Using Web Directories to Build Backlinks

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Read This Before You Submit Your Site to Web Directories

As the number of websites grow everyday, it is becoming more and more difficult for a new site to attain good rankings on search engines. Since all of the major search engines factor link popularity heavily into their ranking algorithms, building relevant links to your blog or website is perhaps the single most important component of search engine optimization (SEO).

For a new site with no - or few - inbound links, buying text links on more established topically related sites could provide a serious boost to your link popularity. But this strategy could prove prohibitively expensive, especially in a highly competitive market where you would have to buy tons of links to catch up with the competition.

Web directory listings area viable alternative to link buying. Apart from driving traffic to your site through direct referrals, web directories provide one-way inbound links (backlinks) to your site, thereby boosting its link popularity and ultimately improving its search rankings.

There are thousands upon thousands of web directories on the net, with dozens sprouting up every day. (Heck, you could even start one yourself.) Some are general directories; others are dedicated to specific niches. Some are free; others charge inclusion fees. Some, actually most, are free only if you provide a reciprocal link in return. Others feature both free and paid listings.

The main advantage of a paid listing is the luxury of having your site listed quickly and above everyone else's. Free submissions may take several weeks or even months for review. If you work on a limited budget, you may want to submit to a handful of paid directories and a few hundred free ones.

Some directories charge inclusion fees that are too high for the listing to be cost effective(Yahoo charges a whopping $299). When considering a paid listing, look not just at the Google PageRank of the homepage of the directory, but also at that of the subpage where your link will actually reside. While it may seem like a good deal to have your site listed on a PR6 directory for $15, the deal becomes far less attractive when you find out that the internal page where your link is placed is only PR2.

If you have submítted to web directories before, I do not have to convince you that the process is extremely tedious and time-consuming, especially when you submit to a large number of them. Unlike search engines that send out robots to index web pages, web directories rely on far more detailed submission forms to gather information about your site. Since each submitted site needs to be reviewed by a real person, an editor, most directories require that submissions are also performed by a real person, as opposed to an automatic script. Almost all directories use a visual code verification process to prevent automated submissions. Apart from complying with the directory's guidelines, manual submission is the only way to guarantee that your site is submitted to the proper category (and subcategory).

Because of the time involved in manually submitting sites and the sheer number of directories on the web, it is very important for you to know which directories to submit to. Obviously, you would want to submit only to the directories with a high PR and avoid the ones with a low PR, right? Not really. Just because a directory has a low PR does not mean that it is not worth submitting to. The directory may be brand new and not around long enough to be ranked by Google. In contrast to the more established directories that continually experience a back-log of submissions, newer directories tend to review and list sites rather quickly. As the directory becomes more popular, so will your link. So, do not judge a directory solely by its PageRank; rather, base your decision on the overall quality of the directory.

Another important thing to look at is whether or not the directory you intend to submit to is search engine friendly. Search engines like static web pages whose content stays the same regardless of who visits the page, or when they visit, not dynamic pages that are created on-the-fly. Browse through a couple of categories and look at the URL in the navigation bar. If the URL looks something like

http://www.anysite.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=123456&sort=date

it is probably not search engine friendly.

An example of a static, search engine friendly URL is:

http://www.anysite.com

Another important question to ask is: How easy is it to submit to the directory? How many hoops do you have to jump through to get to the submission form? When you finally get to the form, how many required fields does the form have? A directory should only ask for pertinent information like your name, email, URL, link title, link description, and keywords, but it should not look like a job application. With the exception of a handful of major directories like DMOZ and Yahoo, it should not take you more than 3 to 5 minutes to submit your site.

Another consideration is whether or not the directory has a category specific enough for your site. For optimal SEO benefits from your listing, your link should be grouped under a specific category containing sites that are thematically related to yours. Such a grouping makes your listíng more relevant in the eyes of the search engines, as well as providing an easier way for visitors to the directory to find your site.

Simply having your site listed on a directory is not enough. Your choice of the link title can determine how much impact your listing will have on your search engine rankings. Ideally, the title of your link (or “anchor text”) should contain the keyword(s) that you want others to search for to get to your site. Since most web directories require a unique link title, however, it may not be possible to select a common phrase like “Free Web Directory” as your link title. This title is likely already taken by another web directory. Simply prefixing the phrase with your domain name, for example "BestDirectory.org Free Web Directory", would make the title unique.

