The Blogging Institute
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The Blogging Institute This eBook Is Brought To You By Alexis Kenne Dot Com This eBook Comes With Free Giveaways or Resale Rights, However You May Not Change The Contents In Any Way
“Search
Engine Specialist�
LEGAL NOTICE The Publisher has strived to be as accurate and complete as possible in the creation of this report, notwithstanding the fact that he does not warrant or represent at any time that the contents within are accurate due to the rapidly changing nature of the Internet. While all attempts have been made to verify information provided in this publication, the Publisher assumes no responsibility for errors, omissions, or contrary interpretation of the subject matter herein. Any perceived slights of specific persons, peoples, or organizations are unintentional. In practical advice books, like anything else in life, there are no guarantees of income made. Readers are cautioned to reply on their own judgment about their individual circumstances to act accordingly. This book is not intended for use as a source of legal, business, accounting or financial advice. All readers are advised to seek services of competent professionals in legal, business, accounting, and finance field. You are encouraged to print this book for easy reading.
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The Blogging Institute My name is Alexis Kenne and I’m the owner of TheBloggingInstitute.com . Over the last few months I’ve gone from being a LOSER affiliate to finally starting on the path of becoming a SUPER AFFILIATE and Expert Blogger! I shared some of my experiences on my blog I quickly realized how important was a mailing list in an online business. I then did everything to learn in the shortest time possible to send a ton of free targeted traffic to my main site at HomeBusinessFirePower.com and to my blog plus by making some small split tweaks to my conversions (opt-in rates) I’ve also managed to capitalize on the amount of traffic I do get. More Traffic = More Opt-ins = More Sales If you are struggling to get traffic to your site and /or struggling to make money online then I can help. Check out my site for access to my free affiliate marketing success kit, or visit my blog for some of the hottest affiliate marketing and traffic driving tips.
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One last thing before you begin reading the rest of the guide, I actually offer a FREE 7 day ecourse on how to make money blogging. You can get access to it at theblogginginstitute.com
Additional Useful Links
My Facebook Fan Page My Twitter Page My Youtube Channel My Articles at ezinearticles My LinkedIn Account My Google+ Account
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Table of Contents Introduction
5
What Search Engines Want
7
Top SEO Myths
8
Myth #11 – H1 Tags Boost Rankings
8
Over-Optimization
13
Duplicate Content
15
Content
16
User Participation
19
On-Page SEO
20
Off-Page SEO
24
Backlink Sources
27
Negative Ranking Factors
34
Recommended Resources
36
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Introduction Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has been around for a very long time and it has always been a goal for many webmasters to make sure their pages appear at the top of a page of results. It was easy at first; it started out with spamming search engines with as much text as possible in the various HTML pages. The people who ran the search engines quickly caught on to that, and they redesigned the results to show only those that fit certain criteria: the algorithm was born. The algorithm is just a fancy name for a “set of criteria to determine whether or not a particular result would match the searched term”. When you have a site, you want it included for a particular term and you want your inclusion to indicate that your site is very relevant to the searcher. This book will teach you how to design your site to make it fit for inclusion for the search terms you want without spamming which would exclude you from the engines all together. In this book, the search engine in question will be Google’s engine unless otherwise stated since Google holds the largest market share for search engine traffic.
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WHAT SEARCH ENGINES WANT Search engines want one main thing – to make money. I know it sounds simple, but that’s all they really care about. As long as they’re making money, they’re doing what they’re supposed to. They have a duty to their shareholders, their visitors, and their employees to be profitable. If they don’t provide the best possible user experience, their visitors will go elsewhere, and they will lose market share. Thus, search engines’ first priority is to provide a great experience for their users. If someone uses a search engine, they want to be able to find what they are looking for quickly and easily. They don’t want to sift through thousands of irrelevant pages, look at low quality content, or read pages of spam. If you want to give search engines exactly what they’re looking for, you will make your sites clean, user friendly, and full of the best quality content that fits your subject perfectly. This is what will get you top rankings, and this is what will keep your site there for the long term.
