The Internet has become a haven for crooks, pushers, thieves, and many more terms I can not think of at this exact moment in time and it is no wonder that many people who use the Internet have become wary of doing business online. Personally, I do not blame them; however that does not help those of us who want to provide a product or service to the billions of people surfing the net so I have devised a list of ten elements you should have on your website that will help build credibility with those people who are visiting your site.
I am quite sure you will know some of these ten on-page elements but there are others you may have thought about but never done anything about. So let us begin …
#1 - Have a Clear Guarantee
Every Internet marketing guru or business coach will tell you that you must have a clear guarantee. Essentially a guarantee is simply you stating to the customer that you standby your product or we will give you your money back. Many internet websites have guarantees, but very few in my experience will actually standby the guarantee but I will talk about that in element number 10.
One other element about a guarantee is to make it believable. If it is not believable then nobody is going to buy from you. Let me explain …
A few years ago I ran a campaign through my training company that our training program would get you a job within one month or we would hire you ourselves. Now I want to say, I standby that guarantee, but in reality the campaign was a total flop because nobody actually believed we were serious. In fact what happened was that most of the recruitment agencies actually called us asking us what positions we had available and could they fill them for us. These guys totally missed the point.
The bottom line is that if you are going to have a guarantee then it must be believable. If it is not then you have absolutely no hope of making a sale.
#2 - Verifiable Testimonials
Testimonials are everywhere on the internet. Just about every single sales site has at least one testimonial but most of them are non-verifiable. What I mean by verifiable is that there is no mechanism to prove whether that person really exists or if they really do support that product. In fact, when I started thinking about this article, I found five websites on-line and contacted them to verify their testimonials. That is I rang them and asked them how I could get into contact with the people giving their testimonials. Guess what, most of them said they no longer stay in contact with those people or the testimonials were not real. The word … BUSTED comes to mind!
There are few ways you can create Verifiable Testimonials. One is to have the person do a video on your website and then host that video. Lots of companies do that now. The second way is to ask the person who is giving you the testimonial if they will put a single Testimonial on their website. That's right. Their testimonial is confirmed by you providing a link to their website. This means you can check to see if their site is real and if they are the owners (which you can check through whois) you know that the testimonial is fair dinkum (Real Aussie Slang Creeping in their).
#3 - Join Your Local - Chamber of Commerce, Better Business Bureau
Remember, if you are looking for credibility then join the local Chamber of Commerce or Better Business Bureau. Most Chamber of Commerce actually have programs now where when you join as a member then you are allowed to show their logo on your website to prove you are a member. One of the reasons this is a good practice is because most organisations like the Chamber of Commerce have a Business Code of Practice that they follow and they do enforce that code of practice. If you do not follow it, you can find yourself booted out as a member and on a banned list on their website.
A word of warning, do not put a logo onto your website were you are not a member, especially the Better Business Bureau. Whilst I was going through the research for this article, I wanted to check out a few sites and see if they really were Better Business Bureau members and guess what, they weren't so remember, the key advantage to you as a member is people can verify that you are a member and legit. Remember the downside is that if you are not a member they can also verify that as well.
#4 - Register with Certified Companies like - Thawte, Alexa
Anything with the word Certified in it, will always make consumers more comfortable. For example if you run a website that does credit card transactions then it is mandatory to have a digital certificate issued by a reputable company like Thawte. Companies like this run a very strict Certification program where you can use a Certified Logo on your website to prove to consumers you have been checked out.
My organisation has used Thawte in the past and we went through a lot of checks and balances to make them comfortable that we were legit. This included having to provide information like our companies Certificate of Incorporate as well as the team at Thawte visiting Australian Government websites like the ACCC to prove we were who we said we were.
Companies like Thawte have put these mechanisms into place, to ensure that consumers can trust those they provide digital certificates for their ecommerce systems.
#5 - Use Trackable Shipping Companies
In some countries like Australia, using trackable shipping companies to ship overseas can be cost preventative. But where ever possible I recommend using Trackable Shipping Companies like Fedex, DHL, EMS, Australian Air Express etc. The reason for this is that your customers know that if you are dealing with companies like this then you must be legit and apart from that, if you tell them the con note number then they will feel more comfortable in knowing they are actually going to get the parcel and when.
