Archive for Major Search Engines
Organic SEO
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When people refer to “organic SEO” (search engine optimization), they almost always use it as a blanket term to describe the unpaid, algorithm-driven results of any particular engine. However, a sophisticated search engine optimization company will often take the meaning of “organic” one step further. To such companies, the description of “organic SEO” is not limited to what shows up in the “natural” search engine results – it includes the methodologies used to achieve such rankings.
A search engine optimization company usually falls into one of two camps. A “White Hat” search engine optimization company will use a largely content-based approach and will not violate the terms of service of the major search engines. A “Black Hat” search engine optimization company will use a largely technology driven approach and often ignore the terms of service. Neither approach is invalid (as I have said many times before, there is nothing illegal about violating a search engine’s terms of service), and both can achieve high rankings. But a search engine optimization company that takes the word “organic” literally believes that the “Black Hat” approach is anything but “organic SEO.”
There’s an “old” saying in the SEO industry that “content is king.” This is not necessarily true. In my experience, good content is king. Study after study has shown that when people use search engines, they are primarily seeking one thing: information. They are not seeking to be impressed by fancy flash sites. They are not looking for a virtual piece of art. A search engine optimization company that is truly practicing “organic SEO” recognizes this fact and will refuse SEO work when prospects insist that content addition is not an option.
“Artificial SEO” firms, which embrace a technical loophole philosophy, will allow a company to leave its website exactly as it is, because the work that such firms do is by and large technical and is designed to trick the engine into showing content that it would not otherwise. Certainly, there are acceptable (from the engine’s standpoint) technical aspects that any good search engine optimization company will use, such as relevant page titles and meta tags. But there are many more unacceptable technical methodologies than acceptable ones, including cloaking, redirects, multiple sites, keyphrase stuffing, hidden links, and numerous others. A company practicing “organic SEO” will avoid these.
As any search engine optimization company knows, inbound links are critical to the success of an “organic SEO” campaign. But there are different ways to go about it. Firms that practice true “organic SEO” will look at the website itself and say “how can we make this site something that other sites would want to link to?” A search engine optimization company using “artificial SEO” will ask “how can I get links pointing to this site without adding anything of value to it?” The latter approach usually leads to reciprocal linking schemes, link farms, the purchase of text links, and more – anything save for making changes to the website that entice others to link to the site without the link being reciprocated, without paying the website owner, or without asking “pretty please.”
There is a stark contrast between “organic SEO” and “artificial SEO.” Of course, any decent search engine optimization company will make certain that a site is listed in all the popular directories, such as the Yahoo Directory, the Open Directory Project, and Business.com. A good search engine optimization company will also continually seek any industry specific directories where your site should be listed. But truly using “organic SEO” means evolving your site into something that holds actual value to your prospects. In my opinion, this is much more beneficial in the long run than the artificial methodology of trying to garner incoming links that the site does not truly deserve.
Search engines change algorithms frequently, and for two reasons. One is, of course, to improve their results based upon their most recent user studies. The other, which is obviously related, is to remove sites that are ranked artificially high. Such updates raise panic in the SEO community – particularly among “artificial SEO” practitioners who have just discovered that their most recent and cherished trick no longer works (and may have gotten their clients’ sites removed from the engines altogether). It is not uncommon on the search engine forums to see the owner of such a search engine optimization company threatening to “sue Google” over a recent update. Not uncommon, but always amusing.
There is, with only a few exceptions, a common denominator in the websites that remain highly ranked throughout these algorithm shifts. They offer something of value to their visitors and are considered a resource for their industry. “Organic SEO” practitioners generally do not have to worry about going back and redoing work because of an algorithm shift. While an “artificial” search engine optimization company desperately tries to re-attain the rankings it lost for its clients (or to get the sites re-included in the search engine at all) because it was dependent on technical loopholes that have now been closed, “organic SEO” firms continue adding valuable content to a site, strengthening its value and bolstering its rankings.
