I didn’t really add any content to my site this week (except for the deep fryer product post that I forgot about – woops), opting instead to get a little initial link building out of the way. For this I’ve been using Build My Rank (BMR) for article marketing, and I’ve only been targeting the home page. This has mainly been to get the site on the radar. I’ll do a more complete write up of my full link building strategy some time in the future.
I also decided that to keep things interesting, I would start tracking the rankings for my homepage. I’m doing this so early because I actually got a search visitor from Google already (day 6 after launch) and after checking things out, it looks like I’m already in the top 100 for some queries.
I’ve chosen 10 different long tails of “kitchen gadgets” (including kitchen gadgets) that I think the site should rank for because the site does (or will) fulfill the searcher’s intent which I think is to have a little lookie loo at some gadgets, and maybe make an impulse buy. This isn’t the best term to rank for as far as making money is concerned, but one of the purposes of the Niche Rivalry is to build an authority site in the niche, so ranking for these terms is important to that end.
I’m only tracking positions 1-100 (page 1-10) – beyond that is pretty irrelevant. Here they are:
| Keyword | Searches | Rank |
| kitchen gadgets | 12100 | NA |
| cool kitchen gadgets | 1600 | 83 |
| unique kitchen gadgets | 880 | 66 |
| best kitchen gadgets | 590 | NA |
| kitchen tools and gadgets | 480 | NA |
| new kitchen gadgets | 480 | NA |
| fun kitchen gadgets | 390 | NA |
| unusual kitchen gadgets | 390 | NA |
| must have kitchen gadgets | 260 | 50 |
| weird kitchen gadgets | 140 | NA |
The “Searches” column is based on the Google Keyword Tool’s Global Exact Searches. I’m using the free version of Rank Tracker to track the rankings.
The fact that “must have kitchen gadgets” is ranking is kind of a no brainer, as I get the EMD bonus there. It’s good to see the other two ranking because I haven’t even begun link building for them yet. Like I mentioned before though, I want to rank for “cool kitchen gadgets” so my tagline revoles around that phrase. I also knew I wanted to rank for “unique kitchen gadgets” so I started a category just for gadgets I think will fit that search.
Using Category Descriptions to Put Original Content On Category Pages
I used the new ability in WordPress that allows you to add category descriptions in order to put a couple hundred word keyword-laden description at the top of the “unique kitchen gadgets” category. I didn’t want the page to be just a bunch of post excerpts. In that description I included the “unusual” and “weird” variations because I don’t really think all 3 need their own category or page – they all kind of mean the same thing. This should all help prevent it from being tagged by tehGoogles as a useless page full of duplicate content.
There are two ways to do this:
If you're like me, then you add categories when you publish the first post in that category. This means you'll have to go back and edit the description in this screen.
or
If you build your categories first and then go fill them with posts, you can add the description here while creating the category.
As it says beneath the descriptions – only some themes will display this description. I know the Default WordPress themes Twenty Ten and Twenty Eleven do, and I’m sure there are plenty of others. Since I use Thesis, there’s actually a different box called “Introductory Content” that I have to use, but the effect is exactly the same.
When choosing keywords to target, I’ve ignored those with the word “store” in them. My site obviously isn’t a store, so the site doesn’t match that query. This is where my comfort level sits as far that sort of thing goes. I just don’t think shoving a non-store in Google’s face using “store” related keywords is a good long-term strategy. However, I’m actually thinking this site could eventually become an e-commerce site, in which case I’ll begin targeting those phrases.
A lot of this might be the “fresh content” bonus, so who knows where these will stand next week. Stay tuned to find out.
Let’s Set Some Weekly Goals
By next week I will:
- Have 10 total “must have posts” up (7 more to go)
- Have 10 total corresponding product posts up (7 of these as well)
- Have 5 total misc. support posts up (since I have none up all 5 will have to be done this week)
- 7 more links to the homepage (still sticking with the slow drip 1 per day method for now)
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
That’s awesome that you are getting some rankings out of those long tails. It’s rather encouraging, as I figured those niches would be a little tougher.
Although, with your EMD, I think you stand a really, really good chance of ranking for “best kitchen gadgets” with surprisingly little work .
Yeah, “best kitchen gadgets” would be a nice one. I expect the competition to get vicious when we get to page 1 for “kitchen gadgets” and maybe even some of the long tails.
Hi,
I am interested in hearing a bit more on putting the keywords within the Category descriptions. Can you elaborate just a bit? Good luck on the challenge.
Fellow TKAer,
Bob
Sure. Basically I put a 100-300 word description of the Category in the appropriate space. For Thesis the space is called “Introductory Content” but many themes (including the Wordpress defaults) just hook into the Category description and display that. You can find these spaces if you go into Posts–>Categories and edit or add a new category.
In describing the category I use the main keyword once and a few variations and similar keywords that I want the category to rank for as well.
I’ve added some pics in the post above in order to better show and describe what’s going on there and I added a description for the Niche Rivalry category so you can see how it shows up.
Hope that helps!
Hi,
Thanks for this post. I loaded up my category descriptions today. Thanks for the tip!
Best,
Bob
Cool, glad to help.
Awesome content. I hadn’t thought of adding keywords to the categories too. How does this effect ranking/traffic? Are there any cautionary things NOT to do?
It’s an effective way to target relevant keywords that might not otherwise show up on the page. Having a keyword phrase on the page that wasn’t there before is pretty much always going to cause a boost in rankings for that phrase.
The only thing I wouldn’t do is keyword stuffing, obviously. Try to make it sound natural, and making it so the description is actually illustrative and helpful for users doesn’t hurt either.