How to Write Content That Enhances SEO

One of the most fundamental ways to drive links to your site is by creating quality content; it follows the webmasters favourite line 'content is king'. This statement is true but only to a certain degree as no one is going to link to your quality content unless they know it's there.

So what do we really need to do to ensure quality content is pulling in the links we deserve? One of the first things you need to ensure is that your content is keyword focused; use keywords that fully describe what you are writing about. Use the keywords in your heading, title tag and throughout the body of your page.

The next thing you need to ensure is that your content is link worthy, this means many different things but a few of the common factors are that it is correct, up to date and unique. Never simply re-write what you have read on every other blog out there, add your own thoughts and opinions, look for new angles to come at the subject from. Maybe try and create controversy, disagree with common opinion and then back up your argument with clear facts.

How you structure your content will have a huge impact on how people engage with it and you need the visitor to engage with it if you want to give yourself a chance of link back. Use images, diagrams and charts to make your point. Keep your paragraphs short and use titles to break your content up. This makes it a more pleasant user experience and will greatly increase the chances of bringing you links.

There are only certain groups of people that actively link back to sites on the web; these are the tech savvy types, bloggers and other types of webmasters. Your content needs to appeal to these groups otherwise you are wasting your time putting your time and effort into it. Create an article section of your site or use a blog effectively to blog about different areas relevant to your topic. Once you have done this use social media to put your content in front of real visitors. Social sites such as Digg, Stumble and Twitter will help you interact with others in your community and get valued feedback on the content you have created. As your social media profile grows so will visitors back to your site. The more visitors you get the more chance you have of acquiring those al important links.

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SEO and Link over Optimisation

Every SEO knows the best way to the top of Google is by creating optimised links. Links are the main factor on deciding where a site ranks within Google, however getting those links in an ethical manner can be slightly tricky. The search engines are very aware of manipulative techniques and their algorithms take this manipulation into account. If you are not careful your link building can get you into trouble and cause a significant drop in the rankings, knowing what to look out for could be the difference between success and failure.

Common errors many webmasters make are registering a new domain and immediately start building thousands of links to it every month. The search engines specifically look for this type of erratic activity as often large increase in links can mean, links have been bought or farmed. Our link building needs to match the rate of our traffic and the content that is being generated.

Another area that is often over optimised is anchor texts. Dont anchor every one of your back links with the exact same text. If the search engines spot this type of activity your site could be heavily penalised and cause a huge drop in rankings. Use keyword variations in your anchor text all based around the same theme, most sites sitting at the top of Google have around forty percent or their links using the exact same anchor text, try not to go over this.

Your content is the main reasons you get natural links back to your site, so ask yourself, does my content warrant the amount of links that are been attributed to the content? If Google were to come by and conduct a manual review, would your content warrant your link popularity? If not you could be penalised. This is the main aspect of link over optimisation, if your content doesnt warrant it you are no doubt over optimising.

All links back to you site are supposed to be natural, this causes some webmasters to go out and register various domains to create links from. This again is not a good link building strategy, Google will pick up on this type of activity and heavily penalise it. Use ethical means to create your links, directories, article marketing, blogging and forum contribution. Create great content and use social media to promote it, this will ensure your links count and increase your rank.

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How to Super Optimise Your Blog for SEO

Getting involved in social media is a great way to drive instant traffic to your site, however if you want your blog to grow into a traffic magnet, you are going to need to attract attention from the search engines. Every high traffic blog has been optimised for keywords relevant to the content, once this is done you can begin to sell ad space relevant to your content.

To fully optimise your blog, one of the first things you need to ensure is that your title tag is optimised towards your target keywords. Your title tag is one of the most powerful SEO components, getting it right will allow you to dominate Googles rankings.

The next area you look to is your headings, use different keyword variations within your heading tags; this will help your contents relevance and will stand out to the search engines. The ALT attribute within your images is another place where you need to be focusing your keywords.

If you havent done so already it is important that you submit a site map via Google webmaster tools, this will help ensure all your content is indexed. The more content you have indexed, the more chance you have of driving relevant traffic to your blog.

On e thing that many bloggers miss and it is very powerful, is optimising your internal links. Every page or post of your blog needs to be linked back to your homepage. Now many bloggers do this from the home tab at the top of the page, however the most effective place to position internal links is within the text of your post, anchored with your target keywords.

Many bloggers will encourage you to submit your best content to article directories, this is a big mistake. Submitting your posts to article directories will cause your blog to be filled with duplicate content; this will severely restrict the amount of search engine traffic you can drive to your site.

One of the main things you need to do to ensure your receiving as much organic traffic as possible is to keep on topic. Google needs to recognise the all round theme your site. If every post you write is linked to your main theme, this will strengthen your overall ranking ability.

