There is no point in building links to your web pages unless you have already done your on site SEO first. In a very popular previous post we did we discussed the difference between an SEO personality and a Link Builder’s personality. An SEO typically focuses on optimizing the content ON the web site. (aka On Site SEO). That is what we are going to talk about today; best practices for On Site SEO.

Google describes SEO this way: Search engine optimization is often about making small modifications to parts of your web site. When viewed individually, these changes might seem like incremental improvements, but when combined with other optimizations, they could have a noticeable impact on your site’s user experience and performance in organic search results.

Best Practices For On Site SEO

• Can you show me examples of your previous work and share some success stories?
• Do you follow the Google Webmaster Guidelines?
• Do you offer any online marketing services or advice to complement your organic search business?
• What kind of results do you expect to see, and in what timeframe? How do you measure your success?
• What’s your experience in my industry?
• What’s your experience in my country/city?
• What’s your experience developing international sites?
• What are your most important SEO techniques?
• How long have you been in business?
• How can I expect to communicate with you? Will you share with me all the changes you make to my site, and provide detailed information about your recommendations and the reasoning behind them?

Vertical Measures

Website – More Posts

Every Tuesday we pick a vertical market based on the number of votes a market receives at our Vertical Market Poll. This week it is the Jewelry & Watch  market.   We invite all of you out there to post (in the comments) a specific link building recommendation for the jewlery & watch retail market (a good directory, authority website, blog, link search, etc.). If it adds value, we will approve it, give you the credit and a “dofollow” link to your site. However, we will just delete stupid, irrelevant, spammy comments – only truly useful information will be allowed. 

Our avid readers (with the least brain damage) will remember our "teach a man to fish" post, where we explained HOW to find links for the Golf Course market.  Well for all you jewelry and watch retailers out there, today is your lucky day.  As you know, we are all about links.  We do not like spammers and we do not like black hat, but we truly believe in "Link Love, Not War".   So with that in mind, we are going to lay some nice link opportunities right in your lap.  You still have to write a quality comment and get it approved, but much of the work is already done for you.

We went out and found six solid blog posts where you can leave an informative comment and get a backlink to your site.  Of course, we realize we are putting these sites at risk of being spammed, so we encourage all of you out there to be good link builders and do not abuse this list.  If you do, we will hear about it and it will be the last time we will publish such a list.

Now let’s hear from the rest of you. Place your advice for link building for the jewelry & watch market in the comments below. Those that are accepted will get a nice "dofollow" link from us.

Make sure you sign up for our email or RSS feed so that you are alerted every time a new niche market is covered. Even if we are not focusing on your niche, you just might see a pretty creative idea that will trigger an thought for your market. 

WE NEED VOTES!  Please be sure to vote for your market today!  VOTE HERE

[tags]jewelry, watches, jewelry websites, jewelry links, link building, contextual links, blog posts, blog comments [/tags]

Vertical Measures

Every Tuesday we pick a vertical market based on the number of votes a market receives at our Vertical Market Poll. This week it is the Mortgage & Finance market. We invite all of you out there to post (in the comments) a specific link building recommendation for the mortgage market (a good directory, authority website, blog, link search, etc.). If it adds value, we will approve it, give you the credit and a “dofollow” link to your site. However, we will just delete stupid, irrelevant, spammy comments – only truly useful information will be allowed. 

Our recommendations this week center around blogs.  There are really two different links that you can get from other blogs; 1) links from comments, 2) links from the actual posts. 

Blog Commenting – we strongly recommend that you become active with several blogs related to the mortgage and finance industry.  In particular, blogs related to your niche.  If you specialize in FHA loans, then find posts about FHA loans and comment.  Be sure to add real value in you comment.  If you feel like being aggressive, try using your important keyword phrases as your anchor text in your "name" or in the comment itself.  Some bloggers are okay with that, some don’t like it.  It’s up to you on how you proceed.  To find relevant blogs and posts, try using the advanced search feature on Technorati.  Here is an example for "FHA Loans".  Like all link building that is worthwhile, this takes some time, effort and commitment.

