Search Engine Optimization

For many companies that are new to the web, search engine optimization (SEO) is a mind-boggling affair.  There is so much information available out there about SEO that it can be downright overwhelming to figure out what to do and what not to do. Although there is plenty that can go wrong in a newbie’s search engine optimization campaign, the 5 mistakes below cause the most harm.  Fortunately, with minimal effort, these SEO no-no’s can be easily avoided.

1. Targeting Only Highly Competitive Keywords

It’s going to take some time for your site to build authority and climb the search engine results pages.  If you only target highly competitive keywords, it will only take longer for your site to rank, since you’ll be competing with established sites.

When you’re starting out, focus on targeting less competitive, long-tail keywords, which are easier to rank for.  When you target several long-tail keywords, they can bring you a significant amount of traffic.  As an added benefit, long-tail keywords tend to be more specific and therefore bring traffic to your website that converts better.

2. Not Providing Enough Textual Content

As the saying goes, content is king.  Without textual content, the search engine bots that crawl your website won’t be able to determine what it’s about.   Make sure that each page of your site features at least 300 words of original, SEO content.

3. Using Keywords in Your Content Excessively

After realizing that it’s a good idea to include target keywords in their content, some newbies make the mistake of being excessive.  Keyword-stuffed copy may help you rank better initially, but it won’t help you attract readers, which is essential to your success.  Make sure that you write for humans first, and then search engines.  Besides, you have to be careful because stuffing your site’s content with keywords can get your site blacklisted by the search engines.

4. Having a Flash Website with No HTML

Flash is attractive and cutting-edge, but in terms of SEO, it’s an absolute nightmare.  To ensure that the search engine bots can index your website and crawl your site’s content, make sure to provide an html version of your site.

5. Not Using Descriptive Page Titles that Include Target Keywords

Not only are page titles on your website the first thing that search engine bots encounter when they crawl your website, they are also the first thing that searchers will see when they view your listing on search engine results pages.  Make sure that your page titles are relevant to the content and that they contain target keywords.  Each page of your website should have a unique title.

Most of you are well aware that link-building is one of the most important aspects of SEO. But gaining credible, relevant link popularity is not as easy as it sounds. Link-building can be very expensive and time-consuming, so make sure your efforts are worthwhile by avoiding the 8 most common link-building mistakes below.

#1 Failing to Use Anchor Text or Using Worthless Anchor Text

One of the biggest mistakes you can make when building links is using worthless anchor text such as, “click here” or “read more.” Anchor text needs to contain target keywords if you want to improve your site’s search engine rankings. Furthermore, anchor text is supposed to help search engine spiders determine what your website is about, so make sure to use anchor text that’s relevant.

#2 Getting Links from Unrelated Websites

If your website is about cooking, you need to get backlinks from websites about cooking in order to increase your search engine ranking. If you don’t get backlinks from sites that are relevant to your niche, you’re wasting your time.

#3 Getting Links from Websites with Poor Reputations

Be sure to check the reputation of a website before getting a link from it, so you don’t unknowingly become associated with a bad online neighborhood. If your website becomes associated with websites that engage in black hat SEO techniques or other questionable practices, your website could end up getting penalized by the search engines.

#4 Only Building Links on Sites with a High Page

RankingTry to get backlinks both from sites with low page rankings and high page rankings because it looks natural. Plus, the sites with low page rankings could end up having higher page rankings in the long run.

#5 Building Links on Websites That Cannot Be Crawled

Search engine bots are still not capable of crawling websites made with Flash or JavaScript. They also can’t read text links within frames, so don’t waste your time building links on websites that are Flash generated or framed.

#6 Blatantly Buying Links

Although everyone keeps quiet about it, link buying is alive and well. Just make sure that if you buy links, you do it discreetly and cover up your footprints. Google has declared war on paid links and may de-index your site if you are found out.

#7 Valuing Quantity over Quality

Think that 500 links is better than 50? If you answered yes, think again. One link from a high quality source is far more valuable than 20 links from questionable sources. Generally, the harder it is to get a link, the more valuable it is. Focus on creating great content, networking, and guest posting to garner high caliber links.

#8 Accumulating Links from No Follow Sites

Links with the no follow attribute will not help you improve your site’s ranking. Building links on no follow sites is only worthwhile if they can bring you significant traffic. In terms of search rankings, however, no follow links are totally useless

When launching a brand new website, tackling the most competitive keywords first is not advisable because you will be competing against sites that have trusted domains, tons of content, and a slew of inbound links from a diversity of sources.  If you attempt to beat more established competitors from the very beginning, you won’t get very far. 

For New Websites, There is Little Value in Targeting Competitive Keywords

It can take a seasoned SEO company or consultant up to a year to earn the search engine trust necessary to achieve decent rankings for competitive keywords.  Getting on page 2 or 3 of search engine rankings for highly competitive keywords will bring you little reward; getting to the top page is all that matters.

Websites need trusted links from a variety of sources, relevant anchor text, and domain age to rank for highly competitive keywords.  On-page optimization makes up only 5% of the overall search ranking algorithm for highly competitive keywords. 

On the other hand, on-page optimization makes up approximately 50% of the overall search ranking algorithm for long-tail keywords.  And long-tail keywords have far less traffic and are thus much easier to rank for. 

Targeting Long-Tail Keywords is the Fastest Way to Drive Relevant Traffic to Your Site

Rather than attempting to achieve rankings for highly competitive keywords in the very beginning, target long-tail variations of competitive keyword phrases on core pages and link anchor text.  Moreover, focus on optimizing deep pages of your site.  

