PHPBUILT's Idiot-Proof Guide to Authority Site Building

[phpbuilt]

What do you recommend for letting visitors know of site updates, reviews etc?

Right now, I have posts containing site update info and product reviews that auto post every 2 days for fresh content and I have the recent posts widget set to let visitors know of fresh content and product reviews. It is set at 25 posts (yeah I know way too much).

So to sum it up - what I have is 25 keyword rich titles (some with exact anchor text as my main page) rotating every 2 days. What would be the best way to keep visitors notified of reviews, etc without killing my serps due to over optimization?

The recommendation that your homepage be static is mainly if you're wanting to rank it for a difficult keyword. If you don't care if your keyword ranks for difficult keywords, feel free to keep the model of showing recent posts on homepage with excerpts.

The homepage doesn't have to rank for a hard keyword -- its not required. The website I'm working on now for my next authority site simply shows recent posts, only because I don't care if the homepage ranks for anything or not. Its the inner pages I care about.

You will find that you can also rank your homepage with brute force by using awesome incoming links targeting your desired anchor text. That's basically what the whole SEO world does with regular posts at the moment (only ranks them using brute force links). You can take what would normally be an overoptimized page and spam in so many links that your DA/PA goes up and you have a higher threshhold for tolerating crappy anchors.

In general though, this is only a concern if you absolutely want the homepage to rank for a difficult keyword.

 

[blackhataffiliate]

The recommendation that your homepage be static is mainly if you're wanting to rank it for a difficult keyword. If you don't care if your keyword ranks for difficult keywords, feel free to keep the model of showing recent posts on homepage with excerpts.

The homepage doesn't have to rank for a hard keyword -- its not required. The website I'm working on now for my next authority site simply shows recent posts, only because I don't care if the homepage ranks for anything or not. Its the inner pages I care about.

You will find that you can also rank your homepage with brute force by using awesome incoming links targeting your desired anchor text. That's basically what the whole SEO world does with regular posts at the moment (only ranks them using brute force links). You can take what would normally be an overoptimized page and spam in so many links that your DA/PA goes up and you have a higher threshhold for tolerating crappy anchors.

In general though, this is only a concern if you absolutely want the homepage to rank for a difficult keyword.

Thanks for the help and for sharing your knowledge with BHW

 

[Eagle Eye]

PHP:

So i was checking out what my competition is doing in regards to keyword density and I searched for the term in google and then checked their density for that term. It turns out almost everyone on the first page had 0 % keyword density for that term yet still ranked on the first page. I assume this means they are ranking by other methods. What is your take on this?

 

[Valkurm]

Awesome informations PHP, very interesting as I'm working these last days on this kind of website.
Anyway I'm still not sure on how I should handle one thing.
In my navigation let's say I have :

Home (Main KW) - KW1 (Category 1) - KW2 (Category 2) - [...] - KW5 (Catagory 5) - Contact
It's a review website, but I have lot of content to post between all the categories.
When I click on KW on my menu, it's displaying all the articles of this category and URL is www.domain/category1/
Eventually, I would like to rank for that keyword in addition of the related KW articles I will write on this category.
Should I add something like 800 words in addition of all the article's excerpt displayed there ?

Also, second question.
Let's say I review videogames.
I will have category like "Adventure" "Sports" "RPG" "XBox" "PS3", If I review a sport games for PS3, should I display it 2 times ? I mean one time in "Sports" and one time in "PS3 ? Or should I do something like sub-category ? Domain.com/Sports/PS3/Article ?

Thanks a lot !

 

[phpbuilt]

PHP:

So i was checking out what my competition is doing in regards to keyword density and I searched for the term in google and then checked their density for that term. It turns out almost everyone on the first page had 0 % keyword density for that term yet still ranked on the first page. I assume this means they are ranking by other methods. What is your take on this?

The more incoming exact links, the less on-page optimization you do. I'm sure they at least have the word somewhere in title or something, but body of 0% means they're going super-heavy on the exact anchors.

