Step-By-Step Search – Part II, Keyword Research
Jul 26th
In Part I of “The Science of Search” series, we took keyword research to the next level with Derek Vaughan and learned how to do comprehensive keyword research – a vital component to any search engine marketing campaign. In this installment in the series, we’ll be learning from none other than Bruce Clay. With a laundry list of awards, over the past 14 years, the name Bruce Clay has become synonymous with search engine optimization.
Website structure (i.e. navigation and linking) isn’t just important to your site visitors, it’s also critical to your search engine strategy. To begin to understand why site structure is important from a search perspective, you really need to understand “page rank”. Search algorithms today place emphasis on the “authority” that a page or domain builds overtime through linking. This is common sense thinking and no advanced degree in engineering is required. If other sites link to my site, then this is a clear indication to the search engines that my site must be important. What’s more, if other sites in my niche or industry link to me, then that is again, a clear indication to the search engines that my site is important for my industry. The longer a page or site is online and linked to from other sites, the more authority or ‘page rank’ it builds.
Getting related sites to link to mine is important, but what may even be more important is what I do with that authority once it’s on my site. You see, page rank flows like a river. Any page that has authority can also impart authority – both to other sites and to other pages within the same website. By sculpting where that authority flows, we can concentrate it on particular pages and improve search traffic as a result.
Siloing and Theming
Several years ago, Bruce Clay of bruceclay.com, developed a strategy known as ‘site siloing’. The term ‘siloing’ comes from the grain silos you might see on a farm. Grain silos can be seen from far away and contain a single content (i.e. grain, rice, etc). Similarly, on your website, your ‘silos’ are groups of pages that contain similar, themed content. For example, if I have a website about cars, I might have a category called ‘sports cars’, which would contain pages, articles and other content all related to sports cars. By collecting my content into themed ‘silos’, I can direct page rank and improve rankings due to the relationship between my pages. Site traffic can increase several times over just as a result of using the site siloing method properly.
So how exactly do you silo your website to improve your site’s visibility with the search engines? According to Bruce, “Keyword selection should be the start of the siloing process, because you can align the right visitors with the right keywords, reduce bounce rate and increase conversions.”
Since we’ve introduced the concept of theming here, a word about how search engines see themes and related site content is in order. LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) is an indexing method that identifies patterns in the relationships between terms and concepts. Words that are used within the same context (i.e. “sportscar” and “Audi R8”) have a relationship. Using that relationship, we can organize our keyword list into themes of related keywords and from those themes, our site structure begins to emerge.
There are tools available to help you derive keyword relationships, like Google’s Wonderwheel, which is available on the left-side of your google search results. Wonderwheel will show you related keyword phrases, which you can use to build out your subpages within each of your categories. As you build out related keywords based on their relationships, you’ll end up with a lot of long-tail keyword phrases. Achieving rankings for 1-2 word queries (i.e. “online dating”, “web hosting”, “Blackberry”) are important, but you really generate your clicks and sales from 3-5 word queries (i.e. “jewish singles washington dc”).
Focusing on one keyword phrase per page, you give a very clear indication to the search robots of what that page is about. Site owners have a tendency to want to rank for everything and as a result, rank for nothing. Bruce gives us a great example here on how this tendency can harm rather than help,
“I have a site that is all about whitehouses; I should rank well for whitehouses. If I add in a section for blue houses and 40 other colors, it dilutes the meaning of the site.”
Targeting 3-5 word “long-tail” queries has its benefits. Long-tail keywords have lower competition and are easier to rank for as a result. Additionally, as a user gets further into the sales cycle, their queries get increasingly specific. For example, when I start searching for a new car to buy online, I might search for “luxury sedan”, as I get further along in my search and have a better understanding of what I want, I might search for “Mercedes CLS55”. So, by targeting that long tail keyword, I capture the user deeper in the sales cycle, when they are more likely to buy.
Let’s take an example of a single category, say, Mercedes sedans. If I’m targeting the Mercedes line of sedans, I may come up with the keywords “Mercedes”, “CLS”, “S Class”, “AMG”, “SL500” and “CLS55 AMG”. There is a hierarchy here if you look closely. “Mercedes” would be my category or “silo landing page” and I could have sub-pages within this category; one page for each of my terms, “CLS”, “S Class”, “AMG”, “SL500” and “CLS55 AMG”. With this hierarchy, you’re ready to build out your silo.
