Imagine we are the end user and we are searching for a portable air conditioner for hire. We go to our favourite search engine and search for the phrase “portable air conditioner hire”. In this imaginary scenario let’s assume there are only 2 websites that target that phrase,

Website 1

Website 1 consists of a single page with 3 paragraphs of text. The text tells us that the company does portable air conditioning hire and give us a phone number to call.

Website 2

Website 2 contains 30 plus pages all focusing on various portable air conditioning units that we can hire, costs and technical explanations of how portable air conditioning units work.

Which website do you think the search engine is likely to offer to the user first? It’s a rather obvious example but it illustrates the importance of good content so your priority should be good quality content.

2. Use Structural (Semantic) Mark Up and Separate Content from Presentation
Semantically structuring your mark up helps search engines understand the content of your webpage which is of course a good thing. Making proper use of heading elements is essential because search engines give more weight
to the content within the heading elements.

Using CSS to separate the design elements from the content makes for much leaner code and makes it easier for search engines to find what they’re looking for, which is content. Remember content is king!

3. Titles and Meta Data
Providing pages with proper titles and meta data is essential. As discussed in the top 5 black hat SEO techniques section the meta description and meta keywords elements have been so misused in the past that Search
Engines now regard them as less important, it’s still important to use them and use them properly. Titles however still carry a lot of weight and when we think of semantic mark up it is obvious why. The title of anything is a declaration as to what the content might be, so make sure your page titles are a true representation of the content of the page.

4. Keyword Research and Effective Keyword Use
Create your website with keywords and key phrases in mind. Research keywords and key phrases you think people might use to find your site. Single words are not always the most effective target, try multi-word phrases that are much more specific to your product/service and you’ll be targeting end users that are much more likely to want what you are offering.

Use the keywords and key phrases you’ve identified effectively throughout your website. Assign each page 2-3 of the keywords you’ve identified and use the keywords throughout all the important elements of the page. Those are,

Title
Meta Description
Meta Keywords
Heading Elements

Text
Alt Tag
Title Tag
Links
5. Quality Inbound Links
Having inbound links to your website can be likened to having a vote for the good but there are good links and bad links so therefore votes for the good and votes that are bad. Good links are links from other web pages
that are regarded highly by the search engines and are contextually relevant to the content of your page. Bad links are links from web pages that aren’t regarded highly or potentially banned by search engines and have no relevance to the content of your page.

For example;

Imagine we have a website that sells telephones.

Link A: Link on the homepage of the British Telecoms website. = Good

Link B: Link on John Smiths Beer and Ale appreciation links page = Bad

The amount of quality inbound links to your site therefore have some relevance on how high up the search engine your site is placed. When sourcing links you should be thinking of quality over quantity and deep linking to pages within your website not just the home page.

]]> http://www.adsensepublish.com/top-5-white-hat-seo-techniques.html/feed 0 http://www.adsensepublish.com/top-5-black-hat-seo-techniques.html http://www.adsensepublish.com/top-5-black-hat-seo-techniques.html#comments Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:56:34 +0000 admin http://www.adsensepublish.com/top-5-black-hat-seo-techniques.html 1. Hidden Content

Top
of our list of black hat SEO techniques is hidden content. Hidden content comes in many guises but the basic principle is that within the code for the site there will be content stuffed with keywords, this content will not be visible to the end user of the site.

One way of doing this is by using comment tags.

Comment tags look like this;

The real purpose of comment tags is for developers to add in useful reminders within their code explaining what that piece of code does.

