Posts tagged ranking
16 Things Experts Say About Social Media Optimization (SMO)
Jan 28th
Within the past year alone, there have been a considerable number of resource materials that sound like the social media subject equivalents of self-help books.
What remains to be one of the most comprehensive and effective lists, however, was created back in 2006. As to be expected, within the next four years the game has been changing dynamically — but the fundamentals have proven to be the same. The 16 Rules for Social Media Optimization as penned by five of digital marketing’s go-to professionals are an excellent springboard for review and innovation of strategies.
Rohit Bhargava, who has been credited for terming Social Media Optimization or SMO, outlined the bulk of the list with:
- Increase Your Linkability. The key performance indicator of any social media campaign revolves around link building. The simple commitment to maintaining a blog for one, can do wonders for increasing linkability.
- Make Tagging and Bookmarking Easy. Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon are names to be recited by online marketers as sacred. The easier it is to share your content, the likelier it is to be spread.
- Reward Inbound Links. Positive reinforcement works in most cases, but in building your credibility, also bear in mind that not all inbound links ought to be automatically reciprocated.
- Help Your Content Travel. Through RSS feeds, newsletters, social media updates, and downloadable files, content that can conveniently be communicated expands your reach.
- Encourage The Mashup. The fact is, your content will be available for most of the world to see. Encouraging your followers to add their own take on the matter will make for an entirely productive interaction.
Enumerating two important points, Jeremiah Owyang, emphasizes the need to:
- Be a User Resource, Even if it Doesn’t Help You. Well, doesn’t help “directly” — it will return in the form of recognition as the go-to authority for information on your field of expertise.
- Reward Helpful and Valuable Users. Following the Pareto Principle of 80-20, forming relationships with your influential VIPs are a valuable investment.
Four things that Cameron Olthuis shares never to underestimate are the value of:
- Participation. Being involved, belonging to a community to which you significantly contribute to — that is what social media is all about.
- Knowing How to Target Your Audience. To ignore this piece of advice would be folly.
- Create Content. Real content is different from space-fillers in being relevant, informative, and reliable.
- Being Real. Sooner or later the truth will prevail. Fakers, scammers, hypocritical identities will backfire no matter the short-term advantages.
Creating a difference is simplified by keeping in mind the two things contributed by Loren Baker:
- Don’t Forget Your Roots, Be Humble. Do not forget the people who have one way or another brought you where you are today.
- Don’t Be Afraid to Try New Things, Stay Fresh. Be critical, yet open-minded about opportunities to constantly improve.
Lee Odden completes the list by focusing on Social Media Optimization with the easy to understand advice to:
- Develop an SMO Strategy
- Choose your SMO Tactics Wisely
- Make SMO part of your process and best practices
PageRank Unraveled
Oct 29th
PageRank (PR) is a word often revered by many in the SEO community when launching link building campaigns. When you are a site owner for instance, you would want to obtain high page rankings. As in a competition, the higher the rank, the better you are compared to the rest.
PageRank is an overused term that describes how your site is faring in terms of link popularity and exposure to search engines. Although it is common knowledge now that PageRank is not the only factor the affects a site’s link popularity, as there are quite several of them, site owners and people involved in a link building campaign need to get a glimpse of how PageRank is calculated. The better you understand PageRank, the more effectively you will be able to handle any link building effort.
What is PageRank?
PageRank is a numerical value that is assigned to a site for the purpose of measuring its importance or relevancy. PageRank was developed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The concept was inspired by citation analysis conducted on scholarly journals or articles to measure its credibility. The more times a paper gets cited, the more important or credible it is to its peers.
PageRank computes the probability of finding a web page if a person randomly surfs the Internet. Google uses the mathematical formula,
PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + … + PR(tn)/C(tn)), where:
A = Linked Page
tn = Linking Page
C/(tn) = Number of outbound link on v
d = damping factor, normally set to 0.85
Despite its intimidating appearance, the mathematical formula has several implications for obtaining the link popularity of a web site:
- If a web page links to another page, it is essentially casting a vote in favor of that page.
- If several pages link to a web page, it means it has more votes and deserve a higher rank.
How does Google assign PageRank?
Google PageRank is highly dependent on the quantity of backlinks. An experiment conducted by SEOWatch concludes that the more backlinks a website has, the higher the PR will be. This is logical since the PageRank was designed as a type of balloting system among Web users where site owners “vote” by linking to a particular page to show support. This explains why PR is often referred to as a measure of link popularity.
