Internet Marketing Blog

How to Get a New Domain Indexed and Performing Quickly in the SERPs

2009-07-10T03:08:20Z

One of the most frustrating things about registering a new domain and starting a new website is that you’re starting from scratch. That means that nobody knows your site exists and search engines are afraid to even touch it. New websites have a long hard road to getting indexed and found in organic SERPs or do they?

There are actually several techniques you can use to get a new website to perform well in the SERPs. Some basic techniques include:

Create link bait and submit it to social networks using high authority accounts
Do some kick ass PR and get published and linked to by high authority sites
Get really, really busy guest blogging, commenting on blogs and building links wherever you can get them

Favorite Technique for Getting Indexed and Performing Well In Google

While those are all viable options, there’s one technique that I like the best. It involves taking a high authority website that you have control of, and one that has the following attributes:

It’s relevant (enough) to the new website
It has content that’s highly relevant to the new website
It’s well indexed
It has a PageRank of two or higher

Once you’ve found a site that has all of those attributes, search for articles that are highly relevant to the new website. Do some search queries related to those articles (even long-tail searches). If any of the articles show up on the first or second page of the SERPs, consider using it on the new website.

Ideally, you will want to find two to three articles that are relevant and perform well in the SERPs. Once you’ve found them, copy them to the new website. Then set up 301 redirects on the original website — redirecting the traffic from the original site for each article to the articles on the new website.

That’s all you need to do. In most cases, within a matter of days, the new website will appear in the index of Google and other search engines. You will also experience immediate traffic from the SERPs that were associated with the original site. If you want to be prudent and increase your chances of success, I recommend also adding and verifying your website with each search engine’s Webmaster Tools. Additionally, you should consider creating and including a sitemap too.

Raven on Facebook

2009-07-08T13:31:54Z

We’re starting to increase our presence on Facebook. We have a public fan page and also a group.

The group will be used for Internet Marketing discussions and will be more industry focused. While the fan page will be for keeping everyone up-to-date on events, webinars, sneak peeks and updates to Raven. To get started, we posted a screencast of a sneak peek of our new Reporting Wizard on our fan page.

We invite you to become a fan and to also join our Internet Marketing group.

SEO Daily Reading - Issue 151

2009-06-29T22:23:54Z

Why Don’t All Restaurants Use Twitter? - “At Least Half Were There Because of Twitter”

Adding Custom Default Gravatars to Your Blog - Not Your Typical Gravatar

The Troubles of Crowdsourcing - How do You Keep a Secret?

47 Outrageous Viral Marketing Examples - A Decade Worth of Fakes, Faux-Pas and Oh No’s

Intersection of Search and Social Media - Forward Thinking Companies Are Investing in Social Media

Link Building and Link Management Update

2009-06-22T14:17:51Z

Raven just launched a major upgrade to our link management system. It includes an update to the Link Manager, Website Directory, and the addition of a new Contact / Lead Manager for link building.

Improved Website Directory

The Website Directory is now faster and more informative. It includes a much bigger website snapshot and lists any links, contacts or tasks associated with it.

Smarter Add Link Form

Adding a new link via the updated Raven Firefox Toolbar is now a lot smarter. If you’ve created a link record for a website before, and then attempt to add a link to the same website, Raven will ask you if you want to create a new link or use an existing link record. This feature is perfect for links that were saved with the status of Queue or Requested, but have since then become Active.

New Contact / Lead Manager

There’s now a Contact Manager that can help you better manage relationships with website owners and editors.

Watch the Video

Coming Very, Very Soon!!!

We’re almost finished completely rewriting the Reporting system. It will include:

Unified Template Style
Cover Sheet, Table of Contents, and Custom Summary Page
Reports for All Major Tools
An Amazing Report Wizard for Creating Custom, Branded PDF Reports

White Labeling and Google Analytics integration is also right around the corner. The next several weeks are going to be very exciting.

SEO Daily Reading - Issue 150

2009-06-19T14:14:07Z

Strategic Link Building for SEO - Are You Doing the Hamster in a Cage Thing?

Big Geo Problems Still Exist in Google UK SERPs - US Companies Ranking for UK Search Terms

Build Brand Buzz Through Contest Through Contest Marketing - Links should NOT be the end goal of your contest

How to Invalidate Wikipedia Articles - Know the Rules for an Overall Strategic Win

Impacts of the Era of Social Colonization - Every Webpage to be Social

SERP Tracker API Now Available

2009-06-16T20:50:28Z

We’ve been testing the SERP Tracker API for quite some time. We’re excited to announce that it’s finally available for all Raven users. The API will enable developers to incorporate SERP tracking into their own applications.

The API allows you to add and remove keywords, and retrieve rank results. API keys are unique for each Profile in Raven, so you will need to generate a new API key for each Profile.

In order to access the API, you must be an account owner or sub-user with Admin rights. To create an API key, visit the Profile Dashboard page and click on the Get API Key link at the bottom of the page. When you click on it, it will generate a new key and also reveal links to the API documentation and API testing tool.

