FreshWebz Web Design & Affiliate Marketing Blog

It’s easy for everyone to get caught up in obsessing about how to optimise your site & build links for Google, when trying to market through search. That’s certainly a wise thing to do, considering Google totally dominates the search market. But, there are still other search engines that some people are using, so it is wise to make sure your site is performing to the best of its ability in those too!

Obviously the other two engines are Yahoo and Bing and whilst Yahoo is seemingly declining fast, Bing is actually gaining a market share. Furthermore, if the deal between Microsoft and Yahoo goes through, Bing search will be talking over Yahoo anyway. With the muscle of Microsoft behind Bing, you can be sure the search engine won’t be prepared to play second fiddle to Google for long!

However, unlike Google, we don’t hear much about what Bing wants out of a site for decent rankings, but Rick DeJarnette of Bing Webmaster Center has shared some dos and don’ts of link-building for Bing. Not surprisingly, a lot of his advice for complying with Bing’s policies, does not differ too much from the advice that Google would give you. It is however, still always nice to hear what they think, just to clear up any possible confusion.

Like Google, Bing places great emphasis on quality links to determine its rankings. “Just don’t make the mistake of believing it will result in instant gratification. Successful link building efforts require a long-term commitment, not an overnight or turnkey solution,” says DeJarnette. “You need to continually invest in link building efforts with creativity and time.”

What You Should Do!

DeJarnette shared some tips for getting more quality links. The following are Bing’s tips for effective link building (paraphrased):

What You Should Not Do!

DeJarnette shared a list of things that you should avoid in your link building efforts, if it is a good Bing ranking that you are after. Here is what Bing says will get your site reviewed more closely by staff:

“When probable manipulation is detected, a spam rank factor is applied to a site, depending upon the type and severity of the infraction,” says DeJarnette. “If the spam rating is high, a site can be penalised with a lowered rank. If the violations are egregious, a site can be temporarily or even permanently purged from the index.”

Most of the stuff DeJarnette shared is nothing any experienced search marketer is not already aware of, but it can be quite helpful when a search engine itself lays out what to do and not to do, to help webmasters get better rankings.

Why not use one of our link building or Bing Ranking Boost packages to get guaranteed links for your site.

I still hear a number of people talking about page rank, page rank, page rank, when discussing whether their website is doing well, or trying to assess the results of their search engine optimisation efforts. However, page rank became less relevant when Google removed PageRank values from their webmaster centre!

Here’s the statement Google made when they did it:

We’ve been telling people for a long time that they shouldn’t focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it’s the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true. We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it.

However, if this is Google’s position, then why bother updating their toolbar PageRank values? Doing so is only going to create a stir in the webmaster community & cause confusion as to it’s relevance. Surely it would’ve been much mbetter to remove it from both webmaster tools and the Google toolbar at the same time.

It’s also important to remember that the toolbar Page Rank values can be a couple of month’s old, so they’re out of date even after the update & therefore not really relevant to your current ranking position. The recent PageRank update has left many webmasters confused with most reporting major decreases in their website’s ranking in the search results. But if Google’s statement is to be believed, should you really be concerned about it?

If you have a search engine friendly site, the most important issue for your Google search engine rankings are quality inbound links!

Use one of our link building or Google Ranking Boost packages to get guaranteed links for your site

I wrote previously about using article submissions to increase the number of backlinks & traffic to your website.

I’ve been submitting my articles manually, to the top 10 article directories, but this process is very drawn out & complicated by the slightly different layouts & entry requirements of each directory. With thousands of directories out there, although submitting to the top 10, 20 or 30 will achieve results, it will be impossible to do many more manual submissions, which will mean you have to write significantly more articles to get more links.

I’ve been looking at the different article submission websites & software for some time & decided now was the time to take the plunge!

