WebProNews - Link Building

Link Building for Bing Rankings: Dos and Don'ts

Chris Crum — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:52:13 +0000

It's easy for businesses to get caught up in Google's expectations for their sites, when trying to market through search. That's certainly a wise thing to do, considering Google dominates the search market by a huge margin. Still, there are other search engines that people are using, and it is also wise to make sure your site is performing to the best of its ability in those too.

I'm obviously talking about Yahoo and Bing, but Yahoo's share is declining, while Bing's is gaining. Furthermore, if the deal between Microsoft and Yahoo goes through, Bing search will be talking over Yahoo anyway.

Do you take Bing into account when optimizing your site? Comment here.

We don't hear as much about what Bing wants out of a site for rankings, but Rick DeJarnette of Bing Webmaster Center has shared some dos and don'ts of link-building for Bing. Not surprisingly, a lot of his advice for honoring Bing's policy, does not differ too much from advice that Google would give you. It is, however, still always nice to see how they feel, just to clear up any possible confusion.

Like Google, Bing places great emphasis on quality links to determine its rankings. "Just don't make the mistake of believing it will result in instant gratification. Successful link building efforts require a long-term commitment, not an overnight or turnkey solution," says DeJarnette. "You need to continually invest in link building efforts with creativity and time."

What Not To Do

DeJarnette shared a list of things that you should avoid in your link building efforts, if it is a good Bing ranking that you are after. Here is what Bing says will get your site reviewed more closely by staff:

1. The number of inbound links suddenly increases by orders of magnitude in a short period of time

2. Many inbound links coming from irrelevant blog comments and/or from unrelated sites

3. Using hidden links in your pages

4. Receiving inbound links from paid link farms, link exchanges, or known "bad neighborhoods" on the Web

5. Linking out to known web spam sites

"When probable manipulation is detected, a spam rank factor is applied to a site, depending upon the type and severity of the infraction," says DeJarnette. "If the spam rating is high, a site can be penalized with a lowered rank. If the violations are egregious, a site can be temporarily or even permanently purged from the index."

What To Do

DeJarnette also shared some tips for getting more quality links. Following are Bing's tips for effective link building (paraphrased):

1. Develop your site as a business brand and brand it consistently

2. Find relevant industry experts, product reviewers, bloggers, and media folk, and make sure they're aware of your site/content

3. Publish concise, informative press releases online

4. Publish expert articles to online article directories

5. Participate in relevant conversations on blogs/forums, referring back to your site's content when applicable

6. Use social networks to connect to industry influencers (make sure you have links to your site in your profiles)

7. Create an email newsletter with notifications of new content

8. Launch a blog/forum on your site

9. Participate in relevant industry associations and especially in their online forums

10. Strive to become a trusted expert voice for your industry, while promoting your site

Most of the stuff DeJarnette shared is nothing any savvy search marketer is not already aware of. That said, there are clearly plenty of online (and offline for that matter) businesses out there that don't have savvy search marketers on the payroll. It can be quite helpful when a search engine itself lays out what to do and what not to do to help webmasters get better rankings.

Related Articles:

> What Bing, Twitter, and Facebook Mean for SEO

> Don't Lose Yahoo Traffic By Not Optimizing for Bing

> How Does Bing Rank Tweets?

Using Twitter For Link Building

WebProNews Staff — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:24:36 +0000

Links on Twitter are already nofollowed and most are shortened anyway by a shortener. What use can Twiitter be for link building? Link building Eric Ward says the site is perfect for finding niche experts.

It’s not about huge amounts of followers or traffic spikes. You can get that kind of traffic from Digg. But the advantage of Twitter, says Ward, is that people specific to an industry are out there, findable on Twitter.

So if you specialize in little plastic doohickeys they put on shoestrings, irrelevant traffic is not what you’re after. At Search Engine Land, Ward explains how a message that begins as a tweet ends up as a link from a highly trusted website:

A few weeks ago I announced a new site via URLwire, and whenever I do this I set up several alerts/trackers to see where mentions/links show up. I also set up a Twitter search for that new URL....the new site I announced has been tweeted or re-tweeted by seven people…I discovered all of them were health experts in one form or another. Also, all of them had several hundred followers (one had 780), and a quick check of a few dozen of those showed some overlap (expected) as well as frequent health URL tweets. In other words, I’d found a loose community of several thousand collective Twitterer’s who had shared news about a new web site URL.

One of those re-tweets came from a librarian at a med school web site, who did one more thing with that URL. She added a link to it from the med school web site she’s in charge of editing. What started to her as a tweet ended as a permanent link from her high trust web page.

What’s even better about that is that earned link was a free, organic one, the best kind. No manipulation, no buying, no trading. And that one very trusted link is likely to outweigh many links (however they're gotten) from not-so-trusted websites.

Link Building With Articles

Dave Davies — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 21:27:05 +0000

There are many different ways that a link can be built. One that is often overlooked but which can have huge rewards is writing and submitting articles. The reason article writing and submission is arguably one of the best of the link building methods is that it not only functions as a link building exercise but also a traffic source. Honestly, can you think of a better use of your online marketing time than a tactic that provides for traffic and which can help improve your search engine visibility? Neither can I.

That being said, simply whipping off an article and putting it up on your site is not going to do it. There are a few crucial steps to making the most of your efforts. It may take a bit longer to do it right but the rewards will be much higher as well. Here are the basic steps to writing an effective article that gets well picked up and can provide you with some solid traffic and links.

Pick A Topic

Picking a topic for your article can often be harder than it sounds. When you're selecting a topic you can't simply write about the first thing that pops into your head. There are two questions you need to ask yourself when you're selecting your topic:

Will the editors care? If the editors of related websites aren't going to care about your topic then it's not going to get published. If it's not going to get published then you can probably find better uses for your time – like golf or shopping for blue widgets online.

Will bloggers care? The second questions is whether other online publishers will be interested in the content. If an editor publishes your content and other link to it, that makes the like to you on the publisher site all the stronger.

Something I've found handy is reading through your FAQ's. If clients and site visitors regularly ask you the same questions, these are likely good topics for your article (though an article on your shipping policies probably won't get picked up too widely). Another great place to start when thinking of a topic to write about is your own brain. Are there questions you've asked that took a ton of time or research to answer? If so – answer the question for others and cover the research and you're likely to get well picked-up.

Write The Article

While picking a topic can be hard, constructing the article can be all the more difficult. An article needs to have a specific point and must provide the reader with a means to understanding why you're making that point.

Let's take this article for example; once I knew I wanted to write an article on how to use article writing as a link building method I knew what the tone would be: instructional. After that it was a matter of deciding what I wanted to cover in the article (picking a topic, writing the article, testing the article and article syndication). After I'm done writing this article I'll have it proof-read by a couple people who aren't involved with our site and then I'll syndicate it in hopes of developing some solid, highly-relevant links and secure some equally relevant traffic.

If I were writing an article on a different topic (choosing a life insurance provider for example) I may divide my article into sections such as: calculating what you need, analyzing the various options, selecting providers, choosing between an insurance company and an insurance broker). Either way you'll want to decide ahead of time what you need to cover. You also need to decide on an article length ahead of time. As a general rule, an article between 1000 and 1200 words is good. Shorter likely won't cover everything and longer tends to lose some people. To this end, I'll move on to part three (testing the article) to keep things conceise.

Testing

Admittedly I don't have a ton to say on this topic. Get people to proof-read your article. Ideally you'll find people from inside and outside your industry to proof the article to make sure it makes sense to experts as well as laymen.

Also, watch the pickup rates on your different articles by searching for it after submission. Pay attention to the types that get picked up and where and focus future articles for the best outcome (whether that's links or traffic or both – you'll have to decide based on the statistics generated by each articles)

Article Syndication

And now for the entire purpose of the article – the syndication. There are two main avenues you can look down (and should) when looking to syndicate your articles. You can find an article syndication service for submissions (very good for a large number of article directories) and you can seek topic-specific sites that will accept your articles.

As I am affiliated with an article syndication company I won't list your options there for fear of a conflict of interest and thus diminish the article. Instead I'll focus on finding specific sites to submit your article to and will assume you will select your own large distribution options.

To find sites to submit your articles to you may need to think outside the box. You'll need to run a number of searches for related phrases that will yield the best results. For example, if I worked for a web design company I might search for places that accept articles that are related to web design, hosting, SEO, small businesses and anything else I could think of. For example, I would begin my search on Google with “web design article submit” and extend it from there.

A helpful tool for this is SEO Quake. If you list your results in sets of 100 you can order them by PageRank or backlinks and go for the higher valued sites first.

Once you've got a solid list you can complete your submissions to it. Don't forget to document your submissions as well as any account information for future reference as you'll likely want to submit another article down the road. Also, you'll want to add a few sites each submission so you've got a constantly evolving list with more and more backlinking domains.

Conclusion

Of course, you'll likely discover more for yourself as you write and syndicate your own articles. Just don't give up the first time and learn from every submission. It may take a bit to figure out what works best but article syndication is one of the single more effective link building tactics available.

PubCon: Think Big for Link Building Through Social Media

Chris Crum — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:10:14 +0000

Out in Las Vegas at PubCon, Mike McDonald of WebProNews spoke with Eric Enge, who was one of the speakers at the session entitled "Real-World Low-Risk, High-Reward Link Building Strategies." You might be familiar with Enge. He's been a WebProNews blog partner for some time. He's the StoneTemple Consulting guy, and he's developed a reputation over the years as a reputable source for information about link building. In fact, that's one of StoneTemple's areas of expertise, along with SEO site evaluation, social media marketing, blog implementation, PPC, web analytics, and local SEO among other things.

At this session, Enge talked about how companies should "Think Big" in order to get the most out of their link building strategies through social media. Mike caught up with him and talked about this subject a little bit more outside of the session.

Other link building advice Enge discussed at the session included:

- Studying what has worked before
- Writing compelling articles
- Write an interesting description
- Voting for posts in front of you on the upcoming pages
- Making sure you stand out!

You can find more coverage on that session here. Watch the video above to see what Enge has to say about thinking big, and how to apply link building strategies through social media when you are a small business.

A Beginners Guide To Link Building

Dave Davies — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:59:04 +0000

Link building is an essential ingredient in ranking your website highly on the major search engines.

There, now that we've got that brilliant grasp of the obvious out of the way let's move on to what you can do to actually create them. Before we launch into the nitty-gritty of link building, no beginners guide would be complete without a brief explanation as to why links are important and the different elements of them. Being a beginners guide this won't be an entirely complete list but it will be enough to get you going on the right path. Understanding what you're trying to do will help you do it better and more importantly, understanding the “why” of the situation will help you stretch your tactics outside of this and other articles on link building.

Why Are Links Important?

To put it simply: a link is a vote. Every link pointing to your site from another website tells the search engines that the other site finds your resource valuable and thus, the engines read this as a vote for your site. So it must be about getting tons of links and you're done right? Wrong. This is incorrect as ...