You may be wondering if it’s a waste of time to target thousands of keywords that only bring in a small amount of traffic.  But remember that targeting for long-tail keywords is effective because when combined, the traffic they bring is significant. 

Long-Tail Keywords Have Higher Conversions

Another benefit of targeting long-tail keywords is that people who search for them tend to convert well in terms of clicks and sales since they know exactly what they want to find.  For example, the term, “best credit cards for college students,” would bring you far more targeted, conversion-friendly traffic than the generic term, “credit cards.” 

Target Long-Tail Keywords First So You Can Build Revenue Streams and Exposure

Eventually, it will be necessary for you to rank for competitive keywords, but initially, your efforts should be focused on targeting long-tail keywords and building revenue streams from them.  By doing so, you can earn the exposure needed to rank for more competitive keywords down the line.

When you rank your new website for a variety of long-tail keywords, it creates many paths that lead to your site.  Furthermore, it builds your site’s authority, which in the long run will help you rank highly for the most competitive keywords. 

Hub finder is an extremely USEFUL link analysis tool from SEO book available for free. If you do SEO for yourself or for your clients, this is a must use tool.

Some background on the tool and how it works:

Hub finder is a web based software made ad hosted by, in my opinion the best SEO resource, SEO Book. The tool uses Yahoo API, meaning it gets data from Yahoo. In the nutshell, Hubfinder looks at your competitor’s backlink profiles, and identifies pages which link to at least 2 competitors at a time. For instance, if your competitors are example.com, site.com, webaddress.com, and somesite.net links to all 3 of them, Hub finder will identify it, making somesite.net a link opportunity for you.

The tool uses Yahoo API, and Yahoo is known to put the most authoritative sites (by Yahoo’s calculations) at the top of the results in the Site Explorer. Hubfinder has “depth” limit from 50 to 250 links on each backlink profile, so to ensure you find the most authoritative hub pages, limit the volume to 50.

How to do the analysis

First, go on Google and type the keyword you want to tackle. Copy all 10 websites that show up for that word (or 9 if you’re already on the first page) and put them in the Hub Finder.

Then set the preferences. If you’re just starting a link campaign for the client or for your website, it is best to see as many link opportunities as possible, so I max out the preferences:

• Results: 20
• API: Both
• Min Match:
• Depth: 250
• Link Type: Domain
• Application: Sort By

Query and Hub finder will give you the results:

Now you have a very good list of link opportunities!

More on Hub Finder:

• About Hub Finder

This guide will help you write keyword rich content targeted at search algorithms that reads naturally and satisfies keyword criteria.
The first thing to understand about search engine copywritings is – the focus should be on the end user, not the search engine. Write as if you were writing without any keywords considerations, and then go back and input keywords where they fit.

Latent Semantic Indexing LSI

Latest semantic indexing (LSI) is the science of natural language processing. All major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Live have implemented LSI into their algorithms, meaning they have the capability to distinguish between meaningless collection of words and actual content. How does this affect your copywritings? You have to write natural copy and use synonyms and related words to your main key phrase.
For example: car, vehicle and automobile are synonymous and are naturally related. Words: engine, speed, wheels, gear and clutch are related, but not synonymous. Latent semantic indexing algorithm will look for both synonyms and related words on a page in order to deliver high quality results to the end user.

• If a copywriting lacks synonyms and related words the quality score of the page may go down.
• Use synonymous words in your content. This comes naturally if you forget about the search engines and write naturally for the end user. Just go back and edit writing once you’re finished.
• Use words included in key phrase separately. For example, if your key phrase is “montreal injury lawyer”, make sure that the words “Montreal”, “injury” and “lawyer” are used separately in the content apart from the key phrase combination.

Learn more about latent semantic indexing http://optimization.ca/Learning/search-engine-optimization/latent-semantic-indexing.html

Keyword Density

Keyword density was one of the key factors with earlier search engines, but it was too easy to manipulate, thus search engines had to find different relevancy indicators. With the rise of Google and its Page Rank algorithm ranking factors were switched from onsite to offsite rendering keyword density factor less useful.
Your targeted keywords must be present on the page you’re targeting, but whether they are repeated 6 or 10 times does not make any difference. Write naturally and try to repeat the key phrase anywhere between 6 to 15 times. Once you’re finished with writings, one of our professionals will review it before the launch and correct any issues.

Making Copy writings Readable

Online visitors DO NOT read websites, like books, or newspapers - they scan them. Visitors scan headlines, look for links and skim over images, but they do not read websites. Visitors ONLY read websites once they find the exact piece of information they intended to find, otherwise it is all scanning action.
Here are some of the tactics to keep low attention scanning eyes engaged:

• Use several headlines if your content in order to make copywriting easy to scan.
• Use 3 – 5 sentences per paragraph. Anything longer is hard to scan, thus it is simply skipped by the reader.
• Bold and underline important points.
• Use bullet points, since bullets are easy to scan.
• Use links within content to your pages. Links are one of the first things scanners look for within content.
• Use images to attract attention.

In search of effective link building methods, techniques, companies, experts and advice I came across multitude of useful articles that I am going to share with you in this post.

