PHPBUILT's Idiot-Proof Guide to Authority Site Building

[calltyrone]

Overoptimization can happen on a 1 page website, so yes ... this applies to a micro niche site.

I don't know about Yoast, but I used to use something called SEOpressor (plugin that tells you your keyword density and gives you SEO advice). GUARANTEED if you follow its advice you're penalized. Its giving you a red checkmark if you don't have a keyword in H1 AND H2 AND H3 AND 2%+ keyword density in body and on and on ... its a wordpress plugin. Wordpress plugin programmers are not SEO experts by default. I'm quite sure with all the misinformation in the industry that the concepts in this thread are unknown to most of the SEO world.

LOL that's exactly what I use SEOpresser, I knew not to do every single thing it told me but I did most of the things.

I Know this has nothing really to do with this but I remember I made an amazon affiliate site and I was ranking for big keywords without even trying! No real SEO or nothing I just threw my main keyword in there like every other paragraph or something. And I was on the first page for some, but the keywords were like easy to medium, but still. I guess I should go back to that simpleness.

 

[Deleted member 731332]

phpbuilt,

I registered just to thank you for this guide, and for your future ones you are about to release. I have been searching for this for MONTHS, and could not quite find something this relevant to my searches Will you post a link to your web 2.0 guide in this thread so that its easy to find, when its done please?

Thanks again! This is extremely helpful.

 

[spider7]

good thread...thanks!

 

[masssinissa]

OP thanks for the guide, i appreciate it alot but quick question, do you have any themes you would recommend?

 

[phpbuilt]

OP thanks for the guide, i appreciate it alot but quick question, do you have any themes you would recommend?

I like the "resizable" theme, google it. However, I do strip it down to bare bones so the template doesn't inject anything (no breadcrumbs etc). The reason for that is I believe that responsiveness is a big deal, and I get lots of mobile traffic on my shopping site when I use responsive themes that I just don't get when a template isn't responsive.

You can tell if you're getting mobile traffic by going into analytics, where you have webmaster tools hooked up to it, view your queries and then add secondary dimension to page "google property". It divides it into 3 areas ... web, mobile and images. You will see more mobile views when your theme is responsive.

 

[phpbuilt]

I use tags all the time. I've never seen a problem with using them. I have like 30 tags for the major keywords I'm ranking.
It is because wordpress creates a summary for each tag. To me it always looks like a great way to have internal link structure.

I can drag a horse with no legs across a finish line too, but it doesn't get me first place.

 

[hip_hop_x]

I have to disagree with no tags, google even gave one of my tags a pr 4...
If it's well made (try to avoid duplicated content), then you shouldn't have a problem

 

[KHer0]

Emmm, What is exactly your problem with Breadcrumbs ? ! I love them. They help with siloing. They help sending juice to their parent ( Silo page and Home page ) ..

 

[phpbuilt]

View attachment 43180

So how diluite the % example in the title writing longer titles?

by the way this is a 2 words keywords.

You have to dilute the overall keyword density on your page, and on your title you need to have your keyword just once. It doesn't matter if you dilute keyword density in your title, however. I go for longer titles when you fit more longtails in it, but I don't repeat keywords and I don't add useless words (everything I put in title is to #1 rank for something, or #2 generate curiosity and increase clickthroughs). I'm unconcerned about diluting keyword density in title.

 

[moonlighsunligh]

I go to the page to "tweak" it ... wondering why it didn't rank. At that point, I realize that of the 3 word keyword combo I was trying to rank for ... it contains 2 words that I'm actually at 2.8% keyword density on ... which is stuffing. Oops. I tone that back to less than 2%. Then I add another paragraph of 100 words to get that percentage down even more. Basically if its not ranking, something like that is going on so I have to review it.

I have a 30 page and it doesn't rank for anything, except for one page with keyword density of 4.5%. I wonder and this single page receives 50-100 visitors per day and is #1. Other pages are optimised with keyword density between 1% to 1.5% and they do not rank for much things.

