SEO Rants and Resources

Building links is like shaving. If you don’t do it every day you look like a bum.

For years, you have probably had a daily routine for shaving. But have you developed a system of building links?

No one pops out of bed each morning and races to the sink to shave. It is a tedious and potentially dangerous daily necessity. But without a daily shave, our appearance begins to get a little shabby.

Linking is the same way. Rare is the webmaster who jumps out of bed, races to his/her computer excited to find inbound links. Yet, no matter how optimized a site is, without inbound links it is never going to be found in the search engine results pages. Even established sites that buy traffic but don’t have something the visitors find worth while to link to are in the same boat.

Chances are good that you are like most people who build a few links here and there, but don't really have an overall link building strategy. 

When it comes to shaving you can almost automate the process by using an electric razor. Of course the shave is not as good as using a blade. Building links using an automated system is not as good as getting links manually either. No automated system can generate quality naturally built links that are on topic, vary the text, vary the source of the links or incorporate the dynamic aspects of social media.

There are also dangers involved in both shaving and linking. You would never think about taking an electric razor that’s plugged into an electrical outlet, into the shower. But you may not even know the dangers of linking to bad sites or what can happen when you try building your link base by cutting corners. Links to the wrong sites, using only one technique like reciprocal links, building links too quickly or getting caught buying links can do damage to your sites reputation with the search engines.

Although there are new technologies like waterproof, electric razors that give a good shave, the best shave still comes from a hot towel and a straight razor in a professionals hand. This is also true about links. There are auto submission sites for articles, mass social book marking tools, link farms and link exchanges. But the best link base a site can have is consistently built one link at a time by people who understand their industry, their business, their customers and make common sense decisions about how and where to get links.

A good link building strategy involves two things. Time and consistency. The more time you consistently put into generating links and cultivating relationships on line the better off your site will be in the long run.

Here are ten steps to get you started.

1.     Buy a listing in a couple of the best directories. Yahoo, Business.com (B2B sites only), Best of the web and submit to DMOZ. This will cost you almost $600.00 but you will gain at least 10 permanent links spread out over several domains.

2.     Search Google for the top 100 ranking sites for your most important keyword. Do some research and create n article that you can offer in trade for a link. Get a link even if you have to buy it. If you do have to buy a link deal directly with the web site and not from a link broker. Google has been cracking down on sites that buy/sell links. Work this strategy and set a goal of getting one new link this way per week.

3.     Create a blog and create links from your posts back to your site. Try to post 2-3 times each week.

4.     Submit your blog to Blog directories like blogcatalog.com, eatonweb.com ($34.95 to add your blog) blogflux.com etc. Google "blog directory" for more places to submit to.

5.     Write and submit an article to a couple of the major article directories. Start with ezinearticles.com, articlecity.com and amazines.com. Google "article directory" for more places to submit to.

6.     Find something exciting about your business to write about. Write a press release and send it out through PRweb.com. Spend at least $220.00 and you will get at least 2 links but more than likely 10’s if not hundreds.

7.     Create a profile at linkedin.com. In the field websites use the search term that you want your site to be found under instead of the default my website You can add up to three links.

8.     Set up a lens at squidoo.com. Your lens will allow you to create links to your profiles and sites.

9.     Every time you establish a new link set a social book mark to the page it is on. There are hundreds of social book marking sites. Start with delic.io.us, backflip.com, furl.com and ma.gnolia.com Google "social bookmarks" for more. Spend some time searching for people to connect with.

10.   Ask everyone you are connected with at linkedin.com to comment on your latest blog post.

The daily ritual of shaving only takes a few minutes each day. Linking will eat up as much time as you will dedicate to it. But if you skip shaving or link building for very long you will start to look like a bum.

About the author:

Article by Terry Mickelson founder of Page Views, Inc., one of the foremost search engine optimization companies specializing in B2B search engine optimization and link building programs. For further information as well as a free ranking report on your website, contact Terry Mickelson at 480-556-9752 or email reportrequest@pageviews.com

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Could you sell Tupperware from your blog?

Tupperware has never been one of the companies on my radar.  Sure, every time I open the bottom kitchen cabinet next to the stove at home and deal with “the rush to get out” of plastic storage containers I use the name Tupperware in vain. But other than that I just don’t think of them.

Years ago they were a company who’s distribution network was made up of people throwing parties. They partied to the tune of about $2.5 million per day in the early 90’s.

