Link Building: Anchor Text Style
November 20, 2008
Today while searching for resources for our “Do Follow List OF Lists” my partner discovered a blogger, at http://www.affiliatewatcher.com who was ranting about “Do Follow Blogs.” It has an eye-popping graphic of someone pulling out there hair, that I really liked.
Specifically, he was going off on blogs that have the “u comment i follow” logo on them. This logo was created by Randa Clay to indicate that the blog would pass link juice for any link resulting from commenting.
This person was ranting about how the blog owners should remove these logos if they are on longer relevant. When we are blogging for links we use SEO Quake which produces a line through links that are “No Follow.” So this doesn’t bother us much. There are lots of reason why this might be occurring. It could simply be the plugin is no longer working after an upgrade or hasn’t been set up correctly I’m also sure some of this is intentional.
What really got my attention was when he continues his rant about those people who don’t use their real or assumed names in the name field of the blogs comment section. This is where this story really begins. You see, link building is its most effective and powerful when it produces an anchor text with the link. The name field of blog comments creates the anchor text link.
Blogs often by default, use the name field when they when they turn your comment information into a link. So when we use “Tucson SEO” in the name field it doesn’t mean that we are spamming. It merely means that we want the link to be given a keyword attribute that is related to our website. When I use the name Boris, the search engines can not match the name with this websites content and the link is less useful.
When the anchor text can not be aligned with the websites content, the search engines devalue the link. However, when the anchor text matches the content you now have a very valuable link. Like anything good it can be over used. This is a growing trend that you can expect to see more often.
Many people have a real sense of community in the blogosphere. They grumble every time they see a keyword or keyword phrase used in the blog comments, just as this writer was today. They believe that only your real name should be used exclusively.
They fail to realize with the advent of “No Follow” and Google’s crusade against paid links it has made acquiring links much more difficult. This shrinks the opportunities to acquire links. So we in the SEO and SEM industries must make the best possible use of the links that we are acquiring. That’s why you are seeing an increase in this practice.
All good things can get abused so lets make it a point not to.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, or in the Arizona cities of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and beyond and would like to learn how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479 or 1-866-512-1230 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Do You Ask: Please Link To Our Blog?
November 18, 2008
I spend a fair amount of time on forums and I recently posted a title “The Mother Of All Linkbait.” I was letting everyone known that Cornwall SEO has a great post that included 78 articles on linkbait.
Since I hadn’t read them all, I revisited this post looking to glean some useful information. While mining these posts for quality tidbits I read this “ask your visitor to link to you blog.” Bingo, the lights went off in this marketers head.
We had just started including a “call to action” tagline in some of our more specific posts about SEO, as in “if you need help setting up a link building program call…” But not all posts were a good fit for this. I recently wrote some political based post where I felt a tagline would be tacky.
Then, I realized it would be very simple to ask for a link or a comment. The old sales person in me knows many sales are lost because the seller forgot to ask for the sale. Since, I put a tagline on all the non blog pages why not do the same on the blog?
So this post is about applying common sense, tried and true sales techniques to each blog post. I recommend that your try it and then visit us later and report the results.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, or in the Arizona cities of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and beyond and would like to learn how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479 or 1-866-512-1230.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Google Teaches Basic SEO
November 17, 2008
That’s right Google has created an e-book of sorts that clearly explains the fundamentals of search engine optimization, and it free. But before I go any further, let’s take a look back at Google’s change of heart concerning SEO. That’s right, change of heart. The fact that Google is now embracing SEO represents a 180 degree change for Google.
Back in the day, in a not so distant past Google was at odds with SEO and considered them spammers. Old timers in this business love to tell how easy it was to manipulate the search engines to gain high rankings. That put the SEO community in direct conflict with the search engines. At that time search optimizing a website meant cramming a bunch of keywords in the Meta tags. That morphed to cramming a bunch of keywords into the content. Then it again morphed into a focus on links when it was discovered that Google’s algorithm was based on backlinks. Since our efforts were considered to be spamming Google was forced to adjust their algorithms accordingly and continually.
