Ranking, a real life look.

Dave is working with me on helping me to get a higher ranking for my rare
cancer website. I have good ranking on adult sections, but not on pediatric
sections. In my quest, I am trying to see what the website content is for
different searches on Google. And I have to tell you guys, that it seems
like these 'real life' situations are not matching the theory that I am
hearing here. There has to be more to it than what I am hearing here.

Tonight I looked up 'pediatric cancer support' . One of my pages does
show on the first page of results, but as the last entry. It is the page
that is #1 that confuses me. The site is written in Front Page, no real
content, only links. It has 65 external links. The content on the site is
no where as extensive as my website's content. Is it name that is grabbing
that high rank? The name has the word 'children' in it.

And when I search on using 'pediatric cancer', the first entry is a
research foundation for pediatric cancers. It has no where near the
pediatric cancer content that my website has. I do not doubt that it is
important for it to be up there, so I am glad that they are. But I want to
learn the mechanics of WHY it is up there. If I watch other websites, I may
learn. On this website I do not see any major content again. I also only
see 91 external links to it. Once again, it could be name. Part of this
websites name is 'kids'. My website does not show up until the second page,
very last entry. Good, but I would like to see it listed higher.

My site has LOTS of content. It has 218 external links (I know I can
improve here). Most of the content for pediatric cancers is in a separate
directory http://www.rare-cancer.org/ped/

I am beginning to believe that name is everything.
--
Take Care, Sharon Lane
http://www.rare-cancer.org

On Sun, 4 Jan 2004 21:20:19 -0500, "Sharon" <me (AT) privacy (DOT) net> wrote:

Dave is working with me on helping me to get a higher ranking for my rare
cancer website. I have good ranking on adult sections, but not on pediatric
sections. In my quest, I am trying to see what the website content is for
different searches on Google. And I have to tell you guys, that it seems
like these 'real life' situations are not matching the theory that I am
hearing here. There has to be more to it than what I am hearing here.

Hi,

They do match when you understand how Google works. A lot of people go
on about content is king etc... but it isn't. Google is a mathematical
algorithm that can't make judgements about what is good or bad
content.

So when you are optimising a site for Google you have to think
mathematically. Now I can make the perfect SEO page, it's easy, I've
even pasted a list of stuff to use to do it (and I can't find it
now!), but that won't be good content. The trick is to put as much
optimisation into a page with out ruining it for your visitors and
though that is much more difficult it is achievable (I do it every
day).

As we go through your site over time you'll pick this up yourself and
will be able to optimise a page in your sleep :-))

Tonight I looked up 'pediatric cancer support' . One of my pages does
show on the first page of results, but as the last entry. It is the page
that is #1 that confuses me. The site is written in Front Page, no real
content, only links. It has 65 external links. The content on the site is
no where as extensive as my website's content. Is it name that is grabbing
that high rank? The name has the word 'children' in it.

Well the number one page has the exact phrase in a <h2> header. I
don't see the exact phrase on the page Google shows for your site.

If you are after a quick fix for this until we get around to
optimising the page fully try this.

Change this-
<h3 style="margin-left: 15; margin-right: 25; margin-top: 10;
margin-bottom: 0" align="center"><font face="Verdana"
color="#B52F02">Pediatric
Cancer List with Links</font></h3>
<p style="margin-left: 15; margin-right: 25; margin-top: 0;
margin-bottom: 0" align="center"><b><font color="#006600"
face="Verdana" size="2">Visit
the<a href="/ped/" target="_blank"> Pediatric Resource Center</a>
site for
more links.</font></b></p>


To this-
<h1 style="margin-left: 15; margin-right: 25; margin-top: 10;
margin-bottom: 0" align="center"><font face="Verdana"
color="#B52F02">Pediatric Cancer Support</font></h1>

