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By Jeffrey Smith in Featured

In case you are searching for SEO alternatives for the rel=”nofollow” tag to sculpt page rank, at the end of this post there are links and suggestions for an old school work around. But first, an overview of Page Rank Sculpting…Page Rank Sculpting Overview:

Over time the links you use as anchors become prominent as each page in your website takes on more authority. Not only are links just a way from getting from point A to point B within a website, but they also inherently hold the keys to search engine rankings as search engines use links and anchor text to assess relevance.

Search engines crawl links (within your website) to determine context and align the on page data (what the page is about) to other pages in the site and off page data (what other sites say about your pages).

Sometimes, by using the same links consistently across large areas of a website (such as navigation or a sidebar or template), you unintentionally diffuse the topic of the context or context of that segment. Page rank sculpting allows you to minimize the negative impact or hemorrhaging link flow, while consolidating the most significant links from the most significant sources within your website.

The Dilemma: Structuring Which Links Pass Value

The reason why the no-follow tag became popular was for sites linking out to others, the no-follow tag suppresses link flow from leaving the site providing the link to the site being linked to (in case you do not care to vouch for them or let them rank off your domain authority).

Seeing the benefits of this, some SEO’s began using the no-follow tag to sculpt the way that Google’s crawlers sifted through their pages. The premise was that by adding a no-follow tag to a link that it would become invisible to the crawlers and then proportionately provide more link juice to the remaining links on the page, this is page rank sculpting.

Much to the dismay of SEO’s (who were possibly some of the only people using no-follow to begin with), Google changed the way they processed the no-follow tag and suggested that instead of the link being invisible and the remaining link flow going to other links (which the link flow from the link) in the no-follow tag simply evaporated.

As a result, those who used the tag internally essentially have disrupted their own internal link graph not to mention could incur dips in rankings due to the amount of trust moving from page to page being diminished.

Now, for the Technique

As promised, here is the link to an “old school” advanced SEO technique hailing from the, pre-nofollow tag” era. In addition to using javascript links (which are now crawled from search engines), here is one no-follow alternative that you can employ in minutes courtesy of renowned SEO expert Charles Hefflin from SEO2020.com.

For those unfamiliar with the technique, the no-follow tag is a tag you can implement within the html code that allows a website to “link out to others” and not incur one of two things (1) theme diffusion or (2) a potential penalty from Google.

This tactic uses a minor modification to your robots.txt file and /cgi-bin/ directory and redirects links from a /cgi-bin/ script that elects to block spiders from crawling from the robots.txt via an exclusion command like the one noted below as an example.

User-agent: *

Disallow: /folder/

This is one of many techniques you could employ, but this one is quick, effective and preserves the link equity you have within your own website.

In the event you are curious to what the reference is for theme bleeding (it is covered in Charles’s post), or you can refer to our post on theme density and theming and siloing for a larger overview as an effective alternative to using flat site architecture (keeping all files in the root folder vs. subfolders segmented by topic) for search engine optimization.

Hat tip once again to Charles Hefflin on this priceless SEO technique that places the power of “page rank sculpting” back in the hands of webmasters who can appreciate the simple beauty and impact of this effective on page SEO technique. That is of course, if you elect to use it…

Jeffrey Smith is an active internet marketing optimization strategist, consultant and the founder of Seo Design Solutions Seo Company http://www.seodesignsolutions.com. He has actively been involved in internet marketing since 1995 and brings a wealth of collective experiences and fresh marketing strategies to individuals involved in online business.

By Katrina Sawa in Featured

You know how often I get asked about how effective social networking is for someone’s business, from my clients or when I’m out networking from random business owners?? Hundreds a month.

It’s amazing. It’s amazing how many of us are on the social sites but also how many are not!

I think if you’re an entrepreneur, no matter whether you do business locally or globally, you should be doing some amount of social networking as ONE source of lead generation in your business.

Of course there are hundreds of other ways to get leads too and I’m only talking about ONE right now (and it’s not always the most effective depending on how you utilize your time but it’s certainly affordable).

Lead generation is ONE goal to have when you network online but it can also do the following for you:

  • solidify long lasting relationships – either personal or professional
  • provide an easy way to connect faster with target prospects, referral sources or mentors
  • establish yourself as an expert in your field by answering discussion questions, posting tips and articles or even inviting ‘friends’ to live events like teleclasses and webinars
  • drive more traffic back to your site for special promotions, downloads or interaction
  • provides a central place to share photos, videos and basically get more publicity than you could ever pay (or pray) for

Is it worth it to spend my time on the forums or having profiles on these sites?