Google’s spokesman on all matters concerning Search Engine Optimization, Matt Cutts, is part of Google’s anti spam unit. This shows us all what Google has thought about the whole SEO industry. Only recently has Google began to change its position. A few months ago they adjusted their webmaster guidelines to reflect a more positive view on SEO. Now, a few months later they have created their own search engine optimization starter guide. As our industry has matured Google has finally embraced our services as legitimate.
This change is good for everyone involved. Their actions have the effect of legitimizing our industry, which has had a checkered past. SEO can be very confusing for a beginner because there are a myriad of opinions and until now there has been no clear direction provided by the search engines on the best practices. That has finally come to a screeching halt.
I spend a fair amount of time on a couple of dozen industry related forums. I often suggest that people visit Google webmaster guidelines to get the true Google view of things. This is especially true when it comes to discussions on link building. Now, I have a reference for SEO related questions. Yesterday, I linked about a dozen forum comments directly to this document. In other words, this is what Google has to say about SEO.
I am now, planning on incorporating this starter guide as part of my hand-outs at our seminars. Thank you Google.
We are ready to do it right are you?
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, or in the Arizona cities of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and beyond and would like to learn how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479 or 1-866-512-1230 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Got More Time Than Money? Try Help.com
November 17, 2008
I recently discovered this website while reading another blog. The blogs whole focus was about link building. I don’t remember the blog but, I did visit this website and used it and then quickly forgot all about www.help.com.
I rediscovered Help.com today while doing a Google search for ”Geo-targeted SEO.” This site has been ranking high on the first page, as in #1 and #2 for a couple of months for this search. I still check it daily because I still have a hard time believing that we are on the first page of Google for an SEO related search.
Usually it’s the same sites that are there, but today I clicked onto a different search result and landed on Help.com. I had forgotten about this website and that I had placed a free blurb about our business. There on the screen were several paragraphs about our business and the “Do Follow Link” on our website. Yes, I was pleasantly surprised.
I quickly opened a Word document and started writing this post. When you visit Help.com you will see in big bold letters “Start Here: Ask a question, post a rant, tell us your story.” So I told our story which lands on the first page of Google for an SEO related search. I call that Way cool. The website also has a Page Rank of 6.
I can’t say that I have noticed any traffic from the website. But I did pick up a high PR Do Follow backlink, and that’s not so bad, since there aren’t many of those available. The other great thing about this is that when you use a site like this to promote your website you can often get on to the first page even when you can’t get your website there. When and if it does make it to the first page, you have knocked a competitor to the second page of results.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, or in the Arizona cities of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and beyond and would like to learn how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479 or 1-866-512-1230 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Putting Social Back Into Social Media
November 16, 2008
We want to start off by saying that we believe in social media when it is done correctly. We specialize in working with B2B websites and local B2C sites that are not well suited for most traffic that is generated through social media sites. The sites that we work with don’t use AdSense. However, we are still big promoters of social media.
Social Media has been the Holy Grail for Marketers for several years now. The trick, from the marketer’s perspective has been to capture this audience attention and thus drive traffic to their websites or blogs. I attempt to do this as well. But at this point this process hasn’t really become social.
The social part doesn’t come into play unless the visitor actually begins to interact socially. The Wall on FaceBook is a good example of where social media can become interactive and actually social. I believe this is where most small business owners miss a wonderful opportunity. They are only focusing on making a sale and on the bottom line.
I am guilty of this as well, and have written often about the dismal Return On Investment from social media sites. There are numerous stories floating around the blogosphere about huge amounts of traffic created from Digg that resulted in very few conversions. The writer usually concludes that at least they ended up with a couple of hundred links.
