Difficult keyword niche

[RyaninZion]

We are trying to build up our traffic to an adequate level so that we can at least cover our operating costs. Our stats in terms of the search engines are not promising.

We currently have only around 1000 impressions a day, and some 94% of that is coming from referrer websites. Only a little over 6% from search engines.

The problem, from what I can see, is that our primary keywords are part of a very small set of keywords that have very large competition. Our main keyword phrase is "israel news". There are very few alterations or other possibilities around this that have little competition.

And because of the narrow focus of our services, we can't just move to a different set of keywords.

Any suggestions?

[Chris]

I can see it being a difficult road getting to the top -- but it isn't impossible.

Your biggest hurdle is that others have the word "Israel" in their name, you do not.

If you can't succeed on that keyword why not try more targetted ones. Such as news for specific cities?

[RyaninZion]

Thanks for the quick reply. I know its a problem that "Israel" is not in our name, but to counter that somewhat, in most places that our name appears on the site (mainly in the title and alt/title tags) I have changed it to "Israel News from Jerusalem Newswire."

Hopefully this will help.

The other problem is that there are few viable targetted variations of this more broad keyword phrase.

I guess we will probably need to focus on beating the PR of the top sites for this keyword.

[RyaninZion]

I don't know if this is hurting me too, but the vast majority of the text on the homepage of our site changes daily, as it is mostly news story headlines.

Many of the headlines often contain good keywords, but I guess it just depends what is up on the day good ole googlebot stops by....

[Chris]

actually frequently updated content can help because Google will visit more often.

[RyaninZion]

Oh, that is good to know. Will Google figure out on its own that our content is frequently updated, or do I need to do something initially to get the robot to stop by more often?

[chromate]

Yeah. It seems, like Chris says, your biggest down-fall is not having "Israel news" in your site name.

You have a decent PR and a reasonable number of back links. Unfortunately, you're being linked to with the text "JNewsWire". Again, this is the name problem. I reckon if you're to stand a chance you're going to have to seriously consider working on getting these links changed to "Israel news".

Looking at the competition on google, it's really not likely you'll get to #1 without breaking your back. However, if you do the above the a top 10 position is most obtainable.

There's also some stuff you could benefit from. I wont repeat it all here, but if you follow the guide on this site it will help a bit.

But your main problem is the name thing. You need to definitely put some thought into rectifying this (at least as far as the incoming links are concerned) if you're to get anywhere. But obviously because of the actual name of your site, it wont be easy.

... I think this is all correct? :)

Cheers,

Richard.

[RyaninZion]

Mmmm, the name thing is a problem. Most, in fact I would imagine all, would have a problem with linking to us using the text "Israel news from Jerusalem Newswire" or something like that. Most of those linking to us link to several Israel news sources besides us, and naturally use the actual names of the companies/websites as the link text.

This seems to me something that is not going to be feasible in our case, unless we changed our whole company name all together... which would be a far larger headache.

I have gone ahead and changed all the internal links that used to say "Home" to "Israel News", so hopefully that will help some.

I am not concerned with reaching #1. There are a few full-fledged newspapers in those tops spots that we can never compete with. But in the top 10 would be great.

[Chris]

I have gone ahead and changed all the internal links that used to say "Home" to "Israel News", so hopefully that will help some.


Good job, that'll help some.

[chromate]

Yeh. The home thing was one I was thinking about.

The other thing that would put people off linking to "Israel news from Jerusalem Newswire" is its length. It's not likely to sit nicely on one line in a narrow menu column.

Also, the number of words would "dilute" the power of your "Israel news" keyword. The ideal thing would be to have them link to you using only "Israel news".

You could see how you go getting them to link to you like that, pointing out that you only deal with Israel News and therefore the link would, be "a more accurate description of my service and therefore be of greater benefit your users" etc etc

Alternatively you could compromise with something like "Israel News by JNW" or something.

Difficult.

[RyaninZion]

Ya, I imagine its gonna be difficult getting anyone except the smallest sites to agree to do anything like that. Especially since, as I said, we are usually listed along with 10-20 other Israel news sources, all of whom focus on providing news from Israel. So to name us "Israel News" and leave everyone else as is would be a little silly.

I do want to go back to this issue of Google indexing us more often since our content is very frequently updated. Do I need to do something to make this happen, or will Googlebot eventually figure out on its own that we are updated frequently?

[Chris]

They'll do it by themselves.

[chromate]

You're right. I hadn't realised. The only thing you can do is go for the compromise. Or, change your name to something with israel news in it. They'd be much more likely to change the links if you actually changed the name. But like you say, that'd be one major headache!

I wasn't aware of google visiting more if you update the content more frequently. I would guess that this would be automatic though.

[Mike]

I think having title tags on all your links should help as well.

[ozgression]

Change the link in your footer from "HOME" to "Israel News HOME". That will help a little.
________
Ian McAllister (http://www.ford-wiki.com/wiki/Ian_McAllister)

[RyaninZion]

Oh right, missed that one. Thanks ozgression.

I was also looking at the PR of the top sites that come up in a Google search for "israel news." The highest PR I see is a 7. Seems that with some work, we could overtake a number of these sites, as our PR is already 5 - though I know that is not really so high, since 4 is a pretty easy number to reach.

[Chris]

7 is like 125 times higher than a 5.

[RyaninZion]

I see. Well, only the top site, or top two, have a 7/10. The others all have 5 or 6, or show nothing at all.

How much higher is a 6 than a 5?

[Chris]

25x

But you might not have a low 5 or a perfect 5. You might have "5.99"

[michael_gersitz]

Is there any way to tell the exact amount?

[Chris]

Not really. The Google directory uses a slightly different scale and by comparing the two ranks it is sometimes possible to figure out if you're high or low.

Or if you were a 4 last month and now you're a 5 chances are its a low 5.

[chromate]

Originally posted by RyaninZion
The highest PR I see is a 7. Seems that with some work, we could overtake a number of these sites, as our PR is already 5 - though I know that is not really so high, since 4 is a pretty easy number to reach.

Probably more realistic to look at the number of backward links in conjunction with the PR. In the case of the #1 ranking site: 4,310 :eek: heh

[RyaninZion]

Yes, 4,310 will be a bit tough to overcome :)

But the number 3 site on the list has a more manageable 605 backward links. That we can handle, with time.

[chromate]

Yep. Getting above the number 3 site definitely would seem possible. Just pick the sites you want to link with well.

Anybody used Zeus? http://www.cyber-robotics.com/index.htm

I haven't used it myself, but it might make your job more manageable. I'd be interested to know from anyone that has used it, what it's like.

[Chris]

I'd stay away from automatic link building tools. Webmasters are far more receptive to a personalized linking request.

[chromate]

It does allow you to personalise the mails. Don't know to what extent though. If you're dealing with thousands of linking sites, it could get pretty tricky I would guess.

For now though, I'll just stick with a simple spreadsheet :)