How many search terms you target return your site as a top-ten result?

[MichaelCorfman]

To do well in the search engines, most sites need to do well in the long-tail of search engine traffic. That means having good search engine result positions(SERPs) on longer, more specific, and less common terms.

Even CasinoCity.com, a very popular site, that currently happens to rank as the first result on google for the term "casinos" and sixth result on google for the term "casino" receives only a very small percentage of its traffic from those terms. Most of its traffic comes from thousands of other more specific keyword phrases.

So this week's question is how many terms do you target on the search engines where a page on your site is actually one of the top ten results for the targeted term.

Michael

[MichaelCorfman]

In the case of CasinoCity.com we target well over 10,000 search terms, and we are in the top ten search results on google for the vast majority of the terms we target.

Examples of what we target include:

The name of every land-based gaming property (there are over 4,500).
The name of every online gaming property (there are over 2,000)
The name of every city, state, and country that offers casino gaming followed by the word casino (I don't know the exact count here, but there are thousands).
The name of every gaming property or online gaming site owner (well over 1,000).
Every poker term (we have a dictionary at dictionary.pokerzone.com with over 500 terms).

And the list goes on, but even with the few items listed above we are over 10,000 targeted terms.

Michael

[Nandakishore]

We target currently around 100 terms and this number is steadily increasing. We analyze the results of tools like Google Analytic, StatCounter etc. to find out which keywords have been used by our site visitors. And then we include some of them in our list.

The approach of CasinoCity is very interesting. However, the problem is that a small affiliate like ours does not have enough resources to manage 10,000 search terms.

Nandakishore
Online Casino Newsroom

[aksana]

I target 2500-5000 terms, of course it's difficult to manage all these terms, therefore I'm trying to add interesting and useful information on each page of my site and don't think about these terms.

[bb1web]

many would not share these results. thank you M!

[ck8795]

I would have to agree with bb1, I dont see many affiliates who are willing to share what they are targeting, how much, etc.. I remember starting and someone telling me to keep my target words to myself or I will get squashed....lol It can be true I dont know ...since that conversation I dont go sharing anymore not 100% at least.

I did learn something interesting though about how I am making an attempt at ranking and the pyramid of the pages. How it seems as though everything must come to a full circle to be done right...if this makes sense to anyone else. So I have taken this approach to a new page and within no time at all it was easier to rank using every on page factor without looking spammy.

Alright I am gearing of course here!

[matted]

Each page I target whatever the page is about... Similar to what Michael explained. I do have a 5-10 keywords I target on the homepage.... rankings improving, but none consistently in the top 10 right now...

Mind you, In jus the past 9 months I've changed a lot about my sites, shifting focus completely away from sports and putting all my time/energy/money into casinos.

[pgaming]

Now I must admit I am not the most successful Webmaster in here, but I am trying. Spend too much time doing other things I guess. My site is about 2.5 years old but my total time spent is more like 4 months. No link exchanges for the last 6 months and never did any marketing. I think my total link exchanges is around 40. The site is mere ten pages long with no site map with an outdated xml map.

My organic results I consider to be good. I am right up there with the big boys. I did not target any keywords. Instead I just wrote some honest content and plucked the keywords from there, seemed to work. My site is currently in the top ten for several keywords and phrases for results greater than 5 mil. Not sure if this is a good thing or not?

So I am pretty uncertain whether targeting keywords is all that important? Maybe target a good article?

greek39

[LiveCasinoPartners]

This ties in perfectly with the debate of promoting only one website or multiple sites. Currently I'm promoting 3 main sites with focusing on about 10 important niche keywords for each site.

I didn't realize that long tail were so important in the casino industry. There's a myth that long tail keyword phrases don't convert. Here's a recent example below.

http://searchengineland.com/070830-074852.php

Myth 10: You need to optimize for the long tail. No, you don't. By their very nature, long-tail keyword phrases are uncompetitive; meaning that not many pages are using those words, and not that many people are searching for them in the engines. Because of this, ranking for long-tail keywords is easy...simply include them somewhere in a blog post or an article, and you'll rank for them. But that's not optimization.

I get most my SEO intel from non-casino webmaster forums. That's why I'd like to see the GPWA SEO sub-forum more active. It's more casino specific.

Thanks Michael, you are the SEO myth buster for the day!

Cheers!

[ck8795]

I think it would be great to have a more active SEO forum. Even have one of the veterans who would be willing to do a weekly article for beginners. I would like to see GPWA open up a SEO forum for the newbies and not contain it in the private members section.

People like myself who knew nothing and have learned everything they can have done so through the use of those forums and members that are wiling to guide you and coach you into the right direction. There might be a lurker nearby who is trying to search for the info and instead of coming up short why not give it to them. I dont bother with many of the SEO forums myself anymore. I find half the people are oblivious to many things while the otehr half are second guessing like many of us. Now I look towards others who are in the same niche as myself and see how they do it.


