title suggestion...

[usbnuts]

Hi, I just come up with a new title for my homepage. Hear this: Everything USB: Central Hub to All USB Products

Is this a good title for search engine and for attracting visitors?

or do you prefer this?

Everything USB: news, reviews, drivers, forums, comparison shopping

[MazY]

Personally, if I really had to go with any then I would go with the latter. However, I think that, given the GoTo and Word Tracker results, you may want to be a bit more creative.

I would not rely on "USB" so much as people for looking for specific USB peripherals such as USB Scanner, USB Modem, etc. etc.

Here's what GoTo had to say on the USB subject:

Goto (http://inventory.goto.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/;$sessionid$5UINNLAA04DCJQFIEFIQSYQ?term=USB)

Here's what the WordTracker Demo reported on USB

Keyword Count Predict Dig
usb 2276 1991
usb drivers 838 733
usb driver 766 670
usb port 645 564
usb hub 470 411
usb 2.0 376 329
usb adapter 280 245
usb cable 268 234
usb cables 230 201
usb network 219 192
usb ports 217 190
usb hubs 198 173
usb hard drive 184 161
usb serial adapter 183 160
usb networking 177 155

[ihelpyou]

Yep, I agree.

I would put the title like this:

Everything USB - ports, adapters, forums - usb drivers

Note that the hypen has a space before it and after it.

Or maybe like this:

USB - ports, drivers, adapters, hubs - EverythingUsb.com

[MazY]

I would actually put less emphasis on the "news" and "reviews".

Perhaps "Everything USB - drivers, devices, modems, printers, news and reviews" = 70 Characters.

I'm a great believer in flying "under the radar" where possible and avoiding all of the top search terms at all costs.

That's my few UK pounds worth anyway.

[usbnuts]

Great! Thanx for your advice.

[MazY]

The only problem I see with that is the fact that most people use plurals and lowercase when searching.

So "EverythingUSB: Hub, driver, port, cable, hard drive, adapter... "

could become...

"Everything USB: hubs, drivers, ports, cables, hard drives, adapters..."

Yeah, looking at it, if they are the terms that you really want to go for then that is how I would do the title.

[usbnuts]

Doug,

Why do you put a hypen before the last keyphrase? Is there a reason?

"Everything USB - ports, adapters, forums - usb drivers"

However, if you go with something like what u suggested, then people may have a problem knowing what my site offers. Is this a concern?

[usbnuts]

Mazy,

Will people have problems knowing what my site offers by looking at this title?

"Everything USB: hubs, drivers, ports, cables, hard drives, adapters..."

This title doesn't give out too much info except for the tons of keywords.

[MazY]

BTW. Quite an impressive site that you have there.

I would imagine with that type of site, developing link popularity would be an absolute breeze. I would certainly make that a priority too.

[ihelpyou]

It's just a preference I have. It is very successful for me. No special reason for the hyphens. Just that right now it seems to work.

[MazY]

Originally posted by usbnuts
Mazy,

Will people have problems knowing what my site offers by looking at this title?

"Everything USB: hubs, drivers, ports, cables, hard drives, adapters..."

This title doesn't give out too much info except for the tons of keywords.

I would say that is exactly why it will work. Imagine that you are looking for any USB product and you see that title. it doesn't quite say that "We sell USB hard drives". It says that there is a very strong possiblity that even if you don't then you are going to be a huge resource centre and therefore very likely be pointing to somewhere that does.

Ergo, you have a win/win situation in my opinion. I would stick with it.

[usbnuts]

Okay, now that I have changed the title to this.
"Everything USB: hubs, drivers, ports, cables, hard drives, adapters"

I have another question. According to GoTo, people type 'usb drivers', 'usb 2.0', 'usb cables', 'usb hub'.

My title does not match the exact keyphrases. Will this affect the result?

Mazy, yes, developing link popularity for my site seems to be quite a simple task for me, except getting listed on Yahoo.

