Increase Ranking With Contextual Linking
Jun 30 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in SEO
Do you have a “link page” on your Web site? Well, think about changing. A better and more effective way to have quality links on your page is by using contextual linking.
What is contextual linking, you might ask? Well, the answer is simple… it’s adding links that are embedded in your existing content-rich pages.
Forget those pages where you’ve just added a whole bunch of links to various companies. Even dividing them into industries doesn’t help (unless your Web site happens to be a directory). There’s no CONTENT on these pages to make the search engines happy. And who is going to voluntarily visit your link page? Probably nobody; conduct a survey and you shall see… ;-)
A simple text link will normally consist of a few anchor words, with a link to that other Web site. They aren’t within actual content on the page. But a context link will exist within lots of text that is relevant.
The number of links within that text should not be overwhelming to the visitor. And it’s important to know that these contextual links are particularly high quality. Search engines will rate them as such because of the content of your pages, as well as rating the quality of the content of the pages that your link links to.
You can ask others to add your link into their pages by already having their link on your page, but you will find that if you are not indexed in the major search engines, they will refuse to reciprocate. Why? Because no one is going to find that link. Ensure you are indexed. How to find out?
Type in your Web site address into Google. Does your site come up? If so, you’re indexed.
Also, be sure that the site you are asking to contain your link comes up as being indexed. Place their Web site URL into Google as well. If they aren’t indexed, forget about them for now.
Having contextual links has become a viable way to drive traffic to your site. You’ll find targeted traffic will arrive, eager to see what you have available.
Remember: Relevant text is important. You don’t want to be selling services as an auto mechanic and have links to laser printer sales companies. But if you have links to businesses that sell auto parts or cars or tires… well, you see what I mean.
Here’s an example of how it could work. Let’s say you have a Web site where you’re writing about your travel experiences. Here’s a part of your possible content and a contextual link…
The last time I traveled to Europe I booked my ticket to Germany at TicketsFor99.com.
That “ticket to Germany at TicketsFor99.com” is an in-context text link, a link within and relevant to the content.
Doing contextual linking will set you up to get more quality traffic and thus more sales. Do it!
—Marcus Hochstadt
9 CommentsPermalink Tags: link building, SEO
Keywords, Search Engines, And Your Content
Jun 11 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in SEO
When creating content for your Web site, you should be aware of some tips in regards to keyword placement that will make for happier Search Engine results. You want to have interesting content as well as keywords in the right places and in the right density. Here are some ideas for you to make optimizing your site much more effective.
How People Search
When someone wants to find something using a Search Engine, they usually use some sort of word combination. For instance, when looking for information about where to go in San Francisco, they may type in “san francisco sights” or “activities san francisco.” You would consider this to be a specific keyword since they do not use general info about San Francisco but info specifically about sights and/or activities in that area.
Another example: Someone wants to purchase a fax ribbon. They might type in the model fax they use and “fax ribbon.”
The first thing you want to do is consider how people would search for your service or product to come up with the specific keywords you want to use. The more specific the search term is (i.e., San Francisco as the specific word and Bay Bridge for the general term), and the more specific you present your page’s content, the more targeted your visitors are supposed to be.
Headline
Your headline, of course, has to pull the reader into the rest of the body copy. So it not only has to be exciting and stimulating, but it also is advantageous to contain your specific keyword. In addition, you can also include general keywords if they fit in nicely. If you entitle your article something completely different in trying to be creative, you may find that no one will be reading it, because Search Engines and humans may find it confusing.
Then you will take the picture your headline has painted and continue it into the main body of your content.
Placement of Keywords
Before we get into covering the body specifically, we should go over the placement of keywords (although I strongly recommend you to write the content first and then go to “editing mode”!)
You will need to put the specific keyword into the text just a tad more than “normal” writing. But you also don’t want to overuse the word. One trick is to use related words or synonyms with it. To use the above example here, you would not only have “San Francisco” appear by itself, but could mention “San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf” or “the sunset over the San Francisco Bay.” You can work out combinations to use with general keywords, as well.
The closer to the beginning that your specific keyword appears, the higher you will likely score in the search engines. Put the specific keyword in the first sentence of your first paragraph. If you can include it within the first 90 characters, all the better! But if that reads awkwardly, you can put it a little later in the text. It won’t be the end of the world. And be sure to include it in the last paragraph of your text.
