EzSEO Newsletter # 280
April 30, 2010 by Andy
In this issue:
1. Rank Checking – Be sure of your rankings!
2. SEO Link Vine
3. Buying Lipstick?
Hi Again
I haven’t sent a newsletter for awhile because the shoulder injury that I’ve had for the last couple of months is still causing me a lot of pain. I have got about 70% movement and strength back in my hand so I can type and now hold a pen, but any work with my hand quickly tires my arm and affects my shoulder. I am therefore still using Dragon NaturallySpeaking for writing articles for my sites, this newsletter, support etc
If you have any comments on this newsletter please post them as a comment at the end of the newsletter rather than sending me an e-mail or using my support desk. It’s great if I can answer your question but hopefully provide a useful answer to anyone that reads this newsletter.
Let’s get on.
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1. Rank Checking – Be sure of your rankings!
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I have been on a few forums recently where people seem to be confused over the apparently simple procedure of checking where your page ranks in Google.? The issue usually crops up in one of two ways:
Way #1:
“When I check for my page in Google, its ranking at #1, but I am not getting any traffic”.
or
Way #2:
“When I check where my page ranks in Google, I am seeing my page at #1, but on my wife’s computer I am no-where to be seen”.
If either of those scenarios sounds familiar, or you just check your rankings a lot, you really need to watch this video.? It explains why you can see your site at #1 when no-one else in the world will.
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2. SEO Link Vine
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Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last few weeks, you will have heard of a new Brad Callan service called SEO Link Vine.
Now I’ve tried quite a few of these automated link services and have been very unimpressed with most of them.? One of the biggest problems I have is that many of the services have their own set of blogs to which your posts are added. It wouldn’t take much for Google to come up with lists of blogs in these networks and make them ineffective.
Services like Linkvana have a large following of people who want to build links effortlessly and don’t mind paying the $147 per month to do it.? However, some of the experts that I respect have told me that they didn’t get good results with Linkvana anyway, so I passed on that one.
Other services for automated links persuade you to part with your membership fee by telling you that their domains are at least? PR 2, but up to PR6 or 7.? The problem with these services is that your link will not be on the PR 2,3,4,5,6 or even PR1 page.? Your link will be buried deep within the site and will probably end up on an unranked page. Don’t be fooled when these companies tell you it’s the PR of the domain that is important, it’s not, it’s the PR of the page that your link is on it is important.
Okay so fast forward to SEO link Vine.? This one is a little different in that you submit your articles to the system and then your articles are offered to other members of SEO Link Vine who are looking for articles in that category. Therefore there are two parts to SEO Link Vine.
Part one gives you the chance to find content for your website.
You simply submit your sites that you want to include in the system and the category of articles you’re interested in for that site, and when articles become available, they are offered to you. You simply click the button to accept or reject the article and the system does the rest and posts the content to your site.? Below you can see the interface with 1 new article awaiting my approval or rejection.
This is great in theory, but most of the content I have been offered has been very poor with a lot of grammatical errors probably due to bad use of spinning tools.
You see, SEO Link Vine has a built-in spinner so that your content can be spun to multiple versions so everyone who posts your article will be posting a different variation. However many people are trying to do this quickly and the spun results are very poor. On the plus side if you own the Best Spinner (the name fits the product IMO, as it is excellent), you can plug your spun article directly into the system without having to worry about spinning it further.
The second part of SEO Link Vine is where you submit your articles to the system so that they can be offered to the Webmasters as content for their sites.? Below you can see three articles I submitted to the system yesterday, though they are still waiting to my picked up by webmasters.
I have only started using the system and so can’t give you a full review, but so far it looks to be promising. What I particularly like is the fact that your content will be put onto real sites owned by real people and not owned by the system itself (because it’s very easy for Google to find the blogs in these systems or blog networks setup by these auto-linking services).
With SEO Link Vine I can see articles being posted on real sites that people actually care about and not just on sites that are put there simply to accept spammy content.
After using the system for a few weeks I hope to have a full review for you, but I thought I’d mention it now because it’s quite likely that the price will go up.
If you’re interested to read the sales page here:
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3. Buying Lipstick?
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On the Web Content Studio forum there was a question from one user about the best way to find theme words for her article. She was struggling to come up with enough theme words to truly theme a 300 to 500 word article.? Typically for an article that size I would recommend you have a list of 30+ theme words.? The lady in question had managed to come up with the following list using the root phrase “buying lipstick” in the Keyword spider:
colour
lip
lips
lipstick
makeup
red
buying
pink
colours
shades
matte
gloss
.. and these phrases:
how to apply
makeup tips
choose the right lipstick
choose a lipstick color
find the perfect lipstick
choose the right shade
best lipstick color
lipstick color
choosing a lipstick
how to buy lipstick
That’s just 12 theme words and two of those are really duplicate words in themeing terms – lip & lips.? The phrases are nice to have so you can include them in the article, but when writing a themed article, theme words are the most important part (since the theme words make up the phrases).
