SEO work is paying off

I’ve spent the last week or so optimizing my site for the key phrase Durham Web Design. I’ve had some good success on Yahoo, and Bing, and now Google is starting to come around. I went from the bottom of page 18 last week to the top of page 14 this week. Update: as of Sunday morning, I’m at the top of page 9. Google apparently takes 3-6 months to fully “catch up”. But I’m making good progress.

My other key word is WordPress. And now I rank #1 in Google for Durham WordPress design, Durham WordPress help, and Durham WordPress customization. I’m pretty pumped about this. Call me if you need help with your SEO

So far, I’ve been concentrating on doing a lot of rewording of my site and link building. My competition has literally thousands of links coming into their sites. Ya, so pretty tough to compete with that. I’m still showing around 88 links from 8 root domains, which I know is incorrect, but that will come around in the long term. Not sure how long that takes, but it’s an important measurement in determining your Google Rank. One important thing that I’ve changed is my anchor text. I’ve been including the words Durham web design and WordPress in as many of my incoming links as I can. That way, the search engines will associate these terms with my site.

SEO page one quest… update. Penner Web Design: 1, Yahoo: 0

Yup… it took me 5 days, and I’m on page one of Yahoo for the search term “Durham Web Design”. At the very bottom of page one, but I’m there none-the-less. This all happened while I was trying to optimized for Google… not Yahoo! The point is, when you do SEO the right way, all the search engines will find you. Google will take much Read more SEO page one quest… update. Penner Web Design: 1, Yahoo: 0

Durham Web Design, Page One on Google

I’ve had this site up for a few weeks now, and I’ve decided that one of my goals is to get the site ranking on page one of Google for the key phrase Durham Web Design. Currently, I’m on page 13 18. I’ve dabbled in SEO before, so I definitely know how to do it. The problem is that there is some pretty stiff competition on the first page. Durham web design giants like On Wired and Design Hammer.

This is going to be a tall order, seeing as how Design Hammer has more than 80,000 links to it (I have around 90 currently). So do I think I will beat them? No, I’m only one man on a laptop. But is there room on page one for someone like me? Yes, most definitely.

So look out for Penner Web Design on page one of Google in the coming months. And in the meantime, if you want to spend roughly triple the amount on your website, feel free to visit the links above.

The Problem With Durham

Living and designing websites in Durham, NC has been a blessing and a curse. It’s great to live in a place with great weather, tonnes of business, and large trees shading my little house. But when those large trees drop limbs with an 8 inch diameter on my house when I am away for Christmas, it upsets me. We arrived home from our Christmas vacation to find a limb the size of a regular tree on our roof, and subsequently, a whole in our roof. I quickly patched it up, only to come back inside and find some water damage. Nothing major, but this afternoon, I’m going to have to tear a hole in our knee wall upstairs to make sure it’s dry so as to prevent mold. Not impressed. Thanks Durham. Maybe if I lived in a Raleigh or Cary cookie cutter house in the suburbs with no trees, I could design your website this afternoon. But as it stands, I’m busy.