How To Build
Backlinks via Google Alerts
By Titus Hoskins (c) 2008

Building backlinks is an essential, yet tedious job for most webmasters. Here are a few tools and tips to make that job just a little bit easier…

I am a member of many online forums. Most of these forums have to do with online marketing and site promotion. Recently, I came across a post on Ken Evoy’s SBI forum that truly caught my attention.

It basically described how to use Google Alerts to build your backlinks. Now for those not familiar with Google Alerts a little explanation is probably needed.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a free program run by Google that allows you to keep track of any topic on the web. You select your “keywords” or “urls” and Google will alert you via email whenever links/ content containing your selected topics appear anywhere on the web.

It is an excellent way to keep informed about your domain or name. It is also perfect for keeping up-to-date on the latest information in your market niche or niches. It’s also a great way to find out what other people are saying about you or your site.

For example: if you have a site on “antique cars” then you would create a Google Alert for those keywords. Google will alert you by email whenever a new link/content related to those keywords appears on the web.

This is a great way to stay informed in your niche, but it is also a valuable source of potential linking partners. Many of those links are blogs that will allow comments with a link back to your site.

Google Alerts will probably send you 10-20 links each day, depending on the popularity of your chosen keywords. Just go to these blogs/links and see if you can leave a comment with some valuable additional information on what’s been discussed.

Don’t Spam

Please Note: Don’t spam; there are intelligent people behind most of these blogs, and they will recognize keyword spam when they see it. Your main goal should be getting targeted traffíc back to your site and any link PR should be secondary. Always put the reader or viewer first, especially if it’s on someone else’s site. Don’t talk about your site or your marketing - just join the conversation and add your comments/opinions/suggestions…

Enhance their site and they will reward you with traffic and a link. But you still have to keep your interests in the equation! You have to make sure you get your targeted keywords in the anchor text.

Keyword Market

First, if you’ve done your homework, your main keywords should already be in your domain name or url. Another way is to add your “keywords” + “guide” to your sig or signature. Such as: Name, Your Antique Cars Guide. If you’re an expert in your particular niche, many webmasters will kindly welcome your comments and links.

Since your main goal is the traffic, many webmasters don’t worry if there is a “no follow” attribute attached to the link. But if you are concerned about this - one way is to look at the source code to see if it has the “no follow” tag. I usually copy the whole source code of the page to my text editor and then do a simple “no follow” search.

No Follow

There is also a great little free comment tool called “Comment Kahuna” co-created by Jason Potash which will search blogs and tell you if they have the “no-follow” attribute or not, it will also give you the PageRank of each blog post. If you’re going to use blogs as a source of your backlinks, I suggest you try Comment Kahuna - it will make the task much easier and it’s free.

Actually, while the “no-follow” issue may be a concern for some webmasters, the savvy ones will realize these are links/sites Google is actively indexing and spidering, otherwise you wouldn’t get the alert in the first place. You must get your links into this whole mix of related, relevant sites to help raise your rankings. Also remember the other search engines may not even consider the “no-follow” tag.

Trackbacks

Likewise, creating trackbacks are another way of linking relevant content. Keep in mind, a trackback is simply an acknowledgement via a ping signal that is sent from Site A (originator) to Site B (receptor). Then the receptor often places a link back to Site A showing its worthiness.

Again, I am mainly concerned with the quality of the blog or link, rather than the linking structure. I want the targeted traffíc, and it doesn’t really matter whether the link has “no follow” because interested visitors only see a link they can click for other helpful information.

Other Linking Options

Since we are on the topic of link building, another useful way to build backlinks is to use Google Search or Google Blog search. Now if you’re looking for niche-related blogs just type in:

“(Keywords)” “powered by (blog scripts)”

For example, if you’re looking for some “antique cars” related links on WordPress blogs, you would search for:

“antique cars” “powered by wordpress”

And Google would give you a whole líst of sites on antique cars.

Now if you want to find the links that will allow comments, just repeat the Google search with:

“antique cars” “powered by wordpress” “leave a comment” -”no comments”

Remember the “-” means posts that have no comments will not be displayed.