I say definitely yes.

  • You want to ask and answer questions on forums and blogs
  • Post comments, articles, events, information, tips, surveys and polls, anything to get the visitors attention
  • Record and post interesting or business related videos (nothing too embarrassing!)
  • Send people requests to join your ‘network’, ‘fan page’ or ‘group’
  • Pursue those in related groups for interaction, advice, joint ventures, etc.
  • Dig deeper into the websites of those you’re really interested in working with or those you want to pay attention to you and relate to them on a deeper level if you can – this is the way to make the most of your time I think.
  • And so much more….

Whew! I know this can seem daunting and more sites pop up every day right?

I mean, you can even start YOUR OWN social network these days (not that you want to).

So, what should your ROI (Return on Investment) be you ask?

Well, granted this stuff sucks up a ton of time! So, if you’re delegating some of the initial connecting and basic weekly/daily posts and then you’re only in there mostly to dig deeper, get personal and maximize your time; then you can really build a great following. One that’s loyal and interested in new things you send out. A following that clicks and interacts with your profile, your videos and your website.

This is how then you get them on your list over time, get them to attend teleclasses or join your programs or even refer you!

I can tell you that the hardest part of figuring out whether your time/money invested in social networking is paying off though is that it’s not that easy to track results.

So, if you want to really find out if it’s working for you, you have to set up systems that allow for really detailed tracking – tracking your traffic, conversions, customers and more.

K. Sawa Marketing International. Katrina Sawa is an Award-Winning Relationship Marketing Coach who’s helped hundreds of small business owners take dramatic steps in their businesses to get them to the next level in business, revenues and life. She offers one-on-one coaching, group coaching and do-it-yourself marketing planning products. Go online now to get started with her Free Report and Free Audio at http://www.jumpstartyourmarketing.com

By Leo J. Vidal in Featured

email marketingThe Local “Internet Search” Growth Explosion

Currently there are over 2 billion monthly search engine queries with local commercial intent, and the number is growing tremendously. Over 82% of local searches contacted a local business and 60% of these made a purchase. That is a phenomenal conversion rate. Statistics show that a trillion dollars is currently being affected by local internet searches, and that number is increasing rapidly.

If you are in business and not using the internet to find and keep customers, you will find it difficult to survive, let alone prosper. You need an online presence that really works for you.

By Steve Baldwin in Featured

A company called X+1 released a study last week   that highlighted the pain felt by many buying keywords from Google and the other engines. Satisfaction with the performance of their companies’ SEM campaigns was egregiously poor: on a scale of 1 to 7, only 12% of respondents gave SEM a top-ranked 7, with 57% ranking SEM a 1 or a 2. Performance satisfaction with fairly simple search campaigns (30 to 100 keywords pointing to customized landing pages) didn’t do any better: a full 42% reported being either “dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied.”

The study didn’t really explore what these marketers were doing wrong, but contained a few clues worth mentioning. About 60% of survey respondents were doing SEM in-house. I’m not going to say that it’s impossible to conduct competitive SEM campaigns in-house, and I’d need to know a lot more about the level of automation and staff experience of such in-house teams before laying blame, but it’s still a warning sign. Another cause for concern: key SEM decisions were often made by fairly low-level people, including analysts (48%), strategy/results people (45%) and implementer/tacticians (36%). I’m not saying that these people aren’t qualified to accomplish operational search tasks, but I must question their suitability for high-level tasks such as procuring a suitable SEM agency.

Disappointment over SEM’s performance didn’t seem to dampen these marketers’ willingness to lay out more money in the months ahead. Most (65%) of survey respondents reported that they were planning either to spend the same amount of money in 2009 that they spent last year, with a handful (13%) planning to spend 20% more. I’d hate to think that this is a case of “throwing good money after bad” but one must hope that the survey respondents are taking active steps to reform their operations before handing the search engines even more money.

Unfortunately, there’s no magic bullet for all the dissatisfaction. SEM agencies (and yes, I work for a SEM agency) will likely use this data to hammer companies that continue to do SEM tasks in-house, promising to ride to the rescue. Unfortunately, the reputation of many SEM agencies isn’t exactly stellar; otherwise “agency churn” wouldn’t be as high as it is. Sadly, there are situations in which agencies have done a far worse job with search tasks than a qualified in-house team. Spending more to better train in-house search teams and equip them with an appropriate level of automation will help some, but such investments are difficult to justify in a recession, and the fear that one’s best-trained people will up and leave when the economy improves is well-founded.