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TOP SEO MYTHS There are a number of different myths that have been perpetuated online regarding search engine optimization. Some of these myths have a little truth, but most do not. Of course, in the world of search engines, things can change rapidly. One day, these myths could be completely true, and the next day, they could become myths once again. This is why it’s so important to ensure you’re using evergreen search engine optimization techniques. Don’t depend on the latest, greatest “tricks”, because tricks can get you banned. If they don’t get you banned, they could get your site penalized.
Myth #1 – Keyword Density Many years ago, the easiest way to get to the top of the search engines was to include your keywords in your body text as many times as you could. Eventually, most search engines wised up and put a limit on keyword density. Then people started using programs to artificially insert keywords into random text, making doorway pages full of gibberish with no other purpose than to capture search engine traffic and direct it elsewhere. This software would calculate the “perfect” keyword density for a given search engine, and spit out pages optimized for each search engine. These days, most search engine algorithms are programmed to ignore keyword density or at least to give it a much lower weight than in the past. Even manually written content sounds unnatural and difficult to read when it is stuffed with keywords for the sake of density. Instead of worrying about keyword density, simply write great content. Focus on making your users happy, and giving them content they want to read. Don’t worry about keyword density. Download Your $97 Gift >>>> Here
The Blogging Institute Myth #2 – Keywords are King Keywords used to be the most important element of SEO. You had to stuff keywords into your HTML any way you could. People filled their text with keywords, used hidden text, stuffed keywords into meta tags, etc. That was all it took to rank well. Keywords do still matter to a certain extent, and they may for some time to come. Most search engines do still give keywords a lot of weight, and some even seem to look at exact matches more favorably than others. That said, many engines are now moving away from focusing on keywords and instead focusing on themes. A few years ago, keywords were given extreme weight. This was especially true for anchor text – the text used to link from one web page to another. That meant sites could rank for text that didn’t even appear anywhere on them. One famous example is the Adobe.com website ranking #1 on Google for “Click Here”. This was because so many people used the text “Click Here” to link to the website, even though the words did not appear anywhere on the page. Now, search engines are slowly moving toward theme-based ranking rather than ranking purely for keywords. This means a site about poodles could end up ranking on the first page for the search term “dogs”, even if the word “dogs” did not appear anywhere on the site. This means you need to concentrate more on providing quality content and less on keywords. Does that mean you shouldn’t worry about keywords at all? No! Keywords are still important, and may always be. However, they are not the most important element of SEO.
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The Blogging Institute Myth #3 – Quantity over Quality Many people believe it’s more important to have thousands of pages of content on a website than it is to create quality content, but nothing could be further from the truth. In truth, quality is far more important than quantity. Your site could have 10,000 articles, and if they’re all short, useless articles or duplicate content, you’re not going to rank well. Quantity is a good thing, but only if you have a lot of high quality, well-written content.
Myth #4 – PageRank is Important PageRank doesn’t really mean anything. It’s a minor indicator of how well your backlinking is going, but it no longer means what it used to. It used to be that PR was a strong indicator. These days, it really has very little bearing on SEO.
Myth #5 – Sitemaps Boost your Ranking A sitemap is useful for helping search engines find your content. Every site should definitely have one, just to make it simpler for search engine spiders to discover all of your pages. However, the presence of a sitemap won’t actually do anything for your ranking. It may help your pages be found, but it will have no bearing whatsoever on how those pages rank.
Myth #6 – Search Engines Can’t Read CSS A lot of people still seem to believe search engines can’t read CSS. They believe they can hide text or other tricky black hat tactics by using it, but search engines definitely can (and do) read CSS. Not only that, but Google hires people to review websites manually. These reviewers are trained to look for hidden text, redirects, and other issues. If they find such things on your site, you could be banned or at least get a serious penalty.
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The Blogging Institute Myth #7 – Trading Links Boosts Rankings There is nothing inherently wrong about trading links. You’re not likely to get hit with any type of penalty for doing it, nor are you likely to get banned unless you are trading links in some sort of group that is deliberately trying to game the rankings in a serious manner. However, one-way links count for far more than reciprocated links. If you want to exchange links, you can feel free to do so. But don’t do it just to try to increase your rankings. It isn’t likely to work, and won’t make much difference.
