General fighting guide to tackling a keyword on google

[ThopHayt]

Hey guys, I'm pretty green and I'm sure theres a few noobies around here who are also wanting to know:

What is a good starting game plan for moving up the rankings on a particular keyword?

What is a good basic few steps that you should start out on? And are there any key steps that you think people often overlook or do, but shouldn't? I know that getting a good backlinking campaign is generally one of the starting steps, but like many new hatters I don't know the details of the number to shoot for, the quality, or other tactics. I'm sure there's a lot more I could say, but I don't know anymore lol.

 

[fanthomas]

what i did was just utilize every backlink method i found in the whitehat and blackhat sections of blackhatworld.

 

[ThopHayt]

what i did was just utilize every backlink method i found in the whitehat and blackhat sections of blackhatworld.

Did those backlink methods alone shoot you to the top, and how long did it take?

 

[BENNY8877]

Be sure to not forget your on-site SEO.

 

[ThopHayt]

Be sure to not forget your on-site SEO.

You mean good meta's and alt tags etc etc etc, right?

 

[Hydro]

I agree with Benny that the most commonly overlooked step in general SEO is the onsite part. Yes, he's referring to proper meta / alt / h1,h2,h3 tags / etc. After that it is all about relevant back links.

 

[ThopHayt]

I agree with Benny that the most commonly overlooked step in general SEO is the onsite part. Yes, he's referring to proper meta / alt / h1,h2,h3 tags / etc. After that it is all about relevant back links.

No worries there, I'm a freakin' obsessive weirdo about getting stuff like that all in a professional state of polish.

But what beyond that? Are there any small tricks that fly under the radar? Even services you've found and love... specific habits in how you link/ping/etc?

 

[BENNY8877]

Another thing is to link to an authority site such as Wikipedia,etc, from your money site.

 

[marcgenesis]

Another thing is to link to an authority site such as Wikipedia,etc, from your money site.

Any detailed explanations?

 

[BENNY8877]

Any detailed explanations?

Apparently Googs likes it because it provides a better user experience by linking to informative content.

 

[ThopHayt]

Another thing is to link to an authority site such as Wikipedia,etc, from your money site.

What are some other good examples of "authority" pages BTW?

 

[cody41]

What are some other good examples of "authority" pages BTW?

Time to use your thinking cap...

recipe.com, cnn.com, libraryofcongress...

If it passes a first blush glance test of whether it's an authority site or not, it generally is. You just need to match it to YOUR content on your site.

 

[ThopHayt]

How does a guy figure out if a top 10 spot on a google keyword is susceptible to be overtaken?

How close in PR, age, backlinking should you be and are there any other general rules of thumb for when to attack?

 

[phas3d]

its more like a long seige. you dont attack sites in the top 10. you try to have a better site then your competitors do (insofar as seo is concerned) and you fortify your own site with off site seo and onsite optimization and content.

there's only war if your niche is filled with other seo's doing the same thing. find a niche where 3 or 4 of the sites in the top 10 aren't seo's

 

[jasonmbeamer]

As far as onsite goes, make sure you have your keyword in H1,H2, Bold, italic, and last but most important is LSI keywords throughout the article of at least 350 words on the homepage. and yes its a good idea for your meta tags. Also a good onsite seo is for new unique content consistently.

Off site is the hard job. build links and more links. you want to have alot of refering domains, in other words it dosn't do hardly any where near as good to have 100 links at wordpress.com then it dose to have 100 links at differrent class C IP domains of the same PR as wordpress. But you want to deversify, get articles, web2.0's, videos, diggs, del, etc...for your backlinks to your money site, then you can get profiles and blog comments to those, but don't do them to your money site.

Build the links consistently over a few months, then you can slow down but you need to always build links.

the first 90 days of a new domain is the tricky part. google will almost ignore your work during this time. yes you will still move up and its not in vein, but don't expect huge jumps in the serps. I usually only build small amounts of backlinks during this time and concentrait more on building the site and adding content. If you build too many backlinks during this 90 day period you could get sandboxed for awhile (its happened to me) but its no big deal as long as your still indexed in google. If your not indexed anymore just forget it and start a new site.

Articles and web2.0's are the best quality for backlinks.

 

[ThopHayt]

What if you're doing a re-build of an existing site that is 10+ years aged with a page rank of 3? Does that make you less likely to be sandboxed, and does google tend to ignore you less... or does the fact that you have added so much new content alarm Google? What should I do?

 

[jasonmbeamer]

Yes, if you add a massive amount of content all at once that can cause a problem, but 10+ years gives you ALOT of play.

I wouldn't worry much at all unless the site has never had any backlinks. As long as the backlinks you build are of good quality and white hat, I would start to build gradually and dont worry. just start building em.

 

[Waxler]

Simple, make the best on-page SEO... you can find info like that eveywhere.

Then post as many links as possible from DIFFERENT sources and let G find them on it's own, don't ping them or RSS submit them in big bulks. You want G to find them over time.

Also get your competitors links that are already on the top 10. Then you just add some new content every few months or/and build backlinks so you gain relevance in g eyes.

 

[ThopHayt]

So I'll just start linking slow and not ping them right away or very aggressively. That sound reasonable?