SEO Strategy | Flaws?

[johnser]

Hi

I'm relatively new at this game of SEO but I've just got a client and need some advice on my strategy. All comments would be most appreciated.

I'm using Web Position **** and my plan is as follows:

1 - Have quality text content on the site's 25 "normal" pages

2 - Take 6 of these pages and optimise each for 20 SE's.
(6 keyphrases X 20 SE's = 120 >high quality< optimised pages, each with links back to the "normal" pages)

3 - The 120 pages are arranged into 6 separate directories

4 - The 6 optimised pages are manually submitted to each SE.

5 - I use a robots.txt file to tell the SE to look at just its 6 optimised pages which I've submitted to it.

6 - These optimised pages look identical to the "normal" pages and are suitable for viewers.

7 - These optimised pages contain many links back to the sites' 25 "normal" pages.

8 - The 120 optimised pages are tweaked on a monthly basis and resubmitted by hand
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A - Can anyone spot any major (or minor) flaws in this strategy?

B - Assuming I create the robots.txt correctly, is this spam?

C - Can I be penalised? - Remember they're high quality optimised pages that I expect users to see but there will be 20 of them with practically duplicated content. (Hence use of exclusion in Robots.txt file)

D - I'm concerned that while the "normal" 25 pages of content have lots of inbound links from other websites, NONE of my optimised pages will have.

(The optimised pages will reside on the same host one level down from the root)

E - Is there any "foolproof" way to hide a robots.txt file from users but not spiders?

F - Should I expect a lot of traffic for doing the above work or will the client's site be dropped?
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All thoughts/opinions would be very gratefully received.
Thanks in any case for taking the time to read this far.

Best wishes
John Ring

Creative Web Strategist
http://www.RingJohn.com

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums John! :hi:

Oh boy, lots of stuff there but I will start out. :)

We have many SEO's in here who never 'optimize' for all the different engines as we feel it is Not necessary at all. Concentrate on Google and it will get you far.

Duplicated content is a big fat no-no. Don't do it. :)

Optimize the web site of the owner only and don't worry about all these so-called optimized pages. Optimize the real pages of the site and you will enjoy long-term success with the client.

Others can chip in with their opinions? :)

[Alan Perkins]

Welcome to the forums johnser :hi:
Originally posted by johnser
A - Can anyone spot any major (or minor) flaws in this strategy? See D

B - Assuming I create the robots.txt correctly, is this spam?Technically, yes.

C - Can I be penalised?Technically, yes.

D - I'm concerned that while the "normal" 25 pages of content have lots of inbound links from other websites, NONE of my optimised pages will have.Bingo!

E - Is there any "foolproof" way to hide a robots.txt file from users but not spiders?No. You could cloak it but it's not foolproof and just cloaking it could get you a penalty.

F - Should I expect a lot of traffic for doing the above work or will the client's site be dropped?The traffic you get will depend on how well you optimize. The penalty you get will depend on how poorly you optimize. :)

[Blue]

Welcome to the forums johnser! :hi:

Doug and Alan have covered your questions quite nicely, but just to drive the point home, duplicate content is bad. Ethical optimization techniques will always serve you better for long term results.

[Advisor]

Welcome, Johnser!

In case you were quite sure what Doug and Alan were saying, basically they're telling you that it's unnecessary to optimize different pages for each engine. All the engines want to see the same thing, so that makes things a lot easier for you. Simply write that good keywords rich content you were talking about for your 20 pages, and you'll be good to go!

Of course, you'll need to be sure you're choosing realistic and relevant keyphrases first (not keywords), and also be sure you know how to strategically place them within your copy. You'll also have to get familiar with how to create killer Title and Meta tags, and learn all the other SEO techniques available. WPG is a nice guide for some of this stuff, and a great way to check your positions once you're site is submitted; however, it's not a substitute for learning search engine optimization techniques yourself.

Read through many of the threads in this forum, plus the many articles on Rank Write and Search Engine Watch. Doorways have been dead for at least two years now. In a few words, they simply do not work and are a waste of time. You may especially be interested in my Myth of Gateway Pages (http://www.rankwrite.com/gatewaymyth.htm) article also.

Keep asking questions around here and you'll be fine!

Jill

[johnser]

Thanks for that everyone.

I read your articles frequently Jill via the search engine watch newsletter & subscribe there also. Keep up the good work!

Google I think I've cracked (for now..) as my own site is top 5 there but the other ones like AltaVista etc worry me. If I have a regular page and its been optimised & working brilliantly for Google, how do I get it optimised for the others without dropping down Google?

This is in light of the fact that the ranking algorithm used is different from 1 SE to another according to WPG's "Page Critic".

(I'm charging the client on a fee per position basis across the top 10 SEs & I really want to >ethically< produce the goods for them so I feel I need to get high on more SEs than just Google)

ALSO -

If I'm optimising for 6 phrases on a dynamic asp site with no existing static content, whats the best policy re: static pages (possibly doorways?) as I believe Inktomi allow 1 per "real" page & Google does actually spider the .asp?id=xxx page (but none of the links from the page to prevent itself looping)

Sorry if I'm being a bit slow & thanks again all for your time & patience. Much appreciated. Theres so many ins & out on SEO!!!

John

PS - Anyone read "SEO with Web Position ****" new book out now. If so any good?

PPS - Do any of you use the Agent Delievery software (costs about $1,000) available? (Can't remember the mfr's name) Should I be considering investing in this? I'm looking to get into this quite seriously.

[Advisor]

This is in light of the fact that the ranking algorithm used is different from 1 SE to
another according to WPG's "Page Critic". Generally, if you can crack Google, then your page is fairly well optimized and should (theoretically) do well in the other engines. The problem, of course, is that the other engines don't always know a good relevant page when they see it! But...because of this, people aren't searching at those other engines so it doesn't matter all that much whether you're ranking high in AltaVista, for instance. The traffic you should get from Google and the directories, is going to account for most of your traffic, even if you are ranking high in the other engines. You'll see in some other threads here how even with top 10 rankings, people aren't getting any traffic from the likes of AltaVista.

Perhaps you could change your pricing structure so you would only have to worry about the engines that know a good page when they see it ;)!

Jill

[johnser]

That might not be a bad idea! I'll do that.
Thanks again Jill and everyone else
John