Myth #8 – Links out Help Boost Ranking There is some anecdotal evidence that linking out to high quality authority sites in the same niche might boost rankings slightly, but there is no real proof of this. However, many people seem to believe that linking to any high PageRank site, whether it is relevant to your page content or not, can help boost your rankings. Some people believe adding a link to Google.com can boost their rankings, but this is simply not true. If you are going to link out with the hopes that you might improve your rankings, only link to authority sites in the same niche as the page you’re linking from.
Myth #9 – Google Always Uses the Meta Description It is true that Google will sometimes use a page’s meta description as the description that shows up in the listings. However, this isn’t always true. Sometimes it can use the description from your DMOZ.org listing, if you have one, and sometimes it may use an excerpt from your page’s content. You should always include a meta description, though. It will still typically be used in most cases, so it’s a good idea to use it.
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The Blogging Institute Myth #10 – Putting Keywords in Bold Helps Rankings It has been a common practice to include keywords in bold on the page, but Google does not seem to give any special weight to this. Use bold to call attention to important things, but don’t use it for SEO purposes.
Myth #11 – H1 Tags Boost Rankings There is no proof that H1 tags have any major weight these days. In fact, using your keywords in them can occasionally trigger an overoptimization penalty. You can use the H1, H2, etc. tags, but don’t use them solely for keywords.
Myth #12 – .Com Domain Names Are Critical While it is true that a good .com domain name can rank for a specific keyword phrase easier than a domain with another extension, this is usually only true when that keyword has little competition. Any domain extension can rank, and dashes don’t make a difference one way or another unless you use more than two in a single domain, which can be a bad thing.
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OVER-OPTIMIZATION As strange as it may seem, it is possible to do “too good” a job at search engine optimization. If you follow the advice of “traditional” SEO guides, you could end up getting hit with a penalty and actually sinking in the rankings rather than rising. One of the things some search engines look at is how “natural” everything appears to be. As I mentioned earlier, search engines do not want to list a bunch of sites that are using sneaky tactics to rank. They want to list quality content that will make their users happy. Historically, those sites that were the most “perfectly” optimized have mostly been the sites that have had lower quality content. There are exceptions, obviously. However, the search engine developers realized that people who were spending so much time perfecting their SEO were often neglecting content development, or even using duplicate content. Conversely, those sites which had truly exceptional content often did little to no optimization at all. They were often created by individuals out of a true love and passion for the topic, and those individuals usually knew next to nothing about SEO. Eventually, search engine developers learned that they could combat the most egregious violators of search engine policies by penalizing those sites which optimized their sites “too well”. It isn’t easy to trigger this type of penalty. Obviously, a lot of good sites with quality content do optimize for SEO purposes. Most of those sites follow the same basic SEO rules. Search engines don’t want to penalize those sites that may legitimately have good content. Thus, you must really go overboard to incur such a penalty. The surest way to get hit with a penalty for over-optimization is to use the exact same keyword without any additional words in your: Page title Download Your $97 Gift >>>> Here
The Blogging Institute Article title H1, H2, H3, etc. tags Alt image tags Anchor text (at or near 100% of anchor text) In order to avoid a penalty for over-optimization, there are a few things you should be certain of: 1. In your page title, be sure to include a few extra words, or use two keyword phrases. Don’t use “Improve Your Golf Swing” as your title, for example. Use “Ten Tips to Improve Your Golf Swing”. 2. This also goes for your article title. Don’t enclose your exact keywords in H1 tags or make it your article title on the page. 3. Don’t use your keywords in alt image tags. 4. Never use your main keyword phrase as your exact anchor text for every backlink you get. Use it about 50% of the time, and spread the rest out between three or four other keywords.
