| Mike Sachoff | Staff Writer
While blogs are now considered mainstream with more businesses using them to get their message out, just how are they building buzz online? The SES session “Blogging For Business” has the answers. (Coverage of SES Chicago continues at WebProNews Videos. Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.) Jennifer Evans Laycock, Editor-in Chief, Search Engine Guide, said everyone is blogging. “The recession we are in make blogs essential.” Blogs are cost efficient especially if you have a tight marketing budget. |
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| Reasons for blogs:
Showcase your personality Create a feedback cycle Build a loyal community Create an emotional investment Increase your credibility |
| Laycock said,” The value of your blog is the conversation that takes place in your comments.”
Leave it open-ended and integrate media into your blog. Engage with your readers-comment back. People don’t trust ads but there is trust online with friends and strangers who have credibility. Blogging is as effective as word-of-mouth. Easy blog marketing: |
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| Comment early (gets attention of other readers)
Frequent comments Spread comments Comment late (to get attention of the blogger) |
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| Pitching a blogger
Use real language Respect their time Develop a friendship “Whatever industry you’re in, start building relationships now in the community because you may need to pitch something in the future,” Laycock said. |
| Before pitching a blogger:
Address them by name Make sure you have the correct personal email address Spell check Send individual emails Be transparent Familiarize yourself with their readers |
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| Make sure your pitch is relevant to their readers
Proofread Bill Balderaz, President and Founder of Webbed Marketing, said blogging is good for businesses that are fast, flexible, can be experimental, and are working with limited budgets. Engage in customer conversations and respond to negative comments. “Blogging is less expensive per impression and has measurement capability,” Balderaz said. Have you Tried Blogging for Your Business? Let us know here: |
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| Mobile Social Network Users To Become More Active Mike Sachoff | Staff Writer People using mobile social networks today are primarily checking messages, status updates and comments of friends instead of posting photos or comments themselves, according to a new study by ABI Research. The study found that pattern is changing as more people have access to better mobile devices and social network applications that make it easier for uploading and communication. “Today more than 60 percent of those who access a social network on their phone do so mainly to check for messages or comments from friends, compared to less than 30 percent who upload photos,” says ABI research director Michael Wolf. “Over time, however, a growing number of consumers will share photos and use social network messaging and email which will translate to longer and more frequent usage of social networks on mobile.” |
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| Currently more than half of those who use a social network on their PC do so on a daily basis, while only around 17 percent do the same via a mobile device. The gap in usage between online and mobile social networks will become smaller over time as people adapt to using their mobile phone as one of the main ways of keeping in touch with their networks of contacts.
“The fact is that more consumers are really starting to adopt social networking on their phones,” said Wolf. “The combination of more capable phones with flat-rate mobile broadband and pre-installed social network applications will help cement social networks as hubs for entertainment and communication, regardless of the screen consumers use to access them.” |
Sorry for the downtime. There was a minor database issue. We will start rolling with some good entries as soon as possible.
By Don Lawson (c) 2008
Recently SEOMoz did a survey among the top SEO experts. The results were surprising to say the least. None of the SEO experts could come to a 100 percent agreement on any one subject! So, if they can’t come to an agreement on SEO and link building, how is the rest of the world supposed to?
Rand surveyed the Top 37 SEO experts in the World. Basically the Survey is a series of questions asked of each expert. This group of experts could not come up with an agreement rating more than 1 on many of the questions!
So now that we know the experts can’t agree, I might as well tell you the mistakes I’ve made plus the ones I see done by many Webmasters when link building.
Failing to Procure Reciprocal Links.
I’ve seen so called SEO Guru’s say that reciprocal linking is dead and they will hurt your site. This just isn’t so. The important thing to remember is to make sure the links you trade are from quality sites. It doesn’t matter if they’re PR0, just make sure they’re not from a spam/ adult/ pharmacy/ hate type site. Reciprocal links can be on a resource page if you run a website or a Blogroll for you bloggers. Just remember to trade!