 

[phpbuilt]

I have to disagree with no tags, google even gave one of my tags a pr 4...
If it's well made (try to avoid duplicated content), then you shouldn't have a problem

Whats your tag ranking for? If a keyword is important to you, you make a page and write an article for it. If a keyword is unimportant to you, you don't make a page for it.

Tags by default won't rank well, for a very good reasons. Its entirely duplicate content for one. Also, and here is the biggie, you cannot control your keyword density on it whatsoever. Even if you balance the tag page to have appropriate keyword density by editing all your excerpts that end up on that page ... as soon as you tag that page again, you messed your keyword density up again.

What you'll find is that, of all your tag pages, the only ones that rank well are the ones that accidentally hit that sweet spot of keyword density, that you basically have no control over. Sometimes tags get traffic -- and when they do its by accident, because nobody sets out to write their excerpts on 5 or 10 different pages to average out to 1.5% keyword density, its too hard and random.

So what if a tag page is PR4? The only way it got that way is you drained your articles of PR to make it have its PR4. That means you weakened your articles all that much more. If you know how PR works, you'll know that taking a 20 page website and turning it into a 100 page website by adding tags does not give you more PR, it just spreads it thinner. There are many types of PR4, a PR4 that is almost PR3 is exponentially weaker than a PR4 that is almost PR5.

By all means, if you want to stick a bunch of duplicate content on your website, and have your tags pages cannibalize your article pages and vice versa -- be my guest. IMO its a fail. You can go create your own success thread about where you explain how successful your duplicate content sites are and how every single one of your tags pages are in the top 10 search results for your site, and I'm sure everyone will hop on board.

 

[phpbuilt]

I have to disagree with no tags, google even gave one of my tags a pr 4...
If it's well made (try to avoid duplicated content), then you shouldn't have a problem

Everyone loves to use the siloing term, but few people understand what it means.

When you stick a breadcrumb on your page that links to homepage, and then the category, and then subcategory, and then shows the title of the post again on your page, is it siloing? Sure. Assuming you have no navigational menu. Do you have a navigational menu? Oh, then its not siloing.

Here's the problem ...

You write your article name. Article name goes in title. That's 1. Article name is usually injected as a H1 tag on 99% of the wordpress templates out there -- ick. Ok, I get H1s forced down my throat, so be it ... that's 2. Of course I wish I had full control over that but I can live with that.

Now comes breadcrumbs, doing a home > category > Full Article Title Yet Again.

Now your template is just getting ridiculous. You want your keywords in content. Your keywords floating on a page in a random location do absolutely nothing for you. Also, hyperlinked keywords are weighted more than just the plain keyword. So here you have the breadcrumb with extra weighted category page because its hyperlinked, and injecting the title of the article yet again, increasing your keyword density all that much more.

And its a cheap injection of keywords. When you have a keyword in content, that's like a healthy meal. When you got your template sticking your keyword in some kind of tag nowhere near content, just floating on your page somewhere, that's like junkfood.

I would much, much rather have every single use of my keyword in content. Any use of your keyword that isn't in content detracts from the power of your page.

 

[phpbuilt]

I have a 30 page and it doesn't rank for anything, except for one page with keyword density of 4.5%. I wonder and this single page receives 50-100 visitors per day and is #1. Other pages are optimised with keyword density between 1% to 1.5% and they do not rank for much things.

In the world of SEO, you don't have to be perfect to rank #1. You just have to be better than everyone else.

Here's situations where 4.5% ranks fine ...

When you have very little content. A simple paragraph can rank and keyword density matters less when there is very little content.

When you have high PA/DA.

When you've done heavy backlinking (this will be permanently ranking if you did good backlinking, and your ranks will disappear if it was spammy backlinking).

If you dilute all your incoming anchors to never have exact match anchors. If someone blasts your 4.5% keyword density page with a spammy fiverr job with exact anchors for your keyword, you'll disappear from SERPs.

