SEO expert services, free seo tips and tricks on squidoo, seo guru on squidoo,seo seo, seo search engine optimization

Note: Google is targeted mainly in this article.

Parts of Search Engine:
Every crawling search engine has the same basic parts

a crawler
search interface

Crawler:
It scours the web following links, updating pages, and adding new pages when it comes across them. Search engines have time of deep crawling and shallow crawling.

Note: We can get page crawled frequently if we get already frequently crawling page point to our page through a hyperlink.

Index:
The index is where the spider collected data is stored.

Example: When you search Google and it displays 1-10 out of 143,000 website it means that there are 143,000 web pages which either have the words in your keyword phrase on them, or have inbound links containing the words in the phrase.

Note: To see which pages of a site are indexed by google type
site:www.sitename.com

Search Interface:
The search algorithm and search interface are used to find the most relevant document in the index based on the user search.

Note: In most major search engines a portion of the relevancy calculations are stored ahead of time and some of them are calculated in real time.

Factors and Guidelines Influencing Page Ranking:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization + Google Guidelines + SEO BOOK

SEOs widely agree that the signals that influence a page's rankings include

1. Use keywords in the title tag.
2. Use appropriate domain name.
Tips:
a. Avoid long domain names
b. Avoid dashes in domain names. E.g. googleads.com is better than
google-ads.com
c. If site is hosted in UK then use .co.uk domain. Also buy the .com version of domain and redirect to .co.uk.
d. If possible use domain name with keywords in it.
e. Register your domain at ICANN accredited registrar.
f. Don't go for free hosting.
g. Try hosting the site in country it targets e.g. host googleads.co.uk in United Kingdom.
Note: Dreamhost and Pair are recommended sites by SEO BOOK for hosting

3. Use keywords in links pointing to the page.
4. Use keywords appearing in visible text.
5. Keywords in Heading Tag H1, H2 and H3 Tags in webpage.
6. Use proper linking from one page to inner pages.
7. Try placing punch line at the top of page.
8. Have other relevant sites link to yours.
Note: This is most important and time consuming in SEO. For more details see Creating Inbound Links
9. Make sure all the sites that should know about your pages are aware your site is online.
10. Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links. Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link.
11. Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site. If the site map is larger than 100 or so links, you may want to break the site map into separate pages.
12. Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it.
13. Try to use text instead of images to display important names, content, or links. The Google crawler doesn't recognize text contained in images.
14. Make sure that your TITLE and ALT tags are descriptive and accurate.
15. Check for broken links and correct HTML. Xenu Link Sluth is a free downloadable link checking program.
16. If you decide to use dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), be aware that not every search engine spider crawls dynamic pages as well as static pages. It helps to keep the parameters short and the number of them few.
17. Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number (fewer than 100).

There are many other signals that may affect a page's ranking, indicated in a number of patents held by various search engines, such as historical data.

Note: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask.com do not disclose the algorithms they use to rank pages.
Getting Page in Search Engine Database:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

You can use Google's AddUrl
You can use Google Sitemaps and create and XML feed of sitemap to be submitted.
A link to your page from already indexed site. (It can take a few days or even weeks from the acquisition of a link from such a site for all the main search engine spiders to begin indexing a new site, and there is usually not much that can be done to speed up this process). This is the best and recommended way.
Using paid submission services. (Such services usually guarantee inclusion in the database, but does not guarantee specific ranking within the search results).

Note: Major search engines, by and large, do not require any extra effort to submit to, as they are capable of finding pages via links on other sites.

