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Current Blog Category: Search Engine Optimization

What Tips And Techniques Do The Successful Bloggers Follow To Build Links?

30 May

 

 

Link building is the task that consumes most of the time and is the most result driving when you want to do SEO for your website or blog. If you want to keep your blog ahead of the million other blogs in the same industry, you have to continue building back links for your blog. This scope of this post here will remain confined in the tips for link building that many top bloggers use for their niches.

In this article, I will talk about only those tips that work well with the latest changes in algorithms brought about by Google. These tips are expected to work just fine with any version of Google Penguin Update and Google or other search engines should not penalize you for any over optimization if you employ these techniques to build your links.

Benefits Of Link Building

There are many advantages of building back links for your website and blog. When you create back links for a completely new blog, it makes the job of the search engine crawlers easy to find your blog update their databases by indexing it. However, this indexing benefit is only meant for freshly created websites or blogs. When you perform link building activities for your blog, it turns your blog to be SEO friendly. As a result, you will rank in the top of the results for targeted search keywords in the popular search engines like Google and others. The end result will be that you will get a lot of targeted traffic through the search engines. When you can build targeted and valid back links for your website or blog content, your blog or website will get a high page rank from Google.

Actually, the link building activities work like getting positive votes for the blog and this is how your blog is made popular. You can receive a lot of traffic referred through the links from many other blogs and websites by using a number of link building methods.

Here is the top list containing the best techniques and tips to follow so that you can enlist yourself in the lineup of those bloggers that are the most successful ones in the niche of yours.

Do Guest Blogging

One of the most authentic and reliable link building method is guest blogging and getting targeted back links from other top blogs in the niche you are working at. You need to collect the top list of blogs in the niche and find out which ones allow guest posts, if you want to employ guest blogging. After you get the list, advance to them with well written post that matches their niche and on an average you can assume to get about 2 to 3 back links per guest post submitted in the niche. However, remember not to submit the same guest post in multiple blogs. Since you will be guest blogging on the best blogs in the niche, you can assume that there will be a number of targeted visitors through regular back links referring to your blog site pages.

Comment On Blogs

A recommended link building technique for blog readers is to comment on targeted blogs that are on the top list of your niche. This is one of the quickest tricks for link building; however, you need to submit only original comments that are related to the blog where you are submitting your comments. Spamming those blogs with unrelated comments is not recommended. If you comment on selected blogs in the niche, it would definitely help you get targeted visitors by using back links. The resultant effect will be that your blog will be ranked higher in the major search engines for the keywords that you are targeting. This way, your blog pages will get higher page ranks and there will be added brand value for your blogs among the readers that read the blogs that you choose to make comments at.

Submit To Article Directories

Another wonderful way to build a number of quality back links is through submitting articles for your blogs. The first thing you need to do is to create a list of the popular article submission sites with high PR and then you need to submit articles there. For each submitted articles, two to four back links can be expected. Publishing in an Ezine website might not generate enough traffic for you, but the number of back links you will get there will help you to enhance your search engine rankings and page ranks. Besides, your pages will be ranked better for targeted keywords in your niche if you do this. If you have not done this before, it’s about time that you start looking for reputable article directory sites to help with your link building strategies.

Write Blog Posts That Have Good Quality

The best link building tip is to write blog posts that have very good quality. Excellent posts are able to engage the readers so that these readers also share your blog with others. This will help you get many hundreds or thousands of naturally occurring back links for your blog pages. Many people have been seen to accomplish the desired success while they were making blog posts around some lists in their blogs.

Submit For Social Bookmarking

The next step is to share a number of interesting posts from your blog on the well known social bookmarking sites like Delicious, StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit Humsurfer etc. Doing this could result in an increased number of targeted traffic to your blog page. In case that any of your blog posts get popular there, your blog page will be automatically back linked by many webmasters and bloggers in the niche.

