Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I would use sites such as Digital Point to find people who are selling links on quality sites. Use Alexa, Archive.org, WHOIS, etc. to make sure the sites which are selling links are established (and aren't recently expired domains which still held their PR), have a good amount of links pointing in (look at the Google PR value especially if you're targetting high SERP for Google), and if the site is relevant to yours, that's definitely a plus.
Look at inbound links, outbound links, domain age etc and work up a simple scoring process. This will help you determine which sites you come across are purely for non-paid and which to spend your dollars on when necessary.
Nice one. :)
Yahoo Business Directory
Business.com
Best Of The Web
Sign up for Dmoz
Then do something radical in front of the press (bloggers will do). You won't be news worthy unless you do something news worthy. (Hint: It can be angelic or evil. Weird or fun. Pay attention to social media sites and what rises to the top, and figure out how you could generate such a crazy story that somehow involves your site or company name.)
Buy into:Yahoo Business Directory
Business.com
Best Of The WebSign up for Dmoz
Then do something radical in front of the press (bloggers will do). You won't be news worthy unless you do something news worthy. (Hint: It can be angelic or evil. Weird or fun. Pay attention to social media sites and what rises to the top, and figure out how you could generate such a crazy story that somehow involves your site or company name.)
See:
[searchengineland.com...]
On other engines such as Yahoo - don't think that Google.com is the only way to make money. I have a client who focused his energy on Google.ca and .ca's for Yahoo, Live etc and grew his new networks sales, in under 9 months, to equal what his orignal network was making.
Now that he has a solid revenue stream in place he can afford to take the time (and his sites have the leverage) to get involved in the dog fight that is Google.com ranking.
Spend the $ on useful original content either in the form of professional copyrighting or research.
You get quality relevant links through simple link exchange or submitting your sites to niche directories that don't require reciprocation. There is no reason to spend that kind of money on exclusion based directories.
What benefit directory links has is a long and ongoing discussion.
The SEO industry has been flooded with people from the PR industry who have no technical expertise, and they're drowning out what SEO really is: Search Engine Optimization. The art of manipulating websites to get, by hook or by crook, traffic from search engines.
If you're a true SEO, you're not going to put too much weight on what Google does or does not say. They have their best interests in mind, not yours. Think like an accountant - make use of all the loopholes you can find, but don't do anything illegal.
Directory submission is one way to get high authority links. The majority of top SEOs recommend it, although none will claim it's enough by itself. Just because Google yoinked it from their recommendations doesn't mean that they've changed the value at all in their algorithm. It could simply mean that they don't want their public line to be that you have to pay (someone else) in order to be listed well by them.
also note they removed: "Have other relevant sites link to yours."
They didnt remove it they reworded it and moved it to a sibling page.
[google.com...]
G still wants you to get relevant links and they realize many webmasters will reciprocate a link when its relevant.
Sure, thats fine. However, many people struggling to get ranked would do best in getting the content improved. I could know every loophole or every trick, and begged, borrowed or bought millions of links, but had stolen, scraped or otherwise flakey content, I would be nowhere.
Too many people think of SEO as a way of getting a site (possibly of dubious merit) ranked. It isnt. Good content is how to get your site ranked. SEO is how to get your site ranked better, in a more targeted fashion.
Also, although not technically SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION, also about making that trafic convert (assuming you are monetised).
Recommending people create unique content as a way of performing SEO drives me nuts. It's like telling someone to get a license when they ask you how to drive safely. Of COURSE it's important, but that doesn't mean it is a strategy.
What other strategy is there? Stealing other content? Many good thoughts were stated, but it all comes back to providing content and IF YOURS IS UNIQUE or has been MASSAGED into something DIFFERENT, you're in like Flynn. Content is king...always has been. Check the SERPS.
Form my point of view, my main skill is writing content: I have gone from being paid to writing about an industry (with a brief intervening period helping specify software to sell to the same industry), to running a reference site (encylopedia style) about the industry.
Being told improve the content is just telling me to do what I have been doing for the last few years anyway. The question is what else should I do?
It is tough because the two main competitors are Wikipedia and a site owned by a big media company. There are several less successful competitors, (including one run by another big media company), but its usually one of those two that are first in the rankings - and they, for that reason, find it easiest to get links.
I quite like the idea of buying a smaller, but reasonably good related site. The question is, what do you do next? Just add links to the content?
If you had a $1000 to spend on link building, how would you spend it?
Get a one hour private consultation from Eric Ward :)
Being told improve the content is just telling me to do what I have been doing for the last few years anyway. The question is what else should I do?
There's a world of difference between those that have great sites, and those that have great sites that actively market them on the web.
