A bit of SEO Confusion

[pubics]

Let's say that I run dogshirts.com and it's setup on Wordpress. Obviously, my primary keyword will be 'dog shirts.' Now, should I setup a static page on WP that is basically an article targeting 'dog shirts?' I'll also want to target other keywords as well but I don't want them altering my front page.

So, when I want to target a new keyword should I make a new page or post centered around that keyword and leave the front page alone? I'm just a bit confused and want to be able to target my main keyword ('dog shirts') while still going after alternate keywords and still maintaining my rank for the primary keyword.

 

[thehobbster]

I've done it as you've described, and it's worked out fine. I will say though, that be careful not to over do it. It's already pretty obvious what you want to target based on your domain name. Maybe just slap "Dog Shirts" in your H1 tag, and use it once or twice total on your page. Have H2 and H3's but don't put your keyword in there.

Another option, if you are slick enough with PHP and wordpress, you could set up your homepage to include 1000 words static on "Dog Shirts" and then still have it scroll through your 10 most recent posts below it all. You just have to call a 2nd instance of the Wordpress loop using different variables. It's not too hard.

When you go to backlink, I suggest you NEVER use the anchor "dog shirts". Use your URL a boat load, and use generic anchors like "website, click here, good info" etc. You are already tippy toe-ing at a dangerous cliff by having the EMD.

Best of luck!

 

[-joe-]

That depends. How big is the main keyword? Are the other keywords very competitive?

It's just that naturally, your homepage is going to be the most trusted page on your site. Google trusts it, and there'll be a lot of links, even if you only backlink to inner pages, that end up going to the homepage. Personally, if the emd keyword was the most major by a long way, and the other keywords wouldn't make me much money, I'd go for an article on Dog shirts as the homepage. However, if the other keywords were fairly valuable too, I'd probably go for a page that links to all the other posts, simply cause they'll get a lot of authority from being linked from the homepage.

 

[pubics]

I've done it as you've described, and it's worked out fine. I will say though, that be careful not to over do it. It's already pretty obvious what you want to target based on your domain name. Maybe just slap "Dog Shirts" in your H1 tag, and use it once or twice total on your page. Have H2 and H3's but don't put your keyword in there.

Another option, if you are slick enough with PHP and wordpress, you could set up your homepage to include 1000 words static on "Dog Shirts" and then still have it scroll through your 10 most recent posts below it all. You just have to call a 2nd instance of the Wordpress loop using different variables. It's not too hard.

When you go to backlink, I suggest you NEVER use the anchor "dog shirts". Use your URL a boat load, and use generic anchors like "website, click here, good info" etc. You are already tippy toe-ing at a dangerous cliff by having the EMD.

Best of luck!

Thanks for the insight, I think I'm going to have to rethink my front page cotent as I may have gone a bit overboard on keyword usage. Also, I wasn't aware that using my main keyword as my anchor text would harm my ranking. Should I not use 'dog shirts' as my anchor at all?

That depends. How big is the main keyword? Are the other keywords very competitive?

It's just that naturally, your homepage is going to be the most trusted page on your site. Google trusts it, and there'll be a lot of links, even if you only backlink to inner pages, that end up going to the homepage. Personally, if the emd keyword was the most major by a long way, and the other keywords wouldn't make me much money, I'd go for an article on Dog shirts as the homepage. However, if the other keywords were fairly valuable too, I'd probably go for a page that links to all the other posts, simply cause they'll get a lot of authority from being linked from the homepage.

Thanks for your tips. Well, my actual primary keyword is relatively low competition and the sub-keywords range from low to medium. I certainly want to rank for the sub-keywords as well and I plan to target quite a few. The thing that scares me about linking them on the front page is that there will be too many links and I may set off Google's alarms.

 

[emalker]

Try targeting two or three keywords for one page, also, you should create related pages according to new updates in Google's algorithm.

 

[pubics]

Try targeting two or three keywords for one page, also, you should create related pages according to new updates in Google's algorithm.

Yes, I plan to create new pages on a regular basis that pertain to the main keyword or similar content. My concern is about how many links I have on my homepage. I'm wondering if I should just keep the most recent 5 or so links, but then again I worry that the other pages will suffer as I'm likely to be adding content quite frequently. I suppose that's what a sitemap is for, but I'm still uncertain.

 

[vovaz]

You can use categories and tags if you plan to add content often, just be sure to add the noindex,follow tags so the duplicate content get spired but not indexed.

 

[-joe-]

Thanks for your tips. Well, my actual primary keyword is relatively low competition and the sub-keywords range from low to medium. I certainly want to rank for the sub-keywords as well and I plan to target quite a few. The thing that scares me about linking them on the front page is that there will be too many links and I may set off Google's alarms.

Don't worry, just show 10 posts at a time, and have some links to recent posts. Plenty of sites do it.

In regard to anchor text, don't worry too much, personally, what I'd do, is make about 60% of the links to the dog shirts page that are internal have "dog shirts" as the anchor, and 40% other anchors. For the external links, however, I'd probably personally aim for about 20% exact anchors, 10% long tail versions of that anchor, 20% related terms that don't contain dog shirts, and 50% generic anchors. Bear in mind, I just came up with those numbers on the spot, don't worry about being too precise, just try that roughly.

In regard to your point about keyword usage, don't buy LSI articles. My general test as to whether an article's over-optimised is very simple - does it read well? If every other sentence I'm seeing this keyword shoved in, then clearly not. It should only have the keyword where it makes sense to have the keyword. Sounds simple, but look at the samples of half the content writers in the BST and how much people rate them to see how much this is ignored.

 

[omgyams]

This may or may not be relevant to your interests: Here's how I set up a site for a contest - dogblanketreviews.com. target was "dog snuggie"

Pick it apart. Feel free to ask questions.