Not All Votes Are Created Equal

Unlike your own vote in an election, some votes are worth more than others and some votes are worth SIGNIFICANTLY more than yours (unless of course you're a content writer for the Google.com domain in which case you obviously have the top vote). The basic factors that affect a link's value to your website are:

The site strength – the strength of the site that is pointing to yours is a significant (and historically abused) factor in the valuation of links. In the absence of other easily-visible criteria let's look at PageRank as a key valuation of a site's strength. If a site with a PageRank 8 links to your site, this vote is worth significantly more than a link from a PageRank 3 site. This is because a PageRank 8 site is, in Google's eyes, a more important site than the PageRank 3 site.

Relevance – the relevance of a site linking to you is, if anything, more important than a site's strength. If you run a bed a breakfast in Utah a link from a PageRank 3 bed and breakfast will be worth more than a link from a PageRank 5 web design site. This area is a bit grey in that it relies on the engine's ability to determine what is relevant and what is not however we've seen evidence that this area is strong at this stage in the game and is only becoming more important over time.

Anchor text – the actual text used to link to your site is extremely important. I've seen extremely strong sites get beaten out by weak ones simply due to the poor use of anchor test. If you're building links to your site be sure to include your keywords in the text that links back and, if possible, the exact phrase you are trying to rank for. At the same time, you can't make all your anchor text exactly the same – how can that possibly look natural?

Position – the position of a link on a page and the number of other links on that page impacts the value of a link. A link in the footer of a page is given less weight than a link near the top, a link in the content of a page is given more weight than a link in a list of links and a link on a page with 50 other links is given less weight than a link on a page with only a few other links. If we think about it – this makes sense. All of these things indicate whether the site with the outbound links actually intends for one of their visitors to click the link or not. From an engine's perspective – the more it appears that a site wants a link to be clicked on, the higher the weight that link (or vote) is given.

Admittedly there are a number of other factors but this is a beginners guide. Following the considerations above will insure that as you make each link decision – you're odds of making the right choices will be significantly higher than if you ignore them. Ignoring them may not get you penalized or banned but it will make your task far more time consuming as you secure less valuable links and thus need to build far more than following he right methods.

So far we've covered briefly the why of link building, now let's get into the real-life, here's-how-to-do-it side of things. Below I'm going to cover three of my favorite link building tactics. These are tactics that apply to virtually every scenario. The number of ways to build links is only limited by your imagination however and this should not be viewed as a comprehensive list. This is, after all, a beginners guide and I'm trying to list the tactics that apply to virtually every scenario.

Side Note: Reciprocal Link Building

I'm not going to count this as one of my favorite and so it won't count as one of the three noted above and I'll only touch on it briefly. There have been a number of assertions that reciprocal link building is dead. This is simply not the case. I have seen and competed against sites that were very successful with reciprocal links as their primary link source.

The problem with reciprocal links isn't so much in their value which does seem to be a bit lower than non-reciprocal links however often more easily attained. No, my problem with reciprocal links is in the management. Unethical webmasters' removing links after you've put the link up to them, sites expiring and not being renewed, sites getting penalties of their own due to their bad tactics are all inconveniences the reciprocal link manager must deal with.

As an SEO company, a huge issue we faced was leaving our clients with this task after a campaign was over if they decided not to go on a maintenance package. Non-reciprocal links may be a bit harder to attain in some cases however that issue is much easier to overcome than the sum of all these issues.

And now on to the top three ...

Articles

If you're paying attention as you read this you'll probably have guessed that I'm a fan of article writing as a link building method. If you look to the “about the author” section you'll notice a link to the Beanstalk site (and if you don't, well ... let me know as somebody's stealing it without permission). While I genuinely enjoy writing and sharing my experiences with others – the purpose of getting the article distributed is primarily as a link building tactic, secondarily as a great source of qualified traffic and thirdly for my own enjoyment.

You are an expert in your field. Who knows more about your business than you? So share. Writing an article may not be easy but it is rewarding. If you can't think of a topic, think of what you get asked. If you're asked common questions repeatedly then chances are, it's a good topic for an article. I often get asked about link building, and you're reading the result.

Once the article is completed you need to get it syndicated. Using an article submission service is a simple way to get your article out to a large number of publishers quickly. On top of this you'd do well to seek out specific sites in your field using one or all of the major search engines to find highly relevant sites that accept articles and submit to them.

And oh, don't forget an “about the author” section. :)

Directory Submissions

Directory submissions are likely the most painful of the link building tactics you'll employ. Why? Because it's tedious and time-consuming work.

To be done right directory submissions must be done manually, the titles and descriptions must be tailored to the specifications of the directory in question and often, you'll have to decide if a review fee is worth it.

While there are a good many directories that accept free submissions there are also a large number that's require a review fee. The fee can range from a few dollars to a few hundred. If you see that a directory has a low PageRank, is general in it's nature (i.e. it isn't about your specific field) then it likely isn't worth more than a couple dollars if that. If the site is strong, and strongly related to your site then it's obviously worth more.

There is no hard-and-fast set of rules for how much a listing is worth. I'd recommend to start your hunt for directories (don't forget the topic and/or region specific ones), submit to all the free ones and make a list of all the ones that require a fee. After you've gotten a solid number in you “needs to be paid list” you can get a general idea as to what's out there and what you can get and for how much. This will enable you to make solid choices knowing what all your options are.

Forum Posting

I just know I'm going to get a couple comments and/or emails for listing this as a link building tactic but if it's done right there's nothing wrong with it. Forum and blog posting got a bad reputation as a link building tactic when it came under huge abuse by unethical webmasters spamming forums with useless garbage just for a link. They even went so far (and still do) as sending out spiders to automatically submit posts. To this end, I have to agree that it's a bad tactic however ...

If you're seeking out forums related to your site, reading the threads and responding with solid advice or with questions and not just firing off some sales-pitch then you're doing what you're supposed to be. Another perk to this is that, like articles, if you do this right you're gong to see traffic as well and what more can you ask from a link building tactic than traffic as well as links.

Conclusion

Above we've covered the basics of link building. As I've noted repeatedly, once you're done reading this and applying some of what you've read you'd do well to read other articles, forums and blogs. This isn't a complete breakdown of everything link-related (that would be a full book) but it will keep you out of trouble and save you countless hours of wasted time getting poor links that haven't held value since 2003.

SMX: Link Building Techniques

Mike Sachoff — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 20:06:23 +0000

In the "Blow Your Mind Link Building Techniques" at SMX Advanced in Seattle, Roger Montti, founder and owner of MartiniBuster.com spoke about link building techniques.

(Coverage of the SMX Advanced Conference continues at WebProNews Videos. Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

He focused on. EDUs and said to look at what industry heavyweights are doing and find charitable opportunities. To find the heavyweights look for the top spenders on AdWords for a query and check their backlinks.

".EDUs are not a magic bullet for your rankings," Montti said and they are not special but get them if you can.

Jay Young, owner of Link Fish Media said to build links you need, "brass balls and big bucks." He said there is no place for fear in link building.

He recommended getting links from directories, best of the web, Yahoo, DMOZ, Joe Ant and Blog Catalog. Other places to get links are from non-profits. They are arguably editorial, tax deductible, in a good neighborhood and help a good cause. You can get more links by joining SEOcialists, Digg, Reddit and Stumble.

Use big name text link brokers, blog advertisers, smaller brokers, specialty brokers and amateur brokers. Find them and use them it pays off. The majority of the time its money not wasted.

When it comes to link bait he said to, "Call Rand." "At the end of the day, we are not in this for morality, we are in this for marketing," Young said.

Buy links because they are vital for the success of a competitive campaign. Be relevant and natural, vary your anchor text and use co-citation.

Darker methods to build links include comment spam done manually, trackback spam, reciprocal links, three ways and link farms.

Things to do outside the box include using widgets, templates, template sponsorship, contests like offering a free iPhone and content trades.

Other tips offered by Young include hiring a bartender as a link builder because they have a good work ethic, are quick thinkers and good multi-taskers. Avoid buying links from forums, use moderation and common sense.

He puts up a slide of Matt Cutts with a caption that reads, "Stop being afraid of this guy." He says to "do what makes sense for your company, if that means you have to buy links, do it."

ACCM: Better Links For Higher Search Rankings

Mike Sachoff — Mon, 19 May 2008 21:11:16 +0000

In the session "Secrets for Getting More and Better Links for Higher Search Rankings," Stephan Spencer founder and president of Netconcepts talked about free tools to use for checking link popularity.

Coverage of the ACCM conference continues at WebProNews Videos. Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

You can check the popularity of links using Yahoo's Site Explorer, Netconcept's Link Checker and Thumbshots Ranking tool.

To check page rank use the Google Toolbar for IE or Firefox, the Google Directory, which only works for pages that are listed in DMOZ. You can also use PageRank Lookup tool from SEOChat and PageRank search tool from SEOChat.

When it comes to getting links Spencer said, "Don't do anything you wouldn't want to tell your family or a Google rep about."

Seth Besmertnik, CEO of LinkExperts talked about link building for structure. The ideal structure includes a critical mass of links, well-designed page and a well-designed internal structure.

Paid links have a bad reputation because they have been search spam. Aggregator and spam sites tend to be very aggressive and thoughtless and do not consider the user.

Besmertnik said," Always be a good Internet citizen and make sure you are doing things that are good, valuable, and provide a good experience."

Neil Patel, chief technology officer, Advantage Consulting Services, said the keys to success include learning and following rules and providing valuable content. He said to participate in the community and to build relations which you know matters.

Patel said," Social media may not be valuable for every company." You can find out by researching your target audience, listing goals and researching your competition.

Rhea Drysdale, Online Marketing Director of Less Everything, said the top tips for link building were time, money and experience. If you don't have time, money or experience you can spend 15 minutes a day practicing link building techniques.

Do your homework and come up with a good strategy. Exhaust on site optimization and establish tracking methods using Google alerts, Yahoo Answers and Tweetscan.

SEO Step Five of Ten: Link Building

Debra Mastaler — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:43:17 +0000

Welcome to part five in this ten part SEO series. The ten parts of the SEO process we will be covering are:

Keyword Research & Selection
Competitor Analysis
Site Structure
Content Optimization
Link Building
Social Media
PPC
Statistics Analysis
Conversion Optimization
Keeping It Up

Note: Part five is a reprint of a Semmy winning article written by Debra Mastaler on link building. It is of course reprinter with permission an Debra will be the special guest on the accompanying Webmaster Radio show. But without furter ado - let's get to it

Help! I'm New, I Need Links, What Can I Do?

I took a telephone call last week from a woman who was looking to hire a link builder for a new site in a very competitive niche. I'm under contract to a business in the same industry so I passed but we had a nice chat before I sent her along with my standard list of link building referrals.

Several days went by and I heard from her again, this time in a state of panic. Seems everyone she contacted was unavailable, and she was convinced it was because her industry was a competitive one. Could I please give her an honest assessment of her website and tell her if that was indeed the case?

Well, no. I feel for her situation but in this particular field I'm under contract to a competitor and as a result, obligated to focus only on them. But I did refer her to a usability specialist and suggested her situation is probably more a result of link builders being taken rather than uninterested.

Competitive industries tend to be established industries so it stands to reason they have linking staffs in place and link builders tied up. If that's the case, what can new sites in a competitive niche do to attract links?

