Search Engine Optimization and Linking Strategies

If you are still sitting on the fence, waiting to employ a link development strategy for your website, I have some good news, and some bad news.

First, the Bad News: If your website is in a competitive search market you can no longer expect top organic results without having a link building strategy -- Period. Even sites that are well seasoned are starting to see their rankings drop in the search results if their link inventory is weak.

The Good News: It is not too late to implement a link building strategy for your website. The positive effects of linking (on your search engine results) are rapidly visible. Seasoned sites can see their positioning for competitive search terms rise in less then 90 days!

The Basics

What Are Links? Links are the "action elements" that you click on to navigate between web pages or websites. They can be text or graphics. There's a decided emphasis on text links for the purpose of Search Engine Optimization.

Where Do Links Come From? The primary sources for links leading back to your web site are: other websites, Internet directories, articles and press releases, blogs, social networks, and advertising venues.

Why Are Links Important? The Search Engines view links in terms of "popularity" on the Internet. If other sources on the net think your site is popular, then the Search Engines have more confidence that your website is a trusted source.

So More Links Are Better? Not necessarily, the links must come from sources that the Search Engines already trust. Think of links back to your site as testimonies to your website's character. A bunch of junk links from a foreign country or useless websites can actually have a negative effect on your site's ability to rise and perform in search.

I'm Confused. How Many Links Do I Need? This is a common misunderstanding, so you are not alone. Link development is an ongoing process that needs attention for the life of your site. I like to think of "inbound links" as nutrition for your site. Just like you can not eat a whole years worth of food in one sitting, you can not get linking finished in one swoop. A link a day helps keep the competition at bay!

For your website to perform effectively in natural search, for it to receive front page listings, you need to address these top three aspects of SEO: You need to start with a website that is designed to be Search Engine friendly, so that the search spiders can crawl it. Second, you need to have the on-site content aligned with your message, and groomed for the key words and phrases that you are targeting. Finally, you need to build a robust link inventory from reliable and relevant sources. The team at RightNow Communications can help you develop a top performing site. Contact us for an assessment of your online presence today.

Google Local - Bad Business Reviews

No matter how dedicated you are to customer service, there will be a time that you end up dealing with a customer that just cannot be satisfied. Often, these customers will take to the internet to even up the score and you are left with a bad review that may rank first in Google search results.

If you let that review sit there, it is only going to harm your company's reputation. No company is perfect, but when a consumer sees that bad review, they are not going to be thinking about your side. You need to be proactive in handling this situation so that your business is not adversely affected.

The first thing that you need to do before addressing the search results is do what you can to make the situation right with your customer. Document everything you do and keep a record of all communication. Remember, it is vital to be professional and ingratiating! If you cannot solve the issue, at the very least, you will have the proof at your disposal that you tried.

Now, let's move on to fixing that review. While many of us would love to be able to write Google and ask them to remove that nasty review, the chances of this happening are very slim. They have a no intervention policy in place, and it will be up to you to handle the issue on your own.

The first step you need to take is to bury that bad review with good reviews. This will move it further down in the ranking and provide potential customers with a more balanced view of your site. This is the easiest step that you can take, and will have the best results.

Please keep in mind that for local results, Google frequently harvests data from several review sites such as Yelp.com, ApartmentRatings.com, TripAdvisor.com and many others. It is vital to monitor the review sites that carry your listing to see what reviews have been posted. You will need to address the bad reviews on each one to get the best results.

While Google does provide you with the ability to flag a review posted from an individual directly to Google, this should not be abused. You can certainly flag a bad review that uses incendiary language, but it is not recommended to use this feature to make a bad review disappear.

For these on-site Google reviews, you have the option of handling bad reviews in a very positive way. Google allows anyone to leave a review, so you can utilize this to your best advantage with a little creativity.

Now, let's focus on a few more ways that you can ensure that bad reviews will not be posted for your company.

Go Above and Beyond - Treat every single customer you have as though they are your only customer. Handle all communications with respect and make sure that you are doing everything in your power to keep them happy. This benefits your company in more ways than one.

Ask Happy Customers for Feedback - If you have a customer that is beside themselves with glee over your service, you need to take advantage of that. Ask them to write a brief testimonial and then place it in on a special testimonial page on your site. You can link this page to your Google Maps page quite easily. Look for the "Link to this Page" link that is found on the bottom right corner of your reviews page. Add the link to your testimonial page and you're done!

