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Is it Possible to Outrank Wikipedia and About? - Stuck at #4!

by patflynn
21 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hey everyone!

I can't believe this is my first post on the WF. My blog has been mentioned here several times, and I've promoted the heck out of this forum because I know it's the best and has the nicest and most experienced community around.

But now, I'm registered and I need your help.

I have a fast growing blog at smartpassiveincome.com, and it ranks #4 in Google (US, San Diego) for my target keyword, "passive income". I get about 50-80 hits a day from Google.

I know that every single spot means a dramatic increase in traffic on the front page, so I've been working hard to climb higher than #4, but it's been sitting there for a LONG time now - almost a year.

The other sites are sites like wikipedia (for the definition of passive income), and an about.com article on passive income.

Is it possible to rank higher than them? I'm sure it is, but I can't seem to get it done. Any ideas?

On a side note, you might notice that my PR is only 3. It's been stuck on this for a while too, and I don't know why. I don't think my site is structured perfectly for SEO (it's a custom wordpress theme built by designers, not by people with expert SEO knowledge). This is probably where my problem lies.

The blog has done me well, and I just surpassed 17,000 in Alexa, but I'm ready to take it to the next level.

Any help, advice, words of encouragement or constructive criticism would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks!
#outrank #stuck #wikipedia
  • Profile picture of the author Karan Goel
    Hey pal.

    You are just in my shoes. A few months ago, I was at #2, just below WikiPedia. I thought, "Bam, this is it. I can't move further.". But, I was wrong.

    I started building backlinks to it consistently. I tried to diversify the links too.

    Other than the backlinks, I drastically changed my site for On-Site optimization:

    - Had less links below the first H1 tag (Your nav under logo)
    - Place less content on homepage (You have a lot of it)
    - Try and add the main KW in title of each post
    - Try and add KW in the first paragraph of every post.
    - Have the least amount of outgoing links from homepage
    - Linkback to only reputable sources
    - No videos on homepage (Makes page slow)
    - Make all external links No-Follow ("Stay Connected with Pat")

    That's a lot. Right. But that's what worked for me, and my clients.

    Also, the PR of your site, or Wikipedia doesn't matter a lot. And so does the Alexa rank.

    Just make sure you do your backlinking homework properly, effectively, efficiently and consistently.

    All the best.
    Karan

    EDIT: 1 last tip: Since it's a blog that you run, your goal should be to rank your maximum number of pages for maximum number of keywords.
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    • Profile picture of the author patflynn
      Thanks for the tips, Karan.

      I see what you mean by On-Site SEO. My only issue is that for things like placing the keywords in all of my blog post titles, as well as in the first paragraph of each post, it limits my creativity for compelling and interesting headlines, which are important to get people to actually read my posts.

      My number one goal isn't SEO, as you can probably tell. It's to build a brand and a community behind what I teach. I think if I did some of the thins you mentioned, it would limit my ability to achieve this goal.

      So now the question is, is it possible to do both? To have a fully SEOptimized page that also has the flexibility to show the kinds of things I show on my blog already. I'm guessing not really, and some changes will obviously have to be made in order to beat out wikipedia and about.com.

      Again, thank you for your reply!
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      • Profile picture of the author Karan Goel
        Originally Posted by patflynn View Post

        Thanks for the tips, Karan.

        I see what you mean by On-Site SEO. My only issue is that for things like placing the keywords in all of my blog post titles, as well as in the first paragraph of each post, it limits my creativity for compelling and interesting headlines, which are important to get people to actually read my posts.

        My number one goal isn't SEO, as you can probably tell. It's to build a brand and a community behind what I teach. I think if I did some of the thins you mentioned, it would limit my ability to achieve this goal.

        So now the question is, is it possible to do both? To have a fully SEOptimized page that also has the flexibility to show the kinds of things I show on my blog already. I'm guessing not really, and some changes will obviously have to be made in order to beat out wikipedia and about.com.

        Again, thank you for your reply!
        Well. I think we're sort of same. My site, GeekZu, ain't just a blog. I want to make that an authority site. And for that, I've understood that I don't need to concentrate just 1 KW that send me organic traffic to just 1 page of my site. Rather, I build link for all (I mean ALL) posts of my blog, for certain good certain KW's. That is not an over-night method to add reputation and traffic to your site, but in the long run, it's the best method.

        And yes, that's possible. But for that, you need to send some link juice for some KW's to your internal posts also.

        Finally, I would like to say that your goal shouldn't be to outrank Wikipedia, but create a 'Wikipedia' that automatically outranks the former.

        Karan
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        • Profile picture of the author patflynn
          Originally Posted by Karan Goel View Post


          Finally, I would like to say that your goal shouldn't be to outrank Wikipedia, but create a 'Wikipedia' that automatically outranks the former.

          Karan
          I love that quote. Thanks for that, and once again for all of your suggestions.
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  • Profile picture of the author D Baker
    Hi Pat.

    I love your blog and it is a big surprise that this is your first post here.

    Regarding your problem, I can understand what you say about not being able to include your keyword phrase inside every title and post.

