Top SEO Tips » Linking and Publicity

Why Do You Need SEO?

Dylan — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:36:23 +0000

Web designers are expert at design. With that in mind most designers are not marketers and are unaware of the implications of online marketing. If you do not optimize your site it�s like designing a beautiful brochure and putting it in a drawer where no one can see it. Optimization opens your site up to search engine spiders and the people searching for your products and services.

Higher Rankings |Increased Traffic | More Sales

Internet marketing and search engine optimization are concerned with higher search engine rankings and increased traffic to your web site. If the traffic is targeted to your products and services it can increase your sales and business dramatically.

What is Special About Highly Ranked Sites?

Search engines such as Google use various criteria to determine which sites will rank highest for particular search terms. These include; the age of the domain, the meta tags, the site content and the links pointing to the site from other related sites. Therefore the highest ranking sites will be given to those that have been around for a while, have relevant meta tags and content relating to the search terms, and have links from other ranked sites with similar content. High ranking sites are deemed �authority� sites.

To develop an authority site takes time. Google looks for lots of quality content on your site that is relevant to the topic of the site. To build great content you should analyze what search terms (keywords) people are using to find your site. Your money keywords are those that visitors who convert into customers use to find your site. Your meta tags and content should be written around those keywords. Update your content regularly. Also links pointing to your site should use these keywords (contextual links). All this tells the search engine spider what your site is about and how important is in regards to all the other sites relating to the keyword.

Therefore if you have a relatively new site (under 2 years old) with your company name as the meta tags, with poorly written content, and with no links pointing to your site it has little chance of being listed in the search engine results or viewed by searchers.

Essential 3 Steps in Search Engine Optimization:

Define the keyword terms people are using to find your site and products
Make sure your meta tags and site content reflect these terms
Build up quality links from other sites using these terms

Post from: Top SEO Tips

Why Do You Need SEO?

Increase Your Search Engine Exposure – Optimize Your Press Releases

Dylan — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 05:00:00 +0000

One of the exciting new developments in the field of search engine exposure is the optimization of your press releases. This offers you a great way to increase your presence on the web and be found for an expanded amount of keywords.

Press releases were traditionally aimed at media types such as journalists and editors. Today they have another audience ? your target market. Online press releases are now coming up under searches. Potential customers can access your information directly from your press releases. Therefore if you optimize your press releases you can help people find your web site and product information.

The first step involves researching keywords that your prospects will use to find you. This is similar to deciding on keywords for your web site. Of course, you can target different keywords, thus increasing your overall chance of being found within the search engines.

To optimize your news releases your keywords should be placed in the title of the press release and near the beginning of the content of the document. Again this is similar to adding keywords to the written content of your web page. Remember that your keyword-rich title and content should read well and be interesting. This will attract the reader to your site content.

To help the readers find your site you should include your full domain name within the text. This is a great way to improve your reciprocal linking and in turn your page ranking. You should also provide links from your written text directly to the relevant page of your website.

Publish your press releases on your own web site and also submit them to online media outlets. You should also submit your press releases to the major news search engines. News search engines are being used by both media searchers and the general public and so are a great way to expand your search engine presence. And the exciting part is that the news search engines will often pick up your story in minutes. You should also make use of XML and RSS news feeds.

Optimized press releases offer you many opportunities. And they are a great new way to increase your visibility on the web. It requires from you a combination of marketing copywriting skills and web page optimization techniques. But the results are worth the effort – by adding to your web presence and attracting increasing amounts of qualified visitors to your site.

Post from: Top SEO Tips

Increase Your Search Engine Exposure – Optimize Your Press Releases

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – Authority Websites

Dylan — Wed, 07 Dec 2005 05:00:00 +0000

Traditional search engine optimization will continue to be part of your efforts excepting for our methodology will change. You will continue to work on link exchanges, keywords, descriptions, titles, headlines, image alt descriptions, comments, and content. Now you will focus your keywords to be very specific and watch you density. Your descriptions will not be as long, but concentrate on more concise descriptions. You will want to watch your HTML coding to make the process easier for the search engine spiders. Try using fewer tables and consider Cascading Style Sheets. The link exchanges will have to be more specific to your industry and with websites that are authoritative in nature. <-->

Authoritative websites is the direction to consider for 2006. Not only making your website an authority for your target market, but to exchange links with other websites that are authoritative for that same target market. What are authoritative websites to link with? Basically there are is a relatively small set of websites that can be trusted as authority, or expert websites. Government sites, university websites, well-recognized news sources, and recognized industry news sources are all examples of sites that can be considered as ?expert? websites. These sites, unlike the average website on the Internet, can be trusted to ?link honestly?.

