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Hello. So I am making a network of sites that are geo-targeted sites. So one niche for example is "las vegas NICHE", so the idea is to be number one for the cities I am marketing for. I am not selling a product though. I get a commission of a user signs up and gets approved. So my question is this.

To me it sounds like being #1 on Google is the most important thing to me, however, I frequently see people talk about how it is better to write a few good articles and get syndicated to other sites. However, I was currently going to be writing keyword focused articles for the site that wouldn't be something I'd post around the internet but would help get to number #1 in Google. So if I have 10 articles on a site that are keyword focused but don't provide much "content"(things you'd share on someones blog for example), is that better than having one good content article on a site that I'd share and get syndicated? As I am trying to rank each site for a number of keywords per article.

Or would it be better to have 1 good article I would syndicate, and some other "fluff" articles that are more for SEO(keyword focused landing page articles guiding the user to do something). Thanks for any advice!

-Matt
#seo #syndication
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    Originally Posted by mathius23 View Post

    To me it sounds like being #1 on Google is the most important thing to me
    If you make the most money - in terms of time/effort-money spent - out of SEO traffic, then that's right.

    For me, it's the exact opposite: across all of my niches, over the last 4 years, Google traffic is the kind of traffic (compared to every other kind I've ever tried) which stays least time on my sites, views fewest pages, opts in least often and buys anything by far the least often. It may be that none of this is true for yourself at all.

    Originally Posted by mathius23 View Post

    I frequently see people talk about how it is better to write a few good articles and get syndicated to other sites.
    It depends a lot on the traffic demographics you want to attract. And possibly on the niche itself, too.

    Originally Posted by mathius23 View Post

    if I have 10 articles on a site that are keyword focused but don't provide much "content"(things you'd share on someones blog for example), is that better than having one good content article on a site that I'd share and get syndicated?
    For me, there's no comparison at all - one successfully syndicated article can produce for me hundreds of times as much income as the sort of keyword optimized articles I used to publish before I switched to content syndication. That may not be true in your business, though, and without knowing anything about your business and your skills and experience, nobody can predict this reliably.

    I can offer you one observation, though: the SEO side-benefits from getting your content syndicated to relevant sites in your niche should be far, far better than any you can get from using "keyword optimized articles" on your own site and/or in places to which you can submit without approval. The value of backlinks is determined largely by relevance, and only relevant sites will be interested in re-publishing your articles anyway. As explained in the last paragraph of this post: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post5035794

    None of that means that it'll necessarily work out well for you, however - but nobody can promise you that: it depends on a large variety of factors, including how easy it is to get content syndicated to such sites/ezines/magazines/newsletters, how many of them there are, how easily you can write for syndication, how you find syndication partners, how you approach them, whether SEO traffic is really worth much to you anyway (it isn't, to me), and other issues. Like any potentially hugely successful business model, of course it has a big learning curve.

    You can perhaps even "try both"? (Doing that has advantages, though admittedly it can have some big disadvantages as well, which aren't always immediately apparent).
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeTucker
      Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

      If you make the most money - in terms of time/effort-money spent - out of SEO traffic, then that's right.

      For me, it's the exact opposite: across all of my niches, over the last 4 years, Google traffic is the kind of traffic (compared to every other kind I've ever tried) which stays least time on my sites, views fewest pages, opts in least often and buys anything by far the least often.
      I have gone so far as to have the google "spiders"
      blocked from a couple of my sites, to avoid attracting
      people who are only going to waste my time.
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by MikeTucker View Post

        I have gone so far as to have the google "spiders" blocked from a couple of my sites, to avoid attracting people who are only going to waste my time.
        LOL, I also have a couple of sites (not really parts of my business, admittedly) which are "closed to search engines".
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      • Profile picture of the author myob
        Originally Posted by MikeTucker View Post

        I have gone so far as to have the google "spiders"
        blocked from a couple of my sites, to avoid attracting
        people who are only going to waste my time.
        Well, I have managed to go so far as to place my websites so far down in the SERPS that no one can ever find them without receiving a personal invitation. Virtually all time-wasters and deadbeats are avoided.
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        • Profile picture of the author kindsvater
          Originally Posted by myob View Post

          Well, I have managed to go so far as to place my websites so far down in the SERPS that no one can ever find them without receiving a personal invitation. Virtually all time-wasters and deadbeats are avoided.
          A quick search in Google found 920 search results actually displayed for "myob". Here is the site dead last in the rankings at #920:

          hxxp://myob-password-recovery.apponic.com

          I'd check it out for a personal invite, but being dead last has me scared it might be filled with viruses.

          Is there a site for dead last search rankings?

          .
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  • Profile picture of the author Danielle Lynn
    Lexy hit the nail on the head (as usual.)

    SEO traffic is often hit or miss, which accounts for higher bounce rates and such.

    Having a HUMAN-oriented (as opposed to robot-oriented) syndicated article acts as a presell tool. Not only does it attract your target market, it often positions you as the 'expert.'

    Since you've warmed them up, they're more likely to buy.

