Entries from March 2007 ↓

Another question commonly asked from us is to give them a price for getting them to first spot for a keyword on within . Whilst we realise that some SEO companies commit to this, we try to explain to our clients, the things to consider …

1. Each keyword phrase is different and the cost to achieve a top ranking vary immensely depending on how competitive the keyword is. For example, for a keyword like insurance, I would not even be concenred about the price initially but rather how long it would take to get the search engines to trust the client’s site to rank it anywhere near the top. However, for less competitive keywords, we have even achieved no.1 ranking for a client for free.

2. Some keywords may sound good but in reality brings in little traffic. Keyword research is a field that is crucial to a successful search engine marketing campaign and one based on sounding cool is rarely the ingrediant for success. The client I mentioned in item 1 now realises this and is currently enjoying his second year of business with us.

3. The algorythms used by the search engines are constantly changing and likewise the competition for the keyword phrase. Providing a reasonable quote for a moving target is like a gamble on roulette rather than a sound business quote.

The above are the main reasons why we do not quote for getting a keyword to no.1 so if thats what you are after, then Xenyo Internet Services is not right for you. What we do offer is to bring you more and more converting traffic via the search engines over time by getting you top rankings in search engines for keywords that people search for to find your products and services.

The SEO service in my opinion that can commit to getting you no.1 rankings for a keyword for a set fee without analysis of your site or competition is either a very brave company, about to make a very good deal for a low competition keyword or about to get an angry client.

As a tip from me …. if you are still inclined to get a quote for a specific keyword, please do a check on your competition for that keyword.

Say you want a top 3 ranking on Google for ‘Public Relations Specialist’

Do a search on Google for Public Relations Specialist

You will see that the current top 3 (As of today) is

No1 - www.bls.gov/oco/ocos086.htm
No2 - www.princetonreview.com/cte/profiles/dayInLife.asp?careerID=171
No3 - online.onetcenter.org/link/summary/27-3031.00

Looking into a bit more detail for these 3.

No.1 is a government page has 660,000 backlinks, Pagerank of 6 and is over 10 years old
No.2 is also over 10 years old and has 18,200 backlinks
No.3 is a 9 year old PR5 site with about 10,000 backlinks.

These 3 also has a very high number of backlinks from education and government sites.

Now, your appointed SEO company needs to convinve Google that your site represents a more trustworthy resource of information for ‘Public Relations Specialist’ than those 3.

In my opinion if your site is a new site, it ain’t going to happen within a month and certaining not for less than USD100. By the way, I personally, dont think its a hard keyword to target for but I reckon from that keyword alone … you maybe will get 10 visitors a day.

But then again … I could be wrong.

Well yesterday was an exciting day, in fact so exciting that I didnt get time to post.

What happened was that we released the first phase of our webmaster tool .

We sat together one day and started brainstorming on a tool that would be cool. Sometime between just finishing the Big Macs and finishing off the Milkshake we agreed that we needed something to manage the links to and from our sites.

Most of us run sites on the side and apart from using excel, we couldnt find a good way to manage the hundreads of expiry dates and URLs to and from our sites. So after finishing the shakes, we further developed the ideas into what we would call a very exciting new path for Xenyo … I think we called this part Xenyo Webmasters….. What we envisage is a complete hands off approach to managing your links and even selling or finding link partners.

Back to the release though….. this phase is the outbound links bit. We create Xenyo Link groups which are groups of links, be it sold links, link exchanges or your interlinks between your own sites. Plonk your links into your link group and the tool helps you manage them .. features like reciprocal link checking and auto notifications are in already.

We havent started to market the tool yet as we are still adding features to it. Hopefully the brought links phase will be complete within this week too. All in all, a very busy and exciting week for us.

Try out our Webmaster Tool.

Today, I wanted to take a bit of time looking for snippets of information from Google’s representatives and post my thoughts on them. We’ll concentrate on things that may raise flags over at the big G.

From Matt Cutt’s Blog
“We saw so many urls suddenly showing up on spaces.live.com that it triggered a flag in our system which requires more trust in individual urls in order for them to rank (this is despite the crawl guys trying to increase our hostload thresholds and taking similar measures to make the migration go smoothly for Spaces). We cleared that flag, and things look much better now.“

So many URLs showing up will raise a flag in Google’s system and it seems that a filter of some kind will be implemented unless individual URLs has enough trust. A few things of interest here, but something that caught my attention was TRUST in terms of individual URLs and not the domain.

From Google’s Webmaster Blog
What isn’t duplicate content?
Though we do offer a handy translation utility, our algorithms won’t view the same article written in English and Spanish as duplicate content. Similarly, you shouldn’t worry about occasional snippets (quotes and otherwise) being flagged as duplicate content.