To begin, do all the "foundational" link building every other site starts out doing before branching into the more indepth promotional linking:

Apply to the Yahoo! directory (cost - moderate)

Submit to solid directories such as Joe Ant, GoGuides, BOTW, Ezilon, Rubberstamped and Massive Links. (cost -moderate)

Join a Chamber, your industry Association, and clubs. (cost - low to moderate)

Issue a press release announcing the new site (cost - low)

Buy a list of high-profile journalists and contact directly for one-on-one interviews (cost -moderate)

Backlink your competitors and those ranking ahead of you for link and advertising leads. (free)

Develop a "how to" video for your site and it's products. Submit to the video and HowTo sites (cost - low)

Buy ad space in offline publications annoucing your new site (cost -moderate to high)

Find an established business in a complementary industry to host a co-promotion or buy their mailing list to send out link incentives. (cost - low)

Find out who's podcasting in your niche and buy space, offer to be a guest or donate products to be given away in exchange for either of the above. Look for high visibility podcasts to advertise in, sweeten the deal with incentives. (cost - free to low)

Locate the prominent bloggers in your niche and start adding to the industry by commenting on their views. Don't be obnoxious and don't do it everyday. Join their community and they'll join yours. (cost - free)

Be sure to incorporate an incentive-to-link program in all your external correspondence such as autoresponders, confirmation emails, reminders etc. (cost free)

Create a corporate blog and invite bloggers, journalists, and your customers to contribute. Continually promote the site and it's writers and in turn, they'll support your site by linking to it. Don't forget to add an RSS feed as well. (cost free to low)

Be sure to add the blog to all the blog directories as well as the RSS feeds to RSS directories. (Cost - free)

I could go on but you get the picture. While most of these tactics have a small to moderate cost associated with them, others are free. Not only will you gain links but you'll also gain the much-needed influx of traffic competitive sites need to break into the race.

Other link building resourses:

Link building is a HUGE area. The articles that appears as the runners-up for the SEMMY are also well-worth the read. They are:

Andy Hagans’ Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and Social Media Marketing

Revealing your Competitor’s FULL External Relevance Profile – One of my best kept secrets

An Introduction To SEO

Daryl Quenet — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:52:45 +0000

Welcome to Daryl Quenet's introduction to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), optimizing design, and how to maximize your websites search engine positioning for the major search engines.

When it comes to running an effective website that ranks well on the search engine results pages (SERPs), there are three major factors that can influence the number of search engine referrals (incoming searches) you get. This applies to all the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Live).

Content Is King

The most important thing is the content on your page regardless of how much time you put into Search Engine Optimizations (SEO) for your website without the content people are searching for you will find very little return on your efforts.

Involved with the preparation of your content is analyzing the keyword(s) for your given industry. Just putting Keywords in the keywords meta tag will get you no where without those Keywords existing in your content. This is known as Keyword Density, basically the more often you're keywords the more relevant your content is for the searcher in the eyes of a search engine. Keep in mind an ideal density is around 3.5% per word in you phrase.

When writing your Search Engine Optimized content don't forget about the end user. If you can't get your keyword densities bang on, then don't worry about it. I prefer to have a lower density but higher quality content for the end user, than having spammy content and a lower conversion rate. The end goal is still to convert your visitors to your products, services, or whatever your goal may be. Users, unlike search engines, are not interested in Keyword Density so beware of keyword spam.

And a final note on Content for this introduction is that it is advisable to constantly update your content. The longer your content goes without updates, the staler the content gets, and the lower your search engine positioning will drop. However with enough Link Building this can be negated.

Link Building Your Way Too Success

Link building is easily the second most important factor in SEO, and in some cases the most. Building links into your website is the only way as a webmaster that you can affect the authority of your website, and the value your existing content may have in the eyes of the search engines.

To conceptualize link building think of your website as if it was a person. The more popular a person is the more authoritative what they have to say is to their target audience. The big difference being that our target audience is Google, and the other major search engines, and having quality links on other sites equates to your websites "popularity".

Now keep in mind when you start your link building that nearly no two links are exactly the same. When Google calculates the value of a link it looks at several important things to figure out just how much strength to give you. Here are just a few:

How much strength did the page with the link have

Number of external links on a page

Anchor text used for the link

Is a rel=nofollow tag used

How long has that link been there

Now keep in mind all of these factors above are irrelevant if Google hasn't cached the page with the link, if Google hasn't found it then it is worth nothing. The stronger the strength of the page your link is on the more strength you will get in return. The more outgoing links there are on a page the more that strength will be divided between all the linked sites.

A link with a rel="nofollow" attribute is virtually useless to your website other then increasing your overall link count to give your competitors a scare. You will mainly find NoFollow attributes for Blog Comments, Website Advertisers / Sponsors, Paid Links, or links to competitors (I use them on my resume for past work experience).

When a link is built very few search engines will give you the full strength of that link right away. This is done to maintain the quality of the SERPs if everyone could just go out build 1000s of links then rank there would be no quality to the search engines. Instead they slowly give you more strength as these links age up until around the 6 month period.

Lastly you will constantly see something called Google Pagerank. Pagerank is an arbitrary Google measurement assigned to a website / page to denote that pages strength. Now some people consider this measurement to be the end all be all, but in truth it means very little other than an indicator of you sites health. If you have a PageRank on your homepage as well as pagerank on most of your internal pages your off to a good start. Also keep in mind that pagerank only updates every 3 - 6 months, and ultimately the proof is in the search engine results not some number in the toolbar.

* It's important to note that when I'm referring to PageRank above I'm referring to the visual PageRank displayed in the little green bar, not the actual PageRank that Google uses internally to calculate the value of a page.

Optimize Your Website Navigation Structure & Design

I purposely left site structure to last as it can be the quickest way for you to royally mess up your website rankings. The worst case with bad structure is that no part of your website will be cached and you will see no visitors. I've seen a lot of sites with a lot of issues causing no search engines to crawl these sites. Some of the worst yet simple structural issues that can affect your search engine crawler visibility that I've seen are:

Automatically redirecting all visitors that come to your site to another page.

Using HTTPS only

Pure Javascript based navigation

On other sites I have seen Google only cached the index page, which may have an assigned Pagerank without spidering the rest of the website. The things to remember when mapping out the structure of your website are:

At all costs avoid having dynamic URLs (ie index.php?PageId=1), a dynamic URL is a URL that contains HTTP GET variables. Search engines don't tend to spider these sites well. And to users they don't have any relevant information to their Queries. Try to use Page keys that contain your keywords, if you need to use Dynamic scripts to build your website (i.e. through a Content Management System), use Apache Mod Rewrites to build a static in appearance website (Notice how all URLs on my personal web design & development site appear to be directories). If you have to use Dynamic URLs keep your number of variables at no more than 2.

If possible try to use the Keywords you are targeting for your industry in your URL or Files / Directories. This helps increase your Keyword Density, as well as providing users clicking through on Google information relevant to their query in your file names.

Don't constantly change your website structure. Pagerank takes time naturally to develop, and Google holds new sites back in a Sandbox. By renaming a page you can often kiss your pre-existing search engine positioning away on renamed pages until their rank is redeveloped.

When designing a new site try to avoid having filenames with extensions in the URL (ie Products.asp), this can limit your options in the future if you change programming languages (ie ASP to PHP), as well as the platform your website can be hosted on (ie Windows vs Linux Hosting).

When implementing a new structure or new site, create a Google sitemap, and register it with Google to let Google know what to index.

Whenever possible attached CSS and Javascript as external files.

Once you have decided on a website structure, or you have a pre-existing structure, the best way to score higher search engine positions is to have minimalist coding in the HTML to maximize your Content to Markup Ratio. The best way to minimize the amount of HTML code required is to use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Cascading Style Sheets allow you to pull the design out of your HTML pages and place them into a separate file. Not only does this remove a lot of HTML if you were using Tables for layout, it makes maintenance a lot simpler as all your design changes are made in one place.

When I moved my website from table based layout to Cascading Style Sheets I managed to reduce my markup code by around 60%! If you have a very large site this can be even more beneficial as some search engines limit the amount of hard drive space they will allocate to caching your website, as well as raise the position of your content higher up in your document.

Conclusion

And thus concludes my introduction to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), it may sound long and long winded, but that is really just a little bit of what goes into successful positioning your website on the search engines. I'll finish up with one last warning and that is to not buy or sell links, as you can easily be penalized completely from the SERPs for this (Google supplies a page for reporting websites for buying and selling). Good luck on your Search Engine Result Pages and Positioning!

The Horror of Search Engine Penalties & Filters

Joe Griffin — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:05:45 +0000

There are two words that are guaranteed to strike fear into the heart of any website proprietor: penalties and filters.

They damage rankings and ultimately may result in banishment from the search engines. However, before panic sets in, let us guide you through the basics of penalties and filters.

A penalty is caused by significant violations of a search engine's website guidelines, such as:

Cloaking (showing one version of a site to search engines and another version to human visitors).
Hidden text (text not easily read by search engines that can be used to inflate a website’s keywords).
Linking out to "bad neighborhoods" (i.e. Pills, Porn or Casinos).
Consistent and abusive negative link building.

Penalties can be issued after a person reviews a website or after it has been crawled and processed by search engines. They result in a website being heavily held back in the rankings, or removed from the search engine's index entirely. A penalty is called a ban when a website is completely removed from a search engine.

To remove a penalty, a site needs to first correct the problem that caused it, then contact the search engine and request a reinclusion. It is important to note penalties are not common for business websites, particularly in Google.

In Google, this is done through a Webmaster Tools account, which can be set up for free.
MSN has just created a Webmaster Tools system like Google's.
Yahoo does not have a defined reinclusion process.
A filter is caused by passing a search engine's threshold setting for one or more optimization/link building elements, such as:
1. Too many keyword mentions on a page's body content (over-optimization).
2. Too much keyword blurring between a site's pages.
3. Too many links with the same anchor text.
4. Too much keyword-rich internal linking (can cause 950 filter).
5. Too much link building in a short period of time.
6. Too much link building using the same anchor text.
7. Link building in bad neighborhoods.

Filters are common. They are issued automatically after the site is crawled and processed by search engines and result in a site being held back in the rankings.

Filters can be keyword-based or site-based.
Filters can be mild (held back a few positions) or heavy (held back hundreds of positions).
Filters can have a time element (like the normal Google Sandbox process, where a site is initially held back many positions and over time gets held back less and less until eventually it ranks near its allinanchor rankings).

In general, to remove a filter a site needs to first correct the problem that caused it, then wait for the search engine (s) to crawl the site again and find the corrections. The next time the search engine updates its rankings with the corrected data, the filter will be lifted automatically.

In some cases, like the Google Sandbox, you can simply outwait a filter. Websites commonly spend anywhere between a few months and a year or so in the Google Sandbox. The time websites spend in the Sandbox has significantly decreased over the last few years.
In some cases, you can remove a filter on a site by doing things that search engines like (such as getting quality links to the site from other respected websites in the same sector) to outweigh the things about the site or optimization they don't like.

Filters are common, especially in Google.

