How to Improve Your Existing Backlinks
By · Comments
Getting links to your website is one of the most important things that you have to do if you want to get high rankings on Google and other big search engines.
Unfortunately, it is also one of the most difficult tasks.
Do you make the most of your existing links? It’s often much easier to improve your existing backlinks then getting new links to your website.
1. Correct links that point to your old domain names
If you changed your domain name in the past, chances are that some people still link to your old domain name.
Of course, the links to your old domain name should redirect to your new domain with a 301 redirect to make sure that the links aren’t lost. Unfortunately, links through 301 redirects do not pass the full link power to your website.
For that reason, contact the webmasters who link to your old domain name and ask them to link to your new domain. This will increase the effect of the links on your website rankings.
2. Correct links to broken pages on your website
Check your website statistics and redirect all links that go to a non-existing (404) page on your website to an existing page on your site so that the visitors aren’t lost.
As above, it’s even better to contact the webmasters who links to the non-existing pages and ask them to change the links.
3. Try to improve the link texts
When you’re contacting other webmasters to tell them that they link to your old domain name or to a broken link on your website, you can also suggest new link texts for your links.
If the links to your website include the words for which you want to get high rankings in the link text, your chances of getting ranked for these keywords increase.
4. Suggest other relevant websites
This might sound like a strange advice but it can help your rankings: when you contact a webmaster and ask for a link, you might also suggest other websites that are related to yours.
If the website that links to your website links to other websites that are related to your website topic, it’s more likely that search engines will find your website relevant to that topic. Details about this co-citation effect can be found here.
5. Check the links on your own website
If you want to see certain pages of your website in Google’s search results, these pages should also be linked from your own website pages. If a web page is hidden in the navigation of your website then it’s less likely that this page will get a good position in Google’s results.
Your website should have a clear and logical navigation that emphasizes the pages that you want to see in Google’s search results.
High rankings on Google are the result of good inbound links and optimized web page content. The popular website promotion tool IBP helps you to get both.
Why Buying Links is Not a Good Idea
By · Comments
Google’s Matt Cutts recently made a new announcement about paid links. Buying links is a very hot and controversial topic among webmasters. Should you buy links to increase the position of your website on Google? Do paid links help your rankings? Are there any risks?
Can you increase your website rankings by buying links?
Yes, you can. Links that point to your website are the most important factor that influences the position of your website in Google’s search results.
If you buy backlinks, you can quickly get high rankings for your website on Google. However, that’s only one side of the medal.
If buying links works, why shouldn’t you use it for your website?
Buying links is against Google’s terms of service:
“Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.”
Google’s anti-spam engineer Matt Cutts recently announced that Google has been working on new algorithms and tools to detect paid links. Google has a report form for paid links. If one of your competitors finds a paid link that points to your website, he might report it to Google.
Google actively searches for paid links and it’s likely that they will detect all paid links sooner or later. While you can get away with them for some time (that’s why paid links work for some time), your website will be penalized as soon as Google finds out that you tried to game the system.
Buying links leads to quick results and strong penalties
If you use spammy SEO methods such as buying links, you will quickly get high rankings on search engines. Unfortunately, Google will completely remove your website from the search results as soon as they find out that you use these methods:
If you use ethical SEO methods, it will take longer until you get high search engine rankings. However, your rankings will grow steadily and you’ll get a much better performance in the long run:
Do not use spammy SEO methods to increase your rankings on Google. It will backfire on you.
There are better ways to get inbound links
As mentioned above, the links to your website are the most important factor that influences the position of your website in Google’s search results. For that reason, it is very important to get as many good backlinks as possible to your website. The quality of the backlinks is more important than the quantity.
You can get links from related websites, links from blogs, links from social bookmark websites, links from Internet directories and more. The link manager in IBP helps you to get these links.
Do Search Engines Understand Your Web Pages?
By · Comments
C2HUSKHXFB6M
You have a beautiful website with great products, great guarantees, many comprehensive pages and great customer service. Unfortunately, Google and other search engines won’t give your website high rankings.
