SEO Predictions That Came True

SEO Predictions That Came True - Each time a year ends, we encounter countless bloggers and writers who share their thoughts about the incoming year. Some predictions are theoretically supported and some are just plain wild guesses. Predicting what's in store for the next year is almost a tradition for writers, even those not involved in SEO and Internet marketing. Sports writers, business analysts, music critics, and amateur writers - they all follow this unsung tradition. Many think that this tradition is worth following because nailing a wild guess or a well-researched fact means only one thing: respect from your readers.

It's only the third month of the year but some predictions from last year have become realities. People didn't ever expect that the realization would be this quick, but, unbelievably, many predictions are coming true right now.

The Power of Content Length

This was a common prediction that was heavily criticized. I read on some blogs last year that Google would be considering a site's content length as a determining factor for site ranking. Experts and SEO veterans commented that this was an amateur's prediction, but they all ended up wrong. As a result of this latest algorithm update, many guest blogging sites have increased their minimum article length to 450 words, and some are requiring even lengthier articles. Perhaps this recent update caused content-related terrors to some SEO geeks. They'll just have to remember that quality is still better than quantity.

Mobile Search Growth

Both local and global search benefited from the rise of high-tech phones which provide consumers mobile Web browsing. The growing rate of free Wi-Fi zones over the country also made browsing even more accessible to mobile phone users. Mobile browsing changed the way people use the Internet. Browsing the Web has become a daily part of people's lives - not only Americans and Europeans but also people from highly developed Middle Eastern and Asian countries like Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Qatar and Dubai.

Social Media Expansion

Countless companies vied for the most numbers of "likes" and "followers", not only for branding and popularity purposes but for online presence strength as well. These two social media giants have become major advertising tools. No SEO campaign would be complete without social media and no advertising method would be fruitful without Facebook and Twitter accounts. Social media expansion is an advertising basic for many businesses.

Although confirmed as a hoax, the rumor of Facebook closure struck many businesses. It isn't easy to find a social networking site as powerful and effective as Facebook. The shocked Tweets from many businesses owners that day prove that advertising and SEO without social media is impossible. A business' online presence is major determining factor of success.

Website Speed

It took a year for all SEO practitioners to understand the value of site speed in SEO. Google first announced that site speed would be part of their algorithm. It's not a surprise that many site owners are now aware of site speed's importance. There are reports that many businesses suffered a major decline in rankings because they took site speed for granted.

Site speed can be a determining factor for website traffic. With the millions of websites available today, a slow-loading website can force a viewer to transfer to a faster site that can provide them the information they need.

Other Search Engines

Google is still the leading and most reliable search engine today and the main reason we obsess about search algorithms and rankings. Some business owners pay large sums of money just to get their sites to the top of Google's search results. Google has set the yardstick in Web search and brought balance and fairness to the competition for rankings, so that anyone can now get first page search result placement. But, there are still other search engines we can focus on. Not all Web users rely on Google to find what they need. There is still a significant percentage of users who prefer other search engines that you too should consider when doing your SEO. Yahoo! was once the leader of the search game, and it's realistic to think that there are remaining Yahoo! loyalists out there who put less importance on Google results. Then there is Bing, the Microsoft search engine that draws yóung Web users because of its homepage and features.

Bing and Yahoo! are continually improving their search algorithms because they know they have a large following and an increasing number of users. It's fairly certain that these two search giants are making plans to erode Google's current standing as the Web's dominant search engine.

The Reincarnation of Blogs

Blogs didn't ever really go out of style. Business owners use blogs to reach a wider sector of their target market and audience. Many have invested time in establishing domain authority and positive online reputation management, temporarily putting link building aside. Some articles previously stated that "link building is dead", making SEO practitioners abandon the method and focus on other SEO strategies. However, many experts have reinstated and proved link building's ability to provide traffic and rankings. Link building is becoming popular again, and we all know that the best way to practice effective link building is through blogging.

In addition, local search's popularity has made blogging more appealing to a local audience. There are blogs today that specifically cater to a locality. Blogs, treated as micro websites, have proved their worth to local businesses, making blogging the most effective way of building links and networks.

Local Search Dominance

Global search has become popular over the past few years, but many people choose to concentrate on local search to get more specific results. As local search continues to escalate its way to dominance, the strength of the American local market today can be attributed to the growing number of local search users and the improvement of local SEO methods. The strength of site authority, anchor texts, and traditional link building is evident this year. Behind this strength are the ever-growing Local Listing (e.g. Google Maps Optimization) and SEO Resellers that focus solely on providing and introducing SEO to the local business scene. ( SiteProNews.com )

READ MORE - SEO Predictions That Came True

Understanding Business Cycles and How They Relate to SEO

Understanding Business Cycles and How They Relate to SEO - As the song by The Byrds goes "To everything - turn, turn, turn/ There is a season - turn, turn, turn/And a time for every purpose under heaven." The same principle applies to Internet marketing - different aspects of Internet marketing campaigns run on different cycles. These business cycles have to be understood and accounted for when developing any SEO strategy, because they can directly affect the success of the campaign. While one company's business cycles may greatly differ from another, especially when comparing B2B companies with B2C businesses, the bottom line is that you have to be aware of your company's business cycles to more effectively measure SEO success.

