Archive for November, 2010

16 NovChoosing Phrases for Text Links

One of the best and easiest ways to boost your site for your niche is with text links. Webmasters have figured out that the search engines not only calculate the amount and quality of links coming to your site, but also what those links have to say.

A great example of how the wording of text links effects your ranking in the SERPs is the George Bush example. Back in the Bush era, a group of savvy webmasters tested out the power of text links by making hundreds of sites linking to George Bush’s page at WhiteHouse.gov with the text link words “Miserable Failure.” If you were to type in “Miserable Failure” at Google, the Bush page was the first result – even though those words never appeared in the site anywhere.

What does this example tell us about text links? That you can give yourself a major boost just by incorporating your keywords into the links to your site. This is something that a lot of amateur webmasters overlook as they hurry to get as many links as possible and just write, “Click here.” Instead, you should come up with several variations of text links with your keyword incorporated. Use a different sentence for each of your text links. One of the easiest ways to get links is to buy text links from the relevant web sites, which will allow you to targed a focused audience.

In addition to actually improving your rankings, text links can also help motivate your readers into action. Visitors will be much more compelled to click on a sentence such as, “You can get your free copy here,” then just the website’s name put into highlighted font. A few more tricks to remember about text links is that they should appear several times in long texts or before and after images. This is like a nice reminder to visitors to click on text links before they lose interest.

11 NovWhat to Look for in a Web Design Company

Before you even start to look for a web design company for your site, you need to think about your target audience. Consider what impression you want to make and what features your visitors are going to expect. This can greatly change your site’s web design and growth. Write out information about your site including mission statement and what your company does as well as getting together any existing logos. You may also want to look at your competitor’s web design and any templates that you like.

Once you have a basic idea of what web design you are looking for in your web design, then you can begin your search for a web design company. Take a look at the company’s portfolio of web designs and see if you are impressed. If it is a small firm or individual, make sure that they are capable of making a web design in the style you want. Even though larger web design firms have more impressive portfolios than individual designers, they may be outsourcing your web design project to an individual anyway. What really matters is that you will have open communication with the web designer.

Of course, cost is a major factor in choosing a web design company. If you are getting a custom template, then expect to pay more. Also factor in the type, quantity and quality of graphics needed for your web design. You may be required to pay some reoccurring fees. Also, find out what changes you will be able to make in the future and how much they will cost. Even though all web design projects vary in price, the company should be able to give you a ballpark figure.

09 NovLink Building for Your Local Business

You may have heard about Google’s latest changes for local search. Is your website still showing up in the first three results? If not, or you’d like to rank higher, just follow these easy steps to link-building to have your local business rank higher in Google search results. Start off with easy links to get for your local listing. Make sure you’re listed on Google Places with your website. Have a business fan page on Facebook and link to it.

Are you a member of your local Chamber of Commerce. Most all have a web directory of local businesses – make sure you’re on there with a clickable link. Your local paper will usually have a local business directory on their website – be on that with a link to your website. Some other ideas are local tourist bureaus, the Better Business Bureau, local government websites, and educational institutions.

Other national sites you should consider are Yelp, Gowalla, and Foursquare. Do you belong to a national or regional trade association? Get listed there. Don’t bother with paid link building – concentrate on these. Google gives more credence to “official” sites like Chambers of Commerce and government websites, so concentrate your efforts there. Second on your list should be the review sites like Yelp. There’s plenty more out there – just search Google for them. Still not getting results from your link building efforts?

Another way of link building is, you can buy text links, which will save a lot of time for you and will improve link popularity and search engine ranking of your website.

01 NovTips for Building Backlinks Free

There are many great free ways of building backlinks such as article submissions and blog posting. However, these methods of building backlinks aren’t always as straightforward as they seem. Here are some tips for building free backlinks:

• Blog Posting: A great method of building backlinks is by posting comments on blogs or online forums. However, don’t just throw up a lot of posts at once. Search engines can detect when you get a lot of backlinks all at once. Also, this method of building backlinks can annoy your peers in the online community. That is why many blogs have started using No Follow techniques.

• Article Submissions and Press Releases: When building backlinks with this method, always make sure that you are indexing them on your own site first. Otherwise, they might get credited to another website. That would mean that the article would count as duplicate content at your site and could result in a penalty.

• Even though building one way backlinks is the best, don’t refrain from linking to others on your site. Search engines also calculate the user-friendliness of your site. If you don’t have any outward links, then you might be penalized.

• When building backlinks, make sure that you are varying the anchor text of your links. You will also want to change your site’s title and description. Google penalizes narrow anchor texts going towards one webpage.

• Try building backlinks on a personal level with other sites. When looking for link partners, find sites that have no more than 25 outgoing links. Building one way backlinks is also possible if you make link bait and directly offer it to a site where it would be useful. Don’t be surprised if you are met with a lot of “No’s” before someone agrees to give a one-way link though.