There is so much information online today about the best methods and techniques about building a proper authority site to rank high in the search engines. Part of the problem, are people claiming to be SEO experts, yet when you go and check what keywords they rank for, they are no where to be found on the first 5 pages of Google. So where do you begin? Grab some coffee and have a read as I expose the insider secrets to ranking well in the SERP’s.
The methods that I discuss are for Google. Now some of you might be wondering about Bing, Yahoo etc. Well, since Google is the king of search engines and where most of the organic searching is done, I will be focusing on G. If you want to make money online with Google, then you also need to understand and follow their terms of service. If you try and use black hat techniques to game the system and Google finds out, which they will eventually, then your site and money will disappear with the push of a button – literally.
Many people wonder, what does Google want?
It comes down to 2 important key points. They want to see quality and relevant information for their end users. This is really the challenge given so much data that is added on a second by second basis to the internet. You see, the search engines have to compromise a bit when it comes to giving you and me the results in a timely manner. Most people surfing the internet, want the information yesterday and having to wait for 10 or 20 seconds would be unheard of today. So, naturally Google is not indexing every single piece of data every 24 hours. Now they certainly have the storage capacity to do so in my opinion, but its unlikely given the competition.
What is an Authority site?
Authority sites are essentially what Google considers trust worthy that have been around for awhile. Authority sites will usually contain hundreds of articles over time. Now some of you might Some people confuse this with a niche site. Niche sites usually have 5, 10 or 20 articles around very specific keywords. In reality, you can turn any website into an authority site with enough work.
The Process to Building an Authority Site.
Step 1 – Getting a Domain Name
Your domain name is an important first step in deciding what direction you will head with your authority site. This goes hand in hand with picking your keywords, which is discussed in the next step. Some people use their name or some interesting sounding name that is unrelated to what your site is actually about. I always recommend when possible, to buy a domain name around the specific topic you are generally going after.
For example, if I were going after home based business, then I would try and buy a domain with that term in there. Now you won’t get something like that since its already taken. But with some variations in the name by adding a word before or after can usually work. There are still thousands of good domain names to buy.
One other point about buying a domain name. The search engines like aged domains. The reason is simple. If you have been around for awhile, then likely your website is legitimate. Most spammers will buy a domain for a year by year basis.
If you are serious about your business and hopefully you are, then consider buying your domain for at least 2 years or more. Some people like Matt Cutts who works for Google, have suggested 5 or 10 years is better. I have one site that doesn’t have the term home based business in it, but the site is almost 6 years old. I didn’t understand SEO 6 years ago, so I picked a nice sounding name. However, I can still use that aged domain to my advantage.
Step 2 – Keywords
So you picked out your domain name and are now ready to get some G-bucks. Well this is where the work really starts. You see many newbies will go after big keywords like make money, work at home or travel etc. Big mistake as a newbie and even as a veteran. The competition is very fierce at those levels and the people on page 1 of Google know exactly what they are doing and have the financial resources to compete. So you better have your “A-Game” on if you ever decide to go after the higher end market.
Stick to the lower end keyword selections. For example, if you wanted to go after the travel business, then go and search out a long tail keyword that has the term travel in it. A long tail simple means the primary keyword like travel is within a longer term phrase. It could be something like, “how to set up a travel business”.
So here’s my keyword 101 recommendation. By starting at the low end of searches per day, you can build up authority for your site as you get page 1 rankings. You may pick a term that has 5 or 10 searches a day. That’s fine to start there and work your way up the food chain. Once you rank on page 1, pick another long tail keyword and keep repeating. Over the course of 6, 12 or 18 months, you have built up a nice authority site.
This is why most people won’t ever build an authority site because the amount of work required. This seems especially prevalent with newbies entering the internet marketing game. They see an ad promising instant riches with no work. Trust me, I have been at this IM game long enough to know that easy money online is a lie. Treat it like a real business and work it like a real business.
One other piece of advice to save you some money. There are a lot of people trying to pitch software programs that will help you find the perfect keywords and give you all the necessary information to have success online. Let me tell you straight up that you don’t ever need to buy something like that. Use Google’s free tools because even they can only give you an estimate on how many people a day search for a specific term and they are not accurate. So how the heck do you think someone else is going to have the magic software. Go here and enter your keywords: Google for your free keyword tool and save yourself some money.
