Backlink Monitoring: Keeping Track of Your Existing Links

When you've put a lot of effort in acquiring links to your website, you want to make sure these links aren't lost at any time.
When multiple links are removed or changed within a short timeframe this is a strong signal to search engines that these links could have been acquired unnaturally.
Since Penguin, Google has gotten a lot better at finding all similar links. You might lose the value for all of them when only a couple are tagged as obviously unnatural.

Monitoring which links are removed and which links are altered over time allows you to take action before Google does. So how do you effectively keep track of your existing links?

Why Monitor Existing Links?

Sometimes you trade more than just the good content on your website with a link partner. Although natural links should be seen as votes of confidence, sometimes a link is an agreed obligation for business partners, discounts, or other deals.
To see if they keep their end of the bargain it isn't enough to check on them once. Far too often links are removed after a couple of months.
Google spam detection is all about patterns in your link profile. Groups of similar links are seen as degrees of natural behavior and valued as such. When multiple links in a group start to behave less natural, the entire group will be affected negatively.

Automated Link Alerts

Checking 50 links once a month is the most you should be willing to do manually. When you need to monitor over 50 links you're dependent on automated tools that alert you when a link has been changed.
You can choose between various solutions that run as a desktop application or as web-based service. When selecting the right service for you, make sure that it has various options to send you alerts and keep in mind that the more frequently it re-checks links, the better.

What Changes are Important?

The most important change to monitor is losing a link. You need to know if just the link has been removed or the entire page it was on. The latter often happens by accident, but the first requires conscious action from your partner.
It's also important to find out when the specifics of a link are altered. Your link partner might add a nofollow or adds affiliate tracking to the link. All changes to link specifics including anchor text and landing page should be monitored.

Various Tools

If you aren't using expensive tools like Majestic SEO, which has “Lost Links” as just one of their options, there are various alternatives that offer just backlink monitoring. Here are just a couple of solutions:
Majestic SEO

• Pro: Allows you to dig deep within all your links and you don't have to pre-select which links to monitor.
• Con: Doesn't have automated alerts and doesn't report on changes, just on lost links within the last six months.

LinkAssistant

• Pro: Has a lot of additional features to keep track of all link deals.
• Con: Runs from your local machine and is based on the unwanted practice of link trades.

Linkody

• Pro: Reports on every change to your link in detail. Linkody re-checks daily and sends automated alerts. It combines various methods of link discovery and can even report on initial placement.
• Con: Can only be used for backlink monitoring. Comparable functionality is available in complete services like Jetrank and Raven.

Acting on Changed/Lost Links

Once you receive an alert, try to find out what the original deal with that partner was. Contact them as soon as possible to resurrect the link in time before Google flags it.
Although I'm a big fan of naturally acquired links, you need to guard those link-gems you accidentally or deliberately acquired. Backlink monitoring is one of those things too few of us do.


Reference :- http://searchenginewatch.com


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Yahoo Local: How to Set Up & Optimize Your Business Listing

When it comes to local online marketing, visibility is incredibly important. Luckily, there are several options – including Google+ Local, Bing Local, Yelp, Facebook Graph Search, and Yahoo Local – to create a presence for your business and gain that all-important visibility.
One local platform companies should consider getting involved with is Yahoo Local. Although Yahoo is no longer the search engine giant it once was, Yahoo Local is a great supplement to your online local strategy. Getting started and free and it isn't difficult to set up and manage a Yahoo Local account.

How to Submit Your Site to Yahoo Local

Submitting your site to Yahoo Local is easy and only takes a few minutes. Follow the below five steps to get started:
Step 1: Sign up to list your business for free here. You also have the option of an “enhanced” listing for $9.95 per month, which gives you a company tagline, more photos, and a more detailed business description. You can see the two choices in the screenshot below. If you want to opt for the free listing first (recommend), just hit the yellow “sign up” button.

Step 2: Sign into Yahoo. After you sign up to list your business, you will be taken to a screen where you can sign in to Yahoo. You have the option of signing in with your Yahoo ID, through Google or through Facebook. There is also a place where you can sign up for a Yahoo ID if you're interested; however most just go for the Google or Facebook route. Either way, they all lead you to the same place.
Step 3: Enter all of your basic information as well as the basic information for your company. This includes name, address, contact information, business website, etc.

Step 4: Add in optional business information such as hours of operation, languages spoken at the business, social media links, etc.

Step 5: You can then hit “preview listing” as shown above, take a look at your listing and make sure it's all to your liking, and then verify your listing. You will need to agree to the “Terms of Service” and then hit verify.

It's as easy as that. Your listing will then be reviewed by Yahoo local and you will be notified when you're up and running. You can even choose how you receive your verification code — by text message, phone call, or by mail. Once you're all set to go, it's time to make sure your listing is completely optimized.

How to Optimize Your Yahoo Local Listing

Optimizing your Yahoo Local listing is done in very much the same way that you will want to optimize any local listing online. A few of the fundamentals for optimizing a local listing, including a Yahoo Local listing, include:

• Complete All Information. Make sure you add as much information as you can onto your listing. As explained in Step 4 above, you have the option to include a lot of information, much of which will help visitors make a decision and find your business, so don't miss out.
• Remain Engaged Through Reviews. As the owner of the listing, you can't go through and delete negative reviews (you can only report reviews that are inappropriate, which will then send that review to Yahoo). However, it is important that you remain engaged by replying to reviews and responding to those who have said things about your business. It isn't necessary to do this for every single review, but if there is a question or something needs to be clarified, chime in. Readers like to see owners getting involved.
• Add a Great Photo. You can only add one photo on Yahoo Local unless you upgrade to the $9.95 per month enhanced listing (where you can add up to 10). In either case, know that your photo is important. If you only have one chance, make sure you don't just have a picture of a plate of food or your staff. Show your building or the inside of your building to give readers a real feel for your business.
• Consider Using Keywords. Yahoo Local has a search bar where visitors can search for a particular type of company or location. This means that Yahoo Local has a search engine results page. Getting to the top of those SERPs is going to depend upon the keywords you have on your listing. Make sure you have a targeted keyword in your description, photo caption, and title if necessary.

Below is a screenshot of a completed business listing optimized for users. You will notice that their head picture isn't necessarily of the restaurant, but this listing has many other photos available.

Overview of Yahoo Local

• Yahoo Local is important to get involved with in order to increase your online visibility to local searchers. It's free, easy to manage, and easy to create.
• You can visit here to being setting up your business listing on Yahoo Local. Follow the directions and complete your listing in just a few minutes.
• Always remember to complete all information on your listing, add a photo that really represents your business, and utilize keywords in order to optimize your listing as much as possible. The better your listing is optimized, the better chance you have to earn clicks and conversions.

Are you a business that uses Yahoo Local? What benefits have you found since becoming a part of the site? Let us know your story and your thoughts in the comments below.



Reference :- http://searchenginewatch.com

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Yandex: Queries Now Influence Search Results, Suggestions 'Within Seconds'

Yandex has now rolled out their second-generation personalized search program. According to Yandex, a person’s interests and preferences might clue them in to what they want to find.
“We used to look into a user’s search history as far as a few months back to choose the search results that would be most relevant to their scope of interests," Yandex said in a company blog post. "Now, we have added a search history of a few seconds to our search algorithm to deliver results and search suggestions based on the ‘full picture’ of the user’s search behavior. “
When Yandex updated the knowledge of users’ interests once per day, they started to understand the more-or-less stable interests, such as a love of books or sports, or that they spoke Russian and lived in Saint Petersburg. Yandex stated that more than half of all searches on Yandex are about something that interests the searcher "at this very moment."
In real time, search queries will begin to influence search results within seconds. The search engine can figure out whether a person is looking for a book or a film even if they haven’t finished typing [The Great Gatsby] in the search box, for example.
However, to go beyond queries autosuggesting keywords, Yandex stated:

With the new personalized search program, we can offer relevant results even to those who don’t have any search history on Yandex. To instantaneously react to changes in users’ search behavior, we created a real-time data processing system, which processes more than 10 terabytes of data a day, at up to 500 megabytes per second, continuously correcting its knowledge of users’ needs.
To make search results as personal as they can be, we first learnt to take into account users’ language preferences and permanent interests. Now, we have learnt how to tell current search intents of our users from their search footprint and give them what they are looking for. Personally.

