SEO Rants and Resources

Building links is like shaving. If you don’t do it every day you look like a bum.

For years, you have probably had a daily routine for shaving. But have you developed a system of building links?

No one pops out of bed each morning and races to the sink to shave. It is a tedious and potentially dangerous daily necessity. But without a daily shave, our appearance begins to get a little shabby.

Linking is the same way. Rare is the webmaster who jumps out of bed, races to his/her computer excited to find inbound links. Yet, no matter how optimized a site is, without inbound links it is never going to be found in the search engine results pages. Even established sites that buy traffic but don’t have something the visitors find worth while to link to are in the same boat.

Chances are good that you are like most people who build a few links here and there, but don't really have an overall link building strategy. 

When it comes to shaving you can almost automate the process by using an electric razor. Of course the shave is not as good as using a blade. Building links using an automated system is not as good as getting links manually either. No automated system can generate quality naturally built links that are on topic, vary the text, vary the source of the links or incorporate the dynamic aspects of social media.

There are also dangers involved in both shaving and linking. You would never think about taking an electric razor that’s plugged into an electrical outlet, into the shower. But you may not even know the dangers of linking to bad sites or what can happen when you try building your link base by cutting corners. Links to the wrong sites, using only one technique like reciprocal links, building links too quickly or getting caught buying links can do damage to your sites reputation with the search engines.

Although there are new technologies like waterproof, electric razors that give a good shave, the best shave still comes from a hot towel and a straight razor in a professionals hand. This is also true about links. There are auto submission sites for articles, mass social book marking tools, link farms and link exchanges. But the best link base a site can have is consistently built one link at a time by people who understand their industry, their business, their customers and make common sense decisions about how and where to get links.

A good link building strategy involves two things. Time and consistency. The more time you consistently put into generating links and cultivating relationships on line the better off your site will be in the long run.

Here are ten steps to get you started.

1.     Buy a listing in a couple of the best directories. Yahoo, Business.com (B2B sites only), Best of the web and submit to DMOZ. This will cost you almost $600.00 but you will gain at least 10 permanent links spread out over several domains.

2.     Search Google for the top 100 ranking sites for your most important keyword. Do some research and create n article that you can offer in trade for a link. Get a link even if you have to buy it. If you do have to buy a link deal directly with the web site and not from a link broker. Google has been cracking down on sites that buy/sell links. Work this strategy and set a goal of getting one new link this way per week.

3.     Create a blog and create links from your posts back to your site. Try to post 2-3 times each week.

4.     Submit your blog to Blog directories like blogcatalog.com, eatonweb.com ($34.95 to add your blog) blogflux.com etc. Google "blog directory" for more places to submit to.

5.     Write and submit an article to a couple of the major article directories. Start with ezinearticles.com, articlecity.com and amazines.com. Google "article directory" for more places to submit to.

6.     Find something exciting about your business to write about. Write a press release and send it out through PRweb.com. Spend at least $220.00 and you will get at least 2 links but more than likely 10’s if not hundreds.

7.     Create a profile at linkedin.com. In the field websites use the search term that you want your site to be found under instead of the default my website You can add up to three links.

8.     Set up a lens at squidoo.com. Your lens will allow you to create links to your profiles and sites.

9.     Every time you establish a new link set a social book mark to the page it is on. There are hundreds of social book marking sites. Start with delic.io.us, backflip.com, furl.com and ma.gnolia.com Google "social bookmarks" for more. Spend some time searching for people to connect with.

10.   Ask everyone you are connected with at linkedin.com to comment on your latest blog post.

The daily ritual of shaving only takes a few minutes each day. Linking will eat up as much time as you will dedicate to it. But if you skip shaving or link building for very long you will start to look like a bum.

About the author:

Article by Terry Mickelson founder of Page Views, Inc., one of the foremost search engine optimization companies specializing in B2B search engine optimization and link building programs. For further information as well as a free ranking report on your website, contact Terry Mickelson at 480-556-9752 or email reportrequest@pageviews.com

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Could you sell Tupperware from your blog?

