4 Best Approaches To Natural Link Building For Your Website is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

Natural link building should be at the forefront of every webmaster’s SEO campaign because it’s the surest way to get your website ranking with the search engines.

There’s no need to overly complicate matters.

Your on-page SEO should be aimed at letting the search engines know what’s on a page; your off-page SEO, which will take up 80 to 85% of your time after setting your website up, needs to gather backlinks naturally, so that you prove to the search engines you are an authority in your field.

Why The Natural Approach?

We stress that natural link building is the way to go, because the search engines like websites that replicate nature – they are set up to reward organic growth rather than forced, manufactured growth; and they can clamp down heavily on any websites they deem to step out of line – as many have found, during the Google “Panda updates”, which we mentioned recently.

Fitting In To The Google Model

Google lives and dies by providing the best, most relevant search results. If it can’t do this, then people become unhappy with their search results, they move elsewhere and that means they no longer control all those pairs of eyes and therefore cannot command the same advertising revenue (which makes up 90% of their business.)

The whole Google model is built on accuracy of search results, so it’s no surprise that they protect their “turf” by penalising sites that are deemed to be “gaming” the system.

In light of this, maybe you would like to reconsider your policy of outsourcing your link-building to a contractor, who you’ve asked to create as many links as possible for your site.

So How To Take The Natural Approach?

You may want to consider incorporating the following into your link building campaign, so that your links appear to be more naturally generated:

1. A variety of Sources – get back-links from many different sources; there are directory links, reciprocal links, article directory links, guest blogging links and so on. Use every link-building resource available to you.
2. Links to All Pages Of Your Site – make sure that the links that are set up to point to all pages of your site, not just the Home Page. It’s not natural that everyone would link to the Home Page so link to blog articles, product pages, information pages and so on. These are often called “deep links”.
3. Vary the Anchor Text – the “anchor text” is the wording used for the actual link (in blue usually) that people click on to be taken to your website. This may be a simple URL or may include some of your keywords – keep it varied, as it tells the search engine that your site is relevant for a variety of keywords, not just one phrase.
4. Add Links Over Time – it’s not natural to have all your links in place overnight. Adding them gradually will appear to be more organic and is more likely to be rewarded by high rankings down the track. This means that you should have an ongoing SEO link building campaign that looks at the long-term rather than just instant results.

Just following the four approaches above should see your small business ranking well for your keywords because MOST businesses are not doing this. Depending on the level of competition in your sector you can see your website rise quickly to the top.

Apart from advice on natural link building there are plenty more small online business tips for SEO in the Competition Crusher Workshop at www.crusherworkshop.com. You can watch it all for FREE by clicking on the link!

Natural link building is vital to follow the Google model.

Use Automated Directory Submissions For Smart SEO is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

Do not build links all in one day.

For every high quality backlink you target for your website there are potentially scores of other links you may be missing out on …unless you are using directory submissions to help your SEO efforts.

With a good directory submission service you can take a “shotgun” approach to links which automates the whole process and nets you many backlink “prizes” from just one “shot”. We discuss this approach in more detail below.

Building Backlinks

Core to your off-page SEO efforts is building backlinks; the best approach is to go for quantity as well as quality and to diversify both the places you are getting links from and the text you include in the actual links.

With online marketing putting all of your “eggs in one basket” rarely works and so it is with links; we need to use all the many and diverse tools available to us – many of them are FREE or low cost anyway, so there are no reasons not to be doing this.

Don’t worry that 100 directory links may give you the same credit as 5 higher quality links from high-ranking sites – they really do all count!

With directory links we are after a specific type of backlink where the URL of your website is the actual link; other links we target may use specific keywords in the anchor text, but directory links are your URL, plain and simple. Again this creates diversity of link type, which is important for authenticity in the eyes of search engines.

What Exactly Is A Directory?

A classic example of a website directory is www.dmoz.org which is an open source directory project in collaboration with AOL. Directories of this nature are what web surfers used to use for finding websites, before Google made search more tailored and personalised.

Directories are set up in categories, whereby a user must click through from one category to the next to find what they are looking for. They can seem quite laborious nowadays, as you have to peel back many layers of the onion before you get to the information you need!

Automated Directory Submissions

Submitting your URL to hundreds or even thousands of directories manually takes up valuable time you could be putting to other SEO tasks, so the best idea is to use a recommended directory submission service.

We like to use Directory Maximiser to do this job. With very little expense or effort you can get your website out to all the major directories – try to reach over 300 in all. It only costs 14 cents per directory submission.

