The primary goal of writing articles for SEO purposes is to generate as many backlinks as possible to your web site or blog post.

Creating articles for backlinks is a long term strategy that will generate traffic to your site from people who happen to read your articles and come to your site for more information. This traffic can be substantial, if your article is attractive enough to get a lot of people, or even just one person with a large following to reprint your article on their site.

More powerful in the long run is the value of the backlinks these reprints generate. Every article directory that carries your article will generate a backlink to you, and thus help raise your sites ranking on the search engines.  That’s why some people use article submission services like Content Crooner to get their article posted on as many different article directories as possible.

Since many of these article directories have moderate to high page rank status, these are often valuable links.

The better the article itself, the more likely that it will then be reprinted on other blogs, ezines, etc.  And that is where writing articles for SEO really pays off.

Whether you have posted in many or few article directories, your goal is to get as many of these other blogs and ezines to post your article as possible.  To do so, you need to provide interesting topics for people to read.  Seems simple, and yet a lot of articles people post online are BORING, or pointless.

People go to the internet most frequently to find information. And while you may be mostly interested in selling them something as part of your business, that’s not what your article should be about.

For example, if you are a building contractor that specializes in remodeling bathrooms, you would be better off writing about new trends in barrier free tubs and showers for the graying baby boomer population.  An anecdote about Mrs. Brown who was having trouble getting into and out of the tub, will be interesting to thousands of Mrs. Browns and their children.

This potential interest by potential readers is the secret to getting other people to reprint your article. The editors and bloggers you want to reprint your articles are looking for material their readers will appreciate.

While your market may be local, the interest in your topic is more global, so you may get reprints from bloggers around the world. Their readers may be thousands of miles away from your market, but since you are writing articles for SEO purposes that doesn’t matter to you.

Your targeted web site is getting the backlinks you want, and they in turn will help you raise your standing in the search engines. Since you compete locally, you don’t need to have more backlinks than anyone else, you need to have more backlinks than your local competitors.

And in most fields, that is still relatively easy to do. Thus when a local Mrs. Brown starts searching for a barrier free shower or tub, the odds are better that your website will appear on the first page, where she may actually see it.  And that’s when the payoff of creating articles for backlinks begins.

[tags]articles for seo, articles for backlinks, seo, article marketing, more backlinks, backlinks, Content Crooner, article submission, article submission services[/tags]

Technorati Tags: Article Marketing, article submission, article submission services, articles for backlinks, articles for seo, Backlinks, Content Crooner, more backlinks, SEO

How and why one web site gets ranked on the first page of a Google Search and another is on page 23 is a mystery to many small business people. And even experts will disagree on the details.

The exact formula used by Google is a closely guarded secret that changes from time to time. However enough is known to provide practical guidance to anyone who wishes to improve their overall ranking for any given keyword phrase.

There are a number of “on page” factors that matter a lot in this ranking process. This includes a proper set of meta tags, and the effective use of keywords on the page and if possible in the URL of the site. But once these basics are properly completed, the focus of search engine optimization shifts to the creation of backlinks.

A backlink is any link from another web property that connects (or links) to the target site. These can be links from other pages on the site, but most importantly include links for other web entities.

In the simplest way to think of it, you could consider each such link to be a vote. The site with the most votes wins.

And while in general this is true, it is only part of the story.

In the internet world, not all votes are created equal. Google in particular give the votes from your cousin Susie’s occasional blog far less value than a vote from the Smithsonian. Different web sites are assigned a page rank value which is a rough estimate of its standing in Google’s eyes as an authority. The higher the page rank, the more weight in has in the equation to rank a site.

In a recent report released by Ryan Deiss called the Authority Codes, he suggests that a single link from a site with a Page Rank of 5 is roughly equal to 555 links from sites with a page rank of 1.

While I cannot verify his information, I use the example to point out that the differences in page rank are significant.

That said, one backlink is better than no backlink, and the more links you get the better in terms of your sites ranking.

Because in the final analysis, the fight for a high ranking is very much like the old story of two hunters who have a bear chasing them. One stops to tie his shoe. The other says, Don’t be silly, you can’t outrun a bear. The other says, I don’t need to outrun the bear – I just need to outrun you.

In the page ranking game you are striving not to be the highest ranking site in the universe. You just need to be the highest ranking site in your particular niche. And for most local businesses that means being the top ranking butcher in Peoria, or St Louis or what ever geographical reference point that applies to you.

