Need major help with SEO

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   lukeukposted 12 years ago

   I am really terrible at SEO, I asked this question in another topic and someone said to post a new topic so here I am.
   If anyone could give me some tips on how to improve my ranking I would be so grateful . Please when you give advice tell me how to do that, for instance if you say use backlinks then tell me where to post them. Thanks in advance.

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      Wesman Todd Shawposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I looked at "Windows ON A Mac" and so far as I can tell - that's a great article, but:
      
      1. Your first text capsule should contain a relevant keyword, and
      
      2.  Your picture capsue(s?) - if that is one capsule, then make it into TWO capsules, and title the capsules with valid keywords.
      
      Other than that - it looks really good to me - I've had hubs sit and do NOTHING for six months or more and then......get TONS of Google traffic.
      
      Another thing you should do - if you've got a particular hub you think needs improving or is under performing - then submit it in the "extreme hub makeover" forum, and you will get some pro tips there.....that's where I learned whatever it is that I know.

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         lukeukposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Thank you for those tips, when your saying about my first text capsule are you talking about the subtitle that should contain a keyword ?

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            recommend1posted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Your title should contain one or more words that clearly connect to your subject, the text should contain enough words that clearly point to your subject, without making the text read badly.  Join other sites and put up articles about your topic and point back to your hub article and make comments on blogs etc with related topics, with a link back to your own stuff if you can.
            
            Backlinking as practiced by link farms etc appears to be going out of fashion as is linking to random stuff.  The many hubs on the topic of backlinking are useful if sometimes a little outdated, they do provide a number of sites to go to.

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            Wesman Todd Shawposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Yes!  Exactly.

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      Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      There's a very simple answer.  Sign up for the free trial of Market Samurai. You don't need to sign up for the paid version after the trial - you can learn a lot in the free time.
      
      It also has nice tools like the competition checker.  Personally I don't think your problem is SEO, I think it's your choice of topic.  If you write about subjects where there's a lot of competition, it's hard to rank no matter how good your SEO is.

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2. 72

   Cagsilposted 12 years ago

   Here is another Hubber's profile.
   
   On his profile are some links to help you with SEO.
   
   http://peterhoggan.hubpages.com/

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3. 0

   Go Writerposted 12 years ago

   Have you read any of Ktrapp's hubs on how to SEO your hubpages? She's got some really detailed tips about where in your hubs you should put your keywords, etc. I'll give the link to one of them, and then you can check her profile for her other SEO tips. They're really well written and easy to follow.
   
   I do recommend, whenever you find a hub that's useful, using the "bookmark this hub" button underneath an author's picture (or underneath the advertisement). Then you can organize it how you want.
   
   You can always go back and access your bookmarks within your own account. Just click ACTIVITY , then click BOOKMARKS.
   
   Anyway, here is the link to one of her hubs about how to SEO-optimize a hubpage and knowing where to put the keywords in the right places to help you rank better: http://ktrapp.hubpages.com/hub/Get-Hits … e-Keywords
   
   But the REAL key is to make sure you've chosen a good keyword to rank for. You can do it for free which takes a long time, or use a paid tool. One of the hottest keyword tools on the market is SECOCKPIT by Swiss marketer, Shane Melaugh. It's pretty expensive, but I hear it's totally worth the investment.

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      ktrappposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Wow Go Writer - Thank You. It's funny, but I've been writing away on this forum trying to give Lukeuk some specific pointers since he asked, and I just now noticed what you wrote before I popped into this forum. That's very kind of you.

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   Wesman Todd Shawposted 12 years ago

   You want SEO - here is THE MAN that I pay attention to, and I'm nothing, nothing at all.
   
   This guy has forgot more about SEO than most folks could ever use
   
   http://sunforged.hubpages.com/

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      mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      100% agree, Sunforged is the best source of advice on here (pretty much), and he has hubs on this subject that are accurate and informative

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5. 94

   ktrappposted 12 years ago

   Hi Luke.
   
   I took a look at three of your hubs and I see some really simple seo techniques you could use that would probably help you a lot.
   