There are several reasons why search engines do not list websites although they look great and offer quality content:
1. Your web pages are meaningless to search engine spiders
Search engines use simple software programs to visit your web pages. In general, search engine spiders won’t see anything that is displayed in images, Flash elements, JavaScript (except for a few exceptions) and other multimedia formats.
If the main content of your website is displayed in images or Flash then your website can be totally meaningless to search engines. If your website navigation is pure JavaScript then chances are that search engines won’t find the pages of your website.
Your website will look like a single page site although it consists of many different pages.
Solution: Check your website with IBP’s search engine spider simulator to find out how search engine spiders see your website.
2. The HTML code of your web page contains major errors
Most web pages have minor errors in their HTML code. While most search engine spiders can handle minor HTML code errors, some errors can prevent search engine spiders from indexing your web pages.
For example, a tag at the top of your web pages could tell search engine spiders that they have reached the end of the page although the main content of the page has not been indexed yet.
Solution: Verify the HTML code of your web pages with an HTML validator tool. You can find an HTML validator in the free IBP demo version (IBP main window > Tools > HTML Validator).
3. The HTML code of your web pages doesn’t contain the right elements
If you want to get high rankings for certain keywords then these keywords must appear in the right places on your web page. For example, it usually helps to use the keyword in the web page title.
There are many other elements that are important if you want to have high rankings. All of them should be in place if you want to get high rankings.
Solution: Analyze your web pages with IBP’s Top 10 Optimizer. The optimizer will tell you in detail how to edit your web pages so that they will get top 10 rankings on Google and other major search engines for the keywords of your choice.
4. Your web server sends the wrong status codes
Some web servers send wrong status codes to search engine spiders and visitors. When a search engine spider requests a web page from your site then your server sends a response code. This should be the “200 OK” code.
Some servers send a “302 moved” or even a “404 not found” response code to the search engine spiders although the web page can be displayed in a normal web browser.
If your web server sends the wrong response code, search engine spiders will think that the web page doesn’t exist and they won’t index the page.
Solution: Use the search engine spider simulator mentioned above to find out which response code your web server returns to search engines. If the response code is not “200 OK”, the spider simulator will return a warning message.
5. Your robots.txt file rejects all search engine spiders
If your robots.txt file does not allow search engine spiders to visit your web pages then your website won’t be included in the search results. Some robots.txt file contain errors and search engine spiders are blocked by mistake.
Solution: Check the contents of your robots.txt file. In general, it is not necessary to use a robots.txt file if you don’t want to block certain areas of your website.
Search engine spiders must be able to understand your web pages if you want to get high rankings on Google, Bing and other search engines. The tips above help you to make sure that search engine spiders see what you want them to see.
How to Show Search Engines Your Most Important Pages
By · Comments
How can you get search engines to display the web pages with the best conversion rate in the search results and what can you do to to make sure that unwanted pages are not listed?
Depending on how your website’s navigational links are structured, some pages can get higher rankings than others. Here are eight things that you can do to guide search engines to the most important pages of your website:
1. Make the web pages easy to find
Make sure that the most important pages on your site can be reached with as few clicks as possible from your home page. The fewer clicks you need to get to a web page, the more important is that web page.
2. Link from your own pages to your own pages
The easiest way to get related links to a web page is to link from your own website. Link to the pages for which you want to have high rankings from all pages of your website that are related to that page.
3. Use the right keywords in your navigational links
If you want to see a certain page of your website on Google’s first result page for the keyword “blue widgets” then the links that go from other pages of your website to that page should contain the keyword “blue widgets”.
This does not guarantee that the linked web page will be listed for that keyword but it increases the relevancy of the page for the keyword.
4. Use absolute links on your website
Do not link to mypage.htm but to www.yoursite.com/mypage.htm. If other people scrape your web page contents, you’ll get backlinks from these sites.
5. Use the nofollow attribute
Add a nofollow attribute to all links that aren’t important for your search engine rankings. For example, your privacy policy page or the web page with your terms and conditions probably needn’t be listed in search engines.
