Advanced Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Secrets

While I hope that PDCB'ers are only interested in making sure their site gets a fair showing in the SEs, we have to be aware that they are waging a constant war against people who are trying to trick their way to the top positions and will resort to anything to achieve this.

So, you can be pretty sure that any "trick" you think of will have been thought of already - and been abused, and been trapped by the SE designers.

Most leading authorities are agreed that the best solution is to produce focussed, content rich sites that are SE-friendly. But that's not to say that you can't use some advanced techniques to give your site the exposure it deserves.

My "mentor" for leading edge SE optimization is Michael Campbell. Michael is referred to elsewhere in this manual for his success in selling large volumes of "real world" products on the internet - in a highly competitive field - with little or no advertsing budget. He did this by dominating the search engines - it's documented in his book "Nothing But 'Net".

For some time, Michael has had a subscription service on SE optimization, but now he's released a series of 3 reports on fundamental SE matters. It's real do-able stuff for people like you and me. To be frank, some of it sails a little close to the wind - Michael calls them "dirty tricks" - but I think the combination of his advanced techniques and a little caution are a powerful mix.

I found a few real gems that are soooooooo easy to do - and obvious when you know about them. You'll understand that I don't feel comfortable giving any of Michael's "secrets" away - but I'll give you a glimpse of one idea I've put into action - along with a money-saving tip that even Michael didn't mention.

Creating Mini Site Networks

In one of his reports, Michael describes how he sets up mini-networks of related sites that are interlinked. I applied this to one of my sites - circustuff.com - with great results. This site contains such a wide variety of material that it is hard to get good (or any) SE positions for some of the specialised areas where I have products to sell.

So, I registered a number of new domains such as diabolostuff, unicyclestuff, jugglingstuff. Each domain is forwarded to a single page site on a generic domain I use, with very simple design and concentrating on a single keyword. The full complexity of what these sites do will be clearer if you read Michael's reports, but suffice to say they link in different ways to the main circustuff.com site, to each other, and to other sites in different ways.

Here's the Trick

Ok - I promised you a money-saver. I registered the new domains as .co.uk, not .com. Did you know .co.uk domains are significantly cheaper? They are unlikely to be the right choice for your main site (unless you are a staunch UK based business) but for "feeder" sites like this - and especially when you are registering a number of them - the economy can be well worthwhile.

There are lots of places to register domain names, but freeparking.co.uk / com is one company that might be especially useful in this context - as they have dual sites in UK/USA currencies that you can alternate between. You can use the form below to check names with them: