Link Development: What Everybody Ought to Know

by Carrie Haggerty

Link development is of the most important components of search engine optimization, yet often one of the most confusing. What is link development? Simply put, it is the act of requesting or securing inbound links to your site. The higher your link popularity (more times your link is found on other sites) generally the higher click through rates from these sites and higher your traffic. There are some key elements everyone should know before taking on a linking campaign. Hopefully, the following hints can make your next link development campaign more successful and you will gain the traffic you are looking for.

Choosing your anchor text

Before you start on any linking campaign, you should first do a detailed keyword analysis to find out what your top which keywords would be in your benefit. There are a number of tools out there that can help you with your keywords analysis:

• Wordtracker - A small fee is required but it does give you a great idea of what keywords would be beneficial for all of your successful SEO campaigns.

• Keyword Discovery - Another great source for your keyword analysis.

• Google Adwords Tool - This is by far one of the most beneficial tools. It is free to use and it gives you a great look at the approximate search volume for all keywords. You do not have to be an adwords subscriber in order to use it.

After you have selected your keywords and you know what the best ones are for your site, write out a few text links using those keywords in your anchor text. What is anchor text? Anchor text is the visible part of your link for example:

Check out this article: What everyone needs to know about link development.

The bold italicized is what you would consider to be your anchor text. A better example of using your selected keywords would to be re-phrase it to look like this:

Check out this article: Link Development: What everyone needs to know.

Choosing Your Link Partners

When you are searching for some good quality sites to link from remember the home page PR is not necessarily carried throughout the site. Look to where the potential link will be put, generally you will find a links page or a resources page. While on the page take an assessment, is the PR good? Does the page have over 50 links currently on the page or will it have the potential to exceed that number of links? When you're looking for reciprocal links you always want to find a site that is directly related to yours, and I will often look for a page with a good PR and very few links outside of the links page and offer to the same this way it benefits both you and your link partner.

A few other hints will help in your quest to find good quality link partners:

• Check to make sure the page is actually indexed by the search engines, it won’t help you if the SE’s can’t find the page you are listed on.

• Do the links have a rel=”nofollow” attribute? These are more and more common especially now on forums and blogs, if you use the firefox browser you can find a tool to help you recognize these link so you know where you can stay away.

Of course the above is all related to finding link partners. The best method for link development is finding places to add your link where it is simply a one way link pointing back to your site. Some great methods for this are, finding good directories to include your link, you can find many free resources throughout the internet, find really well organized directories that potential clients would actually use.

Great method number two, is writing a blog and articles, this topic has been beaten to death, but still today it is essential for one way linking techniques. Find a number of sites that publish articles in your niche and submit often. It just doesn’t stop at one back link per site, if people are reading your articles, then they can be linking to them, re-publishing and getting you more links that you would originally thought it could.

Whether you are finding link partners or doing one-way link campaigns you must arm yourself with the right tools and information to make your campaign very successful, find your own way, we all link differently but just don’t forget to get your inbound links!

Contact Carrie for a professional link development campaign done right: carrie@abalone.ca

Technorati Tags: link development, seo, search engine optimization, marketing, traffic, optimization, search, carrie haggerty, abalone designs

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By Carrie Haggerty @ 12:11 PM

10 SEO Tricks You Can Easily Do Yourself

To supplement my recent announcement that SEO is easy, here is a list of some quick, easy SEO tips to help your site leap to the top of the search engines.

1. Change your page titles. I come across a great many web sites that have titles like "Home Page" or the Business name. Your page title should be the main, singular keyword phrase you want to reach number one on Google for, followed by your business' name and perhaps, if it is not too long, a repeat of the main keyword phrase once again (or a secondary one).

2. Make sure your main keyword phrase, as well as any supplementary ones that you want to rank number one for, show up in the text on your front page. If you do not have any text on your front page, add some. The keywords should be in context, readable and user friendly. They should not be in a list format of any kind, unless it supplements paragraph style text in an extremely user-friendly manner.

3. If you serve a specific geographic region, specify that in titles, description tags, keyword tags, body text, and on your contact page.

4. Ask anyone you know that has a web site, to link to your site. Allow them to use any anchor text (the clickable text of a link) they desire. This makes the linking look more natural.

5. Write an FAQ about your industry, not about your business. If it answers a lot of questions, and answers them well, it can become link bait, meaning people will link to it just because it is so informative. You may also be able to get a link from Wikipedia to this FAQ on the page for your industry in the external links section.