The reason the lady came up just 12 was really because she was being a little bit too picky in choosing the words from the database brought back by the spider.? What I want to do is show you how I would go about finding theme words for this article. The best way to show you is by video so that’s what I’ve done.? In the video, you’ll see how I go about choosing theme words for this article, then narrowing down my list from 79 words down to 39.
Here is the final list of theme words I came up with:
lips, lipstick, color, red, tone, skin, tan, care, colors, wear, gloss, light, lipsticks, makeup, tones, pink, cosmetic, guide, rate, used, bag, personal, apply, base, dark, dry, face, fan, natural, beauty, how, choose, right, buy, test, star, lip, buying, liner
.. and theme phrases:
color of your lips, how to apply lipstick, choose the right lipstick, lipstick without a mirror, how to buy lipstick, l’oreal colour riche, makeup & accessories, how to apply, max factor lipfinity, test your lipstick, covergirl queen collection, colour riche star, plus moisture care, cool skin tones, covergirl continuous color, wet ‘n’ wild, natural lip color, buying lipstick, skin tones, l’oreal colour, colour riche, max factor, lip color, personal care, apply lipstick, boots no7, natural light, lip liner, factor lipfinity, covergirl outlast, lipstick color, lip gloss, lip makeup, lip pencil, lush lips, moisture care, lasting lipstick, cool skin, lip colors
Here is how I did it:
Well, that’s it for this issue.? If you want to ask a question or have a comment about anything in this newsletter, please leave a comment at the end of this newsletter.
Have a great week!
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Andy:
Do you think that SEO Link Vine is good enough to be the only link building strategy required or what would you recommend as the overall strategy.
Thanks,
Jim
Hi Jim
No I don’t. I think you need a range of sources for links, including article directories, blog comments, posts on other sites (as per Link Vine), quality directories, Web 2.0 property links, etc.
### Don?t be fooled when these companies tell you it?s the PR of the domain that is important, it?s not, it?s the PR of the page that your link is on that’s important.###
That makes perfect sense Andy and what any of us reading this would do to have a plethora of unique anchor text links on pages with high PR.
But would i be right to assume that a link on an authority site’s inside page would still be of some value even if the page itself was PR0 or PR Unranked (though still indexed).
I know Google looks at individual pages when it ranks their link popularity, but does the algorithm not also give the overall site some authority, meaning a link on the site (anywhere), is still a link worth having.
For example; let’s say i have a link on the home page of a 4 month old site with a PR1.
I also have a link on a PR unranked (yet indexed inside page)of let’s say http://www.bbc.co.uk It’s 13 year old site, has web credibility, overall site authority, huge link popularity domain-wide, and loved by all the SE’s.
Would my link on the newly built 4 month old PR1 page really be given more weight than a link on an unranked yet indexed inside page belonging to the BBC domain? A domain i hasten to add whose home page enjoys a Google PR9 and many 1000′s of inside pages with a generous Page Rank too.
I don’t know, that’s why i’m asking and would like to hear your views on this or anyone else who’d like to contribute.
Thanks
Andii
Andii
Its a good question and I can only give you an answer that makes sense to me as I dont have proof other than having seen the effects of 100+ links from these types of sites having very little impact on my rankings.
Two things to bear in mind:
1. Pages are ranked in Google, not sites.
2. Page Rank is Google’s measure of a page importance.
WIth those 2 things in mind, why should a page, even on an “authority” site carry more weight just because it is on an authority site? Think of it this way. The way Page Rank is supposed to work is that important pages get linked to more often. On an authority site, the important pages on the authority site will have more inbound links and a higher PR, correct?
Unimportant pages on an authority site will have few links and a poor PR. If the authority site itself is not linking to those pages, it is telling Google these pages are not important, so why should Google ignore the authority site’s “advice” and give the page more importance?
Personally, I would rather have a link on a PR 1 page than a PR 0 page even if the PR0 page was on an authority site. Its a PR 0 because the authority site doesn’t value the page.
Again, this is my opinion based on my own observations and common sense. Anyone who disagrees or has proof otherwise is free to jump into this discussion.
Thanks for the response Andy.
Yes, what you say does make sense, but i can also see some logic in what i write too. I guess the thing is we can only know so much by testing, but then again some results can vary from person to person for similar tests on various things.
And there are always many unknown variables too, especially with off-page optimisation which includes linking. So apart from the obvious dos and do-nots, we can often only guess.
And even when we think we’ve cracked it (whatever ‘it’ is or was), then the algorithms are updated and past testing becomes outdated, hence the continuous stream of new products to assist with this and that as the web and its sites, blogs, and forums evolve.
