Research the Competition Faster

No matter how you slice it, investigating the back links of your competition will be time consuming for any competitive niche. This technique will speed up the process.

Using the Firefox Browser and SEO Quake you can perform this search on Yahoo: “linkdomain:urlgoeshere.com –domain:urlgoeshere.com” and easily scan the PR of all the top links for your competition. Be sure to replace ‘urlgoeshere.com’ with the sites you wish to investigate (leave out the http://www.) SEO Quake has a setting that allows you to view PR for Yahoo. Only do this search in Yahoo, it won’t work in Google.

Turn off the settings that show back links for Google and Yahoo. If you leave those settings on Google and Yahoo may temporarily block your IP address for overusing the search engines.

Now you can scan and click links to judge how difficult it will be to surpass the top ranking sites in your niche.

What You Need To Know About Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking is the process of tagging and storing a website so it can be accessed at a later time. Instead of saving it to your browser like a traditional bookmark, you are saving it to the web. Because they are stored online, social bookmarks can be shared with friends and make great marketing tools as well.

For a website with abundant content, adding social bookmark invitations to pages and other media can lead to strategies that leverage volumes of traffic along with points of visitor contact. The momentum of thousands of web pages, each with an open invitation to share, has the ability to drive in links and traffic 24/7.

There are a number of social bookmarking tools strictly designed for online marketing. SocialPoster.com provides an environment where its easy to submit news and link submissions in various industries. They also use a frames option that is very helpful at submitting links faster and keeping your submissions unique.

The Popularity Contest That Is SEO

Search engine visibility is the peak of SEO, there is no substitute for a relevant result when a searcher is in need. Being in the right position at the right time translates into pure lead generation and profit for your business.

Where you rank defines your company. Out of sight out of mind has never been more accurate as it pertains to search engine positioning. To the victor go the spoils; in this case, those who rank at the helm of a popular keyword or key phrase have a higher potential of attracting a higher click through rate from search engine queries.

Remember: potential without expression is nothing; it’s all about getting the market’s interest, engaging the awareness of the niche and creating rankings from the vacuum; leave nothing to chance. If your site’s structure, relevance and commitment provide a useful resource about a subject, then your pages will have greater appeal to search engines.

The Truth about Reciprocal Links

Let’s clear up some misconceptions about reciprocal linking.

1. Words like “diminished results” and “carry less weight” do NOT mean reciprocal links are worthless.
2. Reciprocal links WILL positively affect your rankings.
3. If you give a reciprocal link and the other web master removes the link – you haven’t damned your site to hell. It’s fine, doesn’t hurt a thing. You should remove the link, simply because your link partner has broken the trust – but you don’t have to watch your links daily or even monthly.
4. Reciprocal links (especially blog roll links) can generate traffic in their own right. Let’s not forget, bringing people to your site is the goal! If you have an opportunity to increase your traffic, exposure, or brand — take it! Never pass up an opportunity just because you think the search engines would disapprove.

Finally: Don’t be stingy. Give links generously. Credit your sources with a link. Provide valuable links for your visitors. This will help, not hurt your SEO efforts.

5 SEO Strategies You Should Avoid

Here’s 5 overused and overvalued SEO strategies you should stay clear of:

1. The high keyword density style – Debuting back in the 90’s, this ineffective style has been known to still exist in recessed areas of the web, safe from the top 10 and buried at least 5 pages deep on most search engines.

2. The anchor text at the bottom of the page SEO technique – This can be effective, but it’s often overdone with excessive linking and becomes more of a hindrance than a help.

3. The old school reciprocal link cover letter and close SEO technique - Reciprocal linking can help, but many people get crazy with it, asking for link exchanges with sites they know nothing about. Why trade links with someone if they’re only going to have them removed one week later?

4. The Keyword Stuffing Pipes in the Title SEO technique – Keyword Stuffing | Even more Keywords | Even more Ridiculous Stuffing | Company | Services | City | State | Birth Date | SSN | Address | Location of First Kiss with Girlfriend|, etc. you get the point. Search engines will almost never reward this type.

5. The submit your site to 5000 directories and 1,000 search engines SEO technique – It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to submit to a bunch of directories and search engines that don’t get any traffic. Stop wasting your time on these niche sites and focus on optimizing your stuff for the big boys (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.)