News Reporter Recognizes San Diego SEO Firm as Top SEO Firm

The i-Guy (Investigative Reporter, John Mattes) has uncovered the real SEO's from the fakers who claim they know search engine optimization and charge you a lot of money for nothing. The same guy who helped to break the Iran Contra Scandal has now found an honest and true SEO firm that can and does make a difference.

Former Fox News reporter John Mattes (investigativeguy.com) who is notorious for exposing corporate scams, getting beat up by insurance salesmen and chased off lots of criminal car dealerships has conducted investigations of various SEO and marketing companies in Southern California and has found a local San Diego company worth a GOOD review.

Online marketing is becoming a service all companies must consider as the consumer world shifts to the web. SEO is a very lucrative business that is growing fast and should be taken very seriously. Entrusting your business, sales, websites and money to an SEO company is very hard for most companies. “Sometimes you have to go undercover to find out how a company really operates and treats its clients” says John Mattes.

After months and months of interviewing, reviewing, calling recommendations and testing out services, John Mattes has chosen SEO by the Hour to be a hardworking and honest link building expert dedicated to helping websites succeed. With every intention to improve a website’s online presence, SEO by the Hour provides professional marketing services ranging from search engine optimization and link building, to web design and pay per click management.

SEO by the Hour is a San Diego SEO company founded on the belief that every website deserves a fair chance on the search engines. If you feel you provide a competitive service and that your website is just as valuable as the 1st page rankers for your targeted keyword, we can help. That goes for all websites, nationwide. Although our online marketing company is based in 'America's Finest City' San Diego, we can still provide remote search engine optimization & other online marketing services for websites globally. However, if you are looking for specific San Diego, California SEO services, please consider one of our local search packages.

2 Very Interesting Lead Software Videos

I came across some really interesting lead management videos (both completely different from each other) that I thought I’d share. One is titled “Stop Receiving Leads by Email, You're Killing Your ROI”( It can be found at Leads 360’s Blip TV Channel.) It’s a Lead Management Webinar by Leads360 that helps us learn why receiving leads by email doesn't work and how you can increase conversion by more than 50%.

The other video can be found on Leads360 Express “What is Lead Management?” Page

It shows how simple Leads360 lead software can be. I can’t believe it, easier than Google Analytics. No wonder everyone that uses the software converts at a much higher percentage.

FYI, Lead Management is the process of capturing leads in real-time, instantly routing them to sales reps, prioritizing nurturing, and improving conversion rates.
Efficiently storing, organizing, tracking, and following-up on sales leads until they are converted into deals is the essential core of lead management software. Leads360 Express is designed to be the ultimate easy and affordable lead management solution.

Free SEO for Blogger in Yahoo

Unlike Google, Yahoo has some limitation to browse a new site thoroughly. Therefore, it is unlikely for a new website to reach first position on yahoo search result page. However as a search engine yahoo is the second biggest search engine and it has loyal user on several countries.

Many have said that submitting your blog to yahoo directory will improve your site position on Yahoo SERP (Search Engine Result Page), unfortunately this submission is not free. You will be charged $299 recurring annual fee to maintain your web listed in their directory.

However we still always have free alternative to improve our web position on yahoo SERP. I found the following tips. and I will share those tips to you as well. You only requires to have Yahoo account. If you have yahoo email, then you are ready to use this tips.

First: Add your blog feed to MyYahoo. This blog feed will notify the crawler from Yahoo to index your website as soon as you publish a new post.

Second: Add your feed’s url on yahoo live bookmark, MyWeb, and import all of your post by using Import via RSS feature.

Third: Don’t forget to utilize Yahoo Site Explorer for SEO advantage. Add your URLs on site explorer and validate them. Adding the URL of your blog feed is also useful. This site explorer is similar with Google webmaster tools.

Now you can wait the crawler from yahoo to index your site thoroughly and see the result within 1-2 months. But keep your site updated regularly since it is the golden rules of SEO. You can read a nice SEO analogy on this page.

This free method is considered as white hat SEO. Because when you use Black Hat SEO techniques, you might end in banned.

10 Great Blog Traffic Tips

In every bloggers activity comes a adapted day - the day they aboriginal barrage a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased anyone else’’s blog affairs are your blog launched with alone one actual loyal clairvoyant - you. Maybe a few canicule after you accustomed a few hits if you told your sister, father, adherent and best acquaintance about your new blog but that’’s about as far you went if it comes to award readers.

Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to acquisition readers. These are tips accurately for new bloggers, those humans who accept next-to-no admirers at the moment and wish to get the brawl rolling.

It helps if you plan on this account from top to basal as anniversary address builds on the antecedent footfall to admonition you actualize momentum. Eventually already you authorize abundant drive you accretion what is alleged “traction”, which is a ample abundant admirers abject (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no best accept to plan too harder on award new readers. Instead your accepted loyal readers do the plan for you through chat of mouth.

Top 10 Tips

10. Address at atomic 5 aloft “pillar” articles. A colonnade commodity is a tutorial appearance commodity aimed to advise your admirers something. Generally they are best than 500 words and accept lots of actual applied tips or advice. This commodity you are currently account could be advised a colonnade commodity aback it is actual applied and a acceptable “how-to” lesson. This appearance of commodity has continued appellation appeal, stays accepted (it isn’t account or time dependent) and offers absolute amount and insight. The added pillars you accept on your blog the better.

9. Address one new blog column per day minimum. Not every column has to be a pillar, but you should plan on accepting those 5 pillars done at the aforementioned time as you accumulate your blog beginning with a circadian account or abbreviate commodity appearance post. The important affair actuality is to authenticate to aboriginal time visitors that your blog is adapted all the time so they feel that if they arise aback tomorrow they will acceptable acquisition something new. This causes them to bookmark your website or subscribe to your blog feed.

You don”t accept to aftermath one column per day all the time but it is important you do if your blog is cast new. Already you get absorption you still charge to accumulate the beginning agreeable advancing but your loyal admirers will be added affectionate if you apathetic down to a few per anniversary instead. The aboriginal few months are analytical so the added agreeable you can aftermath at this time the better.

8. Use a able area name. If you are austere about blogging be austere about what you alarm your blog. In adjustment for humans to calmly advance the chat about your blog you charge a calmly enduring area name. Humans generally allocution about blogs they like if they are speaking to accompany in the absolute apple (that’’s the offline world, you bethink that abode right?) so you charge to accomplish it simple for them to advance the chat and canyon on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on baby simple to bethink domains rather than anguish about accepting the actual keywords (of advance if you can get abundant keywords and simple to bethink again you’ve done a acceptable job!).

7. Start commenting on added blogs. Already you accept your colonnade online writing and your circadian beginning abate online writing your blog is accessible to be apparent to the world. One of the best means to acquisition the adapted blazon of clairvoyant for your blog is to animadversion on added people’s blogs. You should aim to animadversion on blogs focused on a agnate alcove affair to castigation aback the readers there will be added acceptable to be absorbed in your blog.

Most blog commenting systems acquiesce you to accept your name/title affiliated to your blog if you leave a comment. This is how humans acquisition your blog. If you are a abounding commentor and consistently accept something admired to say again humans will be absorbed to apprehend added of your plan and appropriately bang through to appointment your blog.

