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Top 5 Link Building Strategies for Your Site

By Kiesha Joseph in Featured

The best Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts can guide and assist you in link building strategies that will increase your website’s visibility on the internet. The following categories of backlinks give an excellent overview of the wide variety of options available for improving your site’s SEO ranking.

Links from Multiple Domains

While your link building strategies should focus on volume, your plan should not be to get most links from a single site. Instead,
work towards just a few links from many sites for best results.

As search engines rank sites, they consider how relevant the content is to the keywords and search terms. When you get links from multiple domains, you demonstrate that many sources find your content useful.

This is critically important when you develop additional backlinks from authoritative domains.

Deep (Ingrained) Links

Instead of directing links to your site’s main page, use links directly to specific pages of content or images. These are known
as deep or ingrained links, and they show that you have important information throughout your site, not just isolated on the home
page.

Using deep or ingrained links adds to your ability to use important keywords for greater ranking in search engine results. You can spread these words throughout your site as appropriate, which will ensure a user-friendly overall appearance.

Links to Local Sites

If your link building strategies don’t include neighboring customers, you are missing out on a large opportunity. It is exciting to develop international backlinks, but it is the locals that will keep you in business.

Obtaining authoritative links from local sources is far easier than from nationwide or internationally renowned experts. Nearby
specialists enjoy building their communities by working with neighboring businesses. SEO rankings will climb when you include
local authorities such as the Chamber of Commerce or the Better Business Bureau for your state. Consider local organizations,
libraries, museums, and similar sites as well as your local government agencies. Directories like yellowpages.com and superpages.com are also excellent options. You might have to pay a fee for the service, but this tends to be very low. Some of
those you approach will jump at the chance for a quid pro quo linking relationship.

Links to Authoritative Domains

Sites classified as authoritative on a subject are those that offer expertise in a given industry or specific field. For example, nytimes.com has extensive, reliable, and accurate information on events relevant to New York. Its strong reputation as a source of specialized knowledge lends it authority on New York news.

Link building strategies that include government and university websites lead to high ratings, as these are accepted as authorities on their subject matter. They can be easily recognized by their .gov and .edu domains, for example IRS and California State University.

Authoritative domain links lead visitors to extensive amounts of quality, well researched information, and they often contain
additional links that lead to good sources for further exploration.

Linking through Anchor Text

The strongest and most popular tool available today is linking through anchor text. For best SEO ranking results, be sure to make this part of your link building strategies.

They work by turning your text into hyperlinks, so as readers go along, they can click on an interesting keyword. The link directs them to the page you specify, which makes your keywords even stronger, improving your site’s ultimate ranking.

Grow Your Rankings with an SEO Expert Today

Higher rankings mean higher traffic to your site, which results in more business for you. Don’t delay in designing and implementing your link building strategies. Begin with the five ideas listed here, and consider a professional SEO expert for
even greater success.

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For more information, visit The Personal Blog of Kiesha Joseph. Kiesha Joseph – SEO Content Marketing.

10 Steps To Getting The Click

By Sharon Housley in Featured

There are a number of steps a webmaster can take to encourage visitors to “click” on a link or graphic located on their website. The following steps will help “get the click”…

1. Colors

Use contrasting colors for links. This makes the links easier to discern from other text on a web page. Also, avoid placing links against a patterned background, as it will make it much more difficult to read the link text. Bottom line, the link color should stand out from the rest of the web page, and be easy to locate.

2. Link Traits

Underlining is still the universal indication of a link. Using the “underline” for links will send a clear message to website visitors about which text on the webpage is just text, and which text is actually a hyper-link. And along this line of thought, you should avoid using underlining for text that is not a link, just to avoid confusion.

3. Visible

Make all the links visible. Do not hide the links or navigation on a web page. Avoid using scripting to display links, as these links will not be visible to website visitors who have turned scripting off in their browser for security reasons.

4. Textual

Text links have a higher rate of clicks than linked images. The one exception is typically a “Buy Now” button, which tends to be more effective than text-only “Buy Now” links. Keep this in mind when creating a linking scheme for your website.