Activities On Social Media

I would like to suggest you to create a strong presence on various social media sites that are popular such as Twitter, Linkedin, Google Plus and most importantly on Facebook. When you have any interesting posts on your blog, you can go ahead and share it on your social media site so as to let your followers or friends know that you have updated your blog.

Create A Link Exchange Relation With Other Bloggers

Bulk link exchange might not work, but when done in a moderated way, it can be very effective. First, contact other bloggers in the niche and request to exchange a blog roll. When you approach bloggers that share the same interest and if your blog is at the same level with their blogs, you will find them willing to accept your request. However, it is better to limit the blog roll within 10 to 15 links so that the roll looks natural. You can also ask for link exchange in the posts of similar interests where it is relevant. This is a great way to get contextual and high quality back links and this in fact helps both the sides in this sharing.

Topical Page Creation

Creating topical pages ion Squidoo and Hubpages is a great way for back links, as Google considers the contents published in those places very seriously. By creating contents in those different portals, you can expect to get really high quality back links and traffic to your blog. Any page created on Squidoo is known as lens and pages on Hubpages are known as hubs. Many lens owners have even earned over a thousand dollars a month for a single lens. It is a very popular system with excellent monetization system. When you publish hubs, your hubs will get a hub score and if your hub has score over 75, any links that your hub contains will be treated as a dofollow one. Try to explore this opportunity as well in order to increase traffic to your site and to build links as well.

Write Blogs On Free Blogging Platforms

Next you could use free blogging platforms for blogging such as Blogger and WordPress. For a blog that targets keywords for a special demographic, it is a good idea to find platforms for blogs in that location. If you publish unique and targeted contents in those free web spaces and put some self promotional links in there, you will be amazed to see the huge traffic boost and search engine ranks that your blogs have achieved.

Submission To Blog Directories

The last thing that you cannot ignore and consider carefully is to submit the link of your blog links to blog directories with high PR ranks. You can also use the high PR general web directories and specific directories in your niche. For demographic targeting, you can try to find the directories that are specifically meant for that location. Although this may seem trivial, this can greatly help with your link building efforts as long as you choose only the most reputable blog directories possible. Make sure that you submit your blogs only to those quality directories; otherwise the effort might do more harm than good to your blog.

I certainly hope that the tips for building links can help you to accomplish a good page rank and to help your blog rank in the top 10 for the keywords you are targeting. There might have been some tips that I have not mentioned here or some that I have yet to discover, therefore, it is always necessary that you also perform research and that you study the performance of your blog to find out which link building strategies generate the most traffic to your blog.

 

SEO TIPS: Know Your Copywriter!

30 May

How well do you know your copywriter? When times are tight, heck even when they aren’t, people look to save a few bucks here and there however they can. Unfortunately, one of those areas tends to be what webmasters are willing to spend when it comes to hiring their SEO copywriter. It isn’t an uncommon sentiment among many webmasters that one copywriter is as good as another, but those are usually the same webmasters that will spend time and money revising copy from cheaper “copywriters” as well as a ton of wasted money trying to recover from every algorithm update. What should you be looking for in a copywriter?

1. They can actually write in the language you need fluently. There are some good foreign copywriters out there, but you want copy that “sounds” right in your readers head rather than something that while it may be grammatically okay sound wrong. This even comes into play with spelling – just because it is spelled one way in the UK and another in the US, for instance, doesn’t mean it doesn’t immediately register with your readers. If you are buying copy for your deep south barbecue joint, do you really want copy with euro-style spelling?  Copy needs to fit your site, not the other way around.

2. Does your copywriter really have experience? Everyone says they do, but do they have their own site and a real registered business or do they just bid jobs on freelancer sites? There is nothing wrong with that, but if someone has gone to the lengths of establishing their own business, it does tend to lend credence to their abilities. You should still vet them, but it’s often better than someone with a random profile on a third party site.

3. Do they outsource? A lot will lie and say no, but when you get your copy you notice it just isn’t what you expected. Article farmers are all over the place. They bid all the jobs they can using one good piece of sample content and then turn around and outsource to the cheapest bidder or their in-house team. There are cases where people have paid $50/page only to find out that the actual writer of their content wound up being the $5 bidder that took the job when it was re-posted by the bid winner. Watch for article spinners too – they are everywhere!

