An important part of SEO is finding a good link building service, which I've discussed in the previous posts.
What you really need is to either outsource it, or use an automated link building service. Sitting there building links which may or may not stick for hours on end continuously isn't fun (I've done it from time to time - it isn't!) so think about a link building service.
So how can the link building service be automated? Well there are people who will do a link building service for you - I use a guy on the Warrior Forum called Matt Laclear - his link building service offers do what they say on the tin. Look him up, read the link building service offers, decide if you want what he's offering - and buy, you will get it.
Secondly I use another pay link building service or two, one of which is a Fully Automated SEO Backlinks Service this service is not cheap, but it's seriously cool. Here's how this link building service works, you give it your URL's, you give it your keywords and it churns out the links. It even includes a really useful rank tracker section and a special extra called links for links, which basically links to the links linking to your website! Making them more powerful. It takes 10 to 20 minutes to set the basic link building service up if you've already done your keyword research.
Another link building service I use, which does require a little work but definately works is Unique Article Wizard , this link building service requires you to write articles, it takes an hour or so to churn an article out and format it properly. Then you can submit it automatically and it will create between 100 and 300 links depending on your choices. You need to be able to write to use it, it does take time, but it seems to create good sticky links which tend to get indexed. You can use a unique pen name, then do a google search to find your links.
There are probably other link building services out there too, I've tried a few - Scrape Box for example. Some people swear by scrape box, but I found it just didn't suit the niches I was targetting.
I use some tools for rank tracking and backlink checking too - but I'll cover these in another post. On the importance scale of things, I would put backlink building up there near the top.
Thursday, 12 January 2012
Thursday, 1 December 2011
SEO Master Class and the SEO KWD vs Backlinks Experiment.
I've been tracking the results of my SEO experiment listed here:-
On Page SEO: Keyword Density Experiment.
And I've just had a break-through! The site which has NO mention at all of the keyword - but a handful of contextual links has now been indexed and appears in the search results of google for the target keyword.
Where does it appear? It appears at the bottom of the list - below any site with mentions on it.
What does this mean? Well, one theory I had was that the ranking was resolved with some kind of multiplication - (contextual links) x (PageRank+1) x (instances of keyword on the page)
This would have meant unless you had at least one mention - it would give no combined authority and relevance. I know everyone is going to throw their arms up and quote 'Adobe Acrobat' and 'Click here' but realistically 'Click Here' probably does appear somewhere on their site - What I've done is proven without question that you can rank for a term which is not mentioned on the site through backlinks. I know this has been said before - but I wanted to prove it without question and I have.
However - the page is ranking below all the other sites, which have NO backliks at all. So what does this mean? Well, the next stage is to see how many backlinks I need to create to get the site with no mention to trump the on-page optimized sites.
Currently the winner is the 6.95% density site.
Second is the 4.86% site.
Third is 1.53% but it's long and has 25 mentions of the KW
Fourth is the 1.93% density site.
Fifth and six are posts on the log of the experiment - with hardly any density - then 7th is the no mention, but a handful of contextual links.
So what does this prove that is useful for you?
1. You can rank for a keyword that is not mentioned once on a site.
2. Your main keyword/keywords should be optimized - probably up to 7% certainly at least up to 7% doesn't give you any penalty. I may test this further by making a 25% density page to see if it gets penalized for being spammy.
3. So why all the fus about backlinks? How important are backlinks?
- Backlinks are very important, because there is a clear limit to how much relevance and authority you can gain from onpage.
So given all this information - what's my process for building a site I want to rank?
1. Pick a main keyword, possibly up to five - optimize your onpage content so you have at about 7% density and the keyword in URL, title, description, meta-keywords - the usual stuff.
2. Only once you've done that - start building or outsourcing links - following good backlinking practice is another topic, but finish step 1 then start this step.
3. Add more content, keep the density the same - the experiment has proven that at a level - mentions can trump density, density is the first priority.
4. Increase the backlink building - keeping it looking natural, and using good quality links and all the usual bunf that goes with this.
5. Now you should be starting to rank well for at least your main KW depending on the competition - now you can start building backlinks for keywords that are less important, and aren't optimized on page. If they have a little density they will rank faster and better, so maybe save the keywords which have no mentions on the site for last?
That's my theory anyway - based on the results of the experiment. I will continue the experiment and report any major changes, but hopefully this will give anyone who wants it, an idea of the best way to spend their time.
On Page SEO: Keyword Density Experiment.
And I've just had a break-through! The site which has NO mention at all of the keyword - but a handful of contextual links has now been indexed and appears in the search results of google for the target keyword.
Where does it appear? It appears at the bottom of the list - below any site with mentions on it.
What does this mean? Well, one theory I had was that the ranking was resolved with some kind of multiplication - (contextual links) x (PageRank+1) x (instances of keyword on the page)
This would have meant unless you had at least one mention - it would give no combined authority and relevance. I know everyone is going to throw their arms up and quote 'Adobe Acrobat' and 'Click here' but realistically 'Click Here' probably does appear somewhere on their site - What I've done is proven without question that you can rank for a term which is not mentioned on the site through backlinks. I know this has been said before - but I wanted to prove it without question and I have.
