Guest Post: By Stone Reuning

Linking is the mechanism that connects all the pages on the Internet. You’ve got links throughout your web site to let people navigate their way around. You may have links going out to other web sites that you think will be useful for your visitors. And hopefully you have links coming into your web site from independent sources.

All types of links can impact your search engine optimization results, helping determine where your web site shows up online. Though the hardest to control, inbound links pointing to your site can make the biggest impact.

At its most basic, the concept is that if several high-quality sites are linking to your web site, then Google and other search engines figure your site must be a popular, valuable resource – and they will be more likely to show it higher in their search results. In effect, your site receives “link juice” from other web pages that link to it.

However, it’s not enough to secure a couple links and then sit still. The Google PageRank algorithm looks at the pattern of links to your site as they build over time.

Building the right kind of links can bring a major payoff, while a wrong turn could get you penalized – and the Google Sandbox is not easy to dig out of.

Armed with a bit of knowledge and some creativity, you can build up valuable incoming links naturally and powerfully, avoiding the traps that plague amateurs.

Spice Up Your Links With Some Variety

There are all kinds of link farming schemes to grow links, and you need to run the other way from these. This is also called reciprocal linking, where you exchange links with other web sites that will then link to you on a mass scale. Warning: Google is onto this.

While it’s perfectly advantageous to link to high-quality sites that also link to you, the key here is to cultivate a natural mix of links over time.

Is it natural to suddenly have 100 links pointing to your site, all with the same text? Of course not. When people link to you naturally, they might use your business name (SEO Advantage) or some variation on a descriptive phrase (search optimization company). If too many similar links exist, it can signal that those links were generated artificially and potentially result in penalties.

Also consider which pages on your site inbound links point to. Your home page is probably going to get the most, but it’s natural to have links pointing to specific pages inside your web site, too. Cultivate links to your services, your blog, your news pages, your articles, etc., to help those pages get indexed and build their own PageRank. Called deep links, these can help bolster your site’s overall performance.

Some links also carry a title tag, which is indicated in the source code. This is a little too technical to go into detail here, but if you can influence this you’ll want both the link text and title to vary a bit among the links pointing to your site. Once again, the key is to grow your links in a natural pattern.

Not Every Link Carries The Same Value

Links from popular, established web sites usually carry the greatest value. That’s because they have high PageRank from plenty of other people already linking to them. A link from CNN.com, for example, will carry much more weight than a link from a free press release distribution site that few people know of. Likewise, a link from www.sbdpro.com will offer greater impact than a link from a directory that uses no-follow tags.

No-follow tags are the bane of naive link builders. It’s tempting to think you can just link to pages on your site from your Twitter tweets, Facebook and other social media applications. However, many of these sites as well as online ads and also some directories employ “no follow” tags that prevent the search engines from following a link to your site. In this case, it’s as if the link doesn’t exist in the eyes of the search engines. (That doesn’t mean the links aren’t valuable to people who find you and follow the link, it’s just not helping your web site show up in Google.)

So, How Can A Business Build Incoming Links Naturally?

The mix of links created out on the web pointing back at your web site should avoid skewing toward any particular type. A good mix that you can influence may include:

Guest Post: By Jackie de Burca

If I had a pound for every time I saw a Google Adwords account stuffed full of broad match keywords, I would be lazing around on a tropical beach. Before entering into advertising on Google Adwords it is a must to understand the differences between the keyword match types as well as the amazing scope for serious money making long-tail keywords. This system for finding the best Google Adwords keywords can be applied across all PPC advertising campaigns on other search engines.

If you are setting up a new campaign or a brand new account start with your own website using the Google Search Based Keyword Tool. This tool is excellent as it scans the content of your website, picking up keywords and providing data on monthly searches, competition, suggested pay per click bid amount, and shows your ad and search share where appropriate. These will be keywords that are not already in your account so if you have an existing account it can highlight these ideas.

This tool can be found at http://www.google.com/sktool/# – you need to enter your website name if it is not already there and you need to be signed into your Google Adwords account to access the fullest information.

There are numerous keyword tools available but as this is free and as it scans your website it is a logical starting point. There is the option to save the draft keywords and export into a spreadsheet format. They can also be added directly into your adwords account, however if doing it this way put them into a temporary ad group so that they can be split properly later.

Apart from associating with your website the Search Based Keyword Tool has a command which is found at the bottom of the page called “Or see top keywords across all categories”. Click on this blue writing and choose the box at the top of the page which says “Words or phrase”. Here it is best to start with a core competitive keyword such as “bingo” as then it will come back with a lot of information.

Drill further down into important keywords next by using the Google Insights for Search tool. This gives an expansion of whatever keyword you enter providing more keyword ideas but importantly you can see at the same time geographically where these keywords are most popular. Additionally this tool gives the historical trends of the keyword currently going back to 2004.

Google Insights for Search can be found at http://www.google.com/insights/search/# .When using it for the first search in the filter leave it as Worldwide as this can supply you with some surprising trends. Then do the search again but choosing United Kingdom or whatever territory you wish.

When you have exhausted the research using these tools, saving the information on a spreadsheet as you go, then the next step is to split the keywords into core competitive keywords and long-tail keywords. Core competitive keywords being the obvious ones that everyone bids on such as “car insurance” and the long-tail keywords being more specific versions of these such as “cheap car insurance london”. The reason for doing this is so that when it comes to allocating budget it is possible to ensure that it will be done more profitably.

Next you need to divide them up into related keywords that can be developed into the ad groups of one particular campaign. So an insurance company that does many types of insurance will have car insurance, motor insurance, commercial insurance all as separate campaigns. In retail it should be according to either brands or stock type, such as dresses, jeans, shirts etc.

If you have enough space in the Google Adwords account ideally there should be a separate campaign for Exact Match keywords, another one for Phrase Match and another one for a period of time for Broad Match keywords. The official limit is 25 campaigns within the account. The reason for doing this is again budget management. The exact match keyword is the ideal situation as this word or phrase of words is all the potential customer has typed in, therefore the keyword and ad text can be 100% controlled to mirror the thought process of the potential customer.

When campaigns have been set up very well then budget can be allocated appropriately to long-tail Exact Match keywords and core competitive Exact Match keywords. The Phrase Match keywords means that someone has typed in something either before or after the keyword, which in some cases can be fully relevant to your products/services but in other cases not. By adding in negative keywords this can be controlled to some degree. In the case of Broad Match keywords these can sometimes be dangerous, as this match type is more of a loose association with the keyword or phrase you have entered.

Finally make sure you develop more long-tail keywords by adding words such as “cheap” at the beginning and end of the keyword phrase, unless of course this is not appropriate. The same applies to “online”, “buy” and “sale” to name a few. Developing the best google adwords keywords this way will both save you a lot of money and increase profits.

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