I went through today and updated my blog roll. I removed sites that have not posted anything in the last 12 months or so.

Make love not hose

I added two or three replacement links. I also added several from the Firestorm Gateway Project. For information on the project see: NEW: Share your love of Second Life with new tools. 

I recommend adding these pages in the Firestorm site to your blog rolls. Ask your friends to add links to the pages also. Doing so will help get these pages better placement in search results.

I also recommend you follow Canary Beck’s lead and use the worlds ‘virtual reality’ and ‘virtual world’ in the link text and ‘alternate text’ of the link. Forget using the words ‘second life’. In this case we are promoting SL to people that do NOT know the name; Second Life. People will likely not be typing Second Life into Google as they search for a virtual world. VR and VW will be terms much more likely to be used in search during 2016.

If you are wondering about whether to use the spelled out or abbreviated words, do both. I personally feel the spelled out version will be more productive. But, I don’t have stats to prove that.

It is common SEO practice to use all pertinent related terms in a web page. The same is true for links, but there is a point reached pretty easily in links where Google and others decide you are trying to spam the system and it hurts more than helps. So, don’t get carried away. A link that uses: VR Virtual Reality VR Virtual Reality VR Virtual Reality is NOT going to help…

Using marketing stats from Google AdWords I find the most competitive phrase in the field is: full immersion virtual reality. Few marketers are competing on the phrase, but those that are are driving the per click cost up. So, some see it as the important phrase.

I take away the word immersion is going to be an important search term in 2016.

Another frequently used term is virtual pet. That is something we have lots of in SL. But, it is not much publicized. As far as I know there is no gateway for virtual pets that leads into a gateway like the Firestorm Team has built.

The phrase reality game is also popular.

These are terms that have been trending up in 2015, peaking in November. Too early for December stats. I am assuming December search totals will surpass November’s.

Your help would be appreciated.