Hello to Top Search Engine Rankings

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Howie

The lifeblood of any website is traffic or visitors to the site. Without traffic the site is worthless. You can pay for traffic with Google Adwords or Banners or other media buys – but you need a big budget. But getting to the top of search engine rankings is worth the effort – FREE traffic every day. If you can get to the top of the rankings for keywords with high traffic you will be in business!

But how? It can be very competitive but we will be showing you how to master the art of getting rankings. We show you the tools, reveal free videos to show you how, and teach you simple strategies to improve your rankings.

Before we go any further Tip #1 get backlinks – so start now with a backlink on mySearchEngineRanking.com. Our site has a high SEOMOZ rating which means a link on our site is valuable. Add your link here: one way backlink

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SEO Ranking Tips #1 – Plugin Heaven

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Howie

SEO Ranking Tips

seo ranking tipsWe have spent some time discussing SEO ranking tips for on-page and off-page SEO. Get the basic SEO correct and you can concentrate on Content, Content, Content and Links, Links, Links.

WordPress plugins can really do ALL the basic SEO for you. So choose them carefully – only use those that you REALLY need. Too many and your blog will slow down dramatically. Google will penalise slow sites.

Plugin Heaven: SEO Ranking Tips

You will be in plugin heaven if you choose the following:

1) Yoasts SEO WordPress Plugin – this takes care of your basic SEO (you DO need to think carefully about the settings but Yoast provides tremendous support), Sitemap, and on-page SEO (more of this later)

2) SEO Friendly Images – SEO Friendly Images is a WordPress SEO plugin which automatically updates all images with proper ALT and TITLE attributes for SEO purposes.

3) Super-Cache Plugin – This plugin generates static html files from your dynamic WordPress blog. After a html file is generated your webserver will serve that file instead of processing the comparatively heavier and more expensive WordPress PHP scripts. This makes your blog super fast.

Easy On Page SEO Ranking Tips

Yoasts SEO WordPress Plugin has a marvellous tool provided by Linkdex. It basically analyses your post and tells you what to correct. We are going to use it now (up to this point) to tell how the post is SEO optimised for SEO Ranking Tips.

Here are the results:

poor No meta description has been specified, search engines will display copy from the page instead.
ok There are 245 words contained in the body copy, this is below the 300 word recommended minimum. Add more useful content on this topic for readers.
ok No images appear in this page, consider adding some as appropriate.
ok The page title contains keyword / phrase, but it does not appear at the beginning; try and move it to the beginning.
good The copy scores 69.4 in the Flesch Reading Ease test, which is considered OK to read.
good Keyword / keyphrase appears in 3 (out of 3) headings in the copy. While not a major ranking factor, this is beneficial.
good The keyword / phrase appears in the URL for this page.
good The keyword appears in the first paragraph of the copy.
good The keyword density is 2.15%, which is great, the keyword was found 5 times.
good The page title is more than 40 characters and less than the recommended 70 character limit.
good This page has 3 outbound link(s).

We will change those now! The page has been updated since to make the recommended changes for SEO Ranking Tips.

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Links, Links, Links – SEO Ranking Tips #2

Posted on May 9, 2011 by Howie

Links, Links, Links

Earlier we talked about the mantra: content, content, content. But frankly links, links, links is even more important.

Ideally you want QUALITY external links from authority sites (within your theme) with your important keywords in the anchor text. Make sure you link to a page that SEO optimised for that keyword phrase.

Unfortunately quality links can be difficult to acquire. So what can you do?  Don’t give up – there are plenty of easy quick hits. For a new site, submit you site to “stats” type sites (such as alexa, quantcast, etc.) – there are literally 1000s of these sites. Google does seem to crawl these sites daily so you can get your site included in Google quickly. There is a free tool here: IMT Website Submitter.

Directory Links

Directories are great source of one way links. There has been a lot written that directories have been devalued but don’t believe everything you read. Always try to get a link in DMOZ (free) and Yahoo Directory (paid). Hey a paid link – I though paid links were a no go! Ideally target niche directories in your theme. So if you are a Real Estate site then submit to Real Estate directories. Also choose Directories with good Google Page Rank. Submitting to Directories is tiresome and there are some great tools out there – we favour SubmitEaze (this also submits articles to article directories – another source of one way backlinks).

RSS Directories

Another great source of one way links are RSS directories. Submit your RSS feed for great links to your site. Often RSS sites will publish the “content” of your feed so you get anchor links to your posts ON YOUR SITE. As you add a new post, the RSS directory will display the latest post with a link. You DO NOT have to keep updating the RSS directories – they update your posts automatically in many cases. Try Feedage.com and Feedagg.com are great but there are literally 100s of these directories. We like Traffic Mania RSS Bot.