Blocking Page from Entering in Search Engine Database:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

Sample Email:
hello
I have been browsing around photography sites for hours now and just ran across yours...its awesome (stroke the ego)
wow your picture of that dove, bla bla bla...bird photography is one of my bla bla bla (be specific & show you visited their site)
I took this pic or a flying mongoose here: (look we are the same)
I have already added a link to your site on my cool sites page
(/ If you feel a phone call is necessary then you may want to give them your number or call them up versus send an email.)
Your site visitors may well be interested in bla bla bla at my site bla bla (show them how linking to you benefits them)
If you like my site please consider linking to it however you like (let them know they have choices - don't come across as ordering them to do something)
Or with this code (make it easy for them)
I think my site matches well with the theme on this page
Either way thanks for reading this and keep posting the awesome photos (reminder ego stroke)

Thanks

Me
Me at
myemail.com
http://www.mywhateversite.com
my number

Getting Inbound Links / Back Links
Inbound links are 'hyperlinks transiting domains' or you can say simply 'links into a page' e.g. link from page A to page B will be an inbound link for page B. Search engines usually count this a vote to page B from page A
Who links to you and with what words is the #1 ranking criteria for competitive phrases in all major search engines

Note:
%u2022 To check backlinks to a site in google type
link:www.sitename.com
%u2022 To check backlinks to a site in Yahoo type
linkdomain:www.sitename.com
Tools:
%u2022 Digital Point [Look here for free tool which will track your Google position by keyword, PageRank, and number of backlinks]
%u2022 Rusty Brick [Tool that does Google backlink analysis]

Getting inbound links is most difficult and time consuming part of SEO. For this
1. You can submit your site to directories.
o Writing articles about your topic and placing them on other websites can give you inbound links via the article signature.
2. Writing press releases can give you inbound links. You can submit a press release at
o PRWEB
o 24 7 Press Release
o Click 2 NEWS
o Free News Release
o Free Press Release
o I Newswire
o Media Syndicate
o PR Free
o PR Leap
o PR Web
o Web Wire
3. People interested in your site may eventually link to you without you asking.
4. You can participate in forums which provide signature links.
5. A somewhat recent move which has been exploited is posting comments directed toward your website in web logs.
6. Sponsor 501C organizations.
7. Place advertisements on relevant related sites.
8. Make some thing useful e.g. some software [if you are running software oriented site] and give it for free to download.
9. You can email the person at support. Consider sample email.

There have always been do-it-yourselfers succeeding at web promotion and search engine optimization. In fact, many of the established businesses offering web services today came from humble beginnings, perhaps nothing more than a college student with a laptop, an internet connection, and too much free time. The Web evolves as the result of the innovation and experimentation of individuals. The sharing of knowledge. The do-it-yourself attitude.
As text link brokers and mass link networking decrease in value and use in social media increases, it becomes more important for companies to have an internal approach and awareness of search engine marketing. Don't get me wrong; outsourcing to SEO firms is still a smart option. That said, making the most out of Web 2.0 usually requires some level of cooperation between SEO firm and site owner. You don't need to be an expert to know the basics of good SEO practices, and that added knowledge will be a great advantage whether you're working along side an SEO team, or promoting your own site in your spare time.
So if you're on a "need to know" basis with SEO, the following points should illustrate what an overall plan should include:
1. Create Search Engine-Friendly Content
Unique web content is your most valuable asset, and ensuring search engines can read it is crucial. Text embedded in images or Flash cannot be read, so make sure you use important keywords, headings, and hyperlinks in plain text form. Instead of using images as navigation links, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) makes it easy to format those links to look more like 'buttons', thus creating powerful anchor text as well as making it visually appealing. Use heading tags properly and don't try to hide keywords or text by making it the same color as the page background or shrinking it so it can't be seen. Make sure the keywords you wish to rank high for are used frequently in the page copy but within reason.

Now that you've created good content, is it actually being crawled? Copy and paste a page's URL into a search engine to see if it has been indexed. If you've just created the page, it may take a few days to show up. Aside from age, many factors can lead to web pages not being indexed by search engines, such as duplicate content (ie. a printer-friendly version of a page might be indexed and the normal version not, or vice versa); links generated by JavaScript instead of HTML; poor site architecture (ie. using too many sub-directories); lengthy, dynamically generated URLs using special characters; and orphaned pages.
2. Choose Your Keywords Wisely
One of the first steps of SEO, this one needs to be done properly the first time or all your future efforts and promotion could end up being wasted. Start by writing down general terms that describe your products, services or web content. Use keyword research services to investigate word and phrase variations. Wordtracker, KeywordDiscovery, and the Google AdWords suggestion tool are good starting points. The goal is to find those niche phrases that your target market uses to find sites just like yours and optimize your site for them. If the phrases do not get enough use by searchers, your profits from ranking for them will be low. At the same time, stay away from general terms that are tougher to rank for (ie. like "art", "computers", "business", etc.) as a great portion of the traffic will be irrelevant and you'll break the bank attaining such competitive phrases.
3. Get Others to Link to Your Site
in theory there are countless ways, some traditional and some quite innovative, to get other web sites to link to yours. In practice, it can be easier said than done. Google defines a link as it pertains to rankings and SEO as a "vote" from one site to another. The more quality votes your site receives, the greater chance you have of rankings well. If a well established site links to yours, that link carries more weight than one would from a mom & pop shop or less reputable page.