However, because mere reliance on quality of links have made spamming and search engine manipulations a link building tool in order to influence a site’s positioning, Google’s algorithm includes the quality of backlinks associated to a website in its calculation. If the pages linking to your site have high PR and are considered “high authority” sites, then your page shares a piece of their reputation and improves its link popularity.
Google PageRank considers other factors in assigning values to web sites. These include site age, back link duration and back link relevancy. The fact that Google considers back links’ relevancy helps warn site owners: bad sites can harm your overall total PageRank and your link popularity.
Is there only one type of PageRank?
There are variations of PageRank used by Google in order to measure importance or relevancy.
Google Toolbar PageRank. This feature projects a page’s PageRank as a whole number ranging between 0 and 10, 10 being the highest. In order to restrict and disallow search engine manipulations, the accurate procedure on how Google calculates PageRank is not disclosed. However, there is always stress on the quantity and quality of backlinks to produce higher PR and higher link popularity.
Search Engine Results Page (SERP) Rank. Link building campaigns are built around this type of ranking. It returns the actual result produced when a search engine responds to a keyword query. A web page’s SERP rank is indicated by a link’s placement on the SERP. If the page can be found on the top positions in a SERP, the higher its SERP rank. It must be noted that while PageRank plays a vital part in SERP, a myriad of factors are included in its computation. Any link building campaign should be geared towards achieving the highest SERP ranking for a website or websites.
In order to deter search engine manipulation, Spamdexing, and spoofing, as a means of building link popularity, Google is mum on how factors influence PageRank specifically.
What are some tips to improve PageRank?
The encouraging thing about being able to understand PageRank is that webmasters, site owners, or a link building company can determine how to adjust some factors in order to optimize PageRank and improve link popularity. A high PR to add to other link building methods will drive you ahead of competitors. There are three basic areas to consider when optimizing PageRank:
- The quality of links you choose to have link to your site. The link you choose and the effort you put in to acquire them are essential in PR optimization. As explained before, quantity and quality of links are important considerations in PR and link building. Choosing link farms and banned sites to link to you would prove disastrous to PR and link popularity.
- The site you choose to link out to from your site. In using outbound links, there is one golden rule: ‘Keep PageRank within your site.’ Linking out will decrease your total PageRank compared when you decide not to link out. However, if you choose to link out as part of your link building campaign, experts advise to choose pages that has both a low PR and a lot of links to your site.
- The internal quality of your site. Your site’s navigational components and linkages must be able to distribute PageRank within the whole site. To accomplish this, Google’s algorithms must consider as much content in your site as worthy of being indexed. Developing quality content creates more PageRank and boosts link popularity.
While PageRank is a valuable tool, achieving link popularity through PR optimization must be combined with quality visitor experience. Gaining higher PageRank will not amount to any significance if users could not find content to enhance their experience when navigating your site.
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Web Directories With Price Tag Value
Oct 29th
Submitting to Internet directories remain a viable link building method that will greatly aid you in improving your site’s link popularity and alter your SERP rankings for the better.
Site owners who are serious about getting top rankings and enhancing their site’s link popularity need to come up with a concrete link building campaign composed of effective and diverse link building techniques. Directory submission contributes to link popularity because it focuses on increasing the number of backlinks that are pivotal in the SERP rankings. If you pursue high quality link building using other methods and increase inflow of backlinks by submitting your URL effectively to Internet directories, the greater your change in breezing ahead of your competitors.
The successful use of directory submission to boost link popularity and rankings depends on the number and quality of directories you submit your website to. The importance of “quality” in directory submissions, as in other link building methods cannot be overemphasized. Algorithms in Google and other major search engines favor sites listed in high quality directories.
Are Free Directories Worth It?
There are thousands of possible directories that you could submit your website to for your link building campaign, but screening out thousands into a group of high quality directories will take time. When time is an issue for you, you can hire a link building company to handle directory submissions for you.
High authority directories are the most popular go-to directories for site owners who are gunning for top spots in the SERP rankings. An important option you need to consider if you intend to submit a URL to an Internet directory for enhanced link popularity is The Open Directory Project at DMOZ.org. The Open Directory Project feeds content to search engines like Google, Lycos, Hotbot, AOL Search, Ask Jeeves and Netscape, among others. Listing your site at DMOZ is helpful to your link building campaign since this allows your information to be found on several smaller search engines and directories on the Web.
Moreover, DMOZ is considered to be among the free higher authority directories that are guaranteed to build link popularity. The downside with DMOZ however, is that its free listing feature subjects sites to very strict quality control procedures before submissions are accepted. Hence, acceptance is not easy and turnaround takes a considerable amount of time. Despite this, site owners must consider submitting to DMOZ and other free quality directories for link building. They must also submit to paid directories listings for site inclusion.