Simply submit your website and choose PR1+ directories. As you are doing this, vary the text of the submissions so that you add more diversity to the mix. You can use many different titles and descriptions with this tool.

A Brief Word Of Warning

From our experience it’s best not to submit your site to all directories at once, as this may look like you are trying to “play” the search engines – which they may penalise you for.

It’s far better to “drip feed” the submissions over time as this appears to be more of an “organic” approach that Google and the others should reward you for.

That’s more valuable SEO advice from Melbourne SEO Services! We actually do much more than SEO. Check out our FREE to watch Competition Crusher Workshop where you will gather many great tips if you are starting up a new online business. Just click here to visit it. It’s packed with relevant, up to date information to get your business firing from the start.

How To Use Article Directories For SEO is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

If you’re not constantly building backlinks to your website, then you’re not focusing your off-page SEO in the right area.

Backlinks should be occupying the majority of your SEO time and a great way to build them is by getting articles written and submitted to article directories. Below we look at how you can do that effectively.

Article Directory Submission

There are specific sites that are set up to publish your articles and allow you to include a backlink to your site.

A couple of the larger article directories are EzineArticles and Go Articles and both have submission guidelines listed clearly on their sites for writers to follow when uploading their content.

The basic premise is that they exchange your content for a backlink in a win-win relationship.

A good strategy is to choose a few different submission sites and submit at least one article per week, because SEO works best when it is an ongoing effort of organic growth; this tends to be more effective than infrequent bursts of content.

If you don’t have someone in-house who can do this then outsource it; there are plenty of writers like available on contractor sites oDesk and Elance where you can get SEO articles written at affordable rates..

Link To What?

When you insert links into your posts try to mix where you link to: use both the home page and “deep links” to other pages of your website. This demonstrates to the search engines that your site has depth to its relevance – not only the main page.

Do Google Updates Affect The Value of Article Submission?

Some people have argued that the recent Google “Panda updates” have shaken up search engine rankings so much that it’s no longer clear what the value of article writing is.

We disagree. A backlink is a backlink and Google would be silly to abandon the value of backlinks any time soon; it is simply the best way to judge the authority levels of a site at present.

What it has done is penalise some of the actual publishing sites like EzineArticles; but if you are still getting your backlink then how does that really affect you, if your main concern is getting your website to Number 1, not the publisher’s site?

Google always wants to remain one step ahead and provide the most relevant results for search terms; they do want to weed out some of the “junk” on the web and reward sites that provide quality, authority and credibility. Until something changes dramatically, building backlinks is still the best way for you to go about this.

I guess you shouldn’t be surprised that we’re passing on SEO advice! But we do a lot more than that and tackle many aspects of setting up an online business in the Competition Crusher Workshop at www.crusherworkshop.com. Why not head on over there and take a look – it’s completely FREE to watch!

Article submission is still effective even with the Panda update.

3 Blog Commenting Tips To Put Your Website To The Top! is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

Blog commenting is often misunderstood and generally not used enough amongst website owners; it takes time and effort but it can offer a rich seam of online gold – namely backlinks.

Below we look at three ways your business can use comment links for your all-important off-page SEO efforts; that ultimately means better rankings, more traffic and more leads.

Target All Backlinks

One of the most commonly misunderstood areas of backlinking is the value of “no-follow” blog comment links. These are links that webmasters instruct search engines not to include in the linked website’s ranking in their index and are meant to deter spamming.

The much-esteemed SEOMoz website ran a study where they took the best ranking websites and reverse-engineered what these sites were doing; common to them all was that they commented on blogs, even when the links were “no follow”.

Rather than spending too much time on whether your link is going to be a “no follow” link, it’s better to go after all blog comment backlinks you can get.

Develop an ongoing campaign with a certain amount of comments per week; it’s often a great idea to include links back to your site in your poster’s name so that it isn’t too obvious. If you don’t have the time, then outsource the job.

Search On BlogSeach

Google has a great tool at www.blogsearch.google.com to enable you to search out blogs related to your market area.  Enter keywords and stake out all the potential blog sites that are good targets for your blog comment links. This allows you to keep the commenting relevant to your subject and not appear too spam-like.

Use Google Alerts

This is an excellent tool that can serve many purposes.

In the context of blog comments, you can set up alerts for certain keywords whereby Google will email when that search term is used somewhere online.

For example I have set up Alerts for “David Jenyns” and “Melbourne SEO Services” so that whenever these phrases are used anywhere online I receive notification from Google.

