Posts Tagged ‘SEO’
Link Baiting – Has it Vanished?
Link baiting is a white hat technique which has been around since 2006. It has not vanished, it’s in fact one the safest method of link building. It’s a natural method of having viewers to link on your site perhaps because they find it interesting or worth the buzz. Although I personally no longer read a blog regarding link bait, successful companies usually implement this strategy, viewers are just not aware of the term with what they do when they link to other sites.
According to Wikipedia:
“Link bait is any content or feature within a website that somehow baits viewers to place links to it from other websites. Attempts to create link bait are frequently employed in the overall task of search engine optimization. Matt Cutts defines link bait as anything “… interesting enough to catch people’s attention.”
So how are you going to create link bait? There are actually dozens of ways to do it, it’s not that easy, in fact you have to keep experimenting, same way as catching a fish – use the right hook and drop it at the right place. But when you succeed on this, you could make even millions of dollars. What do you think readers do when they link to a certain article on ezine to their site, or simply sharing it with others? Its link baiting, Search Engines prefer it because it’s “organic” – meaning natural, its quality vs. quantity when it comes to link popularity.
Some ideas on creating a link bait
- Writing something controversial (works all the time)
- Write a review (new gadgets, establishment or service)
- Oppose someone’s idea
- Write entertaining articles
- Provide useful list of resources
- Conduct a research on something
- Be up-to-date with what’s going on, technology, celebrity, economy etc. and share your opinion
There are far more than I can imagine, you just have to be creative and ask yourself what is your goal for creating link bait? Is it only for the link popularity or to attract a certain niche? You always have to start with something before preparing your bait to catch a big fish.
Why would you Outsource SEO?
Every business of today knows how important Internet is as a gateway to play the international arena. Almost all industry sectors has their own website, because having a website means your business or company will have an edge over your competitor. Though lately, having a website alone is not enough to leverage yourself with your competitor, the crucial step is to appear on Search Engine Result Page (SeRP) and that is what Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about. It’s all about optimizing your website to appear on SeRP. It may sound simple but it’s very time consuming and requires timely knowledge of SEO guidelines as this change frequently.
So why would you outsource when it can be done in-house? SEO is really a delicate part of the business strategy since it could potentially damage a company’s’ reputation. But, having an effective SEO could bring your business to the next level – higher traffic, higher conversion and a strong web presence. It has been a necessity for companies to incorporate SEO into their marketing plan. Others do it in-house thinking it would be cheaper but SEO is a continuous process of learning. Think about knowledge vs. time, SEO requires someone knowledgeable and could adapt to ever changing rules of Search Engines, it requires time to learn all this processes. Think of what could be lost during this time of learning everything about SEO when you can focus on the core of your business. In fact, in-house staff could probably be just engaged or more focus on implementing SEO strategies but totally lost on what’s going on outside - are they still focusing on the right direction? Possibly it works with other companies, but are they really getting the likelihood of dominating major Search Engines or getting the highest traffic with highest conversion rate possible.
Outsourcing SEO could be risky perhaps, but is your company’s growth not worth investing?. Company should focus on its core competence and leave SEO to the experts. It could be successful if it’s taken care of and could be cost-effective in the end. You do not have to worry about implementing SEO strategies or worry about implementing new guidelines, SEO Service Company could provide all options available to utilize and optimize your website.
Why would you outsource SEO would really depend on what make sense to you. Both involve risk, but before you decide ask yourself, is it not worth to invest on company’s growth?
How to Earn Money Online
If you have a personal website or a company website that wanted to fully utilize web space or take advantage of your strong web presence, then this article is for you. In fact even if you do not have a website, you could actually earn while enjoying stuff you love doing.
Let’s start with what you could do with your free time without setting-up your own website:
- Get Paid to Blog. HubPages has easy-to-use publishing tools, a vibrant author community and underlying revenue-maximizing infrastructure. Hubbers (HubPages authors) earn money by publishing their Hubs (content-rich Internet pages) on topics they know and love, and earn recognition among fellow Hubbers through the community-wide HubScore ranking system.