Here’s an example of the comment tag being used correctly,

Here’s an example of a comment tag being used incorrectly in a bid to promote a hypothetical page targeting search engine optimisation,

Another popular way of hiding content is the use of the

Here’s an example of the

Here’s an example of the

Other HMTL tags misused in similar ways include the tag and hidden inputs in forms.</p> <p>Content can also be hidden from the end user by using CSS, excessively small text and coloured text on the same coloured background.</p> <p>All of these techniques are frowned upon by search engines and if detected can mean your website will be penalised or even banned. To the untrained eye it can be very difficult to spot the use of some of these techniques which is why we offer a free website MOT test at PushON.</p> <p>2. Meta Keyword Stuffing<br /> There are two Meta tags that are generally used to inform search engines of the content on the page. They reside between the <head> tag of a page and when used incorrectly they can alert a search engine that a site is using spam techniques in an attempt to improve its ranking.</p> <p>Meta Description</p> <p>The meta description should be used to describe the content of your page honestly and concisely and be 1 or 2 sentences, 3 at most.</p> <p>Here’s an example of the meta description being used in the correct manner,</p> <p><meta name=”description” content=”PushON are an Online Marketing agency providing a full range of digital marketing services throughout Greater Manchester and the North West UK. If you need Search Engine marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Pay per Click (PPC), we can help you. Contact us now.” /></p> <p>Here’s an example of the meta description tag being used incorrectly for a page promoting a restaurant called “MadeUp”,</p> <p><meta name=”description” content=”MadeUp restaurant website is the best MadeUp restaurant website, our restaurant is better than any restaurant,great restaurant,best food restaurant,visit our restaurant” /></p> <p>3. Meta Keywords<br /> Meta Keywords should be a short list of words that inform of the main focus of the page. Meta keywords have been so misused in the past that there are few if any search engines that take any heed of them.<br /> Here’s an example of the meta keywords being used in the correct manner,</p> <p><meta<br /> name=”Keywords” content=”Online marketing, digital marketing, search<br /> marketing, search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, SEO” /></p> <p>Here’s an example of the meta keywords tag being used incorrectly for a page promoting a restaurant called “MadeUp”,</p> <p><meta name=”keywords” content=”Restaurant,restaurants,food,feed,take away food,fast food,junk food,eat,eating<br /> out,dinner,dining,meal,eating,MadeUp,steak and chips,chicken and chips,pie and chips,pudding,desert,big restaurant,small restaurant,best restaurant,great restaurant, exclusive restaurant,cocktails,wine,drink,pizza,sandwhiches”></p> <p>4. Doorway or Gateway Pages<br /> Doorway or Gateway pages are pages designed for search engines and not for the end user. They are basically fake pages that are stuffed with content and highly optimised for 1 or 2 keywords that link to a target or landing page. The end user never sees these pages because they are automatically redirected to the target page.</p> <p>Off-the-shelf SEO software often encourages the use of gateway pages as do SEO firms that don’t know what they’re talking about. Search engine spiders are being enhanced continually to detect these pages and will get ignored or worse still, flag your site up as being spam and ban you all together.</p> <p>5. Link Farming<br /> In the real world if you were to build your house in a bad neighbour hood then your house would be affected by its surroundings. The same is true of the virtual world. Link farms or free for all (FFA) pages have no other purposes than to list links of unrelated websites. They won’t provide you with any traffic and you run the risk of having your site banned for participating. Don’t participate in link farming.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.adsensepublish.com/top-5-black-hat-seo-techniques.html/feed</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>Socialize your way to Search Engine placement</title> <link>http://www.adsensepublish.com/socialize-your-way-to-search-engine-placement.html</link> <comments>http://www.adsensepublish.com/socialize-your-way-to-search-engine-placement.html#comments</comments> <pubDate>Tue, 27 Jan 2009 04:42:37 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>admin</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Search Engine Marketing]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.adsensepublish.com/socialize-your-way-to-search-engine-placement.html</guid> <description><![CDATA[if you&#8217;re looking for new ways to improve search engine placement of your website, then you should definitely try socializing more online. i am talking about social network sites like facebook, myspace, friendster, etc. These sites are not only online hangouts for people on their free time, but also very popular sites. And if you [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>if you&#8217;re looking for new ways to improve search engine placement of your website, then you should definitely try socializing more online. </p> <p>i am talking about social network sites like facebook, myspace, friendster, etc. These sites are not only online hangouts for people on their free time, but also very popular sites. And if you get links pointing to your website with these high google PR websites, it could just be your way on claiming top spot on search results of your selected keywords. And all these without spending anything.