Monday, March 26, 2007

Secrets to SEO Success

# Research Your Keyword Phrases.
Invest the time and do your research. What do users type in the search engines when looking for services or products on your site. We use a few tools such as WordTracker, Keyword Discovery and Overture’s Keyword Selector tool among others to find out what keyword phrases are best to target. Never assume you know which keywords to target until you do the research. I guarantee you will learn something about your business and your target audience when you do. Finding a keyword you didn’t realize was being searched on can add visitors and increase conversions.
# Design an SEO-Friendly Website.
As much as Flash can hurt a site for rankings there are other things to be aware of, such as: sparse text, poorly written code, javascript on your pages, 404 errors, using graphics instead of text, javascript navigation, deeply nested pages and pages that can’t be found by clicking a link are just a few. Make sure a someone with SEO knowledge with the site design and build. While later is better than never, ideally you want the SEO consultant to work with the designers and programmers.
# Write Unique Page Titles.
It is critical that every web page on your site have a different and unique title. It is the most important part of your web page when search engines are determining your web page message and ranking. This is easy, so be sure to do it.
# Write Focused Content.
This may appear to be simple common sense, but too often a web page will try to be too many things and dilute its true message. Each thought, theme or topic should have its own web page. If you sell dog products, then a page for each category would be needed. Dog toys would be a major category with its own page, but chew toys would be a new page and so on. You wouldn’t mix chew toys and dog bedding. The search engines want to see a focus so they know what to rank your web page for as well as where to rank your web page.
# Insert Keywords.
If you have written a descriptive and keyword-rich title it follows suit that your page content is also going to have keywords throughout. Write for humans, but keep in mind the search engines. You don’t want to overdue it, but you do want your page theme to be evident. List your keyword phrase in your titles, headers and content and the search engines will know reward you with higher visibility.
# Build Keyword-Rich Links.
There is nothing more important for the high ranking success of your site than strategic link building. And with that said, there is nothing more important than choosing the right text to link to your site. If your company name is “Big Oak Studios” and you are an SEO company then you better be sure to request any links pointing to your site have similar terms such as SEO, company, firm, search engine optimization, marketing, Internet somewhere in the links. Let the link state your business, not your web address or company name.
# Find Quality Links.
Since acquiring links is the most important off-site task you can do, then it would reason you should do it right. While having a large number of links is important, making sure they are quality is tantamount to your site’s success. This is especially true in high competition areas. Quality links from sites with authority (popular and trusted sites) carry more weight. One link from an authority site can be worth a hundred or more low-quality sites.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

How To Choose A Search Engine Optimisation Company

After having worked in the search engine optimization / placement and general marketing fields since 1998 to improve my own organization’s search engine rankings, immersed in the occasionally overwhelming and time absorbing process of hiring some of the most well known SEO firms around, I’ve learned a bit about the practice of building businesses through the medium of organic or natural search engine placement. I’ve also learned what questions are important to politely ask, and not to ask, before taking a stroll down the yellow brick internet superhighway hand in hand with a third party SEO marketer.

Search Engine Optimization Philosophy

This is arguably the most critical factor when deciding which company to work with to improve your online business or brand identity. Employing a search engine marketing or placement company that only utilizes ethical search engine optimization techniques or “white hat” methods will ensure that you minimize the potential risk of being dropped, removed, penalized, deleted, or banished from the search engines. Nobody enjoys waking up glassy eyed to the unfortunate reality of being “Google sacked” for breaking or bending the search engines’ implicit rules or explicit terms of service.

Search Engine Optimization Methodology / Specific Expertise

Can your expert SEO Company only optimize static websites constructed in basic HTML? An upstanding SEO company will have experience working with websites in all the common programming languages and technologies, PHP, ASP, ASPX, HTML, Cold Fusion, Flash etc.

Does your SEO Company have experience optimizing both static and dynamic websites? Can your SEO Company optimize using various e-commerce packages and interfaces such as Monster Commerce, Yahoo Stores, OS Commerce, Storefront.net, Volusion?

Depth Of Optimization / Piecemeal Services

The most basic search engine optimization companies around don’t actually perform search engine optimization at all- they are merely submission services which either manually or automatically submit your site to various search engines or directories. Submission companies are typically very inexpensive since no actual coding, linking, or content development takes place on your actual website. Typical pricing runs around $19.95 to $399 per month for these submission type services.