This allows me to go to the site where the comments were made and possibly leave a reply comment with a link back to one of my sites, adding SEO value; of course it also allows me to keep on top of what people are saying about my business and correct wrong information, which is in itself an important part of social monitoring and customer service.

You can only engage with your customers if you know what they are saying and nowadays your business needs to go where the customers are, rather than asking the customers to come to you; social networking has changed everything.

We are certainly not suggesting that blog comments are the be-all and end-all of your off-page SEO. A natural, diverse approach works best with SEO, including generating backlinks from articles and directory submissions , but don’t overlook the quantity of links you can garner from blog commenting.

Get hold of many more valuable tips for improving your website SEO in the FREE-to-watch Competition Crusher Workshop. Why not head on over there now while it’s still fresh in your minds? Just click here to start learning more.

Search for the right blogs to comment on.

Which Link Building Strategies Should You Use? is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

In order to increase your ranking in Google searches, you have to have links to your website from others.  You do need to take extra care though to make sure that you build the right kind of links from the best sources. Here’s an overview of some link building strategies and which ones you should consider using.

Paid Links

There are two types of paid links.  Overt paid links are those that are from websites that openly say that they sell links.  You do not want links from these types of websites because Google has openly said they do not like paid links.   Since Google does not like paid links, this type of link could lower your ranking.

Covert paid links are from websites that you have approached on your own and asked to link to you for a monthly fee that you would pay to them.  Examples would be a blog or someone that is popular in your community.

Link Exchange

A direct link exchange is when two or more websites link to each other for the sole purpose of increasing their own links.  In order to avoid having their rank lowered because of link exchange, a three-way setup may be involved.  In this scenario, Site A links to Site B, Site B links to Side C, and Side C links to Side A.  This can also be done on a larger scale with more than three websites in the link exchange.  A lot of people familiar with SEO do not consider it to be worth the time involved just because there are easier ways to do it with the same or better results.

White, Gray or Black Hat Methods

White Hat Methods are SEO techniques that are “squeaky clean.”  You would be perfectly comfortable with having Google aware of your use of these techniques.

Gray Hat Methods are those which you are not so comfortable having examined by Google, but that you could deny having been involved with building the particular link in question.  Some manufactured links and some covert links fall into this category.

Black Hat Methods

When you just want to gain search engine ground any way possible with no regard to consequences, you could follow black hat link building tips.  Credit cards, mortgages, gambling, and pornography are all very competitive areas that may engage in these methods, but if you can avoid using them then, you should.  The reason is that while it may gain you higher results in the short term, in the long run it can end up getting you de-indexed by Google.  None of these methods are recommended, but here are some examples of black hat methods:

• Spamming blogs
• Spamming video comments
• Hacking websites to include your links

Here in Melbourne SEO Services, we use only the best legitimate link building strategies. Like us on Facebook to get the latest updates on our techniques.

Link Building Tips To Get Ranked Safely is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

Awkward Silence… the most uncomfortable sound in the world.  Everyone has experienced a moment when a certain topic comes up, someone states their opinion and the rest of group sits there…in silence.  The nature of the subject is the reason the awkward silence occurs.  No one wants to put their two cents out there for fear of losing a best friend, causing conflict between mom and son or worse husband and wife.

The same type of “awkward silence” is happening within the SEO world.  Many people are asking hard questions concerning the correct policy for building links with Google.  Despite a patent developed years ago, there are gray areas where you can go either way. Meaning there are obvious loopholes in certain link building tips but one has to question, how far is too far?

David Jenyns breaks the “Awkward Silence” and addresses the three most asked questions about building links.

Do links need to be from topic-relevant sites?

When it comes to building links from related websites, one should try to stay within the same Niche.  This is hard to do because in theory who is to say your subject isn’t relevant to the link you are building.  For example, say you have a website that is all about bikes.  The subject of bikes could mean bike parts, bike races, bike trails, even exercise bikes.  Each of these examples goes into another subject, which is broader.  Let us look at exercise bikes.  Technically, you could link to gym websites, stores that sell exercise bikes, medical research concerning exercise bikes and the list can go on.  So, in order to stay within the realm of Google’s Patent concerning building links and relevant sites, tread carefully.  You do not want to draw attention to yourself.

No matter what remember any link is better than no link.

Can you get in trouble with certain links? Internal vs. External Websites

The best way to approach this question is by looking at two types of links: External and Internal Links.

When a website such as gambling, porn or spamming links it to your website, there is a chance of Google penalizing you.  There has been some “buzz” of this happening and the websites being bumped down in the ranks.  SEO’s can overcome this problem by building more links.  The more they build, the less chances of this happening to you.