There are three main types of business cycles a company should keep track of: the sales cycle, the conversion cycle, and the SEO cycle.

The sales cycle begins the moment a company gets a lead. It could be a phone call from a prospective customer or client, someone submitting an online form and so forth. Each business has to decide when they are dealing with a real lead that is worth pursuing. The sales cycle doesn't stop until that lead has either gone cold or been successfully closed. Some leads may remain active for months as potential clients hem and haw over making the final purchasing decision. Depending on the complexity of the products and services your company sells (medical testing equipment versus office supplies, for example), your business sales cycle could take a few days or even up to a year to complete. E-commerce sites typically have a much shorter sales cycle since visitors arrived at that site with the driven intent to make a purchase. Typically, the more expensive and complex the product/service being sold, the longer the sales process takes.

So how does the sales cycle relate to a company's SEO? Let's say your company sells scientific equipment used in chemistry labs. Your average sales cycle from getting the lead to closing the sale takes about nine months. If it takes you six months to really ramp up your SEO activities (from on-site optimization to really working through a strong link building plan), you can't judge if the SEO efforts are having any effect on your business until nine months after they are in full swing. You have to allow for your average sales cycle to occur, since that's how long it takes to see ROI anyway. Deciding a few months in that your SEO campaign isn't delivering any new leads is preemptive, and you can cut the legs out from under what could have been a very successful plan.


The conversion cycle is all about prompting website visitors to action. This is a common point of failure for a lot of websites, but B2B sites in particular seem to have the hardest time. What is the goal of your site? What actions do you want visitors to take once they find your site? A site has to lead visitors down a predetermined path and encourage them with the appropriate call-to-action. If the goal of a site is to get visitors to pick up the phone, there better be a phone number listed everywhere. Don't make it hard for visitors to act or find the information they need to turn into a lead for your business. Offering demos is a great way for B2B websites to start a relationship with visitors and engage them to start the sales cycle.

Many argue that SEO shouldn't worry about the conversion cycle, that SEO is just about delivering the traffic. They argue that it's the website owner's job to see that traffic gets converted into leads. But SEO professionals and marketers in general have to be accountable for every dollar of the marketing budget. They have to prove that SEO is worth the investment of time, money, and manpower. A good conversion rate is essential to proving ROI. Sites need to be built so as to not sacrifice the brand in favor of SEO, or SEO in favor of the brand. SEO and user-experience go hand-in-hand when it comes to conversion.

The SEO cycle is how long it takes for a site to start seeing their SEO efforts be rewarded with better ranking for targeted keywords in the search engines. A company's SEO cycle ties into several factors: the level of competition, the past and current SEO efforts of competitors, and the room for growth available. Websites often find themselves facing two common scenarios when they are trying to determine their SEO cycle.

Scenario one: the competition is dominating the search engines. Even if you work in a small, niche industry, one competitor who incorporated SEO into their Internet marketing a few years ago has carved out a pretty sturdy place for themselves in the rankings. They have the trust of the search engines and own top ranking spots for industry keywords. If you find yourself facing this kind of scenario, be prepared to buckle down for the long haul. Your site is the new kid on the block trying to usurp the king of the playground.

Scenario two: what every site should hope for when they begin their SEO - no one is doing a good job! Regardless of industry size or level of competition, if no other company is dominating the online space, this is the perfect time for your company to seize ownership. If your site has been online for a long time (5+ years or so), it already has a good level of trust with the search engines. Even basic SEO tactics can help propel the site to the top spots of the SERP. This scenario also gives you more room to go after competitive industry keywords and win.

Business cycles vary from industry to industry, company to company. They depend on the type of product being sold, whether a site is B2B or B2C and the amount of competition in the field. But sales cycles, conversion cycles and SEO cycles are all critical components of any Internet marketing plan. They can directly affect the success of your SEO efforts and should always be considered when evaluating the overall outcome of your onlíne marketing campaigns. Failing to take them into consideration could mean you end up stopping a campaign just as it was starting to gain momentum. ( SiteProNews)

READ MORE - Understanding Business Cycles and How They Relate to SEO

On - Page Optimization Tactics - You Don't Hear About Backlinking

On - Page Optimization Tactics - You Don't Hear About Backlinking - backlinking, backlinking - it seems to be the only part of SEO anyone ever talks about these days! Let's get our noses out of everybody else's sites and back into ours.

On-page optimization is often overlooked and neglected, but your on-page SEO builds the foundation for all of your off-page optimization efforts. We're going to cover some of the basics here: domain names and title tags, but we're also going to get to topics less discussed when dealing with on-page optimization. I'm talking about things like stemming, your outbound links, your use of synonyms and more. Let's get to it!