Pretty clear cut this bit, so all you worry about yourlanguage pages can relax a bit. It also mentions in the post that Google prefers to filterpages rather than ranking adjustments so in most cases, one version of your duplicate contents will be filtered out.

From Adam Lasniks’ post on Webmasters’ World

Anyway, I hope this has put some fears to rest. I link to friends who link to me; we like each others’ sites, we think that folks who visit our sites might like them, too. And that’s fine! And also, as Sugarrae pointed out, it’s only natural that someone may want to link to an article that links to them. Reciprocal linking happens, and it’s very often done in a natural, innocent way.

Over time and with lots and lots of data (and very handy tools for crunching it :-), it becomes more clear to us at Google what is “natural” (or organic) on the Web and what is not. We aim to reward the former, discount the latter. Take that as a broader SEO strategy statement if you will… it’s not just about links, and it’s DEFINITELY not all about reciprocal linking.

Basically repeating what the Google guys have been saying all along. Google doesnt ban your site for one slight indication that you have been naughty but rather the little boy that consistantly shows a pattern of being naughty. It may filter or even penalise you for something if it fits their pattern of bad behaviour.

It is only natural for Google to base their algos on patterns rather than one-offs with regards to the number of URLs it needs to process raising the dreaded Google flags and filters if it hits a certain pattern threshold. For example, if you have a spelling mistake on one of your pages, its not going to make your SERPs suffer as Google would not know if its unintentional. However, if your domain is filled with spelling mistakes, a few links from bad neighbourhoods, broken coding, duplicate content … there maybe a chance that it’ll trip some kind of filter.

All in all, play nice and you’re be ok and more importantly, build for your users.

A common trap that many webmasters fall upon is optimizing their homepage for too many keywords. They expect that all their search engine traffic should come to their homepage. Links are built to their homepage with all kinds of different keyword phrases.At Xenyo we believe in thinking logically and sometimes its good to think back to what search engines are trying to do.

But since its late and my head is not quite right, let me tell a story about Mr. Search Engine.

Mr. Search Engines is a librarian of a huge library with have millions of books(read websites) stored up.

He is approached by millions of people a day, each with their own interests asking him to recommend the 10 best pages of his books for them. Mr. Search Engine tries to be a very helpful librarian and always goes that extra step. If someone wants a page about king sized beds, Mr. Search Engine wants to show the top ten pages about king sized beds and not the index of a book about beds.

This is unless he thinks that he doesnt have very good pages about king sized beds and will show the index page of his most trusted bed resource. The thing to remember about Mr. Search Engine is that he will always try to find the best resource for king sized beds first.

See not too hard really.

What has got to do with me?.. I know that!!! ……. I hear.

Well it illustrates the point that if your page is about king sized beds, Mr. Search Engine will find it easier to recommend that page.

Mr. Search engine is clever but can get confused when you tell him that your homepage is about 40 different things. Unless he has known your homepage for a very long time and trusts it enough to be an authority about your niche, hes not going to be recommending it often or very highly.

What Mr. Search Engine likes is for other authors to recommend your page naturally. He believes that if it is a good page, other authors will recommend it and if it is a very good page, the rate of recommedations from other authors will be bigger. From experience, Mr. Search Engine knows that the other authors dont just recommend the index page of a book but alot go the extra length to recommend the actual page, it is an easy pattern to spot.

Worse still, if you repeated tell him that the page is about 60 different topics and also bribe other authors to suddenly start recommending your page, you stand a chance of making him angry. Mr. Search Engine loves his job and does not like authors trying to trick him to recommending the wrong page. Mr. Search Engine has a long memory for those that try to trick him.

Basically, there are two main factors that search engines look for when ranking a webpage. The first is links and the second is content in no particular order of importance.

Links

Search Engines regard links as a vote of trust that is passed from the linking webpage to the receiving webpage. The better record of votes a webpage has, the more highly regarded that webpage will seem to a search engine demonstrating the fact that the webpage deserves a high ranking on the search engines.

How and where the webpage is linked from is the key for search engines to determine the rankings for the webpage. Factors such as strength of linking page, surrounding text, domain age, period of link, anchor text and much more is said to influence the search engine rankings for the webpage’s keywords.

Content

The other major factor is content and basically if you have good unique content for your visitors then chances are that the search engines will like it too. The Internet has billions of webpages and it’s the search engines job to provide the best content for their users based on what keywords were searched for.

Its a considerably harder to get an irrelevant webpage to rank for the same keyword than a relevant webpage. This may sound obvious but you’ll do well to keep this in mind.

You cannot discuss content on an Internet Marketing site without mentioning duplicate content. With so many pages, the search engines had a problem of the same content dominating its first page results for keywords which of course was unacceptable. Over the years search engines have developed checks in an attempt to provide much more meaningful search results for their users.