If you’re concerned with PageRank, Number of Backlinks, Alexa Ranking… of particular posts you can download and install the SEOQuake plugin. This handy SEO plugin can be attached to your browser and will give you helpful SEO information on the link or links you’re viewing.

Used in conjunction with Google, it can sort thru all these blog posts and give you the ones with the highest PR? Highest traffic? Highest number of backlinks? The more knowledge you have, the easier and more effective your link building will become.

Just remember, finding quality backlinks is probably the most tedious job for most webmasters. It takes time and it takes patience. By using Google Alerts you can have relevant keyword related links emailed to you each day. Use this information to help build your backlinks in relevant related niches. Do this consistently over a period of time and your site will get noticed and ranked higher.
About The Author
The author is a full-time online marketer who has numerous websites. For the latest web marketing tools try: Marketing Tools. Everyone is profiting from Google, find out how you can too! Google Cash File

Copyright (c) 2008 Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

I just wanted to thank everyone for coming out the Hilton Garden Inn to talk the ins and outs of Search Marketing with us. There were alot of great questions and alot of diversity in the businesses that attended. We pride ourselves in the flexibility we provide to different industries. From our core Healthcare Staffing clients, to our property developers, to ourt Plastic Surgeons, even to our Electric Vehicle dealership, we’ve been able to get ranking locally, statewide, and Globally.

Thanks for coming out and stay tuned. I have some extra staff and a new office with a door so I may be able to update this blog more than once a month!

I have a great backlog of info so look out!

Regards,

Jim

SEO Copywriting Tips – How to Write Great Web Site Content

• Keyword research: This topic deserves a whole article on its own, but suffice to say that you’ll want to base your site content on the keyword terms that you know are most popular among the audience you’re trying to reach. There are online tools available that can help you determine the right keywords for your company. Among them are WordTracker and Keyword Discovery.
• One topic per page: If your company makes 5 different products, you’ll need to devote at least one page per topic.
• Details, details: Each topic should be covered in enough detail that the site visitor can determine whether to contact you for more information. From an SEO standpoint, the more detail you provide on each topic, the more easily the search engines will be able to determine the relevance of your site to that keyword.
• Kill the sales brochure: Internet users don’t appreciate going to your web to find only a sales brochure. Avoid flowery language; it usually signifies a page that’s light on content and heavy on sales pitch, which the search engines won’t rank well. Good SEO copywriting will focus on objective facts about your company’s products and services, with a call-to-action for more information.
• Create a content hierarchy: The more detail, the better, but be considerate of your site visitors’ time. Good SEO copywriting separates content into multiple pages and creates a hierarchy for your pages with most important information first, least important last. The most important pages you’ll want on your navigation bar, with lesser pages linking off those. Make sure you include a site map, though, that lists all your web site’s pages.
• Keyword density: In order for search engines to be able to rank your pages for a particular keyword, that keyword has to be used on your page. At the same time, the more often you use it, the more relevant the page will seem. ONE CAVEAT: Don’t go overboard. Writing should sound natural to the human visitors you’re trying to reach. Search engines can penalize you for “overoptimizing” by using the keyword too often (known as keyword stuffing or spamming).

Types of Content to Consider for Your Company Web Site

Part of the SEO copywriting process is project planning. It’s important to take the time to consider what information people would want to know about your company. Here are some types of content well received by Internet visitors and search engines:

• Product details, including features/benefits, specifications, data sheets, diagrams, flow-charts, video demonstrations and photos (with alt tags, see below)
• Technical tips, product troubleshooting guides, user manuals
• Customer testimonials, case studies
• Industry definitions
• Product selection guides, comparative information

Advice on Adding PDFs to your Site

Type your top keywords into Google and Yahoo and see what sites and pages come up on the first or second page of results. This will give you a good idea of some of the content that search engines like. More specifically, take a look at:

• Competitor sites
• Industry portal sites
• Industry magazine sites
• Resource sites

See what types of content they provide that your site could emulate (not copy).

