While all three of these are important and impact search engine rankings in some way, the last type has the largest by far…which coincidentally, is the hardest links to control.

Basically speaking, the search engines’ concept is as follows: if high-quality sites are linking to yours, then your site must be pretty important and therefore, will be more inclined to show it higher in their results…you in effect receive “link juice” from other sites that link to you.

But it’s not enough to just get a couple of links and then sit still. Search engines like Google look at link patterns to your site as they build over time, not just a one-time snapshot.

So, building the right links in a consistent fashion can payoff tremendously – that much is clear. But how do I go about building strong inbound links without getting myself in trouble? Getting on Google’s blacklist isn’t much fun and hard to recover from.

Continue reading for one of the ways you can build high-quality links to your site naturally and check back again in a week for part II of our quick little link building how-to.

Variety is the spice of life – and links too!

There are all sorts of link farming schemes out there you can buy into – which is probably the first reason you should run away. This practice is known as reciprocal linking – you exchange links with other sites who will turn around and link to you on a mass scale…Google and others are on to this!

The key to successful link building is to cultivate a good mix of links over time.

Having 100 links with the same anchor-text doesn’t look natural to anyone, including search engines. When links come naturally, some may use your business name while others may use some kind of descriptive phrase for the anchor-text…they vary.

If anchor-text is the same for all links pointing to your site, it will be signal to the search engines that your links are being generated artificially, not naturally.

And consider the pages people are linking to and try to mix that up too…don’t have them all going to your homepage. Try to drive links to specific product pages, your blog, your press room, your articles and more. This will help get them ranking as well.

Also, you will want to try and influence the title tag for incoming links if any have one. If you can, you will want variety in the link text and title for links pointing to your site…again, it’s about growing your links in a natural way, not simply slapping a bunch of homogenous links up there and walking away.

Variety in your links is perhaps the most critical component of successful link building. Don’t have them all coming from the same place to the same place and so on.

Check back with us next Monday for part II of our quick little link building guide and even learn how you can easily find out which sites are linking to you.

In the mean time, take the above steps to ensure what links you do acquire don’t get you in any trouble and give you the most bang for your buck.

If it is filled with a lot of hype, the customer could experience buyers’ remorse and have ill-feeling toward you (the seller).

Marketing online is more than just making a quick sale…it’s about building your reputation as much as anything. If your website gets the reputation of having too much hype, people will know and either leave your site quickly or not visit at all.

So how can I create persuasive copy that doesn’t contain too much hype?

Many of these copywriting tips have proven their worth in terms of consistent conversions and sales. Continue reading for 3 quick steps you can use to create persuasive copy without resorting to hype.

Focus on your readers, not your products and services

Be sure your copy is focused on your readers and solving their problems. Focusing on how great your products and services are will only make you seem less than sincere. If someone lands on your site, they either clicked an ad or a link on a search engine results page or some other site. They came to you so you can assume they know what they’re looking for and why.

Therefore, focus on the readers to capture their attention and move them through the buying process.

Draw readers’ attention with a great headline

We’ve discussed before how headlines are one of the most important elements in a landing page or online article. If it doesn’t grab a reader’s attention quickly, they will move off your site quicker than you can blink!

Your headline needs to do two things – it needs to ‘catch’ the readers’ attention and it needs to be relevant to the sales copy. To fulfill both of these conditions of an effective headline, place an ‘emotional trigger’ in the headline to keep people’s interest. Focus on the problem your readers have and the solution your products/services offer rather than resorting to hype.

Quickly make your point and provide a ‘call-to-action’

Without resorting to promotional pitches, quickly tell people what your product can do for them. People are not concerned about your business but their situation, which is why they’re searching online for a solution to their problem.

Therefore, that’s why it’s important to speak about them and their problem rather than your products. And do it quickly and provide instructions on what to do next. Most people’s attention spans are quite short and they won’t spend a lot of time trying to figure out what they should do next.

Additionally, your sentences and paragraphs should be quick and to the point…one, you don’t want to lose readers’ interest by taking forever to get to the point and two, you don’t want to intimidate readers with large chunks of text. Therefore, keep your paragraphs short and to the point (5 lines max.)