What  can you do to ensure you get the best copywriter for your budget and SEO needs? Talk to them! It is that easy. A reputable, established, copywriter will make contact with you to discuss your needs. They understand they are expensive by comparison to the hacks, but they also understand their craft and can explain how they will help you. You won’t get that from the fakers. If the price seems too good to be true, it likely is and the content you get will have little to do with the word “good.” Ask yourself this – is it better to do the job right the first time or do it several times over while your entire site has to be put on hold?

 

Top 10 Twitter Etiquette Tips For A Successful Business

30 May

 

 

Every business should have a Twitter account, as this will help in building your brand and potentially help with your search engine optimization campaign. Twitter may be used as a marketing tool, being one of the most populated social networking channels in the Internet right now. You may use it to promote the services and products that your business offers. You can also use it to update everyone regularly about your business.

Take advantage of Twitter by following these rules in ?tweeting? and it can help you and your business gain its much needed popularity. It might even help in your search engine optimization efforts.

1. Do Not Forget Your Manners

Everybody would always want to be linked with someone who has good manners. Remember the basic things that you learned from your mother. Even if it is just online and you are not meeting each user in person, make sure you give them respect. Every post wherein you are mentioned means added traffic to you, so whenever someone tweets and mention you, be grateful. Simply saying thanks and perhaps engaging in thoughtful conversation or discussion can show your gratefulness to these people that mention you.

Recognition signifies giving importance, thereby making the person feel that what he or she did for you is something good. That nice feeling of appreciation would be remembered and that person may even be a future customer or website visitor. Be nice and try to return the good act by retweeting some of their relevant posts, if possible. Have you ever tried to say thank you to those who post something about you? Remember a simple thank you can take you a long way.

2. Hashtags Are There For Your Perusal

Hashtags are used in categorizing posts or tweets. They are like guide words in a post. Often times, hashtagged words are the summary of a post. Therefore, better use hashtags properly when you are posting something on Twitter. When you type in a hashtagged word on the search bar, it will show all messages with that hashtag and it will be easy to know who posted about it and what they post about regarding the hashtagged word. So remember whenever you feel like using hashtags, do not overdo it. Your followers will be confused or worse, will be annoyed.

3. Tweet In Moderation

Keep in mind that every tweet must be filled with information and is useful to your followers, especially if it is related to your business. You want your followers to look forward to every post that you make and not dread the next one. You need not make your post necessarily long, but the content must be something catchy, unique, and original. Besides, Twitter imposes a character limit on each post, so you have to make sure that you put a lot of thought on each tweet. Followers may always learn something that they can utilize with every tweet that you post. Refrain from tweeting irrelevant posts.

Do not post anything that can be categorized as spam. Always consider your followers whenever you tweet. Something that is relevant and can capture their attention is worth tweeting. Hootsuite is a program that can manage your tweets in a timely manner. Through this, your tweets will have time gaps. You might want to consider this when you have planned what you will post each day.

4. Let People Know You Will Have Plenty To Post

If there is a special event involving your business, you will definitely be posting a lot of tweets. You may post updates regarding venue, date and purpose of the event. It can be a product launching, a business expansion, special promos or even a charity event. But what you do not want to happen is for your followers to get annoyed with your constant updates. Therefore, in order for them to understand, give them a warning. This is an appropriate act, as they will be notified about what to expect from you during the day or week.

5. Think Before You Tweet

As a business entity, your tweet reflects your business. That is why you have to be very careful on what you post. Refrain from sending malicious messages or using inappropriate language. Do not get involved in controversies, for this may have a direct impact on your business and this impact might be negative instead of positive.