Take the following example. I recently went to Google, MSN and Yahoo and searched on the term “internet marketing consultants” and the result on the first page for all three search engines were somewhat surprising. Instead of finding a page full of businesses that provide internet marketing services over 75% of the results were websites that were resources for internet marketing. A careful review of each of these websites revealed all of them to be content rich in their field of internet marketing. They did not provide any services other than information for others to use about internet marketing. For the purpose of this writing these results indicate (1) that making your site an authority for your field and industry is very important to achieve top ranking, and (2) you want to seek out these types of websites to create inbound links if possible and feasible. Otherwise engage a reciprocal link exchange.

Getting noticed by authority websites can be difficult, but with some creativity it can be done. If you make your business newsworthy, news outlets within your industry and without will pickup your news story and hopefully link over to your website. Traditional marketing and public relations requires you to make your company known as an authority within your industry. You should want your clients to know that you are the best source for whatever it is you sell, and that they should trust you. You gain this trust by being visible, not just through your website, but through the websites of other trusted sources such as news outlets. These types of marketing methods would include engaging in public relations, networking, attending trade shows, and talking to news sources both within your industry and outside of your industry.

Your website is a business. No different than a retail brick-and-mortar store you will spend as much time working your website as a regular any regular business. Do not believe that the comfort of your home or that you are working with computers and technology you are able to run your business any easier. The only thing that has changed is the venue, everything else is the same. You have to provide quality content, engage in activities that make your website known, and make your website the absolute best in your target market.

Post from: Top SEO Tips

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – Authority Websites

Improving the Link Popularity of your site

Dylan — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 05:00:00 +0000

What is important is not only the number of links to your site, but also the types of sites which are linking to you.
A link from a site which is related to yours is more valuable than a link from an unrelated site.

In this article, I explore different methods by which you can improve the link popularity of your site. I start with a method that you shouldn’t bother using, then go on to the moderately effective methods, and then end with the most effective methods you can use to boost the link popularity of your site.

1) Submitting your site to Free For All (FFA) pages

A common misconception among many Internet marketers is that while FFA pages may not directly bring in traffic to your site, it will help to improve the link popularity of your site, and hence, will indirectly bring in traffic through the search engines.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Most FFA pages can contain only a certain number of links at a time. This means that when you submit your site to a FFA page, your site will be placed at the top of the page. However, as more and more people submit their sites to the FFA page, your site will be pushed down, and finally, when it reaches the bottom of the page, it will be removed.

Now, since you can bet that plenty of other people are also submitting their sites to the FFA pages, your site will remain in these pages for only a short span of time. Hence, in order to ensure that the search engines see your site if and when they come to spider the FFA page, you will need to ensure that you submit your site to these FFA pages on a regular basis – at least once a week.

Even if you used an automatic submission program to do it, can you imagine a worse way to spend your time and/or money? Furthermore, many search engines recognize these pages which only contains links to other sites as FFA pages and may completely ignore them. And while I haven’t yet seen any evidence that submitting to the FFA pages will actually penalize your site, there is every possibility that this might happen in the future.

Hence, when it comes to FFA pages, my advice is simple:
don’t even think about them.

2) Starting an Awards Program

A moderately effective method of improving the link popularity of your site is to start an awards program. You can have web sites which are related to yours apply for an award from your site. The sites which win the award get the chance to display the logo for your award. This logo is linked to your site, preferably to a page which contains more information on the award.

If you publish a newsletter, consider declaring the winners in your newsletter. You can also perform a review of the winners’ sites in your newsletter. This adds useful content to your newsletter and also gives more webmasters the incentive to apply for your award, since you may review their sites in your newsletter. This also gives them the incentive to subscribe to your newsletter to see if they win the award.

