Is my target keyword impossible to rank for?

[havefunandlive]

I recently found a keyword that has a high volume of searches and the front page competitors have few enough backlinks for me to compete with.

I've had success with other keywords instantly on the same night doing article marketing using goarticles and squidoo.

I heard that articlesbase was good for ranking on google and that I should use that, so I did.

The article was submitted and approved and I went to work on backlinking. The article is still not even in the first 500 results and it's been some days.

I also had problems getting my blog to rank for this keyword (but that's understandable)

Why am I not ranking for this keyword, even when some of the first page results have no backlinks at all? It doesn't make any sense.

Obviously I'm going to wait a little longer and build more backlinks, but I need input. If it continues to not rank, would the problem be Articlesbase or the keyword itself (is it somehow impossible to rank for)?

[Jeff Hollyhand]

Have you check the keyword phrase with Market Samurai?

[TristanPerry]

When you say "The article was submitted and approved and I went to work on backlinking", what exaclty do you mean?

Because if you are trying to get backlinks solely by article marketing, you'll need to submit a lot more than one article.

Or if you mean you did other backlinking, what methods did you use? Were they do-follow sites?

[havefunandlive]

Originally Posted by TristanPerry

When you say "The article was submitted and approved and I went to work on backlinking", what exaclty do you mean?

Because if you are trying to get backlinks solely by article marketing, you'll need to submit a lot more than one article.

Or if you mean you did other backlinking, what methods did you use? Were they do-follow sites?

I mean that I submitted the article and started doing backlinking for the article itself. That's worked for me in the past.

As for the question of whether they're dofollow sites, That's something that's been in the back of my mind, but never cared to check. I'll check that now.

EDIT: wait a minute, a lot of my backlinks seem to be marked with "external nofollow".

Could this be the problem?

[Jeff Hollyhand]

I think havefunandlive was taking about backlinkning to the article, so the article itself would rank, but I could be wrong.

[havefunandlive]

Originally Posted by Jeff Hollyhand

I think havefunandlive was taking about backlinkning to the article, so the article itself would rank, but I could be wrong.

Yes, that's what a meant.

[DaveN]

I think you need to have more than one article out there, that way you won't have to worry about just the one article performing, take the pressure off that article and yourself and have lots of articles out there.

By doing this you will have a lot more activity and a lot more chance of getting it all rolling along.

[havefunandlive]

Originally Posted by DaveN

I think you need to have more than one article out there, that way you won't have to worry about just the one article performing, take the pressure off that article and yourself and have lots of articles out there.

By doing this you will have a lot more activity and a lot more chance of getting it all rolling along.

That makes sense to me.

To be honest, I plan on writing more articles soon, but I don't know how to backlink all of these articles without looking like a spammer.

[TristanPerry]

Originally Posted by havefunandlive

That makes sense to me.

To be honest, I plan on writing more articles soon, but I don't know how to backlink all of these articles without looking like a spammer.

You can easily 'get away with' submitting 20+ articles per day with the same anchor text without any trouble.

It's when 100s of new backlinks every day start appearing that Google will question things.

I've had 10+ articles approved in a day (with the same anchor text) with no problems

[MustafaKamal]

Originally Posted by TristanPerry

When you say "The article was submitted and approved and I went to work on backlinking", what exaclty do you mean?

Because if you are trying to get backlinks solely by article marketing, you'll need to submit a lot more than one article.

Or if you mean you did other backlinking, what methods did you use? Were they do-follow sites?

Yup, you definitely need a lot more articles to submit to create massive backlinks...

[havefunandlive]

Originally Posted by TristanPerry

You can easily 'get away with' submitting 20+ articles per day with the same anchor text without any trouble.

It's when 100s of new backlinks every day start appearing that Google will question things.

I've had 10+ articles approved in a day (with the same anchor text) with no problems

What I meant to say is I don't know how to build backlinks for every article I write at once without looking like a spammer.