    From what I understand, your blog is already making you money, so you may want to consider paying for some expert advice regarding on page SEO.

    I don't think there is anyone better than Joost De Valk who runs Yoast.com to do that for you.

    He now offers a site analysis on his site: Site Analysis by Joost - Yoast - Tweaking Websites

    You can also check a review he wrote about a specific site he recently analyzed - Site Analysis Case: Ronen Bekerman - Yoast - Tweaking Websites

    Just to be clear, I don't know Yoast personally (too bad...) and I am not getting anything from recommending his services.

    You can and should also use Google's related searches and Wonder wheel in order to find related keywords to write posts about in your blog.

    Besides your on page SEO which carries some weight, I think that Off Page SEO is something you will need to focus on and getting anchor text links (Passive Income being your anchor text) from high PR Pages. These type of links will also help you raise your blog Page Rank.

    You can start by changing your signature to only Passive Income as the anchor text...
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    • Profile picture of the author patflynn
      Originally Posted by D Baker View Post

      Hi Pat.

      I love your blog and it is a big surprise that this is your first post here.

      Regarding your problem, I can understand what you say about not being able to include your keyword phrase inside every title and post.

      From what I understand, your blog is already making you money, so you may want to consider paying for some expert advice regarding on page SEO.

      I don't think there is anyone better than Joost De Valk who runs Yoast.com to do that for you.

      He now offers a site analysis on his site: Site Analysis by Joost - Yoast - Tweaking Websites

      You can also check a review he wrote about a specific site he recently analyzed - Site Analysis Case: Ronen Bekerman - Yoast - Tweaking Websites

      Just to be clear, I don't know Yoast personally (too bad...) and I am not getting anything from recommending his services.

      You can and should also use Google's related searches and Wonder wheel in order to find related keywords to write posts about in your blog.

      Besides your on page SEO which carries some weight, I think that Off Page SEO is something you will need to focus on and getting anchor text links (Passive Income being your anchor text) from high PR Pages. These type of links will also help you raise your blog Page Rank.

      You can start by changing your signature to only Passive Income as the anchor text...
      Thanks D Baker. I appreciate the insight and recommendation.

      I know of Joost pretty well, and use a couple of his plugins (i.e. robots meta) on my blog. I didn't know he did consultations, and I'm definitely interested. I will contact him per your recommendation.

      I am ranking fairly high for some of the related keywords as well, but I'll continue to keep at it and work on getting those high quality backlinks.

      Thanks again - I appreciate it!
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  • Profile picture of the author D Baker
    No problem... Glad to be of assistance.

    I see you already changed your signature...

    If it is any comfort to you, if you select results from the past year for Passive Income, you are number one...

    Since I assume you can afford link building services, than you should check out this great blog:

    http://linkvanareviews.com/effective...lding-services

    You can find there a list of the best link building services. The owner of that blog runs tests using every service and I agree with his conclusions. You may find something you can use for your quest to number one.
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  • Profile picture of the author InternetMarketingIQ
    Of course it is... otherwise they would always rank #1
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    • Profile picture of the author Marhelper
      Originally Posted by InternetMarketingIQ View Post

      Of course it is... otherwise they would always rank #1
      Good point. Yes, it is possible as I have done it more than once.
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  • Profile picture of the author thehobbster
    Pat, I read your blog weekly! I surely figured you were a member here already. Fun stuff.

    Your goal is to rate your main home page for your phrase. So I'd get some on-page SEO going on on just the front page.

    Here are some things I'd do, and the reasons why:

    You already have the alt tag of your header image including your phrase. That's awesome. But that leads me to notice that you don't have your phrase in any header tags (h1, h2) on your front page. I'd figure out how to make that happen. You could make room for this to happen maybe by making more changes listed below:

    You have your new posts show up on the front page, which is good as it keeps the page fresh which is good for ranking. I'd keep that, but show much less of your posts. Heck, I'd go as far as to only show the titles even. This will keep you from including more random wordings and reducing the keyword density of your phrase. I'd consider making the front page mainly static.

    With the front page mainly static, you can write a nice intro and mission statement and all that, and really work to sculpt a front page that includes your search phrase at a certain density. I wouldn't go beyond 2-3% though. This will also allow you to use the header tags, which will help target your phrase.

    Any other images you end up adding to the home page should include "passive income" in the alt tag.

    Other small, possibly insignificant at your level, things to do would bold, italicize, and underline your phrase a few times on your main page in instances where they aren't in header tags.

    For off-page SEO, I'd think about some article marketing, where you could shoot two links per article back to your main site. You probably have tons of articles already written that you could dump into the main article directories, and even use a bot to shoot out to 100 others or more. They would get syndicated and gather more links.
    You could also do the same process with social bookmarking. Automate that, and also do the same with your RSS feed to some RSS databases. Heck, you could even get into some video marketing and automate the submission of those.

    You could get a zillion of links like that. But be careful with automation. Don't get spammy. I would not automate anything like blog comments or forum posts.

    I'd do the backlinking process slowly as you could upset your rankings for a while if you shoot too many in at once. It can make you do the "google dance" and take a while to settle back in... but maybe it settles back in at slot 3? DUN DUN DUNNNN!!!