On-Page Optimization Tactics

Domain Name

Your domain name has a powerful effect on how you rank. Having an EMD (exact match domain) for your keyword is going to do a lot for your ranking. However, this is not crucial to your ranking success. Many people, such as myself, choose to have a domain name that they can brand. It depends on what you're looking to do with your site. If you want to make a small niche site targeting a single keyword, then clearly you will want to get an EMD.

But what if the EMD is not available?

This is a very common problem for internet marketers. From a SEO standpoint, you want to choose an EMD with a non-.com extension first if available. If none are available, then tack another word onto the end of your domain name. You will still have your keyword in your domain and receive SEO benefits from this. For the record, it is better to start your domain with your keyword first. For example, it would be better to choose "dogtraineronline.com" rather than "mydogtrainer.com".

Another trick is making your domain name the plural or non-plural version of your keyword. Google now uses a process called "stemming" that understands plurality and "ing" endings on words among other things. If you add plurality to your domain name, you will rank almost as effectively as for the non-plural version. These same principles can be applied to your title tags, header tags, and meta tags.

Title and Header Tags

We're going to apply the same ideas to our title and header tags. You want to include your keyword, but you can't always just use your keyword. In this case we are going to do the same thing we did with our domain name. Put your keyword first then add more text. Also, with stemming in mind, you can use different tenses or plurality for your keyword. There is also another clever strategy you can use to rank for your keyword without even using it!

Ranking with Synonyms

People don't talk about this too often, but Google actually considers synonyms when choosing results for queries. What does this mean? It means that you can rank for the word "manual" with the word "instructions". Do a Google search right now, seriously right now! Pick a word (manual if you'd like) and put a ~ in-front of it. Example search: ~manual. Every bolded word in the results page is considered to be a synonym. This means that using these words more often is going to help you rank for your keyword as well. They are like super-related LSI keywords.

Text Formatting

There are ways to optimize your text besides keyword density. Text formatting is using bold, italics, font-size, and word placement to improve the relevance of your page to your keyword. Making your keyword bold and/or increasing its font-size will add importance to it in the eyes of the Search Engines. Also, where you put your keyword has an effect as well. Placing your keyword in the first and last sentence of a body of text will improve the relevance of your page as well. With this in mind, here's how you can make a super-optimized blog-post or article:

• Place your keyword in the title
• Include your keyword in the first and last sentences
• Bold your keyword both times
• Wrap your keyword in the first and last sentences with h1 and h2 tags respectively

and here's the final tip for internal linking or backlinking

5) Use your keyword as anchor text AND bold it

This last trick gets ignored a lot. It's a great way to add even more influence to the importance of your keyword and get more out of your anchor text. These are the little steps that people who say on-page optimization doesn't really matter either forget or don't know about.

The biggest on-page optimization blunder of all is negligence of your link profile and how you link out. The links leading to your site aren't the only ones that affect how you rank!

Outbound Links

How you link out to other sites affects how Google trusts and ranks your site. In the TrustRank white papers that included a patent adopted by Google, they mention how good sites link to other good sites. They also say that "good sites seldom link to bad ones". Use this knowledge to enhance your rankings. Link out to authoritative and trusted sites. If you have a ton of links leading to spammy sites it's going to hurt how your site ranks. You can't control who links to you, but you CAN control who you link to, so don't harm your rankings by linking to bad sites.

As an example of this principle in effect, check out Huffington Post's homepage. Their articles rank very well in the search results and they have a PR 8 homepage. If you scroll to the bottom of their site, you will see a massive amount of "dofollow" links all leading to other major, authoritative sites. It's no coincidence that they rank well in the SERPs (search engine results pages). This is a clear example of a site benefiting from linking out to other good sites and gaining trust from Google.

We have complete control over our on-page SEO, and this means our content and our links. We just talked about outbound links and that leaves us with only one other type of link.

Internal Links

Internal links are the links that lead from one page on our site to another. Now is a good time to state a quick fact about search engines and how they index the web. Search engines do not index websites, they index web pages. This means that a site doesn't have authority; rather a web page has authority. The reason all the pages rank well on an authoritative website is because of internal links.

When a large authority site makes a new page, what does that page have? It has a ton of powerful links from other authoritative pages already on the site. This all occurs because of internal linking. So what does it mean for us? It means we need to have a solid internal link-structure to take advantage of our own link juice.

There's no exact science to how you link your pages. Just having a consistent nav-bar is a start, but there is a lot more you can do. If you use Word Press, there are many different related posts plug-ins you can use that will automatically create links to other related posts for you. I recommend having more internal links than external links. A 1 to 3 ratio is a good reference for your outbound to internal links ratio.

There is a practice called PageRank sculpting that involves severely limiting the number of outbound links you have in order to keep more link juice internally. It sounds like a decent idea, but it fails in practice. PageRank moves more cyclically than recognized and a lot more will stay on your site naturally. Also, we just talked about how outbound links can help you rank - don't be afraid to link to other great sites.

