EzSEO Newsletter # 37
Andy Williams ez SEO
ezseonews.com
Hi again
This week:
1. Need to find a profitable niche? Take this one.
2. Recommended newsletter
3. Some great f.r.e.e. software
4. Link Exchange Mini-series Part IV
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1. Need to find a profitable niche? Take this one.
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Several e-mails from my SEO Website Builder customers have prompted me to write and release another report. The problem is that many people are finding it difficult to find profitable keywords in the niche of their choice.
I decided to take a niche idea that I knew nothing about and show you exactly what I do to research keywords for a niche including the tools I use. I set myself a challenge by limiting my research to one hour.
The topic I chose was based on a product that the Nicheology site gave its members in June - an eBook on Scrapbooking. Whether this topic interests you or not, the report shows you how I found over 200 keywords with KEI greater than 10 (which Wordtracker says are the best) and also less than 1000 competing sites. These are the keywords that you can easily get good rankings with and be profitable.
In the report I also break up the keywords into groups - niches within the niche if you like. The whole research took less than one hour including getting my formatted keyword lists written to text files.
For anyone struggling to find profitable niches, read my Niche within a Niche report. You are free to use these keyword lists if you like.
I would love feedback on this report :0)
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2. Recommended newsletter
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Last week I mentioned Guido's newsletter as a favorite of mine. This week I thought I would mention another that I read every week and I believe offers great information. Sean Burns is known to many of you as the "Rankings Revealed" man, and his eBook is the only SEO book I recommend other than my own when someone e-mails me to ask for a recommendation.
What some of you may not know is that Sean offers one of the best Newsletters around. It is not as long as mine (pheww I can hear you sigh), but it is always packed with outstanding information from one of the most knowledgeable guys in the industry. Oh, and he is a really nice guy too. If you want to read more about Sean, look at this interview:
http://www.affiliate-advocate.com/interviews/sean-burns.shtml
Sign up for Sean's newsletter at his site:
http://www.webmastersreference.com/
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3. Some great f.r.e.e. software
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A couple of tools I use regularly and love. They don't cost anything either.
Zip/Unzip manager - IZarc
http://www.izsoft.dir.bg/izarc.htm
This unzip software has a host of great features and can handle most formats. Looks great too.
Download Manager - LeechGet
http://www.leechget.net/en/
You know when some websites don't let you use download managers to get their files and it is always a hassle to try to download stuff because your download manager is always trying to take over? Well, Leechget has a great solution. Try to download something and if it is one of those problem sites, Leechget has a button that allows you to download using Internet Explorer instead. No having to disable Leechget - it works flawlessly. Fabulous tool.
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4. Link Exchange Mini-series Part IV
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Last week we talked about how to find sites that could be potential link partners and then approach the webmasters to ask for a link exchange. We talked about the things you should include in your contact e-mail to maximize your chances of getting the link exchange.
Before we go on, let me just remind you of the Master Steps we talked about a couple of newsletters ago:
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.
OK, going down the list you can see we have looked at points 1, 2 and 3.
Let's continue with point numbers 4, 5 and 6 as they are all related and can be checked at the same time.
Obviously the whole point about a link exchange is that YOU give and then YOU receive. Your link to another site will give that site PR and link reputation to the page you link to. If that site does not link back to you - you get NOTHING. It is important to keep on top of your link exchange program and make sure that partners are still linking to you.
Initially this is easy because when you write to a webmaster you either get an e-mail back saying "yes, we have placed a link on..:", or "No we wont swap links because...", or you don't get an e-mail back.
You obviously remove the links to sites that wont link back to you, but what about the sites you don't hear back from? I would suggest you write to them again and give them one more chance.
It could be that the webmaster has been away or has not had a chance to put your link up yet. Write a pleasant letter mentioning your previous e-mail and saying you have not had a reply. Re-iterate the benefits of linking to you (as mentioned last week). Let them know that their link will be removed this week if you don't hear back from them. Send the e-mail and wait for one week.
If you hear nothing back - remove the link.
The real problems of checking up on link partners is that you have to constantly check your partners to make sure they continue to link back and that they are still good partners. Some webmasters do remove links without warning and you will find no benefit from a site that does not link to you ;o)
Arelis has a link checking feature where they can check up on your partners and alert you if your link has been removed.
However, my favorite tool for doing this check is Link Proctor:
Link Proctor is a really valuable tool. It will spider the links on your links page and visit your link partner sites. It then searches for your link by spidering their site. If your link is there, Link Proctor will find it. If your link has been removed, Link Proctor will tell you.
One thing some webmasters do to keep PR on their own site) is to remove the link to their links page (after it is set up) so that search engine spiders cant find it. If SE spiders cannot find the links page, neither will Link Proctor and a "Link not Found" message will alert you to this scam.
In addition to telling you which page your link is found, Link Proctor will also tell you the title tag of the page where your link is found, how many other links are on that page, and even the PR of the page your link is on. This information is dynamite. I have mentioned before what I consider to be a good links partner:
High PR
Low number of Links
Relevant site
Well, Link Proctor can tell you this.
What happens if you find that a link partner has significantly increased the number of links on its links page?
What happens if the links page linking to you has now got a PR of ZERO?
Link proctor gives you both of these pieces of information and this is great. Any site that has a PR 0 on their links page, presumably had their PR reduced since you linked to them (unless you accepted a link exchange from a PR 0 site) should be taken very seriously. A PR 0 can indicate a penalty to that site and the last thing you want to do is be penalized for linking to a bad neighborhood. Go check the homepage of the site. Is that PR 0 too? If so, you should consider removing that link partner from your site. It is of course possible that Google is updating PR though, so I suggest you wait a few days before doing this to make sure that the site really is PR 0.
What about the number of links on a links page?
As the number of links on a links page grows, you get less and less benefit from that link. If the linking page has a high PR, this is more tolerable. However, any links page with a PR of 3 or less should not have more than about 30 links on it. This is my own personal preference and I would consider removing links from low PR links pages if they get more than 20 or 30 link partners on page. This is a matter of preference though - you may not want to be so strict.
Finally before finishing for today, remember this. Whatever criteria you look for in your link partners should be the same criteria that you set for your own links pages.
Next week we will sum up the link exchange process and highlight a few things to remember. I hope you have enjoyed this mini-series.
Bye for now...
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