Hello DPers! I have been on DP only for a short period of time, and in that time I have read, hired, and improved my search rankings. One of the sites I am currently working on is http://www.artistic-kitchen-designs.com/ its a kitchen related site targeting prospective clients and hopefully drawing them into the showroom. Let me start with a little history on the site. We originally started doing SEO work with a local SEO guy, who showed us some promising results with a few keywords. The issue is that the keywords he got us ranked for are long tail and not specific enough. Now taking a look at my competitors uhny [dot] com (didn't want the site to automatically link to him, he doesn't deserve more back links =]~ ) from first looks at his site stats you see he has less then 250 back links, a pr3 homepage, and a really ugly site in my opinion. On the flip side he is also ranking between number 4-7 for the term "new kitchen" which brings back 114 Million results when searched. That's not the only keyword that he come up with in the top 10 results. My objective is to look at what he did for his site and duplicate it for my site. Currently I am working with a programmer to add more real estate for my site so I can get more content in. Also we will be re-writing all the meta tags, keywords, and descriptions. All images will now carry a title="" tag in the herf. We will be changing the pictures and adding much much more content. Now a quick look at my site stats, there are a significant amount of back links more then the other guy we are currently at 700+ links. We are a PR1 which will change soon, but shouldn't have an affect on our SERP's. Here is where I am stumped, how do I push the site up in SERP's or even get it ranked for the new terms. I have been working very hard to do link building campaigns and adding more content to the site but still I am having little or no luck so far. Any suggestions, help, advice, on-site or off-site, anything let me know! The hardest thing thing for me to accept is that keyword I mentioned, "new kitchen" how does a site with less then 300 back links and a pr3 get on the first page with 114 million results! ANYONE!! AHHH! Thanks for taking your time in reading through this long rant, but I am really stumped any really going out on a limb there to try and figure out how this is all possible.
In Yahoo! Site Explorer I can see your site has with 776, 20 of which link to your home page. The 'other' site you mentioned has 277 inbound links to their site, 34 of which point to the home page. Have you REALLY looked at your backlinks? You have a very weak backlink profile. Out of the 776 inbound links that your site has, probably 750 are crap links from random directories, blogs, SEO sites, forums, etc. that have absolutely nothing to do with kitchens, new or otherwise. Whomever did you link building for you did a very poor job of finding 'relevant' sites to link to your site. Yea they got you links... some that might even pass you a little Page Rank (although I suspect a large portion of them aren't even counted by Google). However the PR of your URL doesn't count for much when Google is ranking your URL for a particular keyword phrase. It is only one of over 200 ranking factor their algorithm is using to rank your URL for that keyword phrase. It doesn't carry much weight at all in comparison to the relevance of the pages that link to you and the relevance of the keyword phrase used as the link text. When you look at your backlinks, look at the <title> element displayed for each of the pages linking to you. Do they look relevant to the keyword phrase "new kitchen"? Practically none have the words "new" or "kitchen" in them anywhere. On a good note, if you decide you want to rank for "Joomla" you're set! Now look at the backlinks for your competitor... Almost every one of their back links is from a relevant kitchen or home building/remodeling related site. Look at the <title> element listed for all 277 of the sites linking to them. Almost EVERY one of them has the word "kitchen" in it. They have a smaller backlink profile, but it is exponentially stronger than yours from a relevancy point of view and likely even from a PR point of view since most of your backlinks probably don't even pass you any PR. Notice the <title> element listed for each of the pages linking to their home page? Almost all of the pages linking to their home page have <title> elements with the word "kitchen" in them. Most of those also have the words "New York" in the <title> element as well. Do you think it's coincidence that they rank for "new kitchen". They also rank equally as well for "New York kitchen". It stands to reason that if Google looks at the <title>, <h1>, <h2>,.... content, keywords in URL, etc of your page to determine if it's relevant to the search phrase... that when they are trying to determine whether the pages that link to you are also relevent to the search phrase that they would also look at those same on-page elements for those pages that link to you to determine if they are also relevant to the search phrase. They likely look at the backlink profiles of the pages that link to you as well to see if their inbound link text is relevant to the search phrase.
I believe the only way is to get high page rank, relevant and quality links for your website. Try to get few relevant niche links plus indexed as well for better rankings.
What if you have an outstanding site (better than the dudes ranking 1-3) but you are having trouble getting anyone who wants to link back to you simply because EVERYONE is trying to get backlinks and the arena is filling up. As well some niches simply do not have a lot of places to get backlinks from (I have a few of those). Will Google ever be able to take the quality of your content into account when ranking and use that in favor of backlinks (which in my opinion they should!)? That is the question I keep asking them? I agree with Justadam the original poster in a round about way. As a consumer, when I do searches I would rather see good quality sites coiming up first and not just ones that have quality backlinks but the site is crap! Will Google ever get this straight so that internet marketers can feel like a quality site is the most important thing, not how many backlinks one gets (which, again, I think is totaly stupid for Google to put that much weight on).
