We all know that link building is one of the keys to the success of websites on the Internet. We can debate what kinds of links are best and where they need to be placed endlessly, but the truth is that there’s always more to learn and you can’t learn it all from “experience.” In fact, trial and error could be the death knell of your business – too many mistakes while trying to develop link building strategies could tank your website. Sure, you could tell yourself that you’ve learned some valuable lessons along the way, but that’s not going to take the sting out of a failed business venture.

That’s why link building training programs can be such a valuable resource whether you do SEO in-house or whether you’ve decided to become an expert in the art of SEO and link building programs as a consultant to other business owners. There are a variety of programs available tailored to the needs of corporations, copywriters, advertising and SEO specialists that can provide you with the skills you need to build links that will work.

Know What You’re Looking For in a Training Program

There are as many kinds of programs as there are businesses on the Internet, so be sure you shop around rather than signing up for the first seminar you find. Do you want something that will enable you to learn the basics quickly so that you can implement some tried and true link building strategies yourself, or do you want a more in-depth program that you can build on as you create a business model as a recognized Internet marketing expert? Some programs are aimed at the small business owner who wants to “do it himself,” while others are lengthy, specialized courses for marketing professionals. Know what you’re signing on for so that you don’t waste time or money. We’ve selected a few of the more popular programs to get you started:

We Build Pages offers one or two day programs to give companies solid overviews of the link building process, SEO, competition strategies and search ranking factors. This is ideal for companies who want to begin “in house” programs.

Eric Ward offers personal evaluation of your company’s website and, in the two hour session, a link development strategy session, including evaluation of competitor’s sites and full reports. This is individual instruction by phone unless you opt for the six hour on-site training session, which includes six months of IM access for follow-ups.

Justilien Gaspard focuses heavily on link building and offers one-on-one training that features lots of in-depth discussion specific to your own business and site. Link bait and email campaigns are among the topics.

Search Engine College is less personalized and less expensive. This is a “nuts and bolts” of SEO and SEM with a wide range of courses you can take online that are self-paced and self-directed. There are also lots of valuable resources in PDF form that you can download.  Covers more than just link building.

Sempo Institute is geared toward those who are looking at starting a career in SEO or SEM more than business owners who want to tweak their own websites. You can learn a lot here, but it will be of a general nature rather than specific to your company or industry. They also offer corporate training options for corporations who feel that their in-house marketing teams need refresher or advanced courses.

There are also conferences such as SES , SMX, and Pubcon, but you won’t get too much out of a 1 or 2 hour public discussion on link building.  As you can see, there are good several options for link building training.  Deciding which will benefit your business the most is up to you. Doing some homework before you decide – and knowing what it is you want to get out of a training course – will lead you to the right link building training program for your situation.

[tags] link building, link building training, SES, SMX, Pubcon, SEMPO [/tags]

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One of the easiest ways to improve search engine placement is to use press releases. It sounds old-fashioned, but press releases remain a tried and true way to publicize your website. The fact that press releases have been around long before the emergence of the Internet doesn’t mean they aren’t amazingly effective. Why? Because they’ve morphed and changed right along with the Internet.

Think about it – just like news agencies, the lowly press release has evolved to fit the marketplace. Where news was once garnered by the public primarily from newspapers and magazines, then radio and television, today people can choose from a wide variety of sources for their news, including a vast array of sources on the web, including news outlets like CNN, Reuters and MSNBC, tailored news feeds via RSS services, local websites, personalized blogs and dozens of other sources. In the same way, you can tailor your press releases to improve your search engine placement and guarantee that they will be picked up by a wide variety of news and media outlets.

Optimizing Press Releases for Maximum Impact

There are several ways to spread your press releases all over the Internet. The key is to make sure you hit a variety of markets and distribute them across a wide range of sources and interests. You should also be sure to distribute them in a variety of ways. For instance:

• Don’t neglect traditional press release venues. Fax and mail your press releases to newspapers and magazines. After all, people still read the daily paper and enjoy relaxing with a magazine with a cup of coffee. You never know when they’ll see your company or website featured and the next time they log in, they’ll check you out. Focus on the local angle to entice media in your area and tailor it to the universal appeal for larger outlets. A few extra minutes spent personalizing your press releases can make a huge difference. 

