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 Top Search Engine Mistakes We Find on Fishing Guide Sites
Jon Coon, President and CEO of LinkMountain is a certified expert in Internet security and small business search engine strategies. He wrote his first web spider program over 8 years ago, and has since created many custom search engine programs in several programming languages. He spent 15 years as a standing timber buyer before entering the IT profession over twelve years ago. He currently raises Labrador retrievers, spends time fishing and hunting when possible, and truly enjoys helping fishing and hunting guides increase traffic to their websites. In this article he shares the search engine problems he most often sees on fishing sites. |
Not enough content or content with no key search terms
Search engines love content. When I say content, I mean words - and lots of them. To be successful with search engines you need lots of text on your site, and you should add to it (not change it) regularly. Search engines love active sites, and all else being equal you site will do better if you get into the habit of routinely adding to it. For fishing sites, there lots of ways to add content. Some of the best are fishing reports, how-to-catch tutorials, species and habitat articles, local attraction pages and link pages. If the number one problem with most fishing sites is not enough text, the number two problem is not using exact key search terms.
Key terms too broad
Most of the sites I review have not had a lot of attention to the use of key search terms, but when they do they often focus on the grand slam terms like 'off shore fishing' or 'charter fishing' without narrowing the focus. Unless your site can really satisfy all of the searches using these terms, you should modify them to focus on your local species, local fisheries, local cities and towns, local techniques and issues. Be very conscious of the exact terms you use, and use terms that are specific to what you do. There are two reasons for this, and the first is simple mathematics.
The Math: There are thousands of sites competing for broad terms like 'charter fishing' or 'fishing guide', and it will take you a long time and a lot of effort to climb to the top of that mountain of websites. When you do get there after all that effort and expense you will find that most of the traffic doesn't help you anyway. That's because searchers who use these general terms are either looking for general information in the first place, or they are looking for something more specific and will narrow their search as soon as they see 10,000 or so unhelpful results. In the worst case scenario they will actually click through to your site and then promptly leave. That brings us to the second reason that you don't want to be too general: Search engine penalties.
Believe it or not, search engines keep track of how often searchers click through to your site and then come back to the search engine result page. The assumption is that if a searcher comes back, they must not have found what they wanted. If this happens very often the search engines can and do downgrade your site for whatever term was used. So - you do all the work to get to the top for a term like 'fishing charters', then get slapped down by the search engines when people don't find what they were looking for on your site. Here are some good and bad examples of how to phrase things:
Bad: Today was another killer day on the lake!
Better: Today was another killer day on Lake Michigan!
Best: Today was another killer day for Lake Michigan King Salmon fishing!
Bad: Today reminded me why I love being a guide.
Better:Today reminded me why I love being a fishing guide.
Best:Today reminded me why I love being a Lake Erie Walleye fishing guide.
Most fishing sites can do this a lot more than they do, and it will pay off in high quality traffic.
So, to sum this up, don't focus on getting to the top for general terms. The math doesn't work - it takes too much effort, you get traffic you can't use and could easily be penalized for it in the end.
Overemphasis on inbound links
High quality inbound links are important and you should try to get them. That said, there is a tremendous difference in the quality of those links and I see a lot of fishing sites that are willing to swap links with just about anyone. Here's what you want to look for in links:
1.Relevancy. You want links that come from relevant sites, not just anywhere. Your site is about fishing, it's not about auto parts, stock quotes or on line gift shops. You want links that are relevant to your business because search engines interpret your site (in part) by the context of the sites that link to yours. This context is not just determined by kind of site, it's determined by the kind of page. Make sure the page that your link will be placed on has a fishing context. A few high quality links from relevant sites that have a strong fishing context will do you far more good than swapping links with everyone who is willing.