So, if I write 20 articles in one day, how would I backlink all of them without looking like a spammer?

More importantly, it seems my article still hasn't even been crawled by google, yet. I just put in the title in quotes and got no results.

hmmm...

Well, I'll continue to build backlinks for it to see if the situation changes, although I think that google should have crawled this article by now.

[saggy23]

Article marketing is obviously a good way to get target traffic as well as for ranking is search engines. But for Google I think you should first make a list of do follow article sites and start submitting over there. Submitting you article in 5 do follow article sites per day is much more worthy than submitting in 50 no follow article sites.

[havefunandlive]

Originally Posted by ametis

Have you try PPC, It is possible with PPC, but with no backlink i can't imagine how it is possible.

Well actually, they have backlinks to their domain, but not to the specific pages that are ranked.

[havefunandlive]

Well, I recently looked into my backlinks using firefox's nodofollow plugin and saw that they are all nofollow.

I've found another way to get dofollow backlinks, so I'll try using that method instead to see if that gives me any better results.

[snvservices]

Originally Posted by havefunandlive

Well, I recently looked into my backlinks using firefox's nodofollow plugin and saw that they are all nofollow.

I've found another way to get dofollow backlinks, so I'll try using that method instead to see if that gives me any better results.

Well,

What are that ways of getting backlinks, as you have to go for some processes like article submissions, social bookmarking, Blog commenting through which you will get good quality and relevant backlinks to your site.

And this can be done by commenting on Do Follow blogs for blog commenting process.

Thanks!!

[M0n3yMan]

Hi havefunandlive, First of all check that your article is actually indexed, I use a firefox plugin callled seo quake which is a must to learn for seo purposes IMO. If it is indexed then continue to get some links as normal and give it some time, I would start of with some social bookmarks for some easy links then I would probably buy a link packet WSO where they give a list of places you can build links from, they are normally sites where you can register and can place links in the about me/bio section.

another thing people tend to forget when building links is that many links from the same domain are highly discounted ie 100 links from ezine articles isnt any way near as powerful as having 100 links from 100 different article directories, So try to get links from as many different domains as possible.

[Paul Hancox]

Originally Posted by havefunandlive

EDIT: wait a minute, a lot of my backlinks seem to be marked with "external nofollow".

"nofollow" means exactly what it says. Google doesn't follow it. So PR juice and the anchor text are not passed on.

Also, don't forget that Google's system for where a page is placed in the rankings has, according to Matt Cutts, over 200 factors in it, and the number of backlinks are just 1 of them.

So there are a lot of other factors besides # of backlinks.

For example, remember that Google likes to deliver what is most RELEVANT (not just the most POPULAR).

Do the Top 10 sites have higher PR than Articlesbase? That may be a factor. (Maybe Google "trusts" those other sites more, which is ultimately what PR is meant to reflect).

Are the Top 10 pages better optimized for the keywords? i.e. in the title, content, domain, page URL?

The bottom line is, determining the strength of the competition is not just about the POPULARITY (as reflected in how many backlinks to those pages), but also about...

(1) the AUTHORITY of that domain (reflected in the domain's PR, age, number of site backlinks)

(2) the RELEVANCY of the page (ie. does Google believe it is serving up the best pages for that keyword, as reflected partly in titles, content, URL).

[havefunandlive]

Originally Posted by Paul Hancox

"nofollow" means exactly what it says. Google doesn't follow it. So PR juice and the anchor text are not passed on.

Also, don't forget that Google's system for where a page is placed in the rankings has, according to Matt Cutts, over 200 factors in it, and the number of backlinks are just 1 of them.

So there are a lot of other factors besides # of backlinks.

For example, remember that Google likes to deliver what is most RELEVANT (not just the most POPULAR).

Do the Top 10 sites have higher PR than Articlesbase? That may be a factor. (Maybe Google "trusts" those other sites more, which is ultimately what PR is meant to reflect).