Oftentimes, a directory has several related categories that are suitable for your site. How do you decide which one to submit to? Ideally, you would want to submit to the category that has the highest PageRank. However, this may not turn out to be the wisest choice as your link may be buried among a million other listings. Going with a lower-PR category with fewer competing links may prove to be more beneficial in the long run. When choosing from multiple related categories, choose one with a good balance of Pagerank, relevancy, and number of competing listings.

Conclusion: Submitting to web directories is a highly effective link building strategy that should be an integral part of any search engine optimization campaign. Manually submitting to a large number of directories is both laborious and time-consuming. Just keep the above points in mind to make the most of your time.

Good luck!

 

P.S.: Check out this highly informative video:

Website Conversion Optimization Tips

Related article:

The Ten Commandments of Directory Submission

 

Technorati-Tags: web directories,directory submission,pagerank,seo,more traffic

How to Make Money on HubPages – A Reality Check

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The obvious answer as to how to make money on HubPages is to actually have something to say. Some value to add. Some information to provide. While it is important to understand how to use keywords, you should not take it too far.

Do not become obsessed with SEO linking schemes and do not stuff your article with keywords. In short, do not overdo it. Provide good, useful information and do it consistently. Yes, I said consistently. The people who publish hubs on HubPages on a regular basis are the people who make the most money.

If you consistently write about a certain subject (which you do not need to do) it will help you establish yourself as an expert in a niche. But more importantly, it will enable more effective link building between your hubs. Write between 10 and 20 hubs on the same topic and interlink them all. It is always helpful to provide links to more pertinent and useful information.

If you write about honey-bees (wow, that is what I call random), write another hub specifically about the nutritional value of honey and another about the American or European honey industry and another about the actual honey making process and another about how bee-keepers go about collecting the honey.

I do not know if there are any honey-hounds among the people who read this article, but hey, it is just an example. I hope you get the point. This kind of coverage will help bounce traffic around between your hubs, will establish some authority, and will build trust from readers and will even help you earn backlinks from thematically related websites.

Notice that I wrote “earn” backlinks.  It is important to understand that a natural organic link from someone who genuinely finds your work interesting and helpful and thus wants to share it with their readers is priceless.  That is what the game is all about.  It is how you succeed with content online.  And, yes, it is how you make money as well. One natural link is worth a hundred forced links.

Making money on HubPages also requires doing a little bit of promotion.  To be honest, you are not required to do anything, but it will really help you gain exposure for your hubs if you build a few links to them. 

One of the best ways to get more traffic to your hubs other than understanding how to write for a specific audience and doing a bit of keyword research, is to create links from article directories.  Ezine Articles is probably the most widely known and consistently tops the Google search results pages for thousands of different niches. 

You are allowed to include two footer links at the bottom of your articles, which you can use to point to your other work at HubPages. Use keyword-rich anchor text to promote your hubs. Using the honey example, you could write a basic article about the health benefits and the downsides of honey. (Actually, honey, being a 100% natural product, has hardly any downsides.)  Make it around 400 - 500 words long and make it worthwhile – the Ezine Articles staff has to approve it. That means you have to meet their quality standards - which can be a little tricky in the beginning. Build at least one link to each of your HubPage hubs.

Write another hub titled something like “My Honey Hubs” or “All You Ever Wanted to Know About Honey” and include links to all of your honey-related hubs. This link post will give people a gereal view of all the content you have written; it is also a great way to build links. 

Another way to promote your hubs is by building a blog on one of the free platforms (Blogger or Wordpress.com, for instance) and linking to each of your published hubs with a short description of what it is about. This may help widen your search footprint and drive more traffic to your hubs.

See how each link-building exercise is also providing value at the same time?  This is what will work in your favor over time. If you consistently think about your audience and provide valuable information or entertainment, you will succeed in making money online – not just with HubPages, with any blog or website. 

So get started making money on Hubpages. 

To your success!

 

Related article:

Guide to Making Money with HubPages

 

 

Technorati-Tags: hubpages,blogging for money,make money,affiliate programs

Do-It-Yourself SEO (with a Twist)

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A lot of people ask „What is the easiest way to optimize a blog or website?" This simple question is harder to answer than you might think. It depends on who is asking and what their knowledge and/or experience level of knowledge and/or experience is. But after extensive search on the world wide web I now have an answer for you... Learn the „secret” recipe, then use it.

Unfortunatley, there is no magic bullet that works on each and every web page like so many SEO 'miracle' books and programs would have us believe. Each blog or website has its own unique 'secret recipe' that has to be discovered and then applied because every single page it is trying to outrank is unique. If this seems confusing, just remember my new favorite quote that I borrowed from someones's (I just cannot seem to remember where I found it) website: "Think about it. Anyone could bake Mrs. Fields famous cookies - possibly better than Mrs. Fields herself - with the secret recipe. And that is all SEO really is; knowing the secret recipe for any given web page."