Step 3 – Link Building
Up to now, I have covered picking a domain name and selecting long tail keywords with low competition. The actual methods to building authority sites is about writing quality articles for both your website and submitting other unique quality content at other places.
What I specifically mean is that the only way Google will know how relevant your website is, will be by the number of quality links pointing back to your site. Every time you submit an article to an article directory as an example, you are telling Google that your site is relevant for a specific phrase. The more quality links (back links) that you have pointing to your website, the higher in the search engines you will go over time. Some low competitive terms you may be able to rank on page 1 with only a few articles to at the right places. Other competitive terms, you may have to submit dozens or hundreds of articles all over the place.
How to Get Back links
The best places on where to get noticed quickly by G is submitting your unique content to places like Go Articles and Ezine Articles. Those are 2 article directory places that have authority and Google is constantly spidering their content on a daily basis because of the new content.
There are literally thousands of places to submit your content and here’s a few other ideas. Go to Google and search the term, “list of blogs, article directories, ezine directories, forums etc. You will have people that have compiled a list of dozens of good quality places to submit your content to. The main point and emphasis is to submit unique, quality and relevant content. For example, some places like EzineArticles.com will require you to have unique content, otherwise they won’t accept it. Yes, they have staff checking to ensure this is the case.
One other important piece to the puzzle is making sure when you submit your content to those directories, that they are a “dofollow” link. What I mean is that when Google spider bots come along and search the content and links, they will follow your link to your website. You get a credit from Google. There are many places that don’t have this and its called “no follow”. So when doing a search, enter “dofollow blogs” as an example and you will get another list that many people have compiled to help you out.
Now one trick I learned that has saved me countless hours is to go to Firefox, type in “dofollow Firefox plugin” to get a list of software plugins that you can download to Firefox. That way, when you are submitting your content, you can go up into the tools tab, select that phrase that has “no dofollow”, check it off to activate it. When you have it turned on there’s a check mark beside it. When you are at a particular site, it will show phrases that are in purple and a light pink color. The purple phrases mean “dofollow” which is where you want to submit your content to. To turn it off, just repeat the process and remove the check mark.
So there you have the process on building an authority site the Google way. Start by picking out your domain name, keywords and building back links to rank in the search engines. Remember, the more relevant and useful your content, the better you will do in the search engines.
Guest Post by: Darrell Lischka
Make sure to visit his home based business website.
Just got a letter from Google about the new interface switch. I rather like the new interface, although I don’t really see anything too new in there. Might be a little more organized and modern looking. Looks like some Ajax functions, which should make it faster to manage and make changes, but you know how that goes! Here is the email they send me (so personal – not):
***Important news regarding your account***
Hello,
In the coming weeks, we’ll upgrade your AdWords account (Customer ID: 558-754-5790) to a new web interface designed to make campaign management faster and easier. You can try it now; log into your account to use the new interface immediately.
You’ll have at least 30 days from the date of this email before you’ll be required to use the new interface to manage your campaigns. During this time we’ll continue to release additional features and make adjustments to the new interface based on advertiser feedback.
We’re working to ensure that the new interface contains all of the reports and controls you need to manage your campaigns effectively. We won’t upgrade your AdWords account to the new interface until we’re confident that it will meet your advertising needs.
Before we upgrade your account, you can switch between the new and previous interfaces at any time. Click the “Previous Interface” and “New Interface (Beta)” links in the top corner of your account (next to your email address) to switch back and forth.
To make sure that you’re prepared for the upgrade, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the new interface as soon as possible. We’ve prepared a set of online materials to help you get ready for the changes:
* Review the new interface microsite to get a quick overview of the changes and watch videos demonstrating the improvements: http://www.google.com/adwords/newinterface/
* Our “Getting Started Guide” will give you an overview of major new features and their benefits. You can download a PDF at: http://www.google.com/adwords/newinterface/new_interface_guide.pdf
* Wondering how to complete common AdWords tasks in the new interface? Visit our “How to” guide at: http://www.google.com/adwords/newinterface/standard/ads-and-keywords.html
* Search a full set of frequently asked questions in the Help Center for the new interface: https://adwords.google.com/support/aw/
The help materials above will still be available after your account has been upgraded.