   First, I would suggest making more specific titles. For example, the hub titled "video converter for mac" should be more specific. For example something like: The Best Video Converters for Mac, or The Best Free Video Converters for Mac, or How to Convert Videos on a Mac, or "Steps to Convert Video Files on Mac" etc.
   
   Then, I noticed your URL for that same hub is: How-to-convert-most-music-and-viideo-files-on-a-mac. You should make your URLs shorter and just stick to one idea, leave out generic words like "most" in this case, and make sure your spelling is correct. You spelled "viideo" incorrectly so this hub probably is not ever going to be found for anyone searching for video. A better URL would be like the titles I suggested above.
   
   Next, I would suggest using more text capsules and giving each of them a subtitle with a keyword or related keyword. While your subtitle "you will be converted soon" is catchy, it is a missed seo opportunity. Put some keywords in the capsules subtitle and your keyword phrase in your opening paragraph or two. For example, if your hub title is "How to Convert Videos on a Mac" then your first subtitle could be something like, "Converting Video Files on a Mac is Easy and Free." Then use more text capsules and subtitles. Before you launch into the conversion steps you could have a subtitle like, "Steps for Converting a Video File on a Mac."
   
   If you have a hub with steps, I would also recommend using bullet points for each step or give each step a heading with keywords in it.
   
   Keep in mind, you don't want to go keyword crazy - it's not necessary - but you do want to put them in all the right places.
   
   I have written about five hubs on SEO that I think you would find really useful. If you look at them, I would suggest starting with the one about using keywords in all the right places.
   
   Best of luck to you. You sound very sincere in your desire to get help with SEO so I hope it works out for you.
   
   ~Kristin

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      lukeukposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Great info , thank you , its unfortunate that hp dosent allow the user to change the link like the title

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         recommend1posted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Yo9u can change anything by unpublishing your hub and writing a new one the same with your changes incorporated - leave publishing the new one for a week or so in order that the original dies in respect to google.

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         ktrappposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I can think of reasons why having the ability to edit URLs wouldn't be a good idea, but if your hubs really aren't performing well with search engines then you may really want to consider creating a new hub with a new URL with your content.
         
         However, I would give it a couple of days before republishing so Google has time to recrawl and remove your old hub from its index. You really are not supposed to remove it with Google's Webmaster Tools unless it is urgent - this is per their rules.
         
         You will lose comments that have been left on your hub, but for long term success this may be the best option.

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            lukeukposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I have a question. My article about reddit has a spelling error in the URL , yet it still ranks high in google. Do you think I should republish it with the corrected spelling , or is it not worth the risk in loosing my high rank with google.

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               ktrappposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               I took a look at the Reddit hub you wrote and I see that it is the word experience that is spelled wrong in the URL. You seem to be #1 for searches having to do with gain website traffic with Reddit, and #5 for experience with Reddit. Even though it is spelled wrong in your URL, it's correct in your title and in this case it does not seem to be hurting you too much, so I guess I would just leave the URL as is.
               
               I also searched using experience spelled incorrectly (like in your URL) and your hub was #6. It certainly helps having the word correct in your title. But if it was correct in the URL you may be even up higher in the results for queries using the word experience.
               
               One thing that may help you move up a few spots in results, if "experience with Reddit" is what is getting you traffic, is to use that phrase in your summary, first paragraph, and maybe your first subtitle. Use the tips I gave you for the video converter hub.
               
               Instead of the subtitle "Mixed Feelings" maybe use something like "Mixed Feelings about Experience with Reddit."
               
               And then you could take your last sentence of your first paragraph which is "I have found that Reddit, by far, delivers much more traffic" and change it to something like, "My experience with Reddit was that Reddit, by far, delivers much more website traffic."
               
               And put that keyword phrase in your summary for sure. If you make these changes, submit the URL through Google Webmaster Tools, I would be willing to bet you will move up a couple of spots.
               
               It really is pretty simple once you get yourself trained to remember these tips and follow-through.
               
               Good luck.

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                  lukeukposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  I see, thank you for giving me such detailed advice, its really a good help . Do you think I should re do my url then ? And what do you mean about webmaster tools , I'm a bit of a novice sorry.

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                     ktrappposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     I think in this case I would just leave the URL as it is since you do seem to be ranking well. But I would definitely just tweak it with a few of the small changes I suggested.
                     