Recently, I read an article that compared promoting your blog to having a Tupperware party. They made some good points. On-line or off, you are leveraging a relationship to commercially benefit.

Is your house inviting? Is your kitchen sink full of dishes when you invite guests over? Are the side bars of your blog filled with distractions or does your blog have poor graphics?
Know your product. If you are going to sell a 25 piece a kitchen storage kit you better know how it works. If you are going to blog, you better know your subject and repeat your unique positioning statement early and often.
Ask for the order. At a Tupperware party handing someone an order form and asking for shipping details is the call to action. On your blog, you may be trying to get subscribers to your RSS feed. Make it clear that you want them to sign up.
Say thank you. After you party you would send out thank you cards. Send a free offer to new subscribers. Perhaps your new white paper or ebook.
Deliver what you promise. The party is not over until you deliver the products in a timely fashion. In your blog it is delivering a clear, consistent message of what you promise.

There is plenty of information and physiological details behind why this company was so successful. >>>Full story 

The Secret Sauce of Google Success

What do you need to get top rankings on Google? There are many ingredients in the mix, but here are three of the most important that you need to concentrate on.

1.) Keyword relevant copy and content

 Whatever the keywords you want to get ranked in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), be sure that you have enough copy and content about those specific words. Which would give Google a reason to rank you in the first place.

If for example, one of your priority keywords is "virtual assistant software". Create a separate page or section for this keyword (at least a few paragraphs) using the keyword in the headline, the first sentence, the last sentence as well as wherever it makes logical sense in order to achieve the keyword frequency and "density" that search engines are looking for. Ideally, each page will only have one or two keywords and will be very focused on that specific topic.

Additionally, by including on this specific keyword page either articles, pdf files or news items about your keyword, will help you improve your chances of a better ranking. Give Google a reason to rank you at the top. He with the most relevant copy wins …so make it rich and deep.

2.) Can the search engines read and "crawl" all the pages and content on your site?

Probably the biggest surprise to most marketers is that the search engines are unable to either navigate or read most of the content on their website. If they can't read your copy, then it's not surprising that you're not getting the rankings or traffic to your website that you aspire to.

The only thing a search engine can read is words. Sites that are dynamic, or created in other formats such as Flash or Java often can't be read by the search engines. Even if they can read the content on your site, many times they can't navigate it properly or just bounce "off the walls" as there are no specific links or site map to tell the proper sequence or where to go next

Want to see what Google is indexing on your website? Go to Google and type in: site:www.yourdomain.com This will show you the title and description of the pages of your site they know about. If they are all the same or they don’t have a title or description listed chances are very good that your site is invisible to your target market.

3) Links... why they are so important?

Link popularity is one of the most important factors search engines use in determining where you will rank in the search engine for your keywords, and phrases, as it helps them to determine how important or popular your site is and what it’s reputation is.

In essence the search engines are saying "we're going to give top ranking to pages that have important and relevant sites linking to them".

Link Building is the process of finding related/relevant websites and receiving a link from them to you. Natural linking occurs when a site has good content that others will link to. But to get these links people have to know about you. It is a catch 22. Building links has gotten sophisticated in the last couple of years. Today you need a mixture of links from many sources including articles, press releases, social bookmarks, directories and social media sites.

How many links do you need to have? It depends on the individual keyword or phrase you want to be found under and how the links are structured. The search engines look at inbound links as a popularity contest but more importantly, they are looking at the quality of the pages that are linking to you and the “anchor text” - the "clickable link" and what it says about the page that it links to. The key to linking is to have the right anchor text on a link that points to a page that has content using the same keyword phrase.

You do not want to increase the overall number of links by more than 10-15% each month for an established site with history as this may trigger a filter from the search engines as an indicator of artificially inflating the link popularity. New sites have an advantage since there has not been a history established and the link building can be done at a faster rate.

Linking is critical not only with your search engine placement but it helps stabilize you positions in the search engines and delivers traffic directly from the sites that link to you. But linking is not a once and you are done process. Generating new links is an ongoing process.

In Summary, successfully implementing the above 3 strategies either through your own efforts or through employing search engine promotion specialists will deliver the "triple punch" and the knockout punch you need to get top rankings on Google and the other search engines as well.

Article by Terry Mickelson Founder of PageViews.com, one of the foremost search engine optimization companies specializing in B2B search engine optimization and link building programs. For further information as well as a free ranking report on your website, contact Terry Mickelson at 480-556-9752 or email tmickelson - at -pageviews.com.