One-way Linking Strategies

Incoming links are great for your website and can help you increase your search engine ranking. But you need to make sure you have the “right kind” of incoming links. Although reciprocal links are good, one-way links are better.

The old way of linking had everyone exchanging links. Search engines have become more intelligent now and they want to find links that are based on the quality, content, and integrity of a site. That is most often indicated by a one-way link. Since you have no reciprocal link, the search engines assume that the linking site found you valuable for reasons other than ‘reciprocating’.

So, how do you get other sites to link to you without Read more

Effective Submission of Sites to Search Engines

If you’re wondering how to avoid those costly fees with resubmitting your website to search engines, you’re not alone. People pay a lot of money for companies to do this for them monthly. But I’ve recently seen some articles and information about whether or not this is really necessary. And I’ve learned a lot about resubmitting to search engines.

I do believe that resubmitting your website to search engines is a good strategy for online marketers. But the frequency and the process can differ and you can still get good results. After all, once you’ve submitted your website to search engines, they will eventually find you if you have relevant links from other sites – especially authority sites. This helps to keep your site on the map too.

But you always want to optimize Read more

Is the ‘Cuil’ Search Engine Cool?

If you’re keeping up with developments in the business of search engines, you already know about Cuil (pronounced “cool”). If not, then let me tell you what I’ve learned about this latest search engine that was created by ex-Google employees who played a key role in Google’s success.

Cuil is fairly new in the business, but its’ owners and developers are not. It’s a SE that is trying to give Google some Read more

International authority links increase ranking

There’s an interesting question floating around the Internet about the value and importance of linking with authority sites. As you may already know, authority sites are those enviable sites that have high page rank, tons of traffic, and high levels of customer loyalty. I recently spoke with an online marketer who talked to me about the value of gaining authority links from other countries to optimize my own website.

One important thing she shared with me was the value of obtaining links globally.

Yes – that’s right – globally! Read more

Negative keywords avoid unwanted clicks

We’re always searching for ways to optimize keywords and keyword phrases to attract the search engines. Search engines are always looking for the words that have relevancy to the search inquiry. While this is a commendable strategy, there’s another one that is just as important to SEO.

Negative keyword strategy

When search engines are looking for a specific topic, they focus on keywords. You can also eliminate any unwanted visitors clicking on your site by using negative keywords to send search engines away.  Focusing on targeted traffic is the best way to increase your conversion rates and negative keywords can help you with this strategy.

Negative keywords are especially helpful when you use them in ads to avoid attracting the wrong people to your website. It’s a good way to capitalize on your marketing dollars when you use these words effectively. PPC can be even more effective with negative keywords.

If your name is Jason Deere, and your online business is “Deere’s clocks”, you can use negative keywords such as ‘farm equipment’, ‘tractors’, ‘John Deere’, and similar words. This will prevent people looking for John Deere clocks or equipment from landing on your site. You still may get a few people who come to your site by mistake – but you’ll be able to weed out a lot of them.

Using negative keywords can increase your conversion rates and help you attract the target audience you desire. You can optimize the traffic that ends up visiting your site. They’re more likely to become paying customers at some point.

Split Testing for Website Effectiveness

Creating your website with fresh, unique content and ensuring that you have dynamic, interactive components is a secret to your online marketing success. These are great ways to increase traffic flow to your website, attract search engines, and make your site ‘sticky’ so your visitors will stay longer. .

But do you really know if you are optimizing your marketing efforts and taking advantage of every possible opportunity to increase your sales?

Split tests

One way to make sure your strategies are effective is to utilize ‘split testing’. Split tests are simply A/B Testing methods that look at the most effective ways to promote your website and products.

When you use split tests, you can increase your sales by giving your target audience more of what they want. Your conversion rates will increase as a result of leveraging split testing data to constantly improve your content. With the results of these tests, you can make small changes and tweaks in your website content that turn into major differences in conversion rates.

With split testing, you are able to increase the traffic to your website and search engines love to see more traffic. They also appreciate and reward well-designed websites that are easy to navigate. Split testing can help you with all of this.

If you think split tests aren’t necessary, you may want to think again. Serious online marketers know that split tests can determine the effectiveness of many things on their website, including: Read more

Leverage Permission Marketing

One of the most important tools to an online marketer is the ability to leverage the use of autoresponders and email marketing. You’ve all heard the saying, “the money is in the lists”. While that may be true, the lists can also be the downfall of your business if they are not managed properly and professionally.