If there’s one sure cure for avoiding disappointment, it’s to manage your expectations correctly. Paid search is an exceptionally difficult marketing medium to master, despite the perception (promoted by the search engines) that it’s a self-serve, plug-and-play road to profits. Here, failure isn’t just an option: it’s practically guaranteed for the unwary and the unequipped. Buyers must always be wary, whether they’re buying keywords, staffing in-house teams, or shopping for SEM agencies. The good news is that if you approach this medium with fear, respect, caution, and a first-rate, executable plan, you just might wind up being happy with your results.

Steve Baldwin is editor-in-chief at Didit, an agency for search engine marketing and auctioned media management based in New York. You can reach Steve at steve.baldwin@didit.com.

By Enzo F. Cesario in Featured

Promotion is an important part of any business; you need to let potential customers know about you and your product. Article marketing is a strategy that will increase your exposure to the people who will want to buy your product or service. Articles written about your industry will help to establish you, the author, as an expert in your field, and can be published in print media and online.

Customers have a preference for doing business with someone they are familiar with, and article marketing is an ideal way of getting your name out there. The content of your articles needs to be useful and relevant to your target market. Articles that are informative, interesting and provide solutions to your readers are tremendously helpful.

If writing is your thing, then do your own articles. If not, there are several sites online where you can connect with writers, eager for work. Choose someone who uses good grammar and spelling skills, and who can write in an informal and conversational style that is easy to read. Your name will appear as the author on these outsourced articles, promoting you as the expert.

These articles are meant to inform and add value to you and your product; they are not blatant sales letters. Online publishing sites wouldn’t publish sales letters anyway, and print media would avoid them as well. To establish your credibility, you need to give something to your readers, not blast them with sales talk. Don’t ever forget, the reason they are reading your articles is for the information.

Web and ezine writing is very different than writing for other off-line publications. Brief is better. Be concise and write in short paragraphs. Your main purpose is to capture their attention and to get them to visit your website. If your article is long with every piece of information, they won’t see the value in clicking the link to your site.

You should always check for spelling and grammatical errors before submitting your articles to directories. These kinds of errors will reflect badly on your reputation and credibility as a quality information provider. Try to avoid technical language, but provide an explanation of terms if they need to be included.

Put the major benefit to the reader in your title. The title will determine whether or not the reader will click to read the article and possibly click to visit your site. If they aren’t compelled to read the article, they will never get to see your link, or see your website.

Article directories are the sites where you submit articles for online publication. They check your articles to make sure they comply with their guidelines before they publish them. And though we won’t go into it here, print media, like newspapers and magazines, are also always looking for fresh copy, so you can also submit your interesting articles to them for publication.

Make good use of the resource box under the article; this is where you can promote your product and supply contact information. What you include here should encourage readers to click to your website. The best resource box describes your website or yourself in a short sentence and includes at least one link that points back to your website or blog. When the reader clicks on the link to your site, your website visibility will increase.

Remember, a brilliant article with a bad resource box is a waste of time and money. Carefully review the rules for resource box information for each directory you submit to and try to get in as much information about yourself as you can.

If you can, place links to other articles you’ve written in a new article you’re writing. Sometimes, if the advice is helpful, the ezines will let you do this. This cross-referencing will get you more bang for your buck. Before publishing them elsewhere, you should always add your articles to your website or your newsletter. This helps to identify you as the source of the information and is another good way to get your name out there to build relationships with potential customers.

Articles for online publication need to be written with search engines in mind. You need to use the most popular keywords that online users type into their search engine when looking for information about your topic. Use the keywords in your article, but do not saturate it with them. This ruins the readability of the article and will not add to your credibility at all.

Set up a blog to keep in contact with customers and interested contacts. You can upload your articles to your blog to give your readers a continual supply of interesting, informative articles about your area of expertise. Add new content frequently to keep the search engines interested in your articles. Use your blog as another means of promoting your product and yourself as trustworthy and interested in your customers.

Article marketing is probably one of the easiest and most effective ways of driving targeted traffic to your website and boosting your exposure on the Internet. These guidelines will help you get started in article marketing. Use them to promote your product or service and to establish yourself as an expert in your field, then watch your sales increase.