    But I'm a fan of "don't put all your eggs in one basket," so why not try multiple traffic methods and see what gets you the best conversions?
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    • Profile picture of the author mathius23
      Thank you so much for the amazing information!The market I am targeting is the type that would google this market(without researching anything, so no blog or info sites would be useful to them at all), pick the first or second link, and then apply, which is why I believe for me google is the most important aspect of this, and I had read Alexa's posts about syndication etc, however, it seemed that for my particular goals it wouldn't be all that useful. Unless I had one good article that I want to get syndicated, and then a bunch of simpler articles, or as Alexa said, a bit of both.

      Since we are on the topic of syndication, if I had an article that target 3 keywords, and that got syndicated in multiple places, does that affect my google ranking for that keyword at all? Or is it just all about the backlink benefits(I don't know exactly how backlinks affect your PR in relation to keywords etc). Thanks!

      -Matt
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      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        Originally Posted by mathius23 View Post

        if I had an article that target 3 keywords, and that got syndicated in multiple places, does that affect my google ranking for that keyword at all?
        I think I understand what you're asking, here. I'm not quite certain, so excuse me if I've misunderstood. You're asking if you have specific keywords mentioned in the article but not in the anchor-text (link), whether having that article widely syndicated to other relevant sites will help the ranking of the page on your own site on which the article was originally published and indexed, aren't you? In which case the answer's "no". (And that's probably not the page you want to rank, anyway?) But if there are keywords for which you want your site's landing-page to rank, you can use them as anchor-text in the backlink attached to the various copies of the article which are syndicated, and then the answer will be "yes", regarding your landing page (which is the one you most want to rank anyway?).

        You wouldn't, of course, link from one copy of the article to another. Just from the syndicated copies to your site's landing page, where you want the traffic to hit?

        Originally Posted by mathius23 View Post

        Or is it just all about the backlink benefits
        No, not at all: it's nearly all about the traffic benefits.

        Article marketing isn't intrinsically "an SEO-based method" (though it's also true that it can have far better SEO side-effects than many things which are attempts at SEO, ironically enough), but that isn't its primary purpose at all. The primary purpose of article marketing is to take your articles to where the targeted traffic (which you want to attract to your site) is already reading/looking/visiting.

        Originally Posted by mathius23 View Post

        I don't know exactly how backlinks affect your PR in relation to keywords etc.
        Best to forget "page ranks" altogether, really: they have very, very little to do with it, and are declining in significance all the time anyway. http://www.warriorforum.com/off-topi...ar-2013-a.html
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        • Profile picture of the author mathius23
          Thanks Alexa! That makes a lot more sense now. I guess I was just trying to understand then how to get my landing page to rank higher when syndicated articles would be useless(because of the market I am targeting, that is, the non-research apply as fast as they can market), and the only thing I could think of was to write "fluff" articles on the main site to try to rank higher in the SERP's.
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  • Profile picture of the author jgant
    If you're in the local space, search engines work. I've done very well promoting a few local companies with organic search. But my model may be a bit different than yours - I actually create sites under a client's logo (I retain ownership of the sites) and I track contact form inputs and telephone calls. I receive a percentage of sales and/or flat rate per sale (affiliate marketing if you will, but at the local level).

    I used to own a local offline business and did SEO for new business. It worked like gangbusters for traffic and conversion. Many new clients would come in saying "you're number 1 in Google so you must be good." Top search engine rankings in Google equates credibility.

    THAT SAID, I believe syndication on the right local sites could work as well. I'm only starting this for my local marketing (have no results to report). There aren't a ton of local sites to syndicate with as I'm in smaller towns, but it's worth trying because the local space is so lucrative. I suspect for Vegas there are tons of syndication opportunities.

    If you're targeting a particular industry (as I do) that offers additional syndication opportunities.

    Keep in mind that SEO can be unreliable. I take that risk. I've had some local sites go down the drain with Penguin. The upside is because I'm local, it's not all that hard to create a new site and rank it. It's a cost of doing business, but still well worth it as my little local biz marketing generates a great deal of revenue with not much work.

    For me, SEO for local marketing is excellent passive income for months or years and it converts in the local space so it's well worth it, even if I have to rebuild a few sites a year and rank them again.
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  • Profile picture of the author kindsvater
    Originally Posted by mathius23 View Post

    the idea is to be number one for the cities I am marketing for.
    Number one in what? That sounds like a search ranking, so SEO is your goal.

    For all the talk about SEO being unpredictable, so is "syndication" and expecting (1) for your articles to be used by anyone but spammers, (2) for your articles to stay on those websites and not be removed down the road, (3) for there to be website partners that want your articles and want their existing traffic sent off to your website.

    Since these are apparently affiliate / CPA sites, you're going to need to work really hard on the quality aspect for anyone to link to your sites.

    I might be wrong, but I suspect you will find others more receptive to including your articles on their websites if you have established authority and credibility, and having visible SEO rankings is a step in that direction.

    .
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  • Profile picture of the author Maxwell Stinson
    If you want to rank #1, then SEO is definitely what you need to do.

    Syndication helps, however, others have already said that you need to have quality articles. If you want people to link back, then quality is top priority.
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