Yesterday I was analysing differences between Google.com, Google.co.uk, European Google.com and US Google.com (yes, search results are different for US Google.com and European Google.com). Whilst my website (it’s aqua-fish.net which I am talking about… again) is ranked well in European Google.com, it’s positions are a little worse in US Google.com (explained below), and positions in Google.co.uk are very disappointing. So… Why is it this way? And how can my website get better positions in Google.co.uk?

Firstly some facts:

1) My website was originally hosted in the USA, then after some problems it was moved to Slovakia (this country is in Europe, and it is not Slovenia… for those who don’t know) and now it’s in the USA again (dedicated server),
2) My website got plenty of links from free directories (this was my initial SEO),
3) In Google Sitemaps I assigned USA to be my website’s geographical target.

Now some knowledge gained from the above-mentioned ideas:

1) Being in the USA or Slovakia has no relation to the UK,
2) Free directories which I submitted my website to are usually hosted in the US or Pakistan.

So… Without a co.uk domain, without a UK based IP address, what can I do in order to increase traffic from Google.co.uk? Links. Links from co.uk domains, or links from UK based websites. This is the answer. How do I know this? See these snapshots…

Phrase aquarium fish, Google.com, US

Phrase aquarium fish, Google.co.uk, UK

Phrase aquarium fish, Google.com.pk, Pakistan

As you can see, in Google.com.pk my website is ranked 4th, in Google.com it’s 7th and in Google.co.uk it’s 39th. All this because of links from directories in Pakistan. Now we know that the way to increase traffic from Google.co.uk is getting links from co.uk websites. Unlike other websites, I’m also going to tell you how one can get such links in a relatively easy and fast way … What do we know?

1) Directories are usually using the phpLD core,
2) Directories usually use words such as “add url”, “submit url” in titles.

It’s easy to type these phrases into Google:

1) “powered by phpld” site:co.uk
2) “submit a site” site:co.uk
3) “submit a link” site:co.uk
4) “submit url” site:co.uk

and many other queries . There is virtually no limit…

I tried this method yesterday and my site was already approved in some directories. One can object that this is spamming. In fact, this cannot be called spamming as directories exist and we’re only using existing technologies to make the work easier. Also, another objection may be related to the fact that “directories are dead”. Actually, we’ll not find useless websites this way (because top positions in Google, and being indexed in Google means that each such website carries some weight!). Anyway, there are some disadvantages and advantages… let’s mention them.

Advantages:
1) One can find directories which couldn’t be found other way,
2) Such websites are known by Google, and the better positions in SERP they occupy, the higher chances of getting a useful link,
3) It is fast,
4) You can find not only co.uk directories, but also any others (.us, .de and whatever).

Disadvantages:
1) Many directories are paid or require a reciprocal link,
2) You never know if it’s still an active directory (on the other hand you never know this when you’re submitting sites to any directory, except DMOZ).

So… happy hunting .

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In fact, I answered this question already on this blog several times, always differently. However, each time I come with new ideas and this is no exception . Second “in fact” is that this technique is already used, however the major part of webmasters don’t get it. As usual, let’s analyse background before we move to the solution…

The background
As I already explained here: Increase website traffic - My way, it is necessary to understand visitors, why they visit your website, what they need (is it a store? an information site? a review site?). And it is necessary to answer the question “Are visitors of my website satisfied?“. If people aren’t happy with what they found, it is unlikely to see your website growing in terms of rankings, thus it will be very hard to attract new visitors to the site. Vice-versa, happy visitors will likely return to your website, but moreover they will likely link to it! Links is what your website needs to achieve top 10 rankings in any search engine. We’re talking about serious SEO and about really competitive phrases (I won’t try to persuade you that you should focus on phrases that consist of 4-5 words, although I know that success comes from bottom to top; so firstly pages do rank for long phrases and only if they (pages) get some links they (pages) get better positions for competitive phrases too).

The result is: Successful websites need “natural content”. Natural content isn’t some article that contains useless ideas that are worth no value, but instead natural content is something what people like. As you could already read (in that article which is mentioned in the previous paragraph) on this blog, only visitors determine what is useful and what is not. To create pages that are full of useful content one needs to analyse traffic; But this all is mentioned in the already existing articles…

Here’s another approach… If you let visitors create content, they will probably create enough content to make you live happily. See the three images below.

