Posts Tagged ‘search engine optimization’

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Build More Links to your Site by Syndicating Articles

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Generating original articles for your site accomplishes several objectives – they build content on your site which boosts rankings, they provide a valuable resource for prospective customers and they attract incoming links, which helps your position in the search engines.

One way you can obtain incoming links for your site is to submit knowledge articles to other sites in exchange for a link back to your site. These “article submission” sites provide great resources on various topics in addition to helping you spread your name around.

If it’s done correctly, it is reasonable to expect you will get links to the exact pages you want that include the exact anchor-text you desire.

But submitting content to some of these article submission sites can also have some drawbacks – namely low quality links, duplicate content problems and drawing unwanted attention to your site’s search engine optimization efforts.

Google in fact frowns upon this and views it as an artificial link-building tactic.

There’s in fact a right way and a wrong way to build links through these article submission sites. Some of these sites are in fact duplicating content from your site so you need to be sure your stuff is tweaked to not trip the duplicate content alarm at Google.

You also don’t want to totally rely on these sites. The ones you do use should be reputable and professional. Sites who say “looking for writers” or “submit an article” are better options to choose that won’t paint a big target on your website.

Some popular article submission sites include: Ezine Articles, Article Dashboard, Buzzle, Article Alley and more.

Check back again soon for some more tips on how you should go about submitting articles to these submission sites along with some info on finding good ones to work with.

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Posted in Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day, Writing for search engines | No Comments »

301 Redirects to the Homepage – Should I Do It?

Monday, August 16th, 2010

When doing a major site revamp or taking over an existing site, it’s common to use what’s called a 301 redirect to channel traffic to some other page on your site you want people to go to.

If you had a page about “red rovers” but you no longer offer them, what should you redirect people to? Should you send people to your homepage or generate a custom “404-Not Found” page?

It’s common for people unknowing about the mechanics of SEO to redirect people to the homepage but according to a recent WebMasterWorld forum, this could have disastrous impacts for your standing in the search engines.

Some webmasters feel simply generating a 404 error page is a terrible waste of a good webpage. That may be true but if you redirect to the homepage, your rankings could suffer.

WebMasterWorld manager “Tedster” suggests this – if you have a bunch of URLs that you’re no longer using, look for important backlinks that point to problematic pages and generate appropriate content for the same URL. If you’re unable to create unique content for the defunct URL, create a custom “404-Not Found” page explaining the changes to your site.

We agree with Tedster – whenever we change around a site, we either 301 redirect to a specific page, not to the homepage. If that’s not feasible, we create a custom “404-Not Found.”

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Posted in SEO Technology, Tip of the Day | No Comments »

Will Facebook give Google a Run for Its Money?

Monday, August 9th, 2010

With its recent introduction of the “Like” button, the question has been swirling, “Is Facebook the next Google?”

Much of this talk has been driven by how the new “Like” button provides Facebook with proprietary data about the popularity of pages across a vast amount of sites. Talk has only gotten more intense as links to external sites have been seen in Facebook search results.

But can Facebook really replace Google?

Right now, Facebook is hardly a blip on the radar screen as far as a search engine goes. People go to Google to search…they go to Facebook to interact with their friends. And as long as Facebook isn’t a toolbar option and doesn’t require a person to be logged in to do a search, this situation will continue.

Another big difference between the two – search engines like Google judge a site’s credibility by the number of links rather than the number of “likes.” Many websites will never have a like button so there’s concern there.

And if Facebook relies entirely on “likes,” they may not have any information to determine what kind of page would draw an “unlike.” How likely are you to “like” an article you read…I’m more inclined to link to it from my blog for instance.

There’s nothing that says Facebook cannot start crawling the web and indexing pages. But Google has a decade head start on building a search engine. And even with lots of marketing and software expertise and investment, Microsoft’s Bing has struggled to compete with Google.

Levels of personalization available with Facebook will ultimately drive more people to its corner. While Google can help you find just about anything under the sun, Facebook is in a better position in terms of what you and your friends care about – something Google is just starting to explore with its social and personalized search features.

Going forward, there are tremendous opportunities for growth in Facebook. All of your interesting content should include a “Like” button…it’s one of the most important social sharing buttons for driving visibility and links to your site.

Facebook is also pushing for widespread adoption of its Open Graph Protocol, which calls for a standard set of meta tags along with variable tags depending on the content.

In the short term however, you shouldn’t expect a big lift from Facebook but down the road you might so it doesn’t hurt to explore the options Facebook presents…just don’t forget about your SEO and other elements for ranking high in the search engines.

According to recent data from Compete, there’s no doubt Facebook can be a major source of traffic.

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Posted in Online Marketing, SEO Technology | No Comments »

3 Steps to Making your Site worth Coming Back To

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

Not to diminish the advantages of SEO but it’s not the only consideration when marketing your small business online. While many sites depend exclusively on traffic from search engines, many people forget that getting “new” traffic is only one part of the equation.