We hope you find that the new interface increases your advertising efficiency and makes it easier for you to improve your results. If you have any thoughts about the new interface, please let us know by clicking on the Feedback link in the top corner of your account. And as always, thank you for advertising with AdWords!
Sincerely,
The Google AdWords Team
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
Typical Google type stuff…no way to contact them, etc…
Next time you log into your Google Adwords account you may notice a difference and a big one at that! They have completely revamped the interface and seem to be using ajax for the account loading aspects. It look a little getting used to, but I think I really like it! Seems to be a lot more organized and clean. Things are a little smaller so you have really focus on finding functions at first, but when you get used to it it’s great! As I was tinkering with one of my accounts, I started brainstorming new keywords phrases and site placements to test. I still think their keyword tools need more improvement. I was really upset when Yahoo finally took offline their keyword suggestion tool which was based on actual monthly searches for a particular phrase. Anyways, just letting everyone know about the changes in Google Adwords. Have a great day!
The reports are out and Google has increased it’s domination over Yahoo, MSN and the rest of the search engines…again. Not really too suprising, as it doesn’t seem that Yahoo or MSN can get their act together to promote their search engines effectively to web-surfers. According to the Hitwise report, Google posted an 8% year or year gain over the competitors.
What does this mean for companies trying to gain as much traffic from the search engines as possible? Focus on Google first and foremost with your organic SEO and PPC campaigns. Make sure your Google PPC Adwords campaigns are as built out as possible and your ad copy is effective and working. Doing things to maximize your website’s organic and paid search is always time well spent. You should re-evaluate your SEO and PPC strategy at least every quarter to make sure you are doing search as well as possible.
In order to improve the amount of free, organic traffic your site is receiving, you can put a strategy in place to add freshly written articles to your site to increase your overall page count. Google loves frequently updates sites and posting new, unique articles to your site is a great strategy for increasing your organic traffic to those pages. Make sure you have an effective layout to capitalize on the traffic those pages are receiving, otherwise what’s the point? You can monitor how well your articles are converting into actions to maximize and expound on the topics that are working well. I’d love to hear your coments.
Back in the day you could buy your way to the top of Google by purchasing text links on various high-ranking websites. Then came paying bloggers to write about your company or product with a few in-content text links to boost your rankings. About 1 1/2 ago Google came with the smack-down and punished bloggers and companies that were using these methods or artificially increase their SEO rankings. Page Rank took a hit every where and people started panicing that the text link industry was dead. But is that really true? According to another recent report, sponsored blog posts are still taboo and the bloggers that do them could face penalites from the mighty Google.
So, it is just a bunch of scare tactics to take more wind out of the text link and paid-post industry? There is a dilema here…Bloggers need to earn a living with their blogs and selling advertising is a major way to increase blog revenue. Of course Google would just love everyone to put up Adsense on their blogs and call it a day. But guess what, Adsense doesn’t really have that high a yield for a lot of topics, so bloggers and webmasters have to use other ways to generate their revenue.
Personally I think if the merchant review is a genuine one based on the an actual review of the company or product I don’t see an issue with the blogger charging for a post. Does this really sway the search results in favor of the advertiser? Anyone that follows SEO or is involved in it knows that building your inbound links is still an effective way of raising your search rankings. Google has claimed it’s all about content quality, but can they really determine which content is better than others and which should be ranked higher? Because the answer is likely still no at this point, we can only assume that Google is still using other site factors like: site longevity, frequence of site updates, amounts of fresh content, how many inbound links you have, etc. This is why Google is stil hating on paid blogging, because they have to rely on these aspects of ther algorythm to determine rankings. The sponsored blogs can artificially sway the algorythm, so Google has to come out and warn against them. Personally, I would avoid doing many paid blog posts or paid text links. I think in the right circumstances they can work, but have to be done very carefully, through very legit sources. As fars as the “no follow” attribute, this is probaby a good idea for bloggers to do because the paid post can still benefit the advertiser as long as the post pulls some organic search rankings for the advertiser. At the end of the day, gaining a new organic listing for a competitive search phrases can still benefit the advertiser by providing a likely buyer that just read a review of their product or service.