On these images I tried to show how important it is for a website to receive natural traffic (not bought from questionable sources, not coming from rotating “traffic exchange” sites and so on) because only natural traffic results in questions and content contributions.

The difference between content that you write and content that come from visitors is that you don’t know if original content answers visitors’ questions. Usually you will realise that people need answers which aren’t yet answered (good to know that search engines send such traffic) on your website. Here is “what to do”:

1) Let people ask on each page (don’t make your website a blog though),
2) Tell people that you want to hear from them and tell them that you will answer their questions,
3) Let people modify content of your website (explained below),
4) Identify contributors and let visitors rate contributions.

The difference between spamming and contributing
If one allowed anyone to modify anything, then such a website would become crap. Because of this reason it is important to implement strict rules for modifying and adding content. Not only using CAPTCHA protection, but also something like this: Content area is strictly for content, thus no links can be added there. Links can be added to the resources box only. Every modification is held for approval by moderators (or webmaster).

All in all, people can create content for free. Just allow them to do so .

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I created this simple script to compare my own statistics to what’s provided by Google Analytics. I don’t say that Google Analytics sucks because it doesn’t. However, sometimes data are delayed, thus it’s good to have something to compare with. I’ll probably expand the below-shown script and will add more features to it. These could include: unique visits, time spent on a site, impressions per visit, and so on. At the moment one can check statistics via phpMyAdmin only, however if you’re skilled at PHP even a little, you can create functions that allow you seeing statistics via your own scripts. Also bear in mind that this code is an example how to create a script that counts all impressions done by humans. Since robots don’t execute JavaScript code, only human impressions do count.

Firstly create the table in your MySQL database by executing this query:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `days_impressions` (
`day` date NOT NULL,
`impressions` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`day`),
KEY `impressions` (`impressions`)
)

Then open some text editor and put there this code:


<?php
$server = “localhost”;
$user = “user”;
$dbase = “database”;
$passwd = “password”;

$days_impr = “days_impressions”;

//function that reports fatal errors in MySQL instead of showing them as output
if (!function_exists(’fatal_error_report’))
{
function fatal_error_report($line,$file)
{
//fatal_error_report(__line__,__FILE__);
$to = “bugs@yourserver.com”;
$subject = “Fatal error”;
$ip = $_SERVER[’REMOTE_ADDR’];
$messaget= ‘<html><body><h1>Fatal error has occured</h1><br />Details:<br />’.$file.” on line “.$line.” with this error “.mysql_error().’<br />Page accessed: <b>’.$_SERVER[’REQUEST_URI’].’</b>. IP: <b>’.$ip.’</b></body></html>’;
$postmast= “postmaster@yourserver.com”;
$headers = “From: “.$postmast. “\n” .
“X-Mailer: PHP/” . phpversion() . “\n” .
“MIME-Version: 1.0\n” .
“Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8\n” .
“Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit\n”;
mail($to, $subject, $messaget, $headers);
die ();
}
//end of error reporting function
}

$link = mysql_connect($server, $user, $passwd)
or fatal_error_report(__line__,__FILE__);

mysql_select_db($dbase)
or fatal_error_report(__line__,__FILE__);

$date = date(”Y-m-d”);

$found = 0;
$result = mysql_query(”select * from $days_impr where day = ‘$date’ limit 1;”, $link)
or fatal_error_report(__line__,__FILE__);
if (mysql_num_rows($result))
while ($qry = mysql_fetch_array($result))
$found = 1;

if($found==1)
{
$result = mysql_query(”update $days_impr set impressions = impressions + 1 where day = ‘$date’ limit 1;”, $link)
or fatal_error_report(__line__,__FILE__);
}
else
{
$result = mysql_query(”insert into $days_impr values ( ‘$date’ , ‘1′)”, $link)
or fatal_error_report(__line__,__FILE__);
}

mysql_close();
?>


Don’t forget to modify these variables’ values:

$server, $user, $dbase, $passwd, $postmast, $to

Once you have this code in some file, save it and name it stats.php for instance. Then put this code to all your pages that are available to visitors:

<script src="http://www.yourserver.com/statistics/stats.php" type="text/javascript">
</script>


I will surely upgrade the script and add more features as time goes by, so return here from time to time .

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