See the diagram below:

I've always been very impressed with Yandex and its technology. When you start to think about why retargeting in search has become such a popular method of re-capturing when someone is back to being interested. Start thinking about the power of the user experience to assist us personally based on that retargeted data and I think Yandex is onto something.


Reference :- http://searchenginewatch.com



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New Bing Integrated Search App Coming With Windows 8.1

If you have Windows 8, Microsoft says it's going to revolutionize your search experience now that Windows 8.1 is landing.
Last summer, Bing introduced a suite of search apps that "completely reimagined search." Taking cues from the Bing for iPad search app and borrowing from the tiled, "Metro" theme of Windows 8, Bing announced they would take search away from 10 blue links and make it visually and hand-gesture friendly.
Microsoft has announced new features coming in Windows 8.1. Once such feature is a new global search for Windows 8, powered by Bing. According to their statement:
"In Windows 8.1, the Search charm will provide global search results powered by Bing in a rich, simple-to-read, aggregated view of many content sources (the web, apps, files, SkyDrive, actions you can take) to provide the best 'answer' for your query."

"Quick actions include things you would want to do like play a song or video," reads the announcement from Antoine Leblond, Corporate Vice President. "Results from local files, apps, and settings are easily accessed in the same convenient view by scrolling to the left."
You can't help but think this sounds a lot like the integrated Google search app for Android 4 devices. It, too, encompasses a web results along with your contacts, apps and music files. The difference, however, is that the Windows 8.1 search appears to be considerably more visual. It allows for swiping and other gestures to be able to puruse results and beyond.
Do you have a Windows 8 device? Will this change your feelings on using Bing as your default search? Sound off in the comments.

Reference :- http://searchenginewatch.com

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Penguin 2.0: Your Roadmap to Recovery

As an SEO, I’m actually a counselor, a life coach, and a depression recovery expert. Here’s what I see in my inbox on a daily basis:

And the terror-stricken pleas for help:

I get it. People’s livelihood depends on the variances of the algorithm. When Penguin 1.0 and 2.0 hit, it caused a more drastic impact upon individuals than did the financial meltdown of 2008.

So what do you do? Is there life after Penguin 2.0? Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Is it worth it to make a go of it in the web world? Can you recover?
I’m optimistic. Penguin 2.0 is still very new, and there’s still much to be learned about what has changed. But if we learned anything from Penguin 1.0, it’s that the Penguin targets webspam. Most often, that webspam is in the form of unnatural or manipulative inbound links. With that knowledge, here’s my best guess at how to dig yourself out if you’ve been hit; my four-step recovery plan for rising up from the doldrums of an algorithm change, and succeeding in this new, Penguin 2.0 world.
Please note that as new data becomes available and the SEO community learns more about Penguin 2.0 collectively, this information may become outdated; I’ll do my best to keep this post updated appropriately.
1.  Get a grip.
The counselor part of my job has to say it. Penguin causes panic attacks, and I completely understand why. It’s appropriate to feel the heart-stopping crush of fear when you gaze in disbelief at your tanking rankings. That’s okay.
But it’s also important to get a grip and keep your head up. Decisions made in desperation are rarely good ones. As I’ll discuss below, a long-term approach is vital to success.
One of the reasons why so many sites have gone belly-up is because they depended upon black-hat strategies. Black-hat strategies sometimes work, but they only work for a short time. In time, the algorithm catches up, and the site goes kaput.
If you refuse to capitulate to desperation, you’ve gained the weapon of sound mind that will keep you stable through any algorithm upset. When other sites are throwing up their hands and giving in, you’re staying steady — building authority, maintaining integrity, and establishing your reputation in the niche. It sounds cliche, but in the world of SEO, slow and steady wins the race.
Okay, psychotherapy session over. Let’s get some SEO advice on the table.
2.  Adopt a longview strategy.
If you want your Internet business to pay your kids’ way through college, to build an inheritance for your grandchildren, or simply to take you through to retirement, you need to have a longview.

1. Do things right. The longview is built upon a sound SEO strategy, one that bases its progress on slow gains over the long term, and integrates each of the 3 pillars of SEO. The longview strategy is one that adheres to Google’s Webmaster Rules, and settles in for the gradual climb of success.
2. Be willing to change. Because the Internet changes, because algorithms change, and because your competitors change, so must you. Part of business in an Internet culture is the constant environment of change. Keep your ear to the ground for things such as the next Penguin, the dominance of mobile search, the importance of social signals, etc. These are the factors that will have a bottom-line impact upon your business. Know these factors, and adapt accordingly.

Your long term strategy should have four key components:

1. Publish impeccable content. The quality of site content is the single most important key to a successful website. Matt Cutts often sounds like a track on repeat, when he discusses the value of great sites with solid content. In the ensuing discussion from his Penguin 2.0 video, he wrote:
2. Gain reputable, credible, and authoritative inbound links. Links have been and will be important for the foreseeable future. Links are the great battleground of the search engine algorithm changes. Why? Some SEOs, in an effort to boost a page’s presence on the SERPs, would build thousands of spammy backlinks. The more links, the better, right? Wrong. The algorithms figured out which sites don’t deserve credibility, and distinguishes them from the ones that are truly valuable. Now, sites that are spammed with shoddy links are getting hit hard by penalties. Whether you’re guest blogging or consulting with an SEO agency that provides link building services, insist on only the highest quality links for your site.
3. Maintain activity on social networks. Social signals are growing in importance. Your business depends on the very people that are active on the social networks. Be there for them.
4. Ensure perfect onsite SEO best practices. Insist on perfection as far as your website is concerned — everything from your robots.txt to your keyword saturation need to be in order. If you need help on this, consult with an SEO expert.

3.  Fire your SEO.
This, admittedly, is a harsh measure to take, but it may be necessary. I can’t tell you how many conversations I have that go something like this:
Webmaster:  Our rankings are dropping! I don’t know what’s going on! We need help! What’s happening?!
Me [looking at their analytics and rankings on my computer]:  Hmm. Have you ever worked with another SEO firm?
Webmaster [Eyes dropping, head-dropping, fidgeting nervously]:  ”Yes…yes we have. May the Google gods forgive me. We hired a company to do some link building. They were really cheap. They said that they could build 2,000 links in two weeks, and get us on the first page of Google. I thought that….
Me:  Fire them.
Why do I take such a hard-nosed approach? Is it because I’m a cutthroat businessperson who despises competitors? No. It’s because some SEO agencies are not enhancing sites; they are ruining them.
There are highly reputable SEO agencies out there. I hope you are one or are working with one. But, regretfully, there are still some SEO agencies that rely on black-hat techniques for short-term gains. One way to spot these black-hat practitioners is to simply look at their pricing. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Run as far as you can from the SEOs (or agencies) that have done the damage, and seek refuge from a company that can provide an ethical and effective SEO service.
But the damage is done. What do you do now?
 4.     Bring out the machete. 
Sounds violent, right? It is, sort of. Let me explain.
Once your site has been inflicted by the damage of unscrupulous SEO practices, it’s in serious need of emergency services. It’s time to scrutinize your link profile, and do your best to remove any links that could be causing your website to be affected by Penguin 2.0. Here’s how the process works, described simply:
Step 1. Download a list of your site’s inbound links; you can do this via Google Webmaster Tools. The number of links could range from a few dozen to tens of thousands.
Step 2. Determine which ones are spammy, and isolate them. Here’s how to do that. You may need to review each one manually to determine whether it comes from a spammy website. Alternatively, if you’d rather have a professional do it for you, I recommend looking into a link profile audit.
Step 3. Request the link source site to remove the link. They will honor this request roughly 5-10% of the time.
Step 4. Perform disavow requests on all the bad backlinks via Google Webmaster Tools. You should disavow all the bad links (even the ones you successfully get removed) only after completing your removal requests.
Step 5. Resubmit your site to Google for reconsideration.
Step 6. Learn and understand the 3 pillars of SEO (content, links, and social media), and ensure your SEO initiative incorporates all three pillars going forward. Focus only on quality and building value for your readers.
Sometimes, in an effort to preserve all the backlinks possible, a webmaster will tentatively tiptoe through a disavow process, only picking a few to get rid of.
This isn’t the right approach.
Matt Cutts describes the right approach:



