What do you think about this strategy?

[whorneff310]

I am new to SEO but have been hired to handle the SEO for a martial arts school.  They had previously attained top three rankings primarily using nofollow on every link on the homepage except footer links which had anchor text of their keywords pointing to their second tier pages.  Each of those second tier page also had all nofollow except a single footer link that had a keyword anchor text link going back to the home page.

Seemed to work for them.

I was going to keep it as as well as focus on creating about 10 separate wordpress blogs.  They want to give each blog to a student who will post daily and from each post link to their site via anchor text.  Anything wrong with this?

Thanks

Wiliam

[whorneff310]

So even if the website is top 2 in google--For instance usually if you type in mma training in bergen county you will see www.njtraininggrounds.com listed at sometimes the first three spots---you would still say to take some page rank away from the index page and have a followed blog from there?

[Bevelwise]

Rather than having 10 separate blogs, I agree that you should have only one blog but make each student an author. That way the content will be aggregated and consistent rather than having your efforts thinly sliced.

[whorneff310]

Hi Shane, thanks for the info.  I think I may have them do that instead.  Do you think the blog should be accessible from the homepage?

[whorneff310]

Thanks Ryan

[Jinx14678]

Safe may be the wrong outlook

This strategy is definitely employed by many, but i think they are slowly seeing the returns on these types of strats slipping. Not to say they do not work, but not sure it is a good idea in such a small niche (probably a pretty big SEO footprint will be left)

If you have articles that call for linking to your site that has a logical and informational purpose, then this is a good strat, but just throwing out content with anchor text to your site is sometimes a waste and possibly hurtful.

IMHO - Forget so many word presses and concentrate on having a blog on your site that generates quality informational content that is related to your niche both directly and abstractly.  This is a site link building strategy that can payoff in incoming links and traffic.

Now this is not to say that other avenues should not be taken, but if you have lots of content that can be created then i would keep alot of it on your site mostly in one place so you are not spreading all that potential traffic to alternate sites not on your domain (wordpresses)

Just an idea

[RyanKent]

You can offer as many anchor text links as you see fit. Understand that only the first link to a given page will pass the anchor text.

Unless a student really takes their blog seriously and writes high quality articles, these blogs probably wont offer any linking value in terms of PR. They may very well bring in some long tail traffic and gain exposure for your site that way.

[whorneff310]

Hi Ryan, thanks man.  Will do.  Do you think it's a good strategy to create the wordpress blogs manned by students daily with fresh posts, and then have those blogs link back to the main site?  Any idea how many anchor text links is safe to put per post?

Thanks a lot

[RyanKent]

The strategy of nofollowing internal links to the degree you mention goes directly against what we know as best practices for the SEO industry.

As far as the results achieved, I would relate it to a recent Las Vegas experience. I was with a friend who had a 19 while the dealer had a 10 showing. Blackjack logic says to stay on 19, no matter what. He decided to hit, he got a 2, and the dealer had 20. His choice worked in that particular instance. Even so, I would never duplicate that action nor recommend it to anyone else. The point is, don't confuse the results with the tactic.

Another mozzer just referenced this link in a Q&A reply which talks about using nofollow on internal links: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/pagerank-sculpting/

The summary: I would remove nofollow from any internal links, and know that footer links are considered weaker then links found in your content.