The lesson here is that while it is possible to generate huge increases in traffic from social media sites it is very difficult to turn this group into buying customers. That’s where we, as website owners, must become social and a blog is a wonderful tool to accomplish this. We caution clients, potential clients, and anyone who will listen to avoid social media if all they want to do is sell.
Driving social traffic just to sell your product or service is a waste of time. This traffic has come to you as curious window shoppers looking to be social. If you don’t have a vehicle on your website that allows them to interact then this isn’t a social experience for them, after all social requires interaction.
Our blog accomplishes this for our B2B website. We create these articles, and then we submit them to Digg, Stumble and the like. Hopefully someone that visits creates a social experience by leaving a comment. We then take the time to personally respond and do not use an auto responder. If the commenter makes an unusually good comment, we will take the extra time to respond on the blog and by email.
Thus we create a social experience on a business website. Many businesses wrongly think a video accomplishes this for them. But there isn’t anything social about a video if you can not interact with the website.
I see so many blogs were the owner presents their topic and never engages with their responders. I have always seen this as rude and anti social. That’s like being at a dinner party and someone starts a conversation and walks away never to be heard from again.
I’m writing this today because Nicole commented that we had a great “Do Follow List” but that it would be nice if we listed PR as well. So I took the time to email her to thank her for the comment. I took it a step further by explaining why we thought her comment was impractical and too time consuming to implement.
She wrote back today and thanked me for taking the time to send a personal reply. She also noted she would put me on her sites and social bookmark the site. So if you have a blog (a very good social tool) don’t forget to be social, interact with your commenter’s on your blog and by email. Sure it takes time but it also shows that you truly care.
There are no free lunches with social media. It requires lots of time and effort. Social media requires interacting with others and giving freely to strangers.
Are you ready to put social into your media efforts?
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, or in the Arizona cities of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and beyond and would like to learn how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479 or 1-866-512-1230 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Creating Effective Page Titles For High Search Ranking and Traffic
November 14, 2008
We have learned, as many of you have the importance of creating effective Page Titles for your website. When talking to clients, potential clients, or individuals at business mixers this is how we explain Page Titles. We compare Page Titles to the “location, location, location” mantra of real estate. The Page Title is that important.
A lot has been written about the use of effective Keywords in page titles. Since Google allows only 65 spaces for your title you should stay within this parameter. You can go longer and it will be indexed, but it will not appear in the SERP’s. If you’ve ever seen a title in the results that ended like this … then you know that the title went beyond the 65 space limit.
There is a very good reason why you should not go long. Around 45% or so of web searchers use the Page Title when choosing to click on a result. So if your keyword appears beyond the space limit it will be out of view. Out of sight often means that your effort has been wasted. Don’t get greedy and over optimize as it will work against you.
Also don’t include throw away words like; and, or. Eliminate using symbols such as @,$,!, or & and also avoid using commas. We are going to take a look at the home page title from our very our house cleaning website. This site launched an SEO career. It should become apparent why very soon. The Page Title reads:
Tucson House Home Cleaning Janitorial Service Office Business
And these are some of the possible combination of Keywords that include the Geo-targeted keyword Tucson.
Tucson House Cleaning
Tucson House Cleaning Service
Tucson Home Cleaning
Tucson Home Cleaning Service
Tucson Cleaning Service
Tucson Janitorial
Tucson Janitorial Service
Tucson Janitorial Cleaning Service
Tucson Office Cleaning
Tucson Office Cleaning Service
Tucson Business Cleaning
Tucson Business Cleaning Service
So this gives us a total of 12 Keyword phrases in the title.
The real beauty of this is that if you write your content correctly you can create two listings per search on the first page of the results. It is accomplished because we have created individual pages for each specific targeted phrase.
The keyword phrases Tucson House Cleaning and Tucson House Cleaning Service will get indexed for the home page and for the house/home cleaning page.
This is how we ruled the SERP’s in Tucson for cleaning service website as many as 33 times on the first page of Google. Did I say that we closed that business and now exclusively prove web services.