    Thank you for your blog. I read it regularly.
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  • Profile picture of the author D Baker
    I'd do the backlinking process slowly as you could upset your rankings for a while if you shoot too many in at once. It can make you do the "google dance" and take a while to settle back in... but maybe it settles back in at slot 3? DUN DUN DUNNNN!!!
    I don't think the Google dance is relevant for such an established blog. His blog is not new so I don't think he needs to worry about building links too fast. This is a big myth within the internet marketing community and I personally don't think it is true.

    Google can't penalize you for building links because if they do, than anyone can destroy the rankings of the competition. It doesn't make sense for Google to do that.
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    • Profile picture of the author Tom Goodwin
      Originally Posted by D Baker View Post

      I don't think the Google dance is relevant for such an established blog. His blog is not new so I don't think he needs to worry about building links too fast. This is a big myth within the internet marketing community and I personally don't think it is true.

      Google can't penalize you for building links because if they do, than anyone can destroy the rankings of the competition. It doesn't make sense for Google to do that.
      +1 on both points

      There is no doubt that a site can sometimes bounce around quite a bit with some heavy backlinking, but I just don't find that ever happens with my more established sites. We aren't even talking about a super PR domains here, i'm talking like PR3 1 year old domains of mine.
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      • Profile picture of the author D Baker
        Originally Posted by Tom Goodwin View Post

        +1 on both points

        There is no doubt that a site can sometimes bounce around quite a bit with some heavy backlinking, but I just don't find that ever happens with my more established sites. We aren't even talking about a super PR domains here, i'm talking like PR3 1 year old domains of mine.
        Thanks.

        There are so many myths going on in the internet marketing and link building world that it is simply amazing.
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    • Profile picture of the author thehobbster
      Originally Posted by D Baker View Post

      I don't think the Google dance is relevant for such an established blog. His blog is not new so I don't think he needs to worry about building links too fast. This is a big myth within the internet marketing community and I personally don't think it is true.

      Google can't penalize you for building links because if they do, than anyone can destroy the rankings of the competition. It doesn't make sense for Google to do that.
      There are tools that can blast upwards to 25,000 backlinks in a day. Combine them, run more than one iteration, and you can blast 75,000 backlinks in a day. That will make a site dance. But you're also talking about getting slapped at that point too.

      But no, the google dance is not a myth, even for established sites. You just have to play with bigger numbers.
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      • Profile picture of the author D Baker
        Originally Posted by thehobbster View Post

        There are tools that can blast upwards to 25,000 backlinks in a day. Combine them, run more than one iteration, and you can blast 75,000 backlinks in a day. That will make a site dance. But you're also talking about getting slapped at that point too.

        But no, the google dance is not a myth, even for established sites. You just have to play with bigger numbers.
        If what you are saying is true, than anyone can simply blast the competition with thousands of links and get them to dance and lose their rankings. I don't buy that. I don't think Google can allow this. What will happen is people will stop building links to their sites and they will start blasting the competition away... It would be much easier.

        The Google dance is real but for new sites. Not for established blogs such as Smart Passive Income that already has thousands of links.

        I didn't say the Google Dance is a myth, I said that building thousands of links to an established site in a short period of time will get your site de indexed or drop in rankings is a myth.
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        • Profile picture of the author patflynn
          D Baker - I went with your recommendation and am getting a ocnsult from Yoast. I love his stuff, use his plugins already, and am confident he'll be able to tell me what to do, and how to do it step by step.

          I appreciate it. If you want, I'd be happy to keep you all updated on what he says, in you're interested.

          Cheers, and thanks everyone for your responses.
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          • Profile picture of the author D Baker
            Originally Posted by patflynn View Post

            D Baker - I went with your recommendation and am getting a ocnsult from Yoast. I love his stuff, use his plugins already, and am confident he'll be able to tell me what to do, and how to do it step by step.

            I appreciate it. If you want, I'd be happy to keep you all updated on what he says, in you're interested.

            Cheers, and thanks everyone for your responses.
            Great.

            Sure thing. I would love to read the recommendation he gave you. You should try asking him to make a review post about the analysis of your site, the same as he did to Ronen Bekerman – 3D Architectural Visualization Rendering Blog.

            This could get your a nice high PR backlink
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      • Profile picture of the author Tom Goodwin
        Originally Posted by thehobbster View Post

        There are tools that can blast upwards to 25,000 backlinks in a day. Combine them, run more than one iteration, and you can blast 75,000 backlinks in a day. That will make a site dance. But you're also talking about getting slapped at that point too.
        Umm...how many times do we have to explain on this forum why this simply cannot be true.
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        • Profile picture of the author D Baker
          Originally Posted by Tom Goodwin View Post

          Umm...how many times do we have to explain on this forum why this simply cannot be true.
          I don't think you will ever be able to change what most people think unless you will make a case study proving this to be wrong... Could be a good idea, no?
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  • Profile picture of the author Google.me
    yes you can. But eventually they will out rank you depending on natural backlinks and time.
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