On Google you can find many search engine optimization (SEO) tips, SEO tools and SEO books. In other words, anything related to search engine optimization is there and easy accessible. Practically everyone knows that you have to optimize your titles, your text, image alt tags and perform several of other tweaks. In the world of technology, there is no such thing as “trade secrets” anymore!

The million-dollar question is, why are some sites, despite a wealth of information on SEO that mushroomed the internet since day 1, successful while others are not?
Actually, the million-dollar answer is basic and simple. Since the technical aspects are mostly similar, maybe it is how SEO projects are approached? Implement SEO the right way!

Below are surefire tips on how you can improve your SEO project management with the right approach and mindset. Once implemented, you can set yourself apart from all other sites that only focus on the technical aspects.

1. Humility – Nothing beats humility in business. There should always be an ego check so you would always stay on ground. Profit, through humility is better than page rankings. Value your goals more than your rankings.

2. Realism – Stop aiming for something that you cannot achieve. Be realistic! You should know how to sustain your business and let go if you can not.

3. Product Knowledge – In order to offer your services or your products, you have to know them by heart, and knowing the product and services you offer would be your arsenal for a better keyword research in the first place.

4. Resources – Projects should be planned according to resources available. Know your resources so you would know how to keep within it.

5. Community – Knowing people around you would be your gauge on what other moves to make and implement reliable measures according to the challenges you have.

6. Limitations – Know your limits so you would know how to handle them. Who knows, those limitations may turn around to your advantage.

7. Team Player – Always value the contributions your team gives. Acknowledge accordingly and do not keep your successes and laurels all by yourself. Be a team player.

8. Facts – Stick to facts when in disagreement with others. Always explain yourself in such a way that others who do not know your line of work may understand it. Never look down upon people just because they do not have any idea on what you are doing.

9. Battles – Choose your battles. Despite the fact that SEO is important, not everybody would agree with you. The decision is theirs. Maintain your neutrality and never force them to believe that SEO is the way.

10. Business Knowledge – Knowing the business model you are in is important so you would know how to implement your projects correctly. You are supposed to boost the company’s monetary gains and not to hinder their growth.

Try out these tips and soon enough you’d be on your way to providing better management for your SEO projects.

admin SEO

Link building is an effective off-site optimization strategy. The bottom line is that by having significant backlinks to your website, you will not only drive additional direct traffic to your site or blog but your pages may also enjoy better rankings in search engine results, which in turn generates targeted traffic. Search engines send targeted traffic your way that potentially results in more sales. Because backlinks compose a huge part of your site’s standing in Google, building links has become an enormous topic with its own divisions. However it is not sufficient to place your site all over the web in a massive way like several years ago.

In 2010, some resulting web links may not work favorably for your website. The primary focus is on link quality. Search engines often change their algorithm and suddenly may not appreciate inappropriate backlinks like low quality links from blog networks and article networks. Hence, an effective means of doing this is to give search engines what they are looking for. This will give your site higher search engine positions that will last longer. However, this manual process can be tricky and tiring task. Most people don’t take SEO link building sincerely and place their site’s URLs on various sites without considering the long term value and consequences that it may give to their websites.

Attaining backlinks from websites that are illegible to search engines will not give you any SEO benefits.
A link can be perfect at all angles, from the “do-follow” label to the anchor text. Although it may seem relevant, the link can still be considered useless. Placing links on a website that uses the file robot.txt prevents Google from indexing it. It also prevents other search engines from picking up your site. The most effective means of doing it is to put all your backlinks on websites that other search engines, including Google, can scan. You can make sure that pages are indexed in google with following search query “site:www.domain.com/dir/page”

One common mistake of internet marketers is disregarding the value of their links and incorporating huge amount of worthless backlinks for example from link farms or blog and article networks. The thought of having a website with 100 links will have higher ranking as compared to a site with only 25 links might seem rational. However, search engines don’t work that way. They give more significance to the link’s source. When it comes to link building, quality is still more important than quantity. For example, having one link from an authority site within your niche is better than having invaluable links from link farms. Links from popular sites within the same niche as yours are the best type of links you can get. Furthermore, using too much low quality links might even get you reprimanded for taking part into these unscrupulous acts. You have to realize that link building needs involves exerting time and effort. It should also focus on making high quality content for your website while searching for highly reputable websites in your specialization to set up and trade links with.

