Tag Archives: major search engines

Part I: Linking Practices That Will Hurt your Search Engine Rankings

Posted on by

Part I: Linking Practices That Will Hurt your Search Engine Rankings

Quality linking practices are encouraged by the major search engines as an acceptable way of improving site popularity, website traffic and help contribute to higher search engine rankings. As a webmaster you must be wary of engaging in poor linking practices that have the potential to strip your website of its ranking status on the major search engines Google, Yahoo and MSN.

In this two part Article Series we will firstly discuss those linking practices that will find your website penalized by the major search engines, with the most current controversy over ‘paid links’. Google has recently penalized several sites with ranking drops for violating its quality webmaster guidelines by selling paid links. This penalty can also be applied to those sites displaying ‘paid links’ that are considered spam or of low quality by the search engines and provide users with a poor browsing experience.

Not all paid linking will be penalized, the current focus tends to be on those links that are primarily being used to manipulate search engine rankings. Purchasing paid links may also affect your rankings if the originating site selling the links is considered to be a ‘bad neighborhood’ site by the major search engines, your site’s rankings can be affected by association. As a general rule, avoid companies selling links who are promoting paid links that are ‘hard to detect by a search engine’ and with the recent increase in the reporting of paid links to Google, their ranking algorithms are being adjusted to detect such paid links.

The advice from Google on paid links is that it’s okay to promote paid links that are aimed at increasing website traffic but are not being used to manipulate search engine rankings. If you are using paid links:-

• Add a ‘no follow attribute’ to the linking info (see Google for more info on how to do this).

• You can also redirect the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from the search engines with robots.txt file.

• Clearly define paid advertising links on your site to the search engines ie. with a ‘sponsored link’ title heading.

Another linking practice that is discouraged by the major search engines is using Link Farms to artificially increase a site’s link popularity. Link farms are usually classified as a website or web page that displays a series of links to other unrelated sites and displays no content of real value or interest to site visitors. These types of links pages are usually created by automated software programs and services. To avoid being caught linking to a ‘link farm’ vigorously check all link exchange requests and the reciprocal URL location of your link on their site. Link farms will be obvious in nature as no actual web content will be present for site visitors except links and often the link exchange will be represented as a ‘3 way link’ exchange.

‘3 Way Linking’ has been an emerging trend over the past 12 months and is designed to quickly boost the search engine rankings and online presence of the requesting link partners site by anonymously building link pages that have no direct link to them so that they can’t be penalized by the search engines for deceptive SEO practices. 3 Way Links are of little or no benefit to your site or your linking campaign as typically the third party site that your link is located on has no content relevance to your own site or worse still it is just a ‘link farm’. Once again your site’s search engine rankings can be penalized by association.

Check link exchange requests carefully as often 3 way linking practices are hidden in the link request, in some cases you may agree to a link exchange with a site whose content is similar to yours only to find that when the link exchange is completed that your link has been placed on a third party site. Often the site requesting the link exchange does not even have a links page set up on their site. 3 Way Links can also be represented as ‘triangular link exchanges’.

The final linking practice we will look at is ‘Cross Linking’. Excessively cross-linking sites of unrelated content can and will violate the quality webmaster guidelines of Google, Yahoo and MSN. This linking practice is generally used to artificially increase the number of links to a site and link popularity with the main aim of manipulating the search engine rankings. Even if you are the owner of multiple sites it is unwise to cross link them if the content of the sites is unrelated.

I came across a prime example of cross-linking recently when analyzing a potential new client’s site for SEO & website marketing recommendations. What I discovered was that their existing SEO provider had excessively cross-linked their site to all their other clients sites under the disguise of ‘site map’ pages which were not only numerous in quantity but also keyword stuffed. This practice has somehow gotten past the ranking algorithms of Google and Yahoo most likely because the pages were being represented as ‘site map’ pages however the site had been penalized by MSN with no rankings showing whatsoever.