6. Trackback and hotlink to added blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is array of like a blog conversation. If you address a new commodity to your blog and it links or references addition blogger’’s commodity you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated arbitrary of your blog column on their blog access - it’’s array of like your blog cogent anyone else’s blog that you wrote an commodity advertence them. Trackbacks generally arise like comments.

This is a acceptable address because like abrogation comments a trackback leaves a hotlink from addition blog aback to castigation for readers to follow, but it aswell does something actual important - it gets the absorption of addition blogger. The added blogger will acceptable arise and apprehend your column acquisitive to see what you wrote about them. They may again become a loyal clairvoyant of castigation or at atomic adviser you and if you are advantageous some time down the alley they may do a column bond to your blog bringing in added new readers.

5. Animate comments on your own blog. One of the a lot of able means to argue anyone to become a loyal clairvoyant is to appearance there are added loyal readers already afterward your work. If they see humans commenting on your blog again they infer that your agreeable accept to be acceptable aback you accept readers so they should stick about and see what all the fuss is about. To animate comments you can artlessly affectation a catechism in a blog post. Be abiding to consistently acknowledge to comments as able-bodied so you can accumulate the chat going.

4. Abide your latest colonnade commodity to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a column in a blog that summarizes a accumulating of online writing from abounding altered blogs on a specific topic. The abstraction is to aggregate some of the best agreeable on a affair in a accustomed week. Generally abounding added blogs hotlink aback to a carnival host and as such the humans that accept online writing featured in the carnival generally adore a fasten in new readers.

To acquisition the adapted blog carnival for your blog, do a seek at blogcarnival.com.

3. Abide your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not traveling to accompany in a flood of new readers but it’’s so simple to do and alone takes 5 account so it’’s account the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, acquisition the adapted class for your blog and abide it. You accept to archetype and adhesive a brace of curve of cipher on to your blog so you can rank and again sit aback and watch the cartage arise in. You will apparently alone get 1-10 admission readers per day with this address but over time it can body up as you ascend the rankings. It all helps!

2. Abide your online writing to EzineArticles.com. This is addition tip that doesn’t accompany in hundreds of new visitors anon (although it can if you accumulate accomplishing it) but it’’s advantageous because you artlessly advantage what you already accept - your colonnade articles. Already a anniversary or so yield one of your colonnade online writing and abide it to Ezine Articles. Your commodity again becomes accessible to added humans who can republish your commodity on their website or in their newsletter.

How you account is through what is alleged your “Resource Box”. You actualize your own ability box which is like a signature book area you cover one to two sentences and hotlink aback to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your commodity has to cover your ability box so you get admission links. If anyone with a ample newsletter publishes your commodity you can get a lot of new readers at once.

1. Address added colonnade articles. Aggregate you do aloft will admonition you to acquisition blog readers about all of the techniques I’ve listed alone plan if you accept able pillars in place. Without them if you do aggregate aloft you may accompany in readers but they won’t break or bother to arise back. Aim for one solid colonnade commodity per anniversary and by the end of the year you will accept a database of over 50 absurd affection online writing that will plan harder for you to accompany in added and added readers.

I achievement you enjoyed my account of cartage tips. Aggregate listed aloft are techniques I’ve put into abode myself for my blogs and accept formed for me, about it’’s absolutely not a absolute list. There are abounding added things you can do. Award readers is all about testing to see what works best for you and your admirers and I accept no agnosticism if you put your apperception to it you will acquisition a antithesis that works for you.

This commodity was accounting by a bedfellow blogger by the name of Yaro Starak who is a able blogger and my blog mentor. He is the baton of the Blog Mastermind mentoring affairs advised to advise bloggers how to acquire a abounding time assets blogging allotment time.

SEO is Changing

WebProNews' Mike McDonald caught up with Matt Cutts of Google at the Hofbrau Haus in Las Vegas during PubCon to get his views on a number of topics.

Is Ranking Dead?

Cutts said, "I'm not sure I would say ranking is dead but it's not as important as it used to be. The fact is the smart SEOs are not just necessarily looking at the rankings. They are looking at conversion, they are looking at their server log. It's great if you're ranking for a phrase but unless that leads to sales that doesn't help you very much."

The challenge is not to pay so much attention to ranking, pay attention to traffic, pay attention to conversions and keep building good content and don't worry about 'can I show people that I rank number one for my trophy phrase.

Universal Search In 2009

"Universal is really useful and I think it will continue to expand and what that means in 2009 you can't just think of yourself as an SEO," said Cutts.

"SEOs are starting to embrace the fact that they are marketers. It's a broader spectrum. You have to think about how you build buzz, how do you get loyal customers, how do you optimize your ROI. All those different things and that can include how do I make good videos, do I have a book, things like that."

Cutts says that people will continue to pay attention to video and images in 2009 but noted a down side. "Of course anywhere there is money there will be spam." Google has been focusing on its different properties to manage the spam issue.

Metadata

Google has gotten better on Flash and submitting a video to video sitemaps is really helpful in getting onto Google Video Search. "We want to be able to present video from all kinds of places," said Cutts.

Video File Format

"Whatever file format you want to use is totally fine."

Mobile

Cutts says that just because search engines are getting better at Flash does not mean mobile is. On mobile devices you can't just think about search engines. You have to think about the user experience.

Competing with Black Hat SEO

"Black Hat SEO is getting a little more malicious. In a world where Black Hat is moving towards really illegal things as an SEO you have to decide your risk tolerance and do I really want to try to compete with people who are doing illegal stuff or do I want to make a long term site that's gonna stand the test of time."

Subdomains

There is no real advantage to using Subdomains. If you have a lot of Subdomains that can be a lot of work. You don't want to overdo it. Really it's what ever is easiest for you.

Google Answers Some Tricky Questions

Recently, during a live chat Q&A, Googlers Matt Cutts and Maile Ohye, among others, faced the burning questions of webmasters around the world. Together, they put to rest some fears and myths, and confirmed some speculations.

Below are the meatier results, with the straightest answers given first, followed by responses that were a bit on the ambiguous side, which we took the liberty of translating. Did you know there are about 200 factors that go into determining a site’s ranking in the search results? How about that Google made 450 tweaks to its algorithm last year?



Only one question during that session received conflicting answers from Googlers and wasn’t reconciled: Does the age of a website/domain affect its ranking?

Ohye answered this way: a site's reputation can be a indicator to search engines, but of course, it's not everything. Having a site for a long period of time can establish credibility with users, and as a search engine we also want to reflect this type of credibility. Of course, newer domains can also gain users and credibility. It seems like running a good site is a bit like running a reputable business. So yes, if your domain has been credible for years it can help. If you buy an old domain and put all your content on it in hopes of getting instant rankings, that's not the best idea.

But, when the question was rephrased from another webmaster, Cutts answered: In the majority of cases, it actually doesn't matter--we want to return the best information, not just the oldest information. Especially if you're a mom/pop site, we try to find ways to rank your site even if your site is newer or doesn't have many links. I think it is fair for Google to use that as a signal in some circumstances, and I try never to rule a signal out completely, but I wouldn't obsess about it.

Official translation: Sometimes, when we say it does.



GOOGLE STRAIGHT TALK

Do 301 redirects carry over PageRank?