A mid level optimization company gets their hands more firmly on the marketing handle by editing code, analyzing keywords, building links, and adjusting / writing fresh content for your site. They also may do a pinch of off-site optimization, such as press releases, article submissions, and blog writing. Typically, firms of this middle level range charge between $399 and $850 per month.

The highest level search engine placement firm performs the duties described for mid level optimization companies, but also is responsible for conversion tracking and analysis. The emphasis on off-site optimization is also much greater and time consuming. This means that high level optimization firms are essentially responsible for discovering what is working and what is not working throughout the entire customer experience - from initial search through conversion. More man hours per month also means a higher fee that search engine firms must charge to cover their costs. The usual pricing range for these firms’ are $850.00 all the way up to $10,000 per month, but on average, you’ll be looking at fees above the $1,000 a month range.

A piecemeal marketing company is one that treats various parts of an optimization campaign as separate entities. For example, an optimization company may charge distinct fees only for “linking” or “content construction.” This piecemeal approach can be detrimental. Successful optimization is the synergy of multiple efforts on multiple fronts, sometimes simultaneous, and sometimes in succession. Piecing together different aspects of an optimization campaign typically reaps poorer results than a comprehensive strategy.

System Of Evaluation / Reporting

The majority of search engine optimization companies cringe at the thought of empowering their clients to evaluate their work. An ethical search engine optimization company does the opposite. There are four tools we recommend using in tandem to evaluate a search engine optimization company’s work / performance.

1.Real Time Statistics / Conversion Analysis Software

Being able to see traffic gains and conversions in real time can be a useful window in evaluating how your SEO Firm is performing. Having the ability to see who is coming to your site, from what search engines they are coming from, and the exact keyword phrase used within the search query is an essential tool.

2.Positioning or Visibility Reports

Being emailed bi-weekly positioning reports on the specific keywords that you are interested in ranking highly for can be incredibly useful. A visibility percentage, which is the percentage of people that are finding you for keywords that are important for your business – on the Major Search Engines – Google, Yahoo, AOL, and MSN is also important. Make sure your firm doesn’t overdue the automated search engine queries however, the search engines may consider this spamming their databases.

3.Alexa Rating:

You can download the Alexa Toolbar right now from alexa.com. This gives you a solid summary of the general traffic trend over the last three months for your website when compared to other existing sites. If you have a brand new website, odds are you will not even have an alexa rating or visible data at all. The alexa rating also shows you, in general terms, how your website stacks up- traffic wise- in comparison to your competitors or industry affiliates. The lower your alexa rating the more traffic your site is generating when compared to other sites in the alexa universe. Please note, if your site has an alexa rating of “1” this doesn’t mean you are the most visited site on the internet- it most likely means you are operating a Yahoo Store- in such a case, it is identifying Yahoo’s overall traffic, and not your individual site. A general tool like this can give you a quick overall impression of traffic growth and trends. Be careful though, the numbers are generalities (similar to the television Nielsen Ratings) and not absolute figures.

4.Google PageRank

You can download the Google Toolbar right now by going to google.toolbar.com. Click on the options tab and check off the “display PageRank” measure. You will be able to see how Google is rating the importance of your site on a scale of 0-10. As an optimization company proceeds with your campaign you can check periodically to see how the number is increasing. The typical website might see a PageRank increase of one to two points over the course of an optimization campaign. Keep in mind that it is easier to increase your PageRank at the lower ends of the spectrum. As you approach higher PageRanks it becomes more difficult for your rating to balloon.

Due Diligence: Corporate Goals / Industry And Keyword Research

How does the SEO Company you are considering perform its up front legwork regarding your organization, industry and corporate goals? Do they ask questions about:

What your corporate goals (both short and long term) are, your industry, your competition. What keywords are currently working for you? What PPC (Pay Per Click) words are currently effective? What PPC engines (Adwords, Overture, MSN/Live) are currently effective? How your site is designed? Is your site dynamic or static?

What tools does your SEO Firm employ to perform its keyword research?

How about Wordtracker, WebCEO, or Keyword Elite? What about the basic Overture keyword suggestion tool or the generic Google keyword suggestion tool supplied by Adwords. Do they utilize a combination of the basic tools? What about proprietary keyword analysis methodology? Do they have dedicated tools that have been developed in-house, or by a third party?