#6 - Use Trusted Credit Card Handling Companies like PayPal
Some banks and credit card handling companies run a certification program for their merchants. For example the National Australia Bank in Australia ran a program that certified merchants who used their internet credit card processing system and it provided a program where the merchant could use their logo on their website to prove they were a quality merchant. Many banks around the world now run similar programs to this as well. I will say though that the costs to join this program was quite astronomical and when I first looked into it, the cost was around $300 per month.
Other ways to get this sort of system, with much less of the cost is to use companies like PayPal. PayPal now owned by ebay has become the sudo standard for credit card purchases and with their Customer Protection Policy it gives buyers a level of comfort in buying from you. The cool part about this service is that it costs absolutely nothing to join and their merchant fees are pretty much inline with most merchant facilities.
#7 - Provide Live Support Online
Live Online Support has been around for about 5 years now. I first purchased my online support system about 3 years ago and I can definitely attribute about 30 to 40 percent of my sales to this tool. Essentially the way the system works is that you have a logo on your webpage which states whether Live Support is available and when you click on the logo a small screen opens that allows you to talk to an operator. This allows you to check out about the merchant and talk to their operators.
From the consumers point of view, this gives them confidence in knowing that the service you offer is legit and there are people actually running the service. More so, they feel comfortable there is a way to actually contact you, which leads me to point eight.
#8 - Have your telephone number and contact details on every page of your website
Having your telephone number and contact details on every single webpage will build credibility. The reason is that it gives your customers the ability to call you easily. If you try to hide away from your customers you will loose sales. One thing to make sure also, in most countries they have a Free Call Number system like 1800 etc, which many overseas people cannot access, so you need to make sure that you also include your international number. Many times I have gone to ring a number in the United States from Australia only to find that I cannot do so because their 1800 number blocks overseas calls, which means if I bought something from this supplier, I would have now way of following up. I can assure you; these sites do not get my business.
One word of caution, there are some people out there who will simply ring you to say they hate your products and would never buy from you for any number of reasons. In those cases simply ignore those people. Everybody in business gets those calls, it is nothing unique (if you have a really crappy product then you deserve it) there are just simply some people who are just rude, so I do recommend growing a thick skin.
#9 - Have a Clear Privacy Policy
Privacy has become a big issue for everyone on the Internet. Having a clearly articulated privacy policy is a major benefit from the consumer's point of view as it tells them where they stand when it comes to their privacy on information stored on your website. I have also seen a few pieces of information lurking around which basically states that having a privacy policy may help your search engine position. I do not know how true that is, it might be, but from a consumer's perspective, it helps build credibility that you are a quality website provider.
#10 - Have a Returns Policy and Instructions on how to Return Items
Please put up your hands if you have bought something on the internet which does not work and you cannot find a way to send it back to the website owner or get a refund? As I look out my windows I see millions of people who have their hands up. This is one of my pet peeves at the moment. I recently bought some software to convert WMA audio files to MP3 format and when I purchased the software they did not tell me how to download it and there were no links on the page. When I did finally get the information, they told me in the email I needed a registration key which was issued during the purchase. Which of course I did not get?
Guess what else; they did not have a Returns Policy as well. In the end I gave up in disgust and lost my $70 USD which will work against them because I am telling all my friends and my 2000 client who they are and to stay away from them. I figure at $70 a transaction x 2000 that would be a total of $140,000 they have missed out on, simply because they were rude and were not serious about customer service.
Whilst you may not like Refunds or Returns (I definitely do not) it is a necessity to have a returns policy because it specifies to the consumer how you deal with a Refund or with a Return. In fact, all of my clients I work with online will actually include a link to their Return Policy where their Guarantee is specified. The Returns policy simply says theses are the steps you must follow in returning the products or getting a refund. By doing this, the customer has confidence that you are a legitimate business. One of the other elements you should include in your Returns Policy is your address, telephone number and contact email address for returns. Also specify in the returns policy how long it may take to get a refund.