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DUPLICATE CONTENT Duplicate content is a subject that is very hotly debated in the SEO world. Some people believe there is no duplicate content penalty whatsoever. Other people believe there is a serious penalty, and your entire site could be banned just for having a single duplicate article. This is a sticky issue for many SEO experts, but the answer directly from Google is that there is no duplicate content penalty. Google doesn’t want to rank multiple copies of the same article, so only one will typically show up on the first page. Others will end up buried in the supplemental index, or at least on deeper pages of results. However, your site is not likely to get banned simply for using duplicate content. Syndication has been a very important part of publishing for decades, and the internet is no different. Many sites – even major websites – use syndicated content. They aren’t getting banned for it. Of course, since only one copy of a particular article is likely to show up on the first page of results, using duplicate content is practically worthless for most people. If you’re going to use duplicate content such as PLR, content from article directories, syndicated content, etc., then you should make sure it doesn’t comprise more than a small percentage of your site’s content. It can be used as filler material, but don’t use too much of it. In fact, Google has recently given serious penalties to sites that have mostly duplicate content. It may be that the duplicate content they are using is poor quality, or it may be because of duplicate content itself. Either way, it’s best not to tempt fate by creating websites that are mostly or completely duplicate.
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CONTENT Content is arguably the single most important element of search engine optimization. A recent Google update seriously penalized many websites that had duplicate content and poor quality content, and many people surmised the penalty had a lot to do with rehashed content and content length. The content on your website needs to be quality, however most people believe their content is such. Unless you’re using obviously spun content that is full of gibberish, or content that has been written by someone for whom English is their second language and isn’t easy to read, you probably think your content is fine. However, Google probably has a very different idea of quality than many site owners. They’re looking for certain things these days, and they want content their users will be happy with.
Content Length The length of your content is more important than ever before. Google now seems to be giving preference to longer content, and that isn’t likely to change at any point in the near future. Users are looking for real content with real solutions. For far too long, article directories and AdSense websites have been flooded with short articles – just barely long enough to qualify to be posted. Most people have been happy slapping up hundreds of 300-word articles, believing in quantity over quality. Because of this disturbing trend, Google had to make some changes to its algorithm. Longer content is now rewarded, and shorter content is looked at with a suspicious eye. It’s not necessarily penalized, but it definitely seems to be scrutinized more closely. Because of this, article directories like EzineArticles.com increased their minimum word count for articles. Some people are even going so far as to say “the longer, the better” to a certain extreme.
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The Blogging Institute It is recommended that most articles be between 600 and 1,000 words in length, though it’s certainly fine to occasionally have shorter or longer articles. This definitely means you have to concentrate more on quality than quantity. It obviously takes twice as long to write a 600-word article as it does to write a 300-word article, thus you’ll have fewer articles for your time. If you outsource, you will have to pay more money for each article. You aren’t likely to find someone who will write 600 words for the same price as they will 300 words. The fortunate thing is that the content is more likely to pay off for you. These longer articles are more likely to attract search engine traffic, which will translate into more money. Thus, longer articles should end up being more profitable over the long term.
Content Quality Obviously, the quality of your content is paramount. Your content needs to be informative, well-written, and free of grammatical errors. If you’re wondering whether or not search engines can detect grammar mistakes, you only need to take a look at sites like Grammarly.com to figure that out. If Google cannot currently detect grammatical mistakes and spelling errors, how long do you think it will be until they can? Some people are already reporting that spun content and outsourced content is dropping in the rankings, so there’s a definite possibility this is already occurring. For this reason, you should make sure all of your content: Is grammatically correct Is free from spelling mistakes Contains useful information Download Your $97 Gift >>>> Here
The Blogging Institute Does not contain any gibberish Is ideally written by a native English speaker if you’re in an English-speaking market