Now put your specific keyword into the rest of the text in a pattern something like an hourglass. You will have the word appear more frequently at the top and bottom, but it should still appear in the middle—just less often. If you put it in too many times, you may show up in Search Engines as a “keyword spammer.” This will hurt your ratings.
Formatting and Style
Formatting is important. You don’t want content that will fail to interest the visitors. If too short, it won’t really catch their attention and cause them to read on, and if too long, they will lose interest and not keep reading either.
You want a correct length that will provide high quality information that is informative and exciting. A conversational tone is excellent to engage readers, keeping to maximum five lines per each paragraph and using active verbs. Sentences shouldn’t be too long.
Text Body
Now as you tell your story, you need to remember to start strongly. What you write in your headline and the first part of your content will most likely appear in some of the Search Engine listings. You want to compel the person to click on your listing when it shows up.
You are basically building your content around that specific keyword. In other words, each page of your Web site should focus on one specific keyword.
When you over deliver with superior content, the visitor will be more inclined to read down the whole page and get to the links that will mean income for you. The content should be answering the visitor’s question of “What is in it for me?” That would be the question they have when they arrive at your site.
And with correct keyword placement, the Search Engines will “understand” what your page is about, without “feeling” they are being manipulated.
Really, the engines and human visitors both want the same thing, excellent high-quality content. So the bottom line is to have proper keyword placement, and a smart use of related words, increasing your relevancy and getting your visitors to buy your service or product.
—Marcus Hochstadt
4 CommentsPermalink Tags: keyword placement, keywords, search engines
SEO vs. Design
Jun 6 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in SEO
There’s a constant debate between designers and search engine optimizers… and maybe you can guess what it is! It’s the war between including fancy designs with images versus focusing on providing relevant text.
Web designers usually want to avoid lots of text that distracts from their aesthetic page and from their design standing out to visitors. They can get carried away with very fancy graphics and all sorts of things.
On the other side of the coin, SEOers know that just appearance isn’t the only characteristic of a good site, and they, therefore, try to achieve plenty of content that will work the magic of converting visitors into paying customers.
To be clear, design really focuses on the appearance of the pages. What sort of graphics you have on your pages, how they are laid out, and of course, the color schemes and such. That’s your design.
SEOers are looking to the optimization of your site. They focus on the quality of the text as well as the quantity. The copy also has to attract search engines. If search engines don’t find your page, you won’t have any visitors to your pages at all (unless you pay for traffic)… therefore, no one to admire the design!
You will have to get the important concept here. It’s vital that visitors receive your sales message. When you have an Internet business, you’ll have to ask yourself, “What will work the best so I get visitors, and once they arrive on my site, what will work best to have those visitors actually buy my product or service?”
Yes, like Iron Man, you can become powerful and in a causative position over the results your website gets. You have to concentrate on optimization. There isn’t such a thing as a complete balance in design and optimization. Not in this competitive world.
Simplicity in design is really the best way to go… in fact “overdoing” this simplicity. You can keep to black for your fonts and lines and use white for background. That simple. At the end of the day, it’s the content that will keep your site interesting to visitors.
When you do use images, use alt tags, title attributes, and targeted file names to optimize them for the Search Engines. But you must still realize that the old saying holds true, “Content is King!” You have to ensure that the copy on your pages contains keywords in the correct density… relevant copy too, I might add. ;-) This is where you should focus most of your attention.
If your Internet business is invisible to search engines, it’s like having a big store on a main street in town but leaving the doors locked and the windows covered. If an excellent message is lacking, people may find your site, but they will come and then go. It’s too easy for visitors to go shop somewhere else. They click the back button and they’re gone!
Online marketing is vital, and SEO is a large part of that. Without relevant, exciting and informative content, you will just sit in the dark, unvisited and unloved. Your shop will remain closed, virtually and every other way.
Paying thousands to have your site designed doesn’t automatically guarantee that you’ll be the newest and best on the Web, getting thousands of visitors weekly… or daily.
The two subjects of design and SEO don’t have to be in conflict. The visual appearance can be pleasing with simple design. It will load quickly and be easier to navigate without all the additional photos, logos, and other distracting graphics. Besides, rather than having your visitors stare at the design, make them read the actual content.
Bottom line, the content is what will keep visitors coming back, and ultimately doing business with you!
—Marcus Hochstadt
14 CommentsPermalink Tags: design, SEO
Why Some Should Change The Permalink Structure
Mar 11 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in SEO
From time to time, I find WordPress powered blogs that use a certain default setting.
