PHPBUILT's Idiot-Proof Guide to Authority Site Building

[phpbuilt]

This is certainly a very thorough guide. Thank you very much for posting this. I feel as if I have learned a lot after reading this guide.
However, I do have a question. What are your thoughts on images; should I let Google Index them, or use noindex on them as well?

Images are certainly ok. I'm sure Google assigns a +extra quality modifier if an article has an image associated with it. You get traffic from images, especially if you have a product website that people like to see an item before they buy it.

If you have your site hooked up to analytics, and have webmaster tools hooked up to your analytics -- go to the Search Engine Optimization >> Queries. On that page, click "Secondary Acquisition" and then "Google Property". Then sort by Google Property.

That tells you exactly what keywords you're qualifying for on "Web", which is the SERPs. It also tells you what keywords you qualify for on images, and how much traffic you're getting from images.

 

[acidol2]

Holy shit theres a lot of detail in this....
Thanks a lot man!

 

[phpbuilt]

Amazing post phpbuilt! One of the best threads in a long time.

What is your opinion of traditional onsite SEO practices? Keyword in H1, H2, H3, bold, italic, and underline?

Or do you just focus on keyword density?

Bold, italic, underline is fine. However, on a 500 word article, with keyword injected by template once or twice, you're only mentioning the keyword like 3 or 4 times in the article. So I will bold or italics one keyword per article, I don't overdo it.

I hate H-tags. This was a decent practice maybe 2 years ago:

<h1>{keyword}</h1>

<h2>Buy Best {keyword} From Our Store</h2>

<h2>Where can I find red {keyword}?</h2>

etc. for another 3 or 4 H-tags. This is absolutely certain to overoptimize a page today.

Right now, I don't use the main keyword I want to rank for in an H-tag. Instead, I put parallel keywords that are not in the title or page slug. For instance, if my main keyword is "Buy Spinning Widgets", I will make an <h2>Best Twirling Types</h2>.

 

[phpbuilt]

Additional piece of advice if you're chasing after a huge main keyword for your homepage: static homepage.

When I make an authority site, its usually a product website. This is in a difficult niche, with many 1996 registered domains that dominate the top of the SERPs, along with Amazon and Wikipedia, on the major keywords -- which are around 150k exact.

I'm not even trying for that main keyword. All I care that my homepage ranks for is its brand, which is uncompetitive seeing its a unique thing to my site. My strategy is to rank the inner pages, which will eventually total hundreds of pages, and all represent 500 to 15k volume exact match keywords.

However, the goal of many of you is to actually rank your homepage for a big keyword. This requires a different strategy then showing Google all your new posts on homepage.

Whenever you write a new post, as recommended in the guide, you write an excerpt which goes on your homepage, you no-follow/index your category pages and thus all your content is unique.

This makes it hard for your homepage to rank for a difficult keyword. Every post you write jumbles the keyword density on your homepage. You will find you have little, if any control over the keyword density. As such, you'll over-optimize it and not rank for that big keyword you're chasing after.

To correct this, you will do-follow your categories, and allow them to index. Next (as mentioned by manolo12399 above), you make a static homepage. On your static homepage, you will write a nice 1000 word post going into depth about the main keyword you're chasing after, plus explain your categories paragraph-by-paragraph linking to them. This will give you complete control of your keyword density and allow you to rank your homepage for your difficult keyword.

 

[NoelP]

sure enough keyword stuffing is the worse you can do when blogging nowadays. With panda, penguin and all these other silly google's algo updates you cannot get away with it no more. Anywas, buying quality links from high PR sites is probably the easiest way to increase the authority of a site.

 

[ch8878]

@phpbuilt

What hosting are you using for your authority sites?

 

[phpbuilt]

@phpbuilt

What hosting are you using for your authority sites?

They sit on my VPS but don't think it really matters. I've had nice sites built on shared.

 

[blacat]

If you have your site hooked up to analytics, and have webmaster tools hooked up to your analytics -- go to the Search Engine Optimization >> Queries. On that page, click "Secondary Acquisition" and then "Google Property". Then sort by Google Property.

That tells you exactly what keywords you're qualifying for on "Web", which is the SERPs. It also tells you what keywords you qualify for on images, and how much traffic you're getting from images.

Very interesting... if on the Google property column I have "Unknown" for a certain key phrase, does it mean that this search term is filtered/penalized? (please note that the average position for that key phrase is 68).

If it is not an indication for penalization, then what does "unknown" mean?

 

[phpbuilt]

Very interesting... if on the Google property column I have "Unknown" for a certain key phrase, does it mean that this search term is filtered/penalized? (please note that the average position for that key phrase is 68).

If it is not an indication for penalization, then what does "unknown" mean?