And it is that simple. We will look at how to discover the secret recipe in a moment, but first there is one crucial thing to understand about search engine optimization before you go any further:

SEO means making a web page as highly visible as possible to search engines - for a given keyword.

Just about everybody knows the first part; but too many people forget the second.

Remember that your prospective visitors type in very specific keywords (search terms) on search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing because they are looking for something very specific.

If you already know your most important keyword that is great! If not, do not waste your money on expensive keyword software that SEO professionals use. Use a free keyword tool like Google's. You can find it at:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Just enter the keywords that you think people are searching for to find your product, service or website and then check the search numbers for those and related keyword suggestions.

So what about the secret recipe?

Once you have found your main keyword or keywords you need to see how well your site is optimized for that term already. This is called getting your SEO Quality Score.

What you do is make a list of the most important optimization aspects of a webpage, for the search engine of your choice (for Google looks for different things than Yahoo or Bing).

Here are ten critical factors for Google, but there are close to 140 to be aware of...

• Keyword use in document title
• Keyword use in body text
• Keyword density
• Keyword position and proximity
• Keyword use in H1 headline texts
• Link texts of inbound links
• Global link popularity of web site
• Number of words
• Readability level of web page
• HTML validation of web page to W3C standards

Once you have all of this information for your blog or webpage, you need to get it for the pages currently occupying the top ten positions for that keyword and then see how your page compares.

You can buy software that does a lot of this for you but it generally costs $500 to $2,500 for the ones that really work, and even then you might need to buy an hour or two of an SEO consultant's time to help you really understand it.

Doing it yourself is very educational. You will be an SEO pro after you do a couple of these. Therefore, if you have the time you should not hesitate.

If do not enough time or do not feel up to the task you can always hire a company to do the work for you. One relatively cheap and easy option is the SEO To Go package offered by a company called DotCom Pirates. It is available for $50 and reviews your site for all 140 SEO factors and provides plain English instructions to fix every aspect of it.

Here is the dirty little secret: Contact webmasters and/or local businesses and ask them if they would be interested in having their sites optimized. (Of course, you can also set up some blogs and websites yourself to train with.) I am sure that you will have a couple of blogs and websites to work with pretty soon. Order reports for those sites, follow the directions - and you will be an SEO expert in no time.

Knowing the secret recipe is the foolproof answer to DIY SEO. Once you have the secret recipe for the page at hand it is easier than you ever thought possible and you will be laughing all the way to the bank with the money you saved.

Good luck!

P.S.: Here is a cool video on how to find great keywords for free. It is called „2 Simple Ways to Find Great Keywords Using Google”

 

Technorati-Tags: seo,keywords,pagreank,more visitors

What Is Good Blog Design?

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A lot of people can and will recognize good design when they see it on the web. But most of them do not really know what makes a specific design good.

How do you define "good design"? Is it subjective, like your favorite snack? Although there are traces of subjectivity within good design, there are artistic principles that good design is built from. Here are a few of the most important ones that form the foundation of all good design:

1. Proximity

Because items that are in close proximity to one another become one visual unit, items that are related to one another should be grouped together. Laying out related items on a blog or website page this way helps the eye associate the information and enables the viewer to mentally categorize the information more easily. The flip side of this principle is that items that are not related should not be placed in close proximity to one another.

The main purpose of the principle of proximity is to organize information in a way that enables viewers to quickly and easily comprehend. If the information is organized, people are more likely to read it and respond. Information that is organized is also more likely to be remembered.

Now, how can you determine if items form a visual unit? Squint your eyes and look at the blog post or the page on a website. Count the number of times your eye stops as it views the page. On a page that is using the principle of proximity well, your eye will stop no more than three to five times. In other words, there will be three to five groups of information for the eye to comprehend separately.

2. Alignment

I am sure that you have seen blog or website page layouts where the text and graphics are placed wherever there happens to be space. The effect is messy, with no impact. Nothing should be placed on a page arbitrarily. There should be a visual connection between each item on the page. When items are aligned, it creates a cohesiveness that the eye appreciates.

The purpose of alignment is to unify the blog post or website page. Imagine a well-organized kitchen. All the pots and pans are stored in the organizer, the fruit is nicely displayed in a basket on the counter, the spices are all on the rack - everything is in its place. The layout of a page needs the same thing.