Nothing wrong with defaults in general, but the one I’m talking about today is one of the key essentials for getting high rankings at the Search Engines, and it makes folks remember and recognize certain pages more easily.
Therefore, I find it essential for your Internet Business.
What am I talking about anyway?
Permalinks (or “Permanent Links”)
When people visit your WordPress blog they will see a list of the most current posts. But what happens if a user wants to come back to read a specific post in a few days or months time? It could be that it has disappeared off the home page and is now archived somewhere. This is where permalinks come in.
Permalinks are quite simply permanent links to your post, and per default these look like…
http://www.yourblog.com/?p=123
The “p=123″ means something to WordPress, however it means very little to anyone else, or Search Engines for that matter. These are the two main reasons why you might want to change your permalink structure in your WordPress application.
SEO is a hot topic nowadays. Just in case you have been living with cotton wool in your ears for the past few years then it stands for “Search Engine Optimization.” This basically means making your site more attractive to Search Engines.
When Search Engines are crawling the Internet they may pay attention to certain sites and index them. “p=123″ means absolutely nothing (other than that it’s the 123th post,) unless of course someone searches for “p=123″ which is very unlikely! What would be better is to change this link to something meaningful.
Changing the format of these links will also make it possible for humans to remember certain links. Including the post name in the permalink will make it much easier for people to remember the content of the post.
Also, when someone sees a post of your blog, s/he decides whether or not to click-through to that particular blog post. Having a “p=123″ may not accomplish this.
Changing The Permalink Structure In WordPress
To change the permalink structure in your WordPress application, click on OPTIONS -> PERMALINKS. Under “Common Options” check the radio button beside “Custom, specify below” and enter the following…
%postname%
This will result in a structure such as http://www.yourblog.com/name-of-post
Why only %postname% and nothing more, like the date or the category?
The reason why I use %postname% only is word-of-mouth, which is a crucial part of any Internet business. Similarly to choosing a good domain name, the longer the URL the harder to remember and the more difficult it will be to have a clickable link in e-mails, comments, chatting, etc (may be chopped off.)
—Marcus Hochstadt
P.S. For more information, visit the WordPress tutorial on changing the permalink structure.
How To Choose A Good Domain Name
Feb 29 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in SEO, Traffic Generation
Ever wondered how to choose the right domain name for your Internet business?
Choosing a good domain name can make us gripe especially in terms of SEO. What I mean is when you want to have your Site Concept keyword in it as well. Depending on your site’s theme, the domain name may become very long, making it difficult to remember properly.
Let’s say you target the audience of tennis, therefore your Site Concept keyword (i.e., the keyword you focus on on your site) may be tennis. tennis.com is already taken, so you end up searching for a good alternative. And to decide upon that alternative may take a little while.
Here are the rules I follow when searching for profitable domain names in my Internet business endeavors…
- If possible, include your Site Concept keyword. It shall give you a 20% ranking nudge in terms of SEO.
- Keep the domain name as short as possible. Every character counts (more often than not!)
- OK, I agree it depends on your Site Concept keyword, because when that is “bed and breakfast” you already have three words—15 characters—plus any additional characters that make the name fairly long already. Still, keep it as short as possible or word of mouth may not work so well.
- Use a memorable, perhaps even remarkable name. Is it easy to remember? Or do people ask you several times to repeat the name?
- Is it easy to spell? The more difficult it is to spell the more names you’ll need to register (in order to “get them all”.) Speaking of which…
- How many equivalents does it “contain”? For a good live example… You do know the most popular video sharing site, don’t you? Yes, youtube.com. Now, did you ever happen to enter utube.com instead? I assume lots of people do. Go to alexa.com and take a look at utube.com’s 3-year history graph. (Link goes to alexa; once there click on the “3y” link in the history graph.) Speaks volumes, doesn’t it? So make sure you register the “misspelled versions,” too.
- Does your name stand out from the name crowd? Does it have some sort of uniqueness? Google was fairly unknown five years ago. Nowadays?
- Does the name make people click through to the site? Is it “attractive”? Are they curious to know what’s behind it?
- Is it “you”? Does the domain name describe you in some way?
- Does the name convey a clear message? Does it give them an idea of what to expect once they clicked?
- If you use 2 or more words, register both the hyphenated and the non-hyphenated version (using the non-hyphenated version for the content site.)
- The best TLDs regarded by surfers are .com, .org, or .net.
Here’s an Exercise…
With three (or more) possible names in hand, ask 20 people for their opinions in terms of memorability, uniqueness, and meaningfulness.