<p style="margin-left: 15; margin-right: 25; margin-top: 0;
margin-bottom: 0" align="center"><font color="#006600" face="Verdana"
size="2">Visit the <a href="/ped/" target="_blank"><b>Pediatric
Support Center</b></a> site for more links.</font></p>

Also add the word Support to the title, say-

<title>Rare & Pediatric Cancer Alliance - Pediatric Cancer
Support</title>

And You have a lot of alt text that can be improved-

This can be changed from

<TD ALIGN=LEFT height="50" width="28"><A
HREF="http://listserv.acor.org/archives/ped-onc.html"
target="_blank"><img src="image/list.gif" ALT="Support Forum"
width="26" height="26"></A></TD>

To-

<TD ALIGN=LEFT height="50" width="28"><A
HREF="http://listserv.acor.org/archives/ped-onc.html"
target="_blank"><img src="image/list.gif" ALT="Cancer Support Forum"
width="26" height="26"></A></TD>

This last change will help your page and the page you are linking to.
Since your goals are altruistic rather than to make money (most of my
goals is money and fun :-)) this is generally good for the sites you
believe are good enough to link to. You should be aware though just a
simple change like this could push the pages you are linking to above
you for the phrases you use to link to them (it's unlikely, but be
aware).

You could use that big list of cancer related phrases I sent you to
improve the alt text of all the links off the page or you could use
the info from the sites in question-

So you could change the alt text to this page
http://listserv.acor.org/archives/ped-onc.html to something like-
alt="The Pediatric Cancers Online Support Group" (which is it's name).

and this one http://listserv.acor.org/archives/aml.html to alt="AML
Acute Myelogenous Leukemia Cancer Support Forum".

You get the idea.

And when I search on using 'pediatric cancer', the first entry is a
research foundation for pediatric cancers. It has no where near the
pediatric cancer content that my website has. I do not doubt that it is
important for it to be up there, so I am glad that they are. But I want to
learn the mechanics of WHY it is up there. If I watch other websites, I may
learn.

If you want to see how to do it look no further than the source of
this page-

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ooar123.../seo-help.html

I've just made it so at the end of helping a client SEO their site I
can show them with very clean code how it all works and what to keep
in mind in the future.

A quick run down is.

title - very important, stick to the words you want to be found for.
Everything else in the head is irrelevant, so do as you like.

In the body. I've used multiple headers <h1> etc... I tend to go for
one <h1>, one or two <h2>s etc... (see for yourself, no hard rules
though).

You should notice I've repeated the title in the first <h1> and the
main keywords are used again and again in all the other headers (SEO
is added to them all).

I've added the odd <b> which again only encompasses relevant text and
always the word SEO.

Every page on the site uses the link <a
href="http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ooar123/search-engine-optimization/seo-help.html"><b>Expert
SEO Specialist Help</b></a>

Links from other sites use the word SEO as anchor text where I can get
it. Sometimes it's SEO Dave others it's SEO Help, Others it's just the
URL of the link as that's all you get.

I haven't really used images on this page (just one). If I did I'd try
to link them to other pages so I can use alt text with the word SEO
included or text that would benefit the page I'm linking to (depends
on the importance of each page).

Beyond that there isn't much else you can do to a page. The rest of
SEO is about site structure and links from other sites. If I'm editing
a pre existing page I fit the above concepts into it the best I can.

When google looks at my page above it says SEO and SEO Various
Keywords, this is why 1 day after uploading the pages the SERPs moved
for this page. Went from 100 odd for SEO Specialist to 11 and number 1
for the phrase in the title "Expert SEO Specialist Help", number 4 for
"Expert SEO Specialist" and 11 for "Expert SEO" (all without the
quotes). These should improve further over time as the links from the
other pages are re indexed and counted (I think most of the current
success is the title change from just SEO Help).

On this website I do not see any major content again. I also only
see 91 external links to it. Once again, it could be name. Part of this
websites name is 'kids'. My website does not show up until the second page,
very last entry. Good, but I would like to see it listed higher.

