What do you think about this strategy?
-
I am new to SEO but have been hired to handle the SEO for a martial arts school. They had previously attained top three rankings primarily using nofollow on every link on the homepage except footer links which had anchor text of their keywords pointing to their second tier pages. Each of those second tier page also had all nofollow except a single footer link that had a keyword anchor text link going back to the home page.
Seemed to work for them.
I was going to keep it as as well as focus on creating about 10 separate wordpress blogs. They want to give each blog to a student who will post daily and from each post link to their site via anchor text. Anything wrong with this?
Thanks
Wiliam
-
So even if the website is top 2 in google--For instance usually if you type in mma training in bergen county you will see www.njtraininggrounds.com listed at sometimes the first three spots---you would still say to take some page rank away from the index page and have a followed blog from there?
-
Rather than having 10 separate blogs, I agree that you should have only one blog but make each student an author. That way the content will be aggregated and consistent rather than having your efforts thinly sliced.
-
Hi Shane, thanks for the info. I think I may have them do that instead. Do you think the blog should be accessible from the homepage?
-
Thanks Ryan
-
Safe may be the wrong outlook
This strategy is definitely employed by many, but i think they are slowly seeing the returns on these types of strats slipping. Not to say they do not work, but not sure it is a good idea in such a small niche (probably a pretty big SEO footprint will be left)
If you have articles that call for linking to your site that has a logical and informational purpose, then this is a good strat, but just throwing out content with anchor text to your site is sometimes a waste and possibly hurtful.
IMHO - Forget so many word presses and concentrate on having a blog on your site that generates quality informational content that is related to your niche both directly and abstractly. This is a site link building strategy that can payoff in incoming links and traffic.
Now this is not to say that other avenues should not be taken, but if you have lots of content that can be created then i would keep alot of it on your site mostly in one place so you are not spreading all that potential traffic to alternate sites not on your domain (wordpresses)
Just an idea
-
You can offer as many anchor text links as you see fit. Understand that only the first link to a given page will pass the anchor text.
Unless a student really takes their blog seriously and writes high quality articles, these blogs probably wont offer any linking value in terms of PR. They may very well bring in some long tail traffic and gain exposure for your site that way.
-
Hi Ryan, thanks man. Will do. Do you think it's a good strategy to create the wordpress blogs manned by students daily with fresh posts, and then have those blogs link back to the main site? Any idea how many anchor text links is safe to put per post?
Thanks a lot
-
The strategy of nofollowing internal links to the degree you mention goes directly against what we know as best practices for the SEO industry.
As far as the results achieved, I would relate it to a recent Las Vegas experience. I was with a friend who had a 19 while the dealer had a 10 showing. Blackjack logic says to stay on 19, no matter what. He decided to hit, he got a 2, and the dealer had 20. His choice worked in that particular instance. Even so, I would never duplicate that action nor recommend it to anyone else. The point is, don't confuse the results with the tactic.
Another mozzer just referenced this link in a Q&A reply which talks about using nofollow on internal links: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pagerank-sculpting/
The summary: I would remove nofollow from any internal links, and know that footer links are considered weaker then links found in your content.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can you combine YouTube and on-site hosting as part of a Video SEO strategy?
My question is sparked by how Moz uses its Whiteboard Friday videos. We are currently capturing video stories from our customers. Its excellent and engaging content we'd love to share with a wider audience. I'm puttting together a strategy for video SEO to drive traffic to our site and Moz's approach intrigues me. As we know, the world of video rich snippets changed in 2014 - their appearance in universal search reduced dramatically and what remained was almost entirely (90%+) YouTube snippets. Useless if you're looking to drive traffic to your own site. Of course, it's still possible to earn SERPs for video in Google video search, but I imagine the search volume is greatly reduced. From what I can see, first Moz host their Whiteboard Friday video on Wistia, complete with transcript and whiteboard capture. Suprisingly, I see no Schema markup for video. Can anyone shed a light as to why this might be a good idea? 3-6 months later the same video is then uploaded to youtube, with the same title and a similar description. The end result is multiple SERPs in universal search, almost always in the following order: the original post on Moz a YouTube result complete with a video rich sippet This has me asking the following questions - I have some theories - but i'd love your input: Why use two platforms to upload and host the video? Why not just YouTube? Why avoid using Schema on the Wistia video hosted on the original post? Surely, this would allow an additional result in Google Video Search? Why wait 3-6 months after the first post to upload the YouTube video?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RobertChapman0 -
I think Google Analytics is mis-reporting organic landing pages.
