SEO is a never ending battle!
So is SEO over-rated I dont think it is. Some say that Googles automated PageRank system and Alexas Traffic Rank system are losing ground. This may be may be true to some point but the fact still remains that we want at the top of the search results. And to achieve this we need to educate ourselves and do the work or hire someone else to the work for us.
Search Engine Optimization SEO is a term we see all over the net. For those of you that are unsure exactly what is meant by SEO, its simply adjusting many characteristics of your website to conform with what the major search engines deem important. Thats where the simple stops. Its complicated only because no one other than the developers themselves know all the rules and even then the rules are constantly changing.
What Ill try to do here is cover the basics that have fairly consistent lately. Keep in mind however there will always be inconsistencies when it comes SEO. For example, I recently read an e-book that said to imbed a few of your primary keywords in the alt tag of your logo graphic. The same day, I was reading an online article of equal quality and this author cautioned against such a tactic due to possible penalties by the search engines. So which did I do See for yourself by hovering your mouse over the logo. I dont mind a little risk as long as the risk is low and there may be nice benefits, but dont get carried away. We certainly dont want to get banned by any search engines. I get the heebie-jeebies just saying it. That would simply end many of us. Because Googles PageRank and Alexas Traffic Rank systems are really two different animals, I will focus primarily on Googles PageRank system for now.
So lets get started in no particular order.
Link Popularity: I guess we can start with the hardest part of search engine optimization. Link popularity. The ultimate goal here is to gain the respect of the search engines. And how we do that is by who we know or at least associate with in the spiders eyes. We want as many quality incoming links as possible with as few low-ranked outbound links as possible. We need to consider several factors when we approach any site to request a link exchange.
1. First of all, we want to focus only on sites that compliment ours. By that I mean directly on indirectly are in the same category or field or relating field as our site without necessarily competing with our site. I say not-necessarily because personally I have no problem linking to competitors site as long as we both mutually agree benefits. Some fear theyll lose some of their site visitors but I feel the best way to keep visitors on your site and get them to return is by providing a high quality site with great original content.
2. Second we want to pay attention to their Google page rank. To do this if you havent already done so, download Google free toolbar http://toolbar.google.com/ Once installed, you can see the PageRank of any site you go to. You want as many sites as possible with high PRs. Set a goal of getting a few PR6 or PR7 sites. This will do wonders to your rank. In fact one PR7 might do more for you than hundreds on no or very low PR sites.
3. Third, the engines like to see incoming links from what they consider on authoritative site. So aggressively go after well established, high ranking sites that share the some focus as your site.
4. Fourth on our list are the sites to stay away from. Sites that generate artificially created links. Link farms and even huge link exchange sites can even get your site banned. I dont mean to make anyone nervous here. The fact is, if you are generally doing the right thing for the right reasons, you probably have nothing to worry about. If you find yourself trying to hide something or hoping an search engine doesnt catch something, then you may want to re-evaluate your strategies.
Requesting a link. The first thing you should do when requesting a link exchange is little research. Glance over the site in question and consider where your site link might hold the most relevance one their site.
This will benefit both parties. And then dont be afraid to offer the suggestions when you contact the site administrator. I have had sites accept my link on a suggested page even though they have a section designed just for outside links. I have even accepted links that I would have normally rejected because the fit would have seemed wrong if they hadnt shown a better fit.
Always add their link to your site before you make the request and include the page url of the link when making contact. Keep track of the contacts youve made and if you havent received a reply. Do a simple search on there site to see if they added your link and forgot to reply. At most, send one more request and be sure to include the words link exchange in the subject line so they dont delete your mail as spam. Then if you still dont get a reply within a week simply remove theirs from your site and move on. Dont send any more mail. Consider the lack of response as a rejection and accept it. Dont take things personal and send a negative e-mail. I have actually received a couple of these and theres really no point. If you do get a reply and a link send a short thank you note.
Always include the exact text of the link you want on their site. Again, before you do this it helps if you look at other links on their site. If they have a 3 or 4 word description with each link, you dont want to send a whole paragraph in your links description. What you do want to do is include your best key words. In fact, a short description with the right key words can benefit you far better than a watered down version. Keep it short and sweet.
Make things as easy as possible for the webmaster. Include the html code of your link so he/she can just copy and paste if they decide to.
Sample Link Exchange Request Letter
Hi, I am the administrator and site owner of YourSiteHere.com
I would like to apply for a link exchange with your site.
I have already linked to your site, you can view it at:
http://reciprocal.YourSiteHere.com/
Basic exchange information
Site name:
Extreme Site Promotions
URL:
http://www.YourSiteHere.com
Site Description:
Extreme sit promotion techniques for internet marketing campaigns, site promotion and internet advertising.
Category:
Internet marketing/Web promotion
Where our site reciprocates:
http://reciprocal.YourSiteHere.com.com/
Contact information
Name:
Your Name
Email address:
admin@YourSiteHere.com
Extreme promotions techniques for internet marketing campaigns. Site promotion andinternet advertising.Feel Free to download the supplied graphics located at http://www.YourSiteHere.com/graphics and use them to link back to our home page. Our site can only reciprocate with a text link.