Client to Account Manager Ratio

Not many SEO companies like to publicize their client to account manager ratio. This is the ratio representing the number of clients that each account manager handles at any given time. The lower the amount of clients each account manager assists, odds are the better the service and the higher the level of personal attention. We recommend that a search engine optimization account manager supports less than thirty clients at any given time.

Man-Hours Per Month

The number of man hours per month your SEO production department actually dedicates to your business is crucial. It is more than smart to ask for a monthly time allotment estimate before beginning an optimization campaign. What you expect to receive and what is actually delivered should be right in line.

Company Structure and Size

Does your SEO Company consist of a laptop computer with your account manager working out of his basement sitting beside a salivating golden retriever? Is your SEO company a bureaucratic nightmare that forces you to fill out trouble tickets when you need help on the spot?

Your ethical search engine optimization company should be somewhere within the sweet spot of not too small and not too large. You want individual attention, but you would also like to know there is more than one mind, calculating your next business moves.

Management

Does your ethical search engine optimization company have a solid management team? Do they have a management team at all? Are the firms you are considering privately held or publicly traded? Is the owner of the optimization company an absentee landlord or an active member of the SEO community? It is not out of the question to ask for the curriculum vitae or resume of the powers that be, in fact, it makes perfect sense if you are entrusting this company with not only your business but your livelihood. After all, SEO practitioners have no board certification that you can rely upon to check their track record.

Reputation / Importance

Has your SEO Company received multiple complaints via the Better Business Bureau? Check the better business bureau reports and see if there are unresolved complaints. From time to time clients may file complaints, but we believe it is the timely handling of these inquiries which are even more important when considering an optimization company to work with.

Past Results / Company SEO Rankings

Every SEO Company should have detailed reports regarding past client successes. The reports should include specifics as to optimization goals and timelines. Reporting on past clients should also focus within and between multiple industries. You should always be aware of a base point - where a particular client started out prior to the optimization company commencing an SEO campaign. Is the SEO firm itself performing poorly in the search engines? A low Google PageRank (below a 5) may be an indication your SEO firm hasn’t been around for as long as one might like.

References / Company Shelf Life

Every SEO company should have solid references across industries and fields in both business to consumer industries as well as business to business arenas. References should stem from not only the past six months, but should originate from years prior to your introduction with the company. If your SEO firm performs quality work, clients should be around for years to sing their praises.

Costs / Pricing Structure / Up front Fees

Costs should be consistent with the service that the company is offering- a la the “Consistent Value Proposition” taught at Yale School of Management. A $49.00 a month campaign run by a credit card company that does not specialize in search engine optimization might not be the optimal choice for an in depth or high level optimization campaign. An SEO company should also only offer costing after they have a clear understanding of your business, goals, and the work involved. Blanketed cost structures can lead to frustration, unrealized expectations, and ultimately failure. Also be concerned if your optimization firm demands a full six month payment up front in order to simply “get started.”

The ideal optimization company charges an up front fee and monthly recurring fee which is commensurate with the services that are actually being performed. A high quality optimization firm that works on your site utilizing 30-60 man-hours per month cannot possibly charge a $49.00 every thirty days to perform its services.

Redundancy

A nasty case of the bird flu hits your unsuspecting account manager right where it counts! Does your optimization company have the ability to smoothly transition the current state of your campaign to another qualified optimization expert? Every SEO company should have a system in place where knowledge about existing accounts can be easily disseminated from one individual to the next. If there does happen to be a catastrophe regarding your account manager, you should feel comfortable that your business continues to prosper regardless of the circumstances.

Quality Control

Every SEO company should have someone overseeing your account manager to ensure that every last “i” is dotted and every last “t” is crossed. Your account manager should be responsible for the success of your campaign, but an extra set of eyes can occasionally be needed to add one more factor weighing in on your side of success.

Promises / Results Timeline

We’ve heard SEO companies promise first page listings in Google for competitive phrases within 48-Hours. If your SEO sales representative is overzealous and unrealistic, it should be a sign that this is most likely a company to steer away from. Gaining search engine listings can be a hard fought, time intensive battle that comes from both diligent work and intelligent planning.

Production Staff Quality

Production staff should be divided between account managers and specialized production technicians. Account managers are the hub of an optimization campaign direction and implementation. Account managers should be able to perform all of the actual coding, linking, and content construction for each client. As an optimization campaign progresses and increases in complexity, they should be able to call upon their support staff or production department to complete specialized work orders for each client. The more specialized each member of the production department, the more efficient they will be at completing their work (thank Henry Ford for this).