I'm not sure what the "unknown" are, but has nothing to do with filtering I'm sure. Its weird that all the "unknowns" are usually extremely competitive keywords that I can't believe I would actually have ranked for anyways -- so I just ignore them lol.

 

[ch8878]

@phpbuilt

Do you use ALT tags in images?

 

[blacat]

I'm not sure what the "unknown" are, but has nothing to do with filtering I'm sure. Its weird that all the "unknowns" are usually extremely competitive keywords that I can't believe I would actually have ranked for anyways -- so I just ignore them lol.

Thanks for the reply.

After thinking of it for few more minutes... It seems that it is just undefined property in google's analytics tables.

And yes, it is a very competitive keyword in my case as well

 

[mansipunitarora]

hiii,
first i tell you thanks for this type of thread. step by step is a good type of thread. your threadtype is best i reading your thraed after read and do this i will contact you.

thanks

 

[sampo1time]

What widgets do you use in your sidebar? You say to remove recent post, comments, tags. etc... I have the categories on my nav bar and related posts following the content. Not sure what else there left to put on the sidebar besides a search bar. Looks kinda empty.

At what point of the building process do you include adssnse into your site? right off the get go? after it starts seeing some traffic? and what plugin do you use for this?

Do you use and or recommend G analytics for your sites?

 

[phpbuilt]

@phpbuilt

Do you use ALT tags in images?

Yep. My blog is about products too, and people shop sometimes with Google images for the types of products I sell ... so it makes sense to optimize them.

 

[phpbuilt]

What widgets do you use in your sidebar?

My sidebar is an old-school linked image map. I have pictures of categories, which are product types ... for people to click. I nofollow even though don't think its necessary (Google doesn't seem to see the links). They lead to a redirect page which I have set in the robots page that Google cannot access it.

That redirect takes them to my store. I try to get people to my shop because it converts better than the blog. The sidebar is very pretty and completely filled out this way.

At what point of the building process do you include adssnse into your site? right off the get go? after it starts seeing some traffic? and what plugin do you use for this?

I don't really use adsense ... its like an amazon affiliate site where I'm selling products. Of course I have products available from day 1. I wouldn't bother putting adsense on until I had the traffic to justify it, if that were my method of monetization.

Do you use and or recommend G analytics for your sites?

Yep, I use analytics. I don't believe Google automatically is penalizing everyone who uses it, and I don't have a spammy type of operation -- all my content is good content, whether its on web2.0s or my blog network.

 

[tony_d]

What do you think of [censored]? If you were to score it according to your guide on building an authority site, how would it score? It seems mostly ok to me, but your feedback is appreciated...

 

[phpbuilt]

What do you think of guruwizard.com? If you were to score it according to your guide on building an authority site, how would it score? It seems mostly ok to me, but your feedback is appreciated...

What you know, t0mmy is following his MO. Find anyone who annoys him and outs their domains.

Thank you, I'll get you banned on that one alone, albeit for your tony_d account.

 

[tony_d]

What you know, t0mmy is following his MO. Find anyone who annoys him and outs their domains.

Thank you, I'll get you banned on that one alone, albeit for your tony_d account.

a) I HIGHLY doubt the domain I questioned you about is yours, however on the REMOTE chance that by a sheer randomness of the WWW it does happen to be so, I have edited my post and suggest you edit your quote of my post (if it really is your domain)
b) A simple PM would have sufficed if indeed you claim it is 'your domain'
c) It was a genuine question, relating mostly to the theme being used on the site, however, if you don't want to respond I'll leave it at that... it's not the end of the world to me, I have no issue with you even though you seem to have with me.

 

[Duffers5000]

Come on man. This is a good thread thats helping a lot of people. No need to stink it up

a) I HIGHLY doubt the domain I questioned you about is yours, however on the REMOTE chance that by a sheer randomness of the WWW it does happen to be so, I have edited my post and suggest you edit your quote of my post (if it really is your domain)
b) A simple PM would have sufficed if indeed you claim it is 'your domain'
c) It was a genuine question, relating mostly to the theme being used on the site, however, if you don't want to respond I'll leave it at that... it's not the end of the world to me, I have no issue with you even though you seem to have with me.

 

[tony_d]

@tony_d

Folks, BHW is starting to stink. Stink really bad. There is a certain member here who stalks you and rips you apart, limb from limb.

Two things;
a) I'm going to take a lead from what duffers said, and therefore this will be my last post in this thread. If you have an issue with me, please PM me.
b) I am not tommy, and I have offered to prove that to you, and that offer stands.

That's all I'll write in this thread, because anything 'on this topic' would be 'off topic' to this thread.

Feel free to PM me if you think I've somehow wronged you, and I'll gladly talk to you and sort it out.