</p> <p>people are too focused on social networks like digg, stumble upon, etc.. but they fail to realize the importance of online hangouts where you might actually enjoy spending time at.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.adsensepublish.com/socialize-your-way-to-search-engine-placement.html/feed</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>1</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>How to use blog to promote your own site?</title> <link>http://www.adsensepublish.com/how-to-use-blog-to-promote-your-own-site.html</link> <comments>http://www.adsensepublish.com/how-to-use-blog-to-promote-your-own-site.html#comments</comments> <pubDate>Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:18:37 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>admin</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Search Engine Marketing]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.adsensepublish.com/how-to-use-blog-to-promote-your-own-site.html</guid> <description><![CDATA[you can get two benefits by adding blog into your site. (1) content can be increased with the passage of time and those could help fix content to rank up. (2)blogs are primalarly SEs friendly, so that no need to optimize. Blog can be favorable, if it uses in a right manner, like urls must [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><font size="2" face="Verdana">you can get two benefits by adding blog into your site. (1) content can be increased with the passage of time and those could help fix content to rank up. (2)blogs are primalarly SEs friendly, so that no need to optimize. Blog can be favorable, if it uses in a right manner, like urls must be SE friendly, content must be unique, no link farming, don&#8217;t use your blog for link building, if you have better contents, people wants your link to be placed on their sites. So overall blogging is a way to enhance site content and let the crawlers to visit frequently. </font></p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.adsensepublish.com/how-to-use-blog-to-promote-your-own-site.html/feed</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>How to Check Internal Page Rank</title> <link>http://www.adsensepublish.com/how-to-check-internal-page-rank.html</link> <comments>http://www.adsensepublish.com/how-to-check-internal-page-rank.html#comments</comments> <pubDate>Wed, 13 Aug 2008 02:41:54 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>admin</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Search Engine Marketing]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.adsensepublish.com/how-to-check-internal-page-rank.html</guid> <description><![CDATA[I like using http://www.seotoolbag.com/internal_page_pr.php These tools will probably get all indexed pages from site:domainname.com query.. and then fetch PR for those pages. At present, it only show 100 pages.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I like using http://www.seotoolbag.com/internal_page_pr.php</p> <p>These tools will probably get all indexed pages from site:domainname.com query.. and then fetch PR for those pages.</p> <p>At present, it only show 100 pages.</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.adsensepublish.com/how-to-check-internal-page-rank.html/feed</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>41</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>Google Spider visit you daily without skills</title> <link>http://www.adsensepublish.com/google-spider-visit-you-daily-without-skills.html</link> <comments>http://www.adsensepublish.com/google-spider-visit-you-daily-without-skills.html#comments</comments> <pubDate>Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:09:16 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>admin</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Search Engine Marketing]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.adsensepublish.com/google-spider-visit-you-daily-without-skills.html</guid> <description><![CDATA[You all know Aboutus.com, now when some one type a domain after the slash/ it will generate auto article. So what you need? You need a proper website running with proper meta title, description and keywords. You need to type on the address line: www.aboutus.org/www.domain.com Don&#8217;t forget, www.domain.com should be your domain!, replace it with [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>You all know Aboutus.com, now when some one type a domain after the slash/ it will generate auto article.</p> <p>So what you need?</p> <p>You need a proper website running with proper meta title, description and keywords.</p> <p>You need to type on the address line:<br /> <a href="http://www.aboutus.org/www.domain.com">www.aboutus.org/www.domain.com</a></p> <p><span id="more-207"></span>Don&#8217;t forget, www.domain.com should be your domain!, replace it with yours.