I just want to touch on some of the data I've found useful when it comes to on page SEO and content for SEO sites. I'm also going to talk about page layouts for better CTR's.
Some of this goes against the grain of what others are teaching and I fully accept that fact. As I've said through out this WSO, I can only report to you what I've found has worked for me from many years of experience.
First thing I want to talk about is content. I'll come straight out with it.
Sites that have pages of unique content that are over 1000 words in length rank better then content pages of 300 to 500 words. Not only do they rank faster, all things being equal, they also require less maintenance SEO wise.
Those sites that have 1000+ word articles for each page, poop all over those with 500 words or less, so the majority of sites I create now all have over 1000 words of unique content per page.
This is all unique content by the way, which is readable. It's not world beating stuff, but it's not spun content either.
These sites hit #1 position more often with a lot less work. So while it costs more for 1000 words of content, it pays off quickly. I pay around $15 for 1000 word articles. It takes a lot less SEO backlinking to make them rank and stay there at this length.
I can virtually just leave them to their own devices once they start ranking. Not much maintenance is required at all.
So if you have content sites that are having trouble ranking, especially for difficult keywords, try longer content pages. 1000 words plus.
If you have client sites that are not ranking for the keywords you want, try it as well.
So let's say for example you have a florist in New York as a client and they cannot rank for that keyword for their root domain; just create a 1000 word piece of content and stick it on the site like the link below;
http://www.clientsdomainnamehere.com/florist-in-new-york/
And you will be amazed at the results with proper backlinking.
But what about keyword density?
I've found all my content pages with a keyword density of 1.5 to 2.1 also have the most favorable outcomes. This seems to be the sweet spot.
Every time I struggle to get one of my sites or a clients site ranking for a keyword, I put up a good piece of 1000 word content, give it a keyword density of 1.5 to 2.1 and I do my backlinking strategies to it and I almost always get the result I want.
There are no 100% certainties in SEO.
Another thing that works out well for me is allowing user comments on my content pages. Something about this seems to add more credibility in Google's eyes to my sites.
It's often a pain to have to moderate comments, but again, these are more advanced on page methods, especially useable for keywords and pages that just won't budge.
If I have a client with a stubborn site who has a Facebook account, I'll get them to make a post about this 1000 word article on their site and get their Facebook users or even Twitter followers to discuss and comment on that page.
I highly recommend 1000 word + articles, but these methods work regardless.
Comments and the sweet spot of keyword density will work even if you don't want to use such long content, but again, I highly recommend it.
What people have been teaching about linking out to authoirty sites in your content seems to be of benefit as well.
For all my articles, I will put one link out to a site like Wikipedia to a relevant piece of content on that site and I will hyperlink it with the keyword I am trying to rank for. So the anchor text of that authority link out will be the main keyword I am trying to rank that page for.
I do highly recommend WordPress plugin's that remind you to do this and give you page scores. I find Clickbump SEO (one of many plugins that do this) an invaluable tool. Check the link out below to see what it does.
http://clickbumpengine.com/clickbump-seo/
I'm not going to go into the basics of on page SEO in this report. That's not what this report is about and it's been done 100 times before. This is about the advanced tactics that a lot of people don't know about or have not been utilizing.
I'm not an affiliate of the product above either, I just recommend it because I am using it on my sites and it seems to be doing a lot of good. Having that checklist next to each article for best practice on page SEO is really handy.
There is also a lot of talk about trying to improve visitor time on your site as the thought is, Google uses this data to give better rankings. I've not seen that. I don't really want my visitors on my sites for long.
I want them to find my Adsense or affiliate links wrapped in really compelling content that makes them want to click.
One thing that has become very clear recently is that the age of a site does play a part in SEO rankings. This is a topic for another report, but aged domains do play a part in rankings.
I found this really good list of what Google finds important for your site to have. Like a checklist. I agree with most of it and it's good for those who perhaps need a basic overview of what Google looks for.
Here are a few tips I've learnt with Adsense placement. Some of what I'm about to say goes against convention, but it works for me and it's what I'm going to teach you.
On all of my Adsense sites now, I have two ad blocks. The first block I put at the top of my content, on the same line as my first paragraph, to the left. You can see what I mean below.
https://www.google.com/adsense/static/en_US/Inline.html
Ad at the top example.
It's a Medium Rectangle (300 x 250) in Google's terminology. It's not that overly blended with my sites content, but it works well with my highest CTR of all the options I've tested.
I often think that blending your ad's so they don't look like ads is not always the best option.
The next Adsense block is a Wide Skyscraper (160x600). I put this about 1/3 of the way down my page on the left.
You can see this example here;
https://www.google.com/adsense/static/en_US/WideSkyscraper.html
I have found these two Adsense placements give me the best CTR's from all the positions that I have tried. I'm not one to flood my sites with ads. I want my sites to look clean and nice.
You may have noticed that my Adsense blocks are all on the left. There is a reason for that. I tested many different positions and I noticed that the left has a higher CTR for all Adsense placements.
A couple of weeks after I came to this conclusion, I stumbled upon an article on eye tracking and ad placements.
I learnt a lot from this article, not just about placement, but just about how people view sites in general. It had a big impact on how I create Adsense and affiliate sites as well.
Here is that article.
http://stason.org/articles/money/passive_income/ads/more_with_less/eye_tracking_w eb_usability_studies.html
One of things I'm going to be testing in the future is putting three Adsense placements on my pages. Why?
Because of something I read in that article.
"Users spend a good deal of time initially looking at the top left of the page and upper portion of the page before moving down and right-ward."
My thought pattern is thus. I will keep my two left sided placements, and then nearing the bottom of the page on the right, I will have another Adsense block.
This should cover the eye movement of a individual web surfer.
I would highly recommend that you check that article out above. You want to milk every cent you can out of your website and this is just another avenue to do that.
The more you get out of your current traffic, the less traffic you need and the less work you have to put into getting the same results. That's the name of the game, more money, less work.
But what about content sites or review sites that promote affiliate products not Adsense? How can I improve my CTR for these types of sites?
Two words for you.
Text Links.
This is coming from years of my data here. Text links out perform graphics or banners by a long shot.
Interweaving recommendations into your content will outperform placing banners and image ads on your site for the affiliate program you are promoting.
With my content sites, I place a little spiel for the product I'm promoting at the top of each article and I simply put a link that says CLICK HERE to learn more about how this product can help you, or what ever it is that it says that pertains to the affiliate product I'm promoting.
It's not that I don't use banners or images, I do, I just find that the text links get more click throughs then the image ads do. Quite a lot more. 3 times as much in fact.
One of my favorite lines for my health sites is to have this phrase in my content and link it to an affiliate product. I usually make the link red so it stands out.
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