Link/ Resource Page- If you decide to dedicate a page or two to link exchanges, stay with the over all theme of your site. And the best way to create a links page is by doing it manually. An automated system can be less affective and can even get you in trouble if not maintained closely.
Organize your links into categories and set a limit of about 50 links or so to a page.
Include on your links page an example of the link you want used linking back to your site. Again, use your key words. It might also be nice to offer a few graphics or banners in case a site would prefer to use a graphic linked back to you. Give them permission to download the images and use them to link to your site. I always include a comment such as,
Feel Free to download the supplied graphics located at www.YourSiteHere.com/graphics and use them to link back to our home page. Our site can only reciprocate with a text link.
I think its better to provide a link to the graphic page rather than sending attachments. In todays age of viruses, you risk you email getting deleted right away if it contains an attachment.
I have learned from experience that many sites arent going to play fair, and even more of them are not keeping their sites updated. I have a nice link exchange program that Ive built over a many month period and a couple months ago, a friend of mine let me in on a new link tag: content=noindex,nofollow He suggested that I use it for links such as affiliate links and other non-reciprocating links. Why let these sites suck up my page rank with nothing in return As I was adding the tags, I went to my links page and began checking each site for a reciprocal link. To my amazement, over 50% had no link back to my site. This means that most of the 50% had removed the link after a short period and maybe a few had squeaked by me without ever adding one. Another reason I was surprised by this is that about 75% of the links on that site were requested by the other party. So what can you do Ireined my system. I added a note at the top of the page and I began making these changes:
For every site that I couldnt find a like from, I added the word pending and I also added the content=noindex,nofollow tag. This would reduce one sided benefit until I notify each site and give them a chance to ad mine. I could have deleted these links but this method is better for a few reasons. First, it relays a message to future exchange sites that were paying attention. Second, its possible that I made a mistake and the link is there. And lastly, they may have a mistake themselves. so each site will be contacted individually before they are removed. A huge project that Im not looking forward to but it has to be done.
As for the sites that did reciprocate, they get a double benefit. They get the word confirmed next to their link with a second link to their site going directly to the page where our links resides. This will make life much easier in the future when it comes to re-checking reciprocal links. All Ill have to do is click on the confirmed link and it should be there.
Brian Hawkins - Entrepreneur, Internet Marketer, Online business consultant, Author. Site owner and administrator of several sites including: and
This is the first lesson out of 6 that teaches you the most important elements of search engine optimization. You should read one of these 6 courses EVERY day so that you can have enough time to digest all the information and put them to the test. Now today is DAY #1 and I will start with the first course on the list:
Choosing THE keywords to optimize for
1) The first step in search engine optimization is choosing the right keywords that you want to rank well for on the search engines. This is very easy to do nonetheless many webmasters FAIL HERE! Ok for this course I will be using a website about jokes as an example. First you need to use the very powerful keyword tool that Overture offers, you can see it here: http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
2) Now the second step is to put jokes and search for it in the overture keyword tool. The results that I received are shown here:
Count Search Term
927525 joke
116589 funny joke
65099 blonde joke
60135 dirty joke
47577 joke of the day
38086 good joke
37347 yo mama joke
35360 joke online prank
30615 clean funny joke
As you can see there are thousands of searches done monthly using these keywords and by ranking well in search engines you can get all these visitors for FREE! Wait dont get too excited and DONT try to rank for the keyword joke because if you search in Google for that keyword you will find out that there are more than 15 MILLION pages competing for that specific keyword! So what do you do Well start small and target less competitive keywords to get some good traffic to begin with and then target the BIG FISH! Alright for example you can target the keyword yo mama joke which is searched for approximately 37347 times every month and YET there are only 310,000 pages competing for it! You CAN rank very well for this keyword and be on the FIRST page to receive more than 30,000 hits to your website every month. Thats 1000 visitors everyday for one keyword FREE!
3) We have chosen a keyword that is not very competitive but gets quite a lot of searches and it is yo mama jokes. You can choose a few other keywords like blonde joke which has less than 1 million pages competing. And joke online prank with only 200,000 competitors.
4) Now take a few minutes to think of a keyword that is related to your website and repeat steps 1 to 3. Its easy and wont take more than a few minutes. Choose the right keywords and wait for lesson two!
WOW I must have you thinking now, what if you start competing for the more competitive keywords later and get even more visitors! Well you can once you master this and you will hit the million page views mark in no time. This wont happen overnight nor will it happen in days. This will take weeks of hard work but the end result is EXPLOSIVE LASER TARGETED TRAFFIC for FREE.
Someones sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. - Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaways Billionaire Chairman)
Take a few minutes everyday to read the courses and try them on your website. All this information is FREE so why not spend some time and learn it You have nothing to lose.
If you would like to contact me anytime and either complain (why would you!) or give me your testimonial then feel free to do so anytime. Im there if you need any more help also.
Ahmed Omran is an experienced webmaster and marketer who owns Custom Website Design and