Conclusion

I know that many of us have read through (and possibly purchased) countless guides on SEO and been over the same on-page optimization basics again and again. But that's the thing, they are just the basics! This is why everybody assumes that there's nothing more to it and it's deemed as less important than backlinking. Don't fall into the trap! Take care of your site, optimize the way you use your text, optimize the way you use links, prune it daily like a precious shrub. ( sitepronews.com )

READ MORE - On - Page Optimization Tactics - You Don't Hear About Backlinking

What Is CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization)?

What Is CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization)? - Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is a methodology designed to help website owners turn visitors into paying customers. There are two main approaches to CRO: one is researching before launching a website, and the other is launching the website first, and then testing different strategies to see which is most successful. Both strategies have their merits-and their drawbacks.

Approach # 1: Market Research before Website's Launch

Proponents of this approach would say that in the process of making a website, the creator should do extensive research about the makeup of her potential client base and incorporate that research into the website design.

By knowing what prospective clients are looking for, you can craft a more targeted message, making sure that everything from your content to your web page design appeals to your client base, thus increasing the rate of conversion among website visitors.

Pros

1. Less risk of diluting your brand.

Trying new strategies on the fly can be appealing, but as the saying goes, "measure twice; cut once." By switching strategies to try and find the "perfect" solution, you risk turning off those customers you have-and if your first iterations fail to impress, your earliest visitors may leave and never come back.

2. You'll have to do the research anyway-why not do it upfront?

Any good marketing campaign succeeds or fails based on how well the marketers know their customers. Even if your initial website rollout is successful, at some point you're going to want to expand and will have to do CRO research. Why not do it upfront, and increase your chances of having your initial website be successful?

3. You're already building your website for your customers.

As you build your own website, you're undoubtedly gearing it towards who you think your customers are-this CRO method is just a way of researching whether your assumptions about your customers are correct.

Cons

1. It can be time consuming.

Researching potential customer behavior can be a prolonged process, and figuring out how to act on that research can take even longer. That's time that you may not have: the longer you take, the longer it will be before your websites start generating revenue, and the more time your competitors have to horn in on your client base.

2. You'll never be 100 percent certain.

All the research in the world can't predict human behavior, so the only real way to know whether a particular strategy-whether it's a particular headline or image or the wording of your content-works is by testing it.

Approach # 2: Launch Your Website, then Research Your Market

Adherents to this CRO strategy would argue that you need to test your ideas on your websites in order to find what works.

Once you begin to get a sense as to what works, you can optimize everything from your web page background to your Flash intros based on actual input from customers.

Pros

1. You can adapt to a changing marketplace.

The way customers shop changes due to outside influences that you can't control: the economy, the weather, new technological development. By constantly working to improve your website, you can stay on top of emerging market trends and ride that wave as long as possible.

2. Your website can be up and running quickly.

By forgoing significant advanced research, you can make your website live weeks or even months earlier. That's a serious leg up on the competition-and a serious head start on generating revenue.

Cons

1. You might turn some customers off.

Even though customers change their behaviors all the time, they still like stability: just think of all the "We want our old Facebook back" pages that spring up every time Facebook tweaks its system.

2. At some point, you'll have to do customer research.

It's the cornerstone of good marketing strategies, and whether you want to broaden your base or just convince your current customers to buy more, at some point, you're going to hit a wall and need to do customer research. Whichever methodology you prefer, CRO is a vital tool to making your websites successes. ( entireweb.com )

READ MORE - What Is CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization)?

To A Great SEO Campaign

To A Great SEO Campaign - The first real step to anything is research, and lots of it. The most important step to any SEO campaign is keyword research.

The first step to consider is the niche you are in, and the products or services that you are promoting. You should come up with a list of potential keywords that your customers would use to find you on the web.

After that you could use the Google keyword search tool to analyze your list, checking the competitiveness, number of monthly searches and the strength of the competitors currently on page one.

A competitive market analysis is the next important step you should take. After you have your final keyword list, create a spreadsheet with all the keywords, and then list all the competitors from page one of Google.

You could use a program like SEO quake to collect some of the data that you will need, such as their page rank, number of indexed pages, inbound links, whether or not they have a site map and much more. This will tell you how difficult and how long of an SEO campaign you will be embarking on.

Next step should be the on page SEO factors of your website.

First and foremost is content, if you are not providing quality content that solves people's problems then your efforts will be in vain. Great content will keep your visitors coming back on their own which will greatly assist your SEO efforts.

Make sure all the on page dynamics such as header tags, meta tags, alt tags for images and HTML code is done correctly.

These are the simple things that improve your 'findability'. You also want to ensure that you have a proper site map created and submitted to the search engines, this will increase your chances of all your pages being properly indexed.

Number four is off page SEO strategies.

The biggest and most important overall here is back linking. Google views every back link your site has as a vote for your site from someone else. The best back links you can get are called one way links. One way links are where another website links to you without you having to link back. Good examples of this are article marketing, blog commenting and directory submissions.