The results may surprise you. ;-)
(It took me 2-3 months before I decided upon MyGermanCity.com. I had a bunch of shorter names, but MyGermanCity.com surpassed them all big time.)
Using Two Domain Names?
Some folks say one could register a longer name for the Search Engines and a short “non-keyword” name for use on business cards and in e-mail.
Hmm, just imagine this…
You hand out the shorter name that has no content but simply brings visitors to the longer SE friendly name with all the content. Though, these folks may only be aware of the shorter name, so they start linking to that one. What happens?
SEs assign PageRank (PR) values to that shorter name. Although it has no content, yet still, folks link to it. (SEs seems to love honest human activities like this.)
With this in mind, I would use only one domain name in both cases so I don’t miss out on any “link love gifts.”
Bottom Line?
Keep it short. Make it memorable. Make people want to click through.
The most important of all though is to do proper market and keyword research BEFORE you register a domain name for your Internet business!
—Marcus Hochstadt
16 CommentsPermalink Tags: domain name, keyword, SEO
Top 4 In 43 Days
Feb 13 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in Business, SEO, Traffic Generation
My blog is #4 on Google for its main keyword internet business after only 43 days.
Yes, you read that right.
If you ever researched keywords and/or markets and niches, you probably know that internet business is a highly competitive niche market. Yes, it’s not a niche, it’s a market. Some folks wouldn’t even consider entering that industry. They think they would never make it against the “big guys.”
I’m about to beat ‘em. :-)
As a disclaimer, when you go to Google you’ll likely see different results. The screenshot above (click on it to see the large version) was made on the Brazilian version google.com.br. On the U.S. American portal google.com, my blog is on #847.
Still, as you can see I compete against 179,000,000 (!) other Web sites, and I’m on #4. Cool… (It has a reason my Alexa Ranking in Brazil, as of today, is at 15,675…)
I’m going to share my tips and strategies that I think are responsible for this with you soon, so stay tuned.
Just wanted to give you a quick heads up. :-)
—Marcus Hochstadt
12 CommentsPermalink Tags: alexa ranking, google, high rankings
Getting Your Pages Indexed In A Matter Of Hours
Jan 25 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in SEO, Tutorials
I regularly see folks putting up Web sites but don’t know how to get the pages indexed by the Search Engines. Some think the SEs will somehow magically find all of them somewhere someday.
I haven’t come across that magic yet.
Still, there are several methods available for getting your pages indexed in a matter of hours. Today, I’m going to talk about one of them…
Sitemap files
Although they might have heard of them somehow somewhere, there are still lots of Webmasters out there that don not implement an XML Sitemap file to their sites. It’s a pity because Search Engines LOVE them.
I’m not talking about a Sitemap for your human visitors; I’m talking about one created particularly for the SEs, in a predefined format. For more details see www.sitemaps.org.
Google initially created this concept, then worked with Yahoo!, Ask and Microsoft to make it a standard protocol that all four Search Engines can use.
Now, when you run your Internet business with content rich Web sites, there are tools available online which create a Sitemap file for you. Just go to Google and enter “sitemaps generator” or something similar and you’ll find plenty.
If you own a blog there is a WordPress Google Sitemaps plugin available that I personally use and recommend. It updates your Sitemap file automatically whenever you update an old or publish a new post or page. Very neat.
Once you’ve set everything up you are ready to submit your Sitemap file(s) to the four big SEs. Since this is a very helpful step for your Internet business, I took the time and compiled the below how-to guide for you. These are the exact same steps I follow myself in order to get my sites and pages indexed in a matter of hours.
Alright, here we go…
- Sign up to Google Webmaster Tools and/or go straight to Google Sitemaps Login.
- Submit you Site URL by adding your domain name(s) to the Webmaster Tools Dashboard.
- Optional: If you want to take advantage of Google’s comprehensive statistics and crawl reports, go ahead and “Verify your site.” (A yellow “Next Step” box shall appear near the top at this moment.)
- Next, click on the “Sitemaps” link in the NavBar on left hand side, then on “Add Sitemap.”
- In the drop-down that appears, choose “Add General Web Sitemap.”
- Enter the Sitemap’s URL into the box that says “My Sitemap URL is:” (though without the domain name and the http:// prefix since it’s already there.)
- If you have more than one Web site to manage and Sitemap file to submit, click on the “Dashboard” link on top to submit and manage your other sites.
Yahoo!