Are the Top 10 pages better optimized for the keywords? i.e. in the title, content, domain, page URL?

The bottom line is, determining the strength of the competition is not just about the POPULARITY (as reflected in how many backlinks to those pages), but also about...

(1) the AUTHORITY of that domain (reflected in the domain's PR, age, number of site backlinks)

(2) the RELEVANCY of the page (ie. does Google believe it is serving up the best pages for that keyword, as reflected partly in titles, content, URL).

Also, I found out that there's a huge hole in my backlinking efforts.

I forgot to use anchor text to my advantage and I forgot to check to see if the links are dofollow first.

I wonder if realizing this will put my article where I've optimized it to be...

[havefunandlive]

how is it possible that my article still hasn't been crawled by google yet...?

I'm thinking about reposting the article to goarticles or squidoo instead. Articlesbase isn't working out.

Is this a good idea?

[ajparker]

I wouldn't see a problem with reposting it other locations, but pick one to build backlinks for (now at least) and keep working at it. No search phrase is impossible although sometimes they can be harder than expected. Anything is possible with time.

The other question that comes to mind is how many of the do-follow backlinks have been spidered?

I do get a feeling sometimes that article directories/blogspot/etc. have a bit higher threshold to pass to make google really take notice. It just seems to take a bit more effort at first getting the indexing. (At least that's been my experience.)

[Joshua.E1]

Hi there, you may want to check out where the links come from.

If they come from a very high page rank of 5 or above, then even if there is less than 5 incoming links (all from page rank 5 and above), Google will still rank them higher than you.

Then you will have to do more than just doing article submission.

[dandimit]

Here's a quick blog post that may help:

Free Traffic Tips: Search Engine Optimization That Almost Anyone Can Do!

People get really confused about this SEO stuff, and the main reason why is probably because there are a lot of companies out there that want to confuse you. They want you to think that search engine optimization is a hard thing so that they have a chance at charging you thousands of dollars for optimization that may only get you minimal results. Some of the biggest tips I have received for search engine optimization have all worked, and since search engine optimization wasn’t meant to be hard, many of the most effective tips are actually easy enough for almost anyone to do. This being said, I want to just share with you 3 easy tips that can act as super effective SEO for your websites.
Easy Tip #1: Go after easier keyword phrases. It makes since that it should be easier for you to get the #1 rank for the keywords- Utah real estate agents, rather than the keywords- real estate agents. Using this example, if you are a real estate agent in North Carolina, you will want to simply try to optimize your web pages for keywords that people may type in if they were trying to find a real estate agent in some of the cities of North Carolina. For example, how many people do you think have optimized web pages for the keywords- real estate agents in Charlotte? Since many people don’t even know basic SEO, you could very easily be the only person on the web optimizing your website for keyword phrases that are this specific. Now, think about this: If your real estate practice is in North Carolina, and you easily get the number one spot on the search engines for- real estate agents in Charlotte, then how hard would it be to get the number one spots for other cities like Durham and Fayetteville? Even if you aren’t in these cities, you could generate leads and sell these leads to some of the agents you know in these other cities, plus your website would get more and more popular in many of the cities of North Carolina. Before you know it, you will probably have the number one spot for the keyword phrases- NC real estate, and North Carolina real estate. If you can do this for one state, then you can do it for another state. Building your website so that you dominate the rankings for various less competitive keyword phrases will help build your business and may eventually get you to the top of the rankings!
Easy Tip #2: Simply create a blog on your website. You just simply won’t believe how much free traffic creating a blog can do for you. Basically, when creating a blog you are able to easily create multiple pages for your website, and each time you create a post, this creates another page. So if you can post even just a few times per week, this adds a few pages each week to your website. Also, the search engines like blogs because it is fresh content that is updated frequently. It is not uncommon to see blogs getting the number one spot for certain keyword phrases, and you can do the same. Just simply head on over to WordPress.org in order to get the software to upload to your websites server. It’s free.
Easy Tip #3: Still use meta tags and titles. Even though the search engines aren’t going to rank your pages because of what your meta tags are saying, they are still important to have. Using the meta tags and the titles as a “guide” for the search engines can actually help you out. You will want to guide the search engines through the content on your pages. If you have a page about real estate agents in Charlotte, North Carolina, then you will want to have your title and meta tags relate to this topic. After you have done this, you better make sure that your page talks about how people can get in contact with real estate agents in Charlotte, North Carolina! You may even want to make sure that the phrases and meta tags act as keywords as well in the context of these pages. If you let the search engines use your titles and meta tags in order to guide them to the bulk of the content on your pages, and if the search engines find your content (not your tags and titles) relevant, then you can get those pages indexed and ranked.