Tupperware has never been one of the companies on my radar.  Sure, every time I open the bottom kitchen cabinet next to the stove at home and deal with “the rush to get out” of plastic storage containers I use the name Tupperware in vain. But other than that I just don’t think of them.

Years ago they were a company who’s distribution network was made up of people throwing parties. They partied to the tune of about $2.5 million per day in the early 90’s.

Recently, I read an article that compared promoting your blog to having a Tupperware party. They made some good points. On-line or off, you are leveraging a relationship to commercially benefit.

Is your house inviting? Is your kitchen sink full of dishes when you invite guests over? Are the side bars of your blog filled with distractions or does your blog have poor graphics?
Know your product. If you are going to sell a 25 piece a kitchen storage kit you better know how it works. If you are going to blog, you better know your subject and repeat your unique positioning statement early and often.
Ask for the order. At a Tupperware party handing someone an order form and asking for shipping details is the call to action. On your blog, you may be trying to get subscribers to your RSS feed. Make it clear that you want them to sign up.
Say thank you. After you party you would send out thank you cards. Send a free offer to new subscribers. Perhaps your new white paper or ebook.
Deliver what you promise. The party is not over until you deliver the products in a timely fashion. In your blog it is delivering a clear, consistent message of what you promise.

There is plenty of information and physiological details behind why this company was so successful. >>>Full story 

The Secret Sauce of Google Success

What do you need to get top rankings on Google? There are many ingredients in the mix, but here are three of the most important that you need to concentrate on.

1.) Keyword relevant copy and content

 Whatever the keywords you want to get ranked in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), be sure that you have enough copy and content about those specific words. Which would give Google a reason to rank you in the first place.

If for example, one of your priority keywords is "virtual assistant software". Create a separate page or section for this keyword (at least a few paragraphs) using the keyword in the headline, the first sentence, the last sentence as well as wherever it makes logical sense in order to achieve the keyword frequency and "density" that search engines are looking for. Ideally, each page will only have one or two keywords and will be very focused on that specific topic.

Additionally, by including on this specific keyword page either articles, pdf files or news items about your keyword, will help you improve your chances of a better ranking. Give Google a reason to rank you at the top. He with the most relevant copy wins …so make it rich and deep.

2.) Can the search engines read and "crawl" all the pages and content on your site?

Probably the biggest surprise to most marketers is that the search engines are unable to either navigate or read most of the content on their website. If they can't read your copy, then it's not surprising that you're not getting the rankings or traffic to your website that you aspire to.

The only thing a search engine can read is words. Sites that are dynamic, or created in other formats such as Flash or Java often can't be read by the search engines. Even if they can read the content on your site, many times they can't navigate it properly or just bounce "off the walls" as there are no specific links or site map to tell the proper sequence or where to go next

Want to see what Google is indexing on your website? Go to Google and type in: site:www.yourdomain.com This will show you the title and description of the pages of your site they know about. If they are all the same or they don’t have a title or description listed chances are very good that your site is invisible to your target market.

3) Links... why they are so important?

Link popularity is one of the most important factors search engines use in determining where you will rank in the search engine for your keywords, and phrases, as it helps them to determine how important or popular your site is and what it’s reputation is.

In essence the search engines are saying "we're going to give top ranking to pages that have important and relevant sites linking to them".

Link Building is the process of finding related/relevant websites and receiving a link from them to you. Natural linking occurs when a site has good content that others will link to. But to get these links people have to know about you. It is a catch 22. Building links has gotten sophisticated in the last couple of years. Today you need a mixture of links from many sources including articles, press releases, social bookmarks, directories and social media sites.

How many links do you need to have? It depends on the individual keyword or phrase you want to be found under and how the links are structured. The search engines look at inbound links as a popularity contest but more importantly, they are looking at the quality of the pages that are linking to you and the “anchor text” - the "clickable link" and what it says about the page that it links to. The key to linking is to have the right anchor text on a link that points to a page that has content using the same keyword phrase.

You do not want to increase the overall number of links by more than 10-15% each month for an established site with history as this may trigger a filter from the search engines as an indicator of artificially inflating the link popularity. New sites have an advantage since there has not been a history established and the link building can be done at a faster rate.