Other On-Page SEO Copywriting Tips

Once your content is written, it’s time to place it on the page. Here are some additional details you’ll need to be concerned with to complete the SEO copywriting process:

• Title tags: Make sure each page title tag is unique and complements the content of that page. For instance, if your page is about “blue suede shoes”, then your title tag might be “Blue Suede Shoes | ABC Company”
• Description tags: Likewise, you’ll want each page description tag to be unique and complementary to the page it describes. This is the information that many of the search engines use to display a description of your page.
• Keyword tags: Most search engines have de-emphasized use of the keyword tag, but we feel it’s a useful tool to help you organize your site content. If you followed the advice above regarding one topic per page, then your keyword tag would be pretty short and limited to that topic. It’ll probably have more than one term in it as there might be multiple ways to describe the topic, but this is a good check that you’re in the process of writing a well-optimized page.
• Alt tags: You can use the meta alt tag to help search engines interpret what your nav buttons and images are about. Search engines can’t “see” images, so unless you specifically tell them, that information will be ignored. If you have a picture of blue suede shoes, use the Alt tag to label it as “blue suede shoes.”
• Internal linking: Build your keyword phrases into the links on your pages that are used to navigate from page to page. For instance, a call to action might be “Contact ABC Company for more information about our blue suede shoes,” with the phrase “more information about our blue suede shoes” as the link. Avoid using “clíck here” as the link.

I’ve created quite a to-do líst of SEO Copywriting Tips, but when done properly, your SEO copywriting efforts will help yield long-term results in the way of top placement on Google and Yahoo and, most importantly, increased opportuníty to reach new potential customers.

About The Author
Angela Charles is president of Pilot Fish, an Akron, Ohio, search engine optimization and web design firm specializing in industrial clients.

Welcome to the Appsoft Development Search Engine Optimiation Blog. Everyday we are bombarded with fantastic SEO information that comes in from the numerous SEO newsletters we have signed up for over the years. Most days, we take a look, learn a dew things, and file them away forthe next time we get in and do some Search Engine Optimization coding. This will be the spot where you get to read what we are reading! Whenever a relevant article concerning Search Engine optimization comes up, we’ll paste it right here with some commentary to help explain the context of article.

Stay tuned!

Two Practical Landing Page Tricks That Will Save You Money

Do you want to know how to reduce your cost per conversion by up to $10.67 and improve your quality score at the same time? Let me tell you a story about how I used two easy landing page optimization tricks to do just this.

Shorter forms reduced cost per conversion by $10.67

For context, my company provides on-demand marketing software including lead management and landing page optimization. One of my jobs is to generate qualified leads for the sales team by sourcing prospects using Google AdWords (as well as other channels) and nurturing the prospects until they are qualified leads. In this sense, my job is similar to that of any other business-to-business marketer.

I have a variety of ad groups, but for now let’s focus on the one that talks about my company’s ability to create landing pages with no code or IT involvement. In general, this ad group performs quite well. Across the 160 keywords in the group (including various match types, misspellings, synonyms, and so on) the average CTR is 5.15%, position is 3.7, CPC is $4.18, and conversion rate is 12.5%. This yields about three conversions a day at an average cost per conversion of $33.43.

For this ad group I used the landing page testing capabilities of our software to send the clicks to one of three different landing pages. Here’s a screenshot of one of the three:

The only difference between the three pages is the form. As we’ve all heard before, simple forms convert better, but the question is, how much better? Is the extra information worth the reduced conversion rate? Are certain types of information more costly in terms of conversion rate? I decided to use a landing page testing to find out.

First, I had to determine how many test versions I could have. As I wrote in Landing Page Testing: How Much Is Too Much?, it’s easy to create tests that are too complicated to achieve statistical significance in a timely fashion. So, I used the Landing Page Test Calculator to calculate that this ad group could support three test versions in the time I wanted to run the test.

Next, I created three different forms, appropriately named “short form” with five fields, “medium form” with seven fields, and “long form” with nine fields, and used these on three different versions of my landing page.