• Be sure to target any RSS services and newswires that are specific to – or related to – your industry. Do you have a fabulous new engineering tool? Then send press releases to any industry services that provide RSS feeds that are specific to engineering, technical services or the sciences. You’ll be amazed at how quickly your press release is picked up and appears on sites around the world. 

• Go directly to the source – the magazines and media themselves. Aim high. Don’t be afraid to submit your press releases directly to the big guys. If you get picked up by CNN or Popular Science, you can bet you’ll soon be picked up by almost everyone else. There’s a viral effect that’s amazing on stories in the news. 

• Bloggers are a great way to improve search engine placement through press releases. These guys love to break a new and interesting story that’s related to something they are passionate about. If you are familiar with the writings of some popular and influential bloggers, by all means send them your press releases. These bloggers can create real buzz about your press release and generate interest that will result in your PR being picked up by media sources. You may also be contacted by others who request additional information.

The power of a press release, rather than being diminished by the advent of the Internet, has increased. You simply have to know how to use them properly. Adjusting your thinking and understanding how to use a press release in the new marketplace means that your press releases can be powerful tools to your success and lead to improved search engine placement.

[tags] improved search engine placement, press releases, website publicity [/tags]

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The internal link structure of a website is a search engine optimization factor that is often overlooked by webmasters.   We often tell our clients that taking care of your internal links is one of the easiest ways to actually gain links and improve on-site SEO.  This article, provided by our friends at Axandra – an SEO tool we use every day, suggests seven things you can do to improve the link structure of your website.

Why does the link structure of your website has an effect on your rankings? 

The internal link structure of your site allows you to spread the link power of your home page to the individual pages of your site.

For example, if 1,000 other websites link to your home page, then your home page has a certain link power that can be spread to the other pages of your site. If you link to 50 pages on your home page then each page will get 1/50 of the link power. If you link to only 10 pages, then each page will get much more link power passed to it (1/10).

The more link power a page receives, the more likely it is that the page will get high rankings on search engines. Your internal link structure allows you to direct search engines to your most important pages.

How to improve the internal link structure of your website

There are several things that you can do to improve the rankings of special pages on your website:

1) Make sure that the most important pages on your site can be reached with as few clicks as possible from your home page. The fewer clicks you need to get to a web page, the more important it looks to search engines. 

2) Link to the pages for which you want to have high rankings from all pages of your website that are related to that page. The easiest way to get related links to a web page is to link from your own website.

3) Use your targeted keywords in the links to these pages. Make sure that you use keywords that are highly relevant and targeted.  Show search engines for which keywords your web pages are relevant.

4) Make the links on your website absolute. Do not link to mypage.htm but to www.yoursite.com/mypage.htm. If other people scrape your web page contents, you’ll get backlinks from these sites. 

5) Add a nofollow attribute to all links that aren’t important for your search engine rankings. For example, your privacy policy page or the web page with your terms and conditions probably needn’t be listed in search engines.  The fewer links you have on a page, the more important is the single link to the other pages on your site. If possible, remove unnecessary links from your web pages. 

6) Use your robots.txt file or the robots meta tag to exclude duplicate or irrelevant pages from indexing. This is very similar to tip 5. If search engines don’t have to parse your unimportant pages they can take a close look at the pages for which you want to be ranked. 

7) Check your website for 404 not found errors and redirect these old links to the most appropriate pages. You might want to use the link checker that you can access in the new IBP 10 beta (not an affliate link). 

By optimizing the structure of how your web pages pass their link power, you can influence how search engines treat the content of your website.

Once you have optimized the link structure of your website, you should try to get more links from other websites.

It’s hard to beat a website with a great internal and external link structure.

[tags] search engine optimization, internal links, SEO, keyword research, internal link structure [/tags]

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I was actually fooled by this when I first saw it in an email I received.  Like many, I thought is was a clever church sign. 

But for some reason I noticed a web address on the sign and realized I had been had… by some very clever linkbait.  Just couldn’t resist making a few signs of my own (below) while demonstrating that not all linkbait needs to be a free calculator or SEO tool. 

[tags] linkbait, purchase links, link building service [/tags]

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