Some good natural ways to increase your inbound links are posting on “do follow” forums and blogs. On forums you can set-up your signature links and really gain some nice inbound links by posting your butt off. Also doing really good blog commenting can gain you traffic and an organic boost. Blog commenting and forum posting has to be done very well and in volume to work effectively. Back in the day, black-hat SEOers would comment spam thousands of blogs and gain inbound links that way. Thankfully those days are over! I’d love to hear your opinion on Google’s rankings and paid blog posts.
I’m technically on family holiday vacation this week, holed up in a lovely cabin in the mountains north of Asheville.
We have wifi here, but I decided to opt for the Touch and my Blackberry (and Kindle of course) over lugging up the Macbook Pro. I’m actually writing this on the Touch with the fantastic WordPress app. Honestly, it’s pretty smooth and I need to do this more frequently.
What I’ve realized this week is that I can do most everything that I do on my laptop with just the Touch and the Blackberry. Tweeting, reading feeds in Google Rader, answering email, playing in Facebook, and now blogging are almost more enjoyable on the Touch over the laptop.
But what about “business stuff” like checking stats, reading and writing Docs and spreadsheets or FTP’ing into sites? All are (easily) doable and smooth in this sort of a mobile scenario. Actually, I’m really enjoying stretching myself and learning the new skill of mobile aptitude.
Of course, much of the content I create and consume is based in cloud computing rather than relying on a desktop. I make heavy use of all the Google apps. When I have needed a doc, I just access it in either Dropbox or on drop.io since I keep things sync’d on those places anyway. It’s worked out well.
So, my grand experiment in digital nomadicism is going surprisingly well. I could easily see myself just bringing the Touch and Blackberry to Affiliate Summit this month and leaving the Macbook home. 8 of my text books for the coming semester are in the Kindle, so my load for school will def be the Touch (Bible software apps are tremendous), blackberry and Kindle.
Digital nomadicism isn’t for everyone, of course. I unabashedly rely on web and cloud apps over desktop bound software and I’m not tied to an enterprise infrastructure that requires any special software. But a lighter load in a new year is always a good thing!
I thought Google would buy RSS wundercompany Feedburner. I made the prediction on a couple of podcasts with Jeff Molander and his gang and was subsequently called silly or something to that effect.
However, Google did buy FeedBurner, and I thought we would see a revolution in both RSS technology (more mainstream adoption, etc) as well as AdSense and contextual advertising.
Turns out I was wrong about those two. Google continues to sit on FeedBurner without offering much in the way of innovation beyond shutting down the paid premium option and shutting down the popular (and well written) FeedBurner blog, instead sending folks to the AdSense blog.
So, instead of innovating RSS or contextual ad serving, it seems that Google is content with wrapping FeedBurner into an AdSense delivery system and not much else.
Sad.
Especially when you get results like this (from my RSS reader on a post about ice cores):
Really does make me sad. I thought we were on the verge of something big on the syndicated web. Google keeps disappointing me as it seems to keep going for the chedda and not much else.
BTW, make sure to visit Chedda’s blog. It’s off the chain.
Michael Arrington backing up Loic Le Meur’s call for something akin to a Twitter PageRank algorithm with authority based on the number of followers:
Should Twitter Add Authority-based Search?: “I’m with him on this. Most of the time I just want to read everything people are writing about a topic to more or less take the temperature of the masses on whatever I’m researching. But sometimes it would be nice to hear what just the top users are saying on a particular topic, too, since so many more people hear their message.”
I have 3,000 or something followers but I think this is a terrible idea with the following logic:
1) Pagerank sucks (now) for blogs and isn’t a true measure of a blog’s worth, value or credibility.
2) Even then, Twitter is not blogging. Ranking people according to something as transient and flimsy as the number of followers is a worse idea than ranking blogs according to their number of inbound links. Oh, and imagine the gamers.
3) Twitter is a not only a micro-presence platform, it’s a micro-community platform. What purpose would such a “follower algorithm” serve?
Some (most) of my favorite and most “valuable” people I follow on Twitter have under 1k followers. Calling them less credible or their tweets less substantive based solely on the number of followers is silly.
4) I agree with Arrington that it is nice to hear what “top users are saying on a particular topic” rather than crowdsurfing. However, there are already great tools for that. It’s called the follow function combined with RSS or Summize or Yahoo Pipes or Google Alerts, etc. The “top user” on a particular topic such as Hebrew Bible or some niche realm that I’m interested in is not necessarily going to have thousands of followers.
