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.

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.

Topping the list – Facebook with 540 million unique visitors in the month of April, which translates to 35.2% of people on the Internet!

The top ten most visited sites include:

1. Facebook
2. Yahoo!
3. Live.com
4. Wikipedia
5. Msn.com
6. Microsoft
7. Blogspot.com
8. Baidu.com
9. Qq.com
10. Mozilla.com

Websites on the list come from a diverse range of industries and specialties – social networks, other search portals, news and information, ecommerce and more.

Google made the list as part of its Ad Planner, a tool to help businesses effectively use their pay-per-click advertising services. While we don’t spend too much time talking about PPC here, it does have one main advantage when you’re first getting online – it gets your fledgling site in front of millions of users!

Aside from PPC though, this list is good information for any search engine optimization pro or group. Getting links from sites like these can give your site a powerful boost in the search engines. Ones farther down the list might be a little easier to obtain links from.

Having more links to your site boosts your site rankings and in turn, brings in more site visitors and revenues. Now with millions perhaps billions of websites out there, you may spend a lifetime trying to get on a list like this but don’t worry, you can certainly use lists like this to maximize your online stature, site visits and ultimately sales.

Check out the list for more detailed information on visitors, unique page views, the other top 1000 sites and more.

There are several things you can do to avoid duplicate content…one of course is avoiding shady SEO practices and outright plagiarism on your site.

Continue reading to learn 7 ways you can avoid getting into trouble with duplicate content.

1. Using other people’s articles

Some webmasters simply pay for or get permission from an article’s original author to post the piece on their site unaltered. If you do this, make sure the article truly has relevance to your site.

Add your own comments or rewrite what’s already there to ensure unique content. At a minimum, run the piece through a duplicate content tool like CopyScape to see if there are any other pages on the Internet similar to that one.

2. Develop your own unique content

The easiest way to avoid duplicate content is to develop your own unique stuff. Your readers and search engines will love you for it. Develop a schedule to steadily add new and fresh content to your site.

3. If you’re running an ecommerce site, develop your own product descriptions

Many ecommerce sites use product descriptions supplied by manufacturers, which is an obvious duplication in the eyes of the search engines. These descriptions may appear on hundreds of different sites out there. Although a tedious task, rewrite these product descriptions in your own unique language to avoid duplication issues.

4. If you have a blog, do not have your date or category archive pages indexed

This feature is standard on most blogging platforms but you can block it from happening through your robots.txt file. These features hardly bring you more visitors or higher page rankings.

5. Block search engines from indexing duplicate copies on your site

Many websites include “printer-friendly” versions of articles and web pages, which could potentially cause duplicate content issues. Using your robots.txt file, block directories or files you do not want the search engines to touch.

6. Use 301 redirects if you have recently redesigned your site

Using 301 redirects to channel traffic to your new site is critical to avoiding duplicate content issues with the search engines. Whenever you move a webpage, use a 301 redirect to point your visitors and the search engines to the proper page.

7. Be careful when syndicating your content

Distributing your content to affiliates is a great way to build your brand and draw in new visitors and customers. To avoid duplicate content issues with this, post the content on your website first so the search engines crawl it first before it appears on other sites. Include a link to the original content on any syndicated site to guarantee the original remains indexed.

Taking these steps to avoid duplicate content issues is in essence preventive maintenance. If you own a car, you change the oil regularly and spend a little bit to avoid having to spend much more in the future.

Employing the above practices with your site will ensure you deliver the most relevant, unique content to your users and the search engines without threat of removal or suppression if it’s reprinted somewhere else online.

But something you may not consider to be duplicate content may be considered such by search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing. You see, they’re trying to return diverse content to their users …they have a vested interest in ensuring what they display on page 1 is helpful and diverse for their users.

That is what you have to consider – what do search engines consider duplicate? Not doing so could spell disaster for your site’s rankings. Site penalties can occur if a site is simply structured the same way for instance.

Continue reading for 6 not so obvious types of duplicate content to ensure you are not penalized for such an infraction.

