How do we measure SEO Success?

There’s nothing like a verifiable example of SEO Success to convince people! So I’ve decided to expose one of my sites to scrutiny here and show you what a SEO success looks like!

Insomniactive – 30,000 visitors per month

Insomniactive is a site I set up to promote affiliate sales in sleep products for adults, babies and dogs. It’s currently getting more than a thousand visitors per day for the keywords I selected and beating powerful, established authority sites at the top of page one. This article demonstrates that success and gives some insights into the success of that site.

Do I need a domain name that matches my product?

The domain name is really not as important as it was even five years ago. Thus, if you want to sell ‘natural honey’, it is of little advantage to have a URL such as ‘naturalhoney.com’ or ‘buynaturalhoney.com’.

Such domains are known as EMD’s or Exact Match Domains, and Google has significantly reduced their effects on search engine results over the past few years. So don’t worry about EMD’s – they don’t help much. Go for a relevant name if possible, something that’s easy for people t remember and relate to. Thus, I used an old domain I picked up for $100 – we’ll see why I did this in a moment. The name ‘insomniactive’ does relate to the subject of the site, but not to any particular product.

Is an Old Domain needed for SEO Success?

In a word, no! However, old domains can significantly speed up your ranking process! The domain Insomniactive.com was registered in 2004 and has a significant track record with Google, so it started out its new life as a trusted entity, which speeds up ranking. It had a significant number of backlinks, although they were not relevant to the new subject of sleep aids! In fact, the domain had been a journalists site.

When you register a new domain, it takes a few weeks after you have set the new site up and posted a few articles to get it ‘bedded in’ and crawled by the Search Engine Robots (‘Bots’), listed and accepted as not being Spam. However, it also takes time to write or commission new content, so I so no disadvantage in a brand new domain except for its lack of existing, powerful links.

How important is site design to SEO Success?

Critical! And it’s not just the visible design that matters, but the ‘hidden design’, about which I’ll be telling you a lot.

What is ‘Hidden Design’?

Hidden design essentially encompasses ninety percent of on-site SEO. The key parameters are:

• Keyword Inclusion – in images, titles, text, links and categories.
• Image Optimization – for speed.
• Code Compression – for speed.
• Meta Tags – data and instructions for the ‘search bots’ and also important for link control
• Site speed – a slow site will hurt your rankings.
• Mobile Friendly – the majority of web searches are now from mobile devices – and unfriendly sites are punished in rankings.

A Note on Visible Design Factors

Some things about your site are only visible when you look for them and check the rankings for specific keywords – and the main invisible factor is: Links to your site from other sites.Furthermore, not all links are alike – there are:-

• Social Links
• Authority links from powerful sites
• Social Media Links from Facebook, Twitter etc
• Web2.0 links from Blogs and so on
• Media links from press agencies
• Business links from Yelp and other similar sites

Among these links there are a range of links that are ‘follow’ and ‘no-follow’, and a whole spectrum of ‘anchor text’ which is the words on the link that connects to your sites. Google checks carefully for suitable anchor text from suitable sites that are related to your site in some way – anything that looks artificial is punished.

The Rewards of Good SEO – Free Traffic

Free traffic comes from high ranking for keywords with lots of volume searches.

In this screen capture you can see many keywords ranked on page one, with a total search volume exceeding 50,000 searches per month. That’s why this site is headed for 30,000 visitors per month (24,000 n the past month).

Conlusions

SEO works – and works well, generating traffic long after rankings have been achieved without the expense of advertising. But you’ve got to get it right or your site will tank!