When doing these disavows, get rid of anything suspicious. Anything. As long as you have shoddy backlinks, you’ll have a shoddy site. The faster you get rid of these, the sooner you’ll rise.
Once you’ve done this, you’re ready to enjoy the arid airs of success. But a final caution is in order. Be patient. Your site first has to be recrawled and reindexed before it will regain rankings. This process could take several months. After the process is complete, it’s time to get with a reputable SEO agency to begin building links, growing authority, and enhancing your content. Recovery is possible, even from something as cataclysmic as Penguin 2.0.


Reference :- http://www.searchenginejournal.com/

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How To Make Your Website Sticky

What a great feeling it is to land on a stellar page that’s rich with content that jumps out at you. A good user interface is like staring at a plate of Grandmother’s sticky buns. They’re both very enticing.

On the contrary, sites with crappy UI make you feel like you’re lost and wasting your time.

Why is having a sticky website so important? It enhances your site by making it more attractive, fun and rewarding to the user. Let’s go over some benefits.

Benefits Of A Sticky Website

More Time On Site

Frequent visitors will be well informed of new product launches, sales promotions, seasonal offers and any improvements made on your existing products. They’ll become loyal customers, eventually influencing their friends to become customers also.

More Social Sharing

Today, sharing has become even better with the advancement of social media sharing tools. People who are impressed like to share their experiences with others. This helps spread the word about your brand and products on offer, thus boosting your internet marketing campaigns. Subsequently, you will win a larger market share by recruiting new clients, and eventually achieve your competitive edge in that niche.

Better Relationships

A sticky website creates a long-lasting relationship with users and they will become part of the site and product development process. They will always have a reason to visit your site and thus stay informed of any new developments or upcoming events thus grow to trust in your brand.

More Conversions

A sticky website boosts your sales. Repeat visitors become buyers, and subsequently repeat customers. Once loyalty is established, you have a database of must-buy visitors. For first time visitors, trial orders lead to real business and hence increased sales. Though this may take time, you will eventually register profits beyond your imagination. This is how you start rising to the top and eventually become a leader in the field.

Tips To Making Your Site Super Sticky

The internet business scene is fast changing, and so keeping in touch with new developments and industry news will help you stay ahead. The following are some helpful tips for online business owners to make their site more impressionable.

1. Give it a professional outlook and attractive appearance. People will judge your brand depending on the appearance of your site. A site that has a professional outlook will help establish credibility among the visitors and hence convert them into buyers. Remember that your visitors have limited time to browse through millions of related sites, and so the best favor you can do yourself is create a site that they will stick to. Make it attractive enough to catch their attention. Have the target client in mind when creating the site and ask yourself whether the design and layout can make you want to browse through.
2. Use a simple interface. Simple links such as to go to the previous page, next page, the top or bottom of page or to the home page are important for anyone who desires to create a sticky website. Browsing through different pages within your site should be easy and fast. If the site looks complicated or difficult to browse through, users will try to avoid it as they will consider it a waste of time. Try to make their life easier by creating a solid UI that makes sense.
3. Focus on solving the problems and answering the questions of your visitors. People visit your site because they are looking for the right answers and solutions. Whether it is losing weight without pain, ways to save money or link building tactics that won’t leave a footprint, tell them what you have for them. In fact, let your visitors know what you do as soon as they arrive to your home page. Having clear calls to action are one of the simplest ingredients of creating a sticky site.
4. Introduce your product(s) in a revolutionary way. Your customer base has probably come across so many similar products, some of which did not work. Be the one to tell them why your product is different, and how it is different from all the others.
5. If possible, offer them a trial version or a free sample of the product. Allowing users to sample your product before ordering will build trust and they will even refer more people. There are those who will buy as soon as they realize that you have a sample, as this is a sign of quality and credibility of your brand.
6. Interactive sites get sticky SO fast. Make sure visitors are able to leave comments. You never know when that one person leaves a comment that sparks dozens of replies from other users. Also ensure that your social share buttons are in plain sight for quick and convenient sharing. Use poll questions and discussion boards to keep people entertained and on site.

In Summary

Just like Grandmother’s sticky buns, creating a sticky website doesn’t happen overnight. Trial and error is the name of the game and its how we all progress. Consider some of these tips and try implementing them to see how they affect your business for the better! I’d be interested to hear what other special ingredients are being used out there to make sticky sites, so please share!


Reference :- http://www.searchenginejournal.com

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Recovering from an Algorithmic Penalty Using 301 Redirects: A Personal Experience

We know it. Some of us may have seen it. The dreaded Google Unnatural Link Warning.

Either as an SEO, a business, or perhaps just a personal blogger, you may fall to your knees and cry when you receive this warning but never fear! There are strategies and processes you can take to remove this and get back on Google’s happy side. Before we begin, it’s extremely important that we understand the difference between an “algorithmic” or “filtered” and a manual penalty. This identification is the first step in moving forward with a recovery plan.
Before we dive into the differences between manual and algorithmic penalties, I think this summation from Rhea Drysdale is telling:

Manual Penalty
Algorithmic penalties and manual penalties are two extremely different things. The definition of a manual penalty is fairly straight-forward: A manual penalty is an action by Google’s web spam team that penalizes websites for participating in practices that are against any of Google’s webmaster guidelines. Penalties can be given out for any of the following practices:

• Keyword stuffing.

Over optimizing any site can be considered keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing is often referred to a singular phrase that is used over-excessively on a single web page. Google’s algorithms have gotten good at catching keyword stuffing. The best rule of thumb to follow is 1 keyword for each 100 words, and to use a diversity of terms, rather than repeating the same phrase verbatim.

• Malicious pages.

All websites on the internet are vulnerable to different types of viruses and spyware. If you recently acquired any viruses or spyware, any search engine will automatically kick you off their SERPS and indexes. It can often take months to recover (if ever) so make sure you have the proper security and check frequently to see if your site has been a victim of hacking.

• Duplicate content.

To better the web, your site should always provide real value. Poor quality or even worse, duplicate content will never benefit you. Google is extremely firm and straight forward with this issue and will make sure they evaluate the quality of your site if you are earning any sort of profit through affiliates and different ad sense sites.

• Cloaking.

Cloaking is the process of presenting different content or URLs to users and search engines. Cloaking is a direct violation of Google’s guidelines and should never be exercised.

• Hiding text/URLs.

How easy would it be to simply set your text color as #FFFFFF and call it good? Too easy. And also counted as keyword stuffing.

• Un-natural links.

Google is able to detect unnatural links by identifying suspicious patterns, including many links coming from the same IP address, and over optimized anchor text (Penguin’s primary target). You should try at all costs to have these unnatural sites removed. One way to accomplish this is by simply contacting the webmaster or SEO of the site. The easiest way of knowing whether you have been affected by a manual penalty or an algorithmic penalty is whether you received an unnatural link warning via Google Webmaster Tools. If you are affected by an algorithmic penalty, Matt Cutts recently confirmed that you will NOT receive any sort of notification.