Failing to Acquire Low PR Links.
For some reason, many Webmasters do not want PR0 sites linking to them. This is link building suicide! One day, those PR0 sites could be the next PR5 or better. Frankly, I don’t care who links to my sites. I can’t control it and if they’re passing any amount of authority, and even PR0 sites pass some, I’ll take it. It also looks natural when you have many more low authority sites pointing to your site than all high PR sites.
Failing to Link Out.
Once again, we’re talking about making your site look natural to the Search Engines, especially Google. Authority sites link out to other authority sites. Google expects to see this. I can’t tell you how many times Ive had a site stuck in the SERPS only to get a little boost when I linked to a higher authority site. So link out to authority sites!
Failure to Check Your Reciprocal Link Partners’ Websites.
Once you exchange links with someone, you need to follow up on a routine basis and make sure the link back to your site is still there. Some sites go down, accounts are closed, domains expire and are purchased by someone else, Webmasters change website topics and some Webmasters simply take your link down after you exchange links. I’ve seen people put the “nofollow” attribute on the links after they’ve made a trade. I’ve seen it all happen, that’s why I monitor my link partners and you should also.
Failing to Use Anchor Text in Your Link.
If someone gives you the opportuníty to use Anchor text in the link back to your site, use it! In my opinion, anchor text in a backlink is the second biggest off page ranking factor for SEO. Only the relevancy and authority of the page where the backlink originates is more important in my experience.
Failing to Cover Up Your Paid Link Footprints.
Look, from here to the end of time, people will sell links. And from here to the end of time, Google will be trying to find paid links. And from here to the end of time, you’ll see blogs, websites and blog networks (think Backlink Solutions) get de-indexed for selling links. If you’re going to buy or sell links as part of your link building plan, you’d better be hiding your footprint or Big Daddy G is going to find you one dark, cold and stormy night. There are several ways of hiding your footprint, I covered one way in my link laundering article a few weeks ago.
Failing to Build Links.
I see people on the forums all the time asking how they should go about link building or how to get started link building. Many say they don’t know how and so they don’t even try. People! I hate link building as much as the next person, but it’s not Rocket Science. You may be able to rank high in a low competitive keyword niche with on-page SEO, but for a competitive niche where’s there’s money to be made, you’re going to need some relevant backlinks!
TIP: One of the most effective link building strategies you can perform is to find out who’s linking to your competition and get links from them. You simply go to Google and type in link:yourcompetitorssite.com. You’ll then get a líst of sites that are linking to your competitor’s site. Browse that site to see if there is a place to put a link to your site at. If not, simply Contact the person running the site and ask kindly for a link. Many times they will not respond, but some will. Now, out of those sites, do the same thing. See who’s linking to them and get links from those sites!
This is probably the easiest way to get relevant backlinks but it’s a technique very few Bloggers and Webmasters use! Sure it’s tedious and time consuming, but in the long run, those top rankings will be worth all the time you practiced link building!
About The Author
The website AffiliateWatcher.Com brings you these traffic tips. Don Lawson reviews affíliate programs and affíliate marketing techniques and other money makíng ventures that helps beginners get started making monëy online. See his articles on quick ways to make monëy online at his blog.
Here are a set of icons you can use for your site.
Function Icon Set is a set of 128 glossy Icons Included some of the main Social Media Icons such as: Design Float, Digg, Delicious, Furl, Technorati, Flickr, Stumble Upon, Twitter and etc. They are only available in 48×48px. All of them are free, you can use them anywhere you like.
By Moe Tamani (c) 2008
Some web designs are truly so repulsive that they actually drive people away from the site and prevent them from returning. Both you and your web design company must avoid these situations at all costs. Otherwise you run the risk of allowing your reputation to be diminished or being labeled and avoided by clients and customers.
not attractive at all. Some of these backgrounds that should be avoided at any cost are:
- A completely black background with light or white text superimposed upon it. Even the best web designers in the world have difficulty achieving an appealing look with this type of background. It gives viewers the impression that you are imperious and condescending and does not do anything to encourage readers to stay on your site. Also, some browsers, when used to print a page, also print background color. This could cause complaints from customers who are not happy about the amount of ink they used in order to print a single page.