Link Building Resources from across The Web

Here you can find advice from professionals such as Eric Ward, Aaron Wall and others. I am still in the process of studying the materials, since there’s a lot to digest

Get started:

• 21 Tips to earn links and tweets to your blog post
• SEO: Do link builders need to know it?
• 6 Real linkbait examples and the lessons learned
• How NOT to request a link via email
• Increase online visibility for sales and links
• 10 linkbait strategies to build links and drive traffic
• Optimizing anchor text and titles
• Guest blogging for (a lot of) backlinks
• 15 Ways to measure (and GROW) your site’s linkability
• Twitter is incredibly valuable or utterly useless for link building
• 16 ways to measure a link’s marketing value
• Temporal nature of link building
• Sustainable link equity
• 10 Link opportunity segments that increase link acquisition efficiency and conversion rates
• A link builder is born: learning to crawl before you walk
• Is link building a PR function?
• Integrating marketing campaigns with link development
• Who owns link building?
• 7 Reasons why link building needs patience
• 55 Link opportunity qualifiers within large scale link prospect data sets
• Essential qualities of an exceptional link builder
• the value of anchor text optimized internal links
• several link building tactics, including a few examples of some of these tactics
• squeeze the most link juice from your suppliers’ websites
• 11 Experts on link development speak out
• The fundamentals of link building
• Link building: the future of relationships
• Rachelle Money interviewed Eric Ward
• Eric Enge interviewed Debra Mastaler
• Eric Enge interviewed Eric Ward
• 44 Killer tricks to hunt down any webmaster
• The definitive list of 75+ link building techniques
• 35 Powerful ways to get noticed
• Link building notes of an SEO kindergartner
• Interviewing a potential link developer
• A guide to getting maximum link value from your content
• Link building secrets revealed by top linking experts
• A guide to one-way link building
• Link Diagnosis
• Link Value Factors
• Link Building Strategies: 69 solid tactics for 2009
• The 4 types of authority links (and 11 ways to get them)
• Building link targeted content that works
• Where do you start your link marketing campaign?
• Link building ideas for small businesses
• Building relationships is more important than building links alone
• Incentivizing links
• Link marketing and Pareto’s Law are connected
• Social media links can translate in organic rankings
• 10 tips for effective guest posting
• What the economic situation means for link building

Google has rolled out new one line sitelinks to sites below the fold. The one line sitelinks are also called classic sitelinks, since this is the way sitelinks looked the first time they were introduced by Google.

As of now, it is not required for a website to hold top position to receive one line sitelinks. You may find them in 4th, 5th and even lower spots.

Here are some featured:

• Display of this abbreviated version of Sitelinks is not limited to “branded” searches
• One-Line Sitelinks are not just reserved for the #1 result and can appear in results at the bottom of the SERPs
• One-Line Sitelinks are appearing on more than one result at a time
• A single domain can have more than one set of Sitelinks per page

Very interesting quote from All About Content.

In the case of KidsHealth.org (result #3 in the screenshot above), the main page is an unfriendly Flash page with three main buttons: Parents, Kids, Teens. “How the Body Works” is one of over a dozen submenu items within the “Kids” subdirectory. These four links, in this same order, are the first four Sitelinks in the full-size version of this site’s Sitelinks when you do a query on [Kids Health]. It’s not entirely clear at first glance where exactly the Sitelinks names are pulling from, since they are not an exact match for on-page anchor text, page titles or alt attributes. Most likely it is using a combination of those factors, but then stripping out “stop words.”

There are few ranking guides out there, covering everything from A to Z, with participants such as Rand Fishkin, Aaron Wall, Eric Ward, Danny Sullivan and others.

• Search Engine Ranking Factors
• Local Search Engine Ranking Factors
• Ranking Factors Simplified

This time a less known expert took a stab at search engine ranking factors coming out with Search Geeks Guide to Ranking Factors.

Here’s a list of items i personally found interesting:

• Thoughts; when it comes to links (internal or external or inbound) we want to build upon the theme of our core target terms. Understanding the core concepts of nodal graph link systems (such as PageRank) is mandatory to performing SEO – learn it well.
• H tags still have their value, while page TITILE tag is crucial.
• He mentions link velocity, which in my understanding is the speed with which links are acquired, otherwise - what the hell is that? The speed of the link?
• Other link factors include link age, time of year link acquired (believe it or not).

Under Trust factors he highlighted:

• domain history
• inbound links (anchor, distribution)
• outbound links, named entities and contact information.

Geo Location Factors

• location of the clients device (what city you’re in when you search?)
• Location of web page hosting
• Contact / location information
• Inbound/outbound link geo-factors
• Linguistic indicators (language and nuances)

For a full list of factors check out Search Geeks Guide to Ranking Factors.

Search Engine Roundtable reports that the best time to send out link requests is Tuesday morning between 8am and Noon. The data is based on a survey run on Search Engine Roundtable with a total of 163 participants. SE Roundtable has a very specific readership, so they are perfectly positioned to take on this survey.

The funny thing is - since so many people will see this data, webmasters are going to get bombarded for several weeks every Tuesday morning between 8am and Noon :).

Links Requests

Sending out one way link requests is a tricky business. You have to be genuinely interested in a web site, have a little conversation with a webmaster before asking for a link, otherwise you will be treated as spam. And thats hard - going through a web site, pretending to be interested in the person la-ta-da-ta-da-da-da…. I just want a link :)))

Link buying is still active and prosperous. Google is still fighting it…

Here’s a list of Analytics tools from around the web. Some are free, while others are subscription based.

