There’s a bit of an uproar this weekend about Google and the use of ‘nofollow’. I’m seeing a lot of posts about it.

It seems that Google not only wants paid links in sponsored posts to be ‘nofollowed’, but they want any links in sponsored posts to have the ‘nofollow’ attribute. After all, the post wouldn’t exist without the pay, right? So they want any other links to be treated that way.

Not many webmasters are pleased with this.

The impact can be seen all around. Techcrunch put a nofollow on their links thanking their sponsors. Andy Beard is talking about it. So is Ted Murphy at Izea… well, he’s very much in the middle of it in a lot of ways. There’s a post about it on Graywolf’s blog.

And now here. Just can’t forget here.

I have to agree with a lot of the comments I’ve seen on this topic. Google needs to figure out a better way to determine the quality of a link. Any link from poor quality content shouldn’t count. But if a review is well-written and informative, should it really matter if the review is paid or not? A good quality review is something that benefits visitors whether or not the writer was paid.

And what about people who write about something as their job? They’re getting paid for it too, just not in a way that can be easily seen by Google or other search engines.

I’ve done paid posting. Heck, this blog here even lost its PR over it. I don’t care.

I only do a paid post if I like the topic anyhow. That’s why I do relatively little of it. I’m far more concerned with providing good content than with earning a few meager bucks for a paid review. But apparently Google thinks I should suffer for that.

Google is deeply offending many webmasters with their current policies. And as much as they claim webmasters are not their customers, they are a part of Google’s business model, one they’re trying to enforce some standards on.

Sometimes that’s a good thing. Other times Google, dear, you go overboard.

Technorati Tags: google, nofollow, paid links, linking

Having links to your site can make a big difference in whether or not you succeed. Not only do search engines like seeing good quality links pointing to your site; so do users.

It’s important to note that distinction… good links. Not junk.

Good links come from relevant reputable sources. They not only attract search engine spiders, but real visitors as well. They should be a part of your marketing strategy.

Some links are harder to come by than others, of course. Others turn out to not be such a good idea. Google went after paid links hard earlier this year, much to the dismay of many a webmaster. While you cannot be sure that a particular source will always be reputable to all search engines, thinking about how and why you are getting the links, and what else you can see on that site, can help to minimize any trouble you may get into.

Some kinds of links take the building of a good reputation to gain. The challenge is that you need a lot of readers to build that reputation, and that can mean needing a lot of links. It’s a circle that can be difficult to break into.

Other links are easier to get. Their quality can be controlled by you in that you decide which to go for. Sometimes they will have the “nofollow” attribute, but if you’re focusing on links that real users will follow as well as search engines, you may see that these can be worth your time.

Relatively Easy Links to Get

Blog Comments

These can be time consuming to get, and saying “good post” is not enough to get more traffic even from highly ranked blogs. The earlier you can comment on a post the more people may read your comment and follow your link.

Do not overdo the use of keywords in the “Name” field for your comments. Most blog owners prefer real names. Use your website name if you must, but do not cram in keywords. Think of it as building your brand with a name, not trying to get more keyword links back to your site.

I like using Comment Sniper to know when new posts have been made at blogs I read. I don’t comment unless I have something real to say. This tool allows me to be an early commenter anytime a post is made on a blog while I’m at the computer.

Participate in Blog Carnivals

Blog Carnival.com has a great list of these. You find appropriate ones, and submit your articles. Maybe it gets chosen, maybe not. Some have high standards while others seem to take just about anything. But when you’re posting the information anyhow it certainly can’t hurt to submit it to carnivals to get more attention.

Submit Your Site to Directories

This one may or may not do a lot of good anymore. A lot of directories lost PageRank recently, and links from them may not carry any search engine benefit now. But other directories may still give you a benefit.

A big question arises in the free vs. paid directory issue. Free ones are of course quite kind to your budget, but if they allow a lot of spammy links you do not want to be listed with them.

Paid directories, on the other hand, tend to be pickier. They probably will not guarantee that they will accept your site. The fee for the best paid directories is for review, not for inclusion. Make a quality site to give yourself the best chance to be accepted.

Be on the lookout for directories specific to your area of expertise. More focused directories may be more beneficial to your website.

Participate in Forums

Another time consuming one. In some areas it can be hard to find sites that will allow you to have links to your business in your signature line, but others do not mind at all. Some just require you to pay a fee for the priviledge.