6. Remove unnecessary links
The fewer links you have on a page, the more important is a single link to another page on your site. Remove unnecessary links from your web pages.
7. Exclude irrelevant and duplicate pages from indexing
Use your robots.txt file or the robots meta tag to exclude duplicate or irrelevant pages from indexing. If search engines don’t have to parse your unimportant pages the other pages of your website will get more attention.
8. Recover lost pages
Check your website for 404 not found errors and redirect these old links to the most appropriate pages on your site. You might want to use the link checker that you can access in IBP to check your links.
Ethical Search Engine Optimization
By · Comments
Some search engine optimization companies and software developers use unethical tricks and techniques to artificially boost the search rankings of a web site. This dilutes the quality of search results and the accuracy of search results becomes questionable.
For this reason, the search engines are continuously trying to trace out the spam techniques which webmasters might be using and penalize or ban them. They continue to reconstruct their algorithms to prevent spammers from flooding the results page with irrelevant or low quality content. If you use a web site promotion tool that uses these unethical tricks and techniques, you’ll put your web business at severe risk.
Thereby, you should only use ethical SEO methods. Ethical search rankings tools use only techniques that produce lasting results and that don’t offend search engines.
Search engines consider the following SEO techniques as SPAM. For that reason, webmasters should use products that DO NOT use or promote them:
- automatically generated doorway pages
- cloaking and false redirects
- keyword stuffing
- hidden text or hidden links
- pages loaded with irrelevant words
- duplicated content on multiple pages
- misspelling of well-known web sites
- unrelated and centralized link farms
- other methods that try to trick search engines
You might get short term results with these techniques but it’s very likely that your site will be banned from SERPs if you use one of these techniques. You’ll put your web business at severe risk if you use one of these methods.
Reputable web site promotion tools use only ethical SEO techniques that produce lasting results. Ethical search optimization is about everyone winning and definitely leads to a symbiotic relationship:
- Search engines – They win as they are provided with pages that are easy to understand and that contain the quality information that their visitors search for.
- Searchers – They win as they are getting what they ask for when they search. They search for “green widgets” and get a page about green widgets.
- Web site owners – They win as they are getting quality visitors who are interested in what their web site has to offer.
With just as much effort, you can build web sites that are beneficial to web surfers, web site owners and search engines. Do it right the first time and the fruits of your labors will be returned for years to come.
Top 5 Elements that You Need for High Rankings on Google
By · Comments
Getting listed on Google’s first result page is the goal of many webmasters. Unfortunately, many webmasters still do the wrong things to improve their rankings.
It’s not possible to get top 10 rankings on Google by focusing on a single strategy. Getting listed on Google requires you to work on all elements of your website. Here are the top 5 factors that influence the position of your website in Google’s search results:
Ranking factor 1: website accessibility
It doesn’t make sense to optimize your web pages if search engines cannot access your web pages:
Your robots.txt file should allow search engines to visit your web pages. If your robots.txt file contains errors then many search engines won’t list your website.
The HTML code of your web pages should be error-free and your web server should return the correct response code. The contents of your web pages should be readable to search engine spiders.
Before you start to optimize your web pages, check if search engines can read your web page content. You can do this with IBP’s spider simulator. Double-check your robots.txt.
Ranking factor 2: site architecture
Google wants to show relevant websites in the search results. Your website shouldn’t be a collection of random web pages. If you want to get top 10 rankings on Google, the pages of your website should be related.
Your web pages should show Google that your website is relevant to a certain topic. All pages of your website should be linked. If possible, web surfers should reach any page of your website with a maximum of three clicks.
The links and the directory structure of your website should make it easy to search engines to categorize the contents of your website.
Ranking factor 3: keywords
Choosing the right keywords is one of the most important steps. If you choose the wrong keywords, you won’t succeed with your campaign.
- Optimize different pages of your website for different keyphrases. The more pages of your website you optimize, the better.
- Start with very targeted keyphrases that consists of many words, for example “find inexpensive hotels in brussels“.
- When you have top rankings for these targeted keyphrases, proceed with more general keywords such as “hotels in brussels“.
