EzSEO Newsletter # 35
Andy Williams ez SEO
ezseonews.com
HiThis week we continue with our mini-series on how to link exchange for maximum effect. I also have a couple of other ideas and resources to mention that wont cost you a cent. Before that, however, I just want to mention that Nicheology membership site has now closed its doors to new members. A lot of people thought this "membership cap" was a marketing ploy (which is why I talked about trust last week), but check out:
http://nicheology.com
and you will see that you have missed your chance to join. For those who did get in early, make sure you do something with the excellent material given to you - I believe it really can be used to make a lot of money.
OK, let's get on.
This week:
1. What Dave Does - a fine motivational idea
2. A couple of free things I recommend
3. Link Exchange Mini-series Part II
---------------------------------------------------
1. What Dave Does - a fine motivational idea
---------------------------------------------------
One of my SEO Website Builder customers has come up with a great way to stay motivated and focused on his new affiliate business. His idea was simple. Write his progress down (both successes and stumbling blocks) for all to see so that he is forced to keep at it, stay focused and more importantly, keep motivated. Dave set up a blog site at:
http://www.whatdavedoes.com/
The blog he is using is f.r.e.e, so why not consider this as a way to chart your progress. There is something about sharing your thoughts "out loud" that keeps you focused and motivated. Go have a look and let Dave know what you think.
---------------------------------------------------
2. A couple of free things I recommend
---------------------------------------------------
Previously I mentioned a great little tool I bought called Net Snippets. This tool helps research your topics so that you can build content rich sites that Google loves. Today I want to mention another excellent research tool that can be used to help you find information online, and this one is f.r.e.e.
Copernic Agent
http://www.copernic.com
This tool is like a mega search engine. If can find sites from several sources at once and then rank them for you according to relevance. I don't have time to explain all the features here. Visit their website and have a look for yourself. You may find that you love it as much as I do.
OK, now for the second recommended resource. How would you like to hear a top Internet marketer letting off some steam? Jim Edwards does just that in his regular "Friday Night Smackdown". Last Friday he rants and raves about someone he calls The "Psycho REFUND Seeker". It's lots of fun (but with a serious side too). Check it out at:
http://www.fridaynightsmackdown.com/
---------------------------------------------------
3. Link Exchange Mini-series Part II
---------------------------------------------------
Last week we discussed the reasons why links pointing to your site are so important.
To recap so far, the easiest ways of getting links are:
1. Link Exchange
2. Writing articles and submitting them to article directories (see the article report on the subscribers bonus page - URL in the resource box at the end of this newsletter).
This mini-series is concentrating on link exchanges because they are very often over-looked by people starting out. Link exchanges are perhaps the most boring and time-consuming parts of building a successful site, but without links to your site, your site will not be successful.
There are two ways of going about your link exchange. Firstly you can do it all manually which I recommend for beginners (so that you really appreciate what is involved). Secondly, you can use software to help you.
Let us look briefly at the master-steps involved in a successful link exchange:
1. Find potential partners
2. Put up links to those potential partners
3. Contact those partners and tell them you want to exchange links and that you have already linked to them.
4. If they link to you, you keep your link to them. If they don't reply, contact them again. If they still don't link to you, remove them from your links page.
5. Check to make sure all your link partners still link to you - this step should be done every few months.
6. Check to make sure that your link partners are still good partners - i.e. don't have too many links on their links page, keep their links page relevant and focused, haven't been penalised by Google etc.
7. Repeat the above steps until you are happy you have enough link partners.
8. Continue to repeat from step 5.
Wow. That is a long list of things to do to make your link exchange a successful venture. You can see why some people decide to use software to help them out with this.
Today we will look at the various ways of carrying out step 1. The other steps will be covered in later newsletters.
Finding Potential Link Partners
*******************************
What makes a good link exchange partner? Understanding the answer to this question is vital if your link exchange program is to explode your rankings. Link to the wrong sites and you could find your rankings remain poor, or even find your site penalised by Google.
With any aspect of your site, you need to think ahead and decide what search engines will like not just today, but in the future as well. The list of qualities listed below may not be essential today, but I do feel that to stay future-proof, they are the criteria you should be applying to your exchange program.
1. Link partner has a good PR on the links page.
It is not good enough for a site to have a good PR on the homepage. The homepage is not linking to you, the links page is. With that in mind, the homepage PR is largely irrelevant (unless the links page is new and the PR from the homepage has not yet been factored in to the link page).
Make sure that any prospective link partner has a reasonable PR on the links page. When first starting out, a PR of 1 can help you get listed in Google, but it wont help your rankings much. You should be looking for a PR of 2 or 3 minimum. I recommend you don't set this lower limit too high initially because it could raise suspicions at Google. e.g. imagine a site where all link partners are PR 5 or above. To me, this makes me think that the linking of this site is unnatural. Remember that Google likes sites to naturally link to each other and I doubt Google really likes link exchanges as a way of improving rankings.