Less is more nowadays. Even still, I'd recommend at least .5%, and diluting your anchors.

 

[phpbuilt]

Awesome informations PHP, very interesting as I'm working these last days on this kind of website.
Anyway I'm still not sure on how I should handle one thing.
In my navigation let's say I have :

Home (Main KW) - KW1 (Category 1) - KW2 (Category 2) - [...] - KW5 (Catagory 5) - Contact
It's a review website, but I have lot of content to post between all the categories.
When I click on KW on my menu, it's displaying all the articles of this category and URL is http://www.domain/category1/
Eventually, I would like to rank for that keyword in addition of the related KW articles I will write on this category.
Should I add something like 800 words in addition of all the article's excerpt displayed there ?

I've tried this with limited success. You have very little control over keyword density like that.

Far better to follow/noindex categories and take that juicy category keyword and write another post for it and rank that post instead of the category.

Also, second question.
Let's say I review videogames.
I will have category like "Adventure" "Sports" "RPG" "XBox" "PS3", If I review a sport games for PS3, should I display it 2 times ? I mean one time in "Sports" and one time in "PS3 ? Or should I do something like sub-category ? Domain.com/Sports/PS3/Article ?

Thanks a lot !

Doesn't matter if you're doing it right (by noindexing/following categories). Its probably beneficial to do. Google won't display it in the serps, but if set to "follow", Google will appropriately associate your post with both categories.

 

[Valkurm]

I've tried this with limited success. You have very little control over keyword density like that.

Far better to follow/noindex categories and take that juicy category keyword and write another post for it and rank that post instead of the category.


Doesn't matter if you're doing it right (by noindexing/following categories). Its probably beneficial to do. Google won't display it in the serps, but if set to "follow", Google will appropriately associate your post with both categories.

Not sure to understand. If I create a page for the category, where do I display all the reviews in that category ?
(Is is OK if I PM you the URL ? I'd rather starting with something very clean before adding more and more articles)

 

[Talleyrand]

Incidentally folks, this is why many sites have a problem ranking for their main term.

Often times, SEOs will name their website after their main keyword. As such, every page of your entire website then links to your homepage, as a H1 tag (very powerful), as the first link of your page (very powerful) with the exact keyword you're trying to rank for. Is your site 50 pages? Congratulations, you have 50 overpowered links pointing to your homepage -- got to rip your main keyword out of navigation and not use it as the name of your blog.

This is a great argument for authority sites over EMD/PMD niche sites. It would be difficult to turn an 8 page niche site into a 100 page authority site.

 

[crazedspyker]

This is a really great guide and it keeps getting better. Thank you phpbuilt for taking the time to answer questions.

I've de-optimized a couple of my sites. Haven't seen much change yet but I know it's gonna happen all at once as this is how google has been updating my serp rankings for the past 5-6 months (in bursts).

Just another quick question. If I'm targeting a keyword "big red widget", will the occurrence of the plural form "big red widgets" be counted towards the keyword density? (or should it be counted?)

 

[Pauli66]

Really only thing I do with All in One is click noindex/follow on categories. I don't change tags because I don't use tags. I don't modify anything else, so yeah my page title format is what you described.

It should be noted that the blog title is my brand name, not an EMD (though sometimes it has a keyword in it). If you have an EMD and your blog is named after the emd -- its really easy to trip the overoptimization penalty. In that case I'd probably remove the blog title from pages.

I don't like to use EMDs anymore, I like to come up with quirky and odd names that are memorable and brandable ... but they do contain a keyword if its easy to make it brandable.

Say I have an EMD www."BestGreenWidgets".com and my site title is "Best Green Widgets" So on all my posts pages I get ie.
"Cheap purple Widgets|"Best Green Widgets" "Nice blue Widgets|"Best Green Widgets" etc etc


you say I should remove the site title from pages. Do you mean to remove it completely? So I get "Nice blue Widgets|" on my posts and
no page title at all on my main static page? Or do I need to change the title so that it is not matching the EMD?

 

[deBling]

To make own private blog network is really expensive !