Location / Proximity

When you call your account manager or SEO company do you listen to a curious two beeps before being connected to an individual working without air conditioning overseas? Not a good sign. It is imperative that you hire a search engine placement firm whose sales force works in tandem with its production department. There should be no disparity between what you were sold and what was actually delivered. The SEO guru working on your account should be able to understand your business, industry, and company goals quickly, without any overseas static jamming up communications.

Monday, February 26, 2007

SEO Friendly Navigation

A good website provides easy navigation, so that the site's visitors can easily find what they are looking for within the website. Do not create a twelve levels deep hierarchy, regardless how large your site is. You lose audience (visitors as well as spiders) with every hop to a large degree. Define logical nodes in few hierarchy levels, and offer cross-links to related topics where it makes sense.

If you can, go for menu bars on the top left side, which should include global navigation elements like site maps, search forms, contact forms, and the root and category index pages as well. Add more navigation bars as the user goes deeper into the site. Provide links to the most important sections at the top and bottom of each page, along with a path to the root where each level is a stand-alone link. Search boxes should use the GET method, predefined searches for popular topics spread as links are useful for users and crawlers as well. Whatever you do, make it simple, consistent, and logical.

Easy navigation implies fast page loads, so dump your buttons and go for text links instead. Considering keyword relevancy, a text link is a stronger vote for the linked page. With an image link, you have the ALT and TITLE attribute stuffed with text explaining what the linked page is all about. With a text link you can use the keywords as anchor text, what counts more because it's visible to surfers before they do a mouseover. The ideal internal link looks like


keyword-phrase


Create themed sitemaps, each with no more than 100 links, which are linked from the root index page and related category pages. Do not rely on navigation by combo boxes, DHTML menus, or other fancy stuff which is pretty useless for most users and totally useless for search engine crawlers. Do not use frames, especially not for navigation.

As a tweak addressing crawlers and savvy users, you can put one or two lines with keywords in small but visible fonts, linked to related site maps, category index pages, and pages deeper in the hierarchy, at the bottom of your pages.

SEO Consulting Australia

SEO consulting is essential technique for online business Australia

As far as search engine consulting is concerned, Present SEO Trends to provide all the methods and techniques that help the clients to achieve their targets on time.

Publicity and promotion is what every Australian business owner wants, even if it is an online business owner. Without this, no business can establish a firm stand in the Australia market and search engine consulting is concerned with adopting profit venturing methods for the purpose of driving maximum number of traffic to the online site.

Along with search engine consulting, search engine optimization help is also provided that includes the content management. The importance of content is such that it has the ability to influence and give a form to one's thoughts. If the products and services are not defined in a suitable manner, then the entire sense of the message goes indistinct. It is here that our content management service is valuable for site owners specially in Australia. Professionals know that it is the content which is going to convince visitors, so that they can opt for the client's products and services.

Australia Social media optimization, website designing, web hosting and many other services can be opted here. After all, it is the client satisfaction what is of more concern to the professionals. Providing effective and beneficial search engine consulting services is the sole aim of our Search Engine Marketing.

29 Bad Ways to Build Links

Here are a few link buiding methods that may destroy your brand or get your site banned/penalized/filtered from major search engines, or both.

Directories

  1. Submit your site to 200 cheesy paid directories (averaging $15 a pop) that send zero traffic and sell offtopic run-of-site links.

    Forum Spam
  2. List 100 Web sites in your signature file.

  3. Exclusively post only when you can add links to your sites in the post area.

  4. Post nothing but "me too" posts to build your post count. Use in combination with a link-rich signature file.

  5. Ask questions about who provides the best [WIDGET], where [WIDGET] is an item that you sell. From the same IP address create another forum account and answer your own question raving about how great your own site is.

  6. As a new member to various forums, ask the same question at 20 different forums on the same day.

  7. Post on forum threads that are years outdated exclusively to link to your semi-related website.

  8. Sign up for profiles on forums you never intend on commenting on.

    Blog Spam
  9. Instead of signing blog comments with your real name, sign them with spammy keywords.

  10. Start marketing your own site hard on your first blog comment. Add no value to the comment section. Mention nothing other than you recently posted on the same subject at _____ and everyone should read it. Carpet bomb dozens of blogs with this message.

