Comments on: Blog Post Optimization

By: 50 of the Best Online Marketing Articles From 2012 - Wow Internet Blog

50 of the Best Online Marketing Articles From 2012 - Wow Internet Blog — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 17:17:27 +0000

[...] Blog Post Optimization - AJ Kohn [...]

By: Herner

Herner — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 15:20:37 +0000

It is definitely a really fun experiment. I just ran a similar experiment which is one that I might regret. I recently switched from a custom CMS to a popular open source one.

In doing so my old cms content is sitting lonely and un-editable. Last night I just ported an old article that had a ton of social likes, and has aged for some time to a new url in the NEW cms.

Old URL:
http://www.horror-movies.ca/horror_18308.html

New URL:
http://www.horror-movies.ca/21-best-horror-movies/

I just did it yesterday so today I will be asking google for a recrawl of the old one which is a 301. The new page has the following benefits over the old one;

- opengraph data
- a better evergreen url
- other backend code advantages.

It will be curious to see what happens. This is a prelude to me doing a complete domain name change which I have been putting off for 3 years out of fear of losing position.

By: AJ Kohn

AJ Kohn — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 15:14:53 +0000

Thanks for the update Herner. 11th is so close yet so far. The improvement in rank is great but you’ll need to find your way to the first page to see any appreciable gains in traffic. A few more links (both internal and external) might get you there.

By: Herner

Herner — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 15:05:16 +0000

Aj after giving it a few days and looking with google incognito I have landed at #11 and seem to be staying there. interesting experiment. Unfortunately no increase in traffic to the page but still a nifty experiment.

By: AJ Kohn

AJ Kohn — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 16:04:56 +0000

Herner, Yes, I see you there at #15 for 'monster movies' in Chrome Incognito. So from #19 to #15 in a few days. Not bad at all. Just have to get yourself up to that first page. Be sure to implement Authorship if you can. It won't change your ranking (right now) but it could help increase CTR when you do crack the top 10.

By: Herner

Herner — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 00:55:55 +0000

As a followup was just looking and since the tweak I am up two more positions to #15. Of course my biggest issue with checking rankings is so many rankings are now personalized by user.

By: Herner

Herner — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 23:49:12 +0000

AJ… in a word I overlooked the trees for the forest. My complaint of not knowing if it was fluke or alterations would CLEARLY have been answered by your advice of a title change.

I am doing that now and noting it. I will let you know what ranking impact I see.

By: AJ Kohn

AJ Kohn — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 23:05:22 +0000

The Title change will enable you to determine when Google reassesses because you’ll see the Title change in search results. Without changing the Title you’re a bit in the dark as to the true time frame.

You could make an easy change like ‘The Top 10 Modern Monster Movies – HorrorMovies.ca’ or you could do something more radical like ‘Monster Movies: The 10 Best Modern Monster Movies’. Personally, I’m not sure the domain at the end is helping you much.

Either way, the goal is to make some sort of change to the Title so you can measure when Google really processes the changes to your post.

By: Herner

Herner — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 22:51:40 +0000

The only reason I did not change the title was because it was hard to justify. I did not want my first comment to contain a link since its whorish but let me give you the link and my thought process.

The target is ‘monster movies’ and the page is; http://www.horror-movies.ca/2012/02/top-10-modern-monster-movies/

The title is unchanged the content I expanded upon as noted, making it better. I am curious can you elaborate on the title change? How will the title change really show me the difference? Doesnt what I have done now do that? Or do you think with a more targetted title I can shoot further up.

Cheers enjoying the dialogue.

By: AJ Kohn

AJ Kohn — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 22:22:33 +0000

Herner, Thanks for the comment and for sharing your experiment. I really like that you added a link to a wiki page. Providing related and valuable links is a positive signal in my opinion. If you change the Title you'll really know when Google processes the change. So keep an eye on things and let us know how it turns out.