The 7 mistakes search engine optimizers make - Part 3

Here's the next installment of the mini-course, The 7 Mistakes Search Engine Optimizers Make.

The 7 Mistakes Search Engine Optimizers Make – Part 3

Failure to create enough content pages.

There's a rumor floating around the Internet that one and two page web sites can't possibly rank well in a Search Engine.

Wrong.

They can rank very well in any Search Engine, just not for more than two or three keywords.

Case in point. Yanik Silver has a site called Instant Sales Letters. His site is at www.instantsalesletters.com

This site is a few pages and ranks number 1 for the search term "Sales Letters."

So yes, you can rank well for a keyword phrase with a small site.

But…

If you want to dominate a category that contains dozens or hundreds of profitable keywords or products, you're going to need multiple pages on your site each targeting a different keyword from your category.

I'm going to group these additional pages into one lump term – "Content Pages."

Now a content page can be a product page from your eCommerce Store, a Newsletter, a Review of a Product, a Recommendation for an Affiliate Product, a Listing of Related web sites or Directories of useful resources – whatever.

The point is each one of these pages is another opportunity for it to rank.

So, you need to take care about structuring these pages so that they target the keywords that you've found to be in demand.

If you're an eCommerce store owner selling Truck Accessories, make sure you know exactly how people are searching for those truck accessories in the Search Engines. Then, take each one of your product pages that relates to those keywords and optimize it for those search phrases.

If you're an Affiliate Marketer recommending Consumer Electronics, make sure that you're recommending those products on separate review type pages. Meaning, if you're recommending a Plasma Television, make sure that you have a few different pages each recommending a different popular make an model number.

And make sure that those pages are optimized correctly for the most relevant and in-demand search terms. If you're selling an information product with a variety of uses in a single industry, write as many article pages that you have search terms for. Each article page should be optimized for one or two closely related search terms, and they should all, in turn, lead to your sales page.

And don't forget, you can trade articles not just links with other web site owners. While your competitors are slowly trading just one link at a time, you can blow by them by getting multiple links at once by providing quality content in the form of articles to other web sites.

Remember that Google and Yahoo! rank pages – not sites. That's why you need to think about maximizing your content, whatever it may be, in order to maximize your chances for ranking.

Case in point: For my Yahoo! Store at www.myweddingfavors.com, I made sure that each on of my product pages was optimized for the list of keywords that I knew people were searching for.

So, in addition to optimizing my home page for "wedding favors," I also optimized my internal pages for terms like "Beach Wedding Favors," "Wine Wedding Favors," "Candle Wedding Favors," etc.

No, you don't need a lot of content if you don't need to rank for more than a few keywords. But if you want to dominate an industry or category, you need to have at least one page of content for every keyword you want ranking for.


Thanks for participating in our e-course on the 7 Biggest Mistakes that prevent webmasters from Stomping the Search Engines. Next time we'll talk about the reason why stale content may be costing you sales. Hint: It's probably not what you're thinking.

Check out Stomping the Search Engines at www.instantseoexpert.com/index3.html and understand how you can use syndicated content to create multiple pages in your own site!

Johan Setiawan
http://InternetMarketer.SuccessUniversity.com