6. Start a newsletter. You can use many different platforms to run and distribute your newsletter, including http://www.yourmailinglistprovider.com/ , http://www.phplist.com/ or http://www.constantcontact.com/ and always post your newsletters to your blog as well. This way, people on your mailing list will get the blog post in their inbox, and it could become very good link bait.

7. Add your business to Google Local here http://www.google.com/local/add

8. Submit your web site to DMOZ here http://www.dmoz.org/add.html - please note that this is not nearly as important as it used to be, being as DMOZ has not been adding links to their directory on a consistent basis for some time. They don't seem to have enough editors to do so but then, they never seem to accept applications from new editors so I don't see this getting any better. Still, on the off chance you get your link added, it is a good idea to submit here.

9. Add a page about your business to http://www.aboutus.org/

10. And finally, if you think your business is what Wikipedia calls "notable" or worthy of having it's own page, then create a page about your business. This is probably the best possible link you can get on the internet.

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization, tricks, tips, marketing, blog, blogging, wikipedia, dmoz

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By Courtney @ 11:02 AM

7 Things Your SEO Should Never Do

Here's a quick list of some simple things that should tell you not to work with an SEO. We'll do it countdown style, from least important (though still important) to lockup-your-credit-cards most important.

#7 - An SEO should never require you to link to their web site. This should be entirely up to you. If they offer freebies in exchange for a link on your site, you may want to perk up and pay attention. This is usually an indication that their site is not doing so well. And if their site isn't doing so well, yours probably won't either. Feel free to link to your SEO if you want to though, it will not harm your site.

#6 - Your SEO should never install a link exchange script of any kind on your site. This is fairly old news, but you'd be surprised how many people I've seen still get talked into this. Under no circumstances should you have this on your site. Google is a smart search engine. They can figure out that you are doing this for marketing purposes.

#5 - A good SEO would never add a links page to your site. There is nothing wrong with having a page dedicated to links with supplementary information, or business partners, or things that you endorse, but stay away from pages that serve the sole purpose of posting reciprocal links. This worked a long time ago when the big thing in SEO was reciprocal linking, but it just isn't the case anymore. Any SEO stuck in that era should probably re-educate themselves or find another career.

#4 - Your SEO should never tell you that social networking is not necessary. It is! For everyone! Especially if you have a new web site. SEO can take time to bring traffic to your site, and while you wait for your effective SEO campaign to take it's course, you can still get traffic to your site with a proper social networking campaign. Also, I've said it before and I'll say it again, social networking is going to put the search engines as we know it out of business. If you're not on those networks, you won't be able to compete.

#3 - A good internet marketer will never tell you that a blog is not necessary. Just as necessary as social networking, a blog that offers great reading material and information is going to supplement your web site with more marketing power than you would be able to imagine. I have worked with countless businesses that get more than half of their business from their blog readers. Even when they rank number one for their targeted keyword. A blog gives your company a transparency that nothing else can, outside of standing in front of your customer. It develops trust and makes it much easier for anyone to do business with you. When you offer good information, it also lets your audience know that you know what you're talking about and great blog posts are the best link bait.

#2 - Your SEO should never tell you to take your email address off your web site to avoid spam. Spam is an unfortunate fact of digital life. Get yourself a good spam filter - Gmail handles spam well. Never remove methods of contact from your site, because that can alienate users who prefer that method of contact.

#1 - The number one thing you should never hear from an SEO is that they can guarantee your rankings. Not even a Google employee can guarantee your rankings. The Google search engine is a massive mathematical algorithm that has been developed, tweaked, added to and changed over many, many years and is so complicated I doubt there is any one person that understands it's entirety. This algorithm is worked on daily, the way it handles search results and crawling changes daily. There is absolutely no way for any SEO to know how your site is going to be handled by the search engines, and there is no guarantee that a month into your SEO campaign, Google won't change their algorithm completely and everything you've been doing up to this point is now cause for penalization. The only thing an SEO can do, is base their campaign on what has worked in the past, and to continue to monitor search results so that they continue to understand patterns and what Google likes and dislikes. There is always an element of risk to SEO. An SEO company that guarantees your results, clearly just wants your money and will say anything to get it.

Outside of these things, use your common sense. Hire people who sound confident, who speak your language and not industry jargon. Most of all, hire an SEO company that ranks number one for their targeted keyword, because if they can't do it for themselves, they probably can't do it for you.

