Newbie Questions - Home Page content + Number of pages

[RedundoJourno]

Thanks again to everyone who offered help in my first post.

I've now got the first 40 pages of content written, and a (very)rough layout for the various different "types" of pages. I've identified a couple of designers I'd be interested in using and I'm sending them a brief for the design and hopefully they'll work some magic!

I've got a couple of further questions for anyone willing to help.

I'm struggling with the homepage. My (basic) understanding of this page is it should essentially tell your visitors what your site is about and provide the navigation to the rest of the site. How important is it to have actual quality content on this page? And how important to have some adverts on this page?

Looking at other sites and reading up on it, I'm unsure as to whether to make the hompage nice and simple with just a few links to relevant sections or whether to add some strong content on that page and put some ads on there too.

Also ThePokerKeep in his first response to me suggested starting to build links once we've got 25-30 pages published. My question to Terry, or anyone else with a view, is if there is any benefit, or otherwise, in building up more pages of content before publishing and seeking links - or if this the optimal number?

[thepokerkeep]

There are several ways to go with your home page.

1. Make it simple with big calls to action leading your visitors deeper into your site.
Good for a niche sites or mini sites especially since you will have a limited number of inner pages or hub pages. This page is a very nice example of what I mean: http://pokerprogression.com/index.php - I know some of the folks involved in the site but am not involved myself.

2. Make it an introduction page where you sell your visitor on your site. In this case, you will want some CTA's within the body of the page sending the reader to other pages.
I like this type of page for authority sites or information sites. I use this page style on my Affiliate Aid site and only have 2 ads on it.

3. Make your home page a full blown sales page.
This one is the most commonly used. Look at my PokerKeep site, Casino Bonus Guy or Gooners Guide for examples of pushing this type of page to the max. Your are more likely to generate more SE traffic to this type of page due to the multiple keyword potential so this is good for general review/strategy sites.

As for the optimum number of pages to produce before publishing, I would get 15 - 20 pages loaded and optimized, then publish. Submit a sitemap and add some sig links in the forums. Ask for a site review so we can give the site a good critiquing before you get any further along.

Google will pick up the site within a day or two and begin indexing and caching pages.

Once you have made any fixes/adjustments that are necessary, publish a page or two a day. This keeps Google coming back.

Begin working on getting some back links once the site has been alive for a week or so. This looks very natural to the SE's. Start out only adding (exchanging) with very niche specific sites and don't exceed a few links a day.

Using this approach, by the end of your first week, you will have between 20 and 35 pages published with more being added daily and links will be beginning to get indexed as well.

[universal4]

Yes there is a benefit to both sites that exchange links providing a few criteria are met.

The site must be live and spiderable by the engines.

If you provide a link on a page about roulette strateegy to another sites page about roulette strategy then the visitor recieves benefit for that link as the content on the off site page might be of value to the visitor.

If that site also provides a link back to your page about roulette startegy then that is of value to thier visitors.

That is the visitor value.

Now for the website oners, each website would recieve and inbound link from a page that matches the content of the page being linked to and from so there is value there.

Now the value that the website owner recieves from this link can vary based upon other factors, such as the age of the link, anchor text used (it is assumed the anchor text matches similarly with the content), the age of the page, the auhtority rating of the sites as well as other factors.

Rick
Universal4

[RedundoJourno]

Thank you (once again) Terry for providing some useful info and, importantly, some examples. That really makes it much easier to make informed decisions.

Your affiliate aid site looks like it has some interesting stuff on it and I'll have a read through that. Perhaps I can sub under on you for a couple of sites (when I get that far) as you've been really helpful.

Thaks Rik for explanation about links. It's become clear to me that links are important, but not so much why they're important. Your comments there make a lot of sense to me and I'll certainly be putting some effort into getting relevant links. This throws up one more question - should I be looking to attract a number of links to one page (i.e. my homepage) or the same amount of links to a number of different pages? Because I can see "visitor value" being greater if I sought links to lots of different inner pages but that might be harder to achieve?

Also, I've learned there is a difference between the value of a reciprocal link and a one-way link. Does this hold true for inner pages. i.e. is a home page to home page reciprocal link any less or more valuable than a inner page to inner page reciprocal link.

Thanks!

[universal4]

Glad you asked that and you clearly understood the MAIN point I was trying to make.

It's all about the relevancy...

To further explain and attempt to answer your question...

Let's say you have a blackjack site.

And on that site you have articles dealing with strategy.

If you were to get a link from another site using an anchor such as "Simple Blackjack Strategy" you could have that link point to the home page, but if one of your strategy articles were a better matcg with the page from which you are getting the link, and it's obvious that the article page is more in line with the anchor, then it might make more sense having the link point at the article page.

Again like has been said in many posts here recently as well as over the years....balance is good also....

I am alsways on the look out for link exchanging Both with newbies and otherwise) but I would rather put more time into exchanging 4 or 5 good links from internal pages covering various themes that are a good match for both sites than regular exchanges on link pages (although I do some of them also for part of the balance)

None of this should be a replacement for good content and other good seo practices....just more to think about....

Rick
Universal4

[casinogod]

Great answers / advice from both Terry and Rick.

I think Terry has pretty much covered your options in his first reply and exactly how you mix it depends on what kind of site you want it to be.

Personally I like his option 2, but comparison tables with casino links covert well too

[clearlyportals]

I think the homepage should be straight to the point, link to where the user might be interested (you bonus page, reviews, etc.).

If you do go down the content route, put it at the bottom of the page, with the call to actions at the top of the page (such as top 10 casino lists, etc.).

I guess it's difficult as you'd like the homepage to rank well, and it may have better chance with useful content rather than just a bunch of links.

Some people even use SOC (source ordered content) where your text appears at the bottom of the page but is actually at the top (using css to re-position it).

Good luck