While directory structure is important for site usability, the search engines don’t need it. What is more important is how we point our links and distribute our page rank throughout the silo and the site as a whole. What we want to do is keep related page rank (i.e. links relevant to our theme) within the theme. So, our subpages should link to the main silo landing page only. By doing this, we’re driving authority and relevance up to that main silo page:
Notice how my homepage only links to my main silo landing pages? As a result, I’m focusing my page rank to those pages only. Remember, if I have a page rank value of X for any given page, the collective page rank I’m passing to all of my pages is X. So, if I am linking to three pages, each page will receive 1/3 of that page rank. If I’m linking to 30 pages, each linked page receives a much smaller portion of that authority. Notice how my subpages only link to the main silo page? Page rank can flow anywhere. If I have in-bound links from another site to one of my subpages, any authority on that subpage gets passed to my main silo landing page…and where authority goes, rankings follow.
If you have pages that you need to link to, but don’t want to pass page rank to, you can use the no-index tag to keep the page you’re linking to from being indexed and receiving that page rank:
<html>
<head>
<title>…</title>
<META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOINDEX “>
</head>
This structure is a rule of thumb; if you have pages that you need to link to from a subpage for usability and conversions, don’t feel constrained by this structure, but try to keep linking to un-related pages to a minimum.
In the next part in our series on “The Science of Search”, we’ll take the next step in our campaign and begin driving targeted back links to our website with the help of Rand Fishkin, co-founder of SEOMoz, the most popular provider of SEO software.
Josh Ewin is Director of Marketing for DedicatedNOW.com, a managed dedicated hosting provider and co-founder of HostingArmor.com, a website security scanning service. Throughout Mr. Ewin’s 12-year career in online marketing, he has assisted hundreds of companies with search engine optimization, creative planning, content development, market research and analytics, website optimization and affiliate program management.
Bruce Clay has been a recognized leader in the search marketing arena since 1996 when, after a long career as a technical executive with leading Silicon Valley companies, he launched one of the first consulting firms devoted to search engine optimization (SEO). His pioneering efforts continue to lead the search industry by providing award-winning SEO training and certification courses, the SEO Code of Ethics and the full-featured SEOToolSet®. He is a popular speaker at major industry conferences including Search Engine Strategies (SES), PubCon, ad:tech and Search Marketing Expo (SMX). For more information about Bruce Clay, Inc. visit bruceclay.com.
Website Magazine, August 2010
In Part I of “Step-By-Step Search” series, we took keyword research to the next level with Derek Vaughan and learned how to do comprehensive keyword research – a vital component to any search engine marketing campaign. In this installment in the series, we’ll be learning from none other than Bruce Clay. With a laundry list of awards, over the past 14 years, the name Bruce Clay has become synonymous with search engine optimization.
Website structure (i.e. navigation and linking) isn’t just important to your site visitors, it’s also critical to your search engine strategy. To begin to understand why site structure is important from a search perspective, you really need to understand “page rank”. Search algorithms today place emphasis on the “authority” that a page or domain builds overtime through linking. This is common sense thinking and no advanced degree in engineering is required. If other sites link to my site, then this is a clear indication to the search engines that my site must be important. What’s more, if other sites in my niche or industry link to me, then that is again, a clear indication to the search engines that my site is important for my industry. The longer a page or site is online and linked to from other sites, the more authority or ‘page rank’ it builds.
Step-By-Step Search – Part I, Keyword Research
Jul 26th
Website Magazine, July 2010
In this three-part series called “Step-By-Step Search”, I’ll be guiding you through each essential aspect of a search engine optimization project. Rather than regurgitating the stale “optimize and submit” dogma that lost its relevance many years ago, I’ll be interviewing the top professionals in the field of Search for their suggestions and direction through each phase of the project. In Part I – Keyword Research, Derek Vaughan gives us some helpful pointers on keyword research using Google Adwords. Part II – Site Structure provides an approach to structuring your site and your content for maximum SEO greatness, with the help of Bruce Clay, the reigning King of SEO. In Part III – Offsite Optimization, Rand Fishkin, CEO and Co-founder of SEOmoz provides helpful pointers on maximizing your offsite SEO efforts to generate maximum PR and traffic.