Obviously, getting top search engine rankings is much more complicated than writing a unique article and throwing hundreds of links at it. Other factors will come into play like search engine filters, penalties, domains, competition, etc which is discussed in detail in this blog and our forums.

OK, I must admit …. I am guilty of buying the odd text link(s) or five when promoting my sites. Personally I don’t see the problem of it ethically as its just a form of advertisement. Is it bad that we buy banner space or launch aTV ad ?

This post I want to talk on the basics of what I do when I have chosen a potential site to get a link from to check its strength and suitability. This should be handy for new internet marketers to avoid wasting their money like I did when I started doing SEO.

First, lets say that you have found a site that is offering to sell text links that you think is suitable for your site. I’m going to do this as a walkthrough example so say that site is http://www.xenyo.com and they are offering the following prices,

USD40 per month - Homepage Link

USD40 per month - Forum home Link

Say for this example, content and direct traffic wise you dont mind which package your link goes on.

First Step - Backlinks Strength

First step I do is backlinks check on the page(s). You can use Yahoo’s site explorer for this or an online tool.

Homepage - CHECK - Yahoo backlinks (4254)

Forum - CHECK - Yahoo backlinks (1938)

So, we deduced which is the stronger link -

Homepage wins here….

Step 2 - Domain Age

This step is used when the links being compared are on differing sites and basically compares the age of domain, the older the better. Since Xenyo is a 3 year old domain, it seems ok to buy links from to me. I will not buy links from a site less than 6 months old as it doesnt have the links history and also I don’t know if its going to be around for 6 more.

A draw here…

Step 3 - Outbounds

Its time to check the outbound links from the page. Firstly does it have too many links out? Forums are notorious for having alot of links mostly useless so in my example even though the homepage has outbounds I would consider it better in terms of a lower number of outbound links.

Another thing to check here is the quality of sites it links to.

Homepage wins here again…

Step4 - Other items

There are many other things to check such as :

• If the page has authority or trusted links such as from .edu or .gov websites.
• The importance of that page from a users point of view.
• A site: operator check onGoogle for the page to make sure its not banned.
• The position of the link

All in all, from the above, I would go for the homepage link.

The above example is quite obvious and I selected Xenyo as an example so I didnt have to ask anyones permission. However, I think the most satisfying part of links building is to find a cheap or free link on a sub-page of a site that has great links history and strength.

Thats all for now.

Article writing can be an ultimate marketing tool to promote your website.

Webmasters and bloggers are always looking for new content for their sites. Article Directories satisfy this need by providing articles that may be freely published. Webmasters visit the article directories and browse for appropriate and useful content that they can use on their own websites, blogs, ezines, or newsletters.

As a writer, you can take advantage of this system to promote your own website by increasing your backlinks and generating more web traffic.

If you are able to write an article that is both informative and useful you are already well on your way to gaining backlinks and gaining more visitors. You simply create a free account with one or more article directories and submit your content for inclusion in their directory. Each article that you submit will include an author resource area at the bottom. You will use that area to include your links and anchor text. Most article directories will allow you to use up to three different links. There are a few article directories that will permit you to place links within the body of your article. When submitting to one of these sites be sure to make use of the opportunity to place your link in content and higher up on the page.

When you write avoid having your content read like a sales pitch. Webmasters who are looking for content will not publish an article that is written only to make a sale. Publishers want informative articles with useful content. Remember that the more well written and useful your articles are the more likely it will be that potential publishers will choose to use your content.

Here are some helpful tips to get the most out of article writing and submissions:

1) Write a clear attention grabbing title. Try to place the most important keywords at the beginning of your title. For example, “Dog Obedience Training Methods” is more effective than “Methods You Can Use to Train Your Dog Obedience”.

2) Select the most appropriate category possible. Article directories may vary widely in the categories they offer and how they are organized. Take the time to become familiar with the categories so that you will be able to submit to the best one for your particular subject.

3) Read and follow the submission guidelines. Submission guidelines and terms may vary from directory to directory. To increase the likelihood that your article will be accepted it is important to read the guidelines.

4) When you place your links in the author resource it is recommended that you use good keyword anchors. However, you may want to place a simple url link at least once just in case a publisher uses your article without making your text links active. If you submit the same article to multiple directories try to vary the title and your anchors. Do not use links to your homepage exclusively, gain more difficult internal page links

Link popularity is a major determining factor in your Page Rank and search engine rankings. Link popularity is a measurement of the total number and relevancy of your backlinks. Not only will article writing provide you with more backlinks, but the links will be on relevant sites. Webmasters will only choose to use content that is appropriate to their site’s subject matter and target audience.

Have fun writing articles about your favorite topics and promote your website in the process!

This article was written for us by one of our content creation guys that specializes on articles promotion. Thanks Kentuckyslone.

Let me take some time to talk about whats going on with this site at the moment. As some of our regulars will know, our forums have just got a face lift and is looking quite funky now.

