EzSEO Newsletter # 235

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Hi Again

This week I am starting a series of videos that will show you the basics of SEO.  They’ll cover the main areas you need to get right, and use one of my sites to highlight my points.  I also wanted to comment on the LSI videos that have been released in the last week (I am sure you have seen them), and give you my opinion.

In this issue:

1. HTML to Wordpress Conversion – Rankings Lost?

2. Raging LSI Wars

3. A Quick Guide to SEO

 

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1. HTML to Wordpress Conversion – Rankings Lost?
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This last week has seen the release of my "HTML to Wordpress" Conversion course.

The course shows how I converted a 200 pages site on Contact Lenses from an old under-performing Dreamweaver site into a Wordpress site that has potential.  The main question I have been asked since the release is this:

"Have your search engine rankings dropped because of the conversion?"

I have created a short video to show you the answer to that, but first, let me repeat some of the results I posted here in the last newsletter.

Prior to the conversion, here are the stats for the site.

November 2008:
20 visitors a day
Combined Adsense + affiliate sales (1 sale) = $ 38.87

December 2008:
19 visitors a day
Combined Adsense + affiliate sales (1 sale) = $ 34.65

SITE CONVERSION BEGAN MID JANUARY

January 2009:
25 visitors a day
Combined Adsense + affiliate sales (3 sales) = $ 46.30

February 2009:
34 visitors a day
Combined Adsense + affiliate sales (3 sales) = $ 56.28

March 2009:
41 visitors a day
Combined Adsense + affiliate sales (7 sales) = $ 85.41

Now, that site is not going to make me rich as it stands, but then the content is still pretty much the same as it was before.  All I have done is convert the site over to a Wordpress site, and tighten up a little on the very poor content (deleting some content, merging others into a single article, re-categorising content etc).  The data above is there to show you that this site has actually improved to the point of having potential for further development.  The data shows that the conversion itself actually improved the way my site performed for me.

OK, onto the question.  What about my rankings?

Well, rather than describe here what has happened to those rankings, I thought I would create a short video.  You can watch it here (just scroll down a little):

http://improdigy.com/html-to-wordpress-conversion-course/

 

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2. Raging LSI Wars
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Over the last few days I have received a number of support questions relating to some videos that have just been released.  In the first video, Leslie Rohde states that Google does not use LSI in its ranking algorithm, and says he can prove it. 

The proof is simply a search for a word in singular and plural.  Leslie suggests that if Google used LSI, the results would be identical in terms of search results and number of results returned, and they are not.  I would argue that this is only true if LSI was the only ranking factor – something I don’t think anyone believes, however, for me, there is a big problem with the first video, and that pretty much means that whatever else Leslie says, it’s simply not relevant.

You see, IMO, Leslie seems to be trying to convince people that something they believe to be true, isn’t, when in fact its not really what they believed in the first place. 

You see, when Leslie mentions LSI, its not the same thing that we are talking about when we mention LSI.  To Leslie, LSI is the mathematical equation laid out in a research paper. 

Here is the Wikipedia page for those who are interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latent_semantic_analysis

To us, LSI is how well themed a page is with synonyms and related phrases.

To webmasters who don’t understand the real LSI equation (like me and a lot of others), we have adopted the term to describe something different.  Is that bad?  Well it happens all the time, e.g. the word Google was originally a name for a search engine, but common usage has given it another meaning as well – a verb to search…

Funnily enough I was thinking about this yesterday as I ate a "Doner Kebab" at a new cafe that opened up near us.  It was made of beef and bore very little in common with the Doner Kebabs I ate as a University student after drunken nights out.  For starters, Doner Kebabs I knew were always made of lamb and had lashings of chilli sauce – two elements missing from the one I ate yesterday.    So, my question is, was I eating a Donner Kebab at this cafe – that’s what they called it? 

According to Wikipedia, no:

"Döner kebab (Turkish: döner kebap or döner kebabi, literally "rotating roast", often abbreviated as döner) is a Turkish dish made of lamb meat cooked on a vertical spit and sliced off to order."

However, according to the cafe, and no doubt a growing number of Spanish people who eat there, yes. 

OK, I digress…..

If you have seen the first video, you no doubt have also seen the second.  This one seems to back up the my thoughts, as it talks about the inbound links to a page needing to backup the theme of the page.   Well the theme of the page is what most of us think we are referring to when we talk about LSI – that’s just how the term has evolved for most webmasters.

To everyone thinking of abandoning LSI, don’t.  You’ll notice that when I talk about LSI myself, I usually refer to it as themeing.  That’s for precisely the reasons above.  Themeing is not the same as LSI, though common usage of the word amongst webmasters has pretty much equated the two.

The truth is that theming does work, and I’ll tell you why (and show you proof in section 3 of the newsletter).

When someone writes an article on a topic they know about, they automatically use a set of words related to the topic.  The fact is that without those words, they would not be able to write a good essay. 

For example, who could possibly write an article on diabetes without using words like: pancreas, insulin, blood sugar, type 1, type 2, etc.

These words are ESSENTIAL to fully describe the condition.  These are what I call theme words, and many other people call LSI words.

If you are an expert in a topic, theme words just flow as you write about your topic (because they are part of your natural vocabulary).  However, for those of us who are not an expert in a topic, we need to know what "theme" words we should be using in the content.  By making sure we include those "theme" words in the correct context, we can be fairly sure that we are writing a good article, and one that Google will approve of.

To sum up, I wanted to quote a comment I saw on another blog which I totally agree with:

"Does Google use LSI according to Leslie’s definition? Nope, not a bit. Do they use LSI according to a webmaster definition? Yep, without a doubt. The only problem is, the webmaster definition is not true LSI".

If you would like to add your thoughts to this discussion, please add a comment at the end of this post.  You do not need to register to leave a comment.

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3. A Quick Guide to SEO
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I want to provide you with a crash course in SEO – something that you could use as the foundation of your SEO efforts. 

I felt the best way to do this was to use one of my sites as an example, and try to explain why pages rank where they do.   I am going to create a series of videos over the next few weeks, and the first one is ready for you today. 

The website you see in the video was the one that was built in my "Wordpress For Affiliate Sites" course (http://improdigy.com).

If you want to learn more about themeing, I have setup a resource page here:

http://ezseonews.com/themereports

If you are unconvinced by themeing, then please at least read the gestational diabetes report on that page. 

 

 

Well, that’s it for this issue.  If you want to read the recent issues of this newsletter, you can read them online at my
blog:

http://ezseonews.com/blog/index.php

For older newsletters, you will need to visit the old archives at:

http://ezseonews.com/archives

Have a great week!

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