Where appropriate, ranking signals will be transferred across 301 redirects (if the same page has moved from one URL to another). This may take some time, so you should probably leave the redirect in place as long as you have control over the URL.

How many 301 redirects are acceptable?

It's ok to chain a few together. The HTTP 1.0 standard allows for a maximum of 5 redirects for a URL, so keep it minimal.

Why do pages translated into different languages each have different rankings in their respective engines?

Google looks at content on a URL-by-URL basis, so even if you have translated top content from one language to another, Google might not treat it the same way as they would treat the original content. It's also possible that the translated content is not as relevant as other original content in that language. Generally speaking, making sure that your content is as unique and compelling as possible for the users in that target market is the best thing to do.

Do backlinks from bad sites negatively affect my PageRank?

Those links might be positively affecting your PageRank (PageRank does not go down from "bad" links like those from adult sites). In general, you don't have to worry about bad links like that which point to your site that aren't under your control.

How often does your search algorithm change?

We change the algorithms all the time - last year we had over 450 changes.

Could sharing an IP address with a bad site get my site penalized?

The situations where it would matter are when the server is overloaded (can't respond to your visitors) and when it's incorrectly configured (not returning your site to your visitors). But otherwise that is no longer a concern.

Does Google have a problem with rank-checking software?

Rank-checking software is against Google’s Terms of Service and could result in blocking your IP address, and it doesn’t really help, especially when it comes to personalized or geotargeted results.


CIRCUITOUS ROUTES AND TRANSLATIONS

Question: Is there PageRank boost from .edu or .gov links?

Google’s Answer: You don't get any PageRank boost from having an .edu link or .gov link automatically. If you get an .edu link and no one is linking to that .edu page, you're not going to get any PageRank at all because that .edu page doesn't have any PageRank.

Translation: If the .edu or .gov page is linked to, then yes, because that webpage now has some authority, just like with any (non-.gov or .edu) page.

Question: Does a page load time play a crucial role in Google Page Ranking? If yes how important is it?

Google’s Answer: I think the more important issue here is user experience. If your site loads fast, your users will be happy; if it loads slow, users will be less happy. Make your users happy, right?

Translation: Yes, and as important as 200 other factors.

Question: Aaron D'Souza of the Search Quality team was reported as stating that publishing the same content on two separate geotargeted paths under your domain will not trigger the dupe content filters. Is this correct?

Google’s Answer: In general, in a case like that, we'd try to pick the best page based on various factors, including geotargeting and language choices. If that page is one which is also available for other geotargeting/language choices, we will generally try to pick the version that our algorithms feel makes the most sense.

Translation: Yes, we think.

Question: I have reported sites that clearly have paid links (e.g. the backlink page says "Advertising" above the link), but Google does not seem to take action. Why would that be the case? These are .orgs who are clearly selling their .org juice.

Google’s Answer: While paid links and spam reports are being taken very seriously by Google, the results may not be seen immediately for users or even not at all. This does not mean no action is being taken on the offending sites. Also, the TLD of the sites should not be a factor being taken into account. For this reason reporting both, web spam and PageRank passing link selling makes sense and contributes in an important way to the quality of Google's index.

Translation, partly based on .gov/.edu response: Google treats all top level domains the same, so a .org would have no more juice than a .com or .info. Further, clearly marked paid links (ones on pages labeled “Advertising”) are not necessarily violations of Google’s guidelines. If the links you reported were found to be nofollow links, then no action would be necessary. But keep trying to sabotage the competition. Business is war.

Question: Is it true that the fewer the links FROM your website, the more influence they have on the sites receiving those links?

Google’s Answer: PageRank is split up over the links from a page, but I would recommend not concentrating on this (as you won't be able to "measure" and act upon it anyway) and instead making your site as usable as possible for your visitors.

Translation: Yes, the more you link the more the link juice passed on is diluted, but don’t go trying to figure out the formula in order to game the system. We’ll figure you out. We’re Google.

Question: Does getting a lot of comments in a blog help in being well indexed/ranked by Google?

Google’s answer: Having a lot of enthusiastic users commenting on your posts and doing so generating content on your site, certainly does not harm your rankings :-) Furthermore, a large fan base gives the webmaster a bit of independence from search engine traffic, which is the reason why generating original and compelling content in order to nurture a group of committed users is something I would highly recommend to any blogger

Translation: Yes.

Question: Recently, you removed this suggestion: "Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!" from your guidelines. Is there any chance that you will be discounting these kinds of links for ranking value in future?

Google’s Answer: There's always the chance that we'll discount directory links in the future. What we were seeing was quite a few novice people would see the "directory" recommendation and go out and just try to submit to a ton of directories, even if some of the directories were lower-quality or even fly-by-night directories that weren't great for users. Right now we haven't changed how we're weighting directory links--we've only removed the directory suggestion from the webmaster guidelines.

Translation: Possibly.

Question: Until recentley (the last six months or so) a high ranking was achievable by submitting articles to article directories (providing they were 40%-60% unique), it no longer seems to be the case. Have links from article sites been de-valued at all?

Google’s Answer: In my experience, not every article directory site is high-quality. Sometimes you see a ton of articles copied all over the place, and it's hard to even find original content on the site. The user experience for a lot of those article directory sites can be pretty bad too. So you'd see users landing on those sorts of pages have a bad experience. If you're thinking of boosting your reputation and getting to be well-known, I might not start as the very first thing with an article directory. Sometimes it's nice to get to be known a little better before jumping in and submitting a ton of articles as the first thing.

Translation: Yes.

About the author:
Jason Lee Miller is a WebProNews editor and writer covering business and technology.

How To Determine Your Website Page Rank

How good is your Web site?

Is your Blog up to par?
There are actually websites that will measure the ranking of your website. For those of you that don't know what page rank is, it's a tool put together by Google that determines the effectiveness or efficiency of your blog/web site.

The higher your page rank, the higher your blog/web site is listed in the various search engines, and that means more traffic to your site. This, in essence, means more people are looking at your site, your products, your services, thus putting more money in your pocket in the form of paying customers.

If more people are going to your Web site then less traffic is going to your competitors' Web site. Unfortunately most people don't even know what page rank is but those visitors that do will place your website in a higher esteem than your competitors and feel that your content is much more valuable and insightful.

Now you are probably wondering how page rank determined? And more importantly how do you increase your page rank?. Well, let's look at the first part of that question.

One way to help determine your page is when another site links to your page with a back link. The more back links you receive from other pages the higher your page rank. It's a good idea to make sure the back links are coming from sites that have content on the same theme as yours.

This process can get quite involved and a little messy because all back links don't carry the same weight or force. The higher the page rank that a link is coming from the more beneficial it is in terms of boosting your page rank. So if you get links from a lot of pages with low page ranks it will not have as strong an impact as a few pages with higher page ranks.

Now this is the complicated part: If you have a page that has a page rank of 7 and it is already linked to 10 or 15 other pages then it will not be any more beneficial to you than a page that has a page rank of maybe 3 or so. There is only so much linking that a page can do. It's almost like the law of diminishing returns, in other words after awhile it begins to have the opposite effect.

Another way to improve your page rank is through the use of web directories. Not only will this increase your page rank but it will also increase the traffic to your site. So if you submit your site to a large number of Web directories you will be able to increase your rank. There are a number of web directories you can submit your website or blog to.