Reciprocal linking is where you link out to website a and website a in turn links back to you. These are also good links but you should only focus on the ones targeted to your niche and those having a higher page rank than you. Good back linking takes time and effort, this cannot be accomplished over night.

You should also avoid any link scams, link farms or questionable linking strategies. If you have to stop and wonder if it's ok to do it then it probably isn't.

The last step that is very crucial to your SEO success is the overall promotion of your website. There are several ways of effectively promoting your products and services via the internet.

1) Video marketing
This can be promoted in conjunction with your website or separately for added exposure.

2) Email marketing
This allows you to keep track and communicate with your customers and potential customers.

3) Web 2.0
These are blogs, hub pages, wikis and such. Also a great source of quality back links for your site.

4) Article marketing
If done correctly this will establish you as an expert and help you to generate back links and additional traffic to your offers.

5) Local search marketing such as Yahoo local and Google places
If you have a business in the offline world you certainly want to use this method to promote your business. Google places for instance typically will come up first in the search results.

These are just a few of the strategies that you can use to begin a successful SEO and web promotion campaign. The most import step you will take is to take action. Everything you do should be with the intent of growing your business.. ( entireweb.com )

READ MORE - To A Great SEO Campaign

Why Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Matters

Why Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Matters - If you aren't yet aware of its meaning, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Simple enough, but just what is SEO and what is it for? This is a more complex matter.

Search engine optimization refers to a number of different techniques used for building websites and the content on these sites to improve their placident in the search engine results pages.

The idea of SEO is to make your website more visible to web users who search for content with search engines (which is essentially everyone who uses the World Wide Web at all).

If your website is a personal page meant primarily for yourself and perhaps a small number of family members and friends, it may not be all that important to you to have a site which is optimized.

However, if your website is business oriented, it matters a great deal.

Think of it this way: if your business decided to stop being listed in the phone book, took the signs and awnings down and stopped advertising, how successful would you be at attracting new business?

Search engines have for many largely replaced the function once performed by local phone directories.

In order to attract (and even retain) business, you need to have a high profile where your customers are likely to see you - and these days, this place is online.

It once was that if people couldn't find you in the phone book, your business was in serious trouble. Now, of course the question is how easy it is for people to find your website.

You may have a great looking website and even use the URL in your printed marketing materials and advertising campaigns; but not everyone is going to see your advertisident in the paper.

People tend to look at web sites when they're actually in need of something and even if a potential customer has seen your ads, it's not at all certain they'll remember to go to your site immediately when they're looking for what you offer.

Instead, your potential customers are using search engines - which is why your business may need some help from a professional SEO consultant to ensure that consumers will find you when they really are looking for you.

One of the things we should look at first here is what the search engines actually see when their crawlers come to your site.

The search engines don't know (or care) about your site's design in terms of graphics (though they will read the alternate text for these images - if you don't know about this important elident of web design, an SEO consultant can help you with this).

All the search engines see when they look at your site is text and nothing but text. For this reason, sites which are entirely Flash-based are not generally recommended from an SEO perspective (many visitors don't like this either).

What the search engine crawlers are looking at on your site is the actual text contained on your website as well as the information contained in what is known as the headers of your site's HTML, most notably your title tags.

These tell the search engine crawlers what your site is about - if you don't include these (or use an entirely graphics or animation based site), the search engines really can't tell what your site is supposed to be about.

This can be fatal to your site, as it basically assures that no one will be able to find you with a search engine query.

As for how the search engines determine page ranking, this is a much more complex question. The short answer is relevance: but the relevance of any given website is calculated in a number of ways.

The exact nature of the algorithms used by each search engine is different and each is closely guarded proprietary information - to further complicate matters, these algorithms are constantly evolving.

However, there are certain things which the SEO experts have managed to figure out through analysis and reverse engineering of search results and websites which are universally applicable.

This is what enables an SEO consultant to look over a website and suggest changes to the site to increase its visibility in terms of the search engines.

The alterations which can improve a site's search engine rankings include fine tuning the copy on the site to make it tune with the site's content, its meta tags or especially popular search terms which are relevant to the content.

There are other changes which will improve a site's search engine ranking which are not visible to visitors to the site.

These are changes which affect what the search engine crawlers see when they visit the site and help this to more accurately determine what the site is about. There are yet other SEO techniques which your site should avoid using.

What should you avoid?

Let's take a look at a hypothetical scenario. Suppose your kitchen wares business has a website which is doing well in the results for tea kettles, frying pans and the like.

However, you'd like to further increase traffic - how about trying to rank high in the search engine results for some other non-kitchen related search terms?

This may help to increase traffic to your site, but there are reasons why everyone doesn't do this. If SEO really worked like that, every site on the web would optimize their content for whatever the most popular searches happened to be.

There are many websites which do this simply to get you to their site by any means. This is one of the several different SEO techniques which are considered "search engine spamming" and should be avoided.