                     Google webmaster tools allows you to submit URLs so they will be crawled to faster. It is not necessary, but I can tell sometimes when I have used it after editing hubs mine are re-crawled within hours. I only do this when I make seo-types of changes and am trying to improve my rank. If it's not used Google will still crawl to your page but it is quicker this way.
                     
                     I have a hub about it with step-by-step directions. I am not sure if I am allowed to put a link to my own hub here, but the title is Google Webmaster Tools for HubPages.

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               Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               This just proves that although a good URL can be an asset, it's not absolutely critical.  Your title and content are more important.

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                  ktrappposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  I was thinking the same thing. I just did a hub about SEO and backlinks and in it I mention that one of the reasons you sometimes see sites higher ranked even though keywords are not in the title or url is due to good backlinks. But this may not be the case with Luke's Reddit hub - he may not have any backlinks at all (idk). The title and content may be enough in this instance.
                  
                  But backlinks are interesting in that good backlinks sometimes seem to override on-page seo that may not be as good as it can be. A very extreme example of this phenomenon is for the search query, "click here." Adobe shows up as the first result even though these words are not part of their home page or URL (obviously). All the anchor text/links across the web for "click here" to get the Adobe reader are the reason for this.
                  
                  The Adobe example also illustrates why anchor text matters. The chosen words in backlink anchor text certainly gives the destination page some SEO juice.
                  
                  A good URL is definitely an asset, and something I now pay very careful attention to, but like you said not always critical.

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                     lukeukposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     Ill be sure to read your Hub , were you saying that you have made a backlink to my hub about reddit ? If you have then that is very much appreciated !

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                        ukbusinessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                        Out of interest, with the Reddit hub, are you targetting a certain keyphrase?
                        It doesnt look like anyone searches for 'gain traffic with reddit' or any real variations of that, so even if you were number 1 then you really wouldn't see any traffic because no one searches for it.

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                           Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                           This is exactly what I mean.  Luke, if you're not prepared to do some study on this, you need to at least make an effort to learn what a keyword is and how to find out which keywords people are searching for.

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                              lukeukposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                              Excuse me ? I do keyword research and if you put "reddit traffic" in then you get a fair few searches. My analytics clearly show that allot of people are searching for that and do press on my link within google

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                           lukeukposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                           The keyword tool isnt that accurate for showing what people search for.

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                              ukbusinessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                              It isnt that accurate, but you need to be targetting a phrase with at least some search volume.
                              You need to remember that a top ranking typically takes 40% of the traffic for that phrase...therefore if the keyword tool is showing ~1000 monthly searches you can assume you will get ~400. However if you are lower on the page you will get a lot less traffic (depending on position).
                              
                              With your keyword there isnt any reported traffic, so you would really have to be in position 1 just to catch any stray traffic that does use that phrase. Sounds like a lot of work to get maybe a few hits every month.
                              
                              Try targetting a phrase which is actually showing some traffic in the keyword tool, you might get better luck that way

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                                 lukeukposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                 I have tried that already, if i have specific a key-worded title like "reddit" then the competition is way too high

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                                    ukbusinessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                                    Well yeah because reddit is a massive community spanning loads of topics.
                                    I have had a quick look and it looks like a better suggestion would be 'reddit for seo', this at least has some search volume

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                              Peter Hogganposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                              Spot on Luke, it is good for finding a wide selection of keywords but take the numbers with a pinch of salt if you pay any heed at all. If you look at a wide selection of keywords tools, including Market Samurai suggested by Marisa Wright earlier, you will get a much better feel for things and start to see keyword trends emerging.

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            mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this

            It is also worth remembering that often it can take a couple of weeks for a URL to de-index if you want to republish the content elsewhere. This is why I use the Google URL removal tool, because it usually removes the old URL of an unpublished article within 24 hours.
            
            https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools … mp;rlf=all

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               ktrappposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               The reason I said not to remove an URL directly unless it is urgent is because that is what Google's support says. The example they give of urgent is a page that accidentally exposes confidential info. like credit card numbers. They say that if you remove URLs for other types of reasons it may cause problems for your site.
               