Its possible to rank with 4.5% keyword density, its just not the best option. However, if you're at #1 ... I suggest you keep it as-is. Never screw with a #1 position, when you're #1 you move on to make something else #1.

Your other pages that aren't ranking, are they anywhere in the SERPs?

 

[phpbuilt]

Shortly before I started this thread, I started my next authority site. I published the first 10 articles right around Nov. 25 and started getting traffic on the 27th.

Right now it has 30 articles, and its now up to 60 visitors a day. What I show above is organic traffic from Google.

Everything I'm chasing after is buying keywords. Virtually no one gets to my site that didn't type in some sort of query implying they're about to buy a product. With the price range I've selected for the products I write about ... I know that every visitor I get from Google is worth around 15 cents, whether or not they buy anything. If 100 people visit my site, I make $15, if 1000 visit, I make $150.

Right now I'm up to 60 visitors from Google a day, and the site is making sales. At an average of 15 cents per visitor, the site is averaging $9 per day (not exactly, but I know this industry well enough to know by the time I have 1k visitors the site will make $150+ per day).

Consider the power of this for a moment.

I wrote 30 articles. Most people writing wholesale articles are getting $5 for a 500 word article. That's $150 in their pocket for writing 30 articles.

Compare that to this scenario where you're building an authority site.

These 30 articles are on average making me $9 per day right now (60 visitors per day from Google * .15 cents per visitor). That is $270 a month. Every article I wrote is almost making me $10 per month.

And I haven't even backlinked yet.

You can flip a site for 12 months of its current income. Although I would have to let the site "prove" itself by averaging a certain amount of money for a length of time -- as-is the site with its current income could flip for $3240 ($270 * 12).

$3240 for writing 30 articles. That's over $100 per article folks.

However, I won't probably flip it until its aged a year, so in reality I get to make 1 years income, and then flipping it -- makes that $100 per article closer to $200 per article.

Would you start writing for $200 an article?

Of course, you need to do keyword research, write really well, continually fix areas of your site that aren't performing. But, its a good ROI.

And I haven't even backlinked yet. Someday I will. And it'll be worth more. That's the power of authority sites.

 

[finerpleasures]

I have the following questions.

1. I use allinoneseo and it has fields for title, description and keywords. How do you suggest I handle that and how would you describe an optimum seo title ?

2. Would their be any penalties, if I had "Black ferrets dead" as my seo title and in the URL. And "why the black ferrets are dead" as the title on the page ?

3. What is your opinion of "schema" and google "authorship". Could one be better than the other?

4. Do ssl certificates, improve site seo. Taking into consideration, it's speed issues.

5. When will you share your web2.0 list?

thanks.

 

[KHer0]

1 - Believe me, I know A LOT about SILOING
2 - Asking questions doesn't mean I'm noob !
3 - I only show main navigation menu where I need to. I don't show it in Article Pages as it will dilute my theme.
4 - I like your answer as I'm following exactly opposite strategy .. I optimize the title and navigation for the keyword but I rarely use it in my article ... I don't give a lot of attention to keyword density btw. I use my keyword in the content area where it's a must .. This is why I normally get less than 1% keyword density

Q : For linking structure :- How deep will you go ?! I use 3 layers most ( Home Page --> Category article -- > Sub - silo --- > article

And my links goes like www.website.com/tool/hammer/Article Keyword

I take Niche website approach btw.. Ranking for Main Keywords , Related keywords and longer keywords.

==========================================
Note : this is one of the best threads I have ever seen... And I have seen a lot BTW.

 

[thanhclix]

What do you think about how external links affect a page's ranking?

I have lots of posts that link to at least 5 authority sites' links per post. I'm considering remove them to see if these posts can jump in serp.

@OP: can you let me know your thoughts about this?

 

[phpbuilt]

I have the following questions.

