Getting To the Top of Google … Fast

When it comes to SEO, the fastest and best way to climb the search engine rankings is with lots of back links from relevant sites. Of course that may not exactly be breaking news for many of you.

 

What many people don’t realize however is that an ages old offline marketing tactic may be one of the best ways to get lots of the highest quality back links.

 

You see, Google and Yahoo both “weight” the strength of the link to you based on a wide variety of factors. Links from authority and news sites count for more than links from a “commercial” site.  It is therefore better if you can get your site into the news … and linked to from a news article, than it is to simply buy links.

 

Further, and one thing that many people don’t realize is that google also tracks the click through of links. In other words, google considers a link that gets clicked on to be more “real” … and weights such a link heavier … than a link which is not clicked through. So, a link from a PR5 news site that people click through (because the article is flattering), is “worth more” in terms of aiding your google ranking than a link from a PR7 site that people largely ignore.

 

Therefore, using the “offline” technique of getting publicity about your site will be one of the single most valuable activities in your link building campaign.

 

Even better, links from news sites will drive your site up the rankings farther … and faster … than almost any other single thing.

 

Now, here’s the best thing about getting into the news … If you do get mentioned in a newspaper, you can count on a flood of visitors coming to your site and buying … and the numbers will be far greater than anything delivered by a search engine.

 

You’ll quickly discover that simply the mention of your site in a decent sized newspaper will bring you more sales than almost any other activity there is. This is why I find it so amazing that given the benefits to the search engines, and the benefits in terms of nearly instant sales, that so few webmasters and self-proclaimed SEO “experts” bother to perm any publicity gaining activities at all.

 

With that said, the first and most important thing to not do is to send out some dull, boring “press release” via PR Newswire or broadcast fax to every reporter in the nation. These things are almost never read, nor do they (except on a basis that makes playing the lottery look like good odds) result in a news reporter actually doing a story on you.

 

The reason for this is simple. People don’t care about you, your products, or what new thing you’re coming out with. Not only are those, but all the yammering about integrity aside, newspapers in business to make money. The only way that happens is when there are stories in the paper that people actually want to read.

 

That means that a journalist’s job is to write compelling stories that people will care about, or at least will enjoy reading. Journalists are paid (too little in my opinion) to take stories of occasionally only minor interest and turn them into great stories that people read.

 

Further, the job of the average journalist is exceedingly difficult as a result of the nasty deadlines they operate under.

 

So the first and most important thing that you can do in your efforts to get written about is to consider what you can do to make the reporters’ job easier (and again, one of those things is not to write a story for them).

 

One of the best ways is to actually consider what is really newsworthy, and then, sending out a press release that interest the reporter enough that they want to find out more.

Once that’s done, you’ll need to make it easy for the reporter to do their own research. Giving them links to prove your numbers, links to other relevant stories, links to outside objective opinions written about you, your company, and your products.

 

It also means that when a reporter calls, you’d better answer the phone (you, not your secretary … a reporter gets your direct line) … or if there is a very good reason for not answering, you’re calling back within 30 minutes. This last item is important (remember what I said about their deadlines) if you expect the reporter to actually write about you.

 

You see, because a reporter is working under such a wicked schedule, they need you. It is important for you to remember that if you want those top rankings, the traffic, and the sales, you need them as well.

 

The next thing you can do to make a reporters life easier is to tie your products in with the latest and most breaking news available. As an example, let’s say you manufacture a wrist protector. During a football game, a famous wide receiver breaks their wrist. You promptly send out a press release to sports writers about the break … and point out that had the player been wearing your protector the break wouldn’t have happened. In the release you let the reporter know you can give independent evidence of the veracity of your statements.

 

The thing you have to remember is that most reporters are deluged with press releases. If you want to be written about, your press releases have to stand out. It must tie in with current events or somehow tie in with basic human emotions (and remember the news axiom “if it bleeds it leads”).

 

If you want to be written about, be bold, be creative, be controversial, even better, be all three.

 

Will some people be “upset” about you being controversial? Maybe … probably even (hey, it isn’t controversial otherwise!). However, consider it a Good Thing. Stir the controversy, and while all of the whiners are wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth, you get to laugh all the way to the bank.

How to Build Web site Traffic with Customized Content

To attract and engage qualified new visitors, says Tom Pick, a Web marketing consultant, construction firms must offer content that both helps the visitor and positions their company as the expert in that market niche.

