Newbie SEO questions...

[brit16]

My site finally hit the number 1 and number 2 spot in google!!! But it did not last long. A few days later it was down to 3 and 4. Now I am down to number 7 all of the sudden. I really don't know much at all about SEO, I am very new to all of this!! Had not even heard of SEO or IM about a year ago!!! I have a few questions I would love some input on....

1. How do I get my site to stay put?? I know that it will fluctuate some but what is the best strategy for keeping it as high in the serps as possible?
2. How do I get my other keywords (not main keyword) to rank higher? My main keyword is ranked on page 1, but most of my other keywords land on pge 2 or 3 of google. The competition is not that stiff and my articles are all unique. What am I doing wrong?

My site is in my signature if anyone would like to check it out and give any imput. If you see any on-site mistakes I am making please let me know. Thanks!!!

[KylieSweet]

Fluctuation in the search engine rankings is caused by some other reasons, and it is normal to other sites you need to put some improvement in optimizing your site in a natural way. Try to work out with your keyword phrases through content and link building techniques.

[Fortywats]

Hi Brit. I had a quick look and can give you some pointers. Firstly nice blog. It looks good and on page SEO looks good. Don't forget to use alt text on your images though. Search engines can't see pictures. No biggy though. Your main problem is your backlinks. You seem to be linking from very few domains. And all of them are forums from what I can see. You just need to diversify a bit. Make some comments on relevant blogs. Try and find some authority sites on the same subjects. There are loads of medical sites out there. Sumit some articles to ezine etc. Ask to guest post on similar sites. Also you need to diversify your anchor text. It's always the same and it has "my blog" in it. Your other pages and keywords won't rank if you don't link to them also. Ideally each keyword should have it's own page/content/Header tags etc. If you get some decent links you will rank #1 in no time. I also checked out the site currenlty at #1 and you should get past them no problem if you get some decent links. It's a Niche profit clasroom site. So it's an internet marketer. There link profile is not very strong at all. Just don't buy any spammy links. Your stratagey is nice and natural at the moment. Just diversify and get some nice relevant authority links.You should be at number 1 in a couple of weeks. Best of luck.

[brit16]

Originally Posted by Fortywats

Hi Brit. I had a quick look and can give you some pointers. Firstly nice blog. It looks good and on page SEO looks good. Don't forget to use alt text on your images though. Search engines can't see pictures. No biggy though. Your main problem is your backlinks. You seem to be linking from very few domains. And all of them are forums from what I can see. You just need to diversify a bit. Make some comments on relevant blogs. Try and find some authority sites on the same subjects. There are loads of medical sites out there. Sumit some articles to ezine etc. Ask to guest post on similar sites. Also you need to diversify your anchor text. It's always the same and it has "my blog" in it. Your other pages and keywords won't rank if you don't link to them also. If you get some decent links you will rank #1 in no time. I also checked out the site currenlty at #1 and you should get past them no problem if you get some decent links. It's a Niche profit clasroom site. So it's an internet marketer. There link profile is not very strong at all. Just don't buy any spammy links. Your stratagey is nice and natural at the moment. Just diversify and get some nice relevant authority links.You should be at number 1 in a couple of weeks. Best of luck.

Thanks sooo much for the thoughtful response and for checking out the site itself! I will be changing my anchor text as soon as I am done responding to your post. You are right that I have a lot of forum links. These are just happening naturally because I get some of my traffic from forums in my niche. But I have been leaving comments on blogs in my niche, are they not showing up? Or there just are not enough of them?

"Ideally each keyword should have it's own page/content/Header tags etc." .........Could you explain this more to me? Should I not be writing post, but pages instead? I have been writing post for each keyword that I am hoping to rank for. Also, when you say authority links, how do I know that the sites I am commenting on are "authority"? Should I be checking page rank before leaving comments? I am doing this all by hand, I have never purchased any links or used any software. Thanks again for the thoughtful advice!

