A Search Engine Experiment: How to Rank!

The newsletter is a quick read this month! One article, plus one opportunity...

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1) FEATURE ARTICLE:
The Search Ranking Experiment

I conducted a search engine experiment live on the site last month. Check out the results!


2) Site Build It's Two Site Sale

I have two SBI websites. Last month, they received 30,458 visitors from the major search engines. One page received 6,999 FREE page views. What if that were your sales page!

Site Build It is currently on sale. Here's the deal...


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1) FEATURE ARTICLE: The Search Ranking Experiment

I conducted a search engine experiment on the site 3 weeks ago. The results that came back were dramatic. See if you agree...

Author Robert Woodard posted to the site on May 18th about his book, Black People Don't Play Soccer? Unlocking American Soccer's Secret Weapon.

I guess I was in a playful mood. Curious, I checked Google to find his site's ranking for the search BLACK SOCCER PLAYERS.

It didn't come up in the top 50. I stopped looking.

Now, I blab a lot on the site and in this newsletter about what needs to be done to rank highly with the search engines for your book's subject. I decided to put myself to the test.

I wanted to challenge myself to get Robert's page on my site to rank for BLACK SOCCER PLAYERS. I had a hunch I could get my ranking higher than that for Robert's own site.

Now, an outcome like that may not sound fair, but I wanted to prove my point that how you write and structure your site largely determines your site's rankings. Google can't intuit what your site is about. They have to take clues from what's on the page.

So I tweaked Robert's post a little. I retitled it. I made sure that the link to his site read BLACK SOCCER PLAYERS. Then, in my comments, I used the phrase BLACK SOCCER PLAYERS repeatedly, but in ways that made sense in context.

The results? (Drum roll please.)

Robert's page on The Shared Self Publishing Experience ranks #9 for the query BLACK SOCCER PLAYERS at this moment.

Pretty impressive, don't you think? This self-publishing site is ranking #9 for a query about soccer.

But here's what I didn't expect (though I should have)...

Robert's site has leapt up to #5.

Now, I can't prove that his page on this site alone moved him from sub-fifty to five. But I can tell you that Robert's site had previously been in existence for over 2 years.

Why would his page on The Shared Self Publishing Experience have helped his ranking so dramatically? That link reading Black Soccer Players that leads to his site. Links TO your site are at the heart of Google's ranking system. The fact that the link text says BLACK SOCCER PLAYERS tells Google that an authoritative site thinks Robert's site provides authoritative information on BLACK SOCCER PLAYERS.

Now Robert's site has the high ranking it deserves! (And my site has a fair number of confused soccer fans wandering around.)

Know that Robert's site already has a few things going for it, not the least of which is that his domain name contains the words BLACK, PLAY, and SOCCER.

Fiction authors who make the mistake of naming their sites after their title or themselves don't have this advantage. Even if you're John Grisham, naming your site thepelicanbrief.com isn't likely to result in a high ranking for the search query LEGAL THRILLER. (Though he's apt to rank highly for BRIEF PELICAN SIGHTINGS.)

Also, Robert has built up a nice number of inbound links: 305! Inbound links are at the heart of how the search engines rank sites.

(Do YOU have an inbound link program? You should! Here's how to start one for free.)

Is Robert's site in perfect shape now? No. There are lots of other search terms he'd like to rank for, and it's not happening. In fact, pay attention to this:

His page on my site ranks #14 for AFRICAN-AMERICAN SOCCER PLAYERS. His own site still ranks #41.

Interesting stuff, huh?


2) Site Build It's Two Site Sale

Search engine visitation, May, 2009, on my two sites:

• 24,745 from Google text search
• 3,435 from Google image search
• 1,766 from MSN's search engines
• 294 from AOL search
• 218 from ask.com

That's right, my two websites received 30,458 visitors last month from the major search engines. (Proof available upon request.) And that doesn't even include links from other sites, repeat bookmark and newsfeed visitors, as well as visitors who returned courtesy of this newsletter.

Are you one of the majority of authors receiving a tiny fraction of such attention? Are you still trying to wring sales from non-existent visitors?

The folks who taught me everything I know about the web (and then gave me the tools to put it to use) are having a sale through June 21, 2009.

Two sites. One for the regular price, $299/year. The second for just $100. (Take advantage of the deal here.)

Use both sites yourself. (You can put off starting the 2nd for up to 9 months.) Give one away. Go in with a friend and split the savings. But whatever you do...

Stop tormenting yourself with a site that doesn't work!

If my self publishing site can rank for black soccer players, think about the traffic you could attract in your niche.

You've heard me going on about this forever. I do have some self-interest. If you sign up for Site Build It, I make some money!

But the reason I feel comfortable recommending the service is because it's the only way I know of for a single individual to build a site that attracts TENS OF THOUSANDS of visitors a month.

If you know of another way, I hope you're using it. If you don't, what the heck are you waiting for? A deal?

Now this two site sale is only for the DIY version of SBI. If you want to take an online class, the current price for that is on sale as well. (See the $200 instant rebate offer at the bottom of the page after you click.)

The online class includes a year of SBI. When you're done with the class (and all the homework!), you have a site!

Two options. Two sales. Two sites (if you do the DIY version).

I have a single page on my children's books site that received 6,999 page views in the month of May. (Again, proof available upon request.)

Here's the page. It might not look as nice as your site, but it received almost seven thousand page views in one month. And from there, those visitors went surfing all over my site.

I created these sites myself, using the SBI tools. I came to sitebuilding with NO knowledge. Yet my sites way outperform the sites professional web designers build.

• I sell my books
• I sell other people's books
• I collect advertising revenues

In May I sold over $3000 worth of stuff (mainly books) from the 2 sites. (Proof, as always, available upon request.)

The main skill I use? Writing. Site Build It lets me write my way to traffic. How?

I create content that I know there's a demand for! The SBI tools tell me what web users are looking for. When I provide it, they find me.

Without the tools, you're flying blind. If you're okay with that, great. If you're sick of it, stop.

Site Build It's Two Site Sale: Deadline approaching.


WRAPPING UP

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