As well as all of the above on page ideas you must also build back links to your content. These links need to be from sites that publish content similar to your own.

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5 Linkbuilding Tips To Increase Google Page Rank

Linkbuilding can be tedious boring and at times it might seem like a waste of energy. However, over time it can be one of the most profitable activities of your business. See, backlinks will increase your link popularity which in turn will increase your Google Page Rank.

Although Page Rank is no longer the Alfa and the Omega of SEO, it is still a good indication of just how popular your site is with the search engines. The majority of your Page Rank is determined by backlinks. You simply cannot increase Google Page Rank without getting back links to your site.

Most people make the mistake of blindly diving into link building - hoping that it will help their search engine ranking. Unfortunately not all links are good links. Here are 5 very important tips you need to stick to when building links to your site.

1. Focus on relevant links Google's bot is getting smarter and one of the big things for the future of backlinks is relevancy. Focus on getting links from relevant sites that are similar to yours. Backlinks from relevant sites has more linkjuice and will get a higher value than random links from unrelated sites.

2. Avoid nofollow links Many sites now have the "nofollow" tag which was originally introduced to deter spammers from posting random links everywhere. The nofollow tag means that a link won't be accredited as a backlink, so when you do get links from nofollow sites they will be worthless from an SEO point of view.

3. Use anchor text Anchor text is very important in building quality backlinks. The anchor text the text that contains the link and Google assigns a lot of value to a link with anchor text. Using your keywords as anchor text in your back links is a great way to add linkjuice to your backlinks.

4. Get links from high Page Rank sites Getting a link from a high page rank site carries more value than a link from a low page rank site. Page rank value gets passed on to an outbound link from the top level URL. In other words, the home page URL carries most of the value and that's why links from high PR sites are so sought after. If you can you should try and get links from high PR pages - they have even more value.

5. Focus on getting permanent backlinks The only thing that is worse than not ranking well, is to lose a high rank. It's not uncommon for your site to drop off the SERP's if you lose your backlinks. If you buy links from link services that require a monthly subscription you run the risk of losing your links when you cancel. This will drop all your links and cause your search engine ranking to drop as well.

Don't be blinded by the little green bar that shows your Google page rank. It's notoriously inaccurate and can often be deceiving - especially for low PR sites. Focus instead on building more quality backlinks. In the end every quality link counts and if you are consistent you will increase Google Page Rank, get more traffic and make more money.

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The Jacob Tyler SEO Process

Recently I've been hearing the same question come up in many conversations with clients: "When will I see results from our SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plan"? My response is the same to every client, regardless of the situation. "It depends. It could take a couple weeks or a couple of months. You have to be patient." Jacob Tyler's SEO process is very intricate and time consuming. That being said- it works. Below is an explanation of why SEO campaigns take some time to get off the ground, and why our SEO is more 'process' than 'result'. Receiving Links Back from High Page-rank Sites is the First Step.

First things first, securing inbound links is never a speedy process. One aspect of a typical search marketing campaign will involve writing to other web directories and websites, inviting them to link to your own, which takes time. However, without this crucial step, links from other websites take MUCH longer to develop. I usually tell my clients to think of an SEO campaign as a process that speeds up what would occur naturally.

Webmaster response can also take a considerable amount of time. Even if you or your SEO consultant completed 150 requests in a day, the webmasters of those 150 other sites may not get back to you immediately. In extreme cases, it has been 10 - 12 months before I have heard back from some webmasters. So you'll get some links quickly, and other links will take much longer.

The importance of receiving these links is that search engines count inbound links as a "vote". Sites that have more "votes" are perceived as being stronger, in addition to having higher rankings. Getting your Inbound Links to be Indexed

So let's say that a few weeks have passed and you've secured 50 valuable inbound links from 50 great websites. Even though you've requested 150, you will never get every link you ask for, it just doesn't happen. Some webmasters will never answer your request, and some simply will not link back. So you have some links pointing to your site, now what?

Now the long and detailed process moves on to Google and Yahoo and they don't get around to indexing those 50 pages for days or weeks. Google will generally index most sites within 3 - 4 weeks, whereas Yahoo takes longer and MSN takes much longer. As second-tier search engines like MSN improve their technology, you can expect the indexing speed to catch up. Additionally, until the search engines update their indexes of the pages that link to your site, it's as if the link doesn't exist.

Search engines are picky and they don't index pages just because webmasters index them. So, if Google comes upon a web page with a link to your site, it may index that page immediately, or it may return a few times before the page is indexed. In that case, some links may take months to be indexed. The Sites that Link to You have to wait for their Links as well

You also can't forget that the sites that link to you are "living" websites too. The strength of their web presence is based on the links they receive - and that landscape is constantly changing. When your site is new, the sites that are willing to link to you are going to usually be new as well. As such, the inbound linking power of the sites that link to you will tend to be weaker than websites that have been around for a longer period of time. However, those sites will grow into stronger sites as they age, and then the inbound links that you have from other sites will grow as well.