Algorithmic Penalties
An algorithmic penalty is a negative result of changes to Google’s algorithm. There are several different updates that each has a different responsibility. For many search engine’s, the line between optimization and deception is incredibly thin. Some “strategies” that have been made subject to penalty by algorithmic updates include but not limited to:

• Over-optimization.
• Duplicate content.
• Manipulative linking.

Again, you will NOT receive notice if you have been affected by an algorithmic penalty.
Recovery
*PLEASE NOTE*: I know that there will be discrepancy and this may be a heated subject, but please remember that this is our own personal experience which worked for us on multiple occasions and could perhaps work for you.
Whether you have been affected by an algorithmic or manual penalty, the process of recovery is rarely a simple or happy one. At the moment, the most common way to recover from a manual penalty factor is by submitting a reconsideration request to Google. Submitting a reconsideration isn’t an option when the penalty is an algorithmic one (well, it’s an option, but won’t accomplish anything). The only thing you can do is try to clean up and wait for the next update to take effect.
The uncertainty that an algorithmic penalty presents for business owners is a big time problem. For a couple of small business owners who came to us after their sites had suffered manual penalties, and months had passed with them trying to remove bad links and clean up perceived on-site issues, we wanted to take action that would help move them forward, in one direction (recovery) or another (start over). That is when we took into consideration site-wide 301 redirects to a new domain (GASP!).
Example 1: McCormick & Murphy, P.C.
McCormick & Murphy, P.C. is a personal injury lawyer based in the Denver metro area. When we first met with Jay and Kirk, the owners, they had been hit by some nasty malware and therefore were penalized. Nothing we were doing helped (re-writing content, moving hosting, etc.). They had completely just dropped off the face of the earth and we couldn’t resolve the malware. After months of treading water, we decided to take action in the form of a side-wide 301 redirect to a new domain. The client purchased a new domain and set-up a new hosting account. We then 301 redirected their old site to the new one. And to the surprise of most, within a couple of days the site had recovered completely in the SERPs. The malware penalty did not transfer over and they were performing better than ever. It has been well over a year and we have only continued to improve:



Example 2: Crack Eraser Pro
When we signed with Crack Eraser Pro, we had no idea the project we had jumped into. When I initially had a peek into their link profile, I wanted to cry. Crack Eraser Pro (formerly, windshieldrepairkits.net) was hit, and hit HARD. After many failed attempts of trying to recover by removing bad links and building ones that were with Google’s quality guidelines, we decided to try a redirect solution again. And once more, the penalty was transferred over and suddenly Crack Eraser Pro was performing again. Based on our experiences, we found that traditional penalty recovery was ineffective for an algorithmic penalty. But when we started new and fresh, suddenly everything was different. It’s been awhile since we moved Crack Eraser Pro over and they have done nothing but improve.
Proper Redirecting
A complete site wide redirect should be performed with diligence. A 301 redirect will tell your web browser and any search engines that Page A is now permanently Page B. Once it’s in place, any user that has previously bookmarked or saved your site will be automatically transferred to the new site. From a SEO perspective using a 301 redirect, allows you to preserve any previously accumulated PageRank.
To create a 301 redirect, one must:
a) Set up URLs.
Ensure that your new URLs are correctly configured and live before you start the redirection process.
b) Create redirects.
If you are doing a global redirect, you can usually redirect your entire website at once. If you are doing individuals, there are some redirecting tools you can use to alleviate the process. We like to use the “Simple 301 Redirects” tool in WordPress.
c) Test.
Probably one of the most overlooked steps is to test your redirects. Make sure all of them transferred over correctly and you are not redirected to a 404 page.
d) Sitemap.
Ensure when you create a new URL, you create a new XML Sitemap.
Popular belief is that 301 redirects should pass about 90% of the previous site’s authority.
You may of course experience a dip in traffic or rankings in the period following the redirects (dancing) simply because it may take some time for the changes to make their way to Google’s index.
Conclusion
Time and time again with these penalty recovery stories, we hear of some methods being effective in some cases while those same methods fail completely in others. Algorithmic penalties can cripple SMB’s because the recovery process is highly ambiguous, and there is little predictability regarding the results. By obtaining new domains and 301 redirecting the penalized domain to them, we have been able to recover algorithmically penalized sites. And at the very least, we knew we would be moving forward, rather than continuing to tread water and spend money on activities that may never result in a recovery.

Reference :- http://www.searchenginejournal.com

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Why SlideShare Should Still Be Part of Your Marketing Process

                                  





                               
There has been a lot of buzz about document-sharing site Slideshare in the last year, but apparently not enough.
The syndication process after a piece of content goes live often gets overlooked - forum threads come to mind – but nothing gets more overlooked than document-sharing sites.
All things considered, Slideshare is still a wide-open opportunity to get exposure and some easy SERP real estate. Add the fact that it shouldn’t take you more than 15 minutes (or 5 minutes) to add this to your syndication process and it can easily be deemed an SEO win.
Get in the habit of chopping up any piece of content that your blog or company publishes. Finding a creative way to present the content is a bonus, but don’t allow this to be a time-suck.
Relax. This process is simple and the minimalistic approach isn’t a bad way to go:
First, there are free services – like Zinepal ($14/mo for full features)– that will chop up a web page, allow you to make necessary edits like add more pictures and then convert it into a PDF.
After you have made your simple edits and converted your blog piece into a PDF, upload the PDF to Slideshare. Pro tip: Add popular keyword phrases in the Slideshare title and description to increase exposure.
Next, after the Slideshare is live, go back to your original blog piece that you used to create the PDF and link to your new Slideshare presentation, or you can embed the entire presentation.
Finally, take the process a step further and add the same PDF to other document-sharing sites like Scribd and DocStoc.
As I final recap, I would highly recommend adding this simple process to every blog post that goes live.
Even a simple article I wrote about Facebook being sued managed to get over 2,000 views a few months ago on Slideshare, and because the article tied into an affiliate offer, I benefited from both brand exposure and online sales. You are allowed to have links inside of the presentations, so you can make beautiful call-to-actions that lead to email opt-ins, product sales or Facebook likes.

Anybody else have great experiences with Slideshare?

How are you going to take advantage of Slideshare this year?


Reference :- http://www.searchenginejournal.com

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7 SEO Tasks to Complete Before Even Thinking about Hiring an Agency

There are many small business owners that try to find a balance between hiring an SEO agency and trying to do a few things on their own. It makes sense to want to have control over your website, and it makes sense to familiarize yourself with the process first so that you can hire a great agency. However, there is a fine line between what SEO tasks a company should perform first and what SEO tasks a company should leave to the experts. If you’re trying to figure out what you should do before you hire an agency in order to keep this control, don’t sweat it. Below lists seven things to keep in mind:

1. Have clear goals in mind. This might be a no-brainer to most, but it’s worth mentioning just in case. Before you set out to hire an SEO agency to help your efforts, make sure that you have clear goals in mind. This doesn’t necessarily mean SEO goals (rank number one by this time, earn this many backlinks, etc.), but rather means goals for your company in general. Who is your audience, what do you want your audience to gain, etc.
2. Hire your own great content writer. Understanding great SEO doesn’t mean much if you don’t understand great content. Most SEO agencies will be equipped with content writers, but it’s helpful to have your own writer that you hired working with your company. This will help you begin to understand what it is you truly want out of your content, and it helps give you control at the start. It’s tough to know what you want until you really get going, so hiring your own writer is a great way to make that happen.
3. Begin building links. Some might advise against this because there is a chance that a company will start building bad links, but the majority of companies can handle building links for a short while before consulting the help of an agency. Starting to build internal links as well as linking out to other websites that are well known is a good way to build up your PR and credibility before an agency gets to you. It will help speed things up.
4. Foster relationships across the web. It’s never a bad idea to get started talking with others across the web. Write guest articles and start establishing those relationships. This will also help speed up your agency’s efforts when it comes time.
5. Dabble in social media. Set up a social media account for your company on all the big networks—Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and LinkedIn. You might not know exactly how to optimize them, but at least having a presence will help give you a jumpstart.
6. Install an SEO plugin. Installing an SEO plugin to your site will help give you an idea about what it takes to optimize a piece of content. This will help you know what to look for when you do hire an agency.
7. Familiarize yourself with the source code. This is a bit trickier, but some aspects of web development aren’t too difficult to understand. Do a little bit of research on the canonical tag and familiarize yourself with what it looks like and why it matters. Hint: This is the tag that deals with duplicate content!

