Link Blog

If you have noticed your search engine rankings have dropped recently it is time to figure out why, but there is no reason to panic. Every web site will experience some up and down movement in the SERPs, and the smart webmasters will work to figure out the reasons.

Here's a list of some of the reasons for drops in rankings offered by Axandra.

1. Changes to a Web Site's Links

An old website with a well-established inbound link structure should not see its site rankings drop because of a link change. However, sudden changes in the linking structure may make your web site appear suspicious. Be sure to review the Google Guidelines on Links. To keep high rankings, a web master must continually acquire links.

2. Changes to Your Web Site

If you have recently re-designed your web pages, or if you have optimized a page for a new search term, then your rankings may be re-calculated by the search engines. If you have a page with high rankings, use care when making changes.

3. Changes to Competitors' Web Sites

Your competitors are targeting the same keywords you are. If they have better content and links, they will get higher rankings. Make sure your content is better than your competitors and that you pages are relevant to the search terms. Having better inbound links will help you rank above your competitors.

4. Spam Elements on Your Web Pages

If you are using cloaking, hidden text, doorway pages or any other spam technique on your web pages, you will be penalized. Remove them to improve your rankings.

5. Technical Issues

Problems with you web server can make your rankings drop. If the search engine comes by and your site is down, they can't find your pages. No pages, no ranking. Use a reliable web host with no down time. Saving money on hosting fees will cost you in the long run.

By keeping your wits about you when you see a drop in your rankings and working to fix the problem, you will soon see those high rankings that you have worked so hard to achieve soon return.

Debra Mastaler has a great post at The Link Spiel Blog on directories and why they should be an important part of any link building strategy. She even includes a list of her favorite directories.

However, for webmasters just starting out, paying for directory submissions is not an option. This is where ISEDB and their list of free directories comes in handy.

Not only will you find listings of directories which accept non-pain submissions, but they also offer visitor ratings and reviews. The site also offers listings of Specialty, Local & Regional, and Weblogs Directories. Looking for those special directories targeting your niche? Chances are you will find it here.

The site also provides articles on search engine optimization, search engine marketing and a variety of other topics.

If you don't have the time to manually check out the site, sign up for their weekly newsletter or RSS feeds.

ISEDB should have something to interest every webmaster.

While casting about for a subject on which to write this week, we discovered the following articles and/or blog posts in which we think you might find some value.

Linkbait Tuesdays

Patrick at the UK site BlogStorm is offering to take a look at readers' web sites and offer tips "on how to make the site more attractive to linkers along with a few ideas for linkbait articles." No SEO or internet marketing blogs, though.

If you are interested send an email to patrick at blogstorm.co.uk.

You might also want to take a look at the qualities of a successful linkbaiter.

3 Steps to Solid Linkbait

Eric Lander, associate editor at Search Engine Journal, came back from the New York SMX Social Media conference with some ideas about link bait.

They are Research, Originality and Being Social.

To find what works in your particular industry or niche, Lander suggests searching at digg.com for your topic and checking out the kinds of items that are popular.

He says, "You want to look beyond the number of Diggs a story or link has. Look for those with the strongest level of comments and supporters, and be faithful that such topics can yield success. After thorough research in each category, you can begin to draw a number of conclusions."

For example, if your topic is "Spanish real estate," type that into the search bar and make sure to sort for most Diggs. That way the most popular stories will be at the top. This will give you an idea of the popularity of specific topics. Be sure to pay attention to how long ago it was submitted.

Make sure your information is Original and Creative. "If it’s genuine, original and creative you just may win out with a quality piece of link bait," Lander said.

He also offers this: "Understand that perception is reality. If you have a great blog post that would actually be successful when used as link bait, make sure you cater to these types of systems. Strip out advertising to all those coming into your site from sources like Redit, Digg and Delicious to help get your content in front of the people that seek it out. If a user thinks that you are trying to profit from their attention rather than provide them with what they are after, they will quickly cut you down to size."

Lastly, Lander offers this on being part of a social community: "Link bait is of course a tool that requires social media and social networking to be a success. By that very nature then, we are working with other people and communicating with them through the content we suggest and the recaps we provide.

It is the community of these social tools that will make or break our efforts. The faster we understand that the communities are our friends, the more quickly we will be rewarded with successful link bait efforts."

