Tim Ash’s Upcoming Conversion Conference

by Sage Lewis

ConversionConference.com is a very cool new conference being put on by Tim Ash. It’s May 4 & 5 2010 in San Jose. If you are looking to get the most out of your traffic you need to seriously consider this conference.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

Win a $3500 Online Marketing Scholarship from MarketMotive (and Help a Non-Profit to Boot)

by Jennifer Laycock

If you’re looking to further your education in online marketing or know of a non-profit that could use an educational boost of their own, you’re going to be interested in hearing about MarketMotive’s spring scholarship contest. The team at MarketMotive is generously allowing each faculty member to award a scholarship to one of their readers.

The contest is simple…just write up a brief social media marketing plan for your favorite non-profit and you’ll have a chance to earn a free scholarship (valued at $3500) for the Master Certification class of your choice in MarketMotive’s spring quarter. You can choose to publish the proposal on your site and e-mail me the link, or you can e-mail it directly to me for review. I’ll pick my three favorites and will post them here on Search Engine Guide next week. My readers will vote on their favorite and the winner will be awarded the scholarship.

If you’re already a social media whiz, that’s fantastic…use the scholarship to sign up for one of our other courses. (Or, give it away to someone else!)

You can choose from quite a few different options:

• Paid Search Advertising with David Szetela




• Internet Marketing Fundamentals with Matt Bailey




• Web Analytics with Avinash Kaushik and John Marshall




• Online PR with Greg Jarboe




• Social Media Marketing with Jennifer Laycock




• Conversion Optimization with Bryan Eisenberg




• Search Engine Optimization with Todd Malicoat

Not familiar with MarketMotive? That’s ok…check out the program and watch a brief video explaining how it all works.

Rules: Submitting a plan means contestants agree that their plan may be be posted (with attribution) and/or sent to the charity. Plans may be edited before being posted at blog owner’s discretion. Winning plan (s)will be selected at the discretion of MarketMotive faculty chairs. All entries must be submitted before 12:01 am EST on April 4th, 2010, and the finalists will be announced the week of April 5th.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

SEO 101 – Part 15: Everything You Need to Know About Linking

by Stoney deGeyter

The following series is pulled from a presentation I gave to a group of beauty bloggers hosted by L’Oreal in New York. Most of the presentation is geared toward how to make a blog more search engine and user-friendly, however I will expand many of the concepts here to include tips and strategies for sites selling products or services across all industries.

Links come in all different shapes and sizes. Some good, some bad, some are just there. In part 14 of this series we looked at the anatomy of a link, analyzing the different elements that make a link what it is. There are a lot of things to consider when looking at the value of the link, many of which lie in the the value of the page or website doing the liking. But here we’ll look at a slightly different value of link, in how it’s linked between the two sites.

There are three basic ways of linking between sites, One-way, reciprocal and multi-way. We’ll take a look at these, their values and whether its a type of linking you should be engaged in.

Reciprocal Links

A reciprocal link, in simplest terms, is a link from Site A to site B and a link back from Site B to Site A. Many have written reciprocal links off as being completely irrelevant but that’s far too simplistic. There is nothing wrong with reciprocal links in an of themselves. Its all in the execution.

Low-Quality Reciprocal Links

The lowest quality reciprocal links are those found on pages specifically designed to house reciprocal links. What you get from these “resource” pages is a bunch of barely related links from Site A to one or more dozens of other websites. All of these build their own “resource” pages that do you the favor of linking back to you and one or more dozens of other sites.

These pages are usually easy to spot because they generally provide little value to the visitors of the site, other than for a good laugh. If you find yourself linking to a site that links back this way it would probably be of benefit to you to stop linking to them. The link pointed to you likely has no value, however by associating yourself with them (via your link) you can be sending the search engines a signal that you don’t care much about the quality of sites you link out to.

High-Quality Reciprocal Links

Despite the belief of some, there are reciprocal links that can pass a lot of value to you. Low-quality reciprocal links are there simply for the quid pro quo of the link. High quality reciprocal linking has nothing to do with doing someone a favor in order to get something in return. These are two links that are made independently of each other simply because you, and the “reciprocating” site find each other’s content valuable.

It’s entirely possible that one of the linking parties has no idea the other site is linking to them because each link was given entirely on the basis of the value of the content being linked to. It wasn’t pre-arranged or purposeful in any way.

