Tag Archives: search engine optimisation

Linkbuilding strategies – what to do and what to avoid

For the average search engine optimisation company, building backlinks (incoming links) is a large part of the job. Although the internal architecture of your site is important for SEO purposes, it doesn’t tell the search engines how trusted it is to others.

Building backlinks is essential to your search engine optimization strategy, as tools like PageRank look upon inbound links as proof your site is trustworthy. The wider and more diverse your network of backlinks, the higher up the rankings your site pages will appear on searches. Some site owners are lucky, and get a high number of natural inbound links. However, most supplement this by putting additional links in places like internet forums, directories and news sites like Digg.

Some site owners use underhand methods, such as link farming ( where websites simply exchange reciprocal traffic to increase their search engine optimisation) and interlinking (the same thing, but where the linked domains belong to the same owner) Some search engine reputation management firms even offer link exchange programs, where site owners are duped into paying to have their pages given “high profile” on websites.

The theory is that the more sites your own site links to, the higher up the search rankings you will go. In fact, link farms usually have little to do with your business area – they’re just lists of links to other sites. Using methods like these is a sure way for you to lose domain trust – the worst thing you can do for search engine optimization. Other ways for you to damage your online reputation is by linking up to spam sites, posting in sites that are known to have illegal content, and bulk purchasing of links.

As we’ve said, the major search engines look very carefully at people’s SEO linkbuilding strategies, and place heavy penalties on sites that indulge in link-farming and other scams. Google is even working on ways to ban sites that engage in these practices – you have been warned.

To get quality backlinks, you first need to find the best places to post them. Backlink Builder is one of several useful SEO tools that professionals use to help locate suitable linking sites. They simply enter their keywords, and in return they get a list of sites where they can post blog entries, articles, reviews, videos or bookmarks to clients’ sites. From these, they can then select those that best match the profile of the sites. The listed domains usually give their services for free – it’s a saprophytic relationship. They get content for their sites, and you get backlinks to your own.

Of course, you have to be honest, and make sure the sites you are posting to are similarly respected. Don’t post fake links to worthless content – and do check your links actually work! The last is easily dealt with, if you use an SEO company that offers linkbuilding services. Building worthy content that people want to link to takes time and effort, so the more you can offload onto other shoulders, the better.

What Is Search Engine Optimization? An Introduction

Any business who’s serious about establishing a strong web presence have to maximise the traffic and exposure from search engines because they are capable of driving millions of potential customers to a business. Search engine optimisation (SEO) refers to the methods and techniques that can improve a website’s ranking (or visibility) on search engine results. There is a whole industry devoted to SEO.

To understand search engine optimisation, one must first understand how search engines compile their results.

How do search engines generate search results

Search engine companies have created computer programs that robotically scan the internet and gather information on all the websites they find. These computer programs or ‘bots’ are called spiders because their job is to ‘crawl’ the ‘web’. These ‘crawlers’ download information from each website, which are then stored in the search engine’s database.

When someone carries out a search, the search engine compares the search keyword(s) against the information in their database. In a fraction of a second, search engine’s powerful super computers search through billions of websites in their database and pick out a list that match the user’s criteria. Websites that are deemed most relevant are displayed at the top of the search results.

Each search engine has its own unique proprietary formula to determine relevance and the exact formulas are usually closely guarded trade secrets. It is said Google’s formula contains over 200 variables. Although the exact formulas are unknown, there are a number of variables that are known to influence a website’s search results ranking.

Common SEO methods

SEO companies like to divide different techniques into two broad categories: onsite SEO and offsite SEO.

Onsite SEO refers to modifications a webmaster can do to their own website to improve its search results ranking such as search engine friendly URL, effective meta tags, internal links and sitemap.

The most talked about and widely emphasised offsite SEO variable is link popularity. Virtually all SEO companies provide some form of link popularity service. Link popularity refers to the quantity and quality of a website’s back links. Quality can be affected by a number of factors: whether the originating website is in the same sector, whether the link has relevant anchor text, the page rank score (PR) or link popularity of the originating website and the link’s visibility.

Webmaster should always try to get the best quality links and get as many of them as possible. Quantity is key but sometimes quality can be more important. For example a link coming from a highly relevant website with PR5 score could be worth more than ten PR0 links.

What Is Search Engine Optimization? An Introduction

Any business who’s serious about establishing a strong web presence have to maximise the traffic and exposure from search engines because they are capable of driving millions of potential customers to a business. Search engine optimisation (SEO) refers to the methods and techniques that can improve a website’s ranking (or visibility) on search engine results. There is a whole industry devoted to SEO.

To understand search engine optimisation, one must first understand how search engines compile their results.

How do search engines generate search results

Search engine companies have created computer programs that robotically scan the internet and gather information on all the websites they find. These computer programs or ‘bots’ are called spiders because their job is to ‘crawl’ the ‘web’. These ‘crawlers’ download information from each website, which are then stored in the search engine’s database.

When someone carries out a search, the search engine compares the search keyword(s) against the information in their database. In a fraction of a second, search engine’s powerful super computers search through billions of websites in their database and pick out a list that match the user’s criteria. Websites that are deemed most relevant are displayed at the top of the search results.

Each search engine has its own unique proprietary formula to determine relevance and the exact formulas are usually closely guarded trade secrets. It is said Google’s formula contains over 200 variables. Although the exact formulas are unknown, there are a number of variables that are known to influence a website’s search results ranking.

Common SEO methods

SEO companies like to divide different techniques into two broad categories: onsite SEO and offsite SEO.

Onsite SEO refers to modifications a webmaster can do to their own website to improve its search results ranking such as search engine friendly URL, effective meta tags, internal links and sitemap.

The most talked about and widely emphasised offsite SEO variable is link popularity. Virtually all SEO companies provide some form of link popularity service. Link popularity refers to the quantity and quality of a website’s back links. Quality can be affected by a number of factors: whether the originating website is in the same sector, whether the link has relevant anchor text, the page rank score (PR) or link popularity of the originating website and the link’s visibility.

Webmaster should always try to get the best quality links and get as many of them as possible. Quantity is key but sometimes quality can be more important. For example a link coming from a highly relevant website with PR5 score could be worth more than ten PR0 links.