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3 Tips to Article Marketing for SEO

MoeTamani — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:12:49 +0000

3 Tips to Article Marketing for SEO

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

Article marketing is an invaluable SEO tool. Not only does it increase your search engine ranking by increasing the number of inbound links to your site, but it also helps you establish yourself as an authority in your field, which drives traffic to your site. Here are three article marketing tips for you to consider whether you’re new at article marketing or have already made it an integral part of your SEO strategy.

1. Consider Your Niche. In order for article marketing to be a worthwhile endeavor for you, you need to know whether there is a demand for information within your niche. If there isn’t, then article marketing may simply be a waste of your time. If there is, then you make good use of your time by providing high-quality, relevant articles that contain helpful information. Find out what information your target audience is looking for and then write articles that provide that information. This may take some effort, but if you can give your audience what they need, then they will reward you handsomely by visiting your website and hopefully becoming loyal customers, and that, after all, is the ultimate end of SEO.

2. Article Placement. If you want article marketing to be an effective SEO tool, then you have to make sure that your articles are easily found by your target audience. Directories are a great place to start. Other website owner who are looking for content to publish on their own sites or newsletters often start by looking in article directories. And the best article directories to use are those that are popular and draw a lot of traffic. Alexa can tell you how popular and article directory is, and you can also find out how many pages of the directory have been indexed by search engines. You want to stick with directories that have a high number of pages indexed.

3. How Steep is the Curve? One item that internet marketers often fail to consider, to their detriment, is how much information their target audience members need in order to make a purchasing decision. Article marketing efforts for SEO simply must take this into account in order to be effective. If your target audience needs a lot of information, then your approach to article marketing will be very different from a marketer whose audience already has a broad base of information about the product or service in question. If your target audience needs information, then build your reputation with them by giving them that information. It doesn’t do you any good to bill yourself as an expert if you can’t talk about your product or service in terms that your target audience can understand. And you’ll go a long way toward gaining their trust if they perceive you as someone who has their best interests at heart by holding their hands as they learn more about what you’re offering. You can find out where your target audience is by taking some time to find out what kinds of questions they are asking. Are they asking basic questions or end product questions? Target your article marketing efforts accordingly.

Article marketing is a wonderful SEO tool when used correctly. Simply writing articles that you think might interest your target audience and then shooting them to random directories won’t do the trick, though. You need to consider your audience, their knowledge of your market niche, and where you can place your articles so that they reach a large number of people interested in what you have to offer. If you still need some guidance in article marketing for SEO, consult an internet marketing professional. A professional can help you turn article marketing into an integral part of your overall SEO strategy.

6 Ways to Use Googles Backlink Data

MoeTamani — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 11:02:56 +0000

6 Ways to Use Googles Backlink Data

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

If you’re a business owner just starting out, you probably have a pretty idea of who’s linking to you. Either you’ve posted to a directory or you’re part of a link partnership, or you’ve personally asked other website owners within your niche to link to one of the pages in your website. But after awhile it’s easy to lose track of who’s linking to you. Google Webmaster Central has made it much easier to determine who’s linking to you by giving you page-by-page report. This begs the question, what do I do with this information now that I have it? Here are 6 ways to make backlink information work for you.

1. Find your link-bait. You might find that you have several links to an article that you never even promoted. This is a hint that the article may be of interest to a wider audience and that you should spend some time promoting it to get even more hits.

2. Create More Good Stuff. Once you’ve discovered which pages attract links you didn’t even intend, figure out how to create similar pages with similar content and form that might attract an audience. The hard work in this scenario comes from discovering the characteristics that your popular pages have in common and duplicating it rather than promoting your articles.

3. Optimize. If you find that a page you haven’t intentionally promoted has garnered a lot of links, capitalize on the link strength of that particular page. Optimize it for other keywords, or just optimize it if you haven’t done it already.

4. Identify Those Linking to You. Some of the sites that link to you won’t come as a surprise. After all, they’re in your niche or they’re interested in the same things you are. But you might be surprised by some of your links. Google sites related to those that are linking to you unexpectedly and see if you can get similar sites to link to you as well.

5. Find Out What Pages Others Are Linking To. If another site is linking to one of your pages, maybe they’d also be interested in other pages as well. Why have them link to just one page on your site when they can link to five or six?

6. Use Article Directories. If you’re serious about SEO, then you should be submitting articles to directories religiously. You may find sites that have picked up your articles without you knowing it. Find out if those sites would like you to submit articles right to them and eliminate the middle man of the directory.

Backlink data is an invaluable tool for SEO and for your overall internet marketing strategy. If you’re not sure how to take advantage of it for your business, consider consulting with an SEO expert or internet marketing professional. These professionals will be able to help you figure out even more ways to use backlink information to optimize your website and to get your valuable information to a larger audience. The only real mistake you can make is choosing not to use this information, and choosing not to hire a professional to help you determine how it can best be used for your purposes. So figure out how to make backlinks work for you and your business. You’ll be glad you did!

9 Keys to Quality Link Exchanges

Seomul Evans — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 10:30:50 +0000

9 Keys to Quality Link Exchanges

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

There is some debate within the world of SEO about the wisdom of using link exchanges. While it’s true that one-way links are valued much higher by search engines than are reciprocal links, there’s no need to avoid link exchanges completely. Here are 9 keys to creating quality link exchanges.