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization, google, rankings, traffic, marketing, promotion, marketing campaign, social networking, blogging, blog

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By Courtney @ 2:53 PM

What Your SEO is Not Telling You

Most SEOs like to come off as some sort of Guru and take all the credit for their clients' successes. It's not always the case. Here is what your SEO is not telling you:

1. SEO is not hard. There is absolutely nothing difficult about SEO. In fact, search engine optimization doesn't really exist. At least, if you're doing it right it doesn't. The real search engines, the ones that count, ie. Google, Yahoo! and Bing reward good web sites. They don't reward optimized web sites. A web site that puts it's visitor's needs first, is a web site that is going to do well on the search engines. Really, all you need to do to experience success on the search engines, is put yourself in your web site visitor's shoes, figure out what they want (not what you think they want, but what they actually want) and deliver it better than anyone else. When you do that, you will experience an immense amount of traffic, not just from search engines, but from word of mouth, social media, and direct links from sites that have listed your web site as a great place to go.

2. It is not a calculable formula. SEO cannot be calculated. There isn't a specific number of keywords you have to list in your meta tags, there aren't a set number of outgoing links you can list on your site before you get penalized. There just simply is no way to calculate exactly what you need to do or not do on your site. Every single site is different and what works for one site, could be detrimental to another. Any marketing firm that offers you cookie-cutter packages for SEO has no idea what they're doing. An SEO never does the same thing for any two clients. Effective internet marketing is always customized to each individual web site or company.

3. It is not a set of exact steps. SEO cannot be done in an exact set of steps. As I mentioned in the previous point, every web site is different and requires different things in order to experience success on the search engines. A true marketing genius will exact his or her game plan to your web site's specific needs and not follow a checklist used for every single clients he or she has.

4. The effectiveness of your SEO campaign can only be measured one way. The only way to measure search engine optimization is checking to see if you rank high for the keywords you are targeting. If you are not climbing the rankings on Google, Yahoo! and Bing for your targeted keywords or key phrases, then your campaign isn't working. Period.

5. A number one ranking may not be all you need to get more visitors to your site. You need to make sure you're targeting the right keywords. Some SEOs will sell you a package that will get you ranking for keywords or key phrases that no one searches for. You can find yourself shelling out a lot of money, getting that number one ranking and having no more traffic to your site than before you shelled out that money. Make sure your SEO does keyword research and check the keywords they choose yourself with the Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

6. You can do it yourself. Even if you barely know what a mouse is. Most SEOs would like you to think what we do is complicated, intricate and highly skilled. It's not. Really. Just get someone to install Wordpress for you, teach you the basics and you can run your own site, updates, SEO and all. It's not complicated, it's not scary, it is just a little time consuming.

If you want to learn how to manage your own web site, or you want to have Wordpress or other CMS software installed on your site so you can manage it yourself, give us a call at 604-244-7597 or email me at seo.courtney@gmail.com

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization, marketing, web design, wordpress, cms, search engine marketing, promotion, traffic

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By Courtney @ 11:48 AM

Google Logo Archives

I think it’s fair to say that Google’s logo has become an icon of the Internet. Hell, the word Google is now officially recognized as a verb in some dictionaries. Whenever there is a big holiday coming up such as Christmas, Thanksgiving, St. Patrick’s day, Oktoberfest, Google will use a new Google logo, known as a doodle, in place of the original logo to celebrate the occasion.

As I write this article Google’s current doodle is a barcode to celebrate the anniversary of the invention we all take for granted now as we queue up at the supermarket.

Today’s doodle made me inquisitive about the actual doodles themselves so I delved a little deeper and found some cool stuff you can do with the Google doodles. If that piques your interest, check out Saikat’s recent article (5 Sites To Spread The Love For Google Doodle Pictures) which shows you some websites where you can check out the older Google Doodle archives.

Check out the old ones

Until I wrote this, I assumed that once the holiday, occasion or anniversary had passed the Google Doodle was gone forever- sucked up into the abyss that is the Internet. However you can browse through hundreds of different old logos and doodles from all over the world in a gallery kept in an archive by Google.

Read more: 3 Cool Ways To Check Out An Archive of Google’s Doodles

Technorati Tags: google, logo, archives, seo, search engine optimization

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By Courtney @ 10:38 AM

18 Essential Tools for Every Word-of-Mouth Marketer

Excellent article from Mashable:

By now, most consumer marketers know they could be using Facebook (Facebook), Twitter (Twitter), blogs, and other social media platforms to boost brand recognition, engage customers, and drive sales. But getting a social media marketing program started – and keeping up with the rapid pace of change in the industry – can be daunting. The good news is that with the right technology tools, social media marketing programs can be managed at scale and can help the entire organization (not just the marketers!) find out what customers are saying, sharing, even feeling about your brand or business.