If your site has useful content and is doing something unique, you're already ahead of much of the competition. People need a reason to link to your site, as very few will do it out of the goodness of their heart. Trading links can work, but link exchange networks have decreased in value and won't be of much use in competitive fields. Buying links, if you haven't heard, is a big Google no-no. While entire articles could be written on this topic, here are a few popular methods of acquiring incoming links:

- issuing company press releases with a link back to your site
- submitting to reputable business directories such as Yahoo! and Business.com
- be active on related blogs by commenting and exchanging ideas
- if you have clients with web sites, ask if they would mind adding your link in a "partners" section
- participate in relevant forums and discussion boards with a link in your signature
- write and submit original articles to web publications in your field with a link in your bio
- get involved in social media and bookmarking
4. Join the Social Media Revolution
The collaboration between Internet users and the development of online communities is at an all-time high. Social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Furl, Reddit, and Technorati offer users a way to store their favorite pages and media online, and share it with others. These services also provide a way to promote your own content or create a buzz over a product or service. Creating a Myspace page or Squidoo "lens" is also a way to network and share information.

However, if your goal is to generate sales then you must offer something without the promotional hype. The reality of social media is that popularity is based almost entirely on public interest. If your information or media isn't unique or of interest to anyone, you cannot force success using social media communities.

The key to using social media and bookmarking sites to your advantage is to not be shy. Network with other users, bookmark and share useful content, create eye-catching titles for your entries, and tell your friends and co-workers to vote on content you have on these sites.

A web site does not stop with ownership. Work has to be done such as getting it optimized for search engines. Your web site has to be made search engine friendly, that is to say, it must meet certain expectations of the "crawlers" or "spiders" of search engines. The index that these crawlers havecreated will be used in ascertaining the status of your web site in terms of relevancy to the requests of users.

