RSS Underground - RSS Resources - Dynamic Directory - Article MenuFeatured RSS Underground Content ArticleIs Content Really King? - The Power of LinksOn-page content and optimization by itself is no longer enough. Unfortunately, link popularity has become a dominant factor in deciding who ranks the highest within the major search engines, especially within Google. If a competitor of yours is both optimized for the same target search terms and has a higher quantity and/or higher quality of back links, they are going to outrank you: period. Even if your web site is perfectly optimized for an extremely niche search term and no other site in the world even mentions your exact phrase, you may still have trouble finding your web site if you do not have at least a few back links to "validate" your web site. If it came down to a contest between on-page optimization efforts against link building efforts, links would win hands down. You may find it shocking to hear a President of an optimization firm saying such a thing, but its true. I would challenge anyone to outrank a web site that has a massive number of quality back links by using on-page optimization efforts alone with zero link building efforts. Whereas, you can easily outrank a web site that is extremely well optimized by focusing heavily on link building efforts. An interesting example is Apple.com. One of the most important elements of optimization is to place the target key phrase within the meta title tag. However, search for the word "computers" on Google and you will find Apple.com on the first page of results. Apple does not even mention the word computers in their meta title tag. How is this possible when there are literally millions of competing web sites that are aggressively trying to show up for this term by applying various optimization efforts? The answer is that Apple.com has a superior volume of back links (over 70,000 in Google alone). And a large percentage of these links include the word computers within the anchor text (i.e. Apple Computers, Mac Computers, etc.). Does this mean Optimization is dead? The answer of course, is no. Search engines still love web sites that have tons of fresh and relevant content. It is the basis of what search engine results are all about. Copywriting fees are worth every penny when it comes to adding well written descriptions of your products and services onto your web site. Professional optimization companies still flourish because of the success they bring to their clients through increased rankings and traffic. For optimum results, you need both optimization and links to succeed today.
It's not just the quantity of incoming links, but the quality and relevance of the web sites from which they come, as well as what words are used within the visible text portion of the hyperlinks, i.e. "anchor text." Reciprocated links have less value than they use to and can potentially hurt your rankings if you are exchanging with too many unrelated web sites, i.e. bad neighborhoods. One-way links are the best links. During the last few Search Engine Strategies conferences, I could not help but notice an increasing number of link-related workshops, including a class dedicated to purchasing text links. Matt Cutts, official spokesman and software engineer for Google shared how he personally believes that buying links is like a politician buying votes and that incoming links should only grow naturally. He shared that the best way to receive incoming text links was to offer something truly helpful and/or unique and interesting to the public and that this would generate free unsolicited, incoming links without even asking. He offered some extreme examples of very creative web sites, which caused a national media stir. Within minutes frustrated attendees spoke up about how the search engines started this whole thing by giving too much criteria to links in the first place, and that buying links on other sites (be it through banners or text links) has been a conventional form of advertising well before Google even existed. Some commented that if Google was considering penalization for sites that buy or sell links, they should start with Yahoo, since Yahoo earns a good portion of their income from selling paid text links (i.e. $299/year directory listings). Interesting enough, Google actually recommends on their web site that you submit to directories such as Yahoo. I am sure that a majority of web site owners today would love to come up with creative ideas that would generate a ton of unsolicited media attention. The truth is that coming up with something exciting to say about reverse vacuum pumps, or single-mode fiber optic tool kits, or Batesville real estate is easier said than done. Most of the clients we work with offer clear and simple information about their products and services. Waiting around for other web sites to give them free, one-way text links may very well result in additional years of continual poor search engine rankings and a lack of sales. So how do you build back links? Below is a short list of some of the most common ways to increase your back links: - Offer something truly helpful that may inspire others to link to you without even asking. - Hire a web site positioning firm to help you write and distribute press releases and articles to thousands of sites. - Ask business partners, vendors, distributors, family members, golf partners, etc. to link to you. - Ask non-profit organizations if they would post a "contributor" link to you in exchange for a small donation. - Offer quotes and testimonials to sites you are comfortable with in exchange for a direct link to your site. - Exchange links with web sites (but stay within your industry and away from automated programs). - Purchase text link ads (costly, typically $20/month each and up - but may be worth it for the right industry). - Submit to quality directories whose listings are known to show up as valid back links (excellent value). Do you need thousands of links? Not necessarily. You may not even need hundreds. Everyday, we perform competitive back-link research and people are often shocked at how little it would take to rise above their competitors. Even if you are in a fairly competitive industry, there are often select search terms that may be