Internal Links are a different scenario.  If your website is linked to a bad website, then you are willingly doing this.  So yes you can get in trouble.  You want to make sure to keep your reputation online morally high.  It is better to work harder by building more links than doing it the easy way and getting in trouble.

Can you build links too quickly?

There is no definite answer concerning this question.  If you think about press releases, you can merit 950 overnight.  By manufacturing links at high numbers, press releases or news articles will causes this to happen at rapid speed.  The best way to avoid crossing the line is to remember if you are building links naturally you are okay.

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Off Page Optimization Explained – How Google Works is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

When working on SEO, you must consider both on page SEO and off page SEO.  While on page SEO is definitely important, off page optimization contributes more heavily to search results than on page SEO.  Making sure to get your title page and meta tags correct is important, but optimizing off page still weighs in at about 80% of importance compared to only 20% for on page SEO.

Google search results are by no means magical.  Google’s servers use algorithms to analyze web pages and give us the results to our searches.  The algorithms used by Google are based on how research reports work.  In any industry, a report really begins to gain weight when it begins to be referenced by others.   Some ways that a report may be referenced include:

• Radio
• Television
• Speeches
• Websites
• Newer research reports

Occurrences of these references show recognition for the quality of the work.  They are essentially like votes for that particular research report.  This is how reports gain credibility within a community.  Similarly, Google’s algorithm looks at how many outside links there are to a particular page when determining its rank.  The more links to it, the more weight and credibility Google will assign to it and the higher it will rank in search.

The term “World Wide Web” is derived from:

• An imaginary search engine “spider” “crawling” around the Internet gathering a list of web pages via links for Google.
• The links from websites to each other would resemble a spider web.

Now that we know why it’s called the World Wide Web, consider the actual process of web crawling:  The server’s index software follows all of the links on known web pages to new web pages.  The new pages lead to additional pages and the process continues for each new link discovered.  The servers keep a list of each new page and its content, as well as how many times other pages link to it.  The major limitation to this type of indexing is that a website must be linked by another to be found.  If you do not want a page to be found, then not linking to it will keep it from being indexed.  However, when you do want a page to be found, it is important to implement a proper on page linking structure.  Google also allows for the submission of site maps, but this should not be a substitution for a well-designed on page linking structure.

Since the index software only makes a giant list of web pages, it is the job of the query software to take this data and find results that are relevant to the search performed.  The query software takes the pages gathered by the index software and applies the algorithm to it.  This gives us what is usually a very accurate list of pages that contains the desired information.

If you’re interested in more off page optimization strategies, subscribe to our feed or like us on Facebook.

Business Publicity – Focus On Traffic And Conversion is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

When it comes to business publicity, many business owners make the mistake of focusing their time on how to deliver the product. Instead, the focus should be on two factors that play a vital role in publicity- traffic and conversion.  Publicity brings attention to the brand or business, which causes the traffic to increase.  As traffic increases, more people will want the brand or service resulting in conversions of sales.

There is a classic 80’s movie titled “Can’t Buy Me Love”.  In the movie, a teenager named Ronald Miller wanted nothing more than get rid of his nerdy reputation.  Ronald knew the only way for others to see him as “Cool” was to be associated with a popular kid from school.  He comes up with the plan to bribe the most popular girl in school with $1,000 to be his girlfriend for a month.  Since the kids in school believed that Cindy was the epitome of cool, whatever or whomever she associated with was automatically cool.

Similarly, a good publicity campaign helps attracts traffic but also produces sale conversions because it builds authority, credibility and a good reputation.

If the media features you, then you automatically become an expert or an authority. By being an authority in the market place, it is easier for you to make sales.  People trust and believe in you.  You can also charge higher prices because people perceive you as a better operator as well as credible.  Obviously if the media features you, people are assuring the media has done its job of researching your credibility.

People have a fundamental trust in the media. Whatever the media says they believe and take it as pure fact.  If the media starts endorsing your product, business or website, ultimately they are telling the public to believe in you.  In publicity, this behavior is referred to as the “Halo Effect”.  There is a “Halo” floating over the media.  Once you are covered by the media, the “Halo” is then placed above you.  They are in a sense voting from the media, which then is passed on to you.

Finally, publicity produces a third party testimonial.  This is where someone saying, “This business is good, you should believe in them.”  It follows under the same philosophy of building links and sharing them.  You are not the one endorsing yourself and saying, “I am the best!  I am the greatest!”  You have a third party backing you as well as your product up.  Many times, people are going to be very hesitant to try something new if there is no feedback or comments.