Good strategies for search engine optimization that should be fully implemented include the following:
(1) Credible domain name:
Acquire a domain name that is not too long or difficult to remember. It should relate to the content of your web site. Within the domain name, there should preferably be keywords that a crawler will understand. Abbreviations, dashes, underscores, numerals and other meaningless characters should all be avoided. Always opt for a .com name if possible, simply because it is a more common term that customers think of.
(2) Titles should be rich in keywords:
The titles for all of your pages should be keyword-rich. They should be easily understood by visitors, and more importantly should contain keywords that will relate to whatever your customers may want to search for. In search engine optimization, search engines often use the [TITLE]; element as the text for their link to your site. Emphasis is placed by search engines in this area of optimization because it enables them to determine the relevance of your page to a visitor's search. The titles for your pages should preferably be less than 50 characters including spaces. This enables you to select a title that is precise, and one that will not be truncated in search results for reason of length. For immediate impact, include your call to action, so that attention of visitors can be captured.
(3) Include META elements:
Description and keyword properties should be included in your headers' META elements. META name="description" content="[brief description of your site]" is often used by search engines to find out what your site is all about. It will be beneficial to put yourself in the shoes of your customers. You can think about how they will go about searching for information, and you can subsequently choose appropriate terms that will capture traffic to your site. A great research tool to use is Wordtracker.
(4) Quality of content:
It is imperative to provide good and rich content on your web site. The content should always be keyword-rich, as this facilitates good classification of your pages by the search engines. It must be interesting and entertaining. Quality is the keyword as far as content is concerned. This is one strategy for search engine optimization that should be given heavy consideration. Content should therefore be fresh and should never be a duplicate. Search engines now include in their search algorithm ways to effect measurement of freshness of content on all sites. Do note that spiders cannot read images, so remember to use < ALT > tags for images if you need to use them to increase your site traffic.
(5) Links leveraging:
Web sites that get incoming links do get a higher ranking. If these incoming links originate from a site with higher ranking and which perform well for key phrases that are related to your content, these are good links of quality that will push up the ranking of your site. They will greatly benefit your site. It will be to your advantage to request them to link back to your site. Everything on your site must be properly linked; all links must be functioning, because this will enable all of your content to be indexed. This shows a good strategy for search engine optimization in operation.
(6) Site registration:
Your site must be registered with major search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Open Directory Project (DMOZ.org) once it is sufficiently optimized. Instructions given by each search engine are different from one another, so it is important to follow instructions closely, to avoid having your site improperly indexed. For best results, do it right - straight from the beginning.
(7) Play it smart:
Ensure that your site can be easily indexed by search engines. Your pages must be crawler-friendly. Avoid the application of spamming strategies such as irrelevant metadata and hidden text. Better be safe than sorry. Play it smart when you are in your zest aiming for higher search-engine rankings. Avoid strategies that offer the easy way out for getting good ranking.
(8) Virtue of patience:
Patience pays. It may take some time to reach Google No 1 spot. The time spent on search engine optimization for your web site will definitely not be lost just because the top spot is not reached yet. There are still numerous other ways of capturing traffic besides performing a little more tweaking of your site.
In conclusion, your web site must be optimized for search engines, as this will help you secure a better search result, better site ranking, and not forgetting increase in site traffic. For your desired results, you will need to apply the strategies for search engine optimization listed above.

1. Offer as much additional value on your website as possible without shooting yourself in the foot. For affiliates and partners you can place links to their sites and ask them to reciprocate the favor. Another great way to benefit both of you is to advertise their products and ask them to do the same. This provides free traffic and advertising for both of you. Obviously you don't want to advertise any product or service that you are in competition with.

2. You can allow customers to 'opt in' and provide them with a 10% discount on their first order, and allow them to be the first to see any new promotions you are offering. This also allows you to stay in constant contact with your customers and potential customers. Coupons are another very effective way of keeping your 'opt in' list returning to your site.

3. Create a schedule to update the pages on your website on a regular basis. In time, stagnant websites are dropped by some of the search engines. I would suggest you put a date counter on the page to show when it was last updated. This also tells all your visitors very quickly how attentive and diligent you are in bringing them the latest information.

4. Make it simple for a visitor to become a customer by adding a link to your primary page with a script 'Book Mark or Add this site to your Favorites'. Most internet users are repeatedly referencing their favorite's folder, I know I do.

5. Like item 4, make it simple for your visitors to attract potential customers for you by adding a link 'Recommend this site to a Friend' so that the visitor can email your website link, with a pre-written title, "Thought you might be interested in this", that with the click of a button a visitor in recommending your site to.

6. Create an 'Our Policies' page that clearly defines your philosophy and principles in dealing with your customers. Also post your privacy policy as well so that clients know they are secure when they visit your site. This is a great opportunity to reveal to your potential customers who and what your principles and morals are all about.

7. Brand your website. This will create a presence and feel for your customers and visitors that they are at your site. Use consistent colors, page design, logos and slogans on every page and always provide a 'Contact Us' link and 'Home' link on each page. Spend some time to create a "favicon" to forever identify and brand your site. I know from my own surfing experiences that there have been sites I was visiting with no way to return to their home page without clicking the back button. Very annoying. You need your sites pages to flow.

8. Create a FAQ page which addresses most of the doubts, questions, and clarifications about your product or your company that are likely to be asked. Sit down and picture yourself arriving at your site for the very first time. Get a pen and paper and write down what you would like to know as a potential purchaser from this site. This will help to resolve most of the customers doubts in their first visit to your site.