Now you still do want to get the high value links when you can. Among the better values are links from .edu or .gov sites. Educational institutions and governmental agency rankings carry more weight than those of a standard .com. Why? Because the search engines tend to assume that such links are more authoritative and less likely to be “Commercially” motivated.

Google also appears to look at the relevance of the referring source. If your site is all about elephants and you are getting links from a petting zoo and a veterinarian, the links will likely help you more than a set of links from a poker site and a car dealership.

These effects are magnified on some popular web sites like Squidoo. Many know that Squidoo carries a fair amount of weight due to its relatively high page rank. However, the real power of link from Squidoo come when the referring lens is part of a group of similar lens on the same topic.

Thus a link to the elephant site from a single lens on Google may have some decent weight, its likely to loose out by a single link from a lens that belongs to a group of circus animal related sites on Squidoo.

All of this conversation on backlinks is preliminary to a series of posts I will be adding to this blog from time to time in the coming few weeks.

I am in the final stages of preparing a report on back linking strategies.
With any luck I will have it available in the next day or two.

In the meanwhile, I invite you to leave any questions you have about backlinking in the comments section. Also feel free to copy this post in its entirety to repost on your own blog or to provide a link to this.

And one quick tip. When you leave a comment here you will be building a backlink to your web site. So it pays to comment in the form of gaining a backlink. Now I do moderate the comments on my blog, and will delete any spam or irrelevant comments. But if you ask a legitimate question, or leave a useful comment, you win a backlink.

[tags]backlinks improve pagerank, improve pagerank, backlink, backlinks, seo, authority codes, Ryan Deiss, Squidoo, meta tags, page ranking, [/tags]

Technorati Tags: authority codes, backlink, Backlinks, backlinks improve pagerank, improve pagerank, meta tags, page ranking, Ryan Deiss, SEO, Squidoo

Some time ago I got interested in Squidoo as an inexpensive way to create a web presence.  It was relatively easy and free.  It wasn’t until later that I learned how valuable a site it could be for generating backlinks to other web properties.

Now knowing something and doing something with that knowledge don’t always follow. At least in my case.  It turns out I know how to do a lot of things that frankly I don’t always do. How about you?

I published a Squidoo eBook called Squidoo Basics and get a few sales every now and again, but haven’t actually promoted it in the past. I had a stray sale the other day that reminded me of its nearly orphan status, and I decided to give it a promotional push.

I’ve also been experimenting with Market Samurai a keyword research tool plus more and selected a series of keywords to focus on. The best in my estimation was the phrase Squidoo eBook.

So I went to my one page sales letter and added my new keywords, title and descriptions as I teach others to get the page itself set up properly for the search engines.

I then started writing. First a I did an article on my Home Staging Business Tips blog on Squidoo, making sure to create a Squidoo eBook  anchor text backlink to my sales page.

I then took the guts of that article and posted it on Active Rain, which is a real estate authority blog site that many homestagers also use.  I again used the same anchor text.

From there I went on to create a quick Blogger blog who’s one post is on Squidoo and yes with the same anchor text.  Then on to Hub Pages, and then Knol, and now back here to Micro Business Specialist.  You can fully expect to see a link in the coming paragraphs.

I intend to follow this up with a series of articles that I will post to the article directories.  With any luck the combination eventually gain me a first page listing on Google.

Anyone who searches Google for the phrase Squidoo ebook should be a pretty good prospect for an eBook Called Squidoo Basics, don’t you think?

Now, I’ve heard varying theories on how best to do this, so I am open for your comments. But my goal here was to create a circle of backlinks from a variety of high ranking web sites and some less so to start driving my single page sales page higher in the Google Search engines.

In the past, I have advocated linking first from one source to another and then to another to flow the accumulated Google Juice to one spot.  In what I did today, I did not link from one to another, but just to the sales page.

While I like to pretend I know everything, I’d be interested in readers comments on this.  I can always go back to each of these and create some cross links.  I do know that I do not want to have links going from a to b and b to c and c back to a.  That creates a circle and apparently negates the value of the back links. Same with a to b and b to a.

The topic of Squidoo is certainly large enough that I could easily go to any of these sites and add more content which will give me ample time to promote my Squidoo eBook.  I am also likely to go back to Squidoo and create some additional lens on the topic, rather than add to the existing one. That way I will have another backlink, rather than just a backlink from a longer Squidoo Lens.

