Synopsis:
I do not profess to know or care about Google algorithms, how the page rank
works or what Google have done to devalue links this time. One constant through
all Google and similar leading search engines is ‘Good Content’
‘Good Content’ is painful, slow and you need to make sure you are
writing about something someone will read, including GoogleBot. Who is all fairness
has a very stale opinion of most content. ‘Input’ I need ‘Input’
as Short Circuits Jonnie 5 would say. ( No? Not a child of the 80’s? Oh
well)
I have been making and selling hair extensions online for a while now through
Hairfreax.co.uk. I sell to a niche market, which is not overly represented in
the internet world. The subculture is called ‘Cybergoth’. I wanted
my site to appear at the top of Google for the UK and US for the keyword ‘Cybergoth’
and the key phrase ‘cyber goth’.
I decided on various methods to achieve this, in which I will report the methods
and conclusions after 3 weeks study. Before joining the world of e-commerce
I was a research chemist, so I have conducted my experiment in a very ‘scientific
fashion’ and the reporting will show this in its structure!
Equipment:
Two Domains – Hairfreax.co.uk (established website for the UK Marketing
Campaign)
Hairfreax.net – New domain for the US Market.
An open source e-commerce script. I used ‘Cubecart’ similar success
can be achieved with something like Oscommerce.
SEF Contribution for one store. This will convert URLs from:
http://www.hairfreax.net/index.php?act=viewCat&catId=1 to this http://www.hairfreax.net/dreads/cat_1.html
This will be the only difference between these two stores apart from the main
currency.
A Blog on the main domain with a tags facility. I used Wordpress with ‘Ultimate
Tag Plugin’
Google/Yahoo Sitemap Facility (Google Webmaster/Yahoo Site Exploror)
An account with technorati.com, stylehive.com, google base, crowdstorm.com,wists.com
and a relevant banner exchange ( just pick one – I used Blueblood.net
as it is relevant to the scene)
Basic PHP and HTML Knowledge for installing scripts and plugins.
Methods:
The site:
I Mirrored the settings from my hairfreax.co.uk store to the new hairfreax.net
store and I choose a set of keywords to push from these sites:
Cybergoth,cybergoth hair,cyber dreads,cyber dreadlocks,hairfreax,hair extensions,cyber,goth,anime
hair,cyber hair,custom dreads, wool dreads,cyberlox,cyber braids,braid extensions,hair
freaks,hair,freaks,hairfreaks
My main focus is going to be in reporting the keyword ‘Cybergoth’
and the key phrase ‘Cyber Goth’ These keywords were used in product
titles as well as the meta tags for both sites.
A sitemap of all the URLs was also submitted to google and yahoo.
The blog.
The blog was set up on the main domain blog.hairfreax.co.uk. For content I
reported on ‘Order processing times’ and documented every hairpiece
I made with photos making sure I used the keywords as tags on every post ( other
tags were also added) and used Cybergoth is a number of the titles. The blog
needs to be set up with the post title as part of the URL to utilise the title
keywords. A post was made 3 times a week on average.
A blog sitemap was also submitted to both Google and Yahoo.
I logged into my technorati account and ‘claimed my blog’ and when
asked for tags used the same keywords again.
Using the plugin ‘Ultimate Tag warrior’ I was also able to product
a tag cloud for the sidebar of the blog.
Using Social Shopping to boost keyword ranking:
I added around 5 different products to wists, stylehive and crowdstorm making
sure my main keywords appeared as a title and as tags. With crowdstorm there
is no direct link so I used my brand name ‘Hairfreax’ in the title
to build brand awareness.
Google Base:
Products from both sites where submitted to Google Base UK and US respectively.
There is a theory that if you used Google products your ranking is better.
Banner Advertising and Directory Submitting:
I searched using my key words and found all the relevant directories and only
one relevant banner exchange for my sites. I also looked on my competitors sites
to see how they had signed up with or submitted too.
Results:
Google (UK)
As of 7th May 2007 – Keyword Cybergoth – 11th Place
Key phrase ‘Cyber Goth’ 34th Place
Google (USA)
Keyword: Cybergoth – 34th from ‘Wists.com’
Keyword: ‘Cyber Goth’ 19th from Wists.com
So as you can see there is some way to go but in other news my ranking for
‘Cyber Dreads’ is a second in the USA and first for the UK.
Now this will be an on going experiment, as for the two sites I have a different
URL structure. According to blog and things this should make a difference to
keyword ranking which to me, you can stuff page rank, it’s my keyword
ranking I worry about!
These are the results after 3 weeks. I will also report my results around every
month to see if the rankings are getting better or worse.
One thing I did fail to mention is that I have an ebay shop and around 5 items
up at any one time. Those listings were ranking higher for the main keywords
as ebay listings.
Conclusion
Using various techniques, focusing on a few keywords and patience are all part
of getting your website at the top of the search. Don’t forget to keep
adding content to your blog, with hairfreax the customers want to see pictures
of the latest creations!
I will continue to make the effort to get on the first page (Google does vary
and some days I have checked I have been on the front page!) for my keyword
and keyprase.