- A completely black background with dark words. This is an even worse background choice than the previous one because the words simply cannot be seen without great difficulty. In order to read the text, visitors to your site will have to first highlight the text, a task that will quickly irritate them.
- Complicated, tiled images. Fresh web designers often use this type of background because it is convenient and looks good to them. They should also bear in mind, however, that this type of background can dramatically increase the amount of load time for a website.
Web Design’s Scariest Text
The main reason people visit your site is that they are interested in the content contained within your website. If they are unable to read your text, then there is nothing for them to stay for. Your web design company definitely does not want visitors to find nothing worth reading on your site, so avoid the following pitfalls:
- Centering all your text. A page with all of its text completely centered is unattractive and difficult to read.
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- Overly emphasized text. Some designers bold every other line of text and italicize the rest. This is self-defeating because in attempting to make everything stand out, nothing stands out.
- Flashing text. Although some people find text that constantly disappears and reappears appealing, it is almost impossible to read, defeating the purpose of even having text in the first place. Text is there to be read!
Web Design’s Scariest Content
As a web designer, you should never ignore your content. At the end of the day, the content of your web page is what either draws visitors to your site, or drives them away. You should make sure you include interesting and attention-grabbing content and avoid the following mistakes.
- Pages consisting solely of links. Pages where every word is a link on its own do not serve any purpose other than to convince visitors never to return to your site.
- “Funny” content. Including humorous content is risky, at best. Some people may not understand your humor and will need to have it explained to them or, more likely, they will simply leave your site in search of something more interesting that they can actually understand.
Web Design’s Scariest Multimedia
Many designers find themselves in love with multimedia and attempt to use it in every project that they undertake. The web design company you work for probably does appreciate your talent with multimedia and, when the situation calls for it, you can showcase your talents to your web design company and your clients. However, designing using multimedia tools is a very time consuming process. You should not let your desire to show off your skills with multimedia compromise the work that you eventually hand in to your clients. You should do your utmost to avoid the following traps:
- Image overload. Images of all forms, including icons, should not be present in large numbers. As a general rule-of-thumb, anything more than two images is overkill.
- Overly large images. The readership of your site will not suffer if your images are not of print quality. Large, high quality images take a long time to load and most readers would not care if you had used a low quality image.
- Embedded audio. Audio streams that play constantly while the page is open are very annoying for visitors who simply want to examine the content of your site. Worse, these audio streams are usually impossible to turn off. If you absolutely must include some form of sound with your web page, you must give your visitors the controls required to turn off the sound if they wish.
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A scary web design is most definitely not what your web design company hopes that you will produce. The web pages you design should be appealing to readers and help keep them on your site, and not drive them away.
About The Author
Moe Tamani is a search engine optimization specialist for SEO 1 Services specializing in SEO web design Brazenwebdesign.com .
Twitter is one of well over 1000 social networking sites that I know of. I actually have a list of that many, but have only checked out a handful of the most popular ones.
Actually, my list is about 1800 bookmarking and social networking sites. I may share that list with my inner circle soon… after my assistant goes over it with a fine toothed comb 
I’ve already shared my list of the most popular (and productive) bookmarking sites in an ebook called, “How To Bookmark Effectively For Massive Free Websíte Traffic!” You can actually download that ebook for free, without needing to opt-ín or fill out any forms at: TheRealSecrets.com
Back to Twitter… Twitter is actually a micro-blogging platform. You register, and then you can “follow” others, and others can “follow” you.
When you log into Twitter, on the homepage you have a window where you can type in messages (”tweets”) of up to 140 characters. When you click the “update” button, everyone who has subscribed to your updates… everyone following you, sees that message instantly… provided they are logged-in to Twitter.