The Google Sandbox is technically a filter. Google closely examines new websites for over-optimization to try and minimize spammy websites filling its SERPS. As a result, newer websites often trip filters when they start an optimization campaign using traditional SEO (lots of keywords on the page, keyword-heavy titles and description, keyword heavy anchor text in incoming links). This pattern of new websites getting filtered and eventually getting released from the filter is called the Google Sandbox. Websites can speed up their release date from the Sandbox by getting quality internal links and not going overboard with on-site optimization.
New websites are not the only targets. Older websites can trip filters when they go overboard with over-optimization

Being aware of how search engines assess penalties and filters is essential to avoiding them. Do not try to cheat the system, over-optimize or trick search engines. They are savvy to these tactics and punish those who attempt to take advantage of them. What may help in the short term will only end up hurting in the long term.

Being competitive in the SERP’s is important, and sitting idly is not a good strategy. If you must build links or optimize your website try to stick to the guidelines and use common sense.

Comment

Recognizing the Best SEM Posts

Michael Jensen — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 02:17:05 +0000

Learning all there is to learn in Search Engine Marketing is no easy feat.

There’s no real text book, and if there was it would be outdated right after it was published I’m sure. The best place to get the best information in Search Marketing is from immersing yourself in the blogs of SEO and SEM.

Thankfully, Matt McGee comes to our rescue with the SEMMY’s (note…SEM=search engine marketing, the rest is to give it the Grammy’s feel). This “award ceremony” goes through the best posts in the previous year in the search marketing world. The nice thing is, it gives you a fantastic list of articles to read and get caught up on in any of the following categories:

SEO
PPC
Viral Marketing
Social Media
Link Building
Local Search
General Online Marketing
Blogs & Blogging
Reputation Management
Small Business
Analytics
Google
Search Tech

and just for fun…

LOL Funny!
Rants

To my surprise I have 4 articles nominated, in 2 categories! In the SEO category, one called Learn SEO Basics: Long Tail Keywords and another 7 Steps to Get Your New Site Indexed in 24 Hours (that also has a great follow-up with 80+ comments called 24 Hour Site Indexing Works Again). In the LOL Funny! category (no one has ever really called me funny actually) I have our most visited and commented post ever, What the Customer Actually Wanted, and the other is LinkedIn Wants Me to Accept or Deny Jesus?.

Matt even made some cool little badges for nominees, which I’m not really into, but I thought I’d branch out a little:

I do think there is a ton to gain from reading the articles being nominated, which I bet you could do in a couple of days. And if you’re really looking for the cream of the crop, the judges are going to be narrowing each category down to a handful of articles (and even letting us vote on them).

Head on over to the SEMMYS for some great reading!

Comments

Link Expert Slams Linking Strategies

WebProNews Staff — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 16:09:33 +0000

Eric Ward doesn't mind pointing out that of the top ten Google results for "link building expert" his name pops up six times. Call it good keyword branding if you like, bust most in the SEO industry will tell you he's earned his title. Because of that, it might sting a little more when he pens a lengthy I told you so about linking strategies.

Let's bring the general thesis up first, and then get into Ward's more biting remarks. If a webmaster is in the Google game for the long haul, then link building begins with quality content. This is an old mantra, one that has been pounded for some time. The real quality links that count are from reputable sources that develop naturally instead of by some type of scheme or manipulation.

Google likes those links the most. The rest are, at best, currencies quickly spent.

According to Ward, the rest would include directory links, which Google recently scrubbed from its index en masse. He asks, "Are you really going to tell me you are shocked that Google no longer thinks a link from link-o-matic, link-to-my-loo, and LinksForNoGoodReason.com are of any value? Please."

Ward says many link building practices are doomed to fail because they are manipulation-based. That goes for (indiscreet) reciprocal linking, article syndication, press releases, paid links, and yes, even link bait.

"Why did you think," he asks SEOers, "that any tactic predicated on a lie would work? Why would you trust any of those tactics and links as being credible in the first place? Did you use those same tactics on your own site, or just for clients?"

Trust is the only measure of a link that counts, then, and that trust begins with the author, the content producer.

Many of the comments on that article for SearchEngineLand are here-heres and amens. But there are points of contention also, especially regarding article submissions and link bait. On commentator notes that Ward has thrown just about every tactic out the window without being clear on what's left besides the good old-fashioned grunt work.

And that seems to be what Ward was getting at, and most likely what Google's looking for. And certainly Google's chief Webspam fighter Matt Cutts takes reputation pretty seriously, as evidenced in an interestingly timed blog post about his theory that black-hatters (which would include link schemers) are questionable in other aspects of business:

"For a while now, I’ve had a slight hunch that clients that embrace blackhat SEO on their site are willing to cut corners in other areas of business as well. Earlier today I was reviewing an email from 2001 (!) where Google removed a very large company’s website from our index for hidden GIF links, machine-generated doorway pages, and cloaking. It’s interesting to look back with the benefit of hindsight now. Later on, the company:

- had 10+ employees convicted for inflating revenue
- the CEO was sentenced to 10+ years in jail
- another executive was sentenced to 2+ years in jail"

So, for what it's worth no matter how hard to swallow for some, Ward and Cutts seem to be in tune about how quality links come from trustworthy, reputable sources that play fair.

An SEO Checklist for the New Year

Rene LeMerle — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:02:46 +0000

While many are using this time to reminisce about the year that was, here's a simple SEO check list for those of you that are already looking for bigger and better SEO results in 2008. If more free traffic from the search engines is your new year's resolution - then commit to these essentials:

1. Stop Stabbing in the Dark - Keyword Intelligence

Start 2008 with some intelligent keyword analysis. Find out what your potential customers are searching for and create your keyword hit list. Don't under estimate the value of long tail too - searchers are getting smarter and relying on longer keyword phrases to filter out irrelevant results.

2. Master Your Meta Data

Once you've got your keyword hit list, it's time to get your Meta data right (the code optimization at the foundation of good SEO). When reviewing your code, focus on the Meta elements that matter - "titles" and "descriptions" are where you get your real ranking value. So commit early to reviewing all your key web page's Meta tags - and avoid the usual pitfalls of keyword competition between your pages or even worse - duplicate tags across pages.

3. Search Engine Webmaster center Sign-ups

Since the search engines have been kind enough to provide site owners with free webmaster tools (i.e. Google Webmaster Center, Yahoo! Site Explorer, Live Search Webmaster portal), do yourself a favor and sign up. Verification is simple, and the indexing diagnostics and analysis should be a part of your regular monthly (or even weekly) reviews.

4. Liven up Your Link Building

Yes, confusion and controversy has reigned supreme in the link discussion over 2007, but one thing still remains - your links still drive your ranking. So in 2008, seek some serious link love.

Fee based links

- there's still a range of important links that come at a cost which provide valuable link "juice" (e.g. Directories such as Yahoo!'s Directory). Whether we like it or not, they charge a fee for the process of reviewing submitted sites - and this scrutiny ensures the value of the listings and links.

Free links

- there are many ways to get free relevant links back to your site, they just take time and perseverance. Whether you contact site owners directly, create affiliations with relevant industry groups, or create and post articles on other sites - they're all valuable additions to your SEO plan.

Earned links

- there's nothing better than earned links. If you provide unique information or resources on your website that others find useful or relevant, then the links will come. This sort of content not only helps from the purpose of drawing in relevant links, but also helps establish your business as a serious operator in the industry. Good examples of this content includes glossaries, whitepapers, industry reports etc.

5. Commit to Creating Content

Top ranking is driven by fresh quality content. Whether you choose to create the content on your site, or elsewhere with a link back - regularly created relevant content keeps the search engine spiders crawling your website.

To start with, take your keyword hit list and give all your existing content the once over. If you've got low keyword density (i.e. not many of your hit list keywords are in your web page text), it's time to do some fresh copy writing.

Once you've covered off the web page copy essentials, commit the rest of the year to creating new content on your website. Even a couple of keyword rich new pages per month will make a significant difference to smaller websites - and there's no easier way to do this than with a blog (see: Embrace social SEO below)

6. Understand Your SEO Successes with Analytics

I'm amazed at how many people are still measuring their success with primitive hit counters or even worse, no analytics at all. Considering the range of free services out there - if you're not using a half decent website analytics service, then 2008 is the year to change! And more importantly - understand the proper measures of your success.

Successful SEO isn't always going to equal more sales, so make sure to track the right metrics such as rankings on your keyword hit list, and organic traffic from search engines (yes most analytics services will show you this metric).

7. Get Serious about Site Structure & Sitemaps

When was the last time you looked at your website structure? Website elements such as URLs and navigation between pages can play a major role in your SEO success. So use start of 2008 as a chance to review these site structure elements to ensure they are reinforcing your SEO goals. (i.e. do your URLs include relevant keywords, is there strong linkage between your web pages, and is your Sitemap up to date - assuming you have one).

8. Get Social with Web 2.0 SEO

The last item on the SEO checklist for 2008 is the social web. It's one of the greatest tools for SEO and as it generally costs no more than a bit of your time on regular basis - it is a must if you're serious about your rankings. There's a lot of social media to get lost in, so to focus your initial strategies, get started with the following:

1. Set-up your own blog:

It's a simple way to create new keyword rich and relevant content for your website and relatively simple to integrate.

2. Social bookmark all your content:

many social bookmark services (i.e. del.icio.us) get crawled by the search engines and will provide some useful links back to your site.

3. Engage in the Industry Conversations:

Make it a weekly ritual to visit your favorite industry blogs. Then on a regular basis actually contribute to the conversations by adding relevant useful comments. Engaging commenting not only builds your profile, but can also provide valuable links back to your website.

Okay, so this is not the definitive list of SEO strategies (that would be a much longer article), but as 2008 draws rapidly closer, if you commit to at least all of the above on a regular basis in 2008 - then you're sure to get much closer to your ranking goals.

Comments

Build Links While Publishing Your Full RSS Feed

Bill Hartzer — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 02:53:59 +0000

Many bloggers have been touting the benefits of publishing your full blog or site’s full RSS feed. In fact, they have been talking about it for a long time. But did you know that most likely even if you are publishing your full RSS feed you are not taking advantages of its link building benefits?

When you post items on your blog or your site, and your blog has an RSS feed, your post(s) can appear on many other sites. In fact, on this blog, I encourage others to use my blog’s RSS feed and re-use it as you see fit. In fact, there are lots of other sites that use my feed as their site’s content. Not only do I encourage it, it actually helps me out in the long run–here’s why:

If another site uses my site’s RSS feed as their content, it is their responsibility to make sure that the pages are not seen as duplicate pages. Since my blog gets spidered first by the search engines, I’m the original–and others are duplicates. Furthermore, as I link to other pages on my site in posts, those links will appear in my RSS feed. And whenever my RSS feed is used as content on another domain (web site), there is a good chance that the link might count as a backlink to my site.

So, as you continue to post on your blog or site, don’t forget to link liberally to other pages on your site–those links will potentially count as backlinks to your site, not only as internal links but external links to your site’s pages. Sure, someone reading your blog or web site may read the post and stay on your site (which is a good thing), but what if they’re on another site that’s syndicated your RSS feed?