• Google Analytics - probably the most well known analytics tool on the internet. It has many advanced and enterprise level features. Best of all its free. Downside is - once you install analytics Google knows everything there is about your website.
• Piwik - open source analytics project. They use AJAX like Google. A good alternative if you don’t want to share info with the big brother.
• Clicktracks - enterprise level analytics software.
• Omniture - measure everything to death… really. You can track virtually everything you can imagine.. then imagine some more and track that as well. Omniture is one of the most powerful analytics tools on the market. Designed for enterprise level clients it comes at large figures.
• Sitemeter - another analytics tools.
• WebTrends - from the same company that makes Web Position (advanced SEO rank checker) comes the analytics solution. It’s quite expensive.
• Have a Mint - they shamelessly stole Mint design and made analytics software.
• Clicky - fun looking tool. I have not looked into to it, but you can give it a try.

More Tools: Semphonic | Analog

Coming Soon

• Yahoo Analytics
• Microsoft Adcenter Analytics

Both are coming very late to the scene. Google came at the time all quality analytics tools were quite expensive, so it turned tables around in favor of the small guys (making analytics vendors struggle).

SEO Expert (SEO Internet Marketing Inc) is Canadian search engine optimization company who offers SEO services in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Services include first page placement on Google for multiple targeted keywords related to your industry. You can search keywords yourself using keyword research tools below or let us handle the issue.

Keyword Research Tools

• https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
• http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

Halifax SEO Services

Halifax SEO services include clean coding, landing page development, linking and copy writing. Each stage is supplemental to one another and together you can achieve best rankings on search results in Halifax, Nova Scotia and other provinces.

Clean Coding - this stage encompasses cleaning your pages of code errors that prevent search engine bots from properly spidering and indexing your website. Clean coding is done in compliance with WC3 standards, usually 4.0 strict HTML.

Landing Page Development - landing page is a page visitors see when they click on search result. Each landing page is optimized for particular keywords and serves as the entry door to your website. Our Halifax SEO services allow landing pages as separate domains or as a separate website.

Copy writing - this stage is a simple as it can get. Our writers write articles with targeted keywords throughout the body in order to appear relevant to search engine.

Linking - this is the engine that gets Halifax SEO rankings. Google and other search engine view links votes, this the more links your site has - the higher it will rank.

Our SEO Rankings

As a solid proof of success track record and performance, check our rankings:

www.searchengineoptimizationcompany.ca

• #1 on Google.ca for seo out of 273,000,000 results
• #1 on Google.ca for SEO Services out of 12,000,000 results
• #1 on Google.ca for Search Engine Optimization out of 25,900,000 results
• #1 on Google.ca for SEO Expert out of 1,860,000 results Authoritative Site
• #1 on Google.ca for Montreal SEO out of 699,000 results Authoritative Site
• #1 on Google.ca for Montreal SEO Firm out of 179,000 results Authoritative Site
• #1 on Google.ca for Search Engine Marketing out of 116,000,000 results
• #2 on Google.ca for Search Engine Optimization Company out of 51,600,000 results
• #2 on Google.ca for Search Engine Marketing Company out of 770,000,000 results
• #4 on Google.ca for SEO Company out of 2,130,000 results

SEO Black Hat claims that bounce rate is a search engine ranking factor. To support his claims, here are the screenshots from his blog:

“…this isn’t the first time I’ve recognized this pattern, it happens every 2-3 months on average.”

As the bounce rate decreased, Google sent more traffic to his website. This could mean that Google uses bounce rate as a search ranking factor and awards keywords with high bounce rate to sites that statistically have lower bounce rate.

Leading search engine engine rankings is a solid proof of professional SEO company:

• #1 on Google.ca for seo out of 257,000,000 results
• #1 on Google.ca for SEO Services out of 8,470,000 results
• #1 on Google.ca for Search Engine Optimization out of 24,300,000 results
• #1 on Google.ca for SEO Expert out of 1,690,000 results Authoritative Site
• #1 on Google.ca for Montreal SEO out of 724,000 results Authoritative Site
• #1 on Google.ca for Montreal SEO Firm out of 202,000 results Authoritative Site
• #1 on Google.ca for Search Engine Marketing out of 93,900,000 results
• #1 on Google.ca for Search Engine Optimization Company out of 50,200,000 results
• #2 on Google.ca for Search Engine Marketing Company out of 64,600,000 results
• #3 on Google.ca for SEO Company out of 1,480,000 results

Professional Search Engine Optimization in Summary

Professional SEO consists of several stages. We summarize pros and cons here, but if you want to you can explore each stage in detail:

Local Search Engine Optimization | Website & Competition Analysis | Keyword Research | Content Enhancement Services | Website Architecture Optimization | Link Enhancement Services | SEO Consulting Services

It takes at least 3 months to see results. Professional SEO company does not bring instantaneous results. Minimum time frame is 3 months, but it can span for as long as 6 months or more. Initially we go for less competitive keywords. Once spots for less competitive keywords are attained, you move closer to top rankings for more competitive keywords.

Why does it take so long to attain rankings? - Google has incorporated “trust algorithms”. The threshold for trust algorithms is several months. What Google essentially wants to know - can your site be trusted for us to show it in top search results? Of course your answer is YES, but Google has no way of knowing, but to figure out algorithmically. Wait period is several months. If a professional SEO company sells you anything less - run away, it’s not real.

Professional SEO Costs

Costs start at $5000. As one of top line professional SEO companies in Canada we are able to command a higher price then our competitors, but the price is well justified with your bottom line results. As a matter of fact all our clients are very happy and richer. You can get in touch with them.