When someone that you’re following updates, and you’re logged-in, you see their posts instantly.
There are Twitter users who post dozens of messages a day. There are Twitter users who seem to stay logged into Twitter and following their friends tweets for hours each day.
At a recent JV Alert Seminar where I was on the expert panel, I watched other panel members, who are also avid Twitter users, actually carrying on conversations over Twitter… right from the stage. They simply pulled out their handheld devices, and twittered away!
While Twitter is fun to just chat with friends, many “capitalists”… like me, wonder if it can be used for conducting business and making sales.
The answer is “Yes, but you shouldn’t post blatant ads on Twitter.”
Instead, you should post links to resources and news, and those links CAN be your affiliate links.
Twitter also has a “Direct Message” feature where you can post a message directly to someone who is following you. No one else sees that message, and using that feature is more appropriate when your post only pertains to one person.
I have made numerous sales via Twitter. Some examples include:
1) When I noticed that the World Internet Summit was hosting a live event in Auckland, New Zealand, on July 17th - 20th, 2008, I twittered about it. This is the first time that they are holding an Internet marketing seminar in a location that doesn’t get very many of those type of events, so I considered it news.
Shortly thereafter, one of my followers from that area, posted a thank you. The next time that I checked my email, I DID notice that he had already registered for the event and that I had earned a nice commission.
2) When Jeff Walker launched Product Launch Formula 2, I tweeted about the bonus package that I offered. I had several followers ask me questions about my package (via direct message) and two of those purchased the package. That earned me nearly $2000.
3) When a friend noticed that I was twittering about how easy it is to earn money marketing to offline businesses as compared to the Internet marketing niche, she posted a link to a product that she suggested I check out.
I clicked on her link and saw that a friend, Rachel Rofe, along with a co-author, Jaime Mintun, had a product that they were selling called “How To Makë $10K In A Weekend.” The product was literally “a seminar in a box.” It contained everything that I needed to conduct local seminars teaching offline businesses about the internet. In fact, the product even included:
- A PowerPoint Presentation that I could use to conduct a 1 or 2-day live seminar.
- Ads that I could run to get commission-only sales people to actually sell the seminar seats for me.
- A script that I could use along with the slides or even give to someone else to conduct the seminar for me.
- Supplemental materials that I could use as bonuses, handouts, or products-for-sale at my seminars.
- Very detailed start-to-finish instructions.
The package literally contained everything that I needed for a local seminar that I was already planning on hosting quarterly in my hometown.
I drooled over the webpage, but didn’t buy right away because I was getting ready to travel to JV Alert Live in Philadelphia that upcoming weekend, and I didn’t want to get side-tracked. However, at the seminar, I got a chance to chat with Rachel Rofe, and she talked me into both getting a copy of the course, AND becoming an affiliate for it.
Wrapping up this story… After going through the course, I fell so “in love” with it, that I twittered about it as well as mentioned it in an ezine editorial. The ezine editorial sold enough copies to earn me nearly $1000, and the tweet, triggered several old friends asking questions about the package. One of those friends subsequently purchased the package.
Those are just a few of the many sales that I’m sure that my twittering has generated. The key is not to just post blatant ads, but when you have something worthy of sharing, and that you know your followers will likely appreciate, then you can generate sales from just pointing out resources.
Aside from direct sales, I’ve noticed dozens of posts on my followers blogs about things that I’ve posted to Twitter. These blog posts were others indirectly promoting me and my products to their audiences.
Your posts on Twitter are also indexed by the search engines, so I’ve noticed my “tweets” showing up in Google for some of my prime keywords. That’s very powerful.
So, there you have a proven formula for marketing your products and services on Twitter without being too “in your face.” The only thing left for you to do is go over to Twitter.com and set up an account. It only takes a few minutes.