The only way of bringing up the site on MSN was to type in the site’s direct URL address. The site owner was completely unaware of this breach which was explained away by this SEO company as the search engine results for MSN being inconclusive on the day they were searched for reporting purposes. To a novice, this explanation probably seems viable – so website owners be wary and don’t be afraid to ask questions as to why your site is not receiving rankings in at least the top 10 pages of the search engine results for Google, Yahoo & MSN especially if you are paying for professional SEO services. Avoid automated software being added to your site primarily for SEO purposes, organic search engine results are certainly achievable without the application of automated software which usually displays web pages of lower quality than your main web pages and certainly be wary of site maps being developed for your site in the format I have described above. These are generally placed in the footer of your home page with the words site map preceding them, followed by an A – Z listing of site map web pages. This doesn’t apply to software added to your site to record site statistics for performance analysis.

Positive linking practices will be discussed in Part 2 of this Article Series.

© Rosemary Donald, Rank1 Website Marketing 5th November, 2007

www.rank1websitemarketing.com

Rosemary Donald is an SEO Consultant with Rank1 Website Marketing (www.rank1websitemarketing.com) and author of the SEO ebook ‘Insider Secrets of Rank1 Websites’ available for .95 AU. Rosemary is a regular contributor to online article sites on the topics of SEO, website marketing, ecommerce, search engine marketing and small business development.

Rosemary is also a successful online trader and owner of www.sabujewellery.com a top ranking on site on Google, Yahoo and MSN with experience in online marketing, export sales, importing, growing customer bases, ecommerce customer service, online sales generation and Rank 1 search engine marketing.

Article from articlesbase.com

Here’s a secret way to generate keywords from your competitor or websites that are ranking well. All you need to do is to use the software to do a quick research and you will receive a huge list of keywords that you can use for your website or blog. Download your software here: www.mlmblogexpert.com
Video Rating: 5 / 5

More Search Engine Ranking Articles

Search Engine Marketing – an Effective Tool for Marketing

Posted on by

Search Engine Marketing – an Effective Tool for Marketing

Marketing and advertisement is of foremost importance for any business / company. There are different reasons why companies pursue it. The popular ones include: getting more sales; branding, increase in visibility, and/or market share; or to introduce a new product line or services. According to recent trend branding and positioning is not only limited to offline world, Internet and Search Engines such as Google, Lycos, Yahoo, MSN, AOL etc., also play an important role in achieving this objective.

How does it relate to Internet and Search Engines?

If your product is not right in front of your customer at the respective stores where these products are typically purchased, you can certainly say that you are missing out on sales, market share, and branding. The same concept applies to the Internet and search engines. If your web site doesn’t shows up in the top rankings for your offered services and products in major search engines you can calculate how much business and branding you are missing out on?

SEM is a Combination Art & Science.

According to SEM Experts, Search Engine Marketing is both an art and science. Its goal is to optimize a site’s ability to be found on Internet search engines and directories for the most targeted keywords / phrase by employing various Search Engine Optimization strategies and drive qualified traffic to the web site. This leads to more quality referrals & hence increase in sales.

Search Engines provide Target Traffic.

Search engines are the most widely used means of finding information on the Internet. It provides an effective method of driving highly targeted visitors to your web site. A new study shows that the Web has grown to more than 2.1 billion documents and is growing at the rate of 7 million pages per day. Another study indicates that people who spend five or more hours a week online, spend about 71 percent of their time searching for information. That goes to show that how important are search engines in branding and marketing of products and services through your web site. It is the No.1 way people find your web site.

Positioning your right web site at right place.

If your business’s main product is “fashion garments”, you have undoubtedly positioned your product at most of the department and fashion stores. Following the same suit, SEM Experts position your product/website at the top of the search engine results so when users search for ” fashion garments” roughly 1,500 times daily on the major search engines, your website shows up in the top rankings. Now suppose this campaign is conducted for 8 months (including the maintenance) and there are 1,500 searches a day and your website is seen as #1 daily, the users will begin familiarizing your company / brand name, thus helping in better brand recall and easy sales.

How does it differ from Offline Marketing approach?

With a successful search engine marketing campaign you can accomplish every goal and objective that is sought after with offline marketing and advertising. There are two major differences between offline and online marketing: 1) Marketing your website via search engine marketing, email marketing, banner adv. have proven to be drastically less expensive than their offline equivalents, and 2) Search engine marketing facilitates you to demonstrate your product throughout the world or whichever geographical area you chose but with offline marketing, your marketing and selling efforts are restricted to a particular area in a city or town as the case may be.