  11. Say nothing unique or relevant to the post at hand. Make them assume an automated bot hit their comments.

  12. Better yet, use automated bots to hit their comments. List at least 30 links in each post. Try to see if you can hit any servers hard enough to make them crash.

  13. Send pings to everyone talking about a subject. In your aggregation post, state nothing of interest. Only state that other people are talking about the topic.Don't even link to any of the sites you are pinging. Send them pings from posts that do not even reference them.

    Garbage Link Exchanges
  14. Send out link exchange requests mentioning PageRank.

  15. Send link exchange emails which look like an automated bot sent them (little or no customization, no personal names, etc.).

  16. Send link exchange requests to Matt Cutts, Tim Mayer, Tim Converse, Google, and Yahoo!.

  17. Get links from nearly-hidden sections of websites listing hundreds or thousands of off topic sites.

    Spam People in Person
  18. Go to webmaster conferences and rave about how rich you are, and how your affiliates make millions doing nothing.

  19. Instead of asking people what their name is, ask what their URL is. As soon as you get their URL ask if they have linked to your site yet and if not, why not.

    Be Persistant
  20. Send a webmaster an alert to every post you make on your website.

  21. Send a webmaster an email every single day asking for them to link to your website.

  22. Send references to your site to the same webmaster from dozens of different email accounts (you sly dog).

  23. If the above do not work to get you a free link, offer them $1 for their time. Increase your offer by a dollar each day until they give in.

    Getting Links by Being a Jerk
  24. Emulate the RIAA. When in doubt, file a lawsuit against a 12-year-old girl. (Failing that, obtain bad press by any means necessary.)

  25. Steal content published by well known names. Strip out any attribution. Aggregate many popular channels and just wait for them to start talking about you.

  26. Send thousands of fake referrals at every top ranking Web site, guaranteeing larger boobs, a 14-inch penis (is that length or girth?), or millions of dollars in free, unclaimed money.

  27. Wear your URL on your t-shirt. Walk or drive your car while talking on a cell phone or reading a book. When you run into other people say "excuse you, jerk".

  28. Spill coffee on people or find creative ways to insult people to coax them into linking at your site.

  29. Sue other webmasters for deep linking to your site. Well, this is more "hilariously dumb" than it is a "bad linking practice".

71 Goodways to Build Links

Love for Lists
  1. Build a "101 list". These get Dugg all the time, and often become "authority documents". People can't resist linking to these.

  2. Create 10 easy tips to help you articles. Again, these are exceptionally easy to link to.

  3. Create extensive resource lists for a specific topic (see Mr Ploppy for inspiration).

  4. Create a list of the top 10 myths for a specific category.

  5. Create a list of gurus/experts. If you impress the people listed well enough, or find a way to make your project look somewhat official, the gurus may end up linking to your site or saying thanks. (Sometimes flattery is the easiest way to strike up a good relationship with an "authority".)

    Developing Authority & Being Easy to Link At
  6. Make your content easy to understand so many people can understand and spread your message. (It's an accessibility thing.)

  7. Put some effort in to minimize grammatical or spelling errors, especially if you need authoritative people like librarians to link to your site.

  8. Have an easily accessible privacy policy and about section so your site seems more trustworthy. Including a picture of yourself may also help build your authority.

    PPC as a Link Building Tool
  9. Buy relevant traffic with a pay per click campaign. Relevant traffic will get your site more visitors and brand exposure. When people come to your site, regardless of the channel in which they found it, there is a possibility that they will link to you.

    News & Syndication
  10. Syndicate an article at EzineArticles, GoArticles, iSnare, etc. The great thing about good article sites is that their article pages actually rank highly and send highly qualified traffic.

  11. Submit an article to industry news site. Have an SEO site? Write an article and submit to WebProNews. Have a site about BLANK? Submit to BLANKinformationalsite.com.

  12. Syndicate a press release. Take the time to make it GOOD (compelling, newsworthy). Email it to some handpicked journalists and bloggers. Personalize the email message. For good measure, submit it to PRWeb, PRLeap, etc.

  13. Track who picks up your articles or press releases. Offer them exclusive news or content.

  14. Trade articles with other webmasters.

  15. Email a few friends when you have important relevant news asking them for their feedback and/or if they would mind referencing it if they find your information useful.