Make sure that you give awards to only those sites which deserve to win. If you give your award to sites which don’t deserve it, your award will have little credibility, which will, in turn, hurt the credibility of your company.
Furthermore, make sure that the logo you design for the award looks professional. If it doesn’t, not many webmasters will want to display it in their sites.

3) Giving testimonials

This may sound a bit unusual, but giving testimonials for products or services which you find useful can be another moderately effective way of improving the link popularity of your site. If you really like a product, simply write to the company and tell them why you liked the product so much and how it has helped you. Chances are, the company will write back to you to thank you for your comments and will ask you for permission to display your comments in their web site. Tell the company that you have no problems if they publish your comments, but request them to add a link to your site along with the testimonial. There is every possibility that the company will agree since publishing the URL of your web site gives more credibility to the testimonial.

Of course, please don’t go about giving testimonials to every company you can locate just because it will improve your link popularity

5) Starting a Link Contest

A good method of improving the link popularity of your site is to give away prizes to other webmasters if they link to you. The prizes that you give out should ideally be something which other webmasters will find valuable enough to want to link to you, but which do not cost you too much.
For instance, if you publish a newsletter, and have unsold ad inventory, you can give away some free advertisements in your newsletter to the winners. If you sell a software (or an ebook), you can give away a free copy of your software or ebook to the winners, since it doesn’t cost you anything to produce an additional copy of digital goods like software and ebooks.

Link contests work best if you run the contest on a continuous basis and if you declare new winners frequently.
If you run the contest for a few months, and then stop it, the webmasters who had linked to you will all remove their links. However, if you run it on a continuous basis, and declare new winners every month or so, the webmasters will have the incentive to keep their links to your site.

6) Writing articles and allowing them to be re-published

This is by far one of the best ways of improving the link popularity of your site, and one of my favorites. Whenever I write an article on search engine placement, I first publish it in my newsletter and then I publish the article in my site as a separate web page. I also submit it to the following article submission sites:

http://www.ezinearticles.com/add_url.html
http://www.ideamarketers.com
http://www.marketing-seek.com/articles/submit.shtml
http://certificate.net/wwio/ideas.shtml
http://www.web-source.net/articlesub.htm

Many webmasters and ezine publishers frequent these article directories in search of articles. Submitting my articles to these directories gives them the opportunity of re-publishing my articles. While I have had some success with each of the above directories, by far the best among them is the ezinearticles.com directory.

Now, at the end of each article, I mention that people are free to re-publish the article as long as they include my resource box (i.e. my bio) at the end of the article. I always include the URL of my site in the resource box. This means that whenever someone publishes one of my articles in his/her web site, I have another site linking to my site.
Also, many ezine publishers archive their ezines in their web sites. If they have re-published my article in a particular issue, I again get a link.

Writing articles is also an excellent viral marketing tool.
As some webmasters and ezine publishers publish my articles, other webmasters and ezine publishers will read my article. Some of them, in turn, will publish my article, which will again be read by other webmasters and ezine publishers, some of whom will publish it… and so on.

Also, since only web sites related to mine would be interested in publishing my articles, all these links tend to come from related sites, which, as I mentioned earlier, are more valuable than links from unrelated sites.

Writing articles, of course, has another very important benefit – if you write good articles, it makes you known as an expert in your field. This helps to improve your credibility, which makes people more comfortable about buying your products or services.

Some notes about writing articles:

i) I have learnt through experience that some webmasters will publish other people’s articles and will display the complete resource box but will not link to the URL mentioned in the resource box. In order to prevent this, you need to explicitly state that the article can be published only if the URL mentioned in the resource box is linked to your site.

ii) Your resource box should not be too long – it should be no more than 6 lines long, formatted at 65 characters per line. Otherwise, other webmasters and ezine publishers will hesitate to publish your article.

Post from: Top SEO Tips

Improving the Link Popularity of your site

Good Website Navigation and Design is Paramount for Success

Dylan — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 05:00:00 +0000

Would you buy meat from a grocery store that left the bad meat in
with the good meat or wasn’t clean? Would you buy a car from a
sales lot that had totaled automobiles on the front lot? I
wouldn’t and neither would you. Your website is your grocery
store, your car lot. You must have an atmosphere that is pleasing
to buyers. One, that tells that buyer that you are not an
amateur, but instead a trained, seasoned professional. Your site
is a direct reflection of your product and that is why that
having a well designed website can make or break your sales.