Of course, many people are able to complete all SEO tasks without the help of an agency or an expert. It is usually a good idea to consult one or the other and/or attend seminars to make sure you’re on the right track; however it’s incredibly possible to complete these steps listed above and then just keep going.
Have you hired an SEO agency in the past? Did you find that there were SEO tasks that you wish you had completed first? Let us know your story and your thoughts in the comments below.


Reference :- http://www.searchenginejournal.com/

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How Google Gambles With Your Rankings: 3 Ways to Arm Yourself

As we all know, Penguin 2.0 is out now. Some are surprised that the impact of the update wasn’t as large as they suspected, while others have watched their rankings tank. Webmasters who were sadly misinformed that directories, article submissions, social bookmarks, and press releases were “natural” have lost every ounce of traffic they ever gained.
But just as concerning is the fact that several small businesses have taken a hit just because they didn’t take SEO seriously enough. Thin links have hurt some sites just as badly as unnatural links.
With every algo change, Google is gambling with your rankings. It’s placing a bet that most of the losers will be bad for users, and most of the winners will be good for them. It is, in general, correct. But Google’s algorithms don’t have to be perfect in order for them to ensure a cleaner front page, and if you happen to get swept under the rug for the wrong reasons, Google has little reason to care.
Thankfully, there are actions you can take to protect yourself from future updates, and you don’t have to sacrifice the title “SEO” to accomplish this.

1. Optimize for repeat search visits

Few things say “brand” to Google quite the way a repeat visit in the search results does. A visitor who has clicked through to your domain before, and does so again, even (or especially) on a different SERP, is sending the message that they find you trustworthy, at least on some level.
So how can you optimize for repeat search visits? Clearly, just being well known goes a long way. But that’s not really an option for small businesses looking to expand their reach through SEO. It’s putting the cart before the horse. Thankfully, there’s more you can do:

• Authorship photos – If there’s just one change you make to improve repeat search visits, this is probably the one to make. As we all know, claiming authorship in Google+ gets your image in the search results, which can do a lot for click through rates. But that authorship photo can also become a familiar face that encourages a repeat visit.
• Develop resources – Unlike news posts, resources get referred to over and over. If you read a news story once, you probably won’t ever feel inclined to visit it again. But I return to Distilled’s Linkbait Guide over and over again. That’s one reason why we put together our own content marketing guide. We want to write things that get read over and over.
• Go niche – This is closely related to the point about resources. Focus on a tight enough niche, and it gets easier to write the definitive resource for that niche. Users who search for that particular topic frequently will encounter your guide more than once. If the content was good enough, they will remember that your result was the best one, and click on it again.
• Choose a catchy domain – If your domain name isn’t already catchy, and it isn’t yet firmly established, change it. Twitter was once called “twttr” and Facebook was “the Facebook.” You want a domain name that people remember. That way, when they see it in the search results, they’ll click on it, and send all the right signals.
• Analyze past results – Use advanced segments in Google Analytics to limit yourself to search traffic, then sort your content by highest returning visitor ratio. Identify the pieces of content that have drawn repeat visits consistently, and emulate the formula that made the content work.

2. Encourage branded searches

Repeat visits from the search engine are a clear sign of good branding, but nothing sends a positive message better than a straightforward search for your brand. The same goes for “site:yourdomain.com” searches, and other searches that include your brand name. It’s not uncommon for me to search “[keyword] SEJ.com,” and I know I’m not alone.
Branded searches also benefit you in another way: they cause that searcher’s results to be personalized to favor you in the future.
How can you encourage these kinds of searches?

• Catchy domain – Yeah, we said it again. Also, resources. 
• In discussions – It’s not always possible to send a link in a forum discussion or blog comment, nor is it necessarily always the best move. If you want to point somebody to a resource of yours, you could always try asking them to search “[keyword] [brand name]” to find it. This is almost always the second best way to find a piece of content if you don’t have the link, so it’s genuinely helpful, and it encourages branded searching.
• Offline advertising – Running an offline advertisement asking people to search for your brand on Google can be an incredible way to drive branded searches. If it feels too awkward to ask them to search for you on Google, simply running an ad with your domain name is likely to encourage plenty of branded searches anyway. (Who has time for all that “http” and “.com” business anyway?)
• Viral marketing – Viral campaigns can lead to a tremendous number of brand impressions if you can ensure that your brand name is associated with the meme. A simple image designed to propagate through Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest can produce enough brand impressions to generate branded searches as a result.
• Branded events – Similarly, any local or online event that has your name on it can generate branded searches, since people need to search for your brand in order to find the details.

3. Foster your referral and direct traffic

No matter what you do to send the right messages to Google, it doesn’t change the fundamental fact that Google is gambling with your rankings with each new update. If you master repeat and branded searches, it’s unlikely that any future update will cripple you, but there’s still no better way to guard against the future than through diversification.
If you really want to protect yourself, send the right messages to Google, and increase your traffic all at the same time, you need to put more focus on your referral and direct traffic. Not only do referral and direct traffic represent potential sales, they can also become a massive source of natural links.
Referral traffic
We’ve been discussing this subject more frequently lately, and with good reason. Everybody understands that referral traffic is good for them, but very few people understand how to make the most of it.

• Resources again – And not just resources on your own site, but resources on other sites. Why? Because a link from a resource sends long term referral traffic, not just a short burst. It helps you see referral traffic as a cumulative source for growth, just like the search engines, rather than a place to get a sudden, temporary spike.
• Q &A sites – To be fair, Q & A sites can be thought of as resources, but it’s worth calling them out specifically. Quora and Yahoo Answers tend to send referral traffic much longer and more consistently than blogs.
• YouTube – Referrals from YouTube seem to hold pretty constant over time.
• Site-wide links – Wait, wait, wait, did we really just say site-wide links are a good idea? In the wake of Penguin 2.0? Yep. Paid or not, it’s probably best if they’re no-followed, but these can be a huge source of referral traffic if you get them up on the right sites. Just remember to focus on click-through, branding, and calls to action, not keywords.
• Social etc. – Viral marketing, influential relationships, and all of that good stuff are a vital part of any strategy that cares about referral traffic, but we’re not going to spend too much time talking about it, because you’ve heard it all before.

Direct traffic
Building up your direct traffic is all about retaining your existing customer base. That means putting the focus on getting subscriptions, gamification, loyalty programs, and building a strong in-house community that people like being a part of.
Think of the sites that you actually visit without even going to the search engines. Most of them probably aren’t “content” sites. Apart from the occasional visit to HuffPo, most of the sites you visit directly are built around a tool or a community.
Think Amazon, Facebook, or Flickr. The most popular sites on the web offer tools that are fun to use and conducive to community building.
Also bear in mind that most of the direct traffic to anything but your homepage is actually “dark social.” People didn’t really type that into the address bar. They copied it from an instant message, an email, a forum, or they had it saved to their bookmarks. This is the hidden viral traffic that’s hard to track, and it actually outnumbers “public” social on the web at large.

Conclusion

Google may be gambling with the future of your site as we speak, but you can take steps to protect yourself. By placing the emphasis on repeat search visits, branded searches, and alternative traffic sources, you can arm yourself and stay in the game for the long haul.
 
How are you protecting yourself?

