Success for Your Website through Professional SEO
Are You Looking for the Best Website Development and Search Engine Optimization?
Good SEO practices can make or break a company’s website. It’s true. As someone once mentioned you can have the biggest and best store on the planet, but if no one can find it because it’s in the middle of the desert it is destined to fail.
Implementing good search engine optimization is about more than just reading up on Aaron Wall’s blog. It is about having a clear, long term goal for how your website will succeed.
There are many crucial aspects that go into creating a successful website. Working with a company that is experienced in custom website design, and solid SEO strategies can make all the difference in the highly competitive field of online business.
With so many websites out there you need something to set you apart from your competitors. A web development firm like Effect Web Media, can take your website to a whole new level by providing proven web strategies and development practices, with some of the best search engine optimization money can buy.
Don’t wait until it’s too late before you try to address potential problems with your website. Talk to the professionals that can steer you in the right direction for successful, long term business online.
Most websites out there do not fail because they lose steam over time. These sites fail because they never receive the exposure they need to connect with their customers. Make the most of what you have, and work with someone who can take it to the next level. Don’t wait any longer, when you can make a change today.
Business Success with Online Marketing Services
Getting People to Know Your Brand
Help! I have a business and a website but no one knows I exist! Hehe. Many of my friends have run that by me time and time again. Growing up we were all into computers so it only seemed like a natural progression to move into online business as we got older.
Some of us have been successful and some of us have had to keep our day jobs. In truth most of us kept our day jobs, but the opportunities we pursued in our free time opened up into great sources of income for a select few.
What was the secret? Getting the exposure we needed to grow our businesses. There are many ways to get this exposure, and with the worldwide web being as large as it is, it can easy to get lost in the crowd.
Some of the best sources of online exposure I have come across were through internet marketing services. Remember the old adage “it takes money to make money”. Well this is true. It does.
It takes money to get exposure which drives traffic which equals income. A great company I have come across that really excels at their online marketing services is Network Solutions. They offer some of the most comprehensive internet marketing services I have seen in awhile. They offer great SEO services which will help you get the Search Engine placement you need to succeed with an online business.
After running many different sites I understand the importance of getting good exposure. While you can do your best to stay up to date with all the latest SEO trends sometimes it is wise to work with a specialist which allows you do focus on what you do best… doing business.
The Key to a Successful Web Business is Internet Marketing
Internet Marketing is Important if you want to Succeed
A lot of my friends have been asking me lately how they can make extra money through a web based business. I have been making money online for several months now, and everyone I talk to is very impressed by how quickly I have turned a hobby into a money making venture.
Currently I am running numerous websites that all bring in regular monthly income. I have had people tell me that this is the best way to go because all the money adds up quickly. Well it does, and it doesn’t.
The most important thing I have learned from maintaining all these sites is that you can have a hundred websites and they won’t make you a penny if people don’t know they exist. Enter Internet Marketing.
Internet Marketing is one of the most critical considerations people need to make when trying to make money online with a web based business. Whether you are trying to make money online by blogging, or selling widgets you need to get exposure to make the most of the time you invest into your business.
Now because making money online can be time consuming in itself, sometimes there is not always time to learn all the latest and greatest internet marketing techniques. This is where internet marketing consultants come in.
Because it is simply not realistic to control every facet of your online business, it can be very helpful to work with an Internet Marketing Consultant to make sure you are making the most of all the opportunities available to your company.
There are many internet marketing consulting companies out there so always make sure to check reviews, and ask some questions before jumping into an agreement with someone.
One site I always come back to as a valuable resource is Danny Demichele’s website which offers great tips and news on internet marketing. Even if you are not working directly with Danny his site offers valuable information to help you safe guard your online business. If you have questions that are not covered on his site you can always hire Danny to get the answers to all your questions.
It still amazes me how many people who are trying to make a living online over look the importance of a good internet marketing campaign. Knowing this you already have an advantage over those who are going to cross their fingers and hope that Google finds them in the sea of millions of websites.
When Backlinking Hurts more than it Helps – Avoid Penalties
Aggressive Link Building can Hurt Your Short Term Exposure
I have recently become aware of the importance of non-aggressive linking practices to avoid being penalized by the Google gods. Since so much of your website’s exposure relies on the organic traffic that Google generates it is a good idea to avoid any practices that would flag your site for penalty or review.
