Archive for the ‘online articles’ Category

In every SEO campaign, there comes a time when your copywriting has an SEO focus and the web content is pretty much optimised.  That leaves very little on-the-page SEO revision left to do.

Sure, you’ll continue adding new web content and tweaking existing copy with new SEO keywords.  But you also need to develop and off-the-page SEO focus.

Not that you should wait until this point to look for link opportunities.  You just need to make a concerted effort now.  How do you go about doing that?

Stick with your niche

Now you could go about submitting your website to thousands of online directories.  Or outsource to some bookmarking or link service.  But what you’ll get is:

• Low quality links
• No follow links
• Poor ROI

If you’re going to spend the time, effort and dollars on creating inbound links, stick with your niche.  There are solid SEO reasons doing this.  Not the least of which is context.  The fact is, quality niche sites develop good search engine reputations.  Back-links from these locations reflect a little of that standing onto your site.

Opportunities for quality back-links include:

• Niche directories – like the environmental Eco Sustainable or Pet Directory for all things pets
• Industry bookmarking – like Tip’d for finance or BizSugar for small business
• Themed article sites – like Gardening Know How for green thumbs

Have a viewpoint

Well written, engaging web content is always in demand.  So, two of the best opportunities for creating online presence and driving traffic to your site are writing online articles and submitting guest posts.

One word of advice though … have a perspective.  It’s easy to develop bland, say nothing web content.  With so many online resources available, why do that?

Example

Let’s say you came across this Mashable article:  iPhone 5 A No-Show: Did Apple Fail To Manage Expectations?

You could develop a whole ‘My take’ perspective or create a standpoint on consumerism.

This approach creates a link into online commentary and lets you take an active, legitimate part in discussion.  That’s not only good for your website traffic.  It builds online reputation that can ultimately convert to real life connections … and sales.

Own your comments

You’ll come across many blog, article and other sites chock full of link fodder comments.  You know the sort of thing …

get-free-ipad says:
Thanks for the godd info.  My new top site get free iPad 2

Here’s the rub.  Would you want prospects to find that link to your site?  Probably not.

Much better to develop a high credibility comments policy.  Do that by owning your replies.  Yes, as shocking as it sounds, comment as yourself.  It’s authentic, believable and worth much more to your SEO effort.

That’s not so say you can’t identify your business or brand in the process.  For instance, you might have seen that digital marketing guru post as:
Mitch Joel + Twist Image

Remember when leaving replies or making comments, links are actually your secondary consideration.  It’s really about building online presence and reputation.  Develop that and you’ll have searchers actively looking for you anyway.

3 take away tips

1. Make a concerted effort to source back-links within your industry niche.
2. Develop online reputation by growing a following based on your perspective.
3. Where ever you make an online contribution, own your comments … personally.

I was reading an item earlier in the week that made the argument search engines (Google in particular) should not pay so much attention to back links.  On the surface it was pretty convincing.  After all, there’s plenty of  SEO link fodder about.  What’s SEO link fodder?  Let me explain …

Google and other search engines like to try and gauge the credibility of your website.  They do that mainly by checking out other sites that point to yours.  One of the factors in page rank.

There are several things search engines use to make a measure of the inbound link ‘value’.  These include:

• the domain type, age and page rank of the link origin
• the page content and its relevance to your site
• where and how the back link is anchored

What’s happened in search engine optimisation as a result is, a whole industry has emerged dedicated to creating inbound website links.  If, like me, you spend any time following up on where such links originate, you’ll already have found yourself face-to-face with articles and blog links clearly written in the author’s second language.  As I said earlier, link fodder.

What’s the value of that?  Well, when Google or some other search engine find the page, it measures the link value.  The idea being, for SEO purposes the more links the better.  Not so and here’s why:

• If you’ve ever checked Webmaster Tools, you’ll know Google aims to recognise only authentic links.  So, even if you buy thousands of  links from some SEO outsource company, expect a quarter or less to be acknowledged.  Good value?  You be the judge.
• Many outsource SEO companies specialising in link building will create mostly blog references and on the whole those will originate from low SEO value off-shore sites and predominantly be ‘no follow’ links.  That’s right, they actually stop Google from visiting your site.   Sounding good yet?
• Last but not least, the poor quality language most often associated with Link Fodder reflects poorly on you and your business.  It might not be every customer or website visitor who finds the Jinglish out there … but it will be some.  Can you afford to look so unprofessional?

For more about website links and developing an SEO strategy to lift your online performance, contact Cluey freelance copywriters.

Been reading lately about the value of building link-wheels to strengthen an SEO campaign.
Naturally, the purists say it’s courting danger. But more and more SEO consultants are recommending link-wheels as a legitimate off page SEO tactic.
What’s a link-wheel I hear you say? It works like this …

• Plan a series of online articles around a key subject. For example … what does a copywriter do, why use a copywriter, the value a web content writer brings etc.
• Write and post the first article, including a link to your hub. That might be a website, landing page, online ordering etc.
• Delay by at least a few days, then write and post the second article, including links to the hub and the first article.
• Continue in this way until your planned articles are all written.
• Complete your link wheel by adding a link from the first to the last article.