9. Never spam a client, who has opted for newsletters, with unsolicited emails! Also if they decide they want to 'opt out' of the mailings, always be sure you honor their request and take them off the mailing list. They may still come back if they like your products. But they will certainly not come back if you continue to flood their email box with mails they no longer wish to receive.

10. Make sure each page on your website has the appropriate title and keywords so that your customer can find their way back to your site if they lose the bookmark. Remember your page title appears in the web browser. Anyone like me who has multiple tabs and pages open at the same time, the title allows for a quick return.

11. I saved this for last because it is my largest pet peeve: grammar! When I view a website with numerous spelling and obvious grammatical errors, I leave immediately. I'm sure that I am in the majority of people who see a website with these errors; our immediate reaction is, if someone cares that little about their sites presentation, they certainly won't care about me as a customer. Use any spell check application you wish, but use one for everything you write.
Maximize Traffic With 10 SEO Power Tips
1. Write content that your audience is already looking for within the last 90 days.

True keyword research is not about 'guessing at keywords' but its all about researching actual data. How are your SEO research skills using Wordtracker or Keyword Discovery? At the SEO Workshops we teach much more than the traditional "keyword research" methods. We help students learn "Keyword Forensics" and how to quickly tap into the hidden niche trends that 99% of most Webmasters never even notice.
2. Does your Web copy speak to the reader or does it speak about yourself?

Remember that your Web site should be focused on your audience first and appeal specifically to a niche interest. When writing your Web copy, you need to dialog in an appropriate tone and format for the right audience. Some of the most interesting content will have more appeal if it speaks to your audience in terms of "you." You can, you might, you will, yours, your and you're INSTEAD of we, ours, we're, we will, we can, etc.
3. Focus on writing for the human audience first and search engines second.

While search engine optimization is important to your visibility, try writing your content first. Most people don't write their best when trying to optimize and create content at the same time. Focus on creating highly useful content that is extremely focused on one topic per page. Once you have completed your writing so that you are pleased with it, then go in to do a mild re-write for the search engines.
4. Tips for triggering idea generation and giving your strategies a unique twist.

While many people seem to spend time exploring their competitor's Web sites, we encourage you to lead the way with new ideas. Try not to be obsessed with what the competition is doing, but be creative and start your own new trends. Spend just a little more time working on your projects this week than you did last week. Setting yourself apart from the competition is easier than you might think and gives you a huge advantage over others.
5. Creating your content so that it "speaks" to a specific audience of visitors.

Think of how your Web copy reads and ensure the dialog flows smoothly. Read your work out loud and see if you can improve the tone of your message with natural expression. Keep your specific audience in mind. How you write for senior citizen (in tone and in format) may differ considerably from writing for an audience of for example "new parents." Always ask yourself "what is important to these readers?" Rely on researching accurate data to eliminate guess work.
6. Remember strong calls to action

Without a firm call to action, don't expect the reader to naturally guess at what you want them to do next. Plain ordinary dialog that asks the reader to take the next action will usually work best. Dialog that is written for voice (similar to the way a broadcaster writes to project their personality.)
7. Build your search engine optimization skills in the beginning with the "stress free" approach.

If you are new to SEO, you may want to focus on the long tailed niche phrases since most searchers are doing fairly descriptive and intelligent searches these days. Ideally you want to attract those who already know what they are looking for and just need to find your pages more easily. With practice and the right training you can go after highly competitive phrases too but you'll find that the best conversions nearly always come from the niches. Also remember that it is the basic SEO skills that carry you through and must come before any of the advanced strategies. The result will be stable top rankings that stand the test of time with minimal fuss.
8. Give your readers a non-threatening reason to respond right now.

What is the objective for your page and does your Web copy work effectively at fulfilling that objective? It may not always be about trying to sell a product or a service. It should not be about fulfilling your needs first but it should be about meeting the needs of why that searcher first conducted a search. Meet their needs and deliver up something that satisfies their search first and then give the visitor a non-threatening reason why they might respond to you. Do you want their e-mail address? Or do you just want them to pick up the phone and call? Never lose sight of the fact that the Web is a marvelous two way interactive experience, if you want it to be. Make your Web site a vehicle for relationship building and remember that many readers may actually have the desire to interact and participate through Blogs or other "User Generated activity." Give your visitors something that involves their participation.
9. Remember that your readers always want to feel like they are in control of their Web experience.