The first thing to keep in mind when designing your website, is
“surfability”. Take a few minutes a look around at several web
pages. What makes them appealing? Were there some that you closed
out of immediately? Why? Take notes and do your research. Keep in
mind that when a person visits your site they have a goal in
mind. They are either seeking information or shopping for a
product. Give the person what they want without having to search
for it. Be sure that all the information on your site is relevant
to your product. Make the buyer think that they need your product
to solve their problem.

Your main page serves a very specific purpose. It should be an
avenue by which the customer can shop your site. It should be
easy to view and load very quickly. This is your first impression
and we all know that first impressions can either close the deal
or loose the deal. Make it simple. It is best to have links that
are easily viewable by the reader that will navigate them to
where they want to be. Tables are often a great choice when
deciding on a way to design the main page of your site. Your main
page should load very quickly, chances are if it takes the page
more than ten seconds to load even on a 56k modem, the customer
will click away to save time, hoping to find the information or
product elsewhere. To increase the loading speed of your main
page you should avoid large graphics or excessive graphics. To
many banners or special effects can cause a page to load slowly
as well.

To make your web site more appealing to the eyes, you should
stick to mild colors. If your site is a content site where the
user will be doing a lot of reading, it is best to stick to black
and white. Color can be added when using tables, as a way to
brighten up the page, but remember to keep the overall look of
the page professional and appealing to the audience that will be
visiting most often. Since screen resolutions vary among
monitors, it is a good idea to set the pixels to a standard
800×600. You may also choose to set the tables in your web page
to span a percentage of the page rather than a set number of
inches. This will be sure to accommodate all screen sizes. You
should remember that a lot of Internet users will not use the
same browser as you, and therefore you should be sure that your
site looks as good on other browsers as it does your own. You can
do this by downloading several browsers through which to look at
your page.

Be aware of the fact that the overall look of your website is a
way to make money. The appearance of the site, if designed
properly, can be an excellent marketing strategy for your product
or service.

Post from: Top SEO Tips

Good Website Navigation and Design is Paramount for Success

Valuable Content Equals Links

Dylan — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 05:00:00 +0000

But it doesn’t matter how valuable your content is. It
doesn’t matter if you created the greatest thing since
sliced bread and you’re selling it exclusively from your
website. No one will find you if you don’t reach out. And
how do you reach out? With links.

In the brick and mortar world, a retail business depends on
demand and location. If you put a store selling something
that somebody wants in a high traffic location, you will be
successful. And sometimes it doesn’t matter if your price is
a little bit higher than everyone else’s. Look at
convenience stores that set their prices twice as high as
any grocery store. So they make a profit? You bet they do.

Now if we use this model for an website, location can be
compared to your search engine rankings. The higher you rank
for your chosen keywords, the more people come to your
store. If you provide something that your visitors want,
valuable content, they may buy something or they may just
remember your site and be back for more.

Getting people to link to your site is one way to increase
your ranking with the search engines. But a lot of people go
about this the wrong way. By posting to free for all links
pages, spamming blog comments, or worse. I had a blog that
got about 10 comments a day from people that were just
trying to get a link to their site. The site was a family
photo blog. It was an easy target, but do you think that
anyone looking at a picture of my family wanted to click on
the Cialis website link in the comments?

Well, search engines don’t think so either. Links like this
are being downgraded in many search engines, including
Google. It’s a good thing. And this brings us back to
valuable content.

Valuable content will convince people to link to you. Did
you know that most blogging software can put a “blog this”
link on Internet Explorer’s toolbar? This button puts a link
to your site right from their blog. And once your site gets
into the blogosphere, there’s no telling where is will stop.
Maybe with top rankings for keywords you never optimized
for, but that fit your site perfectly.

Did you know that there are site rating groups like
stumbleupon.com that can send your site to thousands of
people within a week? If people like your content they will
pass it on to other users. You could have 500 people linking
to you by the end of the week.

What about the “Link to Us” page? I know. I thought it was
“old school” too. Until I tried it. It works. Just give your
visitors the code they need to copy and paste to their site.
Make it easier for them and they’ll link to you.