When thinking about the technology tools you need to launch, measure, and optimize your social media marketing and online customer engagement programs, it helps to organize your efforts into categories: listening and monitoring tools; editorial, publishing, and content syndication tools; and conversation measurement tools. There are hundreds of tools out there, but here are some of the more popular and effective ones that can be put to work for you.

Read more: 18 Essential Tools for Every Word-of-Mouth Marketer

Technorati Tags: social media, word of mouth, marketing, seo, search engine optimization

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By Courtney @ 10:22 AM

7 Reasons Your Site Isn't Selling

If you've had your site up for some time now and haven't seen many sales, there are a number of reason that could be contributing to it:

1. Your site is too difficult to navigate - The absolute best way to sell your product or service is to have it be obvious what you sell and how to buy it within seconds of a visitor landing on your site. Each click that exists between the visitor coming to your site and the visitor purchasing your service or product, is a step that can turn people away. The cardinal rule of selling on the internet is that people will not spend a lot of time doing anything. Here are some do's and don'ts to help speed up and clarify your site's navigation:

- Entrance pages are a waste of time and add an extra click to the buying process. It doesn't matter how nice your entrance page is, it is doing your business harm. Every entrance page is doing harm to the business that has posted it. There are absolutely no exceptions.
- "Buy now", "Proceed to Checkout" and "Place Order" buttons should be blindingly hard to miss.
- Specials and featured products should be on the very first page that people see when they load your site, along with visible prices and buy now buttons. This captures impulse buyers.
- As much information as possible in as concise a manner as possible for those who spend a little bit more time thinking about their purchases.
- Clear pictures - spend a little bit of money on a pro photographer. It will pay for itself in no time.

2. Lack of payment methods - offer as many payment methods as possible, even if you don't like them. In our current economic climate, most people have their preferred method of payment, be it PayPal, Google Checkout, 2Checkout or just a credit card. Whichever it is, if you don't offer it, you can lose that customer.

3. Your website is not being found - Just putting up a web site is not enough these days. You absolutely must optimize it for the search engines. Pay Per Click can also be a way to make your site visible. The more people you have coming to your site, the more sales you will make. Install some sort of analytics, such as Google Analytics, to see how many people are actually finding your site and from where.

4. Your site content is not written for your customer. Some people get so carried away with search engine optimization that they end up writing copy for their websites that is completely unreadable. The number one rule of search engine optimization is, however, to design and write your site for your customer first. It is important that every last word on your web site be for the benefit of the customer, and not the search engines. The search engines will respond in turn.

5. It is not clear which geographic areas you serve. Countless times I have come across a law firm's web site or a counselor's web site, etc. and I have no idea where they are located. This is bad for the search engines as they won't know where to list you, but it's also bad for your consumer. If they are unsure of whether or not your services or products are offered in their area, they won't stick around very long to find out. This information needs to be on more than just your contact page. If you are a law firm in New York City, you need to be very clear, in titles, headlines, page content, logos, graphics AND your contact page, that you serve New York City. A basic rule with both location and what you offer: if you think it's obvious, make it even more obvious.

6. It is not clear what you sell. Don't use industry jargon, don't beat around the bush and don't expect people to call you or navigate to other pages on your site to find out what it is you're offering. This isn't an M. Night Shyamalan movie, this is business. Be blunt, be clear and again, use the rule: if you think it's obvious, make it even more obvious.

7. The number one killer of all web based sales, is very simply, too many steps. This can take many forms. Some companies force their customers to sign up for an account on their web site in order to make purchases. A popular article called The $300 Million Button makes it very clear why that's a poor decision. Some companies ask for way too much information in their contact forms or purchase forms. If you're buying software that you're going to download, why does the company need to know your mailing address? Do you really need to know my phone number? Do you really need to require we fill out a security question? They don't work anyway, I'm not the only who knows I grew up on Main St. or my first dog's name was Spot. Make all forms that customers need to fill out skin and bones. Only ask for the information you absolutely need. Every text field that needs to be filled out before that person clicks "complete order" is a lost customer, or two, or three.