There's a host of other items that will definitely help you to increase your ranking and the general traffic flow to your Web site. Also if you are curious about the page ranking of your own site you can see exactly where you stand by doing a Google search for page rank. This should help you to find some of the sites out there that measure page rank. Once you find a site all you have to do is put your own URL in the designated box and you will have your answer. A page rank of 6 or higher is very high.

About the Author: Mel Richardson - Coach, Author and Internet Marketer has been recently putting together programs for those that are new to the internet and looking to build an online business. http://www.freeonlinemarketingstrategies.com

3 Overlooked Ways To Get Hundreds Of Links And Prospects To Your Blog

Did you know that there are free ways that you can get links back to your blog overnight? That after a few days they can number in the hundreds?

No matter what you market on the internet at some point you'll face the issue of increasing the number of visitors to your site. What most people don't know is that there are literally hundreds of ways to get free traffic. Here we'll focus on three overlooked ways to get additional traffic to your site using a blog.


The third most overlooked way to bring traffic to your site with a blog is to read and comment on other blogs.

Now, maybe you've done this before but stopped, because you're becoming concerned about being considered a link-spammer. In that case, leave a link to your site after your comments, instead of in the comment form that hot links it.

In the near future, blogmasters will be able to use special code to prevent spam in their comments section, so this will become less of a concern.

Besides, getting clicks from people who read comments, or visits from search engine spiders through your comments, isn't necessarily your direct objective, though it's definitely a plus.

What you want to do via commenting is to enter the blog community that corresponds to your target market. Get to know who the players are and make agreements with them to cycle traffic between you.

Or lurk to find out where your target market typically hangs out when they're online ? you'd be surprised at how many inexpensive and targeted advertising sources you can find through this method.

(If you're looking to get linked, there's another way that we'll go over next.)

This tip alone has earned me a few dozen links from prominent blogs in the past four days alone.

These links are worth ten times a reciprocal link because they send targeted traffic from established sources, and come from experts with records of proven results.

You can be sure these kinds of people will check you out before they linked to you, since they may be judged by the quality of the information they share.

The second method to more
blog traffic is the most confusing for newer people, and this is probably the reason its benefits remain overlooked.

In the simplest of terms, Trackback is kind of a remote commenting system that incorporates linking. It allows the reader to follow a topic around the web to see other bloggers remark on the same subject. It enables the publisher to remotely cite references to the issue on which they've written.

Once you've made yourself familiar with the blogging community you have entered, you can often pick up the pulse of conversations within your site's theme. Then, when you see issues that you want to expound on, you can send the other site a notification to let them know you cited them on your blog. That link will appear on their site, and often draws visitors to you.

Bloggers who use Trackback often enjoy greater control over this function in their blogs than they do over linking, as they have the option to reject your reference - so there is a lesser incidence of fraudulent linking. That also gives your link a greater chance of being displayed.

So why don't more people use Trackback?

One reason is that what is arguably the most popular free blog system, Blogger, doesn't have Trackback. However, Haloscan.com can remedy this with their free service ? it's a cut and paste away.

Many new bloggers don't get what it is and how it differs from commenting. And of course, the dynamics of it are a little more complex than I've stated. But learn to use Trackback properly, and you won't need to beg for links to your site ever again.

It's harder to estimate an exact number of visitors that come as a result of trackback links. But if you posted five days out of seven, and was able to get a trackback link to your site three times a week, by the end of the year you'd have almost 150 topical links back to your site, which are more valued by search engines than a typical link trade with an unrelated site.

The most overlooked source of traffic for a blog is through article submission. To start with, turn your longer posts into articles and submitting them to ezines or directories. Look especially for directories that ask for the direct link to the article on your own site, and input the permanent link to the post on your blog.

Make sure that your Auto-Discovery tag is in place and it can mean hundreds more prospects, links and subscribers.

By using these simple strategies can still get you more exposure than you have now.

SEO for Tag Labels

Tahukah anda bahwa optimasi Label pada setiap postingan anda dapat mempengaruhi jumlah traffic visitor/pengunjung blog anda. Nah untuk postingan kali ini saya mencoba mengupas faktor-faktor apa sajakah yang dapat mempengaruhi traffic blog anda berkaitan denga Label dari postingan anda.

Faktor Pertama adalah APPLY RELEVANT LABELS
atau Gunakan Label yang relevan dengan isi postingan anda. Label pada postingan anda harus berkaitan atau berhubungan dengan isi dari postingan anda. Saya bisa saja melebeli postingan ini dengan Label Youtube karena jika kita lihat di Technoraty sekarang, tag "YouTube" berada pada salah satu tag yang paling dicari, dengan demikian saya bisa berharap traffic blog saya ini akan megalami peningkatan. Tapi yang perlu diperhatikan adalah hal tersebut bisa dikatakan dengan spamming karena postingan saya ini sama kali tidak berkaitan dengan YouTube, dan yang pasti pengunjung blog saya ini pasti tidak akan kembali lagi ke sini karena mereka merasa dikecewakan oleh blog saya ini karena mereka menemukan apa yang mereka cari (YouTube dalam hal ini).

Faktor Kedua adalah RESEARCH YOUR LABELS
atau lakukan dahulu riset kecil sebelum anda menentukan label apa yang tepat untuk postingan anda. Sebelum menentukan Label dari postingan anda lihat dulu trend dari tag label anda tersebut. Untuk hal ini anda dapat menggunakan Technorati Charts, perhatikan chart untuk label "Labels" dibawah ini selama 360 hari terakhir.




Anda dapat melihat peningkatan posting dengan kata ini sejak debut dari New Blogger pada Agustus 2006, sejak mereka memperkenalkan 'penendaan' labels untuk kategory. Untuk mencoba chart dari Technoraty ini dengan label yang lain, copy paste URL dibawah ini pada browser anda.

http://technorati.com/chart/LABEL_NAME?chartdays=360&language=n&authority=n

Ubah 'LABEL_NAME' dan '360' days dengan apapun yang anda ingikan. Sebagai contoh mari kita lihat chart untuk 'Anna Nicole Smith' Terjadi penurunan yang sangat signifikan kalau kita lihat dari chart tersebut selama rank waktu antara bulan januari sampai bulan Juni. Nah dengan kata lain kalau anda saat ini membuat posting dengan Label Anna Nicole Smith jangan terlalu berharap blog anda akan kebanjiran traffic.



Perbedaan yang mencolok dapat anda lihat pada chart dengan postingan berlabelkan 'Paris Hilton' selama 360 hari terakhir, dengan kata lain anda akan mempunyai kesempatan berkompetisi dengan kompetitor anda yang mempunyai postingan dengan Label Paris Hilton dalam menarik perhatian pengunjung.




Faktor ketiga adalah NUMBER OF LABELS
atau jumlah dari label. Terlalu banyak label dapat menyebabkan duplikasi content dan halaman (page) dan itu lebih berbahaya bagi Google's Supplementary Index. Saya menyarankan untuk menyematkan satu sampai dua label untuk setiap post untuk menghindari maslah ini.

Nah ke tiga hal tersebut diatas yang ingin saya sharingkan, semoga bermanfaat buat kita semua.