However, if you are using your personal account then you may post whatever you feel like posting, from politics to religion to celebrities. But then again, we are talking about your business Twitter account here, so to be on the safe side, always keep in mind that what you post should always be relevant to the product or services that you offer.
6. Keep Relationships Professional

There are times when adding personal touches to your post would be very beneficial and interesting. A new addition to your family or anniversary of an employee can be announced but always consider the degree of appropriateness. Some followers may join you in as you celebrate, but others may find it irrelevant.

The main purpose of Twitter is to establish a relationship among your followers. You can build a relationship even if you do not divulge your personal life, just posting regularly about your product and services is sometimes suffice to build a relationship, because thru that you are part of their daily life in Twitter. You can also post any industry news that you find relevant or anything that your followers would love to know about the market or niche.

7. Write In A Business-Like Manner

As a business entity, you are expected to practice correct spelling, and proper grammar. For example, do not get confused with the proper usage of there, their, they?re. To avoid grammatical error, proofread before you post anything. Your followers will take you more seriously if you post messages in a professional tone.

Refrain from using short hand messages such as ur for your, u for you, 4 for for. Reading complete words is more pleasant in the eyes and also for the image of the business. Again, anything you post reflects your business. This can be quite challenging because of the character limit on Twitter, but that is where your creativity should come in.

8. Know Your Followers

Knowing your followers will help you in coming up with your postings. Use appropriate language so they will better understand whatever you post about. You may use jargons if your company is business to business, but otherwise, refrain from doing so. If your followers are teenagers, better speak their language, as they will find you more interesting and may even find you cool. Right timing and relevance should always be considered when posting a tweet.

There are also several ways for you to engage followers. For instance, if there is a relevant event such as sports or music award, tweet about it. Just make sure that your followers will be interested to know about and discuss it.

9. Respond Accordingly And Appropriately

There is also right timing for tweeting. If for example someone asks a question about your product or service, it is but expected that you answer promptly. Otherwise, they may lose interest in your product or service. If however, you have no answer to their query, you can inform your followers in a respectful manner that you will get back to them as soon as you have the answer to their query.

Gone are the days when customers have to wait for 3 long days just to get an answer for a simple question. Take advantage of this social media network, where everything can be done with just your fingertips. If you do not get them the answers or at least the attention, they will surely get it elsewhere, possibly from your competitor.

10. Fix Issues In Private

Not all customer issues and complains shall be discussed in public. Some people simply use Twitter in order for them to get action and attention immediately. Address the customer involved directly by a private message. By this, you will have responded to their call of attention.

Once you do this, you can direct the conversation over the phone. This may be the best option that you have. Get the customer?s telephone number if you can. Immediately try to resolve their issues and concerns and remember to always act professionally, even if it might be hard to do at times.

There will always be unsatisfied individuals, and they will most likely be lurking in the Internet. You cannot really please everybody. Twitter is such a popular social media network that uses text as medium of communication. Messages are interpreted according to the reader. A single message can have numerous interpretations. A simple joke can even have a negative impact. If in case you get caught in a situation wherein you just go around in circles, it is wiser to put a stop to it, as the reputation of your business will be on the line.

Twitter, being part of the most popular social media sites right now, can help build your business and get you the right amount of followers and customers that you need. Follow the rules stated above and you will have followers that are happy, satisfied and interested whenever you post a tweet.

 

 

 

Common Mistakes When Promoting Your Website

30 May

There are a lot of articles and blog posts online that will tell you plenty of tips and tricks when it comes to promoting your website. There are also some resources that discuss various challenges that you will encounter in site promotion, then guide you on how to overcome these obstacles. In this article, we are going to do something different. This will explain the things that you must avoid doing.

Many people and organizations that attempt to promote their websites have made countless mistakes in the past. There are even those who are new in website promotion that still do these same mistakes on a daily basis. Hopefully, this article would help you find out about the common mistakes and errors that these people do, and learn about how you can prevent yourself from doing the same mistakes instead of having to go through them on your own.

1. Mistakes In Search Engines

A vital part in your site promotion strategy is the search engines. Because of their popularity and utmost importance, you will hear a lot of rumors, myths and even techniques that are already out dated in relation to search engines and how they work.