5. Consistent

The location of links should be consistent as the visitor moves from page to page through your website. Do not move links around as the content of the web page changes.

6. Position

Place important links in a location that is easy for the website visitor to see without having to scroll. Position important links “above the fold” on the website.

7. Font Style & Size

In order to make links easy for the visitor to see, be sure to use a font style and size that can be easily read.

8. Graphic Links

If you use image links, the clickable graphics should be vibrant and should stand out from the other content on the page. Use bright or bold contrasting colors for the graphic. Be sure to include appropriate ALT text for each linked image, so the visitor will have an indication of the material being linked to as they move their mouse over the graphic.

9. Split-Test

Conduct split-testing by changing colors and moving links around, and then monitor and track which options and locations result in the highest number of clicks. What may seem intuitive is not always as obvious as you might think.

10. Fresh Eyes

Ask a friend or family member to navigate your website. It may surprise you to learn what they see and where they click. A fresh set of eyes will give a good indication of how others will perceive your website and the clickable content.

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Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for RecordForAll audio recording and editing software.

Who’s Linking to Your Web Site – and What Does That Say About You to Google?

By Stone Reuning in Featured

Linking is the mechanism that connects all the pages on the Internet. You’ve got links throughout your web site to let people navigate their way around. You may have links going out to other web sites that you think will be useful for your visitors. And hopefully you have links coming into your web site from independent sources.

All types of links can impact your search engine optimization results, helping determine where your web site shows up online. Though the hardest to control, inbound links pointing to your site can make the biggest impact.

At its most basic, the concept is that if several high-quality sites are linking to your web site, then Google and other search engines figure your site must be a popular, valuable resource – and they will be more likely to show it higher in their search results. In effect, your site receives “link juice” from other web pages that link to it.

Google Strikes Again! Why Your Links Are Now Worthless

By Margo Little in Featured

It is no secret that Google shifted from content based ranking to link based several years ago. The way most people discovered this was by seeing their pages disappear from top ten placements overnight. Unfortunately that same lesson is being re-taught today as Google shifts from an “all link” model of determining popularity to one of “inbound only.”

It should not come as a big surprise. It’s been happening slowly for the past year or so but is now in overdrive. Pages that have dominated top spots for years are suddenly disappearing without a trace and linking is the key. In short, reciprocal links no longer count as they once did. Google expects to see one way inbound links in its top ranked sites. The reason apparently being that worthy sites can attract links without having to reciprocate.

Talk about a popularity contest! It reminds me of junior high school on Valentines Day where the most popular students would be buried in cards while sending out only a few of their own. Google even refers to inbound links as a form of “votes.”

So how does Google judge the value of inbound links? Let’s just say a nod from the prom king or queen is a lot more desirable than one from the kid who had to escort his first cousin to the last school dance due to lack of options. But even still, every vote counts even if just a little.

I agree that it is sad and unfair that quality of content counts for so little but Google, perhaps naively, believes the links (or votes) will go to the most deserving sites naturally. I can’t change Google’s mind, but I can help you crack Google’s link value code. Just follow these simple steps.

First: Know your link targets. You want pages whose topics relate to your topic and with the highest PR possible.

Note: PR refers to Google PageRank which is a value assigned to the page on a scale of 1 to 10. Pages begin at 0 and earn PR points for various reasons. There are plenty of ones and twos but anything above three gets scarcer and more valuable. You can easily find a page’s PageRank by using the Google Toolbar available at http://toolbar.google.com.

Second: Forget about just linking to the home page. Google now prefers deep links so make the majority of your links go to pages at least one level deep below the home page. And be sure that page is named after its main keyword, such as “main-keyword.htm” or “main-keyword.htm.”

Third: Make sure the pages you are linking to, link back to your home page by using their main keyword as anchor text.

Note: Anchor text is simply a clickable text link. It is usually a different color; such as blue and underlined to show it is a link. You want your main keyword to be a clickable link leading from the topic page to the home page.

Fourth: Be sure the inbound links you build consist of your main keywords embedded in anchor text.

Recap: So if “online business services” was the main keyword the words “online business services” would be embedded as anchor text leading to a page called “online-business-services.htm” and that page would in turn link to the home page using “online business services” as its anchor text link.

