Online SEO Blog, Search Engine Optimization, Online Marketing Blog

Link building is one of the most important search engine optimization steps. Without good inbound links, your website cannot get high rankings. Although it is very important that your website has optimized content, without the links to your website, search engines won't consider that content much.

It's important to get the right links to your website. Link spamming doesn't work. You must make sure that you get high quality links that Google and other search engines like.

Step 1: Make your website linkworthy

You must make your website linkworthy. You cannot expect that other websites link to your website if your site is basically a collection of affiliate links or an online shop that looks like a thousand other online shops.

Your website must be different. Try the following:

• Add articles about your products or services to your website.
• Add tutorials and how-to articles about the topic of your website.
• If you have a lot to say, add a blog to your website.
• Add a directory with links to valuable resources on your website.

Step 2: Check your competitors

The best way to start link building is to duplicate the links that your competitors have. Find all websites that link to your competitors and then try to convince them to link to your website.

Step 3: Get links from blogs

There are millions of blogs on the Internet and they all need something to write about. Getting links from blogs is a good way to get links from related websites.

Step 4: Get links from Internet directories

Submitting your website to Internet directories can be a good way to show Google that you have a reputable website. Low quality websites usually don't invest the time and money that is needed to be listed in Internet directories.

Search engines are continuously fighting for supremacy and in order to return the most accurate results to queries, the newest technologies must be exploited in full swing. Yahoo!, whose approach of semantic search was rather cautious, explains why this method does have some technical limitations.

"The current generation of search engines is severely limited in its understanding of the user's intent—and the web's content—and consequently in matching the needs for information with the vast supply of resources on the web." says Peter Mika, Researcher at Yahoo! Research, Barcelona, focusing on Semantic Web technologies in an article for DevX.com.

Considering the fact that language processing has not become the most familiar tool to search engines, some queries are hard to be handled. For example, the secondary meaning of a term is rarely taken into account in a search, which makes the retrieval of precise results very difficult. Moreover, multimedia items are, sometimes, impossible to be retrieved, as they are usually described in a few tag words or sentences that crawlers are hard to recoup. Furthermore, everyone knows that, when they don't know the precise word to use when conducting a query, descriptions of the object are usually useless.

Natural language processing (which disambiguates some keywords from the context offered by a database) and semantic web (which uses metadata offered by publishers) are the two technologies used in semantic search, but they still have flaws. However, Yahoo!'s semantic search business is indicated as a pioneer, all the more so as it is an open platform to be also used by professionals.

"In SearchMonkey, Resource Description Framework made it possible to separate syntax and vocabulary in that publishers are free to use any vocabulary, opening up the system to support the long tail of web content." explains Mika as to why Yahoo!'s search open platform is most useful. Publishers are advised to use Yahoo!'s technologies for their applications because their metadata is allowed to work locally and it is not integrated in the centralized context.

The number one position on Google is something that most webmasters try to achive. Unfortunately, many webmasters don't take the time to find the best keywords for optimization. This can lead to problems with pay per click and with organic search engine optimization.

Suppose you sell ovens on your website. Many webmasters think that it would be a good idea to optimize the website for keywords such as "oven" or "furnace". It's not and we'll tell you why relying on the seemingly obvious keywords will cost you a lot of time and money.

You might lose money with every keyword

A new pay per click study shows that it is not profitable to have the first position for one to two words keywords. The most profitable positions in the paid results for short keywords were the fifth and the sixth position.

Keywords that consisted of three-words were profitable when the website was listed in the second or third position.

Why do people lose money when they bid for the first position?

One or two-word keywords are very general. That means that many companies think that their websites are relevant to these keywords. Many companies bid on the keyword and the keyword becomes very expensive.

In addition, general keywords don't attract targeted visitors. People who enter "oven" in a search engine might be looking for an oven manual, they might search for dutch oven recipes, for industrial ovens and many other different things.

They might not be interested in buying a new oven, even if you offer them on your website for really good prices.

That means that the keywords are expensive and the visitors that you get through these short keywords are not targeted. For that reason, it is very difficult to get a positive return on investment for these short keywords.

Keywords that consist of three or more keywords are much more targeted and they have less competition. For example, it is much better to have high rankings for keywords such as "buy an oven" or "smith oven model xp356" if you sell ovens.

People who whose multiple word keywords are in the compare or buying phase. They are more likely to purchase goods or services than those using fewer words (source: Oneupweb Research).

In addition, fewer people bid on multiple word keywords. For that reason, it makes sense to focus on these words.

How does this apply to organic search engine results?

While you don't have to pay for every click if your website is listed in the organic search results, it takes some time and work to get listed in the top 10 results.

The competition for general one or two-word keywords is much higher than the competition for specific keywords that will deliver targeted visitors to your website.

If you want to have a good return on investment, you should concentrate on multiple word keywords. These keywords deliver much better visitors and it is easier to get high rankings for them.

