Before getting into this, please understand that I am not an SEO expert. I know what works for me and I hope this article will introduce you to things that will help you with your marketing and make money. About 3 years ago, the keyword sniper concept was introduced. Basically this marketing strategy relies on a couple of things …
- The keyword is long tail with very little competition …
- A properly formatted internal link strategy …
For a niche marketer, this strategy is perfect. And even in the case of larger websites with thousands of pages, if done correctly, keyword research can move up a page quickly for whatever it is you want to rank for.
It’s all about relevancy and leveraging a website’s ability to establish relevancy.
You see, Google and the other search engines are just trying to figure out what your site is about. It does this in several ways:
- Mastery is a clue. If, for example, you’re trying to rank for organic beginner diets and your domain turns out to be organic beginner diets, then Google is very likely to think your site is about (do I even need to say?)
- The page title– The title tag, also known as your page header, is another clue …
- The content of the page– I know it’s obvious, but what you write will give you an indication. Semantic keywords and what are expected to be common words based on other websites that are just like yours are useful.
- What links are on your page– If you are linking to similar web pages then you will have a better idea of what your site is about.
- How the search engines got there– This is important. The anchor tag on the link will go a long way in establishing relevancy. Bonus points if the link comes from a thematically similar website.
Okay, now if you can agree that all of the above helps identify your page as relevant to whatever keyword you’re searching for, you’re 3/4 of the way there. Now, let’s take you the other room on the way home …
The structure of the internal link is very important if you attack keywords
Remember how I talked about external links pointing to your site having a profound effect on your ranking? This is because the site “quotes” you as relevant to whatever you are talking about.
What the keyword snipers discovered was that what can be done externally (get one-way backlinks for your site), can also be done internally …
Stay with me here …
SEO Michael Martinez once said that you could rank for just about anything if you could say the same thing differently enough on your site. In other words, if I wanted to rank for something like SEO for hubpages, if I had enough pages on hubpages SEO I’d rank it eventually.
His theory was that if you built 1,000 pages on how to create an irresistible offer, your landing page would eventually rank for it. There are issues with this strategy which we will discuss shortly, but you must agree that 1,000 pages on a website targeting one keyword should make that site the most relevant, especially if the keyword is a long-tail variety, truth?
However, the trick for the niche marketer is not to build 1000 pages. For one thing, that would take a long time. Instead, a niche marketer can quickly rank for the long tail keyword by simply stacking pages.
Homepage– Optimized for keywords
Page 1– Keyword derivative with link pointing to the homepage with keyword
Page 2– Keyword derivative with link pointing to the homepage with keyword
… and so on and so on …
So basically all you are really doing is pointing most of your internal links to your home page to express to search engines what your website is about.
Keyword postage issues
There are some issues that are not really discussed in regards to keyword sniper. For one thing, you need to be very careful with something known as keyword cannibalization. This is when you have a page or two on your site competing for the same keyword, which will put search engines to rest.
You don’t want search engines having to figure out which page on your site is most likely to be the most relevant keyword. You want to be able to control this factor.
Another problem is that sometimes depending on the niche, relying solely on internal links may not be enough to rank your keyword. In this case, you are left with two possibilities:
- Create more pages
- Create more external links from other sites to your site
Personally, it is easier to build external links and probably more effective.