If you're considering working with a professional search engine optimization firm, you should avoid any company who uses this technique or any of the others which follow:

* Keyword stuffing. * Misleading redirects and link/URL cloaking. * Duplicating content between pages of a website. * Misspelling words and names commonly used as search terms. * The use of unrelated links (also known as link farming). * Or for that matter, any other technique aimed at fooling the search engines.

These "black hat" SEO methods can work as a means of generating traffic, but they only work for so long before the search engines (and the public) catch on.

Once search engines figure out what you're up to, they often respond by un-indexing your site, making it impossible for anyone to find you with that search engine.

Don't think you won't get caught either; the major search engines encourage users to report these deceptive tactics. You can get better and more lasting results with ethical SEO methods; and without having to worry about having your site blacklisted.

Is Your Site Doing Well Enough In Search Results?

Unless you're already in the top couple of results in the major engines, chances are you'd like to do better regardless of where your site stands at present.

As any expert search engine optimization consultant will tell you, SEO is a process, not a single task. It's something that you'll likely have to continue working on as your site slowly but steadily makes its way up the rankings.

This organic SEO approach is the most effective and will get you to where you want to be sooner or later; the most important thing is to ensure that your business' website is optimized for search engines.

Failing to implident good SEO practices is one nearly certain way to set yourself up for a fall. It is much like the unadvertised, unlisted and unmarked business we discussed earlier.

People who are ready and willing to do business with you will pass you by, unaware that your site even exists. Whether or not to use SEO as an integral part of your marketing strategy isn't even a question anymore - the question is how you'll go about it. ( entireweb.com )

READ MORE - Why Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Matters

10 Valuable SEO Link Building Tips

10 Valuable SEO Link Building Tips - SEO link building is one of the most crucial methods you can use for website promotion. While on-page optimization is important, it doesn't take you really far. Once your website is up and running, the next thing to do is build quality inbound website links, which can help your site appear higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Here are valuable tips for search engine optimization link building. If you're an expert in SEO already, these tips will remind you of the basic yet essential link building strategies.

1. Go for Higher Quality Links

All links are not created equal. SEO links that have higher value provide greater optimization benefits compared to low quality links. There are several factors that can determine the quality of website links. These are:

• The reputation and trustworthiness of the domain giving the website links. For instance, a link from cnn.com would have higher value compared to a link from a website that ranks lower in the Alexa rank checker.
• How relevant the anchor text is to the link. This means that an anchor text saying " The Love is Beautiful " would be far more relevant and valuable than a "click here" anchor text.
• The link's location within the site structure. For obvious reasons, SEO links embedded on a site's homepage is more beneficial than a link that comes from a deeply hidden page.
• The link's visibility on a webpage. It also matters where the inbound link is located on a webpage. Website links at the top of a webpage are more visible than those at the bottom.
• Similarly, a link that's one of three on a page is more valuable than a link that's one of 80.

Now that you have an idea of how website links are given value, the question is: How do you get high quality links? The tips below will explain different methods of effective search engine optimization link building.

2. Create Useful, Relevant and Interesting Content

Building superior quality content remains an effective method of getting SEO links from other websites. With excellent content, not only will you be able to build backlinks naturally, requesting a link also becomes easier since the partner website can benefit from the link request as well.

In addition, building good content is one way to get all your SEO links for free. Link baiting is a method made for the sole purpose of attracting links using interesting and useful content. All you have to do is create a site with great content, and wait for the website links to come.

3. SEO Link Building with Blog and RSS Feeds

Promoting your site via blogs and RSS feeds is an easy and great way to boost your site's exposure and SEO link building opportunities. Blog readers are always looking for interesting sites and posts. If your website is listed in their preferred blog and RSS directories, there's a decent chance that your site will be found.

4. Submit Your Site to Directories

Another easy way to get website links is through directory submissions. Although this method doesn't quite give good quality SEO links, it's a good place to start if you're new to search engine optimization link building.

There are two ways to submit your site to directories. You can use a directory submission service that automatically sends your site to over 100 directories, or you can manually submit the site yourself. Doing it automatically saves you a lot of time; while manual submission allows you to easily send your site to major directories (the more popular directories usually don't accept automatic submissions).

5. Research on Your Competitors' SEO Links

Look up the sites that are providing links to the websites of your competitors. This is a good way to start your SEO link building efforts, since websites that link to your competitors are likely to be interested in linking to your site as well. However, before implementing this strategy, make sure that your website is as good as your competitor's.

There are many SEO link building tools that can help you check your competitors' SEO links. SEOBook Back Link Analyzer provides comprehensive backlink information. It's free, but only runs on Windows. There's also the impressive (paid) SEO SpyGlass, which runs on Mac, Linux and Windows.

6. Writing and Submitting Articles

There are several websites out there that you can submit your articles to. EzineArticles, for example, is a popular article site that allows you to post writings, as well as build website links. You can either create SEO links within the article or at the bottom section of the article called the "bio box" or "author box."

Again, it's important that your articles are useful and informative. Bloggers, news reporters and other industry experts might be interested in posting your article to their blog or creating SEO links to your site. So, make your article as interesting as possible.

