They say wine tastes better as it grows older. While I’m no connoisseur, the price alone of aged wine is enough to convince me that the quality is better. When it comes to SEO, some concepts also have something to do with aging. The two most important things when it comes to site ranking is the age of the domain (the older the better, but anything older than a year is good) and also the incoming links. You want to have sites  (good sites that rank well in Google) that are linking to you. You want other sites linking to you using words that are the same or relative to the words you want to rank for. These links from other sites also need to be gradual. If you one day you have 0 links and the next you have 200 websites linking to you, that says spam to Google. You have to make everything as natural as possible.

Everything else, the url, the title, the keywords in your content, and linking to other good sites will also help, but they are not as important as domain age and inbound links. If you want to buy a domain, look for ones that are already a year or more old. If your domain is less than one year, just focus on content and slowly build up a few links here and there. It will take it about a year to get out of  Google’s sandbox. Additional tip: Use only one <h1> tag (header tag) for each page of your site. This title can and should be different for each page. Use <h2> through <h6> as you deem necessary for sub headers throughout your content. I’m young but am old in the SEO business, so here’s a toast for you: to the prosperity of your site. Cheers!

1.       Use keywords your target audience will search. You have words that you think will work eh? But sometimes, those words aren’t the ones they’re looking for. Try the Google keyword tool or other free keyword tools available on the web. Use relevant terms as much as possible (unless you are targeting a very unique market) and use those that are most popular with readers.

2.      Use the shortest possible title with all the keywords. Think density. Remember that those crawlers and bots only “read” texts so you want to put your keywords in strategic places such as your title which means that it has to be keyword dense. For example, if you had a title that was 20 words long, of which only three of those words were searched words for your audience, the potency of your title is 15%. But if your title was seven words long, of which three of those words were your search word targets, then your potency is now 43%. Your top key phrase should be at the start of your title.

3.       Use your keywords throughout the article. Rule of thumb: sprinkle don’t stuff. Trying to stuff it, aside from being unethical, is completely futile anyway since Google ignores this method of getting noticed.

4.       Your URL should be relevant to your content. Do you think your target audience will type in “Alsace Limited”? If not, then it’s probably not how you want to start the title of your site or url. If this is going to be the name of the site, it’s fine to start it that way. But if not, you’ll get more traffic by making sure your url is relevant to your content.

Keywords are a key to ranking high on search engines but don’t be TOO conscious (being conscious is different) about it. Make sure that there’s a natural flow to what you’re doing because even if crawlers and bots don’t dig into your idea, your readers might love it.

1. Writing and submitting articles. This is something that should be done regularly (think every day). This is also something that should be of good quality. Writing quality articles will please the two parties that you’re trying to win over, the search engine bots and the human readers.
2. Building a mini-net of websites or blogs. A mini-net supports your main site by deep links. Some SEO say this is black hat but I tell you that it isn’t. It’s a very helpful and effective method. Please do check out 3 Easy Steps to Making Mini-nets.
3. Creating and submitting videos. I’m talking about quality videos not only posted to your site but in other video submission sites as well such as YouTube perhaps. If you put an interesting video there about your site or your blog or whatever you’re trying to promote, viewers will, more often than not, trace the link back to your site.
4. Submit to directories. Join or download a directory submitter online or software then submit to at least 10 sites every day.
5. Submit press releases. Press releases announce the presence of your site/blog/product. A well-written press release can not only get you attention but also links to important sites. 6 Ways to Apple-lize Your Site talks about how to make attention grabbing press releases.

All else will help… just not as much as these will. And before I forget, quoting from my very wise mentor, “Always do things naturally!”

But before you get excited making those supporting blogs for your mainsite, remember the following:
1. Blogs require regularity in maintaining and updating so you have to post new content at least once a day or depending on your schedule.
2. Blogs require regular check up for security reasons.
3. Blogs can limit how your presentation so make sure you do your best to make it look good.

A mini-net of blogs can help you acquire valuable while at the same time boosting your main site. It’s a win-win situation. Just make sure that you keep my reminders in mind. *wink* And for the last rule of threes check out the 3 Easy Steps to Making Mini-nets.

1. Comment on relevant blogs. I’ve once made a mistake of making a comment on a site not related to my mine. Good thing my friend corrected me in time thus sparing the unsightly spam mark.

2. Comment on more popular blogs. Don’t ask me what’s the most popular blog because there are about a million categories already. Search it yourself. You can actually judge the popularity of the blogs by the number of comments. And its content as well.

3. Join Yahoo answers. Answering questions that are related to your site can actually increase your exposure with time because links are shown once you’ve reached a certain number of points.

4. Make links of blogs that don’t sell stuff. This isn’t really about blog commenting but is quite related to it. When you want to make links to an article that might help further your readers, try to find one that doesn’t sell stuff in an industry that you belong to also. It might shift your reader’s focus instead of helping you.

5. Make sure it’s easy to post comments in your site. As much as possible, try not to require registration for posting comments in your site unless you’re really popular. Hosts such as WordPress provide excellent comment sorters but sometimes you’ll have to do it yourself.

6. Post questions in your article/blog to facilitate more comments. Tease your readers’ minds, lead them to ask more so that they’ll end up doing so.

Doing 3-5 comments a day won’t keep you off track I’m sure so start the practice of commenting as soon as NOW.

1. Comment on blogs/ forums. Please refrain from making “I love it!” comments. Firstly, it’s not very helpful. Second, the site manager might just as well delete it (unless the site is desperate for comments) and thirdly, you might be marked off as spam and that’s not good for you and your site. Make insightful comments like citing your own experience, disagreeing with a point the blogger has (respectfully, of course) or asking relevant and critical questions.

