The debate over whether you should write posts or pages is still going on. While many have stated that posts rank better in the search engines, there are still a lot of reasons to use pages as well.
I just finished watching a replay of a webinar that played on Offervault a few weeks ago and the speaker, Mike Liebner, was talking about the methods he used to rank websites with WordPress.
Mike’s main method worked like this: He would use a static page on the homepage and put a few featured articles in the sidebar which did not change like a recent posts section would. Each of these featured articles would be about the topic he was trying to rank for in the search engines. The given example was dog allergy treatment so every article on the homepage was a page not a post about dog allergies.
Then he used another page on his WordPress site that acted more like a blog. This is where he would put all of the posts in reverse chronological order, which is the default in WordPress.
Mike stated that he would write posts to point out and link to his pages and this was the main function of every post that he would write.
This is a great way to interlink your website and it gives more strength and authority to your “money pages” with each new post you write.
Although many people believe that posts rank better than pages, this is only if those posts or pages are standing alone without any backlinks. I can see how a static page that is getting constant backlinks from posts can build more authority and climb better in rankings than a post getting the same links.
According to Mile this has been working well for him and he has many sites to prove it.
The big disagreement I had with Mike’s presentation was about the topic of PLR articles. He would use them heavily in his sites without changing much of the content.
Now, I am not duplicate content conspiricist, but more and more Google is favoring fresh content that is unique. It might be ok for the big authority websites to use dup content, but if you are just starting out and wanting your site to stand out, just write the stuff yourself.
Mike’s argument is that if you have quality backlinks going to your PLR articles on your site, Google will still rank you will because you have that proven authority.
But as we know, Google is only getting stricter in their policies, and what was once fine a few years ago can now be considered black hat. And as easy as it is to just copy and paste some PLR stuff onto your website, it’s just as easy to get a big boot by the search engine giant.
Any thoughts on this? Let me know what you think about using posts vs pages on WordPress and if dup content is still an issue.
This is something I never thought of. I wonder why, considering that WP does offer both – posts and pages. I have used only pages or only posts. Now I have something to try out.
I just have one question – the articles are independent of the posts? Do the articles also appear as posts? I don’t think so, because then they would appear as duplicate content within the site itself.
I’d go with Mike’s idea about linking the “announce” posts to your main article pages, but I wouldn’t use PLR unless heavily rewritten. I think theming your content (a la Andy Williams’ Web Content Studio) is the best way to go. That and a solid silo structure reduce the need for backlinks and help you rank for more longtails, in my humble opinion. If WCS is too pricey, try lsikeywords.com for a similar result.
Also, I think in keyword research it’s important to check your GAKT search results against SEMRush’s (free version is fine to use in lieu of the high-dollar paid one). Regarding CPC for Adsense publishers, I’d check both GAKT and SEMRush CPC figures against the Contextual Targeting Tool found in the GAKT area.