Hi folks,

I got a call from an extremely well known marketing and SEO mentor today about an e-mail put out by Jonathan Leger. It was all about websites that are ranked highly for keywords yet do not have inbound links from websites within the same Market Category or “theme”.

The mentor who brought this to my attention many of you consider the “top of the food chain” when it comes to direct response testing and technical SEO. (I know I do).

I will not mention his name here because he plans on addressing the Leger case studies himself.

After I read Ledger’s e-mail that was forwarded me, I felt it was hardly worth addressing because it wasn’t really saying anything we haven’t covered before. (I have pasted the e-mail below for your convenience).

Everybody already knows that that you can get high rankings by acquiring high PR back links with (or without) your themed keywords. Yes can get ranked for non-themed keywords as well by acquiring back links from high PR sites. (Those are keywords that don’t have anything to do with the overall theme strategy of your website or the site you are acquiring them from for that matter).

All of this misses the point of the accumulative “theme affect” that accrues over time when you target qualified and germane themes both on-page and off-page.

And I hope everyone in Theme Zoom knows by now that the overall “theme” of the inbound website is not as important as its “authority” when it comes to getting your high rankings for your term. This is especially true for inbound links from page rank 3 sites or higher.

But Jonathan’s idea that Google may not be able to distinguish the “theme” of a website from which you have acquired an inbound link is . . . debatable. There is much evidence that topic sensitive page rank is not only alive and kicking, but will increase in efficacy as time moves on. There are several papers written on this topic, and these arguments requires better evidence than “wikipedia.com” and a “submitexpress.com” to prove it.

Early arguments about this topic were http://www2002.org/CDROM/refereed/127/ and the Hill Top theory debate have kept hundreds of geeks up in the forums until the wee hours of the night. (Yawn).

I can appreciate the point that Jonathan is trying to make. He is trying to say that you can write about any topic you want on your website without fear of theme bleed. He was also saying that you don’t have to “freak out” about the Market Category of a website you receive an inbound link from, provided it has good authority.

I don’t have a problem with any of that, although I am not sure the purpose of restating the obvious.   

However, if he was trying to prove his theory, his case study choices were bad . . . especially using websites like wikipedia.com and submitexpress.com as “reasons why” Google does not appreciate well themed inbound links and associated theme content. These will be addressed shortly in another paper.       

Through the years, I have discovered that it is seldom wise to use the term “search engine optimization” as a poster child for algorithms and high rankings because the community of folks who target that theme are . . . unique? (Trying to think of the right word, but couldn’t).

After tracking Bruce Clay’s ranking for the keyword “search engine optimization” for several years, I discovered that this keyword phrase can be anomalous. There are other issues around the high rankings for the site “submitexpress.com” that I would rather not discuss here. Suffice it to say that this site was the topic of conversation at the SEO Toolset Course I took awhile back.

The Real Purpose of Theme Strategies:

The real purpose of a themed website planning and themed back linking is to enhance your overall “direct response marketing” agenda, while at the same time helping Google (and other engines) understand what your site is about. Jonathan seems to understand this when he states:

“One thing that does seem to hold true, though, is that if you are going to have diverse themes on your site, you need to separate them into their own subdomains or subfolders. That seems to help Google know that the "theme" of that folder or subdomain is different, and to treat it independently.”

Bingo.

This is getting closer to the truth about why themes, effective back linking, and silo architecture works together to help you SWALLOW YOUR MARKET WHOLE.

Yes:

1. You do not have to acquire themed links from authority sites within the same theme.

2. You do not have to have all of the content on your site revolve around the same theme.
3. You do not have to have all of your silos be within the same Market Category.
4. You do not have to research the different keyword synonyms that both your prospects and the search engines will love.  

You don’t HAVE to do any of these things of course, which is Jonathan’s point.

What he does NOT explain is that when you DO perform all of the above in combination you will SWALLOW YOUR MARKET WHOLE and attract more qualified prospects for less money over time. I cannot emphasize that enough.  

This is because high rankings and technical SEO is only a single factor when it comes to making money with your website. (Please watch my video about the High Five Keyword Chart):

http://tinyurl.com/2n3dq7

No, you do not have to swallow your market whole. You can hunt and peck your way to random rankings with keywords that may or may not attract highly qualified prospects within your Market Category.

By “Swallow you market whole” I mean: “Whoever says the most important thing to a market in the most number of ways . . . wins”.

In other words, websites that say important and relevant things to a market better and in more ways than competitors will simultaneously rank higher in these markets for more themes AND capture and convert more prospects than competitors.

This is the inevitable result of casting a wider semantic net than you competitor. When fishing within a market for hungry prospects, if you say an “important thing” using a wider array of keywords, you are more likely to capture additional prospects who are using slightly different language to research your market.

This is true during ANY phase of the buying cycle.

My philosophy is that, if you are not performing a pay per click campaign that reveals keywords that are converting, (called “money” keywords) then your best bet is to carefully research your market synonyms and top level market themes. Knowing these can help you OWN your Market Category over time . . . and with certainty.

If you ARE performing pay per click, then you need to CRACK OPEN the “money” keywords and find additional “unknown” related themes and synonyms that may create a flood of additional qualified traffic.

Either way, you need to research your top level Market Categories and themes.  

Begin with the end in mind. Assume market dominance.  

Once you have accomplished this, you can build a website blue print and coordinate an offsite promotional plan that helps you own your market. (i.e. Swallow your market whole).  With this sort of strategy it is not difficult to dominate competitors who are hunting and pecking and buying links from websites that do not drive qualified prospects.

By dominate I mean “convert more sales” so that you will have more money to spend acquiring customers than they do.

The whole affect is cumulative.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t get links from websites that are Tangent Markets, or Latent Tangent Themes, or Micro-Niches within your overall Market Category.

It simply means that it makes more sense to target websites both for the Page Rank as well as for the qualified prospects these sites will bring you.

If I have a website on “Mayo Alternative Health Care”, it probably does not make sense to have inbound links from a completely different market category, like “Monster Trucks”. The conversion may not be so hot, even if the technical SEO (Page Rank) has a ranking benefit. I certainly would not PAY for such a link, which is the real point.  

Performing market research on your themes within a Market Category is a powerful exercise. Even Matt Cutts agrees with me on something for once: 

As I look up at the clock I can see that I have spent too much time on this already, but I hope I was able to help the folks who e-mailed me about this subject.

I will forward the case study letter when it has been completed.

If you have further questions, don’t hesitate to call.

Russell Wright
608-432-1387
www.themezoom.com

In order to read Jonathan's Letter, please go here:

Back Links Don't need to be Themes.