2. Submit to link directories. There are a bunch of link directories  out there, join one that is useful and preferably free. Try dMOZ.

3. Contact webmasters of relevant blogs or sites or of local businesses in your area. This is common sense of course. They wouldn’t know you need their help if you don’t ask so try to ask webmasters of blogs/forums/sites that belong to the same industry and ask if they can recommend your site or review your site.

4. Submit to article directories. If you have a well-written article and you are confident that people will LOVE reading it, try submitting to article directories such as Ezine. If people love it, you’ll be sure to get links from their sites.

5. Use social bookmarks. Tagging interesting and relevant sites would increase the chances of people following the link back to you. 

6. Submit press releases. Use news archive platforms to raise your voice. Check this article out.

7. Spread the word through social networks. Use your Facebook, Twitter etc. constructively by even just simply promoting your site and asking them to link to you if they have sites of their own.

8. Make great articles that are link-worthy. I do not need to explain this further.

Add heaps of perseverance and regularity. Make your own combination of ingredients that may vary from day to day if you find it boring. Or hire someone who can do it for you. I hope you enjoyed my recipe! Feel free to comment.

I was just browsing through Google and stumbled across iPhone 4G. There’s a huge following for a phone that will probably have another upgrade next year. Apple has a real good strategy in releasing information on their new products: they keep everybody hinting. And of course, bloggers, enthusiasts, SEO optimizers and journalists go with the trend and do their best to ride the wave. Apple can afford to do this of course , because it is an established brand and the online press (as well as the offline) is scrambling to rave about it. Everybody goes wild when Apple makes a press release. Now, while my tips aren’t going to make your product or site an instant Apple, the results won’t be far from remarkable either. So here goes my 6 press release must:

1. Keep it short. A maximum of 400-500 words per press release would do the trick. Just make sure you put the keywords within the 400 word PR.
2. Find a reputable press release archive. Remember that your foremost goal is to get ATTENTION. So if it means you have to spend a few dollars in the process, go ahead and do it. A buzz worthy press release increases the possibility of getting the attention of the journalists “parking” in the archive. PRWeb is commendable.
3. Make sure it’s fresh. News searches actually have different algorithms from standard search algorithms. Links aren’t a necessity because as defined by the term news, it doesn’t have the element of time on its side to gather links.
4. Offer interesting, relevant and timely press releases. Content is king my friend.
5. Make a special landing page. If you are selling a good or a service you might consider this tip. Be creative with this one. You can make a mini-site offering discounts or time trial periods for potential customers etc.
6. Remember your goal. Your goal is to get MEDIA ATTENTION. Link building is almost always automatically attached to that goal because if your press release is attention worthy, topical sites will get your link thus you will get news search attention and with that visibility, you would eventually make leaps in the standard search.

Making a great press release might just be what your site needs. Press releases are now touted as the latest trend in optimizing search engines and I suggest you keep in mind my tips from above.

Mininets are like branches for me. For those who don’t know what  mini-nets or (mini-networks) are as it suggest; it is a network of sites or blogs built to support one particular site that it wants to boost. So it’s like the trunk is the site that you want to boost and the branches are the mini-net of sites and blogs. What’s the advantage you ask of spending time on a lot of other sites you say? Well, obviously, its still about link-building. But unlike other methods, mini-nets shouldn’t be as blatant as the usual link building techniques. It’s subtler thus is considered a black hat technique for some, but the patience and the ingenuity in creating mini-nets isn’t something you usually see in black hat techniques, so I digress. Here are 3 easy steps to creating your very own mini-net:

1. First, find free hosts. Since, these aren’t sites that you want to boost, I suggest that you don’t spend. But if you have to, just think of it as part of your investment.
2. Second, build sites on these free hosts. Think of 10 or more sites with at least 10 or more articles, updated regularly (every other day, or once in 3 days will suffice). Make sure this is keyword rich and I’m pertaining to keywords pertaining to that one site you want to boost. WordPress can make this a lot easier for you.
3. Lastly, interlink randomly. Do not link one site to each then link it back to that site. Rather, make random links. Site A can be linked to C and D. Then site E can be linked to A and F. etc.  Google isn’t stupid. It will know if you are deliberately trying to fool it. This article gives a great illustration of this.

Hopefully, if you do these steps correctly that is, you will end up with your mininets deep linking to your most important site.

Having that sense of where you’re going counts in a lot in optimizing your website. So, be sure to do have this checklist if you want to build quality links.

1. Submit your website to FREE web directories. The most well known free directory is DMOZ. It calls itself “the definitive catalog of the Web.” It has quality sites it can link you to and updates regularly. There are also other free directories available out there that you might try.
2. Submit your website to PAID web directories. While some might argue that paid directories are useless, consider the fact that paid directories have more resources, hence get more updated and also have access “exclusive” yet popular sites. Be very careful with these though, because unlike free directories, you might lose something here.
3. Bookmark relevant sites to Digg, Del.icio.us and other popular social bookmarking sites. When people find that your bookmarks are quite interesting they may follow the path back to your site.
4. Quality Content is king. I can’t resist putting this one here because even if you’re not doing much link building stuff but if you regularly update your site with articles of superior quality, links are bound to get you.
5. Ask help from your friends. If you wrote something of exceptional quality, ask your friends to bookmark or tag. If you’re included in the popular sites of social bookmarking sites I’ve mentioned in tip number 3, that means you will get more exposure hence the possibility that bloggers will link to your site.

Again, patience and perseverance is the key to quality link building. This is a topic I assure you I don’t get lost. Make sure your site doesn’t either.