Paid Directories
Why do you need to pay fees to be included in the directory listing? According to Matt Cutts of Google, the purpose of the fee in a high quality directory is to compensate the time and effort of someone (an editor) doing a genuine evaluation of a URL or site. There have been concerns that Google’s rejection policy of URLs with paid links would render listing into paid directories useless in link building efforts, but Cutts has explained it clearly that Google does not penalize directories requiring minimum fees for editorial reviews. What Google blacklists are directories that sell links for link juice, passing PR and purely for profit with no regard for the end user.
If used effectively, directory submissions as a link building method guarantees a high return on investment (ROI). By increasing the number of backlinks to your site, directory submissions help you gain link popularity and a better placement on the SERP rankings. Directory submissions are a long-term advertising technique that can directly send customers at your doorstep. Since it acts like an online phonebook of sites, having your site listed in many quality directories means a greater likelihood for prospective customers to view your site and obtain contact information.
In the group of paid Internet directories, there are major differences in payment options. Some charge a lifetime or one-time fee and others charge an annual or recurring fee. Depending on your ROI goals, you need to evaluate the payment guidelines and review payment options before selecting the directory to submit to. Here are definitions to guide you:
- Paid web directories. These are Internet directories that charge site owners a fee for their site inclusion on the directory. They are also called premium, commercial, or pay-for directory listings. Among the high authority paid directories include Yahoo! Directory, Skaffe, Joeant, Abilogic, eLib, and BOTW Directory.
- Annual fee web directories are directories that charge site owners an annual fee to get listed on the directory. They are also referred to as recurring fee, recurring membership listings, or recurring fees.
- Permanent fee web directories require a one-time charge for directory listings. This means that you pay a lifetime fee for site inclusion.
There is some debate on which payment option is best. Some prefer the permanent fee listings since it is more economical, but others question the quality of services in one-time listings. Recurring or annual fees are usually paid in order to maintain directories. As submissions increase, the larger the directories become, so Internet directories deem it fitting to charge site owners to maintain the directories and pay for editorial costs to ensure effective and sustained indexing for Google rankings.
The choice is entirely left on the discretion of the site owner. A rule of thumb: do not pay too much for submission to paid directories. Submit to free directories and suggest your site only to high quality paid directories that guarantee ROI.
A Simple Guide to Link Exchanges
Oct 29th
Link exchanges count among the most convenient and popular ways of building link popularity and ranking high on the search engines. In launching a link building campaign, the value of link exchanges cannot be discounted.
A link exchange refers to either a) the practice of exchanging or trading links with other website owners or b) the confederation of websites where site owners exchange links. A link exchange operates much like a web ring with all member sites registering under a central organization. In a link exchange, unlike the web ring where only navigational hyperlinks are traded, HTML code containing banner advertisements are swapped and participating sites display this on their web page.
Link exchanges are an easy way of creating link popularity, defined as the quantity and quality of the inbound links pointing to your site. By swapping links with other site owners, you increase the potential targeted readership of your site, thereby giving it more exposure. Since getting noticed by the search engines require the quantity and relevancy of incoming links leading to your site, a link building campaign must incorporate link exchange as one of the methods used for gaining link popularity. However, like all off-page optimization strategies, there are pros and cons, and points to consider when leveraging the power of link exchange to boost your link popularity and search engine rankings.
What can be expected from link exchanges?
A big advantage from link exchanges is highly targeted readership, a pivotal factor in building link popularity. By focusing on exchanges with relevant links or doing thematic exchanges with other sites, you can attract a large, quality and highly targeted traffic your way, increasing exposure for your web site. If you can get an authority website that enjoys huge traffic to link to your site, some of that traffic will undoubtedly come your way.
Link exchange remains an important part of the link building process because it still is a leading factor in improving search engine placements. It is the easiest way to increase your site’s link popularity, which leads to higher traffic, and ultimately, a better position in the rankings.
What are the types of link exchanges?
There are several forms of exchanging links: one-way, reciprocal, and three-way.
- One-way link exchange. This is the most favorable type of link exchange that enhances link popularity because major search engines place great importance on inbound links when evaluating page rankings. When performing this type of link, the output link becomes: Mysite1 -> Mysite2
- Reciprocal link exchange. This is a mutual link performed by two websites aimed at generating mutual traffic. Reciprocal links create permanent back links for partner sites. SEO experts typically frown at reciprocal links in general but recommend doing so-called relevant linking, which is a derivative of reciprocal linking that links only to relevant and quality sites. The Output Reciprocal link here is: Mysite1 <-> Mysite2
- Three Way link exchange. This is a variation of reciprocal linking that is advantageous to all parties and attempts to replicate organic link building for the search engine rankings. The Output Three way link becomes: Mysite1-> Mysite2 -> Mysite3 -> Mysite1
Pointers for performing link exchanges:
If done properly, link exchanges can deliver excellent results for your link building campaign. Here are a few pointers:
- When exchanging links, always consider the Google mantra: “quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating.” Delimit your exchanges to links that are relevant and high quality.
