• O’Shaughnessy HFCGX
• Dogs of the Dow
• Distressed Stocks

When our hosting provider, SynWare, set up this site for us, they introduced us to a few analytical tools to help better understand our audience, site trends, etc. These tools being Google Analytics and AWStats. Without going into further detail about the tools, I will just say that since I am somewhat obsessed with statistics, as can be seen from this site, and I quite enjoyed these.

Key Lesson Learned: Target Specific Terminology

One item these tools track are the search terms that lead viewers to the site. There were obvious search terms I expected, such as “finance screens”, “analyst trades”, etc. But the majority of terms that brought in the viewers were for very specific items, such as “contrarian investors technical indicators pe ratios”, “highest rated stocks by analysts”, and “martin zweigs fundamentals”. Thinking about it for a second, this made sense. Trying to rank highly for generic key words like “finance” across all of the Internet would be next to impossible for a small site like this. Thinking about this further, I decided to Google for a lot of the key words and phrases I felt were repeated themes throughout this site, and the results were quite surprising. As of early January, here are the terms and Google search result rankings where Sum of Some popped up:

• clearstation picks – 1st place
• clearstation clearpick – 1st place
• briefing active portfolio – 1st place
• briefing active – 1st place
• future blue chips – 1st place
• fool top rated – 1st place
• wanger GARP – 1st place
• All Season Growth – 2nd place
• cnn sivy seventy – 2nd place
• cnn sivy 70 – 2nd place
• clearstation community – 2nd place
• marketwatch most – 2nd place
• all season growth – 2nd place
• Sivy seventy – 3rd place
• The Street ratings – 4th place
• jubak journal – 5th place
• Sivy 70 – 6th place
• stock scouter – 6th place
• clearstation – 7th place
• stock market screens – 9th place

What I found the most surprising and amusing about this is that I had captured first place rankings for terms such as “clearstation picks”, “fool top rated”, and “briefing active”, beating out the companies who created these terms! I wonder if E*Trade is mad that with all the millions they spend on marketing, I was still able to capture the number 1 Google search result without spending a penny. Maybe I should get into the SEO biz But back to the point, as you can see, the only generic term I could think up to search for which Sum of Some placed in the top 10 for was “stock market screens”. All of the other terms were specific to a stock market strategy or another analyst’s terminology. Now, I have to admit, during the initial creation of the site, I did read quite a few “how to write a blog” type sites. I am sure they would all be ashamed of me for not linking to them here to boost their link count and to provide myself with link-back comments, but I am daunted by the sheer number of sites in my favorites right now, sorry, I will try to do this someday. From this reading, I picked up some other good advice which I must contribute to this Google search result success as well.

Additional Success Factors for High Google Search Result Ranks

Since I am not trying to recreate a “how to” guide, I will just quickly point to some of the additional rules I try to adhere to.

• Repeat, repeat, repeat – When you find terms that define your site or your article, don’t be afraid to use them. As you can see on any of the strategy pages, such as the Warren Buffet Investment Strategy page, I use the term “Warren Buffet Investment Strategy” at the start of each section, instead of just stating “Overview”, “Style”, or “Resources”. This repetition doesn’t interfere with the reader’s consumption of my material and it still helps Google understand what this page is all about.
• Use headings – Instead of just making your font extra large and bold, use the heading tags. As you can see on most of my strategy pages, such as the Peter Lynch Investment Strategy page, each new section is a heading 3. Maybe your readers don’t care how you code your sub-headings, but Google certainly does, so use the correct tags!
• Alt, more than a button on your keyboard – Learn how to write an alt tag and use it every time you create a link. View the source code for this post if you want to see what I mean. I use alt tags on almost every link. This is another simple way to help Google understand the purpose of your content without interfering with your readers consumption. Also, be sure you don’t abuse these tags by inserting a thousand words, you will simply pollute the tag and cause Google to lose focus.
• Don’t be afraid of long URLs – When is the last time that you wanted to share a site with a friend and tried to remember the full URL, telling them: “go to http forward slash, forward slash, SumOfSome.com, forward slash, market, forward slash 2009, forward slash 1, forward slash 25, forward slash…”. Instead you just tell them: “Oh, I read this nifty article at SumOfSome, Ill IM/Facebook/Email/Etc you the link”. If your readers don’t care what the URL is, then cater to Google, because Google certainly cares. Let Google know exactly what your article is about, for example, I use the URL of “http://sumofsome.com/stock-market-strategies/cnn-sivy-seventy-investment-strategy/” to represent my page for CNN’s Sivy Seventy investment strategy.

I think I read somewhere that articles shouldn’t drag on and on either, so even though there are dozens of other tips and tricks, I will stop here. If you enjoy these site-focused articles in addition to our regular finance related content, please let us know, and please share us on your favorite social-media-sharing-blogging-outlet.

]]> http://sumofsome.com/market/2009/02/05/sum-of-some-knows-how-to-return-first-place-google-search-results/feed/ 0 http://sumofsome.com/market/2009/02/05/sum-of-some-knows-how-to-return-first-place-google-search-results/