Here are 7 tips I've found can reduce bounce rate. They really do work, unless you're an overworked blogger who's running an agency, writing a book and has 2 kids under the age of 10:

1. Answer questions. When someone comes to your site, they're probably not thinking "Gee, I wonder what their office looks like." Instead, they're asking, "Do you have the mountain bike I really want"? Which question do you answer? Answer the latter and you'll keep more visitors. (Inspired by Specialized.com)
2. Simplify. Believe it or not, every person in your company does not get to contribute one link to your home page. The average person is most comfortable processing 5-7 choices at a time. Don't overwhelm them. Simplify by removing options or at least grouping and prioritizing them. How many links does Google have on their home page? How about Apple? Look at your traffic reports, find out what visitors really want, and then link to that and only that. If anyone in your office whines, blame me.
3. Remove autoplay videos. My first reflex if a video starts playing and music that sounds like a bad 70's porn flick comes streaming out of my speakers is to hit the back button. I'm willing to bet most people feel the same way. Remove the video altogether, or at least have it paused.
4. Improve pageload time. If your home page takes more than 8 seconds to look intelligible, you're probably shedding visitors. Note I said 'look intelligible', not 'load completely'. If there's a huge image or a video that takes longer, that's OK, as long as it doesn't prevent the rest of the page from loading. Trim 2-3 seconds off your pageload time and watch the bounce rate drop. Proof? When I first relaunched my blog, a bug in the code led to 10-15 second load times. Once we fixed it, the bounce rate dropped by 30%.
5. Write a better headline. A punchy, take-action headline will keep visitors. Instead of "Enterprise Security Solutions for A Web 2.0 Workplace", try "Protect Your Network" (I made this example up).
6. Move the important stuff up. If you have a store, show products near the top of the page. If you're promoting a candidate, put that message at the top. Always put your call to action up high, front-and-center. If you're uncomfortable doing that, you may have the wrong call to action.
7. Dump the popup. I shouldn't even have to say this any more, but if you have a popup or other annoyance on your home page, get rid of it. You're losing a lot more than you're gaining, plus you're making me hate you.

SEO. PPC. Social Media. Pagerank. Link authority.

What the hell?

If you're not an internet marketer, here's a list of terms so that you can translate what someone like me spouts at you in a caffeine-induced rush.

This isn't a comprehensive internet marketing glossary. Just the terms we'd probably use without thinking about it. Print this list and hang it next to your phone:

A-list bloggers. aka A-listers or Those Miserable Buggers (when I'm feeling jealous). All those writers who dominate the Technorati rankings (see Technorati, below). Getting a nod from one of these folks can mean exponential growth in site traffic.

Affiliate marketing. Selling your product through other web sites or e-mail lists by paying the site or list owner for each sale. Great for expanding your sales network. May cause severe migraines.

Analytics. Taking traffic data and other information about your web site, analyzing it, and then providing insight. Note that a raw report is not analytics.

AJAX. Not the cleaning stuff. Generic term for forms that let you modify data on a page without reloading the entire page. You care because it looks neat, is speedy, but may kill you in the search engines.

Blog. Short for 'web log'. A fancy word for a web site where you publish short entries on a regular basis and let visitors post comments about those entries.

CMS. Content Management System. A web application (see below) that allows users to add and edit web pages on a web site without learning HTML. May cause mass celebration or mutiny among web teams.

Conversion rate. The number of sales, leads or other desired actions that occur on your web site, compared to the total number of visitors.

Domain name. The address of your web site.

Dynamic web site. A web site generated using a web application and a database. These sites will often change from one visit to the next, or one moment to the next.

Flash. An animation and interactive platform that lets you create very complex movement on a page. One of the best ways to distribute video. YouTube uses Flash to distribute all video on the site. Also a great way to make your customers hate you.

Hit. Any one file downloaded from your site one time. A single page of a web site, viewed once, may generate 30 or more hits. Great if you need to impress your boss. Lousy as a measure of web site traffic.

Link authority. The 'vote' provided to a page on your web site when another web site (or page within your web site) links to it. Search engines include these 'votes' in their ranking algorithms.

Movable Type. A popular blogging platform.

Pageview. Any one page of your site completely loading any one time. If I visit your web site and look at 3 pages, that will count as 3 page views.

PEBCAK error. Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard. An expression I may use if forced to spend 2 hours troubleshooting a web site failure, only to learn your computer was unplugged from the network.

Ping. Originally a networking term, in internet marketing parlance 'ping' means notifying the world that you've updated your web site. Pings are usually sent automatically to sites such as Technorati.

PPC. Pay Per Click marketing. Bidding for position in the sponsored search engine rankings. Higher bids have a better chance of a higher ranking, although there are other factors. Great way to generate business fast, or spend a small fortune and get no return at all. Use with caution.

Ranking algorithm. The mysterious black box that determines how you rank for a specific keyword. Google has one algorithm. Yahoo! has theirs. Microsoft does their best to copy Google's.

Reciprocal linking. Linking to someone else's web site in return for them linking to you. This used to help with search engine rankings. Now helps you disappear from the search rankings.

Registrar. The service you use to reserve a domain name.

RSS. A type of text file that delivers a list of headlines and content directly to feed readers and other software. Stands for 'Really Simple Syndication'.

SEO. Search Engine Optimization. Working to insure your web site will get as high a ranking as possible in the unpaid search results in the major search engines.

Social media. A term coined by someone who wanted to publish more books. Usually refers to the many blogs, bookmarking sites and other sites that allow visitors to interact with each other and the web site owner. May also refer to a drunk journalist at a party.

Spam. Used to refer only to unsolicited e-mail. May also refer to unproductive comments or repeated submissions to blogs or discussion forums. Or a Monty Python skit.

Static web site. A web site that isn't connected to a database. 'Static' refers to the fact that the page does not change.

URL. Uniform Resource Locator. The unique address of one file on the internet.

Unique visitor. Any one visitor coming to your site any number of times in the time period. If I come to your web site 30 times in a month, I still only count as one unique visitor.

Visit. Any user visiting your site any one time.

Web 2.0. See 'social media', above. Refers generically to any site that looks cooler than sites before 1999. Seriously. I have no idea what this phrase means.

Web 3.0. Synonym for 'Ian, please punch me in the liver'.

Web Application. Usually refers to a database-driven web site, such as a shopping cart.

Wordpress. A popular blogging platform.

XHTML. Successor to HTML. XHTML is used to build web pages.