Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Where Can I Get Good One Way Links?

One way links are very important to a website. Getting them isn't as easy as getting reciprocal links, but as this article explains it's worth persevering.

When another website links to yours without you linking back to them in return, it instantly strengthens the position of your site in the search engines. This is because the site which links to yours is getting nothing back in return.

While reciprocal links are easier to get, they are nowhere near as powerful as one way links coming in to your website. It's possible to buy one way links but this isn't recommended as some search engines don't approve of the practice. What you need to do is start looking at ways to generate one way links that you can do for free.

One of the best ways to create lots of one way links leading back to your website is to write articles and submit them to some of the myriad of article directories available online. Every article can contain a link back to your website in the resource box, and some of these articles will get picked up to use on other websites and in email newsletters - which increases the popularity of those links.

You should also be selective in which article directories you post your articles to. If you stick with the most popular ones which have the highest PageRank, the links you are cultivating will be worth even more.

Another good way of generating more one way links is by using a signature wherever you can that leads back to your site. Most forums will allow you to link back to your website at the foot of every post you make; just make sure you check the individual rules of each one to ensure it is allowed.

Perhaps the best way to generate one way links is by providing the best quality website you can manage. As your traffic builds and your reputation grows, other webmasters will naturally want to draw attention to you by telling their visitors about your site and linking back to it without even being asked.

If you use all three of these methods you can begin to create good quality one way links within days - sometimes even hours - and over time they will continue to grow, all contributing to your site being able to achieve a higher PageRank in the process.

Can Some Links Hurt My Rankings?

Find out which links you should be steering clear of when promoting your website. Not all links are beneficial.

The short answer to this is yes. You should always be aware of the kind of links you are using, and perhaps more importantly the sites you are linking to or from.

And it's not just the type of links you use - the number you've got can be a problem too.

Let's say you create a brand new website. Naturally you want to get it up and running as quickly as possible and impress the search engines with how comprehensive your site is. So you start piling on the links - writing articles, calling in favours from other webmasters you know and linking back to your site in other ways too, all to make sure your site gets found and indexed in double quick time.

The problem is that if a search engine sees lots of links appearing all in one hit, they can deem that to be spam (rightly or wrongly) and ban your site as a result. So the message is definitely to build your links gradually over time as opposed to trying to get started too quickly.

It has also been said several times that Google has a habit of frowning on you for selling paid links on your site. They can penalise you for this so steer clear of trying to increase your revenue from your links in this way. While the waters concerning how or when they might penalize you are muddy, it's much better to rely on gaining quality links from sites that are linking to you because they like your content and they think your site is worthwhile.

Gaining inbound links is one of the best ways to strengthen your site and increase your Page Rank, but how you do it is paramount to how successful you eventually are.

To this end, make absolutely sure you steer well clear of link farms. These are websites that contain hundreds if not thousands of links to other sites on the web? and that's it. They exist for no other purpose, and thus have very little value. If you list your site with one or more link farms in the hope of getting more traffic, you won't be helping your rankings at all.

By way of a footnote, be aware of the phrase link baiting. It sounds awful and certainly something to be avoided, but in actual fact it isn't. When link baiting is done properly it can do your site a lot of good. Think of it as viral link building, where you encourage others to link back to your site. You must have a good reason to ask them to do so though.

How Do I Convince Webmasters To Link To My Site?

The more good quality links you can get coming back to your site the better, but persuading other webmasters to do just that isn't as easy as it might sound.

This can be tricky, but the key word to remember here is value. Reciprocal links are far easier to achieve - you link to their site if they will link to yours - but one way links from other sites are far more powerful in the long run.

Getting plenty of one way links takes time and effort but it does pay off, and it doesn't always boil down to having to ask a webmaster to include your link and offering them nothing in return. It's quite possible to generate one way links and do the webmaster a favor as well - you just have to do a spot of lateral thinking to achieve it.