1. I use allinoneseo and it has fields for title, description and keywords. How do you suggest I handle that and how would you describe an optimum seo title ?

I typically do ... article name | brand

Now the brand name typically does not have the keyword in it, which gives me freedom of mentioning the main keyword in all my articles without fear of having the keyword in the title always twice.

2. Would their be any penalties, if I had "Black ferrets dead" as my seo title and in the URL. And "why the black ferrets are dead" as the title on the page ?

These are all the power areas. Title is #1, H1 is #2, URL is #3. Are you bordering on overdoing it and keyword stuffing? No. You want to use these powerful on-page factors to your advantage. The problem comes when you write the article. You keep it 1% keyword density in the article you should be fine -- if you're above that, it starts veering into overoptimization territory.

You can balance out overoptimization by getting backlinks to the page without exact anchors. But in the case of content being keyword stuffed -- easiest way to fix it is to just reduce the keyword density.

Now specifically answering your question ... there's no best answer of what your title should be, all the time. Most of the time, exact keyword in title/url/h1 is ok if you write a balanced article. If you went on a spamming spree with exact anchors and your page is penalized, taking the keyword out of your title would greatly reduce the power of that keyword on the page, balancing it out and making you rank again. Its all a balancing act. I brought one article that was spammed back to life just by taking the desired keyword out of the article name.

3. What is your opinion of "schema" and google "authorship". Could one be better than the other?

I use Google authorship. My pages reference products, and Google seems to figure that out on their own without me doing microformats. Those little stars that show up could be beneficial but I just settle for a picture of a pretty girl in SERPs with Googe+ -- it absolutely increases clickthrough ratio.

4. Do ssl certificates, improve site seo. Taking into consideration, it's speed issues.

Its an element of trust. Its probably one of the 200+ thingies Google considers in rankings. For me, its too big a fuss to worry about it.

5. When will you share your web2.0 list?

thanks.

I appreciate sdseoguru's list posted above, but many are a waste of time. Just glancing the list over ... posterous.com has been dead for like a year now I think. Multiply.com has been dead for nearly 2 years. Visualsociety.com hasn't allowed new signups in over a year. Blog.hr is in Chinese and its plain not worth going through the effort of translating it to get a blog on there. Honmag.com was dead when I posted my original web2.0 list back in 2011. People copy/paste lists they don't even use and it makes people waste their time.

It takes time to vet these web2.0s. If they're deindexed, low Google indexing, low PA/DA -- they're a waste of time. sosblogs.com removes your links after a few months. My VA's were 70% through the list when I asked them yesterday, as soon as I have a fresh set of working web2.0s I'll release the guide, and the list. It will be over 100 excellent working free blogs, and I guarantee that every single one won't waste a second of your time.

 

[phpbuilt]

@OP: can you let me know your thoughts about this?

I completely cover this in my upcoming web2.0 guide, in great detail. Let me summarize this though.

Linking out isn't always bad. On money sites I link out maybe once every 5 posts, where it seems the right thing to do. Any more than that is just leaking PR.

You receive benefits from linking out to higher quality sites that have the same niche as the page you're linking from. The effect is it makes you a resource for that keyword, which is good. You will farm this on web2.0s. You will reluctantly use this on your money sites. You will never do this with your blog network.

Wait for the web2.0 guide that will explain how to turn linking out into an authority building activity.

 

[phpbuilt]

@KHero. Keeping that keyword density to 1% by inflating your template with keywords and not using them in your content is something that would work. My gut feeling is that you get more benefit from keywords in content, and that feeling comes from success I have doing it that way. If you have success doing the reverse, then you know what works good for you.

Most of everything I say, while based on a lot of research and personal experience, is pure guesswork. My guesswork gets pages ranking. Obviously there's probably more than one way to get stuff ranking.

And yeah, like I said ... if you don't have a navigational menu, then breadcrumbs is siloing and there's nothing wrong with it at all.