 

[SamShady]

Not sure to understand. If I create a page for the category, where do I display all the reviews in that category ?

Categories is by default only used for Posts.

What I usually do is follow this structure:

• Homepage (Static page - focused on the hardest keyword, but not necessarily using the exact keyword very often)
  • Page 1 (centered around semi-hard keyword - manual in-content link linking back to homepage - manual in-content links linking to the supporting Pages) [This would be the equivalent of your first "category" page]
    • Page 1.1 (Longtail/LSI keyword related to the keyword on Page 1 - manual in-content link linking back to Page 1) [This would one of your review pages (not posts)]
    • Page 1.2 (Longtail/LSI keyword related to the keyword on Page 1 - manual in-content link linking back to Page 1) [This would one of your review pages (not posts)]
    • Page 1.3
    • Page 1.4
  • Page 2 (centered around another semi-hard keyword - manual in-content link linking back to homepage - manual in-content links linking to the supporting Pages) [This would be the equivalent of your second "category" page]
    • Page 2.1 (Longtail/LSI keyword related to the keyword on Page 2 - manual in-content link linking back to Page 2) [This would one of your review pages (not posts)]
    • Page 2.2 (Longtail/LSI keyword related to the keyword on Page 2 - manual in-content link linking back to Page 2) [This would one of your review pages (not posts)]
    • Page 2.3
    • Page 2.4
  • Page 3
  • Page 4

That's the general way of how I do it.

I run the blog part of the site from a separate page and use the Posts to promote the inner Pages (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 etc)

The Categories I choose for the Posts are usually lateral to how I've "separated" my Silos and lateral to how I'm constructing my Longtail Kw's.

Let's say Page 1 is about Blue Widgets and Page 2 is about Green Widgets. Supporting Pages focus on Fast Blue Widgets, Strong Green Widgets etc.

My Post Categories would deliberately not be related to Blue Widgets or Green Widgets - or to Fast or Strong.

Instead I would choose Categories such as "Discount", "Update", "News".

That way I don't have to worry about a Post Category suddenly ranking better than the Page created to rank for that specific keyword.

Hope it makes sense - kinda hard to put this stuff in writing in a clear and concise way.

 

[Pauli66]

Say I have an EMD www."BestGreenWidgets".com and my site title is "Best Green Widgets" So on all my posts pages I get ie.
"Cheap purple Widgets|"Best Green Widgets" "Nice blue Widgets|"Best Green Widgets" etc etc


you say I should remove the site title from pages. Do you mean to remove it completely? So I get "Nice blue Widgets|" on my posts and
no page title at all on my main static page? Or do I need to change the title so that it is not matching the EMD?

Sorry I see how you do it now, you use a non keyword targeted brand name as you title so posts appear as "Nice blue Widgets|"Brand Name"

 

[Talleyrand]

my site title is "Best Green Widgets" So on all my posts pages I get ie.
"Cheap purple Widgets|"Best Green Widgets" "Nice blue Widgets|"Best Green Widgets" etc etc


you say I should remove the site title from pages. Do you mean to remove it completely? So I get "Nice blue Widgets|" on my posts and
no page title at all on my main static page? Or do I need to change the title so that it is not matching the EMD?

In your case, you should completely remove the site title from posts and pages. You don't want to use 'Widgets' twice in a title.

You need a page title for your static homepage. With the All in One SEO plugin, you can set the title of your homepage without affecting other pages/posts.

 

[Thanksyouall]

Siloing or Theming ?! . There is a huge difference. You don't have main navigation. No widgets. Only linking to articles within the Silo. No out links ?!

it's a silo site. i read the webdev thread and build it. i also follow your journey.

 

[Thanksyouall]

Hi Php, thanks for your share. i decreased the keyword density of my two pages to test and they are in top 30 now. they were not in top 1000 before. so from my test, it works and i will check all my pages one by one decrease the density. just some questions about onpage seo:

1. let's say my keyword density is 1%, will bold, italic and underline my keyword make my page over-optimized?

