Hey all, I'm fairly new to SEO, and this is really the first site I've ever done on my own more or less... I guess this is a three-part post: review the site and tell me what you think of it SEO-wise, what can I do to improve rankings in the serps why are my rankings jumping all over the place? The term I've mainly been checking is 'photography forum' and over the past couple of weeks have fluctuated all over the place, as high as 40 something, and as low as 200 something. Any advice would be great.
Have you tried doing the '-das' search on your site? If you don't know what that is all about, try reading the last two or three pages of the http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=256 thread.
Hey Bob. I should have know you were over here as well. I have actually tried that test... and I rank extremely well when I do that... #7 for photography forum for www.photographycorner.com and #1 for video montage for www.memoriesbox.com. I think I understand the theory, so I'm quite optimistic about it all... I'll be watching that thread for updates. Thanks
Is there other places I can read up on this 'sandbox theory'? Has anyone determined a timline on it (i.e. how long one has to play in the sandbox?)
The best guesses that I have read are three months. So that means links you put up three months ago should be applying their full value now and of course links that you put up today will not contribute in full for another three months.
Interesting, thanks, Bob... a good chunk of the links are only about 2 months old, so I guess I've got another month or so to go... hehe.
I'm slowly seeing some upwards movements with several of my keywords... maybe some of the links are starting to take it's full effect?
OK, not exactly sure what's going on... but the results for my search terms with the -das all had their rankings drop by almost 100... so where I have been ranked #1-7 for my terms -das, now I'm ranking onehundred something... anyone have any ideas?
thebassman, That same thing has just happened to our experimental page This morning it placed #2 for the -dsa... search. I just happened to notice that it is now #17 for the same search. Google is changing things again! Caryl
Yeah, that's what I figured.... the strange thing is the -das searches don't match up with the actual rankings without the -das filters, so it's still doing something... Hmmm...
Here's one for the design. I think you've created a really clean, user friendly design. Everything that I was looking for and expected to see on your photography portal/forum was there and easy to find. Good job I think.
Hi thebassman, Congrats that you have started! Kudos to you for that... My main question to you is: What is the purpose each page? What is the main keyword you are targeting? If all of the high lighted in brown/orange colored links are keywords; that's too many of one page... Your Onpage SEO, (you can Google that if it is new to you), should center on one main keyword per page with a little LSI for good measure, (see Google link wheel for your main keyword for ideas...). It should mentioned multiple time on you page; in the first sentence, in the last sentence and max a couple times in the body of your post. Also, bold and underline that keyword; use it in your page title, the page description, and in the domain name, and headers... Also, doing some internal inter page linking to your home page will help your SEO as well... Also, go to Google Webmaster tools and submit a sitemap... Just a few basic tips for you. Good luck. Regards