That doesn’t mean you can’t pre-arrange a reciprocal link and still make it valuable. You can, you just need to make sure it looks as natural and non-pre-arranged as possible. Linking and receiving a link in the midst of quality content in primary site pages can do the trick. Just be careful about how many of these reciprocal links show up at the same time.

Multi-Way Links

This is where some of the link schemes get clever. Reciprocal links, we are told have no value so you have to have three or more site’s linking together so there is no direct reciprocating link at all.

Three-way link schemes aren’t all that difficult for search engines to sniff out so these multi-link programs have gotten more complex. The latest version is link wheels. This is where networks of sites link to a second level of sites which then link to you. You get dozens or hundreds of “one-way” links to your site through these link wheel networks.

Like most linking schemes these link wheels will probably have limited value over the short-term without any real long-term benefits.

One-Way Links

On a pure value standpoint, one way links (sans any linking schemes) are the most valuable links you can get. This is, in most circumstances, a link to your site from someone that finds your content valuable, doesn’t ask for a link back, you don’t link back to them on your own.

If you have good content, this type of link isn’t all that rare. The best link marketing is creating a valuable website that is informative, helpful and educational. Of course this isn’t proactive marketing, which is why you see a lot of options to purchase one-way links.

Without a doubt, search engines frown on purchased links that are not clearly defined as such both visually and/or using the nofollow attribute. Purchase links at your own risk. If you are using a broker that claims to keep their purchased links hidden from the search engines, keep in mind that the search engines can easily spend money building sites and purchasing links from these same networks. The hidden network is no longer hidden from the search engines and they might not even be aware of it.

Not all purchases links have no value, but only so long as the link flies under the search engine radar. This can rarely be done by purchasing links from a broker, but can be done on a one-on-one situation.

Links are an important part of your optimization campaign, but not every link will provide you the same value. Aside from worrying about reciprocal links, link wheels or even purchasing one-way links, go outside of the box of “get me a link” and think about providing value to your visitors that is worth linking to. Once you have that, then consider ways to get the word of your content out to those that are most likely to link, become customers, and spread the word.

Missed a part of this series?
Part 1: Everything You Need To Know About SEO
Part 2: Everything You Need To Know About Title Tags
Part 3: Everything You Need To Know About Meta Description and Keyword Tags
Part 4: Everything You Need To Know About Heading Tags and Alt Attributes
Part 5: Everything You Need To Know About Domain Names
Part 6: Everything You Need To Know About Search Engine Friendly URLs & Broken Links
Part 7: Everything You Need To Know About Site Architecture and Internal Linking
Part 8: Everything You Need To Know About Keywords
Part 9: Everything You Need To Know About Keyword Core Terms
Part 10: Everything You Need To Know About Keyword Qualifiers
Part 11: Everything You Need To Know About SEO Copywriting
Part 12: Everything You Need To Know About Page Content
Part 13: Everything You Need To Know About Links
Part 14: Everything You Need To Know About Link Anatomy

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

Google wants you to speed up your servers

by Mike Moran

Image via Wikipedia

Nobody likes slow web sites, but did you know that it affects your search results? Google is on the record as saying that site performance is a key factor in both organic and paid search results. The other search engines might be doing the same thing. So, if your site has always been a little sluggish during peak times, or just a bit pokey all the time, it might be hurting you in ways that you don’t realize.

It’s always been true that a slow-loading site can hurt your organic search results. Sites that load more slowly aren’t crawled as often or as deeply. The spider will spend only so much time on your site, so the faster it responds, the more pages get indexed. If your site loads slowly, some of your pages might not be indexed, which means they will not be found in a search.

Recently, Google has publicly spoken about going even further, actually using page load speed as a ranking factor. Faster loading pages might rank higher than slow pokes.ca

But many people don’t know that a slow-loading site n hurt your paid search results, also. Google has publicly discussed how slow-loading sites have lower quality scores. For the uninitiated. the quality score is Google’s name for all of the other factors it weighs in paid search, besides the standard bid and clickthrough rate factors. The quality score can hold just about any factor that Google determines produces better results, and page speed is one of them.

Not everyone can afford that top-of-the-line high-speed server, but you might want to examine your budget again. If your pages could load faster than they do now, it’s worth looking into. Whether you invest in faster hardware or smarter techies, it’s important that you make sure that put your fastest foot forward. Your customers always appreciate a speedy site, but it affects your search results, too.