Here are a few of Pick’s suggestions to attract visitors to your Web site with compelling content:

News feeds. No one has time to monitor all the various sources of industry intelligence. Publishing an aggregated news feed on your site lets you provide your visitors with timely industry news in one place. Services such as Moreover, NetContent, and YellowBrix offer customized news feeds based on your specifications.

White papers. Still popular with both marketers and prospects, a well-written white paper

subtly positions your company as an expert, while providing useful “how to” type information to the reader. You can write the white paper internally (if you have the right resources), hire a freelance writer, or have the paper authored on your behalf by an analyst group or recognized industry expert. This last option is the most expensive, but also has the greatest impact.

Webinars. Essentially PowerPoint presentations delivered online using an Internet conferencing service, webinars are an increasingly popular way to present educational and white-paper-like content. Upside: Webinars give your message the combined impact of audio, visuals, and interactivity. Downside: They tie your audience to their computers for 30 to 60 minutes.

Podcasts. Audio podcasts can be almost any length and used for a variety of purposes from creating an interest-generating “teaser” to an audio white paper. Once downloaded to an MP3 player, a podcast can be listened to virtually anywhere. Although you could record a podcast using various software packages or Web services, Pick recommends hiring an expert to assure that your podcast is produced and promoted effectively and professionally.

High Rankings

Search engine optimization does not have to be complicated but it does require some work if you plan on having your Website in the top 10 on the major search engines. Many Webmasters want their Websites on the first page of Google, MSN and Yahoo when their keyword is put in the search. Unfortunately they believe one of two things. The first being that it is too difficult for them to do it themselves and the second is that there is a secret trick that will have to perform in order to get high rankings. Both of these statements are false.

Some Webmasters will pay thousands of dollars to a so-called professional SEO expert to have their Websites on top in the rankings. The truth is that you can get top Search Engine Rankings spending a little bit of money and doing the work yourself or paying a professional SEO company thousands of dollars to get your Website on the first page. Both will work the choice is yours.

There are many myths about SEO but I want to tell you the plain truth. The do-it-yourself person can accomplish just as much as the professional. You must be willing to do many tasks of Website Optimization if you want to succeed. There is much information on the Internet on SEO. Some will tell you that the secret to high rankings is creating and submitting many RSS Feeds. Others will tell you that you need quality reciprocal links. Is there just one way of gaining first page on Google?

What is required of Webmasters in order to achieve Top Website Rankings? Some believe that if they perform 3 major tasks of Website Optimization that their Website will soar to the top. I believe that you cannot just do a few works of optimization or come up with a secret trick to achieve a high site ranking on the search engine.

Complete Website Optimization is your best guarantee to having a high ranking on the major search engines. What is complete optimization? Using all of the information and tools to get your site noticed on the search engines with a high ranking for your keywords. If you really want a top ranking and only want to spend a little bit of money I will tell you the many things you will need to do in order to have the first page on the search engines.

Complete Website Optimization is your best guarantee to having a high ranking on the major search engines. What is complete optimization? Using all of the information and tools to get your site noticed on the search engines with a high ranking for your keywords. If you really want a top ranking and only want to spend a little bit of money I will tell you the many things you will need to do in order to have the first page on the search engines.

Having complete Website Optimization will require many working tasks, tools and much researched information. I’m going to give you the many tasks that you will need to perform to accomplish high rankings.

1.   Accurate Description of Website. 2.   Clear Meta tags relevant to your content. 3.   Having your Text Body descriptive of your main Topic. 4.   Finding reciprocal links. 5.   Quality search engine submission. 6.   Proper wording of document title. 7.   Building high traffic Web Pages. 8.   Tools for validation. 9.   Creating and submitting RSS Feeds. 10. Writing and submitting effective articles. 11. Writing and submitting Press Releases. 12. Creating and submitting Blogs. 13. Building and submitting a site map. 14. Submitting to Web Directories. 15. Classified Advertising. 16. Effective email advertising. 17. Traffic boosting tools like toolbars.

Automate Your Online Business!

We are becoming more and more a fast-paced, automated society - so why not our home based or online business? In this article we explore the steps you can take to fully automate your own business - so you can finally take some time to stop and smell the roses....

 

You get up, have some breakfast and head to your home office for a full 8 hour day of optimizing your web site, processing orders, writing articles and press releases and so on. You know that if you stepped away from the office for a day or week or sometimes even an hour, you stand the chance of losing customers and sales. Wasn't part of the benefit of working from home supposed to be the time you would take to have a life as well?

