Where will you rank this time next year?

Now is the time to decide where you want to be at this time next year. If you want to rank in the top ten then you need to decide that here and now. Once you have made up your mind then you just need to go through the process of link building on a regular basis until you are where you need to be.

Now is the time for you to choose to succeed. If you do nothing then this time next year I can tell you where you will rank. But....... if you take positive action and commit yourself to a proactive link creation program then in a years time your site will have more visitors, you will have more customers and that is what it is ultimately all about.

Happy new year to you all

Who should you avoid linking with?

In some ways it is more important which sites you avoid linking with rather than the ones that you actually link with. This is due to the way that Google measures and values each link.

The good news is that Google understands that it is not possible to control every site that links to you, but it does follow patterns closely so if you have undesirable links in any numbers you will be penalised.

So what is an undesirable link? In simple terms a bad link is any link that Google has banned from its listings, in addition certain sites are held in lower esteem than others. These include some if not all gambling sites, most porn sites, warez sites, some free for alls etc.

The moral of the story is to seek out quality links that google values. In addition each of these pages that you add a link to should hopefully contain content similar in subject to your primary link text. That will give your link more relevance improving its value.

In answer to who to avoid, the answer is to avoid any low value sites that Google doesn't value.

For more information visit Deeho Limited

Who should you link with??????

This is an often misunderstood point, but a very important one.

When you set out looking for links it is best to start with your final goal in mind, namely to get into the top ten in Google for your chosen keywords. To do this you need to get lots of links back to your site that Google values as highly as possible. From this we can deduce that getting links on sites that Google doesn't know about will be far less useful to us. It will still help with some of the lesser SE's ....... maybe, but you will spend time for little return.

So you know that you need to get your links onto sites that Google knows about, and preferably ranks well. You can check if they rank well by adding a Google tool bar to your browser. The toolbar will show you the Page Rank as you view each page so you will know that the site will be useful to your link building campaign.

The Page Rank of individual pages can also be useful, but is not vital. Many people get insistent that their link goes on a high PR page within your site, but it is not as important as you might believe. The PR of the sites index page is the most important point to consider.

If you get your links onto sites that Google knows about, which have less than 100 links per page and use your keywords as your link text then eventually you will rank well for those keywords..... simple as that.

The only advantage to specific page PR is that at least you know that the page is spidered and that providing your link is in the top 100 links then the link will count in your favour. If the page has no PR then it may be because it is a new page and needs some time to become established. The point is this, it is easier to get links from people who are starting our with their link building campaigns. You may lack Page Rank initially, and some of the links that you post may even not rank at all, but as the sites improve their page rank and flourish your link will be carried upwards with it. Your links posted today could be on PR 7 and PR 8 sites in a couple of years time, so go for it.

Happy linking

How many links do you need?

This is a great question, and one that is not as straight forward as you might think. Initially the first port of call when looking to rank for a term is to have a look at the to 5 sites. Copy their url into http://uk.siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/siteexplorer and you will get a good idea of the size of the site and how many backlinks it has.

While this is a guide, it is very rough guess as often those links might be of very low quality, or be coming from the host site itself!

The level of detail analysis depends upon how much you are willing to invest. SEO is a cart before the horse industry, whereby you need to invest long before you see any return on your investment. The more indepth your analytics, the more accurately you can foretell when your site will reach the top.

It is possible to look at each link in turn and establish its worth, the site pr, the page pr, the page title, headings, link text etc and from this data it is possible to establish a strategy to outdo the top sites and rank there yourself.

If you concentrate on getting high quality links to your site then you will succeed, all you have to do is keep on keeping on.

Content is King

No matter what rankings you are trying to achieve, it all boils down to the same fundamentals in the end. Content is the answer to many seo problems, and only fresh, original content will boost your rank in the long term.

New pages with focused topics and themes are very popular with the SE's. They like to see a page dedicated to one subject, it makes the page in question into a valuable resource that others might like to read. The is what the SE's are trying to provide for their searchers, it is your job to provide it to them.

Of course the page will need to be tweaked in the right places so that the SE's know exactly what it is that they are looking at, but in essence it all comes down to one thing and one thing only...............CONTENT

SEO Strategies

With the end of 2007 looming, its time to think about next years seo strategy. To take stock of achievements to date and to decide what we want and need to achieve in 2008.

Now is the time to think about where you want to be in 12 months time, so efficient planning is vital.

Through effective keyword research it is possible to pinpoint where the major traffic for your business type is currently. From there you can fine tune your website so that it ranks for the terms with the best traffic.

Of course the minor hiccup with this is that the keywords with the most traffic are the hardest to rank for..... which is why SEO's like me exist. If you are chasing high traffic search terms then you need to be not only very well informed, but doggedly determined, persistant, ruthless and thorough. Most business people have their own business to run and so don't have the resources to find out enough about optimization in order to achieve success.

By comparison with traditional advertising seo can be very cost effective.

We believe here at Deeho that SEO should work in harmony with your website, to find out more contact us.

Paid Links

Recently there has been much said about the evils of paid links. It is obvious the in an ideal world Google would only want to see links that had been created by someone who was doing nothing more than recommending site x to his own visitors.

That is all well and good, but this isn't an ideal world. There have been many sites penalised for buying links and yet one of the biggest seo companies in the UK pays for links on a forum that contains comments from Matt Cutts himself.

Currently the whole situation is not clear and innocent sites are being penalised unjustly. When is a paid link a paid link precisely? Banner ads are routinely bought, so are they paid links?

At the minute the jury is out, just don't say that you haven't been warned.

The Power of a Good URL

The name of your website doesn't have to be the same as your URL. Most business owners just buy www.fredhinnsltd.co.uk and expect their Widget business to take off. However, the URL www.widget.com will do far more good as far as search traffic goes. you can even brand the site as fredhinnsltd so everyone is happy. The simple fact of having your major keyword in your URL, combined with having a .com (the most powerful in Googles eyes)will improve your search engine ranking no end.

Always start off with a searchable URL and move forward from there.

Hosting and SEO part 2

Frm the perspective of SEO it is far better to have your sites on as many different servers as possible. If you are a web designer or SEO company, then the advantages by far out weigh the drawbacks.

In addition to the benefits of linking from sites that are hosted on different servers, an additional bonus ids that once your sites are ranking well you can also sell advertising space to the same advertiser on different servers. Commonly the larger advertisers will not place adverts or banners on two sites on the same server. This is because the link value is diminished greatly. If you have multiple sites and have plans to optimize them then different servers offer far more advantages and significant revenue streams than hosting on a single server.

The small inconvenience of multiple hosting soon becomes inconsequential when each site can earn hundreds or in time thousands of Pounds annually.

Hosting and SEO

There is a fine balance between getting SEO right and getting it wrong.

Imagine that you are an seo company, who design and host. You have 20 sites that you host and optimize so naturally you host them in one location, on one server don't you?....... from an initial cost basis this seems like the ideal solution, reduced hosting costs, ease of management etc.

The problem with doing this however is when you start to think about the seo implications. Google know that websites on the same server are likely to know each other, and as such it greatly devalues links between two sites on one server. This can explain why a link from a high quality site that you know you have doesn't show very highly in your link stats. This is because by coinsidence you happen to have chosen the same host company. Fasthosts are the Market leaders at least in the UK, and rent out huge lumps of server space to many other companies from whom you rent it. It is much more common than you think.

Tomorrow I will discuss the topic further