The bottom line is this; these ten elements when specified on a webpage for a customer to see will help prove to them that you are legitimate and ethical business. Having these items on your webpage will certainly give them the confidence your company acts in the way they expect. Let me finish off by quickly reiterating the ten elements:
#1 - Have a Clear Guarantee
#2 - Verifiable Testimonials
#3 - Join Your Local - Chamber of Commerce, Better Business Bureau
#4 - Register with Certified Companies like - Thawte, Alexa
#5 - Use Trackable Shipping Companies
#6 - Use Trusted Credit Card Handling Companies like Paypal
#7 - Provide Live Support Online
#8 - Have your telephone number and contact details on every page of your website
#9 - Have a Clear Privacy Policy
#10 - Have a Returns Policy and Instructions on how to Return Items
http://www.articlebase.info/Article/Ten-On-Page-Website-Credibility-Builders-for-Your-Customer/34523
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
BEWARE: Buy 5,679 links for $47!
I've been looking over some sites that sell links lately, and I've noticed a lot of packages like the one in this title (though not quite so exagerated). I wanted to take a moment to warn you not to take anyone up on those kinds of offers.
Why not? You need more links to get better ranking in the search engines right?
Yes, you do. But stop drooling for a minute and think about it: that many links for that little money always means the links are spread across just a few domains. The search engines will only count one, count 'em, one link from each domain as a rule. The others are basically ignored or so completely devalued as to be almost worthless.
That just makes sense. If I have a domain with a thousand pages on it and I put a link in my footer across all of my pages to some other site, does that really make that target site "popular"? Common sense says no. It was just easier for me to add it to my footer.
So beware of the advertisements for thousands of one-way links for pennies a link. Unless the sites can prove that they get a lot of traffic, and it's the kind of traffic that will click on your link and visit your site, it's not worth it.
For the right way to build link popularity and get traffic both from the links and the search engine rankings those links give you, I recommend Jack Humphrey's Power Linking methods.
http://www.articlebase.info/Article/BEWARE--Buy-5-679-links-for--47-/34651
Why not? You need more links to get better ranking in the search engines right?
Yes, you do. But stop drooling for a minute and think about it: that many links for that little money always means the links are spread across just a few domains. The search engines will only count one, count 'em, one link from each domain as a rule. The others are basically ignored or so completely devalued as to be almost worthless.
That just makes sense. If I have a domain with a thousand pages on it and I put a link in my footer across all of my pages to some other site, does that really make that target site "popular"? Common sense says no. It was just easier for me to add it to my footer.
So beware of the advertisements for thousands of one-way links for pennies a link. Unless the sites can prove that they get a lot of traffic, and it's the kind of traffic that will click on your link and visit your site, it's not worth it.
For the right way to build link popularity and get traffic both from the links and the search engine rankings those links give you, I recommend Jack Humphrey's Power Linking methods.
http://www.articlebase.info/Article/BEWARE--Buy-5-679-links-for--47-/34651
Reciprocal links are dead!
I've been reading a lot of nonsense on various SEO forums about reciprocal linking being dead. People screaming and crying because their sites no longer rank well after Google's last update. I thought it would be timely for me to write an article about what REALLY happened, and what you can do about it.
Reciprocal Links Aren't Dead
First of all, reciprocal links aren't dead, not by a long shot. It would be foolish of any search engine to ignore links from one authority site to another just because that other site points back to it. That, in fact, reinforces the value of both sites!
What really happened is that Google got smarter about reciprocal links. They are harder on link farms now, and bogus "directories" of links. So the people who are crying foul probably had most or all of their links coming from these kinds of shady sources.
From my own experience with my many sites, however, it seems clear that reciprocal links have been devalued by Google. All that means is that they don't count quite as much as they used to, but they are still very valuable.
If you follow my philosophy of optimizing for keywords that are not super competitive, though, then you may have already guessed that my sites weren't affected much, since most of my "competition" isn't really competing for the keywords I'm targeting anyway.