Costs cover optimization of your website and first page placement for your keywords. We do not guarantee first spot, since it’s a risky path, but many of our clients are holding first spots.

The approach to partnership is rather personal. For the most part our clientele are private businesses, so if you’re a private business you’ll find a lot of commonalities with Mike, who is the main SEO. There’s no “corporate veil” and you can reach everyone directly by cell phone. Be prepared for some friendly jokes. We also send updates to your inbox in regards to progress.

Professional SEO company - SEO Expert.

Link Building Tips for Your Website

Visibility of your website on Google depends on links. If you not have links, you will not be found on Google for any keywords, no matter how your on-page optimization is. In this article we outline link building tips.

Directories.

Submit your website to different online directories. Only submit to worthwhile directories. Ignore the spammy ones. You can search for directories with this command “keyword + links”, “keyword + related websites”. Put in link in local directories, global directories and niche based websites.

Trade Links With Websites

DO NOT trade with every website. Only with FEW authority websites in your field.

Interviews

If you can get interviews from authority figures  in your field – do it. Bloggers will award you with a couple of in post links. Just be sure to tell the world about interview if you don’t have broad readership.

Link out

Link out to websites and bloggers you read. With services like Technocrati, bloggers will notice you and might give you a link back.

Write a Guest Post

Do a guest post in your niche. This way you can select the anchor text of your links and get authority outside links to the post(which pass the PR to your website)

Ask webmasters what they want

If 20 website in your niche tell you they want a specific guide or a tool, it is likely they will link to it. This is considering only webmasters you asked. Consider other, smaller sites. Link potential is very high if you produce something that everyone needs.

Teach

If you teach other on a topic, you will get links. Make sure you’re in position to teach and really know your stuff. If you’re in a saturated market, pick a specific sub-niche. For example in SEO, there are authorities in link building, keyword research, patents, news etc.

Comment on blogs / networks.

This is way to build more readership to your website. Bloggers always read comments and explore co-bloggers. If you provide insight, people will be interested in you and your website. At some point they will link to you.

Create a contest

If you have enough readers, create a contest. Participants will link to you from their blogs.

Compile Resources

If you have a lot of bookmarks and know a lot of “dark” spots on the net, no so easily found, compiling them into one list can get you link from appreciative readers.

Controversy

Create controversy in your field. Say something barbarous, funny or mind altering. Confused, hating, angry and readers with a sense of humour will link.

read part 1 here

Search engines analyze each webpage and look for keywords within text. If a certain keyword is repeated in the heading, first paragraph, second paragraph, second headline, fourth paragraph, etc, search engines consider that page related to a particular keyword and thus value it.

You must make sure your writing includes targeted keyword throughout the entire text.

For example, if you target keyword “digital camera”, make sure that your title looks something like “Digital Camera Products Buy, Review and Comparison”.

Follow up that title with an opening paragraph that instantly mentions the word “digital camera”. Then write naturally and let it flow. Go back and plug the keyword where it fits.

Include synonyms, like “photo camera” since search engines look for synonymous words.

Don’t stress about having many keywords. Search engines do not value on-page content as much as they used, since it can be easily manipulated. The power is in links. Just focus on writing natural, go back and plug the keyword in titles and other places where they fit.

Ignore “keyword density” measurement – it doesn’t work.

Link Building

“PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value.” - Google

A link from site X to site Y is considered a vote by site X for Y. The more votes a website has the higher it will rank in search results.

Websites with high number of quality links are awarded with “PageRank” and get propelled to best search engine rankings. This means that if your site has high number of links, Google will trust it and you will have good rankings.

Take Wikipedia for example. Since it has so many incoming links, Wikipedia appears for a good chunk of all competitive searches, like “mortgage” or “computer”.

Not all links are equal. A link from highly trusted website, for example Wired.com, is better than 10 links from generic low quality directories. The emphasis is on quality. Search engines, especially Google, are good at determining quality of links.

Links must also come from related websites. If you have an electronics shop and get links from flower sites, those links won’t count.

Another big factor is anchor text. To give you an example, this is anchor text and the page where the link leads to is the address. So the anchor text is the text that you see, and the address is the actual link.

If a link from an outside website has your targeted keyword in the anchor text, this tells search engines exactly the keywords your site must rank for.

For example, if you want to rank for key phrase “laptop”, and outside websites links to you with anchor text “laptop”, this tells search engines your site must rank for keyword “laptop” in search results.

To demonstrate you power of links in search engine optimization, consider this story:

Search engine professionals not happy with Bush administration decided to pull a prank on the White House. They got many links from websites with anchor text “failure” and “miserable failure” pointing to the address www.whitehouse.gov/president/gwbbio.html (official bush bio)

As a result, when you searched for “failure” or “miserable failure”, White House and Bush came up at #1 spot.

Though presidential website did not have keywords “failure” or “miserable failure”, it still ranked #1. Google defused this since, but the point is - links make or break your search engine optimization strategy.

Ways to Build Links

• Submit to quality directories. High quality directories, with human editorial review are great at gaining search engine trust. Submit to Yahoo Directory, DMOZ, Business.com and others. List of directories
• Use link bait. Link bait is a concept of using high quality tools, information or sources to entice other websites to link. For example: you write a highly informative, interesting article in your industry, which is so good that webmasters just gotta link to it. (example) Or you offer hard to find, very valuable information, which again, causes others to link. (example). Develop tools, compile resources or write something controversial.Once you get the job done, contact webmasters and bloggers(related to your field) and let them know about your new tool / article. If it’s good, links will flow.
• Exchange links with related websites. Effects were greatly reduced by Google, but it still gets you value if you exchange with a quality site.
• Buy links. Google declared war against paid links, but you can still buy links and get away with it. In fact all efficient SEO experts buy and sell links. This takes expertise and practice.
• You can hire a company to build links for you.