Harnessing these 3 steps will go a long way to ensuring your copy is persuasive without the hype that’s so common in many websites and marketing materials. Today’s shoppers are more meticulous than ever…they won’t spend much time on a site that spends all its time talking about itself.

In the early days of SEO and the Internet, meta tags were a lot more important to accomplishing ranking goals…get as many keywords into the document as possible was the mantra. But with search engine’s evolving alongside other technologies, they’re not just looking at meta tags and keywords but whether you have original content that’s creative and compelling too.

But that doesn’t diminish the contribution meta tags can make to help you achieve high rankings.

Nevertheless, just what are the right ways to go about making meta tags? Before getting into that too far though, you need to know the different types of meta tags: title, description and keyword.

Each are pretty self-explanatory – the title tag is the title visitors will see in the top left of their browsers, description appears underneath the search results and describes what your page is about and keyword tags list all of the applicable keywords for the particular page.

Technically speaking, there is no limit to how many characters you can use for each of these meta tags…however, there is a limit to what Google will display so you will want to keep a few limits in mind…a good rule of thumb for the different tags is:

Title: 9-12 words max

Description: 3-4 sentences

Keyword: up to 10 keyword phrases

Besides these limits, simply try and integrate keywords into your meta tags without sacrificing the flow of anything too much (title and description tags). These are things people will read and the search engines will perhaps think you’re keyword stuffing penalize your site.

Take a look at a sample set of meta tags from one of SEO Advantage’s web pages below. Modeling your meta tags like these will help you get the most benefit from having them in the first place. This is how they will appear in your page’s HTML coding.

<head>

<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1″ />

<title>Search Engine Optimization & Search Engine Marketing Services Company: SEO Advantage, Inc.</title>

<meta content=”Search engine optimization and search engine marketing services company: SEO Advantage, Inc.,offers online web site marketing and optimization services including search engine marketing and optimization, SEO Buzz Marketing, optimized press releases, and web site development.”>

<meta content=”search engine marketing company,search engine optimization services,SEO specialists,consultants,web site marketing,web site promotion,search engine promotion,search engine reporting,press release optimization,search engine marketing firm,florida search engine optimization.”>

Remember, meta tags aren’t as important as they once were but you can still harness them to improve your position in the search engines.

In fact, many organizations are directing their users to their Facebook page instead of their actual sites because of its built-in social interactivity.

Many of our online experiences though still start through search – whether on Google, Bing or Facebook. If we’re looking for information or searching for a solution to a problem, we generally go and ask very broad questions and use broad terms to try and narrow down what we’re looking for.

Continue reading for some tips from Manoj Jasra at Search Engine Guide on how you can boost your Facebook page to the top of the search engines results page.

Number of Followers – The more followers your Facebook page has, the more back links…the more links you have, the more authoritative your page seems.

Fresh Content – Like regular web pages, the fresher your content is (wall posts, pictures, comments, etc.), the more frequently the spiders will crawl your site.

Include relevant content – Only post content on your Facebook page that helps improve its overall theme.

Keyword-rich URL – Be sure your Facebook URL contains keywords searchers use to find your products and services online.

Number of “Shares” or “Likes” – Having more “shares” and “Likes” will also boost your Facebook page to the top of the results. This shows your page is so compelling that people couldn’t simply look at it and move on, they had to share it.

Social media applications like Facebook and Twitter are increasingly important in effectively marketing your small business online. Going forward, any SEO or online marketer must factor these social networks into their marketing strategy.

You don’t want to give away too much but you do want to draw their interest enough so they will click on that link to learn more or buy.

Creating copy that simultaneously achieves both of those objectives is the needle you need to thread to effectively harness the Internet to grow your small business.

So when you’re writing landing pages for your website, consider the following 5 tips to maximize their value on both ends…that is serve as good search engine fodder on one end and an effective marketing message on the other.