The search engines originally hoped that good sites would be linked to by other sites because of the quality of the site, not because links were exchanged. You cannot expect a site to just get high PR links coming in by "natural" means, you would expect links from a wide variety of PR sites Get a few low PR links first and then work your way up to higher and higher PR link partners as your own links page PR rises.
2. Link partners have a link to their links page on the homepage.
Some webmasters hide the link to their partner page within the site so visitors will never see it. Remember that a links page is not just about increasing rankings through PR and link reputation. It is also about getting visitors from partner sites because visitors think your site is relevant to them. A hidden links page will do you no good and the PR of such a page is usually very low compared to the homepage. In addition, how much do you trust link partners who hide their links page? Make sure the links page can be found from the homepage of your potential partner.
3. Links page has few links.
The more links on a links page, the less benefit you will receive. Any PR on that links page will be split between all of the links on that page. A links page with 100 links on it will pass on a tiny amount of PR to you. One thing to look out for here is a links page that contains lots of links to the other pages on the site itself. Often when I get a link request I visit the page to find that the links page has 40 or 50 links pointing at its own site. Usually this is in the form of a menu bar. Remember all these links get a PR share too. Try to find link partners that only have links to other sites on the links page. The only exception I would use here is if the links page is PR 5 or above. In that case I would link anyway.
4. Make sure that links on the page don't use dynamic linking.
Dynamic linking is a type of linking that is not visible to the search engines. If a site links to you dynamically, the search engines will not see that link so you get zero benefit. If you want to find out more about dynamic linking, Leslie Rohde has written a great little report which is free when you buy Michael Campbell's Revenge of the Mininet book. You can read my review of that book at:
5. Homepage of the partner has a PR greater than zero.
A PR 0 can indicate a penalty from Google. If you link to a penalised website, you can be penalised too. This is another reason you need to check your partners regularly to make sure they have not been penalised since you linked to them.
6. Link partners have a site that is relevant to yours.
Don't just exchange links with every site that offers. Make sure that your partners site is highly relevant to yours. Links from lots of unrelated sites can raise suspicions of spamming. Links from unrelated sites wont hurt you if you don't link back to them so don't worry if a site links to you without asking. As things stand now, these unrelated links may not even hurt you if you do link back, but next week, or next year, these links might hurt you as Google begin to weed out the link exchange spammers, so why take the chance. Make sure your partners are relevant to your site so the search engines cannot penalize you for artificially raising your PR, now or in the future.
Again that is quite a long list of things to look out for. However, to make your link exchange work for you, I would suggest you try to use these criteria for selecting partners.
So, how do you go about finding link partners?
The easiest and cheapest way is to go to Google, type in:
"your site keyword" + link partner
This will find sites related to yours that probably have a links page. These are the sites you should look at using the criteria above. Visit each one in turn and evaluate them. If they meet your criteria, add them to your list of possibles to contact.
Alternatively there are software solutions. The one I personally use is Arelis.
Arelis allows you to either type a keyword phrase such as the one above, or to find link partners that link to your competitors. This latter strategy is a good one because if a site is linking to your competitor, they show a willingness to exchange links and will be more likely to link to you.
Alternatively a way of finding link partners that is becoming very popular is using a tool called PR prowler:
PR Prowler allows you to search for related sites with a minimum PR. Imagine being able to type in your keyword phrases and getting a long list of potential partners with a minimum PR of 4 or 5 or 6? This software is certainly a valuable asset to any webmaster looking for high PR links.
Another tool I recommend and use myself is Link Proctor:
Link proctor can help you find link partners that link to your competitors as well as check up on your own partners to make sure they are still good partners. This tool can quickly tell you everything you need to know about your link partners, or those link partners of your competitors.
Using one or other of these tools can help speed up your link partner search. Some of these tools do a lot more than I have mentioned here and we will look at those other features in future newsletters when we get to the relevant sections of how to organise your link exchange program.
I think we better finish there for today. Next week we will continue the series by looking at the next master-steps involved in a successful link exchange program.
Hope you enjoyed this issue. You can send me feedback as usual at the e-mail address below.
Have a great week.
########################
Visit the subscriber Bonus page for free reports and other subscriber-only offers:
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please recommend it to your friends. Also if you have any tips of your own, questions or comments, please send then to me at [REMOVED - USE CONTACT US LINK]. Any tips or questions & answers I print in this newsletter will also be put up on the web version of the newsletter with a link to your site
if you want it. That's extra free traffic for your site as well as an incoming link to your site.
Join our search engine optimization newsletter
Join our internet marketing newsletter |
 |
Whenever possible, set up a new e-mail address when subscribing to a newsletter. e.g. ezSEOnewsletter@yahoo.com. This prevents your main e-mail address being used for spamming by unscrupulous companies who may sell their mailing list addresses to spammers. It also makes it quick and pain free to unsubscribe, should your attempts to unsubscribe fail. Just delete the e-mail address. |