Should I Hire an SEO Company?

If you don’t want to learn, have no time, nor desire, I suggest that you do.

I don’t do SEO, but know some. Hiring quality expert will take out the hassle and worry of your back, since you can spend months just learning. If you intent on selling electronics, SEO will eat up too much time, so hiring makes sense. I recommend SEO Expert.

Search Engine Optimization Resources

• Beginners Guide to SEO
• Rewriting the Beginner’s Guide
• How Search Engines Work: Search Engine Relevancy Reviewed
• Google Ranking Factors
• SEO Book
• Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone
• SEM Research Topics

Books and Learning Membership Portals

• SEO Book
• SEO Moz
• The Small Business Guide to Search Engine Marketing

Keyword Research

• Search Engine Guide: Keywords
• Keyword Research for Bloggers: A Comprehensive Guide (also good for your market research)
•  The Professional’s Keyword Research Guide
• Eight Keyword Research Mistakes That Are Costing You Money
• Master Your Keywords, Part 1: Organize Your Keyword Research
• Keyword Research Video
• Keyword Research and Selection

Link Building

• Link Value Factors
• Experts - Link Love
• 101 Link Building Tips to Market Your Website
• Search Engine Guide: Link Building
• Link Building Secrets Revealed by Top Linking Experts
• Linking Q&A
• Advanced Link Building Strategies
• A Big Roundup Of Link Building Tools

Forums  

• Webmaster World
• Search Engine Watch Forums
• Digital Point Forums
• Cre8te Site Forums

Blogs

• SEO Book
• SEO Moz
• SEO by The Sea
• Search Engine Journal
• Wolf Houl
• Online Marketing Blog
• SEO Theory - SEO Theory and Analysis Blog
• StuntDubl
• Blog Strom
• DoshDosh
• Wiep.net
• CornWallSEO
• Stone Temple

Search Marketing News

• Search Engine Watch
• Search Engine Land
• Search Engine Roundtable
• Marketing Pilgrim
• WebProNews

Pay Per Click Advertising

Pay Per Click is easy to learn. You sing up for an account, select the keywords you want to target, bid on the keywords, set maximum daily limit and let campaign roll. Of course there are advanced strategies and you will learn as you pick up experience.

Major Pay Per Click Networks:

• Google Adwords
• Yahoo Search Marketing
• Microsoft Adcenter
• Ask.com Sponsored Listings

Some advertisement from Google Adwords also show up on Yahoo and Ask.com due to their partnerships.

This SEO tutorial is introduction to search engine marketing and search engine optimization.

Search engine marketing is huge. Google makes around $5 billion per quarter (4 months), which is around $30,000 per minute.

If you want to have a website, you will need to take care of search engine marketing, because search engines own internet traffic. No search engine visibility – no visitors. No visitors – no buyers and no money.

If you plan on making an online shop, I suggest you incorporate search engine optimization into your marketing strategy. In fact, make it number one priority over design, graphics and technology. A site that gets 1000 visitors per day with “OK” shopping cart and “OK” design is better than a site that sits in “no man’s land”, with expensive design and mega high tech shopping cart.

Prepare to invest in either search engine optimization or pay per click, above design.

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Search engine optimization is an adjustment of website elements that affect your visibility on major search engines. When users search, they put in queries, called “keywords”. Search engine return websites relevant to the keywords.

Search engine optimization ensures that your website shows up on the first page for keywords that are searched by your customers.

For example, if you sell computer memory, your site will benefit from visitors that search “buy computer memory” on Google.

What is Pay Per Click (PPC)?

Pay per click is exactly what it sounds like. You pay money per each click you receive on your advertisement.

The advertisement is showed in “Sponsored” section of search results.

Price per each click is determined by bidders. As an advertiser, you bid on keywords that you want to show up for on search results. Highest bidder gets the first spot, second highest bidder gets second spot and so forth. Prices ranges between $0.01 per click for non-competitive keywords, and up to $20 for consolidated markets (mortgage, credit cards).

Search Engines

There are currently 4 leading search engines in North America those are

Don’t even worry about Ask.com and Microsoft. Shoot for Google above all. I suggest you even throw Yahoo out of the equation. In 4 years Google doubled its market share from ~35% to ~70% and is predicted to become a monopoly at 90%. To you this means that if you establish Google presence now, you’ll get more customers later on. If you worry about Yahoo, you may hurt Google rankings, which is a bad move.

I don’t like monopolies, nor Microsoft, but Google is becoming a monopoly fair and square. They’re too good. If you research, you will also find that buyers interested in electronics are fairly savvy, and savvy crowds use Google.

How to Optimize A Website?

Let this beginner guide explain everything (recommend very much).

Below you will find basic introduction (to get the concepts grasped) and many resources to help you get to the next level.