20 Quick Ways to Increase Your Alexa Rank

Here are 20 ways that we have to do to increase our Alexa Rank :

1. Install the Alexa toolbar or Firefox’s SearchStatus extension and set your blog as your homepage. This is the most basic step.
   
2. Put up an Alexa rank widget on your website. I did this a few days ago and receive a fair amount of clicks every day. According to some, each click counts as a visit even if the toolbar is not used by the visitor.
   
3. Encourage others to use the Alexa toolbar. This includes friends, fellow webmasters as well as site visitors/blog readers. Be sure to link to Alexa’s full explanation of their toolbar and tracking system so your readers know what installing the toolbar or extension entails.
   
4. Work in an Office or own a company? Get the Alexa toolbar or SS Firefox extension installed on all computers and set your website as the homepage for all browsers. Perhaps it will be useful to note that this may work only when dynamic or different IPs are used.
   
5. Get friends to review and rate your Alexa website profile. Not entirely sure of its impact on rankings but it might help in some way.
   
6. Write or Blog about Alexa. Webmaster and bloggers love to hear about ways to increase their Alexa rank. They’ll link to you and send you targeted traffic (i.e. visitors with the toolbar already installed). This gradually has effects on your Alexa ranking.
   
7. Flaunt your URL in webmaster forums. Webmasters usually have the toolbar installed. You’ll get webmasters to visit your website and offer useful feedback. It’s also a good way to give back to the community if you have useful articles to share with others.
   
8. Write content that is related to webmasters. This can fall in the category of domaining and SEO, two fields in which most webmasters will have the Alexa toolbar installed. Promote your content on social networking websites and webmaster forums.
   
9. Use Alexa redirects on your website URL. Try this: http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?www.doshdosh.com . Replace doshdosh.com with the URL for your website. Leave this redirected URL in blog comments as well as forum signatures. This redirect will count a unique IP address once a day so clicking it multiple times won’t help. There is no official proof that redirects positively benefit your Alexa Rank, so use with caution.
   
10. Post in Asian social networking websites or forums. Some webmasters have suggested that East Asian web users are big Alexa toolbar fans, judging by the presence of several Asia-based websites in the Alexa Top 500. I suggest trying this only if you have the time or capacity to do so.
    
11. Create a webmaster tools section on your website. This is a magnet for webmasters who will often revisit your website to gain access to the tools. Aaron Wall’s webpage on SEOTools is a very good example.
    
12. Get Dugg or Stumbled. This usually brings massive numbers of visitors to your website and the sheer amount will have a positive impact on your Alexa Rank. Naturally, you’ll need to develop link worthy material.
    
13. Use PayperClick Campaigns. Buying advertisements on search engines such as Google or Exact Seek will help bring in Traffic. Doubly useful when your ad is highly relevant to webmasters.
    
14. Create an Alexa category on your blog and use it to include any articles or news about Alexa. This acts as an easily accessible resource for webmasters or casual search visitors while helping you rank in the search engines.
    
15. Optimize your popular posts. Got a popular post that consistently receives traffic from the search engines? Include a widget/graph at the bottom of the post, link to your Alexa post or use Alexa redirection on your internal URLs.
    
16. Buy banners and links for traffic from webmaster forums and websites. A prominent and well displayed ad will drive lots of webmaster traffic to your website, which can significantly boost your rank.
    
17. Hire forum posters to pimp your website. Either buy signatures in webmaster forums or promote specific articles or material in your website on a regular basis. You can easily find posters for hire in Digital Point and other webmaster forums.
    
18. Pay Cybercafe owners to install the Alexa toolbar and set your website as the homepage for all their computers. This might be difficult to arrange and isn’t really a viable solution for most. I’m keeping this one in because some have suggested that it does work.
    
19. Use MySpace . This is a little shady so I don’t recommended it unless you’re really interested in artificially inflating your Alexa Rank. Use visually attractive pictures or banners and link them to your redirected Alexa URL. This will be most effective if your website has content that is actually relevant to the MySpace Crowd.
    
20. Try Alexa auto-surfs. Do they work? Maybe for brand new sites. I think they are mostly suitable for new websites with a very poor Alexa rank. Note that there be problems when you try to use auto surfs alongside contextual ads like Adsense. They aren’t also long term solutions to improving your Alexa Rank so I suggest using with caution.

Hope fiew steps above is usefull for you..

SEO Edition For Bloggers

• 10 Secrets of Advanced SEO Copywriters By Court’s Internet Marketing School.
  


• SEO Sitemaps Now Autodiscoverable: Easy and Automatic Roadmaps to Your Blog Content ByLorelle on WordPress.
  
• Search Engine Optimization tips for Blogger Templates Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3 By Blogging Tips.
  
• Keyword Search for Bloggers: A Comprehensive Guide By Copyblogger.
  
• Check if Your Images Appear on Google Image Search By DailyBlogTips.

posted by http://www.bloggingbasics101.com/101/

Do Follow, U Comment I Follow

Gerakan Do Follow, U Comment I Follow mungkin sudah cukup lama didengungkan di jagat raya maya ini, buktinya kalau kita sedang jalan jalan sore melalui perkampungan para blogger kita pasti menemui banyak blog yang telah memasang bendera setengah tiang atau banner untuk memproklamasikan bahwa blog mereka adalah pengikut aliran do follow. Yang menjadi pertanyaan sekarang adalah apakah kita sebagai blogger telah benar2 paham akan makna do follow, u comment i follow tersebut. Contohnya mungkin nggak jauh-jauh sudah lama saya menghilangkan rel='nofollow' pada blog ini sebagai syarat yang harus saya penuhi untuk menjadikan blog saya ini sebgai aliran tersebut, tapi terus terang saya belum begitu mengerti apakah arti sebenarnya dari slogan tersebut, sampai akhirnya saya membaca artikel ini atau kalau anda malas untuk mengklik link nya saya copykan cuplikannya :

Sekilas memang mudah mengartikan maksud dari U comment I Follow yaitu anda komentar saya akan mengikuti atau anda komentar saya akan berkomentar balik pada blog anda , ya begitulah kira-kira yang saya tangkap dari kebanyakan brogger entah itu blogger baru ataupun lama. Tapi bukan itu maksud sebenarnya dari komunitas U Comment I Follow sendiri, khususnya saya yang juga memasang banner U Comment I Follow. maksud sebenarnya adalah saya memberikan linkback kepada para blogger yang telah berkomentar di artikel yang saya buat, tujuannya adalah sebagai hadiah, kenapa saya namakan hadiah, kami sebagai komunitas do follow paling tidak sudah menghargai para komentar di blog yang kita buat, karena saya berpendapat untuk mengomentari sebuah posting, paling tidak pengunjung membaca entah itu sekilas ataupun semua isi postingan itu, nah itu yang kita hargai dengan memberikannya hadiah sebuah linkback, karena pengunjung sudah rela meluangkan sebagian waktunya untuk membaca posting dari blog kita. bukan sekedar just hello di SB.