The best metric here is individual intuition and discernment.
5) This isn’t an argument for “wisdom of the crowds” or the “power of the conversation” etc. I’m not a big fan of that mentality, either. Those types of 2006-esque arguments are annoying at best.
Instead, my point is that it would incredibly difficult to institute something like a “worth quotient” on all users of Twitter (even more so than blogging). Putting something like a rank or worth based on the (easily gamed) number of followers a person has makes it even worse.
There Has to Be a Better Way
Don’t get me wrong, If Arrington or Le Meur or Twitter could come up with a ranking or worth algorithm based on something inventive and truly reflective of value, I’d be all for it. If Twitter could put together something revolutionary for determining authority akin to PageRank back in the ’90′s, I’d be the person yelling the loudest from the mountaintop for adoption.
However, this ain’t it.
This seems more like A-Listers grasping at straws to me.
Affiliate Marketing Legend and all-around geek Todd Crawford and I are back with episode six of our weekly podcast, GeekTo.Me.
We had a ton of fun doing the show and it’s (in my opinion) our best show yet. We definitely keep getting better and better (and geekier and geekier) every week.
So, if you’ve got the stomach for some heavy geek lifting, give it a shot.
Show Notes:
Freemium vs Premium
Google with OpenID
Google Notebook, Evernote or BackPack?
Netbooks vs iPhones
Mac Adoption with the Kids
iPhone App Restrictions
Android
Windows 7: Will It Save Microsoft?
Linux Desktops and New Ubuntu
Google Maps on iPhone
Hulu
Mint.com and Stupid web2.0 names
eCommerce is Big in Japan
Todd’s Picks: Fring, Panolab, Classic eBook Reader
Sam’s Picks: Everest, VoteReport
Robert Seidman guest-blogs on social media guru Louis Gray’s blog on the topic of how the Goog has made the playing field of web publishing much more accessible for anyone (rather than just an arena for A-Listers):
louisgray.com: Google Has Leveled the Internet Playing Field: ”
I know a lot in the tech blogging circles will opine on whether Google is good or evil. For now in my mind, Google is still good. It leveled the playing field for us. We have little in the way of expense overhead (almost $0, really) and sure, it may work out that I’ve made about eight cents per hour, but that’s the subject for another blog post. From my perspective, we are allowed to compete, and compete fairly without spending anything on marketing. It’s hard for me to find fault with a system that provides that sort of level playing field.
Organic Google search (including Google News) is our number one traffic source. This leads to a lot of referral traffic from other sites and a good bit of the direct traffic.”
The question of whether or not Google is “evil” or not is about as subjective as any subject you can imagine. For all of its occasional (or sustained) “big-brotherness,” Google does allow for a plethora of voices on topics. The key to ranking well in Google is not to rely too heavily on the mysticism of SEO, but to make good (and easily discoverable) content.
Of course YouTube is owned by Google (and continually pwnd by narcissistic 16 year olds judging from the comments) so it makes sense that your Google Account (the one used to login to GMail, GCal, Google Docs, etc) should include YouTube.
But I saw this for the first time this evening when visiting YouTube…
Did I miss something? Isn’t that new?
And if you’re bored, go watch my awesome Kindle videos onmy YouTube channel. I freaking love that thing.
Well the BIG topic – buying links to help boost your SEO rankings, let me say again…if you properly analyze your landscape you can determine if you may or may not need to buy links. If you do, you should buy ones that are actually on GOOD sites – while producing great content is the ideal, you may have to prime the pump a bit with a few strategic bought links. This is an advanced tactic, if you don’t understand what makes a good vs. bad link, don’t buy one!
As you can imagine, Jason was not too supportive of the link buying tactic and has called out Google and SEO’ers many times over the issue (and created a company to combat the problem he sees in search today).
And thanks to the power of the interwebs, you have the chance to see the throw down (not really) between Wil and Jason (or head over to YouTube to see the annotations that Wil has added to the video… they don’t carry over to embeds):
The video also shows why you should be going to the Affiliate Summit in Boston this August. Unlike many of the shows I go to, there is both real substance and real discussions that go on during the sessions. This is just a taste of that.
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Personal Stress Relief from Economic, Environmental Issues » Blog Archive » The Sterkly Affiliate Network
on 2012-02-29 08:40:18
