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.

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.”

In the never ending search to increase the number of links into my sites, I have been searching for other companies that provide link building opportunities.

I’ve been using Directory Maximizer for some time now & am pleased with the service that they have provided. However, I have submitted Cashback Shopper to all the directories that they have had available (nearly 1500) & it’s still not enough (

A recent comparison found that my cashback site competitors main advantage over me is the number of links they have pointing to their sites. Whilst quality of links is also important, the fact that many of the top sites have 10 times the number of links is highly relevant, as is the number of links they have from social networks:

So, it seems I still have some way to go to make Cashback Shopper a top 10 site!! My SEO partner offers a top 10 Google guarantee for their SEO package, but because the amount of on page SEO I can do is limited on this site, their link building option may be a better bet – it certainly worked for “cashback sites”, but at a cost of £10 per link, it’s not the cheapest option out there!

Searching through Google results for directory submission service brought me to Submit2Please which despite sounding like some dodgy fetish club (lol), is actually a One Way Link Building Services Provider. They offer:

Directory Submission
Article Submission
Social Bookmarking
Monthly Submissions
Press Release Distribution
Combo Package
Local Search Optimization
Niche Directory Submission
Link Building
Featured Listing Program

I’m initially planning to use the Social Bookmarking package, which will hopefully get me some more links from these well respected authority sites. At $49.95 for social bookmarks on 150 PR 4 and above sites, they certainly seem worth the money rather than me spend 3 days doing it myself!

If this goes well, I shall then consider the directory submission service, which tops out at with submission to 700 Various PR Directories for $124.95. Following my last experience of an article writing service, I’m not sure about this, but article submission would certainly provide useful links!

Of course, this focus is on Cashback Shopper, but should the results prove tangible, I will consider using these services for some of my other sites too. But hey, there’s only so much money to throw around O