 

Home Based Business is quickly becoming the new 'catch phrase' for the common household. Something that everyone should do, (let's not forget the tax incentives and ability to set your own hours) but unfortunately impossible for some who are already working 40-60 hours per week. Whether that is you, and you can't stop long enough to start up a business from home, or if you are the individual who already has a home based business but can't step away from it for any period of time, automating your business is the answer.

 

There are already a handful of businesses to be found on the internet that are 95% or 100% fully automated. This is reason to celebrate! It makes the idea of starting a home based business more enticing, especially for the individuals who are not internet savvy. These businesses have the selling, explaining and closing feature in place (one of the reasons 95% of new entrepreneurs fail is the awesome responsibility to be able to do those necessary tasks), and most only require the business owner to do the actual marketing of the product, which can also be automated.    

For the rest of the populous, those who already have the product do the selling, explaining and closing but want to market their goods or service via internet as opposed to offline media, then automated marketing is also the answer.

So how do we automate business? First we look at the necessary components of business; product and promotion. If you chose to work with a niche market, favouring something you have a particular interest in, then one of the best and simplest, most cost effective ways to startis by opening a store on Ebay. There, once you find your product supplier (if it isn’t your aunt Nelly’s attic) you can set up your auctions a week in advance, then leave the country for a few days while your auctions close (at a profit of course!) and when you get back, set up the next set of auctions and ship the sold products. Ebay does the advertising for you on their site, closes the sale and sends you the purchaser info. Nicely automated.

 

If you already havea store on the web, you can advertise your new products effectively (and inexpensively / freely) through Search Engine submission, Press Releases and Classified Ad or Ezine Submissions. There are numerous companies on the net that, for a fee ranging from $24 per month to $250 total, will “blast” your ad through classified directories, ezines, and online/offline media, as well as submit your website to 100+ search engine directories, even guaranteeing top 10 placement! Definitely worth the bucks! These too, can be set up in advance, submitted, and then forgotten for a week while you vacation in sunny Mexico. 

 

If you are fortunate enough to have discovered a wonderful new fully automated venture on the internet, then you really have it made! You can set up marketing campaigns through the same “blaster” services and leave the selling, explaining and closing to the automated website that came with your business or through the team leaders that direct your buyers through the sale for you. The Cadillac in internet marketing by far!

Once you have taken the time to set up your campaigns, ads, submissions, press releases, etc. then it is only a matter of pushing a button and watching the sales come in! It really can be just that simple…

SEO Fact - Do-it-yourself Works

SEO experts call SEO a science. That’s not so far from the truth. If ten years ago SEO meant inserting some keywords in the Meta tags, nowadays SEO is growing and transforming with a tremendous speed. What works today may not work in three months from now on. The search engines are changing their algorithms so often that getting high rankings in their results has become a fierce competition.

 

But whether this competition means hiring expensive SEO experts to implement “strategies that work… guaranteed!” or not, it’s still a matter of debate. Well, yes, there are SEO techniques achievable solely with money, but as already mentioned above search engines change algorithms fast. Is it really worth to invest huge amounts in short-term results?

 

Do you honestly believe that there are SEO secrets safe-guarded by the SEO experts? There are not. Getting high rankings in the search engines is not the result of an undisclosed alchemy. Getting high rankings implies hard work, dedication and some spending.

 

So let’s take a look at what you can do alone to boost search engine results positioning and increase traffic to your site, supposing you are not familiar with web coding and you’ve just begun your online business. 

 

Step One: Domain Strategy

 

So you want to sell your products online, let’s say wine. What you need to do is get a domain related to your field of activity. For wine a domain such as http://www.wine-pages.com will do just fine, because, as you see, it contains your main keyword “wine”. Once you’ve purchased your domain and chosen your domain host, (please no free hosting providers) place it online as a single landing page. Instead of “under construction” write on that page some basic information about your company, provide contact details, write a short summary of what you hope to achieve with your website or what your potential customers could find there, and specify the expected launching date.

 

Step Two: Promotion Strategy

 

Yes, you’ve got that right. Start promoting your website immediately. It’s true, you don’t have a full operational website just yet, but you do want it indexed in the major search engines and you’ll definitely need a few back links to get those high rankings you dream about. At this point in your ranking strategy stay away from press releases, but do write relevant articles related to your field of expertise. If your site is about wines, then write an article explaining how wine could benefit human health and what dangers are related to it. Don’t forget to include a link to your website in the anchor text (also called “about the author” or “resource box”) and submit your article to a few reliable article submission sites. Searchwarp or Go Articles are very good for this purpose.