Look at a website page that you feel is good design. Now focus on the main visual element. Where does your eye go from there? Do you see how other elements are aligned with that one main element both vertically and horizontally?

3. Repetition, Repetition

Good design repeats some aspect of the website design throughout the site. It is this repetition that makes all the pages in a site (and all the posts in a blog) look like they belong together. Color scheme, graphic elements, typefaces - all of these elements should be repeated - used consistently - throughout.

The purpose of repetition is to create consistency and to add visual interest. Repetition creates a professional, polished look that the eye is drawn to. When a website design uses repetition and is consistent, it is more likely to be viewed and read.

How can you create repetition beyond simple consistency in typefaces and colors?

Use some element in your logo as a major graphic element in the design. If you are using a ruled line, make the line more interesting visually by perhaps creating it with tiny dots or dashes, then repeating the line element throughout the design. Create or choose patterns that are repeated throughout the design. Take a small element and place it somewhere on each page for a whimsical look. Just be careful not to overdo the repetition, or viewers will be annoyed rather than pleased.

4. Contrast

The principle of contrast states that if two items are not the same, then they should be different – as different as possible. Contrast creates an organizational hierarchy of the information and graphics on a webpage. When using contrast, you should not be a wimp! The contrast must be strong to be effective.

The purpose of contrast is two-fold: to create interest in the page, and to organize information. A page that is interesting to look at is more likely to be read. And contrasting elements will help a reader understand the way in which the information is organized.

Contrast can be created in many ways. You can contrast large type with small type, a serif font with a sans-serif font, bold with light, smooth texture with rough texture, a small graphic with a large one, a dark color with a light one,…

A design that integrates these principles will automatically gain a professionalism and polish that it would otherwise lack. Next time you stumble across a website design that makes you say "wow", check for these principles – you will find them quietly working to make that design a good one!

Good luck!

Related article:

15 important Design Tips for Your Blog or Website

 

 

Technorati-Tags: design tips,web design,design,blogger tips

Tips for Free and Easy Link Building

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Okay, you are the proud mama or papa to your brand new blog or website. Now what? This is not like the movies - just because you built it does not automatically mean they will come. The Internet is an enormous limitless space with ever-growing numbers of blogs and websites. Yours is just one small web home among millions. How will anybody ever find it? How do you make it visible? Right now, your site just exists out in the web, untethered. Your blog or website needs to become visible when someone searches for it - and one way, probably the easiest, to become visible to people is to become visible to search engines. And one way to become visible to search engines such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing is for your site to be tethered - or linked - to other sites.

If you have spent any time at all reading Internet marketing blogs you know that link building is an essential part of any marketing campaign. Backlinks - links that point to your website - are a major factor in determining your popularity or ranking with the search engines. And of course, just like in high school, you want to be popular.

You can buy your way into links, but in this post I am talking about a few free and easy ways. An obvious and natural way to build links is through content. When you start a link-building campaign for your new blog or website, focus on attracting links that will add value for the visitors of your site and best represent your most important keywords. It is invaluable to have visitors go to your site and share your content.

Here are a few easy and (mostly) free ways to build links for your website:

1. Blog-Based Link Building

One way to get natural links back to your website is by setting up a blog for your business. Make sure you network online with other blogs that complement yours. If you share industry news and have useful and relevant content, you will attract links. Reference other bloggers in your content and link to other blogs in your industry.

For blogs, content is extremely important. Every time you add words to your blog or website, you are presenting yourself to a potentially huge audience. How does the content of your blog reflect you and/or your business? This content could be the page that carries your or your company´s name around the Internet world. Cheap content is just that - cheap. Create content that people want to read and that will make them come back again and again.

Reviewing products and services and posting those reviews on other sites is another way to build links. Your honest evaluations and well-founded opinions can also build your reputation as an expert in your field.

2. Link Building with Social Networks

Another way to build natural links to your website is through social network sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter. These sites allow you to set up a user profile where you can add information about you and/or your business including a link to your blog or website.

Some sites, Facebook for example, also have a way to promote your website with a page, ad or group. Just keep in mind that there are good ways and bad ways to promote your website on social sites and you should always observe proper etiquette when you do.

3. Link Building with Organizations and Directories

If your industry has professional organizations or associations that you belong to, check with them and see if they have an online directory with links to member sites. They may or may not charge a fee for this. If they do, it should not be much.

Check with your local Chamber of Commerce or Better Business Bureau. Links from sites like these can be very helpful, especially if they are of the .org variety. Check with other local businesses and organizations that have lists of businesses and request links from them, too.