Be sure to add me as someone you’re following. My Twitter URL is: http://twitter.com/innercircle1
About The Author
Willie Crawford is founder of The Internet Marketing Inner Circle, Executive Directory of The International Association of Joint Venture Brokers, and co-host of the Internet Marketing Momentum Bootcamp. Have Willie teach you serious marketing firsthand at: InternetMarketingMomentumBootca
Addicted to purchasing domains like me, or you just need to buy one for a specific money making project idea. Well stop paying full price at godaddy. Just don’t go sharing this everywhere even though it is on a pretty popular website. Instead of pay $10.15 for a domain or whatever it may be i pay $6.95. That doesn’t sound like a big difference but try purchasing dozens of domains at one time and the difference starts to look much nicer. Here you can find the link to Godaddy discount codes and yes they work and are always updated. Sorry this isn’t a long post I just thought i would hook everyone up before the weekend.
By Bill Platt (c) 2008 the Phantom Writers
Written by Bill Platt, owner of http://www.thephantomwriters
Online marketers frequently struggle with the question of how to compete when Google fails to look positively upon a particular website. In this article, I will focus on how to build rankings and drive traffic to your website, using Google and the other search engines.
What Motivates Google’s Algorithm
Over the years, many have tried to claim, even in court, that Google was unfairly keeping their website out of the top of Google’s search results. But, the truth is that Google is not beholden to the needs and desires of the webmasters who want to be on page one of Google’s natural search results.
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Instead, Google is beholden to its stockholders and its need to earn profíts. Google has determined that the best way to keep profíts high is to keep Internet users flocking to its websites. Google accomplishes that by giving its users the kind of information they are looking to find, and Google weights its search algorithm towards what Google believes its search audience wants to see in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
It is important for online marketers to understand that it is not always in Google’s best interest for our websites to rank well in Google.
How Important Is Google In Search?
Worldwide, Google is currently providing 78% of all searches.
But in 2007, Google only provided 52% of my website’s total search traffic. Yahoo, Windows Live, Ask, and MSN provided the next 42%. The remaining 6% of my website’s search traffic came from another 55 smaller search engines.
On my website, only 48.8% of my 2007 traffic actually came from search engines. The remaining 51.2% of my website’s quarter million visitors came directly from article placements on other websites, recommendations from other people, forum posts, and from people who have bookmarks for my website.
Tips For Ranking Well For Specific Keywords
It has been my experience that it is easier to rank in 1) MSN / Windows Live, 2) Yahoo, and then 3) Google, in that order. Quite frankly, I have always ignored the role of Ask in the search market. While MSN is the easiest search engine to rank in, it only delivered 4.6% of my total search traffic in 2007.
I read a question in a forum, where the poster was asking how he could get his website to rank well in Google for the search term, “software”.
The truth is that it is nearly impossible in nearly every search engine to rank well in the natural results for such a singular keyword as “software”. In a nutshell, if you want to rank well in Google, you need to build inbound links (IBLs) to your website with your targeted keywords in the links.
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But, you don’t want to put all of your links together with one keyword phrase. One of Google’s red flags is when they notice a link to a particular website appearing more than 60% of the time with one specific keyword phrase.
Utilizing a variety of long-tail keywords will actually serve you better in the search-engine ranking puzzle, in more ways than one. After all, when I do a search for software, I don’t type in the search word, “software”. I type in search phrases like: “accounting software”, “small business accounting software”, “windows software accounting small business”, “windows image editing software”, “windows software image editor”, “windows xp photo album manager”, etc.
People searching the keyword “software” have yet to figure out that they are looking for specific kinds of software. Once they do an initial search, they are going to type in more specific search terms to find what they actually want. So, once you start targeting a variety of long-tail keyword phrases, then you will start seeing more success in your search marketing efforts.
How To Start Your Search Engine Optimization Journey
If you are wanting to get into the natural search results of Google and the other search engines, you must know before you dive into the project that getting good rankings in the search engines for your chosen keywords can take a really long time, before you begin seeing results.
While inbound links to your website, targeted to your chosen keywords, will help your website climb in the search results of your favorite search engines, it may be a frustrating journey.