No one likes getting a bad review, but by following the steps listed above, you can minimize the damage it could cause.

Social Marketing Part 3 – Building On-site Content and Links

In the first article we covered Social Bookmarking to help increase your websites presence in alternate search portals, and boost your rankings in the search engines. In the second article we discussed how to use outside Social Content Sites to create content and links that drive customers back to your website and increase your search positioning. This month we discuss ways to position new content on your website and create additional links.

Everyone has heard the key to front page search engine rankings is good content, “Content is King!” When it comes to attracting links (especially from social media sites) your content needs to be GREAT! There is one big problem – what makes great content from the perspective of the average web surfer?

The average web reader wants brief, informative, easy to read text that answers or addresses the concerns they have. In addition, for a web page to receive links back from other web sites it must fit a specific niche of a generalized subject. The best formats to accomplish this are; Top Lists, Best of; Favorites; Local or Insiders Tips; Consider This; How To. Lets looks a some sample titles to understand these popular formats:

Top List example - Top Apres Ski Spots in Breckenridge
Best of example - Best Day Hikes in Steamboat Springs
Favorites example - Favorite Sightseeing Tours in Alaska
Local or Insiders tip example – Locals Tips - Must Play Golf Courses in Seattle
Consider example - 10 Things to Consider when Hiring a Wedding Photographer.
How To example – How to Backup Your Home Computer Online

These are attractive formats for two reasons, they are easy to read, and easy to write! In addition, anyone writing a broad or general article would be happy to cite (link) to your very specific subject matter. Everyone is an expert on something, the key is to keep the content relevant to your website. The articles should be brief, 400 to 500 words is the perfect length. Look at the del.icio.us Popular Page to find some good examples - http://del.icio.us/popular/

This is content that is designed to go directly on your website. The goal is to build content and links that drive traffic back to your business address on the web. If you do not have an article area, blog, or local news section on your website, you need one this year. Sites without this type of constantly updating fresh content are finding it harder to maintain top spots in the search engines because the search engines like growth and progress. They will spider web sites making “progress” with new webpages more often. If you do not have a spot for content on your site currently, check with the Netrafic team for ideas on placement and development.

So you have an article, and a place to put it on your web site. What is the next step? Contact Chris or myself to help tweak the article so that you get the most out of the search engines. This is a critical step, without it your writing piece could vanish into the web, never to be found again.

Next step, promote. There are dozens of locations that you can use to promote your article. They act as news posting sources. The most popular services are:

Digg – www.digg.com
Reddit – www.reddit.com
Propeller - www.propeller.com
Mixx - www.mixx.com

These services are simple to use. You sign up for an account, and then post your article URL plus write a brief description and title for your article. This creates instant links back to your site, and anyone that reads the article is reading it ON YOUR SITE. We are happy to coach you, or your PR person through this process. After adding your content, you will want to go back and bookmark the article using the techniques described in article 1 of this series.

Find a Writer – If you do not have someone on staff that can write this type of material, fear not! There are many resources to find qualified writers. You can contact Netrafic for a possible referral, we come in contact with writers often.

Craigslist – You can find someone local by looking on Craigslist in the Services, Writing / Editing section. You can also post a “help wanted” in the Jobs, Writing / Editing section.

ProBlogger – You can post and find individuals with writing skills on this site. It costs $50 to post a job for 30 days. You will receive a large number of responses. The overall quality of the writers is outstanding.

Regardless of where you locate your writer, always get writing samples first before hiring anyone—and eliminate anyone whose grammar and spelling skills aren't in top shape. Plan to write 2-3 articles per month, and before you know it you will have dozens of pages with sticky content attracting web searchers to your site.

In last months article we covered Social Bookmarking to help increase your websites presence in alternate search portals, and boost your rankings in the search engines. Hopefully you organized your team, family and friends to go out a vote for your site. If not, the polls are still open 24/7 so make a plan to get it done!

This month we will cover Social Content websites that let you create a web page on your company, subject or better yet, both! Social Content websites are similar to an off-site blog. They allow you to sign-up for free, create web pages, add content and media, rss feeds from your site or blog, and socialized media from other networks like YouTube and Flickr.

