Newsletter - Web Site Design and Search Engine Optimization

SEO Library is Back..

We've updated the search engine optimization library that use to be here and have it back online. It has some Adsense advertising now (somebody has to pay for it), but you will find lots of good stuff in it.

March Table of Contents

Google and New Sites - Why new sites don't show up fast..
Landing Page Strategies - You are buy an Adwords or Site Match. How do you get that page they land on to work?

Coming Next Month...

Google's stealth technology for returning hot results - Latent Semantic Indexing

Google and New Sites

If you've put a new site out there for Google recently, you probably noticed a strange phenomena.

The Effect

You have just put a new site up, optimized it, and it is complete with external links coming into the site so that Google can find it. Your site hits a great position quickly and stays there about 2-3 weeks. Then something happens. Its position dances around, always pretty far off from any good ranking where it should be. This continues for about 4-8 months and sometimes your site even completely disappears (even if you search on your company name). After that 4-8 months your site then finally settles down to something that you expect from your optimization work that you really did early right around your original submission.

This is a very common phenomena and is reported by many SEOs. We have one site that is #1 on Page 1 in MSN and Page 3 in Yahoo, but in Google the same site is sometimes page 9, sometimes page 4, sometimes not there at all. The keyword phrase is not a very competitive phrase. The external links are there. What is going on?

The Theories

Google isn't talking (of course), and SEOs have different opinions, but let's look at some possibilities. Remember that that Google places a high premium on links, particularly from external sites. Whatever this is has to do with those links, not the page. The PageRank is calculated from the links, and PageRank has a lot of effect on the ranking. And the toolbar is not displaying the current PageRank - the toolbar is off by several months. The real PageRank, however, does affect the linking.

The PageRank is a recursive calculation. That is, the PageRank of any page is determined by other pages in the site and in other sites - even those that don't link to you. This means Google has to assign the pages of your new site an arbitrary PageRank to start with after which it can recurse to a more accurate value. Google is known to be generous in assigning this starting value. After a few weeks your pages recurse to their accurate value.

At this point Google places your site (pages) into a special sandbox area. Your pages may or may not show on result pages, and where it shows up on them can vary with the sun spot cycle. Google is playing with your pages. This will go on for several months and there is nothing you can do about it. You can try all kinds of optimizing strategies, only to see they have little effect on your position or you see positioning that doesn't match what you did.

Eventually (after 4-8 months), your pages are taken out of the Sandbox and things will look much like what you would expect. Try explaining this to your client, however, that wants to see their site in a good position at least within a month. Show them their site listing in Yahoo or MSN. Google will surprise them.

All new sites are sandboxed. An existing site can be Sandboxed if it gets too many external links in a short period of time. You could think of this as a Sandbox Filter, and the filter effectively puts new sites on a probation period to establish their identity in the larger Internet network. Some people call it an Aging Filter. Google started it in March of 2004.

The Purpose

The purpose seems to be to weed out the Mom & Pop websites out there and make sure the sites returned on the result page are stable sites that are worth something to the searcher. Another purpose is to prevent those mini-networks or web rings from giving pages an artificial high ranking.

What Can You Do

There are various theories here about solutions, but they are just that.

Here are some ideas:

• Make sure your site has its own IP address.
  
  
• Be sure your site has been through some human evaluation. The DMOZ directory is one solution, but that's slow. A paid Google Adwords or Yahoo Site Match is faster.
  
  
• Early in your design put a home page out there. Add some great external links from sites with high PageRank (4 or better), and be sure your site is optimized well. In other words, seed Google with your site as early as possible, even if it is only one page.
  
  
• Go ahead and optimize for Yahoo and MSN. These don't have a delay and can give you good traffic.
  
  
• Link into the new site from other sites you have that can give traffic. For example, suppose you are launching a new product from your company. The normal route would be to create a new domain that targets the product more strategically than your main site. That strategy still works in Yahoo and MSN - go ahead and do it. In Google, however, this new site is sandboxed. Now build a link from a high-ranking page on your company's main site to your new domain. This gives you a strong external link to your new site and also gives users a traffic path into the site on Google.

Follow-up

Here are some good links to follow up on the SEO discussion on this:

http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=8690

There are a lot more - this is a very popular subject. Search in the engines on:

Google +sandbox

Here's an interesting question: If you put Google's AdSense ads on your site, will Google still bury the pages in the Sandbox and kill their income? We are testing this now. Let us know what you find out.

Landing Page Strategies

The landing page is the entrance page for a paid insertion advertisement. When using a paid insertion to the search engines (such as pay-per-click), the design of the landing page is critical for the success of the advertisement. Most entrance pages have a high bounce rate; that is, people leave without going further in the site. For an advertisement, you want your visitor to move quickly to the order page from the landing page. You paid for them to click through - you don't want a visitor, you want a buyer.

Second, a visitor surfing through may never visit your site again. This is your last chance to identify the visitor and keep them posted with later mailings.

• Be sure you believe in your product or service. There should be passion in the page - the reader will know if you don't believe.
  
  
• The landing page is generally not the main page for your company's web site. The landing page should be a special entrance page, but should have an input link from the site. (It should NOT be a gateway page.)
  
  
• If you have pages that expand your landing page, have a link from each directly to the order page.
  
  
• Most people won't buy the first time they hit your page. Make the page work for these people by getting their email address by offering them something free such as a opt-in newsletter subscription or one or two e-Books you've written. That email database is worth a lot!
  
  
• The landing page should focus the client on the product. You don't want them to surf off to another part of your site that is not directly related. Don't let the ad send them to a multiple product site. Keep it focused.
  
  
• Know the goal and focus on a call to action for that goal. Avoid distracting information.
  
  
• Use action words - avoid the passive.
  
  
• Give them a cost/benefit analysis. Lead with the benefits.
  
  
• Push for them to act now. Do you have a special sale until a specified date?
  
  
• Try to specify the price if you can, but keep it at the end.

This is just a start! Our book has over 30 tips for that landing page.