I am actually in pretty good shape. Pseudorant is a new site, that doesn’t really focus on one thing, and acts more as a tech journal than an online business. My site recently got penalized for (what I assume was looked at as) aggressive or spammy link building practices.
I wanted to share my mistakes with others to help them avoid the pitfalls I created for myself when building up my website.
While this may be common sense to some, others may be completely unaware of these issues. Following the practices many people recommend, while being unaware of the specifics, can lead to potential problems for aspiring webmasters.
Below is a list of “recommended” practices and the specific details behind them. Most resources will recommend a method, without discussing the details behind the methods that can lead to penalties with Google.
5 main examples of these types of recommendations are:
- List your site in directories
- Use keyword rich anchor text in backlinks
- Make use of social bookmarking sites
- Use link bait to generate back links
- Linkbuilding is the most important thing to focus on
Now these things may sound like good advice, and they are if you understand the details behind them.
For a new webmaster it would be a bad idea to focus on this list in its current form. So let’s take a look at each suggestion on the list and elaborate on the details needed to make them work successfully.
01. List your site in directories.
This is an ok idea. It gets you back links, and is a linking practice that you can control. There are several details to be aware of when building directory links.
Quality over quantity – Crap links will do more harm then good. The more crap links you have coming into your site the more you raise red flags with Google because of “Link Trust” issues that your site starts creating.
“Link Trust” is when Google weighs the number of spammy inbound links to your site against the number of quality in bound links to your site. If the majority of your links are not “quality” links, link trust flags start going up with Google.
When looking at a directory there is a lot of criteria you want to weigh to decide if it is worth listing there. What other websites are listed in the directory? Are the valuable resources or pure spam?
There is a great video that outlines considerations to make when listing in directories. It is available at Aaron Wall’s SEO Book website entitled “Directories & Link Building”.
There are many other issues that affect the quality of directory listings. But as a webmaster the quality of your links should be the most important factor to you over the sheer number.
02. Use keyword rich anchor text in backlinks
This is another great suggestion. You want to use keyword rich anchor text so your website can start ranking well for keywords that are important to your niche. Once again there are several important details that are left out of this general recommendation.
Do Not Use the Same Keywords or Link Format – Search engines are merely algorithms designed to dig through text on websites and make comparisons to determine how the data relates to the site.
One pattern that is very easy for a search engine to pickup is links with the same anchor text used over and over. Let’s say you are listing your site in directories and you create a text file with your site title, description and keywords to copy and paste in order to speed up the submission process
This will actually hurt you more than it helps in the long run by creating patterns that the search engines recognize as “Unnatural Linking Patterns”. A natural linking pattern is what occurs when people actually link to your site. Because we all think differently and describe things using different words, your site will naturally get referenced using many different keywords and anchor text.
If all your anchor text is the same because you have used the copy / paste for all your backlinks, this is another thing that will raise a red flag with Google and can lead to a penalty or site review.
03. Make use of social bookmarking sites
Social book marking sites are great. They allow for a sense of community and enable users to suggest valuable sources of information to others. This does not mean that any source of information is welcomed.
Do not join these communities in order to force crap information onto people. Take the time to learn how the community works before posting self promotional articles that people could care less about.
If you need to promote something, decide what is important and let people know. If the community thinks it’s important they will tell others without the need for you to constantly “reinforce” that the information is important.
Remarkable information is usually worth remarking on. If you do not get the desired outcome it is a sign that you need to spend more time working on your content and less time promoting yourself.
04. Use link bait to generate back links
This method has been recommended by a lot of people. Even Google’s Matt Cutts has discussed how this can be a good link building practice. The thing to keep in mind here is that successful link bait can inadvertently bring attention to other issues on your site that may have raised some red flags in the past.
I had an excellent learning experience with this recently when I posted an article that sent a portion of the Open Source community into an uproar. The ironic thing was that the article was not geared to be link bait. It was simply me following the advice of other guides that said “be yourself”.
Unfortunately when I am “myself” I can get very candid to the point where I can paint an almost black or white picture about any given topic. This is not the case with how things really are in life, but because of my OCD tendencies this comes very naturally to me. It becomes very easy to hone in on what will set people off without even realizing it.