  16. Write about, and link to, companies with "in the news" pages. They link back to stories and blog posts which cover their developments. This is obviously easiest if you have a news section or blog. Do a Google search for [your industry + "in the news"].

  17. Perform surveys and studies that make people feel important. If you can make other people feel important they will help do your marketing for you for free. Salary.com did a study on how underpaid mothers were, and they got many high quality links.

    Directories, Meme Trackers & Social Bookmarking
  18. This tip is an oldie but goodie: submit your site to DMOZ and other directories that allow free submissions.

  19. Submit your site to paid directories. Another oldie. Just remember that quality matters.

  20. Create your own topical directory about your field of interest. Obviously link to your own site, deeplinking to important content where possible. Of course, if you make it into a truly useful resource, it will attract links on its own.

  21. Tag related sites on sites like Del.icio.us. If people find the sites you tag to be interesting, emotionally engaging, or timely they may follow the trail back to your site.

  22. If you create something that is of great quality make sure you ask a few friends to tag it for you. If your site gets on the front page of Digg or on the Del.icio.us popular list, hundreds more bloggers will see your site, and potentially link to it.

  23. Look at meme trackers to see what ideas are spreading. If you write about popular spreading ideas with plenty of original content (and link to some of the original resources), your site may get listed as a source on the meme tracker site.

  24. Join the Better Business Bureau.

  25. Get a link from your local chamber of commerce.

  26. Submit your link to relevant city and state governmental resources. (Easier in some countries than in others.)

  27. List your site at the local library's Web site.

  28. See if your manufacturers or retailers or other business partners might be willing to link your site.

  29. Develop business relationships with non-competing businesses in the same field. Leverage these relationships online and off, by recommending each other via links and distributing each other's business cards.

  30. Launch an affiliate program. Most of the links you pick up will not have SEO value, but the added exposure will almost always lead to additional "normal" links.

    Easy Free Links
  31. Depending on your category and offer, you will find Craigslist to be a cheap or free classified service.

  32. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Yahoo! Answers and provide links to relevant resources.

  33. It is pretty easy to ask or answer questions on Google Groups and provide links to relevant resources.

  34. If you run a fairly reputable company, create a page about it in the Wikipedia or in topic specific wikis. If it is hard to list your site directly, try to add links to other pages that link to your site.

  35. It takes about 15 minutes to set up a topical Squidoo page, which you can use to look like an industry expert. Link to expert documents and popular useful tools in your fields, and also create a link back to your site.

  36. Submit a story to Digg that links to an article on your site. You can also submit other content and have some of its link authority flow back to your profile page.

  37. If you publish an RSS feed and your content is useful and regularly updated, some people will syndicate your RSS content (and some of those will provide links… unfortunately, some will not).

  38. Most forums allow members to leave signature links or personal profile links. If you make quality contributions some people will follow these links and potentially read your site, link at your site, and/or buy your products.

    Have a Big Heart for Reviews
  39. Most brands are not well established online, so if your site has much authority, your review related content often ranks well.

  40. Review relevant products on Amazon.com. We have seen this draw in direct customer enquiries and secondary links.

  41. Create product lists on Amazon.com that review top products and also mention your background (LINK!).

  42. Review related sites on Alexa to draw in related traffic streams.

  43. Review products and services on shopping search engines like ePinions to help build your authority.

  44. If you buy a product or service you really like and are good at leaving testimonials, many of those turn into links. Two testimonial writing tips — make them believable, and be specific where possible.

    Blogs & the Blogosphere
  45. Start a blog. Not just for the sake of having one. Post regularly and post great content. Good execution is what gets the links.

  46. Link to other blogs from your blog. Outbound links are one of the cheapest forms of marketing available. Many bloggers also track who is linking to them or where their traffic comes from, so linking to them is an easy way to get noticed by some of them.

  47. Comment on other blogs. Most of these comments will not provide much direct search engine value, but if your comments are useful, insightful, and relevant they can drive direct traffic. They also help make the other bloggers become aware of you, and they may start reading your blog and/or linking to it.

  48. Technorati tag pages rank well in Yahoo! and MSN, and to a lesser extent in Google. Even if your blog is fairly new you can have your posts featured on the Technorati tag pages by tagging your posts with relevant tags.