Anyway, thanks once again for your response, it is appreciated and you do put a lot of thought and testing into your newsletter content. We the readers do get some great value from what you write
Btw, hope the shoulder gets well soon
Andii
Hi Andy, thank you for the very helpful video on the Google search results! Do you have an idea of how this may affect traffic to sites that may be listed in Google, but which may not be as easily seen if searchers are getting customized results that push their sites down in ranking?
My newest site has gained some pagerank recently but suddenly lost some of its top 20 rankings in Google (it was just beginning to show in those results for some keywords, and then dropped suddenly ). I don’t know if it is related to what you shared about the personalized searches, or for some other reason. I’ve been trying to understand if there is anything new or different that I need to be doing. Thanks for your newsletter!
I’m sorry, but I dont have any data on this. I would not think the impact would be significant though. In fact, the personalisation thing only seemed to kick in the day after I was clicking on the particular site, so for my first search session I saw no personlization.
I was aware of the personalized search results issue, but unable to figure out how to effectively compensate for it. Thanks to you and to Yoast for such an easy fix.
As usual, I heard it here first … many self-styled gurus still yak on about ranking without ever giving the personalized search problem a mention … rather than the long view, they seem focused on the hood ornament.
How many licenses do you get with Web Content Studio?
-or-
Maybe a better question, I have an outside writer that I would like to use for this, but what if that writer decides to quit, what would happen to the license?
You get one license. If you buy the license for your writer, put the software in YOUR name, however YOU cannot use it. However, if your writer quits, contact me and I will change the password for you locking the writer out.
Be aware that if you and your writer both use the software on a single license, the software will lock you both out automatically.
Good deal and very fair. I dont keep buying your products for nothing:)
I think I might use it first and write x number of articles to get familiar with it, and then contact you when I am ready to switch it out to my writer.
How does this affect Web Content Studio Lite. Can we let outsourced writers use this ? If not, What is the actual use of the Lite version.
Joe
No, it is for personal use only.
Hi Andy,
You said to get links from article directories, blog comments, posts on other sites, quality directories, Web 2.0 property links, etc.
At what rate do you add links to a page? Does the rate change over time as you build more links? Have you personally seen any evidence that the rate at which you add new links can have a negative bearing on your rankings? If so, how many are too many?
Best regards,
Martin
On any new site I always go slowly to begin with. Once you have built up a good number of backlinks, you can speed up with it. HOwever, links should look natural, so they should be spread around different types of sites as mentioned. Does too quickly cause problems? From what I have seen, yes, rankings can drop to no-where, but this is usually temporary when it has happened to me. I simple stop getting links, and wait for it to recover, then proceed more slowly.
Hi Andy,
I understand that we want to add backlinks slowly at first. What a new person like myself would like to know is exactly how many links per day is considered moving “slowly”. Is that 5, 10, 15, 25, 50 backlinks added per day.
I know that you probably can’t say exactly, as every situation is unique, but in your experience, what’s a safe range to aim for?
Thanks for your insight.
Steve
Personally I would only probably get one link in the first month, then 4 -5 in month 2, and build up slowly. Think what would look natural, and go that way. You are building a long term business!
Hello Andy,
I am working on hair loss niche. I got 45 theme words and around 60 theme phrases. I got below result. What it exactly means?
Theme Score (max 100%): 100%
Quality Theme Score (max 100%): 39%
See the tutorial on understanding theme reports:
http://webcontentstudio.com/tutorials/tutorial-2-using-and-interpreting-the-theme-reports/
Anybody has any idea on 1waylinks and 3 waylinks servers by John?
Tried them both. Links are very poor quality IMO.
Andy,
You teach us about delivering high quality content – content is king if you want to create loyal customers and have sites that are search engine friendly. You are an example of what you teach. Your business is a blessing and inspiration to many people.
I’m praying you have a full recovery and that pain no longer hinders you from doing whatever you want to do.
Reference is made to the Finding Theme Words for an Article video.
1. Once I have deleted my theme words does this deletion also work simultaneously on theme phrases?
2. Once I have TW’s and TP’s listed in the Editor how do I observe the frequency they appear on the top ten web pages without going back to the Keyword Report under the Keywords Tab in Web Content Studio?
I haven’t used the tool on an article yet. However, Web Content Studio appears to be getting more powerful. Congrats on your hard work.
Carlos
1. Deletion only works on theme words. THeme words are the important piece of the jigsaw when themeing, not the theme phrases since the phrases are made up of the theme words. Try to work in the phrases, but concentrate on the words.
2. You can only see this by running the report.
Thanks for the info on the ‘personalised google searches’. I’ve been bragging to my friends recently that my backlinking system is excellent because I’m No1 in Google for terms I haven’t even optimised as keywords.
I checked with Market Samurai and decided that MS must be outdated because it didn’t show my site in the Top 10 and, to be honest, I stopped using it. I’ll go back to it now I know I’ve been duped (but I don’t think I’ll tell my friends!)
Thanks again
Joe