[ihelpyou]

I would not base research on the GoTO tool as it seems to be scewed with lots of results only from webmasters like us checking our own keyword phrases with.

This is my opinion, of course.

I swear by Wordtracker. Since it is not free and does not judge from one search engines point of view, I believe it may be a better picture of what is searched for.

[usbnuts]

Does WordTracker check on Google for keywords also?

[Mel]

Hi USBnuts:
Yes Wordtracker does include Google keywords, in fact you can get reports for:
Ten top Search Engines
Four major directories
Six ppc engines
Plus you have the option to use the GoTo and FindWhat tools with the wordtracker keywords from within Wordtracker.

IMHO this is the currently the best tool for researching Keywords, but it does require a subscription.

If a long term subscription is a problem you can sign up for a short term at a minimal cost. If you are researching keywords for only one site you could generate a very good report in an hour or two.

[usbnuts]

Mel,

oh okay. I think i will give it a try and see how it goes.

Back to the question:

My title is like this: "Everything USB: hubs, drivers, ports, cables, hard drives, adapters"

According to WordTracker, people type 'usb drivers', 'usb 2.0', 'usb cables', 'usb hub'.

My title does not match the exact keyphrases. Will this affect the outcome?

[Mel]

Hi USBnuts:

I just spent fifteen minutes with Wordracker generating a short sample USB keyword list for Google. Please consider this an only an example, generate you own list as you probably know the subject much better than I do.

I came up with a list of 24 keywords for Google ranked not only by how many searches you can expect for each term but how meny competitors there are.

The top search term was "usb" but there are 3.3 million competitors for that term. All the rest of the phrases are for some sort of usb device such as "usb ports", "Pci to USB adapter" etc.

I personally would use a dash instead of a colon after USB, but somone searching for USB ports etc would most likely find a match in your title. Only those searchers who place thier searches inside quotes wuld not find your phrase.

Remember also that you can optimize each page for the particular keyphrase applicable to that page.

[Advisor]

Hey all...

I strongly disagree with the title suggestions here. I feel that you're trying to target too many words in the title. In my opinion, you have to pick 2 or 3 phrases that you want to target on your main page, base your copy around them and use them in your title. That doesn't sound like what you're doing. It seems to me that you are diluting your focus and will possibly end up with no high rankings at all because of it.

I would also use the word USB before the other words, such as USB peripherals (if this is a keyphrase you are targeting). "Peripherals" can mean tons of other things.

If your body text copy isn't supporting your Title tag it will not produce the kind of results you want in most cases.

Jill

[MazY]

On the other hand, if you look at the home page of the site, it does cater well for a more "mixed bag" of terms. There are also one hell of a lot of other pages where he can "drill down" and focus on more specific individual terms.

I think that this is a particularly tough one because of the incredibly vast array of USB devices and scenarios.

I may look for a USB printer. I may look for USB developments, I may look for USB history, I may look for USB technology, etc. etc.

Hence, I wrote in my original message that it really is a great opportunity in my opinion. I see no real great reasons why, with a lot of creative thiniking, this site could not do extremely well, as it already seems to be doing, going by the aforementioned Google ranking.

I would still be comfortable going with the more "mixed bag" on the home page and then using the other pages for more in-depth focusing.

Still, it's really good to see an example like this one. One gets a real good idea of how different people look at the same scenario. I always learn from these types of post.

[ihelpyou]

This is exactly why at the top right on the front page is this:

"Different opinions are a good thing."

This is what forums should be about. Period. That way members and visitors can see all the opinions and based on their particular site can make their own judgements and pick and choose which ideas might help their site.

All sites are different and all people's opinions are different. Makes things much more interesting and fun this way. :up:

[Advisor]

Yep, differences of opinion are important. And since SEO is more of an art than an exact science, any/all of us could be right.

I agree that the individual pages should be used to drill down and target the specific phrases, but I also think you'd be losing a perfect opportunity to gain 2 or 3 specific phrases right on the main page, by being too general. The main page is apparently given more weight with many engines, and if you don't target it specifically, you may possibly be wasting the possibilities that lay within it.