Reciprocal Links Have Always Been A Short-Term Solution
Besides, reciprocal links should ALWAYS be looked on as a short-term boost to get a site going. You want to get those reciprocal links so that you can get ranked for some less competitive keywords. Once you're getting some traffic, if you're offering high quality content to your visitors, you'll get more links into your site naturally.
This happens because if a lot of people value your site, you are bound to get talked about in forums and message boards that are related to your site topic. And other webmasters who visit your site and like it will add links from their sites to yours. Your link popularity will grow naturally–as long as your site content is high quality.
But a site needs the initial momentum that reciprocal links provide to get started. Just the act of emailing webmasters for reciprocal links will result in people who are in your area of expertise looking at your site. So whether you get a link or not, if you have a quality site, you've put it in front of a person who has the opportunity to spread the word about you. And believe me, quality sites get talked about a lot.
Getting More Links
Since it's true that reciprocal links have been devalued by Google, that could mean that you need to get more links to stay competitive (though that really depends on what keywords you're targeting).
Personally, I find SEO Elite to be a huge asset in this regard, because it automates the process of getting people to link to your site. I also highly recommended Jack Humphrey's Power Linking methods.
Summing It All Up
If you're building quality content and using reciprocal links as they should be used (to get a short-term boost that launches a new site), then changes in the valuation of reciprocal links will not be a problem.
If you're a link spammer, or if you're relying on shady directories or link farms, then yes, you're in trouble. Stick to the methods I've outlined above and use software-assisted link gathering tools like SEO Elite and you'll be on top of the search engine game for many more algorithm updates to come.
http://www.articlebase.info/Article/Reciprocal-links-are-dead-/35573
Reciprocal Links Aren't Dead
First of all, reciprocal links aren't dead, not by a long shot. It would be foolish of any search engine to ignore links from one authority site to another just because that other site points back to it. That, in fact, reinforces the value of both sites!
What really happened is that Google got smarter about reciprocal links. They are harder on link farms now, and bogus "directories" of links. So the people who are crying foul probably had most or all of their links coming from these kinds of shady sources.
From my own experience with my many sites, however, it seems clear that reciprocal links have been devalued by Google. All that means is that they don't count quite as much as they used to, but they are still very valuable.
If you follow my philosophy of optimizing for keywords that are not super competitive, though, then you may have already guessed that my sites weren't affected much, since most of my "competition" isn't really competing for the keywords I'm targeting anyway.
Reciprocal Links Have Always Been A Short-Term Solution
Besides, reciprocal links should ALWAYS be looked on as a short-term boost to get a site going. You want to get those reciprocal links so that you can get ranked for some less competitive keywords. Once you're getting some traffic, if you're offering high quality content to your visitors, you'll get more links into your site naturally.
This happens because if a lot of people value your site, you are bound to get talked about in forums and message boards that are related to your site topic. And other webmasters who visit your site and like it will add links from their sites to yours. Your link popularity will grow naturally–as long as your site content is high quality.
But a site needs the initial momentum that reciprocal links provide to get started. Just the act of emailing webmasters for reciprocal links will result in people who are in your area of expertise looking at your site. So whether you get a link or not, if you have a quality site, you've put it in front of a person who has the opportunity to spread the word about you. And believe me, quality sites get talked about a lot.
Getting More Links
Since it's true that reciprocal links have been devalued by Google, that could mean that you need to get more links to stay competitive (though that really depends on what keywords you're targeting).
Personally, I find SEO Elite to be a huge asset in this regard, because it automates the process of getting people to link to your site. I also highly recommended Jack Humphrey's Power Linking methods.
Summing It All Up
If you're building quality content and using reciprocal links as they should be used (to get a short-term boost that launches a new site), then changes in the valuation of reciprocal links will not be a problem.