1. Two websites share the same structure and content

Two websites having the same structure (i.e. same three column template) and the same content on a single page or site wide with the same linking scheme is prone to trouble. This is by far the most extreme example of duplicate content but the easiest to identify.

2. Identical structure with paraphrased content

Another scenario where two sites have an identical structure but the content is not 100% identical. Copywriters and content developers may see this as a grey area. But Google has a zero tolerance policy on this issue…content from one site simply cannot be a rehashed version of the same thing from another site.

3. Identical structure with similar content

In structural terms, it’s pretty clear two sites are identical. In this situation, the content on each site still has too close a resemblance. If it appears the content is managed in a similar fashion and presented in the same scope, the site(s) may be penalized.

4. Partially identical structure with similar content

While it may seem like splitting hairs, Google is very meticulous. Site A and Site B may only have a few pages that are identical but if the content between the two sites is sufficiently similar, they may take action and not index one of the sites.

5. Identical structure with reminiscent content

In this scenario, both sites have a similar structure and linking scheme while the content is relatively similar. Some content developers may think simply using a Thesaurus to change a few words may avoid detection but the search engines can spot this kind of move.

6. Unique structure with pieced together content

Two sites may have their own unique site structure and linking scheme but their content is simply scraped together from different sources the writer found. Search engines will flag this as duplicate content and act accordingly.

Image, videos and other document formats are sometimes ignored by the search engines since most don’t have the capability to spot duplicate forms of these types of content. They sometimes attempt to remove duplications based on file size, image size and file name however.  Therefore in the future, it will be important you think about this as technology continues to evolve.

It should be obvious that simply copying and pasting content to your site is not only dishonest, it is robbing the original creator of that piece without due credit and compensation. But these other scenarios where search engines may flag your site are just as important. While you may not think your site is a duplication of another, what the search engines see is really what matters.

Meta tags are basically text included in the source code of an HTML document that’s intended to describe the page to a search engine for the purpose of cataloging its content. There are two types of Meta tags – description and keyword

So do Meta tags matter?

Yes they do as the description found within the tag indicates what you want someone to see on a search engine results page. They help a searcher easily determine whether or not your page is relevant to their needs. Without it, many people will simply move on and think your site doesn’t offer them any value.

If you do not include a Meta tag in your source code, the search engine will glean your page and cherry-pick words it thinks best describes your page. This doesn’t work too well however and can result in terrible descriptions being displayed on a SERP.

You should be very careful in how you use a Meta tag though. Many SEOs have abused these tags in the past thinking it would garner them a competitive advantage. To avoid any potential problems, avoid repeating keywords and use only those words relevant to your site’s theme. Beware of any trademark infringements and check with legal counsel before using another company’s trademarked terms anywhere in your source code.

Typically, the character limit for both description and keyword Meta tags is 250, which includes spaces and commas. Anything past the 250 mark is generally ignored by the search engines.

Just be careful – improper use of a Meta tag could result in your site being penalized by the search engines.

This week, engineers, product managers and executives at Google will be meeting to determine how they can make their search engine smarter. As you know from our recent post on the topic, Google has made many changes over the course of its 10+ year history.

Google has become synonymous with search, commanding around 2/3 of search traffic. But that isn’t making them slow down as they strive to “organize the world’s information” as the company’s mission statement says. None of the upstarts like Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and others present a threat to Google in their own right. But going forward, search will not simply be dominated by Google but rather incorporate a combination of services.

The biggest threat to Google however is Bing, Microsoft’s revamped search engine. They’re trying to fill in places they feel Google’s algorithm falls short, namely in the health, reference and shopping sectors.

While Bing is increasing market share, Google is still miles ahead of them in the simple task of dissecting a search and returning relevant results. Using contextual signals, Google has been able to master the ability to figure out what a searcher is looking for.

Google culls data from all of its searchers to achieve these ends by seeing the search terms people use along with what they re-enter into the search if what they’re given isn’t satisfactory.