Linking is critical not only with your search engine placement but it helps stabilize you positions in the search engines and delivers traffic directly from the sites that link to you. But linking is not a once and you are done process. Generating new links is an ongoing process.

In Summary, successfully implementing the above 3 strategies either through your own efforts or through employing search engine promotion specialists will deliver the "triple punch" and the knockout punch you need to get top rankings on Google and the other search engines as well.

Article by Terry Mickelson Founder of PageViews.com, one of the foremost search engine optimization companies specializing in B2B search engine optimization and link building programs. For further information as well as a free ranking report on your website, contact Terry Mickelson at 480-556-9752 or email tmickelson - at -pageviews.com.

Are you asking too much of your customers?

One of the most common mistakes sites make in welcoming a new visitor is to expect her to register before she can get to the “good parts” of the site. Of course as marketers we all want a lot of information, but the visitor has no idea if the information is worth getting on “another” list. Gathering the information is good for the company but what is in it for the visitor?

Cord Silverstein, who blogs at Marketing Hipster, suspects that sites requiring registration don’t provide enough for a visitor to come back a second time so they have to capture the information on the first visit. Silvertein’s advice is to create a site worthy of repeat visits and use a registration form that only captures 3 pieces of information. Name, email address and zip code. With this information you can contact them again, personalize messages to them and know what part of the country they live in.

You can read the full story here:

 http://www.marketinghipster.com/2007/08/28/online-registrations-done-wrong/

Sneak Peaks in search results

One of the smaller search engines, Ask -  www.ask.com, has been using sneak peeks to give searchers a quick peak at what they can expect from a site before they visit it.  Searchers who use Ask.com can mouse over an icon next to many results and see a screen shot of the website. No clicking needed.

A search for alkaline battery produces results images, encyclopedia and video results with images along side the standard text listings.

Google, always watching for search trends, seems to have noticed, because they've filed a patent for expanding their own snippets.  It looks like Google searchers will be able to read expanded summaries of pages, or longer clips of page text. This tactic appeals to searchers who are now demanding more and more information faster and faster from the top Internet search engines, and who don't want to waste precious seconds clicking on a link and then on the back button to find just the right site for their needs. For the search marketer it means paying more attention to where the information is drawn from so they can control the image and the text.

SEO/SEM firm Pageviews Releases B2B Search Engine Optimization and Marketing White Paper

Everyday more and more people turn to the internet to research products and services prior to making a purchase. This is great news for the companies whose web pages are found in the top search engine results pages. But for millions of business to business companies this is not happening. Too many times, searchers are not finding the best product or service and are making decisions for their company based on the product or service they find rather than the best available solution. This leaves both the marketer and the searcher with less than desirable results.

 For many B2B marketers this is not acceptable but many do not understand how to improve their search positions. B2B companies spend money each year on traditional marketing only to loose new customers to competitors just because the competitor is easier to find in a search.

 There are two ways to get ranked high in the search engine results pages. Companies can pay search engines like Google to be listed in ads at the top of the results pages. The more popular the ad the more often it is shown. Each time the ad is clicked on, delivering a visitor to the advertiser’s site there is a “pay-per-click” charge. The cost of these clicks range from a low of $.10 per click to over $50. per click. While not complicated to set up, management can be time consuming and the cost of clicks can add up quickly.

 Search engine optimization is the process of modifying an existing web site to make it easy for the search engines to read and to index the pages. By changing certain elements on pages it clarifies the exact topic to the search engines.  Working hand in hand with these on page modifications are the search engines definition of reputation and popularity of the page. The reputation is defined by what the page is about and what the links that point to the page say about it. The popularity is defined by the number of relevant links that point to the page.

 According to Terry Mickelson, President of Scottsdale, AZ  based Page Views, “There are many challenges to reaching the B2B buyer at just the right time. For example understanding what words will be searched for at different times in the buying cycle. When a B2B prospect starts researching for solutions to their problem, they may initially search for something like; organize sales leads. The person who has a better understanding of the market may search for customer relationship management or even do a brand specific search; SalesLogix customer relationship management. If you do not have the right words selected you may generate additional traffic but it will not convert to leads or sales, wasting time and money.” 

