iTraffic-ctrl.com

Considering how difficult it can be to garner those highly desirable links, it only makes sense to do everything possible to squeeze every ounce of value from them. You want your links on relevant pages and they need to appear as natural as possible. Overlooking or ignoring this may not hurt your campaign but you will not get the maximum value out of your links.

For now I’d like to focus on the natural appearance aspect. Jim has a recent post that addresses this well. He notes that for years SEOs have known that the text surrounding links is important, but rarely is it utilized. Personally, I think that this technique is being utilized, just not properly or to its full potential.

The thing to remember is that creativity is the key. Link building can be monotonous and it’s easy to get lazy and bored, but every time you submit to a directory or trade links, try to use different link text and descriptions. It may take a little more effort but that extra ten percent can be the difference between first and second place.

When discussing link building, the conversation always seems to focus on writing articles, press releases, blogs, useful content (good text, free tools, etc..), and other tricks, but what about advertorials? I haven’t heard mention of this term in a while so I feel obligated to remind everyone of the power advertorials posses.

According to Wikipedia, these text versions of infomercials have been around since the 60’s, but they were made popular by Mobil Oil during the 1970’s oil shortage, as a way to advertise the company’s opinion (to the unhappy public) through editorials. Mobil’s advertorials were very successful and they have remained powerful advertising tools to this day.

I have used them for some time and I can attest to their value. A good writer can create advertorials that will not only promote your products but also generate backlinks. They give you the most bang for your buck, and your readers will be more receptive when the advertisement looks like a credible editorial. It’s a win win situation.

If you are curious as to how to write these, a simple web search will usually generate some good examples, and if you are looking for someone else to write your advertorials, there are companies, like Comit Technologies, that provide this service.

I like to stress the importance of link building when trying to increase your website traffic. Search engines are constantly changing the ways that they rank web pages based on on-page factors (coding, navigation, url’s, keywords, etc), but they will always give precedence to websites with good inbound links or off-page factors.

I recently ran across an article called “10 steps to getting links to your site” by Craig Fitield, who happens to be a product manager and search engine marketer at Microsoft.
His advice is valuable to any link building campaign, but the fact that it is coming from a member of the Microsoft team proves that even Microsoft bases their search engine primarily on link popularity.

Most of Craig’s tips are geared towards organizing your efforts (i.e. setting goals and using spreadsheets) and the rest are just good linking habits. While it isn’t new advice, it is good, sound advice worth repeating.

I would, however, like to add a few of my own tips:

When contacting a potential link partner for the first time via email, put extra effort into writing subject lines. Todd has a really good post on this and he also gives some examples of good and bad subjects.

Before getting a link, make sure that your link provider isn’t attaching a no-follow tag to the links on his website. If this is the case, don’t waste your time unless you stand to gain a definite traffic increase from having a link with them. Firefox has a toolbar feature that will highlight the no-follow links on a page.

Remember that when you link to a website, you will automatically be associated with that site by the search engines. So choose your friends wisely because if they are guilty of spamming, you too will be considered guilty by association.

Once you have done enough link building you will see that there is a methodology to it. Experience and creativity will then lead you to develop your own techniques.

Good Luck
iTraffic Control

Sometimes it’s the little, overlooked details that can really affect your online traffic.

I think that we tend to focus too much on the latest and greatest, and we stop looking for those small details. Dan Thies (aka The SEO Coach) has a recent post titled “SEO: Where’s your homepage?” that, I think, is a must read for anyone, like myself, who pays attention to details. In his post writes about a common flaw in home page url’s that many people tend to overlook, and he explains ways to link to your homepage that will help you avoid duplicate content penalties. This is priceless information when you consider how important url’s are to search engines.

Dan’s blog is fairly new, but I expect to see many more good SEO posts from him in the future. This is definitely one to bookmark.

All SEO’s know that writing articles and press releases are effective ways of building links and increasing website traffic. The question is, “Are your press releases and articles optimized?”

An easy way to determine if your text is optimized is by using keyword and word tracking tools. These tools, which you use to write text for your web pages, can also increase the effectiveness of your link building text, and give your writers guidance when selecting their topics. You want your content to be not only relevant and useful but also optimized in the same manner as the text on your web pages.

Optimized writing is, in essence, a double edged sword. If done correctly it will increase your web traffic and garner those precious links that you desire.

Good Luck
Controller