page. If 2 pages closely match for searcher intent, the stronger, more trustworthy one will rank.
1. Don't over-link all over the place. Link mostly contextually, where is natural.
2. A silo's main purpose isn't to drive link juice. That's more like "PR sculpting". It's a misconception about silos. A silos purpose is not to artificially increase ranking by manipulating juice, which is why it'll never be blackhat. Its true purpose is to help google understand the topics of your site. To show google what your site is about, what its an authority in. This is why the linking isn't so important. Google is very good at understanding content. By linking from a dog silo to a cat silo, it won't confuse it. If anything it's a positive, because it understands how the 2 are related. If you as a human know something is related, so does google. So if you deem it a good link, it's good for google's understanding too.
3. You don't rank category, tag or archive pages. They have nothing to do with silos. An ecommerce site can rank its product pages, yes, and you should have them inside the correct silos. You would have the brand name in them. Nothing wrong with that. If I am selling a Samsung 22" Business Monitor S22E450BW, it wouldn't make sense to miss out "samsung" from the title. How will people know it's a samsung? People will search for samsung 22" monitor, or samsung s22e450bw.
Samsung.com using siloing.
https://www.samsung.com/uk/monitors/monitor-se450-s22e450bw/
So here we go. We don't need to mention samsung in the url. It is samsung.com. Likewise if we have site.com/uk/monitors/samsung/monitor-se450-s22e450bw, we don't need to have site.com/uk/monitors/samsung/samsung-monitor-se450-s22e450bw, BUT,
Look at the title.. "Samsung 22" Business Monitor S22E450BW | Samsung UK"
Then
The H1 is just 22" Business Monitor S22E450BW
Makes sense, right?
On the serps, people are looking at the title, so you want to say samsung monitor.
The url doesn't have to repeat, because it already is implied it's samsung.
The h1 doesn't need to say samsung, because, you've just clicked, you are on samsung.com or in site.com/uk/monitors/samsung and you can see the title.
Have a look at how samsung.com are siloing. It's an EXCELLENT example. Their architecture is spot-on.
I haven't tested this. It's believed that changing the niche devalues it. It won't be a 100 or 0 situation. It'll be a sliding scale, like the further away from the niche it is, the more the links are devalued. I wouldn't ever expect them to be devalued completely.
This is a great time to test though. Please let me know what happens after you place a link.
Q7) Which keyword tools do you recommend?
A7) semrush and ahrefs. For keyword research I google some base keywords, then pop the sites in ahrefs or semrush, and go from there. You'll get a ton of keyword ideas, and you can further search google and see even more sites. It is by far the best way to do kw research.
1. Don't spend money on kw research other than an ahrefs or semrush subscription. It depends how low is low. SEO is hard with a low budget. I don't see many people succeed in SEO with budgets of less than $1k/mo unless they personally have the ability to write a ton of content and do their own outreach. You need content and links. The cheapest way to do it is, like I said, write your own content and do your own outreach. You can get free guest posts, but you need to be able to write well.
2. $1k/mo is good. $1k on content month 1/2/3, then $700 content, $300 links month 4/5/6, then 50/50. It's easier to rank authority sites than micro niche sites. I almost never see small sites rank these days.
3. It matters. But it's not about the domain age. It's about the age of the content and the links. It can take a couple of months for links to kick in properly, and sites do definitely get better with age. Add a new article to a 6 month only site vs a 3 year old site and you'll see the importance of age.
4. You don't want expired domains. You want non-dropped, aged domains. And for a money site, $300 to $5000. Generally $700-$1200 you'll find something good.
5. There's not a "biggest". If your on-page isn't right, links won't do anything. On-page is the direction you are pointed, links are the push. If you are pointed south, and you want to go north, the biggest push in the world won't help. LIkewise, if you are pointed north, and don't push, you won't move.
6. Yes, it does. Google likes authority sites. Also, which, as a human would you consider an authority on animals. A site with 5 pages and 10k words of content, or a site with 750 pages and 5 million words of content? Trying to rank for keywords is silly. 1 article, ranking for 1 keyword is 2012 stuff. An article ranks for a tight topic, and a site ranks for a broad topic. The bigger your site, the more keywords you'll rank for. The bigger the article, the more keywords you'll rank for. More longtails.
It varies. Sometimes 2 weeks, sometimes 2 months. The algorithm has a lot of randomness to confuse and make it difficult to assess what works and what doesn't. Usually never less than 2 weeks, and usually never more than 2 months, so if you have no results after 2 months, what you did, did not work.
Nope.
https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/the-ultimate-guide-to-seo-siloing-dominate-google-in-2018.985967/
75-200 words in silos, and 500-1000 on the homepage. For informational sites. Ecommerce is different. I'll write a siloing for ecommerce guide soon.
yes correct.
$50-$100/mo is not enough unless you are able to write at least 2k-3k words a day yourself and do your own outreach, and writing the guest posts. There's really nothing you can do with $50-$100. $50 isn't even enough for a semrush or ahrefs subscription. That kind of money will cover your hosting and 2-3 articles a month, or 5-10 pbn links and nothing else. Ideally you want at least $250/mo. $500/mo is good and $1k/mo is great. More than that is only when you really know what you're doing and what your ROIs are.
I've just had a few clients recently who have had some issues around them so I'm recommend people avoid just now. They will still work, but because of that I'm recommending people avoid unless they already know what they're doing. Niche edits can be expensive too, so it's a big risk to drop several hundred $ or a grand and have it hurt your rankings or do nothing.
If you're going to do them start with only 1-2 and see how it works for you and keep them relevant.
I just googled dogs and best dogs. They are very different. Can you show me a review page ranking for 'dogs'? Google understands intent, and when you type in dogs, you don't want to know about the best dogs. You want information on dogs, maybe dog breeds etc.
I don't see ANY review/best pages on page 1 for 'dogs'. I see dog news articles, rich snippets with info about dogs, list of dog breeds, complete guide to caring for dogs, dog - wikipedia, dog health center, a dogs page on humanesociety.org, dogs available for adoption, dog breeds again, and dog supplies.
If you want to rank for dogs, then you need to re-assess your seo strategy. Trying to rank for single keywords in 2019 is completely the wrong strategy. It's even worse trying to rank for broad keywords. You should be trying to rank for 250k keywords in a broad topic, like 250k keywords in the musical instruments niche. THAT is how you make money with SEO and build a monster site.
