boron
03-01-2007, 09:06 AM
OK, let's review one blog directory (http://www.blogtagstic.com).
1. SITE OPENS with average speed - 2 seconds on T1 connection, speed test (http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/wso.php?url=http://www.blogtagstic.com/) (<< check :) ) shows average speed also. Home page size is 50 Kb, from these 30 Kb go for images.
DNS timing (http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/dnstime.ch?name=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.websiteoptimizati on.com%2Fservices%2Fanalyze%2Fwso.php%3Furl%3Dhttp %3A%2F%2Fwww.blogtagstic.com%2F&type=A) which reflects hosting server speed shows "score C", which seems to be acceptable.
Validator.v3.org shows 19 HTML errors, from these 3 warnings, please check (http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogtagstic.com).
2. On the FIRST LOOK the site gives a mixed impresssion. Green background plus green title composed "from newspaper letters" gives missleading feeling of a "cheap" site, since colors look so unique. On the contrary the subtitle with its lenght, font and content looks very promissing.
3. DESIGN and NAVIGATION are very connected here. Position of introduction text is perfect, but it is not visible - eye should catch it immediately. You can consider to bold it or try with some color or maybe put it in a square or so.
Right menu should go on the left
- most visitors will expect it there and will look there first
- spiders scan the site left-right (http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/se-bot-simulator.html?op=se-bot-simulator&go=1&pageurl=http://www.blogtagstic.com/&se=googlebot&submit=Start) and will assume the left based content as site content.
Menu titles are not capitalized which makes them hard to find on a first look. Word navigation is not necessary. tags can be "Blog tags" for easier understanding. Blog submission (that would be a 'keyword in anchor text' then) should be next by my opinion with Award top blogs on the end. Popular tags can be "Popular blog tags" again. You can replace: "...click on add blog..." in the introduction text with the correct: "...click on 'submit your blog'...".
The site fits perfectly on the 17 inch screen in Windows 98 and Windows server 2003 /I.E.7, you can check Firefox, Konqueror and Opera (http://browsershots.org/website/http://www.blogtagstic.com/) screenshots also.
Blogs list is simple and attractive. I miss search by keyword and categories though.
4. CONTENT:
You can say (In blog submission explanation) what exactly you get with Standard and what with Premium listing. You can put below links with prices in Premium and Standard listing titles.
Adding a directory looks simple.
There is NO content in Award top blogs.
5. SEO review:
PR = 5 for both www.blogtagstic.com and blogtagstic.com
Backlinks:
to www.blogtagstic.com: Google: 2,340 (http://www.google.si/search?hl=sl&q=link%3Awww.blogtagstic.com&btnG=Iskanje&meta=) , Yahoo: 76,725 (http://sitexplorer.search.yahoo.com/advsearch?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogtagstic.com%2F&bwm=i&bwmf=a&bwms=p)
to blogtagstic.com: Google: the same as on www. domain, Yahoo: 90 (http://sitexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&p=http%3A%2F%2Fblogtagstic.com%2F&bwm=i&bwmf=u)
Indexed pages:
in Yahoo from www. blogstagstic.com: 1,654 (http://sitexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogtagstic.com%2F&bwm=p&bwmf=a&bwms=p) from blogtagstic.com: 2326 (http://sitexplorer.search.yahoo.com/advsearch?p=http%3A%2F%2Fblogtagstic.com%2F&bwm=p&bwmf=u),
in Google from both blogtagstic and www. blogtagstic.com: 1,540 (http://www.google.si/search?hl=sl&q=site%3Awww.blogtagstic.com%2F&btnG=Iskanje+Google&meta=)
Keywords:
blog directory, submit blog, blogs
Keyword analyzis (http://www.submitexpress.com/cgi-bin/analyzer/meta.pl?url=http://www.blogtagstic.com/) shows that the main one word keyword is "blog" and two word keyword phrase is "blog rommow" (!) (from Recent additions list).
Site is not among 1,000 in Google for keyword phrases "blog directory" and "blog submission".
Your competitors in Google for "blog directory":
1. http://dir.blogflux.com/ PR7, Gbl (Google back links): 39,300
2. http://www.blogcatalog.com/ PR7 , Gbl: 13,000
3. http://www.bloghub.com/ PR7, Gbl: 19,300
4. http://www.blogarama.com/ PR7, Gbl: 84,000
5. http://blogs.botw.org/ PR5, Gbl: 931, Online since 31-Jul-1996, two listings in Yahoo directory, 10 x mentioned in Wikipedia, listed in DMOZ . (from WHOIS.sc (http://whois.domaintools.com/botw.org) )
6. http://www.blogwise.com/ PR7, Gbl: 56,400
7. http://technorati.com/blogs/ PR6, Gbl: 11,500
8. http://www.blogrankings.com/ PR7, Gbl: 10,600
9. http://www.blogdirs.com/ PR7, Gbl: 2,040
10. http://www.weblogalot.com/ PR6, Gbl: 2,680
It is pretty irrelevant how high PR a site have and how many backlinks point to it, but it's important from how high PR and how quality sites these links come. Domain age is one of the most important factors in Google ranking.
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CONCLUSION:
Proper menu placement and keyword position on a site is a must, if you want to compete for "blog submission" and "blog directory". You should use these keywords alternatively in anchor text of your links. http://backlinkwatch.com test shows that you get most of your links from banners. You mention really only few times : "blog directory".