Content Uniqueness It’s no longer enough to ensure your content passes CopyScape or other plagiarism detectors. Rumor has it that Google can already detect duplicate content, even if that content passes CopyScape and similar services! The most recent major Google algorithm update knocked down a ton of high profile websites, including EzineArticles.com, HubPages.com, Suite101.com, and many others. They call these sites “content farms”, because they primarily exist to release massive amounts of content to pick up search engine traffic, and that traffic is then shown ads. Many have surmised that perhaps the update allowed Google to detect that content was essentially identical to other content found online. Since many people who submit to such sites basically plagiarize content from other sites, the content is essentially duplicate content. Yes, it might pass through duplicate content checkers, but it’s not truly unique. It offers exactly the same information as other articles, with no change in the information offered, no unique viewpoint, and no additional content. In order to make sure your articles are truly unique, always use multiple sources as references. Never just rewrite a single article. Many people believe it’s not plagiarism if it is 100% unique according to CopyScape, but if you take someone else’s ideas and rewrite them, it most certainly is plagiarism. By using multiple sources for your articles, you can be sure to create an article that has different information than any other article out there. Yours will be unique, and will have the potential to rank better, as well as being more valuable to readers. Download Your $97 Gift >>>> Here
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USER PARTICIPATION Search engines haven’t paid much to user participation in the past. However, Google recently let it slip that they might be looking at user participation as a way to determine which sites are popular at some point in the future, or they may even be doing so right now. User participation includes things like blog comments, social “likes” and “shares”, and forum posts. If you are running a blog, you can encourage user participation by using plugins that list the top commenters, and asking people to post their comments on your articles. On static websites, you can use scripts to install a commenting system. User participation is something you want to encourage, even if it never makes a difference with regards to SEO. When users participate in discussions, they come back often to continue their discussions. This results in repeat traffic, which every website wants. Remember, the more often people come back to your website, the more often you have the chance to make money from them.
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ON-PAGE SEO Now that we’ve discussed some of the most important issues in SEO, it’s time to get into the nitty gritty of exactly how to optimize your websites. On-page SEO is one of two major SEO categories, and it involves the things you to do your own pages.
Page Title Tag The title tag is one area where you must exercise caution. If you aren’t careful, you could do more harm with it than good. Never put only your main keyword in your title tag, because you could get hit with an over-optimization penalty. You definitely do need to use your keyword in the title tag, but remember to add additional words. “Golf Club Reviews” becomes “Top Golf Club Reviews – The Ten Best” “Lasagna Recipes” becomes “The Best Lasagna Recipes from Around the World” Not only will this help you avoid an over-optimization penalty, it will also make your title more interesting, so more people will click it when they see it in the listings. You may want to ensure your main keyword is at or near the beginning of your title tag, as words closer to the front are given more weight. Instead of: “Your Top Source for the Best Golf Club Reviews” Use: “Golf Club Reviews – The Best Reviews of Name Brand Clubs”
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The Blogging Institute URL Structure You’ve probably seen a lot of URLs that look cluttered, long, and have a lot of extra characters, numbers, and other garbage in them. A lot of sites have poorly structured URLs. They may look like this: http://www.domain.com/2011/06/02/post=42&e=17?33 These URLs are not beneficial for SEO. Instead, you want to use something like this: http://www.domain.com/category-name/article-keywords-here.html This allows you to include keywords in your URL. Don’t overdo it by stuffing in tons of keywords, but this structure, when used judiciously, can be very helpful.
Domain Name Your domain name can definitely help you achieve top rankings for at least one keyword. It’s pretty common knowledge by now that an exact keyword domain name has a much easier time ranking for that keyword phrase than a domain without the keywords included. That would mean you would have to get a new domain for every single keyword you want to rank for if you were going to worry about that, so it’s best to figure out which keyword is your most important, and try to get a domain name with that keyword. A .com domain is preferred, but a .net or .org domain will work just as well unless the .com domain is already ranking on the first page. You can still outrank it, but it may require slightly more effort.
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The Blogging Institute Keywords in Content Obviously, you will want to use your keywords in your content, and preferably in the first paragraph. Don’t focus only on using a specific keyword phrase, though. Remember, search engines are moving toward looking at overall page theme rather than just keywords. Let’s say you’re creating a page about “golf club reviews”. In order to fit well with that theme, you’d want to use other words that one would expect to find on a page about golf club reviews. For example: Putter Golf balls Course Swing Ping (and other brands of clubs) Titanium (and other materials used for golf clubs) This will help search engines figure out the theme of your web page, which could help you rank for keywords you never thought of.
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The Blogging Institute Content Freshness Many SEO experts believe the freshness of your content is important, and others feel it isn’t. But new content definitely does get a boost in the rankings – at least for a while. Eventually, new content will lose its ranking, and then slowly climb back up over time. This boost given to new content means you should definitely update your site often to get a boost of traffic!