In addition, if the only choice is to use an image link, don’t forget incorporating ALT text because your keywords should be enclosed in ALT text format (alt=”keywords here”). At certain points, you need to get what you can acquire even though a text link especially, when occurring within relevant content, is more valuable as compared to an image link. The majority always goes for the easiest way to do things, blog networks, article marketing networks but using these techniques will never ensure your stay on top for long. Armed with this knowledge you no longer have to wait. Go ahead and construct high quality links.

admin Link Building, Web Content, Web Design

Several years ago it was relatively easy to rank high in search engines just by exchanging links with any other site, whether relevant or non-relevant to your website topic. However, the internet is an ever-changing environment. Methods that worked yesterday don’t have to work today and may even turn against you tomorrow, so it is important to keep yourself always up to date with the latest technical developments and marketing methods.

Today’s link building is mainly done through social media. It is important to create constant buzz about your website, products and services in order to create attention, attention translates into visitors and visitors eventually turn into customers and reviews about your website including links to your website.

This is how the cycle is supposed to work in grey theory, but how do you create buzz?

When you have an information-based site in your niche, you probably won’t have trouble creating buzz by adding new information about your niche, products and services on a constant basis and promote your new content on sites like twitter and facebook.

However, aside from creating buzz through information, there are also alternative ways to create fun and buzz-worthy stuff, for example by integrating funny graphics into your website that make your site more interesting. If you have an internet marketing related site, you can get something like comic strips about internet marketing, just make sure it is closely related to what you are doing. You can get these comic strips from marketingcomics.com.

You can also use videos. Just a little bit of creativity can turn your page into a very interesting page that is worthwhile for other users and may attract links back. But if you are not the creative person, hiring someone who can do things for you is alright. Look them up on elance.com. Just be clear and specific on stating your requirements.

After you have spiced up your website with graphics and videos, its time to ‘tell the tale’. Send a message to your lists. Upload your videos on Youtube or other video networking sites. Bookmark your sites through social bookmarking services like dig.com, reddit.com and stumleupon.com. Submit links to your pages through ping.fm which will syndicate your message to twitter, facebook and other microblogging and social networking sites. All submissions to social media services will give your new content more exposure and thus creates buzz. If you happen to have affiliate programs, inform your affiliates so that they can link your new content.

Please note that creating buzz is not a one-time process, it is an ongoing process that takes time and effort but as long as you publish interesting information on a constant basis, your buzz will build up, attention increases and eventually attract the first backlinks.

admin Link Building, Social Media

One might have the impression that when you are planning for a new website, or a new version of your website, you can just make a list of web pages, fill them up with the proper content and then leave it all alone on the web. This impression is outright wrong. If you take the time to look at current best web sites according to a keyphrase search query, you’ll find that the websites that are regularly updated by their owners rank in the front rows. You cannot simply expect your website to run and rank well in search engine results with just a few static and stagnant web pages.

Search engines like google give their users easy access on the most relevant information on whatever query their users come up with. So, if you try to search for the keyphrase “safe baby toys” on a search engine, you expect to find the most relevant websites that are very closely related to “safe baby toys”. How can you compete so that your website can be referred to by a search engine as the top link for the keyphrase “safe baby toys”? You can create and publish more content relevant to the exact keyphrase. Present yourself to the world as one of the leading experts on “safe baby toys”. Through this move, you should be getting great search results already.

