Advice from "SEO King", BS or not?!

Thanks for your response! I'm appreciative!

I thought dude was off cue!

I agree this won't cause a panda penalty it's just not great for marketing that will lead to sales of the hats.

OP I am not saying you shouldn't blog about things that interests you or your audience, I would just recommend moving either the current blog or the hat store to a separate blog/site for marketing purposes that could help lead to better sales for your hats possibly. The topics together just aren't great for keyword optimising to get sales to your hats really is the thing.

Anyways just my two cents worth

I almost spit my coffee up....laugh of the day.

Who sells more hats than anyone online, in many flavors? I could make a wild
guess that they also sell more books, DVDs, shoes, computers,....too bad they
did not stick to one thing. If only they had listened to The King.

Ditto wikipedia. I know they can't rank by having millions of pages on millions
of things.

Besides, everything is related within 6 degrees or less of separation., and
can be if needed. I do it all the time. You will never run out of new ideas.


Paul

Simply put I think the best practice is to stay within your niche on your site. Especially if you have ecommerce integrated on the site/blog. I say this not only from a SEO standpoint but also a marketing/sale conversion stand point.

For example if my site/blog has an ecommerce store for selling my shoe brand it's not all that helpful to my seo or marketing if I talk about non shoe related topics because when those articles get indexed by search engines people will follow the link with based off that topic so they most likely aren't going to be targeted well for your shoe sales.

I hope this helps clarify some of the questions regarding this.

oh jeeze... forget what the king of seo stated.. that was crap. But reading the responses here are right in the same category.

There is NOTHING wrong with drawing traffic within a vertical of your product. actually its your basic smart thing to do. ESPECIALLY when your niche is fashion related.

The question I would have is: how do you think it is working for you? Are you seeing a decent level of conversion using this method? My guess would be yes.

I personally have some affiliate fashion sites. Tunics, and Skinny Jeans etc. and do very well by pulling the same type of vertical target traffic you do. Don't get me wrong, I do pull traffic that is directly related by topic, but do spend a good amount of time and effort pulling a broader scope of traffic to my sites.

Keep in mind guys, that when dealing with a more dominate female demographic, the rules do change a bit. Instead of stomping on what Deak is doing.. you might want to actually take notes.

I don't agree with the info the OP got about SEO - but don't agree with everything posted here, either.

That's the thing about SEO - it can be interpreted more than one way. It's more an art than a science??? A good explanation (I think it's good, anyway) of Panda is in the link below. I like it because it's common sense. It explains a filter used to sort out "thin content" sites.

5 ways to get hit by a Panda algorithm penalty - Searchmetrics Searchmetrics SEO Blog

Question: Are you selling hats? Do you get sales coming from your blog?

There are some topics where you have to branch out and this may be one of them. If your hats are "theatrical" or "costumey" it might make sense to include blogging about music and entertainment.

But - is it possible to feature music or entertainment where someone is
WEARING one of your hats? Can you blog about other topics and tie it in with your products - mentioning the hat someone is wearing and linking to a similar hat YOU are selling?

I've always thought as long as you can relate back to your specific topic or product in a post or article - you haven't strayed too far in another direction. Let's face it - there's only so many articles you can write about "hats".... and hold a reader's interest.

P.S. - I should add I do not consider myself an SEO expert. I've always focused on getting the results I want from my sites and work and my experience is the SEO that works best usually make a lot of sense. When people get too technical about it - my eyes glaze over.

I get what you are saying and in no way disagree... but flip that for a moment... you are on a fashion / lifestyles type page, and get on the e-mail list and get hit with an offer to buy a hat... its not out of place.

This sounds almost funny.. what comes first the blog or the e-commerce site?

Because you are selling bedazzled hats.. does that mean your blog has to be about bedazzled hats? or can you have a blog about fashion in general and throw in the fact you sell bedazzled hats?

If the point is to sell bedazzled hats... if you look at some of the keyword options.. the over all market is not that strong. "bedazzled hats" "rhinestone hats" "gemstone hats" "glam hats" "studded hats" it is either weak in general... or an untapped niche.. ( I want to hope its weak - LOL )

She / they can without question throw up some content that is "Product" specific on the blog they have and see how it pans out.... but if they went targeted off the bat.. well then as you have stated you have a hat blog and throw fashion at me I would leave. again flip that and have a fashion blog, and throw in a piece about fashion hats, and I think everyone is happy.