Here's an example to illustrate the point. What do all webmasters need? What are they constantly on the look out for that makes their day when they find it?

The short answer is unique content.

Do some research and create a list of websites that concentrate on the same subject as your own site. Remember that links are worth more when they are relevant.

Get in touch with each webmaster and offer them a unique article, not published anywhere else, which they are free to publish on their own site provided they place a link at the bottom of it that leads back to your website. You may not get a reply from everyone, but most webmasters will jump at the chance of some free and unique content, because it will help their own positioning in the search engines. It's a win win situation. Make sure you mention that the article can be keyworded to attract even more traffic.

Many websites also have a page or section containing links to other recommended sites. There is always the possibility of having your link added here, but this will usually involve having to email the webmaster so make doubly sure you get all the details spot on.

Finally there is the question of value. Sometimes you don't have to ask for links - all you have to do is build a site that establishes itself as one of the best ones on the subject. If your own PageRank increases and is better than that of many other competing sites they will naturally want to link to yours to help improve their own PageRank.

Ultimately it's a question of combining more than one technique to get a good number of one way links leading back to your site over time. This isn't a strategy to be rushed - devoting some time to it will help ensure you get good results in the end.

How Much Keyword Density Is Too Much?

Keyword density is very important when you are creating content for your web pages. But if you include too many keywords you run the risk of being accused of keyword spamming. So how much is overdoing it?

The term keyword density refers to the number of times a specific keyword is used within a body of text on a web page. It is usually referred to as a percentage, which is calculated by dividing the number of times the keyword appears on the page by the total number of words in the piece. That figure is then multiplied by a hundred to get the total percentage.

But what percentage should you be aiming for? We know that if your percentage is too high you are venturing into keyword spamming territory, but if it's too low you won't achieve any decent results at all.

So how high can you - and should you - go?

Unfortunately this is one subject on which everyone has a different opinion. Figures of anywhere between 2% and an unbelievable 50% have been bandied about online, but as a general rule it's advisable not to go above around 3% or 4%.

A good rule of thumb to follow is to see how well your content flows when you use a certain keyword density. The more times you use your keyword the less impressive your writing will be. This is because you will have to start manipulating the text in order to fit the keywords in more and more often.

Your copy should always flow well and be readable and useful to anyone who reads it. As always, all the best SEO techniques remember that the website visitors are very much the priority, and while they are also designed to please the search engines it is the visitors who remain the most important asset.

As soon as you start playing around with your content purely to fit more keywords in, you are losing track of that fact, and you will start to run the risk of overdoing it with your keyword density.

Will I Hurt My Rankings If I Change ISPs?

It sometimes becomes necessary or at least advantageous to change to a different internet service provider. But are you running the risk of sabotaging your search engine rankings by doing this?

It's understandable to be concerned. After all you've probably spent weeks, months or maybe even years building up your site, implementing various search engine optimization techniques and gradually improving your ranking as a result.

But sometimes you may find you get a better deal or, more importantly, a better service by changing your ISP. So should you be worried about your rankings?

The short answer is no. All your hard work will stand and you shouldn't experience any problems at all. Obviously it will pay you to ensure the move is made in as quick a time as possible, but with all things being equal your ranking should remain the same.

It's important to note however that if you decide to change your domain name your ranking will definitely be affected - and in a big way. This is because all the websites that link into your site are linking with your domain name. If you change it then all the links you have worked so hard to gain will be lost.

The key point to remember is that you need to ensure everything else stays exactly the same. It doesn't matter who you host your domain name with; it only matters that your domain name stays the same if you are to hang on to the benefits you have amassed so far.

If you are considering changing providers it might be worth doing some research first to ensure that the service they provide is renowned as being quick and efficient. If you run into problems and your website ends up being down for a few days then you might experience a drop in ranking. So long as you do your homework first and go with a reputable company you shouldn't have any problems at all.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

I screwed up my redirect. Can I get my rankings back?

