This is the second in a series of three guest posts by Ron Cripps @AffiliateXFiles explaining his SEO optimization and social media marketing strategies.
What we are going to give to you in this post is a complete breakdown of how we created our site “MakeItYourRing Diamond Engagement Rings” to all the strategies we have used to build long term traffic and hopefully win the ShireeOdiz SEO Idol Competition.
Selecting The MakeItYourRing Diamond Engagement Rings Domain Name
Most of you probably already know how to select a domain name, but this was the first step in launching the site. As I am based in Australia and really like a challenge I thought it only appropriate to hold up the Aussie flag here and go for an Australian domain name.
Google Webmaster Tools report showing increases in traffic (quantity and percentage of increase/decrease) to MakeItYourRing.com.au for each specific keyword phrase.Many said I was crazy, and still do, but I am a strong believer that you can rank any domain extension with the right marketing mix. That is why I selected www.makeityourring.com.au as it is not too long and it has part of the keyword in the URL which should be enough to get a good listing.
Having your keywords in your URL is one of the strongest ranking factors.
A good rule to stand buy when selecting a domain name is never have more than 20 characters or it becomes hard for others to remember and even harder to brand online.
Selecting The WordPress Theme For MakeItYourRing
As a marketer I always go for the most effective option and that is Studiopress. These WordPress themes are very easy to use and the support forums are the best I have seen. All the themes are constantly updated to reflect many changes online including SEO and have built in functions so you can eliminate many WP Plugins which slow down your blog.
Choosing The Right Keywords For MakeItYourRing
Again this is another process that many of you would be very aware of; however, for those that are not then this might be helpful.
We have used a program called Market Samurai to do
all our keyword research for the last 3 years or so.
Yes, you might be saying right now that there are free keyword tools you can use and you would be right. It is just in my experience I seem to get a better understanding of the keywords and their benefits using this tool.
Market Samurai Keyword Research report showing which keywords Google has equated. You do not have to target them all because Google considers them all the same keyword phrase.With Market Samurai you can get as many as 800 keywords listed at one time which makes it much easier to have on your desktop in front of you when writing posts and looking for additional keywords you can add.
Choosing The Content For MakeItYourRing
The content selection was the hardest of all. I needed quality content that was unique and would actually help the end user to make decisions about buying diamond Jewelry online.
Sounds easy, right? However, not being a diamond jeweler myself I had to rely on other sources to help me write this content. One tool that became very useful through all of this was Jiffy Articles which does not write the articles for you but gives you prompts along the way so you can put together a very informative and unique article very fast. I wrote a guest post here about Jiffy Articles.
Of course it also helps if you have done some research around your selected topic by visiting other websites to see how their articles are structured and get the ideas flowing.
Optimizing The MakeItYourRing Engagement Rings Content
Anyone that has done any form of on-page SEO optimization knows that there are a few elements that are required when optimizing for the search engines.
These on-page factors are:
- Having your main keyword in the title of the page which should also be your H1 header tag.
- At a minimum you need at least one H2 tag which also includes your Primary Keyword.
- You can also use the H3 tag as well if the article length allows it and of course the article still reads well.
- Using Bold, Italic and Underline properties in your article – again these are only used on your primary keyword.
INTERNAL LINKING in MakeItYourRing Diamond Engagement Rings
This next step is very important and must be used for every post you write on your WordPress blog.
Internal linking is what will bind your whole site together and make it much
more user friendly – not only to your site visitors but the search engines as well.
We use two kinds of free WordPress Plugins to do this, SEO Smart Links and IGIT Related Posts With Thumb which places related posts with images beneath each of our posts. This are the WP Plugins we use; however, there are others out there that may be more suitable for you needs.
We use a WordPress Plugin called SEOPressor to do all of our on page optimization. Or you can install a Firefox plugin called SEO Doctor to see how your page is performing with SEO if you prefer to make these changes manually yourself.
In the next post in this series, we will be speaking about paid WP plugins that we are using such as CommentLuv Premium, Guest Blogging, and Social Networks and using Article Marketing to build relevant one way back links to our site.
NOTE: See also Ron’s first post in this series about MakeItYourRing Diamond Engagement Rings and the SEO Idol competition.
I don’t think this can be a problem but its good to have a short title with full meaning.
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EMD is no longer working now a days. Instead of EMD’s, it is preferable to use brand name as domains. While creating new posts or adding products, it is good practice to have a look at titles and descriptions are well optimized.
I just can’t believe that how beautiful this diamond engagement ring and now I am really upset to see this because I want this diamond ring at any cost and definitely I will try my best to buy this diamond engagement ring. See you later and hopefully this ring will be my as early as possible. lol!
Informative and helpful tips. Not to mention it is clearly explained and with the mentioned of tools needed. Keywords analysis and research needs to be put up first – in my part I used 2 tools. Market Samurai and by checking Google Adwords. Also competition analysis must come to actually set the bars for your market competition. Engaging in SEO is also the best way in acquiring both traffic and ranking results from top search engines.
