Hi all, I was attempting some keyword analysis when a few questions came to mind. The keyword "food" seems to get searched far more than "Gourmet Food". But if I have "Gourmet Food" in my page title am I covered for searches on both the individual word"food" and the phrase "Gourmet food"? (hope that makes sense). In anyones experience does ordering of keyworks in a page title make a difference? It has been mentioned in this forum that one should have different page titles for different pages of a site. Does anyone know how much difference that makes?
Page title is the largest single factor on the page for optimization. Currently, the estimate for number of overall inbound links, the largest single factor towards ranking high on the major search engines IMHO, requires 186,729 to get you on the first page. I would tend to believe that would be a rather significant quantity if you are just starting out. Even getting on the first page for "Gourmet Food" would require approx. 31,159. Normally, if the site is rather new, I would suggest finding less competitive phrases that are very similar to your ultimate goal (in this case "food") such as: exciting food -> approx. 12 links specialty food -> approx. 1704 links etc. Generally, I recommend finding phrases that will drive people to your website looking for whatever products or services you represent while keeping in mind that 1) the phrase gets searched enough times to make it worth your while for the optimization and link building and 2) you can achieve the number of inbound links within a period of time to get you there so you rise to the first page of the major search engines. Without enough searches for your product/service, it doesn't work. If your site page doesn't show up on the first page of the major search engines for that phrase, you may be wasting your time. IMHO.
How did you make up those numbers? I guess 25 links could do the job. As long as they are the only link, on a high representative, high text, good anchor, and PR10 website. And of course all 25 should be on different IPs. I bet those 25 make you number on at least Gourmet food. On the other hand, for me, its easier to get 200,000 links than to get 25 good anchored, single links on high text pages with PR10... (all I have to do is point the coop to it) but still... I doubt that 187,000 coop links cover up the deal. You need some diversity. You need something more. In other words I have no idea why you made up that amount of numbers. Its complete bullshit
It is considered that the first words have more weight. Also, the fewer words are in the title, the better.
Logic dictate3s that a search engine algo will rate pages, but theme sites. If the theme of your site is 'food' and the pages within the site are related to food, gourmet food, diet food etc etc, then you are on the way to becoming a themed site, and will find it easier to get ranked for related searches. Now to the titles of your pages. If you are going for food as the theme, then you should try to use that word in as many page titles as possible. As a bare minimum you will want it on the index page, and the index pages of each folder eg www.yoursite.com/gourmet/index.php etc . The page title together with the anchor text of links are the two most influential elements in the search engine algos. Get either wrong, and you are facing an uphill task IMO. If you are building a big resource site, then you should lay it out on paper before you begin. Get your keyword research done, run an adwords campaign, get the actual search stats, and then match up your keywords to content. Match your hardest words up to the index pages (as shown in the example above) as these pages will be seen as the most important within your site, with all the pages within the folders pointing to both the home page of the folder and the home page of the site. Placing your toughest nuts to crack here will make them a little easier to crack, no a LOT easier to crack, as you will be able to get deep links to such pages with relative ease. HOW? Break your site into subjects. In your case lets say the following. Food, glorious food - generic title Italian Food French Food Fast Food Gourmet food Sea food and so on Within these sections you will have recipes, the logical thing would be to call the page recipes. For seo you would call your page whatever the phrase is that your targeting plus a qualifier to make it read right. hawaiian recipe - The phrase http://www.google.com/search?source...s=GGLD,GGLD:2005-16,GGLD:en&q=hawaiian+recipe - google results. This phrase gets a few hundred searches a day, and is fairly easy to rank for. By having the Hawaiian recipes in a folder, and having an index page in that folder, you can get links directly to that index sub-folder page because of the content within that folder is specific to the topic matter. If you mixed up recipes, and had them all in the same folder, then you are making the job harder for yourself. I am sorry if I have drifted a bit, but your question was of such a basic nature I thought it might be better to explain a little behind it. Once you understand about structure for usability and SEO you will be on the road to making your site user friendly without thinking. A usable site is fairly easy to SEO, but a bad un a is a nightmare. Titles MUST be specific for each page, and your page title serves 2 masters. It serves the Search engine Algorithm, and it serves the user. Which of these titles are you likely to click on if they appear in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP's) 1) food food food, gourmet food, italian food, french food 2) Gourmet Italian food Recipes from the Good Food Recipe Guide I know which one I would go for.
Added one thing though. I am a seasoned web marketer, and I certainly would not consider going for the word 'Food' as a single word phrase. There is aboslutely no need to do it as it is far too generic, and you are not going to deliver what the searcher is looking for. The key to success online is keyword research and an understanding of what the searcher is going to be expecting to find when they use that search phrase. If you can not in your own mind decide EXACTLY the content they would want to find on the page for that phrase, then the word is too generic, and should be disgarded. Matching words to content means making certain that the page you are trageting for that phrase fulfills the needs of the visitors it attracts. Do this and you WILL have a successful site, as people will bookmark it, pass it on to friends, and generate the magic word of mouth that make any business online or off a success.
I can give a better breakdown of which of those would require PR 4+ and which could be less. I didn't want to get to in depth about the "details" while speaking on the relevance between page title (what this topic was about) and the importance of inbound links. You are completely correct in that obtaining much higher PR value inbound links would cut down considerably on the overall number required but, I felt that a newer site would stand a lesser chance of getting those links unless paid. There were a number of "assumptions" I made that, maybe I shouldn't have. I try to be somewhat brief as a general rule and maybe I should explain these kinds of things in more detail in the future. As usual, OWG stated it much better than I. As for complete bullshit, the numbers can be reverified for each of you online at http://www.textlinkbrokerage.com/ibltest.php.