I’ve used Submit2Please’s Article Submission Service in the past, but the charges could be considerable if you have a number of articles to publish:

• $49.95 for 100 PR 3 and above Directories (35+ PR 4 & above Directories & 65 PR 3 Directories)
• $74.95 for 200 PR 2 and above Directories(35+ PR 4 & above Directories, 65 PR 3 Directories & 100+ PR 2 Directories)
• $99.95 for 300 Various PR Directories (35+ PR 4 & above Directories, 65 PR 3 Directories, 100+ PR 2 Directories & 100+ PR 1 & 0 Directories)
• $124.95 for 400 Various PR Directories (35+ PR 4 & above Directories, 65 PR 3 Directories, 100+ PR 2 Directories & 200+ PR 1 & 0 Directories)

Bearing in mind I currently have 7 articles to submit, this is a bit too much to pay!

So, I started to look around for services or software that promise to submit to a large number of sites at a reasonable cost, whilst making sure that the submissions are valid & not classed as spam by either the directories, or Google.

Apart from the dodgy looking article submission software packages for $37, there seems to be a consensus of opinion around the following:

• iSnare
• Article Marketing Automation
• Article Marketer
• Ultimate Article Wizard
• The Phantom Writers
  

I was drawn to Article Marketers & Ultimate Article Wizard out of these, mainly because The Phantom Writers is another pay per article plan, iSnare seems a bit too cheap (my opinion on cheap services has been clouded by my recent experiences with 1and1 & Tiscali!) & other users have suggested that AMA only gets your articles out to about 30 sites.

I was originally put off UAW as it costs $67 per month & it seems that you have to spend time using it to rewrite your articles using what is known as “spinning”. Content (article) spinning involves taking an original article and using it to generate 10’s or 100’s of new unique versions of the text & these “spun” versions of your article are submitted instead. Each of these new articles presents the same ideas and concepts as the original, but expressed in different ways. Whilst all are readable and grammatically correct, each is different from the others in terms of the words on the page and therefore unique in Google’s eyes.

The importance of “spinning” your articles will depend on whether you believe that the backlinks from duplicate articles are being disregarded by Google, when Google’s duplicate content filter is treating the article submissions as duplicate content! If this is the case, then it seems pointless to submit your articles to any more than one site for link purposes, but of course, there is the side issue 0f site traffic that your article could generate. There seems to be some debate as to whether this is the case or not, with some people saying it does & others saying it doesn’t! Here’s the part of Google’s duplicate content policy that seems to say it does!

If you believe that each time you submit your article you need to use a different title, different summary, different resource box, and different article body, then perhaps the extra cost of UAW is worth it. However, I’ve also found a free spinner system called Jetspinner that I’m signing up to, which will hopefully allow me to carry out this process for nothing. Then I can create dozens of versions of my articles & submit them to all the directories instead!

Jetspinner also advertises its own article submission service called Jet Submitter (which also costs $67 per month), but as I’ve already signed up with Article Marketer for 3 months use (cost $79.95), I’m going to have to use it for now. If I’m not happy with it, I may switch to Jet Submitter & use their combined tools, but I’ll use this time to submit as many articles as possible, on all of the topics covered by my affiliate websites & see if it makes any difference to their links & rankings!

First, here’s something you probably already know…

Achieving top rankings in ANY search engine in 2009…Is All About Getting More Links From Other Sites.

The reason is simple: Modern search engines place a huge value on links. The more links you have and the better quality these links are, the higher you’ll rank. If a site is linking to you, they are essentially casting a vote of trust. And the more “votes” you have, the more trustworthy your site is to Google, which naturally translates into better rankings.

With today’s Google and Yahoo, it’s also the clickable part of the link (also known as “link anchor”) that counts. Meaning, if you want to rank well for a specific keyword like “blue widgets”, you need more links with “blue widgets” in their clickable part.

Now, this all is fine, but the critical question most webmasters are struggling with is:

Where Do I Get High Quality Links And How Many Do I Need Before I Rank #1 For My Keywords

The fastest and easiest way to answer this question is by analyzing a competing website in your niche that already ranks very well.

Understand this fundamental principle, and you will be smarter than 95% of webmasters out there who are forever stuck on page 27 in Google because they are walking in the dark. Do not work harder when the solution is to work smarter, and do NOT reinvent the wheel by trying to figure the whole thing out by yourself.

You see, most super-successful webmasters who profit from the search engines don’t claim to understand exactly how Google and Yahoo work. But what they do understand, is how to look at the top-ranked sites in these search engines, draw legitimate conclusions as to why they rank so well and copy the best to make their own sites succeed.