Reference :- http://www.searchenginejournal.com

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SEO

Five Ways To Fail In Your Multilingual Search Engine Marketing

Posted on May 29, 2013 by Ian Harris | 1 comment

The views of contributors are their own, and not necessarily those of SEJ.

• inShare21

Multilingual search marketing is a service offered by many agencies, but done correctly by few with most practising outdated methods and taking a wholly flawed approach.

Throughout my career, firstly as Chief Technical Officer at a major web localisation company and now as CEO and founder of the UK’s leading multilingual search marketing company, Search Laboratory, I’ve encountered numerous international campaigns that are doomed from the off-set due to fundamental flaws.

So that those businesses selling online to foreign markets are aware of just what causes their global search marketing to be unsuccessful I’ve listed five sure-fire ways to ensure your multilingual search campaigns will fail:

1. Don’t use mother-tongue linguists

A large number of businesses employ translation companies to generate their multilingual search terms – some even use Google Translate. By doing this you’re already on the path to failure.

Search term authenticity is crucial – your entire campaign hinges on it. Modern-day automated tools are simply not up to the task of identifying accurate search terms, likewise non-native speaking translators will not be aware of critical local phrases.

Mother-tongue linguists should be your only option for multilingual search term generation. Native speakers, who have grown up within the country that you are attempting to attract custom from, will be able to employ local phrases alongside a variety of alternative terms that a non-native speaker will not be aware of.

Still not convinced that mother-tongue linguists should be used ahead of non-native speaking translators? Imagine a race-to-the-finish crossword competition in the language you are targeting, where a non-mother-tongue translator competed against a native speaker – now consider who you would rather have your money backing…

2. Translate your keywords

Another certain way to ensure your multilingual search falls flat on its face is to translate your keywords. For example, a UK car rental company is investigating potential keywords ahead of an expansion into France and has identified the following search terms that its existing British customers use:

• ‘Car hire’
• ‘Vehicle rental’
• ‘Automobile lease’
• ‘Charter motor’

The company has also identified that these search terms could make 16 possible combinations to retrieve similar SERPs results; ‘vehicle lease’, ‘car rental’ etc.

However, when handed to a non-native speaking translator or inputted to an automated translation tool for the French campaign it’s almost certain these 16 combinations would be reduced to leave just one or two phrases: ‘location de voiture’, for example.

This would drastically reduce the number of relevant searches the car hire company would show for in France and therefore minimise the sales potential – or to put it another way, cause the campaign to fail.

Mother-tongue linguists alone have the capability to creatively explore phrases in order to identify foreign search terms and ensure that your website reaches its maximum visibility on the search engine results page.

3. Ignore cultural nuances

One of the more subtle ways to hamstring a multilingual search campaign is to ignore the targeted country’s cultural nuances.

Did you know, for example, you should never ask a Frenchman ‘did you know?’ At Search Laboratory our mother-tongue French linguists have rejected perfectly translated copy due to it containing the phrase, ‘did you know?’ This is because it’s not culturally appropriate and is deemed patronising to suggest a Frenchman is not in possession of all the facts.

To sell to someone online you must first gain their trust, and you’re far less likely to achieve this if you are inadvertently alienating or even insulting the consumer through basic cultural misdemeanours. It’s not just text where you can cost your company business, images also need to be localised. For example photos that are obviously US-centric are likely to put off customers in more reserved European markets, so have your mother tongue linguists help out with the on-site design as well.

4. Direct foreign search results to English landing pages

We are often asked by companies to test an international market by directing foreign language PPC ads at an English language landing page. This simply does not work.

Companies competing for cold inbound leads on foreign soil via PPC ads that direct to a landing page not of that country’s language are going to experience extremely low conversion rates, regardless of how attractive a company’s proposition is. The initial process of a customer investigating a new website is highly linguistically sensitive.

Imagine you are searching for running shoes and one of the results returned to you from the search engine is a PPC ad that catches your eye. However after clicking through you are directed to a landing page with German text – would you continue with the shopping process or would you return to the SERPs?

It’s critical to localise your business’ landing page to the target market. If your company is already running PPC campaigns in foreign languages make sure to ask your agency or in-house team if they are doing this. At Search Laboratory we manage dozens of campaigns in international markets and the process of localising landing pages is relatively straight forward, providing you use mother tongue linguists.

Data gathered on the online behaviour of foreign traffic to a company’s site during these campaigns can also be used to evaluate whether or not an entire site translation is required.

5. Neglect your URLS

Even if you’ve managed to avoid the above pitfalls your multilingual campaign can still be compromised should you not translate your URLs. This is a problem that usually occurs when businesses are using separate partners for translation and web development.

We often see companies whose web development team have created English SEO friendly URLs, which include strategic keywords in the directory, structure or filename. However, when placed in the hands of the translation agency they are often overlooked causing two problems: the customer in the targeted country notices the language discrepancy, while because the keyword friendly URLs remain in English they are not optimised to that market’s search engine, thus harming the site’s SEO.

SEO friendly URLs will not necessarily translate clearly between English and the targeted language. In cases such as these we advise our clients to stick with non-friendly URLs because the detrimental effect of a customer noticing an English URL is likely to be greater than the benefit SEO friendly URLs will bring to the site’s search ranking.

Reference :-  http://www.searchenginejournal.com

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How You Can Generate Leads Through Content Marketing By EBriks Infotech

EBriks Infotech Is A Leading Brand SEO Company India That Come In Top Five SEO Company In India.We Share A Important Information About How You Can Generate Leads Through Content Marketing.We Increase Organic Search Engine Rankings,Increase your sales And Also Increase your profits Share With Us Friend.If You Want To More Infomation About This Then Visit www.ebriks.com

Penguin 2.0 Losers: Adult Websites, Game Websites, & Big Manufacturers Like Plate.com & The Solution Army

Google’s 4th Penguin upgrade — what the organization is contacting Penguin 2.0 — hit last night, and less than 24 hours later we’re already getting a first opportunity to look at what sites might be regarded “losers” with regards to look for exposure.

In a few words, the record includes: adult sites, activity sites and big manufacturers like Plate.com, the Solution Military, Cheap air and Academic Examining Service (yes, ETS, the organization that makes a lot of those consistent assessments you probably took as a child).

The SEO application organization, Search Metrics, has just distributed its preliminary look at what sites have been impacted the most by the newest Penguin upgrade. As always, Search Metrics is using its “SEO Visibility” standard, which looks at the exposure of a business's sites as they appear (or do not appear) across a variety of look for phrases in Google’s search engines look for.

Here’s their preliminary record of the 25 greatest Penguin 2.0 losers:

There are eight adult sites on the record of 25, and four game-related sites. Of those activity sites, three are detailed in the top 10. (You have to combine the adult sites detailed at the end with the sites above them to get the real order of effect.)

There are also several well-known manufacturers, like Plate.com, the Solution Military, ETS, and Cheap air. REEDS jewellery retailers has been around since 1946 and has shops in 18 declares. DailyDot.com, also on the record, is a well known online information site.

The line on the far right reveals how much “SEO Visibility” each website has missing — at least for the look for phrases those Search Metrics paths. This does not actually mean that these sites are all seeing impressive traffic failures, because they might still have high exposure for look for phrases that are not being monitored. That said, in the several years that we’ve been confirming on the Penguin and Panda up-dates, details from Search Metrics and a several other SEO application companies have usually been regarded mostly precise.

In his writing, Search Metrics creator Marcus Tuber says the effect from this newest Penguin upgrade has a smaller footprint sized than he predicted.

It’s not the upgrade I was anticipating. I thought that this Google Penguin upgrade would have had a larger effect similar to Panda 1. But that did not happen. My first research reveals that many slim sites, sites with slim hyperlinks and especially untrusted hyperlinks face the problem. Moreover, some small company sites were hit because they have not taken SEO serious enough.

