I'm Lost in the SEO world - Any Help?

[parentpalace]

I've been at this for 4 months (I know it's not long, and many people will say be patient, it takes time) and have managed to get a PR of 2. I'm pretty sure there's a lot I should be doing, I just don't know what it is.

I've read, and read, and read so many articles, ebooks, posts etc and in the end it starts to run into each other and fries my brain - to the point I can't really focus anymore.

I don't know what "keywords" I should be trying to rank for, everything so far has been natural in terms of search engine traffic (yea, I don't see much traffic at all.)

I don't have the money these services are charging, I'm a stay at home mom on a tight budget - I wish I could drop hundreds on these services, but I just don't have it. I've been trying to do everything myself, and it's not as easy as I thought it would be.

My blog focuses on parenting topics and life in general. I also do reviews and giveaways - I just don't know how to go about "optimizing" for this.

I have a lot of external links according to the seomoz toolbar, but I don't know how to fix this.

I'm sorry this is so long, I'm just really desperate for help.

[high_plains_drifter]

Content is the number one priority for any site, just make sure you have amazing content and people will naturally spread it.

You can also do things such as

Blog Commenting
Forum Posting
Article Writing and submission
Social Bookmarking
Guest Posting on other peoples blogs (this is the best if you can write lots of good, unique content)

Do all of those, say 20 of each every day and you will increase you traffic in no time

[patrich]

I currently run right around 50 sites and I do all of the work myself, I write the content, I build and design the sites and I do all of the link building. It can be done and you don't need lots of services/tools to do it.

The tools help but are not really necessary when you are starting out. The biggest challenge is finding keywords that are worth targeting, that have low competition and then go from there. Once you get a good keyword you can work on building links to the page, etc., to get it ranking.

For me, every project that I work on is different, so I take different approaches. If you want to get in touch with me with any specific questions that you may have I would be happy to help as much as I can. My email is patricherber (at) gmail.com

p.s., pagerank doesn't make much of a difference for what you are trying to do and 4 months isn't very long at all when you are just getting started. There is a lot to learn to get this stuff right.

Patric

[kevinfahey]

Here is 10 Tips for On Page SEO

1.Your post should be over 350 – 450 words
2.Main keyword in the first paragraph of your post
3.Main keyword in the last paragraph of your post
4.Main keyword in your post title
5.Main keyword in your post tags
6.Post should contain at least one 1 image
7.Main keyword used in "alt" tag for each image
8.Main keyword in bold, italic and underlines
9.Main keyword in header 1 tag
10.Main keyword density of 4% - 6%

And three places you can do some keyword research for free.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Google Trends
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/gtrends

There are many others methods to rank sites, some of which are explained in the PDF I just finished.

Direct Download : Google Profit System

Signup : Google Profit System

I was going to sell it as a WSO but decide to give it away. Hope it helps you.

[RayW]

OP, I checked your site's stats on an seo website, and according to it, your site gets about 5000 pageviews a day. That is excellent for such a young site.

As for link-building, the best thing you can do with a blog is guest post on other authority blogs in your niche. This will not only give your blog high PR backlinks but also drive some traffic to your site and hopefully you would gain some subscribers as well.

[Canuckystan]

First spend a few hours on Google Adwords and look for search terms around "parenting" (using exact match) and try to find keyword combinations with a few thousand hits per month at least.

Check your competition on Google search.

Then select those keywords which you think have the best chance of monetizing. I don't know anything about the niche, but if "Parenting ebook" was a term that came a lot, that would be a great one, it shows people are looking to buy. That sort of thing. "Free parenting advice" not so much.

You may want to start a forum to generate subscribers and a list, and free content.

[RevSEO]

My blog focuses on parenting topics and life in general. I also do reviews and giveaways - I just don't know how to go about "optimizing" for this.

There's good advice for "general" SEO knowledge above. Although since you are writing about general things in life, you'll either need to get more focused or VERY creative with posts/titles in order to rank.

Keep in mind that if you can build up a nice backlink profile, you can rank for mainstream stuff or popular topics rather quickly. The key though is to be original with your titles and include the mainstream keywords your going after + something to captivate readers to share your content/backlink to it naturally.

Here's a poor example, but an example none the less of a title that could captivate.

"The real reason why Casey Anthony was innocent..."
"The Top 3 Reasons that XXXX caused XXXX"

etc....Think about what kinda topics interest you, and create something captivating around it. You could end up ranking for a HOT topic and get some serious traffic to your website.