And the most incredible thing, Google makes these changes under the radar. Searchers have no idea that their searches are constantly dissected and that the company is always trying new things to improve its algorithm.

Explore this topic more in this article from Wired Magazine which outlines some of Google’s internal processes. Knowledge like this can be tremendously helpful in optimizing your website for the search engines.

There are many ways you can acquire links to your site. They can be purchased from a link farm, or you can get people to link to you through social networks like Facebook, StumbleUpon and Digg. In the end, the highest quality links come from sites in a similar industry whose audience will find your content appealing and useful.

Allowing the structure of links to your site to become too homogenous can cause many negative consequences for your site and its rankings. Links coming from only one type of site, or only to your homepage or links that all have the same anchor text links are all red flags to the search engines that your site has an unnatural link structure.

As a result, search engines will penalize your site, perhaps even de-listing it from the search engines.

To avoid trouble like this, you should attempt a general 80/20 link balancing act, which means:

• 80% of your links should come from sites that are topically relevant to yours with the remaining 20% coming from unrelated or marginally related sites
• 80% of incoming links should go to your homepage with the remaining 20% (at minimum) going to sub-pages within your site
• 80% of links should have your keywords in the anchor text while the remaining 20% having a less optimized link, like “click here” or your URL as the anchor text
• 80% of your links should be one-way and the remaining 20% reciprocal

Of course, these are just general guidelines but a good rule of thumb to avoid any problems with the search engines. You don’t want your site to appear over-optimized to the search engines so you need to balance your link ratios to avoid this red flag.

For me, it continues to be a Google search using keyword phrases that closely describe what I’m looking for. I find searches like these to be very useful most of the time and if not, I can tweak the words I’m using to find what I’m looking for.

So it’s no surprise to me that organic search continues to be a preferred means of locating information online – and growing too.

According to new data from comScore, over 131 billion searches were conducted worldwide in December, 2009, a 46% increase over December ‘08. Searches in the U.S. alone grew by 22%, despite the country’s now two-year old recession.

And the U.S. continues to be the largest country on Earth when you consider online searches. While growth for 2008-2009 was much larger in countries like Russia (92%), France (61%) and Brazil (53%), the U.S. still accounts for the lion’s share of online searches.

So where do these searches originate from?

Well as we’ve reported here, Google still handles the majority of online searches – over 67% in December, 2009 with 58% growth between 12/2008 and 12/2009. And not just search engines are included in this list, which reflects a large number of searchers who go beyond the “core” search engines Google, Yahoo and Bing. Ebay came in 5^th with 2.1 billion searches, growing by 58% year-over-year. Facebook handled 1.6 billion searches, a 43% increase year-over-year.

Data like this underscores the importance of optimizing websites for the search engines. It’s clear that an increasing number of Internet users rely on organic search to find what they’re looking for online.

How do you locate information online?

Well, Google remains king with nearly 2/3 of all Internet searches in August – growing 2.6% over July.

But the biggest increase came from Microsoft’s Bing – the number of queries from users in the U.S. grew by 22%! But they still place third behind Yahoo! and Google, accounting for 1 in 10 Internet search queries in the United States last month.

Yahoo! saw its search volume drop by 4.2% in August but it still comes in at #2 with around 16% of all Internet search queries in August in the U.S.

It’s not surprising to see Bing grow like it is – they have been marketing their new search engine pretty aggressively lately. New TV ads can be seen traversing the airwaves touting the usability of this new search engine product.

Of course, they’re not going to surpass Google anytime soon, no matter how much advertising they do. Google is much more established in the search engine optimization field and the population in general. Bing will have to demonstrate how their search engine offers more value than Google if they ever hope to be the big dog in the search engine field.

Besides, yesterday was Google’s 11^th birthday! If you were searching on Google yesterday, you probably noticed that the letter L in their name was replaced by two ones…causing some confusion, people saw this as a “LL” but it was merely recognition of their 11^th birthday.

Happy Birthday Google!