</p> <p>You will notice a page that will announce a &#8220;building article&#8221; note.</p> <p>In 5 seconds you will have a whole page for your website and SE&#8217;s will crawl that fast.</p> <p>Another one is domaintools, you probably all know it, just one trick:<br /> Over the address bar click:<br /> <a href="http://www.whois.domaintools.com/www.domain.com">www.whois.domaintools.com/www.domain.com</a></p> <p>Don&#8217;t forget, www.domain.com should be your domain!, replace it with yours.</p> <p>It will do the same thing, 1 page for your website and many other pages will link to this, again fast crawl from SE&#8217;s.</p> <p>There are few more similar websites that no one really took into account, don&#8217;t wait others will do it for you, you make it first and get index first.</p> <p>Another trick is cubestat which means your domain page will have many other pages that will link each other = fast crawl from SE&#8217;s.<br /> Over the address bar click:<br /> <a href="http://www.cubestat.com/www.domain.com">www.cubestat.com/www.domain.com</a></p> <p>Don&#8217;t forget, www.domain.com should be your domain!, replace it with yours.</p> <p>Again,<br /> It will generate your domain page with full info.</p> <p>Similar thing happen on Alexa.com, but if you don&#8217;t do it Alexa bot might do it alone, but slowly else go to Alexa and type your URL (let them know about your new website)</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.adsensepublish.com/google-spider-visit-you-daily-without-skills.html/feed</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>Tips for increasing backlinks for your Blogs</title> <link>http://www.adsensepublish.com/tips-for-increasing-backlinks-for-your-blogs.html</link> <comments>http://www.adsensepublish.com/tips-for-increasing-backlinks-for-your-blogs.html#comments</comments> <pubDate>Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:01:08 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>admin</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Search Engine Marketing]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.adsensepublish.com/tips-for-increasing-backlinks-for-your-blogs.html</guid> <description><![CDATA[1) Commenting on others blogs (No spam please) When you add a comment on a blog, they get indexed and you get a backlink. In the comment field, enter your name, website URL, email address and comment. Please DO NOT include a link in the comment or it will be marked as a spam by [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>1) Commenting on others blogs (No spam please)</p> <p></strong>When you add a comment on a blog, they get indexed and you get a backlink.<br /> In the comment field, enter your name, website URL, email address and comment. Please <strong>DO NOT</strong> include a link in the comment or it will be marked as a spam by akismet or the administrator. Comment on useful blogs and not on all blogs which you find. Comment something useful rather than commenting “wow thanks”, “nice tips” , “thanks nice post” ..<br /> <strong><strong>2) Directory Submission</strong></strong></p> <p>Submit your site to directories and free directories, they might cost a bit, but they are good.<br /> These directories better your PR and increase your backlinks<br /> <strong><strong>3) Link Exchange</strong></strong></p> <p><strong><strong>4) Participate in Forums</strong></strong></p> <p>Use your site link with a nice anchor text on the signatures of Forums. Keep posting on forums and they would probably increase your backlinks. Don’t make them spammy as they would be deleted by the moderators there at the forums.<br /> You can search for forums or I know a few of them:<br /> <a target="_blank" href="http://forums.digitalpoint.com/">Digital Point Forums</a><br /> <a target="_blank" href="http://www.sitepoint.com/forums">SitePoint Forums</a><br /> <a target="_blank" href="http://forums.seo.com/">SEO.com Forums</a><br /> <a target="_blank" href="http://www.webtalkforums.com/">Web Talk Forums</a><br /> <a target="_blank" href="http://www.v7n.com/forums/">V7N</a><br /> You would be interested in finding more !<br /> <strong><strong>5) Bait your link</strong></strong></p> <p>This might be a new term for you, Link baiting means creating a controversy and an interesting post in your site and telling about it to others on forums, this will help in increasing backlinks and also other will talk about your blog, so backlinks keep increasing !</p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.adsensepublish.com/tips-for-increasing-backlinks-for-your-blogs.html/feed</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>39</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>Dangers Of Releasing Lots Of Pages</title> <link>http://www.adsensepublish.com/dangers-of-releasing-lots-of-pages.html</link> <comments>http://www.adsensepublish.com/dangers-of-releasing-lots-of-pages.html#comments</comments> <pubDate>Sun, 20 Jul 2008 12:33:56 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>admin</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Search Engine Marketing]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.adsensepublish.com/dangers-of-releasing-lots-of-pages.html</guid> <description><![CDATA[One of the first things