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Killer Keywords – SEO Ranking Tips #3

Posted on April 6, 2011 by Howie

Killer Keywords

In the earlier post, Choosing Keywords, we looked at choosing theme keywords that have high traffic but low competition. We can, however, narrow this down if you want to sell products with Killer Keywords.

What are Killer Keywords?

We have to understand the psychology of people who are looking to buy products. They often go through a cycle: first looking for a generic keyword – say “Cameras”. Then after reading further, they realise they are looking for a “Digital Camera” – so they google “Digital Search”. Eventually they narrow this down to a specific model such as Panasonic Lumix TZ20. So at this stage they are looking to buy. And they will use keywords such as “Panasonic Lumix TZ20″ or “buy Panasonic Lumix TZ20″ or “review Panasonic Lumix TZ20″ or “Panasonic Lumix TZ20 discount” in Google.

Big advantage of Killer Keywords

The big advantage of these long tail keywords is that there is likely to be less competition, and it should be easier to rank quickly at the top of the search engine phrases. Use Market Samurai to check the SEO Competition.

Killer Keywords SEO

Remember to create a page / post using the killer keywords (“Panasonic Lumix TZ20″, etc) in the post title, <title>, H1, H2, and H3 etc. See our post Keywords and SEO.

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Beat Your Competitor Links – SEO Ranking Tips #4

Posted on April 1, 2011 by Howie

Beat Your Competitor Links

Do you want Page 1 listings? Lets assume that you have sorted out your “on page SEO” – refer to other Tips for guidance. So we are going to concentrate on your competition. The competition should not be too strong as you have chosen competitive keywords – see “Choosing Keywords“.

Evaluating Competitor Links

One additional test you can employ before settling on your keywords is to check your competition. Market Samurai has an excellent tool. Using the SEO Competition module, you can evaluate the competition. These are the results for “Seo Rankings”. The on page factors such as Title, URL, and description show lots of green – which suggests you can do better than them! However on the off page factors you can see that the number of backlinks to the sites are enormous – so better choose another Keyword phrase.

(Click on image for larger display)

Targeting Competitor Links

So lets say you have found a competitive keyword (let say “SEO Company UK” – over 200 daily searches and low competition) and you want to beat the competition. What better way to beat your competitors than see what they are doing to get top rankings – check the sites where they are getting backlinks, and the keyword phrases they are using. If you can do better than the competitors you will get top rankings! You can find the information you need with Open Site Explorer.

Step 1 – do a Google search for the chosen keyword (“SEO Company UK”) and find the urls of your top 10 competitors. The first company is www.seo-vantage.co.uk .

Step 2 – Insert the url into the Open Site Explorer tool.

You can see what sites to contact for links, the anchor text used and the authority of the sites.

Step 3 – Repeat for the other top ten sites!

Yes, this can require a lot of work but you can outsource cheaply.

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Domain Name Authority – SEO Ranking Tips #5

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Howie

Domain Name Authority

What’s in a name? Well in the case of a Domain name great SEO authority! So using keywords in a Domain name is a great tip. There have been some adverse comments that domain name is weighted too heavily in the Google algorithm but do not miss out while it is a major factor. We have used this tactic successfully to gain page 1 rankings for reasonably competitive terms.

So say, your main keyword is “blue widgets” (why are widgets so popular). Then ideally check to see the availability of:

bluewidgets.com
bluewidgets.org
bluewidgets.net

We do recommend using .com, .org or .net. Check on GoDaddy.com or other domain registrar which allows you check availability of domain names. If they are NOT available, check to see if blue-widgets is available with .com, .org or .net extensions. Adding more hyphens becomes less successful in our view. What if none of these prove successful, then try bluewidgetssite.com, bluewidgetsblog.com, bluewidgetsstore.com, bluewidgetsshop.com. Try to keep the keywords at the beginning.

Domain Name Authority: Expiring Domain

If you want to get some additional clout purchase an expiring domain. With perseverance you may buy a domain that has google page rank, incoming links, and authority. Remember to try to find expiring domains that have your keywords (or if that is not possible then try to get a name that is about your theme). We would recommend FreshDrop.net as a great place to find domains with PR, and incoming links. Do make sure the Domain is NOT faking PR.

Using FreshDrop you can pick up expiring / expired domain names from $5. With the FreshDrop tool you can see age of domain, PR, number of google back links, number of .edu links, number of .gov links. Incidentally the older the domain, the better! So you can kick start your site with some authority.

