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How to Optimize for Google: Part 2 of 3
By Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO, StepForth (c) 2008

Optimizing for top Google rankings includes a number of factors.
In Part 1 of 3 (http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2008/apr/21.html)
we discussed onsite optimization. In Part 2 we will touch on
incoming links as well as using Google Webmaster Tools.

LINKS
Links are very important in today's Google rankings, but just
how many links you need will depend on both the competitiveness
of your target phrases, and the quality of the incoming links
themselves.

Essentially the number one rule of links is to keep it relevant!
Topical relevance is very important in order for inbound links
to give your site the most value. If the page that links to you
is relevant that is good, if the entire site linking to you is
relevant, that is better.

First to get an idea of how many links you may need, take a look
at the top 10 ranking sites in Google and record how many links
Yahoo is noting for each site. (This is because Google does not
display anywhere near all the links they have noted). The
average of this count is often a good indication of how many
links your site may need.

There are many different ways to get links to your site
including the age old reciprocal link trade, directory links,
article based links, and links from press releases.

Reciprocal Links
Reciprocal linking has seen its value drop considerably over the
past few years, however, if the site you are trading with is
relevant you can still receive value from these links.

Paid Links
Google frowns on paid links, however that is not to say that
they don't work. Often you can find highly reputable and
relevant websites which are offering paid advertising spots. If
these links are coded to link directly to your website without
passing through any tracking redirects, you will in many cases
see value in the form of both direct traffic and increased link
densities and rankings.

Articles
Writing and distributing industry specific articles is a great
way to help increase both your link counts and site traffic; for
examples of such content see StepForth's SEO Blog News
(http://news.stepforth.com/blog/) articles. Consider writing
articles on a regular basis and submitting them to some of the
more popular services such as EzineArticles. Be sure to include
a link to your site from somewhere within the article, or at the
very least within your bio. Try to use a target phrase as part of
the anchor text for additional value.


Press Releases
If something of importance has happened to your company such as
a new product launch, or other notable achievement - essentially
anything news worthy, put out a press release. Submit this press
release through services such as PRWeb or PRNewsWire
(http://news.stepforth.com/blog/2007/12/link-building-and-publicity-with-prweb.php).
Again, be sure to include a target phrase as part of the anchor
text.

There are also a number of places you can get links that have
basically turned south, and are not generally recommended. These
include signatures in form posts, guest books, and other
typically free links.

Forum Posts
Forum posts can help to marginally increase your link counts;
however, with this one you must be careful. Only add a link to
your site in your signature if both the forum allows it, and you
are a respected member of the forum. If you are a solid
contributor and your posts have depth and meaning, and the forum
is highly relevant to your site, then having a link in your
signature may give your site some juice. Posting wildly to
random forums will in most cases get yourself banned, and will be
both a waste of time and potentially make you and your site look
bad.

Guest Books
In nearly all cases, do not post your link to guest books. If
you happen to stumble upon a guestbook that is highly relevant
to your site, the other comments are relevant to your site, and
you have something useful (and again relevant) to say, then
perhaps consider it, but typically focusing on links from guest
books is considered SPAM and is best avoided all together.

Blog Comments
Having a link from your blog comments is not necessarily a bad
thing. If you find a relevant blog post of use, and have
something relevant and constructive to say, don't be afraid to
enter your link into the "URL" field of the form, but don't
try stuffing links into the comment itself.

Link Farms & Bad Neighborhoods
These are sites that allow you to simply post your link no
strings attached. They are mostly long scrolling pages with
countless links. Stay away from them. If you see one, run in the
other direction. These links are bad, will not help with your
rankings, and in some cases can actually damage your rankings.

Stay away from sites that cross link with obvious spammers.
These networks of SPAM sites are not ones you would want your
site associated with, and if you achieve links from enough of
these sites it can adversely impact your rankings. Even more
important, NEVER link to any of these sites - as that will
certainly tie in your connection to them and give Google reason
to discount your rankings.

DMOZ, Yahoo and Other Directories
Directory based links can be of significant help, especially if
they are from highly reputable directories, the two biggest
being DMOZ.org and the Yahoo Directory.

Getting a site into DMOZ is like Gold. Google loves links from
DMOZ and your site will reap the benefits. The big catch however
is actually getting your site into the directory in the first
place. Find the perfect category for your site and check to see
if it has an editor. If you see a link "Volunteer to edit this
category" try and find another relevant location. Pages without
active editors take much longer to get listed into. Once you
find the perfect directory submit your site every 4-6 months
until listed. If you are lucky you will get in eventually.

Yahoo Directory is seen as an authority in the eyes of Google,
and getting your site in will help your link reputation. This
link does come at a price of $299 per year, but will play a role
in helping your website achieve top rankings.

There are a number of other valuable directories out there that
can help you with your search rankings. Before submitting to any
directory the key is a combination of relevance and authority.
If the directory is relevant and active, it may be worth
considering.

GOOGLE WEBMASTER TOOLS
Google Webmaster Tools can be very useful for your optimization
efforts. It may not directly help you obtain higher rankings,
but can help you trouble shoot if you are experiencing problems.
It will also allow you to remove URL's that you don't want
indexed and set various preferences such as your domain, crawl
rate, and geographic target.

XML Sitemaps
This is the most common reason people use Google Webmaster Tools
- the submission of their XML sitemap. While you can use your
robots.txt to have Google find your XML sitemap, by submitting
it directly to Google you can check up on the spidering status.

Error checking
Webmaster Tools is also quite useful for checking on various
error URL's that Google may know about. Under the Diagnostics >
Web Crawl you can view any errors that Google has to report on
your site. By cleaning up any errors you can help increase your
chances of rankings.

Links
From inside Google Webmaster Tools you can get a much clearer
look at what sites Google is noting as having links to you, and
give you a better indication of the need, if any, to increase
your link counts.

WWW Preference
Be sure to select your domain preference under Tools > Set
Preferred Domain. In nearly all cases you will want to select
the version including the "www"


SUMMARY

Inbound links play a significant role in successful Google
rankings. By focusing on relevant links, as well as by
diversifying where you get those links from, you can build a
solid foundation for your search rankings today and into the
future.

Stay tuned for Part 3 (of 3) where I will discuss other
considerations including redirects, HTTP headers, and a number
of other factors which play a role in successfully conquering
Google.
================================================================
Scott Van Achte is the Senior SEO at StepForth Web Marketing
Inc.; based in Victoria, BC, Canada and founded in 1997. You can
read more of Scott's articles and those of the StepForth team at
http://news.stepforth.com or contact us at http://www.stepforth.com/,
Tel - 250-385-1190, Toll Free - 877-385-5526, Fax - 250-385-1198
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