Is everything lost if you try and redirect an old URL to a new one and make an error? Here's the answer.

There are easier things to do online than to create a brand new domain name and try and move your current website so that it's attached to your new domain instead of your old one.

It's possible to do it and hang onto your rankings by redirecting people temporarily from the old address to the new one, but if this process goes wrong you will lose your rankings within the search engines and you'll have to start again from scratch.

Why is this? Despite the fact that your site essentially remains the same, the search engines look at each individual URL as being just that - individual. It seems that although the search engines have plenty of complex algorithms and robots to do their crawling for them, they can't recognize an old site under a new name.

In short, if you mess up when it comes to redirecting people (including the search engine spiders) from your old URL to your new one, the only comfort you will have to fall back on is the fact that your site itself is well established and has all the elements in place to start ranking highly under your new domain name in as short a time as possible, although this can still take a while to achieve.

This is why it's essential to plan ahead when you are thinking of changing your domain name. A good rule of thumb is to only change it if it's absolutely necessary. Don't do it on a whim. And if you do decide to go ahead with it make sure you are familiar with all the steps and you know exactly what to do, because you only really get one shot at getting it right - and there is a lot of traffic and ranking points at stake.

My Rankings Plummeted Overnight. What Happened?

It's every webmaster's worst nightmare, yet it happens to more people than you might think. Here are some suggestions as to why this can happen.

One day you're on page one of Google and the next day you're languishing on page fifty - if you're lucky. It's small wonder that some people panic when this happens to them and start changing everything in sight to try and rectify the problem.

But if this should happen to you the best thing you can do is to hang fire, don't panic and definitely don't change anything. There are a lot of sites that experience an unexplained drop like this and then find in a day or two that they are back to where they were. Unfortunately sudden drops in ranking do happen and they are not always explained.

Having said that there are reasons why it can happen. Small tweaks to the html in your site or to the tags can cause a drop. Check your positioning on different search engines as well, because they all have slightly different methods of ranking sites and you may find that while you have dropped like a stone on Google, other search engines such as Yahoo and MSN may still be ranking you very highly. If this is the case then the drop could well be temporary, but keep an eye on the other search engines over the next few days just to make sure.

Another reason for a sharp drop in rankings occurring is when people find your listing in the search results and attempt to visit your site, only to receive a 404 error message in return. If the search engine spiders pick up on this - even if it's only a temporary situation - it can prompt them to drop your ranking as a result.

While most people who employ black hat SEO techniques to get ranked higher expect to be punished sooner or later by experiencing a severe drop in ranking (or being banned altogether), some people inadvertently use techniques that they shouldn't touch with a bargepole.

This is why it's worth taking a look at your site to see whether you have done anything you shouldn't have. Have you relied on link farms to generate some incoming links? Have you overdone the keywords in your content? Do you have very little in the way of content at all?

If you can answer yes to any of these questions then you may well have found the reason for your change in circumstances. The route to take here is clear - refrain from doing anything for a few days to see if you regain your position and if not, start examining your site to see where the red flags are.

How Do I Maintain Rankings When I Change Domains?

Changing your domain name is a major alteration to be making. Before you do it you need to consider a number of factors, as well as figuring out how you will maintain your ranking.

Changing the domain of your website is as major an event online as moving house is in reality. If you moved house and didn't tell anyone where you were going, you wouldn't get the same amount of visitors that you used to, because no one would know where you were.

The same applies to your website. If you change addresses you need to do the online equivalent of sending out change of address cards - and that's to use a temporary redirect to highlight the link between your old domain name and your new one. This will ensure that the traffic and rankings associated with your old domain name will travel over to your new one; think of it as the equivalent of leaving a forwarding address.

However even with this redirect in place you are not guaranteed to keep the ranking you had previously. In reality very few websites that change domain names keep their ranking exactly as it was before the move. Sometimes it will only change slightly but other webmasters have had to virtually start all over again, so you should only change your domain name if you absolutely need to.