You have the freedom to do what you want on your website. In the example presented earlier, you actually empower your visitors with more information about “safe baby toys”, making them more knowledgeable and molding them into smarter consumers. They would now trust your site with anything about the subject matter that you have discussed, some of them would even want to do business with you in the future and some of them even tell their friends about your business.

Build your website by creating relevant content constantly and traffic will follow.

Don’t just create content, create great quality content that would make people link to it without asking further questions. You have two options to do this. One is to create the content yourself or you can hire someone else to create the content for you. Regardless of your industry or niche, there is always a way to inject good content into your website.

Creating content on your own

The best way to add content to your site regularly is to add a blog to the website. If you are a representative of a corporation or a company, then you have the option to add a press release section for information that you plan to put on a newswire for publication in the future. Are you an online retailer? Then a blog along with a review section of the items you are selling should be the best option to take. Other possible options include user-generated content like message boards, product reviews, and aggregation of the latest news from your industry.

Seeking a writer’s aid

You can also hire an outside writer to create the industry-related content that you need for your website. The price for blog posts outsourced to writers vary depending on the complexity of the article you require them to do. Outsourced blog content can be as low as $5 per article/blog post or as high as $100-$200. Finding these writers on the web is easy; just go places where they usually gather, such as Craig’s List or at Guru.com.

Update content regularly

It’s not wise to play all of your cards at once and be left with no cards on hand at the end. Similarly, you should be careful with releasing all of the content of your website at once. For example, a 100-article contract from an outsourced writer can be divided evenly over a period. You can perhaps release it initially in sets of 5-10 and then adding several articles per week. Observe the way some bloggers do when they update the contents of their websites for reference. The key is in the publishing frequency, if you want to publish an article a week, then keep on publishing an article a week and don’t publish more or less. Same if you want to publish an article per day, keep on publishing on a daily basis on a consistent basis otherwise you may loose readership. Who buys a newspaper when no one knows when the new edition is released?

To Summarize

If you have a website that has one or two web pages, then it probably won’t rank well in search engines. Get to the center of your competition and discover the number of pages that their websites have. This will serve as your reference to see how much web pages should you actually need for your website (more is usually better). Always remember that adding more content on a regular basis, can bring you better search rankings in the long run.

admin SEO, Web Content

One of the most popular video streaming websites that can be used to embed links with keyword rich content is Youtube.com.

First I would like to clear a common misconception about Link Building. Usually link building is associated with building links for SEO purposes in order to rank higher in search engines. However link building can and should be done also with targeted traffic directly from the source where the link is placed, regardless of a dofollow or nofollow tag (links with nofollow tag are not a vote from one site to the other and do not pass any link juice).

Youtube usually nofollows all outbound links so they do not count towards your SEO efforts but the link may still send you valuable targeted traffic.

You can use Youtube to provide answers to questions related to your industry that are unanswered by most people. You can also provide brief tutorials but remember not to focus too much on yourself for more than a few seconds. Just dive right into the discussion properly.

Create your videos with users in mind who don’t have space age computers and are stuck with slow dial-up connections. This can be simply solved by letting the user choose between a low and high-resolution video. You can’t go for very high quality when it comes to recording formats, keeping at a standard level will be much better.

Filling your video with content can be done by analyzing the and observing which videos are popular at the moment. A series can be well accepted by search engines such as Google, so making a video series with your keywords in it can potentially go a long way because of its easy searchability and Googles high placement feature for videos. Some very common keywords like “video” supports it all the more. Getting the video branded is also a well-accepted idea.

Making your video viral highly depends on the subject. However, some videos could probably go viral even with a simple subject. The fact is you have to get your URL out there so people would know its existence.

If you want to promote your video, there are always Twitter links, Facebook, MSN Page, Yahoo Video, Digg, or you very own personal homepage. Promoting your video via these websites, creating a separate channel in Youtube, and posting it on your own blog will definitely expose the video to the entire world in just a few short clicks.