If you're a link spammer, or if you're relying on shady directories or link farms, then yes, you're in trouble. Stick to the methods I've outlined above and use software-assisted link gathering tools like SEO Elite and you'll be on top of the search engine game for many more algorithm updates to come.
http://www.articlebase.info/Article/Reciprocal-links-are-dead-/35573
Internet Users Benefit from the Search Engine / SEO Cat-and-Mouse
A constant cat-and-mouse game between the major Internet search engines and search engine optimization (SEO) companies has an interesting result: As these two groups try to psych each other out to beat the other’s system, search capabilities are constantly improving for the consumer of Internet services.
Here’s what happens: Each search engine develops a formula for producing the most accurate, relevant results according to the Internet user’s keyword search, and then the SEO companies analyze the search engine’s function and develop a system of strategies to allow their customers to take advantage of that formula. Common strategies include providing enriched text blocks (a few paragraphs of text containing multiple keywords likely to be picked up by the search engines), general interest articles, with embedded links, on particular topics relevant to the customer, development of multiple links to the customer’s site from other websites, and a combination of sponsored links and pay-per-click ads (paid ads which appear on other websites). This combination of strategies promises to improve a website’s ranking in the search results, a valuable asset in cyberspace; if a company can land on the first page of a keyword search, the probability of the Internet user visiting its website skyrockets.
Of course, as soon as the SEO companies figure out a particular search engine’s formula, the search engine changes the rules, since the search engine’s honchos want to provide the most accurate, up-to-date, and relevant information, and not allow website owners to game the system. And of course the SEO companies respond with new, more sophisticated strategies. The result to Internet users is a constantly improving ability to search efficiently for the goods, services, and information they need.
Google is the biggest game in town, but other search engines have their following; Alta Vista is popular among college students and serious researchers, for instance. There’s also dogpile.com, a search engine that searches all the other major search engines and pulls up the most relevant results from each. And new search engines pop up all the time – Ask.com and AskJeeves.com are two examples of newer search engines with popular followings. A good SEO company will develop strategies not just for Google, but for all the major search engines.
Search engines aren’t perfect, of course, and one thing they can’t do at the moment is access specific information contained in the multitude of databases available on the Internet. Federal, state, and some local governments have searchable, free databases which allow users to access this information; other databases, such as Ancestry.com, charge a subscription fee for their use. For public information on the federal level in the U.S., FirstGov.gov is a great place to start.
Search strategies exist for the web surfer as well. Just try doing a Google search for tax information, for instance. Type “taxes” into the keyword search bar and click on Search. In the U.S. you’ll see irs.com, and then numerous companies advertising their tax services. But type in “taxes .gov” and you’ll pull up the same IRS site, followed by many more government website pages, some of which may provide more direct access to the information you need than going through irs.com, and without having to wade through a bunch of accounting firms. Type in “taxes UK .gov” and you pull up government information for the United Kingdom, and so on. Doing a keyword search on the general topic you’re researching should pull up relevant database sites. (By the way, if you want to see an example of great search engine optimization strategies, do a search on “genealogy” and look at all the links to Ancestry.com on the websites you find—they’re everywhere!)
As the cat-and-mouse game continues between search engine companies and SEO firms, the result promises to be ever more sophisticated, powerful, and accurate techniques for accessing valuable information over the Internet. As the continuing success of more and more new search engines suggests, we may have only scratch
http://www.articlebase.info/Article/Internet-Users-Benefit-from-the-Search-Engine---SEO-Cat-and-Mouse/36414
Here’s what happens: Each search engine develops a formula for producing the most accurate, relevant results according to the Internet user’s keyword search, and then the SEO companies analyze the search engine’s function and develop a system of strategies to allow their customers to take advantage of that formula. Common strategies include providing enriched text blocks (a few paragraphs of text containing multiple keywords likely to be picked up by the search engines), general interest articles, with embedded links, on particular topics relevant to the customer, development of multiple links to the customer’s site from other websites, and a combination of sponsored links and pay-per-click ads (paid ads which appear on other websites). This combination of strategies promises to improve a website’s ranking in the search results, a valuable asset in cyberspace; if a company can land on the first page of a keyword search, the probability of the Internet user visiting its website skyrockets.