Understand that these Social Content sites are in business to make money. When you create a page they add some advertising units such a Google Ads to your page. To make the relationship work, they share the revenue generated from the pages you create with you, the publisher. Some sites will let you set the number of advertising modules that appear on your page.

So, thats the bad news! The good news is this; These pages can perform in the search engines and deliver traffic, displace weak competitors for your target search terms, and provide another link back to your site helping your overall search rankings.

Participants in the Netrafic Linking Program already have pages on these Social Networks being created that benefit them. My primary motivation is for the linking value these pages generate, and if any traffic floats your way – great! I create the pages by subject matter, so that I can add several links back to different websites.

Lets take a look at one of these pages so that you can understand the value of Social Content pages. The following page http://www.squidoo.com/cabo-pulmo is about a vacation destination in Mexico.

Here are the three value centers:

Traffic – This page comes up for the search term “Cabo Pulmo Baja Mexico” on the front page of Google, leading potential visitors back to the client. Notice that the clients site, and a YouTube video come up for the search term also, covering 3 front page positions in Google – that's good Socialization on the web!

Link Value – The links inside this page helps the main website perform for their intended search terms, like “cabo pulmo vacation rentals”

Displacement – If you look on the second page of Google for the search term “Cabo Pulmo Baja Mexico” you will see qualified websites that have been “displaced” - natural search is “survival of the fittest!”

Here is a quick “how to” guide to create your own Social Content sites.

Creation – create your free account, and decide if you want to write on your general subject, or specific business. It is good practice to do both. Any Netrafic customers can contact me for help regardless of participation in the Linking Program.

Content – you must develop around 1000 words of unique content to populate your first page. For subsequent pages, you can re-write the content and reorganize.

Media – Add any/all of the videos you have on YouTube to your page. You can drop you Flickr photo stream directly into these pages. You can also upload directly to the site, but if you have been paying attention to my advice, you surly have a Flickr and YouTube account with some media...

SEO – Each Content website is unique in the way it needs to be optimized. If you have a page up, feel free to contact us to help groom the page.

Good Places to start:

http://www.squidoo.com/

http://hubpages.com/

Real Estate - http://activerain.com/

Travel - http://www.travelblog.org/

The goal is to get multiple web resources working for your business that lead searchers back to your site, in addition to supporting your main site in search. Go out and get some!

Popcorn Gifts is my new best friend!

Have you voted for your web site yet?

You can help your sites performance in the major search engines by getting involved via the social bookmarking sites. The major players in search (Google, Yahoo) count the links from these popular communities as “back links” to your website. These links tend to improve your sites ranking because they are viewed as “natural” and are “keyword rich” with descriptive text.

Participants in the Netrafic link building program have a head start on this, as we add your website to over 20 social bookmarking, social news and and social search sites. This is a great start, but with social bookmarking, more IS better! Think of “bookmarks” as “votes” - Netrafic can only vote for your site a few times.

Here is a homework assignment to help your site become a social butterfly. Assign this task to your team members and employees – it takes 15-20 minutes to complete.

Do not have your group create accounts with the company email. Do not have your group bookmark from the company computer network. Choose the most relevant Category for your site. Use 4-7 keywords (tags) for each submission. Your description only needs to be 1-2 sentences. Some sites offer to make your bookmark either “private” or “public” - always choose public! Some sites ask you to rate the site (1-5 stars) Rate It!

Here are the sites we are going to use. Go to each one and sign-up for an account, then bookmark your website.

• Delicious - http://del.icio.us/ - the process starts by clicking the “post” button on the website.
• Furl - http://www.furl.net/ - the process starts by clicking the “save” button on the website.
• Reddit - http://reddit.com/ - The process starts by clicking the “submit” button on the website.
• Blinklist - http://www.blinklist.com/ - After signing up, keep hitting “skip” to avoid all the advertising. The process starts by clicking the “blink” button.
• Magnolia - http://ma.gnolia.com/ - After signing up add your url to the “add url” box.
• StumbleUpon - http://www.stumbleupon.com/ - you need to download the toolbar, navigate to your site, and click the “thumbs up” button. Click on the toolbar “quote bubble” to add keywords and reviews.

This is a great start! If you are need assistance, find someone under the age of 25 to walk you through the process.

Extra Credit Assignment:

Attack the social scene by hitting every site on the net. This Social Marker service http://www.socialmarker.com/ lets you work through all social sites. Grab a bottle of wine!