Before you post, you might want to create a list of important pages on your web site or perhaps your favorite blog posts. I keep a list of my “important” pages (pages that I might want to rank well in a search engine) for future use. And when I finish a blog post I quickly scan my list of “important” pages and add a few internal links. I also record the anchor text that I used to point to the page so I don’t use it again too often.

Initial Blog Syndication

Promoting your blog or web site’s RSS feed is important–it’s part of the link building process. First, you will most likely want to use a list like this and a list like this to make sure your RSS feed is promoted properly. There are also sites in your topic area that encourage RSS site syndication. For example, there are places like this that do a great job of syndicating content.

Once you get your RSS feed listed and syndicated, you will notice that other sites will tend to pick it up. This is a good thing. Really.

When your RSS feed gets noticed (or you use sites like this and this and this to syndicate your feed, you might notice that there are other networks and other sites like Plugim.com and Bumpzee.com what automatically will publish your RSS feed. Again, as your RSS feed appears on other sites, it will include links to pages on your site.

Here’s a Cool Trick

Want even a better trick? Rather than use “plugins” and scripts to automatically figure out related posts, do it manually. At the end of your blog post, include a few links to related posts. But, put those links in your post so they get into your site’s RSS feed. That’s much more powerful than using a “related posts” plugin. As an example of this, I’ve included “favorite posts” at the end of this blog post.

The bottom line this: if you publish your full RSS feed don’t forget about linking to your internal pages on your site using the appropriate anchor text–not only could those links be counted as internal links, those links could be counted as external links, as well.

Want to read some more of my favorite posts? Here are a few links below:

14 Ways to Disclose Sponsored Links - A funny satirical post about disclosing sponsored links.

Social Media Marketing is Popular But… - Why we are not seeing money being put into Social Media Marketing.

Social Bookmarking Sites List - My list of social bookmarking sites. Needs updating, but still useful.

Linking Campaigns - An older article about linking campaigns.

PPC Keyword Mistakes - I hope you’re not one of these people. If so, then you really really need my help.

Comments

Rapper Teaches Lizz-ink Building 101

WebProNews Staff — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 16:11:51 +0000

You're about to reach the end of the Internet. Please keep hands and feet inside the web browser at all times. Final destination: A YouTube video featuring a link-building rap. And it's not half-bad, either.

Just when you were sure you'd seen just about everything, Charles Lewis (a.k.a. Big Chuck, a.k.a The Poetic Prophet, a.k.a. m0serious), a Missouri City, Texas online marketer, reminds us that, well, maybe we haven't.

If Eric Ward or Aaron Wall had done it, we may have filed under "Pimp My Site" SES tomfoolery. Big Chuck, though, boils down the basics of link building with sufficient grace, the rhyming of "bank" and "can't" notwithstanding.

I especially liked this part:

So you start hunting down sites like a predator,
Doing back links on all your competitors,
Whoever linking to them need to link to me,
Is it free, do we swap, or do I pay a fee,
Well take it from us, before you take that step,
Some things about the site that you might want to check,
Did they use a link farm or some dirty tactics,
Could have a bad effect on your site that’s drastic,
Could’ve link baited, look at what they created,
Compare it to yours, is it even related,
Take the time, go inspect and see,
Take advantage of paid directories

And yeah, that's pretty much the basics. Be careful of which paid directories, though.

New Strategies To Building Links

WebProNews Staff — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 15:57:58 +0000

Link building, done correctly and without causing the search engines to think you're doing something wrong, can turn the right anchor text into SERP ranking gold.

WebProNews has been covering the Shop.org Summit, taking place in Las Vegas. You can catch our conference interviews at WebProNews videos right now.

Work, work, work. That's the message from Todd Friesen at Range Online Media. Nothing else will substitute for the work needed to build links.

Anchor text attracts spiders on the Internet just as juicy flies pull in arachnids for a sticky web-based feast. To find out what's going to attract the desired audience, Friesen said people need to know what their competitors have been doing in the same space.

That competitive research is at your fingertips. A visit to Google to look for link:www.somesite.com, or to MSN or Yahoo's Site Explorer to seek out linkdomain:somesite.com -site:somesite.com, can help.

Even better, Friesen highlighted a couple of useful tools for link research. One works on the Web, the other as a desktop download.

TouchGraph features a browser-based tool written in Java that can show the relationships between sites as seen by Google. TouchGraph can look for relationships based on keywords or URLs.

Greg Boser has a tool called Tattler available, for pulling links from Yahoo's Site Explorer into a format suited for an Excel spreadsheet (hint: the good info is available by right-clicking a URL in the spreadsheet.)

Once you know how others have brought in links, you'll have a better idea of what you need to do to help make your site more prominent in the search results.

WebProNews anchor Kara Ratliff contributed to this story.

Brand New Websites: SEO Company Perspective

Scott Buresh — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:18:38 +0000

It's an unfortunate fact – no matter how good your search engine optimization company or in-house talent is, brand new websites have a more difficult time achieving search engine success for competitive phrases than their older counterparts, particularly on Google.

However, the worst thing that a new site owner can possibly do is presume that they are "too late to the game" and decide not to pursue this marketing channel at all. A good search engine optimization company should be able to effectively work with a new website; setting the foundation for a remarkable success story while still achieving steadily increasing short-term benefit.

The Issues

There are many reasons why new websites face an uphill battle. What follows are only a few of the major stumbling blocks:

The Google Sandbox

There is much debate as to what exactly the Google Sandbox is, and even debate as to whether it actually exists. However, recent patent filings on behalf of Google would seem to confirm that one of the factors that Google will take into consideration when deciding how websites should rank is the age of the domain name. More than one search engine optimization company has noted that there seems to be a penalty assessed to new websites, especially those that seem to gain too many inbound links, too fast. This is all conjecture, but this would make sense. Inbound links factor largely in Google rankings, and therefore many sites that were already popular in Google began selling links from their sites based upon that popularity (a practice that goes against Google's terms of service). However, text link buying is very hard to police. The Sandbox makes sense in this scenario, because Google seems to be saying "we may not be able to stop people from buying text links, but they are going to pay a pretty penny for them before we'll give them any ranking boost because of them." This is more conjecture, of course, but it is a popular theory in numerous search engine optimization forums.

Lack of Links

Unfortunately, here, a new website is faced with the opposite problem. Links to new websites are called into question, but without incoming links, a new website has a slim chance of performing well on Google. This Catch-22 is obviously a sore spot for many owners of new websites.

Trustworthiness

For many years, a common search engine optimization company strategy was to set up numerous new websites all for one company, each geared toward targeting a different search term. This was largely due to the fact that search engines used to place a much higher importance on the home page of a website, rather than interior pages. Over time, search engines caught on to this trick, and as a result new domains are now looked at more skeptically. The prevailing wisdom seems to be that while it is relatively easy and inexpensive to set up a new website that targets a certain term, a website that has been around for much longer and has a breadth of content has much more to lose and is less likely to attempt to "game the system".

The Solutions

Does this mean that you shouldn't hire a search engine optimization company to work on your new website? Not at all. In fact, it is in the very beginning of your website planning that a long-term strategy should be put into motion – a strategy that still offers positive results in the short term.

Before You Build

It is important to get your search engine optimization company involved as early as possible before you build your new website. Not only are there many technical issues that you should be aware of before you begin design (such as linking architecture, types of text to use, and balancing your SEO efforts with your brand), but there are also strategies that can be set in motion at the outset that will counteract some of the stumbling blocks listed above. If you involve your search engine optimization company after you have built your new website, much of the work you have done will likely need to be redone with a long term strategy in mind.

Targeting Appropriate Phrases

A good search engine optimization company will tell you that targeting highly competitive phrases with a brand new website can be an exercise in futility. However, this does not mean that you cannot achieve initial success on search engines. The trick is to target less competitive phrases at the outset, and to begin tackling the more competitive phrases later. For instance, let's assume that your company makes custom widgets, and that "custom widgets" is a very competitive search phrase. A search engine optimization company working on your new site might recommend that you instead target less competitive variations of the term, such as "custom made widgets" or "custom widget manufacturing." Since these terms are less competitive, you will be more likely to obtain high rankings for them with your new website. You can thus enjoy highly targeted traffic in the beginning of your campaign and eventually target more competitive and popular phrases as your site gains traction, quality inbound links, and a reputation for usefulness.

Make Your Site a Resource

A quality search engine optimization company will encourage you to turn your new site into an industry resource. You can do this by providing educational content about your industry in the form of articles, whitepapers, and other forms of non-biased content. There are many benefits to this approach, one of the primary being that such content attracts inbound links without any effort on your behalf. In addition, such a resource area builds your credibility in the eyes of your potential customers and serves to educate them in all stages of the buying cycle, so that when they are ready to make a purchase, you will likely be first in mind.

Build Links

While making your new site a useful resource is a great way to attract inbound links, this does not mean that you shouldn't also be seeking them out. Your search engine optimization company should get your site included in many general directories (such as the Yahoo directory and Business.com) but, even more importantly, in directories that are specific to your industry. Not only do these links help to boost your search engine rankings over time, but they are also a quality source of targeted traffic.

Keep Your Content Fresh

A search engine spider will revisit your site frequently if your content continues to increase and evolve frequently. A site that has been optimized for three years with no changes to its content will usually not fare as well as a site that has content which is consistently updated. It's as if the search engine is saying "Well, this old stuff still looks good, but it certainly isn't the newest stuff out there about this topic." This so-called "freshness factor" can have a large impact on rankings, particularly with new websites.

Although it may seem that achieving search engine success with a brand new website can be a daunting prospect, it needn't be if done properly. Hiring a skilled search engine optimization company is a good first step. There's little use in lamenting the difficulty before you, or feeling that you have already fallen too far behind to begin. As an old Chinese proverb reminds us, "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today."

SES: Link Building

Mike Sachoff — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 13:49:13 +0000

Link building expert ~~Eric Ward~~ Mike Grehan gave some informative tips on link building basics at SES San Jose.

(Our on-scene WebProNews staff has passed along this latest news from SES San Jose 2007. If you can't be there, you need to be here with WebProNews this week, for videos and reports.)

Grehan touched on five areas of link building.

He said there are two core audiences for your links, people who can click them and search engines that count, analyze and judge them.

The majority of people are looking for links hoping the search engines will reward them for those links with higher rankings.

While that is usually true not every site should approach link building the same way.

He then spoke on link type and link value. Links that help with direct click traffic can generate temporary buzz, like Yahoo Picks or Forbes BOTW.

Links that improve search engine rankings will be those that the engines see as having value and quality.

Effective link building is a blend between SEO/SEM and public relations. SEO is a more technical process oriented task dealing with coding and algorithms.

Online public relations is a human process. Some authoritative links can only be received through one to one person-to-person communication, which does not have anything to do with SEO.

Trustworthy and authoritative links can be different for different sites.

Grehan said in his opinion that authoritative links come from sites that can be algorithmically validated as being trustworthy. They are usually not reciprocated and will not have the same descriptive anchor text. Authoritative links will appear to be organic.

In closing he said that some of the most valuable links will not appear on Web sites, but that they appear in email based communication. There are a good number of trustworthy editors who write about and link to Web sites.

While search engines cannot count email based links they are great links to receive and can send quality visitors to your site.