1. SITE OPENS with average speed - 2 seconds on T1 connection, speed test (http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/wso.php?url=http://www.blogtagstic.com/) (<< check :) ) shows average speed also. Home page size is 50 Kb, from these 30 Kb go for images.
DNS timing (http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/dnstime.ch?name=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.websiteoptimizati on.com%2Fservices%2Fanalyze%2Fwso.php%3Furl%3Dhttp %3A%2F%2Fwww.blogtagstic.com%2F&type=A) which reflects hosting server speed shows "score C", which seems to be acceptable.
Validator.v3.org shows 19 HTML errors, from these 3 warnings, please check (http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogtagstic.com).
2. On the FIRST LOOK the site gives a mixed impresssion. Green background plus green title composed "from newspaper letters" gives missleading feeling of a "cheap" site, since colors look so unique. On the contrary the subtitle with its lenght, font and content looks very promissing.
3. DESIGN and NAVIGATION are very connected here. Position of introduction text is perfect, but it is not visible - eye should catch it immediately. You can consider to bold it or try with some color or maybe put it in a square or so.
Right menu should go on the left
- most visitors will expect it there and will look there first
- spiders scan the site left-right (http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/se-bot-simulator.html?op=se-bot-simulator&go=1&pageurl=http://www.blogtagstic.com/&se=googlebot&submit=Start) and will assume the left based content as site content.
Menu titles are not capitalized which makes them hard to find on a first look. Word navigation is not necessary. tags can be "Blog tags" for easier understanding. Blog submission (that would be a 'keyword in anchor text' then) should be next by my opinion with Award top blogs on the end. Popular tags can be "Popular blog tags" again. You can replace: "...click on add blog..." in the introduction text with the correct: "...click on 'submit your blog'...".
The site fits perfectly on the 17 inch screen in Windows 98 and Windows server 2003 /I.E.7, you can check Firefox, Konqueror and Opera (http://browsershots.org/website/http://www.blogtagstic.com/) screenshots also.
Blogs list is simple and attractive. I miss search by keyword and categories though.
4. CONTENT:
You can say (In blog submission explanation) what exactly you get with Standard and what with Premium listing. You can put below links with prices in Premium and Standard listing titles.
Adding a directory looks simple.
There is NO content in Award top blogs.
5. SEO review:
PR = 5 for both www.blogtagstic.com and blogtagstic.com
Backlinks:
to www.blogtagstic.com: Google: 2,340 (http://www.google.si/search?hl=sl&q=link%3Awww.blogtagstic.com&btnG=Iskanje&meta=) , Yahoo: 76,725 (http://sitexplorer.search.yahoo.com/advsearch?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogtagstic.com%2F&bwm=i&bwmf=a&bwms=p)
to blogtagstic.com: Google: the same as on www. domain, Yahoo: 90 (http://sitexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&p=http%3A%2F%2Fblogtagstic.com%2F&bwm=i&bwmf=u)
Indexed pages:
in Yahoo from www. blogstagstic.com: 1,654 (http://sitexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.blogtagstic.com%2F&bwm=p&bwmf=a&bwms=p) from blogtagstic.com: 2326 (http://sitexplorer.search.yahoo.com/advsearch?p=http%3A%2F%2Fblogtagstic.com%2F&bwm=p&bwmf=u),
in Google from both blogtagstic and www. blogtagstic.com: 1,540 (http://www.google.si/search?hl=sl&q=site%3Awww.blogtagstic.com%2F&btnG=Iskanje+Google&meta=)
Keywords:
blog directory, submit blog, blogs
Keyword analyzis (http://www.submitexpress.com/cgi-bin/analyzer/meta.pl?url=http://www.blogtagstic.com/) shows that the main one word keyword is "blog" and two word keyword phrase is "blog rommow" (!) (from Recent additions list).
Site is not among 1,000 in Google for keyword phrases "blog directory" and "blog submission".
Your competitors in Google for "blog directory":
1. http://dir.blogflux.com/ PR7, Gbl (Google back links): 39,300
2. http://www.blogcatalog.com/ PR7 , Gbl: 13,000
3. http://www.bloghub.com/ PR7, Gbl: 19,300
4. http://www.blogarama.com/ PR7, Gbl: 84,000
5. http://blogs.botw.org/ PR5, Gbl: 931, Online since 31-Jul-1996, two listings in Yahoo directory, 10 x mentioned in Wikipedia, listed in DMOZ . (from WHOIS.sc (http://whois.domaintools.com/botw.org) )
6. http://www.blogwise.com/ PR7, Gbl: 56,400
7. http://technorati.com/blogs/ PR6, Gbl: 11,500
8. http://www.blogrankings.com/ PR7, Gbl: 10,600
9. http://www.blogdirs.com/ PR7, Gbl: 2,040
10. http://www.weblogalot.com/ PR6, Gbl: 2,680
It is pretty irrelevant how high PR a site have and how many backlinks point to it, but it's important from how high PR and how quality sites these links come. Domain age is one of the most important factors in Google ranking.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONCLUSION:
Proper menu placement and keyword position on a site is a must, if you want to compete for "blog submission" and "blog directory". You should use these keywords alternatively in anchor text of your links. http://backlinkwatch.com test shows that you get most of your links from banners. You mention really only few times : "blog directory".