However - the page is ranking below all the other sites, which have NO backliks at all. So what does this mean? Well, the next stage is to see how many backlinks I need to create to get the site with no mention to trump the on-page optimized sites.
Currently the winner is the 6.95% density site.
Second is the 4.86% site.
Third is 1.53% but it's long and has 25 mentions of the KW
Fourth is the 1.93% density site.
Fifth and six are posts on the log of the experiment - with hardly any density - then 7th is the no mention, but a handful of contextual links.
So what does this prove that is useful for you?
1. You can rank for a keyword that is not mentioned once on a site.
2. Your main keyword/keywords should be optimized - probably up to 7% certainly at least up to 7% doesn't give you any penalty. I may test this further by making a 25% density page to see if it gets penalized for being spammy.
3. So why all the fus about backlinks? How important are backlinks?
- Backlinks are very important, because there is a clear limit to how much relevance and authority you can gain from onpage.
So given all this information - what's my process for building a site I want to rank?
1. Pick a main keyword, possibly up to five - optimize your onpage content so you have at about 7% density and the keyword in URL, title, description, meta-keywords - the usual stuff.
2. Only once you've done that - start building or outsourcing links - following good backlinking practice is another topic, but finish step 1 then start this step.
3. Add more content, keep the density the same - the experiment has proven that at a level - mentions can trump density, density is the first priority.
4. Increase the backlink building - keeping it looking natural, and using good quality links and all the usual bunf that goes with this.
5. Now you should be starting to rank well for at least your main KW depending on the competition - now you can start building backlinks for keywords that are less important, and aren't optimized on page. If they have a little density they will rank faster and better, so maybe save the keywords which have no mentions on the site for last?
That's my theory anyway - based on the results of the experiment. I will continue the experiment and report any major changes, but hopefully this will give anyone who wants it, an idea of the best way to spend their time.
Tuesday, 27 September 2011
SEO : Where to start?
The first thing you need to do before optimizing your site is is choose the keywords you are going to target.
This is critical, ideally you should choose something specific, which will bring good traffic, and not have too many sites competing hard for the first pages.
The easiest free way of optimizing your target keywords is to use Googles Keyword Finder Tool simply enter a keyword into the box that you think suits your site, and google with give you information on how many searches there are monthly, both globally and locally for that particular word. One word keywords are going to be VERY hard to compete on, popular two word phrases will also, so look for a three word combination that suits your site and has good monthly search traffic.
Once you have your target keywords - you can start optimizing your site. You should ideally try to have your keyword in:-
What this means is for the first two hundred words you write on your site you should include the keyword between five and eight times. This should allow your site to seem relevant but not like you are blatantly spamming the target keyword. You also need to keep in mind your human readers - my suggestion is to write for human readers, then use a good keyword analysis tool like SEO Quake to check the density and tweak it a little.
You should also try to include various media on your site, include images and video's and optimise their alternative tag for the keyword. The more content you can include the better, there might be an upper limit, but a 2.5% density keyword distribution that is big enough to include the keyword seven times, will rank higher than one that only has it mentioned twice - all other factors being equal.
Once you are happy with your content, it's time to look at off-page optimization.
Before we go any further - I think it's important to talk about how exactly Google ranks pages. The exact details change with each update - but the principle remains the same. Currently Google has no real competitor - it has a hugely disproportionate percentage of search traffic go through it's engine. For that reason we will talk about Google. Rank well in Google and the other engines will probably fall in line too.
There are two factors which Google looks at the first is 'relevance' and the other is 'authority'. To get good relevance you need the onpage optimization to be excellent, with a good length, good content and a healthy distribution of keywords. You also need incoming links with an appropriately relevant anchor text. Links should be contextual. Google doesn't like link farms or big lists of sites it prefers one or two links embedded in the text on a page with a relevant keyword as the anchor. For example if I wanted to put an SEO boosting link to the blog http://whichairconditioner.blogspot.com/ I wouldn't simply link that as is I would write a sentence with the keyword in it - and use that word for the link instead - hiding the URL. For example:-
It can be difficult choosing which air conditioner to buy , given the current broad range of models on sale.
Google likes this kind of link, it improves relevance.
The next big thing is authority. Authority is how Google perceives the internet to rate a site. A well placed relevant link to a site will pass on a certain amount of 'pagerank' and amongst competing relevant sites, sites with higher authority will rank better. Google itsef is a Page Rank 10 site, You Tube is Page Rank 9. Most high page rank sites guard their 'follow' links very jealously. No Follow links still help relevance, but they do not normally pass any pagerank forwards.
The rank you get from a link depends on the Page Rank of the page where the link is placed, and the number of links on that page. So a page that is page rank 4 and links only to your site might give more rank than a page rank 6 page which links to 2000 sites. Extreme examples - but that's the gist.
The real trick of course is finding places you can create links. Of course you can always create more websites and link from them to your site - but it's believed too many links coming from the same domain, subdomain or even IP address can lessen their worth.