Finally, I let the system automatically rotate between the three versions and report the results in terms of conversions. Here’s what I found:

• Short Form: Conversion rate 13.4%, cost per conversion $31.24
• Medium Form: Conversion rate 12.0%, cost per conversion $34.94
• Long Form: Conversion rate 10.0%, cost per conversion $41.90

The difference in the cost per conversion between the short and medium forms is $3.70, between the medium and long forms is $6.96, and between the short and long forms is $10.67. One way to interpret this is that each additional piece of information costs $1.85, and that asking for a phone number (the most invasive of all the fields) costs more than $5.00. At these prices, the conclusion was obvious: keep only the short form and turn off the other two versions.

As much as my sales team and I would like some of that information, it is not worth paying that much for these extra fields. Instead, we just needed to find a different way to get it. Fortunately, this type of information is available from a variety of data cleansing and augmentation vendors, usually for as little as $1.00 for all the information you need.

Landing page metadata improved quality score

Another question I wanted to test was “What impact does the metadata of the landing page have on determining quality score”? To figure this out, I used my “lead management” ad group. To begin, I created a targeted ad and landing page that focused on the concept of lead management and offered a free lead management eBook. A sample text ad was:

Here’s what the landing page looked like:

Clearly, this page is all about lead management, but I left the page metadata (e.g. title, keywords, and description tags) generic. Based on this, when this ad group was brand new, Google assigned the following quality scores:

Next, I updated the page metadata (e.g. set the title tag to “Lead Management Best Practices”) but did not change any other element of the ad group or landing page. And you know what? It turns out just this small change had a real impact on the quality scores. Here’s what they looked like a few days later:

For most words, the minimum bids went from $0.15 or $0.20 down to $0.10. Interesting, the only word that didn’t get a quality score improvement was “prospect management”, which makes sense since I didn’t include that term in the title or description tags for the page. Perhaps that term would work better in its own ad group.

The implication of this is that each ad group should have its own landing page, specifically targeted to the keywords in that ad group. Even if the content on the page is the same or similar, just tweaking the metadata can have a positive impact on quality score.

Jon Miller is VP of Marketing for Marketo, a provider of marketing software that helps B2B marketing professionals drive revenue and improve accountability. Contact Jon at jon@marketo.com. The Strictly Business column appears Wednesdays at Search Engine Land.

By Jon Miller Permalink Jump To Comments See Related Stories In: Search Marketing: Landing Pages, Strictly Business

The Secret Sauce of Google Success
By Terry Mickelson (c) 2008

What do you need to get top rankings on Google? There are many ingredients in the mix, but here are three of the most important that you need to concentrate on.

Whatever the keywords you want to get ranked in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), be sure that you have enough copy and content about those specific words which will give Google a reason to rank you in the first place.

If for example, one of your priority keywords is “virtual assistant software”, create a separate page or section for this keyword (at least a few paragraphs) using the keyword in the headline, the first sentence, the last sentence as well as wherever it makes logical sense in order to achieve the keyword frequency and “density” that search engines are looking for. Ideally, each page will only have one or two keywords and will be very focused on that specific topic.

The only thing a search engine can read is words. Sites that are dynamic, or created in other formats such as Flash or Java often can’t be read by the search engines. Even if they can read the content on your site, many times they can’t navigate it properly or just bounce “off the walls” as there are no specific links or site map to tell the proper sequence or where to go next.

Want to see what Google is indexing on your website? Go to Google and type in: site:www.yourdomain.com . This will show you the title and description of the pages of your site they know about. If they are all the same or they don’t have a title or description listed, chances are very good that your site is invisible to your target market.

How many links do you need to have? It depends on the individual keyword or phrase you want to be found under and how the links are structured. The search engines look at inbound links as a popularity contest but more importantly, they are looking at the quality of the pages that are linking to you and the “anchor text” - the “clickable link” and what it says about the page that it links to. The key to linking is to have the right anchor text on a link that points to a page that has content using the same keyword phrase.

You do not want to boost the overall number of links by more than 10-15% each month for an established site with history because this may trigger a filter from the search engines as an indicator of artificially inflated link popularity. New sites have an advantage since there has not been a history established and the link building can be done at a faster rate. Linking is critical not only with your search engine placement, but also because it helps stabilize you positions in the search engines and delivers traffic directly from the sites that link to you. But linking is not a once and you are done process. Generating new links is an ongoing process.