Reciprocal Links: What's Excessive Anyway?

WebProNews Staff — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 16:38:34 +0000

It's widely known in SEO that gaming links is dangerous, and too many questionable references can cause Google to give you the boot. Still, the power of the link is there, and this leads many SEOs into a reciprocal link network (link to me and I'll link to you). The question remains though: how many is too many?

Reciprocal Links: What's Excessive Anyway?

Many assume that reciprocal links are black hat, but that's not necessarily the case because often they are legitimate and can bolster relevance. But nobody's been exactly sure of Google's policy regarding them, and the topic has caused much debate.

Recently, as noted at the WebmasterWorld forum, Google updated the language at the Webmaster Help Center, under the "Link schemes" topic. One word was enough to fire up the debate again: excessive.

The very phrase "link scheme" connotes something not quite on the level, and as an example, Google files reciprocal links this way:

Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging ("Link to me and I'll link to you.")

But the word "excessive" doesn't exactly carry an exact number and for good reason. It seems to be judged on a case by case basis.

Bob Masa, whose been in SEO for a decade (making him one of the veterans) says it doesn't matter if you have a million or ten reciprocal links as long as they add value and relevance to your business (he addresses business only, not non-profit):

It is not about reciprocal links or how many is too many. It is about making more money from less visitors with less expense and more profit.

Don't let your self get sucked into wasting your time judging linking opportunities with a yardstick of whether Google will think it is excessive or not. Approach each reciprocal link deal with a single thought. Will this link exchange bring me enough paying customers that I can justify recommending to my visitors to go to his site instead of staying at mine?

So there you have it, from a certified expert: use some common sense when judging reciprocal links.

How To Dump The Link Sluts

WebProNews Staff — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 13:55:02 +0000

Though the future is still uncertain for the overall importance of links, the quantity and quality of inbound links, for rankings, they are, for the time being, the surest way to improve search engine rankings. Aside, of course, from great content.

We went into this last Thursday, and came out still confused. But we work with what we know and what we know is that the quality of inbound links, i.e., the measure how trusted a link source is, far outweighs the quantity of inbound links.

Google and company have made sure of it, as explosions of low quality links to a single source can actually hurt your rankings.

So the questions remain: How do I know who I want to link to me? Who's a worthy Net companion that won't drag my reputation down? Who's the authority on, say, bicycle seats.

Fortunately for us, there are people like Aaron Wall, author of SEObook, who addresses these very questions and gives a nice, basic tutorial on how to test to see if inbound links cut the mustard, if the sites they come from are trustworthy.

It's not an overnight process, he warns. I especially like his advice on testing with an orphan page:

Point your link at a page that is not indexed and see if search engines index that page. If that link passes trust you can 301 redirect the target page to the page you want to rank. If the link source hurts your rankings you can 301 redirect that link equity to a competitor's site (if you wanted to be dirty).

Heh. That little nugget should come with a "don't try this at home" disclaimer.

Anyway, be sure to check out the rest of Aaron's post. It's a quick read and worth the time.

Is Link Authority Dead (Dying)?

WebProNews Staff — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:42:15 +0000

After extensive gaming, Google's algorithm (it is assumed) shifted from using the quantity of links as an indicator of source authority, to measuring the quality (reputation) of the linker in order to determine relevancy. Gamers are still there though, this time with bigger budgets, and things may be about to change again – most likely to a much more complicated game.

Is Link Authority Dead (Dying)?

A month ago, SEObook.com author Aaron Wall blew the whistle on relevancy problems in Google's SERPs. Big name sites, like eBay and Yahoo, set up "infinite" subdomains, addressing various topics, while others bought websites that already had high rankings in Google's index.

So, in essence, the big brands, who already had tremendous authority and presence, were leveraging that status to rank for as many high-paying keywords as possible. And if that weren't enough, they began buying other slots in the SERPs – a strategy that gets your online property appearing three or four times in the top ten results.

"The practice of measuring online influence by links is truly dead. Link authority, as it was called, was good while it lasted," suggests Edelman's Steve Rubel. "The main reason link authority is dead is that there are so many places where people can publish and connect with peers."

And that presents a prime moment for change in how rankings are measured. But how would they do that?

Enquiro's Gord Hotchkiss recently interviewed usability guru Jakob Nielsen, who also notes that things will have to change to better serve the end user.

"I think that with counting links and all of that," said Nielsen, "there may be a change and we may go into a more behavioral judgment as to which sites actually solve people’s problems, and they will tend to be more highly ranked."

How that would be done is still not abundantly clear and Nielsen doesn't have a lot of faith that personalized search will actually lead to it. From the artificial intelligence side, personalization has to do a lot of guesswork.

Jeff Jarvis notes Nielsen//NetRatings' announcement that they would no longer measure page views, and instead would measure the amount of time users spend at a site. While that may be a part of the next equation, Jarvis thinks that won't be good enough in an age of instant messaging and other widgets that are always on, but not always used.

In fact, with so many widgets out there, it is impossible to know total audience numbers in terms of popularity, traffic, attention, or engagement.

"I’ve often said that Google’s audience is many times what is reported because Google distributes itself as widgets — ads, maps, feeds…." writes Javis.

"There’s a very long list of applications — RSS, widgets, mobile, apps — and kinds of content — video, podcasts — but also of new sorts of measurements — such as influence, meme-starting, involvement, creation, engagement, popularity — that aren’t even being tackled. And there are new dimensions that need to be explored, such as measuring a person’s trust, influence, or even fame across many platforms, sites, applications, and so on."

In other words, it's complicated.

David Brain, CEO and President of Edelman Europe, is working on a formula for a social media index, the likes of which we may see embraced by Google and other search engines in the future.

"When people talked about on-line influence in the past they were often referring to bloggers and Technorati scores," Brain said, "though obviously influence was always more complicated than that.

"But now with the increasing mass adoption of Twitter and Facebook and favourites listings like Digg and Del.icio.us things have moved on. Bloggers Twitter and Facebookers Dig. Many of us are multi-platform users and so our online ‘footprint’ is much more dispersed.

Brain suggests a multilateral approach that includes PageRank, inbound links, subscribers, content focus, update frequency, comment numbers, numbers of friends, number of Twitter followers, number of LinkedIn contacts, photos and videos uploaded.

And if so, life on the web just got a whole lot more complicated, hair is about to become whiter, or fall out, or be pulled out, especially if you've invested the last decade in traditional SEO.

But it hasn’t changed yet, and there's no guarantee it will. But with all the industry experts talking about it, you can bet something's about to happen.

SEW Live - Link Building

Mike Sachoff — Thu, 10 May 2007 14:23:57 +0000

Collyn Floyd, online marketing/PR specialist for the Karcher Group, spoke at SEW Live Columbus, Ohio giving tips on link building.

She said there are three things to keep in mind when link building. Links should be treated as a business transaction and they should focus more on traffic and not just ranking. People should ask themselves would they want a link if search engines do not give you credit or if they do not exist.

She then touched on directories pointing out that most do not employ human editors. The advantage of niche directories, which she is a big fan of, is that they can drive targeted traffic and are cost effective.

For local associations and directories she recommends doing your own research. You can use paid linking to generate traffic as long as you keep it relevant and vary pages linked to and anchor text.

When using a reciprocal link a person should ask what is the intent and is the link relevant

Before using social media to build links you need a support network to help you. For example use online friends, forums, bloggers, media, industry insiders and email lists.

If you use a blog to build links you need to become an authority and make new connections. Also add more content to your site.

Link Building Tips

Lee Odden — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 19:41:24 +0000

Oh we love the links and then some here at TopRank. Old school online marketer Larry Chase published a few more link building tips and resources in his most recent Web Digest for Marketers newsletter. I’ve added a few of my own comments:

Widget Linking - The RSS Buttons and Social Bookmark tools that TopRank’s Thomas McMahon created serve as excellent widget linking examples. Widgets were hot back in the late nineties when Angelfire and Geocities were the rage in personal web sites. What’s old has become new again.

Content Keyword Tagging - Using tags with social bookmarking, ala del.icio.us, can be a very effective way to organize resources on the web. Tags do not offer the same kind of structure as category based organization, but that’s what makes them so useful. Also, many of the social bookmark services such as Furl.net create a copy and crawlable links when you save a bookmark.

Social Media Linking - Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon get most of the attention these days and can drive a signficant amount of traffic if your news hits a home run. What many marketers don’t realize is that there is often far more valuable traffic (links and conversions) from sites that mashup social news RSS feeds, or sites that mine social news for story ideas rather than from the social news sites directly.

Mapping Link Hubs and Tag Neighborhoods - Find out who’s linking to like minded sites and your competition and you may find some great link opportunities for yourself. Hubfinder anyone?

PDF Linking - Most SEO’s embed links in PDF files, but how many are adding meta data? Especially popular with business to business services, PDF files offer a great opportunity for visibility with buyers researching large scale purchases.

Blog Optimization - There are no optimization suggestions per se, but Stephan Spencer’s Scatterings blog is deservedly pointed out as a good resource on blog optimization. Personally, I like to search Google for “blog optimization” and marvel at the #1 listing. Oh, that’s bad.

Link Analytics - There are a variety of link research tools that can be used to research new link opportunities, value links, check anchor text and target .edu and .gov link sources.

Press Release Optimization - Yeah, we know a few things about press release optimization around here! The real value is when releases get picked up by other web sites with links back to your company. Greg Jarboe and Jamie O’Donnel along with SiteLab have creating an interesting tool for optimizing releases called newsforce, which we’ve reviewed here in the past.

Content Repurposing - Article repositories and submission sites have lost their luster in the past year due to duplicate content issues, but certain kinds of content travels better than others this way, so it can still be a useful tactic.

Paid Inclusion - Not as much of a player these days, there are still ways to buy your way into certain channels such as the Yahoo Search Submit program.

Content Syndication - Basically, publishing a RSS feed allows your content to travel more easily, whether it’s in a RSS reader or when it gets syndicated to another web site. In some situations, duplicate content issues might occur as with article submissions, but there’s still abundant link benefits from having a RSS feed.

Link Insider Tools - Yahoo Site Explorer offers a handy way to detecting inbound links to a domain or web page. Google Webmaster Central also offers useful information on inbound links.

Larry includes quite a few links to various tools so be sure to view the current issue of WDFM here.

Comments

Tag:

Links And Content Need Each Other, For Now

WebProNews Staff — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 17:47:54 +0000

I can't help but think this is a silly discussion, like an argument about whether or not Lois Lane could really have Superman's baby, but I'm diving in anyway to wrap my head around it and, in the process, take you with me.

Links And Content Need Each Other, For Now

Over at Media Post, David Berkowitz (of 360i, not Attica prison) writes about a Web where links don't matter in SEO. You can read that article here, if you don't mind a half an hour of the third degree to get the content (Media Post hasn't ascribed to the concept of registration-free content, yet).

Berkowitz writes:

Content is SO 2006, as far as search engine optimization goes.

Everywhere I turn, the SEO discussions center on linking and link development…

Instead of just extolling the value of links, I started to wonder what would happen if links weren’t so highly valued. Imagine if, in this “Twilight Zone” exercise, you woke up one day to find that the major search engines no longer used inbound links as a way to rank Web sites or other types of online content. The effect would be calamitous, on par with the Department of Treasury one day saying that greenbacks would no longer be valued as currency.