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

Personal Note: 1- and 2-Hour Consulting Blocks Now Available

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blogging to share a small announcement:

I’m now offering consulting services in one- and two-hour blocks of time. I hope this is helpful for the business owner who doesn’t need (or can’t afford) a larger, more traditional marketing campaign. Here’s how it works:

One-hour Consulting: This is a phone call in which we can look at your web site together, or you can ask me any questions you may have about SEO, local search, blogging, social media — pretty much anything but PPC/Adwords. While on the phone, I’ll do my best to give you specific, actionable recommendations to help you reach customers online. Cost: $250 (my regular hourly rate).

Two-hour Consulting: This is the one I recommend because it includes me spending an hour reviewing your web site in advance and making a list of ideas, recommendations, questions, etc., prior to us spending the second hour on the phone. Cost: $450.

Note: I’m on the west coast of the U.S. and won’t do calls prior to 8:00 am Pacific time.

To learn more about these shorter consulting opportunities — and to purchase, too — please visit the Hire Me page.

Advertisement: Never miss another fax again! Starting as Low as $6.95 mo. Nextiva vfax is a professional-quality virtual faxing service that you can access from anywhere you have internet access! Including most smart phones and Microsoft products, you can even use your existing fax machine! Visit www.nextivafax.com for more details.

This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

Personal Note: 1- and 2-Hour Consulting Blocks Now Available

No related posts.

SEO Madness 2010 update

The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is down to the final four teams, and our “SEO Madness” contest is still up for grabs. Frankly, with all the upsets this year, the contest looks like a wasteland of poor prognostication … but someone has to win, so we march on. As we head towards Final Four weekend, here are the possible winners depending on what happens on the court:

• If Duke wins the title, George Bounacos wins our contest.
• If West Virginia wins, Ed Reese wins.
• If Butler beats West Virginia, Ed Reese wins.
• If Butler beats Duke, Julie V. wins.
• If Michigan State beats Duke, Julie V. wins.
• If Michigan State beats West Virginia, Ed Reese wins.

There ya go. I’ll post the winner after next Monday night’s championship game.

Advertisement: Improve your website rankings and traffic in just 15 mins/day! LotusJump will show you how to do your own professional-grade SEO. Find Out How Today!

This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

SEO Madness 2010 update

Related posts:

1. March Madness SEO Pool Update
2. March Madness SEO Contest goes Gonzo
3. Game On: March Madness contest for SEO/PPC folks

SEO 101 – Part 14: Everything You Need to Know About Link Anatomy

by Stoney deGeyter

The following series is pulled from a presentation I gave to a group of beauty bloggers hosted by L’Oreal in New York. Most of the presentation is geared toward how to make a blog more search engine and user-friendly, however I will expand many of the concepts here to include tips and strategies for sites selling products or services across all industries.

Link Analysis Progression

I said in my last post that each link is essentially a vote for the page that’s being linked to. That, essentially, was the original link analysis factors. Things have come a long way since then. Today’s link analysis factors are far more complex.

Over the years what gets analyzed as part of the link has changed in order to provide better search results to web users.

The search engines started out looking at sheer link volume. He who gets the most links wins. This created link farms, link trades, link pages and so on. Before Google changed the game in link analysis people did everythign they could to create mad quantities of links to their site. Relevance of the linking page to the linked content didn’t matter. While sheer link quantity continues to play a role, it is no longer the only factor in link analysis.

Then Google came a long and started analyzing link text. The words in the link started to matter. The words spoke about the page it was linking to and therefore when the words match up with the text on the page the more relevant your page became for those keywords.

Next, search engines started looking at the quality of each link. Does it come from a low authority website or a high authority website? The higher the site’s authority linking out the more link value was passed.

Link age became a factor as it was assumed that the longer a link stayed in place the more “serious” the linker was about the site. If the links came and went then that might say somethign about the quality of the site being linked to, or if the link was an ad purchased under the radar.

As link buying became more and more prominent, the search engines started fighting back. It’s impossible for the search engines to determine with 100% accuracy whether a link was purchased or not but there are some signals that they have learned to detect.