Let’s clear some myths:

• Forget about submission to search engines for $20 per month. Pure scam. Period. Submit here for free. You don’t even have to submit to Google, because it will find you on its own if you have incoming links.
• Optimization for $200 bucks. Quality SEO comes at very least for $3000 for a few competitive keywords. If anyone tries to pitch you anything less, they’re either starving for clients or just aren’t good enough. Save up some money and invest in expert search engine optimization, it will return tenfold.
• Get you first place. If anyone pitches you that, run away and block their email. They’re either full of it and want to steal your money, or do “Black Hat SEO”. Black hat SEO is the dark side of optimization, and sites that get caught are banned from search results. If you want a long term business, stay away from black hat, because you’ll get caught eventually. There are very few optimizers who practice true “black art” and those don’t share their secrets, because it would stop working.
• Optimization in 1-2 months. Optimization takes 3-6 months, so don’t buy into it(assuming you go after competitive terms). Whoever tells you they can get you up in 1-2 months will be probably optimizing for keywords that have no competition and that no one searches with, meaning it’s worthless. What good is a search engine ranking, even #1, if no one searches with that keyword? No searches, means no traffic.

Keyword Research

Search Engine Optimization starts with keyword research. People head out to search engines and use keywords to find information of their interest.

Search engines store those keywords on their servers and allow marketers to see what people search and how many times. This way you know exactly the keywords you need to target on search engines.

How to use the tools: simply search for your keyword of interest and the tools will give you related key-phrases that people used. For example “mortgage”.

Google Keyword Tool

Wordtracker

Keyword Discovery

Yahoo Search Marketing (need account)

SEO Book

Ebay Market Research

Ebay Pulse

Ebay Research Labs

Windsor SEO Services and Consulting

There are over 216,473 residents in Windsor Canada. How many use search engines to find products and services? Here’s some interesting statistics.

According to internetworldstats.com, 65.9 % of all Canadian residents have internet connection. Applied to Windsor population (216,473), 65,9% is 142,655 internet users in Windsor Canada. Here’s some more interesting statistics:

According to PEW Research 91% of all internet users use search engines, making it second most popular activity on the web. 91% of Windsor internet users (142,655) is 129,816 search engine users in Windsor, Ontario.

If you optimize your website for Windsor on search engines, you will reach approximately 129,816 potential customers in Windsor.

Yellow Pages Are Declining. Why Windsor SEO will bring you more returns than your yellow page Advertising

Yellow pages and search engines are very similar. When customers want to find a company on yellow pages, they are essentially ready for business. It’s a matter of calling few numbers and finding the right company. Search engine are similar. When users search with keywords, they have a specific task in mind, for example, to find information about products or to find a company. Search engine users take their own initiative to look for you, all you need is to be found.

Search engines are replacing Yellow Pages, because they are easier and faster to use.

• People do what’s easy. Is it easier to search Google and get local business results in 0.34 seconds, or browse fat yellow page book?
• Yellow pages usage is declining. According to Search Engine Land there’s less YP users every year.
• Search engines, particularly Google, provide interactive search results for local businesses, including address, phone number and location on the map, with option to get directions… No wonder users abandon yellow pages.

Having first page listing on search engines for local Windsor queries related to your business can bring over 50 interested daily visitors who are genuinely considering your company. At 10% conversion rate (10% of visitors become customers), that’s 5 new customers per day. How much is that in dollars? And how much is it when Windsor SEO brings you 100 visitors per day?

Windsor Search Engine Optimization Company

SEO Expert is a Canadian SEO company, providing SEO services to Windsor, Ontario businesses. Here’s our credentials:

>>> www.searchengineoptimizationcompany.ca

• #1 on Google.ca for SEO out of 250,000,000 results
• #1 on Google.ca for SEO Services out of 4,350,000 results
• #1 on Google.ca for Search Engine Optimization out of 28,900,000 results
• #1 on Google.ca for SEO Expert out of 1,150,000 results Authoritative Site
• #1 on Google.ca for Montreal SEO out of 1,310,000 results Authoritative Site
• #1 on Google.ca for Montreal SEO Firm out of 165,000 results Authoritative Site
• #1 on Google.ca for Search Engine Marketing out of 102,000,000 results
• #2 on Google.ca for Search Engine Optimization Company out of 15,700,000 results
• #2 on Google.ca for Search Engine Marketing Company out of 240,000,000 results
• #3 on Google.ca for SEO Company out of 2,050,000 results

Learn more about Windsor SEO:

• How SEO can Help Your Company
• SEO Services

SEO Services in Kitchener, Ontario Canada

SEO Expert is a Canadian search engine optimization company that provides SEO services to Kitchener businesses, helping business owners drive more visitors to their website, sell more merchandize, create more leads and sales, entice sign ups and downloads.

• Increase traffic from Kitchener and Toronto to your website 80% - 15,000%
• Gain first page positions on Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask.com and other search engines
• Optimize press releases, code, flash, PDF, text and other website elements for high search engine visibility

Kitchener Search Marketing Services

To get where you want to be financially, your marketing needs to drive more qualified customers. Even if you have best products and best services, customers will not come knocking to your door, unless they know about you.

Kitchener Search engine optimization is a new way to attract customers. Unlike old methods of advertising, where you package content and blast it at crowds who are not always receptive to what you have to say, SEO only targets visitors who are interested.

Let’s take radio commercials and direct mail as example. Do you listen to radio ads? Do you know people who enjoy listening to radio advertisements and who pay attention? You can hardly count on fingers. Radio ads are annoying. So are TV ads. What about direct mail. Majority of people simply throw out packages that sell them. No person wants to read another commercial. We have too many commercials selling us, and majority are dumb, on the level of 3 year olds (turn on evening news).

