Website SEO

[cmaq]

I created a new website and I'm trying to target some highly competitive keywords, oh boy is it tough.

[CMCarlin]

Is it your supplements site? That's why. Very saturated market.

Also, your font is hard to read.

[cmaq]

Yeah, it's the supplement site, i'm hoping to do a lot of optimization and get to the top.... i'm doing over drive SEO work.

[CMCarlin]

just remember to provide VALUE. There are so many supplements out there; there's a TON of competition.

*I'm in the supplemental health industry already, so I speak only from experience.

[cmaq]

I appreciate the advice, but i'm not selling a product. It's just a review website, but I am trying to create some value in what is written.

[WheelsRCool]

I am working at learning SEO for an ecommerce business as well. The niche I am planning to start with is, well, I don't think there is much competition for it, I will find out. However, assuming one was say selling supplements and/or vitamins online, how does one do SEO for this?

For example, in regards to linkbuilding, how would you go about doing that? Do you just write articles around the Internet on different vitamins and so forth? It just seems so confusing!

For example, do the top-rated vitamins sites have teams of people devoted to SEO in which they do just these kinds of things, like go around and post on forums relating to the subjects and write articles and so forth??

The niche I am planning to begin with you can't really write articles about I don't think, so I will need other methods of linkbuilding.

[Jill]

Hmm. Your keywords are currently:

• weight loss supplements
• supplements for weight loss
• herbal weight loss
• weight loss products
• foods for weight loss
• weight loss foods

Looks (after just a cursory glance) like you'll need at least 2000 backlinks for most of those keywords just to get anywhere on the first page of Google Search results. You currently have 119. Your site is new, and your Pagerank is just 1.

I don't see any podcasts or videos on there, which would help. At least according to Matt Cutts, Google's algorithm engineer, that's what they're looking at heavily right now. In fact, if I were you, I would google him and watch some of his many seminar speeches.

Try to get some university friends from .edu sites to link back.

Try to get listed in the DMOZ directory at least, and consider Yahoo directory.

Finally, think about arranging your site so that there are separate pages in which the URL resides. For instance, on most blogs (WP anyway) you can set it up so that the blog name becomes part of the URL. For example, www.learnaboutsupplements.com/herbal_weight_loss.html (or whatever).

But this is just my VERY humble opinion (Ask the pros here! I'm just a rookie!!)

[WheelsRCool]

Jill just wondering, how does one see all of those keywords? I see them listed at the top, but not the whole list.

Also, so a website needs keywords and then needs lots of other websites to link to it based on those keywords, if I am understanding this right?

[royemunson]

Not just keywords but keywords that consumers are searching for and you aren't necessarily competing with these large health companies that already have thousands of backlinks.

Some long tail keywords can generate some great traffic as well.

Did you look at the page source to get the meta tags and keywords??

You can use a tool like searchit.sitesell or others that help you analyze this type of stuff, look for backlink opportunites, etc. - and find ways to sneak in the backdoor so to speak.

And I second that value is what will make your site profitable in the long run.

Joe

[EastWind]

I appreciate the advice, but i'm not selling a product. It's just a review website, but I am trying to create some value in what is written.

"TRYING TO CREATE SOME VALUE".
When you do create value, they will follow. Don't think you can jump into a mature market and shoot to the top over night, it doesn't happen like that. It takes a while, but if you do have real actual value, the growth is exponential, it shoots up with time. Good luck.

[Jill]

Jill just wondering, how does one see all of those keywords? I see them listed at the top, but not the whole list.

Right click most anywhere on a web page, and select "View Page Source". The code which is behind that page will pop up, and you can then search for "keyword". you can also search for any headers, titles and descriptions, which Google also likes.

Also, so a website needs keywords and then needs lots of other websites to link to it based on those keywords, if I am understanding this right?

That's right. No one but Google knows exactly what the algorithm looks like (to determine a site's placement on their search results). But the factors I mentioned are largely assumed to be the major factors.

To answer your earlier questions, yes. That is essentially what they do. If you have really great content and lots of it, then people will naturally start linking to it on their own - at least eventually. But a good way to get a jump start, while you're waiting to build more content and/or waiting for folks to find it, is to comment on other blogs, forums relative to your topic. You are typically allowed to use a signature URL when doing so. But if you just hire someone to go out to any ol forum and write little meaningless responses like "Cool. Nice Post", and expect the moderators to not look down the nose at the backlink . . . I think you'll be disappointed. So, you'll actually need to contribute something meaningful to the discussion there.

[cmaq]

Thanks for the advice, I didn't realize people were still responding to these posts. I was actually able to successfully increase traffic, I found some niche keywords that get a lot of traffic, so now I'm pulling in traffic from Google daily. I'm going to focus on bringing in more.