Enzo F. Cesario is a Copywriter and co-founder of Brandsplat, the only online marketing and advertising company employing Brandcasting, the most effective way to brand your company on the web. Brandcasting uses informative content and state-of-the-art internet distribution and optimization to build links and drive the right kind of traffic to your website. The approach is simple, highly effective and affordable. Learn more at: http://www.Brandsplat.com

Read more articles written by: Enzo F. Cesario

By Donna Gunter in Featured

keyword researchAs people search for information online, they use a series of words, what are referred to as keywords, to find the information that they are seeking. Keywords are the core of any market research conducted by an online business owner. Just like the Yellow Pages Directory groups listings by category, like “auto body shops” in the “automobile repair” category, search engines like Google and Yahoo sort by keywords so that auto body shops are found under “auto body shop” in their database.

In order to be found online by your target market, you need insight about the terms that they are using to search for a business like yours. The quickest way to gain that insight is by conducting research on possible keywords they use. However, so many of my clients conduct only very basic keyword research and miss many keywords because they don’t really delve into the problems and needs of their target market, which contain prime, keyword-rich topics they can use to be found online.

Here are 7 secrets to a successful keyword research campaign:

By Mel Strocen in Featured

Aaron Wall’s blog post “How to Make Easy Money on Google” takes a hard look at how Google’s promotion of fraudulent advertising is undermining their brand. Aaron makes the obvious point that Google’s turning a blind eye to AdWords scams is revenue driven and that scam ads targeting the desperate and unemployed could easily be cleaned up if Google allocated as little as 1% of their revenue to this issue.

From a webmaster / site owner perspective, however, one of his more compelling points is as follows: “Google gives webmasters this guideline “Your site’s reputation can be affected by who you link to.” Why shouldn’t it apply to Google as well?”

Good question and one that every site owner obsessing about Google Guidelines should be asking.

To read Aaron’s entire post go: http://www.seobook.com/how-make-easy-money-google

Comments welcome here and over at Aaron’s blog.

By Ross Dunn in Featured

At SMX Advanced a few weeks ago there was a huge hullabaloo about Matt Cutt’s saying that PageRank Sculpting using nofollow tags is no longer effective and it should no longer be used. I haven’t posted anything about this until now because frankly there were enough people making a stink about this topic. That said, I now am ready to weigh in on the subject mainly because Matt Cutts posted his own take on PageRank Sculpting last week and it gave me some food for thought.

So what is the deal? What did Matt say? Let’s examine the details based on his post:

Matt’s Post: “So what happens when you have a page with ‘ten PageRank points’ and ten outgoing links, and five of those links are nofollowed? … Originally, the five links without nofollow would have flowed two points of PageRank each (in essence, the nofollowed links didn’t count toward the denominator when dividing PageRank by the outdegree of the page). More than a year ago, Google changed how the PageRank flows so that the five links without nofollow would flow one point of PageRank each.”

Essentially Google claims to have rendered nofollow sculpting useless because each nofollowed link would still use up a point of PageRank instead of saving that PageRank for other (better) links on the page. So what happens to that used up point of PageRank if it does not benefit the site being linked to? Well that was part of what generated the energized discussions at SMX Advanced; Matt said the PageRank evaporated. In his recent post, however, in response to that very question Matt alluded that the seemingly vaporized PageRank still had a life but nothing that he could comment on:

“…it’s a bit complicated, esp. since Google doesn’t view pages exactly in the framework as “classic PageRank” any more. You can think of that PageRank going into the reset vector without being too far off.”

Heh, “reset vector” is bafflegab if I have ever seen it (at least to those not mathmatically inclined – like yours truly). Anyway, my take on that explanation is that the PageRank is still in play but likely in a severely reduced capacity when nofollow is used. The question I have  is whether the weakened PR point has any benefit to the page? Or is it stored as a separate algorithmic value used when calculating overall website reputation? I am sure there are many brighter minds than mine on the job and I look forward to hearing more. Overall though, it is just academic because PageRank Sculpting using nofollows was a tool best used only when some advanced techniques were needed to make a website in a competitive marketplace move that last few positions in the search engine result pages (SERPs).

Is NoFollow Going to Hurt My Website?

If you are one of the multitudes of website owners that have used nofollows for sculpting don’t worry! There is absolutely no indication that using nofollow will harm your website rankings or your site’s online reputation. If you are still worried then consider the fact that this change happened a year ago so in actuality nothing has changed recently – just our perception of Google’s process. More importantly Google does not consider PageRank Sculpting or the use of nofollow unethical so penalties are not even a consideration at this point. That said, if you have used nofollow fanatically all throughout your site you may want to review the usage with a qualified SEO to make sure a better strategy is not being missed. There are a lot of options out there for increasing website visibility and nofollow PageRank Sculpting is only one of them.

