SEO tips = better search engine ranking

Another new host for a new site

So I bought a new web site and I need a new host for it. I found a cheap host that is offering a 50.00 gift certificate to Amazon.com when you sign up for a one year plan at 5.00/month and a 19.95 set up fee. It's a fairly generous package too: Free 50% more Space & Bandwidth on all Hosting Plans.

I don't see an uptime guarantee, but with this site, it doesn't really matter if it's up 363 or 364 days a year. Of course I expect it up almost all the time and a quick google search doesn't turn up any complaints.

I should not that the gift certificate offer ends in just over ten hours... And it's not that easy but I'll give it a try since they take PayPal. Hopefully they don't screw me out of my gift certificate. Since it comes to about 80.00 for one year, by the time they give an affiliate commission and buy my gift certificate they might be losing money...

Going with a new host (Lunarpages.com)

Not too long ago I bought an Australian music site. I figured it made sense to leave the site with an Austrlian web host. That is until I got a notice that I'm close to the 100 MB space I get and the next plan up will be 15.00 US (rough estimate depending on the excahnge rate from AUD to USD). For a site coming up on 100 MB, that's pretty steep.

So I'm switching to Lunarpages because they will transfer my site, promise 99.9% uptime, have an active community and live chat help (there was someone there when I just checked), and offer 3000 MB space plus 40 GB transfer for under 8.00/month.

SEO for forums

My grunge forum has over 7,000 posts and an archive but onle 771 pages indexed by Goolge. This has been as high as 6,000 in the past and I figure I need a boost.

Also, I want to rank higher for phrases like Nirvana forum and Pearl Jam forum. To accomplish both these goals I've linked to every individual forum on the footer of every page on the main site. I ahven't done this for the archive as I want to see what happens first.

NFL-Giants: NY Giants football news

Basically, I took my top 7 keyword pahrases and did a little research concerning where I am and where my competition is.

My old title: NFL-Giants: NY Giant news - New York Giants football will become NFL-Giants: NY Giants football news because New York Giants is too competitive and I'm already ranking for NY Giants related phrases.

1. new york giants

The top ten here consists mainly of news sites like ESPNs Giants page, New York Post, CNN Sports Illustrated, etc. I'm not in the top 100.
Yahoo's top 10 also has mostly news sites, followed by ticket sites. I'm #27.
422/day wordtracker, 918/day Overture.

2. ny giants

The top 10 here is also mostly team pages from large sites like Yahoo! I'm not in the top 100.
Mostly news sites in the top 10. I am #12.
202/day wordtracker, 477 day overture

3. giants

Not even going to bother. This also includes the San Fracisco Giants...

4. new york football giants

Less competition here. In the top 10 we see 2 ticket sites, something from answers.com, and some news sites. I'm not in the top 100.
I'm #5 on Yahoo.
2/day wordtracker

5. ny giants news

Not too competitive. I'm #4 on Google behind Giants.com, and two newspaper team pages.
I'm #1 on Yahoo.
7.8/day Overture

6. giants football

Mostly ticket sites in the top 10.
I'm #5 in Yahoo!
61/day wordtracker, 58/day overture

7. nfl giants

I'm #4 on Google, behind Giants.com and two NFL.com pages.
#3 on Yahoo.
21/day Wordtracker, 15/day Overture

New criteria for directories

Aaron Wall from SEO Book has been a long time proponent of directories but he is beginning to wonder just how effective they are. He argues that few directories add useful sites unless they get lucky and one of the submissions happens to be a good site. I add useful sites as I find them, but not at the rate Aaron Wall would prefer. I'm only one man and my intent is not to have a large directory. I aim to have a valuable one.

He also notes that few directory editors see to a high ratio of quality sites. I don't know if I count myself as a Jtrotta.com employee, but I do make sure that sies listed are good enough for me. I have turned down numerous submissions from sites I though had too little content.

He also notes that directories and lists of directories often make up the bulk of a directory's link popularity. Certainly not the case with mine. I advertise on a few high quality sites including my own and while I am listed in a few directories, relatively few of my links come from other directories.

One thing he doesn't mention is the poor organization of most directories. I have refused many requests for top-level catyegory listings from webmasters who wanted link popularity at the expense of my organization. Won't happen.

How much is that worth?

So this blog is one of 192 SEO sites in the following Goguides.org category: GoGuides > Business > Marketing & Advertising > By Industry > Internet Marketing > Promotion > Search Engine Marketing > Search Engine Optimization

Some of you may be thinking something like wow that's 6 clicks away from the home page, hope it didn't cost much. It gets worse. There are 20 pages in that category. I'm on page 17 at the bottom.

This is an extreme example, but it illustrates why I started my web directory. I provide a much much better value for webmasters than I'm getting with this listing in Goguides.org.