Blog Posts – contextual links in the actual blog post are some of the most powerful links you can get.  But how do you get a blogger to write about you and link to you using your anchor text?  Well aside from paying the blogger, a practice frowned on by Google, you might offer to write a guest post.  Using the technique mentioned above to find related blogs, you might write to the blog owner asking if you can place a "guest post" on their site.  Believe me, most bloggers are happy to have someone else provide a guest post for them as long as it is professional and not a sales pitch about any one product or service.  Here is a sample email you might try:

Hi Arnie,
I recently started writing work for mortgage & finance sites as a content writer. I would like to write a guest post related to mortgages or finance on your site if you’re interested in accepting such a post. If you are interested, please let me know and I can send you an article for you to look over.

I will write a good, useful post on any topic specifically for your blog, free of cost. But I will need a by-line to build up my writing portfolio. In addition, there will be a link to my site (www.mysite.com) in the by-line or text. So, it will help all parties concerned.

Please note: I can write any topic that suits the audience of your blog.

Some sample posts written by me:

[list some URLS where the blogger can see your work]

All the above articles were widely read and received numerous links from other bloggers.

Thanks for your time and I am looking forward to your reply.

Thanks,
Vic

If you set aside a few hours per month pursuing both blog comments and blog posts, you will get some excellent links to your mortgage sites.  Now lets hear from the rest of you. Place your advice for link building for the mortgage & finance market in the comments below. Those that are accepted will get a nice "dofollow" link from us.

Make sure you sign up for our email or RSS feed so that you are alerted every time a new niche market is covered. Even if we are not focusing on your niche, you just might see a pretty creative idea that will trigger an thought for your market. 

WE NEED VOTES!  Please be sure to vote for your market today!  VOTE HERE

[tags]mortgage market, finance market, mortgage loans, financial services, mortgage links, link building, contextual links [/tags]

Vertical Measures

Well okay, we have to admit that it isn’t easy to achieve top search engine rankings, but it may be easier than you think. The key is to understand contextual linking and to tailor your keyword phrases a bit. Greed is the enemy of page rank – everyone in the mortgage industry may want to be one of the top five in Google search for mortgages, but you’re facing some stiff competition considering how many millions of mortgage lenders there are. The competition can be fierce and expensive.

The key to a top search engine ranking is diversifying your keywords a bit to cover several niche markets within the overall market. For instance, you may not be able to be number one for “mortgages,” but you could certainly be in the top five for “Arizona FHA loans,” “Pennsylvania home equity loans,” or “best CA mortgage rates” if you focus on 3-5 word phrases (the long tail) rather than one catch-all keyword like “mortgages.”

Hitting Once vs. Hitting Many Times

The results can be phenomenal. In this case, most people are searching for a mortgage lender that can work with them specifically and can address their situation, so most searchers are going to narrow the focus of their search according to their own needs, which could be by state, type of loan, bank affiliation, etc. If you’ve done your homework and can come up with several combinations of words or phrases to combine with the word “mortgage,” you will soon find yourself with top search engine ranking on the first page of Google searches for many niche searches. If you can’t be in the top five for "mortgages", wouldn’t it be great to be in the top five for twenty different kinds of specific mortgage or mortgage services in twenty different states?

Contextual Links can Get you Top Search Engine Rankings

Contextual links on your site will help you rank well with the search engines if you have these links set up for each of the exact 3-5 keyword phrases that you are trying to rank high on search pages. Remember, contextual links are considered Primary Text by the search engines. Placing your contextual links “above the fold,” or in the top half (or better yet, top quarter) of each page they appear on strengthens their importance for search engine purposes.

An even better use of contextual links is to make sure your exact keyword phrases are used as links back to your site from other websites. There are several ways to achieve this, including reciprocal links on sites that are relevant to your own site but not competitive with it (for mortgages, you might want links from sites that offer real estate services, credit cards or credit counseling, home improvement information, payment calculators….the variations are endless). Better yet, have your keyword phrases appear within relevant articles or blog posts. Readers are sure to notice these links and these kinds of dynamic links will definitely get the attention of search engines.