Once you get someone to your site for the first time, you need to be sure the content is compelling and informative enough for them to return again and again. If visitors don’t return to a site, you’re putting yourself into the position of having to rely on visitors coming directly from the search engines. The problem with this of course is first-time visitors are least likely to subscribe or buy.

Your best customers will be those who have reviewed your site several times and know it better rather than first-time visitors coming from a search engine who just quickly glance at your page and move on.

So keep reading for three steps you can take to get first-time visitors to come back again and again.

Step #1 – Optimizing your site for the search engines

Of course, the first step is getting new people to your site. Optimizing your site to rank on page 1 in the search engines is key to making this happen. Be sure your site architecture is friendly to search engines and your content contains valuable keywords woven into the content. Meta and title tags do help and you also need to obtain inbound links from other sites.

Step #2 – Write great content that keeps visitors reading

Someone coming to your site for the first time is unlikely to return if they don’t entirely read the first page they land on.  If your site/business depends on people taking action on your site, you need to engage them from the very beginning so they’re interested in the entire page and want to come back for more. To succeed at this, you need to diversify your content beyond simple advertising slogans and the like.

Step #3 – Get people to come back again and again

For those of us who have sites primarily consisting of content, it can be quite a challenge to develop engaging content that keeps people coming back. You’re likely one of hundreds or thousands of sites offering information on the same subject. Simply adding more pages won’t keep people coming back…to do this, you must:

  • When compared to other sites on the same subject, your site’s content needs to provide more value
  • Add great content frequently and let people know you’re adding new stuff in the near future to keep ‘em coming back
  • Invite your readers to leave comments and suggestions to engage them with your site
  • Take full advantage of social media networks like Facebook and Twitter to get people talking about your content amongst their friends

To summarize, content driven sites need to stand out from the pack in order to maximize conversions.  Basically speaking, your content has to be good enough for people to want to come back again and again.

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Posted in Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Site Architecture, Tip of the Day, Writing for search engines | No Comments »

A Quick Link Building How-To for Small Businesses – Part II

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

In the second part of our quick little link building guide (see part I here), we will explore the differences in links and ways you can get more inbound links to your website.

Not all links carry the same value in the eyes of the search engines…some are more valuable than others. Links from established websites usually carry the greatest value since their PageRank is much higher (because they have a vast amount of links already). For example, a link from CNN.com will carry much more value than one from a free press release distribution service few have ever heard of.

A link from a small business directory like www.sbdpro.com will be more valuable than one from a directory that uses no-follow tags. Speaking of no-follow tags, it’s the bane of any inexperienced link builder’s existence.

No-follow is basically a link search engines cannot follow so therefore, it has no value. Links from Facebook, Twitter and many online ads are usually no-follow so try your best to avoid these. They don’t hurt anything but they don’t help you either so you would be wasting valuable time if you try and acquire these.

So how can I build incoming links naturally?

Like we said before, you want a good mix of links to your site that appear naturally. Having 100 links from the same place will be a red flag to the search engines. They will most likely penalize you in this situation, which is not a good one to be in.

Some good places to get inbound links include: directories, press releases and blogs.

Directories – Links from professional organizations, online communities, forums and business directories can provide great links for your site. Examples include DMOZ.org, business.com, Yahoo!, Best of the Web and more. Be sure your directory listings are fully optimized to get the full benefits.

Press Releases – Writing and distributing press releases to various outlets are another great way to gain inbound links to your site. Not only will people be able to learn about what’s happening at your company, you will build more links to your site.

Blogs – You can also link to relevant pages on your website from your blog. Building relationships with other bloggers will also bring great links to your blog and website. Active blogs with large followings are your best bet but you can also target lesser known blogs as well. As their PageRank grows, the value of the link will grow with it.

Another way you can build links is to create content so fascinating and valuable that other people will want to link to it. This is the ultimate way to build links but is also the hardest.

Create a schedule for link building – for example, you could find a directory once a month and create links in your blog every week or two. And carefully evaluate directories and press release outlets to determine the value they can pass to you. Different directories and press release outlets can offer a wide variety of link value (check out our article on press release optimization for more).

How can I see who’s linking to me?

Another important aspect of building links is inventorying what you have already and checking on that periodically. You can easily see who Google is crediting a link to you by entering “link:www.yourwebsite.com” in the search bar (without the quotations).

This won’t show you all of the links but if you’re inclined to, you can use Google’s free webmaster tools for more in-depth research…Yahoo’s Site Explorer is another tool to see what links Yahoo! are showing for your site.

You should make it a point to checkup on these every month or so. And build relationships with more web properties too…obtaining a link not only helps your prospects in the search engines, it is also a great compliment and professional networking tool.

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Posted in SEO Technology, Tip of the Day | 1 Comment »

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