Online directories are another opportuníty to look into. Yahoo! Directory is one of the best, although rather expensive. If your business is in a specific geographical area, you might also find some local directories to submit to that will boost your local visibility.

4. Links from Charities or Non-profit Organisations

If you (or your company) make charitable donations to organizations and non-profíts, see if they have a "donors" list on their website and ask if they will link to your website.

5. Links from Press Releases

Has your website just started or have you just launched a new product? A press release is a great idea to announce these news. There are quite a few press release distribution services available and some have a free first time offer.(Currently the most widely used is PRWeb.)

6. Links from Partners

If your blog or website offers information about blog or website partners like business directories, you should make sure to use all your linking potential. You could have a badge that your partner could put on their site linking to you and one for your site that links to theirs.

If you have an RSS feed or a widget on your site that has good value to visitors, those can be taken from your blog or website and displayed on another person's website, linking back to your site.

The Internet is constantly evolving and there are thousands of ways to build links. Check out other blogs and websites and see what kinds of backlinks they have and how well they work. Look at your blog/website/business, think outside the box and you might come up with other ways to develop links. If it all seems like too much, there are many online consulting companies that can help with link building, SEO optimization and brandcasting.

Good luck!

 

 

Technorati-Tags: beginners guide,getting started,link building,backlinks,more traffic,social networks

Guide to Blog Flipping

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In this post I am going to show you how you, too, can make money by engaging in the lucrative business of blog flipping, i.e. the setting up and subsequent selling of blogs/websites.

1. Find a Niche

A niche is a small targeted section of a particular market. There are litterally thousands of sites and products out there that will help you find a suitable niche, but a great place to start is the 30 Day Challenge. 30 Day Challenge is a free online course that breaks down niche finding into easy to follow steps. Also, you can find out what is currently popular
with buyers on Flippa.com by checking out tags buyers are watching. When you have more expereience, you should use Google's Keyword tool to discover how many related searches the niche you are interested in receives.

2. Register a Domain

Once you have found a niche you need to buy a domain for the website
to be registered under. A domain will cost you around US $10 from GoDaddy or NameCheap (Tip for beginners: .info domains are often available for about $ 2) . Dot com names tend to sell better than other domain types, therefore you should try to find a dot com relevant to your niche. Using your core search term in the domain name will also help.

For example: waxingurcar.com (by the way, that domain name IS available at the time of writing).

3. Find Hosting

If you are a seasoned web professional, you will certainly know that a website has to live somewhere. You may already have a hosting reseller account, but if not head over to one of the many hosting providers and find an affordable but quality hosting solution. You can host a single domain from around $5 per month or, if you are interested in going into blog/website flipping full-time, buy a hosting reseller account for around $25/month and you will be able to host unlimited domains. I have been using Hostgator for a couple of years now and can recommend them.

4. Choose a Popular Content Management System (CMS)

Not everyone knows how to do markup perfect standards compliant HTML. Building your site on a popular publishing platform will make your website more attractive to buyers as it makes editing and adding content much easier. Open source is definitely en vogue - with WordPress being one of the more popular platforms used for Flippa listings. You could also use Joomla or Drupal if they are your weapon of choice.

5. Build It

This is the easy part for a professional website builder!  But it is hard for many others, so this is where you can add a lot of value.  You may have a fabulous design you are dying to show the world, or you may just be happy to modify one of the many themes available for the platforms listed above. Design it, slice and dice, then implement - you know the drill.

6. Add Content

OK, this is the part that prospective buyers usually look after, or the copywriter  -  the stage of the project that always takes the longest and keeps you from being paid. This is where it helps to love the niche you are in, or find someone who does write content for you. If you decide to go down the latter path, you can expect to pay about $8 - $10 per article for a 400-500 word article on Elance. As with all things, you get what you pay for.
When writing your Elance brief, ask for samples.

7. Publish

Obviously, people want to be able to see what they are buying, so once you have finished the design, development and content loading publish the site using your hosting account.

8. Install Google Analytics

Potential buyers will want to see some evidence of traffic – Google Analytics is pretty much ubiquitous for traffic stats on Flippa.

9. Build Backlinks

If you are familiar with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) then you will know what I am talking about here. You want your website to be indexed by Google, at the least, and ideally, over time, it will appear on the first page of search results for your niche related search terms. This is not absoluely necessary, but it will make your site more valuable to buyers.