We'll get you in the top 10 without too much trouble and I'll be
disappointed with myself if it's not the top 5 in 4 months and top 3
by September/October. I could do it quicker, but I have to fit it in
with paid stuff.

Just realised I searched for Pediatric Cancer not Pediatric Cancers.
Pediatric Cancer is the better search term (more people use it).
Pediatric Cancers is much easier to get, so I'm going to stick my neck
out and say you'll get number 1 for that SERP after we optimise for
Pediatric Cancer.

My site has LOTS of content. It has 218 external links (I know I can
improve here). Most of the content for pediatric cancers is in a separate
directory http://www.rare-cancer.org/ped/

I am beginning to believe that name is everything.

Well the perfect folder name for both SERPs is
http://www.rare-cancer.org/pediatric-cancer/

We do however have a problem changing the folder name-

http://www.alltheweb.com/search?avkw...F&_sb_lang=any

As you can see alltheweb shows you have a fair amount of pages linking
to the root of that folder. If it's the same for all your other pages
in that folder it may be better to leave it as it is.

That doesn't mean you can't also use the new folder name, you could
use it to add new content. If it were me that's what I would do as the
folder name is just one small part of all of this and not worth the
risk and time changing it all. Time would be better spent getting new
links and optimising pages.

BTW if you post to any forums or lists that get archived on websites
be sure to include your main pages in your sig (like I do), this
newsgroup is archived on at least one website and though the links
aren't worth much every little helps.

David replace SP@AM with @ to email me direct.
_
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ooar123...-optimization/ Free
SEO Tips (01/01/2004)
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ooar123.../seo-help.html
hire SEO Dave
http://www.bdsm-lingerie.com Sexy Lingerie and BDSM Products Shop

David and Sharon.

Good luck to you both. David, would you mind posting your rates.

Dave, very brave of you. You know with this post you are going to open
yourself up to the critics. I read the post twice myself. If you don't
mind, I'll ask one question. You mention optimizing for Pediatric
Cancer versus Pediatric Cancers. Since google uses stemming, wouldn't
optimizing for one work for the other. In other words, if you optimize
for Pediatric Cancer, I would think you would be found for the search
term Perdiatric Cancer and Perdiatric Cancers equally well.

Sharon, you did a smart thing hiring Dave, but keep us informed of
this "real life look". I had a nice surprise this morning. I have 3
websites they are all in the top 10 (2, 8, 10) now for my main
keyword.

CA.

On 5 Jan 2004 05:47:21 -0800, SEOmix228 (AT) hotmail (DOT) com (CA) wrote:

David and Sharon.

Good luck to you both. David, would you mind posting your rates.

Hi,

My basic rates are here-
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ooar123.../seo-help.html

Dave, very brave of you. You know with this post you are going to open
yourself up to the critics.

I don't understand, why would anyone be critical?

I read the post twice myself. If you don't
mind, I'll ask one question. You mention optimizing for Pediatric
Cancer versus Pediatric Cancers. Since google uses stemming, wouldn't
optimizing for one work for the other. In other words, if you optimize
for Pediatric Cancer, I would think you would be found for the search
term Perdiatric Cancer and Perdiatric Cancers equally well.

That's very true, but you optimise for the one that gives most traffic
and the other easier one should be delivered for free :-)

Sharon, you did a smart thing hiring Dave, but keep us informed of
this "real life look".

Actually I'm helping her for free (good cause and a challenge).

I had a nice surprise this morning. I have 3
websites they are all in the top 10 (2, 8, 10) now for my main
keyword.

Well done.

CA.

David replace SP@AM with @ to email me direct.
_
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ooar123...-optimization/ Free
SEO Tips (01/01/2004)
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ooar123.../seo-help.html
hire SEO Dave
http://www.bdsm-lingerie.com Sexy Lingerie and BDSM Products Shop