You can also use the video to give gratitude to those who have aided you in the answer or solutions that you have provided. People always appreciate shared praises, and it in turn can help you receive a link back to your site from their own websites. A short declaration for discussion availability can bolster your video’s credibility and you own credibility by two-fold. Use this opportunity to publicize your anchor text link. Press releases for information follow-ups are also helpful to keep your readers tuned in to your latest report.

Another great option that you can do is to join a community in YouTube that shares your common field of knowledge.

Although you are using the video to publicize your website or blog, the main focus should still be to help the would-be viewers of your video. Helping others greatly increases your website’s visibility and people may start to link naturally to your website.
Using YouTube is a long-term link building strategy that is sure to keep your website at its top running speed when done correctly!

admin Link Building, Social Media

After I started using Twitter and Facebook to drive web traffic to my sites, I noticed the great improvement it has made in just a short time.
Here is an introduction into 2 social media powerhouses, Twitter and Facebook (technically I should include Myspace in this list but personally I am not using Myspace. To be honest, if I accidentally come across a Myspace site I quickly browse away because I can’t seem to read and understand much of the text and images that are there)

Using Twitter

Twitter is simply the amazing micro-blogging service that basically allows its users to tell just about anything, and share just about anything in 140 characters.

Twitter lets me bring the meatiest part of our services or products in just a few words. This may seem to be a little bit of a setback for some users at first, especially if they are used to writing in blogs or other websites. But with this feature, you will surely learn how to maximize what you have to say, and that is why Twitter became known as a micro-blogging service.

One should learn to use Twitter immediately after creating an account, starting with the completion of a profile. This profile must clearly state all information about you, and the primary keywords with links to your website or blog.

The next step is to find people sharing the same field of knowledge. You can use Twitter’s advanced search option for this. For example, my industry is all about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). So, I can search for the keyphrases “seo” and “search engine optimization” and follow some users in Twitter that are in the same industry as I am, then wait for them to follow me back. I am posting various SEO news, tips and techniques regularly, so chances are that users within the industry also follow me back. Oh, and don’t forget to shorten the link URL with the help of a URL shorten service provider like bit.ly. You’ll save a lot of the space needed for writing instead of just posting a very long URL.

By now, you might already be used to the interface of Twitter and are now “tweeting” stuff to your peers at a regular basis. Always remember to reply to each comment or conversation that belongs to your industry. Be sure not to spam in your replies and it is better to not reply if the reply does not have substance. Keep it helpful and informative, and keep in mind that spammers never go far in Twitter.

Twitter has practically improved my website. It has now more visitors than ever.

Using Facebook

Facebook is a stark contrast compared to Twitter, though they may initially provide the same type of service, Facebook accounts heavily require a strong user profile. Here you can say anything about yourself without a restraint on the number of words to use. A proper introduction on Facebook is a must. Put the keywords you intend to use in your profile and links.

After completing the profile, utilize the the three tabs at the very front: wall, info and photos. The first is a wall where you can basically say and post anything that you want. Do not just post about you, but also share tips and news about your industry. The next one is the info, and this is where you indicate all the information about you. The third one is for the photos tab. Upload your image to personalize your profile.

You can also create a fan page at this point. Fan pages on Facebook function in much the same way as a website. Your fan page must have every detail that anyone in your industry might need, including yourself as the very first fan. It can be your main avenue for sharing nice and informative things.

Whatever you post on the fan page’s wall, it will appear on the wall of the fans of your own fan page. That’s why it’s important not to spam here. You can send invitations to the people that belong to the same niche to become a fan of your fan page. The chances for them to become your fan are higher if you can provide something that they need or want that is related to your field of knowledge.

Remember, spam is not good, but quality posts at a high frequency will always be welcome.

admin Social Media, Twitter

Your site being found on a search query can be a crucial. Here are the 25 effective tips for search engine optimization in 2010.

1. Provide yourself with your own domain. A very fundamental step, because it can help people remember your site, and would make it look more professional.