Of course, as soon as the SEO companies figure out a particular search engine’s formula, the search engine changes the rules, since the search engine’s honchos want to provide the most accurate, up-to-date, and relevant information, and not allow website owners to game the system. And of course the SEO companies respond with new, more sophisticated strategies. The result to Internet users is a constantly improving ability to search efficiently for the goods, services, and information they need.
Google is the biggest game in town, but other search engines have their following; Alta Vista is popular among college students and serious researchers, for instance. There’s also dogpile.com, a search engine that searches all the other major search engines and pulls up the most relevant results from each. And new search engines pop up all the time – Ask.com and AskJeeves.com are two examples of newer search engines with popular followings. A good SEO company will develop strategies not just for Google, but for all the major search engines.
Search engines aren’t perfect, of course, and one thing they can’t do at the moment is access specific information contained in the multitude of databases available on the Internet. Federal, state, and some local governments have searchable, free databases which allow users to access this information; other databases, such as Ancestry.com, charge a subscription fee for their use. For public information on the federal level in the U.S., FirstGov.gov is a great place to start.
Search strategies exist for the web surfer as well. Just try doing a Google search for tax information, for instance. Type “taxes” into the keyword search bar and click on Search. In the U.S. you’ll see irs.com, and then numerous companies advertising their tax services. But type in “taxes .gov” and you’ll pull up the same IRS site, followed by many more government website pages, some of which may provide more direct access to the information you need than going through irs.com, and without having to wade through a bunch of accounting firms. Type in “taxes UK .gov” and you pull up government information for the United Kingdom, and so on. Doing a keyword search on the general topic you’re researching should pull up relevant database sites. (By the way, if you want to see an example of great search engine optimization strategies, do a search on “genealogy” and look at all the links to Ancestry.com on the websites you find—they’re everywhere!)
As the cat-and-mouse game continues between search engine companies and SEO firms, the result promises to be ever more sophisticated, powerful, and accurate techniques for accessing valuable information over the Internet. As the continuing success of more and more new search engines suggests, we may have only scratch
http://www.articlebase.info/Article/Internet-Users-Benefit-from-the-Search-Engine---SEO-Cat-and-Mouse/36414
Article Submission for Search Engine Rankings
Vary Your Anchor Text
The primary reason you want to submit articles is to get links back to your site, but how are you formatting that link in the resource box? You want to have the anchor text of the links to be the keywords you're wanting to rank for, yes, but it's important that you don't have the same anchor text in every link.
Why? Because if the search engines see that every link to your site contains the exact same anchor text, it's a red-flag that your links were not acquired naturally. People don't always behave the same, and search engines know that it's statistically impossible that every single person who links to your site will use the same link text.
So be sure to vary your link text. I like to reinforce my main keywords while also optimizing for related keywords. For instance, if your site's primary keywords are "kitchen remodeling", you could use a variation like "kitchen remodeling tips" or "kitchen remodeling advice" or "how to remodel your kitchen".
Those anchor texts still help reinforce your ranking for your primary keywords since they contain your primary keywords (or variations), but they also help you rank for lesser terms–and it's the lesser terms that are the easiest to rank for.
So when submitting to article sites, be sure and vary your anchor text, using your primary keywords about 70% of the time. This is simple enough to accomplish: just change your resource box for each site that you submit to.
Submit Slowly to Avoid the Sandbox
There is one school of thought that Google and Yahoo both penalize links that appear too fast. They basically wait for months before actually applying the value of those links to your ranking. This is referred to in the search engine optimization world as "sandboxing".
As of right now, MSN (under it's new name, Live) does not sandbox links. So if you're looking to rank and get some traffic going quickly, getting a lot of links fast will pay off with MSN. You'll just have to wait a while before seeing much results in Google and Yahoo.
If you're trying to rank in Google or Yahoo as quickly as possible, and if you're a believer in the sandbox theory, then you're best bet is to submit to the article sites a little more slowly. Maybe only submit to a few a week. This will cause your links to build more "naturally" from the search engines point of view.