From the first line its difficult to tell if Berkowitz is downgrading the role of content or criticizing the SEO world for not focusing on content enough. The concept that inbound links are a sort of online currency is a fascinating one, but as a content creator, my knee-jerk reaction to naysaying the role of stellar content is, hopefully, forgivable.

That first line was troubling enough, but in his summarization of "Content" and its sudden importance in the absence of valuable links was a lid-flipper:

Content would really become king. Keyword density, the imperfect science of including just enough of the most important keywords on any given page without spamming the search engines, becomes more important than ever.

Now here, we have a fundamental conflict in regards the concept of content, what it is, its purpose, and understanding what readers/viewers/listeners seek as opposed to what marketers (who ensure the bills are paid) want them to seek.

Berkowitz is a strategist. I am a writer. And the two of them, writers and strategists, in the real world, must work together. We could get into a philosophical discussion of backgrounds and approaches to content (I'm the indignant artist, pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in Writing, hoping all of us can join hands in a haze of patchouli and sing the praises of perfect prose), but that's a discussion for later.

The real truth here is: one doesn't exist without the other.

What good is content if nobody can find it? What's the purpose of linking if there is nothing in which to link? Content drives linking and linking drives content, the two of them working in perfect symbiosis.

And all that's great until the crafty weasels (strategists excluded) out there muddy the pure waters of relevance with keyword stuffing, link spam, et cetera. Suddenly we're reminded why the brick-and-mortar world needs law, and why the Web needs Google as a police agent as much as organizer. Penalties are instituted, and concepts like link quality are born. Suddenly it matters who links to your content, and why.

So this is where SEObook's Aaron Wall pipes up:

But links are openly gamed today and there are an increasing number of affordable marketing techniques that allow virtually any site to garner hundreds or thousands of quality links.

One day Google might come up with better ways to determine what to trust, but if they do, it is going to be based on who humans trust more, and who amongst those trusted sources does the best job of providing editorial value and noise filtering on their site.

Shorter, Google's going to have to get better at understanding intrinsic end-user desire. They're working on this, according to some patents and recent forays into personalized search. When that happens – when digital robots suddenly understand your innermost thoughts – the power of the link is not destroyed, but it is weakened.

And what do you think is left when that artificial intelligence revolution takes hold?

Content, content, content, forever content, driving the masses online to find it and share it with each other. Everything else, the noise that prevents those masses from finding what they want, either disappears or is pushed to the periphery of the page, the frame of the content. And then, quoting Berkowitz, "Copywriters' salaries skyrocket."

Or at least, such is the hope of the content creator.

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

Brand New Link Building Methods

Navneet Kaushal — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 00:45:18 +0000

Link baiting is getting new methods everyday. The latest to be added to the list are Rockets, Sleepers, Late Bloomers, Duds, Honey Pots, Screwdrivers and Pubs. Most of us have never heard of them before and that is why it's such a lovely linkbait itself.

Rockets

Rockets are articles that manage to catch the interest of web sites and readers right now. The point is to be there first with the news, so that your site is the one all the other bloggers and search sites are linking to.

Sleepers

A sleeper is an article that does not take off like a rocket. Instead of thousands, you get a few hundred readers the first week — or even less. Still, in the long run this article may outperform a successful rocket.

Screwdrivers

A screwdriver is a piece of online software that provides a service. A search engine is an obvious example, a currency converter another.

This is just a sample of the techniques. You can read the whole post at Pandia.

Comments

Tag:

Reddit | Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

The Link Building Mindset - A Baker's Dozen

Ken McGaffin — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 21:19:26 +0000

We all know that one-way links from authority web sites are essential if your link building efforts are to be successful. But what does it take to get those authority sites to link to you? Well, you'll probably guess that it is not easy - quality links don't materialize from feeble or automated requests. To get those ever so valuable links you've got to adopt the right mindset - the principles that show link targets you mean business and that you're worth linking to. Here's my baker's dozen... 1. Know your marketplace The majority if not all of your potential quality links will come from the online marketplace around your industry. They will be made up of information web sites, forums, associations, logs and email newsletters specializing in your industry. You really must get to know this marketplace and you must establish your position within it. To do that you must devour information: you must know the best news sites, the most popular newsletters, the busiest forums and the most popular blogs. Sign up for the newsletters, get yourself a news reader and sign up for as many useful RSS feeds as you can. These will deliver news to your desktop rather than you having to go and search for it - used well they can be a huge timesaver. 2. Obsess about your customers Get to know them inside out. Understand their stories. Statistics about customers on their own are not enough - statistics don't give you much to use in link building. Customer stories on the other hand provide wonderful material. People are interested in other people and if you write web copy that highlights interesting stories, you're sure to attract links. So find about your customers. What are their needs? How did they arrive at your website? What did they do when they arrived? And most importantly what did they do when they left? Did they find the answer to their problem? How did your site help them? You can start this process simply by looking at the emails you receive - reply people's queries, enter into email conversations, probe a little deeper to find out more. Ask your customers directly to share their stories - direct requests can give you some terrific insights. You might even put a formal story gathering project in place. Whatever you decide to do, the main objective should be to add detail, opinion, examples and 'color' to your web copy. 3. Understand the language that your customers use Keywords are just 'the words people use when they search'. It goes without saying that using keywords is fundamental to successful link building: there is nothing better than getting keyword rich links coming back to your site. Keyword rich links are easy when you're buying directory listings or text link ads, or indeed when you have relationships with other sites and can ask them to link to you using your chosen keyword phrases. But there are other ways to get keyword rich backlinks. When people link, they often use the name of a product, a publication or the title of an article or blog post, as the linking text. So use keywords wherever you can in names and titles - it's a great way to influence the words people use when they link. 4. Be wary of automation There are many link building schemes that claim to be able to build you inbound links automatically. Avoid them like the plague - they invariably involve some variation on search engine spam. Don't waste time trying to fake an inbound link network: rather, invest your time and money in building real links from quality sites. 5. Be generous with your outbound links Giving outbound links to quality content is one of the best ways of establishing yourself in your online marketplace. But be selective with the sites you link to - don't just link to any relevant sites you find, choose sites that have exceptional or useful content. Add some comments and descriptions as you link. The readers of your website will appreciate it and your generosity will encourage some valuable word of mouth marketing for your site. And of course, the publisher of the site that you've linked to will appreciate it. Think how badly you want links - other webmasters are the same and they will pay attention to sites that link to them. Your outbound links could be the start of a beautiful relationship. 6. Watch out for great content, no matter where it comes from There's an old technique that comedy writers use. It's called 'switching'. The idea is to create a new joke from the basic elements of another, successful joke by switching the situation. So the basic elements of a joke about salesmen could be switched to a joke about teachers. You can do the same switching for content ideas. Take a close look at any piece of content that catches your eye - an article, a contest, a survey. Isolate the basic elements and then transfer the idea to your own industry. So Pointsec, experts in security for mobile devices does research to find the safest place to lose a cell phone. They surveyed nine major cities and found that a taxi is the safest place to lose your cell phone. The basic element of this story is to pick a fear that customers have, and conduct some research to find when the consequences are minimized. Could you adapt that to your own industry? 7. Get your message out Great content on your site is wonderful to have. But if people don't know about it and if search engines have not indexed it, then you'll not be getting the payback that your hard work deserves. You need to take steps to get your message out and make sure people know about it. Journalists, editors and popular bloggers get inundated with tons of information - most of it has not been edited well and contains irrelevant information. So take care when you contact them. The big mistake is to put in too much - to try to tell people everything. That will only overwhelm them: instead, stick to a single aspect of the story you have to tell. Write the absolute minimum that you need to get their attention: include a link that will take them to more information if they are interested. 8. Incorporate writing into your daily routine The more you practice the better you'll become. The web is a text based medium. Even if you're creating a software application or interactive content, you've still got to write about it, to tell people of its existence. And since it is a text based medium, you've got to learn how to write, clearly and briefly without waffle. Learn how to write great copy: even better learn how to write great copy that contains important keywords. And the best way to learn is to write a little bit every day - build time for writing into your daily routine. Start simply - a 100 word blog post once a day should not be beyond any of us. 9. Obsess about quality It's not the number of links you get, or the number of articles you write or the number of pages that you publish. It's about getting links from quality sites in your industry. Remember:

In deciding the importance of your site and your search rankings, search engines put emphasis on the quality of sites that link to you. What could be a better source of unbiased information than a link from an article that a journalist has written and an editor approved?

Just as important if not more so, is that quality sites will have high levels of traffic and as a result, you'll get a lot of interested people visiting your site.

Quality links attract other links. People see a link to your site on BBC.com. NYTimes.com, Digg.com and many others and they'll be more likely to link to you. There is a power law at work, the strong get stronger - people with good inbound links get more inbound links without asking.

You can also get some pretty neat testimonials - being able to write, 'as featured on the BBC' on your website is a valuable endorsement.

10. Build links offline It's people who decide to give you links and the great thing about most people is that if they get to know you, they're more than happy to help. Through comments on forums, on blog posts and the email conversations that follow, you can quickly build up contacts with people all over the world. That's one of the great strengths of the internet. But don't stop with just online communication - follow up and build personal relationships wherever you can - those relationships can bring you many future links. So make sure that you:

Pick up the phone and talk to some of the people you've made email contact with. And with the quality of Skype calls now so good, it costs next to nothing to do.

Attend local business meetings, whether web specific or more general from the local chamber of commerce. Funnily enough, the people who attend these meetings have websites - and if they have websites, they can give you a link.

Attend national events - these are not only great places to learn but they are tremendous networking events. You'll easily build contacts among fellow delegates and even among some of the speakers.

11. Monitor your results The number of links pointing to your site is not a good measure of the success of your link building efforts. A website with 100 quality inbound links will outperform a website with thousands of links from mediocre websites. And the situation is further complicated by the fact that Google does not report all the links that it knows about. So what should you do? Here are the main things I would look at:

Appearance on the top blogs and blog search engines

Appearance in Google news

The sites that already link to you and drive traffic

New sites that link to you - check your log files regularly.

12. Anticipate - be prepared for the unexpected Things are always happening in your marketplace. Sometimes a sudden development or change will catch you out and cause some real problems. Other times, changes in the marketplace can present you will a sudden opportunity. If you just react to such events, you'll be in the mix with everyone else. If on the other hand, you anticipate events and do some basic preparation, you'll be in a powerful position when serendipity throws you a great opportunity. So how about introducing a 'What if?' brainstorming session into your monthly routine? Pull your team together and ask them to imagine what might happen in your market in the next twelve months: have some fun, be as wild and imaginative as you can. Draw up a list of people's ideas and pick the top five or so. Then ask the question, "What would we do if this actually happened?" Such an exercise will get your team focused on your marketplace and who knows how you might take advantage if one of them turns out to happen? 13. Be relentless and determined Of course, the thing about quality links is that they're hard to get - you have to really make a concentrated effort, but the results will be well worth it. Building quality links is rarely an overnight success but there are exceptions. Sites can make a tremendous impact in a short time if they have an exceptional story to tell. But for most of us, immediate success is not usually the case. Sure, go for the spectacular if you can but treat it as a bonus. Don't forget to stick to the task and build up quality links over time. If you start with content that is genuinely useful, and if you target sites that are real sources of information for sizable numbers of readers in your marketplace, then you will succeed and start to see powerful and sustained results in a matter of months. Tag: Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl Bookmark WebProNews: About the author Ken McGaffin is Chief Marketing Officer with Wordtracker.com. He writes regularly on link building and online public relations. He is the author of the highly acclaimed 'Linking Matters Report'. You can claim your free copy at http://www.linkingmatters.com.

