Getting to top 10 without an SEO expert

to tell you the honest truth, that site is very badly neglected. I haven't submitted an article since I can't remember when. I did however completely revamp it and redesigned it and it's increased my ctr and opt-in rates. But I don't think I've received any back links for awhile.

I should say though that it's almost 2 years old.

 

Nice! That gives me some hope But I'm also assuming the age of the site plays a factor in your ranking of course.

I'm going to try to optimize my site myself.. and if all fails I will invest in an SEO expert

 

Yeah, age definitely plays a part. I'm not sure how big though...maybe someone else knows that.

But I wouldn't spend money on hiring someone to do your seo for you, unless you have the cash to spend.

I think the biggest thing that helped me was when I started doing on site seo. I played with title tags, and I reworded my content until I got top results. I would change one thing, make a note of it, then check the results a couple days later. I just kept doing that over and over until I couldn't go any higher. And I kept a very precise list of everything I did before every change, that way if I did something that made me drop, I knew what to change it back to.

 

Thanks for the tip I actually don't have thousands to spend on an SEO expert (they charge a lot too ). I will try to add as many tags as possible into the site.

You said you checked the results in a couple of days, is this below a week when the SERPs are updated with your new tags/keywords/content ?

 

I think google updates ever 24-38 hours. Sometimes, I would check the next day and I saw changes.

 

I understand what you are saying ahkip, but you are missing my point. My point was that 500,000 results is less competition than 10,000,000 results. It's pretty common sense, but its a simple way to see what you're up against.

I would never tell anyone that its easy to get a top 10 ranking unless the keyword had absolutely no competition.

 

I've been in this SEO game for about 4 years now. From my experience, this is what I think of the 3 main search engines.

Google likes age and backlinks the most. Content is important, but I don't think Google puts too much weight on this because there are many sites out there that rank well for very competitive keywords without much content.

Yahoo likes a bit of everything: age, content, and backlinks.

MSN likes new/updated sites and content. They put less emphasis on age and backlinks.

 

ya its in possible, but the questions is if they can provide a ROI for a without the expertise of SEO specialist? and i think thats the purpose having website.
cheers

 

Get more quality links using your targeted keywords as anchor text. It can help.

 

Get quality backlinks and create unique content. It may help you get to the top 10 in Google

 

If your content is really good and interesting, you may not even have to worry about backlinks. People will link to you when they believe that your site is worth visiting.

 

I'd also check the competition's pages. Are they well optimized? Chances are they aren't. Are you talking about provinces in Canada? I wouldn't think it would be too hard to rank above them. Any time I ever visit pages about locations in Canada, I can always spot areas that they could improve on.

And Mike, even if he has good and interesting content, nobody will link to him if they don't know about his page. You need some decent traffic first.

 

You need something to get the ball rolling, totally agreed. Unless you´re a member on DP with a lot of posts, then a signature link will do.

 

totally, and he has over 2000 posts which makes me wonder about the original question. It almost seems like a joke....

But anyway, if he was writing about, let's say Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and he had a link in his sig. Me and only a few other people in here will actually click. I only know of 2 members that live there.

Unless he uses a killer headline.

 

And besides, 2k posts is enough to get you up there on msn for some serious keywords.

 

So having 2k posts in DP and placing signature links with a keyword anchor really helps with being placed high on SE's? Does it effect it that much?

 

Only on msn.

 

- to rank well for your keywords study your competitors and specially the top ten and copy their strategy, it's not magic,
- anchor text is king and specially if your link is from website with high page rank, the best example that click here rank in adobe webpage without any on-page optimization which content to rank well did not play.
-try to get more than ten anchor text all of them contain your main keywords and search for forum related to your website.

 

That's their weakness as well though. If they get competitors who know SEO, they will lose some traffic if the new comers get on top 5. They may not lose their positions for a long time, but their positions are not guaranteed to be there forever either.

I have this site I've been SEOing for a little over a year, competing the biggest in the industry that pretty much own the "base keyword + everything else". I thought it was impossible to get top 10, but eventually the site got top 5.

I think such niches are not too difficult for SEO. I understand those websites have been around for a long time, recognized, often with high PR, lots of natural links, etc. But if they are not SEOing for their keywords, there is always a chance for anybody

 

What in the hell did you just say? I barely understood a word.