Ranking is Easy: #8 out of 73,500,000 results
Hi All,
I debated about whether I should post this here or not, because it's probably going to generate a ton of questions I don't have specific answers for. But hopefully I can help a few people understand some things about getting search engine rankings.
One of my websites ranks at #8 in Google for a common two word phrase. (MY website, not an EZA article) I noticed that position a few weeks ago and it's still there. It's ranking there when I search for the phrase without quotes around it, and Google reports there are 73,500,000 results for that same phrase.
Most people would consider 73,500,000 too competitive to even glance at.
Now I have to confess: Even though this is a common two word phrase in a very popular industry/niche, the specific phrase itself does not get a lot of searches. According to the AdWords tool today actually, it's only searched for about 1000 times each month.
At first glance that might sound like a waste of time to bother trying to rank for right?
Yes and No. Whether a keyword or phrase is worth ranking for depends entirely upon your reasons and goals. For example...
- If you're doing offline marketing and want to be able to show potential clients how well you can rank a website, something like the numbers I've shared above will blow them away. They won't even think about, or ask whether or not lots of people are searching for the words and phrases - particularly if you're showing them something related to a huge and popular niche/industry/market.
- If you're trying to brand someone or something in a general manner (aka not their name or logo, but maybe a skill, service or profession), which was what I'd originally intended when I started this particular promotion.
- If you're trying to get your foot into the door of a particularly competitive niche, which is also what I was working on in this case. When a niche is super competitive and large, coming at it from left field is an excellent way to get your foot in the door. And from there the rest is fairly easy.
As for the questions which are bound to crop up: I should first tell you I don't often test and track things, and I was lazy and unorganized with this so I don't have hard specific numbers to give you.
- I did this primarily with article marketing. I believe 95%+ of it was from articles only, and probably around 50 articles in total. The bulk of these articles had my keyword phrase as the anchor link to my website in the bio box.
- Most of the articles were published at EZA, though some of them have been published at various other directories and sites too.
- I don't know offhand the cumulative total of how many times the articles were picked up by other website publishers. I tend to do well in this area but I don't keep track of the numbers.
- I also optimized the hell out of my site internally, using all the "old-fashioned" basics and rules: Titles, meta tags, internal links, the three click rule as much as possible, good category and tag structure, alt text on images, great navigation, etc.
My point is this: Getting good search engine rankings is actually pretty easy to do. Using just a fraction of the information you can find on this site and a few select others around the web - and putting just a fraction of effort into the process - will yield outstanding results.
Even though I was lazy and unorganized, I did this easily. And I do this all the time with other sites, phrases, and niches. So stop worrying about all the tiny little details like duplicate content, where to publish, how many words or articles to write, how much keyword density you should have, etc etc. Just stop trying to analyze every little detail. Get it done, get it out there, and adjust as you go. (Ready, Fire! Aim)
I debated about whether I should post this here or not, because it's probably going to generate a ton of questions I don't have specific answers for. But hopefully I can help a few people understand some things about getting search engine rankings.
One of my websites ranks at #8 in Google for a common two word phrase. (MY website, not an EZA article) I noticed that position a few weeks ago and it's still there. It's ranking there when I search for the phrase without quotes around it, and Google reports there are 73,500,000 results for that same phrase.
Most people would consider 73,500,000 too competitive to even glance at.
Now I have to confess: Even though this is a common two word phrase in a very popular industry/niche, the specific phrase itself does not get a lot of searches. According to the AdWords tool today actually, it's only searched for about 1000 times each month.
At first glance that might sound like a waste of time to bother trying to rank for right?
Yes and No. Whether a keyword or phrase is worth ranking for depends entirely upon your reasons and goals. For example...
- If you're doing offline marketing and want to be able to show potential clients how well you can rank a website, something like the numbers I've shared above will blow them away. They won't even think about, or ask whether or not lots of people are searching for the words and phrases - particularly if you're showing them something related to a huge and popular niche/industry/market.
- If you're trying to brand someone or something in a general manner (aka not their name or logo, but maybe a skill, service or profession), which was what I'd originally intended when I started this particular promotion.
- If you're trying to get your foot into the door of a particularly competitive niche, which is also what I was working on in this case. When a niche is super competitive and large, coming at it from left field is an excellent way to get your foot in the door. And from there the rest is fairly easy.
As for the questions which are bound to crop up: I should first tell you I don't often test and track things, and I was lazy and unorganized with this so I don't have hard specific numbers to give you.
- I did this primarily with article marketing. I believe 95%+ of it was from articles only, and probably around 50 articles in total. The bulk of these articles had my keyword phrase as the anchor link to my website in the bio box.
- Most of the articles were published at EZA, though some of them have been published at various other directories and sites too.
- I don't know offhand the cumulative total of how many times the articles were picked up by other website publishers. I tend to do well in this area but I don't keep track of the numbers.
- I also optimized the hell out of my site internally, using all the "old-fashioned" basics and rules: Titles, meta tags, internal links, the three click rule as much as possible, good category and tag structure, alt text on images, great navigation, etc.
My point is this: Getting good search engine rankings is actually pretty easy to do. Using just a fraction of the information you can find on this site and a few select others around the web - and putting just a fraction of effort into the process - will yield outstanding results.
Even though I was lazy and unorganized, I did this easily. And I do this all the time with other sites, phrases, and niches. So stop worrying about all the tiny little details like duplicate content, where to publish, how many words or articles to write, how much keyword density you should have, etc etc. Just stop trying to analyze every little detail. Get it done, get it out there, and adjust as you go. (Ready, Fire! Aim)
-Jason