10. Let It Mature

Although there are a lot of sites to be found on Flippa that are just a few weeks old, you should not rush things.Like fine wine, websites get better with age. Yes, this may be a generalization, but it is undeniable that all else being equal, the more miles the site has under its belt the better. Here is a short list of things buyers tend to look for when buying blogs or websites:

• Domain age
• Traffic
• Quality backlinks
• Revenue (check out strategies for monetizing your website)
• PageRank
• Relevance of domain name to your niche

11. List Your Website For Sale

Ready to sell your website? Sign up with Flippa! It is extremely straightforward from there.

 

Good luck flipping! :-)

Technorati-Tags: blog flipping,blogging for money,monetizing blog,Flippa

8 Things You Need To Know About Bing

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Every major search engine offers valuable tips about how to optimize your blog or website for improved rankings on their sites. But when you study these guidelines you quickly see that most of it is just their own wish list. Statements like 'Write for humans not search engine bots - or - do not hide keywords with a font matching the background color.' This is all sound advice but kind of general and already well known (for at least a decade).

But there are always a few things a search engine will not tell you. And, of course, these are the things that make all the difference in your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts and results. Without further ado, here are eight important things Bing does not want you to know (if you are in a hurry you can skip to the 6 step Magic Formula section at the end):

1. Your Domain Name Matters – Very Much

Search for just about anything on MSN / Bing and at least three of the top five matches will have some version of that keyword as the domain name. That means that if you wanted to optimize for the keyword 'my domain' you should try to get the domain name 'mydomain.com.' If that is taken, opt for 'my-domain.com.' If that is taken as well choose a name starting with 'mydomain' and ending with a word that is commonly associated. This is called LSI or Latent Semantic Indexing. A good example would be 'mydomainname.com' or 'my-domain-name.com.' By the way, Bing treats dashes as a space - so as long as the dashes merely separate words, they are treated pretty much like the non-dash version.

2. There is No Sandbox

Great news for anyone just getting started: Bing does not seem to care about the age of your domain name. There is no such thing as the 'sandbox' you might know from Google. Many people, myself included, have registered brand new domains and had them ranking in a matter of days.

3. DotCom Beats DotNet

Today some search engines like Google will give .net and .com virtually the same value, and possibly higher value to a .org that is for a recognized non-profit organization. Bing on the other hand appears to prefer the .com version. There are even instances where a '.co.uk' site gets high rankings simply because it uses the exact keyword in the domain name and .co is close enough to .com.

4. Bing Likes Sub Domains

Almost all major web hosts will let you add sub domains to your website. On Bing, if you have the sub domain mydomain.mydomain.com you are in for some potentially great rankings. The same is true if you have added my.domain.com, but to a somewhat lesser degree.

5. Less is More - Part One

We all have been conditioned by Google to try to have hundreds of pages of quality content on each and every website. Bing adheres to the old policy that they are indexing web 'pages' not web 'sites' (like Google claims they do, but Bing appears to really mean it.) This means each page is treated on its own merit so a site with one page has the same chances of being ranked as a site with 100 pages, because each page is treated individually.

6. Less is More - Part Two

The same rule as above holds true for on-page text. Pages with 800 to 1200 words seem to do best on Google but on Bing the opposite is true, with 250 to 500 words being the magic number. Just make sure you do not overuse your keyword.

7. Links are Nice But Not Required

Forget about spending hours every day building an ever growing number of inbound links for Bing. They do not need them. For now at least, your site is judged by its own merits, page by page.

8. Be Bold Not Strong

The original SEO method dating back to around 1995 or1996 was using the H1 or 'strong' heading tags in your HTML. Forget them for now. Bing gives higher priority to how you would express importance in a word processor document; larger font and bold text are used as the main markers.

Here is the promised Magic Formula for top ranking within one day:

a) Get the .com version of a three to four word keyword as your domain name (dashes are fine, see #1 above).

b) Use the domain name as the page heading in a bolded font that is slightly larger than the paragraph text.

c) Write around 400 words of natural sounding text using your targeted keyword up to five times.

d) Mention the keyword once in the first sentence and once in the final sentence of the page - then up to three times scattered throughout the remainder.

e) Bold one instance of the keyword. Italicize one instance of the keyword. Use one instance of the keyword as a link back to the same page.

f) Make sure you always fill in your Title, Description and Keywords META tags.

That´s all!

In this post I have told you about 8 important things Bing does not want you to know. Use all of them for better rankings – they really work!

Good luck!

P.S.: This works for Yahoo as well.