far less competitive than others. This is why it is helpful to partner with an experienced search engine positioning company who can aid you in strategic decisions. Related: Page Content - Best Blogging Software RSS Underground Featured Article Author BoxKurt Noer is the President of a search engine positioning company called Customer Magnetism. They also provide link building services. Visit www.customermagnetism.com Fourteen Tips to a Successful Content SiteI have built and ran a successful content site on volunteering abroad for three years and while I might not be an expert at web publishing, I do have some experience. In preparation for launching a new site on technology in the developing world I wrote the following fourteen tips for creating a great content site: Tip One: Go Girly! First thing you should do is go to supermarket and buy every girl/teen magazine you can find. This might be embarrassing for 50% (or more) of you, but it will be one of the best investments you make. These magazines are the bible on how to write online content. They are overflowing with catchy titles, "10 best ways to..." style articles, great teasers, and upbeat writing style. Study these articles intently, you won't regret it. Supermarket magazines spend enormous sums of money every year studying the best way to pique passing grocery-store shoppers' interest, learn from their example. Check out these great teasers on the cover of a popular magazine: 1. Your Period, What's Normal, What's Not These pull the reader in by teasing a person's sexual drive (2, 4), personal health and safety (1, 5), personal happiness (3), and self image (6). They scream at the passer-by: "Read me! This can change your life!" Let us take these titles and apply them to apples. 1. Ripe Apples, What's Normal, What's Not Obviously I don't know too much about apples, but this is just an example of how universally powerful these teasers are. Tip Two: Keyword Centric Entries Keep each article around 500-750 words and centered on one keyword. For example, don't write about "The Best Apples and Oranges" but instead split it up "The Best Apples", "The Best Oranges", and "Apples vs. Oranges". Each entry is a doorway to your site, the more doorways you have the more people will enter. Although this method has been branded by many as spam, when done correctly it helps the visitor tremendously. The point is not to grind out as many entries of mindless dribble as possible but rather to produce highly focused content to increase the chances a visitor will find an entry closely matching their specific interests or needs. Tip Three: Soft Launch First Write 10-15 entries and bring your site online, but do not advertise or promote it except submitting to the big search engines. This will let any sandbox timer start while you write the rest of your content. When you have around 50-100 entries then you can officially launch and start promoting your site. Why? Because, one of the most important things for your site is link exchanges and you only have one chance to make a first impression. For this reason I recommend only hard launching when you have a "full" site. Tip Four: Link Exchanges Do not spam requests link exchanges and do not use link exchange services/circles. I have found there are two ways to get great links. 1) Interviews. Find other webmasters/companies in your field and ask them to do an interview. Interviews are excellent because (1) you get some free content and (2) because you begin the build a personal relationship. After they have completed the interview ask them kindly for a link to your site. They will be much more likely to accept now that you are not an email address and unknown web site but a fellow in their industry. 2) Case Studies. The small software/script companies generally have great page rank. Buy one of their cheaper products and after a month offer to write them a case study. Almost always they will say yes and will include a link to your site. I have gained many great backlinks this way. Tip Five: Site Design Speed! Speed! Speed! Brett Tabke is right; speed is everything for a content site. Use CSS and small background images to provide great speed while adding a graphic feel to your site. Remember to use color! Most sites sadly restrict themselves to one or two colors in the layout. We live in living color; use it to your advantage! For example: make the front page blue, the forum green, the site news pages purple etc... Your users will quickly learn to use colors to help situate themselves on your site. Tip Six: Know Your Visitors Every three months write a questionnaire for site visitors and have a $100 sweepstakes for those that fill it out. This will be the best $100 you'll ever spend. Knowing your visitors can be the difference between $5 a day and $50 a day. Use the questionnaire to tweak the subjects of your future entries and the types of advertising you display. You might think your site is for middle aged businessmen when it turns out 60% of your visitors are young housewives dreaming of starting a home business. Tip Seven: Intertwine Advertising with Content For a long time I had a 3 column layout. The first column was for site navigation, the second for content, and the third for advertising. This layout was very logical to me, but it became apparent after a few months that my CTR was much lower than it should be. Old Layout: Nav-----Content-----Ads I conducted a visitor survey and asked specifically about the layout. From the responses one fact stood out: the visitors never looked at the third column. After a few times viewing the site, the visitors consciously or sub-consciously learned that the third column was only advertising and ignored it completely. To correct the situation I took an idea from TheKnot.com and merged my first and third column. An example: New Layout: Content-----Ads The result was a jump from 0.2 CTR to almost 4.0 CTR. The viewers were drawn to the new merged column by the related entries, author biography, and other content. There was a much greater chance their eyes would move over the ad blocks and one or more would attract their interest. Tip Eight: Blueprints of Entries Create a blueprint of your site. Imagine you have a staff of 100 writers, what entries would you want them to