If you are new to Squidoo I invite you to click on my link and join  Squidoo for FREE!

[tags]Squidoo, squidoo ebook, backlinks, seo, search engine optimization, hub pages, knol, market samurai,[/tags]

Technorati Tags: Backlinks, hub pages, knol, market samurai, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Squidoo, squidoo ebook

Online Article Marketing

Online Article Marketing is a highly effective tool used to sell both hard goods and information products to national and international audiences.  But does it make sense for a small locally based business to use it as well. In a word, Yes!

Businesses use online article marketing to establish themselves as experts, to drive traffic to a sales page and to build back links.

While the first two are important, they are less valuable to the local business person, after all most readers will not be from your market place.  Nonetheless some will be, but that’s gravy.

The real advantage of online article marketing for a local business is to out rank their competitors on the search engines. And that does make a real difference for many.

Each time an article is listed on an article directory or published in an ezine or blog, a new back link is created which the author of the article can direct to wherever they choose.

These back links from multiple sites factor into how some search engines like Google rank your site. A site that has links coming to it from a wide variety of sources is more likely to be seen as highly relevant.

While there are many factors that apply to search engine optimization, in general, the web site that has a lot of  back links tends to be ranked higher than a comparable web site that has only a few. Online article marketing is one of the best ways to get a ton of such back links for free.

The key to your success is to identify a keyword that people search for, relevant to your specific business or a product you sell. Write the article about that keyword. Include the keyword in your title. And then use it in the resource box you prepare to go with each article you write.

In the resource box you will tell the reader who you are and invite them to come to your web site. You are usually allowed two hyper links by most article directories. You want to use your keyword in the resource box, and hyper link it to the URL of your web site.  Ideally you want it to go to a page on your site dealing directly with the product you are selling.

Such hyper linked keywords are called anchor text.  The search bots that roam the internet pay attention to them. By using the keyword, you are letting them know that the landing page you are sending them to is related to the keyword.

Thus when someone in your local market searches for “Primer Paints in Baltimore”, the odds are a little better that your shop’s web site will appear higher than your competitors. And that’s what you want.

Getting good back links is like naming your business AAAPaints in the old days when people used to use the yellow pages.  Now they use computer search to find almost everything. And that’s why you should be using online article marketing to build your search engine ranking, even if no one in your market place ever reads them.

For more information on Online Article Marketing go to my blog on Article Marketing. http://ArticleMarketingHint.com

Technorati Tags: anchor text, Backlinks, mainstreet business, resource box, SEO

Getting to the top of the Search Engines IX

How Many Backlinks do you have?

A bit of a detour today. I have had several people ask how they can find out how many backlinks they have to their web site. A good question and one I can answer.

First thing you want to do is go to Yahoo.com rather than Google or MSN and search for the term “linkdomain:” and then the web site you want to inquire about using the Yahoo search box.  This will take you to Yahoo’s Site Explorer site.

When you do this for your site you will see two boxes at the top of the page. One will show the number of pages on your website, and the second will show the total number of inbound links to your site.  These are your backlinks.

Now if you want to see what you need to do to outrank that pesky competitor of yours, it wouldn’t hurt to enter their domain name the same way and see how many backlinks they have.  You might want to check out who they are, because there is a good chance you should be able to get back links from some of the same places.

Now as we mentioned before, not all backlinks are created equal.  Some have higher page rank and are thus weighted more than others. So it’s possible that someone with fewer backlinks could rank higher.

As an experiment, go to Google and enter the keyword “Home Decorating” in the Google Search Box. When I did it for this article the top three “organic” listings were www.home-decorating-made-easy.com ; www.tuscan-home-101.com and www.hgtv.com

I looked at each site with the Yahoo Site Explorer and found the top ranking site had 627 pages of content and 1726 back links.  The second ranked site, the tuscan one, had 88 pages of content and 794 backlinks.  I believe the number of backlinks to be the major determinant in the higher ranking by home decorating made easy site.

But what about the third place site, HGTV? It has 203,974 pages and 7,285,773 backlinks.  A behemoth by anyone’s standards. This is where relevance plays a role. HGTV has a lot of pages and backlinks, but not all of them were specifically relevant to the keyword term “Home Decorating.”  At least not in Googles eyes.

If you enjoyed this exercise, play around with a few other keywords, and see if the number of backlinks doesn’t seem to play a role in most of them. As you do, you will come to appreciate how important backlinks are to ranking.

