Comments on: What Comes First, SEO or Site Development?

By: Amad Ebrahimi

Amad Ebrahimi — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 19:03:50 +0000

Much like Ms. Domainer said, Google tends to initially rank a site for their main keyword, then pull back. I’ve noticed that fact especially with exact match names.

As you may know, exact match domains get a ranking boost by Google. I’ve had an a few exact match names rank front page, and stay there just because of the bonus factor. Even though the sites are very thin, and have had very little SEO effort put into them.

Tropical Birds is a bit more competitive than the exact match names that I’ve had, so it’s going to take a bit more effort on your part to rank it, and to keep it there. Just by allowing it to age, and throwing it in a few good directory’s, you can increase your position by a few.

I think the challenge that we’re still seeing in the development process of domains, is that the effort it takes to build one out, get it ranked, then monetize it is still much higher than most expect. In the end, SEO is about creating and offering value. If a site offers little to no value to the web, then Google will be reluctant in ranking it. I think that’s why all the generic domains that don’t get very many type-ins, are going to see their full potential when they fall into the hands of those that are really passionate about the subject. They’re the ones who will have enough drive, to really pull all the juice out of such domains.

By: Merrick

Merrick — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 18:38:20 +0000

Google doesn’t want to be the only one sending you traffic, they watch the toolbar data. You need some other organic traffic in their eyes – stumleupon, delicious links from other sites that drive traffic etc…

By: Kirin

Kirin — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:56:07 +0000

Hi Richard,

Thanks for your comments and your wonderful blog. I am looking forward to your post on internal linking structure. You also promised us a post on ways to dynamically serve meta data and web pages out of a mysql database. Looking forward to that as well.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:51:26 +0000

As mentioned above, a high initial rank, followed by a drop is common. Also keep in mind that time is an important ranking factor over which you have no control. For me it works well to get some initial content published on a site and then forget about it for a few months or longer. Frustrating if you spend time and money up front though.

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 02:22:55 +0000

SEO takes time nowdays. You can either get the serps quick and then lose them even faster, or shoot for the long haul and build links patiently.

May take months, but eventually the site can make some decent earnings.