We also targeted these keywords
Commercial
Residential
Building
Local
Garage
Housecleaning
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, or in the Arizona cities of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and beyond and would like to learn how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479 or 1-866-512-1230 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Pizza And Beer SEO
November 14, 2008
Yep, one of our standard recommendations to our clients is that they practice Pizza and Beer SEO. When you’re building a website keyword list you should gather a diverse group of friends, family, and business associates for pizza and beer at a local hot spot. A group of ten or so should just fine.
Once you have the group together ask them all to make a list of words that they might enter as a search query to find your business on the web. Then sit back and enjoy your time together over pizza and beer. Then after and hour or so repeat this process.
Now, your website keyword research kicks into high gear. Now, you will need create a database and record all of the information that you have gathered. You can now comb through your data to see what the common trends are and glean the gems that you might have easily overlooked.
The food and alcohol will affect each person differently and these changes will be observable in a different set of keywords that are developed. Another factor that comes into play is simply the passage of time. The longer that each person has to think about it the more likely that they will choose words that they hadn’t the first time.
It’s actually like having two different groups for market research for the price of one! Not only is Pizza and Beer SEO an effective keyword development strategy, you also save 50 % of the cost of surveying two separate groups. It also will cut you time cost in half.
You see, we understand that all successful websites are a collaborative effort between designer and client. The client does their keyword research and we do ours. Then together we combine this palette of words to paint a well defined and highly targeted website for both the search engine and the customer.
Since we specialize in local SEO no keyword phrase would lack a geographic qualifier.
Update: 11/14/2008 I just presented a seminar on keyword development here in Tucson where we included Pizza and Beer SEO. The program and presentation were very well received.
Now, go forth to conquer the SERP’s in your market.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, or in the Arizona cities of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and beyond and would like to learn how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479 or 1-866-512-1230 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Winning At Keyword Development
November 12, 2008
Tonight I ran across another forum discussion about keyword tools. Everyone tells what they use. This one swears by Wordtracker. The next one thinks AdWords is the greatest things since slice bread. There are always those that like the tool provided by SEOBook. Then there is the smattering of tools that are still obscure.
I seem to be the lone voice that disdains these automated tools. I believe in doing research, yep, good old fashioned and time consuming research. We usually will start out looking at 20 competing websites. We read their web pages from front to back and we take copious notes. We include websites from various regions of the country. This allows you to discover regional variations in language. This is so hugely important. There is no easy way to the top.
We ask the client to come up with their own lists of keywords. Then we perform focus groups. We ask the group to provide keyword feedback on the website. In other words, we ask them what they would search for to find the targeted products or services.
Yes, it does require time and resources, but success isn’t easy in competitive fields. It’s all about thinking outside the box. We use these methods daily because they work.
Then we combine all the research into a database. We use this information to create keyword phrases using 3 or more words, in most cases. Then we place them onto the website and observe what works and what doesn’t.
There is also a new face of keyword development that may eventually change the whole industry dramatically. This new face is Latent Semantic Indexing or LSI. It scores pages on where the keywords appear on the pages.
We invite you to visit SEOBook and Wikipedia to learn more about the growing importance of this new tool.
Generally, we analyze these keywords after 30, 60, and 90 days. We make adjustment based on the website statistics. This is what we call Keyword Development.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in Flagstaff or through out Arizona and beyond and you would like to learn more about how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479 or 1-866-512-1230 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
KISS My Website!
November 11, 2008
I was reading an article today about website usability. When it struck me that what they were saying was the equivalent to Keep It Simple Stupid. I thought, Wow, this really sums up our approach to building websites that convert website visitors into customers.
When I encounter a website that was way too much information crammed onto a page I leave quickly wondering “what were they thinking when they built this site.” These sites often have multiple navigation menus and way too much information. This creates information overload. These websites have very high bounce rates and are not very effective.
