End of SEO road - Traffic growth stopped - What next?

[estibot.com]

Hi All,

Let me ask you SEO Sages for some advice (any wisdom will be of general interest to all webmasters I'm sure)

I've got a site that I've built in the past 2 years, and have done all the layman SEO I'm capable of.

It's got a nice little thing going with about 350 uniques/day and 900 page loads/day, and making about $400 in Adsense/month.

The traffic has been growing steadily, but very slowly. It seems to be stuck now at <1,000 page loads per day.

However, I feel that the content warrants more traffic+income. It's a very nice and informative, interactive site for its niche (which is not small at all). It's a niche I'm a real expert in, I have the credentials, and I have a passion for the niche. I'm updating it every day and it's generally been a LOT of work. I'm starting to wonder whether I've wasted my time with it. I mean, I've got a day job..

It's got a forum, blog, all the basic SEO has been done. The page rank is stuck at 4. It appears in the top 10 in Google SERPs for many combinations of keywords, but not the most competitive keywords. It's nr 1 of millions in MSN SERP for its main keyword combo. So I've done something right with the SEO I guess.

But some sites in the niche are scoring a million hits a month. Related portals are scoring up to 10 million/month. My site is not a portal.

The one thing I don't have much is backlinks. I've been wary of soliciting for those. I've got a few links from good reputable PR6 and PR7 sites.

I think my main problem is link popularity. Here's the marketleap score:

Total links 468
Google 15
MSN 15
Yahoo! 438

I believe my problem is:
1) low link popularity
2) low user loyalty
3) lots of bounces - users seem to come in, they find the information they want, and then they exit. Sometimes they leave a thank-you message..
4) low ratio of pageloads/uniques

My questions to you: Do you agree with this conclusion? How can I build more high-quality backlinks and increase user activity on the site, and user loyalty?

Thanks a lot for any input, rep will be added naturally for any useful info.

 

[Keral_Patel]

Total links 468
Google 15
MSN 15
Yahoo! 438

As you have mentioned I will skip the content part. You said that it has all the things in it. But the links they are way below average or even I would say that they are way below the minimum.

There are many ways to get backlinks for your sites. some of them are also listed on the ongoing thread here in this section itself.

http://www.namepros.com/search-engines/264744-ways-to-get-a-backlink.html

 

[YesBrilliant]

Without knowing the site it is difficult to say much, but I can see that:

1) low link popularity
Seems to be one of the major problems. With the so much higher Yahoo! 438 links, seems that this number is the number of indexed pages of your site at Yahoo. They do this and, for example, I still have sites with pages that were deleted years from my sites ago and they are still indexed as back links. In brief, they are not real/significant links. Getting more back links from different, reputable, authoritative, higly trafficked sites is the key here. One tool to help you with this is IBP Internet Business Promoter, a paid software.

2) low user loyalty
3) lots of bounces
Do you have a Mail List, a E-Magazine? This would help a lot to bring visitors back to your site, even though you tell them that you just have the info they want. But it has to be compelling.

4) low ratio of pageloads/uniques
Maybe the linking structure among your site pages are not enticing users to read more or they may even do not know them except by coming back to the home page and contine from there again. Difficult to say without knowing the site. It also has implications on the numbers 2 and 3 above.

If you want, PM me your site and we can quickly discuss it, I face similar problems, too.

Hope that helps.

 

[estibot.com]

Thanks so much for your responses guys, I value your input greatly.

Thanks for the link to the thread, Nick

YesBrilliant, PM sent, thanks for taking an interest. You are right that 438 is probably the number of pages indexed in Yahoo, and not really external backlinks.

I use an XML sitemap that pings google each time I update the site, and the whole site seems to be indexed in Google.

I'll take a look at the software you mentioned also.

Thanks again, and I'll keep you posted on the actions I take and the results also - I'll post my experiences here hoping that the thread will be of use to other NPr members also.

 

[bluearrow]

Average link popularity ?

Well what do you call an average link popularity in Google , yahoo and MSN or the minimum ?

 

[Keral_Patel]

Well what do you call an average link popularity in Google , yahoo and MSN or the minimum ?

I am a n00b and cannot answer this one

 

[estibot.com]

Here's what Marketleap says about link popularity in the "General" category.

1,000 - 5,000 links is considered average. NamePros belongs in the "Contender" category, while those with more than 500,000 links are considered Gorillas...

 

[bluearrow]

I am a n00b and cannot answer this one

Come on Nick tell us what do you think as average link popularity or the minimum ..

But the links they are way below average or even I would say that they are way below the minimum.

You told that , got ya !

 

[Keral_Patel]

When you think you want to come #1 on google.com for keyword Google.com Imagine yourself what would be the minimum.

It depends on what the site is targetting.

 

[dynamiteweb]

Assuming the content on your site is, in fact, fully optimized, then the inbound link popularity is going to be your issue. When you look at your competitors, what do their link popularity scores show? Are they much higher than yours, or right around the same? If much higher, you need to develop a strategic link development campaign. This means you need to things of any way you can to acquire inbound links. Send me a PM if you want some advice.

 

[estibot.com]

PM Sent Dynamiteweb, thanks, you guys are great!

 

[bidawinner]

"It appears in the top 10 in Google SERPs for many combinations of keywords, but not the most competitive keywords."

You answered your own question Josh

You dont need a ton of a links , you need links to those pages on your site that have more competition..

You rank number #1 for your "main keyword phrase" .. now you use the same technigue to gathering links to your inner pages.. and it dosent need to be a ton of links . Quality and relational links are far more valuable then a ton of odds and end links.


If you want to compete /rank on page widgets.com/red-widgets


I would start by creating a new article, announcement , content about red widgets ..then issue that new content article/announcement about red widgets in a Press release ($80) prweb.com

As long as your wrote even half way decent article you WILL pick up a few new backlinks ;more importantly higher quality backlinks as well as FROM relevant sites , sites that also have an interest in red widgets.

good luck

 

[estibot.com]

EDIT: Well, just as I had written what's below, my Google rankings seemed to recover, and the traffic is back. lesson learned - when there's fluctuation in Google rankings, just take it easy and give it some time....

----
THanks everyone. Alas, now it looks like my Google rankings dropped overnight on New Year. From about 300 uniques/day from Google, down to zero uniques from Google. Fortunately still a couple of hundred uniques from Yahoo and MSN per day.

My site is still indexed, sitemapped etc. in Google, but it seems there's been some shuffling of algorithm or whatnot and as a result my site is in oblivion when it comes to Google.

I've been working on those backlinks now. Someone here promised to list me in a few good directories, but I haven't heard nothing since. I've been manually submitting to some relevant directories, but I don't know what good that will do.

I made some changes according to suggestions here, but I'm wondering if as a result the keywords appear too many times now and GOogle has penalized somehow....

Ah well, nobody said it was going to be easy. I'm confident I have unique and high quality content (those NPr's who've visited my site seem to agree), so I'll just keep pressing on.

Josh