- Stay away from link farms and link trading hubs or networks because the possibility of exchanging links with off-topic link partners will prove disastrous to your link popularity and your rankings.
- Search for relevant websites on search engines. Use Yahoo or Google and search your targeted keyword/s. Target the sites on the upper part of the search results. Visit these pages and ask the owner to link to your site, but do not assume that everyone will say yes. If you succeed, you get inbound links from pages that rank well in the eyes of the search engines, a very advantageous thing for your link popularity. If simply asking for a link does not work, you can offer incentives such as commissions or free advertising.
Link exchange is the most popular method to acquire link popularity, but for large web-based promotional campaigns, exchanging links can be very tedious. Fortunately, you always have the option of hiring a link building company to handle your link exchanges or your link building campaign for that matter.
What to Look for When Choosing Web Directories
Oct 16th
The mainstay for any promotional or marketing campaign is how to obtain inbound links to your website. Failing to acquire quality links puts the existence of your website in jeopardy. To avoid this, an excellent link building strategy must be developed. In order to harvest quality and natural links, different link building methods can be used every now and then in order to secure the continuous flow of inbound links to your site that builds link popularity and enhance search engine rankings. One of these methods includes submission or registration to web directories.
Web directories are Internet-based resources that specialize in categorizing websites and linking to them. They could either be a general directory or a specialized directory. General directories contain a large range of categories while specialized directories contain just one or two topics/areas. When choosing web directories to submit or register to, quality is the most important thing to look for. Quality directories are a fantastic link building resource that generate potential for user traffic and create link popularity.
The difficult part is choosing which directory to choose for submissions. There are literally thousands of web directories sprawled over the Web and you need to pick those that will augment and not derail your link building campaign. It is important to sort out which of them is of high quality and which is of low quality, to achieve link popularity for your site. Here are tips to help you judge quality in web directories and decide whether to skip or keep:
- Direct Links. Ideally, links in web directories must be direct, meaning that when you click the link, it leads directly to your website. Check a directory page’s source code and examine the link coding used. Direct links follow the a href=”" HTML link. Check whether the directory incorporates a rel=”nofollow tag in the code. If it does, submitting to such a directory would be wasteful since it yields nothing as far as Google is concerned. Moreover, check if the directory redirects using javascript and if so, skip it since this renders the link impossible to follow by search engines.
- Accessibility. You can check whether a category in a web directory is inaccessible to search engines. Make sure to read the site’s robot.txt file by typing the site address, followed by a slash and robots.txt – http://www.directorysite.com/robots.txt Also, check the image and images folder because this is what websites usually use to make the site off limits. If in the Arts folder or category you see: Disallow: /Arts, this means it is inaccessible. If you see Disallow: /Arts, then it’s a keeper.
- Pagerank. Although not the most important criteria in ranking a directory, PR reveals a directory’s search engine exposure and clue you in on a site’s link popularity. It tells how frequently a site is crawled by Google. A search engine manifests its love to a site by indexing many of its internal pages.
- Site Design and Maintenance. Generally you can judge the quality of a directory by simply looking at it. If a site is designed and maintained well, the more likely it is to attract traffic and build link popularity. Quality requires time, effort, and serious thought. A quality site is regularly maintained, free from typos, broken pages or dead links. If the site offers obsolete information, it means its maintenance is sub-standard. Another way to check for maintenance is to look for a “newest links” listing and determine when these links were added. Owners of quality directories update and add new links on a regular basis.
- Quality Control. Ideally, quality directories that build link popularity are those that are not clogged with spam and ads. It is better to submit to directories that have quality standards in place when considering listings for submission and do not approve every website unless it passes those standards. Search engines dislike low standards in sites. If you want to build link popularity, it is better to skip these directories. Also look out for directories that list MFA or Made for AdSense sites; these sites are sure to sink your ratings.
- Category Structure. Check for a directory that offers a top level category that is related to your website. Relevancy is a top criterion in link building. If you find that there is a sub-category that fits your site, then this is a keeper. What’s better is that some directories offer a “suggest category” field in case an appropriate category does not exist. If a directory does not contain that option, you better skip it. You have nothing to gain from submitting to a category that is irrelevant to your topic.