you&#8217;ll need to look at is the PR of the current site. If it is not substantial enough and/or spread out enough across the existing domain and you dump a bunch of pages out there, something is going to happen. It will all be relative to the internal link structure [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>One of the first things you&#8217;ll need to look at is the PR of the current site. If it is not substantial enough and/or spread out enough across the existing domain and you dump a bunch of pages out there, something is going to happen. <span id="more-205"></span></p> <p>It will all be relative to the internal link structure of the site and how those new pages are presented within that structure. And, if the pages are mostly &#8220;stubs&#8221;, they will suck some life out of the primary pages and at the same time find their way into the Supplemental Index if it still exists. </p> <p>No, I think you&#8217;ll be much better off adding them naturally and at a set pace. Too much of one thing is not good from my perspective. If you have low PR now and dump a bunch of pages, you may not have enough PR to support them and something has to give. </p> <p>Most of us have found ways to add pages automagically. But, we also realize that adding pages just for the sake of doing it doesn&#8217;t always work out as planned. In fact, many times it will work against you if they are not true content pages that would naturally be part of the website. </p> <p>And then you have to think about any other &#8220;signals&#8221; you&#8217;ve been sending up to this point. If the adding of that many new pages sends another signal in addition to the others you&#8217;ve already sent, it may be the one thing that trips something. </p> <p>There is nothing wrong with adding new pages. There are challenges though when adding &#8220;lots&#8221; of new pages to an existing website that has an established profile. </p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.adsensepublish.com/dangers-of-releasing-lots-of-pages.html/feed</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>0</slash:comments> </item> <item> <title>Link Development vs. Traffic Development and Staying with the Times</title> <link>http://www.adsensepublish.com/link-development-vs-traffic-development-and-staying-with-the-times.html</link> <comments>http://www.adsensepublish.com/link-development-vs-traffic-development-and-staying-with-the-times.html#comments</comments> <pubDate>Sun, 20 Jul 2008 11:49:41 +0000</pubDate> <dc:creator>admin</dc:creator> <category><![CDATA[Search Engine Marketing]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.adsensepublish.com/link-development-vs-traffic-development-and-staying-with-the-times.html</guid> <description><![CDATA[If you’re sending out hundreds of reciprocal link requests each week and have a 14 page links section on your site, please do the following: 1. Find the time listed on the bottom right hand side of your monitor. 2. Place your mouse cursor over it and double click 3. Please change the year on [...]]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>If you’re sending out hundreds of reciprocal link requests each week and have a 14 page links section on your site, please do the following:<br /> 1. Find the time listed on the bottom right hand side of your monitor.<br /> 2. Place your mouse cursor over it and double click<br /> 3. Please change the year on your calendar from 2003 to 2006<br /> <span id="more-204"></span><br /> Now you might actually get to focus on doing some productive marketing for your website. Notice I said marketing, and not link development. The bar has been raised. You can fight it or meet it – the choice is up to you. There is more sophistication in the algorithms of today, there is more sophistication in the level of competition and there is more sophistication from our sites expected by visitors. </p> <p>Traffic Development </p> <p>Link development has morphed into traffic development people. Stop going after the exclusive 146th listing on the tenth page of an unrelated site’s reciprocal links section thinking you’re going to fool a good engine into thinking that means you’re worth something. </p> <p>Stop aiming for the engines and aim for real, live human beings. Aim for obtaining traffic and not backlinks. Aim for obtaining attention and not pagerank. Stop aiming for the affections of a mathematical computation and aim for commendations from breathing individuals. </p> <p>Out With the Old (Link Development), In With the New (Traffic Development) </p> <p>Old:<br /> Send out hundreds of reciprocal link emails each day you find with an automated program explaining to webmasters how SEO works and how linking to your brand new website can help *them* in the search engines to the three separate emails your program scraped from their site.<br /> New:<br /> Find sites that are about your topic in general but are missing pertinent information that you provide on your site or that you can create an angle to merge with their topic and email the webmaster at one email address with a personal email that notes things about their site only a human visitor would and explain why you think linking to your content would benefit their readers.