How do you build a site for highest rankings?

[Boxby]

If you were building a new website, and were at the blank piece of paper stage, and the websites purpose was rank very highly on some quite competititive terms, what would you build the site with, to make in built and on site optimisation as best as possible?

 

[PeterHoggan]

For me it would be a custom build rather than using a CMS or blog platform.

 

[Boxby]

php? and css?

 

[PeterHoggan]

php? and css?

Yes, that would be my preference.

 

[Boxby]

Yeay! I'm learning!!

 

[Adventurelife]

Wordpress but I am biased and not educated in the dark arts . I just think the client should be able to work with their sites in a very easy way and wordpress does this

 

[Gordon N]

You should build the site on a platform suitable to its end user experience, and managability - then look at how best to optimise it. Otherwise when you are looking for some functionality in the future it may take a lot longer to implement and not be anywhere near as thoroughly tested as say a plugin/extension for a blog/CMS system.

There is no point in everybody finding your site if it doesn't offer them what they need or expect when they get there - high traffic only means successful SEO, not a successful site.

In my opinion you should always design for end user first, and search engine second!

 

[Boxby]

The building for visitors/conversion bit is taken for granted :tongue_smilie:

No, what I was after was a double check on the coding/platform/etc.

I've looked through some wordpress sites, but I think that I find the navigation not as "normal" as i'd prefer. The site needs to do nothing complicated, all the functionality etc is sitting in another website that this one will pass visitors over to, so the primary purpose requirement of this website is to build it so that it can sit highly.

I find that it's a lot easier to change the visual things that are there for the end user after a sites been build, eg. layout, content, calls to action etc. But if you've built it using the wrong platform etc, then that's a lot harder to change.

Thanks for the posts.

 

[stuarty]

If you were building a new website, and were at the blank piece of paper stage, and the websites purpose was rank very highly on some quite competititive terms, what would you build the site with, to make in built and on site optimisation as best as possible?

Sandra,

This question gets posted all the time on the major SEO forums. If it's purely to rank you're focussing on then you're wasting your time with onpage optimisation. To rank you need links links links and more links.

Google "click here" or "website" and look at the top ranking sites. They're not optimised for these terms yet rank on links alone.

Try this experiment...

1. Make up a daft phrase like "qwerwer gretsch geretajahsg" - Google returned no web pages for this search when I tried.

2. Build a web page and call it test1.html. Optimise it like this (this is a perfectly optimised page because it only contains the search phrase).

Title "qwerwer gretsch geretajahsg"
Meta Description "qwerwer gretsch geretajahsg"
Meta keywords "qwerwer gretsch geretajahsg"
H1 tag saying "qwerwer gretsch geretajahsg"
Single paragraph containing only the phrase "qwerwer gretsch geretajahsg"

3. Duplicate the above page and call it test2.html Make a single link to this page and use the anchor text "qwerwer gretsch geretajahsg" (link from your homepage)

4. Build a new page and call it test3.html. You can put anything you want in it - for example a few paragraphs the colour of parrots feathers. Make two links to this page - say one from a page on your website and another from your forum sig

You will get this result:

Rank 1 - test3.html (because of more links)
Rank 2 - test2.html

Test1.html - will not get listed because states that a page must have at least one link.

You can expand this experiment but the results will always show that links outrank onpage SEO.

On coding platform etc...it really doesn't matter what platform or code you use - Google doesn't care and neither do visitors.

Google sees the entire internet as nothing but "blocks of text" so when a visitor searches on Google, it still sees their search as a block of text. Google dosn't care if the block of text is on a blog, a cms or a static page - it just sees the block of text.

Google takes this block of text and checks it against its database. If it finds the same block of text in millions of websites then it has to decide which website is the best site. It might find one website that has the search phrase mentioned hundreds of times in its pages (on site optimisation) and think this is good but it says to itself "hey it's still only one site". So it looks further and finds many websites linking to a different website using the block of text in it's link text. It then says "hey lots of sites link to this site - it must be the best site" and ranks it number 1. This is repeated for the site with the next best links being number 2,3,4 and so on.

On platform - like I said it doesn't matter but if you want a recommendation then without doubt a blog (used as a cms) is the best for SEO. Blog pages get spidered in minutes - literally. The best of the blogs is Wordpress by far IMO. We run our site on it. We use to build bespoke cms, have used all the free ones but nothing performs like a blog.

Google clearly thinks blogs are good because it has "Google blog search" which you can register your blog. Note: Google doesn't have "google cms search" or "google bespoke website search".

If you ignore blogs (as cms) then you're missing a big trick. Lots of the top SEOs use blogs and run them as CMS. Google's Matt Cutts uses Wordpress as do many other Google Engineers. If they use them then they must have good reasons.

Blogs are also great for attracting "natural links" which Google prefers. Of all our clients - every single one has seen a marked improvement moving to a blog platform - both trafficwise and in ranking.

 

[Boxby]

I agree with this regarding the links. (Partic as one of the major established websites in the field i'm targetting on-site SEO is absolute pants)

Now I need to be honest and say that the website needs to
(1) Rank very highly, then
(2) Convert.

(as opposed to convert, and then rank highly).