In our next article we will discuss some easy ways to get a bunch of high value backlinks. ( I should be charging for this. )

Technorati Tags: Backlinks, Search Engine Optimization, SEO

SEO Off Page III

What is a backlink?

I’ve already spent a couple articles talking at least in part about back links without specifically explaining what a backlink is.

According to Wikipedia, Backlinks are incoming links to a website or web page. In the search engine optimization (SEO) world, the number of backlinks is one indication of the popularity or importance of that website or page. In basic link terminology, a backlink is any link received by a web node (web page, directory, website, or top level domain) from another web node. Backlinks are also known as incoming links, inbound links, inlinks, and inward links.

Thus when I create a hyper-link in this blog post to one of my Home Staging clients, Jane Ann Lance and her web site http://enhancedbylance.com it appears blue in most web browsers and you know that when you click on it, you will be taken to her web site. This is thus a back link to her web site and when the Google bot or one of the other search engine bots scans this page it will follow that link to her site and note it as a backlink. Notch one up for Jane Ann’s site.

Now even better would be a link to another of my home staging clients if instead of using her web address, I just sent you to this link: Hamptons Home Staging. In this case, the link is being made to http://www.styledandsold.com/home.html in the form of what is known as anchor text. This anchor text, “Hampton’s Home Staging” tells the bots that this back link is about Home Staging in the Hampton’s and reinforces the keywords on Allegra Dioguardi website. While both are backlinks, the second is more powerful.

Unfortunately, since we are now dealing with off page factors, you no longer have direct control over how others will link to you.

Thus we come to realize that not all backlinks are equal. Some are more important that others. A backlink from a blog that’s been published regularly for many months is going to have a somewhat more valuable link than one started today with just a single entry assuming the new blog is even visited by a bot. Even more valuable is a link from a site Google considers to be an authority site. Google has devised a series of page rankings that it uses to provide guidance as to the relative standing of various major web sites. A back link from a site with a 6 rank may be worth dozens of back links from dozens of unranked sites. That said, there is still a great deal of value in having back links from a large number of sites even if smaller.

So while we will be talking about some places where you can get some relatively highly ranked backlinks, don’t neglect getting links from lesser lights as well.

In our next session, we will show you how to get some backlinks with anchor text that you can control and that have high page ranks. The best of both worlds.

Technorati Tags: anchor text, Backlinks, Search Engine Optimization, SEO

Getting to the top of the Search Engines VI

Over the past two weeks or so, we have focused on what I call “On Page” search engine optimization.  We are now ready to move forward to discuss the “Off Page” factors that affect how Google and the other search engines rank your site.

It was important to deal with the on page factors first.  They are for the most part they are the easiest to change and or fix.  You have complete control of the on page factors.  Second, the off page factors require work.  Now some of you may go running and screaming because of that four letter word, but what we are about to launch into take some effort. It will be worthwhile effort, if you did what I have already advised.

If you haven’t yet or are confused about any part of it, spend a few bucks on my <a href=”http:///askearlabout.com/WART/index.html” target=”_blank”>WART Analysis</a> and I will tell you exactly what needs to be done. Then if you find you still can’t do it. Let me know and I will arrange to do it for you. Most of it is simple.

But if you only have 60% of it done, all the work you will be doing on off page factors will only get you about 60% of the effect they would have if you had fully completed the front end on page things. Clear enough?

In the old days, getting your keywords, meta tags, titles and etc. done correctly was enough to get you to the top in the search engine rankings. In narrow niches it still may be, but if you are playing second fiddle to a competitor or two for your favorite keyword you have some homework to do.

Professional search engine optimizers use a wide array of tools to get their client sites to the top of the search engines, many of which aren’t necessary for most small business operators serving a local market.  You can largely count on your geographical keywords to get you in front of most of your customers.

While there are a variety of tools, the key concepts of off page search engine optimization is focused on one concept: Backlinks.  And when discussing backlinks the two major components are Focused Keywords and Anchored Text.

As we progress over the coming week of two, these words will reappear frequently.

There are many different ways to generate backlinks to your web site.  In discussing this topic we will return to talk about the content on your site, social media sites like Squidoo, Twitter, Hubpages, directories, article marketing, forums, press releases, blog networks and more.

In the next post we will talk about Google in particular, and ask why Google ranks one site higher than another. Or at least my best take on that topic.

