I get a lot of people tell me about their ideas and how thy want to start a website about “widgets” that will be terribly profitable.\u00a0 Some have even come with an NDA while others have a 3 year old site that is stale and out of commission (literally).\u00a0 Everyone thinks they can get enough out of me in one lunch to get them on their way.\u00a0 Most of the time they leave the meeting a little more humble about the process and with a deeper respect of the dedication needed to build a site that will bring in natural traffic.<\/p>\n
Weather you are starting a new site or reviving a site that has not focused on SEO, the first step is universal.\u00a0 Stalk your competition.\u00a0 You need to do some keyword research and determine which phrases to attack.\u00a0 Keep in mind that Google has about 60% market share, Yahoo close to 20% and MSN\/Live just under 10%.\u00a0 With that in mind, make sure to monitor Google Suggest<\/a>.\u00a0 Google Suggest is the pre-populated search queries that greatly shortened the long tail for most sites.\u00a0 It is an aggregate of the most popular search queries so the results are likely more competitive and obviously a place you want to play.<\/p>\n There are plenty of tools to help you with keyword discovery but you get more benefit from attacking your competition by hand.\u00a0 Do yourself a favor and get SEO Quake for Firefox<\/a>.\u00a0 This tool will give you everything you need for some good quality web stalking.<\/p>\n You obviously know a term or two for your niche.\u00a0 If you don’t then you have more problems then a lack of traffic.\u00a0 Look at Google Suggest and determine if any of the force fed results are a better match for your product.\u00a0 Run the query and look at the top 20 or so results.\u00a0 Ignore the Wikipedia and YouTube listings.\u00a0 Go to the #1 player and lets take a look at how they got there…<\/p>\n 1. Look at the URL – Is it the home page or a deep page of an authority site?\u00a0 Are the key terms in the URL?\u00a0 Is the TLD a .com\/.org\/.info?<\/p>\n 2. Look at the Page Title – Does it contain your keyterm?\u00a0 Does it begin with the keyterm?\u00a0 Is it the same as the rest of the site?<\/p>\n 3. “Ctrl-F” the Keyterm – Is it a focus of the page?<\/p>\n 4. Run Query “site:www.example.com” in Google – Is it a deep site?\u00a0 How strong is the rest of the site in relation to the keyterm niche?<\/p>\n 5. Check the Meta Keywords\/Description – Do they exist?\u00a0 Do they contain the queried keyterm?<\/p>\n 6. Check the Pages Backlinks – How many links are showing up in Yahoo Site Explorer?\u00a0 How many in Google?\u00a0 Are they all from the host domain or are they disbursed to various sites?\u00a0 Are they buying links?<\/p>\n 7. Check the Google Cache Date – How long has it been since it was visited last?<\/p>\n 8. Check the Whois Record – How old is the domain?\u00a0 Is it the same owner as other results in the top 20?<\/p>\n 9. Check the Internal\/External Links – Is there a ton of AdSence on the page?\u00a0 Do they have a large amount of Internal or External links on the page?\u00a0 Are they selling links?<\/p>\n 10. Check Yourself – Be honest, would you buy from this site?\u00a0 What colors\/fonts are they using?\u00a0 How is their page structured?\u00a0 Is the page easy to navigate?\u00a0 Is there a definate call to action?\u00a0 What is it?<\/p>\n So there are a lot of questions to ask yourself here.\u00a0 You may or may not know how to find the answers (I heard Yahoo has Answers<\/a>).\u00a0 In order to understand how to approach your site, proper research is needed on your competitors.\u00a0 Knowing how they build their sites and what types of marketing campaigns they use is crucial for dominating the field.\u00a0 80% of natural clicks occur in the first three positions.\u00a0 If your goal is not to own those positions then SEO is not for you.\u00a0 It takes patience and dedication to get there and the journey starts with stalking the competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I get a lot of people tell me about their ideas and how thy want to start a website about “widgets” that will be terribly profitable.\u00a0 Some have even come with an NDA while others have a 3 year old … Continue reading