Internet Marketing Techniques That Work...
You
Heard it Here First!
We use a combination of techniques to sell product and we'll feature
what's working right now for us here. The sort of techniques that
allow us to sell $32,000 in sales
through Click Bank alone.
What's the Most Effective
SEO Tactic for 2006?
By Brad Callen
Today, I'm going to try something different. I'm going to go out
on a limb hëre and make a blind assumption about you.
"You think that the Q-square formula (quality + quantity)
of getting inbound links (reciprocal or one-way) is the best way
to increase your search engine rankings."
Just about right, eh? And unless you are a complete newbie to
search engine optimization, this is exactly what SEO experts have
been telling you time and time and time again. And if there was
any doubt that search engines were being spammed, paid links put
rest to those fears. The SEO experts make monëy, you get a
boost in your rankings, everyone's happy.
Or so they'd have you think.
Over the past year or so, search engines have started to take
serious measures to combat sp@m against them. Search engine spamming
usually occurs in one of three ways:
Multiple submissions of your web pages (you'd be surprised to
learn that people still do this). Keyword spamming in low quality
content. Link spamming (building tons of links to a new site REALLY
quickly). On the other hand, you've probably heard about the need
for quality content ever since you started learning about search
engine optimization (hopefully). Either way, here's a refresher:
Search engines are looking for unique and useful content – information
that is accurate and important to the people interested in that
field. Search engines also look for fresh content – regular
additions to your website, etc (this is why blogging became / is
such a huge craze). So let's put that all together:
Search engines are working towards fighting SEO sp@m – bad,
keyword stuffed content and link spamming – by:
Devaluing the "ranking boost" that these elements give.
Penalizing the websites that are obviously spamming search engines.
The end result?
Traditional link building is no longer your best bet to get high
search engine rankings.
That's not to say that you should dump your link campaigns all
at once and scamper for the hills – links will continue to
have value within search engines and until the search engine algorithms
develop well enough to distinguish between "organic" linking
and links generated through a link-building campaign (not easy
to do at all, even with Google's or Microsoft's resources), getting
inbound links will stay the easiest way to bump up your search
engine rankings by several pages.
However, for SEO purposes, that brings us back to square one.
We like things to be easy, but we also want things to work well.
If link-building is a good tactic, but not the best tactic (especially
when everyone and their mother is getting a few hundred links every
month to their 30-page AdSense websites), then where does it leave
the rest of us?
The answer lies with what the search engines have been saying
all along – quality content, wrapped around quality, organic
links.
Let me explain that.
Search engines have taken two specific measures to improve their
results and reduce commercialized sp@m from their search engines:
Link pages are being "identified" as such and therefore
are being considered as low-quality links (you'll remember from
Link Building 101 that the quality of the link is a big factor
in how much it improves your website's rankings). Some of the identifying
criteria for a link page are: the number of links on that page,
the ratio of text to links on that page, and relevance of the link,
which I explain in the next point. Search engine algorithms are
currently looking at the context that the links are placed in (i.e.
surrounding text as well as the page's keywords) to measure the
relevance of the host site to YOUR website – in other words,
checking the text of the page your inbound link is placed on to
find out whether that site is relevant to your industry / niche.
This leads us to the following conclusions:
The linking page must have as few links as possible. The links
should be focused on as few sites as possible (to funnel the value
of the link page). The links should be surrounded by "relevant" content.
The linking page should contain "quality" content (written
for human reading rather than written for search engines – there's
a sharp difference between keyword optimization and keyword stuffing).
Now you must be wondering...."is there a point to all
this?" And I respect that, because this is exactly what internet
marketing and SEO gurus have been saying for a long time nöw.
Just like I often ask myself:
So WHAT?
So...
What if I told you that you could use a blindingly simple marketing
tactic that will not only bring you relevant, powerful and valuable
inbound links, but that it will ALSO bring you regular visitors?
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How many SEO techniques can promise visitors from other websites?
Nöw I'm not trying to sell you a product, so I'll cut to
the chase.
Take a single page. Take ONE core keyword describing your industry
/ main business, and a few more keywords for a couple of main category
pages. Write 350-550 words of unique, quality content that gives
the reader useful information. Each paragraph should be tightly
focused around one keyword, and should contain one link (not more)
to a related page (for your main keyword, link to your website,
for your category keywords link to your category pages). Use keywords
(but not sentences) as anchor text.
Once you've completed this page, contact link partners in YOUR
niche – not direct competitors obviously, but complementary
businesses (if you sell information books on candle-making, your
ideal link partners would be informational websites on candle-making),
and make them this pitch:
"Are you looking for a quick and easy way to boost your search
engine rankings? Search engines demand relevance, they demand quality,
they demand freshness. I'd like to offer you the chance to do a
valuable exchange – I'll provide you with an optimized article
on a subject relevant to your business, and in return all I ask
is that you allow me to place some links to my website on the page.
In fact, you can even plug in your own links – affiliate,
to your own website or any other website."
Of course, you'll probably have to write a more sophisticated
approach letter than those 6 lines, but the intent is clear: write
quality content, and then place it on websites relevant to your
industry. Usually, the website hostïng the page will want
some monthly payment in return (after all, you're effectively buying
a page on their website). If you've followed my advice and picked
well-ranked websites with quality content, the monëy will
be worth it. In addition, you'll probably be paying less than an
out-and-out link purchase as you're also giving them something
in return (quality content to boost their search engine rankings).
