OK, I’m in a bit of an irritable mood this afternoon. Besides the fact that for the last 36-hours my ISP has been having intermittent connection problems, which not only has caused me to be unable to upload some huge video files that I need to provide to my partner Damian, it also affects my telephone service, because I use Vonage.  (Internet-based phone service is great, except when you don’t have an internet connection! )

All this bugs me.  I wasn’t able to accomplish everything I needed to do online yesterday or today, and of course I never know if I will get cut off in the middle of a phone conversation. My ISP tells me I have to wait until tomorrow when the “node” (whatever that is) will be fixed.

So, in keeping with my mood, I thought I’d totally digress from SEO issues and post a public statement to the world, letting you all know that I have begun to make my own quiet political statement against the awful gasoline prices.

I am not going to get into naming the actual public figures, nor the countries that I think are gouging us, taking advantage of us, and thumbing their noses at what the USA has done for them … and I am not going to mention the political figures that I think are despicable human beings and who are obviously laughing all the way to the bank every time one of us has to fuel up our vehicles.  Nope! I’m going to remain mum on those particular issues.

But hear me now!  I promise that from this point forward, I am going to do everything I can to use LESS GASOLINE.   I have decided one way I can achieve this is by curtailing my normal 40-mile round trip ventures up into town that I used to do about twice a week. Now I’ll consolidate all the little errands, shopping and everything else I usually take care of, and will only allow myself one stinkin’ trip a week into town.

I am going to be conscious of every darn drop of gasoline  I have to pump into my little 2-seater sports car, which by the way was pretty economical when I purchased it years ago and it still is. I get around 20mpg in the city and 34mpg on the highway. Not bad.

Anyway … there. I am doing my part to protest this awful situation.

I’m off my soapbox.  Thank you for listening.

I have been writing about how I am able to maintain top SEO rankings for the keyword phrase garden art project: read about it here.

At the time of that article (March 25, 2008), I held the #1 and #2 Google SERP positions. Today, I see I have the #2 and #3 positions, and also that the total number of SERPs (search engine result pages) that Google is showing has dropped significantly from 2.4 million to about 1.2 million.

Here is a screenshot I took a moment ago:

See what can happen in just a few weeks with rankings and other search engine results? The number of competing pages dropped significantly and I would have thought I’d have stayed up at the top with my ranking positions, but I haven’t.

But you know what? I’m not alarmed, nor really concerned, as little fluctuations can happen from time to time.  I will just sit back for now and see what happens within another week or two. If this competing website is still at #1, then I will make a decision as to what I need to do to try and attain the top spots again.

Trust me, I am not boo-hooing, as #2 and #3 are still WONDERFUL Google rankings to have.

Why Do Keyword Phrase Rankings Fluctuate?

You can pretty well bet there is more than one reason why my rankings, or yours, or anybody else’s may take a small nose dive, a huge drop, or on the positive side, a rise in the rankings from week to week, or month to month. Some of us refer to it as “The Rankings Roller Coaster”.

There is one thing you can be sure of, and that is this: NOTHING  is for sure in the search engine rankings wars! LOL  Just as in life, the ONLY thing for sure is that things are in a constant state of change. And this applies to Google, Yahoo!, MSN and all the other search engines as well.

The Three Main Reasons For SEO Ranking Fluctuations

The three basic reasons for drops or rises are either you’ve changed your site in some manner; competitors’ sites have changed; or the search engines’ algorithms changed. Be aware fluctuations can be one or a combination of these three.

To give you a little more insight, here’s a few more things to think about:

On-site issues :  Page content, products, file names, even the actual coding of your website might change every now and then, on down to daily or even hourly changes. (It all depends upon how you maintain your site.)  Anything can cause a slight or even drastic fluctuation in the rankings.

However, all being kept about the same as far as what you normally maintain and “do” on your site, there shouldn’t be anything to worry about if you dip down a notch or two.

But, if you’ve caused a coding error, or caused a glitch somewhere on your site, you might experience bigger search engine ranking problems.

Back-links (in-pointing) links :  There can be a change or drop in some good quality links that point to your website from other well-ranking websites. This is something we usually haven’t too much control over. This is also something that will happen to even the best of sites.

Hopefully you’ve not fallen prey to buying “link building” software or hiring companies that promise to get you high rankings by purchasing in-pointing links. Normally these are junk links and though you may see a spike in your rankings, it’s a short lived situation. You can also hurt your rankings by going after links from websites that are in non-related niches, or in “spam niches”, and the like.

Just keep pursuing good quality, links from relevant sites to help counteract the times when you do lose a back-link.