On-Domain Backlinks Did you know pages on a domain can pass PageRank to other pages on that domain? Backlinks within a single domain do count! They aren’t given as much weight as backlinks from external domains, but they definitely do matter. Anchor text also matters, so when you link to your own pages, be sure to remember to use keywords in the links.
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OFF-PAGE SEO Off-page SEO is that which takes place on a website you don’t control – or at least another domain from the one you are currently optimizing. It includes things such as backlinks and anchor text. Off-page SEO is considered more important than on-page factors
Domain Trust Most people have never even heard about “domain trust”, but man SEO experts believe domain trust is one of the most critical elements of SEO, and it is likely to be for many years to come. You can determine the “trustworthiness” of a domain with sites such as: http://www.trustrank.org http://www.seomoz.org/knowledge/moztrust Domain trust is based on the sites that link to that domain. The more high-profile domains (trustworthy domains) that link to a domain, the higher that domain’s trust.
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The Blogging Institute Anchor Text Anchor text is the text that is used to link to one web page from another. It is the text you click to visit the link. The code for a link looks like this: <a href=http://www.link.com>Anchor Text</a> The red text is the anchor text. Anchor text is a very important part of off-page SEO (as well as onpage SEO with regards to linking within your own domain). Anchor text is given a lot of weight – thought not quite as much as it used to be. Anchor text is an excellent way to improve your rankings, however you must be very careful. If you use exactly the same text to link to a page every time, you risk an over-optimization penalty. It’s a good idea to use your main keyword about 50-60% of the time, and split the rest between three to four other keywords or variations. For example: Golf Club Reviews – 50% Golf Club Ratings – 25% Reviews of Golf Clubs – 25% Top Golf Clubs Reviewed – 25% This will give you a good blend of variations, without triggering any over-optimization penalties. It will look natural, and search engines definitely prefer sites that appear to be doing things naturally.
Backlinks Backlinks are another critical component of off-page SEO. A site must have backlinks in order to be found by search engine spiders, and it must have backlinks in order to appear important to search engines. Download Your $97 Gift >>>> Here
The Blogging Institute Think of links to a page as “votes”. A link is basically one page voting for another one’s quality. After all, people don’t typically link to pages that they find low-quality. These links aren’t quite as important as they once were, because they’ve been abused terribly. However, links still hold a lot of weight and probably will for years to come. Plus, every link means more direct traffic from people who visit your site via the link.
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BACKLINK SOURCES Fortunately, you don’t have to sit around waiting for people to link to your pages! You can get out there and create your own backlinks. In fact, it’s very important to be proactive and to continue building backlinks for the life of your site. Many people build thousands of backlinks in the beginning, and then just stop. You should never do this! For one thing, it’s not natural for a brand new web page to suddenly get thousands of links pointing to it. Remember, search engines like things that appear natural! For another thing, if you happen to shoot to the top of the rankings and stick, you can’t stop adding backlinks. If you do, someone could come along and outrank you by adding more backlinks than you. It’s much easier to keep a ranking by continuing to add backlinks than it is to try to regain a ranking you’ve lost. So keep adding links! Get backlinks slowly at first. Start by adding a handful the first week, and gradually increase the speed at which you gain backlinks. This will appear to be the most natural, as it mimics what happens with websites naturally. As they are found by more sites, other people see them and also add links. It just builds slowly over time. There are many ways to get backlinks to your sites. Some of them work better than others, but it’s best to get links from the widest possible variety of sources in order to appear as natural as possible.
Nofollow You may have heard of the nofollow tag. Basically, it’s added to HTML links to discount their validity for SEO purposes. Search engine spiders basically ignore them as if they aren’t even there. Some people prefer to avoid submitting to sites that use nofollow, but others don’t worry about it. Remember, all links can send you traffic, Download Your $97 Gift >>>> Here
The Blogging Institute even if they don’t count for SEO. It’s up to you whether you want to submit to sites that use the tag, but all links have value.