write? Organize the entries in a hierarchy. Example: Apples: As you find what types of entries your visitors want, expand those areas in your blue-print. Remember to split up article topics as much as possible. In general, three 500 word entries are better than one 1500 word entry. Tip Nine: Evergreen This should go without saying. Make sure your entries are on topics which never lose relevancy and appeal. Tip Ten: Domain Names Follow Brett Tabke's 26 steps and choose something generic. Your site's overall topic will drift as you learn which topics pay and which don't. You might launch thinking your site is going to be about apples and oranges, but after a few months you realize the real money is in mangos. This is why your domain should be Fruonia.com not ApplesAndOranges.com. Tip Eleven: The Scratch book I carry a small scratch book around everywhere with me. When I have a few minutes I outline an article or write a blurb for a link. Just by working on your site during your free moments throughout the day (lunch breaks, coffee breaks, subway home etc...), you will be amazed how much you can get done before ever sitting down at the computer. Tip Twelve: The Logs Study your logs intently. Find out the cause of any special variation. Does your traffic dip on the 31st of every month? Why? How can you use this information in the future? Just like the visitor surveys, the logs are the key to understanding your visitors. From this goldmine you will begin to understand exactly who is visiting your site, what they want, and how they try to find it. Exploit this for fun and profit. Tip Thirteen: Push Forward The site should be as low maintenance as possible. Every minute you spend maintaining your site is a minute you do not spend making new content and growing. Make sure to not get bogged down answering emails and tweaking your layout. Content is king and the more content you have the more money you will earn. I believe many people spend too much time trying to SEO their current content instead of writing new content. If an entry is horrible don't update it, instead write "version two" of the article and publish it alongside the first. Content = money. Tip Fourteen: Directing Your Visitor You want your visitor to hang out at your site as long as possible, never tell them "the end" but instead use lists of related entries and crossing link to say "Done? This is what you should read next!" Conclusion I'd like to end this article with a quote I have taped my monitor by Rob Malda, the creator of Slashdot. This is pretty much everything you need to know about being successful on the internet (and life). "Slashdot is successful for the same reasons anything else is. We provided something that was needed before anyone else did, and we worked (and continue to work) our butts off to make it as good as it could be" Happy publishing! Related: Blogging Directory - Blog Search RSS Underground Featured Article Author BoxThe Director of Technology & Change, Chris currently lives in Miami while working towards a triple major degree in political science, international studies, and religious studies from the University of Miami. Previously he founded the online voluntourism magazine ServeYourWorld and has extensive experience in online publishing. In his spare time he enjoys spending time with his fiancée Jenn. Hey, please visit the Internet Marketing web sites: Recently Added Internet Related Articles: Bloggers Moderate - If your blog has an interesting content, you will surely have a good distribution of your blog. You must update your blog on a regular basis. This is because your readers will only get bored if they read the same post over and over again. Scan Able Web Content - Fresh content The age old question keeps coming up, how do you retain web site visitors, how do you make visitors return to your web site? The answer should come as no surprise, fresh content. Content is truly king, the fresher the content the better the site. Effective Blog - They are many companies on the net today that will allow you to use their service to create a free web site. Commonly known as a blog or blog board. The information in this article is going to cover blogger.com and how not to have your blog deleted and make a profit from using there service. Yes you got it we are going to use a free service and make some money as well. Money Blogging - Tell your readers about what's going on in your business rather than simply advertising to them. Add your own voice which will, in turn, become the new voice of your business. Remember, blogs are interactive. They're a chance for you to reach people in a more personal and impactful way than regular static web pages. Use this to your advantage to build relationships with your readers. "Business Blog - From CNN News feeds to suicide blogs in Japan. If people are remotely interested in a subject there is at lest one blog for it, if not several hundred blogs on the topic. With blogging being the all the buzz these days many people [who secretly don't know what the heck a ""Blog"" is] are wondering… Sample Content - All of these question types are useful for testing knowledge gained from taking a course, as well as testing the level of knowledge prior to a course. In addition, such questions are useful in the course itself as learning checks. The learning check enables the student to determine whether he understands the material. Most companies consider these questions to be adequate learning activities. RSS Resources - RSS resources for webmasters that is Highly Relevant and Search Engine Friendly! Identical Content - Along with the Internet boom came the massive proliferation of web sites. Since many web sites are made not just for private use but to make money as well, web sites find themselves having to compete with other web sites of the same category when it comes to reaching and keeping their target audience. Corporate Blog - In fact I received many questions on "How to make money blogging" when I conducted my first webcast to answer my subscribers' most pressing questions on Blogs and Rss. You can make money Blogging in a number of ways, and in this article I share with you up to nine ways in which you can make money blogging. Articles on the web
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