Invisible Text

A very good example of these techniques that should be forgotten about is the invisible text method. This is when web masters add texts on their pages that would contain the relevant keywords, but the text would be in the same color as the background of the web page. This is because of the notion that the search engines can see it, but actual Internet users will not and perhaps never realize that it’s there.

This technique have been widely used a long, long time ago, during the dawn of search engines, but you will be surprised that there are still a lot of websites that use this technique. However, search engines are more intelligent now, and have already dealt with this method. If the search engines catch you still doing this bad technique, expect to see your rankings drop because of the penalty. In worst cases, the particular search engine will ban or block your site from appearing in the search results pages. Do not make use of the invisible text method.

Small Texts Stuffed With Keywords

Another similar method that people have used back in the days was to use very small text stuffed with keywords, making it almost unreadable by the site visitors. It uses the same principle: prevent the users from seeing it but let the search engines detect it. This technique is not worth it at all. Aside from compromising your website design, it might cause your site to be penalized by the major search engines.

Unrelated Keywords

Many webmasters that have just started with website promotion also commit this next mistake very often. Everyone knows that there are particular keywords that millions of people use on a daily basis to search online, and these are often related to celebrities or the adult industry. Therefore, even if the website is about log cabin holidays, which has nothing to do at all with celebrities or the adult industry, these webmasters stuff their websites and the meta tags of their sites with search terms that are unrelated to their site. They do this in the hopes of getting the huge amount of visitors that use these search terms everyday.

However, this is not a good and effective method at all. Even they were able to fool the search engines, as soon as the Internet users or website visitors realize that the website that they are in are not related at all to what they are looking for, they will simply leave and browse a different site right away. That is why it is highly important that you only optimize your website using keywords that are relevant to what your website is all about. Otherwise, these visitors will not convert to actual customers, if that is what you are trying to achieve.

Over Optimization

Remember not to overdo putting your keywords on your site when optimizing your pages. Many web masters, in the hopes of getting the attention of the search engines, stuff their pages with keywords and phrases by mentioning it a lot of times, to the point that the texts on the page no longer makes sense. Making your primary keyword appear on your site or page a hundred time will not earn you a high ranking on search engine results page. In fact, it may do just the opposite. Use the keyword in moderation and appropriately, by distributing them evenly on your site and pages.

2. Mistakes In Building Your Site

There are also several things that you can do even at the stage of creating your site that will harm your website and not help you promote it the right way. Read more about them here.

Free Hosting

Do not put your trust on free website hosting. Many website owners commit this mistake of using free hosting to save on costs. Although they are an excellent option if you are low on budget, your Internet service provider does not offer you enough space, or if you simple want to build a simple page to have an online presence. However, if you plan to establish a serious and useful website to drive sales and brand consciousness to your business, then you might want to invest on a paid domain name and hosting. You will be able to buy hosting space and domain name nowadays at an affordable price unlike before, and every dollar that you spend on it will be worth it in the long run.

There are benefits that you can enjoy when you use paid hosts. First, they are more reliable than the free ones so you can ensure that your website is always up for your visitors to see. Having a domain name of your own also gives your website some sort of authority. It tells people (and search engines) that you know what you are doing, you are serious about it and that you will be here to stay for a long time. If you are trying to increase sales, then this is an important thing to have. It is crucial that your customers or visitors are comfortable to spend their hard-earned money on your site.

It is also easier to promote a site if you have a domain name of your own. Search engines and directories will most likely be happy to index your site on theirs, which will not be the same if your website is built on a free host. You can still submit your site and promote it even if it uses a free hosting service, but why make it more difficult? Promoting a website is already a challenging field to meddle in so you should not make it any harder. A paid host and domain are an investment that will pay for itself in time.

Bad Submission Services

While we are on the subject of spending money, do not waste your dollars on horrible submission services. Many web masters that are new to site promotion are enticed to invitations that promise to submit their site to thousands of search engines for a very low fee. Do not be one of those web masters that fall into this trap.

