SEO, Traffic Building, and DotNetNuke - It's All About the Keywords and Content Baby
I can't say that I have an inside track on the mastermind group that creates the ever changing Google search algorithms.
If I did, I would probably not be writing this article and instead, I would have one of those fancy infomercials on TV.
You know the ones with the good looking babes standing in front of a Lamborghini telling you that you will make a hundred grand a day if you just send me $19.95.
This article is not about that.
What I am going to share with you is some content changes that I have recently made to my outdoors site - JustNorth.com and how in 3 weeks has shown a bounce rate reduction from 50% to 12.89% and a visitation increase of 39.5% simply by improving my content, page names, titles, descriptions, and keywords.
Sure, many of you oldtimer SEO experts will say, I know all of that. Then, this article is not for you.
What I will also share is while I was patting myself on the back concentrating on the search engine optimization, Google SEO, and traffic building on the JustNorth.com site, I lost more visitation on this site then I care to mention.
I quickly remembered an old Firesign Theater sketch where they said, "How can you be two places at once when you are really nowhere at all."
This will be the subject of a later lesson.
Let's begin with the positive side.
My JustNorth.com site has been up and running since 2004.
I must admit that, until recently, I have neglected the site due to the time I have spent with DNN Professor applications and training. More on this subject later.
On JustNorth.com, we have accumulated thousands of outdoor articles and tips, but, we were never highly placed in the Google search engine under the keywords and keyword phrases that I mistakenly thought were important.
Our page names were called fishing, camping, hunting, etc. and were placed three levels down in our web structure under a page named connections.
Apparently Google did not think that any page that was that far down in menu structure can be important and it showed in the stats for the site.
The first thing I did to analyze the situation was to utilize the following free tools:
Google Analytics
Google webmaster Tools
Google Keyword Search Tool
Now, the SEO purists will say that there are even more powerful tools out there but these tools worked for me and the best thing is they are free.
If you do not yet have Google Analytics set up on your DotNetNuke site, I would strongly recommend that you do this first.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics can be obtained at http://www.google.com/analytics/ and all it requires, for use, is to obtain a free Google account.
Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features now let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way. With Google Analytics, you're more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives, create better searchable content, and create higher converting websites.
DotNetNuke has a Google Analytics module that you can add to all of your pages or, if you are hosting at PowerDNN.com like I do, they have a top level file named SiteHeader.aspx where you can paste your Google Analytics code and it will render on all of your DotNetnuke existing pages and future pages.
The point here is if you don't know what keywords and keyword phrases that visitors search for to find your site, you can't begin to optimize your site for more traffic. Google Analytics will render the data you need to accomplish this.
Google webmaster Tools
Google webmaster tools can be obtained at http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ and is free with a Google account.
Google Webmaster Tools will also show me the top search queries to my sites, show me top pages and keywords but, most importantly, it allows me to add several site maps that tell Google about my content and helps Google index my relevant pages.
Google Keyword Search Tool
The Google Keyword Search Tool is a tool that you get when you sign up for a Google Adwords campaign. What many people starting out with SEO don't know is that it can be used without applying for a Google Adwords account. You can access this tool at:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.
The Google Keyword Search Tool allows me to see the relevance and positioning of any keyword or keyword phrase, tells me how many Internet vistors are searching for that criteria, and is the basis for what I name my pages, what descriptions, keywords, and content that I use to have my pages and content found by Internet visitors.
Here is an example:
If I were to use this tool to find relevant searches on fishing:
Result:
Google Keyword Search Tool will return a long list of search results that include the keyword fishing and also show how many people have searched for those keywords and keyword phrases - Cool!
I quickly discovered that I was being buried alive trying to compete with the keyword fishing. But, If created pages on the site for ice fishing, open water fishing, Walleye Fishing, Salmon Fishing, fishing tips, and trout fishing, I stood a much better chance of being picked up in the top 10 search result pages of Google for those terms.
So, the first this I did was to create new pages to test my theory.
I created a top menu item page named outdoor tips and added the following pages:
http://justnorth.com/OutdoorTips/WalleyeFishingTips.aspx
http://justnorth.com/OutdoorTips/SalmonandTroutFishingTips.aspx
http://justnorth.com/OutdoorTips/IceFishingTips.aspx
http://justnorth.com/OutdoorTips/OpenWaterFishingTips.aspx
All relevant keyword phrases that although do not show as much traffic as the keyword fishing, are now placing the site in good search engine position and, most importantly, are generating traffic to the site.
To confirm this, I fire up Google Analytics and look for the keywords and phrases that vistors have used in the past 30 days to find content on JustNorth.com.
Below is just a subset of the top 500 search terms Google Analytics has returned. Along with our easy cooking recipes section, I do see that ice fishing tips is now returning a significant amount of traffic.
What these results tell me is that due to the outdoors niche that this site is part of and due to the fact that deer season has recently concluded and ice fishing has begun, I am being heavily searched for deer and venison recipes and walleye and ice fishing content.
Cool! That is what I expected and I will continue to produce articles and content on these subjects until I analyze Google keyword Search Tool next month to determine the top keywords and keyword phrases that are being most searched for my outdoors niche. If I see changes in visitor behavior, I will add additional content accordingly.
Most importantly, I have added over 3,000 unique visitors to the site in a very short time!
The point to this lesson is:
- Try not to be too generic in the naming conventions and content of your pages and try to have your prime visitor attracting content on top levels of your menu structure
- If you want to increase traffic to your site, you first need the tools in place to allow you to analyze visitor search behavior and be able to react to the current trends.
- Always going for top level keywords and keyword phrases does not always result in better search engine placement and many times it is a detriment to traffic building.
The take-away in this lesson is to setup and begin using:
Google Analytics
Google webmaster Tools
Google Keyword Search Tool
In the next lesson I will show you how I:
- Set up the new pages, described above, utilizing the best use of the keywords and keyword phrases in my meta title tag, description, and keywords settings of a DotNetNuke page.
- How to match your page content to your targeted keywords and keyword phrases
- I will show you a free tool to check your keyword page density and compare it to your competition that has first page Google positioning.
- Create Google Sitemap instances in Google Webmaster Tools
Wishing You Success,
Buck