2. TLD’s (top-level domains) should be used for the domain name. Add more TLD or use them instead if you are catering to a specific market (e.g. amazon.co.jp)

3. Create a goal, and reach for it. If you expect an SEO campaign to significantly increase website traffic, then you must at least be able to give a specific percentage to aim for.

4. See how well you perform. You can use Google Analytics to see how your website is accessed by other users in the internet, how long they stay within your website, and other data.

5. Better control comes from using your very own server. There are several statistics that can be exclusively accessed if you own the server for your website.

6. Consider conducting A-B testing where you have two different CSS affecting a single page. You’ll then know which of the other performs better.

7. Participate in forums of related field of knowledge. Some of these forums have special sections that will allow you to create a link back to your website.

8. Start a blog, your very own. Use the blog to link to your own product pages.

9. Update the blog regularly. Once your blog has gained a sufficient level of popularity, other people might start linking to your blog.

10. Remember all about DMOZ, the open directory project? Not really that popular due to its constant editing and re-editing by users, but the information found here can still be used for indexing.

11. Initiate contests and surveys that gives out real prizes at stake, as it can be a good way for people to link to your website.

12. Being text heavy is fare more efficient and convincing than being image heavy.

13. Supply the appropriate alt tags if the website actually supports image heavy content as a main theme.

14. Refrain from using too much JavaScript in web pages, because slow loading javascripts can jam search engines that can subsequently jam your website’s SEO feature.

15. Also, refrain from using flash as much as possible, as search engines can not read content within flash (yet).

16. There are some cases where you’ll eventually use a flash heavy page for numerous relevant content that need it. Include a transcription in your video that can serve as its “anchor” to keep its content open to search engines.

17. Search for good keywords to use. A short search in wordbutler.com can be very helpful in this task.

18. Try placing keywords at titles or first sentences, if possible even on the URL.

19. Keep your keywords nestled under a bundle of other related words. When searchers previews a search result, they usually see a snippet containing the keyword and a few text wrapped around to give context. Fill that context up.

20. Place keywords under bold or emphasized text.

21. Add headings and subheadings (use keywords here too)

22. Never do keyword-stuffing. This can terminally ban you from the entire industry you are working on.

23. In the same sense, don’t do doorway pages as well.

24. Never cheat your way through. Never be blinded by the initial success it gives, and always see the infinite pit of doom at the end of it.

25. The content is the master of the entire website. Without good content to back up your SEO campaign, it may just well be considered as a scam.

admin SEO

Google is running huge public campaigns against paid links and provides even measures to report sites that are selling or buying links, but I haven’t seen any campaign against negative links so far, at least not of this magnitude.

What is a negative link?
Imaging an average website owner or blogger posting a negative review about a website, product and  service and includes a link to this website alerting his readers. Here is an example:

Yesterday I bought several dog training toys from company XYZ but found out today that they are completely useless. My dog ripped the toys into chunks quickly and even swallowed a piece.

A negative link counts still as a vote from site A to site B (assuming the average blogger does not add nofollow tags to the link, which is a large majority) in the eyes of google and google rewards site B with a favourable placement in their search results, even though site A actually advices against the information, services or products of site B.

In other words, google is rewarding site B, which may be relevant but providing potentially bad products (according to a customer review), while ignoring site C, which is equally relevant but does not have any negative nor positive incoming links, and while blacklisting site D for buying a link from a dog authority blog to their “dog training toys” site (which is equally relevant while they don’t have any negative links coming in).
I don’t quite see the relations there.

If I would be a search engine, I’d take a paid link on a site ANYTIME over a negative link in terms of determining the relevancy of the target page for my index, IF the content on both sites is closely related and considering all the other measures that are available to me in my multi-million dollar algorithm.