               You can read it here:
               http://support.google.com/webmasters/bi … wer=164734
               
               This support page also has a link explaining when NOT to use the URL removal tool. I think a lot of people are not aware of this so just be careful.

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                  mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  Very interesting info that I had not seen before. The tool was recommended to me by at least one very experienced Webmaster, (although maybe he didn't know this either.) I can't help wondering if they suggest only using it in 'extreme cases' to avoid overloading their automated system, because I can't actually see any negative effects of using it listed, (unless I am missing something!) I have used it for no less than 40+ URL's in a very short space of time with no ill effects in the past!

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                     ktrappposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                     Don't quote me on any of this, but I think possibly their system is just reserved for truly urgent situations of URLs that need to be removed, so as to distinguish the urgent ones from all the other URLs people want down. The urgent ones need to be first in line. It is nice that they do provide for a way to do this.
                     
                     I have no idea what Google means by problems for a site this might cause if used for non-urgent situations, so that is why for myself I would use it sparingly if at all.
                     
                     Anyway - food for thought, I guess.

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                        mistyhorizon2003posted 12 years agoin reply to this

                        Definitely food for thought, although I probably would still use it for 'cough' non urgent removals too

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   SmartAndFunposted 12 years ago

   Thanks for all the replies; they are very helpful to me also.

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   Will Apseposted 12 years ago

   All you need to worry about on Hubpages are finding good keywords- in other words, subjects that are not already saturated with high authority pages and that plenty of people are interested in.
   
   Get the keywords in the URL, title, summary and first paragraph or so and you are good to go.
   
   Of course, you will need to write a good article.
   
   Check your read times/view durations to see if you are succeeding.

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      janderson99posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      For those who have ezinearticles accounts they have developed a title suggestion tool which is useful for getting ideas about competitive (??) titles.
      Not Bad, Worth a Look
      
      http://my.ezinearticles.com/write-edit/ … ggestions/

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   Peter Hogganposted 12 years ago

   Will is right, but even with the wide range of keyword research tools available online some trial and error has to be expected. Don’t forget to look at your analytics regularly to see how people are finding you and tweak your hubs accordingly.

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   ukbusinessposted 12 years ago

   SEO is not easy when you start to think about the ways a search engine will rank your page. When I started out I used to get a lot of good advice from an SEO consultant, and alot of it evolved around trial and error.
   The best place to go though if you are seriously interested in proper SEO is the seomoz blog - http://www.seomoz.org/blog

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    Mike Shreeveposted 12 years ago

    One thing that a lot of people forget about when working in SEO is remembering to link out from your page to other pages that are relevant. It may seem counter intuitive, but I was struggling one time with a client trying to get their site past a certain point in the rankings. We ended up linking to a site that they were competing with and ended up jumping past them later that same week.
    
    I didn't look at all of your hubpages but I looked at a few and you could certainly help yourself by doing this. Google LOVES "Hubs" of information and no site is an island with ALL the information there is to know, and google understands this and has made it a part of their algorithm. Hope this helps.

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       ktrappposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Excellent point. I think so many people think that the link only helps the target page, when in fact, as you pointed it out, the link also helps the page it is on. It is important though to have good anchor text (not url or click here), as I can tell you obviously know.

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       lukeukposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       That is interesting and did not know that. I will have to get to work on that.

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    hurleyinternetposted 12 years ago

    Here is an interesting video from Matt Cutt's (search engine guru at Google) which discusses the best methods to gain good quality backlinks.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkLFlaWxgJA

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    awayreposted 12 years ago

    @janderson99  It's actually quite good. Gave me several ideas. Thanks for sharing.

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    thediggerposted 12 years ago

    I want to advice you few things to increase visitors :
    
    1. Use separate text box for separate paragraph and if possible try to add subheading.
    2. Insert relevant picture to your hub.
    3. Try to put content between 600-1000 words.
    4. Try to provide information much as possible.
    5. Comments on related hubs.
    6. Participate in the forum
    7. Help others in hubpages question/answer forum
    8. Social bookmarking and article submission for getting backlinks.
    9. Use twitter and facebook to expose more.
    
    These above tips will increase the overall score of your hubs and your profile too and your traffic will be increase. More traffic means more income.

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