Every search project needs to start with keyword research; you need to understand how your products fit in the overall market and what that market is calling for. A great place to start your keyword analysis is with your own products or services. Collect all of the keywords surrounding your products. If you ran, say, an online store for runners, you would probably end up with a list of keywords like “men’s running shoes”, “Nike Air Max”, “gel”, “pedometer”, and so forth. This is where most companies stop and start to optimize, but we’re going to take it to the next level.
Seven Steps for Start-ups (And established Web businesses too!)
Jul 24th
Nov 2007, Website Magazine.
As a veteran business owner, I’ve taken my share of bumps and bruises. While starting and growing your own business can be an incredibly rewarding experience, it can be just as humbling. You can feel like Superman one moment and the village idiot the next. So, it’s important to have a solid foundation, a good business plan and some reliable resources.
1. Keep Your Ear to the Ground
By taking the time to read this issue of Website Magazine, you’re taking a good first step to the holy grail of business growth — knowing your industry. Particularly with the Web and IT, the business climate and technology are changing at a blinding rate.
While magazines and books are a great start, you need to do more. Blogs and forums are particularly good for finding new events and assessing the industry’s take on a breaking piece of news or new technology. But most of the time, this information is not edited and contains more opinion than fact. So, use your street smarts and be sure to feed your brain a steady diet from mainstream sources like magazines and established websites.
Magazines, blogs and forums are terrific resources for getting your daily dose, but getting out, pressing the flesh and attending conferences is a must. Meeting your contacts face-to-face and talking shop over coffee can take a relationship to a deeper level.
Pricing Web Hosting
Jul 23rd
Websitemagazine.com, May 2010.
With today’s emerging technologies and the increasing demand for a wider range of services, the Web hosting landscape has exploded into an array of complex, specialized categories.
“The Web hosting industry has always been driven by evolving customer needs and advances in technology,” says Reed Caldwell, founder and CEO of ServInt, a managed hosting provider that’s experienced its own evolution during 15 years of service. “As modern Web content has become woven into the fabric of our daily lives, the hosting industry has adapted to better meet customers’ high expectations for uptime, performance, managed services, security and social responsibility.”
Reseller Hosting Demystified
Jul 23rd
I’ve seen the following situation arise again and again during the past several years:
1. A great web designer or developer builds up a portfolio of customers that provide them with good referral business
2. Each time the designer completes a project, they recommend a web hosting company they like for the customer to use.
3. The customer takes the recommendation and pays anywhere from $10-50 per month for web hosting.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with this scenario. The customer is happy and the web designer moves onto the next design project. However, what many designers have yet to realize is that they could be making recurring income every single month from that same customer by offering to host the website themselves. In fact, once a popular designer accrues a modest-sized customer base, the web hosting component of their monthly revenue can easily outpace the design revenue. The best part of the web hosting revenue is that the customer needs this service month in and month out—regardless of future design needs.
So how does a web designer easily set up a system to host customer websites without setting up a complicated web hosting operation themselves? Through reseller hosting.
Account Management for Profit and Retention.
Jul 23rd
Hosting companies, from goliath’s like The Planet down to one-person value added resellers take note: viewing support issues and account management for your clients as a ‘chore’ or an expense isn’t just a disservice to your clients – it means you’re leaving money on the table. Every web host deals with support tickets, for a variety of reasons: client questions, upgrades, and even a complaint or two on occasion. It is how your team approaches these issues, that determines whether or not your interaction with your clients is an asset or a liability to your growing enterprise.
Even if you are a one person reseller company, you need to have access to the tools of the trade: support suites like Cerebrus and Kayako allow you to maintain an organized process for handling support queries. Let’s take this one step further however; using one of the aforementioned applications also allows you to track the support history for each client and even better, track metrics that help you to gauge the performance of your support team’s response.
From a sales perspective, the (hopefully) intimate interaction that you or your staff have with your clients when providing support is a very good vehicle, not only for sales but for fine tuning your product mix as well. If your sales efforts are not inextricably intertwined with your support system now, take note: your competitors are managing sales efforts with their own client bases this way and are increasing their competitive advantage as a result.