Article Marketing Article marketing is one of the most popular ways to get backlinks. You simply write articles and submit them to article directories, and you are allowed to link to your site in your resource box – a section of text at the end of your article. Some people submit only to a handful of directories, but if you’re purely looking for backlinks, it’s probably best to submit to as many as possible for the widest exposure. Here are a few to get started with (some use nofollow on links): http://www.ezinearticles.com (Submit here first, then submit elsewhere once your article has been approved.) http://www.buzzle.com http://www.articlesbase.com (Nofollow) http://www.ezinemark.com http://www.goarticles.com http://www.articlealley.com (Nofollow) http://www.articlesnatch.com (Nofollow) http://www.ideamarketers.com http://www.articledashboard.com
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The Blogging Institute Social Content Social content sites are similar to article directories, but they don’t require your articles to be approved before they go live. They’re a bit like a hybrid of a blog, an article directory, and a free host. Most of them allow you to make single pages rather than entire websites. Some sites like this use nofollow on links, so watch for that: http://knol.google.com (Nofollow) http://www.squidoo.com http://www.hubpages.com (Nofollow in some cases) http://www.infobarrel.com
Free Blogs Free blogs allow you the opportunity to create a quality backlink by simply creating another website that links to yours. You can create free blogs with just a handful of posts each, and link to your site from those blogs. There are hundreds of free blogging platforms, but be careful. Some will delete blogs they consider to be “overly promotional”, and some don’t allow commercial activity at all. (So no affiliate links!) Some free blog providers include: http://www.blogger.com http://www.wordpress.com (No commercial activity allowed) http://www.livejournal.com http://www.greatestjournal.com http://www.insanejournal.com http://www.blogabond.com http://www.blogcheese.com http://www.ufem.com http://www.trippert.com
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The Blogging Institute Blog Commenting If you don’t want to create your own blogs, you can always post on other people’s blogs. Just leave a comment, and drop your link in the appropriate field. It’s tricky to do this correctly, and most people don’t. There are a few rules you must observe: 1. Only put your link in the “Website” or “URL” field. Do NOT drop links into the body of your comment! Many bloggers will not approve your comment if you do, because it looks like spam. 2. Don’t worry about anchor text here. It’s a much better idea to just use your name when you comment, because you want your comments to get approved. 3. Read a post before you comment on it. Make sure you leave a comment that is directly related to the post you’re commenting on. Never leave a generic comment like “Nice post, thank you!” 4. Don’t argue with other commenters. If someone engages you in an argument, walk away. You must appear professional at all times. You are representing your brand! Remember that most blogs use nofollow on links in comments by default. Many bloggers aren’t even aware that their software does this, so they can’t do anything to correct it, even if they would want to. There are directories that list blogs that don’t use the nofollow tag: http://www.digeratimarketing.co.uk/2007/07/20/over-160-relevant-linkfollowing-blogs/ http://followlist.com/ http://www.dofollowblogs.com http://www.dofollow.info http://www.dofollow-blogs.net Again, comments on blogs with nofollow can still get you some direct traffic. It’s up to you whether you want to post, or not. All links are valuable. It’s true! Download Your $97 Gift >>>> Here
The Blogging Institute Guest Blogging Since many blogs use nofollow on comment links, it’s better if you can get a link in the body of a post. You can’t exactly edit a post, so what can you do? Simply contact the owner of the blog and ask if you can make a guest post! You’ll need to write an article specifically for that blog. This post should be thoughtful, informative, unique, and very well written. Be sure to write an article that really speaks to the audience of that particular blog. Make sure to tell the blog owner upfront that you wish to have a backlink in the body of your article. Some bloggers won’t want to allow this, but many will. They get free content for their site, and you get a backlink, as well as potentially some direct traffic. It’s a win-win situation as long as your blog is clean and isn’t linking to garbage sites.
Backlink Packets Backlink packets are extremely popular these days. People are selling a packet a month of links to sites where you can get backlinks.