Of course you should check your current rankings before you consider making such a move anyway. If your site is still young and you feel you made an error in choosing the domain name you did originally, you may decide that it's better to change now than later, when you've had a chance to build up a more impressive ranking. After all if your ranking is low to begin with then you will have a lot less to lose now than you will in the future.

How Do I Know Whether A Technique Is Black Hat?

Black hat search engine optimization techniques should be avoided like the plague. But it's not always easy to tell which techniques are good and which ones aren't. This article will help to clarify matters.

As far as search engine optimization is concerned, there are two ways of doing things properly. You can either make your site search engine friendly by using organic methods to get more targeted traffic, or you can pay someone else to do it for you. Either way, the methods used will take time to pay off and will lead to a gradual improvement of your site's positioning within the search results.

It's usually fairly easy to find out whether or not a particular technique is regarded as being a black hat technique. There are plenty of forums and websites which offer in depth advice on which strategies to use - and which ones to steer well clear of.

But there is another way that you can determined whether you are falling on the side of the black hat or white hat strategies, and that's to examine exactly what you are intending to do.

Every single white hat SEO technique is logical and takes some work to implement. It's the one thing (apart from being a legal strategy that is) that all white hat techniques have in common.

Black hat techniques are very different. Whenever you are considering performing a specific search engine optimization action, ask yourself the following question:

?Am I doing this to attract the attention of the search engine spiders, or are my site visitors my number one priority?

If the technique you are thinking of using completely ignores the fact that your site needs to appeal to your visitors by having worthwhile and valuable content included on every page, then you are straying into black hat territory and you need to rethink your strategy.

The whole idea of using white hat SEO techniques is that you are trying to rank highly in the search engines by making sure your website appeals to exactly the right group of people it's aimed at.

Black hat techniques appeal to the search engines to try and get a higher ranking - period.

So if your customers and visitors don't figure anywhere in the equation, you need to go back to the tried and tested techniques of building an outstanding quality website on a more gradual and long lasting basis.

What Is Google PageRank And Why Does It Matter?

We've all heard about page ranking, but gaining a better understanding of what it actually means is a great way to move towards increasing your own Page Rank.

The process of ranking websites is a never ending one as far as the search engines are concerned. The biggest search engine of all, Google, uses its PageRank system to decide which web pages show up in the top spots whenever you search for a specific keyword or phrase online.

Google PageRank is built on a complicated algorithm that is responsible for ranking web pages according to a number of different factors. In its basic sense, the most popular web pages will be ranked higher than less popular ones, but it's the process of deciding what makes a web page popular that decides where each individual one is placed in the search results.

That is why PageRank is so important, and it's also why webmasters are constantly tweaking their websites and using all manner of white hat search engine optimization techniques to try and increase the popularity of their web pages.

Some webmasters think of their website as being a whole entity and in some ways it is, but it's also important to think of each page as a separate entity as well, because each one has the potential to appear in the search results for a particular term or phrase.

While the algorithms that help Google decide where each page should be ranked are hard to understand in themselves, there are two basic points to remember when it comes to understanding how the process works.

Firstly the more links you have coming into each page of your website, the more popular that page is deemed to be. But there is a qualifying part to that broad statement - those incoming links need to be of good quality, which is why link farms and similar websites should be avoided at all costs. Concentrate on trying to get links from websites that are related to yours, and try and get links from the best ones available. You can check their PageRank by using any of the free tools available online.

The second part of how PageRank is determined relates to the content of the page Google is looking at. If two web pages on the same subject have exactly the same amount of good quality links coming into them, the higher ranked page will be the one that is deemed to have the most appropriate content. This is where your use of keywords and phrases will come in extremely handy.

In short there's a lot more that goes into PageRank than meets the eye. The more you understand how this process works, the more likely it is that you will be able to legally improve the PageRank of each individual page on your website as a result.