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9:18 pm
October 28, 2011
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QuoteHey John:
I've got a one page site that I put up about 8 or 9 days ago. It targets some long tail keywords and has decent on-page SEO.
However, according to all the rank checker websites and software I've consulted, my new site isn't anywhere in the top 1000 rankings on Google. Does that make sense to you? Here's the site:
http://howtoplayguitarforbeginners.net
I know it's pretty new, and it's only one page right now, but I'm surprised to see that it doesn't rank at all. It's making me wonder whether there's something I'm not understanding about SEO, and I want to try to clear things up so that I'm putting forth any more work in the wrong direction.
If you had any comments on this, I'd appreciate it.
Thanks! ~ Mike
"Radio Nowhere? What the hell is that? We wanted him to be a lawyer" — My Mom
Okay, so she didn't like it. But you just might! Loud guitars, award-winning songwriting, and visits from the devil.
Check it out and pick up a free EP here..
12:11 am
June 7, 2011
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Hey Mike,
No, I wouldn't worry yet. 8 or 9 days isn't much. I have seen things index and rank within a couple days, or sometimes as long as a few months. More commonly a few weeks.
I can see that a site search site:http://howtoplayguitarforbeginners.net/ returns 6 pages. So you are definitely indexed.
What's interesting is that when you search the domain by itself in google "http://howtoplayguitarforbeginners.net/" You get 34,000 results. Looks like someone was out there pushing this site pretty hard at some point and likely got penalized and then gave it up. Just a guess. Technically that should not effect your new site if you bought the domain new. But it's possible that it could I suppose.
I'd keep at it and see where you are in a month.
What kind and how many backlinks have you been building? I'd absolutely add more content as soon as possible. As it stands it looks a little over optimized with just a single very targeted page of real content.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
12:12 am
June 7, 2011
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I meant to say, and if it doesn't pop up within a month, you can always contact Google with reconsideration request via "webmaster tools". It usually doesn't do much, but they will at least tell you if your site is being penalized or not. My guess is that you're fine and just need more time and to build many more links.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
12:16 am
October 28, 2011
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Thanks, John.
I'm actually spending this afternoon building backlinks, and was planning on starting by doing it myself. Accordingly, I've been creating profiles on your list of Web 2.0 properties and will be linking to my site from those.
I was going to do this first, before fleshing out the content on the site; does that seem like the best plan, should I be doing it the other way around, or does the order of those steps not really matter?
Also, was wondering whether I should go ahead and order some linking packages from Fiverr right now, or wait to see what effect my handmade links have?
"Radio Nowhere? What the hell is that? We wanted him to be a lawyer" — My Mom
Okay, so she didn't like it. But you just might! Loud guitars, award-winning songwriting, and visits from the devil.
Check it out and pick up a free EP here..
1:24 am
June 7, 2011
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I see, if you have not been building links then that is a big part of why you are not ranking. No links = no ranking, especially for a new site.
Couple important things before you go too far with this...
1. I'd watch the "Post Penguin SEO" training module again. I cover what I more or less recommend there. The strategy would be the same for IM. I would stay away from Fiverr unless its totally just a mini site that you are experimenting with. Penguin changed a lot of things in the SEO game. Best to be natural about it. In that video you will see more than just Web 2.0 properties suggested. You really want to vary things up as much as you can.
2. You definitely want to have more content on your site. It's not very natural for a 1 page site to suddenly be shared and recommended by hundreds of people. So yes, I would get at least 5 - 10 pages up of real content before you start building links. I'd then keep adding new content on a somewhat regular basis. At least an article a week for a while.
Everyone has different opinions on this stuff but that's what I'd do. Reference that training module.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
9:01 pm
June 7, 2011
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Hey Mike,
Interesting update. Just caught wind of the fact that Google rolled out a new update a few days ago that is effecting SOME exact match domains...
Matt Cutt’s (Google’s Head of Webspam) wrote:
“Minor weather report: small upcoming Google algo change will reduce low-quality “exact-match” domains in search results.
“New exact-match domain (EMD) algo affects 0.6% of English-US queries to a noticeable degree. Unrelated to Panda/Penguin.”
I would say that your site is too new to have been effected by this, but not necessarily. From what I'm hearing this seems to be hitting "thin" sites. Sites that are clearly not big authority sites. Google is really putting the squeeze on the SEO community at the expense of their results.
I should know more about how this is effecting folks in a few days.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
Thanks, John.
I saw that too...but it's a little too late for me to switch things up now, obviously 
I'd prefer that it didn't affect me, of course, but with this site I'm basically just looking at it as a way to get my feet wet, to get some empirical evidence rather than just spinning in theoretical circles.
If Matt Cutts zaps me, then oh well, at least I learned what's really happening right now.
Funny how many SEO experts don't datestamp their blog posts - makes it hard to know whether what they wrote is pre or post-Penguin (if they don't have comments turned on, and some of them don't).
"Radio Nowhere? What the hell is that? We wanted him to be a lawyer" — My Mom
Okay, so she didn't like it. But you just might! Loud guitars, award-winning songwriting, and visits from the devil.
Check it out and pick up a free EP here..
As long as we're on the subject, I just read this:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the.....s-for-emds
Whoa. Talk about drinking from a firehose. This is more than I ever thought you could possibly know about EMDs. Educational.
"Radio Nowhere? What the hell is that? We wanted him to be a lawyer" — My Mom
Okay, so she didn't like it. But you just might! Loud guitars, award-winning songwriting, and visits from the devil.
Check it out and pick up a free EP here..
12:31 pm
August 27, 2011
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Mike Baker said
As long as we're on the subject, I just read this:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the.....s-for-emds
Whoa. Talk about drinking from a firehose. This is more than I ever thought you could possibly know about EMDs. Educational.
As I mentioned elsewhere - I don't think the update is necessarily a bad one. If it removes a bit of the advantage that EMDs had previously and gets rid of some of the crap that was ranked purely with the domain and backlinks and provided zero value - I'm cool with that.
If you own an exact-match domain I don't think all is lost. Just make it a quality site with engaging content and try to turn the domain into a brand (the article you referred to recommends this as well). I think if you commit to creating regular content and generating organic looking links to the site that it'll eventually start to rank for something guitar related.
Use this time to get your analytics in place and create content and I'm sure the site will come around.
7:51 am
June 7, 2011
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Mike Baker said
As long as we're on the subject, I just read this:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the.....s-for-emds
Whoa. Talk about drinking from a firehose. This is more than I ever thought you could possibly know about EMDs. Educational.
Yeah, SEOmoz is a pretty insane site. Full of great stuff. If you get into SEO you could get lost there for weeks. Just kee in mind that you could make a great living off of some very simple SEO principles. Quality site, intelligent keyword placement on site, diverse and natural (looking) backlinking, and solid user engagement. That's 80% of it for 99% of web masters. But that extra 20% is pretty awesome and interesting... if you're brain works that way.
Having trouble with your marketing? Wish you could have an experienced direct-to-fan marketing expert look over your actual campaigns, music, or content and offer feedback? Or perhaps you’re just looking for a little one-on-one assistance so you can ask questions that pertain to your specific goals and get a second, more experienced, perspective? Click here to book a session with me now.
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