In summary, successfully implementing the above 3 strategies either through your efforts or through employing search engine promotion specialists will deliver the “triple punch” and the knockout punch you need to get top rankings on Google and the other search engines as well.

About The Author
Article by Terry Mickelson Founder of PageViews.com, one of the foremost search engine optimization companies specializing in B2B search engine optimization and link building programs. For further information as well as a free ranking report on your website, contact Terry Mickelson at 480-556-9752 or email tmickelson@pageviews.com.

What’s a Web-video Commercial Anyway?

Maybe it’s just us but I’m finding more and more clients open to the idea that Web-commercials need to be something different, something entertaining, something informative, and most of all something memorable. It isn’t about creating something viral for the sake of being viral but rather something that is worth the time and effort to sit through.

If you start your video project with a television mindset, you are going to waste a lot of money on bad ideas and expensive production costs that add nothing to the delivery of a memorable message.

Big production costs may enhance the reputation of the video producer or feed the ego of the executive suite but they rarely sell more stuff. And worst of all elaborate productions generally cause the client to cut back on the number of videos created for the campaign. One video doesn’t have the same lasting impact as a series of videos with a similar theme and message. To use poker legend Scotty Nguyen’s favorite expression, “It’s about the campaign, baby!”

So without further preamble here is Web-Video Campaign Creation 101.

Web-Video Campaign Creation 101 - The Plan

1 Define Focus

Your marketing message must be focused on a single idea. If you try to cram everything you can do, or provide, into one video presentation all you are doing is diluting your core marketing message, the element that makes you different and superior to your competition - you are superior to your competition, aren’t you?

One reason some companies have such difficulty with this concept is that they have been trained to focus on the old feature-benefit rationale. This is a game that I guarantëe you will loose unless you are the biggest, best financed, and most ruthless cutthroat company in your industry. Maybe that describes you and your business, but that’s unlikely.

For any small or medium-sized company that thinks this is the path to success, read Sergio Zyman’s book, “The End of Marketing As We Know It”. Mr. Zyman is the former Chief Marketing Officer of the Coca-Cola Company and the guy responsible for New Coke. It’s not that Mr. Zyman doesn’t know what he’s talking about but rather, there is only one Coca-Cola and I dare say most businesses don’t fall into the same category. Unless you’re a multinational corporation, trying to run your company like one is a prescription for disaster.

So, if you shouldn’t be reciting a bunch of facts and features, what should you be focusing on: emotional value-add. It’s the key to hitting a nerve in your audience’s psyche. Focus your marketing on the psychological advantage you provide, and your competition will be left in the dust.

2 Build A BME Structure

If you want viewers to remember what you are saying and hopefully respond, then your videos have to tell a story that paints a picture in the viewers mind that they’ll nevër forget. Without beating a dead horse, you just can’t throw up an animation with a bunch of bulleted points or a series of stock royalty-free images that have been used more times than the ladies in the local red-light district and expect it to be effective.

In order to effectively deliver your core marketing message you must structure your videos around the BME story format. Simply put, a story must have a beginning, middle, and end.

This is not rocket science, but nevertheless it is a simple method that seems to elude a lot of entrepreneurs and business managers. Your story must begin with a problem that you can solve; proceed to a level of frustration or exasperation; and end with a solution; a beginning, a middle, and an end. Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?

3 Create Signature Personality

Why do you watch certain programs on television and not others. Sure certain genres appeal to some and not others, but the success of any television series is based on the connection that the audience has with certain characters. If you like the characters on ‘CSI’ (Las Vegas) I dare say the characters on ‘CSI Miami’ are a complete turn-off and perhaps vice versa.

The point is your brand, whether represented by your company or by a particular product, must have a defined personality. That personality like the difference between the Las Vegas and Miami CSIs is sure to generate both positive and negative reaction, and that is good.