Kitchener SEO takes a radically new approach. Instead of pitching crowds who do not want to hear another ad, Kitchener search engine optimization only targets customers who want your business. For example:

When someone searches on Google with keywords “Kitchener mortgage broker” - they have a clear goal in mind. Find and hire mortgage broker in Kitchener. When someone searches with keywords “toronto lawyer” - they have a clear goal. Find and hire lawyer in Toronto. Do you see the pattern?

Search engine users want your business. It’s a matter of being on search results, when they search. This is what Kitchener SEO accomplishes. It positions your website on search results to attract customers who want to do business with you, without wasting resources on people who are disinterested.

• How can I benefit more from SEO?
• Search Engine Optimization Services

Call us or write an email.

Search Engine Optimization in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada

Surrey SEO can make your website visible in Surrey and British Columbia. If your business operates on broad scale SEO campaign can target entire Canadian Region.

How SEO Works? - Search engine optimization is the adjustment of website elements in order to appear in search results when prospective customers search for information related to your business. For example: “lawyer in surrey”.

Surrey Website Analysis

This stage spots problems and barriers that may become an issue for search engines. For example: extensive use of java script, frames or flash websites.

During website analysis we will also look at your competition in Surrey and in Canada to spot their strengths and weaknesses. Find out more about website analysis.

Keyword Research of Queries Requested by Surrey Residents

How do Surrey residents search for your business? Keyword research identifies exact keywords people use on search engines. Once keywords are identified, those keywords are included on your website. Find out more about Surrey keyword research.

Enhancement of Written Content

Written content is simply text. It is the text that Surrey customers read when they visit your website. Text must contain keywords in order to rank on search results. Content enhancement is also referred to as search engine optimization copywriting.

Surrey Website Optimization

This Surrey SEO stage addresses structural problems and issues with a website. Those include internal links, code, tags, database rules (if applicable) and navigation. Website optimization ensures that your site is search engine friendly.

Link Enhancement Service

Search engines look at links as votes. When website A links to website B, search engines consider it a vote by website A for B. As a result, B is considered more important. SEO surrey service ensures you website has plenty of links from other websites. Learn more about link enhancement service.

Surrey Search Engine Optimization Consulting

SEO consulting service is for Surrey webmasters who prefer to build a website on their own and have total control over its content, while making project search engine friendly. SEO consulting service will couch you on the essential elements that must be in place for high search engine visibility.

Learn more about SEO Expert, write en email or give us a call.

Halifax, Nova Scotia SEO Search Engine Optimization Service

As you read this article, you will learn why Halifax SEO is one of the most cost effective, accountable and profitable ways to market your business.

Let’s look at your business from investment and revenue perspective, apart from SEO. Answer the following questions:

• What is the percentage of your repeat customers?
• How many new customers do you get per month?

and in direct relation:

• How much money do you make from your repeat customers: per month | quarterly | annually?
• How much money do you make with new customers: per month | quarterly | annually?

Even if you’re not ready for Halifax search engine optimization, those are useful questions to answer to learn your revenue flow outlook. To answer those questions, look at the data of who buys from you or uses your services. The goal is to come up with a good estimate, for example:

• Repeat customers constitute 30% of my business and bring $X amount of money
• New customers constitute 70% of my business and bring $X amount of money

You will most likely learn that new customers are the majority, meaning, if you get more new customers per month, you will raise revenues. How can I get more customers?

Using Halifax SEO as a Customer Acquisition Strategy

What is your business model? Can you turn referrals into money? Do your customers call you to find out about services or do they buy direct? Let’s look at an example.

A Halifax real estate agent wants to get more customers, so he buys real estate ad in Yellow Pages. He know this fact: “people who use yellow pages are very qualified, because they need the service he offers”.

He also considers direct mail, but direct mail is not as effective, because most people do not open a package full ads and vast majority are not interested in realtor services(how do you know who’s interested when you send out direct mail? No one knows, its largerly guesswork).

He decides to go with yellow pages, because people who look at yellow page ads are the people who want the services, as opposed to blind guessing (direct mail, radio, billboards). Customers who get the fat yellow pages book, take the trouble to find “real estate” section and call some numbers on the list. They want what the offer.

Search engines act in similar fashion. When someone searches for “Halifax real estate agent” on google, they want the services. It is their intention to find websites, call agents and decide on one. They look for you, not the other way around and come prepared to spend money.

Unfortunately, Yellow Pages are being replaced by the search engines. It’s far easier to search on Yahoo or Google and get results in milliseconds, then to browse fat Yellow Pages. (just look at example on Google for a search “Halifax real estate agent“. It’s very useful)

This is the reason why Halifax SEO can bring you more qualified customers and increase your profits.

You can learn more about SEO Expert how we can help your business:

>>> searchengineoptimizationcompany.ca

• #1 on Google.ca for SEO out of 250,000,000 results
• #1 on Google.ca for SEO Services out of 4,360,000 results
• #1 on Google.ca for Search Engine Optimization out of 28,900,000 results
• #1 on Google.ca for SEO Expert out of 1,150,000 results Authoritative Site
• #1 on Google.ca for Montreal SEO out of 1,310,000 results Authoritative Site
• #1 on Google.ca for Montreal SEO Firm out of 168,000 results Authoritative Site
• #1 on Google.ca for Search Engine Marketing out of 96,100,000 results
• #2 on Google.ca for Search Engine Optimization Company out of 15,600,000 results
• #2 on Google.ca for Search Engine Marketing Company out of 238,000,000 results
• #4 on Google.ca for SEO Company out of 2,150,000 results