SEO Daily Reading - Issue 149

2009-06-16T20:17:16Z

Page Rank Sculpting Change - Matt Cutts Says “It’s Been Live for a Year”

PageRank Sculpting is Dead! - Long Live PageRank Sculpting!

Yes You Can Still Sculpt PageRank - No, You Can’t Do It With NoFollow

NoFollow Change - Why Life Just Got Tougher for Niche Sites

Expert SEO Testing - Usually Worthless

SEO Daily Reading - Issue 148

2009-06-16T15:55:10Z

It’s been too long since we did one of these, so time to rectify that small misnomer.

Yahoo! Announces Common Tag - Like The Meta Keywords Tag, But Even Better

How to Change Your Domain Name - And Still Keep Your Search Engine Ranking

Your Content Should Educate, Engage, Entertain and Entice - The Four E’s of Quality SEO Copywriting

The One Hundred Most Mentioned Brands on Twitter - But Are They Part of the Conversation?

Google’s New Review Search Option and Sentiment Analysis - All Sentiments are not Equal

Stickers Are Great for Internet Marketing

2009-06-11T12:16:12Z

While most Internet marketers stick to online methods for promoting websites, there are still some offline methods that work well. T-shirts — if you do them well and give them away — can make a big impact with target audiences. The only problem with t-shirts is that they’re expensive to make and distribute.

That’s where stickers come in. People love stickers! They like to put them on their vehicles, laptops and pretty much wherever they can stick them. Stickers are also easy to distribute. Here’s just a few ways you can give away stickers:

Conferences or Local Meetups
Postal Mail (either with a package or with a simple thank you note to a customer)
Retail Outlets (leave stacks on a store counter — with permission of course)
Social Networks (see item 2 for delivery)

Although I’ve used a few online sticker printing services, one of my favorite companies is PsPrint. Their prices are competitive and the quality of their stickers are excellent. I recently received an order for Raven laptop stickers and couldn’t be more pleased (that’s the main reason why I decided to write this entry.) Another nice thing about PsPrint is that they give a 30% discount for first time customers (with a maximum discount of $200.) However, to get that discount you’ll have to use the promo code blogger.

If you’re looking for an affordable and effective way to promote a website offline, you should seriously consider making stickers. Make sure you have an aesthetically pleasing or clever design (which may include the need to hire a talented graphic designer.) Then go and get them printed and distribute the crap out of them!

The Facebook Vanity URL Fiasco

2009-06-10T22:56:34Z

At the stroke of midnight on Friday, June 12 (technically Saturday at 12:01 AM EST), geeks all around the world will frantically login to Facebook with the attempt to land as many great vanity URLs as they can. Unsuspecting businesses around the world will think they have nothing to fear. Or do they?

There is an enormous flaw with the Facebook vanity URL registration. If you intend to register your company’s vanity URL, there is a very good chance you won’t be able to. Unless your company had a Facebook page setup prior to May 31, 2009 AND has at least 1,000 fans, you will not be eligible to claim your vanity URL during the first round of registration (the second round begins June 28, 2009).

On the flipside, if you are Joe Schmoe with a dummy profile account, you can grab that same company vanity URL, no questions asked. Unless a company has registered with Facebook to prevent the registration of their business name, the vanity URL is up for grabs. Facebook of course made it so you can’t fill out their prevention ticket, unless they provided you with a registration number to do so. I know what you’re thinking, “I’ll just have my company signup for a Facebook profile and grab it.” Wrong. Facebook does not allow companies to setup profiles, only pages. And that is where this horrible fiasco will begin.

Thousands of great brand names will be available for users to grab, because so few companies actually have over 1,000 fans. And what about the companies that have over a dozen Facebook pages setup by fans that have exceeded the 1,000 fan requirement? Take Audi, for example. There are 8 Audi Facebook pages eligible to register the vanity URL /audi/. What happens if it is a “hate” account? Twilight has a fan page called “Twilight Sucks” with over 3,000 fans. They are going to be eligible to grab the vanity URL for Twilight because they meet all of Facebook’s requirements.

Although Facebook says vanity URLs are permanent and can’t be transfered, they do reserve the right to remove the vanity URL from you. There are always loop holes, of course. Take a company like SAS for example. You could create a Facebook profile with the name Sarah Ann Stevens and claim the vanity URL /sas/. It would be hard for SAS to make a valid claim to Facebook when the person who registered it was only using their initials. And just like that a Fortune 500 company vanity URL is gone.

Your last line of defense is to fill out an Intellectual Property Infringement claim. We all know how big of a pain it is to reclaim Twitter accounts, do you really think Facebook will be any better?

Update: The registration number is your registered trademark number. My SAS example is invalid b/c the URL must be five characters long.

Taylor Pratt is a Search Marketing Specialist at nFusion. You can follow him on Twitter.