Reciprocal links and link exchange

February 27, 2013 by Ray

Any inbound link is a good one, but there is a wide difference in their quality. One link from a respected, popular website may be worth more than ten links from low-ranking or poor quality sites.

Reciprocal Links: friends and associates
Trade links with business associates and anyone else you know with a website. Contact fellow members of associations, your chamber of commerce, social organizations, or any group you’re part of. Place links to each others’ sites since you already know and trust them. Maybe you’ll be allowed a longer description or preferred page placement because of your relationship.

It’s more helpful if the site content is related, but even being located in the same geographical area lends a degree of “relevance”. If people aren’t capable of adding links, they should contact Attraction Web Design for help [nice shameless plug].

Reciprocal Links: the open market
Trading links has always been a popular way to increase the number of inbound links. Exchanging links allows both sites to benefit, so everyone is happy (including the hungry S.E. tiger!!). This can be a time-consuming measure, so there is software that can be bought and there are online services to automate the process. One worthwhile service with both free and fee options is http://www.LinkPartners.com.

Links are more valuable from highly ranked sites with good traffic, so a link from Microsoft gives you more credit than one from Joe’s Computers.
Avoid FFA Link Farms – A FFA (Free For All) website enables any website owner to place their link on a web page. These are worthless, since search engines despise this practice and won’t give you credit.
Ensure that your link is actually posted on the other site and that it is not just a bogus “Link Farm” itself, meaning there is no site content.
Fewer links on a page means more “link juice” to be divided among them, so if your link is on a page with over 100 others, it may be virtually worthless.

Link Building – creating inbound links

February 14, 2013 by Ray

To link or not to link, that is the question! In general, the more the merrier, however some links can harm your site’s “reputation” if they are in a bad neighborhood.

Avoid questionable link building strategies
Be careful! If you see a link building opportunity that appears suspicious, ignore it. You could be wasting your time or even risk having your site penalized for significant periods of time by search engines. It’s up to you to verify legitimacy and value of any agreements.

“White Hat” SEO practices refer to safe, honest and trustworthy methods of obtaining links. “Black Hat” practices are unscrupulous site design or link-building methods with the purpose of cheating or tricking search engines. Examples of these “bad guys” are excessive use of keywords on a page or sites designed purely to list links.

Post links everywhere you can think of
Include your web address in any online information about yourself. Your fraternal organization, church, college alumni association, civic association, sports or activity club, networking group, support circle, may allow you to post a personal profile where you can add a link or even brief advertisement. Ask friends to link from their MySpace page!

Submit yourself to awards sites
Find sites that offer to post your link as a “site of the day” or any other reason. One place to start is http://CoolSiteoftheDay.com, which ranks highly in search engines.

Use affiliate programs to get linked
If you have a product, start your own affiliate program and email related sites who’d like to add another stream of income. Not only might you earn cash yourself, but each affiliate gladly provides another inbound link to help you climb higher in Google and Yahoo! http://Clickbank.com is an easy way to use a system already in place (for digitally delivered products only). Join for $50 and affiliates post a banner or text link to automatically receive credit for customers who purchase through their links.

Publish in other people’s newsletters
Offer to write articles for eZines or email newsletters of associates (and even competitors) in your industry. Anyone publishing regular materials needs content, so your “payment” may be a link to your site, along with a one-sentence description.

Internal page links
Even internal links (within your site) can help. This includes anchor links within a page to jump from one area to another.

From SEO-guy.com: “Anchors are used to reference specific locations on a page from other locations on that same page. These “on page links” are yet another place to get your main keywords in and boost that “on page” density.

An example is “back to the top” at the end of a page. Except as smart optimizers, we use our keywords instead of phrases like “back to top”. Here is an example:
At top of page I place my anchor: a name=”seo”
Farther down, I put SEO (instead of “TOP”)
I’ve now created a same page link containing my keyword and thus increased my density as well as received added weight by virtue of it being an anchor.”