Email and Link Building

Aaron Wall — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 13:47:42 +0000

The difference between getting 5 links and 50 links for a story is often just a couple good mentions.

With 5 links the story may be marginally profitable, and the same story could be wildly profitable with 50 links.

Every day key bloggers are hunting for stories worth talking about. As long as you send them personalized email many of them will talk about your story if you create something worth talking about. And because blogging is so temporal it is important to push a story to spread it quickly (in other words, nobody wants to blog about a story that is 3 days old unless they have something unique to add).

Link exchange requests go nowhere, but if you offer something that people feel is of value they will link.

I get many link requests, many Digg requests, many requests for feedback, and many other announcement type requests. Many people also let me know how much money they are making. One of the biggest differences between top earners and those just getting by is a lack of shame ... a willingness to ask for favor after favor. Some of the top name SEOs / marketers / bloggers are labeled as such due to nepotistic marketing. You wouldn't know it by asking them, but if you are sorta in on some of the ideas, create some of the ideas, market some of the ideas, and see good ideas go nowhere while bad ideas spread you start to notice some of the patterns.

If you do not have much of a brand you can't be risk adverse if you are hoping to build a brand or exposure. Shame is for sissies. Targeted personalized emails are for profit.

On top of targeted emails there are many other ways you can push your message out there:

buy AdSense ads targeted to specific bloggers
buy ReviewMe ads on channels you want to be seen on (I have equity in ReviewMe, but have bought many ReviewMe reviews myself)
buy Feedvertise ads in feeds targeted to bloggers
buy targeted interstitial ads on AdBrite
participate in forums, social news sites, and other community sites
ask for feedback from industry experts and let others feel they have ownership in the idea or exclusive on the news

Think of how many CDs AOL has sent you. Most any business of scale used some amount of push marketing to gain it.

Comments

Tag:

Furl

Bookmark WebProNews:

Aaron Wall is the author of SEO Book, an ebook offering the latest
search engine optimization tips and strategies. From SEOBook.com Aaron
gives away free advice and search engine optimization tools. He is a
regular conference speaker, partner in Clientside SEM, and runs the
Threadwatch community.

Building Quality Inbound Links

Joe Lewis — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 17:52:32 +0000

One of the most important factors in determining a site's PageRank, as well as overall ranking within Google's index, is the quality of incoming links. Today, we look at some tips from insiders across the web on how to go about building a quality incoming link structure.

Thoughts On Link Buidling
Obtaining quality links can feel like an arduous process when trying to get a site off the ground. Sure, there are lots of shady methods that one could employ to achieve "instant linkification" if one were so inclined, but these methods present little in terms of a long term strategy for link building.

So, enterprising journalist that I am, I took to the web to see what those most familiar with the practice of link building had to say about getting quality inbound links.

Ken Yarmosh is a strategy consultant for Viget Labs. In his personal blog, he outlines 7 ways to achieve quality links. You can read the blog entry for a complete rundown, but there are two items that I believe bear specific mention:

Do, say, or write something really stupid (or controversial).

It's funny how the extremes work. Honestly, there are too many examples to choose from on this one. And I don't really advocate it anyway. But if you are interested, you can check out Bert Decker's Top Ten (Best and) Worst Communicators of 2006 to refresh your memory on some good examples.

Ah, the art of the sound byte; it's finally crossed over into the online realm. Boldness of speech, misplaced or not, goes a long way in getting people to link to your content. Make outlandish claims (at least try to back them up, though), call out companies and individuals if you don't like what they're doing, and don't be afraid to rock the boat.

Or, as my colleague Jason Lee Miller would say, "Write like you've got a pair."

Make people laugh.

Everyone loves a good laugh. Think about the vast majority of e-mails and links that your family and friends have forwarded to you recently. The likelihood is that they were something that made you laugh or at least smile. A good example would include the Evolution of Dance or the old Numa Numa video (still a classic in my mind).

This goes hand in hand with the previous point. If you're going to have the guts to make controversial statements, you have to be willing to not take yourself so seriously. Before the website's recent "change in direction", Valleywag was a sterling example of controversial humor. With Nick Douglas as the main writer, there was nary a day that went by that I didn't experience a giant belly laugh over something that had been written over at the 'Wag.

Humor is powerful in luring links to your content.

Okay, so we've touched on some things that you should do in order to make a site more linkable. Now, let's look at something to avoid in striving for quality inbound links. Donna Konley at the Web Design Library gives this warning to site administrators:

Avoid Link Farms and Exchanges.

Link farms are designed to allow people to submit Web site links so that they can increase the number of links leading to their Web sites. The problem with link farms is that they usually accept links from anyone, which means that the quality of the links on these sites is very low. Links to computer repair shops may be published next to links leading to clothing retailers.

Another problem with link farms is that you cannot control the links displayed. If there are adult sites or other questionable material linked to from the link farm or exchange, you run the risk of having prospects associate you with that type of Web site. Knowing how to keep your links high in quality and relevance can help you achieve the best results from your link-building efforts.

Again, don't take the quick fix. In the long run, your site's reputation, as well as it's ranking within the index, will suffer more than prosper from questionable link building tactics.

Content issues are key, but are there other methods when it comes to bringing in links? Brian Hawkins of Extreme Site Promotions offers this tip:

Allow other websites to use your forum or discussion board for their own site. Just have them link directly to the forum. You can even setup a special forum/category and make them a moderator for that section or alternately you can offer to run it for them so they don't need to increase their workload. Not only will they be linking to your site they'll be actively sending traffic to it.

Seek to form partnerships with other content providers. Build your links over time by establishing a good rapport with other reputable businesses.

All these methods will provide a solid foundation when it comes to linkage. Obviously, as a business grows, the methods in which it generates incoming links will change. There is no "one size fits all" approach to link building, only underlying concepts which companies will have to adapt to fit specific needs and goals.

If you can manage to do all this, and do it well, you can expect to see a marked improvement in the quality of inbound links to your site.

Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl

Joe is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest ebusiness news.

Link Developers and the Link Building Cycle

Todd Malicoat — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 19:29:48 +0000

Better. Stronger. Faster. It's important to constantly redefine link training techniques.

Understand the full value of links. Simplify the link value technique. After you have the fundamental understanding of placing a value on a link (which you should constantly revisit) - here's some information to simplify it even further. I knew someday I'd have the opportunity to reference Edward Deming's quality management ideas from my business school days.

The Quality Management Link Building Cycle

1. Build a list of potential link request sites

I'm making the assumption you know about "link building starting points" - you've figured out how to identify potential places to buy, borrow, beg, or barter for links (comptetitor backlinks, google directory, hubfinder, linkharvester etc. etc.) Build a list of potential candidates to audit with the rest of the cycle.

2. Pick a site from the list.

Pick your first site, and start the cycle by clicking on the site.

3. Is it a scraper site?

Yes, it is slathered with ads, and offers no real value - Return to step 2

No - Move to step 3

4. Check their backlinks - Are they legit?

**A lot of additional training time should be spent on this evaluation

1. Yahoo site explorer - handy extension

Yes, their backlinks are mainly on-topic, and there are more than a dozen decent sites linking to them. See step 4.

No, the site is brand new, has no links, or is a part of a ring of mortgage, real estate, or poker sites despite being about baby clothes. Return to step 2.

5. Outbound link evaluation.

Tool - Outbound link bookmarklet -

Installation - drag this to your browser toolbar.

Are there more than 150ish links?

Yes - Back to step 2 buddy

No - Next question

Are the outbound links on-topic?

Yes - Proceed to step 5

No - They're all payday loans, viagra, and bankruptcy collectors - Back to step 2 chief.

6. Determine the value of the request - How much time is it worth for your e-mail?

Very strong link - take your time these are few and far between, and quite valuable. Do whatever you can to increase the likelyhood of a response, and/or successful link. Offer cash.

Strong link - Spend a little time on the site and personalize the message. Offer a donation.

Good link - Spend time on the site and personalize the message.

Meh' link - You got this far, break out your link request draft and customize it for a quick send.

Send mail -

Back to step 2 buck-o.

Don't Beat Your Employees

Now - if you're an employer, please don't expect your employees can keep up the 3 minute cycle for longer than an hour without jumping out of a 13th story window after a week. Teach them the process and reward smart people who pick it up with flex time - if you don't, your young grasshopper will be jumping along quite shortly. There's no shortage of jobs for good link builder/ SEO types at this point.

Let your employees spend A LOT of time reading about links and how to understand them better. The process is mundane, but the success rates improve if they understand the intracacies. Each of the six steps in the process can be studied with a level of detail that Deming would truly appreciate to improve the results of the process.

Link Building And Dangerous Heights

WebProNews Staff — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 20:52:34 +0000

Verticals may be the place to be for a particular business, but Eric Ward warned attendees at a WebmasterWorld PubCon Boston session to beware of flying too close to the Sun.

Link Building And Dangerous Heights
Editor's Note: When it comes to SEO and SEM, one subject is almost guaranteed to draw a nice amount of conversation: link building. Many of you understand the importance of such a task and it's always good to hear what the experts are saying. Take a look at what Mike and Dave offer and share your thoughts at WebProWorld.

Mike McDonald shared The Fear webmasters should have when it comes to building quality links for a site. Those were the topic of the session, Link Building Campaigns.

When building, beware the dizzying heights of verticals. Ward observed that the more vertical one goes when linking, the less likely the site will have a significant PageRank.

Ultimately, Ward does not worry about search engines when link building, and does not let them dictate his linking strategy. "People focus too much on what the engines think about their link," he said.

Mike Grehan of Smart Interactive referenced Jon Kleinberg's study on " Hubs, Authorities, and Communities" while discussing link building. He noted as others have that link building relies on quality, not quantity.

Anchor text still matters; search engines look at that as they attempt to discern what a destination may be about. Since search engines already "know" what they think is important, Grehan thinks it's important to use them to find authoritative link partners.

Bill Hartzer of Marketnet, Inc said the first order of business is to take care of internal links. Webmasters must use crawlable links with descriptive anchor text.

He also made note of a link to a particularly informative thread at WebmasterWorld, the sponsor for PubCon. That thread discusses link development and highlighted several tips Hartzer found useful.

The main point of link building should be to build connections with readers, not algorithms. By building an authoritative, quality site, the links will come. But they require work and commitment to get those sites to that state.

---
Tag:

Add to document.write("Del.icio.us") | DiggThis | Yahoo! My Web | Furl It | PreFound.com

Bookmark WebProNews -

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.