VC, VCs, Tech VC, a VC, The VC, Sand Hill Road VC . . .
After reading a post by Nelson Minar about Google's Webmaster Tools, I ran on over to Google to see what I could learn about VentureBlog. The setup and verification process for the Webmaster Tools was really simple. After having demonstrated that I was the rightful owner of VentureBlog, I was able to see an interesting analysis of those searches and clicks on Google that point to VentureBlog.
Not surprising, four of the top six Google queries that include links to VentureBlog are "venture capital," "venture," "venture capitalist," and "venture capitalists." The Google tools also tell you the average top link position held by your site for any given search (in other words, what was the highest position held by a link to your site for that search). For all of these "venture capital" related terms, VentureBlog is in the top ten organic links. That makes perfectly good sense to me given my natural tendency to write about Venture Capital. In contrast, however, there is not a single search in my top twenty that includes the term "VC." Not "VC" or "VCs" or "What's a VC" or "Ninja VC" or "Sand Hill VC" or "Tech VC," and certainly not "A VC." Nary a single "VC" search term in the VentureBlog top twenty.
For the life of me, I can't figure out why that is. Admittedly, I don't have "VC" in the title of my blog, like Redeye VC or BeyondVC. But I certainly reference the term "VC" often enough, even occasionally in the titles of my posts. So what's keeping me down? Hopefully as I spend more time looking at the Google Webmaster Tools, I'll be able to better understand the dynamics of page rank.
I thoroughly enjoy writing VentureBlog. As I've said many times before, it gives me the opportunity to engage in a conversation with a really smart community of entrepreneurs. But it also affords me an incredible education. How else would I get an inside view of things like page rank, search dynamics, linking, referral traffic, viral growth, advertising dynamics, etc.? The understanding of each of these elements is invaluable when evaluating Internet businesses and VentureBlog has afforded me a front row seat to the show. I look forward to continuing to use services like Google's Webmaster Tools to make the most of that front row view.
Update: A commenter below writes "Couldn't you be a little less obvious for fucks sake?" Jeesh. Of course I could. In fact, I don't think that I could be any more obvious. That was the whole point. So much for irony.
Couldn't you be a little less obvious for fucks sake?
Hi David,
You might want to try to add VC on the title of your home page, not just invididual posts. For example you could title your blog "Venture Blog: Technology Thoughts from a VC." Also, the URL of your site has a huge impact. You are getting a bonus on your rank for Venture Capitalist because your URL contains "venture".
If you want to learn more about this stuff, my company has a blog about internet marketing for small businesses and firms. ( www.smallbusinesshub.com ) Good luck in climbing the rankings!
David,
This is a fantastic post. Not only did you inform me about this great Google tool which I used and will write about shortly, but you eloquently summarized why VC's should blog.
The learning you get about web technologies through blogging is invaluable. VC blogger revenues and traffic numbers may be missing a few zeros but we use all the tools entreprenuers use in their sites and can talk about them. We are after all the CEO's of our Internet companies.
As for the stats don't feel too bad. I get one query with VC in it and that's "ethical issues tech vc"!! I don't have a single query to venture, venture capital or venture capitalist even though they are both in my URL and title. C'est la vie.
I do get a bunch of Web 2.0 queries and "Sand Hill Road" queries though which aint bad.
Thanks again for the great post.
DH - your page rank is a 7. Throw the terms you want (VC) into your blog and blog postings and they'll start coming up on Google with a 7 ...
The PageRank algorithm is oblivious to keywords such as "VC". PageRank is computed solely by the link structure of the pages without consideration to their content. It uses the assumption that useful pages are often pointed to by many other useful pages.
The reason you are not seeing any searches for your 'main terms' is that nobody is actually searching on those terms. They are searching on more generic terms like 'venture capital'.
Don't try to tweak your search results, just keep writing good content about venture capital. Write well and naturally about related issues and you'll have a nice long tail as well.
A quick SEO lesson for you, hope it helped. For more try searchengineworkshops.com and sign up for the 'tip of the day'.
PS. Try Google Analytics if you really want to see where everyone is coming from and what they're doing.
Didn't you forget "VC blog"? And has it had any effect yet?
Great Post.
The reason you are not seeing any searches for your 'main terms' is that nobody is actually searching on those terms. They are searching on more generic terms like 'venture capital'.
Don't try to tweak your search results, just keep writing good content about venture capital. Write well and naturally about related issues and you'll have a nice long tail as well.
A quick SEO lesson for you, hope it helped. For more try searchengineworkshops.com and sign up for the 'tip of the day'.
PS. Try Google Analytics if you really want to see where everyone is coming from and what they're doing.
Couldn't you be a little less obvious for fucks sake?
Couldn't you be a little less obvious for fucks sake?