To maintain your top search engine ranking in niche areas, periodically update, rewrite and add to the information and links you have for each of your 3-5 keyword phrases. If you’ve ranked on the first search page for twenty different phrases, you can rotate through these and update five or so phrases each month when you’re in a time crunch and can’t work on all twenty. The beauty of this is that, even if a few of your phrases slip down in the rankings, you still have other phrases that are performing well and keeping you in the top search engine rankings. Done right, a variety of specific, niche keyword phrases will keep you in the top of the search engine rankings with great consistency.

[tags] top search engine rankings, contextual links, keyword research, reciprocal links, niche markets [/tags]

Vertical Measures

You may have tried link building campaigns in the past and been disappointed in the results. Perhaps you got barely a blip in the major search engines or you saw your rank rise only to fall a few months later. Whatever the reasons for your disappointment, it’s a good bet that the main reason you were disappointed in the results is that whatever link building tactics you used or paid for lacked two important qualities: balance and consistency.

The Importance of Balance in Link Building

Some people advocate the importance of content-rich websites, others focus on blogs and still others will insist that directories are the most important link building campaign features. The truth is never as simple as some people try to make it. It can seem like blogs are the place to link one month, and then be out of fashion just a few months later, with forums replacing them as the Holy Grail for link building.

The truth is, all of the many places you can link to and from (with the exception of unsavory linking sites that are tantamount to spam) are important to provide you a balance of coverage in your link building campaigns. Search engines are constantly changing, growing and evolving. They become more complex, develop new algorithms and morph so that you can’t ever keep up with how they are weighing the relative importance of any one kind of link, so you shouldn’t even try.

The solution is to balance your link building strategies for the greatest possible coverage over a multitude of formats. If you do this, you’ll find that you are always hitting on multiple cylinders. Although you might not be getting great results from every single link strategy, you’ll be getting pretty good ranking from several of them. It’s like playing a good point spread – coverage is key.

A good link building campaign with optimal coverage will include all of these:
• Directories with real editors. Well-known directories that are always updating and actually review the links are a hot destination for many industries.
• Forums. Links to your site from various forums provide dynamic attention for you – forums are the equivalent of the water cooler – the site where the latest and most interesting topics come up. Be present at the virtual water cooler and you’ll be talked about – and linked to.
• Article directories. Submit relevant, informative articles to directories to easily multiply your links. These article directories are used by others to provide content for everything from newsletters to special reports – if your content is good, you’ll quickly become a recognized expert.
• Reciprocal links. Provide links to sites that compliment what you are offering and ask that they link to you. Similar sites that aren’t direct competitors are powerful link partners.
• Contextual links in blogs and reviews. Another instance of the power of the people – reviewers drive people to sites because they are recognized as experts, so try and get reviewed and be sure a link to your site is included. Some people won’t even know they need you until they read a great blog about you –and then they will hot-foot it to your site for more information.

If you use a good mix of link building techniques, you’ll be balancing your exposure over all of the many kinds of linking that the major search engines use so that you’re always noticed without the risk of falling down in the ranks because one particular link strategy is out of favor.

Why Consistency is Key

Many individuals start out in overdrive when they start a linking campaign. They submit to dozens of industry directories, pack their website and article directories with great content, get noticed on blogs and in reviews, set up links on complimentary sites and enjoy the fruits of their labor – top rankings.

Then something happens; they find that they just don’t have the time to continue writing articles, they stop visiting blogs because they are overwhelmed with new customers….and they stop building links or slow down considerably. Unfortunately, they discover that they are now dropping in the search engine rankings and they can’t understand it. After all, nothing’s changed, right?

Actually, that’s precisely the point – nothing is changing. If you stop actively creating links and building a following, you will fall in the rankings because your competitors are actively building links, adding content and quietly passing you in popularity. The search engines are dynamic, so you can’t afford not being dynamic yourself – you have to consistently build on what you started in order to stay ahead of the pack. It’s a long-term commitment that you have to make if you don’t want to lose in the long run.

The perfect link building campaign is a combination of balance and consistency. If you continue to spread your links out over many venues and keep the content and information flowing every month, you’ll be successful in building a valuable network of links that will send you to the top of the pages.

[tags] link building, link popularity, directories, article marketing, contextual links, forums [/tags]

Vertical Measures