How To Buy Blog Reviews for Effective Link Building

For those of you with the resources to invest in blog reviews, Loren Baker, editor of Search Engine Journal, has developed 12 tips. Here are a few of them:

1. Flying under the radar. Negotiate directly with the bloggers to avoid identification as a paid post.
2. Using Blog Review Services. If you don't have the time, Baker suggests using SponsoredReviews or ReviewMe, but caution is urged.
3. Pay for some high profile reviews. Caution is also the watchword here.
4. Beware the Review Only Blogs. Blogs that only have reviews raise red flags for at Google.
5. Beware the Review Badges. "Such badges take away from the quality of the blogs, and also identify them to search robots as being associated as review blogs." Avoid these.
6. Mix Up Your Review Themes. "DO NOT guide all bloggers to write similar reviews on your business. Ask some to do honest reviews. Ask some to just say they found your site online and found it interesting. Ask some to do comparisons with other products or better yet, lists of products."
7. Mix Up Your Anchor Text. "Mix it up a bit; on some blogs ask for keyword friendly anchors, on other blogs, ask for 'click here' or 'more information' to be linked, on others, ask them to link to internal pages using the link text they want to use. Such incentived linking behavior leads to an end result of more natural linking."

Much has been written about the practice of link baiting over the past several years; some negative, some positive. But what, exactly, is it.

This is how Wikipedia defines it: "Link bait is any content or feature within a web site that somehow baits viewers to place links to it from other web sites." Not a great definition, but it gets the point across.

Darren Rowse had this to say about it in a post at problogger.net,"Like almost anything online, people use linkbaiting strategies for good and healthy purposes but also for dubious and ‘evil’. I guess in part we each need to think about our priorities, values and even ethics as we go about our blogging and explore this topic."

We are going to concentrate on the positive aspects of linkbaiting and the following qualities that make up a successful linkbaiter:

Focused - A successful linkbaiter is one who is primarily focuses on one particular topic. Success is gained with a specialized that topic. Be careful to make sure your particular niche includes enough readers to make your work worthwhile. If your topic is too specialized, you may not get enough return on your time investment.

Generous - Share your knowledge and encourage others to pass it on. Remember: the more you give, the more you get.

Accurate - Be sure of your facts when developing your link bait. Nothing will kill your credibility faster than passing out bad information. If you have made a mistake, admit it, apologize, and go on. Your readers will appreciate your honesty.

Curious - Delve deep into the topic. Leave no resource behind. Learn as much as you can about your topic and share your knowledge.

Inventive and creative - Look for fresh ideas and be creative in your approach.

Humility - Once successful don't forget from whence you came. Always be aware and respectful of those who have helped you along the way.

Patient - Don't try to rush your results. Good linkbaiting takes time to be successful.

Passionate - Your readers will appreciate well-written, well-argued, passionate writing, and that passion will make it link worthy. Write with passion and the links will come.

Honesty - Quote and credit those who inspired and helped you. This will only strengthen your reputation.

Inspirational - Write in such a way as to inspire your readers to think. Open the door and gently nudge them through, but be careful not to insult their intelligence by writing down to them.

We are sure there are many more qualities for a successful creator of link bait, but start with these and soon you, too, will start reaping the rewards.

By Jake Lowrey

In today's competitive online world, it's not enough just to get the links so your site can be found. You have to convert the visitors to customers. You have to build their trust and show them why they should be buying your products, or signing up for your e-newsletter, or downloading your scripts.

Here are a few tips on how to convince your visitors to conduct business with you:

1. Tell Your Visitors Where You Are

Always include your postal address on your web site. Visitors are more apt to trust you if you show them where you are located, and include it on each page. Here's a good example: http://outsource.techndu.com/

If you have multiple offices, show each address. You don't have anything to hide do you? Of course not.

2. Tell Your Visitors Who You Are

Human nature being what it is, potential customers are more prone to buy from someone they know. Set up a page of key employees including photos and biographies. Have your employees write about themselves in a conversational tone. This will add a bit of intimacy and contribute to the trust factor.

3. Explain Why They Should Choose You

There may be many sites offering the same products or services as yours, so you have to tell visitors why they should do business with you. Have special pricing, or offer special deals not found elsewhere? Tell them.

Do you guarantee your work? Explain it to your visitors in terms they can understand.

4. Include Testimonials From Satisfied Customers

Surfers are a wary bunch. They like to know that others have tried your products or services and have had a positive experience. They are more likely to take advantage of what you are offering if they can see others are satisfied customers. Testimonials demonstrate that you run a serious business and visitors will appreciate that reassurance.

Let your current customers convince newcomers you can be trusted. You can add a testimonial in the sidebar of each page or have a dedicated page listing several. If you have a separate page, make sure there is a link to it from each page of your site.

5. Include a Privacy Statement

Does your web site gather information on each visitor? If so, let them know how you use that information with a Privacy Statement. Be sure to include information on the security of your site. If you don't collect identifiable information on visitors, tell them that, too.

Follow these tips and soon you will see your trust level increase and all the hard work you have put into your web site will begin to pay off a lot sooner that you think.

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Jake Lowrey has communications experience as a news reporter, editor and public relations professional. Current assignments include writing for Team Link Network.