Most of the places that they claim to submit your site to will not even drive traffic to your website. Besides, I doubt that there are more than a hundred reliable and significant search engines in the Internet right now, globally. There is no need for you to pay for these services. If there is an option for you to go on a free trial first to see what it can do to your site, then do so. Make sure that you only spend your money if you get the results that you desire.

If you have enough time, you might also want to try and research for the most reliable search engines online, and submit your site on your own. This task is time consuming but it can ensure that your website can receive the highest amount of quality traffic from these reputable search engines that people actually use.

In Summary

It does not mean that you should not pay for other site promotion services at all. All I am saying is that you have to be careful where you put your money. There are a lot of site promotion tools that are clearly worth the investment. Also, you can even hire experts in the field to do the dirty work of promoting your site. What you need to do is to perform your own research even before you purchase anything. You can ask other people for reviews and feedback about their experience with the service that you are looking at.

Bottom line is that you should avoid these mistakes when promoting your website. Your main goal is to drive traffic and visitors to your site, and not to get it banned by major search engines. You also want the visitors to stay and perhaps even share your site to their friends and family so do not mislead them into thinking they found what they are looking for just because you want people to get to your site. Quality is key in the world of web promotion. Avoid these common errors and you will be on your way to getting the traffic that your website needs.

 

DIY Search Engine Optimization For Your Limited Budget

30 May

 

 

If you haven’t noticed it yet, there are already a lot of people who are search engine optimization experts. However, most of the time, these people are actually just proclaiming themselves experts when in fact they really are not. Most of them only have barely have the technical background needed for an effective SEO, and they might not have the credentials to support their claims.

It can be quite frustrating for web masters to find a real search engine optimization expert of high quality. Many website owners have tried to get the services of an SEO firm but were not happy or satisfied with the results. You will definitely encounter search engine optimization experts that would promise you with highly desirable goals and results, but at the end of the day, they would not be able to deliver.

Many businesses have tried to do search engine optimization on their own so as to save a lot of money and prevent from getting frustrated out of undesirable results. Could these people be heading towards the wrong direction or were they able to find out that search engine optimization can be easy?

False Promises

Plenty of SEO firms will promise to achieve a top 10 ranking for your website. This would mean that they will try their best for your website to appear between pages 1 to 10 of search engine results pages. Based in research, majority of people who use the Internet to search will not go past the first page of the search engine results.

Try to perform a search online and if your website does not appear in the first 20 or 30 pages of the results, do not expect to get any visitors from this. Should an SEO firm promise or guarantee a that your website will appear in the top 10 pages, then you must realize that they are making such an extravagant promise. You might think that their promises are too good to be true.

Most of these promises guarantee a top 10 ranking, but using niche keywords that have very little to almost no competition. When they do this, it is really possible that they can get you on top, however, how many Internet users do you think actually uses these keywords? Some search engine optimization firms give vague promises just to be able to say that they have delivered. In reality, the results that they show is simply very far from what you are expecting.

Do It On Your Own If Your Are Doubtful

It is quite easy to understand search engine optimization. There is no need for you to have a degree or a highly technical background just so you can come up with an effective search engine optimization strategy. You just need to have a positive work ethic, and to know the basics of important concepts of search engine optimization. There are several ways that are easy to do, which can help you come up with an effective SEO strategy. In this article, we will find out more about these techniques.

Your Website Content

The text that appears on your web pages are actually called content or copy. It should be your utmost goal to develop a unique, interesting and informative content for your site. What you can do is to write articles or blog posts on a daily or weekly basis, and make sure that the topic is relevant to your niche or website. You also have to ensure that the articles you publish would give value to your visitors.

Many people do not believe it but adding useful content on your website is actually a great part of search engine optimization. The search engines often crawl websites on a regular basis, and if you consistently add content to your site, it will be identified as something very important. The more important it is to search engines, the more frequent it will crawl your site for updates and relevant results during searches. Each of the page that is on your site that is indexed will be a possible way for Internet users to get to your site especially when doing their usual search online.