 Page Views, Inc. a leading search engine optimization firm  The paper details how to overcome this challenge using 10 proven techniques developed for the competitive B2B online marketplace and is available at no cost. To download a free copy of B2B Search Engine Optimization and Marketing go to: www.pageviews.com

Creating a 60 second commercial

One of the things many starting sales people and entrepreneurs struggle with is communicating with others what they do and who they do it for. Until you can clearly communicate your message it is very difficult to generate word of mouth leads. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the networking groups spread out across the country.

 In a typical networking group you have the opportunity to stand up and introduce your self and your company. You have 60 seconds to deliver a message that is easy to remember and so clearly communicated that the people in the room can carry it with them. The goal is to have these people remember you when they are in front of a client or prospect and to be able to advise them on why they should talk to you.

 Years ago I was in a networking group where each week one member would stand up and say “ hi, my name is X and I am with Mary Kay. A good lead for me is anyone with skin”.  Need less to say she did not get many leads so she quit because the group and networking in general did not work for her.

 My good friend Patrick Peters of Senior B2B Networking, LLC taught me many years ago that there is a structured way to create an effective commercial.

1. Start      with the basics – What do you want to communicate?
   1. Name
   2. Location
   3. Services
   4. Profit/non-profit
   5. Credentials/cross training
   6. Staffing
   7. Philosophy       
2. What is important? What ever you want people to remember, give it to them last.
3. Always include a call to action: A good lead for me is….
4. Will they remember you? Use stories and experiences.
5. Use your tag line if you have one. (if you don’t get one) Your tag line should      follow your commercial and explains your product or service.

 Now put it all together.

 Hello, my name is__________.

Introduction and body of commercial.  Use your top 5 basics and include a story or experience if possible.

A good referral for me is ____________

Your tagline

As an option you can repeat your name and company name again, especially of there are new people in the room.

Follow this plan and keep on tweaking and practicing until the people you network with can clearly communicate to others what you do.

Google’s latest Round of Penalties

Over the past couple of weeks some popular and notable sites have taken a hit in the Google Page Rank pocket. I say pocket because these are sites that were selling links. Who got hit? Some very popular sites including Forbes.com, searchengineguide.com and problogger.com. So why the penalty? Google does not like sites that sell links to artificially inflate their link popularity.

After an initial round of penalties a lot of SEO companies were crying the blues because their client’s sites were penalized and lost Page Rank. Just when they were starting to think that the storm had passed Google slapped a penalty on another round of sites. This time Google went after sites that are involved in blog linking schemes.

This is what Google’s Webmaster Guidelines have to say about it.

“Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.”

So why do SEO companies put their client’s sites in harms way? Because buying links and doing massive blog posts are the fastest and easiest way to generate links.

The truth is that it takes time and effort to create a solid linking campaign. No site should be totally dependent on one or two sources for links. A mixture of blog posts, social bookmarks, articles, press releases, directories and even reciprocal links are a among a best practices plan for long term success.

Using Google to reach your Target Market

If all it took was a good idea to make a web site successful, millions of web sites would not fail in the first couple of years. 

In reality, the web site is a very important component in the marketing of a business. For most of us who are selling B2B it is not the only tool in our marketing toolbox.  However, most businesses are under utilizing this tool simply because they are not getting found by the people who are searching for the solutions they offer.

Most ad agencies and corporate marketing departments take the time to carefully plan who they are trying to reach and painstakingly craft what their message is. They detail why their company is the right choice to provide solutions to the potential client's challenges. Many have a good grasp on when they want the customer to act by creating a call to action such as downloading a white paper or scheduling a demonstration.

Where many miss the mark is in the How to reach their on-line target market.  They drive people to their sites from Trade Shows, mailings, trade publication advertising, public relations and other largely offline methods. Where many come up short is in getting the free traffic that is available to them from the search engines like Google.