- Go to the Yahoo! Site Explorer and submit your home page (first field, where it says “Submit a Website”)
- When you’re done, go back to the Yahoo! Site Explorer and submit your Sitemap file (second field, where it says “Submit Site Feed”)
- Click on the green “Authenticate” button in the upper right to certify ownership. Whether you added a META tag or uploaded a file, remember to keep either version active for as long as you manage the site. Who knows… If you remove it, Yahoo! might simply go ahead and dismiss your site from their index. Not a good thing, is it.. ;-)
- If you have more than one site to manage and Sitemap file to submit, click on the “Site Explorer Home” link on top to submit and manage your other sites.
- Optional: Check back after a day or two to see the status of the authentification; hence whether there are any issues.
Live
- Go to the Live Search Webmaster Central. If you don’t have an MSN or Live account yet, create one and then sign in.
- Click on the “Add a Site” button.
- Enter the full URL of the site you’re about to manage, and below that enter the full URL of the respective Sitemap file.
- Choose which method you’re going to use for ownership verification. (More details are going to appear once you clicked on the “Submit” button.)
- Enter your contact info. (Don’t know if this is obligatory, but I entered it anyway; maybe kind of verification v.2 ;-)
- Now you get to see details for the verification method you chose a step before. Once you’ve uploaded the XML file or put the META tag to your site’s home page, click “OK”. Again, keep the file or the META tag active for as long as you own or manage that site.
- Want to add more sites? Click on the “Add a Site” button. If you don’t see that button, click on the “See all your websites” link on right hand side and it shall appear.
Ask
Unfortunately, Ask does not provide a “Webmaster Central” kind of thing (yet) so you cannot control whether they captured your Sitemap file(s) or to have other neat little tools. They provide a foolproof 10-second method though. Here we go…
1) Copy and paste the following URL into a plain text editor (ex., NotePad, TextEdit)…
http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http%3A//
2) See that http%3A// at its end? Put the Sitemap file’s URL after it but without the http://
So the final URL should look like this…
http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http%3A//www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
(I used “sitemap.xml” as the example file name. Though, I recommend you use another file name, one that can not be easily guessed; ex., 3KLfu54.xml.)
3) Now paste that line into your browser’s address bar and hit enter. Ask will then confirm the success of your Sitemap submission. If not, check the correctness of the URL again. (Ex., are there any spaces before, between, or at the end; any line breaks, etc.)
–
Phew; that’s it!
You’ve now successfully submitted your Sitemap file(s) to the four big Search Engines Boys! This shall help pumping up your Internet business substantially. Again, these four cover 95% of all searches performed online.
NOTE: Submitting your Sitemap file to the SEs does not warrant high rankings, nor does it guarantee to get all pages indexed in “5 minutes.” Still, it does help getting indexed much faster and a lot more pages though. ;-)
Let me know how it goes?
—Marcus Hochstadt
11 CommentsPermalink Tags: SEO, sitemap file
To How Many Search Engines Should I Submit My Site?
Jan 24 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in SEO
This is a question that comes up often… “To how many Search Engines should I submit my site?”
There are millions of searches being performed each and every day. Getting sites indexed in order to receive free traffic from the SEs is one crucial step towards becoming free in your Internet business endeavors.
So what’s the answer? To how many?
- Yahoo!
- Live (MSN)
- Ask
These are the “Search Engine Boys” if you so will. Yes, only four. Not a silly 30,000, 3,000 or 300, only 4 (four). These four cover 95% of all searches performed online. All others are either aggregators (i.e., use one of the above SE’s technology) or are just too insignificant in importance.
As an old saying goes, better focus on the 20% that cover 80% of the market. (Here it’s rather focusing on the 5% that cover 95%.)
That means, whenever you get an offer such as “we’ll submit your site to 300+ Search Engines” — it might sound great but forget it! You do more harm than good to your site’s health.
“But where exactly do I submit my site(s) to?” you ask? I knew you would. ;-)
OK, here we go…
Yahoo!
https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit
Live/MSN
http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx
Ask
None.
Oops! Why “none”? They say they will discover your site through links from other sites to yours.
Now, it may take up to several months until they indexed your site. Yup, that much. I do have a much faster method though.
Do you want to know how to get your site(s) indexed in as little as 48 hours (or less)?
Stay tuned. I’m going to post that tutorial soon. :-)
—Marcus Hochstadt
7 CommentsPermalink Tags: SEO, submit site
RECENT THOUGHTS