Engineering a SE Algorithm

[John Scott]

Somebody please do this for me...create a page that isn't heavily branded offline (Monster, Dell, etc.) with national tv and radio spots, print ads etc and do not mention the term that you are targeting...let's see how well your conversion rates are.

Are you suggesting that keyword density is required to make sales?

[RingingPHoneML]

I am suggesting that if you want to sell something you should probably mention what you are trying to sell. Call it keyword density or whatever you want.

[John Scott]

So you think more people would search Google if they put "Search Engine" in H1 tags on their home page?

[RingingPHoneML]

No, what I am saying is that if you go into a Honda dealership and the salesman doesn't once say the word(s) Car, Honda, Civic, Accord, etc...how effective would that be? Same rules apply. Sales is sales is sales.

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by RingingPHoneML

No, what I am saying is that if you go into a Honda dealership and the salesman doesn't once say the word(s) Car, Honda, Civic, Accord, etc...how effective would that be? Same rules apply. Sales is sales is sales.

I think it would be odd if they mentioned "car", and "auto". Most car dealerships most likely understand the value of brand so they would probably use "Honda" or "Civic" instead of a generic term like "car".... In the same way Compaq.com refers to its "Presario Desktops" and "Presario Notebooks". You might suggest that they increase keyword density on their home page, but I really doubt they (or anybody else) would be able to find a good reason for doing so.

[RingingPHoneML]

So if a car salesman would ask you what kind of car you are looking for? Or what you are looking for in a car that would be weird?

I would really like you to sell something and not mention it is that you are selling without a lot of money in offline branding like I mentioned. Please do not give another example of a huge multi-million dollar company. They don't fall into the same category as all of us.

[SVB]

Ok if Im selling games on a site, I dont say "games for sale!". I say "Xbox Halo for sale".

[RingingPHoneML]

Originally Posted by Stephen Bradley

Ok if Im selling games on a site, I dont say "games for sale!". I say "Xbox Halo for sale".

Ok, then you are not selling games. You are selling a specific game "Halo for Xbox"

Are you selling other games? If so, how do you promote those?

[John Scott]

Most people don't sell generic stuff. My local supermarket doesn't have sales on "carbonated beverages"; they have sales on "Pepsi" or "Coke". My son didn't just get a "gaming console"; he got an X-Box. Ford dealerships don't sell cars; they sell Fords. Pentax doesn't sell digital Cameras; they sell Optios, etc.

[SVB]

If I sell ringtones, I dont say "ringtones for sale". Id promote it as 'the latest hits for your mobile' or something like that.

[RingingPHoneML]

No if I were selling ringtones, I'd say that I am selling ringtones. If you look at any of the top ringtone sites, US and international, they say ringtones on their site.

I don't understand why you people are against mentioning the product that you are selling.

If you were selling "Halo for Xbox", "Mike Tyson's Punchout for Nintendo", "PacMan for Atari", "Super Mario World for Super Nintendo", etc. You would say that you are selling "video games". You wouldn't mention every single product that you are selling. They all fall under one category.

[John Scott]

I don't understand why you people are against mentioning the product that you are selling.

I'm not against mentioning the generic product type. But it is often unnecessary, and smart marketing tactic to focus on elevating the brands.

[SVB]

I don't understand why you people are against mentioning the product that you are selling.

So your saying that unless you have extensive offline marketing to build a brand, you have to mention the generic term for your products?

And only when you are known as a brand you can stop using that term and use your own product names?

All the big companies use their product names. Sony don't want people looking for 'digital cameras'. They want people to look for 'digicams'. Using JS's example, coke are coke. They dont call themselves a 'carbonated beverage'.

The whole point is to build a brand. Instead of packing the webpages with the generic product name, use the brand name. Then, use the generic terms in anchor text links. You'll find that working with Compaq, who are #3 in Google for "computer", yet they are advertising "Presario desktops".

[RingingPHoneML]

You all make it sound so simple to build brand. How much money has Coke, Compaq, etc invested in advertising and marketing? You guys are talking about selling an already branded product, not your own. You think it is that easy to brand your own product and make it a global name?

[SVB]

The crunch of this is about the search engine. All those big sites will also be in the search engine. If content was the major factor, then sites such as Dell and Compaq will not be high in the serps for "computers", because they have such a strong brand they don't even need to use the word computer on their page. Yet they are still in the top results, due to links. Keyword density should not be a major factor at all.

[RingingPHoneML]

Again the fact that they are multi million dollar companies doesn't influence their rankings? C'mon now?

Anyway, the average person wouldn't link "computers" and link to Dell.
They'd link the word Dell. This coming from someone who just started this seo thing, but has worked on websites in the past.

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by RingingPHoneML

Again the fact that they are multi million dollar companies doesn't influence their rankings? C'mon now?

Anyway, the average person wouldn't link "computers" and link to Dell.
They'd link the word Dell. This coming from someone who just started this seo thing, but has worked on websites in the past.

I have seen blogs with my own two eyes that say:

I just got a new computer.....

And, before you were talking about sales and conversion rates (marketing) and now you're back to search engine rankings? Let's do one conversation at a time to avoid confusing the issues.

http://www.google.com/search?q=web+development

Why do you think stars.com is top ten for that highly competitive keyword phrase? Because they have nothing to do with web development, and don't mention web development, and haven't mentioned web development for years.

Anchor text. That should answer your question about the power of anchor text in Google.

[RingingPHoneML]

Blogs? C'mon is that what you come with? Blogs are mainly for SEO purposes.

Sales and conversion rates are tied to the search engine rankings that you were going to get for a blank page.

Great, I clicked on Stars.com...now what? What are they trying to sell?
What are the numbers? You have about 2-5 seconds to capture your audiences attention? I was on that page for about 10 and have no clue what that site is about. Luckily, they have a lot of anchor text for web development.

[OptWizard]

One thing I dont understand why everyone here is against on page opt. yes we all know links are important but what about the other engines and dont give me google is the be all end all cause most of my traffic comes from MSN and Yahoo. Same rankings as google and more traffic from other engines. People here think writing optimized copy does not look well then IMHO you dont know how to onpage optimize.

If a newbie comes and reads some of these thread there pages would be blank and they would just go out and get tonsa of links with good anchor.

That is not the be all end all in optimization. Truthfully i think it is not SEO anymore its more SEM. Again thats my opinion and most here will diagree or flame me I am ready fire away.

[Jazzee]

Originally Posted by OptWizard

One thing I dont understand why everyone here is against on page opt.

Keyword dense page copy tends to be ugly and counter-productive from a marketing point of view.