This is exactly the reason why social networks are quickly gaining ground on google, because through human voting, only verifiably popular resources appear in the front rows of search results and not more or less ‘guesstimated’ resources generated by a machine.

admin Google, Misc Stuff

There are many good reasons to use the Linknami text link ads tool as advertiser, as it features some functions that differ from other text link ads services. Here are some of the most important features explained.

No footprint

The most important reason is that there is absolutely no footprint, as all text link ads do not only appear natural but are in fact completely natural because there is no pattern in which they are displayed on websites, blogs an internal pages.

Natural location

The text links may appear in any location from top to bottom, within content, above or below content and in a completely different location of each page in a different location. You and the site owner decide and agree on placement.
Since both you and the site owner agree on a placement, and the site owners manually place the links on their pages, there is no automation in place which increases the quality of the text link advertisement over automated and uncontrolled spam networks, which in turn benefits not only you and the site owner, but also search engines.

Buzz notification

As advertiser you are able to setup text link profiles with desired tags and keywords and will be notified as soon new pages have been added to the system where those tags, keywords and phrases occur to make sure that you place your link only on super targeted pages and as soon as the page is live on the internet to benefit from the buzz it creates as long as it is new and circling in social media networks.

Deep links and different anchor text

You can define deep links to any of your internal pages and specify a different anchor text for each link to that the text link ad is laser targeted towards the audience. Link from a blog post that lists the “latest tips for successful dog obedience training” to your internal page that offers “dog training tools”.

To use the Linknami advertiser tool, just register now or login, and access the “Advertiser” tab in the central user interface.

If you have any specific questions regarding features, functionality and handling of the text link ads tool just contact us or leave a comment here.

admin Linknami

Social media is now the main hub for product and services promotion. Along with this, many corporations now use community sites for improved customer relationship and to cross-sell products and services while finding new ones.
The following are 6 easy pointers one should understand to be successful in the social media arena:

1. Attitude shifting: An entirely different area needs an equally different attitude to face head on. The social media is an area of a different level than what you usually do, a contrast to your usual online marketing activities. The social media is there as a sharing haven, and here one should know how to share their knowledge, investigate issues and solve other members’ problems. You are not here simply to sell products and services. For a simpler format, you can follow the AIDA principle: Attention, Interest, Desire and Action.

2. Aiming for the right target: know how to effectively use limited resources and budget to target and arrive at the area of your industry. Try to envision yourself as a customer, and follow the trail that leads to areas and groups that discuss and engage in the products or services that you sell or do. You’ll then be able to set up a base camp from here, your starting point within the social media. By being able to do this, you can potentially save time and effort to concentrate more on building connections with these people.

3. Determine how you would assess “success”: Aside from your organic search, PPC campaigns and E-mail campaigns, you should also be able to set up your own success metrics. The fog in your career’s direction would not clear up without doing this. You can define these metrics in much the same way as a goal but instead of steps, we are searching for results. For example, number of comments for my post, number of views for my videos, etc. You can basically check your progress by knowing these metrics.

4. Go out and introduce yourself: The pinnacle of social media is building relationships and sharing knowledge. If you want to build the best relationship, let them know who you are. Relationships set trust as its main pillar and foundation. Provide the necessary information about yourself and your company. It feels more comfortable to talk and deal with persons that you know and in cases where dissatisfaction happens, complaints may be directed to you and can be dealt with immediately before it even spreads further.

5. Keep a steady and consistent pace: There is a very thin line between you and your prospects in the world of social media. Marketers should know this, because you can’t just spam on any community.  You need to build relationships and share knowledge at a regulated pace. Take care not to be ignored and be considered as a spammer in your industry. Just be patient and let the relationships and circulation of knowledge grow gradually.

6. Quality establishes content merit: Quality and creativity are one of the things that can definitely get you deeper into the world of social media. As always, content is king.

Social media is a successful marketing tool, because it is both effective and economical, albeit a time consuming one. Social media also requires careful but dedicated effort. Commitment and perseverance can be the best traits for success in this media.

admin Social Media