Got all that? Congratulations. You've just learned about what
I like to call a "Hosted Marketing Page". Don't be fooled
by its simplicity. What I've explained in 4 paragraphs (318 words)
will probably be the subject of endless marketing campaigns and
short $49 reports over the next year.
Nöw some of you might be saying: I know this – isn't
this just another version of marketing your website through articles
(where you write articles, submit them to article directories and
have webmasters pick them up to post on their websites)? What's
so great about this? We KNOW this.
The question isn't that you know this, the question is: are you
doing this? Article submissions are shots in the dark – article
farms do give a better boost in search engine rankings than simple
links, but most article directories are too general to help you
rank well on the relevance factor. If your article gets picked
up by a few webmasters, the extra links will be dampened by the
fact that the content is "duplicated" – thus reducing
its value.
Search engines are wising up to article submissions just as they
started combating link sp@m a year and a half ago – at any
rate, article submissions are marketing tools / branding tools,
not pure SEO tools.
Experiment with a Hosted Marketing Page of your own. If you don't
have the time to contact link partners directly, talk to your link-building
expert (or company) and explain what you are looking for (heck,
you can forward this article to them).
The beauty of Hosted Marketing Pages is that they complement your
regular SEO strategy. Link building, if done right, is still a
quick and cheap way of getting higher search engine rankings. However,
if you are looking to make a HUGE splash instead of just poking
around, then I urge you to seriously consider the power of Hosted
Marketing Pages.
If you would like help with your "Hosted Marketing Page" campaign,
visit Textlinkbrokers.com. They are the leader in link popularity
building programs and are the only company offering this particular
service.
About The Author
Brad Callen - SEO Specialist and Internet Marketing Consultant
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Seo
Success: Atracting Search Engine Attention
Once a website has been created and published, many new website
owners think that the web development project is finished. But
in reality, the real work is just beginning. In order to create
a money-making site, traffïc must be generated and driven
to the website. There are several effective methods that can be
implemented in Tier II of the SEO strategy to create this web traffïc.
While all methods may not be required to realize successful traffïc
generation, some combination of most, if not all, will probably
be needed to create traffïc, maintain traffïc and finally,
grow traffïc to your website with long-term, lasting results.
Consider implementing these strategies:
Dynamic content is necessary for search engine recognition, and
by updating the website frequently, the search engines see your
website as an active, not stagnant, website. How often should changes
be made? At the very least, monthly. But the more frequent the
changes, the better. There are some tried and true methods you
may want to employ:
* Monthly newsletter (or weekly)
* Tip of the day that rotates to the page using a scrïpt
from an existing database of information at your site.
* RSS feed to public news feeds that update hourly or daily at
the least.
* Changes to contact information, staffing, clients, etc.
* Checking links frequently to make sure that they are active
and valid, and changing the link text from time to time will register
as a change to the page.
* Simple modification of content from time to time should be done
in between these regular maintenance tasks which will update the
website.
Good links management will result in a stronger weïght given
by the search engines for search positioning. The algorithms used
for weighting one page over another require link popularity assessment
for successful traffïc to your website. Link popularity is
also one of the main considerations for Google and Alexa Page Rank.
How do you achieve link popularity? It can be tedious and requires
careful attention to the selection of the links, but there are
several means that can be employed:
* Reciprocal Links: Search for relevant and desired web pages
with which to trade links.
* Purchase PageRank-based links: boost your relevance and weïght
in the eyes of search engines by purchasing links for a period
of time, three to six months until you have achieved a better ranking.
* List with directories: paid or unpaid directory listings that
are relevant to your website will give your website additional
exposure.
* Anchor text: create the links with link text in mind, utilizing
relevant keywords where possible.
* PageRank consideration: link only with websites that have decent
PageRank (PR); i.e., PR of 3 could be a minimum but a PR of 4 would
be a better minimum requirement from those pages who want to exchange
links with you.
Blogs: Web logs linked to your site or posting to popular blogs
with your links included to point traffïc back to your site;
a good strategy is to employ pinging with blog posting.
Forums: Forum participation that allows you to leave your link
with the intent of attracting traffïc back to your site can
get traffïc back to your website, however, take care that
you actually offer something of value in your posting so you are
not accused of spamming.
Search Engine Listings: Listing with free search engines
and directories is an essential step, although you won't see any
results for months.
Gather Opt-in Email Addresses: Utilize an email list subscription
function on your website with the intent of sending e-newsletters
and announcements on a regular basis. This subscription list can
be used for several other campaigns, including the sale of advertising
space in your newsletter.
Advertise on Ezines: Purchase sponsorship on other email lists
where you can promote your product and/or services as well as links
to your website in the process.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns with Google and Yahoo Search Marketing
where you purchase advertising space based on keywords that are
popular for your website if you are not in a saturated market.
If your business operates in a saturated internet market, seek
niche keywords for your PPC advertising. Determine your budget
first and from there, you will know how much you can afford for
the positioning you desire. It's all mathematical:
Price-Per-Click = monthly budget/number of clicks (or) Number
of clicks = monthly budget/price per-click.
Some suitable combination of price and number of clicks based
on your own budget will result in a campaign you can monitor and
adjust as necessary. The important result to watch for is the conversion
rate. How many paid clicks convert into the desired result; i.e.,
new contract, sale of product, sign up for e-newsletter, etc.
Remember, creating a website is only the first step. Driving traffïc
to your site is the next important task. Layout a plan of action
and follow-through. You are not going to realize success until
you spend the time and energy - or pay someone else for their time
and energy - to get the job done.
Chesa Kean
TAO Consultants
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