Once an individual uses your target keywords when searching, there will be a very likelihood that your webpage will appear in search engine results page, especially if you have used these keywords appropriately on your content. This brings us to our next point.

Keywords As Your Lifeblood

The number one source of receiving traffic for your website that is targeted are the keywords that you use. Each page or update that you post on your website will most likely contain a particular topic or theme that is related to your whole site in general. For instance, if you are an online retailer of designer bags, then you must post something related to this. Your main keyword is “bags” and your keyword phrase is “designer bags”. Make sure that your content revolves around these. Try your best to make these words or phrases appear on your website, particularly on your home page.

There is just the right amount of keyword density that you should follow, so make it a point that your keywords appear naturally and that your posts are not stuffed with these phrases to the point that the articles or texts will not make any sense or sound awkward when read. In short, make sure that your articles are still readable.

You might want to use these keywords appropriately. Include them on your article titles, as well as throughout the entire article. When it is mentioned along the article, make sure that they are in bold so emphasize it. When used in the title, make sure that the title is still descriptive and relevant.

You might also want to use your meta descriptions and meta tags to place your keywords. Make sure you use them intelligently and consistently. Each page can have varying meta keywords and descriptions that is consistent to the content of the page.

Easy Way To Obtain One-Way Links

It is important that you have a stable and excellent source of one-way links. Every search engine optimization expert that you come across with will tell you that. This is because one-way link enable you to compete with other websites that are also in the similar industry or market that you are in.

In case you do not know it yet, one-way links are actually links outside your website that directly points to your site or any page on your site, without you having to link back to this particular site. Search engines see this as a vote in terms of how popular you are. The more links or votes that you have, the more popular your are when it comes to search engines, thus your rankings on the search engine results page will increase as well.

There are several ways for you to obtain one-way links. One is for you to post articles online. You can also write and post press releases for other websites. If you want your favorite site to link back to you, you can write a testimonial or review for them. It may be time consuming, but submitting your site to various web directories would also give you one-way links.

If you have time and resources, you can also start a blog using free blogging platforms and make sure that you have links that point to your website. Some people naturally go to forums for various reasons, so you might want to join one and include a link to your site in your forum signature.

Anchor Texts

You will be able to get one-way links in many other different ways. The only common thing is that all of these ways will need you to work really hard, but everything will be all worth it in the end.

Another thing that you have to consider, especially when creating back links, is the way that your links are made. Your anchor text of the text that has the link to your website must have the keyword or the keyphrase that you are targeting, or the page of the site that it is linking to. This is particularly applicable if you can control how the link is posted, although it is understandable that you might not in some cases.

Avoid words such as “click here” or “click now” that points to your links. Well, you will still get some sort of points for the back link, but the link will not be optimized. For example, if you are running a “genuine leather” website, then make sure that these words are used as anchor texts for your links. Instead of saying, “Click here to see your genuine leather options,” you can write, “Find out more about genuine leather and the benefits you can enjoy when you choose to use it.” This way, your keywords can be used as anchor text, because it shows up naturally on the sentence. It will do your search engine optimization tactics good, but it will also be easier for Internet users to find what they are looking for.

In Conclusion

These methods stated on this article can actually make you just like an expert in search engine optimization. You will be able to promote your site, and help it develop more traffic. There will be a lot of trial and error that you need to go through, but you will eventually master the right techniques. Soon enough, you can see your site go up in ranks when it comes to search engine results page, without you spending a single dollar on it!

 

Adwords, Simplified; Quality Scores, Not So Much …

29 May

Adwords are surprisingly complicated – a side effect of having LOTS of user options and the TON of data google collects and crunches to optimize user experience (ie, the likelihood of internet searchers to quickly find relevant ads).