[brit16]

Originally Posted by awj888

its all going to be about link building at this stage. Your blog looks great and the on-page SEO is totally fine. Just keep adding content that is rich in the keywords you are aiming for.
and build links to your main page! -
you can get them from forums (change your signitaure text from MY BLOG to your main keyword )
make social bookmarks,
make some other blogs with a couple articles such as blogger and wordpress and blog
start a twitter account
submit articles
and make blog comments

so name a few you can also hire some IM experts to build links for you! - i know there are some good offeres here on WF otherwise there are companies which do it too, and you can also find cheap outsource options on elance or odesk -
on another note you can also PM me id be happy to make a booster SEO link building offer for your blog!

thanks!

Thanks for the response. Are you saying I should build blogger blogs with a few articles, just to get links to my main blog?? Or should they get ranked as well? I can't afford to spend any money on SEO at the moment. I know that is probably the easiest way, but until I get more established I am doing everything on my own!

[Steven Miranda]

I really don't see this as a shock. I see A LOT of sites on a weekly basis and sites will go up and down based on various factors. Google changes things DAILY so remember that. Anything can happen and anything will happen. Keep doing what you are doing and don't worry about ranking.. ranking will come as long as you keep up with your SEO and great content.

[vivi62]

I provide free backlink training on my blog below plus lots more.
Regards
vivi62

[webdevpro]

To make a site on top positions is a bit difficult but keeping it stay there is lot more difficult. One of the many solutions is to keep building backlinks and over the time you will see positive results and stability in the SERPs.

[krishacetravison]

As far as the new algorithm is concern, you have to make fresh contents because the latest algorithm is giving more priority to fresher contents.

[Fortywats]

First go to google.com/alerts and set it up so google notifies you everytime a relevant peice of content has been published somewhere. This is highly relevant as google is the one telling you what it thinks is relevant to your keyword. Then go to Drop My Link - Find sites to create backlinks on and do a search for your keyword. I just did a search for your keyword for do follow comments and got over 5,000 results. That should keep you going for a while.

[__]

I would install pretty link and cloak your affiliate links. I think you can do it with the free version. It would be domain.com/success-program instead of the clickbank link. It does help, even though Im sure some people will argue.

I dont like youre theme and would change it. It looks very basic and plain. I didnt see the menu at the top.

For your other keywords I would create 2.0 sites targeting them. Build backlinks to those.

[brit16]

Originally Posted by Fortywats

First go to google.com/alerts and set it up so google notifies you everytime a relevant peice of content has been published somewhere. This is highly relevant as google is the one telling you what it thinks is relevant to your keyword. Then go to Drop My Link - Find sites to create backlinks on and do a search for your keyword. I just did a search for your keyword for do follow comments and got over 5,000 results. That should keep you going for a while.

Thanks for the info! I had never heard of this before.

[usearchme2]

Hi there

As far as your questions are involved, you wont ever be able to stop at number one Google is constantly changing, so get used to the fluctuating its part of SEO !

As far as your blog goes, I would no follow your affilate links theres really no need to cloak them. Google no follow tag there are loads of tutorials and add the tag before your affialte link code.

You do need to build some links to your other blog posts and write differnet posts or pages targetting different keyphrases and build backlinks to them using the appropriate keywords. Target one phrase per page and build backlinks to each page using each different keyword. Dont just target one phrase with the whole of your site !

You have to be carful with your blog as when I read it I did get a bit fed up of seeing links saying ive sucess program followed by a link to your affiliate link, theres really no need to put the link in your post 3 or 4 times say it once and say it clearly, just post it once at hte bottom thats what most people do. You want to avoid hotlinking all over the place, it doesnt help your site get ranked any higher and just confuses people, avoid repeating yourself !

Also when I clicked some of your links to other pages on your blog it opened them in a new window so i had 2 windows of ur blog open, which is confusing for some people as they get lost, try to make sure the links within your site open on the same window.

Hope this helps

Woc