 

 

Technorati-Tags: Bing,pagerank,seo,search engines,keywords,domain name

Google´s Duplicate Content Penalty: The Simple Truth

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The simple truth of the Google duplicate content penalty is - there is none! If that confuses you, then you have been studying too many misinformed forum or blog posts where people get hung up on a popular term that they do not know anything about, and then profess to be experts.

Obviously, the only experts regarding the Google duplicate content penalty, and the only people who are qualified to define it, are Google, and in Google's own words: “There is no such thing as a duplicate content penalty”. This quote comes directly from Google's Webmaster Central Blog.

That should be the end of this article - but it is not. Why? Because even though the Webmaster Central Blog is operated by Google, and even though pretty much the same has been stated by Matt Cutts, Google's premier software engineer, as well as other Google experts, people keep on arguing and complaining about the 'Google duplicate content penalty'.

The Truth of the Google Duplicate Content Penalty

There is no duplicate content penalty. Google's major search engine function is to offer its customers the best possible results for a search, based upon the search term (keywords) that they have entered in the Google search box.

Google's customers are NOT:

1. You, who use it to get your web pages listed.

2. Adwords advertisers that use Adwords to advertise their products and services.

3. Corporations or individuals that use it to have their web pages listed.

4. Internet marketers who recommend others to use Google for advertising or searching.

Google's customers are those seeking information, whether that is to solve a problem, where to purchase a product at the cheapest price, find a sports result or a review, or to get directions to a specific location. Each and every customer of Google uses a search term to find the information they need. That search term is what is generally referred to as a keyword.

If Google detects several web pages offering exactly the same content, its algorithms will select the one that best offers the information required and list ahead of the others. It might also list one or two other pages offering exactly the same content if there are good reasons for it doing so (for instance: more links to other relevant websites, other relevant pages on the domain, and so on).

Therefore, not all duplicate content pages will be refused a listing. If these duplicates are articles, then the algorithms that the spiders work with will take the links from these articles into consideration, and the authority of the directory on which it is published, as well as other factors, before deciding which one(s) should be listed. It is wrong to believe that this decision is based on a chronological factor, but if you include a link in your article Resource section to your web page that contains the same article, then your page stands a chance to be listed above the others, partially because of a greater number of links back to it from the other copies, and partially because your entire site is liable to be more relevant than these others to information being sought by Google's customers.

This is not because yours was created first, but because it better meets Google's criterion for authoritative backlinks. However, if the rest of your website is not equally authoritative, your page might be listed behind another with the same content or not listed at all.

All of this is designed by Google so that its customers are offered the most relevant range of results with regard to the keywords they used. That is Google´s ultimate objective. Google will not penalize any individual or any website for publishing what is referred to as 'duplicate content', and it will take your version into consideration for publication just as any other version.

The only thing that counts in the long run is which version Google's algorithms believe to be most likely to provide the best possible information to the person seeking it, and if that means not publishing a whole lot of duplicate information, then that is only fair, isn't it? If you used Google to find some information, you certainly would not want to find page after page saying exactly the same thing, would you?

No, and neither does Google. A Google listing comes from its indexing of billions of web pages that contain the keywords used by the searcher: both in relation to the entire phrase and to the individual words used in the search term. If you want your copy to be different, make some minor changes and perhaps change the form of the keywords, but most importantly, change the title and the introductory paragraph to which the crawlers will take special notice.

You then stand a better chance of your version being listed along with some of the others, but remember: the next time you use the term 'duplicate content' you are using a term that does not exist in Google's vocabulary for any reason than to deny its existence. The Google Duplicate Content Penalty does not exist: that is the truth!

 

 

Technorati-Tags: google duplicate content penalty,backlinks,seo,article publication

How to Add a Favicon to Your Blogger Blog

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In this post I am going to show you two ways how you can add a favicon to your Blogger blog. In case you do not know what a favicon is, here a short definition: „ A favicon is a small icon (image) displayed at the beginning of the address bar of the browser.It is also known as Favourite Icon, Pageicon, and URLicon.

The main advantage of creating and using a favicon is that it makes it easier to find your blog or site when someone added your blog/website to their favorites or bookmarked it among a whole lot of other sites.

Most people use 16x16 pixel favicons (you can also use 32x32 pixel favicons) in the ".ico" format. But you can use .gif, or .png image formats as well.