By Jake Lowrey

Writing at Search Engine Land, Debra O. Mastaler offers her version of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Link Builders including the need to stay on top of trends in your particular industry, the value of patience and leveraging cross-channel marketing.

All great ideas, but we are going to focus on her #4 - "Make content, not war."

She writes: "The easy part of link building is knowing that you need them. The hard part is influencing the right people to give them to you without making it look like you asked. Good content attracts links on it own." Then goes on to list five excellent ideas to attract links via content.

One of these - "Develop a blog and update it at least 3x a week" - we've previously covered. The others, along with our comments, are listed below. We have numbered them for your convenience.

1. "Don't send your content away to an article directory, build a library on your site and stock it with your articles."

We are great proponents of article writing, with one caveat. If you do not have the skills to write a well-informed, coherent article, don't do it. There is nothing worse than a rambling, pointless article full of grammatical errors. Such an article will have the opposite effect of what you are trying to accomplish - it will drive people away!

Unless you have formal training in writing, or have had success with your writings in college, we suggest before publishing a self-written article on your web site you show it to a trusted friend, or better yet, to a former teacher or professor.

Once you establish your library of articles, you can begin to promote it through industry-specific forums and blogs and through news releases. You should begin your self-promotion with as few as two or three articles. Just be sure to add to the library on a regular basis so people have a reason to link to you.

2. "Create a glossary for your industry, promote it with the media when it's complete."

Every industry has their own jargon. Providing on your site a list of terms and their definitions used by your particular group offers an excellent opportunity for the attraction of links. You may want to rephrase the definitions in your own voice to make it stand out. In addition, take the opportunity to link from the definitions to some of your internal pages that can help illustrate the meanings.

3. "Design a widget or put together a free promotion using one of your products."

Most of us are not code writers, so designing a "widget" is beyond our skills. If you can't talk one of your friends who writes code into designing something for you, then use the free promotion aspect.

You may even want to make it a regular feature of your site, say, weekly or monthly. You can either offer a buy one, get one free promotion, or sponsor a contest. It could be something as simple as asking visitors to send in ideas on how to best use the product with the top idea as the winner. You may even want to post some of the ideas and have your visitors vote. Use you imagination; the possibilities are limitless.

You can even use some of the generated ideas to create new content for your site.

4. "Take a picture of every item you own and create a photo library on your site to hold them. Allow anyone to use the photo provided they leave the embedded link intact. Look into submitting photos with Creative Commons."

This has to be one of the most creative ideas we've seen in a long time. Two things we'll add to this. One, make sure there is only one item in each photo unless, of course, it is a group of items. Two, add written descriptions of each item and perhaps a bit of history for additional content.

Of course, as with the article library, be sure to promote your new content with news releases and on industry forums.

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Jake Lowrey has communications experience as a news reporter, editor and public relations professional. Current assignments include writing for Team Link Network.

By Jake Lowrey

Much has been written about Google's attempts to wipe out paid links by getting users to report anyone they suspect of - gasp! - buying links. In our opinion no one is more on top of the situation than Michael Gray in his Wolf Howl blog.

During the recent SES Conference in San Jose, CA, Gray conducted a session on the paid link controversy. Unfortunately, many of us were unable to attend. However, so many people have asked about his presentation that he included a link to the PowerPoint he used.

We have gleaned the gist of his presentation and present it here for you.

• Google developed an algorithm based on links.
• They expect you to change your business model and implementations to compensate for flaws in their algorithm.
• Google made 1.12 billion dollar profit 2nd Quarter 2007.
• Google expects you to sacrifice income and profitability to compensate for their flaws.
• They expect you to do it for free!

The Trail of Lies for No-Follow

• No follow was developed to combat blog spam.
• 3 Months after no-follow was widely adopted Google changed the rules.
• Google took advantage of the entire web publishing world for their own goals.

Why is Google Opposed to Paid Links?

• Paid Links Work.
• It’s nearly impossible to rank in any competitive SERP without paid links ... Unless you are Wikipedia.
• Google runs a competitive advertising product.
• By eliminating competition Google insures the profitability of their product.

Creating Fear Uncertainty and Doubt

• Google tries to convince you that by buying or selling paid links, you are breaking the law or being unethical.
• Google creates fear of losing your rankings and traffic by being removed from their index, if you don’t follow their guidelines.

Google Has Overstepped it’s Boundaries

• According to Google their mission is to "organize the world’s information."
• Google’s mission is not to tell you how to build and implement your website.
• Google’s mission is not to tell you how to buy or sell advertising.
• Google’s mission is not to tell you how to run your business.

It seems to us, and to many others, that Google's only motive in trying to do away with paid links has to do with their own corporate interests and is not an attempt to make the web a better place.

Don't fall for their lies.