 

 

 

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How to Build Links to Your Blog - A Case Study

I recently took some time out to do a bit of travelling across East Asia (which was incredible!) and decided that I would, along with a group of friends, set up a travel blog. Knowing that I would be embarking on some amazing adventures, I thought it'd be a waste not to blog about them. Plus, the idea of bringing in a little extra cash to go into my travel fund helped in my decision.
After a month or so of development the site was finally ready and I wanted to start thinking about how to get some traffic going on the website. Whilst paid advertising and social media were a huge part of the strategy, I knew that appearing in the search engines for a wide selection of long-tail phrases was going to be instrumental to the blog's success. This is when I began developing my link building strategy and, after trialing out some very successful approaches, I've decided to now share my link building tactics with you all - you can thank me later :)

Identifying My Link Targets

As a brand new blog it can be really tough to gain links from high authority sites. Unless you have something particularly unique or special (and even then you might struggle), it's an uphill battle to get your content in front of anyone. With this in mind I decided to start off small. However, the general rule of thumb that I kept for any links that I was looking to build was this:
"The link must have a genuine potential to generate traffic back to the blog"

Resource/Links Pages

Many blogs and other websites have 'useful links' or ' useful resources' pages. These pages generally list partner websites, relevant blogs or other sites that they work with. Although these types of links aren't going to result in ground-breaking link building wins they could, if you prospect correctly, provide a link that will not just give you an SEO boost, but actually generate traffic to your site as well. These types of links are particularly relevant for the travel industry.

A lot of people write-off these types of links, classing them as 'spammy' or 'low quality links'. Now, whilst I agree that they aren't enormously powerful, I disagree that they are useless. To find the pages where I wanted to get a link placed back to my blog, I followed these quick steps:

1. First, I ran this query through Google - intitle:travel blog inurl:"links" OR "resources".
2. I then went into Google's search settings and selected to view 100 results per page instead of 10.
3. Once I had 100 listings, I scraped all of the URLs using the 'Scrape Similar' plugin for Chrome and exported them to a .CSV file.
4. I did a bit of manual work to remove irrelevant links and then grabbed the domain/page authority for each of the links using MozCheck.com and pasted this into the sheet. I could then sort the links by page authority and remove any that had a PA lower than ~25. This helped to find higher quality targets.
5. After witling the list down to around 40 targets, I scanned the amount of outbound links on the pages using Niels Bosma's SEOtools plugin for Excel and sorted the list by pages with the lowest number of outbound links on them. This not only improved the power of the link by it also meant that there was more of a chance that I would get some traffic from the page.
6. Finally, I got in touch with webmasters from the sites to see if they would list my site on theirs (using only branded anchor text) in exchange for their site appearing on the 'Our Friends' section of my blog.

The end result was that I managed to gain around 15 links to my blog that actually brought through some traffic as well. This took me around 3-4 hours in total (including outreach) and helped to create a nice bit of domain diversity to the site's link profile. On top of this, it also helped me to start building a few relationships with webmasters that turned out to be very useful later down the line.
Useful: within this article I explain how to sort through link targets in Excel in a bit more detail.
**BONUS: here is the outreach email template that I used when contacting webmasters...

Hi NAME HERE,

Just thought I would drop you a quick mail regarding your website, DOMAIN URL HERE. I really enjoy the stuff you write and it has been getting me excited for my travelling trip!

I am starting up a travel blog myself and it has just gone live a couple of days ago. The blog will follow our group as we travel across East Asia and Australia (we leave today!). I was just wondering if you would be kind enough to drop a link to the blog (http://www.meltedstories.com) on your links page (URL OF THEIR LINKS PAGE HERE) as it would be a big help. I've added you onto my 'Our Friends' page anyway because it will be a great resource for my readers.

Don't worry if you don't want to add our blog, but if you let me know your Twitter handle anyway then I will make sure we follow you and drop you some retweets! You can follow us at @melted_stories.

Feel free to get in touch at any time though!

Matthew Barby
Just an Honest Backpacker :)
www.meltedstories.com
@melted_stories
facebook.com/MeltedStories

Prospecting Through Competitive Research

The next stage of my link building strategy was to do some competitive research. For many SEOs this is a staple part of any link building campaign and can reveal some very interesting insights into what other websites related to your own are doing to acquire links.

My first port of call is always the amazing, and strangely under-rated, 'Competitive Link Finder' tool from SEOmoz. By simply plugging in the URLs of five other travel blogs, similar in style to mine, I was able to instantly get 20 solid link targets from a list of around 45. This took me 15 minutes to do and I just placed all of the links into an outreach spreadsheet that I created. Here are the types of links that I found:

• High authority travel blogs that my competitors have guest posted on.
• Blogs that run weekly 'photo of the week' competitions that will link to your photo if you win.
• Good quality travel-niche directories.
• 'Top travel blogger' lists and competitions.
• Content that my competitors have collaborated on in order to get a mention.
• Links to interview articles where my competitors have answered questions on a high authority blog and have received a link in return.

All this within 15 minutes - not bad, eh?
Every bit of information that I gathered I kept inside a link prospecting spreadsheet. This formed the basis of my link building strategy and allowed me to identify a list of targets that I could approach with a variety of content and propositions. My advice for any blog owner would be to do the same because it allows you to sustain your link building efforts in the long term. Then, every few months, I do some further research and add to the spreadsheet.

Acquiring Links from Your Targets

Now that I'd done some competitive link research, it was time to plan out the approaches that I would take to actually acquire links from my targets. This can often be the place where many people hit a brick wall. During the early stages of my time at Wow Internet, I found that I was overcomplicating the process of acquiring links. However, the reality is that it's often best to keep things simple. You don't necessarily have to spend a fortune on creating an amazing infographic, or bit of video content. More often than not, all you need to do is simply ask (I know, crazy, right?).

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging has taken some stick recently and I can, in some cases, see why. A recent post on the SEOmoz blog by James Finlayson outlined the slippery slope of poor guest post content and I completely agree. This brings me back to my initial link building rule:
"The link must have a genuine potential to generate traffic back to the blog"
Forget judging your guest blog opportunities based solely on the PA/DA of the site and start thinking more about site engagement. If I see a website with a domain authority score of 40 but there are no comments from readers and minimal social shares, then I would generally ignore this site, in favour of a site with lower DA but more comments/social shares. This is particularly important when building links to a blog, so as the old saying goes - don't judge a book by its cover!

Finding Guest Blogging Opportunities and Gaining Them

I had already found a handful of guest blogging opportunities from my competitive research, but I knew I would need a much greater sample size to work with in order to build a solid profile of high quality links. This, unfortunately, takes quite a bit of time. This is where I took a leaf out of Paddy Moogan's book.
I recently read Paddy's link building book (which was awesome) and he talked about outsourcing menial research tasks through oDesk in order to save time and increase productivity overall. One thing that Paddy stressed was to only outsource micro-tasks and leave as little obscurity to the task as possible. With this in mind I put together an extensive brief for the task of finding travel blogs that accepted guest posts and fit the following criteria:

• PR of at least 2.
• The blog must be English speaking and related to travel.
• Must have some form of interaction on the blog posts.
• Should have social shares on the recent articles.
• Must have posted new content within the last 2 months.

**BONUS: you can take a look at the full brief that I used for the link research project here.
As you can see in the link research brief, I didn't just want to simply gather the URLs of the blogs but I tried to get as much information on them as possible. This was so that I could use this valuable data for other link building methods and also to connect with the blog owners through social media and build long-term relationships with them. The data that I asked the oDesk applicant to gather for me was:

• The website URL.
• The name of the website.
• A contact name.
• A contact email (if possible).
• The URL of the contact page.
• Twitter handle of the contact.
• The Facebook page URL of the website (if relevant).
• The title of the most recent article posted (this is so I can easily see if the website is relevant without having to visit each one and check).