- Get Paid to write. Earn extra income with your original content from contextual advertising. Meaning, the more people see your articles and more you can earn. For every visitor to your articles, you have the opportunity to earn revenue just for providing quality and interesting content for the readers.
- Get Paid to Answer. Whether you would like to profit from your experience as an Advisor, get advice from some of the best, as a Client, or profit from your marketing skills as an Affiliate, the Live Advisors’ Network is the place for you. http://www.bitwine.com/
- Sell your creativity – sell stock images.
Become a contributor to iStockphoto and earn with your stock photos, vector illustrations, Flash or video footage.
We want your photos! Submit your photos to Shutterstock and get paid every time one of your photos is downloaded. Web designers, magazine editors, and other graphic artists purchase monthly subscriptions to Shutterstock to download photos from our site.
- Write Reviews and get paid. Share your own opinions and earn Income Share for your reviews. http://www.epinions.com/
Now, for those who already have a website, the common way to earn money with your website is through advertising program such as Cost-per-Click (CPC) – get paid only when someone clicks on your ads like Google Adsense. Affiliate Marketing is another avenue to earn online with your site. It’s simply is placing a banner/text of an affiliate partner to your site and get paid when someone buys / signs-up using using the links provided unique only to you.
There are various ways to earn online, you can mix and match and see where you good at. Having a website though increases your chances of earning online. Optimizing your site will help promote blogs or earn through referral programs. You could even sell an Ad space once your site is fully optimized. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not for everybody but you could always try to learn the basic and see what you could do.
For company website there is always an option to outsource SEO to fully utilize website space – don’t leave it blank – transform it to income generating space.
Why a Website Alone is NOT Enough?
Having a website is just a step forward to having one of the best cost-effective forms of advertising. It’s one of the most affordable instruments to deliver your message across a wide array of audience. It could reach millions around the world – provided you know how to market your site.
Do you know that in the United States, Internet users as percentage of population is 72.4% in 2008 and 72.8% in 2007 in Canada based on World Bank, World Development Indicators. Just imagine the huge market if a website is visible on the web, visible meaning it could be searched. Data provided are just for the US and Canada alone, how about Europe, Asia and others. Having a website is just a beginning of something better for the business. It could unlock doors to vast opportunities, including global recognition. How is that possible? That is where Internet marketing comes in.
A website is a virtual shop an office or anything you would like to call it. And just like any ordinary store, marketing campaign is needed to attract customers – Television ads, billboards, brochures etc. With a website, the more that the businesses need it, regardless of size. Huge market equals stiff competition vying to appear on the first page of SeRP (Search Engine Result Page) particularly Google. It is the no. 1 Search Engine with 67.5% Market share followed by Yahoo according to comScore as of August 2009 report.
There are only two differences between traditional advertising medium and a website. First is COST, a TV ads alone could cost thousands of dollars, uploading videos on the site is FREE. Second, COVERAGE, TV ads only runs LOCALLY, website can be seen WORLDWIDE.
I am trying to point out that having a website alone is not enough; it needs to be promoted and maintained. If businesses have this kind of attitude it’s doomed to fail achieving numerous ways to attract, earn and grow as a business. Website is not just a medium to advertise or sell a service or product, it’s also another means to earn online without shelling out a single dollar. In what way it could be possible? Affiliate Marketing is just one of the few. Affiliate marketing is simply using one website to drive traffic to another and paid accordingly based on the terms. On my next blog I will explain in details possible ways to fully utilize earning potential of a website.
If you already have a website, start promoting it, don’t let it stand there. How bad is a store without foot traffic?, goes the same with a website without traffic. Hire an SEO if you must but be careful how to choose the right one.
To further understand SEO visit SEO Simplified.
Search Engine Optimization Simplified
For those who have heard SEO but do not know what it means, it’s an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. It means optimizing your site for greater chances on appearing on Search Engine Result Page (SeRP). This is the primary goal of every website owners. It may sound simple but definitely requires attention and dedication to make it work in your advantage. It can either improve or damage reputation of a websites’ performance. It’s an Internet Marketing strategy that analyzes how Search Engine work and how people behave.