Professional Optimisation Consultants Charge Upwards Of £2,000 For This Kind Of Research!

But! SEO SpyGlass enables you to secretly (and ethically) spy on your Google and Yahoo competition and see exactly why they rank better than you. Just launch SEO SpyGlass, and in a matter of minutes you will know everything humanly possible about why ANY site ranks well.

With SEO SpyGlass, you’ll know the answers to the critical questions any webmaster wants answered:

• Where to get high-quality links to one-up the competition and rank better for my keyword searches?
• Exactly which anchor texts (the clickable part of the link) should I use to outrank my niche competition?
• How many links it’ll take to propel my site to the top of the search engines… and get a ton of laser-targeted (and free!) traffic which translates into sales?

For the advanced folks: SEO SpyGlass will reveal the entire link building strategy of your competition, and tell you exactly why they rank well in great detail. Here’s what kind of an insight scoop you can expect from SEO SpyGlass:

• The total number of backlinks your competitor has (yes, today’s search engines place huge value on links.)
• The Google PageRank of every backlink (see how important these links actually are to Google.)
• The Alexa Traffic Rank of every backlink (uncover your competitor’s biggest traffic sources.)
• The total number of PageRank 0 to PageRank 10 backlinks your competitor has (mirror these numbers, and you’ll be able to beat your competitor’s PageRank.)
• The total number of backlinks coming from the same IP addresses (are your competitors buying site-wide links? Should you do the same? Let’s find out!)
• The exact anchor texts and anchor URLs your competitors are using (anchor text is one thing you must implement right to rank well. Find out which anchors work for your competition!)
• Your competitor’s anchor and title keyword density – which is how many times a given keyword appears within the anchors and titles of their links (you will need to mirror these numbers if you want to one-up your competition.)
• How many of your competitor’s backlinks come from forums and blogs (are they tapping into social media for traffic and links? Find out with SEO SpyGlass!)
• How many of your competitor’s backlinks come from homepages of other sites, rather than internal pages. (This is often a dead giveaway of paid links. Oftentimes, you can even see how much they are paying per link!)
• Whether or not your competitor has backlinks from DMOZ or the Yahoo! Directory (these directories are so authoritative, you will get a rankings boost just from a single link from them!)
• The exact link value of every backlink your competitor has (see how valuable each of their links is)
• The exact age of every Website linking back to your competitor (see if they get links from established, authoritative sites.)
• Plus much, much more!

Download your copy of SEO SpyGlass now!

Many webmasters and marketers think that a website will get a ranking boost on Google if it has links from .edu or .gov domains. Google’s Matt Cutts and Google’s John Mueller recently said that this wasn’t so:

“This is a common misconception – you don’t get any PageRank boost from having an .edu link or .gov link automatically. If you get an .edu link and no one is linking to that .edu page, you’re not going to get any PageRank at all because that .edu page doesn’t have any PageRank. [...] We generally treat all links the same – be it from .gov or .edu or .info sites.”

This month, the Google Webmaster blog published an article, in which Google’s Maile Ohye officially explained what it takes to get a high ranking in Google’s search result pages.

Inbound links are important but content is even more important

Google’s Maile Ohye writes the following about inbound links in his article:

“Inbound links are links from pages on external sites linking back to your site. Inbound links can bring new users to your site, and when the links are merit-based and freely-volunteered as an editorial choice, they’re also one of the positive signals to Google about your site’s importance.”

Nothing new here! If many related websites link to your site, and if these links look natural, this will help your rankings on Google a lot.

However, links are not the most important ranking factor & he gives a concrete example:

“Let’s say I have a site, example.com, that offers users a variety of unique website templates and design tips. One of the strongest ranking factors is my site’s content. Additionally, perhaps my site is also linked from three sources — however, one inbound link is from a spammy site.

As far as Google is concerned, we want only the two quality inbound links to contribute to the PageRank signal in our ranking. “

The website’s content is mentioned as one of the strongest ranking factors. The inbound links are additional. That makes sense; it’s the content of your website that really tells Google what your website is about.

If you want to get a high ranking for the keyword “used cars in essex”, but your web pages are about microwave ovens, then you won’t get high rankings for that keyword.