Your competitors want to rank well for the same search terms you do. And since only ten of you can be on page one of the search results, you may have to work really hard to topple those guys already on page one of the results, and you will have to fight to keep your ranking once you get it.
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There are some keyword phrases that are nearly impossible to rank for, even if you have really deep pockets. For example, most every keyword phrase for the financial industry will be extremely difficult to rank for in Google. Competition in this industry is fierce, so achieving top search rankings will be tough to say the least.
This is the reason why so many SEO experts encourage marketers to target “low-hanging fruit”. It may be fairly easy to rank well for a four- or five-word search phrase, and extremely expensive to target a two- or three-word search phrase.
My personal approach has always been to rotate through a líst of more than 100 target keyword phrases, over a longer period of time. In doing so, I capture a lot of low-hanging fruit quickly, and at the end of the loop, I am a bit closer to snagging the fruit in the upper branches of the tree. At the end of my líst, I analyze my keywords again to see where I am strong and to see where I am still weak, and then I begin the process again. (According to SEOdigger.com, I have better than 950 keyword phrases in the top twenty results of Google.)
How To Get Links
The challenge most people face when they begin building links to a website is where to get those essential links.
Article marketing is my chosen method for getting inbound links.
Because of Google’s news feed strategy, the initial placement of your article might appear immediately in the SERPs, but then it will disappear. During the news cycle phase of the Google algorithm, new materials are given an added boost in ranking. Once the news cycle is done, any new pages will sink back down to where they would be based on the general Google algorithm.
If you are honest with yourself, you know that every page on the Internet started life with a PageRank Zero, but given enough time, many pages will gain in PageRank, as they begin to be linked. For a more detailed look at the process of how reprint articles gain value for a website in Google’s search index, see my article about “Fishing for Links in Google”.
Utilizing article marketing as a link building method, I have put one website on the map in as little as eight weeks, with only three articles. This website has one #1, one #2, eight results on page one, and twelve results in the top twenty listings of Google. Most of those keywords also rank well in Yahoo and MSN.
On the other hand, on my main website, I started looking at the keyword phrase “article marketing” just eighteen months ago, when my website sat at #79. Today, my website sits at #12 in Google for that keyword phrase.
I believe that given enough time, investment and commitment, I can use article marketing to elevate any web page on the Internet to multiple page-one listings in Google. But, not everyone is willing to make the kind of investment and commitment one needs to get to the top of Google’s search results…
What To Do When You Need Results Now
If you simply cannot wait as long as it takes to build top rankings naturally, then you need to look seriously at Pay-Per-Click advertising models, such those offered through Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing .
Written by Bill Platt, owner of http://www.thephantomwriters
Feed Compare - Comparing FeedBurner Subscriber Numbers
04 Jun
Posted by admin as WebMaster Resources
Introducing Feed Compare, a free web application that you can use for comparing FeedBurner feeds. This tool is great for checking out your competition and noticing trends in growth.Much like comparing website ranks using the Alexa website, you can use Feed Compare to compare your feeds against up to three other feeds. All you have to do is input the name of your feed, and then the name of your competitors feeds.
Features for this tool include: viewing up to 24 months worth of data (other options are: 12 months, 6 months, 3 months and one month). Zoom in on particular timeframes using click and drag. Users can link directly to the feed comparisons chart much like Alexa ‘permalink’ style. And it allows users compare up to 4 feeds at a time.
article from webappers.com
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) both the bane and boon of many a person’s existence. It’s a known fact that the best way to get traffic to your website is by simply having your site show up in the first page or two of the major search engine’s results. Visitors that come in from those search engine results pages (referred to as SERP) have two main things going for them. They are more likely to buy, and they didn’t cost you any money to get there. Getting your site onto those first two pages can be a struggle, and people are always watching what you are doing and gunning for the top spot. You have to keep aware of all of the latest tactics and methods and measure yourself against your competitors.