People often use the Web for researching topics of interest or doing preliminary price comparisons or for looking up information. While most people explore the Web for their own purposes, the more that you put them in control of their experience the better. If appropriate, you may want to consider adding additional tools or functionality to your Web site in order to enhance its usability for your specific audience.
10. Did you know that if you write your content so that it naturally "reads very well."

You will naturally gain some bonus for having created content of quality. By this, I mean content...that reads well to a human being. Don't stuff keywords all over the place. Instead, use moderation in everything you do. One of the things you need to understand is that "theme based" search engines like Google, are actually using a measure of artificial intelligence (AI) to measure how well your article "reads" based on all of the overall context of your body t

The site strength - the strength of the site that is pointing to yours is a significant (and historically abused) factor in the valuation of links. In the absence of other easily-visible criteria let's look at PageRank as a key valuation of a site's strength. If a site with a PageRank 8 links to your site, this vote is worth significantly more than a link from a PageRank 3 site. This is because a PageRank 8 site is, in Google's eyes, a more important site than the PageRank 3 site
Relevance - the relevance of a site linking to you is, if anything, more important than a site's strength. If you run a bed and breakfast in Utah, a link from a PageRank 3 bed and breakfast will be worth more than a link from a PageRank 5 web design site. This area is a bit grey in that it relies on the engine's ability to determine what is relevant and what is not. However, we've seen evidence that this area is strong at this stage in the game and is only becoming more important over time.
Anchor text - the actual text used to link to your site is extremely important. I've seen extremely strong sites get beaten out by weak ones simply due to the poor use of anchor text. If you're building links to your site, be sure to include your keywords in the text that links back and, if possible, the exact phrase you are trying to rank for. At the same time, you can't make all your anchor text exactly the same - how can that possibly look natural?
osition - the position of a link on a page and the number of other links on that page impacts the value of a link. A link in the footer of a page is given less weight than a link near the top, a link in the content of a page is given more weight than a link in a list of links and a link on a page with 50 other links is given less weight than a link on a page with only a few other links. If we think about it - this makes sense. All of these things indicate whether the site with the outbound links actually intends for one of their visitors to click the link or not. From an engine's perspective - the more it appears that a site wants a link to be clicked on, the higher the weight that link (or vote) is given.Admittedly there are a number of other factors but this is a beginners guide. Following the considerations above will insure that as you make each link decision - your odds of making the right choices will be significantly higher than if you ignore them. Ignoring them may not get you penalized or banned, but it will make your task far more time consuming as you secure less valuable links and thus need to build far more than following the right methods.

So far we've covered briefly the why of link building, now let's get into the real-life, here's-how-to-do-it side of things. Below I'm going to cover three of my favorite link building tactics. These are tactics that apply to virtually every scenario. The number of ways to build links is only limited by your imagination, however, and this should not be viewed as a comprehensive líst. This is, after all, a beginners guide and I'm trying to list the tactics that apply to virtually every scenario.
Side Note: Reciprocal Link Building

I'm not going to count this as one of my favorites and so it won't count as one of the three noted above and I'll only touch on it briefly. There have been a number of assertions that reciprocal link building is dead. This is simply not the case. I have seen and competed against sites that were very successful with reciprocal links as their primary link source.

The problem with reciprocal links isn't so much in their value which does seem to be a bit lower than non-reciprocal links however often more easily attained. No, my problem with reciprocal links is in the management. Unethical webmasters' removing links after you've put the link up to them, sites expiring and not being renewed, sites getting penalties of their own due to their bad tactics are all inconveniences the reciprocal link manager must deal with.

