Today's Rant

Last Update: July 09, 2012
So... A while back, I've managed to get a first page ranking with an extremely low competition keyword. Unfortunately, that one keyword was all that I could get ranked for, and it wasn't enough. I thought for a while that it would be alright because the main keyword was accompanied by a several common keywords which are slightly higher in searches. These common keywords also don't have a whole lot of competition; more then the main one, but not that much more. The of course is the traffic that should be coming in from other pages...

So I do everything I know how to do. I stuff the site with unique content that I should be charging for (I had to pay money to learn this stuff). I manually acquire back links from a number of different sources. I do all white hat SEO.

So what is the reward for all this hard work? I manage to (barely) maintain a position too low for any significant results.

Frustrated, I took a little time off, and as you've probably guessed, the site has now fallen into obscurity.

I'm being outranked by a single Squidoo page that of course has static content of a significantly lower volume.

Anyway, getting away from the infuriation of it all and trying to come up with a practical plan, I'm wondering if Google is looking for frequency above quantity. The way I'm doing things now, there is no way to write fast enough to make Google happy. Perhaps instead of writing a 500 to 1000+ word blog entry, I should break the entries up into a couple paragraphs each?

Any thoughts anyone?

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kyle Premium
I agree with what has been said. Do what you are doing and don't fret over who is outranking you at the present moment. Consistent, quality content will allow you to get some awesome rankings and in a matter of time i think you will see much better penetration in Google.

I don't recommend you have "word limits" on your articles as I suggest you write them naturally and in a way that works. If you have one that is 300 words and one that is 1,100 that is fine. Just whatever works with the topic.

We all have our day of rants (I definitely have mine) and it is good to get them out there some time so others can give you their opinions on them.
Balrog Premium
Thanks for weighing in Kyle. :) There are a lot of people at WA, and it's awesome of you to take the time to pay personal attention to us. I'll have to buy you a drink sometime!
muskyblood Premium
A lot of times we might stop 5 feet from gold and not even know it... With IM , the only thing you can do is keep working it. If things are not as you want them to be you need to work harder and smarter. If a point comes when you are getting the traffic you deserve, and not converting then you are either in the wrong niche or your content is not right.

Don't worry about who ranks in front of you or anything else. Concentrate on providing the user with the best possible experience and then work on getting natural back links that can bring you traffic as well.

Stopping after hard work is the wrong move. You are better off slowing down and at least doing something, even if it is just a post and an article once a week or something.
Balrog Premium
Your reply is along the lines of what Napoleon Hill would probably say, and he would have been right. Quitting isn't the answer, and it was never really the intention. What was intended to be a small break after months of frustration turned into about a month and a half of silence...
Have you ever read 'Think and Grow Rich' by Napoleon Hill?
muskyblood Premium
Yes, it is a reference to Think and Grow Rich. It is true with IM and many facets in life. I say it as advice because I have been in your shoes and stopped working sites, only to leave me wondering if I had just quit at the wrong time.

As I said before, you are better off spending one hour per week with one article, one post. It won't cost you much time and it will be steady consistent effort on your part. You cannot quit on a niche until you are getting enough traffic to make a judgement.
slayton1s Premium
Like LordDemon said, SA's pretty good. But of course putting your content on your own site is much better. I've been helping somebody recently, and he's gotten almost all 1st page rankings on keywords he's gone after. It's pretty easy. As for whatever static page is ranking higher than you, you also have to consider how many social likes it has, comments, etc... It's bound to drop in ranking if it offers little value too.

You can't really stop at just 1 page. You have to publish more and more unique content. 400 + words is good. You can get by with less content if needed, but 400+ words is the goal.
Balrog Premium
Thanks for responding. I agree that a site needs to have a great deal of content.
LordDemon13 Premium
I think 500 to 1000 words is a little too much, I mean I usually read 300-400 words then I get bored. I think you should try to write shorter articles. And in my opinion, the reason you can't outrank that Squidoo article is because that article is either really old or has tons of backlinks OR your site is too new.

I would recommend you to try submitting your articles to StreetArticles and link them back to your site, just to see if SA can outrank that Squidoo article.
Balrog Premium
Hey, thanks for the response. Stating the the posts should be 300-400 words kind of confirms what I'm thinking. Perhaps having short, series-based posts instead single behemoths is the way to go.
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