Do not just advertise yourself. People do not come to forums to read blatant ads. They come to forums to relax with friends, learn solutions to problems and often just have fun. Be there for that even as you market. The better you are as a forum member and resource the more likely people are to follow your signature links.

Give a Testimonial

Bought anything online recently? Give a testimonial and include a link to your website. The person you bought from may be happy to include that link because it makes you into more of a real person when people read your testimonial.

Make Online Friends

Online friends may be willing to link to you, even as you link to them or do something else to benefit their website.

Use del.icio.us

Well-tagged pages can bring in some very good traffic from this source, and all it takes is a del.icio.us account and a little time. The links may be “nofollow”, but if people follow them the bots don’t matter too much.

Use Other Social Marketing Networks

Which will be best for you depends on your topic. Digg is definitely not for everyone. Make friends and use the networks honestly, only trying to include your best work. Plopping your everyday efforts into the social media sites really won’t benefit your site that much. Focus your efforts on your standout pieces.

Link Out

The more freely you link, the more freely people link to you. It won’t work every time, but it can increase the overall quality of your site and help it to get noticed.

Ping

If you’re blogging, make sure you are thorough with your pinging. There’s a great list of sites to ping at Daily Blog Tips that I won’t bother to repeat here.

Harder Links to Get

Article Writing and Submission

Writing high quality articles gives you a great chance to bring attention to your site and your knowledge. I’ve seen loads of articles submitted to article directories that are so poorly written they give me a negative view of the website owner, not a positive one.

Let me make this clear. You can get links with junk articles easily. Quality links from quality articles that good sites want to publish is hard. But if you write good articles, submit them to the better directories and directly to relevant webmasters, they can do a lot of good for a very long time without costing you anything other than time. For some that’s easier than it is for others.

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging can be a great way to network. Not only do you get your article published on someone else’s website (potentially a much more popular site), you can make a great contact.

A guest post needs to be some of your best work. You need to impress the other blogger as well as their readers. Show your stuff so that they see you as an expert whose blog they would like to read too.

Write Authority Articles for Your Site

This is tough. They take a lot of work, and then you still have to get it noticed so that it builds the links for you. If you haven’t started building your name, who knows whether or not this will happen. A solid authority article can do a lot to make your reputation as an expert.

The beauty of this is that people like linking to authority articles, and the links are of far superior quality than your typical forum or directory link. Jim Boykin had a great post about this in 2006.

Linkbait

In theory easy, in reality hard.

All you have to do is create something that people want to link to. They might not even be in your general field, depending on the bait offered.

A lot of people have a dislike for obvious linkbait, but if it works you may not particularly care. But the very best linkbait is so useful or interesting that people aren’t particularly worried about that.

This is far from a comprehensive list, but I like to think of it as a nice start. Keep brainstorming and researching and you can come up with plenty of other ways to get links to your site. Even with all these tips it is not always easy, but taking the time to work on it and being persistent can pay off in the long run.

Technorati Tags: link building

The holiday season is upon us. Stores in my area already have Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations up. Is your site ready?

Network Solutions has just released Ecommerce Holiday Tips whitepaper. It offers 7 tips to help you with building your holiday sales. You do have to fill out a form to read it, but the whitepaper covers tips on areas such as how to analyze your site from a gift giver’s perspective, improving navigation, online advertising and more.

Of course, you should have started things already, but it’s not too late to get things going if you’re running a little behind on your holiday optimization.

Network Solutions of course offers relevant services such as Ecommerce Software. It’s very useful when a company like this offers a whitepaper, as they have often done significant research to back up what they’re telling you to do.

They do note that some holiday optimization is easier than other parts to do. After all, a part of it is simply acknowledging that the holiday is coming on your site. You don’t have to drive people nuts by adding falling snowflakes to your site; you can just do things like have links to holiday gift guides.

Check it out if you need a little nudge to your holiday sales efforts.

There’s a great article over on SEOmoz today about whether it’s best to have one single authority site or a bunch of smaller niche sites. Their feeling is that the authority site is best. It’s easier to build links to. Search engines tend to respect authority sites more. Visitors may trust them more because they know the name.

My own way to work has more or less been to mix the two up. I have some big domains, but in some cases I’ve split off a smaller domain to focus on a particular niche within the topic of the bigger site.

