On the two occasions that my rankings went to hell, I can attribute the free-fall to duplicate content. Duplicate content is content that is located in more than one place on the web. Each time it was my own fault. I started this site – e-booknow.com, and I had had some luck in the past promoting a website on forums that were related to the content of my website. So I went around the net and found as many ebook forums as I could and I started posting on those forums. I noticed that people had posted questions in the forums that I had already answered on my website. So I copied my original content from my website and put it up in several forums. At that point, I had the same content posted in several locations on the web. I had basically “duped” myself out of Google. My Google ranking suffered and it took me about a year to get things back on track to where I was getting traffic from Google again.

On the other occasion, I copied my sales page information to my ebay ad and then watched my Google ranking plummet.

What did I do? At the time, my website also had its own ebook forum. I ended up rewriting all the content on the website and most of the content that I had written on my forum. I just left the content in the other ebook forums that I had posted alone. It didn’t take me too long to rework the content on my site and in my forum. I’ve learned the hard way on many occasions and have ended up retooling a website in an evening before. I’m no stranger to complete revisions, but you want to avoid them if possible.

What do you do if you have way too much content to rewrite? Or if your website content is not rewritable? Believe it or not, website content is often not rewritable. For example, I have a number of legal (law-related) sites where I have pages devoted to state statutes. These statutes are posted all over the internet and they really don’t vary from site to site. After all, statutes are the law. I’ve always wondered how Google handled web content like statutes? In this case, my website is not entirely devoted to state statutes. The statute is just a resource for my readers. If you have too much web content to rewrite or your website content is not rewritable then I suggest that you start developing more original content. Put the focus on your original content and keep the duplicate content. You don’t have to delete all the duplicate content that you have already posted. Keep it but start developing original content.

Of course, the journey back to the top of Google rankings may be a bit more arduous than it was originally but you’ve already devoted countless hours to your website. It’s too late to scrap it all. (Please note that duplicate content often results from people scraping your site. They basically steal your content and post it elsewhere on the web. Also, beware of article submissions sites. Don’t post your own article that you submit on your website and don’t use your website content for an article that you are submitting. This will result in more duplicate content.)

What else can you do to get some of that traffic back?

- Hopefully, you have a nice Yahoo ranking as well. I’ve found it takes a bit longer to climb to the top of Yahoo but once you’re there, Yahoo doesn’t seem to be as penal as Google for transgressions such as duplicate content.

- You can always buy traffic through Google adwords. This seems to be getting cheaper every day. Of course, if you are relying on adsense as your site’s income, I would recommend against buying adwords’ advertising. Google also penalizes you for adsense arbitrage, as it is called. You’re basically robbing Peter to pay Paul and Google no likey this.

- Reciprocal links – I generally ignore such requests and I think most others do as well these days. When I refer to reciprocal links, I’m referring to the incestuous version. Hopefully, you have other sites with decent traffic. You may consider funneling off some traffic from them to your downtrodden site.

These are some ideas. Most of all, keep plugging away. With time, Google will recognize your hard, original work.

I’ll explore the time I had an excellent Google ranking and no traffic resulting from it in another post.

You can take it one step farther and have a domain like www.ebooknow.com/ebook/ebook_delivery.html. I’ve got “ebook” in there three times and hopefully the page that that domain is pointing to is about ebook delivery.

2 – Consider the title of your website. Check out this website. Look at the very top of the page. The page is entitled “Home.” This person is telling the search engines that her page is about “home.” Her page should be entitled “Handmade Judaica mezuzot” or something similar. When people bookmark her page, it will show up as “home” in their browser bookmarks/favorites. Don’t miss the opportunity of telling search engines and surfers what your page is about in the title of your page. A 9-12 word title is a good length and should contain the words that people would use to find your website.

3 – Fix your headings. Check out this page. I have the following headings on the page:
Landlord’s Guide to Ohio Eviction Law
Inside “Ohio Eviction Law Kit”
Testimonials – Landlord’s Guide to Ohio Eviction Law
Why purchase the Landlord’s Guide to Ohio Eviction Law
Customers who bought the Ohio Eviction Kit also bought
Sample text from Landlord’s Guide to Ohio Eviction Law
Do you see a pattern?

I keep putting “Ohio Eviction Law” in the headings. I’m telling Google, Yahoo and any other search engine that will pay attention that my page is about “Ohio Eviction Law.” If you can’t tell, check out the big bold text with “Ohio Eviction Law” everywhere. I know that a lot of people are searching for the keywords, “Ohio Eviction Law.” I want those people to find my page.

4 – How do I know what people are using as search terms? Check out the yahoo keyword selector tool and do some research. Type in some search terms and check out the results.

5 – Optimize your text. If you have a web page about rubber stamp art then “rubber stamp art” better be all over that web page. Don’t overdo it. But I would try to get “rubber stamp art” or combinations thereof in every other sentence. If another keyword is “rubber stamp ink” then devote a second web page to that keyword. A good tip is to only focus on one keyword/keyphrase per web page.

Those are some basic tips on boosting your search engine placement and getting traffic to your site. I’ll add more later.

Looking for more advice on how to get traffic to your website, check out my book, Ebook success: Guide to Starting your Ebook Business Now.

Future topics – more tips on getting traffic to your site; creating an effective sales page; so you want to sell your printed book on the internet; how do I get people to comment on my blog.