Page Names and Other Factors
Continuation of Lesson 10 from You Can Make
Money Writing
The matter of page names might seem unrelated to linking strategies,
but it isn't. You'll see why as you read through the rest of
this lesson.
Page Names
You can capitalize words in a domain name URL, to make them
stand out. For example:
http://www.UnusualWaysToMakeMoney.com
or...
http://www.unusualwaystomakemoney.com
...will both lead to the site when typed into a browser.
As mentioned once before, this isn't true with html extensions
(page names):
http://999articles.com/linking-strategies.html
and...
http://999articles.com/Linking-Strategies.html
...are not the same URL. Keep that in mind when creating links
to your interior pages, so the links will work.
It can be useful to keep page names short too. This is especially
true if you have your page linked to from an article which is
published in an online newsletter or "ezine." A long
URL, when used as the link, will sometimes not fit on one line
of the readers email, and this may cause it to "break"
or become "unclickable." Few people will then take
the trouble to type a long URL into their browser to visit your
site.
Vary the Anchor Text for Better Optimization
Paid "link building programs" and other tricky ways
of getting incoming links work most efficiently if they replicate
the same link language (anchor text) for all the links. Search
engine algorithms have taken this into account, and so discount
the value of multiple identical links. Such "unnatural"
links do not indicate how important others actually consider
the site to be, according to search engine theory. Thus, Google
and others most likely assign a higher ranking to sites that
have various link text in incoming links, which is what you would
see if the links were developed more naturally.
In other words, a blogger might mention my site by saying
something like "Check out the list of Interesting Jobs on Steve Gillman website,"
while another "voter" might link to the same page with
the anchor text, Fun Ways to Make Money (those both link to the
same page). When links develop naturally over time, they're not
likely to all say the same thing. Search engines are trying to
take this into account in their search algorithms.
The important lesson here: Have several different link texts
for your links. It is suggested by experts that no more than
80% of your incoming links target any one keyword, and that you
have at least two or three others.
This is easy to do, by the way. Just link to your home page
using a couple variations of the keyword you are targeting. For
example, I link to 999articles.com with "articles,"
"make money writing" and "free online writing
course." Of course, if you link articles to interior pages,
as you should do on occasion, you'll be targeting different keywords
than those for the home page anyhow, so the problem is solved.
Hyphens or Not?
I prefer non-hyphenated domain names, because people often
forget the hyphens when they try to find your site again. I learned
this the hard way and I still have a site with hyphens. One of
my first sites was www.the-ultralight-site.com, which is about
a hobby of mine, "ultralight backpacking." The hyphens
make it tough to even tell someone the name ("the ultralight
site, with hyphens between 'the" and 'ultralight' and 'site'"),
or for them to remember it correctly. It also should have had
the word "backpacking" in it.
Search engines are now able now to "parse out" the
keyword in the domain name, even without the hyphens, so don't
worry about that.
By the way, there are some ways to resolve this problem. I
couldn't just change the domain name, because the site produces
$500 to $800 per month and I would lose all ranking in the search
engines if I took down the existing site - and it would take
a long time to rebuild that lost traffic and revenue. What I
did instead is check for other domain names that are similar.
http://www.TheUltralightBackpackingSite.com
was available, so I registered that and forwarded it to http://www.the-ultralight-site.com
(as you'll see if you click the link). It costs just $9 per year
to have the extra domain name (forwarding is free). I still link
to the primary URL in all articles, but if I mention the name
of the site or URL in any unlinked circumstances, I call it "TheUltralightBackpackingSite.com,
which is easier to remember, tells you what the site is about,
and will get you there in any case.
Bottom line? Avoid that kind of hassle and register non-hyphenated
domain names. Page names are another matter though.
With page names though, always use hyphens. For example, on
my website www.IncreaseBrainpower.com, the page introducing a
section on riddles and puzzles, is:
riddles-and-puzzles.html
The full URL is:
http://www.IncreaseBrainpower.com/riddles-and-puzzles.html
Now when the URL is used as the link, some search engines
might "see" the keyword "riddles and puzzles"
more easily because of the hyphens. Also, it makes it easy for
the reader to see what the page is about. As for their remembering
it, don't worry: Nobody memorizes the entire URL of an interior
page - they just click the link.
Continues here... Where to Link
To
Note: This is part of the book, You Can Make Money
Writing. There are links to all the all the lessons/chapters
on the home page.
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