7. Purchase Links and Look for Link Brokers

Although Google is becoming stricter on link renting, it's possible to purchase temporary website links. The reason why Google is cracking down on link renting is that these SEO links are there on your site one day, and then suddenly disappears once you stop renting them.

For this reason, it's advisable to permanently purchase these one-way website links.

8. Use Local Directories

Website owners who have a brick and mortar business can find local directories very useful in their search engine optimization link building campaign. If your business is in the United States, for instance, you can submit your site to the Better Business Bureau or the Chambers of Commerce. Not only will you receive high quality SEO links, your website will also appear in regional searches, or even rank higher.

9. Press Releases

Don't underestimate the power of press releases. If you write something very interesting about your business, website or company, there's a good chance that your press release will be picked up by news organizations, such as cnn.com. This can be a huge website visitation and SEO link building opportunity for you.

10. Participate in Forums

Interacting in communities and forums is another great, not to mention free, way of getting SEO links that point to your website. Forum users are usually free to post links to their websites in the footer of their profile or posts. Just make sure that you're not spamming. You should contribute to the forum positively.

On the other hand, many forums have the "nofollow" tag, so those inbound website links might not help in boosting your site rankings. Nonetheless, while communities and forums may not help in your SEO link building efforts, they can help increase website traffic, especially if other forum users are interested in what you have to say. ( ddMe.com )

READ MORE - 10 Valuable SEO Link Building Tips

How to Become an SEO Expert

How to Become an SEO Expert - Search engine optimization (SEO) is more difficult than rocket science. Becoming a Jedi-level SEO master requires years of practice for most mere mortals, and like a Jedi, if one falls out of practice, one's skills quickly wane.

This is not a static science. Search algorithms change constantly, and as they are carefully protected secrets, one can never know what those designing the search engines are really doing under the hood.

No, it's not rocket science; A more apt analogy would be trying to reverse engineer a UFO that one can only see from afar, the specs of whose propulsion system constantly change.

Do not kid yourself: Becoming a genuine expert in this field is no easy task. In addition to all the knowledge needed, competition can literally be fierce. Your competitors may even actively sabotage you. One mistake can undo months of hard work.

If working on behalf of a client, you had better be darn sure that you keep your methods above board so that you do not get their site exiled to the far reaches of the Internet where it will never be found.

Meanwhile, some of your competitors will be using very underhanded techniques to try to make that happen. Like I said, it's hard to reach Jedi level, and once you do, you have to take care to stay on the bright side of the Force.

If you are in business, it is extremely important to choose the right SEO company or employee.

If you want to become the right SEO company or employee, here are a few suggestions on ways to train yourself (and being self-taught is the only way to do this):

• Build at least five websites and administer them for at least a year. Keep each one separarate from the others, its own little sanitary petri dish not to be sullied.

• Go about it scientifically. Test hypotheses rigorously until you have a few bona fide theories. Keep good records and track results. Take special note of changes in search engine behavior and the keywords and descriptions that draw your visitors. Connect those changes to your SEO activities.

• Learn how to identify effective keywords. Despite what you may have heard, this is not as easy as finding words that are both searched for and non-competitive. It's best to be somewhat intuitive. What keyword combination are potential customers likely to use as opposed to bored or curious web surfers?

• Use different tools until you find one that works. You should be able to determine what that tool is.

• Success before sales. Once you have at least 20 pages to the top for fairly competitive keywords, you can turn prospects into clients.

• Play your cards somewhat close to your chest. Once you have some success, take a cue from the people who write the search algorithms and keep your exact methods to yourself. Also train and improve continuously so that your skills do not slip.

If you go through that training course, you will become a Jedi-level SEO expert who commands top dollar and deserves every penny. ( entireweb.com )

READ MORE - How to Become an SEO Expert

Let's Talk ABCs of SEO

Let's Talk ABCs of SEO - I get this question all the time from clients and people I work with. "Derek, what exactly is SEO, why do I need it and how does it work. More importantly, what specifically do I need to do about SEO?"

Well, let me explain it in very simple and easy to understand language so you can incorporate the right SEO strategy online for your business that will help you authentically build your list and get more clients.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Simply put, SEO is the process of optimizing your website by improving the internal (behind-the-scenes web techy stuff) and the external (web content, pages, images, etc.) setup in order to increase traffic to your site from search engines like Google.

Why does my website need SEO?

The big commercial search engines - Google, Bing, AOL and Yahoo, drive a lot of web traffic. If your site cannot be easily found by search engines or your content cannot be put into their database, you miss out on an incredible opportunity available to websites who appear in the search engine results for the keywords you want to be associated with. As a result, less people who want to have what you have will be visiting your site. Whether your site provides content, services, products, or information, search engines are a primary method of navigation for almost all people online

How does SEO work?