[travin69]

get the wordpress seo plugin Easy WP SEO. You can buy it on this forum. It really helped me. Also, buy the ebook Fast Attack SEO, it is decent and will help you choose your keywords. Use the free plugin All in One SEO. Sign up for a google webmaster account and look at your stats. Use google analytics to track your traffic.

[Blacklisted]

I would suggest buying a link from high PR sites than buying a software.

Also, dont focus too much about on page SEO, off page SEP is the most important.

check out this sites..

oldwelshguy(.)co(.)uk

number 1 in google for the keyword (google expert) inst it amazing? even beat the google.com even it has google on the keyword and yet no meta tagging

The site sucks on ON PAGE SEO,
View source and you can see it Doesnt even have any meta tags.

But if you are going to check the backlinks, you can see why its on number 1 in google.

Also this site musicfrost(.)org

the domain is just 5 months and 11 days old and yet its already in page 1 in google, with PR5, it has some on pageSEO but not that good.. thats why I would say buy some links from PR5+

By the way,

I'm a web programmer and start learning SEO, I stop being a programmer because I wanted to create websites for myself rather than working on some company who creates and sells websites. I have 2 sites thats been banned from google because of backhat and I was also banned 3 times from adsense.. lol..I also brought some backlinks services, and find out they're just trash. and thats a very good experience. tought me some of the most important things about promoting sites and advertising..

I am willing to help you.. you can send me an email at kenn.kosher(at)gmail.com

Dont read too much on articles about promoting your website or getting in page 1 in google..

This is the best explanation
1. Need Traffic (organic or non organic)
Build lots of links pointing to your site. The higher the PR the more it will help your rankings
- Directory Submission
- Mini Nets
- Article Posting

3. Make your site friendly and helpful by visitors where some of them will bookmark your site.

4. Don't use softwares or buy some services to promote your site. Only do that if you are already master on inteernt marketing. Most of the service are just bunch of trash (Honestly).

Kosher

[Kenwa87]

If you need more traffic you need to work on finding your keywords. Look for blogs like yours and see what type of keywords they are targeting. Get firefox browser and load up their free tools from SEO book. With that you can see how much traffic they are getting, check their meta titles and meta keywords and then use Google keyword free tools to see what type of traffic you might can expect. Then you need to go out and rank for those keywords you choose. It isn't easy and sometimes I feel over whelmed but you can do this! and keep on READING and trying out new things!!! you will find your spot!

[Blacklisted]

Im here again.. lol..
By way I check your site. and I can see you are currently using adsense for your site.
Im sure you have low CTR/ Clicks on your adsense..

Plus.. you made a very big mistake there.. you already start building your links.

it says Number of Incoming Links:1475 from Spider FX

But what you are messing is the most important thing. the ANCHOR TEXT.. the top anchor text for your site is the word PARENTS.. which is not a good keywords for your site because its just a single word and its very hard to rank. You dont want competing sites like. parets(.)com .org or other parents related domains. and also the CPC for the keywords is just low. You should have first decided your keyword before creating websites.

Also you're ads position is in a very bad place (no offense) Im sure you are getting a low Click rates.

Here's what I can say.

Your sites Needs 100% modification.
You must start creating links using your keywords as the anchor text. But first you should decide what keywords to use..use google adwords tool.

I can help you with all of that. I mean I cant help you promoting your site but I can help you and advice to have a better ranking sites..

I can give you some tips
I can give you premium wordpress themes.. I have collected many premium themes for myself. lol

But the most important is if your planning to promote this site with adsense as primary earning then you should redesign your site.. there's a very litte percentage that someone would click on your adsense. But if you are planning to promote another product or use different affiliate program then I think that would look ok. But still, for me, the site doenst like friendly.

Kenn

[SerpPower]

hi,i suggest you to join google affiliate network and search for products related to "Parenting and Childhood" pick a product and try to extract some new keywords from it you will always find new keywords that you have never thought about , take the new keyword and put it in google keyword tool and try to find the perfect keyword to go for.

Regards.

[Josh MacDonald]

Internet Marketing isn't for everyone. If you don't have the money, you will need to get a day job. I started marketing back when I was in my teens and I had a 6-9 hour per day, day job. So I used that money to start up. My best advice is go out and get some money, then come back in 2 months. Meanwhile, your site will be aging. Spend 1 hour per day writing content, no more, no less.

[Forcefactor]

You might want to consider performing services like article writing, etc. so that you can get some funds coming in so that you can expand your seo projects.

And good job on the pr 2 by the way. Its much better than having an n/a domain :-)

With that page rank you could possibly even sell your site for a profit if you are thinking about going into other things as well.