2.Placement. You want links that are well placed on the other site, so ask where your link will be placed - you want the exact path to the page, example: http://www.foreignsite.com/linkpage.html. Then go to the linking site home page, example: http://www.foreignsite.com - and see if there is a link anywhere on the home page that leads to the link page. If you don't see one, my advice is to forget it, but if you want you can pursue it further by asking them how users navigate to the link page. If they can't get there from the site's home page - you may want to walk away.
3.Rank. Go to Alexa.com and research the sites traffic. Then research your own site. Are they doing better than you are? If so, good. If not, it might still be ok for you but be very fussy about relevancy and placement.
4.Reciprocate. There are a lot of sites out there playing games with links. If you find one that meets the above criteria, play fair. Give them a link on your link page and make sure it's not buried too deep.
The number one mistake with linking is indiscriminate swapping. Don't try to link swap with everyone. The number two mistake is spending too much time on it. I would rather see my clients spend time developing solid content than looking for links. In the end, content is what wins.
Content that benefits other sites more than your site.
Fishing reports are the number one example. I see many cases of fishing reports that are created using another site's tools. This often helps the other site more than it helps you, in some cases you get no benefit at all, and in the worst case it can actually hurt your site. Examples:
Frames. This is very common and the worst case of content 'borrowing'. Your fishing reports are actually hosted on another site and only displayed on your site through the use of frames. This will almost never result in traffic to your site, it results in traffic to the other site - traffic that came from your content work. In addition, most search engines actually count this as an outbound link from your site, so the parasite gets an inbound link from you as well as your content. How do you tell if this is happening on your site? Open your fishing reports page, right click on the page and choose view source (Internet Explorer) or view page source(Firefox). If you see <frame> or <iframe> tags and do NOT see the text of your fishing reports, you may very well have a problem. Here are some examples:
Good:
<p>Today was a good day on the river...</p>
<td>Today was a good day on the river...</td>
<br>Today was a good day on the river...</br>
Bad:
<iframe src='www.parasite.com/reports.html?report=yours'/>
or
<frameset ...>
<frame src='www.parasite.com/your_report.html'>
</frame>
</frameset>
If you have any doubt, copy the 'src' url (example from above would be 'www.parasite.com/your_report.html', paste it into your browser address bar and see where it leads. If the frame is on your site, but leads to the same report text that you originally wrote but it's on their site, you are almost certainly feeding someone else's business with your work.
Only one Domain name and/or poor resource naming
MSN in particular will send you a ton of traffic if you have domain names and urls that include hot search terms and phrases. Different search engines place more or less weight on this, with Google placing very little importance to it, and MSN giving it the most importance.
Examples:
Bad:
www.mysite.com/species.html
Better:
www.mysite.com/washington-salmon-fishing.html
Best: www.washington_salmon_now.com/king_salmon_fishing.html
You can buy another domain name for $9 or less per year, and have it point to the exact same content. Presumably you already have a domain name that is easy for people to remember, what you are looking for now are domain names that help you with search engines. Let's say you have determined that the following terms are worthy of your pursuit: 'Alaska halibut fishing', 'Alaska deep sea fishing', 'anchorage charter fishing'. The name of your current domain is CaptainJoesCharters.com. Good - you've got an easy to remember domain name, but except for the word 'charters', none of your targeted terms are included. Start searching for domain availability for domain names like Alaska_halibut.com, alaskahalibutfishing.com, anchorage-Alaska-charter-fishing.com, etc. You don't have to be concerned about memorability or readability because the domain names you are looking for are intended for search engines, not people. You will find some combination of words and allowed punctuation that will will work. Buy those domains and point them to your site.
There are many more issues to explore, including site navigation and structure, initial research, tracking your progress, when to use paid advertising, convertig traffic to business once you get it and many other traffic concepts. I will touch on these in future articles on fishing sites. You can find some general information on some of these in this general tutorial. To sum this one up:
Spend most of your effort on lots of content and focus on specific terms,
Be fussy about link swapping and make sure your content benefits you before anyone else.
If you would like us to have a look at your site without charge, just use the quick contact form and I'd be happy to give your site a quick once-over.
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