Yes, competitors. Many people aren’t aware of the competitive nature of SERPs positioning, but it is. Keep in mind that you are ranked in comparison with the other sites in the results. If the search engine thinks that your content is more relevant, then you rank higher, if it is determined that your content is less relevant, then you fall in the results. If they know what they are doing, the other sites showing up for the searches you wish to rank high in are watching you, and the other sites on the first two pages to see what they are doing, and if they are rising or falling.
So how do you ensure that you can rank well against the other sites out there and rise in the SERPs? Well, for starters, let’s assume that there are only three search engines, because frankly, Google, Yahoo, and MSN (in that order) represent the majority, the vast majority of searches. And Google represents the vast majority amongst those three. For the purposes of this article we’ll focus only on Google. If you do right by them, what you do will be good for other search engines as well.
Before we go any further it’s important that you understand the nature of SEO. It is not an exact science. The exalted minds inside the Googleplex do not share their secret sauce with the unwashed masses. The reason for this is simple: if they revealed exactly how their logic works, it would be exploited–this has happened before. The methods for performing SEO are based upon the trial and error of many, many internet users as they worked out what works, what doesn’t and what will get your site unindexed - or worse: banned.
This is important. There are good and bad ways to optimize your site. The bad ways are called ‘Black Hat’. Sure, they may work for awhile, and some Google can’t (or doesn’t bother to) pick up automatically. However you can report a site to Google as using Black Hat SEO tactics and Google will remove that site from the index (meaning it won’t show up in search results). Removing a site from the index is usually only done for a certain amount of time and can be appealable. Banning is far more severe and banned sites are often gone for good with no way to get Google to add it back to their index. Beware of a lot of things that seem shady. If you think they are shady, chances are that the folks at Google will think so too and if one of those other sites in the SERPs wants to rise up and they visit your site and see your shady tactics, they won’t hesitate to report you.
Yeah, it’s a bit unfair, but it’s the world we live in. Google’s not alone in this–the other search engines will do it too.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s dive into the two ways to optimize your site.
On Page Optimization
This is what most people think of when they think of SEO. In reality it is the less effective of the two methods, though as Google improves its ability to determine real content from fluff it is getting more valuable. A bit of history first.
Back when people started realizing that they could make or break their business by where they came up in the SERPs, they started adding all sorts of content to their sites to improve their ranking. The most common of these was the meta keywords. These are words that are placed in the code on a website that tell the search engines what the site is about. Way back when the ‘net was young, the search engines believed these keywords. They don’t anymore. People abused the keywords system by putting their competitors names in them, or by even putting completely bogus words in. A site looking to sell more jeans would put Britney Spears in their keywords to get people to visit them inadvertently. Needless to say, keywords play very little importance anymore. I have gotten sites to the #1 position on Google without using keywords at all.
As the search engines got wise to the whole bogus keywords thing, they started looking at all of the content on a website. They can only read text, so images and animated graphics (like flash) were ignored. People learned tactics to place all sorts of text on their site that was invisible to users, but that the search engines (looking at the source code) would see. So search engines started to distrust the websites themselves.
You’re asking yourself how they can know what a site is about then. They asked themselves the same question and came up with an obvious answer: they can’t. But other humans can. This is called ‘Off Page Optimization’ and is covered in the second type of optimization.
They never really disregarded the webpage entirely, but they lowered its importance in their overall factoring of a page’s importance and relevancy. However, as their savvy increases and they have more computing power to analyse content, search engines are starting to consider the page’s content as being more and more important. They can often discern the difference between human generated and computer generated text, and can tell if the content on a page is relevant to a particular topic or not. As they do this more, the page itself will continue to get more important.
There used to be a lot of tactics and tricks to get the search engines to pay more attention to your page, but the number one tip is now this: Write human readable content (don’t try to write it to load it with terms and keywords) that has value and real relevancy. Make sure that you do use the words and phrases you think people will search for, and do use them more than once, but don’t go overboard. Bolding and using larger fonts (and H1 tags) will help as well, but don’t overdo it. If you make your page look too wonky it will not work for the second type of optimization.
