They are, but you need to create them with SEO in mind to get the full benefit.
]]>It's also a good chance that you've had someone promise they will get your website on the first page of Google. It's like the gold standard promise. But there is an argument for not being there – in fact that it may not serve your business all that well.
]]>To get to the top of Google, and we're talking top of the organic (non-paid) search results, you have to convince Google that your site is the best one for whatever it is that the searcher is looking for.
If you operate in a competitive market, just having a great website won't be enough. By competitive, we mean there are more than half a dozen local suppliers in the same industry as you are. This means they are fighting for the interest of the same audience.
If this is the case you've got to persuade Google that you are better than all of them.
It's like high school all over again - with popularity the name of the game. In the world of search engine optimisation (SEO) you need others to confirm that your website (and therefore your business) is a great destination.
On the web, this means links. Links from another site to yours. Also known as backlinks.
Not all backlinks are made equal – buying '1000's of low quality links through article spinning and offshore directory listings is not the way to do it. It requires commitment, creative thinking and relationship building.
And there is no getting around it – this means it takes work.
If someone inside your business doesn't have the time, skills and experience needed to build links you can buy this expertise in. This can get expensive and you have to be very careful who you use.
The good news is you are probably already doing things within your business that you can leverage, re-use and re-purpose to help get backlinks without having to sell your soul.
Local link building or local SEO is vital if you deliver services to a specific geographic location eg Auckland. In this context, getting links from locally relevant sources is what you are aiming for.
Locally relevant sources include those who have some kind of standing in the business community – businesses, service providers, not for profits, media, councils and government agencies, educational institutes, associations etc.
So - how do you get backlinks from these types of organisations?
This can take true commitment and the links back to you will take time, but getting involved in your local community is a great way to get to know the people in that community, network and support other organisations.
The outcome you want is a mention (and with it, a link) on their website, and in any material published elsewhere, of course. Make sure you ask them to give you a link from the relevant content on their website as not all of these groups will think to do it as a matter of course.
In all cases, the idea is for your business name and a link to your website to be on any/all material published online about the event. It doesn't have to be flashy, just a simple text link will suffice (see the bit about anchor text below).
If you are already involved in your local community, it will be a case of asking people for these links to be included - easy!
Participate in local online discussions and forums if you can add value to the topic at hand. Don't use the now virtually pointless tactic of comment spam. This is comments like "Great work" or "Nice post – look forward to reading more, in the meantime check out my software training services".
If you are already involved in local business associations or groups, ask for a link from the people you have a good relationship with, particularly if you have done work for/with them. Make sure you are listed on any local business group's website you do belong to or are part of.
See it as another way to get referral businesses for those people in your group.
This means having something on your website that is useful to people such as:
1. A map, guide or list of local:
2. A guide through local bylaws or how to get something done using local businesses and organisations with contact details and weblinks in a step-by-step instruction
3. Video how-to's and tutorials for standard tasks that everyone needs to be able to do from DIY home improvement to changing the printer ink cartridges. You can refer to local suppliers within the video if you want to make it more relevant and useful to people within a specific area.
If possible, when creating this content, think of something related to your business because then you can include some of your expertise into the mix eg:
The idea with these types of resources is that other people who find them useful will link to them, rather than create their own.
For example, we're looking at one of our most popular blog posts How much will that website cost? to see if it can be turned into an online calculator so people can estimate the cost of a build based on their individual needs.
If it's relevant to your business, you can create digital resources in the form of images. Upload to Flickr or similar photo sharing site and make sure you specify that a citation and link is to be included if someone uses the image.
If you've spent time building a mutually positive relationship with a client or supplier then it is easier to ask them to help build both your businesses, than it is to ask a relative stranger.
Provide glowing (but honest) testimonials for any local business you interact with in return for a link on the testimonial when they publish it on their website. And who doesn't want more testimonials on their site?
This can include whoever you have used:
Or, you could offer something to help their content efforts, such as guest posts for their blog (if they have one).
And be sure to ask to be listed on any preferred vendors or partner pages.
Anchor text is the text used for the link back to your website, eg:
Essentee provide website design and website management services in Auckland
It's important because the text that is underlined - ie used as the link gives Google a clue about the site being linked to, and what it is all about.
Obviously if you are a lawyer, then you'd want the anchor text to be lawyer, legal advise, Auckland lawyers or something along those lines because it tells Google what you are.
Unfortunately, over-enthusiastic SEO'ers have abused the use of keyword phrases in anchor text, so Google will look for a 'natural profile' for these - which means that it looks like it hasn't been gamed. So it means mix it up a bit eg:
You want a decent percentage of your back link anchor text to include the phrases you are trying to be highly visible for, but don't focus on a single word or phrase.
Building a large number of links back to your website takes time.
Think along the lines of three to six months to make an impact, depending on what your competition is doing.
So you can't afford to not start as soon as you can if visibility in Google is important to your business.
While you are putting effort into creating back-links, don't forget to create regular, useful content to publish on your website. If you're stuck for inspiration, here is 15 ideas for website content.
This all contributes to creating a great website that is so packed full of good stuff that Google simply can't ignore it! A great piece of content can appear on the front page of Google within minutes.
]]>If you'd prefer to get 'free' traffic to your site, read on.
]]>This is not completely correct. Even though it is a statistic worth paying attention to, the Bounce Rate reported in Google Analytics is not used to calculate where you appear in Google.
]]>Or "You get what you pay for".
Yet hundreds of business owners are being duped by offers of cheap Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
I hesitate to use the word 'lazy' but it has to be because they don't want to, or don't know how to, ask some simple questions and do some digging before handing over the keys to their business reputation.