1. Has the page been cached by Google? This is the most important criterion for determining whether or not it’s worth exchanging links. If Google doesn’t know it exists, then there’s no sense in exchanging links, because if Google hasn’t cached it then it’s likely completely useless to both humans and search engines. And you don’t want to be associated with that.

2. Relevance. This is another key question. If you discover that it isn’t relevant to your topic, then it had better have a lot of other things going for it before you offer your link. The same goes for relevance to your search phrases. If it’s not, then it had better stand out in every other way.

3. How it is optimized? Believe it or not, some websites out there are actually optimized for the words “reciprocal links” and “link exchanges.” Talk about showing your hand. Don’t bother with these sites.

4. Is it part of an automated script? If so, you might as well just tell the search engines that your site is so bad that you can’t get your own links from other quality websites.

5. Prominence. Let’s say that the website you’d like to exchange links with isn’t guilty of any of the four previous issues. Now it’s time to start looking at the nitty-gritty, like how easy it is to find the page. How many clicks does it take to get there from a directory? If it’s two or more, it’s time to find another page to exchange with.

6. How many clicks deep is it? The further away it is from the homepage, the more you’re losing value from the link.

7. Quality. Overall website quality is definitely a consideration. Does it look like a site that you and potential customers would trust? Does it look professional? How does it rank for keywords that are similar to the ones you hope to rank for? Are the categories contained in the directory at least remotely related or are they completely random?

8. What kind of page is it? A link from a page full of content might compel you to look past many other egregious issues, particularly if the content is well-written, relevant, and helpful to visitors.

9. How many links are on the page? A good rule of thumb is to only use pages with 50 or fewer links. If there are more than 50, at least make sure that your link is close to the top of the page.

If you’re new to SEO and internet marketing, learning your way around inbound link building can be tricky at best. If you’re unclear about the best ways to build inbound links, consult with an SEO expert or internet marketing professional. They can help you determine how and when to go about building your links, and they can help you create an internet marketing plan that will take advantage not only of link building, but of a number of SEO strategies that can increase your search engine ranking and help you turn visitors into loyal customers.

The only real mistake you can make is trying to solve the SEO riddle by yourself. Your competitors are using a whole bag of tricks to optimize their websites. If you’re not, then you’re losing potential customers, potential revenue, and the chance to make your business the best it can possibly be.

The 4 Levels of Link Building

admin — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:14:06 +0000

The 4 Levels of Link Building

internet marketing Articles from Moe Tamani, the SEO Services Consultant.

SEO experts and internet marketing professionals know that the key to high search engine rankings is link building. They will also tell you that link building isn’t all that easy until you’ve done it for awhile, and that there are so many techniques for link building that it’s hard to sort them all out. Here are the 4 levels of link building to take you from novice to expert.

1. Do It Yourself, Quick and Easy. The easiest links to build are those for which you don’t have to rely on anyone but yourself. The easiest way to do this is to submit your site to directories. Simply submit your URL, the name of your company, and a short description of your company. Know before you begin that directories are managed by humans, so you may not see results right away. Also know that some directories require a small fee for your listing.

You should also use social media as a way to get links to your page. SEO experts don’t find these crucial to success, but they’re still a pretty simple and cheap way to target an audience that’s going to be using the sites anyway.

2. Do It Yourself, Not So Quick and Easy. Before you start on Level 2, make sure you’ve started a business blog. This is crucial if you want to have good content to which others can link. And the way you’re going to get these links is through press release optimization and article marketing.

When you’re writing your articles and your press releases, always keep your keyword strategy at the front of your mind. Links should coincide with your strategy. Before you send your press releases and articles into the ether, use a press release grader to see if they pass muster.

3. Networking Plus Significant Time. Networking is by far the most effective way to get links to your site. It’s time consuming and it can be frustrating, but it can also get you results that you never dreamed of. There are many ways to go about this type of networking, but the key is putting yourself amongst those who are potentially interested in what you have to say.

The best way to do this is to establish yourself as an expert in your niche. But never make people feel like they would be lost without your presence. Engage them. Show compassion. Share your own opinions and ideas and vulnerabilities. Start by reading industry-related blogs and commenting on them. Eventually you’ll want to establish a one-on-one relationship with bloggers, probably by casually mentioning third-party content that they might find interesting.

Ideally you’ll soon be asked to be a guest blogger on blogs that are related to your niche. In the process, you can link to yourself and let others in your niche know that you know what you’re talking about. If all goes well, they’ll start following you as well, which leads to the final level…

4. Links Resulting From Good Content. Once you’ve reached this level, you have established yourself as a knowledgeable resource within your field. Although you can probably never afford to abandon the strategies mentioned above, you are now generating most of your links from people who respect you and enjoy reading your excellent content. This kind of success doesn’t happen immediately. It takes a lot of time and effort, including effort in providing your followers with an array of high-quality, interesting, and relevant content. You may do his through your blog, through hosting webinars, or through publishing white papers.

The key to keep in mind as you’re starting out is that, while content is crucial, you’re going to have to start out doing more than creating great content. You’re going to have to go out and find followers, and then give them a reason to stick around. It’s not easy, but it’ll pay off in the end.