A common argument from companies when advised by “organic SEO” practitioners to take this approach is “we aren’t trying to provide a resource for our industry – we are trying to sell products or services.” This is, in my opinion, shortsighted. Remember, you are trying to reach prospects in all stages of the buying cycle, not just the low hanging fruit ready to buy now. Let your website be their resource to learn about your industry, rather than your overpaid salesperson. Prospects are very likely to call you when they are ready to buy – after all, you’ve done so much for them already!
In addition, taking advantage of “organic SEO” to make your website an industry resource provides a tremendous natural boost to your rankings for your individual product or service pages. This means that with “organic SEO”, you’ll get the best of both worlds. You’ll reach people early in the buying cycle, educate them, and steer them toward your solution by using your website instead of your sales personnel. You will also reach the low hanging fruit because your individual product or service pages, which are intended for people who are ready to buy now, will get a significant rankings boost.
Search engines conduct very expensive and frequent studies on what their users want to see when they enter search queries. Obviously, no company has a more vested interest in serving up the type of results that their users want than the engines themselves. “Organic SEO” firms will take the “piggyback” approach. A search engine optimization company that uses “organic SEO” will try to learn what the results of these studies were by examining the sites that figure prominently in search engine results over long periods of time. In this way, the search engine optimization company is using “organic SEO” to make the website not only better for search engines, but also for the user- presumably, the engine’s internal research has shown that these sites have what their users have consistently desired, study after study. “Artificial SEO” practitioners have no real interest in these studies- they are instead expending a great deal of energy finding the next technical loophole to exploit after their most recent one has failed.
The latter approach can make results erratic, but it also raises a largër issue – the goal of the campaign. If an “artificial” search engine optimization company finds a temporary loophole in an algorithm that brings your site to the top, but does not take the time to delve into the user experience once a user gets to the site, it will defeat the original purpose. You may get plenty of visitors, but a large percentage of these will be short-term visitors who do not find what they want on your site and back out without a second thought. The search engine optimization company did not “piggyback” on the engines’ research to learn what type of content users wanted to see when they entered their query.
A search engine optimization company that takes a true “organic SEO” approach will actually take the Merriam Webster definition literally. A good website does have the characteristics of an organism and does develop in the manner of a living plant or animal. It builds upon itself. It learns how it should behave for its own benefit. Most importantly, it establishes its territory at the top of the search engine results. And as the organism thrives, artificial machine after machine fades into obsolescence.
About The Author
Article by BizAtomic – SEO Firm – http://www.bizatomic.com.
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Are You Leaving These Linking Tactics Untapped?
Posted by: | CommentsKeywords and Understanding linking is CRUCIAL for any form of internet marketing SUCCESS. This short series of tutorial videos helps you find your own success in whatever venture you are engaged in, whether it’s making money through copyrighting, article marketing, blogging, selling affiliate products, video marketing, or other forms.
Links are the pathways by which all information on the Internet is connected. Whether you are traveling your preferred search engine or your favorite website, your paths are directed by the links you come in contact with.
Because of this, links have become the lifeblood of the Internet. Major search engines like Google evaluate your incoming links to help determine your search engine positions.
However, a link is much more than just a ranking factor. A quality inbound link can bring your website a steady stream of targeted traffíc and buyers.
In this article I will reveal the untapped methods of obtaining quality inbound links. We all know that reciprocal links are dead. Smart internet marketers also know about the power of article marketing and rss syndication. This article looks to explore beyond those techniques, unveiling linking tactics that are largely undiscovered.
Read on to find out about which links you can gain to build buzz, how to leverage the power of wikis, why everyone needs an affíliate program, and how to use the web 2.0 craze to garner hundreds of high quality inbound links.
We will begin our journey with editorial link opportunities.
The right links can generate massive buzz and word of mouth marketing. This type of marketing can occur from links like Yahoo Picks, Forbes Best of the Web, and USA Today Höt Sites. Get listed on the following sites and you’ve certainly got a wínner.