Here’s a quick rundown of things to make sure you do.
Make sure the page title is descriptive - make it different with each page if you can:
Use the meta description tag and make it good - this is what most search engines show as the blurb about your site on the results page.
Don’t worry alot about your HTML formatting. Search engines are used to reading crappy HTML and they don’t care too much.
Make sure you use your keywords in your copy more than once.
Do bold them if it works in your content
If you can make it work, use an H1 or H2 tag. If you are comfortable with CSS you can make the text in them smaller (this is becoming less and less important).
Make sure to use alt and title tags on images. It lets the search engines know what the image is about and can cause your images to show up on the Google image search. Use title tags on your links. It will help the search engines know more about the page you are linking to and improve relevancy. Don’t put too many links to other sites. Links out lower your page’s importance.
Off Page Optimization
This is also called ‘Off Site Optimization’ which is a misnomer. Search engines care little about ‘websites’ and care more about ‘web pages’. The reason for this is that they don’t link to a site, they link to a page. So what is this mysterious type of SEO you ask? Well, if you read the on page part above you will have learned that Google and the other search engines decided that they couldn’t trust the page itself too much as too many people put fake content on a page to generate traffic. So they decided that the best way to know if a page was relevant was to let people do it for them.
How do they make this work? Well, they simply look at who links to you and what their page is about. If your page is about sewing, and another page that Google knows people like is also about sewing and it links to you, then your page is probably not misrepresenting itself. This is the driving force behind what is called ‘Page Rank’. Page rank is essentially a calculation of the importance of the pages linking to you vs the relevancy of your content to those pages. If a page about banking links to a page about peanut butter, then chances are that the search engines won’t assign any importance to that link, but links between pages of similar content have high importance.
There is also a nebulous thing that we know exists, but don’t know how to quantify. It is the matter of how much a search engine trusts a site. Sites with high trust have their outbound links given more importance than sites the search engine does not trust. An easy way to determine if a site is trustworthy or not is to think about it yourself. The folks at the search engines are humans, they will trust the same sites you do and distrust the same sites you do (give or take a bit).
Untrustworthy Sites
Link/Banner farms - sites with nothing but links to various other sites. These used to work, but the search engines wised up and now having a link farm link to you will hurt, not help.
Sites with a lot of advertising on them - The search engines know that these sites are mostly computer generated and have no valuable content, and so don’t pay any heed to what they link to.
Black Hat Sites - sites that use questionable SEO tactics aren’t ones that you want linking to you. Google is suspicious of them, no reason to make it suspicious of you.
Trustworthy Sites
Directories - There are two types of directories. Automatic and Human verified. Google knows which are which and if your site is listed on a human verified directory (meaning that someone looked at your site and verified that your description and content match the category you chose to have it listed in) then it knows that your content is relevant to the description you gave. Find the directories for your market (just google things like sewing boston directory or whatever your niche/market is and you’ll find some to list in.
News Sites - Many news sites allow you to post comments on them. Don’t spam, but find some relevant articles to your site and post a few comments. Its not advised that you place your link right in the article (unless you think it applies) but rather have your link in your profile.
Sites with high page rank - This is key. There is little point having sites with no page rank link to your site with no page rank. You want sites with high page rank linking to you. Install the Google toolbar and select yes when it asks if you want to view pagerank. This will let you know how other sites rank and help you determine where to try to get links.
There are a lot of other tips and helpful bits of information out there and I’ll be posting a few more specialized articles about them. While there is a lot of bogus software and ebooks out there that will literally tell you no more than what you have read above, there are some that will help you carry out the suggestions above. They’ll suggest directories, give you reports on how well you rank against your competitors and many other things. Most you can do on your own, but they take time. Good SEO software should mainly remove the tedious, manual tasks involved in SEO and help you focus on more important things like niche research and adding actual, valuable content to your site.
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