If You're Not a Sandbox Believer…
There are other schools of SEO thought that claim sandboxing doesn't exist at all. Their theory is that it just takes a long time for the algorithm updates to hit Google and Yahoo so that your links are counted. If they are correct, then it's still best to get as many links as possible as quickly as possible, and then just wait for them to be applied.
What I Believe
I tend to lean away from the Sandbox theory myself, but not because I have a lot of emperical evidence that it doesn't exist. It just seems illogical to me for search engines to sandbox links just because they appear quickly.
For example, let's say there's some big news event that happens regarding some web site, and suddenly thousands of links appear from every news site covering that sector. Would it make sense for the search engines to ignore all of those links just because they appeared quickly? It was natural that they appear quickly, since the event was unexpected.
So I tend to believe that it just takes a while to update the rankings for billions of web pages, and therefore the links don't kick in immediately.
Summing it All Up
Whatever your Sandbox beliefs are, you can see that your linking strategy needs to be analyzed before you start submitting to article sites. Take a few minutes to come up with the list of keywords you want to rank for. Try to get at least five or six sets of keywords into your article resource boxes. Don't put all of your keywords into one basket, so to speak.
Taking a little time to plan out your submission strategy could save you from wasting all of that time only to find that the search engines have ignored your links because they think they're "not natural".
http://www.articlebase.info/Article/Article-Submission-for-Search-Engine-Rankings/38090
The primary reason you want to submit articles is to get links back to your site, but how are you formatting that link in the resource box? You want to have the anchor text of the links to be the keywords you're wanting to rank for, yes, but it's important that you don't have the same anchor text in every link.
Why? Because if the search engines see that every link to your site contains the exact same anchor text, it's a red-flag that your links were not acquired naturally. People don't always behave the same, and search engines know that it's statistically impossible that every single person who links to your site will use the same link text.
So be sure to vary your link text. I like to reinforce my main keywords while also optimizing for related keywords. For instance, if your site's primary keywords are "kitchen remodeling", you could use a variation like "kitchen remodeling tips" or "kitchen remodeling advice" or "how to remodel your kitchen".
Those anchor texts still help reinforce your ranking for your primary keywords since they contain your primary keywords (or variations), but they also help you rank for lesser terms–and it's the lesser terms that are the easiest to rank for.
So when submitting to article sites, be sure and vary your anchor text, using your primary keywords about 70% of the time. This is simple enough to accomplish: just change your resource box for each site that you submit to.
Submit Slowly to Avoid the Sandbox
There is one school of thought that Google and Yahoo both penalize links that appear too fast. They basically wait for months before actually applying the value of those links to your ranking. This is referred to in the search engine optimization world as "sandboxing".
As of right now, MSN (under it's new name, Live) does not sandbox links. So if you're looking to rank and get some traffic going quickly, getting a lot of links fast will pay off with MSN. You'll just have to wait a while before seeing much results in Google and Yahoo.
If you're trying to rank in Google or Yahoo as quickly as possible, and if you're a believer in the sandbox theory, then you're best bet is to submit to the article sites a little more slowly. Maybe only submit to a few a week. This will cause your links to build more "naturally" from the search engines point of view.
If You're Not a Sandbox Believer…
There are other schools of SEO thought that claim sandboxing doesn't exist at all. Their theory is that it just takes a long time for the algorithm updates to hit Google and Yahoo so that your links are counted. If they are correct, then it's still best to get as many links as possible as quickly as possible, and then just wait for them to be applied.
What I Believe
I tend to lean away from the Sandbox theory myself, but not because I have a lot of emperical evidence that it doesn't exist. It just seems illogical to me for search engines to sandbox links just because they appear quickly.
For example, let's say there's some big news event that happens regarding some web site, and suddenly thousands of links appear from every news site covering that sector. Would it make sense for the search engines to ignore all of those links just because they appeared quickly? It was natural that they appear quickly, since the event was unexpected.
So I tend to believe that it just takes a while to update the rankings for billions of web pages, and therefore the links don't kick in immediately.