Keyword selection is foremost work for Internet Marketing or SEO. Here beside tools, we should use our primary knowledge to find out the keywords.
I always use 2 tools (like Google keyword tool & Wordtracker) to cross check the results when performing a keyword research. Do you follow the same method?
I also use Market Samurai for keyword research but also like Long Tail Pro, have you tried it?
Market samurai is tool very effective help me choosing the keyword exactly.
Hey Ron,
This is going to be a great series. It will be nice to follow everything you do, step by step and be able to see the results after a few months. Looking forward to seeing how long it takes a brand new site to rank.
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Great tips …SEO are really an great resource for all the online business ..This is very useful information for online diamond jeweler who have business of diamond jewelry and diamond engagement rings.Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing excellent information and especially the SEO part is great for new bloggars.
Very informative post, thanks for sharing those tips on making a good domain name, can” Happiness-a simple guide for sad people” be a nice domain name.
I definitely agree that StudioPress is the most effective premium WordPress theme option that I found. For about $79 you can purchase their Genesis framework and a professional looking theme that is stable and easy to edit. The support forums are also very helpful. Since they have so many users, there is a good chance that someone has already had your problem, and the answer is probably somewhere in the forum. I have recently been using the Metric theme and recommend StudioPress to everyone I know.
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Fantastic article on SEO. Local businesses need to wake up and spend the money on having this stuff done. Nobody is using the yellowpages anymore. It’s all on Google and if they’re old, Bing.
Wedding rings are my weaknesses.. I can’t afford them yet. but I hope to save more money for my future wife.
Great practical advise. I especially like the use of wordpress as the cms. Makes it easier for content updates by the non-technical as eventually the clients will want to take responsibility for content creation.
Thanks for sharing.
Nice information…. Beautiful to see.. I am planning to buy this…
Impressive results Ron 😀
I really love reading SEO case studies as I always learn something new here and there. Your case study is very good and I can see what is possible within short period of time. I will apply them to my own site.
Thanks for sharing!
You have described all the main points of site promotion and you are right that in fact it is possible to promote any domain if you do it in the right way. Then the keywords — as soon as you have spent some time choosing the right keywords, then you can say that you have done half of the work in fact. As the right keywords will be promoted rather quickly.
I agree with you, Anna
I recommend this as the comprehensive knowledge about basic SEO, especially for WordPress.
brgds
staypersonal.com
Makeityourring Diamond Engagement Rings would love you to read ..Makeityourring Diamond Engagement Rings
Looks really expensive.
Thank you for introducing me to Market Samurai, it’s truly amazing!
great post, studiopress is brill, It also has some great seo tools built in so you can cut down on having to use other seo plugins.
merry christmas, see ya next year
Very Insteresting! It seems like mostly everyone doing SEOs is using market samurai!
Hi,
If you are really serious about make more money with your online business then you should take help of SEO which is offering many kind of services for your site and it’s true if you are taking SEO services from right place then no body can stop your site to achieve good PR in Search Engines.
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This was very helpful, a from scratch explanation how to do it all when it comes to SEO selection. I have used similar steps in my business as well. But this has given me more ideas for another venture that I plan to start in the New Year. I had some problems with keyword selection earlier, but now I will rectify it thanks to your post. Can’t wait for you to share some more information about your business venture, hoping to be able to learn some more new tips. Cheers!
Thanks Ron, this is a great guide – I love to see peoples success and the process they’ve used.
I’ve tried tools like Market Samurai, and SEO Doctor etc – they all work so well, I also quite like SEO Quake, it has quite a nice keyword density checker.
Cheers
Interesting overview – very good basic layout for an initial site SEO plan. I have to say, though, for non-Thesis themes, I prefer All In One SEO Pack plugin (Thesis has most of what you need already built in). But the very best SEO comes from simply writing good content that the searcher is looking for. Remember the search engines exist to help the SEARCHER, not the site owner.
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Hi Annie,
Actually, while some search engines might exist to help searchers, Google exists to make money, build massive dossiers on us, and favor specific big brands. You can read more about that in my posts explaining that Google IS Evil and how they are limiting our choices – especially since the Panda update.
Just today someone sent me a link to a site concerned about all the small businesses Google’s actions are destroying. You can read about How Google is Destroying Small Businesses and Jobs.
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I too believe that having the main keywords in the url is one of the greatest ranking factor. Thanks for these analysis.
I’m not familiar with Seopressor or any WP plugin.. the result of plugin on your site is very impressive.
Hi Annie
That is what is so good about Studiopress all the SEO components are already built into the theme so you do not need any additional plugins to slow down your WP blog.
You can manage every aspect of SEO right from your dashboard for categories, tags, pages and even Canonical. You can even do this per post if you like, the theme has everything you need without having to install All In One SEO.
As for content you are correct the most important aspect of building a good performing and authoritative site is content. And once you have that content interacting with any that wish to leave comments ask questions etc.
Having a online business is not just about having a website it is also about building relationships with your customers and others in your niche.
As Gail would say Collaboration.
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