You can do this – SEO is simpler than you think
Posted on February 22, 2008
Filed Under | 3 Comments
See more at LiveBlueprints.com >>>
More on How to Rank on The Search Engines
Posted on February 12, 2008
Filed Under | 1 Comment
After my last post I received the following from Paul:
“I’ve used the service you mentioned, Directory Maximizer, and I’d give it a thumbs up from my end as well. They did a fairly good job and the results worked well since I’ve used the service regularly as they keep adding new directories.
Although having said that, directory links alone won’t suffice. You also need to work on getting links from relevant sites. Directory links will only support your other links, in my opinion”
I agree 100%, Paul.
Here are the problems of relying totally on directories:
- As a general rule, directories permit links only to the root url (your home page). Google looks for deep links and directory link building does nothing to help that. There are a few directories that permit links to interior pages and when you find them you should send a link to an interior page but realize this will be rare.
- Directories are losing a lot of their page rank. Particularly with their interior pages where your links are most likely to reside.
- Directories do not provide enough focused, on topic content to make your links count highly.
So with directories being less effective than they used to be, what do you do?
A lot of gurus are proclaiming that using social media sites are the way to go. If you’ve not heard this latest buzz term you soon will. Social media sites are simply sites that permit varying levels of social interaction. Some are content sites (like Squidoo and Hubpages) and others are bookmarking sites (like Digg or Del.icio.us) and of course let’s not forget the top three most popular sites, Utube, Facebook and MySpace.
Now there are a few sites that are worth an investment of time but most of it won’t help you in the long term. Why? Because social media sites, highly proclaimed by the gurus out there as being able to rank in minutes on Google’s first page are only ranking for very long tail terms that will rarely get any traffic. Beyond that, their ’stickiness’ factor (how long do they stay on Google) is limited. And finally, these links don’t send folks directly to your site, it sends them to the host site and you have to hope that you can direct traffic to your site.
I’ll be releasing a video shortly on the truth behind social media. But in the meantime, don’t dispair. You see there is plenty you can do right now to rank well in the SERPs. Last year Yanik Silver asked me to present at his exclusive Underground III seminar and after a lot of arm twising on our part, we’ve gotten Yanik to agree to let us release the video taped presentation I gave then. Here’s the fun part – it all still works.
You can view the UG3 video at www.liveblueprints.com. We’ve parsed the video into 5 roughly 10 minute segements so you can watch it at your leisure and go back to the parts you want to review easily. And we’ve even added a fun, very short video on why dropshipping makes more sense than inventorying if you are considering setting up an ecommerce site.
Enjoy!
Nancy
P.S., If you want to sign up in the opt-in box, we’ll be sure to let you know about our latest video releases. Of course I’ll post here as well.
How to Get Links to Rank High
Posted on February 5, 2008
Filed Under | Leave a Comment
Got a request from Bob this week:
Hi I’m 19 and I’ve been making websites for two years. But the MAJOR problem is that they all can’t get traffic. What’s stopping me from making money is the obstacle of acquiring traffic. What do you recommend I do to get tons of links to rank high? I have SEO Elite as well but the webmasters most of them don’t want to give me a link. So therefore, it’s very hard to rank high. I have read about your success and I really think you are the right person for me to talk to. I have talked to many others and they all have said that I should ask webmasters to see if they want to link to my site but that simply doesn’t work well. Could you recommend where I should get links from? (Also where would I get links for adult related sites as well?) Thanks, Bob
Well Bob, you are right that step one is getting traffic and in my opinion there is no better source of traffic than ranking well on Google. Ranking on Google does take links and getting good links in some ways has never been harder. Here’s what you are up against:
- I like SEO Elite but frankly I don’t bother using it to try to find links. As you’ve discovered that is a tremendous waste of time – website owners don’t want to do much reciprocal linking anymore. There’s a reason for this as Google has publicly stated that it will penalize sites that do ‘excessive’ (that’s their term and they don’t define it) reciprocal link trades. Beyond that, Google has effectively stripped page rank from most sites’ link directories. Stripped of page rank, these directories are not worth the effort.
- There are tons of free directories that you can submit to. This can be time consuming and what I do is use a trusted inexpensive service (I like Directory Maximizer) to get it done on a schedule I prepare. But free directory submissions alone won’t be enough. For one thing free directories are also under pressure from Google in sustaining and building page rank. For another, they just don’t have the authority to transmit to your site.
- There are a few higher authority directories, some of which cost money to submit to, that can help your site rank. We list our favorites at here on LiveBlueprints.com along with all our favorite tools and resources. Look at the bottom of the page for the high authority sites we like.
One more thing, Bob. You don’t need TONS of links to rank well on Google. You need the right ones.
Now those of you who know me know that I often find what others consider ‘conventional wisdom’ to be worthless. Here’s just another instance. You will often find counsel that says you should reverse engineer the top 3 sites and mimic their links to get high rankings. That’s another waste of time. What you need to consider is that the top ranking sites tend to be there because they’ve been around for awhile. That gives them an edge in building sites that are bigger, older and generally more authoritative than yours. And their past linking practices may not be the most effective ones now with Google. So what do you do?
You should be watching the SERPs (search engine results pages) for movement on page one. When you see sites that move onto page 1 that are newer sites, take a look at their linking structure. Why? Because it’s fresh. It’s more respresentive of what Google is looking for now.
Bob, I’d love it if you could send me one or two of your sites and I’ll take a cursory view. And I’ll be back in a few days with more on this subject. Stay tuned…
Nancy
Pages
- About Nancy
- Tools of the Trade
- Ask Nancy – Got a question? I’ll do my best to answer it.
- Silly SEO: Unique Valentine’s Day Gift for Grandson…
Recently
- tha action has moved
- OK – It’s True – I’m Opening Again…
- Social Media – Heaven or Hype?
- You can do this – SEO is simpler than you think
- More on How to Rank on The Search Engines
- How to Get Links to Rank High
- Is the Supplemental Index Really Dead?
- After a Too Long Absence…
- Questions about my comments on links from directories…
- Product Sourcing