Fifth: Google scans not only the area immediately surrounding the anchor text but also the whole page of text around it. It will be looking for consistency of topic throughout the page so be sure your link is coming from a page closely related to the topic of the keyword you are targeting.

Note: This last part is crucial because if you can control what is on the page you get links from, you can rocket to the top of Google. This can be done through blog postings, article publishing and even simple directory submission. If you are in a hurry, try a pre-packaged solution that removes the guesswork. I use a combo training and automated software system called “Link A Minute” (http://www.linkaminute.com) that does the trick for me. There are good ones out there so hunt around and find one you like. Just do not try any link farms if you value any future placement on Google.

Follow these tips and you can steal a top spot on Google in no time.

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Margo Little is a successful SEO marketing consultant who got her start in 1997. Today SEOSoftwareSurvey.com benefits from her knowledge. From finding a killer suite to a simple keyword tool, she can help.

5 More Hot Tips For Linking With Other Web Sites

By admin in Featured

In this second article, we examine some more things to watch out for when you are creating a link building campaign. Hopefully by the end, you will be in a better position to obtain and maintain good quality backlinks that help launch your site up the search engine rankings.

1. Is The Links Page Indexed By The Search Engines?

If a link on pages is not being read by the search engines, then it is not of much use to you. The further the links page is from the home page, the less likely it is to be indexed. If a page has PR, then you know that it has been indexed (by Google at least), although no PR does not mean that the page has not been indexed. You can conduct your own test by typing cache: followed by the url of the page in question. If the page has been crawled, you should see some results.

2. Should You Be Wary Of 3 Way Links?

Many people feel that direct reciprocal linking has limited value these days. One way around this is the idea of 3 way links; where site A links to site B, and site B links to site C. Site C then links back to site A again. One problem with this is that it is harder to control where exactly your link is going to end up. If as a matter of policy you have decided that relevance if of paramount importance, then 3 way linking may not be for you, Or at least, it may be harder to organise.

3. Association With Particular Sites?

Your decision whether to link or not should be a bit easier having read this article (hopefully). You should have some criteria in mind as to what constitutes a site you want to be associated with. If the site in question meets your criteria, then add a link. Equally, if that site does not meet your criteria, then steer clear.

4. How To Keep Track Of Links Back To Me?

This is perhaps the hardest and in some cases the most time consuming part of your link building process. Obtaining links is a painstaking and time consuming process, and you don’t want to give your work away too lightly. To protect your links and the integrity of your sites, you should check that your link partners are keeping to their side of the bargain and keeping your links live. You could do this by maintaining a spreadsheet of all of the links, and checking them one by one. Ouch! I can suggest an easier way to do this which will save you many hours a week though. I will go into that at the end of this article.

5. What Are The Best Links To Have?

There is no definitive answer the this question. Maybe one way to answer this is the links that deliver the most traffic to you. Or perhaps the links that give the best value to your customers. There is no right answer. One way to find good potential partners is to type in a specific keyword into the search engines, and contact some of the sites that come up at the top of the results. These should be good potential partners.

What you have now are some good ideas for a link building strategy that allows you to make good decisions based on sound principles, and now you should be better placed to make those decisions.

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Charlie Cory - You can make your link building life an easier by using tools that save you time and money. Link Checking is a breeze when you have the right tool to help you. This tool can also help you find better link partners. You can try some new link building techniques. These are very successful. Techniques that take the pain away from the link building process.

Linking Practices – Part 4 of 3: The Unconfirmed

By Robert Cerff in Featured

Here in part four of “Linking Practices” we will cover how to maximise the benefits of those links we discussed previously (check out part 1: “Links Defined“, part 2: “Links Applied” and part 3: “Link Tricks“).

Okay, so you’ve already noticed that this is part 3 of 4 (you did notice, didn’t you?). After all it is commonly known that the best trilogies come in fours. These are unconfirmed ideas. I don’t think anything can really be classed as a myth or truth in SEO simply because what holds true today may not hold true tomorrow or vice versa. That’s why I refer to these as ideas and not myths. I guess that’s what makes it all so very exciting.

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