In order to get your brand, your business or self out in the media, you have to get more traffic. You need people to know who you are, what you sell, walk in your store or visit your website.  Focusing on traffic generation and sales conversion within business publicity will help get the coverage you need.  It is like the phrase “It’s not WHO you know, but WHO knows you.”  You want the right people to help endorse you and product.

If you want to learn more about creating great publicity campaigns, like us on Facebook or subscribe to our Youtube channel.

Mailbox Surprise! A Send Out Cards Review is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

Keen to see how Send Out Cards works? Click here to find out more.

Autoresponders are invaluable to online marketers. When someone signs up for your newsletter or buys one of your products, you can have a “thank you” email sent to them immediately. Seven days later you can have another email sent that says, “Just wanted to check in and make sure you’re enjoying…”  Then another two months down the road you can follow up with them again.  Autoresponders are a great way to keep your list informed and create a valuable client relationship.

But what if there were a way that your prospects and customers could receive a personal thank you? Not from a personally-sent email, but through the postal service – and it came in your own handwriting?

Imagine their surprise when they check their mail and find a nice, handwritten, personalized note from you?  So many of us rely on email, that we’ve forgotten that postal mail is a very effective way of marketing.

What if I told you there is a program that can do all that for you with minimal fuss?  Well there is.

SendOutCards.com can do exactly that for you. They have quite a few options and can work as a specialized postal mail autoresponder. Once you have the information needed for your contacts, you can automatically send them thank you notes, how’s-it-going follow-up letters, birthday and anniversary cards – just about anything.   There’s even a wide selection of nice gifts to send along with your personalized send out cards.

They also have a feature that allows you to upload examples of your handwriting which will then be stored and added to your letters. This allows everything that comes from you to be personalized and handwritten. And as I’ve mentioned – these days, that’s very rare and could go a long way toward building that ever so important client relationship.

So if you’re looking for a way to make your follow-ups stand out from everyone else’s, SendOutCards.com is definitely one of the best ways you can do this.

If you know of other ways to make yourself stand out, let us know in the comments below.

Keen to see how Send Out Cards works? Click here to find out more.

Being Overlooked on Google? Try Google Local Listing is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

One of the often-overlooked ways of getting ranked higher on Google involves getting a Google local listing in Google Places. Let’s say you do a search for “Melbourne Copiers”. At the time of this writing, the first half of the page is taken up by businesses that have a Google Places listing. So to keep your business at the top, here are some ‘rules’ to keep in mind.

First you have to either claim or create your listing. If you’re already listed there, that’s great – some of the work is already done for you. But if you’re not shown you can always add a new listing just for your business (http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl).

Google local listings are best claimed by using an email that is the in the same domain as the business; you don’t want to have BobsCarpeting.com as the listing and use Bob@yahoo.com.au for the email address. Google, as always, likes to make sure that things are verified and this is an easy way to help them get that verification.

You’ll want to use your company name – don’t try to be tricky and add keywords or phrases. This was common when Google Places was new, but they caught on pretty quickly; it is now a frowned-upon process (to say the least). Just stick to the normal business name like you’d find on a business card or your company letterhead.

To begin with you should use your standard physical address; if, for some reason, you don’t want it listed you can always change or hide it later. An example of this would be if you were a locksmith – you travel to do your job, so your address isn’t really applicable in this case. But again, Google likes their verification and this can help.

When you’re submitting your listing, you’ll have plenty of categorical options to choose from. It’s best to use the ones that Google suggests or has already listed; you are, after all, playing ball on their field, so they do know a bit about categorization. Once you’ve exhausted their options then you can begin to add your own categories, which can include keywords or phrases (if they’re suitable).

When people find your listing, you want them to feel welcomed. You’ll have the option to add your hours of operation, photos of your business or staff, video and any additional information. Some good pictures or a short video introducing your business can go a long way toward the beginning of a good relationship with a potential customer. This is also a good place to add your keyword oriented content.

Finally, you’ll be asked to verify your listing either by phone or email. Via phone is quicker, and it’s a good idea to use a telephone that goes directly to you instead of through an operator or other options. This will ensure that you get the call and won’t be left hanging around waiting on a phone call that has already been placed but you missed somewhere along the line.

So these are the general rules of thumb for Google Places. Keep them in mind when you’re setting up your listing. And if you’d like more help with Google ranking, check out some of the services we offer here at Melbourne SEO Services.