Write attention grabbing, eye-catching headlines

Headlines are the best opportunity you have to really grab your reader’s attention…if it doesn’t, they will most likely leave the page. You will want to include a primary keyword that will grab both your both your reader’s and the search engine’s attention.

Include call-to-action often

Next, you need to include a call-to-action that instructs visitors on what to do next. Generic forms of this are “Click here to learn more” and other quick anecdotes but those have shown to not work as well as more unique calls-to-action like “…start increasing your online presence and find more customers by contacting search engine marketers at SEO Advantage today to learn more.

Read 3 Elements of a Good Call-to-Action to learn more.

Like our example, you should also include a keyword phrase for your link in this call-to-action statement for additional search engine benefits. Include at least 2 calls-to-action for a short landing page and 3-5 for longer ones.

Directly address the customer

In your main copy, address the customer as “you” and “your” rather than saying “we,” “us” and “our.” Let the customer know what your company and its products/services and do for them. This relaxes the customer too…making them feel like they’re talking to a friend.

Directly deliver the message

When you’re writing landing pages and other content for marketing your small business online try to think about your copy as a business tool and not an art form. You’re trying to persuade readers to take action, not feel good about your ability to express yourself.

Keep content closely written

Whether your landing page is short (500 words or less) or longer, keep the context of the page tightly knit. Meaning, don’t get sidetracked by including extraneous facts and benefits of your products or services. There’s much debate amongst copywriters on an effective length for a landing page but no matter which one you choose, keep the subject matter within certain parameters.

Accomplishing both SEO and marketing goals through your landing pages and other content will maximize the value of your site for both you and your customers. Not only will search engines reward you for compelling, keyword-rich content, those who find you will be reassured that your products/services can address their needs.

This time last year, Microsoft’s Bing enjoyed the title of fastest growing search engine, experiencing 22% growth in its first year of existence.

But now, Bing can no longer claim that mantle as Twitter CEO Biz Stone proclaimed at the Aspen Ideas Festival this week, a gathering of the nation’s leading intelligentsia. Stone says Twitter is exceeding 800 million searches per day, which translates to 24 billion per month – almost twice as much as Bing and Yahoo combined!

(Last month, Bing had 4.1 billion searches and Yahoo had 9.4 billion)

Of course, this is nowhere near Google with over 88 billion searches a month but it’s quite respectable.

Lately, it’s been said you can jumpstart indexing of new content by posting it on Twitter in addition to your site since Google is constantly refreshing feeds from Twitter. With this newest data, you can safely assume many people are turning to Twitter to search for answers to their questions, news on current events and information on products and services.

Stone says Twitter has intentionally been trying to play this kind of angle – serving as not only a social network but a search engine as well. He argues there are many misconceptions regarding Twitter, saying that it’s “not a social network” but “…more like an information network or a source of news.”

Either way, Twitter is quickly becoming a relevant way to search for information online…we’ll see what some of the reports from comScore and others say when they come out. But if there’s any validity to Stone’s claims, you best consider how, when and if it’s wise for your business to jump in.

Evaluate the demand and presence of your industry on Twitter to get a better idea of when and how much effort you should put into it.

Before you start the redesign and all throughout the process, it’s important you make your SEO strategy a top priority. First, you don’t want to lose the rankings and traffic you’ve built up to now but you also will not want to miss the more targeted visitors you will get when your new and improved site is up and running.

Ignoring the following 6 steps when redesigning your site will put your online position in peril. So if you’re looking for quality web design services, be sure they understand the following before hiring them.

1.  Keep content/keyword rich pages near the top of your site’s hierarchy

Search engines are quite meticulous when seeing how pages within your site are linked together. They use this form of internal link popularity to determine a particular page’s place within your site’s hierarchy. Pages linked from every other page are given more weight than one’s linked from only a few.

In light of this fact, you should be sure your content and keyword-rich pages are placed high within this hierarchy. If a particular page was bringing in a lot of traffic before, don’t bury it too deep within the site.

2. Categorize content by niche markets and avoid duplicate content

Online searchers generally ask questions when initially looking for solutions to their problems or answers to their questions. Therefore, the more ways you can categorize your information for these different issues – or target markets – the better.