Linking membership sites are great also, especially when you
get hundreds of requests for link exchanges because of the
caliber of your content.

Yes, things are changing with search engines. But if you
have been providing the type of content that people look
for, you have nothing to worry about.

——————————
About the author:
http://www.stephanmiller.com

Post from: Top SEO Tips

Valuable Content Equals Links

Effective Internet Marketing Strategy Writing And Submitting Original Articles

Dylan — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 05:00:00 +0000

Using the right keywords and phrases in original articles
and submitting them to article directories has become one
of the most profitable ways for internet marketing and
advertising today.

Are you using this internet marketing and advertising
strategy?

You may be missing the opportunity of extra profits on the
internet marketing table by not utilizing this effective
strategy.

This is one of the many reasons writing original quality
content articles is now the latest marketing buzz online
today.

The two basics that you can combine to really power a
successful website. Content and Website Back Links.

You already know that right?

You’ve heard that Content Is King right?

Are you writing articles and submitting them using such
services as SubmitYourArticle and Article Marketer?

Many internet marketing pro’s have been writing articles
for many years. They already know the value of original
quality content and using the right keywords will drive
targeted traffic to their websites from the search engines
and article directories.

So why don’t all internet marketing business owners write
and submit articles for their internet marketing strategy
today?

The simple answer is, that it takes time to write articles,
submit them and get targeted traffic to your websites.

Another reason, is that writing articles can remind us of
school research papers, essays and reports that can be a
deep negative anchor in the subconscious mind for many of
us.

Did you really enjoy writing when you were in school?

If your answer is yes, you have an advantage because about
95% of internet business owners don’t use this effective
marketing strategy.

Imagine how much opportunity there is for you because of
this simple fact.

Only about 5% of all marketers are taking advantage of this
internet marketing strategy and internet advertising.

Many marketers are using this strategy to make money online
on the front and backend writing and submitting articles.

Why do you think many marketing sites want fresh, quality,
original keyword rich content articles?

The website owner can have an article with keywords that
relate to their website content. This helps their websites
page rank when indexed by the search engines.

Think about this for a moment. Imagine taking advantage of
a work at home opportunity, marketing from both sides of
the sales coin with 3 simple steps.

3 Easy Steps For Writing Original Content With Keywords

1.) You write quality original content, keyword/phrase rich
articles, with links to your website in the resource box.

2.) You build a website or web page with targeted
keyword/phrase rich original content for the targeted
traffic that originates from your articles.

3.) You have your site or sites targeted from your
keyword/phrase original content articles when visitors
looking for more information arrive.

A Win-Win Situation For Everyone Involved.

The person looking for quality content and information.

The person writing the original content articles.

The person with the quality original content website.

Internet marketing business owners who incorporate
keywords/phrases with writing articles, can make money
online if done properly with this internet marketing
strategy.

An Overview Of Keyword/Phrase Research And Writing Articles.

There are 3 keys to internet marketing success writing
articles and using keywords and phrases.

1.) Keyword Research. Find popular subjects and
keywords/phrases, using a keyword selector and suggestion
tool by Overture and 7Search.

2.) Writing Articles. Write original content with keywords
from your research.

3.) Quality Content Site. Build a quality content site
incorporated with the target subject and keywords/phrases
of your articles and website.

Writing and submitting original articles and using keywords
for your internet marketing strategy can be a very
effective way to build profits over the long term.

For building long term success, there’s very little you can
do that will give you near the same results online today
for long term business growth. Writing and submitting
articles provides an effective way to drive targeted
traffic to your sites for many years to come.

Post from: Top SEO Tips

Effective Internet Marketing Strategy Writing And Submitting Original Articles

10 Ways To Indirectly Get To The Top Of Search Engines

Dylan — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 05:00:00 +0000

How do you do this? Look up the top 20 web sites on the
major search engines under the keywords and phrases people
would find your web site. The key would be to then
advertise on those web sites.

The most expensive way would be to buy ad space on those
web sites. If you don’t want to spend any money, you could
use the ten strategies below. These strategies may not
apply to every web site.

1. Participate on their discussion boards.
You could post questions, answer other peoples questions,
and join in on conversations. Just include your signature
file and link at the end of your messages.