Search engine optimization is the science/art of getting your site found on the search engine results pages when they search for the words that are related to you or your offerings. The search engines do not charge for this traffic.. Search engine marketing is buying ads on the search engine results pages IE: Google Ad Words to get listings.  The price for ranking is as low as $.10 per "click" but competitive terms can cost several dollars per "click". Many web sites have not been optimized and they are not utilizing the tools or making the adjustments to the site that allow the search engines to send them free traffic.

Below is a quick 6 step assessment to determine if your site could benefit from Search Engine Optimization.

1. When the content of the site was created, were the words and phrases that are important to be found by customers and prospects woven into the copy of the pages?              Yes  No
2. Does the URL of your web site contain one or more of the keywords that are important for your site to be found under? (IE: www.yourcompany.com)                                   Yes  No
3. When you look at the pages of your site do the words displayed in the title bar (blue bar across the very top of the page) accurately describe the topic of the page, and do they change from page to page?          Yes   No
4. Do you have an online press release optimization plan in place?          Yes   No
5. Can you find yourself in the top 3 pages for the five search terms, excluding your company name, that are most important to getting found by your potential customers?          Yes   No
6. Do you use a tool to measure where traffic came from and the behavior of site visitors including conversion?            Yes   No

0-3 Uh Oh, you need help and you need it now. The longer you wait the deeper your competitors - anyone who comes up higher than you do for your search terms, gets entrenched and takes more business from you.
3-4 There is a lot of room for improvement and your site can most certainly generate more leads by getting found by the people looking for your solutions.

If you scored 5+ Congratulations! Chances are that your company is doing very well and has a well thought out site that is keeping hr pipeline filled with quality leads.

About: PageViews, Inc. PageViews, Inc. is a professional search engine optimization and marketing SEO/SEM firm specializing in achieving high rankings for their clients on the Internet's major Search Engines. PageViews, Inc. has the search engine optimization experience and implements best practice methodologies to achieve top placements for client sites. PageViews, Inc. is based in Scottsdale, AZ.  For more information, visit http://www.pageviews.com or call 1-480-556-9752  inquiry@pageviews.com

Search Engine Submission Scam - Buyer beware

Like a lot of people who make their living on the internet I own a lot of domains. Some are good and some are just throwaways that I have had for several years. This is not the first time I have ever seen this scam or several variations of it, but it is the first time I have bothered to spend a calorie or two to talk about it.

 Today I got a letter (USPS) delivered to my desk from the CFO, of PageViews.com,  who let it sit on her desk waiting to get paid for a while before she brought it to me.

 It is an official looking piece of mail that is an invoice from Domain Listing Service Corp. in Chicago IL. for “Annual Website Search Engine Listing” on one of my throw away domains. If it was not for it being for the throw away, it would have been paid. There is small print on the invoice: “This internet listing offer is provided to millions of websites throughout the United States to enhance their website exposure. This is not a bill. This is a solicitation. You are under no obligation to pay the amount stated unless you accept this offer”.

 Being in the Search engine optimization business I had to chuckle at what they promise. Domain submission with 8 keywords / phrases to 25 major search engines. Quarterly submissions. Complete details are available at their website. This in it's self is a joke as it does no good to submit to the search engines without preparing the site.

 The “bill” is for $65. Instructing me to send a check or to pay online. I went online and found that there is no site at www dslcorp dot net. The online payment page is up and active at:  payments dot discorp dot net. I entered the “customer number” and the amount on their form and it brought me to a PayPal order form.

The domain Listing Service Corp. shows 27 N. Wacker Drive Chicago, IL 60606 but a search at the Illinois Secretary of state office for corporations http://www.ilsos.gov/corporatellc/ reports:  Your search for domain listing service, did not match any records in the Corporation/LLC-GS Search database.

The who is record for this company is dsl corporation 16420 Park Ten Place Suite 400 Houston, TX 77084

According to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, http://ecpa.cpa.state.tx.us/coa/Index.html Business Name domain listing service was not found.

It is sad that the SEO industry is filled with charlatans of all types. This one is bad on several levels. First the false balling, then the “service” the pretend offer and I fear, there may be some Phishing going on also.

Today, this one got under my skin and I have donated a couple of calories to the ether.