The Anatomy of a Link

There is more to a link that meets the eye. As the progression of link analysis has changed, that means we need to pay attention to our links in order to make sure that we are getting the most value out of each. Lets break down the link into its core components as relevant to the search engines.

Anchor Text: As noted earlier link text factors pretty heavily in the search engine rankings. Any clues the search engines can get about the content of the page from external sources weighs heavily. It not only tells them what the page is about, but that someone else found it as a valuable resource for what it is. That last part is important. Linking to a site is one thing. Linking to a site giving your readers context to what they’ll find on that site is another thing altogether.

Links you give (and receive) should be keyword rich. Instead of linking out using the name of the website you are linking to, use keywords relevant to that site. Don’t say “you can find a good used Honda Accord at Joe’s Dealership.” Instead, say “you can find a good used Honda Accord at Joe’s Dealership.”

Where it Appears: Where the link appears on the page tells the search engines a great deal about the link itself. Search engines try to determine the value of the link by its placement on the page. Links in navigation are weighted one way, editorial links are considered more relevant and links in ad spaces are generally ignored.

Editorial links (those linked in the the midst of the page’s primary content) are deemed most valuable. These are generally links that are there not because they were purchased (though clearly that can be manipulated) but because the writer of the content finds it relevant to the readers.

Type of Link: There are a lot of different types of links and each carry their own weight. Many people will tell you that reciprocal links are worthless, but that’s not entirely true. Context matters a great deal. The same is true for whether the link is a one-way (non-reciprocated) link pointed to the site but not returned. Known purchased links have the least value (none), but can still be useful for driving traffic and getting an audience which can also produce natural links.

Link Style: Text vs. Images. Linking actual text (words) gives the search engines more information as to what the destination site is about. It adds to the page’s keyword focus from an external site. Image links don’t do that as well. Images can use the ALT text which can be factored in but likely aren’t weighted with the same value as a pure text link.

Link Age: How old a link is and how long it’s been in place can effect the overall value of that link. In general terms the longer the link remains in place the more power it sends to the linked page. This isn’t true in all cases, for example I believe blog links give out some immediate value that then fades back into the normal aging process after a few months. News links likely fade over time rather than build strength. But with these (and possibly a few other) exceptions, the link gains value over time.

Linking Site: The site that links out plays a strong role in the value of the link itself. The higher authority the linking site is, the more link value is passed. The page the link is on is also considered. A low authority page on a high-authority site may not have as much value as a lower authority site linking out from its home page, or the reverse may be true.. The topic of the page, how relevant it is to the topic site, can also be factored into how much relevance and weight the link sends out.

There are other factors as well, and I’m sure Google is always looking at ways to improve their link analysis algorithms. Links from Twitter and Facebook profiles can factor in as can links from other social media sites.

Whether you’re buying a link, asking for one, or looking for exposure in social circles, the key is to get as many quality links from quality sites as possible.

Missed a part of this series?
Part 1: Everything You Need To Know About SEO
Part 2: Everything You Need To Know About Title Tags
Part 3: Everything You Need To Know About Meta Description and Keyword Tags
Part 4: Everything You Need To Know About Heading Tags and Alt Attributes
Part 5: Everything You Need To Know About Domain Names
Part 6: Everything You Need To Know About Search Engine Friendly URLs & Broken Links
Part 7: Everything You Need To Know About Site Architecture and Internal Linking
Part 8: Everything You Need To Know About Keywords
Part 9: Everything You Need To Know About Keyword Core Terms
Part 10: Everything You Need To Know About Keyword Qualifiers
Part 11: Everything You Need To Know About SEO Copywriting
Part 12: Everything You Need To Know About Page Content
Part 13: Everything You Need To Know About Links

Be sure and visit our small business news site.

Warning: Don’t Use Google Maps Service/Home Business Tools Yet

If you’re a small business owner or a marketer with small business clients using Google Maps’ Local Business Center, a warning: Do not use the new tools for service- and home-based businesses yet. These are, in Google’s words, still “in testing” and may cause problems with your local business listing.

They did to mine. Read on for pictures and a description of what happened.

Shortly after I published this post today about the new LBC options, I tested them out by modifying my wife’s business listing. She’s a real estate agent who works in a wider region than just the city indicated in her business listing.