Relative value of links
As with the entire “Google formula” for calculating rankings, the value of links has it’s own complicated formula. Anchor text, relevancy of the other site, page rank of the other site, number of links per page and the other factors play a role. Even the words [or search terms] in text surrounding a link affects it’s quality in the eyes of Google.
Just remember that all links are not created equal!

Submit links to directories and search engines

January 20, 2013 by Ray

Link building is a important for achieving greater page rank in search engines. Along with quality content, search engines view inbound links as proof that your site is valuable to visitors. In other words, if lots of sites link to yours, your site must have worthwhile information, since in affect, they are citing you as an authority or a reference.

Free Directory Submissions
Directories are the logical place to start your link building campaign. They are happy to post your site to build their list or relevant results. Submit your site to as many web directories as you can. You can later refresh your information by re-submitting it, especially if content has changed. Free directories can take weeks, or even months to include your site. It is only necessary to submit your home (index) page.
Start with Google, Yahoo, MSN and the Open Directory.

Specialized Directories
Besides general category directories, you should submit to industry and geographically specific directories. These will help your search engine ranking and they can also drive targeted traffíc to your site. If you are a member of an association, the association website may include a list of members.

The state, county, region or city you live in may have a directory of sites for that particular area. Many will offer a basic listing for free with the option of an enhanced listing for a fee. http://www.Craigslist.org allows free advertising as long as you follow their guidelines.

Paid Directory Submissions
Annual subscriptions can be purchased for directories such as Yahoo, BOTW, and http://www.Business.com. They will add your profile more quickly than their free counterparts and are more likely to allow you to choose the title of your link. This gives you the opportunity to build your links according to your targeted keywords instead of simply the site name.

For example if your site is ‘ABC Lawn Co.’, a better ‘title’ in a directory or any other website would be “Grass and Lawn Mowing Service” since it directly includes several applicable terms. Paid directories may also allow deep linking to individual pages of your website so that particular search terms will automatically lead visitors to pertinent information.

Things to avoid on your website

November 21, 2012 by Ray

Here are some bad ideas—things NOT to do when designing a website. You can annoy visitors to the point of driving traffic away forever. Large files slow down pageloads. Pop-up windows create more work and confusion for visitors. Splash or “entry pages” serve little purpose on most sites.

No pop-up windows
Don’t annoy visitors with automatic pop-up windows. It is fine to allow new windows to open when links or text or images are moused over or clicked on, but let the viewer control that decision. And provide a “close” button if the window does not disappear by itself.

No spaces in file names
Filenames (including page files and images) should not contain spaces. Some servers do not support spaces. The underscore may be used.
These are good: “bob3.jpg”, “about_us.html”.
These are not good: “bob 3.jpg”, “about us.html”.

Audio must be controlled
Sound files must be used with caution. If appropriate, automatic sound bites or background music can add to viewers’ experience. Give visitors control to turn on and off. Music can seem very unprofessional for most business sites. Even on more casual websites, it must be remembered that many viewers—particularly at the workplace— have speakers turned off. Sound files can also cause delays in loading pages if not properly optimized or incorporated.

Optimize image files
Compress image files which can cause slow page loading. Especially if a viewer is using dial-up, a 25 KB image loads more quickly than a 200 KB one, and a 2 or 4 MB photo (right out of a digital camera) can cause severe delays. Don’t make your customers wait!

Once you or your webmaster learns how to crop photos and resize them to proper width and height for the web, adding new photos will be quick and easy. Open the image in editing software such as Photoshop, Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, or another program that came installed on your PC or came with your digital camera, scanner or printer. Specific procedures for using Microsoft Paint are listed at http://www.AttractWeb.com/images.php. You should “Save As” a different name, so that you still have the full size original.