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The Blogging Institute Many people are using these backlink packets. For this reason, most of the links get shut down very quickly. If 500 people all suddenly comment on the same blog, the blog owner is probably going to quickly close comments. These packets do have value, and they are usually only $10 per month or less. Just realize that most sites will be shut down very quickly. If you decide to use them, jump on them as soon as you get them each month.
Your Own Websites Some people like to make several websites in a single niche and link them together for backlink purposes. This can be useful, but not if you host them all on the same server or hosting company. If you are going to make your own websites for backlinks, be sure to host each one on a different hosting company.
Outsourcing Link Building Some people prefer to outsource their link building. This can be a good idea, but only if you make sure to hire someone with plenty of experience who won’t get you into trouble by linking from the wrong place or using black hat tactics. There are plenty of places to find people who will build links for you. Make sure they provide you with a list of all the places they’ve gotten links for you. That way, you have proof they’ve done their job. You can find people to build links at: http://www.warriorforum.com http://forums.digitalpoint.com http://www.getafreelancer.com http://www.elance.com http://www.fivver.com
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The Blogging Institute Social Bookmarking Social bookmarking isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t as effective as it once was, but you can still use it to get backlinks. Most social bookmarking sites use nofollow, but a few do not. Here are some lists of social bookmarking sites that do not use nofollow: http://www.caroline-middlebrook.com/blog/do-follow-socialbookmarking-sites/ http://franklinbishop.net/27-dofollow-social-bookmarking-sites/ http://www.freeways-to-make-money-online.com/list-of-dofollowsocial-bookmarking-sites/
Video Marketing Submitting videos is great for bringing in direct traffic, but simple videos can also provide backlinks. Many use nofollow on links, but here is a list of video sites that donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t use nofollow. http://www.searchenginejournal.com/dofollow-video-sharingsites/8763/
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NEGATIVE RANKING FACTORS In addition to the things you SHOULD do, there are a few things you should make sure you never do. Never even consider doing any of these things, because you could get permanently banned.
Cloaking Cloaking is one of the most egregious violations one can ever commit. Cloaking involves using a script that delivers one version of a page to search engine spiders, and another version to users. The purpose of this is to give users exactly what the site owner wants them to see, without sacrificing anything for the sake of search engine optimization. For example, you might show a graphicsintensive page to users, while showing spiders a keyword-stuffed text page. If you’re caught cloaking for any reason, even one you personally feel is altruistic, you will probably be banned forever.
Buying Links from Known Brokers or Sellers Buying links from known link brokers or sellers is a major violation. Search engines don’t like any type of tactic that manipulates the results, especially if it could be used to cause pages that ordinarily wouldn’t rank well to do so. You can purchase links from individual websites for the purpose of direct traffic, but you must be careful. Make sure you aren’t buying links from sites that are known for selling links as “backlinks”, and avoid brokers completely.
Links to Bad Sites Obviously, search engines don’t like to rank sites that link out to bad websites. It’s a case of guilt by association. If you’re linking to spammy websites, or those that cloak or use other bad tactics, there is a good chance you could be engaging in similar practices. Download Your $97 Gift >>>> Here
The Blogging Institute Make sure any site you link to is a quality site that doesn’t use any black hat SEO techniques. You may also wish to check the sites they link out to just in case.
Frequent or Prolonged Downtime Make sure you use a reputable hosting company with a good uptime guarantee, because your rankings could drop considerably if your site goes down frequently or stays down for long periods of time. You can use a server monitoring service to alert you whenever your server goes down. If it does down more than once a month for a few minutes, you might want to consider moving to a different hosting company.
Slow Server or Slow Loading Users don’t like to wait forever for a page to load, thus, search engines do not like to rank pages that load slowly. If your server is overloaded and slow, performance will suffer. Make sure your hosting company doesn’t oversell servers, so your speed stays fast and even. Also, be sure to optimize images, HTML, and other elements. Large images that haven’t been optimized can cause a page to load very slowly, so check your pages to make sure they load as quickly as possible.
Hiding Text People used to hide text by placing text on a background the same color as the text. Never, ever do this. Don’t do it with HTML, CSS, images, or anything else! Even if the search engine spiders don’t detect this, you might be reported by a visitor or caught by a manual review. Just don’t do it!
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