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Some Site Traffic Issues, Need Advice

Too broad to stick in a specific section... need help

         

metalforever

4:09 am on Feb 28, 2010 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Alright, so.... This is going to be a long post, I have separated each section for easy reading.

Problem:

About Site: We focus on providing free content for a specialized field is termed keyword-A.

Site Competitors: There are no "real" competitors to my site. I offer unique content on the internet. We used to have competitors, but those sites are down now, or are archived. This causes problems for keywording, see below.

Keywording: This site used a term, "keyowrd-A", which was valid in 2006, when I registered the domain. We had many competitors at the time, which perpetuated the use of the term "keyword-A" instead of other terms like "learn kw1 kw2". Now a site with content essentially centered around this term gets no hits because people no longer search for it.

Why I cant use alternative terms: The members of my site are what is left of old competitors, from like 2006. These members are insistent on using old terms, such as keyword-A, instead of better terms such as "kw1 kw2". If i optimize for "kw1 kw2", I lose my only traffic, which is what I have to go on right now. This is a problem because learning in this field takes a few years. I need those knowledgeable members on my website to answer newbie questions and to act as authority figures.

Problem with using "kw1" as a keyword: This keyword is highly competitive. This keyword is also filled with sites whose sole focus is ads, and offer no real content, or people that are insistent on taking other people's money for fake purposes I want my information to be available because it is legitimate, free, not focused on ads. Google might be using the keywords of the other sites that I don't wish to incorporate into my page because of the negative connotations.

Where we are at money-wise: I am in school - i am taking entirely from personal money. We have no funding, and have been living off of donations. I cant hire any freelancers if it is over 30-$40 , or pay for advertisements. Google ads is an iffy issue because I still dont fill out my own taxes, and this site isnt something my parents would feel comfortable with.

Age of domain: Either registered in 2006, or early 2007.

Where we appear in the search engine: First page above the fold for term "keyword-A". First result for "keyword-A kw1". First result for almost anything with "keyword-A [term here]". 3rd page for "learn kw1 kw2". 7th page for "kw1 online", 6th page for "online kw1". Not listed for "kw1".

Need for Keeping Visitors: We need something to pull in return visitors. This is a problem with relatively inactive forums. We need return visitors because the site goal is to teach people this field. This is an ongoing process, which requires reading a lot of the site's content. Return visitors read the site's content. Keeping visitors traditionally was done by having a forum and a chat, but its not happening anymore.

Issues with Linkbait/Viral Content: We don't have content that appears frequently on digg. I thought about starting a blog, but I have a time issue, and there is another person doing that and not getting any traffic either. I thought about giving away free articles. Competitor sites are heavily and blatantly keyworded, and aren't enthusiastic about accepting free articles. Viral content is not common among my subject matter(rather than like a linux site, etc). I thought about holding contests, but im limited financially.

Issues with holding events: People dont show up, have a hard time accessing the IRC chat, or dont pay attention when there is an event going on.

Amount of content on website: About 250 pages of written content.



I really need help here, guys. Advice?

[edited by: tedster at 4:51 am (utc) on Feb 28, 2010]
[edit reason] removed site specific details [/edit]

tedster

5:06 am on Feb 28, 2010 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Hello metalforever, and welcome to the forums.

First, thank you for the thorough communication about your market and your attention to its changes. It helps me in trying to say something you can use. You're not the first to face shifts in marketplace language, so I hope others who have tackled something like this have some insights to share.

The first thing that occurs to me is that you certainly can get traffic from more than one keyword - although your original keyword-A sounds like it was very specific whereas the other combinations are more generic. Here are some ideas:

1. How about including a section high on your home page that directly discusses this vocabulary shift? That way you can mention both the traditional keyword and the related vocabulary, hopefully optimizing for both.

2. Take some time each week to look in your server logs for what keywords are currently bringing in traffic - then work to optimize those keywords for higher rankings? It's usually easier to improve rankings for keywords that alread send you some traffic, especially longer phrases.

3. Set up a Google Alert for the old keyword-A term, to see how it is being used right now and who is using it. You may get some ideas or even be able to collaborate with the people you find through those alerts.

4. You also seem to have a marketing challenge. I'd consider using an RSS feed that, once a month, features the best new content. I'd also consider whether yuou are listed in the best free directories for your topic. Don't go crazy getting free directory links - definitely cherry pick the best ones.

Hope that helps - and maybe other members also have some ideas for you.

tangor

5:10 am on Feb 28, 2010 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



What is the goal?

Content?
Ranking?
Traffic?
Monetization?

All the above are ordinary problems solved by hard work.

Content solved by writing it/getting it. Squaring the keyword problems with oldsters is done by head-banging negotiation.

Ranking will improve with better content.

Traffic is what it is, but will improve with content... and return traffic comes with updated/new content.

Monetization is pick your poison from any of the methods available.

but I have a time issue, and there is another person doing that and not getting any traffic either

This sounds like champagne on a beer budget. You either have the time or you don't. Results require time and effort... there is no magic bullet.

metalforever

6:50 am on Feb 28, 2010 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



First Reply:

1. This would be a good idea to implement.

2. optimizing isnt going to do this by itself. I did optimize for keyword 2- The problem here is keyword 2 is optimized in such a way on other sites as to not make sense because of inclusion of the keyword so many times. Its primarily a landing page for advertisements, every single result in the first 3 pages.

3. no relevant sites are using it *anymore*. Its mainly role-playing sites or chat channels. Collaboration in this case is impossible. There is no one left to collaborate with. All of the other sites were taken down due to the same problems i am currently facing.

4. im already in everything, directory wise. Detail more about the rss feed thing. Im weary about the legality of those.


second reply:

1. Goal is traffic, which hopefully leads towards more content submissions.
2. The sites are just landing pages to collect ad revenue. All of the sites will not negotiate. They contain no useful content, and can be likened to spam-sites.
3. I have a *significant* amount of content. More so then almost all of these sites combined. This is not the problem.
4. Time issue, agreed.

phranque

8:19 am on Feb 28, 2010 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



to get the most out of what you have you should also do all the obvious checklist things and make sure your technical issues are solved.

for example, be sure that you are canonicalizing your domain and only serving content to canonical urls.
all non-canonical requests should get a 301 or 404 response as appropriate.
in some cases it may be appropriate to use a meta robots noindex or canonical link tag for these.

a search for site:example.com can often be illuminating.
as well you should try a search for site:example.com kw1 kw2 and see what that tells you.
does the number of results seem reasonable?
are there any supplemental results?
do the titles contain your keywords?
do the meta descriptions convince you to click through?

have you run a link checker script to look for broken links in your navigation?

have you looked for interesting clues in your server access files?
(especially clues for how the search engine bots are crawling your site and keyword clues for visitors referred from search engines)

have you looked at your Google Webmaster Tools, SiteExplorer and Bing Webmaster Center consoles for any messages regarding crawl errors or other issues?

have you looked at your robots.txt file?

then it should also be pointed out that if you want to optimize for "learn kw1 kw2" it would be quite helpful to have inbound links with that anchor text.

once you get all the wheels spinning in the preferred direction, you can spend some of that time you don't have reading this:
"Google Hot Topics - FAQs" [webmasterworld.com]
 

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