 

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Content, Content, Content – SEO Ranking Tips #6

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Howie

Content, Content, Content

Content is almost as important as Links. Content should be original, compelling and informative. So join the Content, Content, Content mantra. Good content does require time, effort and thought. Many are tempted to opt for PLR articles, autoblog plugins or poorly spun articles – it does not work. In the recent Google “Farmer” update autoblogs, thin affiliate sites and sites with predominantly duplicated content were hit, and sites have disappeared off the radar.

Content Attracts Links?

It is often said that good content will attract links; for some sites this is true but smaller sites often do not get enough exposure to attract links. So you might need to encourage inbound links! If you can encourage “social buzz”, then more visitors will see your content and link back. You can encourage “social buzz” by adding Social Bookmarking buttons (there are many plugins available – we are using “Social Discussions” but we also like “Socialize”). We also use the PubSubHubbub plugin. PubSubHubBub is an open protocol created by Google which pings any new content you create to various hubs around the internet, and as a result it increases the speed at which your content gets indexed and ranked by the search engines.

Choosing Content?

As explained in an earlier post “Choosing Keywords” is very important. So your content has to revolve around the keywords chosen. Thinking up content can be difficult but we use Google Reader to find and deliver content about those keywords. If you need some help with Google Reader – there is an eHow video series: Google Reader. In essence this will deliver to you daily ideas, news, blog posts, videos and make the task of writing content easier. Be consistent about writing content – decide if you are going write daily, weekly or monthly. Make it quality content.

Content Resources

Perhaps you do not have the time to write or prefer to outsource anyhow! Well there are plenty of content writers out there! Guest bloggers are often willing to write original articles for a link back to their site or free advert. Here is a good resource for finding guest bloggers: http://myblogguest.com/. There are also other sites looking to publish material on blogs such as BloggingUnderground.com (they will provide original posts to quality blogs).  If you are prepared to pay for articles – content writers will provide copy for a few dollars. For example, search for “articles” on Fiverr.com and you will find writers who will write content for $5 – in some cases 2 for $5! Check the reviews within the system for quality!

Content to Advert ratio

Following the Google “Panda” or “Farmer” update, sites were penalised for thin content (remember you need ORIGINAL and QUALITY content). One of the factors is the content to advertising ratio (e.g. adsense) – try to keep at least 60% content (original) to  max 40% adverts. Also bear in mind your header, menu system, footer areas may not be unique on a page so we would advise to kick your

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Choosing Keywords – SEO Ranking Tips #7

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Howie

Choosing Keywords

We would all like top search engine rankings for “golf”, “travel”, “car hire”, “concert tickets”, etc.. Yes, it would mean massive volumes of daily traffic, and opportunities to sell product or services. But in reality, unless you have massive budgets and resources this is not attainable for mere mortals. So you may need some help in Choosing Keywords.

Your aim should be choose theme keywords that have high traffic but low competition. One word keywords are not attainable in the short term. So what is attainable is 3 + keyword phrases (often referred to as “low hanging fruit” as they are easier to pick). It is easier to target a dozen “low hanging fruit” phrases than a phrase that is highly competitive.

Choosing Keywords Tools

Google provide a Free Tool: Google External Keyword Tool

With this tool you add a seed keyword and Google will tell you the global traffic(or local markets) and the degree of competition. The video below will teach you how to use the tool.

There are how some limitations to the Google tool and by choice we would recommend Market Samurai. You can get a free trial of this product but it will cost after the trial period. But it is a good investment. With this tool:

  • Find out how to uncover “gold-nugget” keywords – each of these keywords can send hundreds, even thousands of free visitors to your site each day.
  • Stop attracting time-wasting tire-kickers to your web-site, and target the keywords in your market that real buyers are using right now.
  • Discover exactly how to beat the competition, and get front-page rankings in Google for high-traffic keywords in weeks or days – not months or years.

More details here: Market Samurai

Choosing Keywords – where to start?

Perhaps you need a starting point in choosing keywords that are relevant. Well, a good starting point is your main competitors which you can find using Google to find the top 10 competitors. Then check out what keywords they are targeting. The Open Site Explorer tool will help you discover these keywords. Then you can use Market Samurai (see Choosing keywords tool above) to find variations on the target keywords.

 

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Internal Linking – SEO Ranking Tips #8

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Howie

Internal Linking

One of the lifebloods of a successful site is links; there is no doubt within the SEO community that links are key to improved rankings. However, there is too much focus on inbound links from other sites. Of course, they are important but internal links are also very important. These are internal links from keywords on your pages to other pages within your site.

Wikipedia is a superb example of an internal link strategy. Their pages are crammed with links to other pages on the Wikipedia site. Wikipedia ranks extremely well on search engine searches. Internal linking contributes to this success.

One of the great advantages of investing time in internal linking is the control you have with anchor text and the destination pages of the internal linking. Compare that with external linking where webmasters choose what pages to link to, and what anchor text to use. In addition, it can be a time consuming and often fruitless task contacting webmasters to exchange links.