In short, the absolute best way to sell, sell, sell is to have respect for your web site visitor. Respect their time by not making them have to navigate through 10 pages to make a purchase or sign up for an account just to order one book. Respect their level of knowledge about your industry by not using jargon and technical wording. Respect your customer's sensibility by being clear, to-the-point, obvious and readable. A business website is not a work of art or a medium of personal expression. It is a direct communication with your customer or your client and should say exactly what you would say to them in person or on the phone. The bonus is that when you follow these simple rules, your website automatically becomes search engine friendly and providing there is a demand for your product or service, you should have no problem selling.

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization, web site, website, checkout, buy now, make sales, sales, selling

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By Courtney @ 12:34 PM

Managing Facebook Groups How To

Here's a really great article from Mashable, very informative on how to manage Facebook groups:

Facebook Pages may be taking the social network by storm, but they can take time and technical skill to set up. When you need to promote something quickly, or are looking to foster a stronger sense of community, the more traditional Facebook Group is often the way to go.

While not as fancy as Pages, Groups offer many of the same features, with a slightly more streamlined look. This makes it easy for virtually anyone to create a Group, for any number of purposes, and get them live quickly—an important benefit in the time-sensitive social media sphere.

However, the ease and speed with which a Group can be set up has created a lot of spammy or messy Groups that are slapped together in minutes and abandoned soon after. In order to break through the clutter and gain members, you need to take the time to set up a Group correctly. Here are a few tips:
Global, Open, and Public

facebook global image

In order to get the maximum reach and value out of your Group, you need to ensure that anyone who wants to can join, without you having to approve them. You also want them to be able to invite their friends, as this cuts down on the work for you and allows you to focus on building a Group people want to join and share with other people. So, when setting up your Group, make sure you create it as a “Global” Group so it is visible to all of Facebook (Facebook), and that the access is set to “Open,” allowing members to invite friends. Members should also be able to post and share links and media on the Group page.

Read more: HOW TO: Manage a Facebook Group

Technorati Tags: facebook, groups, how to, mashable, seo, search engine marketing

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By Courtney @ 11:05 AM

How to Beat The Fear of Blogging

There's no question about it, a blog can enhance your web presence. It is easily syndicated content that carries your name wherever it goes. It can serve as link bait, as a draw for repeat visitors. It can create loyalty, discussion and buzz. You cannot be serious about harnessing the marketing power of the internet without a business blog.

This is what I tell all of my clients, but as soon as I mention the word blog, they recoil in horror as though they were watching a Romero flick. This always surprises me because there is nothing scary about blogging. I just think people who are new to blogging misunderstand what it actually is. Here are some myths and ideas to help you overcome the fear of blogging and start utilizing one of the world wide web's greatest marketing tools.

1. Myth: You need to be a skilled writer to blog. Blogging is not the same as writing for a newspaper or magazine. Your blog readers do not expect article-length, Pulitzer-quality pieces. A blog is a relaxed, casual, conversation with your audience. It is your voice, it is not an objective reporter's voice. The entire draw of a blog is the personality behind it, not the grammar. That's what makes it a blog and not a newspaper. You can post blogs about things that you talk about everyday. A blog post can be many paragraphs or not even one. Here are some examples of blog posts that require absolutely no writing talent and no more than 5th grade English skills (if that):

- We've added a new page to our site. It's purpose is... Go check it out: http://newpage
- We just hired a new widget guy, meet John Smith!
- Here are some pictures from the trade show over the weekend/our office redecoration/John Smith's retirement party/company picnic

Just about anything can be blogged about.

2. Ask your audience for opinions. Let your readers create your content by asking them to send you their opinions on certain topics and then post some of their comments. This creates great crowd-sourced content and makes your audience and customers feel as though they are being heard.

3. Every time you read an article that relates to your industry in any way, post a link to it and tell your readers what you thought about it.

4. Myth: Successful blogs post every day. They don't. Not all of them anyway. Successful blogs post when they have something to post. As long as you post a couple of times a week, you should be able to keep your audience.

5. Invite your readers to become guest bloggers. Another easy way to get your content written for you.

6. Write a list of blog titles. When you have a free chunk of time, pick a title and write the content. I find starting with a title makes writing the post so much easier.

7. Ask your audience to send you questions they would like you to answer about your industry and then answer them in blog posts, just like you would if a customer asked you on the phone.

These ideas can help you get started posting to your own blog and you will realize there is no need to be afraid of blogging. It's just a conversation on the web. Remember to be yourself, there's nothing easier than that!

Technorati Tags: blogging, bloggers, blog, post, seo, search engine optimization, writer's block

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By Courtney @ 3:23 PM