- Links. Examine the number of links present in a directory. If there are over 20-30 links a single page, that number may be unreasonable. Avoid directories that are loaded with too many links because this is a sure indication that a directory has too few sub-categories. Look for a directory that features categories broken down into as many sub-categories as appropriate.
- Reciprocal Links. Bear in mind that quality directories never ask for a reciprocal link in exchange for listing. Stay away from directories that impose such a condition because clearly, that directory seeks inbound links more than it does great sites. Linking to so-called “bad neighborhoods” will injure your link popularity and search engine rankings.
These are some of the most important criteria to consider when judging quality directories. Submit and register to a quality directory, use other helpful link building methods, and seek help and guidance from a link building service or a link building company to be on your way to a great spot at the search engine rankings.
A Blogger’s Guide to Getting Free Links
Oct 16th
Despite the influx of many SEO strategies, link building remains the most effective method to obtain a high search engine ranking for your site. Links are a crucial component in ranking algorithms. The number of quality links that point to your site can thrust your website to the top of the search engine results pages. Since backlinks are viewed by search engines as a vote made by other sites in your favor, getting them becomes the most successful means of boosting your link popularity.
Blogging has become an indispensable method of building link popularity. Although a lengthy and time-consuming process, the value of blogging in trying to get noticed on the Internet is very high. Blogging works this way: you share your knowledge on a preferred niche or topic and readers can send you feedbacks through comments. Since content is something very valuable in the eyes of the search engine, high quality content and sound link building methods can propel your blog to the top of the rankings. Your blog’s popularity can be gauged by examining the number of subscribers on your RSS feed and the frequency of exchanges and comments that occur between you and your readers. You can hire a link building company to increase your blog’s rankings. There are several firms that offer professional link building services to assist you. However, there are also useful do-it-yourself tips to maximize your blog’s link popularity.
Below are a few tips on how to acquire free links that can help catapult your blog’s rankings to the top spot.
- Add your URL to major search engine directories. Essentially, this means Google, Yahoo, and MSN. All you have to do is visit Google Webmaster tools, login, add your site, and make sure to verify it. After verification, it takes about a week for Google to crawl your site. As for Yahoo, aside from adding your site, you will also need to authenticate it. Authentication takes around one or two days and it will entail about a week for Yahoo to crawl your web site. The same goes for MSN. Go to MSN Webmaster, login, add your site and upload the XML file provided to you by MSN on your site for verification.
- Submit your URL to directory listings. Submitting your site to web directories will help you get free back links that will increase your search engine ranking. The trick is to choose the best free web directories to submit your URL to. Identify all possible web directories for submission but be picky. Search engines are rumored to blacklist some directory submissions for abusive behavior so it is best to do a little research on prospective web directories. Go to the site of each listed directory and review their submission rules and privacy guidelines. Avoid a directory submission service because you might not have control on the submission, you face the threat of being labeled a spammer, or your blog or site could get blacklisted.
- Do some link swapping. Link swapping is a great way to build link popularity since it allows you to connect with the community of bloggers. It enables you to trade links with bloggers who share similar interests with you. In the end, link swapping generates more readership, more traffic, and consequently, link popularity to your site. Examples of sites that facilitate link swapping among bloggers are BlogLinker and Link2Blogs.
- Button exchanges. A button exchange is a network where member sites display button ads and getting ads in return, which are displayed on other web sites. All you have to do is submit an 88 x 31 button and put the network’s code on your web site. In doing so, other participating sites will display your 88 x 31 button on their sites. This could hopefully increase your chance of getting people to click your site once they see your button, generate traffic, and build link popularity.
- Traffic exchanges. A traffic exchange is a service where you can sign up to generate traffic to your blog or site and boost link popularity. It works like this: you get to view other people’s web pages in exchange for having your own pages viewed by others. If you view another member’s web page for a certain period of time, your credit balance increases. If a member views your web page for the same amount of time, your credit balance increases. Consequently, the more you surf the Internet and view other people’s web pages, the greater your chances of your site getting more hits and views, increasing link popularity. There are two types of traffic exchanges – manual and auto. A manual exchange involves a human being viewing web pages, whereas an auto exchange can run in your web browser and automatically refresh to a new web page.
When trying out these tips, always bear in mind that link building is a process that will necessarily take time. Therefore, patience is a virtue when it comes to building link popularity. In addition to the advice mentioned above, you should always educate yourself on the newest and most effective link building methods that you could use in order to get your blog noticed on the Internet.