So Does this All Mean PageRank Sculpting is Dead?

No, nothing so dramatic. Even Matt said that PageRank Sculpting is still effective when a site’s structure is conceptualized with PageRank in mind. And if such foreplanning was not possible I believe a similar form of PageRank Sculpting can still be done using links driven by external Javascript (one form of Javascript that Google is still not indexing – for now).

Ross Dunn is the CEO at StepForth Web Marketing Inc.; based in Victoria, BC, Canada and founded in 1997. You can read more of Ross’s articles and those of the veteran StepForth team at http://news.stepforth.com or contact us at http://www.stepforth.com

By Joe Marchese in Featured

Advertisers want to reach people and social networks want to make money from their audience, so all the two parties need is a fair way to exchange. But, creating a marketplace between advertisers and social networks based on selling “clicks” is sure to leave both sides very unhappy. The social networks will be unhappy because they will not be receiving full value for their inventory, as people have a tendency to avoid clicking on advertisements. Advertisers are likely to be unhappy with the quality of the traffic generated by those clicks that eventually occur simply by delivering a massive volume of impressions.

Just because pay per click (PPC) turned out to be the golden goose for Google, does not mean it can solve social networks’ monetization issues. And if a recent TechCrunch post, “Facebook Click Fraud Enraging Advertisers,” is any indication, advertisers are quickly discovering the challenges of paying for traffic coming from social media.

If Google was able to monetize so well using PPC, why can’t PPC work in social networks? Because for Google, PPC factors in that people (aka: consumers, aka: audience) might actually want to “click” on the advertisement, therefore benefiting from Google’s advertisements. The two main times people come across a Google PPC ad unit are when they search the Web using Google, or when they are on a site that uses Google AdSense. Holding aside AdSense for a moment, when people are using a search bar, they are stating their intention to navigate to another site that might have information they are looking for. In short, they are looking to click on something. If Google’s advertisers can provide that “something,” then everybody wins — users are happy, Google is happy and advertisers are happy. AdSense works similarly people’s intentions to “click” have to be guessed at, but the same theory applies. If I am on a site that is all about running, I may want to click to another site that has something to do with running. If Google can provide an advertiser that wants that click, then everybody is happy again.

But when you get to social media, the formula doesn’t work anymore. Even Google, the uncontested master of PPC technology, couldn’t make people click in its deal with MySpace. Here’s the simple reason why: If I go to a friend’s page and my friend loves to go running, it is likely that my friend will have lots of content on his/her page about running — which might tell Google, or any other AdSense-like program, to offer me a chance to click on an advertisement about, or related to running. But I didn’t come to my friend’s page to learn about running; I came to learn about my friend. Therefore I had no intention to click going in, and the PPC model falls down.

Even when PPC ads target me using the data my social networks have about me — for example, Facebook knows I am getting married in September — they end up serving ads that they hope are so relevant that even though I had no intention of clicking on anything to do with weddings, they can get me to anyway. It’s easy to see the difference between serving me a wedding advertisement when I am searching for it, or when I am on a page about weddings, but how does that translate to when I am on my Facebook homepage? It might be relevant in one way, but it is not relevant in BOTH context or timing. This causes lower click rates; and while some of the clicks that do happen would be valuable, it’s just that the total value advertisers and social networks can derive from those clicks isn’t enough to make the relationship work.

In the end, selling clicks and traffic when people don’t want to click or navigate the Web will inevitably fail.

Joe Marchese – What are your thoughts? Drop me a line, or just follow the continued conversation on twitter @ www.twitter.com/joemarchese. You can also leave a comment on the Spin Board.

By Carl Davidson in Featured

email marketingBack links are really important in the world of Search Engine Optimization. If you want your site to do well in search engine listing results you have to have a good page ranking. If you want a higher page ranking you’re going to need to create lots and lots of back links.

It takes time and talent to do this but it will be worth it. Google receives 3,000 search inquiries a second. That’s 180,000 per minute. If you want your share of this avalanche of free business, you will need to work hard and work smart.

Back links are simply a link from somewhere else to your site. It sounds easy to create them and it is easy, but you will need thousands of these links and you will need new ones every month. They may only take a minute to create but to create hundreds or thousands take lots of time and talent.

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