Many websites overload you with too many options on the home page. This makes finding anything difficult. They often include flashing avatars to get your attention. They fail to understand how the eyes track when you visit a website. Eye tracking studies have shown that any movement, picture or graphic on a web page actually makes concentrating on the written content more difficult.
This is why we only use simple clean designs that do not overwhelm the visitor. That is why we focus on turning the website visitor into a customer, before we concentrate on “The look and feel” of the website.
As part of our KISS approach we use a hub and spoke system of website design. Our home page hub provides snippets of information about the other pages and provides a link to this detailed information. These links act like spokes that lead away from the hub.
We specialize in building websites for service industries. Visitors to these sites are transactional searchers. The transactional searchers are looking to complete a transaction. They are active and highly motivated to find a service provider who can fulfill there needs. They respond well to clean straight forward websites that clearly define the service and how it will benefit them. The final touch to our KISS approach is that we ask you to pick up the phone and call Now! We do this on every page.
We often remind clients that vanilla ice cream is by far the largest selling flavor of ice cream world wide. We dish up vanilla websites day in and day out. The reality is that the service website visitor is looking you to solve a problem or fulfill a need.
That is why we KISS our websites.
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, or in the Arizona cities of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and beyond and would like to learn how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479 or 1-866-512-1230 Now!
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.
Tucson Search Engine Optimization Meet-Up Now A Reality
November 11, 2008
Tucson Search Engine Optimization Meet-Up Has Arrived.
Tucson SEO Solutions has created a seven part seminar series called the “Create A Successful Website Series.” This series will include seven one training sessions spread over a seven week period.
Week one will cover how to develop keyword phrases. 11/12 Completed.
Week two will be covering the importance of in-bound link development. 11/19 This is a do not miss seminar and that is because Google’s algorithm is based on website linking to each other. Link building and SEO work hand in hand.
Week three will cover how to market your website. 11/26
Week four will take a look at the most effective marketing tool available. 12/03
Week five will include Search Engine Optimization or SEO. 12/10
Week six will be all about what works and what doesn’t. 12/17
Week seven will explore the advantages of ethical email marketing. 01/07
We are currently charging nothing for this training. That right we will be providing thousands of dollars of training at no cost. If we find at out there is a high no show rate we will then consider a RSVP registration fee. Seating is limited to 20 members and guests.
If you are interested to becoming a member please visit our Tucson Search Engine optimization Meet-Up page.
If you have joined our Meet-Up group please do introduce yourself and tell us about your website. If you haven’t joined yet, but have questions please comment below.
Update 11/11 2008
I am very excited about tomorrows seminar. It will be the first in our journey to create a successful website. We are happy to be offering hundreds, if not thousands of dollars of free training to local merchants. I love what I do and I really enjoy empowering businesses to leverage the internet to grow your business. I am looking forward to meeting you tomorrow.
Update 11/12/2008
WE had our first meeting last night. The group was small but we had some lively discussions. The session went at bit long at over two and a half hours, but it was a very rewarding experience. I learned that although keyword development is the cornerstone of any website it may have not been the best topic to have started the series with.
I sat that, because much of the discussion covered how to apply keywords which is covered in other sections of the seminars. So the next time I offer this series I will re-arrange the order of the presentations. I want to also take the time to thanks those who attended.
Are you ready to create a successful website?
We invite you to join the conversation and leave a comment. We also invite you to continue the conversation on your blog or perhaps use a trackback, or maybe even social bookmark this article, give it a Digg it, or Stumble it.
To learn more about our services please check out these links:
Local SEO Tucson Website Designs Phoenix SEO Tucson Search Engine Optimization
Small Business SEO Solutions Geo-Targeted SEO Solutions Niche SEO Solutions Do Follow Blog List
If your business is located in US, Canada, or in the Arizona cities of Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and beyond and would like to learn how your website can benefit from a blog please call Tucson SEO at 520-777-6479.
Tucson SEO… Solutions that create probabilities out of possibilities.