Why is Search Engine Marketing more effective?

The ROI for SEM is excellent compared to any other online marketing means, especially when compared to online banner adv., direct mail campaign etc. With SEM, you get better conversion rates, lower cost-per-click, and lower acquisition costs. A study by market intelligence firm NPD Group, say “consumers are five times more likely to purchase products after seeing search listings versus online banner advertisement”. In the same market research report it was found that high search engine listings drive the highest awareness or branding for a website, with consumers recalling websites 60% of the time from search engine listings #1-5, and roughly 20% for online banner adv.

Among the Top search engines, Google is considered to be the major source of referrals for all web sites and the main target of every SEM campaign. It is followed by others major engines and directories such as Lycos, MSN, Yahoo, AOL, AltaVista.

Search Engine Marketing is no trifle task. It is an art and science of applying the knowledge and experience gained over the years researching the search engine’s distinct criteria, unique indexing parameters or algorithm. It requires a calculated approach guided by proven and ethical methodologies to deliver the results.

With usage of Internet increasing in multiple folds in India and abroad, search engine marketing is an effective and appealing means of marketing and advertising to reach your target audience and cannot be ignored. For more Search Engine Marketing

Article Writer

Article from articlesbase.com



Related Search Engine Marketing Articles

Optimizing Websites for Search Engines

Posted on by

Optimizing Websites for Search Engines

Free Tools for Search Engine Optimization

They key to optimizing websites for search engines in order to generate organic traffic is to continue to execute each component of the SEO plan that we have discussed in previous discussions. The foremost component for having your website become more visible among the major search engines to continue to produce new content that will be spidered. The general rule of thumb is that for each 100 words that you develop, one new visitor will come to your website on a monthly basis. Of course, it is not simply a matter of putting up a small amount of words with the anticipation that you will generate the traffic that you are seeking.

When you are optimizing websites for search engines you should continually build on the new content that you have developed over time. One of the common misconceptions when attempting to generate organic search engine traffic is that you should have many sites that feature a small level of content that all link back to your primary website. It is far better to have one website that features 100,000 different words (among the many articles and blog posts) that you will produce rather than having ten sites that each have 10,000 words. Search engine optimization becomes a self fulfilling prophecy over time. The more content that you add to your site the more your site is viewed as relevant by the major search engines. This can also be attributed to the fact that for each new article or blog post, you site is able to increase its PageRank because internal links are developed each time you put up a new category or article as it pertains to your ecommerce SEO campaign.

One of the other keys for optimizing websites for search engines is to continually focus on generating appropriate inbound links that will assist the major search engines in finding your site more quickly. Additionally, the usage of inbound links will drive additional traffic to your website from the sites that link directly to the content and products that are available on your website. However, you do not need to have thousands of inbound links in order to engage an appropriate ecommerce SEO campaign. Again, if a major search engine sees that your site has developed thousands (if not tens of thousands) of inbound links very quickly then the algorithms that you use will make the assumption that you have engaged in search engine optimization techniques that are frowned up. One of the common misconceptions is that PageRank is directly related to the number of inbound links on your website. Nothing could be further from the truth. As we have showcased in one of our previous articles, we successfully have developed several PR4 ranked websites without engaging in an inbound linking campaign. This was simply accomplished by producing as much relevant content for the websites that we have owned and developed (on behalf of clients).

The usage of a SEO services company should focus on producing a tremendous amount of new content for your website. If you are willing to make an expansive investment for your search engine optimization for your ecommerce platform then you realized that on a per word basis you can anticipate that you will spend two cents to ten cents per word produced.

Also, as your are optimizing your websites for search engines – you should roll out the new content that you have produced over a moderate period of time. If you develop 100,000 words of new content for your ecommerce platform then you should spread the content roll-out over a period of one to two months. Much like generating too many inbound links too quickly, producing and releasing content too quickly may also be viewed negatively by the major search engines. As with any search engine optimization campaign, the key is to develop your ecommerce website (or informational portal) at a measured pace.