We have also added this blog which uses the new design aswell. The rest of the site is being updated with the new look too, just give us some time

The homepage and service pages are something that I am pushing hard to get done as soon as possible as its a very old design and a little embarassing to be honest.  Not something we can show potential clients which is always a problem.

What we are even more excited about in addition of all this new stuff coming up is our Links management Tool. If you are a webmaster and wither sell links or do reciprocal link exchanges then you’ll know what a hassle it is to keep track of the links you have on each of your webpages.

This tool is designed to help you take care of a lot of those problems with cool features like Auto-notification of when a link is near its expiry date or letting you check whether your reciprocals have taken your link down. It’ll be a great tool and the best news is that it’ll be free and available online to our members.

�Just wanted to reprint something from our forums here for your view. Its a piece we wrote on link baiting and a brief description of some of the methods used. Depending on the site in question, we sometimes suggest a link bait strategy to our clients which can get them good quality links with a comparatively low cost.

Its fun and one of the hot SEO topics being discussed currently.

Content baits
These are your blogs, articles and news flashes that will get other webmasters to link to your page. This method is most widely used and requires only the time and skill to write quality content.

It is hard to control where and how your site gets linked to via this type of link bait and is most effective in certain niches. SEO and Tech being ones that would logically be most beneficial from this type of link bait.

Xenyo Advice:
Such is the nature of this type, you need to have good original information, well written and researched. The topic of the piece will determine whether or not it is bait worthy as well so you can bear that in mind.

Examples: Blogs, articles

Script baits
These are scripts that webmasters can install or add to their pages which includes a link to your site. The quality and need of the script will determine whether or not this link bait campaign is successful.

If you do not do your own coding, there will be a development cost for the script and the time frame is usually longer than preparing content baits but this method can work beautifully and get links from established sites in your niche. It can also be quite targeted depending on the type of script and you can determine the which page is linked to.

Xenyo Advice:
Do your research thoroughly before starting your Script bait campaign. You need to be certain that there is a need for the script you are offering which includes whether or not a better more established script is already available.

Bear in mind that just completing the script is not enough and you need to market it and keep the buzz going.

Examples: Web counters, Forums scripts, Templates

Reciprocal baits
Reciprocal baits are also quite common and there is discussion on their effectiveness in terms of SEO. The most basic type of reciprocal baiting is a links exchange where you offer to swap links. A further development on this model is providing a directory where the inclusion will require a reciprocal link.

In my opinion, creative use of this model can provide good results especially if the campaign is targeted right.

Resource wise, there are ready made scripts for more common uses of this method such as the two mentioned above.

Benefit wise you can get targeted links from your field and to the page that you require.

Xenyo Advice:
The simplest and true advice is that there must be an apparent benefit to the catch. For example, you wont get much response on your newly created, no traffic site if you are looking to lure in SEO websites.

Target marketing the campaign to the right group is also important and creating the right buzz in a target community bring

To get the best approach a custom written application is required to elevate your campaign from the crowd.

Examples: Reciprocal Directories, link exchange programmes

Branding baits
This is the ultimate of link baits as you have created such a brand in your field that people just cant stop linking to you. How to do this has been discussed on numerous business, marketing and motivational books so I’ll conveniently skip this part.

Xenyo Advice:
Work on a beautiful product or service that you love to bits and remain focused.

Examples: Google Homepage, Vbulletin, YouTube, MySpace

This is a question that our company have been asked many times so let me answer it here.

Firstly, I agree that getting links to your site is not hard and in fact getting appropriate links to your site is not that hard. Taking some time to browse our Internet Marketing Forums would give you the adequate knowledge to get a few links. So why do our clients pay us to manage their links building?

Efficiency
Our link builders have experience and knowledge in finding strong webpages appropriate to your site in much less time than the average webmaster. We have developed our own inhouse tools for this also which cuts down the time spent in finding them.

Technique
Our link builders have mastered the art of link begging requests and stand a much better chance of acquiring that power link or for a cheaper price.

The Right Way�
We plan your links growth programme to minimise the chance the search engines discounting the links or worse penalising your site. Haphazardly adding to your backlinks profile can be seriously bad for your SERPs.

Value for money
Our link builders search for and only acquire worthwhile links for your site so you don’t waste your money. Trust me, looking back when I first starting learning about links development, I think 80% of what I spent could have been saved.

What we offer is a professional links building service derived from experience and years of learning about search engines and their mad tinkering. Proper links development that brings results is something that must be done right. Its not something that the webmaster guy can do in the hour after his lunch break on Wednesdays. That guy may be able to do it if he has a year or two to learn the subtleties of the search engines and also one or two sites to practise on. I am dragging on so I’ll stop here content that at last I have something to show the next guy that asks me this question.