How to Create and Add a Favicon to Your Blogger Blog

1. Create Your Own Favicon

Obviously, the first step of adding the FavIcon is creating your own unique favicon file. As stated above, the favicon is a very small icon file with the ‘.ico’ extension. You can sse one of these (free) online services to create your favicon:

http://www.favicon.cc/

http://www.rw-designer.com/online_icon_maker.php

http://www.html-kit.com/favicon/

http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/favicon/

http://www.degraeve.com/favicon/ (They have a cool paintbrush interface

You can either upload an image file (in JPG, PNG, or GIF) and get it converted to a favicon or design your own favicon.

2. Upload the Icon File

Once you have created your favicon, you need to upload it to a web location from where it can be accessed by Blogger. Remember, the icon file is a small image file with showing the ‘.ico’ extension.

It cannot be uploaded to Flickr, Photobucket, etc. as an image. It is not worth uploading to Rapidshare or any other file sharing systems. You could create a free webpage with Google Sites and upload your file there. In order to do that, you have to sign up in Google Sites and create a free website. There you can upload any sort of files just as with a self-hosted blog.

3. Add the Following Script to Your Template

a. Sing in to Blogger and go to Layout --> Edit HTML.

b. Look (Ctrl + F) for the following line of code:

<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

c. Add the following code just below the above line:

<link href='ICON FILE URL' rel='shortcut icon'/>
<link href='ICON FILE URL' rel='icon'/>

d. Replace 'ICON FILE URL' with the actual URL of your icon file.

e. Save the template.

That is all! You have added a beautiful favicon to your Blogger blog.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: If the above method is too complicated for you, there is also a way how you can do this without leaving Blogger. Here is how:

1. First you need to create your own custom made favicon. But this time you do not have to use an image to favicon generator, instead your image should either be a .gif or a .png. In this example we are going to use a .png file. If you are not sure what kind of image to use browse through some free favicons you can find on the web, perhaps you will find one that you would like to use. If you do decide to use one of the many favicons that can be found online then do not click “Download this favicon” because that will give you a file in the Windows .ico format. Instead right click on the image of the and choose “Save Picture As”.

2. After you have downloaded or created the image you would like to use as your favicon, go to your Blogger.com blog and create a new post. It does not matter what you call it since you do not need to publish it. Once you have created a new post, use the image upload button to upload your favicon to your Blogger blog.

3. Once you have uploaded the image, you will need to switch to Edit HTML mode if you are using the “Compose” mode. In the HTML mode you will see something like this:

<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6dhGOYpcIv0/S94sOaaj_9I/AAAAAAAACa4/ymEvWHTcbNg/s1600/ebl+faviconvign.png"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 32px; height: 32px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6dhGOYpcIv0/S94sOaaj_9I/AAAAAAAACa4/ymEvWHTcbNg/s200/ebl+faviconvign.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5466855623794884562" /></a>

You need to highlight and copy the part in quotes right after src. In this case it would be:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6dhGOYpcIv0/S94sOaaj_9I/AAAAAAAACa4/ymEvWHTcbNg/s200/ebl+faviconvign.png

You should paste this portion into Notepad or another text editor. You do not want to lose this and you will be closing the Blogger editing window next.

4. As soon as you have the location of the image you uploaded copied, you can go to Layout --> Edit HTML. Look (Strg + F) in the HTML for a tag that says </head> and right above it paste:

If you use a .png image:

<link href=’URL of uploaded picture’ rel=’shortcut icon’/>
<link href=’ ’URL of uploaded picture’ rel=’icon’ type=’image/png’/>

If you use a .gif image:

<link href=’URL of uploaded picture’ rel=’shortcut icon’/>
<link href=’ ’URL of uploaded picture’ rel=’icon’ type=’image/gif’/>

5. Once you have those lines pasted into the template, copy the src of the image you want to use as you favicon that you uploaded earlier and paste it into the two lines you just added where the href=” is. In our example it looks like this:

<link href='http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6dhGOYpcIv0/S94sOaaj_9I/AAAAAAAACa4/ymEvWHTcbNg/s200/ebl+faviconvign.png' rel='shortcut icon'/>
<link href='http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_6dhGOYpcIv0/S94sOaaj_9I/AAAAAAAACa4/ymEvWHTcbNg/s200/ebl+faviconvign.png' rel='icon' type='image/png'/>

6. Save the template.

NOTE: Depending on the version of Internet Explorer you are using you may need to refresh the page before you can see your new favicon. In some cases it my even be that it is not displayed in the IE browser at all. Then you should check it out by using Firefox, where it will always be displayed correctly.

In this post I have shown you two ways how you can add a favicon to your Blogger blog.

Good luck!

 

Related article:

15 Important Design Tips for Your Blog or Website

 

 

Technorati-Tags: favicon,add favicon,blogger tips,design tips