Ecommerce-SEO.net is an informational portal for everything related to ecommerce SEO and Free Tools for Search Engine Optimization.

Article from articlesbase.com

A tutorial on optimizing a Flash Preloader in Actionscript 2.0
Video Rating: 5 / 5

Find More Optimizing Website Articles

Methods of Web Site Traffic Generation

Posted on by

Methods of Web Site Traffic Generation

Online marketers, who wish to create remarkable profits in their business venture need to consider all the web site functions to attract a huge traffic flow. If there are no customers, there will not be any sale and the site owner will ultimately suffer a loss in the enterprise. If you too, are an online entrepreneur, then you must be aware of the importance of web site traffic generation.


Therefore, here are different methods of web site traffic generation, which will help individuals to make profits in their online ventures.


Methods to Boost the Traffic Flow:


SEO:


In the web site traffic generation process, you need to locate some prominent keywords of your products so that your web site gets top rankings in the major search engines. For instance, if you deal in cosmetic venture, you need to select keywords that define your products such as cream, cosmetic lotions and so on. It is necessary to spread these keywords thoroughly in the web site.


Whenever, online customers wish to locate products by surfing the Internet, they usually refer to search engine sites and type in the specific keywords. Instantly the major search engine displays top 10 pages of web sites that contain those specific products. If your web site gets ideal search engine ranking, those customers may come across your site and eventually buy those products.


Link the web site:


This is the second most popular way of web site traffic generation. In this method, you need to exchange links with sites that correspond to your sites. The rankings of web sites need to be high because whenever individuals visit such a web site, they may view your site and visit it to buy products. Many online customers bear this notion in mind, that web links present on the major web sites display credible products. Therefore, it is advisable to place web links in such web sites and experience huge traffic flow.


Article marketing:


This is yet another technique of web site traffic generation. In this method, you need to write quality articles on any topic and submit it to the corresponding sites. For instance, if you deal in fitness products, then write articles on fitness, include your web links at the end of the articles, and submit them to web sites that give fitness related information. You can also submit these articles to online article directory.


Many online customers visit web sites to read such informative articles and if they find these articles interesting, they may visit your site by clicking the links and buy products from you.


Search Engine Ads and Banner Ads:


To increase the traffic flow, you can place your product ads in some of the major search engines. This increases the brand value of your products. Moreover, you will have to pay the search engines only when online customers click your ads. You can also place banner ads for better results. Here you can place graphic ads that compel customers to click these ads and buy products.


Thus, SEO technique, search engine Ads, banner ads, article marketing and web site linking are some effective methods using which you can increase the traffic flow to your web sites. Start implementing all these methods of web site traffic generation in your business site and keep the money clock ticking.

David O Connell: How to get Free Web Traffic to any site.
Reach Millions Of Highly Targeted People With Your Ads and Get Massive Amounts of Targeted Traffic to Your Websites

Article from articlesbase.com



Web ReDesign: Strategies for Success

Today’s web landscape is quickly changing, and web companies, in-house teams, designers, and developers are racing to keep up. Web Redesign: Strategies for Success teaches the techniques and tools to help move teams in the right direction, whether they need to do a complete redesign or just need to supplement an ongoing strategy. Instructor Kelly Goto develops strategy based on an iterative approach, focusing on branding and audience, usability testing, and content development. The training teac

List Price: $ 49.95

Price: $ 49.95

Question by j9king: What is the best way to direct traffic to a web site using blogs.?
Would it be best to put the same content on many blog sites or add new content to just one or two sites?

Best answer:

Answer by Mesh
Create great content – everything starts with great content. Content is king.

Write about stuff that would be so great that people will want to link to you.

Update the content regularly – make your visitors come back again and again to your blog by providing daily updates (even multiple posts per day!)

You can post in many blogs, but its advisable to edit the content if its similar content. Search engines hate duplicated content. So try to vary the content even if its the same information.

So post in as many blogs as you like, but update the content. Let the content be useful so that people can click on your link to your website.

What do you think? Answer below!