- When you have top rankings for these keyphrases, you can proceed with very general keywords such as “hotels“.
In general, targeted keywords have a much higher conversion rate than general keywords, i.e. you will get more sales per visitor with “find inexpensive hotels in brussels” than with “hotels“.
Also think about the type of visitor that you attract with a keyword. Are these people interested in information or do they want to buy?
Use IBP’s comprehensive keyword tools to find the keywords that will work best with your site. You can find further information on how to find the correct keyword type in our free “Search Marketing Success” book.
Ranking factor 4: content
Your website won’t get high rankings on Google if it only offers articles and affiliate links that can be found on dozens of other websites.
Separate your website from the rest by creating unique and trustworthy content. Write your own articles about the topic of your website, publish them on your own website and make your website a useful resource.
Ranking factor 5: links from other websites
It is not possible to get high rankings on Google without having links from other websites.
The more links point to your website, the more likely it is that your website gets good positions in Google’s search results. The links to your website should be from trusted websites.
If a web page that links to you is related to your own website then the effect of that link on the search engine rankings of your website is higher than the effect of an unrelated link.
It also helps if social bookmark websites link to your website. If many people bookmark your website on social bookmark sites, then this is a sign that your website might deserve high rankings.
A small error in one element can destroy your effects in all other ranking elements. For that reason, it is important to use the right strategy when optimizing your website.
Detailed step-by-step instructions and checklists can be found in our free search engine optimization book.
If you advertise your website on Google AdWords, chances are that you found out that you can spent a lot of money on AdWords without getting a lot in return.
The reason why many people spend much more than they have to for their Google AdWords ads is that they use the wrong settings in their campaigns.
Long tail keywords convert better and there are a lot of them
Several studies found out that long tail keywords have a much higher conversion rate than single word keywords. Long tail keywords are very specific keywords that consists of 4 or more words.
According to a recent Hitwise study, more than 18% of searches contain five or more keywords. In addition, Google says that “20% of the queries Google receives each day are ones [they] haven’t seen in at least 90 days, if at all.”
The wrong long tail keywords will just cost you money
The facts above indicate that it might be a good idea to use broad match for all of your keywords. It’s just not possible to include all possible keywords manually in your campaigns. Google recommend to use broad match with your keywords:
“Broad match is a great way to capitalize on those unexpected, but relevant queries. When you include a keyword as a broad match, your corresponding ad is not only eligible to appear alongside queries with that exact spelling, but it can also capture keyword expansions that include synonyms, singular/plural forms, relevant variants of your keywords, and phrases containing your keywords.”
Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. If you use broad match for all of your keywords then your ads will be shown for a lot of unrelated searches and you’ll pay a lot of money without getting something in return.
For example, the word “tiger” would be used for searches regarding Tiger Woods, the Siberian tiger, tiger sharks, the town Tiger in Georgia, etc.
For that reason, it is important to exclude the long tail keywords that are not related to your website.
Negative keywords will increase your conversion rate
You can enter so-called negative keywords in your Google AdWords campaigns. If a long tail keyword contains one of your negative keywords, your AdWords ads won’t be displayed.
For example, if you enter “-free” as a negative keyword, your AdWords ad is not displayed if someone searches for free things. Negative keywords are an excellent tool for excluding Internet users looking for free items only.
You can also use negative keywords to display an ad for specific target groups. An insurance broker might want to exclude people who are searching for books about insurance. He could enter “book” and “books” as negative keywords.
If one of your keywords has multiple meanings (“tiger” would trigger “tiger woods” and “siberian tiger”, “tiger shark”, “tiger, georgia”) then you should add negative keywords that remove the unrelated searches.
Broad match can help you to get more customers but you have to be very careful with that option. If you use broad match with your keywords, don’t forget to use negative keywords so that you don’t pay for unwanted traffic.
Many more tips on how to improve your AdWords ads can be found in the eBook “Writing Successful AdWords“. If you don’t want to use broad match, the keyword manager in IBP can help you to quickly create long tail keywords that target specific groups and regions.
