Hello, I need a bit of help to discover whether an SEO company I hired actually know what they are talking about. They are optimising an ecommerce site with many different product categories. For example, theres categories for "nintendo wii accessories" and "xbox 360 accessories". Now the site ranks highly for these terms and the correct category page come high up in the SERPs. However the SEO company are linking to the homepage for "nintendo wii accessories" and "xbox 360 accessories". I pointed out that this might dilute the ranking of the category pages but they said it wont, it will just strengthen it and they use this strategy all the time to great effect. What I need to know is whether this is true? Or are do they not know what they are talking about? This is what they said in their last email: Tom, It works like this: Site 1.com (site linking to yoursite.co.uk or even 1 or 2 levels removed from yoursite) - We build links to this site including social bookmarking. Yes, we are building links to sites that are not owned by you. - We build pages on this site that has the keyword in the title and relevant text i.e. we optimize this page for the relevant keywords. yoursite.co.uk/index.php - The home page needs backlinks (links going to youresite) with the proper anchor text for every important keyword group. This does not dilute anything, it is necessary for the category and product pages to rank high. yoursite.co.uk/category.php - Again, backlinks with every major product name or product category name in the anchor text. yoursite.co.uk/productname.php - Links with product name and product category name. This strategy works very well. Remember, google passes page rank and linking down the line. This is true from external backlinks to a site as it is for internal links. Don't waste your time on forums. I know they're tempting but people that write there are obviously not busy enough to take care of their own sites or client's sites. All we do at is SEO. We go through an extensive testing process and we figure out what works before we implement the strategies on client's sites. We have hundreds of thousands of top 5 rankings on Google for a reason. Let me know if this makes sense or if you have any questions. Thanks,
hmmph, are they in Colorado? If so, you can quit worrying as I am aware of them since I am Colorado as well. Their approach in this case appears to be fine. This is actually pretty standard procedure, and, its quite commendable of them to tell you exactly what they are doing. Their comments on forum posters is spot on as well. hope that helps, Nigel
It smells like linkbait to me. Do you work for them or have you been paid by them to write this? Pretty hard to believe that someone with 5 posts, after his site is doing well, comes here with this story and leave the name of the company very discreet somewhere within the text...
I dug this up for you. I just sent them an email about getting a domain from a squatter for me. Edit: I don't know those folks personally so I removed the email link. You can contact them from their site. I will pm it to the gentleman who inquired though. No link bait, those guys are on the level. I just had a quick chat with them on their site. They know what they are doing and seem highly professional. Nigel
I'm mixed on my decison on this question, they should be targeting the backlinks to the specific web pages themselves they are related too. You might be losing sales and conversions from people bouncing right off, what is your current bounce rate for those specific keywords? What is the ecommerce rate via Google Analytics? I would need more information to make an accurate choice. Are the links coming from "relevant" sites, not just blog comments, directory submissions, etc? PM me when you reply this if you want me to review the information, I might not find my way back to this thread.
@ssandecki, your avatar never ceases to crack me up Unless I am reading something wrong, isn't that exactly what they are doing? Comprehensively at that. Nigel
Looks like they removed the link to this company .. who is it? I would also agree that the generated backlinks should not only be going to the home page but to specific deeplinked product pages as well.
Maybe I read the thread wrong, but aren't they targeting keywords to the domain name only? Also, they are targeting site.co.uk/index.php?! Some needs to explain to them how to 301 redirect the index.php file to the root domain
Again, I could be nuts but stuff like yoursite.co.uk/category.php - Again, backlinks with every major product name or product category name in the anchor text. yoursite.co.uk/productname.php - Links with product name and product category name. I think this indicates, to me at least, that they are drilling down keyphrases all the way to the individual product level not just the home page. The dual tld's might require a better explanation on their end.... but I would assume they know that given their inherent prowess in other areas of SEO. I would 301 one to the other as well. Nigel
Of course links are being sent directly to the targeted product pages. That goes without saying. The guy is talking about a more sophisticated linking then just directly linking to a page.
If you send links to your homepage and product pages you get a nice effect too. Send enough to each and if you type in xbox 360 accessories, you'll get double listings, or indented listings. Your homepage will be first, then product page indented underneath or vice versa. I do this from time to time with important keywords by standard means...article marketing, bookmarking, etc etc etc. Take up as much real estate as you can.
These are sitelinks and they are some what difficult to achieve. Usually only established sites get these.
You want to know if this works? Yes it is sound SEO practice. Although Google counts quality inbound links as important factors in ranking they also count outbound links to relevant sites. Should you fire your SEO company? Yes. Its better to do it yourself and save loads of money down the line. (If you have the time)