On another note, I have been able to see that my site is worth ranking. I have managed front page results for Pokerstars among other rooms. My issue is not being diverse enough with my keywords

I am starting a new project and hope to launch the site (niche related ) in a couple of months. I want it to be 100% complete with content before I do so, but I am much more confident with how I will be building it than I was before. I realize the importance of structure within sub folders compared to doing a redirect when you have 100 pages lol

[elgoog]

I think long-tail kewords used by visitors will convert very good.
E.g. when they search for "buy a big blue african balloon" and they find it on your site.......... bingo

[elgoog]

Double posted due to slow loading from new page from here,
sorry

[helpyou]

www.onlinexcasinos.com points on 2 terms "online flash casinos" and "best online casinos".

only 2 terms

[Nandakishore]

I think it would be great to have a more active SEO forum.

If we can create a FAQ for SEO, it would be very useful. We could start by creating a FAQ list. The answers may come later through SEO experts.


Nandakishore
Online Casino Newsroom

[ck8795]

I think that would be great, an easy way to keep the threads clean, thus preventing many people asking how to and why is this.

I think enough of us have learned a few things that I am sure GPWA could pull a few members together to contribute at least one or two articles to help out.

[LiveCasinoPartners]

I think it would be great to have a more active SEO forum. Even have one of the veterans who would be willing to do a weekly article for beginners. I would like to see GPWA open up a SEO forum for the newbies and not contain it in the private members section.

I'd like to see it more active too, but NOT in the public domain. I think that would be a great place to share ideas and test results. When browsing through the threads you don't have to go that deep to find threads from 2004. Most of the time information related to SEO is outdated past 6 months let alone 4 years.

But threads like this one add value to the up to date casino SEO.

Personally, I've started to have that feeling where I want to keep my keyword phrases that convert to myself. lol.. I guess this is normal right?

[bb1web]

Spend too much time doing other things I guess

Peter (Greek)

you know that's the one thing i fault you for ...... yet applaud at same time ... when we talk on phone or in forums.

you're such a great .... well is "superman" too great a word? you stand for "truth, justice ... and dare I say? well what used to be anyway ... the American way".

You go girl!

so to speak.

anyway ... anybody who has anything bad to say about Peter can take it up with me anytime!

I wish more of you existed!

[TheGooner]

We don't "target" any terms. I write the content and then put in the extra SE pieces to match the general thrust of what we've created.

eg Write a match preview for Tottenham v Arsenal in the English Premier League? Then you've got your keywords.

It seems to work best that way - we get 500-1000 SE hits a day - but usually for over 300+ different terms.

Many of the hits are funny to read. Mis-typings, misspellings, and certainly not targeted.

Often I see a hit in the reports and think - DID I WRITE THAT SENTENCE ON MY SITE ?

Where ??

[ck8795]

I'd like to see it more active too, but NOT in the public domain. I think that would be a great place to share ideas and test results.

I would have to disagree completely on that and please dont take this offensive but why shouldnt it be public.

First off no I am not going to disclose every keyword or term I am targeting, however that being said if I find something that is working for me than I am more than willing to share it with you, the private members along with those who are in the public. What is the difference between them? Some have been accepted and some have not?

I dont agree with serving for your own purposes and if it wasn't for people like bb1 who gives solid trustworthy advice, many people at PAW who again have helped me I wouldnt be here. I would still be running a free hosted site that wouldnt pass the GPWA requirements.

Here is the catch these people helped me why? Because they wanted to, and because of that I scrapped the free hosting and went with a domain.

So here is the deal when I applied to GPWA I think I was turned down twice. But I was given requirements same as Bodog it took me three applications to get accepted and finally I went through everyone's lists and met each and every requirement.

Why am I telling you this, probably because there are a good percentage of lurkers who could use the help, and yes a good handful of them could be the ones who will never amount to a whole lot and quit early in the game. BUT there are alot of people like me who have no background in web design, marketing, any of this that would be more than happy to get the opportunity to learn from those who have done it over and over again.

I bust my ass off and it is alot harder playing catch up. Do you know how grateful I am to have these people. SEO is not a secret but like you have said before there are alot of BH's out there.

Would you rather not show a beginner that it can be done using an honest approach than find the sites that dont.

I also believe that if you were fortunate to be helped than you should return the favor to someone else - ---------- karma can be a beautiful thing and by you helping one affiliate, they will than turn and do the same.

I will stop here before I go into a whole new thread

[Nandakishore]

I would have to disagree completely on that and please dont take this offensive but why shouldnt it be public.

I fully agree. I am sure any SEO database would profit from being accessible to all, public or private, because there are many with sound SEO experience who are not, for one reason or the other, private members.

Nandakishore
Online Casino Newsroom