<br /> Example:<br /> If you own a site selling film, write an in depth article on getting the best low light results on your site and then contact photography clubs explaining that you have an article on your site that their members might find useful and you were hoping they would consider including it in their resources/favorite sites/information section. Get enough camera clubs linking to you and you’ll start to see a nice trickle of visitors as well. </p> <p>Old:<br /> Buy links on any site with pagerank hoping the engines will see the links and think wow, your site must be great to be linked from such a popular site. Even better if you can get a range of site in the bottom footer and get 5000 links for the price of one. Just find a big network with a stable of link sellers and buy from their handy dandy list.<br /> New:<br /> Buy links to get the resulting traffic and having that link placed somewhere on the page where visitors will actually see it and pretending search engines don’t exist when debating a purchase. And if you’re going to buy a link, make private deals with site owners or use brokers who do the same with a very limited clientele of purchasers.<br /> Example:<br /> If you wouldn’t purchase a link if it had a link condom on, then you have no business purchasing the link without one. Buy traffic, not green pixels on the Google toolbar. You will need to sustain a link for a long period of time to get maximum effect and you can’t do that if you’re not getting any ROI from your purchase. Enough said. </p> <p>Old:<br /> Write 300 word articles of medium quality and submit them to 50 article directories. Wash, rinse and repeat 50 times for the same site to the same 50 directories using the same bio line in all of the submissions at the bottom of the article.<br /> New:<br /> Write 800 word articles for sites that accept submissions that publish based on merit and not that you know how to fill out a form and giving them a custom article written only for their site. Link out generously to other sites in the article and be sure to include a link of your own (to something legitimately helpful to readers of the article) within the article if possible.<br /> Example:<br /> Own a site that caters to business owners? An article on a site like entrepreneur.com is going to be worth far more than submitting an article to 30 article directories in terms of traffic. Sure it takes more time, more effort and is less certain – but the rewards of success are also much greater. Be sure to ask about linking guidelines within the article. Most sites are ok with you linking from within an article provided it isn’t biased, repetitive and makes sense. </p> <p>Old:<br /> Find the top 50 keywords for your sector and write a drab article aimed at each one basically regurgitating the same information available on every other site. AKA – “How to find online deals on discount widgets.”<br /> New:<br /> Find the top 50 keywords for your sector and write an interesting piece that relates to the topic in an unusual fashion that won’t bore people to death if they bother to read past the first paragraph.<br /> Example:<br /> If you have a content site focusing on widgets, contact the big companies who make them and ask what their media policies are for an interview about their newest product or their company in general. You get new, unique content no one else has (because you’ve created the questions – i.e. the area of the answers) and people are far more likely to link to a page showing an interview with ABC Widgets talking about their new widget development techniques than a page talking about how great (yawn) ABC Widgets are. </p> <p>Old:<br /> Submitting press releases for no reason aside from getting your site another inbound link from the press release distribution sites.<br /> New:<br /> Waiting until you have a newsworthy topic (or creating one) and submitting a carefully crafted press release focused on getting media attention and making sure it is viewable in all the big news engines.<br /> Example:<br /> If you have a site selling 16 different brands of the same widget, create a comparison engine that allows users to select four widget brands and see a comparison between them. Then create a press release that mentions how your site developed this “propriety technology” to help consumers of widgets and how your site is the only site in the industry offering such a service. Cross your fingers and hope a reporter gets interested. At worst, you get a ton of traffic when people search your topic at a news engine for a week or more. </p> <p>Old:<br /> Submitting your site to 200 free directories and a handful of paid directories with decent pagerank and a low listing fee in an effort to increase your link count.<br /> New:<br /> Not wasting your time unless the directory itself has a large following or pageview tallies (meaning it will send a lot of traffic).<br /> Example:<br /> Submit a test site (or simply take a look at the logs of a website following the tired tradition) and after six months, take a look at the total referrals from your logs. Anything that doesn’t produce a valued amount of traffic or sales (depending on your objective) should be cut from the list. You’d be better off during those 2 days of submitting to those directories to put that time to good use on another method that will actually bring you eyeballs. </p> <p>Old:<br /> Deciding on ten keyword phrases and developing links to fit within that mold (having all of your links using 1 of your top ten phrases). Contacting webmasters who don’t give you the desired anchor text and requesting changes.