Untuk urusan PR (Page Rank) saya tidak pernah memikirkan urusan PR itu sendiri, malah tidak berambisi untuk menaikkan PR, dikarenakan saya takut dikatakan sombong karena sampai detik ini saya masih belum sempat untuk blog walking ke semua yang pernah mampir diblog saya, dan dari itu juga kenapa pernak-pernik Rank di blog saya saya hapus, itulah salah satu alasan saya kenapa saya menghapus pernak-pernik itu. Untuk lebih mengerti penjelasan mengenai do follow itu saya ini saya copas tanpa ijin dari artikelgus yang berjudul do follow itu seksi dan 6 alasannya maaf kang saya tidak ijin.

• Do follow menstimulus para blogger akan terbiasa menghargai tulisan atau postingan blog yang dikunjungi, karena saat meninggalkan komentar bukankah secara otomatis visitor akan membaca ? Jadi tidak hanya "say hello di shoutbox saja". disinilah saya kira letak proses enlighment-nya
  
• Mekanisme pelacakan do follow yang otomatis mencatat url visitor yang mencantumkan identitas lengkap (untuk memberikan backlink khususnya link popularity) mampu meminimalisir anonymous yang komentarnya kadang tidak bertanggungjawab. Disini visitor beraliran 'katrok-isme dan jahat-ers atau non human visitor alias spammer bisa mengurungkan niatnya.
  
• Do follow menjargonkan niat baik blogger untuk memberikan souvenir tanda persahabatan kepada visitor.Di titik argumentasi ini, saya setuju. Kehangatan hubungan ini yang harus terus dikampanyekan. Dan Dofollow menstimulasikan kampanye tersebut dengan baik.
  
• Kedekatan emosional dan kehangatan hubungan antara blogger dan visitor ini memungkinkan blogger terjangkiti 'wabah kangen mendadak :) bila tidak mengunjungi sahabat blogger-nya. Dan tentu saja setiap kunjungan ini akan dicatat dgn baik oleh mbak Alexa,Mbah Google,Tante Technorati , si Penyebar Gosip Feedburnet, Om Yahoo, dan si tukang ngoceh Twitter' . Eits, Dik Altavista, Mybloglog, maupun si bayi ajaib Blogcatalog juga tak akan mau ketinggalan untuk ikutan merekam.
  
• Soal kaitannya dengan Pagerank harus dipandang sebagai hal lain. Karena faktor penentu-nya bukan semata2 backlink. Orang ekonomi bilang tergantung klausul cateris paribus. Artinya apabila semua syarat terpenuhi, maka Pagerank akan terkatrol tingi-tinggi, tapi bila salah satu syaratnya tak terpenuhi alias memble, otomatis Pagerank tinggi hanya akal2an si-bulus dalam menipu crawling-nya Google.
  Singkatnya, disamping sangat bergantung pada tingkat kepadatan arus lalulintas link baik baclink maupun link tunggal, juga bergantung pada;




1. meta tag alias kata kunci yang selalu dibutuhkan para peselancar Major search Engine.
   
2. karena kualitas postingan yang memiliki magnitude untuk menggerakkan peselancar dunia maya agar mampir berlama-lama di blog kita
   
3. karena kunjungan Pelanggan atau visitor tetap Blog kita.




• Soal kaitannya dengan SEO seh kadang saya lebih setuju dengan orang yang sekarang duduk di sebelah saya,Mas dr. Ade, seorang dokter tapi lebih memilih menjadi praktisi bahasa mesin pemrograman PHP. Dan (telah) memegang sertifikat 'SEO hack' dr google di awal 2000-an.

Nah sekarang sudah jelas kan mengapa kita memasang banner do follow, nah sekarang sedikit penjelasan mengapa blog kita pada settingan standar, diberi "tag" NoFollow. Berikut sedikit penjelasan yang saya ambilkan dari sini.

Sejauh yang bisa kita pahami, jadi cuma satu alasan. Search Engine TIDAK menyukai SPAM, begitu pula kita. Ini adalah sebuah tindakan preventif yang bisa dilakukan untuk menghentikan usaha SPAMMING. Dengan adanya "tag" ini, seperti sudah sebut diatas, secara teknis, link menuju situs SPAM tersebut, tidak akan di"anggap" oleh Search Engine. Lalu apa dampak adanya SPAM di Blog kita :

1. Karena Search Engine tidak menyukai SPAM, maka Search Engine juga tidak menyukai Blog yang menjadi Gudang SPAM.
   
2. Pagerank (untuk SE Google) juga akan berpengaruh (biasanya turun), mengingat jumlah halaman blog kita yang diindeks juga akan semakin sedikit.
   
3. Mengganggu kenyamanan karena setiap saat disibukkan dengan "iklan" yang tidak kita mau.
   

Nah dari penjelasan diatas, setuju dengan mas Firdaus, maka saya utarakan beberapa "alasan" mengapa blog saya ini mendukung Do Follow :

1. Do follow memberi semacam timbal balik yang setimpal atas siapapun yang berkenan menanggapi tulisan lewat komentar. Setidaknya, ini menghindarkan saya terhadap sifat lupa untuk berterimakasih.
   
2. Apapun tujuan setiap yang berkomentar, setidaknya telah ikut juga diindeks oleh search engine, jika tulisan di blog tersebut telah diindeks oleh search engine.
   
3. Terdapat harapan bahwa nantinya akan muncul sebuah lingkup kepercayaan antara pembaca (yang juga penulis), dengan penulis (yang juga pembaca)
   
4. Jika suatu saat Blogroll sudah terlalu panjang, kesempatan untuk memberi Backlink kepada blogger lain, masih dimungkinkan, yaitu cukup dengan berkomentar.
   

Nah untuk menghilangkan atribute "no follow" pada blogger dapat anda baca disini. Semoga bermanfaat.

Few Steps to Increase your Google Page Rank

Page Rank of a website or blogs is a asset for an owner, because if a site or blog has a larger page rank it will be more visible in search engines and can get more visitors. There are a lot of ways to promote your website and increase its page rank. Some ways require you to pay for it and some are FREE but needs extra time and efforts. Remember in Websites the most important thing you need to remember is the patience. Below are some points which you can follow and improve your website ranking.

1. Linking is the best and fast way to improve your page rank. Try to get a link back from higher page rank websites. There are some free ways also but they will take a long time to insert your link in other websites. But if you can pay some $$ to get a link back from higher page rank websites, they will guarantee you for your link to be approved within a week.


2. If you are planning to purchase a link back then remember this point, some websites have PR4, PR5 or even PR7 for their home page, but no PR for any of their other pages, So remember to pay for only that link which will be displayed on a PR+ page.


3. Submit to directories and sit relax. Start one by one and submit your link in all web directories. If you can, try to give a link back (reciprocal link on your page) to free directories, some directories does not need it, but if you provide them, their owners will look for your approval first.


4. Build a sitemap for your website (XML based for Google and text based for yahoo) and submit them to Google and yahoo. Get a Google webmaster account and sign in there to see your website statistics. It will also tell you if you site is indexed or not, and your page rank in Google.


5. Update your website every day by adding more unique content. If you site has some information for a visitor then it is 100% chance for him to come back to your site again.


6. Provide inside linking to your website or blog. For example you can provide a link of your previous and next articles on an article page. Or you can provide a list of related articles so visitor can remains a long time on your website.


7. Keep in touch with your website or blog. If you do, you will get results from your statistics analyzer very soon that you are getting visitors and your page rank is improved.


