Obnoxious, or not?

[Smuck]

I’ve just started adding content to my site and wonder whether or not I am being too obnoxious with my keywords. I’m not finished, however, you can see where I am headed with the direction my home page is going. I looked at Ryan Ward’s site and his is clean looking (good job Ryan Ward, if you are reading this). So, let me have it both barrels! I’d rather get corrected now, than 30 pages into this thing (and maybe the loss of few potential customers!).

[Search Engine Book]

Hey Smuck.

It reads fine to me. It seems that you're optimizing for the phrase "Lane Real Estate Team." If that's the case, I have one small suggestion for you:

If people are searching for your company name, chances are they'll find you without the need to optimize for the company name. Because it's a proper name, "Lane Real Estate Team" will be easy to rank for.

If you used your company name on the first occurrence per page, and then just used pronouns like "we," it might read better. More importantly, it might help the page rank better for your generic phrases like "Tri-City Washington real estate" if you're not splitting your SEO efforts between that and your company name.

Remember, it's easy to rank for your company name, but much more challenging to rank for those generic phrases. The reason it's harder is because many more people search generic phrases, so there's more competition.

Keep up the hard work. You've been a busy bee here in the forum! That's excellent. Your efforts will pay off great dividends in the long term.

-Brandon

[Smuck]

Hey Smuck.

It reads fine to me. It seems that you're optimizing for the phrase "Lane Real Estate Team." If that's the case, I have one small suggestion for you:

If people are searching for your company name, chances are they'll find you without the need to optimize for the company name. Because it's a proper name, "Lane Real Estate Team" will be easy to rank for.

If you used your company name on the first occurrence per page, and then just used pronouns like "we," it might read better. More importantly, it might help the page rank better for your generic phrases like "Tri-City Washington real estate" if you're not splitting your SEO efforts between that and your company name.

Remember, it's easy to rank for your company name, but much more challenging to rank for those generic phrases. The reason it's harder is because many more people search generic phrases, so there's more competition.

Keep up the hard work. You've been a busy bee here in the forum! That's excellent. Your efforts will pay off great dividends in the long term.

-Brandon

You’re right, I’ve been learning a lot from these forums. I know just about enough to be dangerous, as I know enough to make incorrect assumptions! My key phrase is not “The Lane Real Estate Team!” I am targeting keywords like these: real estate, richland, pasco, kennewick, wa, & washington. I am not sure if I am going about it the right way. With my limited knowledge, I understand the thing to do is introduce the keywords and key phrases on the home page, then develop them in subsequent pages. I’ve had 40+ pages of content written so far, and have started optimizing the pages to insert into the website. I’ve inserted some so far in my “Real Estate Tri City WA” page/link. Any help would certainly be appreciated.

Brandon, BTW, your ‘Search Engine Book’ has been helpful!

[Ryan Ward]

Smuck,

Thank you for the compliment. I will look at your site tomorrow, but, be warned I know just enough to be dangerous myself when it comes to content, SEO and the like. At this point, all I can say is that I did what I thought looked and sounded right without being too obnoxious with my keywords, had some people review my site in the website review forum with an open mind and essentially bullet pointed my way down the homepage. I am tweaking my Alpharetta page right now as it is where I live and specialize in the most. When I finish that page (and I am almost finished, I think) I will see what some people have to say. This forum and Morgan and the team make very good looking websites IMO and I am thankful for all of the help and information I receive here.

[Ryan Ward]

Smuck,

Your site is not showing up correctly in IE7. The buttons on the right side are just a little outside of the nav bar. You need to get that fixed. As for the content, as I begin reading from the top, I feel like I am on the "about us" page and not the homepage. I did not see an "about us" page for that matter. Besides that it sounds like it flows well to me. I must be careful here as my SEO knowledge on a scale of 1-10 is probably about 1! What I here over and over again from people who know more than I do is to make it read well and let your keywords occur as naturally as possible for the reader.

[Gerry]

I agree about allowing the content's keyword density to play out organically (with a check to watch for places where it needs a small tweak). I think the way it's written now IS a little obnoxious, in that it is repetitive. I think it will deter your human readers, or at least make them stop reading (maybe that's not a bad thing?).

If I were you, I'd go through that page and remove almost all of those bold items - maybe all of them except for the first and third.
The bold part in this line (for example) is counter-productive:
"However, Joe and Colleen believe that their Tri City WA Real Estate clients deserve the best service that The Lane Real Estate Team can provide."

Of course you already know that including the bold part does not make for good reading. But you put it in there because you think its benefits outweigh its disadvantages. However, I believe (and you have no reason to believe me, I understand) that the DISadvantages of including that part are GREATER than any SEO benefit. It's certainly a taboo around here at REW.

Anyway, I hope that's helpful.

Oh, also, somebody mentioned using the homepage as an introduction to each of the keywords that are targeted on the site, and then reinforcing the effort on each keyword's respective page. I would argue that you cannot be expected to introduce all the keywords on the main page, and that you shouldn't try. I always choose the MAIN one ([area]-real-estate) and maybe one or two more, myself.

[Smuck]

Points well taken, especially seogerry’s. I like the simplicity of REW’s new site’s homepage (http://dev10.rewdev.com/). Very simple, very concise, however, I am trying to garner search engine attention. I wonder if getting Google to rank my site well while I add content is a legitimate approach?!? Then, after the site is ranked, and after I have tons of content, I make the site more visitor friendly. Reality is that the visitor is not even going to see my site until it is ranked. By that time, I will have the content to make up for the keywords that I remove (and the other distractions) from the home page. Am I right, or am I making assumptions based on my naivety?

[Gerry]

I wonder if getting Google to rank my site well while I add content is a legitimate approach?!? Then, after the site is ranked, and after I have tons of content, I make the site more visitor friendly. Reality is that the visitor is not even going to see my site until it is ranked.

Hrm, good point. Dunno!