Thank you so much for all this great insight. I never considered looking at the title or h tags from the back linked pages. I didn't think it was so relevant in getting the serps up. After taking in all this information I still have a question if you don't mind... now that I am aware of the mistake I made with back linking campaigns, should I try to reverse the links that are existing? Also if you have any tips regarding researching back links that are more niche targeted that would like to share with us/me? celticgiraffe: From my understanding of Canonical answer, its not that google weighs in how many back links the site has but rather takes each of the back links and pulls them apart for a better understanding of who and why is back linking to your site. So having unique content and having the correct back links to your site will yield your self a better serp/pr. But lacking in proper back links will have a negative effect on your site?
@justadam Regarding Taking Down Links: There is no need to undo any of your backlinks as long as they are one way links. An inbound link can never hurt you unless they can prove you paid for the links. But even then Google typically penalizes the seller. The way they penalize you is devaluing the paid inbound link to nothing so you continue to fork out your cash each month for the link yet unknown to you, you are receiving no benefit. If inbound links could hurt you, you could easily get your competitors penalized by buying links and pointing them to their sites then reporting them... or getting inbound links from bad neighborhoods and pointing them to their sites then reporting them. So this will likely never change. Your existing inbound links from irrelevant sites can still help you a little by increasing your PR a bit. They just don't do much toward helping you rank for particular keywords. They will mainly only help to the extent that PR is considered in the Ranking Algorithm (remember it's only 1 of 200+ factors they are looking at). Worse case, they might not help you at all (as in devalued links). But they won't hurt you... if they are one way links. However, if you are reciprocal linking to a bad neighborhood site that is also linking to you, that can get you a penalty. So always be very careful about who YOU link to. If the site is questionable, add a rel="nofollow" to the link or simply drop it. Regarding Link Development: As far as looking for places to get quality, relevant backlinks... I've ALWAYS said that link building requires marketing and sales skills, NOT technical skills. This is not something you want a developer to do for you IMO. This is best done face to face or over the phone... in other words, human-to-human where you can actually carry on a conversation. You will get MUCH better results. Technical people aren't generally extraverted and skilled at marketing and sales. And it's a lot harder for people to say NO in person than it is to simply delete an unsolicited email from a stranger requesting a link. For each site that you decide to ask for a link, ALWAYS do your homework first. Spend some time looking at their site first. Determine where a link to your site would best fit on their site (and benefit you). Determine how you think they could best work your desired link text into their page. Come up with a way to spin the situation so that you can convince them that linking to your site will benefit their site visitors (and if possible, their business) in some way. Try to find contact information for a real person at their company in marketing or sales. Don't contact the webmaster. They are MOST likely to say NO without any consideration! Once you've done your home work, contact the person or persons you've identified there in marketing or sales. Even if they are not the right person, they can usually give you the name and number of the person you should be talking to. Once you get a decision maker on the phone, introduce yourself. Tell them what business your in. Explain to them you've been checking out their site for a while now and that you believe their are synergies between their company and yours that might benefit both. Mention things about their site that will let them know you really DID do your homework. Give them you're sales pitch on what those synergies are, how their site visitors and their business could benefit by working together. Even go so far as to suggest where they might place a link, why you think that spot is a good spot, even suggest how they link to you. Perhaps they have an article about remodeling a new kitchen. A link from this type of page would certainly be relevant. It's much better to get contextual links (within paragraphs of text) than it is to simply get some random link along the left side of the page. Tell them you think they should hyperlink the 2nd sentence in the 3rd paragraph of that article where it says, "Buidling a new kitchen does not have to be a costly endeavor." If you HAVE to do link building via email then in the email include all of the same types of things I mentioned above. You will get far less takers, but more than simply spamming some form email to webmaster@example.com. Finding Relevant Sites to Link to You: Here you have to get creative. But the possibilities are unlimited. 1) Trade groups or associations that you are a member of typically have websites and frequently will post contact information about paying members (including your website URL). If possible, suggest the link text you want them to use. 2) Trade specific directories can sometimes be good sources of relevant links (and traffic) if they are followed links. 3) Look at your competitor's backlinks. Again do your homework. If you feel you have a better product or an equally good product approach them for links using the techniques above. Ask them to link to you instead of your competitor. If they won't do that then ask them to link to you in addition to your competitor. 4) Look for businesses that are complementary to your business but not competitors of your business. Do your homework, and approach them for links. For example, it looks like you design really nice kitchens. I'm guessing this mean you're an architect of sort (not sure). Say you are. Well, it's not likely that you make all of your own materials, appliances, etc. It's not likely that you actually demo old kitchens yourself or install new ones yourself. Your suppliers likely have web sites... so do the contractors you hire... ask for a link. You give them business in return. 5) Offer to write an article for another site that is related... maybe a home builder. Sites welcome free content. In return, request that you be allowed to insert 1, 2, maybe even 3 links back to your site from that article. This way you get to make the content of that article super relative... you get to pick 3 different keyword phrases to hyperlink and you get to pick the pages on your site to point those links to. If you want, you can take it a step farther. Once the article you wrote is on the other site, farm a few back links pointing to that article you wrote on the other site. This will help your article on the other site stay indexed. If the backlinks to the article on the other site use the same link text your article used to link to your site, that is even better... I could go on... The sky is the limit. Be creative.