Search queries, the words that users type into the search box which contain terms and phrases best suited to your site, carry huge value. These "keywords" dictate what sites the search engines deem worthy of appearing in the results. To do that, search engines really have four main functions - crawling, building an index, determining relevancy & rankings and providing results. Crawling and indexing the zillions of documents, pages, files, news, videos and media on the Internet - and - providing answers to user search queries, through lists of relevant sites / pages via search results and rankings.

What do I do about SEO?

It comes down to doing what I call the ABC's of SEO.

A is for Architecture

The architecture of your site is critical for SEO success. And, I don't mean having tons of funky widgets and menu options on your site with flashy design or cool features. Your site needs to have the right framework - like a solid design and well-implemented architecture (i.e. like a house) to support the content and links within the site.

Think of the site like a house where the rooms, stairs and other internal parts of the house require a solid foundation - floors, walls, wiring, mechanics, etc. Without a solid internal architecture, the house (i.e. your site) won't support it. Equally as important is the external architecture of the house to support the roof, siding, doors, windows, etc. The architecture matters on both the inside and outside.

B is for Back links

The more your site and individual pages are referenced by other sites - the more "back links" you have and the more the search engines will favor your site. It's basically like other sites giving your site the "thumbs up" indicating they recommend or endorse your site.

One of the best ways to get back links is by submitting your articles to article directory sites. As a result, the search engines will "listen" to their recommendations based on the articles submitted on their site and linking back to your site and content. (Tip - always have a call to action at the end of your article to refer people back to your site so they can opt-in to your list!)

C is for Content

Any site won't really amount for much in terms of SEO unless it provides good content. The content has to be keyword "rich" for the search terms you want to appear for and be extremely relevant and valuable for your visitors. Be sure to include the keyword terms and phrases in your content that would be relevant and valuable for your visitors.

For example, if you portray your site to be all about "skiing" in terms of the URL, site name and page names, etc. and you only talk about "underwater basket weaving" and nothing about skiing, people will click on your site and then click away. This tells the search engines your site is not providing useful content or relevant information for what it portrays to be providing. You have to provide high-content and high-value information using very useful and authentic content.

Follow these ABC's of SEO and you'll be on your way to improving the rankings of your site in the search engines and as a result - improving your authentic online marketing to build your list and get more clients!

Until next time... Learn It, Love It, Live It!

Your Assignment:

Follow my model of the ABC's of SEO to review what's in place for your site.

[A - Architecture] Do you have a solid architecture in place for your website with the right menu items, images and content? If you're using a stand-alone website, can you easily change it and update the content with new and fresh information?

[B - Back links] I'm a huge believer in a solid article marketing strategy to ensure your high-quality and high-content articles are being distributed and picked up by high-profile article directories which the search engines love. Follow my recommendations for some of the article marketing sites above and ensure you have a call-to-action in each of your articles. ( entireweb.com )

READ MORE - Let's Talk ABCs of SEO

Here are 10 ways to royally mess up your SEO

Ten Ways to Mess Up Your SEO - I see it and hear it all the time. I speak with potential clients that claim everything was going great and then all of a sudden everything hit the fan. Rankings gone, traffic gone and business down.

Here are 10 ways to royally mess up your SEO:

1. Not asking enough questions

When you hire a search engine optimization company make sure to ask questions on process. Find out to make sure there are no black hat methods being used.

2. Dangerous Linking

A link is good but not everywhere. Linking to the wrong types of websites could land you in the hot seat very quickly. For instance, always strive to have relevant incoming links that could generate visitors to your website, not just a link for the sake of a link.

3. Forgetting to read guidelines

The search engines have strict guidelines they like all websites to follow. Does that mean that some things slip through the cracks? Yes but not for ever. Read through the search engine guidelines to understand what type of approach they like to see.

4. Black hat tricks

Don’t fall prey to cutting corners on your search engine optimization because you could find yourself in a heap of trouble. You may get some sort of search engine penalty, if you do by accident fix it. If the black hat technique was not by accident, then please stop reading this list now!

5. Having disgusting URL structures

Many times people forget to remember about their structure of their URL’s on their website. Don’t forget to keep them as clean as possible.

6. Blanketed meta info

Your meta info for each page should always be nice and unique. Blanketing the same meta title tag across the board is not going to help you long term.

7. Not enough good content

Search spiders are readers not thinkers. If you don’t have enough text they will simply skip over your website. Always have some text for them to grab onto, but always focus on the visitor experience of your site and create good quality content for your visitors.

8. Not enough link building

Link building is something that should be occurring every single month without question. Link building is what gives a website that power it needs to really start climbing through the search results.

9. Image tags

Don’t forget that there is an opportunity to show up in image search on all three search engines and your images need to be optimized for this opportunity.

10. Not using a keyword research tool

You really don’t want to sit there and try to come up with keywords yourself without using a tool because I can guarantee you will not see any search engine optimization benefits. Use a keyword research tool, such as the Google keyword research tool.

These to me are some of the more important areas to watch out for when conducting search engine optimization otherwise you could find yourself going backwards. ( searchengineoptimizationjournal.com )

READ MORE - Here are 10 ways to royally mess up your SEO