 

Step Three: Content Strategy

Write your own content. Please don’t copy! It’s not ethical. You don’t want your visitors to read your pages and leave saying: hey, I’ve read that somewhere. Write your pages with your visitors in mind, but make sure you consider the search engines as well. It’s not so difficult to write optimised content. Let’s see: you sell wine. What kind of wine? Red. That’s good, so choose “red wines” as your main keyword phrase. But there are too many companies selling red wines. You should then optimise your content for something more specific than that. Where is this wine produced? California? Perfect: California Red Wines. Well, that’s your main keyword phrase. But it is not enough to choose one phrase. Let’s think about a second phrase to bring more targeted traffic to your website. What about “home made red wine”? It could work if that’s really what you are selling. Think about it: don’t deceive your visitors hoping to rank higher in the SERP! At the end, it doesn’t matter how many hits you get to your site if no one buys your products. As you see, it’s not such a philosophy to choose your keywords. Just think what best describes your product and you’ve got it right. You’ve got your two main keyword phrases. Now start writing your content.

Write your content.

 

Try to write at least 300 words and include your main keyword phrase two-three times in the text. Two times for the second phrase will do just fine. Also include a few variations of the words in the main keyword phrases: Californian, reddish, wines, vineyard, winery, home, etc. Make sure your content is readable. Read it our loud. How does it sound? Well if you like it, you’re done. That’s all the optimising you need for the content.

 

Step Four: Write the Meta Tags

 

Yes, you can do it yourself. You write the Meta tags and the web coder will know exactly what to do with them. The main Meta-tags you can write are: title, description, keywords. You wrote your own content and chosen your own keywords. Remember? You’ve got two main keyword phrases: “California Red Wines” and “Homemade Red Wine”. That’s your Meta Title tag: California Red Wines | Homemade Red Wine. Please note: there are no “and”, “or” in the Meta title, but your very own keyword phrases. Many search engines use the title tag to determine website relevancy. As these keywords are moderately repeating in your text, you are already on the right path.

 

The second important tag is the page description tag. That’s also a central for a few search engines. Keep it short, to the point and try to include some keywords there too. Don’t spam the search engines! The description should be written like sales pitch, calling potential visitors to action: “Buy full of flavour homemade Californian wines from our company! Taste Californian winemaking tradition with every sip!” No exaggeration there, no “best of”, no “extraordinary”.

Meta keywords… well, you already know them: California red wines, homemade red wine, winery, winemaking, Californian, home. The shorter your keyword tag, the better.

 

Step Five: Chose a Web Designer

 

A complete web development service is costly. If you wrote your texts alone, you already know why. But there are web companies offering low cost solutions for small businesses: simple coding, no text optimisation, and no search engine submission. Hey! You don’t need it anyway. If you’ve followed the first four steps, you are already far! Just insist that your web designer creates a user-friendly layout, respects the Meta tags you wrote, includes relevant alt attributes to your images and provides a valid html code. Ask your web coder to stay away from frames and flash. Plain html is what search engines like best. Besides, many users just hate waiting for fancy flash sites to load.

 

Step Six: Write a Press Release to Announce Your New Web Presence

 

Once you have the complete website online write a relevant press release and submit it to a few online media outlets. There are online press portals where you can submit your press release for free, so don’t ignore this important step: it will bring you a few extra one way links. Having many sites pointing to your website will determine the search engines to index your site and place it higher in their results. You don’t need to submit your site to google: google will come to you, following these links.

Well, these are some basic steps that will help you cut costs. But for many entrepreneurs time means money. So if you don’t have the time to do-it-yourself, make sure you choose a reliable web development company, one that will not throw your site into the black SEO trap, one that will not make false promises such as “top ten results… guaranteed”.

Beating the Link Building Filters

It's no secret that search engine optimization and link building are on an aggressive rise in popularity. For example, according to a recent cars.com survey, about 55% of car dealers are investing in search engine marketing to generate online sales leads. That is a big change for these types of companies from what they have come accustomed to doing over the years.



With this rise in popularity search engines like Google, who strive to be the absolute best at accurate data retrieval based on a user query, need to find new ways of identifying what belongs at the top of their engine and what is optimized (or manipulated) to be there.



To do this effectively they need to build algorithms which identify not only methods of search engine optimization, but trends that follow. One of these trends no doubly is web links, where they come from, and how they link to you. Today, links are a major tactic for search engine optimization and those working to increase their search engine rankings, thus they are also a major target for Google with their ever changing and sophisticated algorithms.