Technorati Tags: anchored text, Backlinks, keywords

In our last discussion we talked about keyword density and the need to have your keywords appear on your page, frequently but not too frequently. The need to do so early on your page, and some suggestions on making sure you had enough words overall to appear substantive to the search engines and pointed out a need to have keywords that appear in your meta tags also appear on your page.

These are all important factors visible on your page. Today we will talk about three more elements of on-page importance. Your URL, the originality of your content and finally internal links.

You probably already have your URL or web site address. So this first topic may seem pointless, but let’s dig in anyway. If your business is counseling women going through a divorce on their financial matters, you may be better off trying to get www.DivorceeFinancialAdvice.com as your URL rather than www.JBBrown.com.

Way too many business web sites use meaningless business names as their URL in the hopes of creating some branding value. While some will take issue with me here, a URL that includes your major keyword may do you a lot more good, unless your brand is already deeply ingrained in your marketplace. Similarly, MinneapolisChiropractor.com
may be superior to WellnessClinic.com, although MinneapolisWellnessClinic may be worth a shot.

If you are wedded to www. your name.com you might still want to consider buying domain names of the better combinations of your major keywords and geographical areas and redirecting them to your web page. This serves a defensive purpose of keeping them out of potential competitor’s hands. Once you own these domains you can have them point to your existing web site. It’s not the ideal from an SEO standpoint but will help drive traffic to your site for the relatively minor cost of the domain name.

Originality of content shouldn’t be a problem for most business websites. But if your website is a template and you are using essentially the same text as another website, you may not get your site indexed at all. Google and the other search engines want to see unique new content, and not a duplicate of the same old thing. They will index the first copy they find and ignore the duplicates. You don’t want to have your site ignored. Make sure you are not using a carbon copy of someone else’s web site.

They also like to see new content. You can do that by adding new pages on occasion, or by making changes to existing pages. Is there a portion of your page that can be updated from time to time? If so, make sure you do so. This lets the search engines know that your site is active. That said, if you are going to do it, make sure you do. No one is impressed with a site that is talking about an upcoming holiday from two years ago.

Internal links are the links on your site to your various pages on the site. Most web sites have a home page and links on almost all their pages to “Home.” A better strategy is to use your major keyword, be it “Minneapolis Dentistry Home” or “St. Louis Sewer Repair Home.” By adding your keywords, you let the search engines know that that’s what your pages are about. It reinforces all your other keyword efforts.

This may be a bit tricky in some cases where space is tight, but where you can include links within the text of your pages to other pages, you should be sure to use anchor text links like this. Next week we will discuss off page factors. There we will go into more detail on linking to your site. When you are off page you have very little control on what links others will have to your site. When you have complete control such as on your own page, it behooves you to make maximum use of your ability to use internal links that let the search engines know what your pages are about.

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Don’t forget about my WART Analysis program. For next to nothing I will do a diagnostic of your web page and provide you with my personal advice on steps you could take to make your web page more effective in terms of search engine ranking.

Technorati Tags: Backlinks, internet information, ON Page SEO, Search Engine Optimization, SEO

I am trying to practice what I preach. And so now that I have my Aroma Therapy Scents blog site up, I am writing an article a day pointing to a different page each day and using the keywords featured on that page. That is actually not to time consuming. I know the topic, I already have material to work with and a clear sense of the keywords I want to use. The article directories have been eating them up, with several already apporved.

The next step was to create a Squidoo Lens. Frankly, I largely cut and pasted articles from the web site into Squidoo, and then hyper linked the key words in each article back to the pages.  I added a lot of Amazon and eBay modules to the Lens, which should generate at least some sales. Time will tell. At the bottom of each text module I added a link to my sales page and to the home page, encouraging people to buy my Aroma Therapy Scents eBook and or sign up for my 10 day ecourse.

My main goal is to get backlinks to the web site. But Squidoo should also send some traffic my way and generate a few sales here and there.

Now I should probably go back and rework some of the text as they may be duplicate content as I just cut and pasted the articles. That will take a bit more time, but otherwise I have less than an hour into the Squidoo Lens, which is a real time bargain.  see: Aromatherapy Scents Squidoo Lens http://www.squidoo.com/AromatherapyScents

I recommend that everyone with a web site, set up a Squidoo page. It may generate some revenues, but more importantly it provides backlinks and traffic.

Technorati Tags: Aroma Therapy Scents, aromatherapy scents, Backlinks, Squidoo