Many online marketers are just happy to capture email addresses and names so they can increase their lists. They believe this gives them a great opportunity to continually market their products to potential customers and eventually convince them to buy something. But what if those people don’t care about your products or are annoyed by your invasion into their ‘inboxes’?

Just because you continually email them doesn’t mean they’ll finally make a purchase!

Permission marketing strategies prevail

The true beauty of email marketing is recognized when you deploy ‘permission marketing’ strategies. Permission marketing requires that customers and potential customer give you permission to send the information and updates through email. Some people refer to it as ‘opt-in’ email, but either way, it requires that the potential customer allows you to communicate directly with them through email.

People are constantly overloaded with emails, advertisements, and other promotional tools. The last thing they want to find in their inbox is unwanted solicitation from online marketers. They’ll quickly move you to the ‘junk email’ folder and your opportunity is lost forever. And with today’s technology, you probably won’t make it past the junk filters deployed by most all Internet service providers anyway.

So what do you do?

Give customers control

You give your customers and potential customers more control over what they want to receive. This makes them more likely to open your emails, read them, and react to them positively. It’s the way to increase your conversion rates because you are targeting people who are interested in your product, your information, and your updates.

When visitors come to your website, entice them to sign up for your product updates, newsletters, or other types of email. Encourage them to sign-up by reinforcing that they will only receive relevant emails, their personal information will not be shared or sold, and they can opt-out of the email at any point in time. And adhere to these policies too!

If people feel they have the control to accept emails, but also have the ability to cancel their permission at any time, they are likely to test out your services. Once they start receiving irrelevant emails or emails that do not provide valuable, interesting, and unique information, they may decide to opt-out. That’s why you must continually produce unique, high-quality, value-added content in every communication you initiate.

Strengthen customer relationships

Permission marketing is a great way to enhance and strengthen customer relationships. When customers give you permission to stay in touch with them, you can continually provide them with value-added information. They will trust what they receive from you and your integrity will be highly valued.  Customers will begin to rely on you for information and/or products and customer loyalty will increase.

Not only does permission marketing increase conversion rates, it also increases your ability to retain existing customers. You now have a two-way communication with your customers because you aren’t just sending out information to the masses. You’re sending information to people who want to see it, read it, and potentially buy it!

Always take advantage of every email to remind people how you got their information. Remind them that they wanted to receive the information, but also remind them that they can opt-out at any time. Give them an easy-to-find link to discontinue their permission in case they want to opt-out. Holding them hostage only frustrates them and does not help you with your marketing efforts!

Optimize email marketing

There are tons of ways that you can optimize permission marketing and emails to make your business more productive. You can even use it to learn what your customers value by soliciting their feedback. People love to be asked for their opinions and this is a great way to improve your products or promote the positive comments you receive.

Make sure you leverage permission marketing as a way to not only attract, but retain valuable customers.  Build long-term relationships based on integrity, trust, and high-quality products and content.

It’s a business investment you can’t afford to ignore!

Customer Reviews Attract Attention

Increasing traffic to your niche website takes on many different forms as you reach out to your targeted audience. One important aspect of your promotional and marketing plan is to include feedback from customers. Customer reviews on your products can make a significant difference in how others respond to your niche.

Increase conversion rates

An important aspect of customer reviews is that it has proven to increase conversion rates in most every instance. When people hear about the experience and satisfaction of other customers, they are more likely to try your niche products. This also encourages them to bookmark your website and visit it frequently for updated information and content.

There are many far-reaching benefits of having positive customer reviews on your niche site, including your enhanced ability to create long-lasting customer relationships and making your website sticky. When people have confidence in your products, they are more likely to stay on your site longer and search deep into your site for more valuable and unique content.

But don’t just think about the positive reviews you’ll receive from customers. There may be times when your customers are recommending enhancements, changes, or updates to a product. This can be used as valuable marketing research to enable you to continually improve your products. It is also an indication to your customers and site visitors that you listen to what they have to say and you respond accordingly.