Internal Linking: The basics

First consider which pages to link to – do you want to send traffic to money pages or develop authority pages within you site. What keywords do you want to promote?

Having established your strategy start to link from “many pages” to “one page” promoting a particular keyword phrase (please note it can be pages or posts). For example, say we are trying to promote the phrase “SEO Ranking Tips“. First make sure you have a page that is optimised for that keyword (see Tips 9 and 10). Then using the anchor text “SEO ranking tips” to link to the appropriate post – in our example:

http://www.mysearchengineranking.com/blog/simple-seo-ranking-tips-10

You can see we have indeed linked to that post with said anchor text. You can repeat the exercise on other pages on the site to recommend to Google that this page is your key page about SEO ranking tips!

Get into the habit of cross-linking between your pages / posts with the appropriate anchor text. Also introduce some variations on the keyphrase – so we might change the anchor text to “ranking tips on SEO”.

There are plugins available that will help with this task and automate the process – such Smart Links. Follow the link to read how this can save you time. We would recommend that you do not just use this tool but also add your own anchor links.

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Keywords and SEO – SEO Ranking Tips #9

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Howie

Keywords and SEO

There are some simple strategies to follow with Keywords. The choice of keywords and SEO is critical, and that will be the subject of another tip!

This tip will concentrate on the distribution of keywords within your post. First, do NOT stuff your content with keywords. This was a tactic that used to work but certainly does not now – in fact it will do your page harm!

So first tweak is to use your keywords in your post title; get these keywords as close to the beginning of the title as possible. Do not use long titles! Make sure your title is unique! If you are using a SEO plugin – see our article: Keep it Simple – SEO Ranking Tips #10, then the title will get inserted automatically into the <title> tags which is critical in Google’s ranking algorithm. Not quite so important but also add a good description into your Meta Description (again see your SEO plugin).
Marketing Tip Sidebar: Not only do you want good rankings but you also want to “persuade” users to click on your search engine listing – so make your title / description compelling too!

Keywords and SEO: use of Headings

Next we come to h1, h2 and h3 headings – in wordpress you can access these headings in the dropdown “paragraph” box. Make sure you use variations on your main keywords – see how we have done it in this article. Do not use H1 more than once. You need to check how your “theme” uses headings. Typically they will use H1 for the post title (this time the title display not the <title> tags). Some themes use H1 for the Blog’s title. So check.
Tip: After creating a post you can find the occurrences of H1 in the source page (View Source from your browser menu system).

Keywords and SEO: Distribution in content

First your content is aimed at your readers NOT the search engines. It has to be original, compelling and readable. Just as Location, Location, Location is a mantra in the Real Estate industry so Content, Content, Content is a major SEO factor. Don’t skip on good content.

Keywords (used in headings) need to be in the paragraphs directly following the headings. Your main keyword should be in the last paragraph. And many advocate use bold / italic on your keywords in the text – but we have not seen compelling evidence of this. Liberally distribute your keywords in the rest of the content – but do NOT overdo it!

Finally we add the keywords to tags.

 

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Keep it Simple – SEO Ranking Tips #10

Posted on March 26, 2011 by Howie

SEO Ranking Tips

How good are you at SEO? Most find the subject difficult and do not have time to keep up with the ever changing technology. However, most sites are terrible at SEO so if you can use basic SEO then you have a chance of good rankings. So read our series of SEO Ranking Tips.

So our #10 Seo Ranking Tip is Keep it Simple by using WordPress. But WordPress is a blog – yes, but do not be put off. There are so many professional free templates around that is not a disadvantage. It is simple to have a professional looking site with WordPress.

SEO Ranking Tip Tweaks

The BIG advantage is that out of the box a WordPress site is going to have good basic SEO and with a few simple tweaks it is going to have above average SEO. Tweak number 1 is to add a SEO plugin – we prefer SEO Ultimate but All in One SEO is good too. These plugins behind the backgound will improve your SEO dramatically.

Tweak #2 is to change your permalinks. Under Settings you see a Permalink link – click and change the Custom option to /%postname%. Some will advocate adding a category too but we do not prefer that action. Using Permalinks will change your url from http://www.yoursite.com/?p=30 to http://www.yoursite.com/promote-your-keywords. This will enable you to promote your keywords in the url (another big tip!). By not using a category – your keywords will be closer to the beginning of the url and will have more clout.

Tweak #3 – Add a Google Sitemap Plugin. We recommend Google XML Sitemaps. This plugin will automatically submit your site to Google, Yahoo, and Bing. So your article and can be spidered quickly and ranked!

Tip # 9 to follow soon! Enjoy SEO Ranking Tips

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