The Sandbox Effect

And then, on top of everything else, there is the Sandbox Effect. The Sandbox Effect refers to the phenomenon of a temporary ranking penalty applied to newer websites that undergo rapid expansion in either inbound links or size. The Sandbox Effect is heavily debated and never conclusively proven either way.

Google spokesperson, Matt Cutts, has publicly stated, "There are some things in the algorithm that may be perceived as a sandbox that doesn't apply to all industries." Mr. Cutts' statements are very well prepared, extremely rare and he is widely regarded as a knowledgeable, reliable source. And so, the Sandbox Effect may serve to temporarily slow down the effects of any promotional campaign you undertake.

All of these factors combine to form the long and often frustrating process of a typical SEO campaign. Depending on your website, it can be a quick and pain-free experience, or it can be a slow and testing process. It depends. You have to be patient.

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SEO Is Simpler Than You Might Think

For those people who have heard of search engine optimization and marveled at it and figured that they would never have the technical knowledge that it would take to get their websites to the top of the search engines, there is hope. While there are some technical aspects about the coding of a site that can get in the way of SEO, the actual SEO is not a technical thing at all.

The best way to describe what kind of person would be good at doing search engine optimization would be an organized, persistent person who never tires of learning new ways to do the same thing. Really, that is it. The biggest area in which people fail at SEO is the actual implementation of it. I do not mean that they implement it wrong (though some certainly do), but rather they simply fail to do it. There are a lot of people who become fascinated when learning how to get their website to rank well, that they never actually do the work.

So now that we have talked about the aspect of actually doing the work, we should talk about a specific SEO tactic that every internet marketer should know how to do correctly. That tactic is link building. So many internet marketers attempt to cheat the system by using the latest and greatest link building tools so that they can build a lot of links in a quick hurry. That is the wrong approach to get the best results and based on a misnomer that the most links wins the top result in the SERPS.

There are several aspects about link building that, once understood, will release you from the bondage of seeking the maximum number of links possible. First, it is important that you understand that not all links are equal and the higher the PR of a page that is linking to you the better. Second, a variety of links is an important aspect to looking natural and being natural. Third, continual growth of links over time is far better than severe peaks and valleys. Lastly, but perhaps the most important is the internal links structure of your site. The search engines use external links as a way to verify what you have already told them the pages in your site are about. The anchor text in the links pointing to your internal pages is the way that you tell the search engines what those pages are about.

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Search Engine Optimization Guide for beginners - URL Structure

Continuing the series on Search Engine Optimization guide for beginners, in this article we will explain how proper URL structure can improve the site's chances of ranking higher in Google and other search engines.

By creating descriptive categories and filenames for the web pages of your website, you not only keep the site better organized and systematic, but it can also benefit you in terms of good rankings on Google for your keywords. Since the search engine bots can easily crawl your organized website, search engines will be able to glean much more information from your site. Webmaster can also create search engine friendly URLs. These URLs are not only more legible and easier to understand, but also are better for those who want to place your webpage link on their website. Long and cryptic page names may put off or scare visitors. Page names (URLs) like these can be confusing and intimidating and don't serve any purpose. Such URLS are difficult to remember. A small % of users always try to go a particular website by recalling its name. But in these scenarios, your URL may elude his/her memory. Many times these long URLs are shortened due to ignorance of a user or shortage of space like in twitter where the number of characters that can be entered is limited. In these cases, the link is broken. Sometimes, the URL itself is used as anchor text, if the URL contains relevant keywords, it will assist user and search engine bots in determining the true nature and substance of the web page. This is much better than an unintelligible URL with loads of parameters which does not help in any way in improving your rankings.

Also, in search engine search results pages, just below the webpage's title and description snippet, the URL to the webpage is provided. And if the search query matches the words in the URL, then those words appear in bold. This immediately signals to the user making the search that this page is relevant.

Webmaster should avoid URLs with unnecessary session IDs and parameters. While adding keywords to URL is a good idea, don't go overboard with it. A simple and intuitive directory structure also helps bots. Avoid deep nested subdirectories and also keep name of the directories relevant.

Search Engines are getting sophisticated with each passing days and unlike in earlier days, they can now crawl pages with any kind of URL structure - simple or complex. But it's in webmaster's interest to keep the URL as simple and relevant as possible. Few minutes and bit of care in selecting and making search engine friendly URL can help both users and search engines in long run. This can also be done using URL rewriting technique in case of dynamically generated web pages.

Adhering to above mentioned guidelines can benefit any webmaster in more than one way. User Interaction ease as well as benefits from better rankings makes these suggestions important in today's highly competitive business scenario. So be wise.

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