8. And the most important tip. “Trade your link with other web owners“. Put their link on your website and they will put your link in them. This is for free and the very fast way to improve your visibility in search engines.

Your Blog Can Be Your Business’ Best Reputation Builder

One of the most important aspects to running any business, online or offline is the reputation that business’ can build. In a bricks and mortar world, your customers are the primary starting point. There are other avenues such as sponsoring local sports or charities and promoting certain angles such as being green. For an online business, there is an opportunity to develop a blog - this can be a tremendous tool to developing a business’ reputation.

A blog is one area where, with a little careful wording, a business can blow its own trumpet. As a business owner, you can blog about your history, your achievements, your products or services and your personnel.

Being able to interact positively with customers or potential customers creates air of trust. Potential customers can see that you go out of your way to help customers and those seeking information.

If you include pages that show visitors how to use, update or service your products you will find visitors returning frequently. You can also add FAQ pages that are interactive, that is, you allow individuals to comment or add their own experiences.

The end result is a blog that is a perfect advertisement for your business. If you are ever in a situation where negative talk is generated around your products or business, your blog is the first place to start addressing the issues. A business blog is your own publication where you can publish material that may help fight any negative publicity.

Having a blog that has helped to generate a positive reputation is an asset to any business that cannot be measured in simple ROI or dollar terms. A positive reputation is an intangible, but it is one of the most important intangibles any business can possess.

Using Link Bait To Drive Incoming Links To Your Site

Every site owner and Webmaster wants to achieve high Google PR for their website or blog without the breaking their promotion budget. What most overlook are the tremendous results that link baiting provide. What is link baiting? Link baiting is a method of using catchy article and anchor text titles to induce a web surfer to click a link to view the information or article on a website with an inducement, or free download or other offer that builds excitement or need for this information, product or service.

A simple link bait technique could be as simple as offering free downloads of eBooks, software, coupons for good or services, or anything that the site visitor will consider useful or valuable. A perfect example of link baiting in action is the sensation caused over links on the Internet for a free download of Paris Hilton’s video. There were an estimated 780,000 links offering downloads of this video and more than 80% of them were links to the original source.

http://onewaylinkexchange.net/members/register.php

The idea is to build irresistible excitement with an article or content on your blog or website that will create in bound links from other sites. Your content is the bait, and the link is the catch. One of the easiest ways to create link bait is to take a popular news headline and write an explosive catchy article and then submit it to the web and watch as other websites and blogs link to your article. The true power in link baiting is that this technique can be repeated over and over again driving quality incoming links to your site. Keep in mind that this technique will have more impact and provide more quality links if your content is original and dynamic. And a site that has a large amount of content is more likely to get higher overall rankings from having a larger index of pages on the search engines.

An easy way to do this is to mix in some free content from article directories, but it is a good idea to keep the amount of original content higher than the free content. If you have a blog site running WordPress or one of the other popular Blog formats then you will able to send automatic pings to blog directories and other social networking sites after each new article is published.

Creative Link Building Secrets That Work

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Building inbound links to your site is an important part of your overall search engine promotion campaign. There are many ways you can go about getting one way links to your site, but unfortunately almost all of them are to expensive to be cost effective if you are on a tight promotion budget. One of the most effective methods of creative link building is achieved by building “content sites” on sites that offer free web hosting.

There are many sites that offer free hosting, such as WordPress, yahoo, Blogger and many others. This technique will allow you to build sites with relevant content that you will use to link to your main site. Building “content sites” is cost effective and easy to do, and requires little out of pocket expense.



Some important things to remember before you begin building linking sites are that building natural incoming links is a slow process. To help you keep track of your linking sites you should create a spreadsheet and log the details of your linking sites: URLs, login information, keywords, anchor text, and date of linking and date of submission of each site. Having this information will help you keep track of all of your linking sites with linking and submission dates.



http://onewaylinkexchange.net/members/register.php



Your linking sites should all have a unique layout and different content, and above all not use the same email address associated with any site submission or registration. To further make your linking sites natural they should all be between 3 to 5 pages and have their links to your site from different places in the linking site, and remember that the anchor text and origination of the incoming links should be natural and keyword based.



Once you are ready to begin, start with 2 or 3 new sites and once you have the linking sites ready for submission add in your link to your main site and make your site submission for one site, and then wait 3 to 5 days and make your next new site submission. Continue this way until all of your site have been submitted, and then wait at least 30 days before submitting any new sites. To make your content really stand out you may want to get your “linking sites” some incoming links. You can do this by posting comments on blogs and forums that have relevant topics and content as your main sites.

There Is An SEO Lesson In The Statistics Of Other Sites

There are times when organizations question the need for search engine optimization. There can be conflicting information around that often confuses those considering search engine optimization and perhaps social media marketing.

One event that leaves many website owners, particularly those who also run a blog, is the freshness factor when it comes to the SERP’s. A lot of content does seem to appear at the top of the SERP’s within hours of publication. This is due to its freshness. Within 24 - 48 hours that content has often dropped out of the SERP top pages and gets lost amongst the millions of other pages. If there has been a decent search engine optimization strategy carried out on that page then over time it will steadily climb back. Many website owners and bloggers point to this front page phenomenon and question the need for search engine optimization. The 24-48 hour factor should answer that question.

If you are in any more doubt, then perhaps the statistics put together on invesp.com would interest you. Admittedly these statistics relate to blogs. However the same theories can be applied to any website.

The most important statistic was that of inbound links, take several major online marketing blog’s as examples: Online Marketing Blog had over 700,000 links coming in to their pages, the Matt Cutts blog almost 300,000 and Marketing Pilgrim almost 250,000.

While not quite as important, the number of pages also made an interesting stat. Online Marketing Blog had 2,779, the Matt Cutts blog 4,306 and Marketing Pilgrim 11,464. What makes these stats interesting is that there is little correlation between the number of pages and the number of links. In fact, Online Marketing Blog had the fewest pages of the three chosen yet the highest number of links. Other factors such as quality, search engine optimization and perhaps social marketing may have some bearing.

When it comes to PageRank, Matt Cutts has a PR7 whilst the other two register as PR6. The ultimate statistic however comes in the number of visitors. According to Compete and Alexa data, the following is an estimate: the Matt Cutts blog registered the most visitors with over 300,000 monthly unique visitors. Marketing Pilgrim registered over 160,000 and Online Marketing Blog over 120,000. Matt Cutts has an unfair advantage as his reputation as a Google employee helps to drag in visitors, particularly when he makes a Google related statement.

You may look at these stats and wonder about their relevance to search engine optimization’s ability to rank well and draw traffic. Online Marketing Blog may appear to receive less visitors that the other two blogs mentioned. They do, however have far less pages that could appear in the results.

Raw statistics are always difficult to draw conclusions from. However, what is evident with this group, (and the others mentioned in the full stats), is that the amount of content is important. Of more importance is the number of links coming in to a site. In previous posts we have spoken about the need to work on the off page search engine optimization strategies if you want to rank well. Every blog mentioned in the original post had inbound links number in the thousands.

While Google PageRank is not a key indicator these days, the top blogs all had PR rankings of five or better. They top dozen or so all had visitor numbers measured in the tens of thousands.

As a business building its rankings in the major search engines it is very important to look at all of the stats that you can locate for your online competitors.