Categorize all of your top-level pages to reflect this fact and make it clear your products and services can address their problem. And be sure – regardless of how someone finds a certain bit of information on your site, be sure they end up at the same URL to avoid any duplicate content issues. For example, if a specific product can be listed as both a product and a service, place the same URL in both categories so regardless of how someone views it, they will end up at the same place.

Courtesy of cool-photos.com

3. Stay on top of URLs if transitioning to a new content management system (CMS)

If you’re going to use a new content management system for your site to help better administer it, be sure you place 301 redirects for any URL you have to change. Since search engines will take some time to index new URLs, you want to be sure you maintain your position in the search engines and current traffic levels.

If you must, you should re-direct your top-level pages at minimum. Doing so will quickly pass the link popularity of the old URLs to the new ones – and prevent prior visitors from seeing a 404 error/not found message when they come back.

4. Code links with a navigation menu in a search friendly manner

It’s important you code all links within your navigation menus in a search friendly manner so they can be crawled and pass on those benefits to your rankings position. Many graphic designers don’t realize this – some Flash graphics and DHTML menus are invisible to the search engines, causing them to not receive the internal link popularity they should receive.

Therefore, make sure all navigation menu elements are coded with CSS that is visible to search engines. Avoid drop-down box links as the main form of navigation and ensure all content can be reached through their own dedicated links.

5. Be sure your new CMS system allows you to customize HTML elements

While automation may seem nice for HTML elements like titles, meta tags, headers, URLs and alt attributes for headers, it’s imperative your new CMS system allows you to customize these. There should ideally be no limit to the number of characters for each of these elements but do remember, the search engines have limits you should stay within.

6. Avoid session IDs and other tracking links

Tracking visitors on our websites gives us insight into what works and what doesn’t. For ranking purposes though, this can be a double-edges sword. It’s best to avoid these types of internal elements but if you must, be sure the clean URL is the only one given to the search engines. If not, the search engines will duplicate the same page over many URLs, splitting your link popularity.

If your new CMS system has tracking elements inherit within it, be sure you use a canonical link element to maintain one URL for every page of content.

Sharing these “secrets” with your potential developer may make them feel you’re usurping their knowledge and authority but heck, it’s your money, so be sure whoever your hire has all of the know-how to make your site work. Many professional graphic designers are not SEO experts per se.

They may create some very nice looking websites and marketing materials but it won’t matter too much if it can’t be found.

We spend a lot of time here at the search engine optimization e-blog exploring the best and most legit ways of doing this.

One strategy of building links budding web entrepreneurs can consider is buying an abandoned website that has an existing cache of inbound links already. This can be a quick way to jumpstart your link-building efforts.

It’s been estimated that nearly half of businesses started in the U.S. fail within four years. In the old days, this exclusively meant a brick-and-mortar storefront was abandoned, leaving the real estate for someone else to pick up and use for productive purposes. In the online world, the site owner may keep his “online real estate” around in hopes of making it work one day.

These kinds of businesses or their website more specifically, are ripe for the picking at rock bottom prices. As far as cash outlay, this option may be more expensive than other link building strategies but the time you will save will make up for it. As the old saying goes – “time is money.”

One of the easiest ways to find these link jewels is to do a search on Google for outdated copyrights. For example: “copyright 2003” + your keywords

One of the easiest ways to spot an abandoned website is to find one whose copyright date is several years old. Sites that are consistently maintained will change that date each year but if it’s abandoned, the copyright year may be from 5+ years ago. Nothing says a site has given up like an old copyright date.

Another way to find abandoned or underperforming websites you can pick up for cheap is to type in “temporarily down for maintenance” or “under construction” plus your keywords. This is another indication that a site could be abandoned.

Once you locate a potential site, make sure its domain hasn’t expired. If a domain expires, Google wipes their entire history and infrastructure clean. Meaning, the value of any links and PageRank is reduced to zero so it would be a waste of time to purchase it for link building purchases.

