Like the title? Didn’t know what else to put – he he

Ok, CC has a few questions and I figured I would grab a thread… so we can be alone (fish off you perverts).

Is our assumption that (a) creating some relevant links back to our domain via article distribution – is currently more important to us than (b) gaining rank in the SERPs for keywords that aren’t very important to us? – given we are just starting SEO – is that a sound strategy?

I have no idea. I don’t know if you have even done any Keyword Research to sort out what your primary and secondary targets are. Secondly I don’t know the over-all Link Building strategy you are employing. Just as a general guide;

100 Directory submissions on primary term(s)
50 Directory submissions on secondary term(s)

10 Articles x 20 sites on Primary term(s)
5 articles x 20 sites on secondary term(s)

That is simply a basic idea as I don’t know the targets nor the other planned methods of link building you will be after. The above would simply be the starting point or the base of the Link Profile.

So, today’s homework, be sure to read up on;

Link Profiles
Keyword or Phrase research and targeting
Link Building ideas

Hopefully that will generate some ideas/questions…..

A couple of unrelated questions – that as a newbie never seem to have a straight answer:
(1) is the primary goal at our early stage to optimize the overall ‘domain’ or ‘individual pages’ when we’re going for general keywords that don’t require a dedicated page (I understand if we gain popularity on a page it will help the domain); and

I would be giving the entire site a good ‘once-over’ as far as SEO is concerned. I would stress over non-target pages too much, but ensure some related/supportive TITLEs are in place and there is a clear internal linking structure to highlight any pages of importance. So my answer is BOTH… the entire domain and hammer any pages that are semi-targeted or integral in the campaign. Ultimately the home page is the core starting point, but there is no reason not to ensure there is a certain level of SEO done on the other pages.

(2) I know both are important to link building but is “authority/ popularity” of referring site more important than “relevance” of referring site?

Hmmmm.. dats a tough one. If the authority site was in ANY WAY loosely related to the core theme of the site I would go with authority. If it’s miles apart ( finance to hamburgers) then I would likely go with a ‘relative’ backlink. In the end, unless you buying links, there is no reason not to grab both… I wouldn’t advise Linking Out to non-related sites because at very least, those are heavily devalued and weakens the over-all relevance profile.

Hows dat?

Nice title.

We did exhaustive keyword research and tested a significant number with google-ads etc over the summer.  Our 5 primary keywords actually achieved monetized results – the rest was a waste of time (our business is unique in that just anyone doesn’t qualify to be a client – and it costs us $s to process applicants = actually wastes our $s).

We are in a unique position in that we have natural referral partners (several 100) that point optimized links at our domain.  Beyond that, we are just formulating a strategy…

Thanks for the additional homework = I’ll check it out tonight!

MY two SEO Cents:

//‘domain’ or ‘individual pages’

Always market the DOMAIN first... {Unless it is a new site then do step 1a first}


1 a) You always want to ready the site as if it were a 'first date'.

i was told by a  SEO Advisor http://highrankings.com/ in 2003 that your site should be 'looking and smelling like a million bucks' just like that first date. Once you have done a usability test http://www.rightclickwebs.com/usability.php, performed validations, etc.

1) marketing the domain first only makes sense. We have seen clients come to us with 20+ hours of SEO to the page text and source code adjustments to find that the site is blocked or uncrawlable. For this reason always marketing the domain using domain fundamentals to verify that you have the engines attention. This verifies you are being 'looked at' or crawled FULLY and REGULARLY by all engines: G, Y!, MSN/Live, ASK, etc.

Otherwise it is like building a muscle car fully chromed and painted; without a garage door to open for people to see all your efforts to customize your vehicle.

So market the domain to make sure the DOOR is open to your WEB CONTENT first!!

Cordially,

Seharness

PS - remember to measure the value of the links using Search 3.0 Logic (got to go above relevant)

Link rating logic applied to web pages by search engines to gain back control of PageRank.

Vital

Useful

Relevant - less important - maybe a reciprocal linkage

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