One week and $30 later, I had a list of 50 different guest blog targets - amazing! Don't underestimate the power of giving a good brief to a freelancer; it really can make the world of difference.
Useful: the name of the freelancer I used for the link research project (who is now also doing some further research for me now, as well) is Michael Howells. Here's a link to his oDesk profile.
**DOUBLE BONUS!: as I'm feeling particularly generous, I'm going to give you the list of 50 awesome travel-related guest blog opportunities that Michael gathered for me. You're welcome :)

Once I had the list of guest blog targets, it was then time to identify which would be the best places to start reaching out to. This is an important and often over-looked stage of many outreach campaigns. Bearing in mind that I had only a little bit of content on my blog, I needed to try and find an angle to work on with my pitch. To do this I split up my guest blog targets into sub-sections based on their primary theme (i.e. if five of the websites all specialised in backpacking on a budget then they would go in the same group).
Once I'd categorised all of the websites in my list, I had to now decide what I would use in my pitch to the webmasters that would gain their trust and allow me to post on their site. In my armoury were a wealth of photos that I had taken during my time travelling and a whole host of first-hand experiences. From looking at many of the websites that I was targeting for links, it was clear that they were heavily focused around lots of good images and most of them preferred to have the author’s voice clearly present throughout most of their articles. Knowing this, I carried out the following steps:

1. Highlighted blogs that talked about East Asia specifically in a few of their articles.
2. Narrowed down the list to find which of them accepted guest authors more frequently.
3. Picked ten initial targets and began to follow all of their social media accounts, comment on their articles and share their content through my blog's Twitter/FB/G+/Pinterest.
4. Got in touch with the webmasters in a friendly, quick email that let them know who I was, my travel plans and a brief intro to my blog. I then mentioned that I was looking to write for some travel blogs about my adventures and wanted to see if they would consider letting me do this on their blog.
5. If I received a reply, I made sure that I looked at the types of articles they posted on their blogs and then gave only relevant suggestions for possible article titles.

After I had a few articles published on different travel blogs it meant that I could reference these articles in my next flurry of outreach. This proved to be really effective as I progressed and gaining guest post opportunities seemed to get easier and easier. One tip that I would give to anyone doing any outreach is not to mention 'links' at all in your written communication as you risk losing your legitimacy as a genuine blogger. Travel blog owners particularly don't enjoy this.
**Bonus: Here's one of the outreach emails that I sent to a travel blog owner (as you can see, I keep it as personal as possible):

Hi Shannon,

I hope you're well. We spoke around a month ago simply about a link exchange for my travel blog, Melted Stories. I have something slightly different to ask about now!

Firstly I just want to say how much me and my girlfriend enjoy your blog (especially considering my girlfriend, Laura, is also a vegetarian).

I know that you don't really do this on your blog but my girlfriend and I have just finished 2 months of travelling around and experiencing Thailand and I wondered if you would consider letting us do a guest post on your blog?

It would be related to an experience that we had within Thailand and one that we feel would fit in with your audience. For example, we recently visited Chiang Mai and took a trip across to all the best places to see, including spending a day looking after ex-working elephants and visiting the tigers (that are most definitely not drugged!).

I won't babble on too much because I know you must be busy but you can take a look at some of both myself and Laura's writing at these links (below) and if you could let me know either way that would be great.

http://www.meltedstories.com/monkeys-muay-thai-and-magical-marine-life-in-ko-phi-phi/
http://www.meltedstories.com/sun-sea-and-snorkelling-in-koh-tao-3/

Also, we would love to have you write on our blog so if that's something that would interest you then you can have a free reign on what you talk about!

Matt
www.meltedstories.com
@melted_stories

Take Guest Blogging to the Next Level - Become a Columnist

I have to admit that this wasn't something that I necessarily planned from the outset but, as I moved forward with the guest blogging activities that I was doing, it became an obvious next step.
One of the first articles that I wrote was for the WildJunket Magazine, an online general travel publication. During my conversations with the magazine editor, Nellie Huang, I started to form a good relationship and she then asked me if I would consider becoming a regular columnist on the blog, specialising in 'travel tech'. I jumped at the chance, of course, and as a result of this I write 2-3 articles a month for the website and get some great links back to my blog. Not only this but WildJunket have a huge social following and loads of activity on their website. This was certainly something that I could use to my advantage.

After I had written a few articles for Nellie I got in touch with her to discuss any ways in which she could help me out, for example, with sharing my content, getting in touch with other bloggers and any other ways she could suggest. The response was really positive and Nellie allowed me to use the WildJunket press pack when contacting websites and she also said that if I wanted to write a sponsored post for companies on the blog then that is fine too (as long as it fit in with the editorial guidelines). On top of this she agreed to share anything I wished on the WildJunket social media accounts, which was great. I then added the following paragraph into my outreach emails:

As well as running Melted Stories, I am also a regular columnist for Wild Junket, which receives over 1.65 million pageviews a month and has a Twitter following of just under 30,000. Any article that I did write for you would be shared across all of my personal social media accounts, plus that of Wild Junket and Melted Stories, so it could be a win-win situation :)

This dramatically increased the number of replies that I received from webmasters. My advice would be to try and secure a similar type of setup on related blogs within your own industry. Look for blogs that have clear topic areas and, once you've built a relationship with the webmasters, suggest that you could become a regular columnist specialising in a specific topic on their blog.
Tip: Industry-relevant online magazines can be a particularly good target for this.

Sponsored Posts and Paid Tweets

This is likely to cause some controversy amongst a few readers, but in my opinion this can be a fantastic way of driving traffic through to your website and encouraging links back to your content.

Sponsored Posts

A sponsored post is, in essence, a guest post that you pay for. Many websites, especially within the travel industry, will allow you to write an article promoting your products/services in return for payment. Matt Cutts has voiced his opinion on this activity a few times and has said the following:

"Clear disclosure of sponsorship is critical, and that includes disclosure for search engines. If link in a paid post would affect search engines, that link should not pass PageRank (e.g. by using the nofollow attribute)."

My suggestion is not simply to find blogs that offer this and then place a link to your site within them. What I would suggest is using sponsored posts to increase your online community. To do this I found websites that had a particularly large social following, loads of interactivity on the website and a captive niche audience. I then wrote a post related to my travels and a little intro to my travel blog. What I found was that I was able to bring over some good levels of traffic from the post and capture some new readers for my blog - exactly what I wanted!
NOTE: If I ever pay for a sponsored post then I make sure that any links back to my site are 'nofollowed' because it's not worth the risk of having a Google penalty imposed.

Paid Tweets

These are similar, in a way, to sponsored posts and are pretty self-explanatory - you pay someone to tweet something from their twitter account.
Again, there are going to be a few people who say how wrong this is and that they would never do this for one of their clients, etc, etc. What I would say to those people is that if you would be prepared to pay for advertising space on someone's website then what's the difference in paying them to tweet your content on Twitter?

I must admit that I've only done this a couple of times and have had varying results, but in one case I managed to generate a few hundred visits to one of the articles on my blog, which is often more than I would get with a banner ad and for a fraction of the cost! There is also the advantage of being able to expand your own Twitter following in the process, which is another added bonus.
Useful: You can use BuySellAds.com to search for Twitter users that sell tweets within your niche.

Bringing it all Together

It's still early days for my travel blog but I've had some awesome initial results and hopefully this article has given you a few ideas of your own to help you go out and build some quality links to your blog. The key message that I'm trying to convey here is the importance of building relationships online and forming a solid community within your blog.
Simple things like blog commenting, which was traditionally a staple part of link building, has now become a fantastic way to build relationships with bloggers and actually drive traffic back to your own blog. A lot of link building can be quite indirect and it isn't always the quickest to do, but if you follow my one simple rule then you should be able to keep on the right track:
"The link must have a genuine potential to generate traffic back to the blog"
I'd love to hear your own link building triumphs, so be sure to let me know in the comments of the blog or get in touch with me on Twitter or Google+. Before you do that, here's an awesome photo of my partner and me with a tiger in Thailand...







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