If you think you should only generate positive reactions from your marketing, then you will nevër be a successful marketer because you’ll nevër say anything memorable or interesting. Some people absolutely hate David Caruso but that doesn’t stop the people who like him to make his show a consistent top ten ratings performer.

4 Create Dialogue that Resonates

If you want a web-video marketing campaign produced for an affordable production budget, you have get past the old bromide followed by the traditional movie and television industry - show it, don’t tell.

First of all, showing is always more expensive than telling and it doesn’t have the nuance and sophistication of communicating through the face and voice of a real human being. With apologies to all aspiring John Woo’s, words have meaning, speech has impact, people sell product. We are making a commercial, not a feature film or television show. There are similarities but there are also differences.

The script is the critical element in making your point, delivering your message and creating that elusive brand personality we’ve talked about.

5 Add Appropriate Memory Prompts

So now that we have our focused psychological value-add, our story structured with a beginning, middle, and end, our signature personality, and a dialog scripted to present it all, we now need a few enhancements.

A successful web-video campaign is definitely not a PowerPoint presentation ported to video nor does it have to be one of those overly produced television ads the car companies like. Delivering the message is all about connecting with your audience, that is why the script and choice of presenter is critical, which brings me to the point of using the company president or sales manager as spokesperson - forget it. It is a bad idea, a very bad idea. First of all your sales manager will probably be working for the competition in a couple of months and other than the president’s spouse, no one really wants to listen to, or look at him or her let alone be convinced of anything they have to say. Actors and voice-over talent know how to look, and how to deliver a line, that’s what they do.

Depending on what the particular scenario being presented is, there are certain techniques that can help a campaign connect with its audience.

Music can be a major factor in enhancing memory retention but only if it is used properly. The caveat that I expressed for royalty free imagery applies to royalty free music. One of my favorite Web-campaigns is the Wayspa.com Christmas gift series. This series of video commercials is extraordinarily funny and I think effective, but its tagline incorporates the infamous “F-word” and that will definitely turn some people off. The music that they used as their signature theme recently cropped up on a new Christmas ad campaign for a local jewelry retail chain. As I was watching this commercial play twelve times during the evening, all I could think of was the Wayspa.com tagline. Not exactly what the nice middle-of-the-road, don’t offend anybody retailer was trying to achieve.

Music has an enormous psychological effect on the viewer, it provides mood, enhances personality, and if scored to the presentation can stress certain key points that get embedded in the viewers memory because of the musical emphasis.

Another key use of music is as a signature logo-tag, like the familiar Intel tag that accompanies every appearance of their logo or the famous three-note NBC sound-tag.

Voice-overs are another way to create character, personality, and memory enhancement within a video presentation. Cutaways of appropriate images or montages, or on-screen text prompts are also effective ways of enhancing the memory retention of a presentation. All of these techniques enhance and emphasize if used properly, but if they are misused as is so often the case, they get remembered for all the wrong reasons.

6 Be Bold or Save Your Money

This is the Web we are talking about, an environment where it is critical to standout if you expect to get heard, let alone make an impact. You can not, I repeat you can not, be coy. Be bold or forget it. Unless you are some deep-pocketed multinational with more dough and market share than ideas then you have to make a statement, clearly and decisively. It is the only way, if you want to be successful on the Web.

Being bold may seem like it’s alienating some potential customers, but what it is really doing is qualifying leads.

7 Create Campaigns Not Ads

How do you know if you’ve come up with a good concept that will make an effective Web-marketing advertisement or commercial? If the concept ‘has legs’ meaning that you can roll that idea out into a minimum of at least six similar but different presentations then you know you’ve got something.

It is taken for granted that everyone understands that you can’t just present an advertisement once and expect it to be successful. It should also be understood that you have to present your concept in varying configurations in order to maximize its ability to be remembered and to penetrate the Web’s clutter, not to mention the need for the investment to be cost effective.

After all, the hardest part of developing a marketing campaign is to come up with one that has legs. Why waste a great idea on a one-shot effort, when you should be milking it for all it’s worth.

The End

So there you have Web-Video Campaign Creation 101: seven simple steps that will give you a shot at having an effective marketing campaign.