Server down time :  Sometimes SEO ranking drops may be due to nothing more than your website being inaccessible when the search engines try to spider your content. Usually a single instance of inaccessibility won’t affect your rankings. But, if your site is down repeatedly during crawl times … you have a serious issue that needs fixing quick!

Remember: If the search engine bots cannot spider your site when they show up at your front door, then they’ve got nothing to analyze for your ranking positions. The solution to this possibility is to have a good reliable web host provider.

A change in search algorithms :  This is one area that you and I have absolutely NO control over. Google, Yahoo!, MSN and the other SE’s have these very smart analytical-type employees sitting in their offices figuring out complicated mathematical formulas that instruct the search engines on how to process the terms you and I are searching for in relation to the gazillions of web pages filled with another gazillion subjects.  Whew … that was a mouth full!

In other words, it’s a well guarded secret as to exactly what factors are taken into consideration to deliver you or me good ranking positions. Don’t get me wrong … yes we can get a pretty good idea of what causes “good” rankings versus crummy or non-existent rankings, but the absolute answers are locked up somewhere in the search engine vaults! :) 

Suffice it to say it is true that the better the content and more theme oriented your website is, the better you will do in the rankings. And the better you’ve succeeded with your SEO optimization efforts, the better you will probably do in the rankings, too.

And then there is your competition :  If we could get rid of the competition, we’d all be in great shape! But seriously folks, new sites come onto the scene; other sites add new pages of quality content; maybe other sites gain a few more quality in-pointing links than you have; maybe a competitor starts paying better attention to their search engine optimization efforts than you are; maybe someone just wrote a couple of new articles using a keyword you didn’t have much competition for previously … the list goes on and on.

Do you get the idea of all the variables that can come into play when it comes to a drop (or rise) in search engine rankings?

I will be touching upon more of these issues in greater depth in future posts. But for now, I do hope you’ve gained some insight into the reasons for “the SEO rankings roller coaster” effect.

Here’s a very important rule I encourage you to always keep in mind when you are setting up your site’s HTML inter-linking structure: Remember It’s Gotta Be Three Clicks From Here-to-There.

This means that no matter where a visitor has entered your site, it shouldn’t take them more than three clicks to reach the information they’re looking for. It’s a well known fact that a large percentage of your site’s visitors are NOT going to be entering via your Home page. If you’ve done a good job of providing keyword focused content, many of the visitors will be coming into your site from a search engine.

On average, visitors are only willing to give you a three click chance to find what they are looking for, and if they can’t reach their target destination within those 3 all important clicks, you’ve lost them. Tah-tah … bye-bye.

Don’t Frustrate Your Visitors!

It is very frustrating to your visitors if they have to click through too many pages to get to the content they came hoping to find. Yes, you can argue that if they came from a search engine, then they are probably landing on a page that provides the information they were looking for.

But in many cases, they’re looking for more. Think about your experiences when searching for information. I don’t know about you, but I very often will seek out more info if I land on a site that has done a pretty good job of providing me what I’m looking for.

But if it is confusing to navigate the site, or it is too many clicks to get to other information that pertains to the subject I’m interested in … I’m gone.

Remember to make all the information on your site be no more than three clicks away from any point within your site. Providing multiple HTML linking paths throughout your site is encouraged. This can be achieved via your primary navigation, or through contextual hyperlinks within the content, even from the HTML site map you should have on your site.

The “three click rule” for HTML linking is yet another, important way for your site to be well received by those very much desired visitors.

As far as basic SEO steps are concerned, it is important to provide good HTML linking to help your website rank higher in the search engines. In addition, the HTML links (called ‘hyperlinks’ because when you click on the link it takes you to another page) between all your website’s pages should also be thought of as a user-friendly, ease-of-navigation issue.

What do I mean by this? Well, let me use a real life example from a website that I am currently hired to not only search engine optimize, but to also rearrange so that the site visitors can more easily navigate their way around.

I’ll share this example: the site owner emails a very nice, content rich newsletter to her list each month. She also smartly utilizes each newsletter as a new page of content for her website. So, we can all agree that this would mean that she places twelve new, keyword focused web pages on her site every year.

In the simplest form of navigation hierarchy, it would make the most sense to have a navigation button (this is an HTML linking example) that would link us to a second-tier page where she could list out each month’s newsletter with a brief overview of what the subject was. These hyperlinks would take the visitor to the actual month’s newsletter.  The newsletters would site on what would be the third-tier.

Here’s an example of the newsletter links she could have on the second-tier page:

January 2008: Aromatherapy Using Rosemary  The herb rosemary helps bring clarity of mind. Learn how to use it when defining your New Year’s intentions.