How to get your breadcrumbs on Google’s result pages
By · Comments
Webmasters continue to see breadcrumbs on Google’s result pages. What are breadcrumbs, for which websites does Google display them and how can you get Google to display breadcrumbs for your own website?
What are breadcrumbs?
Breadcrumbs is the name for the hierarchical site navigation links that are often used on web pages. Here’s an example: “You are here: Home > Category > Sub category > Page”.
Since a few weeks Google displays breadcrumbs for some websites on the search result pages:
Why is it good if Google shows breadcrumbs for your website?
If Google displays breadcrumbs for your website then you basically have more links on Google’s result page. Each page in the breadcrumbs line has its own link.
If your web page is listed with breadcrumbs in the results then it is more likely that the searcher will come to the right page on your website and that you will get a sale.
How can you get Google to display breadcrumbs for your website?
If you want Google to display breadcrumbs for your website, you have to use bread crump navigation on your web pages. That means that you must have a set of delimited links on your website that reflects your website hierarchy.
Google’s Matt Cutts recently published a video in which he tries to shed some light on the topic. It seems that Google is still testing breadcrumbs on the result pages and that the display of breadcrumbs in the search results will change (just like Google’s Sitelinks changed).
Regarding the question which delimiter is best for breadcrumb navigation, Matt remains very vague. For example, links could be delimited with >, hyphens or the » symbol. So far, all examples on Google pages use > as the delimiter so it’s probably best to go with that symbol.
Depending on the size of your website, it is a good idea to use breadcrumbs. They make it easier for users to navigate your website and they help users to remember where they are on your website.
Of course, breadcrumbs alone won’t get you in Google’s search results. You must also make sure that Google finds the right keywords on your website and that your website has enough inbound links.
How do synonyms in Google results affect your rankings?
By · Comments
Google has announced a major change in the way that they handle search results by including synonyms for some words that may be used in queries. How does this affect the position of your web pages in Google’s search results?
Why is it important that Google can deal with synonyms?
Google aims to display the best results for your search. For that reason, it is important that Google’s algorithm understands the words that are used in the search query. An important part of understanding the words is to understand synonyms.
Synonyms are words that can mean the same thing, for example “pictures” and “photos”. People searching for “sunset pictures” are probably also interested in web pages that contain the words “sunset photos”.
A problem is that words that can have different meanings. For example, the word “case” can mean “occurrence”, “instance” or “example”. It can also mean “box” or “container”.
The word “guitar box” might be a synonym for “guitar case” but “O.J. Simpson box” is not a synonym for “O.J. Simpson case”. Google’s measurements show that synonyms affect 70 percent of user searches across the more than 100 languages Google supports.
What has changed?
According to the posting in Google’s official blog, Google has improved the way that they detect synonyms. For example, the algorithm can now find 20 possible meanings of the search term “GM”.
GM can mean General Motors, George Mason in [gm university], gamemaster in [gm screen star wars], Gangadhar Meher in [gm college], general manager in [nba gm] and even gunners mate in [navy gm], etc.
Google also made a change to how the synonyms are displayed. The searched words and the synonyms are now displayed in bold in the search results. Web pages that contain only synonyms of the searched word can also be displayed in the search results.
Do you have to change your web pages?
If you optimized your website as explained in previous issues of our newsletter and as explained in the IBP manual then you don’t have to change anything. Here’s a reminder:
1. Think out of the box.
Don’t just use the technical terms that you use in your company. Think about the words that other people would use to describe your product. For example, don’t just use “rhinoplasty” but also “nose job” and “nose surgery”.
IBP’s keyword research tool will help you to find the best keywords for your website.
2. Optimize different pages of your website for different keywords.
The more pages you optimize, the better. It is much better if one web page is highly relevant to one keyphrase than somewhat relevant to many keyphrases.
Don’t stuff a single page with keywords. The keywords should fit naturally in your web page content. Use IBP’s Top 10 Optimizer to find out where on your web pages you should use your keywords.
Different people use different words to find the same things. Use different ways to talk about your website topic and optimize as many pages as possible of your website.
