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

July 26, 2010 By

Pages within a website and across the Internet are connected through links. You have links on your website to navigate from one page to the next. You also have links to other sites you think your readers will find interesting. And finally, other sites will link to yours, providing Internet users one more way to find you.

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.

Filed Under: SEO Technology, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Google Releases Top 1000 Visited Sites List

June 11, 2010 By

A new list from Google using data from April of this year details the top 1000 visited sites in the world. It excludes certain sites – namely adults only sites, ad networks, domains that don’t load properly and certain Google sites.

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.

Filed Under: Forum Watch, Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , ,

7 Ways to Avoid Future Duplicate Content Issues

March 15, 2010 By

As we’ve discussed before, you have to be aware of duplicate content issues so you can avoid being penalized by the search engines. Google, Yahoo! and Bing go to great lengths to return a diverse set of results for their users…if they detect duplicate content, they try to determine the original article/piece and display it for their searchers.

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.

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , ,

6 Not So Obvious Types of Duplicate Content

March 5, 2010 By

When thinking about duplicate content, we generally only consider written content. Is what you are posting on your website original? Simply copying and pasting something from somewhere else is a big mistake- that much is obvious.

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.

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Do Meta Tags Really Matter?

March 1, 2010 By

As far as propelling your website to the top of the search engines, they don’t. While Meta tags have no significant impact on actual search engine rankings, they do provide value in how your website appears on a search engine results page (SERP).

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.

Filed Under: Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , ,
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