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by parentpalace

I've been at this for 4 months (I know it's not long, and many people will say be patient, it takes time) and have managed to get a PR of 2. I'm pretty sure there's a lot I should be doing, I just don't know what it is.

I've read, and read, and read so many articles, ebooks, posts etc and in the end it starts to run into each other and fries my brain - to the point I can't really focus anymore.

I don't know what "keywords" I should be trying to rank for, everything so far has been natural in terms of search engine traffic (yea, I don't see much traffic at all.)

I don't have the money these services are charging, I'm a stay at home mom on a tight budget - I wish I could drop hundreds on these services, but I just don't have it. I've been trying to do everything myself, and it's not as easy as I thought it would be.

My blog focuses on parenting topics and life in general. I also do reviews and giveaways - I just don't know how to go about "optimizing" for this.

I have a lot of external links according to the seomoz toolbar, but I don't know how to fix this.

I'm sorry this is so long, I'm just really desperate for help.

The first thing to profit online, you need traffic, and long tail keywords are a good way to start, you can find more information here: http://www.seospeedsight.com/seoforu...word-strategy/

Secondly, you need good content and relationship to convert your visitors into sales, list building is a must.

I suggest you start from learning a method to build traffic, give it at least 6 months trying to make it work before trying a totally new method!

Kok Choon

[LucySands]

it took me 6 months to one year to fully grasp the whole concept of SEO...when I first started, I have a client who teach me how to do things....and while I always perform accordingly, fulfill directions etc, I still didn't understand why I was doing this and that....

just be more patient, and as you study, practice and practice...SEO works differently for everyone

[parentpalace]

Ok, I think I'm lost with the keyword tools - it's saying there's low competition but over 10m searches for the keywords parent, parents and parenting - is that a bad thing?

[Seleyna]

it means there is still space for you to get on top search results...competition signifies the number of competitors aiming for the same set of keywords

[Sabrina178]

Originally Posted by parentpalace

Ok, I think I'm lost with the keyword tools - it's saying there's low competition but over 10m searches for the keywords parent, parents and parenting - is that a bad thing?

then go for these terms, its a good hint you can secure a spot on serps

[LibbyC]

Originally Posted by parentpalace

Ok, I think I'm lost with the keyword tools - it's saying there's low competition but over 10m searches for the keywords parent, parents and parenting - is that a bad thing?

Hi, where are you getting your competition results from? I would imagine these are incredibly hard words to rank for!

They're also very untargetted. By that I mean what is a person thinking when they type 'parents' into Google (or any other search engine?).

It could be anything from wanting a picture of a couple to trying to find out how to deal with their parents-in-law and anything in-between.

Now think about what someone might be thinking if they type 'terrible twos' (6.6k exact searches per month) or 'potty training boys" (22.2k exact searches per month)

I guarantee you know EXACTLY what these potential customers are thinking as they type in that search query

So, your job is to find out the keywords like this that
(1) are relevant to your market (hint - try to solve a problem!)
(2) aren't too competitive to rank for

You can find all of this kind of stuff from free tools such as
(1) Google Keyword Tool
(2) Market Samurai (free version)
(3) Traffic Travis (free version)

Everyone has their own criteria for what is a good keyword. Mine is roughly that it has 1000+ exact searches per month and fewer than 30,000 competing pages in Google.com results when I type the keyword in quotes.

And, even having just written that I'll also look at the average page rank of the top 10 sites on Google page 1 and what sort of sites are ranking at the top. So definitely still subjective!

A lot of people when they start with SEO try to rank for
(1) keywords with huge search volumes (and high competition)
(2) long tail keywords with low search volumes (and low competition)

For me it's about finding that 'sweet spot' somewhere in-between ie: decent search volume and low competiton. It takes a while to find these but it's well worth it when you do.

Once you've found your keywords you can start writing your article. Write an amazing article FOR PEOPLE first then go back and tweak it for SEO so that it's also good for the search engines.

I created an on page SEO checklist for myself that I use every time I write an article. Here's a link to the PDF version:
http://libbycollier.com/pdfs/SEOChecklist.pdf [PDF, 80Kb]

(I discuss how I use it here: How I Got to #1 in Google & it's 100% free, no opt in, just a tool I wanted to share!)

Once you've done these two things you can start promoting your article by writing a few unique articles for Ezines, posting it to your Facebook page, using IMAutomator etc. The important thing here is that every link you create back to your page uses your keyword/keyword phrase in the anchor text.

Some people will say you should mix it up a bit but I never have (have always just stuck to using my exact keyword) and I've never been penalised. I suspect these people are 'faking' thousands of links so possibly you would get penalised for that.