2. Ask the web site owner if they would like a free ebook
to giveaway to their visitors.
You could have them link to your web site or include your
ad in the free ebook.

3. Submit content to their web site.
You could write articles for their web site and include
your resource box and link at the end of the article. If
they publish it, you’ll indirectly be at the top of the
search engines.

4. Write an excellent article review of their web site,
products or services.
Then publish the review on your web site. E-mail the web
site owner and tell him or her about it. They may link to
your web site so their visitors read it.

5. Ask the owner of the web site if they would want to
trade advertising.
If you don’t get as much traffic as they do, you could
throw in some extra incentives.

6. Propose a cross promotion deal with the web site.
You both could promote each others products or services
together in one package deal. This means a mention and link
back to your web site.

7. Give the web site a testimonial for their product or
service.
Include a little text link for your web site with the
testimonial. You never know; it could end up on their ad
copy.

8. Post your advertisement on their free classified ad
section on their web site.
You want to be sure you have an attractive headline so they
will read your ad.

9. Post your text link on their free-for-all links page.
You want to go back and post your link regularly so it
stays towards the top.

10. Sign their guest books.
You could leave a short compliment about their web site on
their guest book. Just include your signature file and link
at the end of your message.

Post from: Top SEO Tips

10 Ways To Indirectly Get To The Top Of Search Engines

5 Ways Google Will Help You With Your Traffic

Dylan — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 05:00:00 +0000

But if you knew what I do, you?d realize that there are tools provided by the search engine that help you learn more about your traffic, and may even help drive visitors to your site.

Here are five ways that Google provides free traffic assistance.

#1 – Google will Help Your Pages Get Discovered with Google Sitemaps https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login

Google Sitemaps is a program that gives you the opportunity to present your site?s pages to Google in XML or text.
Google will then come by and spider the pages, getting you indexed faster.

Take note that this doesn?t necessarily mean that your pages will be listed for your favorite keywords, only that discovery will take place a lot faster than with manual submission. Google Sitemaps will also give you some basic site stats if you verify your site, such as the top keywords for discovery, errors it found when crawling, and the types of documents at your site.

If you find compiling your sitemap for Google in the correct format difficult, try the SOFTplus GSiteCrawler Google Sitemap generator. It?s my favorite Sitemap generator, free and easy to use.

#2 – Google Will Talk To You and Your Webmaster In His or Her Native Tongue or Plain English with the Webmaster Section http://www.google.com/webmasters/

The Google Information Page for Webmasters should be your first stop when you want to know more about anything that has to do with your site and its relationship to Google and any of its many flavors of search such as Froogle.
Particularly for new site owners or operators, checking this page first has saved many from needless anxiety.

Most of the basic information is in straightforward language, with links to details for geeks like me.

#3 – Google will Tell You What It Knows with Web Page Information

If you type info:yoursite.com into Google, Google will tell show you a page that has your link at the top of the page, with a short description, and the following phrase ?Google can show you the following information for this URL?.

This special page compiles several queries about your site including pages that contain your URL (all the pages Google knows of that are linked to you).

#4 – Google will Help You Analyze Your Traffic with Google Analytics http://www.google.com/analytics/

After a recent purchase of Urchin Stats, a free online version has been made available, and re-branded as Google Analytics. This cookie-based invisible visitor tracker can give you information that go a bit beyond standard stats such as bounce rates, visitor loyalty, keyword discovery results for a single day, click paths through your site, and page views per visit.

With the ability to analyze your traffic, you can help learn where the holes in your site are, and how to keep them on your site for longer periods of time, as well as better ways to steer a visit towards a specific action, such as a subscription. Results come in flavors for the executive and the search marketer alike.

There?s currently a waiting list to use Google Analytics due to popular demand.

#5 – Google Will Advise On Getting the Most from Your Traffic with Conversion University http://www.google.com/analytics/conversionuniversity.html

Google Analytics also has two content sections that are available to all, called Conversion University. While the articles are decidedly slanted towards AdWords users, a prudent read yields many clues that can be applied to preparing for visitors who arrive through organic search discovery. One reference area is called ?Driving Traffic?, the other ?Converting Visitors.?

At the end of the day, the process by which your site gets ranked in Google search engine results is a computation of a complex algorithm, which means Google – the search engine
– really isn?t capable of being your best friend or your worst enemy.

