New Site SEO Time VS Content
The understanding of how much time a new site needs VS how much good content in what time period that has been on my mind for months. Here are a few experiments that I have been working with.
Experiment One:
A site with user generated profiles, with some data that is duplicative and some sections of data that a user will have to type something in. Only 25% of the users who signed up filled this out. It has taken well over a year, without linking and alternative marketing to get any rankings at all in Google. This is not the way to go.
Experiment Two:
Building a site with somewhat unique content. This content was taken from product data found on the manufacturer’s site and slightly massaged. In this case it was my Billiard site. Site showed up very quickly in the SERP’s with fairly poor placement, the more time I spent on each product trying to write compelling content made the site move up in the SERP’s very quickly. This seems to be a valid way to go.
These experiments have given me a little insight to what Google is looking for, and it is a difficult science to manipulate. How do you launch a site where in which you can get the users to do all the work for you? If you can figure this part out, you will never have to worry about linking or building content ever again.
There are other factors that I have experimented with.
1). Mod rewrite on URL’s: Without a doubt one of the best things you can do to optimize your site. See my post on rewriting URL’s for SEO.
2). Site performance: How long does it take for you pages to show up? Server Latency and File Size seem to be a huge factor. Keeping your pages light and easy to load seem to make a big difference, in experiment one my pages are large and heavy and may have played a huge part in its poor rankings.
3). Flattening the site: How many clicks do your users need to perform to find the content that they are looking for. Sure you could depend on Google for that right? Not a great idea, Google takes into account the usability of your site from the perspective of the click navigation. If the user where to start at your homepage how far would they need to go?
Experiment One:
A site with user generated profiles, with some data that is duplicative and some sections of data that a user will have to type something in. Only 25% of the users who signed up filled this out. It has taken well over a year, without linking and alternative marketing to get any rankings at all in Google. This is not the way to go.
Experiment Two:
Building a site with somewhat unique content. This content was taken from product data found on the manufacturer’s site and slightly massaged. In this case it was my Billiard site. Site showed up very quickly in the SERP’s with fairly poor placement, the more time I spent on each product trying to write compelling content made the site move up in the SERP’s very quickly. This seems to be a valid way to go.
These experiments have given me a little insight to what Google is looking for, and it is a difficult science to manipulate. How do you launch a site where in which you can get the users to do all the work for you? If you can figure this part out, you will never have to worry about linking or building content ever again.
There are other factors that I have experimented with.
1). Mod rewrite on URL’s: Without a doubt one of the best things you can do to optimize your site. See my post on rewriting URL’s for SEO.
2). Site performance: How long does it take for you pages to show up? Server Latency and File Size seem to be a huge factor. Keeping your pages light and easy to load seem to make a big difference, in experiment one my pages are large and heavy and may have played a huge part in its poor rankings.
3). Flattening the site: How many clicks do your users need to perform to find the content that they are looking for. Sure you could depend on Google for that right? Not a great idea, Google takes into account the usability of your site from the perspective of the click navigation. If the user where to start at your homepage how far would they need to go?
Labels: seo, site performance, url rewrite, user generated content
by Aaron Shear
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