The article I wrote generated quiet a bit of interest and a lot of negative comments. Since my intention was never to make Pseudorant a political platform I felt it was best to remove the article. If I was going to get front page exposure on Linux.com I would prefer it be for something more valuable than a sporadic rant.
I am not sure if the numerous backlinks that were created from the article in a short period of time threw up another red flag, or the fact that I took down the article which may have appeared to be a bait and switch technique. Either way, the post generated enough traffic and exposure that Google put a lock down on the back links coming into my site.
I assume I am currently in the 30-60 day penalty phase associated with “spammy” link building practices. Since Pseudorant only receives several hundred hits a day (half through referring sites) this has not affected my overall traffic much. It has decreased by about a third. The most noticeable thing is the back links I was tracking through my blog are now gone.
05. Linkbuilding is the most important thing to focus on
This is very true, but also the most important concept to understand the details behind.
As I mentioned before, focus on “natural link building” methods. While having traffic in the short term is great, depending on how you generate it, it can raise a lot of unwanted attention from Google.
In the ultra competitive area of blogging it is unrealistic to tell someone not to worry about traffic or page rank. This is something people who have established sites can say because they don’t need to worry about it. For those who don’t receive any daily traffic, tell me where the motivation is to keep writing articles if no one is reading them.
You need to reach a happy middle ground to generate traffic and avoid red flag linking practices.
Some of the best suggestions I have read talk about creating link worthy content and it’s true. Creating content that is worth linking to is the best practice you can follow for long term success because it creates a natural linking pattern throughout the internet.
If you pursue a link building campaign make sure to research all the details behind the methods you are using before jumping into a hay day of directory submissions. A good place to start would be doing some solid SEO research, and avoid making the mistakes I have made by learning all these great things after the fact.
Hindsight is 20/20 - Reflecting on What I Have Learned
Some people may read this guide thinking these points are obvious and others may discover some of the practices they have used are worth reevaluating. I am by no means an authority on SEO, and if you really get serious about this kind of stuff you should definitely start researching different SEO topics in detail.
I am just relating the things I have learned (and continue to learn) by trail and error, to help others who are in the same boat. With so many blogs being created each day I can see how many people may mistakenly think that the 5 point link building guides out there are the holy grail of getting exposure for your site.
The best idea is to always try to blend in with the competition. If your competitors have 100 back links you don’t need 25,000. Remember the best links are naturally occurring, quality links because they last longer, provide more benefit to your site, and help you avoid the potential pitfalls I have outlined in the article.
I hope you have found this article useful for researching link building practices that are recommend on different websites, and to help you plan any approach you may take for driving traffic to your site in the future.
The Best SPAM I Receive on a Daily Basis
Sometimes Opt-In Subscriptions can feel like Spam…
…but they may turn out to really useful!
Hey all. I have been doing a lot of work on my company website lately, and I have also been studying up on various SEO practices that our site is currently lacking.
While researching some of these things I have subscribed to various mailing lists for one reason of another. Some of the resources I have used basically required you to sign up, while others were voluntary opt-in mailing lists.
I figured it didn’t matter because I was using my work email, which I get a ton of spam to already. (Unfortunately our email provider does a terrible job of filtering spam)
I usually delete most of this email without even looking twice. While filtering through the normal bulk of my crap mail, an article caught my eye and I ended up reading it to find out it actually contained a lot of interesting information.
I checked through the rest of my mail and found several more emails from this site, each one as interesting as the last. Imagine my shock to find valuable information mixed in with my normal spam. Not only was this information great it was being sent to me almost every day.
The site that was sending these newsletters is called “Site Pro News”. If you have not already heard of them I recommend you check them out. They run a site that is all about “Webmaster News and Resources”. I have only been to their site a handful of times but I now look forward to any Site Pro emails that show up in my inbox since they are always full of interesting articles, and valuable information.
If you end up checking them out I recommend subscribing to their news letter. It is a nice change of pace to receive something useful everyday, as opposed to the same old ads about paid links, or Viagra. Some of their articles are hit or miss, but the ones that are a “Hit” are really interesting reads.
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