Meanwhile, Google – the company – also provides access to resources that will help give your site a fighting chance.

Post from: Top SEO Tips

5 Ways Google Will Help You With Your Traffic

Secret Weapon in the Link Wars

Dylan — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 05:00:00 +0000

Why am I laughing? Because every linking campaign I’ve done for the past few years has turned a profit all by itself. That’s right – if search engines didn’t exist, I’d still be counting up the profits from my link-building efforts, while the poor guy with the $3,000/month link-rental bill stares at his search engine ranking reports and wonders if it’s really helping.

I have no doubt that some of those paid links *are* helping folks get their websites better exposure, whether through search engines or otherwise, and I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t submit to directories. However, if you had an opportunity to promote your website and build links without spending as much, wouldn’t you take a look?

The reason I make money on my link-building campaigns is that they aren’t really linking campaigns at all – they’re content-distribution campaigns.

So, what’s a content-distribution campaign and how does it work?

Well, you’re looking at one right now.

Jill is happy to run my article because her readers will enjoy it. Her readers are happy too, because they get useful information. When readers like my article, some will click on the link that appears in my bio, and some of you (I hope) will buy something from me. That’s where my immediate profit comes from – the cost of writing and distributing my articles is far less than the added profit I gain.

In fact, all of the back issues of the High Rankings Advisor are archived online. When this issue goes onto Jill’s website, I get a link, but it doesn’t stop there.

A lot of people will read my article and they will want to send the same information out in their own newsletter or put it on their own website. When they contact me, I will be happy to have them distribute my article and post it on their website. In fact, I might even update it a little and give them a personalized version to use.

It’s a lot easier for me than it used to be because I have a recognized name, but even when nobody knew my name, I made a profit on every article. That includes the very first one I sent out, which generated over $1,500 in sales in one week for my then-new e-book, SEO Fast Start.

So how can you get started? The first step, and it’s very important, is research. You need to find out what kind of information your target audience is interested in. If you’re a mortgage broker, for example, folks might enjoy an article explaining what the heck “escrow” is. I still don’t know, so don’t ask me, but I’m curious and I’d open any email offering to explain it.

You can find good topics and good information on websites like About.com, which conveniently enough shows a list of the most popular articles on each topic. Just pick a topic and search About.com for information – you can use the built-in search, or another search engine like Google (try searching for “mortgage site:about.com” and you’ll see what I mean).

Once you’ve selected some topics, you need to write the articles or pay a professional to do it. Good ezine articles run 500-1,000 words, are written with simple language, and provide clear, useful information. Many professional writers (like our friend Karon Thackston of <http://www.marketingwords.com>) will write articles for you.

My recommendation for those just starting out is to produce no more than 2-3 articles at first. Once you’ve written your articles, it’s time to distribute them. I’d recommend sending out no more than one article per week. You have a few good choices for this:

1) You can distribute them yourself via the “article announcement” mailing lists that many ezine publishers use to find content. Start at Kevin Bidwell’s site, where he provides some great information on a group of announcement lists he manages: < http://www.all-in-one-business.com/groups/>.

2) If you’d rather not do it yourself, you can hire someone to distribute articles to ezines. Phantom Writers <http://www.thephantomwriters.com> can help with this, as can iSnare.com, and others.

3) You can submit to article database websites, such as goarticles.com, ideamarketers.com, isnare.com, valuablecontent.com, and others. You will find a regularly updated list of article databases at <http://www.arcanaweb.com/resources/article-directories.html>.

4) You can use also software like Article Submitter Pro <http://www.articlesubmitterpro.com/> to submit your article to multiple databases at the same time.

In addition to the above methods, a little research will usually uncover dozens if not hundreds of topical websites that carry guest articles. A little trick of mine is to use the “Site Targeted Campaign” tool in my Google AdWords account to find websites that are running Adsense ads related to a topic. These sites are often very hungry for content.

One downside to writing ezine articles is that you can’t always tell your whole story in 1,000 words or less, and this is one of those times. There’s plenty more I’d like to tell you, like how we follow up on our articles to double or triple the number of links, build partnerships, create joint ventures, and more. But I guess that’s an article for another day.

I wish you success.

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