I have multiple clients whose Google Analytics accounts are showing me that some of the top performing organic landing pages (in terms of highest conversion rates) look like this: /cart.php /quote /checkout.php /finishorder.php /login.php In some cases, these pages are blocked by Robots.txt. In other cases they are not even indexed at all in Google. These pages are clearly part of the conversion process. A couple of them are links sent out when a cart is abandoned, etc. - is it possible they actually came in organically but then re-entered via one of these links which is what Google is calling the organic landing page? How is it possible that these pages would be the top performing landing pages for organic visitors?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | FPD_NYC0 -
What should be the SEO strategy for a very big target?
Currently I am doing SEO of an Arabic website. I need to optimize it for GCC region. Its target is very big i.e. 1 million unique visitors per month (organic). The domain is new means there is no domain authority right now. What should be the best strategy in this scenario?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sohail10 -
Keyword Strategy for outside of the US
I posted a similar question a while go, so I will attempt to articulate my question a little better.... I am the owner of an E-Commerce site that operates in Canada. I have been brainstorming ways to find opportunities and niches for Canadian online shoppers in an industry that is dominated by corporate American E-commerce sites. I saw another Canadian e-commerce site try to combat this issue, and I wanted to get some advice on whether this strategy is sound. Here is an example. Well.ca is a large e-commerce site in Canada. They take a competitive product like a "Tide Lundry Detergent" and include local and intent terms in their page titles. For example "Buy TideLaundry Detergent from Canada at Well.ca - Free Shipping". If a Canadian shopper searches for "Tide Laundry Detergent", they are going to find results for amazon.com, ebay.com, Tide's website, etc.. I would imagine that Canadian shoppers would start to add terms such as Canada, Buy, or online to try to find Canadian sellers. If that is the case, then Well.ca ranks and arguably serves the customer with those intentions much better. I guess my question is, if the dominant search terms in my industry are polluted with irrelevant or American companies (even in Canada), is this form of localization a good idea? The terms don't seem to be searched much according to any keyword research tool I've used, but I know that I add "canada" to my search terms in order to find Canadian results? Thoughts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | evan890 -
Do I need to update my previous blog posts with my new SEO strategy'?
Hi Everyone, I have published 46 articles so far on my blog. Recently I changed my SEO strategy including changing main page titles, changing the targeting pages for each keyword, ... . Do you think it is a good thing to go back through all of my blog posts and change the internal link building and modify them accordingly. Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlirezaHamidian0 -
Linking Strategies 2013 - Regular Routines/ Tips
So, what is the latest linking strategies and the best practices for the new year? I'm looking to start a clean, fresh website and would love to implement a great new strategy or tactics that really work with the right amount of effort. Is there a guide available? Preferably from website on-page optimization all the way to a regular routine of what to do. I know it won't be easy, but that's why I love the ever changing world of SEO!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Paul_Tovey0 -
I can't help but think something is wrong with my SEO
So we re-launched our site about a month ago, and ever since we've seen a dramatic drop in search results (probably due to some errors that were made) when changing servers and permalink structure. But, I can't help but think something else is at play here. When we write something, I can check 24 hours later, and if I copy the Title verbatim, but we don't always show up in SERPs. In fact, I looked at a post today, and the meta description showing is not the same, but when I check the source code, it's right. What shows up in Google: http://d.pr/i/jGJg What's actually in the source code: http://d.pr/i/p4s8 Why is this happening? Website is The Tech Block
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ttb0