The Mysteries of SEO

SEO, or search engine optimization, is the most important element in building a successful website. Most people online have heard the term SEO and have some idea of what is involved yet it remains a mysterious process to many. One of the reasons SEO is so mysterious is that it can be a complicated endeavor and search engines are constantly changing the way they rank sites and the way the recognize the many tools of SEO.

At the forefront of the SEO check and balance system is the leading search engine Google. They have pretty much set the standard for technology in search engine algorithms that can track the relevancy of a website to its content and SEO efforts. Their ranking system remains one of the most popular methods of determining a web site's quality because of their diligent efforts of weeding out the bad apples that have little to offer a consumer other than skilled manipulation and the ability to 'play the system' to their advantage.

Of course taking advantage of the system makes perfect sense from a business standpoint but from the search engine outlook of wanting to provide the best quality sites on their results for the viewer it can become difficult to differentiate the site that is good quality wise from the site that is good because it has a very manipulative operator at the helm.


Because the rules for SEO evolve and change rapidly the mystique of search engine optimization continues to confuse website owners. Many people build their websites thinking the only SEO tool they need is key word density. While key words are an important aspect in SEO they are not the only means to an end, they are simply a part of the puzzle. There is another tried and true method of SEO that is as relevant today as it was at the start of the concept of web 2.0 marketing and that is back linking. While back linking remains one of the most successful ways to get your site to rank high on the search engines it also has undergone some changes making the types of links important so that search engines do not penalize a site for bad incoming links.

The term "back link" refers to an outside link on another site that points to yours. In the past any link from another site would have a positive impact on your site by the search engines. Because there were so many gimmicks developed in the last few years to garner massive back links to websites such as link farms, and irrelevant reciprocal linking Google began to develop a way to weed out links that were purchased, or had little meaning or relevancy.

Even though back linking is used to manipulate search engine popularity there are many very legitimate reasons for using the system of back linking. Finding web sites that have a common interest to your own who are willing to place your link on their site can get you extra exposure. When their visitors come to their site they will see your link and likely visit your site as well.

The fact that onsite links like that have such a perceived relevance to the visitor makes them a valuable marketing tool, but that perception of quality is also why Google works so hard to be sure they are real quality links. You will get higher ranking on a search engine for a number of truly appropriate back linking partnerships however if the sites linking to you do not share any common information or products Google will penalize you for the link. There are new programs in the works with Google where your site could even be devalued if the site that links to you is determined to be bad quality so it is important who you choose to link to, and also who links to you.

In the past many web site owners would open up multiple websites with the sole purpose of promoting one principle site. They would use the extra websites as a means of placing back links to the main site. Google now watches for sites that are created with the same IP address. Creating a large number of websites on the same IP address and putting back links on them to quickly develop a number of links is known as link bombing. That is not to say that you cannot ever link to your own website from a site you own. If there is a reason to show your visitors some additional information a few well placed back links are fine. It is when there are many links from each site all pointing to a single 'main' site that the search engines look at them suspiciously.


The system Google is working hard to put in place to discount a link from a bad site is why it is very important to know who is linking to you and if their site stacks up to your standards. It is no longer true that all inbound links to your site are good links. There are very good tools available online for free that can show you who is linking to you. If you find a site that is linking to you that you feel is questionable in terms of how they relate to your website either in information or product you should contact the webmaster of the site and demand that they remove the link to your website to avoid being penalized by the search engines.

Probably the best way to obtain a back link to your site is through anchor text. That is when you have another website with content that is relevant to your own (relevancy is ALWAYS important) including your site in the actual content of their site with a hyperlink inside the text. These back links are valued much higher than a simple sidebar link as long as they appear in the text in a way that has a fluid and meaningful association with the content of the article. There are several ways to get such back links.

Providing articles to content sites with your link built into the article is one method. If you write very compelling information on your website is another as someone else with a similar site may wish to point it out on their own. You may not even realize they are doing it unless they tell you about it. This is one of the main reasons it is important to keep an eye on who is back linking to you. While the majority of those types of links are wonderful and you should thank the site owner for their inclusion, if you feel the site that is linking to you does not meet your standards, have similar information, or the content is not relevant to your site you should definitely ask them to remove your link.

Back linking is an extremely important aspect of SEO development and it is something you need to understand well in order to implement and control it properly. There are many secrets and mysteries in the SEO world that diligent study can clear up. Keeping your website in good standing with the search engines and popular with your visitors is the best way to ensure a vital and profitable future for your business online.

by : Rick Youngblood

404’s Can Damage SEO So Google Comes To The Rescue

404’s otherwise known as Page Not Found errors can have a serious effect on your SEO efforts. Google have provided a little widget that may help resolve some of these errors while also helping your visitors.

Often a URL will get damaged in transit so a 404 error is returned instead. If the user is impatient they are just as likely to hit the back button or try a different site. This widget helps the visitor find the right page, make suggestions for appropriate pages on your site, or use the search box to find what they are looking for.

From Google WebMasterCentral:

There are various ways to help your visitors get out of the dead-end situation. In our quest to make 404 pages more useful, we’ve just added a section in Webmaster Tools called “Enhance 404 pages”. If you’ve created a custom 404 page this allows you to embed a widget in your 404 page that helps your visitors find what they’re looking for by providing suggestions based on the incorrect URL.

If you know what you are doing, or have a good web designer, then having a custom 404 page is the best option. Having employed a strong SEO campaign the last thing you need is to have your visitor leaving your site.

The Google option is good attempt at trying to provide one solution for the 404 error and is better than no page at all. Optimizing for any 404 errors should be an essential part of any search engine optimization campaign. There is a use for both.

Getting Started With SEO

This sponsored session was an entry level overview of what websites should be doing on their website to get visibility and rankings in search engines.

Here are the 7 Proven Ways to get Your website on Page 1 Organically & then Convert as stated by the presenter Shawn Moore.

1. Content is King What your content says, what your images and video show not only give users a first impression, but those items are also important to how a search engine is going to interpret your website.
2. Navigation and Architecture Looking into the way that your menus and internal linking structure are important. Can the web
3. Blogs Using a Blog is just another way to generate more content for the search engines to index and use to rank your website.
4. Quality and Keyword Rich Inbound Links The number of links you have is important, but the quality of those links is more important. Get links from relevant sites and ensure that those links are using keyword phrases and not just your website address or business name.
5. Database Shawn said that choosing the right database for your site is important. Some are not search engine friendly and that choosing the wrong one will cause lots of issues down the line.
6. Electron Press Releases or Optimized Releases These releases give your site more exposure in search engines and the keyword rich links in the content can help increase your rankings.
7. Domain Name Strategy It was recommended that, if you can, choose a domain name with keyword phrases in it as it’ll give an added boost in search engines. You can also purchase additional domain names and forward them onto your website. Try thinking about what a user may type into the address bar of their browser and then register that domain for easy access.

crawlers see and index your navigation? Or is it in JavaScript or Flash that may not be as search friendly?
Some of the tips are well known, others were a bit questionable to me. I’m still trying to figure out how a certain type of database can hurt a site as it’s all about how the content is displayed on that page and the URLs used that is the part to be concerned with.

Overall, the session was a good one for those just starting out in the industry.