[DaveN]

Hi havefunandlive

Another tip is to make Linkwheels, these are really powerful if you set them up properly, have a look at the page, it will explain things a lot better than me and there is a pic to see what I mean, hope it helps.

Using a Linkwheel for traffic | Making money with "Google Adsense"

[Steve Crooks]

You need to answer these questions to get a handle on this..

1. Is it a valuable keyword in the sense does it have a lot of adwords ads for it?
2. What is the quality of the pages you are competing against? If your top 10 competiton is made up of big players like Amazon, ebay etc then it can be a lot more difficult to beat.
3. What type of sites are you up against? Are they shopping portal type sites, article sites, web 2.0 type sites?
4. Will the page you are trying to get ranked be appropriate for that keyword?
5. What is the on page SEO like for your page?

[snvservices]

Originally Posted by Steve Crooks

You need to answer these questions to get a handle on this..

1. Is it a valuable keyword in the sense does it have a lot of adwords ads for it?
2. What is the quality of the pages you are competing against? If your top 10 competiton is made up of big players like Amazon, ebay etc then it can be a lot more difficult to beat.
3. What type of sites are you up against? Are they shopping portal type sites, article sites, web 2.0 type sites?
4. Will the page you are trying to get ranked be appropriate for that keyword?
5. What is the on page SEO like for your page?

Hi Steve,

The Questions you put here are all true, as while targeting any keyword it is important to focus on the type of keyword you are using and it should represent your content on which you are targeting on.

The On page SEO should be done properly with targeted keywords and title tag.

Thanks!!

[GIahGroup]

I find Google algorithm so complicated these days, in fact I am 99% sure they do not apply the same algorith to every KW.

Reason,

I have a couple of domains with 18 million competing pages, from very high authority sites like techcrunch, endgadget etc and my site outranks them on Google page 1. this site has one post and that was 4 mths ago. Only think that I can think of is my URL is same for eact match KW.

Hey I'm not complaining (thankyou Sergey) but some of my other sites which i have followed the exact same formula are down at position 37.

So who knows, its is odd to me though that people like yourself who do all this work with article promotion etc and find it difficult to get sites indexed??

I have a new blog 37 days old, its already got 141 pages indexed on Google and all my content is scraped using a WP plugin.

Like I said its confusing, makes if difficult to build a system and strategy when the goalposts are constantly moving.

good luck with your efforts.

One tip which I think might help is to use Yahoo pipes to build more RSS feeds, these will be different to your site RSS feeds.

Ping the following.. your site RSS, comments RSS, articles RSS, Bookmarks RSS and Yahoo Pipe RSS.

this will def get noticed by the G-Bot spider, and so long as you ping all within 20 - 30 mins you wont have to worry about your site getting blacklistd by the ping services.. its usually if you ping continously the same feeds every 12 - 24 hrs this happens.

[Mr_Julian_S]

Why dont you check your competitor sites or sites ranking high with that particular keyword for their sources of backlinks. Then you can start building links from those sources which can be a reason for them to rank high on search engines.

[kennethsmith72]

You have to do some effort and time to make your targeted keyword to be on ranking,use the SEO tool and you will see it's very possible.

[Sheri11]

Nice.....Topic...... such a useful