Don’t overdue multimedia
Beware of excess multimedia – too many cool effects can cause confusion and hurt search engine rank. Multiple blinking or moving images can make your site look like a circus. Even an expertly created Flash movie can detract from nearby text if it commands too much attention. Keep visual effects as subtle as possible, unless you happen to be a circus, or children’s site or rock band.

Avoid “Splash” or entry pages
Stay away from “Splash” pages unless it’s vital for you to convey an artsy or glamorous feel and can afford the risk of losing visitors. An entry page is usually the index or main page that directories and search engines would review and refer visitors to. If there is little more than a movie or a handful of words, the search engine tigers will be furious for being given so little content to eat. Visitors who are pressed for time may not be happy to have to click ‘enter’ to get to the meat of the site either.
If at all possible, try to combine your impressive introduction to the website with the general overview of home page material. In that way, your video, Flash movie or slideshow is directly supporting the words of description on the page.

Do not overuse Flash
To make websites more visually appealing and interactive, many designers specialize in using Adobe (Macromedia) Flash software. Flash movies may be integrated into pages or entire websites may be constructed with Flash. The danger is that more Flash means less content as far as Search Engines are concerned. A completely Flash site offers no text for the tigers to feed on since it is all just movies and images on each page. Even the internal links can’t be seen, so Search Engine “spiders” fail to see (and index) all of the pages on the site.

Flash is fine if used on pages or websites that visitors are already aware of or directed to from more search engine friendly pages. They can offer video game types of visual experiences that are attention grabbing for artistic or entertainment related themes.

Don’t use Frames
By designing a site with “frames”, certain sections of a page remain in place while others (usually the main section) can scroll up and down. This is useful for maintaining a navigation area on the screen while reading long pages. But search engines have difficulty indexing pages, so they are not worth the effort.

Create user friendly websites

October 14, 2012 by Ray

Show your visitors that you appreciate them and respect their valuable time. Provide beneficial information while making it easy to find what they need.

Provide beneficial information
Build trust by actually providing solid information. Free information is good, but high quality free info can set you apart from the crowd. Extensive FAQ or self-help sections of websites can start a priceless domino effect of word of mouth publicity. Of course this works best for informational websites that draw revenue from advertisers, but it can improve the reputation and recognition of any organization and help you build a list of warm leads.

Make it easy to contact you
Place contact info, or a link to it, on the top and/or bottom of each page. Make your first choice of contact most conspicuous, such as easy-to-read phone number, possibly with smaller cell, fax, physical mailing address if they are secondary avenues.

Explain what makes you special
Why should visitors stay at your site for more than 5 seconds? What separates you from the competition? What is your niche? What valuable items or information are you offering at no or low cost? Answer all of these on your home page and other main pages.
Use the magic words: Best, Free, Leader, Lowest prices, Most experienced, etc., then back it up on secondary pages with lists of features, testimonials from happy customers, statistics, side by side comparisons, product reviews from respected sources and instructions for best results.

Say “Thank you”
Thank your visitors for purchasing, completing a questionnaire or just visiting! Look for opportunities to show your appreciation and they will remember your friendliness.
Set this page up as confirmation of submitting a contact form.

Keep information current
Consider a “Last Modified” date on time-sensitive material, particularly if there is any question as to if this could be relevant only to a previous date or version of the topic being discussed. Caution: Only use this if your content is clearly valid. If the only date on a page is “copyright 1998”, visitors may assume that this page (and possibly others) is old and untrustworthy.

Avoid distractions
Keep blinking text, scrolling text, animated GIF images, and sound files to a minimum. Use these only if they highlight important sections of text and blend well with the look of the site. Do not place too many of these moving features too close to each other, to avoid a nice page from seeming tacky.

Remind visitors where they stand
Don’t rely on the memory of users. If an article extends to a second page, repeat its title, possibly with the word “continued.” During each stage of an online purchase, display the key transaction details on each page. Include a “Back” button if they don’t wish to continue moving deeper into a particular area. Guide them throughout your website, prompting them to take action when appropriate. Clean navigation keeps visitors happy.