* Yahoo Picks of the Day/Week
* Forbes Best of the Web
* USA Today Web Guide/Höt Sites
* NY Public Library Best of the Web
* Exploratorium Ten Cool Sites
* Librarians Internet Index
* Reference Desk
Wikis
Wikis are some of the best sources for link building. With a bit of digging, you can find plenty of wiki pages with high link popularity and PageRank. Not to mention, many wikis rank well in the search engines. This is especially true for Wikipedia.
However, like everything, there is a wrong and right way to go about it. Many people try to sp@m wikis with hundreds of links. Because of this, there have been strict measures taken to find and eliminate these culprits.
To benefit from the Wiki community, you must be an active participant adding quality and relevant information to their collection of content. You must add value to a page. Once you have done this, you can then incorporate your link if it’s a good fit.
However, don’t just add information to pages that present linking opportunities. You should also be contributing to the wiki just for the sake of adding great content to the database. When appropriate, add quality links to articles, even links you do not control. Using this strategy, it is much more likely that you will be able to benefit from the many wikis available online.
To find potential linking opportunities, simply go to Google and type in “your keywords” inurl:wiki. This will help you to find sites that have wikis related to your keywords. For example, if you are looking for wikis related to search engine marketing, you would type in “search engine marketing” inurl:wiki.
For a comprehensive list of wikis you can start contributing to , go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wikis.
Library Sites
Ok. Are you ready for the MacDaddy of all links? You may be surprised to hear that some of the best links on the Web can only be obtained from public shool library Web sites. Yes I know, it’s hard to believe that an unattractive school website that lives out in the .us or .org jungle would be of value to you. But in fact, these are some of the most trustworthy links you could ever hope to obtain.
Library web sites are some of the most trusted sources on the Internet and Google knows it. So, if you have an extremely valuable site that would prove a valuable resource to people around the world, then you should certainly get in contact with a librarian to suggest your site as an addition to their list of resources.
Below is a list of library sites to get you started:
* Virginia Pubic Library Websites
* Ohio Public Library Web Sites
Affíliate Links
Affíliate programs are one of the best ways to obtain thousands of inbound links to your site. With the right software, you can use an affíliate program to super charge your search engine rankings.
Using an affíliate program, you can get hundreds and even thousands of other people to promote your products with no rísk on your part. Your affiliates send visitors to your web site using banner ads, text links, articles, and email promotions. For every visitor who decides to buy, you pay your affíliate a percentage of the sale.
The beauty of this system is that it allows you to create extra revenue without spending any additional advertising dollars. You can use affíliate marketing to explode your online sales and catapult your search engine rankings with no rísk to you.
However, you have to make sure you have the right software to do this. Some affilate tracking software doesn’t lend any link popularity back to your site.
Go to Assoctrac.com to find out about some very powerful affíliate software.
Press Releases
As I wrote about in a previous article, press releases enable you to tap into multiple news sites across the Internet, including Google News, Yahoo News, and MSNBC Searchbot.
In addition to attracting thousands of targeted visitors to your site, press releases can also create thousands of quality inbound links.
However, to realize the full potential of your press release campaign, you must take time to optimize your press release properly. Press releases should be optimized in much the same way that search engine optimization specialists optimize ordinary web pages to achieve higher rankings. By optimizing your press releases for the search engines, you will receive much higher visibility.
For example, one press release from MarketingExperiments.com resulted in 2,200 visitors and 5 interview requests by journalists. This is the power of a highly optimized press release.
Some of the best places to distribute your press release online include:
prweb.com
internet.com
businesswire.com
prnewswire.com
bacons.com
e-releases.com
prfree.com
pr.com
webwire.com
marketwire.com
24-7pressrelease.com
pressreleasenetwork.com
i-newswire.com
Start your own press campaign to begin creating invaluable buzz, attracting targeted visitors, and gaining thousands of inbound links.