<br /> New:<br /> Encouraging extreme variety in anchor text of your inbound links and letting people link to you using whatever anchors they feel necessary.<br /> Example:<br /> Stop sending out pre-written anchor text in requests for links. Let the site owner know about your site and if they choose to link to you, do so using whatever anchor text they feel necessary. There is no better way to accrue *natural* anchor text than by letting people label your anchor with whatever they deem fit. Site owners know how to speak to their readers and how to make them interested. </p> <p>Old:<br /> Making hit and go forum posts to get a handful of backlinks a piece from 50 different domains.<br /> New:<br /> Finding one (or a few communities) and becoming a regular, valid and helpful contributing member.<br /> Example:<br /> By making yourself at home at a limited number of places, you give yourself time to really contribute and be a visible and helpful member. Rather than grabbing a few links on various identifiable forum domains, you build up a reputation (aka trust) which gets you a good amount of traffic through your profile or signature (targeted traffic too, since you will be posting to people on a forum relating to what you do or sell) and can also get you off forum mentions as well (for example, someone may go post on their blog that your name did a great post on widget making – linking your name to your site and widget making to the appropriate forum thread). </p> <p>Old:<br /> Button pushing to get thousands and tens of thousands of automated links on blogs, guestbooks and forums.<br /> New:<br /> People pushing via hiring people to help out with traffic development efforts and ideas.<br /> Example:<br /> Blind mass links are going the way of the dodo (though mass, mass quantities still work – at times – for now). Spend the efforts of your programmers on developing useful tools for consumers/site visitors and employ people to write great, quality content rather than buying cheap links from reciprocal link farms – excuse me, I mean firms. You can get a lot more *long term* bang for your buck and it will get you visitors who appreciate your content – not angry victims of comment spam looking for ways to dig your heart out with a spoon. </p> <p>Old:<br /> Creating a blog on a free subdomain to put up nothing more than posts about how great your products are and linking to yourself freely in each one.<br /> New:<br /> Creating a blog that has real value and traffic attraction on your own domain (or a separate domain if branding is an issue) which leads readers into the commercial area of your site during opportunities within posts or the blog design where it makes sense.<br /> Example:<br /> If you sell widgets, make an accompanying blog that acts as a review center for *all* widgets. Be fair and include all products whether or not you sell them. Do a write up of each product that acts as a general “spec” overview and allow users to leave reviews in the comments section (I recommend you set them at moderated to check for quality, spelling, language, etc if that matters to you.) and link in to the products you *do* sell where appropriate. </p> <p>Well, I’m going to stop there as I like my farm. <img src='http://www.adsensepublish.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p> <p>The best part is that all of these ways of developing traffic have the side benefit of doing exactly what you wanted to do with traditional link development. By aiming for traffic, you end up acquiring (purposely anyway, scrapers will continue to exist) a dream team of inbound links for SE purposes. </p> <p>Does this mean there are no sites ranking on the old methods? </p> <p>Sure there are. But, I’d have to venture to say the age of those links acquired from the old methods may have something to do with it. In addition to the fact that being at the top of the engines several years ago probably got them a handful of traffic as a result from good sites. I don’t think people trying the 2003 approach to link development would find the same success in a smart search engine in a half way competitive industry on a site they launched tomorrow. Traffic development, in my honest opinion, is the road to long term success. </p> <p>Hopefully this gets a few people thinking about ways they can apply traffic building to their own sites and gets some others moving towards to realization the standard, tired methods of link development that used to work are no longer the best way to assure new site or long term success in the engines. </p> <p>Anyone else with thoughts or suggestions on traffic development are encouraged to add to the list. <img src='http://www.adsensepublish.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_wink.gif' alt=';-)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p> ]]></content:encoded> <wfw:commentRss>http://www.adsensepublish.com/link-development-vs-traffic-development-and-staying-with-the-times.html/feed</wfw:commentRss> <slash:comments>2</slash:comments> </item> </channel> </rss>