Forums are generally an easy place to put links, but Google doesn't seem to give as much weight to forum links, also blog comments are easy to post - but generally have to be approved and may be no follow. Directories - or paid directories are only allowed to offer no follow links for payment. So they may help relevance if you are listed in the right category - but they are unlikely to feed any page rank through.
Building links is a big challenge for todays web masters, but it's a critical part of any web masters strategy. Well placed links will also generate traffic of their own.
Many people ask me - do one-way links from sites google doesn't approve of, link farms, porn sites etc... Have any negative bearing on my sites performance?
I can't imagine they do - otherwise a simple strategy would be to spam negative links to a competing site until they got penalised enough to drop below you. Instead I think Google simply doesn't count links it doesn't like. that way - trying to sabotage a competitor would penalize you by wasting your time - and trying to use link farms to boost your site would penalize you by wasting your time. This seems the fairest solution - and as far as my own experiments have shown seems to work.
This is critical, ideally you should choose something specific, which will bring good traffic, and not have too many sites competing hard for the first pages.
The easiest free way of optimizing your target keywords is to use Googles Keyword Finder Tool simply enter a keyword into the box that you think suits your site, and google with give you information on how many searches there are monthly, both globally and locally for that particular word. One word keywords are going to be VERY hard to compete on, popular two word phrases will also, so look for a three word combination that suits your site and has good monthly search traffic.
Once you have your target keywords - you can start optimizing your site. You should ideally try to have your keyword in:-
- The URL of the site
- The title meta tag of the site
- The keywords meta tag of the site
- The description meta tag of the site
- At least one Header tag <h1> </h1> for example.
What this means is for the first two hundred words you write on your site you should include the keyword between five and eight times. This should allow your site to seem relevant but not like you are blatantly spamming the target keyword. You also need to keep in mind your human readers - my suggestion is to write for human readers, then use a good keyword analysis tool like SEO Quake to check the density and tweak it a little.
You should also try to include various media on your site, include images and video's and optimise their alternative tag for the keyword. The more content you can include the better, there might be an upper limit, but a 2.5% density keyword distribution that is big enough to include the keyword seven times, will rank higher than one that only has it mentioned twice - all other factors being equal.
Once you are happy with your content, it's time to look at off-page optimization.
Before we go any further - I think it's important to talk about how exactly Google ranks pages. The exact details change with each update - but the principle remains the same. Currently Google has no real competitor - it has a hugely disproportionate percentage of search traffic go through it's engine. For that reason we will talk about Google. Rank well in Google and the other engines will probably fall in line too.
There are two factors which Google looks at the first is 'relevance' and the other is 'authority'. To get good relevance you need the onpage optimization to be excellent, with a good length, good content and a healthy distribution of keywords. You also need incoming links with an appropriately relevant anchor text. Links should be contextual. Google doesn't like link farms or big lists of sites it prefers one or two links embedded in the text on a page with a relevant keyword as the anchor. For example if I wanted to put an SEO boosting link to the blog http://whichairconditioner.blogspot.com/ I wouldn't simply link that as is I would write a sentence with the keyword in it - and use that word for the link instead - hiding the URL. For example:-
It can be difficult choosing which air conditioner to buy , given the current broad range of models on sale.
Google likes this kind of link, it improves relevance.
The next big thing is authority. Authority is how Google perceives the internet to rate a site. A well placed relevant link to a site will pass on a certain amount of 'pagerank' and amongst competing relevant sites, sites with higher authority will rank better. Google itsef is a Page Rank 10 site, You Tube is Page Rank 9. Most high page rank sites guard their 'follow' links very jealously. No Follow links still help relevance, but they do not normally pass any pagerank forwards.
The rank you get from a link depends on the Page Rank of the page where the link is placed, and the number of links on that page. So a page that is page rank 4 and links only to your site might give more rank than a page rank 6 page which links to 2000 sites. Extreme examples - but that's the gist.
The real trick of course is finding places you can create links. Of course you can always create more websites and link from them to your site - but it's believed too many links coming from the same domain, subdomain or even IP address can lessen their worth.
Forums are generally an easy place to put links, but Google doesn't seem to give as much weight to forum links, also blog comments are easy to post - but generally have to be approved and may be no follow. Directories - or paid directories are only allowed to offer no follow links for payment. So they may help relevance if you are listed in the right category - but they are unlikely to feed any page rank through.
Building links is a big challenge for todays web masters, but it's a critical part of any web masters strategy. Well placed links will also generate traffic of their own.
Many people ask me - do one-way links from sites google doesn't approve of, link farms, porn sites etc... Have any negative bearing on my sites performance?
I can't imagine they do - otherwise a simple strategy would be to spam negative links to a competing site until they got penalised enough to drop below you. Instead I think Google simply doesn't count links it doesn't like. that way - trying to sabotage a competitor would penalize you by wasting your time - and trying to use link farms to boost your site would penalize you by wasting your time. This seems the fairest solution - and as far as my own experiments have shown seems to work.
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