In fact, this popularity in link building has spawned and entire industry of “Link Brokers” and “Text Link Marketing” sites, services, and companies. Not pointing to anyone specific, but I’m sure if you asked any owner of one of these text brokerage companies, they would be quick to tell you that “Business has been good”.



But how long will this text marketing phase stay effective for search engine optimization? What is Google doing to stay above the industry and remain king of search? Well, it really depends on who you ask. Every optimization specialist and experienced search engine marketing professional will have a different answer trying to predict and prepare for where this market is going.



Not too long ago, Matt Cutts, a Google engineer who has become overtime somewhat of what I would consider a webmaster public relations spokesperson, revealed on his blog that: "Reputable sites that sell links won’t have their search engine rankings or Page Rank penalized .... However, link-selling sites can lose their ability to give reputation (e.g. Page Rank and anchor text)."



This is a pretty powerful statement. This tells us that not only is Google examining links, but they are also measuring up the sites where they come from. So if a site is found to be selling links, Google may zap its Page Rank assigning power and that the anchor text used in your ad won’t help you as far as ranking for those terms, a tactic that has proven extremely effective in the past.



Now for people out there paying handsomely for those PR9 and PR8 links, it might be a good time to start rethinking your strategy; it’s not all about PR.



Taking into account that Google is more than likely doing this already, we would need to try and identify the “trends” they would be looking for. One of these trends would be sites that have large numbers of unrelated outbound links, outbound links in footer areas of websites (which are generally paid advertisements or belonging to some sort of link exchange or link trade), or possibly even links in the side bar areas of websites where advertisements are likely to be. One thing is for sure, Google must find a way to accurately identify the validity of links and how to measure them. Considering the fact that Google, although amazingly intelligent, is far from human, it boils down to page characteristics. If I am reading an article, I’m most interested in the main body of the document. Whatever is on the bottom or at the sidebar may not necessarily be of value to me. In most cases it may not even be related to what I am reading. It’s an advertisement, most of the time. Thus “article marketing” is born. A simple and effective way to gain links to your site within bodies of text. Make your own judgment.



At any rate, many webmasters have gotten hit with the last few updates made by Google. Sites that have ranked highly for long periods of time are now shuffled to the bottom of the deck. A lot of sites that got hit, at least from what I have seen, are sites with very little high quality, on theme topic relevant links pointing in. Sites that were using link manipulation tactics like cooperative advertising networks and link exchange programs are on the list of unhappy webmasters. Not in ever case, but many. These are the things that Google is looking for, and they must find and identify them to keep their index clean.



So if you are building links to your web site in hopes of increasing your search engine rankings, remember one important thing: when it comes to search engines, links are like friends, it's not how many you have, but how many you can really count on. Choose them wisely.

Getting Free Traffic From Google & Yahoo

Google and Yahoo! are the most used search engines on the Internet with about 35% of all Internet searches run on one or the other. That's about 70% of all Internet traffic from just two search engines. Actually it's more than 80% when you consider Google's affiliation with AOL, Netscape, and others.

Recently there have been major changes on both these engines. Many sites with top placements have lost their positions while others have achieved top positions on both engines without doing anything.

You can take advantage of these changes and get more traffic from both free.

Recent Changes at Google & Yahoo!

Google recently changed their page ranking system for search results. These changes have far reaching ramifications for your website. The quality and ranking of the pages you link to and those that link to you now matter more than ever.

Previously, Yahoo! would display its own directory listings first, before displaying Google's web listings. Now Google and Yahoo's! results are displayed together on one results page, in a simpler display.

Submission to Google is free, while submission to Yahoo! costs $299.00 PER YEAR, just to be considered for inclusion. Yahoo! only includes websites it considers unique in content. About half the websites that pay for inclusion don't even get listed.

A Yahoo! listing used to have a great deal of value for unique websites but now every listing will be competing with the entire Google database. Now, if you have a page that ranks high in Google, you'll be getting the same listing in Yahoo!'s web results free.

Following are some pointers on exactly how you might take advantage of these changes.

A Simple Google Placement Strategy

Simply put, your Yahoo! ranking is now determined by your Google ranking. If your site is doing well in Yahoo!, It now must also do well in Google also. Your Yahoo! strategy IS now your Google strategy. This makes your website optimization easier and more productive.
The Internet's purpose is to make in-demand information available, and a search engine's job is to provide the highest quality, most relevant information in its search results. Pages with the highest quality content will always rank higher in Google.
So getting good ranking in Google has always involved getting as many high quality links to your site as possible. It's even more important now. It's also important to make sure that your outgoing links take your visitors to high quality pages