February 2008: Aromatherapy Using The Essence of Rose  Yes, this is the month of love! Learn all about the scent of Rose and why it’s used for love and romantic intentions!

Each month’s newsletter would be hyperlinked in this fashion. Each newsletter would be sitting on its own web page. Each page’s file name would be keyword optimized such as the file name for January could be:
        www.nameofsite.com/january2008-aromatherapy-rosemary.html
        www.nameofsite.com/february2008-aromatherapy-rose.html

Unfortunately, This Is Not The HTML Linking Structure Currently In Use

My client has made a big mistake by linking her newsletters in the following way:

•  She has not provided a landing page from the navigational HTML link to a second-tier page as I have mentioned;

•  Her HTML linking structure for all the newsletters consist of one link at the bottom of each newsletter, stating “click here for last month’s newsletter”;

•  And worse yet … it isn’t the current month’s newsletter that is accessed when you click on her “Newsletter” navigation button, no! It is the oldest newsletter.

Can you understand how clumsy and aggravating this is to someone who wants to access her most current newsletter to see what she’s wriring about this month? Or to someone who wants to see a nice overview of all her newsletters because they wish to reference back to one they had read months before?

You need to think out the HTML linking you’ll use on your site. Not only is it advantageous for SEO ranking purposes to have all your website pages inter-linked, but it is also most important to have a very carefully thought out, easy-to-navigate website for your visitors.

Make your HTML linking structure simple, clearly defined and easy for your visitor to figure out ‘where to go next’. This is but one more way to you can encourage your visitors to stay on your site for a longer period of time. And the longer they stay, the more option you have to make them aware of your products or services!

Here’s a situation that is all too common with newcomers to the internet marketing world. But in this instance, the question is being asked by an individual that claims to have a web development business. I don’t know about you, but if I had hired this company to help develop my website’s online presence, and I became aware that the owner was asking a question like this one, well his company wouldn’t be involved with my website anymore!

I am digressing here … back to the subject at hand. Here is an all-too-common situation that arises AFTER a new internet marketer jumps on the band wagon. Let me share the gist of what this individual was asking about: 

Hi: I am new to the affiliate marketing business. I presently own and operate a small web development company. We recently developed a website targeted to people who are interested in and/or related to all areas relating to dogs. They could be dog owners, breeders, groomers, trainers, etc.  

Here is my question: Is ‘dogs’ a good niche?

 

Is ‘Dogs’ A Good Niche?

Sigh … OK, so this individual has already purchased a domain name; has started to build out a site around the HUGE category of dogs; has probably taken time to write content; taken time to place the content and other information onto this new site … but he’s asking NOW “is ‘dogs’ a good niche”??

Did he put the cart before the horse? Yes, most definitely. My suggestion to him was to STOP what they were doing right now and do some keyword research using a tool like Wordtracker.

I told him that the niche of dogs was huge! (‘Dogs’ is not what you’d call a niche. Poodles would be a niche, or puppy training would be a niche.) I advised ‘dogs’ was way too broad for them to achieve any online marketing success. That they needed to narrow it down!

I told him I’d make a 200% wager that they hadn’t done any keyword research, based on the question. I told him if they expected to attract targeted traffic, then keyword research was a must.

In addition, I advised that not only would the keyword research help them discover smaller niches within the broad category of dogs, they’d also get a grasp on what people were REALLY typing into the search engines to find out information about dogs.

If you know what people are searching for, then you’ll know what content topics to write about in order to try and grab some of that traffic via your organic search engine rankings!

As an example of what I am talking about, I entered ‘dogs’ into Wordtracker, set it to give me the top 100 results, and here’s an example of those results for today.

Here’s the top ten (actual term being used with projected 24 hour searches made in the USA):

1.  dogs    36,052
2.  dogsrule.com   7,241
3.  who let the dogs out   1,417
4.  funny dogs   1,130
5.  dogs for sale   1,058
6.  hot dogs   831
7.  cute dogs   798
8.  boxer dogs   753
9.  small dogs   693
10.  mummy dogs   622

All the way down to:

93.   herbs for dogs   123
94.   teacup dogs    122
95.   seizures in dogs   120
96.   english bull dogs   120; and lastly …
100.  havanese dogs   115

So, the moral of this story is to do your keyword research before you even purchase a domain name! You have to know the niche(s) you will be targeting within the broad category you’ve chosen.

Plus, you must get an idea of what people are searching for!  If you build out a website that contains information that only 2 people a day are interested in, it’s going to be terribly difficult to make any money as an online marketer!