SEO Blog Tips/Tricks Search Engine Optimization

5. Are links from other sites important?

Links from other sites to your website are also known as “backlinks.” These are as important—if not more so—than links from your site to other (thematically similar) sites. Search engines consider these backlinks as a measure of the value, popularity or importance of the content to be found on the site to which they are linked.

It is possible to “farm out” the link-building process to a third party, and many companies find this to be the most efficient means of increasing their own website’s quantity of links to other independent sites. Some site owners may find it desirable to take on this task personally, since it opens up the possibility of going beyond simple link exchanging to create cross-promoting opportunities. For example, if your site offers pet sitting services (oh no, not again!), you could make arrangements with a long list of other pet-related site owners to promote your services on their sites, and their products or services on your site. Each site owner benefits from the added link count.

And this can even go a step further. Companies like ClickBank and Commission Junction allow similar businesses to arrange affiliate programs. Here’s how this can be beneficial to you:

When a visitor to your site clicks the link (a banner ad, for example) that leads them to your affiliate’s site, you receive a commission on any purchase made during their visit (all commissions are paid and managed through the third party vendor). Neither you nor your affiliate is burdened by any additional bookkeeping, and you will have each created a potential for sales from customers who might have never visited your site otherwise.

That’s just one more reason why links are a very important element of successful online marketing.

4. How do I incorporate specific keywords into my website?

There’s a simple answer and a complicated answer to this question.

First, the simple answer: Use those keywords anywhere in the text of your site. “Welcome to Purebred Dog Sitters” on your home page is an easy way to start (yes, we’re back to the pet analogy again). Use the specific search terms in describing your product or service anyplace text appears—even in the captions or file names of photographs or illustrations.

Use your keywords in the URLs of secondary web pages (those following the home page). These are on the highest level search engines look to determine relevance (even higher than the actual content of the text on those pages).

Now for the complicated answer, which begs another question: Which specific keywords?

If you’re asking this question because you want to use certain keywords another site owner may have already bid for in a Paid Search Engine Marketing situation, your only option may be to out-bid that competitor.

But before you do that, consider whether those specific keywords are really the best (or the only) way to reach your prospects. The more general the terms, the more competition you’ll face in a bidding contest.

Sometimes, the most popular keywords aren’t the ones that will deliver real qualified prospects to your site. For more on this subject, refer to the discussion of appropriate keywords in Chapter 3: “Search Engine Optimization Marketing vs. Paid Search Engine Marketing.”

3. My new website shows up on Yahoo, but not on Google. Why?

In our answer to Question #1, we mentioned “each search engine uses different algorithms to determine the relevance of a website’s content, the objective is the same: to find text within the site that correlates to a specific set of search terms.”

When your site shows up on one search engine, but not another, the reason can usually be traced to the difference between those algorithms.

Another possibility may be at play here, as well. Perhaps your site shows up in a highly-ranked position on one search engine, but it’s so low in another search engine’s rankings, you can’t even find it. Why?

It’s simple. Yahoo (for purposes of this discussion) thinks your site is relevant. Google, on the other                 hand, doesn’t think your site is any more relevant than all the other websites that do show up in higher             positions.

There are several things you can do to get your site listed higher in all search engine rankings, and                 these steps are the essence of all Search Engine Marketing activities:

1. Optimizing your site to target specific search terms your prospects
     would use to find your product or service. These terms need to be within
    the visible text on the home page (the first place search engines will
    look). Google isn’t going to consider your site relevant if those terms
    don’t even appear on your most important page.

2. Building your site’s “link popularity” with other thematically similar sites.
    According to the editors of the website MarketingTerms.Com, link
    popularity (also known as “link pop”) can be defined as “a measure of
    the quantity and quality of [other] websites that link to your site. It is an
    example of the move by search engines towards ‘off-the-page’ criteria
    to determine quality content. In theory, off-the-page criteria adds the
aspect of impartiality to search engine rankings.”

3. Improving and adding to your site’s content on a regular basis, including
                more information that’s valuable to your target prospects. This will result
                in your site becoming more popular among potential customers, as well
                as being considered more relevant to search engines.