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
-
Site architecture, inner link strategy and duplicate or thin content HELP :)
Ok, can I just say I love that Moz exists! I am still very new to this whole website stuff. I've had a site for about 2 years that I have re-designed several times. It has been published this entire time as I made changes but I am now ready to create amazing content for my niche. Trouble is my target audience is in a very focused niche and my site is really only about 1 topic - life insurance for military families. I'm a military spouse who happens to be an experience life insurance agent offering plans to active duty service members, their spouses as well as veterans and retirees. So really I have 3 niches within a niche. I'm REALLY struggling on how to set up my site architecture. My site is basically fresh so it's a good time to get it hammered down as best as possible with my limited knowledge. Might I also add this is a very competitive space. My competitors are big, established brands who offer life insurance along with unaffiliated, informational sites like military.com or the va benefits site. The people in my niche rarely actually search for life insurance because they think they are all set by the military. When they do search it's very short which is common as this niche lives in a world of acronyms. I'm going to have to get real creative to see if there are any long tail keywords I can use as supporting posts but I think my best route is to attempt to rank for the short one to three keyword phrases this niche looks for while searching. Given my expertise on the subject I am able to write long 1000-5000 content on the matter that will also point out some considerations my competitors dont really cover. My challenge is I cant see how this can be broken into sub topics without having thin supporting content. It's my understanding that I should create these in order to inner link and have a shot at ranking. In thinking about my topic I feel like the supporting posts can only be so long. Furthermore, my three niches within my small overall niche search for short but different keywords. Seems I am struggling to put it all into words. Let me stop here with a question - is it bad to have one category in a website? If not I feel like this would solve my dilemma in making a good site map and content plan. it is possible to split my main topic into 3 categories. I heard somewhere you shouldn't inner link posts from different categories. Problem is if I dont it's not ideal for the user experience as the topics really arent that different. Example a military member might be researching his/her own life insurance and be curious about his spouses coverage. In order to satisfy this user's experience and increase the time on my site I should link to where they can find more dept on their spouses coverage which would be in a different category. Is this still acceptable since it's really not a different subject?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | insuretheheroes.com0 -
What Are Latest Internal Linking Strategies?
I have been doing a little research, but all the articles are really old. Even the Moz site page is pretty old. So I am wondering, has the strategy changed? Is it OK to still use internal links with your keywords in them? Do you have multiple links on a page? What about a blog post? Do you no follow? What are the thoughts out there on this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | netviper0 -
Been away for a while is SEO really dead ? I don't think so...
I have been struggling with the google updates but recently we started a new project and by using guest blog posts we were able to achieve a top 3 ranking. It delivered traffic and sales so SEO still works. This is my understanding of the current situation - 1. Generic Keywords (forget it) 2. Go niche and long tail (but thats been the case for a while right) 3. Using related searches 4. Incoming links using brands and a wider range of phrases and urls. 5. Content thats sharable 6. Google plus buttons etc This is my current understanding I would love to hear your thoughts.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | onlinemediadirect0 -
Does putting a Google custom search box on make Google think my users are bouncing?
I added a Google custom search box to my pages, that's doing an advanced Google search. A lot of people are using it. So users are coming to my site from a Google search, and then often performing another Google search on my site. Should I be worried that Google may interpret the resultant user behavior as a bounce or pogo-stick? Or will the fact that the second search occurred on my site, using custom search, and with advanced parameters signal to Google that this is not a dissatisfied user returning to Google? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GilReich0 -
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 -
SEO Strategy for URL Change
I'm working with a company who will likely have to change their URL because of a trademark dispute. They will be able to maintain the new URL for some period but will soon need to drop the existing URL all together. Aside from the usual keyword considerations when choosing a URL, are there any SEO strategies I should consider as we execute this change?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Jon_KS0 -
Strategy for visibility in a german speaking country
The following scenario:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | petrakraft
We have a domain with .info (good Domain Authority) which ranks well in google.at, google.com but not in googe.de.
We want to rank well in google.de, too
(same language in .at = Austria + .de = Germany though). The paths of the websites are: www.example.info/de/keyword.html --> so we do use the path for Germany already to target that country. What strategy you suggest?0