Increase customer loyalty and trust

Customer loyalty is built on trust and integrity. When you capitalize on the customer reviews you receive, then you create greater levels of trust and your integrity increases along with it. Responding directly to each individual who provides you with customer review information is a great way to acknowledge their opinions. It’s also a great way to further reinforce how valuable they are to your business and build a long-lasting relationship with them.

An interactive niche site is your most important feature when it comes to engaging your customers. By allowing them to provide product reviews and give you honest, open feedback, you are encouraging interaction.  You can even use much of their feedback to craft valuable marketing materials that incorporate user feedback.

Make it easy for your customers to comment and provide product feedback. Put a link where it is easily accessible for them to submit their comments. You can even consider an email campaign with your autoresponder that solicits customer feedback. Your customers will appreciate being asked for their opinions.

Increase SE recognition

If you’re afraid to hear what your customers have to say, then you may already have a problem with your niche product. Don’t let this deter you from asking for reviews and feedback. That’s one important way to improve and optimize your niche product offering.

Another added benefit of customer reviews? You’ll increase the traffic to your website by soliciting customer feedback and this will also be more attractive to search engines. Not only do search engines thrive on increased traffic to your site, but they love interactive content. This gives you added advantages for using customer interaction as a consistent part of your marketing strategy.

Build a stronger customer base

Ask your customers what they like about your products and what they’d like to see added, changed, or improved. They’ll likely respond with enthusiasm and you’ll build a stronger customer base for potential future sales. When you open your niche website up for customer comments, you increase the trust and loyalty you receive from your customers and site visitors.

Try it today and see for yourself!

Siloing Website Structures for SEO

So what’s all the hype about silo structuring and what is it anyway?

Don’t discount the value of silo structuring! It’s one of the best things you can do to optimize your website and gain higher page ranking among the search engines. A silo structure creates an easy-to-navigate site by organizing your content into specific themes and deploying a vertical and horizontal linking structure.

Siloing takes advantage of latent semantic indexing (LSI) which we discussed in an earlier post in our SEO articles. You may recall that LSI is one of the ways in which search engines compare your site to other similar sites. Using synonyms and LSI on your site, while structuring your website into themes, will optimize SEO. Read more

Optimize SEO with Onsite Linking

The overall purpose of SEO is to increase traffic to your website. Keywords, keyword phrases, and an effective linking strategy have a significant impact on whether or not search engines recognize your niche website.

Many online marketers focus heavily on gaining both inbound and outbound links to and from relevant sites and authority websites. While this is a commendable linking strategy, it is not the only strategy you should deploy.

The third, and very important linking strategy, is onsite linking - which involves a site design that links pages throughout and deep within your site. Using your keywords and themes, you can increase your attraction to search engines by cross-linking between pages and across themes. Not only does this strategy attract search engines, it is also an effective way to keep visitors on your site longer.

If visitors find what they need by quickly linking between pages and themes on your site, they won’t be so quick to click away to another website. Providing fresh, unique content on all pages of your website provides your visitors with what they’re looking for and your site is ‘sticky’. Simply linking to pages with similar content won’t work.

Your goal is also to ensure that there is relevancy between your onsite links. It’s important to keep information and content relevant so your visitors don’t get frustrated by being steered toward information of no value to them. Many websites use a silo structure today, which enables them to neatly organize their keywords and topics into themes that link vertically and horizontally.

The key to horizontal linking in a silo directory is to always link back to the main page, or Index Silo, for that particular link. You want to avoid linking horizontally to pages underneath the Index Silo or you will confuse the search engines and send them running in the opposite direction.

Some additional linking tips are included here which will increase the effectiveness of your strategy:

• Ensure you use your keywords on your homepage and throughout the text on your site.
• Vary the content on all pages and make it interesting and different – if you have pages of duplicate text on many pages, your strategy will fail. This also means using different title tags and meta tag descriptions on each page.
• Make sure all links are functional and lead to the appropriate page – broken links make search engines crazy and frustrate users. Search engines will avoid your site at all costs with broken links, including onsite and offsite linking.
• Search engines cannot read images – make sure your text is easily found by search engines and don’t hide it in images.

 

Create an onsite linking strategy that optimizes the use of keywords, keyword phrases, content, articles, reports, and themes throughout the site. Establish an effective onsite linking strategy that welcomes search engines and visitors and you’ll quickly move up the ranking!

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