So I've recently started doing SEO. I have 10's of 1000's of questions in my mind right now. But I'll just stick to 10 right now.
>>>>>>>>>> 1) Where are Tier links supposed to be pointed at ? Do you point them to you root domain or to the page you're trying to rank ?
The tier you're linking FROM (i.e. your web2.0 or hosted blog or document .pdf hosts) will point to your money site's homepage, and inner pages, at a natural rate. All to homepage isn't natural, all to inner pages isn't natural. I usually do 30/70 or 40/60 range to homepage/inner pages.
>>>>>>>>>> 2) Do you guys make a separate tier link campaign for every keyword you're trying to rank ? Like if I have 2 keywords "keyword1"and"keyword2" will you build separate tier 1 properties (Web 2.0 , Documents ,Article) for each one of them ?
Targeting keywords will most likely get you in trouble (in anchor text). I rarely target keyword at all, if I do 100 links I might have 10 exacts, but if I do 500 links I still might only have 10 exacts. I usually reserve the exacts for some special, awesome link I'm getting. The rest is a very large percentage with branding and combinations of branding (like "Turtle Joe", "Turtle Joe's stuff", "Turtle Joe products", "Turtle Joe reviews", branding and variants will be around 70% range and the rest is just raw urls, click here type of links. As long as your tier is relevant to your money site, and your money site's on-page SEO is balanced properly, you're good with very few exacts.
Next, MAKE SURE YOU RANK FOR YOUR BRAND. Assuming it's Turtle Joe, you NEED to rank #1 for Turtle Joe. As long as you're ranking #1, then you do some "virtual links". Mention your brand next to your keywords in your article. This will help as you make many pages on your web2.0s etc ... because it'll fry your rankings if you make a web2.0 with 10 pages, with every single page linking back to your money site. Instead of doing that, you want to do one or two pages that link to main site, and the rest will be content with these virtual branding type links where you mention the brand next to keywords.
Its also a good idea to mention leaders in your niche, competitors, next to your own name. This associates your brand with the leaders in the niche. This practice is called citation and co-citation.
3) What if the two keywords are synonyms of each other. Do you make two different pages for each one or combine both in one ?
See #2.
4) When people say keep keyword density below a particular number do they refer to the keyword density of that exact keyword or does it also include its variation ?
In Google, do a search for your keyword, and then search for the synonym. If Google bolds the synonym, it means Google thinks they're virtually the same word. For instance, if you google "loose weight", down below you will notice that it bolds "weight loss". In such cases, you will want to half the uses of each word in your article so as not to trip Google's keyword stuffing filter.
5) Does Google Sandbox affect low/medium volume keywords ? Like a 2000-3000 search per months keywords. Any way to avoid the Sandbox ?
There's no sandbox on level of keyword, yet the more searches for a keyword = more people trying to rank for that keyword. The competition is probably what makes it seem like there's a sandbox.
>>>>>>>>>> 6) What are good Tier one links ? Manual Web 2.0 , Article Submission sites, Document Sharing , Guest posting, PBN's , 301 Redirects according to my due diligence. Anything else I shoud know of ?
Web2.0 YES. Article submission NO. Document sharing YES. PBN ... depends. 301 redirects isn't really a tier 1, explain how you're using 301s there.
Here's the thing. When you have a web2.0 that is a subdomain, Google gives that thing the benefit of the doubt -- you have a fresh opportunity with Google on that subdomain to prove its either credible, or spam. Google may still decide its spam, but at least it gives the subdomain a chance.
Then another site may have a structure of domain.com/yourblog/. On this type of site, your blog inherits the spamminess of other blogs on the site. Google doesn't give it the benefit of doubt, if other blogs on the same site are high quality then its ok ... if other blogs are spammy then that condition is automatically applied to your subdirectory blog as well. That's why its always best to get the subdomain, where Google is giving you the benefit of doubt for starters.
>>>>>>>>>> 7) Since I'm going to manually create Tier 1 properties how should I go about without leaving a trace. I have a VPN. Can I use the same email or should I use disposable emails ?
Google has no idea what emails were used to sign up your blogs, so use the same email. Google has no idea what IP address was used to sign up your blogs, so don't worry about using a VPN. The blog you're creating as a web2.0, however, that is where you need to avoid creating a footprint. To be safe, you'll need to have it linking to other credible websites -- and the links to your money sites will simply be mixed in.
Footprints to avoid:
- exactly 1, 2 or 3 outgoing links every article. Do articles with no links, and when you use links, mix it up to credible sources.
- when linking out to other credible sources, mix it up. It does you no good whatsoever to have 2 outgoing links to wikipedia on the same page, or an outgoing link to wikipedia on every page of your blog.
- this is one of the most important -- vary your blogs. The last thing in the world you want is 20 tier-1 blogs that all have the exact same outgoing link footprint, where each links to your blog and to other various sites at the exact same rate (major footprint)
- keyword density on your tier1 is just as important as your main site. Keyword stuffed articles are not great to get links from
>>>>>>>>>> 8)Let's say I've scraped a list of 10k urls which I going to use as Tier 2. Are these 10k links supposed to be blasted to each Tier1 property or should i spread them evenly across all of them ?
I'll leave someone else to comment on that ... I don't blast low quality links anymore. My tier2s are just as high quality as my tier1s, or I'll buy higher quality link packages, or social packages, or SAPE for tier3 etc. I'm not going to put down comment spam, I'm sure other people rank just fine with it -- but I don't have good luck with it.
>>>>>>>>>> 9) Is there a free tool/software to do backlink analysis of your competition ?
Leaving that for someone else.
>>>>>>>>>> 10) Website with pillar articles vs Silo website ? Can I have both ?
Siloing is only for a site with, say, 100+ pages and your pages are extremely distinct enough to warrant excluding other articles on your site from linking to them because they're a different niche. Its purpose is to limit the huge volume of internal links on a site, and make the pages that actually do get linked more relevant. If you're just starting out, I wouldn't worry about it -- your site most likely won't be 100+ pages for a long while.
>>>>>>>>>> 11) What anchor text ratio do you keep for Tier 1 and Tier 2 ?
#2 explains for tier1. Tier 2's will link to the "brand" of tier 1. My tier 1s typically have some quirky name that's super easy to rank for, just so I can say they rank #1 for their brand. That makes the virtual-link citations in your tier 2 help beef up your tier 1 and give it proper signals to Google that it is an important site.