Please, run a mile if you're offered:
At best it will relieve you of some hard earned revenue. At worst it could mean completely rebuilding your website, your traffic numbers and your reputation from scratch. Sounds like I'm getting a bit hysterical, but I have heard of businesses that end up in exactly this pickle.
I can sympathise with a business that wants to save money, but why take the cheap option and hand over responsibility for something so vital to someone who could do so much damage, without being very sure they could be trusted? Do you hire full time employees the same way? Sorry to sound so grumpy, but it's just not good business.
Professional SEO's are NOT cheap. If you can't stump up the budget, you'd be better off with a modest PPC campaign like Adwords – at least you will get results. Or learn how to do it yourself (Here's a DIY Checklist)
What you get with cheap or shoddy SEO is:
No matter what they tell you. If you want to be on the front page of Google you have to EARN it. And the word 'earn' doesn't exist in the same sentence as 'shortcut'.
Good SEO professionals should talk to you about :
They should also properly manage your expectations and warn you it will take from three to six months to START seeing results.
Anyone willing to share any horror stories or hard earned lessons? Or even challenge the premise?!
]]>Most of these articles are written out of bigger economies like the US so think about the relevance to you and the size of your market. They also refer to software (usually their own!) as well directories and business associations that are not necessarily relevant. But they are packed full of good ideas, and even better could inspire you to put a twist on it and implement something a little different that works for you and your business.
13 ways to evaluate link prospects and find quality Provides more information about what makes for a good linking prospect
5 link building strategies that work More useful for bloggers, but a couple of useful suggestions for everyone else.
7 Reasons Content Marketing is Better Than Link Building – I especially like the last reason: It's more fun.
9 actionable tips for link prospecting – Nice post on how to find people and sites that may be link prospects (ie might give you a back link)
Eight link building tips Useful for people operating in a niche market especially bloggers
Non Content Based Link Opportunities Are Often Missed Nice change of perspective to think outside the link building square
101 Ways to build link popularity – A massive 101 ways to build link popularity. Some are tongue in cheek but if this doesn't give you ideas nothing will!
25 ways to get links – 25 reasons why another site will link to yours
Link building basics a great article that takes a high level view and includes a piece about mixing link quality.
B2B Marketers Are You Buying Links or Building Links – just because the competition is using dodgy back link strategies it doesn't mean you should too.
New Zealand SEO companies punished for dangerous link building strategies One from local NZ SEO experts. And yes we do see NZ SEO companies employing these tactics all the time.
Linkable asset inventory - a starting point for new link building campaigns - even if the time required to do this is beyond your means or you don't have a site to justify it, there's some useful thinking about what a linkable asset is
How to research create and distribute highly linkable content - a research/data analysis approach
21 essential seo tips techniques – Search Engine Land's take on essential seo tips and techniques
Link Building A-Z Guide to Definitions and Terms - what does THAT word mean, you were wondering and too afraid to ask?
It's also because there are so many factors at play that people can get obsessed about one or other tactic hoping it will be the "secret ingredient". SEO can get very complex at the technical end, but people forget to take into account the competitive environment they are in. Sometimes obsessing over duplicate content issues and "page sculpting" simply isn't worth the benefit you get out of it.
And, some people are just regurgitating what they have read or heard – not what they have found out through experience.
Lots of people will say SEO is a waste of time, money and effort. It's true that your could be throwing money away on 'snake oil salesmen' who use dodgy, short-term practices.
It is most likely to be wasted if you don't have your keyword strategy in place. But healthy organic rankings are (once you get them) more effective and sustainable than paid promotional methods.
No - they can't. Not unless they are talking about paid listings such as Adwords. Results vary depending on the competitiveness (which they can only guess at before starting), your budget, how good your products and services are, the size of your market and many other factors some of which are outside any one companies control.
And if your website is new, it will typically take 3-6 months of consistent, focused effort. And it is hard work.
Unlikely – especially following from Google's updates in the first few months of 2012. These specifically targeted practices that built links between sites in a 'group' of sites linking to each other. Links from directories containing thousands of links to other, unrelated businesses not even in the same country are also essentially worthless.
While a site may rank highly purely on the strength of it's back links, it's quite hard to do this if you aren't offering something on your website worth linking back to.
On site SEO is still an important foundation. And we see site's ranking well with almost no back-links, because their on-site SEO is good and their competitors aren't.
Every site works in it's own competitive niche.
It has it's own marketing and content strategy that will affect SEO strategy. The secret is that people looking for a silver bullet can still be fooled into paying thousands of dollars instead of doing the work that everyone knows is necessary.
Google can only determine bounce rate if a website has Google analytics loaded on it – and there are thousands of sites that use other reporting packages. You don't see those sites being penalised do you?.
Also, a single blog article that has amazing insight and thousands of links back to it may well have a 100% bounce rate. But that page will still rank highly.
Find out more about bounce rates and to reduce them
If your site has been built without SEO in mind, it's too late. The structure may not be oriented around search terms, and the technical elements disregarded.
A lot of confused business owners will say their site was optimised by their web developer. And maybe it was, but SEO takes consistent ongoing effort, particularly to build links and target long tail keywords with targeted pages. SEO is as much (if not more) about building roads to your business than about building the destination in the first place.
This one has been around a long time. You don't need to pay to submit your site to any of the search engines. If your site has been built properly they will find it. You can submit a site map to Google which can speed the process up and help make sure it is being indexed properly.
Nope. This one was so well and truly abused that the search engines have been ignoring the keyword tag for a long time.
All it does it make it easier for your competitors to know what keywords you are targeting.
Don't just ask your web designer/developer. A lot of them say yes without understanding anything about SEO.
So, how can you tell?
]]>A 'quality' back link is one that is going to provide a lot of 'link juice'. In other words Google is going to see it as a very positive endorsement of your business and reward your ranking score accordingly.
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