As an SEO company, a huge issue we faced was leaving our clients with this task after a campaign was over if they decided not to go on a maintenance package. Non-reciprocal links may be a bit harder to attain in some cases, however, that issue is much easier to overcome than the sum of all these issues.
Link building is an essential ingredient in ranking your website highly on the major search engines. There, now that we've got that brilliant grasp of the obvious out of the way let's move on to what you can do to actually create them. Before we launch into the nitty-gritty of link building, no beginners guide would be complete without a brief explanation as to why links are important and the different elements of them. Being a beginners guide this won't be an entirely complete líst but it will be enough to get you going on the right path. Understanding what you're trying to do will help you do it better and more importantly, understanding the "why" of the situation will help you stretch your tactics outside of this and other articles on link building.

Why Are Links Important?

To put it simply: a link is a vote. Every link pointing to your site from another website tells the search engines that the other site finds your resource valuable and thus, the engines read this as a vote for your site. So it must be about getting tons of links and you're done right? Wrong. This is incorrect as ...

Web CEO - The Right Toolkit for Your SEO!

Not All Votes Are Created Equal

Unlike your vote in an election, some votes are worth more than others and some votes are worth SIGNIFICANTLY more than yours (unless of course you're a content writer for the Google.com domain in which case you obviously have the top vote). The basic factors that affect a link's value to your website are:

The site strength - the strength of the site that is pointing to yours is a significant (and historically abused) factor in the valuation of links. In the absence of other easily-visible criteria let's look at PageRank as a key valuation of a site's strength. If a site with a PageRank 8 links to your site, this vote is worth significantly more than a link from a PageRank 3 site. This is because a PageRank 8 site is, in Google's eyes, a more important site than the PageRank 3 site.

Relevance - the relevance of a site linking to you is, if anything, more important than a site's strength. If you run a bed and breakfast in Utah, a link from a PageRank 3 bed and breakfast will be worth more than a link from a PageRank 5 web design site. This area is a bit grey in that it relies on the engine's ability to determine what is relevant and what is not. However, we've seen evidence that this area is strong at this stage in the game and is only becoming more important over time.

Anchor text - the actual text used to link to your site is extremely important. I've seen extremely strong sites get beaten out by weak ones simply due to the poor use of anchor text. If you're building links to your site, be sure to include your keywords in the text that links back and, if possible, the exact phrase you are trying to rank for. At the same time, you can't make all your anchor text exactly the same - how can that possibly look natural?

Position - the position of a link on a page and the number of other links on that page impacts the value of a link. A link in the footer of a page is given less weight than a link near the top, a link in the content of a page is given more weight than a link in a list of links and a link on a page with 50 other links is given less weight than a link on a page with only a few other links. If we think about it - this makes sense. All of these things indicate whether the site with the outbound links actually intends for one of their visitors to click the link or not. From an engine's perspective - the more it appears that a site wants a link to be clicked on, the higher the weight that link (or vote) is given.

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Admittedly there are a number of other factors but this is a beginners guide. Following the considerations above will insure that as you make each link decision - your odds of making the right choices will be significantly higher than if you ignore them. Ignoring them may not get you penalized or banned, but it will make your task far more time consuming as you secure less valuable links and thus need to build far more than following the right methods.

So far we've covered briefly the why of link building, now let's get into the real-life, here's-how-to-do-it side of things. Below I'm going to cover three of my favorite link building tactics. These are tactics that apply to virtually every scenario. The number of ways to build links is only limited by your imagination, however, and this should not be viewed as a comprehensive líst. This is, after all, a beginners guide and I'm trying to list the tactics that apply to virtually every scenario.

Side Note: Reciprocal Link Building

I'm not going to count this as one of my favorites and so it won't count as one of the three noted above and I'll only touch on it briefly. There have been a number of assertions that reciprocal link building is dead. This is simply not the case. I have seen and competed against sites that were very successful with reciprocal links as their primary link source.

The problem with reciprocal links isn't so much in their value which does seem to be a bit lower than non-reciprocal links however often more easily attained. No, my problem with reciprocal links is in the management. Unethical webmasters' removing links after you've put the link up to them, sites expiring and not being renewed, sites getting penalties of their own due to their bad tactics are all inconveniences the reciprocal link manager must deal with.

As an SEO company, a huge issue we faced was leaving our clients with this task after a campaign was over if they decided not to go on a maintenance package. Non-reciprocal links may