Related Web Site Traffic Articles

12 top tips to sell more on ebay

Posted on by

12 top tips to sell more on ebay

My top 12 advanced eBay selling strategies

 

1 Systemize

You have to systemize as eBay can be a slow site to navigate around I use turbo lister 2 to create store and relist my auctions.2 Misspell

People often misspell their searches when they want to look for your products. I use fat fingers to search for misspelled eBay items. So when you put in the incorrect spelling in your title you will rank high for people who search with the incorrect spelling.

3 Write titles that sell

By titles that sell I don’t mean having the word fantastic or wonderful in your title I mean if you have something unique with your product that will catch people’s attention use it in your title. If you sell a generic product, be sure to use all 55 characters provided to you by eBay and use words that people search for e.g. a particular brand.

4 Write killer descriptions

The buyer can’t feel, see, hear, taste or smell the product so describe the product fully and tell your potential buyer about the feelings you have when you use the product. Never stop writing unless there is nothing more to say and just because you think that people know what seems obvious information to you doesn’t mean they do, it never hurts to add more information. What if somebody is looking to buy a present and know nothing about the product those few lines could be the difference between a sale and no sale.

5 Provide a call to action

You often hear the term, call to action when talking to somebody about marketing, well that’s what attempting to sell your product is, marketing. You need to give people a reason to buy from you now. You want people to feel like they have to buy it now or they will miss out. The chances are if people don’t place a bid the first time they see your item they won’t be coming back. Use phrases like: while stocks last and bid now to get people to bid on your product now.

6 Have a unique selling point

Why should people buy from you?

To sell products you need to have a unique selling point or USP for short. This is especially true when talking about an online business, why shouldn’t people simply go to a regular store instead of buying from you. Maybe there is something special about your product like it’s a limited edition, maybe you are going to offer something extra like free shipping or a superior service where you answer any questions within 2 hours or ship within 2 hours. Maybe your USP is that people can’t get your product anywhere else which leads me on to my next point.

7 Sell a niche product

A niche product is a product that sells to a very specific group for example:

-Baby

-Baby toys

-Rocking horses

-Hand crafted rocking horses (niche product)

The reason niche products sell so well online is that you often can’t get them in a regular store because when running a brick and mortar store you can only sell to those in a specific area near you and there may not be enough interest in hand crafted rocking horses in that area to justify a shop stocking them but when you can sell to the whole world online no market is too small for a new online business.

8 Say thank you

Always include a thank you with your shipped product, of course when saying thank you, be sure to advertise your eBay auctions and include a call to action like if you purchase again in a week you get free shipping on any order, make sure this call to action is within a short time frame otherwise it will be forgotten about.

9 Advertise using loss leaders

Loss leaders are products that you sell at a loss to draw people into your store. Big supermarkets often use them and advertise them to bring in hoards of people all looking to get a bargain only to buy the rest of the groceries. Although they are called loss leaders I never sell mine at a loss I always aim to break even after all costs. This method works best if you have your own eBay store which I highly recommend.

10 Have an eBay store

eBay stores are relatively inexpensive and come with some great benefits:

–         reduced insertion fees

–         send out newsletters

–         more repeat business because you now have a brand that people will remember

–         75% of store owners say their sales increased as a result of eBay stores

–         eBay will submit you to the major search engines

–         you can promote your store like a website using search engine optimization

Get your eBay store now eBay stores

11 Up sell

If you are selling a low cost item include a link to you’re my world eBay page in the description and tell your potential customer to go to the product you want to sell more of and buy it. But you need to tell the potential customer why they need to buy it so because they are interested in a low cost item include it free with their large purchase. If you simply want them to buy in greater quantities then tell them how much they will save in shipping. This technique can increase your profits massively.

12 Loyal customers
The best way to earn loyal and returning customers is to make them happy. It’s often said that the real profit is from the returning customers. Gain returning customers by including a thank you note with a promotional item you want to sell or even just a business card, if you sell a high profit item you might want to include a more useful item like a pen they can be bought very cheaply online.

Find out more about selling on ebay and running an ebiz at

 www.create-your-ebiz.com

 

Article from articlesbase.com



More Ebay Advertising Articles