There are two types of SEO, on-page and off-page optimization. The on-page optimization is improving the elements within your site. This includes:
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Title that you would like to appear on SeRP</TITLE>
<META CONTENT=”description of the content”>
<META CONTENT=”keywords separated by comma “>
</HEAD>
- Content – content should written based on relevant keywords.
- Title Tags –appears on the top portion of the code of your page.
- Meta Tags –not required though it allows detailed description of your site. The most commonly abused tag is the keyword meta-tag. Google in fact recently mentioned that they do not use keyword to rank in web search result, other Search Engine still does. People have used it to spam search engines. However, meta-description is still used as snippet in SeRP for Google.
- Title and Alt Attributes – describes text links and images.
- Internal Linking – linking within the site
- URL Structure
Off-page optimization is on the other hand is any method done off-page to maximize performance, such as:
- Link Development – backlinking, link exchange etc.
- Article Marketing – article distribution
- Social Media Marketing (SMM) – Facebook, Twitter etc.
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM) – paid listing
- Pay Per Click (PPC Campaign) – AdWords etc.
There are numerous techniques to optimize site off-page, the above mentioned are just list of commonly used strategies. Both methods complement each other.
Although different SEO expert has their own opinion which is better used to optimize websites. In my opinion, no matter how optimize the pages of your site is, without proper and continuous off-page optimization effort your SEO campaign may not be as successful as you thought it would be.
Additionally, you may implement both but still you will wonder why your site does not appear on the first page of SeRP, don’t be frustrated, there are more factors to consider including the number of years you have been in the web. There is no road map to follow in SEO - not because everybody is doing it, you should as well. One example is your Twitter and Facebook account, it’s one that is mostly talked about, everybody is doing but there are many things to consider before jumping in to Social Media Marketing.
Before doing anything always remember that every move you make could either break or make the best out of your business. SEO may be simplified in layman’s term but it’s not for everybody to chew. Experimenting on techniques and keeping up to date with the current trend is one of the factor behind SEO success.
Google PageRank, How Important it is?
Site owners have been focusing on PageRank which should not be the case. There are many other metrics that could be use including conversion rates and ROI. Google have in fact removed it from the data in the Webmasters’ tool. It’s not as important as it is, they only update Google Ranking a few times a year as indicated in the Google Webmaster Help thread:
“We’ve been telling people for a long time that they shouldn’t focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it’s the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true. We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it. 
” – Susan Moskwa, Google Employee
All this time site owners and webmasters have been having the wrong notion that the higher the PageRank is the more important your site is. It’s a good thing that this has been removed. This could stop people from focusing too much on PageRank and more on the relevancy of the content. Though admittedly, we could not change the perception of the people overnight.
There is far more important Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to choose from to say how well your site is performing. Like for example, conversion rate, perhaps you have a huge traffic to your site but are these converted to sales? Or are these Visitors your target market. Site owners and web masters could use Analytics to monitor website performance using different metrics. In fact, it was also stated in Google Webmaster Central FAQ Crawling, Indexing and Ranking as follows:
Q: My site’s PageRank has gone up / gone down / not changed in months!
A: Don’t worry. In fact, don’t bother thinking about it. We only update the PageRank displayed in Google Toolbar a few times a year; this is our respectful hint for you to worry less about PageRank, which is just one of over 200 signals that can affect how your site is crawled, indexed and ranked. PageRank is an easy metric to focus on, but just because it’s easy doesn’t mean it’s useful for you as a site owner. If you’re looking for metrics, we’d encourage you to check out Analytics, think about conversion rates, ROI (return on investment), relevancy, or other metrics that actually correlate to meaningful gains for your website or business.
Which are you going to use as a metric really depends on what is important to your business. In the end you should always measure you’re success in terms of optimizing your site by comparing your website performance vis-à-vis operational performance – end result.