 Infographic by pulpmedia: Awesomely Accessible Lesson in the Basics of Adwords

1) What you pay (CostPerClick) depends on:

* [how much you bid]

* [Quality Score of your ad] – this itself is way complicated – see below

* [Adrank of advertiser in lower rank position]

2) Two Tactics to optimize your Adwords:

2.1) Test Your Ad Copy:

2.1.1) Always have at least 2 ad variations; eg, “Blue Shoes for Sale” and “For Sale: Blue Shoes”. Google will test out your ads’ performance and help you use the higher performing ad copy, so you want at least 2 at a time for testing purposes.

2.1.2) Analyze the data. Pulpmedia suggests experimenting with different metrics: One ad might have slightly higher CTR (click through rate) but significantly lower CVR (conversion rate).

2.2) 3 Easy Bidding Strategies:

2.2.1) Pause Keywords for 30 days when Impressions > 200 and CTR < 1%

2.2.2) Pause Text Ads for 30 dyas when Impressions > 200 and CTR < 1%

2.2.3) Raise max CPC to first page bid estimate for 30 days when Average Position > 1.8 and Quality Factor < 4.

How does Google AdWords work? - infographic
Infographic by Pulpmedia Online Marketing

 Quality Scores: Not Simple

There simply isn’t a way to dumb-down Quality Scores: they comprise a set of relationships between many variables, each of which is more or less complex in its own right. That said, PPC Hero makes a valiant, effective effort in his/her(?) Ultimate Guide to Adwords Quality Score.

This guide provides counsel on no less than seven types of Quality Scores. Below is my distillation of this opus.

1. Account-Level QS* is based on how well your entire account – all keywords and ads – have performed in the past.

Contributing Metrics:

* High CTR

* High QS for your keywords

* Older accounts have more data, so will have higher QS than newer ones

Actionable:

* Some people argue that you should Delete low QS keywords, others say to Pause them

* PPC Hero advises you to consider the search volume you get with these words before deleting – if you add them back in after deletion, Google counts them as “duplicates”

2. Ad Group QS is the average ad score within a single ad group.

Contributing Metric: Each individual Ad’s QSs

Actionable: Find Ads with the lowest CTR in the group and rewrite them

3. Keyword-Level QS is based on how well your ads do in search queries that are an exact match to your keyword. It is a number from 1-10, 10 being the best.

Contributing Metrics: 

* At first Keyword QS is based on the keyword’s performance history on Google.com

* After your keyword has appeared enough times in searches (ie, after it achieves “a significant number of impressions in your account”) it will be based on CTR for queries that were an exact match.

Actionables:

* If your impression share is low (impression share = [Number of times your ad appeared/ Number of times your ad was eligible to appear]), increase your bid or daily budget amount

* Broaden your match types or add broad match keywords. Eg, in Advanced Options select “broad match” instead of “exact match”, or change your keyword from “Patio Furniture” to “Outdoor Furniture”

 4. Ad-Level QS is the score for individual ads within an ad group and is determined primarily by CTR.

Contributing Metrics: CTR

Actionable: If you have low CTR for a lot of ads, DKI (Dynamic Keyword Insertion) shows the exact query of the user within your ad, typically increasing CTR.

 5. Landing Page QS* influences your keyword QS, even though there is no official QS for Landing Pages.

Contributing Metric: Good, relevant content

6. Display Network QS is a bit mysterious but seems to reflect numerous metrics that generally indicate ad quality
Contributing Metrics:
* Ad historical performance
* Ad relevance to the site and ad group keywords
* Landing page quality
Actionables:
* Test different ad types (images versus text)
* If you have low CTR relative to competing ads, try using site and category exclusions and negative keywords for search matches
7. Mobile QS* again, not explicit metric, and google claims to calculate QS without considering device platform. But since distance between user and business location influences QS, separating your campaigns by mobile may reveal fruitful and divergent trends.
Contributing Metric: User distance from vendor
Actionable: Create separate campaigns by platform device, to see if some ads are more effective on different types of platforms
If you’re still reading, it’s time to pack up, head off and start tweaking your Adwords Campaigns!