Summing it All Up
Whatever your Sandbox beliefs are, you can see that your linking strategy needs to be analyzed before you start submitting to article sites. Take a few minutes to come up with the list of keywords you want to rank for. Try to get at least five or six sets of keywords into your article resource boxes. Don't put all of your keywords into one basket, so to speak.
Taking a little time to plan out your submission strategy could save you from wasting all of that time only to find that the search engines have ignored your links because they think they're "not natural".
http://www.articlebase.info/Article/Article-Submission-for-Search-Engine-Rankings/38090
Flash and search engine optimisation best practise
The world of search engines has evolved over the recent months and still we can’t be 100% sure about flash design. It is still hard to get flash web sites spidered and ranked how we would like using the traditional search engine optimisation techniques. The main problem is that the search engines can’t index the content in the flash code so they have no way of ranking the website accordingly. The reason for this is that they see the flash as a graphic and cannot always read what is inside it. Your online flash designer should consider the following:
Flash pages and movies
The benefits of flash are:
The main disadvantages of flash design are:
Consider your options?
Consider using flash design for different movies on multiple html pages to give you more pages for visitors to come into your site. This will make it easier for the search engines to pick up content and internal links. This will also give you more pages to concentrate different keywords on helping you to rank in more areas. The downside to doing this is that for every page you create the visitor has to re-download a sometimes large flash file.
The alternetive is to give your visitors the option of viewing a flash or html version so the search engines can read the html version and you can still impress your visitors with the flash version.
To help the search engines index you it is worth considering a half way house and imbedding flash into your html. This gives you a search engine optimised site plus enhanced menus and usability. Obviously you have to consider your internal linking strategy along side this option and try to make navigation which the search engines can read so they can search through your site. Use the flash in places to impress the user but do not hide away your content from the search engines. If you use flash as part of your navigation make sure you add additional text links to allow the search engines to crawl your web site.
Conclusion
If you want to pursue the full flash option then ensure you research your keywords and make your meta data clear and concise for the search engines. Ensure you have an html home page which is keyword optimised with plenty of readable content for the search engines. Offer a text version of your site that search engines can crawl and put all your efforts into your link building strategy.
http://www.articlebase.info/Article/Flash-and-search-engine-optimisation-best-practise/38179
Flash pages and movies
The benefits of flash are:
- Great special effects
- Easy for designers to create impressive animations using images and sound
- Interactive applications which are easy to use for visitors
- Flash works across platforms and browsers
- Flash has excellent accuracy for web designers
The main disadvantages of flash design are:
- Initialy there is a massive learning curve involved
- It can have long load time (which is not so much an issue as in the past due to popularity in broadband continuously improving)
- Some firewalls block flash
- Some stats show that more people would prefer not to use flash (although if everyone had used well designed and developed flash as well as running it on broadband I feel this stat would be different)
- Meta tags – keyword, description, title and research
- Link building – link exchanges, directory submissions, article submissions and press releases
Consider your options?
Consider using flash design for different movies on multiple html pages to give you more pages for visitors to come into your site. This will make it easier for the search engines to pick up content and internal links. This will also give you more pages to concentrate different keywords on helping you to rank in more areas. The downside to doing this is that for every page you create the visitor has to re-download a sometimes large flash file.
The alternetive is to give your visitors the option of viewing a flash or html version so the search engines can read the html version and you can still impress your visitors with the flash version.
To help the search engines index you it is worth considering a half way house and imbedding flash into your html. This gives you a search engine optimised site plus enhanced menus and usability. Obviously you have to consider your internal linking strategy along side this option and try to make navigation which the search engines can read so they can search through your site. Use the flash in places to impress the user but do not hide away your content from the search engines. If you use flash as part of your navigation make sure you add additional text links to allow the search engines to crawl your web site.
Conclusion
If you want to pursue the full flash option then ensure you research your keywords and make your meta data clear and concise for the search engines. Ensure you have an html home page which is keyword optimised with plenty of readable content for the search engines. Offer a text version of your site that search engines can crawl and put all your efforts into your link building strategy.
http://www.articlebase.info/Article/Flash-and-search-engine-optimisation-best-practise/38179
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