Within an hour, while checking to see if her listing was showing up for any new queries, I noticed that it had been merged with business info from another real estate agent’s listing:

She’s always been in the top spot for “richland wa real estate agent,” but that’s not her web site and phone number. It should be www.carimcgee.com and (509) 430-5342. Her name now links to someone else’s web site. Ugh.

Worse, the data had also spread into Google Maps (as you’d expect).

That’s the wrong phone number. And, it’s even worse on her place page, where the other agent’s name, phone numbers, and email address show up — along with some data and a photo from his listing.

This is a complete cluster-you-know-what.

Less than an hour ago, I changed the listing back to its original form — I undid the new option and re-checked “No, all customers come to the business location.” And now it’s a waiting game to see how soon — if at all — Google fixes this problem.

And that’s not all! Via Twitter, I got this message from David Kyle, a search marketer in Charlotte, NC:

The moral? Much like new products from Apple, where you never, ever buy the first version, I’ve learned to never, ever use a Google product while it’s still in testing. Don’t you make the same mistake I did today.

Updates

One: 18 minutes after publishing this post, and about an hour after changing her business listing back to normal, the listing has started to correct itself. (Or Google is fixing it manually?) See below — the URL is correct, but the phone number is still wrong.

Advertisement: Try Site5 Web Hosting free for 30 days! 99.9% Uptime Guarantee and our customer’s love us!

This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

Warning: Don’t Use Google Maps Service/Home Business Tools Yet

Related posts:

1. Google LBC Adds Tools for Service/Home Businesses
2. Google: Business Hijacking is Rare in Google Maps
3. Google Lays Down the Law for Google Maps Business Listings

Google LBC Adds Tools for Service/Home Businesses

We’ve talked before about the failure of Google’s Local Business Center to provide a way for service-based and home-based businesses to use Google Maps without … well, cheating. A couple weeks ago at SMX West, Google’s Carter Maslan was asked about solving this problem and he said … “I don’t want to say ‘hold your breath,’ but ‘almost hold your breath.’” He said something was coming soon.

And today it’s here. Have a look:

I’ve written this up in more depth and with more screenshots on Search Engine Land:

Google Maps Finally Welcome To Home-Based & Service-Based Businesses

Advertisement: Never miss another fax again! Starting as Low as $6.95 mo. Nextiva vfax is a professional-quality virtual faxing service that you can access from anywhere you have internet access! Including most smart phones and Microsoft products, you can even use your existing fax machine! Visit www.nextivafax.com for more details.

This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

Google LBC Adds Tools for Service/Home Businesses

Related posts:

1. Google Maps Adds Phone Verification, Upgrades LBC
2. Google Maps adds coupons
3. SBS Mailbag: Many Service Areas, One Address

Afraid of Blogging? Read This

I know a very talented writer who has a blog, but admits to being afraid of blogging. I’ll be sharing these links with that person, and thought I’d post them here since there’s bound to be more people out there in the same boat.

At Remarkablogger, Michael Martine has finished a three-part series about overcoming blogging fears. Really, really good stuff. Here are your links:

• 11 Blogging Fears and How to Overcome Them for Good – Part 1
• Blogging Fears and How to Overcome Them – Part 2
• Blogging Fears and How to Overcome Them – Part 3

Here’s a sneak peek at the 11 fears he writes about:

1. I’m afraid no one will read my blog or care about what I’m doing
2. I’m afraid I’ll run out of things to say
3. I’m afraid I’ll fail and have to get a “real” job
4. I’m afraid I’ll make grammar and spelling mistakes, and people will be more critical about everything else, including my content
5. I’m afraid I’m being too obvious and simple (or I haven’t researched enough)
6. I’m afraid I won’t make any money
7. I’m afraid of putting myself out there, afraid to hit “Publish”
8. I’m afraid I’m not really helping anyone (lack of feedback)
9. I’m afraid I’ll go “too far” with personal content and turn off readers
10. I’m afraid I’ll write something that’s already been done a million times
11. I’m afraid I’ll be exposed as a fraud

If you’re a blogger, I’m betting there’s something on that list that you’ve felt or thought before. So go forth and read, and then get back on the blogging horse.

Advertisement: Improve your website rankings and traffic in just 15 mins/day! LotusJump will show you how to do your own professional-grade SEO. Find Out How Today!

This is a post from Matt McGee’s blog, Small Business Search Marketing.

Afraid of Blogging? Read This

No related posts.