We’ll have more on how to effectively build links through purchasing abandoned domains. Check back with the search engine optimization e-blog for more on this and other tips on building search engine rankings and effectively marketing your small business online.

For any of us who spend our time trying to obtain high search engine rankings, this surely threw a wrench in the gears. How would we know if our efforts are working if everyone was getting personalized results based on prior searches, their location, etc. In one respect, personalized search is nothing new. Google has returned results based on geographic specific elements for a long time now.

Now that you have to opt-out of personalized search (which most people have no idea about), search results may be slightly skewed. Meaning, if you visited a website, your browser was likely stamped with a 180 day cookie that will highlight any related keywords pertaining to that site. So the next time you do a search using those keywords, the site you visited will appear first rather than one that’s more deserving.

While this may not be a problem for most people, SEOs and webmasters like you and me want to see search engine results how they are and not skewed results pages based on some personalization.

So how can I see raw search engine results without personalization?

Keep reading for two ways you can shut off Google personalization in your web browser so you can see the raw results for particular keywords you’re targeting.

Option 1 – Add the search operator “&pws=0” to the end of the URL of your search query. Type in the keywords into the search bar like normal then click search. When that results page appears, simply add the above code into the URL bar on your browser. This will return raw results with no personalization.

Option 2 – Scroll down to the bottom of a search engine results page and click the “view customizations” link. Next, click the option to view your keyword search “without these improvements” to remove personalization and any cookies from your browser.

After doing one of two of these, you should be able to see non-personalized results for the keyword in question. Repeat for other searches to obtain raw search results. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any permanent shut-off switch for this feature but if we stumble into one, we’ll let you know.

These strategies can help you get the raw deal on how well your search engine optimization efforts are working. Personalized search isn’t affecting search results too much, the best we can tell, but shutting it off entirely will certainly give you the best picture on how well your efforts are working.

What is voice, exactly? And how can you make it shine through your blog?

In the context of writing, no one can literally hear you…but, they can ‘hear’ you through the words you use and how you use them.

Your English teacher in high school likely didn’t spend much time discussing the voice and who can blame them…it’s a messy, abstract venture that few instructors embark on.

Fortunately, we have a list of four ways you can use to find your ideal writing voice from Joy Tanksley, a middle school English teacher and philosopher. Employing these tips can help you transform your writing from a static compilation of words to an electrifying piece that lights fires in the minds of your readers.

Continue reading for four methods you can use to find your ideal writing voice and take your writing to a higher level.

Get into the flow

Sit down each day or fairly regularly and just write. Don’t worry about grammar or accuracy, just let the words flow…you will be surprised at how good your writing is in these bursts of activity. By focusing on quantity rather than quality, you get a natural and authentic piece…something with a voice attached to it.

Write like you talk

Another way is to write like you talk. Take some prior writings and read them out loud. Does it sound like you? If not, take a tape recorder and simply talk your compositions for a while. Take your recording and transcribe what you said and whammo, you will have some great voice-rich snippets to integrate into your final product.

Forget grammar conventions (…at least at first)

When you were taught about writing in school, you probably learned all of the rules that go along with it. Yes, writing does involve communicating a message so to that end, standard grammar conventions are important. In many instances though, these conventions hinder our ability to create a realistic voice for our writing.

Rather than spending too much time worrying about grammar, start out by pretending the writing conventions do not exist. And when you’re editing your piece, base your decisions on what best communicates your message and not on what satisfies all the proper rules.

If it will enhance the flow of your piece and give it voice, it’s okay to play around with the rules a little bit.

Write about what you know

Many web copywriters try to write about the latest, trendy topics. This may seem like a winner but in reality, if it’s not near and dear to your heart, it will have no voice. Instead, strive for authenticity over popularity…or as Dolly Parton says, “Figure who you are; then do it on purpose.” In other words, don’t try to sound like anyone or anything except who you are.

Harnessing tips like these can help you go beyond simple content creation to satisfy the ever hungry search engines…creating compelling content with the right voice can not only get you to the top of the search engines, it can get you more conversions as well.