  49. If you create a blog make sure you list it in a few of the best blog directories.

    Design as a Linking Element
  50. Web 2.0-ify your site. People love to link to anything with AJAX. Even in the narrowest of niches, there is some kind of useful functionality you can build with AJAX.

  51. Validate and 508 your site. This (indirect) method makes your site more trustworthy and linkable, especially from governmental sites or design-oriented communities. There are even a few authoritative directories of standards-compliant sites.

  52. Order a beautiful CSS redesign. A nice design can get links from sites like CSS Vault.

    Hire Help
  53. Hire a publicist. Good old fashioned 'PR' (not PageRank) can still work wonders. Andy Hagans now offers a link baiting publicity service.

  54. Hire a consultant. Yes, you can outsource link building. Just make sure to go with someone good. We recommend WeBuildPages, Debra Mastaler and, ahem, Andy Hagans.

    Link Trading
  55. Swap some links. What?! Did we really just recommend reciprocal link building? Yes, on a small scale, and with relevant partners that will send you traffic. Stay away from the link trading hubs and networks.

  56. In case you didn't get the memo — when swapping links, try to get links from within the content of relevant content pages. Do not try to get links from pages that list hundreds of off topic link partners. Only seek link exchanges that you would consider pursuing even if search engines did not exist. Instead of thinking just about your topic when exchanging links, think about demographic audience sets.

    Buying Sites, Renting Links & Advertisements
  57. Rent some high quality links from a broker. Text Link Ads is the most reputable firm in this niche.

  58. Rent some high quality links directly from Web sites. Sometimes the most powerful rented links come direct from sites not actively renting links.

  59. Become a sponsor. All sorts of charities, contests, and conferences link to their sponsors. This can be a great way to gain visibility, links, and a warm feeling in your heart.

  60. Sell items on eBay and offer to donate the profits to a charity. Many charities will link both to the eBay auction and to your site.

  61. Many search algorithms seem biased toward older established sites. It may be faster to buy an old site with a strong link profile, and link it to your own site, than to try to start building authority links from scratch.

    Use the Courts (Proceed with Caution)
  62. Sue Google.

  63. Get sued by a company people hate. When Aaron was sued by Traffic Power, he got hundreds or thousands of links, including links from sites like Wired and The Wall Street Journal.

    Freebies & Giveaways
  64. Hold a contest. Contests make great link bait. A few-hundred-dollar prize can result in thousands of dollars worth of editorial quality links. Enough said.

  65. Build a tool collection. Original and useful tools (and collections of tools) get a lot of link love. What do you think ranking for "mortgage calculator" is worth?

  66. Create and release open source site design templates for content management systems like Wordpress. Don't forget the "Designed by example.com" bit in the footer!

  67. Offer free samples in exchange for feedback.

  68. Release a Firefox extension. Make sure you have a download and/or support page on your site which people can link to.

    Conferences & Social Interaction
  69. It is easy to take pictures of important events and tell narratives about why they are important. Pictures of (drunk?) "celebrities" in your industry make great link bait.

  70. Leverage new real world relationships into linking relationships. If you go to SEO related conferences, people like Tim Mayer, Matt Cutts, and Danny Sullivan are readily accessible. Similarly, in other industries, people who would normally seem inaccessible are exceptionally accessible at trade conferences. It is much easier to seem "real" in person. Once you create social relationships in person, it is easy to extend that onto the web.

  71. Engaging, useful, and interesting interviews are an easy way to create original content. And they spread like wildfire.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Learn The Seo Basics

Learn The Seo Basics Guidelines For Your Online Website: "It is not very difficult to understand Search Engine optimization and yet it is very important. There are some things that you can do to help your site do better on the Search Engines.

When you are getting started with Search Engine optimization you really should not worry about all of the jargon that is used. The point here is to make things simpler so that Search Engines will like your site better.

There is a pattern and a reason to everything that a Search Engine does. Even if you are unable to understand the complex algorithms, there are still patterns there. You just need to be willing to keep your eyes and mind open in order to look for the patterns.

It is going to take some effort if you want to be good at Search Engine optimization but it really is quite basic. In order to have a successful Search Engine campaign you just need to follow the rules that apply to all web sites.

Search Engines always do their best to provide their users with anything that is relevant to their search. However, most Search Engines do not move the good sites to the top but they do push the bad sites to the bottom in hopes that the good sites will rise to the surface. Of course, content really is king and it will easily provide you with good rankings as long as it is "