I am only speaking in generalities here and have not looked at the site in question. I'm just going by what's in the posts and speaking generally so that anyone reading these may benefit.

If targeting lots of keyphrases on one page works for you, then by all means keep on doing it! I only know what works for me!

Jill

[MazY]

Not trying to be argumentative at all but it does lead almost seamlessly on to a nice point about the main page being giving greater consideration by the SEs than the other pages.

Does anyone or has anyone ever proven or disproven this theory? My own (particularly unscientific) research struggles to find any real backing for the theory.

Would be interested to see how others have found it and if they did, how they found it.

[Advisor]

I don't have any scientific data on it either. My own intuition tells me it's possible that the main page is more important for a few reasons. One, it's the one that is more likely to be in the directories, and two because it's more likely to be the one that other sites will link to. Both of these would play right into the whole link popularity theory.

Jill

[Blue]

Hello usbnuts and all,

Let me throw another idea in the mix.

If I remember correctly, your site was doing very well in the SE's prior to your changing it? Well, I'd be very interested to know what your OLD title was and why you aren't using it?

Did you make changes to the text that requires a new title? And if so, why?

What, considering your high rankings with the old site, was your reasoning for changing titles and I'm assuming the front pages' text?

I guess I'm just thinking along the lines of the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" maxim, as well as just stirring the pot here a little bit.

[ihelpyou]

Maybe this stems from the fact that most major directory listings are the front pages(home) of the site.

Because of this, the home page would automatically gain a greater link pop. or in the case of Google, a greater PageRank.

I have also believed that the home page is viewed as most important, but do not have anything to back it specifically. Just think that it is so.

[usbnuts]

Well, looks like I have missed all the actions.

First of all, I would like to thank all your advices. You guys/gals have given me a lot to think about, although I am left with more questions than answers.

As MazY has pointed out, the 'mixed bag' stragtegy is what I'm targeting for. There are a whole bunch of USB stuff out there. I'm trying to grab all those people.

However, as Jill suggested, my site could have missed a lot of hits from 'USB' search result, because there isn't a focus to the homepage listing, "Everything USB: hubs, ports, drivers, blah..." The person could be looking for a USB 2.0 timeline and the too-general homepage listing may not get him to click.

Well, here's my opinion, I think we simply have to find out what these people are looking for specifically when searching for USB. From my scientific research, majority of the visitors type USB to find out more about the USB technology itself. They are looking for ways to enable the USB function on their systems or to find out what USB has to offer for peripherals. I don't think USB is such a general term afterall.

SEO is just part of the game. U have to know what these people are really here for.

argh, hell, I'm totally lost.

Blue,
I seriously don't want to discuss the reasons for moving the site to another domain on an open discussion board.

[Advisor]

USBnuts, you're exactly right! The key is to find what your target audience is looking for and then focus the page(s) accordingly. Sure, you can try and rank high for just "USB" (and really, focusing on any USB phrase will also be focusing on the one-word USB also), but it may not be possible to get a top ranking for just USB. My recommendations if I were doing this site would be to take the top 3 phrases that apply to your site as defined by the WordTracker report and base your main page around these. Of course, you take the 3 that get the most searches and are most relevant to your site. That's what I would do.

Then on your inner pages, I would take whatever phrases actually apply to those pages, make sure you find the wordtracker phrases that most fit them and rewrite/edit and optimize for them accordingly.

Jill

[usbnuts]

Thanx, I will sign up with WordTracker and find out the top 5 keyphrases for USB.

[Ncntrl]

USBnuts,

First of all, cool site. I wish I good make one like that!

Second of all, did you know you are #14 in Google out of 3,400,000 pages for the search term usb?

I have found that a good listing in Google makes the other engines take notice, and #14 is not too shabby.

Feel good about that.

-nctrl

[ihelpyou]

I have found that a good listing in Google makes the other engines take notice, and #14 is not too shabby.

Good observation. I also think there is definitely something to that statement!