Generally this relates to how each site is marketed and what I’m trying to do with the site. When I want an authority site, the concern is mostly giving the best information. But there have been times that I would rather focus more on sales than on information, and so the smaller niche site comes into play

I find it works pretty well in some cases. You can think of it as the difference between the soft sell and the hard sell, if you like, although I wouldn’t say I do too hard a sell on any of my sites.

When you read the article, make sure you read the comments. There are some really great ones in there, especially relating to when each one is best. For example, a smaller niche can convert better because it is so much more focused. This can relate to relevancy and giving the site visitors more precisely what they want.

As I see it, there are two ways to work this. You can have a large site that is primarily informational, and the niche sites can be more focused on making sales, or the large site can be about sales, and the niche sites give more detailed information. I’m not really sure which would be the best answer.

But one of the keys is to always try to make the sites linkable. You want people noticing your content. More informational sites can act as presellers for your selling sites.

But always keep in mind that you want to be able to sell again and again to your customer list whenever possible. The large site can have the advantage of offering more. On the other hand, good use of autoresponders on smaller sites can bring things together.

No matter what you do, keep your mind on a few things: The needs of your site visitors, the quality you offer and how much time you really have to manage your sites.

Technorati Tags: authority sites, niche sites, online marketing, search engines

There’s a lot to running a quality site. You may feel that content is king, but without traffic, King Content is going to be mighty lonely. Not to mention how empty the Royal Treasury will be.

You need serfs… err, traffic! And that means you need to market your site.

This can be difficult for some people, easy for others. Of course, creating content is easy for some, tough for others. It just depends on your skill set and interests. For me, creating content is more fun than marketing. But I still try to spend time on marketing.

Article marketing is a favorite area of mine. Done well it can be highly effective. But people debate whether submitting to a lot of directories or just a few select ones plus selected publishers works better. It can very much depend on the amount of time you are willing to spend. I personally use Article Marketer because they submit to the directories that I consider most important, including Ezine Articles. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the hardest things about running an online business is, well, that it is online. It’s social yet solitary. You have to make a good impression on people you will never meet in person. And there can be thousands of other sites competing for the same customers you want.

One of the easiest ways you can help your business to learn how to please the search engines as well as your potential customers. It can be quite the balancing act. Fortunately, there are a lot of sources, such as the Find and Convert blog that can help you.

What’s the value?

Learning to understand what it is the search engines want isn’t easy. I find it pays to read up on various perspectives on this topic. While the Find and Convert blog is not constantly updated, they do have some good tips.

One thing you will find as you read about search engine optimization is that people disagree as to what works and what is just nonsense. That should tell you that there is a lot of nonsense out there, much of it simply outdated information that used to work. But as the search engines change and improve, things that used to bring top rankings now bring bans.

The top post as I write this, is about measuring your results. After all, if you don’t measure something, you don’t know whether or not it’s working for you. Yet many online business owners don’t bother to track and measure the things they do to try and get results.

Tips like this should get you thinking. Are you making the most of what your online business could be?

Search engine optimization is a part of any website’s success. You can get traffic from a range of sources, but search engines provide some of the best. But many of the best phrases are highly competitive and nearly impossible to rank well for.

This is where the long tail keywords come in. These are the longer phrases that aren’t typed in as often but are easier to rank for. Fewer sites compete for these because they are less valuable. Or are they?

What Are Long Tail Keywords?

The precise definition of long tail keyword can vary. Some say they are phrases 3 words or longer. I disagree with that because there are many phrases that take 3 words just to do a basic search on the topic. “Work at home” for example.

I would argue that the definition depends upon to topic. Sometimes the most common searches are just a word or two. When thinking about long tail, you are thinking about things that are rarely typed in, and make the search more specific. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll be the first to admit that building traffic to my sites is something I should work harder on. I know what to do, but making the time to do it is often another matter. Very, very bad of me since I’d do far better and earn more with more traffic.

I’ve long since slipped on one of my big goals, which was to comment more often on other blogs. Other blogs can be a great traffic source, especially if you post relevant and insightful comments. It really can bring in traffic.

The trick is standing out from the crowd. Commenting on popular blogs means your comments get seen by more people, but it also means you have more people commenting before you have even seen the latest post.

Be controversial.

Being controversial can also bring good traffic, especially if it’s on a current hot topic. No one cares if you think goldfish are better than neon tetras. But if you have a strong opinion on something popular, whether it be the latest Harry Potter (book or movie), the current field of candidates for the next Presidential nominations, current events in your field and so forth, you can encourage traffic, comments and links.

Read the rest of this entry »