If your content is good then people will WANT to link back to you so you will naturally develop a range of anchor text phrases pointing back to your page over time.

Don't stress over getting squillions of backlinks. If you've done your keyword reasearch right you shouldn't have to. It's quality over quantity any day in my books!

Phew that was a lot longer than I planned but I hope it has helped a little.

You've done really well getting a PR of 2 and some traffic to your blog in just 4 months

Cheers
Libby

[LibbyC]

Me again!

I was thinking about your site last night and wanted to find an example to show you what I meant because if you're anything like me an example is worth about a squillion words.

NB: Don't get hung up on the keyword I came up with. This is just an example and you'll know better what kind of things you want to target on your site.

Anyway, this is what I did:

Step 1

I used the Google Keyword Tool and typed in '2 year old' as my root keyword. I could have easily selected '1 year old' or '3 year old' but you don't really hear of the 'terrible ones' or 'terrible threes' so thought I'd start there

I set the results to show 'Exact' match and one keyword phrase stuck out for me - "how to discipline a 2 year old" which had 1,300 exact searches per month.

Searching for this in Google.com (with quotes) I get 12,600 results

BINGO

NB: Now I had a hunch this would be a good keyword because it's a long keyword so not many people would specifically trying to rank for it, but it's still a very definite phrase that people would be searching for.

So,
"how to discipline a 2 year old" = good longtail keyword
"discipline child 2 years old" = bad longtail keyword (because it's not as natural a way of phrasing that query plus any doesn't work as an article title or in a sentance)

Step 2

I also ran a keyword search in Market Samurai using '2 year old' as my root keyword and it analysed another 799 keywords for me.

None were as good as the one I had picked out but Market Samurai takes the grunt work out of analysis a huge volume of keywords and if I carried on in the 'x year old' vein I am sure it would find me some gems.

Step 3

Next I opened up Traffic Travis (free) and did an 'SEO/Keyword Analysis' on 'how to discipline a 2 year old' (setting search location to US and choosing for it to analyse just the first page of Google ie: 10 results)

Traffic Travis results
(see screenshot here: http://libbycollier.com/images/traffictravis.png)

• keyword ranking of 'Relatively Easy' (ie: relatively easy to rank for)
• only 1 result (#9) used the keyword on the title, description or H1 tags
• #1 ranked page has PR=2 and zero backlinks to the page
• average backlinks to all pages = 4.3 with 6/10 having sero backlinks to them

So, at this point I'd say it's a pretty darn good word.

Step 4

Here's where you take this keyword and write a great article on 'how to discipline a 2 year old' using the SEO checklist I linked to in my first post.

Make sure you have updated your ping list on your blog so that you're announcing it to as many ping services as possible. (Read this article if you want more info: Get Indexed by Google Fast by Updating Your WordPress Ping List)

Now publish your article on your blog.

Step 5

Create an account at IMAutomator.com (free) and bookmark your new page. NB: Choose the option to have bookmarks added over 15 or 45 days. I know it's a pain to wait but trust me on this one!

Write 3 articles for EzineArticles on the topic of 2 yr olds/toddlers (doesn't have to be specifically on discipline) Post to ezine articles over 7-10 days - that one isn't an exact science, just don't dump them all at once.

Ensure your ezine articles author bio box contains a link back to your article with your keyword as the anchor text eg:

Get tips on <a href="URL of your page">how to discipline a 2 year old</a> at ParentPalace.com

Wait a couple of weeks and see where you are in the rankings using Traffic Travis Search Engine Tools -> Position Ranking module.

Step 6

Rinse and repeat with your next keyword.

At this point you may be wondering why I would suggest you go for a keyword with just 1,300 exact searches per month. Here's my reasoning:

1. Easy to rank so you can rinse and repeat - find and rank for just 10 of these and you could be getting 13,000 searches per month

2. You'll learn so much more by ranking this word than you would by chasing the 'big value', high competition words where you'll most likely become SEO mincemeat. The thrill of watching your work pay off will be the boost you need to keep going.

3. You'll get additional traffic from related keyword phrases. For one keyword I rank for I get 64% of the traffic to that page from that keyword and the remaining 36% from a whopping 745 keywords I wasn't aiming for.


Haha, another mammoth post! Hope you found some value in it. I think I've earned myself a nice cup of tea

Libby

[mrozlat]

if you are stuck... hire a professional who will research your niche and determine the best keywords for you in your related niche.

[QuelThalas]

how much budget do you have for simple SEO?have you did fresh content to your blog?

[samual james]

if you are not able to do keyword research then find a professional who can search keywords for you and rest of things you can do it by yourself.