For that reason, it is very important that you optimise your web pages for the keywords for which you want to get high rankings, before you try to get links from other sites. This optimisation should also be an ongoing process as keyword popularity may vary over time.

Google analyses over 200 ranking factors

According to the article in Google’s blog, Google analyses more than 200 signals (we call them ‘ranking factors’) to specify the position of a web page in the search results:

“Given the user’s query, over 200 signals (including the analysis of the site’s content and inbound links as mentioned above) are applied to return the most relevant results to the user.”

It’s a simple two-step process

Apparently, getting high rankings on Google is a simple two-step process!!

1. You must optimise your web page contents so that Google can find out what your website is about. Optimise your web pages for your keywords so that Google knows that your website is relevant to these keywords and your topic.
2. Other websites must confirm that your website is about that topic. That’s what inbound links are for.

Hmmm, we all knew that didn’t we? So why is it so hard to do then?!!!!! ;o)

Following rumours that Best of the Web Directory (the internet’s oldest directory) are going to buy DMOZ, which Google uses as its own Directory source, I decided to try & get some of my sites listed.

Also known as the open directory project, DMOZ is probably the most well known free directory online. Like Yahoo and Best of the Web, DMOZ is also known for its very high standards when it comes to website listings in the directory. It is best to submit your site to DMOZ on your own.

Considerable effort needs to be spent on making the right submission, according to the guidelines mentioned. You only get one chance to have your site listed in DMOZ, hence it must be ensured that the submission is made properly.

Best of the Web Directory like Yahoo Directory was established in 1994 and has since maintained one of the strictest editorial review policies, accepting only content-rich, high quality sites. This commitment to quality has made it one of the most highly regarded directories on the web. A link from Best of the Web directory would immensely benefit a site, substantially increasing its search engine rankings. Best of the web directory is a paid directory currently offering two listing options: one for an annual review of the website which costs US$ 99.95 per year and one for a one-time review which costs US$ 249.95.

Because I wasn’t sure that my site would be accepted & the fee is non-refundable, I decided to opt for the annual review option first & see what happened….better to lose $100 than $250!!!

I submitted 2 of my sites to the Directory: Cashback Shopper & My Travel Extras. My concern with Cashback Shopper was that it is a white label site & could possibly be considered as duplicate content. However, I needn’t have worried, within 12 hours I received an e-mail telling me that my submission had been successful & my link would appear on the site within 24 hours! )

My Travel Extras has also been accepted & the good news is that the sites can still be upgraded to the one time review option, albeit at a cost of $239.95…..but at least I know they will be accepted! Because this directory is so well respected, I hope it will add to my tally of backlinks in Google, which are looking pretty threadbare at the moment when compared to those from Yahoo.

I am considering adding other sites to the directory in the future, but at the moment the cost of advertising is too high to add any others. I also want to see if the directory submissions make any difference to my rankings.

Having been using bidding links directories for a while now, to obtain permanent one way links, I decided to start my own web directory!

Using the phpLinkBid script was pretty straightforward & only cost $29.95 for a single site license. I decided to go for the SEO Bundle Site License which also gives two add ons, Advanced Link Stats + PageRank Checker.

phpLinkBid makes it easy to launch a full-featured bid directory with automatic payments using PayPal and powerful administration tools.
phpLinkBid Features

• Fully automated link bidding system
• Unlimited categories & classic letters mode
• Instant payments with PayPal IPN
• Powerful administration control panel
• SEO friendly URLs
• Deep Links
• Email Manager
• Link Approvals
• Link Expirations
• Latest Links
• Linkrolls for your favourite sites
• Custom Language Files
• Multiple Currencies & Currency Manager
• Outbid Notifications
• User friendly pages and fancy error handling
• Built-in Content Management System
• Template support for easy customization

As I say, setting up was pretty straightforward, even if I did make a couple of schoolboy errors & had to re-install the add-ons. The site is configured to use my existing Paypal account & to test, I set up my own websites as the first couple of entries. All works well, the payment is made, credited to my Paypal account & the link goes live automatically.

E-mails were sent to me as the bidder & site owner, so the FreshBidz Bidding Links Directory is live & now I just have to promote & find customers! The same old story lol.