Social Search Engines
With the growth of Web 2.0, social bookmarking services have become extremely popular this past year. However, these search engines are much more than simply a tool for searching and saving your favorite websites. These social communities can also drive massive amounts of traffíc to your site and build brand awareness.
Popular submissions can expect to receive an onslaught of traffíc. In addition, popular sites also receive an abundance of link love. These social search engines influence bloggers, publishers and journalists. On average, a website that is Dugg receives an average of 500 to a thousand new inbound links within a short period of time.
If you have a very informative site, your traffíc may increase permanently after being Dugg. The key to succeeding with social search engines is to be a true contributor to the community. You must have quality content if you want to submit any of your links. Otherwise, you are simply wasting your time.
In addition, don’t just submit your own links. Share the love and submit other sites that you feel would provide a great resource to the community.
Some of the best online social communities include:
Digg
del.icio.us
Furl
Shadows.com
MyWeb
StumbleUpon
PreFound
Technorati
In today’s generation of web 2.0, publishers have been given multiple outlets for their work. It’s time that we start taking advantage of the changes occurring in the online publishing world.
Podcast Syndication
Another publishing opportuníty that is undergoing rapid growth online is podcasting. The Internet is changing. Broadband Internet connection is allowing millíons of Internet users to start downloading podcasts on every imaginable topic, from search engine strategies to the adventures of parenting.
According to Forrester Research, podcasting will reach 12.3 million households by 2010. Unfortunately, many webmasters are not taking advantage of this amazing opportuníty.
To begin marketing your own podcasts, submit them to the following directories:
PodcastingNews.com
MasterNewMedia.org
Integrating these new distribution models can vastly increase your exposure online.
New Forms of Article Syndication
Article syndication has become quite popular among internet marketers. It has enabled writers and website owners to gain hundreds of quality inbound links simply by syndicating their articles to article directories, article groups, related websites, and newsletter publications.
However, web 2.0 has transformed the publishing platforms that are available today. Because of this, there are now many more outlets for your articles and your valuable resource box. Fortunately for you, many online marketers have not spotted these opportunities so I advise you to jump on them quickly.
One of the most exciting new publishing platforms is Squidoo.
Squidoo was created by a revolutionary online thinker named Seth Godin. At Squidoo, you can create your very own lens, which is simply your view on a particular topic. This is a single web page that can point to blogs, favorite links, RSS feeds, Flickr photos, Google maps, eBay auctions, Amazon books and other resources.
Best of all, these lenses are getting traffíc, credibility, and even showing up in top Google results. You can use a lens to increase the number of authoritative inbound links to your site, position yourself as an industry expert, announce the latest news within your niche, or promote your podcasts.
I’ve seen lenses ranging from a pagerank of 3 to 5. Below are some great examples:
FxBootcamp : PR4
Cool Laptop Bags : PR5
To start your own lens, go to Squidoo.com.
The last linking opportuníty in this series taps into one of the largest sites on the Internet.
Craigslist
Craigslist was founded in 1995 by Craig Newmark and serves billions of unique visitors each month. So, how can you use this to your benefit?
Classified ads can be very lucrative when used correctly. Since Craigslist is free, this is a great place to start with absolutely no rísk.
Your presence within this massive site will increase your exposure and link popularity. Many of the ads also appear in Google and Yahoo. This is especially true for those who optimize their ad properly.
I would highly suggest that you incorporate CraigsList into your overall business plan. You can begin placing your own ads at CraigsList.
Now that you know about many of these untapped linking techniques, I urge you to begin your own campaign. Just remember, if you’re not distributing quality content, you are simply wasting your time. The first step is to become an authoritative site. After that, you will find that links come quite naturally. In fact, many of them will come without ever asking for them.
Did You Find This Article Useful? Then Digg It.
About The Author
Kim Roach is a staff writer and editor for the SiteProNews and SEO-News newsletters. You can contact Kim at: kim @ seo-news.com .
This article may be freely distributed without modification and provided that the copyright notice and author information remain intact.
