Webmarketing123

Webinar Recap: Powerful Link Building Strategies That Work

February 4th, 2011 by Webmarketing123

In case you missed this week’s webinar with  on Powerful Link Building Strategies That Work, here is a brief overview of why link building is essential for any business and the strategies a business can use to strengthen their link building.

Why is link building important? 3 simple words:  Third Party Validation.  Your site becomes more credible when you have other sites that refer to you.  One way to think about this is in terms of votes.  Each time a site refers to you, it’s a vote for your website as a source of authority on the subject.

Who needs a link building strategy? Every site needs a linking campaign.  Link building is one of the most important components of SEO and if you want your site to be in the top results that searchers see, it is completely necessary.

How can I improve my link building strategy? There are 5 different link building strategies we discussed:

1. Diversify your links: You want to get your links from several different types of websites, including article syndications, press release sites, blogs, forums, paid listings and directories.

2. Set up a directory link: There are several different types of directories that are available.  The first thing you want to do is make sure to Google the directory to make sure it has been crawled, ensuring traffic.  Then you need to submit your website to be indexed. Directories, such as DMOZ, can reject your submission.

3. Creating good links: You preferably want the keyword you are optimizing for to be the anchor text, the clickable link, and it is extremely important to choose good keywords.

4. Link proportioning: Be sure to diversify the links in not only in number, but also the keywords you are targeting and the landing pages of the links.  It is always important to have the landing pages tailored to the specific keyword you are targeting

5. Not all links are created equal: It is important to understand that all links are not equal.  One important change is that reciprocal links (two-way linking) is no longer effective.  You should always get one-way links to your website and target quality links rather than quantity of links.  Linking from sites that have more credibility increases the link value for search engines.  It is also important not to build all your links at once, but try and set up 30-50 quality links a month.

Don’t just focus on one of these strategies, but try and employ all of them in order to see the fastest results.  Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither should your link building campaign.  Although link building requires full-time resources, it is essential to the SEO process.  Link building will increase your site credibility and ranking, which is the best way for your business to increase leads and sales.

-Ami

Linking Tips for Ranking #1

September 9th, 2010 by Sarah Shakour

Linking is one of the most misunderstood concepts in Search Engine Optimization, but is very significant to your business. If you don’t have a good linking program in place, your site won’t rank well. On last Thursday’s webinar, held by Paul Taylor and Travis Low, they focused on key points and tips on why building a good linking campaign is crucial for your site, especially those top 10 spots on page 1 of search engines site. To start off, let’s go over some need-to-know facts.

  • Research shows if you are not on the first page, most visitors won’t go beyond page one.
  • If you’re ranked number one on the first page of search engine sites, you will have 10 times more of a chance to get clicked on than someone who is ranked number ten (42% vs. 3% click-through-rate, respectively).
  • Inbound linking is the most cost-effective way to improve rankings (we’ll get into definitions later).
  • Nowadays, the top 3 positions on the 1st page are normally considered “above the fold.”
  • Organic searches, overall, still get majority of clicks compared to Paid searches (but we’re currently working on a case study, so stay tuned!).
  • The importance of ranking high will translate to more revenue, and business growth!

There are a few ways to link your site in order to get a better ranking. One way is through inbound links, which are hyperlinks on external sites that you don’t own which link back to your site. These sites should be relevant to your business and regarded high by search engines, so that the inbound links serve as “votes” that tell search engines your site is useful and relevant. It is also important to diversify your links, and not just add a whole bunch to navigate to just one page. Directories are the quickest and easiest way to build up your search rankings and press releases help optimize your keywords. However, one tool that does not help with ranking is social media. All social media sites that you are accustomed to—like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn—have no follow tags. They tell search engine spiders to not follow the text outside of their website, so your site can’t link any of the “juice.” (For more information on the diversity of inbound links, check below on how to get a copy of the slides!)

In addition, internal links are links within your site for Google spiders to know what your site is about, and to see a “content silo” of inter-linked pages. It is imperative to keep the theme distinctive, which will strengthen your website and rank.

One thing that should be known about linking is that it is a gradual process. You want it to be a diverse group you’re ranking from, and the gradual buildup will allow your rankings to look like a natural evolution. Not all links are created equal, so you want to create one that will have a lot of domain authority as well as making sure Google sees that it is relevant.

Every site benefits from linking; e.g. if you don’t have the budget for a full SEO campaign but need to boost search engine rankings, if your site is optimized but not ranking well, and/or if your site needs to be optimized but faces technical limitations. Be sure to proceed with caution, and build a timeline for implementing this process! If you have any questions, or need evaluation and analysis, Webmarketing123 can assist you. Contact Mark Powers at (800) 619-1570 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (800) 619-1570 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or Mark.P@webmarketing123.com–and don’t forget to ask for a copy of the slides!

-Sarah

The Six Pillars of SEO — The Cliff’s Notes version

April 15th, 2010 by Janet Salsman

I got six

Our Introduction to SEO webinar series continued today with The Six Pillars of SEO.  Here’s the two-minute, Cliff’s Notes version:

  1. Keywords:  These are the words you are optimizing around, the terms that you want to show up for when users search.
  2. Site Content:  Writing keyword-rich content helps search engine crawlers recognize your pages as relevant.
  3. Meta Content:  Customizing your page titles, meta content, and meta keywords, while old-school, are still best practice for optimization.
  4. URLs:  Using your keywords in your URLs will improve your rankings on results pages.
  5. Inbound Links:  When other sites link to your site as an authority, search engines are more likely to see you as one, too, moving you up the rankings.
  6. Content Silos:  Organizing your content into cohesive units helps search engine crawlers perceive your themes and find you more relevant.

And if you want to schedule a free site analysis for more details, click here.