2. how do you deal with outgoing links? many people say linking out to a relative authority site will make it rank better. what's your thought?

Many thanks.

 

[phpbuilt]

1. let's say my keyword density is 1%, will bold, italic and underline my keyword make my page over-optimized?

Bold, italic and underline are a method of optimizing a site. Obviously, some optimizing is a good thing. If you feel you wrote a good page and it still seems overoptimized, removing italics or bold can reduce optimization to hit that sweet spot for it to rank.

In general, I do use bold/italics once on a page ... I believe it is a good type of optimization but I don't overdo it. I also tend to bold points I want to emphasize even if there are no keywords, which I believe is more natural than only bolding your desired keywords.

2. how do you deal with outgoing links? many people say linking out to a relative authority site will make it rank better. what's your thought?

Many thanks.

Money site ... rarely (maybe 1 out of 5 pages link out). Web2.0s, heavily (you're going to beef up your authority on web2.0s by linking to authority sites). Blog network, never (they have plenty enough PR/DA/PA, linking out with blog network unnecessarily leaks the power of your high PR/DA/PA blog network). I'll elaborate on this more on a future post about web2.0s.

 

[rschmitz]

Bold, italic and underline are a method of optimizing a site. Obviously, some optimizing is a good thing. If you feel you wrote a good page and it still seems overoptimized, removing italics or bold can reduce optimization to hit that sweet spot for it to rank.

In general, I do use bold/italics once on a page ... I believe it is a good type of optimization but I don't overdo it. I also tend to bold points I want to emphasize even if there are no keywords, which I believe is more natural than only bolding your desired keywords.



Money site ... rarely (maybe 1 out of 5 pages link out). Web2.0s, heavily (you're going to beef up your authority on web2.0s by linking to authority sites). Blog network, never (they have plenty enough PR/DA/PA, linking out with blog network unnecessarily leaks the power of your high PR/DA/PA blog network). I'll elaborate on this more on a future post about web2.0s.

Waiting to build my web 2's on you. HURRY!

 

[phpbuilt]

Say I have an EMD www."BestGreenWidgets".com and my site title is "Best Green Widgets" So on all my posts pages I get ie.
"Cheap purple Widgets|"Best Green Widgets" "Nice blue Widgets|"Best Green Widgets" etc etc


you say I should remove the site title from pages. Do you mean to remove it completely? So I get "Nice blue Widgets|" on my posts and
no page title at all on my main static page? Or do I need to change the title so that it is not matching the EMD?

I know it seems counter-intuitive, but it is in your best interest to name your blog with something other than your main keyword.

This is to allow you to freely target your main keyword, in every article if you wish, without having your main keyword in the title twice as {article name with keyword} | {blog name with keyword}

The second reason you don't want to name your blog after your main keyword, is that every single page of your website will then link to your homepage with the blog name, which happens to have the main keyword in it. This will get you overoptimization penalties on that keyword ... because if you have a 50 or 100 page website, you'll have 50 or 100 pages linking to your homepage with your main keyword and thus overoptimized.

 

[FuryKyle]

I've got to disagree with your keyword density concept. Whilst 1-2% is fine in most cases, a better onpage SEO would have the figure at 4% as a minimum. Major sites ranking for BIG keywords (take wikipedia for example) has their main term at 5% on average, some even going up to 7 and they rank just fine. Most of the top 10 sites in fact have their KW density way up than 2%.

I've also done split testing before for two sites with similar competition. One with 2% and one with 6% and they made absolutely no difference at all SEOwise under identical conditions. I ran two same campaigns to each of the site and I did not notice any significant advantage of having a 2% density.

Also, if you're writing about, say, dog training, dropping the keyword density below 2% is extremely unnatural. Well written articles would have the density naturally around the 4-5% range - aka articles written with no "KW density, LSI" and all those fluff in mind. If you were to search for the term "dog training" and you don't see the word mentioned a lot on that page, would you think that you're on the right page? Even using interchangeable words like "it" or phrasing the term differently would have a subconscious effect on the reader, no?

Just my 2 cents.