Part of my reluctance with the wordpress sites is that the navigation seems to suit better the type of sites that it was designed for - ie information based websites/service websites/blogs, and that incorating a call to action (other than in a text link) after the main navigation to me tends to look a bit awkward.

The market for the website is one where they don't really care about information. Simply about price and simplicity, speed and ease. Information is secondary, and the information itself, in any great depth, will not be the factor that converts a sale, because it will be a quickly made decision.

Therefore I need the website navigation to be as normal, and intuitative as possible. Almost to the point where people can find their way to the price without having to think or read.

I have seen some very nicely and well done wordpress sites, and have no doubt that they do 100% exactly what they are required to do. But this is the point where I have to look beyond ranking and I think that it's not 100% perfect for what i want it for.

p.s Why don't google engineers use blogger blogs?

 

[Gordon N]

Part of my reluctance with the wordpress sites is that the navigation seems to suit better the type of sites that it was designed for - ie information based websites/service websites/blogs, and that incorating a call to action (other than in a text link) after the main navigation to me tends to look a bit awkward.

I agree that each website has it own requirements and they should be taken into consideration when selecting how best to develop the site. I am a little confused as to your understanding of WP though. You can take any website design (within reason) and sit it on WP without it having to conform to any specific navigation or layout rules. It is effectively a CMS meaning that WP is there to manage the content - the layout really is down to the owner/designer/developer.

Have a look at the following (which are nothing to do with me so this is not self promotion!!) - I grabbed them from my delicious account where they are tagged as WP inspiration!

Search Inside Video
KMX Karts — Recumbent Trikes: Precision engineered performance tadpole trikes & sports recumbent trikes for all ages
IconDock - The Art of Stock Icons
Ford Motor Company - Global Auto Shows, Ford Concept Cars & Car Shows Coverage Ford Motor Company Global Auto Shows
Earth911.com - Find Recycling Centers and Learn How To Recycle

All of these are built on WP - and I for one wouldn't have thought so from visual appearance alone.

I'm not saying WP is the best solution, just hoping to illustrate how flexible CMS systems can be when it comes to layout and visuals.

 

[Adventurelife]

Gordons thoughts were my own on this. WP can be used anyway you like to my limited knowledge

Gordon I have several of those KMX carts , they are a scream!

 

[Boxby]

OK spot the thickie
I think I just must have seen too many WP sites built off templates.

 

[stuarty]

Part of my reluctance with the wordpress sites is that the navigation seems to suit better the type of sites that it was designed for...
Therefore I need the website navigation to be as normal, and intuitative as possible. Almost to the point where people can find their way to the price without having to think or read.

p.s Why don't google engineers use blogger blogs?

Sandra, Wordpress can be used in any navigation style you want. You cannuse it for ecommerce, job sites, static type sites etc. There are sites outbthere that you would never know were wordpress. I don't know what your site is about but there are very few execptions for what it can be used for.

Have a look at blogperfume.com and check out their themes.

Lots of Google engineers use blogger because Google bought blogger I'd suspect.

 

[ScottJ]

the websites purpose was rank very highly on some quite competititive terms,

I would say if it's from scratch then your efforts can be better spent on long tail search queries rather than chasing a few competitive terms as if they are the holy grail which you may never actually achieve, much easier to rank with good content for lots of less competitive terms, to illustrate my point if I take the stats from an old website I bought last week.

The top keyword brought in 63 visitors, which sound poor, however the site received 6201 visitors from search engines from over 4000 keywords and generated 7300 visitors for the day, that illustrates long tail keywords pretty well.


Another very different site over the last month produced the following (see image),again loads of keywords, something to consider carefully when choosing your strategy.
View attachment 42

 

[Rickwood Portpatrick]

Hi Stuarty

Pardon my ignorance but you refer to "Natural Links" --what is meant by this

regards

 

[stuarty]

Hi Stuarty

Pardon my ignorance but you refer to "Natural Links" --what is meant by this

regards

Hi - it's a bit of a daft term I know but "natural links" are when say you write a post, a news article or launch a new product. People within your niche or marketplace will want to link to the article without being asked. Google deems this type of linking as "natural".

Asking people to link to you is not natural because generally you are doing this for the purpose of increasing PR or link count and so on.

Hope that helps

 

[stuarty]

I would say if it's from scratch then your efforts can be better spent on long tail search queries rather than chasing a few competitive terms as if they are the holy grail which you may never actually achieve, much easier to rank with good content for lots of less competitive terms

Excellent advice! Even in the sites that rank top dog for trophy phrases - the longtails still account for 85-90% of searches. It's a massive mistake to ignore them.

 

[Boxby]

Excellent advice! Even in the sites that rank top dog for trophy phrases - the longtails still account for 85-90% of searches. It's a massive mistake to ignore them.

Did I say that I was planning to ignore them
Seeing as it's been a big part of my strategy for the past year or so, i don't think it's going to be something i'll overlook. In fact, i've just devoted a whole website to one particular group.

However, different websites have different aims, and a main part of the new website's being is to rank highly for the competitive terms. (However, no harm picking up all the long tail rankings on the way).

 

[Rickwood Portpatrick]

Hi Stuarty

Fred/ Rickwood here again

Thanks for explaining Natural Links but how do google know if you have asked or not!!