The booming technological advancements made a lot of changes in society. A lot of things are available online, making everything one click away through mobile phones, laptops, iPads, and other forms of gadgets. Availing home loans, paying bills, gambling for relaxation and many types of necessities are available online.
Shopping and buying things online has also become a common practice. That is why many businesses are making use of technology. Moreover, they build their websites to promote, sell, and reach their consumers. It then makes digital marketing a competition that requires a lot of skills and knowledge.
Digital marketing is the use of any platform on the internet to promote your business, such as SEO or Search Engine Optimization which provides a local search engine optimization service. It keeps the rank of your website on top of others in the search engine like google. Also, it leads to probable consumers into your website. That is why the rank of your website is crucial.
When building your website, you should know the different factors to make it successful. The following are the reasons why your website’s rank is crucial in digital marketing.
Individuals Prefer Websites with a High Rank
When researching on the internet, the first website that an individual opens is the one with a high ranking. If your website has a high ranking, there is a higher chance of having a lot of consumers click on the link of your website. Through the help of SEO, user experiences also become better. It enables them to locate what they are looking for in a short period. It enables the user to save more effort in looking for an answer.
When they like what they saw on your website it can also serve as a platform for advertising your business. Consumers can share your website in their social media account like Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, enabling more consumers to visit your website. Social media accounts are also effective in advertisements. Therefore, many businesses also use these to advertise their business.
Your Website Rank Makes You One Step Ahead of Your Competitors
As a business owner, you need to look for ways to be on top of your competitors because you won’t be able to avoid having other websites that offer the same products as you. Through the use of a local search engine optimization service, you can become one step ahead of them. SEO enables your website to appear on the research panel first which makes consumers visit yours first.
However, the use of SEO is not the only factor in digital marketing. The website design of your website is also important. Ensuring a professional, eye-catching, and consumer-friendly website design for small business is a factor that you should inculcate in mind. It is their first step in making their website known, and their business bigger.
The website design includes many factors like SEO, security, layout, and more. Through website design, promoting your website will become easier since it makes you in control.
A Website’s Rank Makes Them Trustworthy
When looking for services or products online, most consumers research it on sites like google. It is the first thing that comes into their mind and the first link that they see has a high rank is what they open first. They believe that those links are trustworthy and provide excellent services compared to the others.
When your website does not appear on the search panel during their first attempt, it is more likely for consumers to question your website, leading to lower credibility. Therefore, it only proves that SEOs are very important. When doing digital marketing, you need to find ways to target your consumers. Through SEO, it helps websites connect and build their relationship with their consumers or clients. Furthermore, it also guarantees that your website is credible.
Given this, there is a higher chance for consumers to visit your website, again. Most importantly, when they had an excellent experience with your services. They can become your loyal consumers. Therefore, when you are building your business, keep in mind that your consumers will always be an essential factor in your success. They are the ones who will make your business known in society. They can also be the downfall of your business. Therefore, it is important to build a trustworthy relationship with them.
Your Brand Will Be Known
In digital marketing, many websites use this to advertise or introduce their product. Through having a high rank, it can come into reality. Many known online businesses succeed in building their brand by keeping a high rank. Their rank enables them to invite more consumers into their websites.
This makes SEO very essential in the success of digital marketing. Without SEO in your digital marketing, your strategies may go into waste. The efforts of doing everything to make your brand known can become useless. Therefore, to build up your brand, look into the importance of SEO in your marketing. However, knowing what SEO does is not enough.
You should also know how it works and how you should use it. There are many ways of how SEO can help you make your brand famous. It teaches you how to make your content for it to become appealing and attractive.
The following implies that the rank of a website is crucial. It is where the visibility and success of the website lays. Through the high rank of a website, products, services, or anything that you are offering, can be visited and availed.
Therefore, it is important to make use of the services of website design providers. Even start-up businesses can avail of this because website designs are now cheaper. You do not need to worry about the expenses you might make because they can provide a website design with complete factors such as SEO for your website at an affordable and worthy price.
Also, the following shows the importance of having and understanding the reason for having a website with a high rank. It makes one realize that it is an ingredient in making your business bigger.
Since the last Google algorithm update, there are many rumors about link building and the white hat SEO strategies. I recently wrote about the importance of social engagement in contrast to SEO and it became a pretty hot topic. I believe the biggest question nowadays would be the important the the old school link building method.
Before we go any further, this is a snippet from Google Webmaster Tool:
Previously, Google said …
‘In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages.’
And everything changes now with …
‘In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by creating high-quality sites that users will want to use and share.’
Does this really means the end of link building techniques in search engine optimization? Of course not!
This doesn’t prove that link building is no longer in use. In fact, this makes link building even richer and more valuable! And at the same time, this new Google algorithm makes link building … yes, you got it right … harder but definitely not impossible.
Important disclaimer: This article is more than 2,000 words and I dare you to do read it in just one go. If not, bookmark this page right now and come back anytime when you are ready!
What did we learn from the latest Google update?
Oh no! Another Google update?
Every time an update takes place, there are many things Google are showing us … or at least, hinting us. Here are some things that I had learned which are the number of backlinks, using the right link building techniques and even using the right search engine optimization methods. And the only way to learn this is by watching those videos posted by Matt Cutts and his team.
So let’s discuss on the proper link building strategies that work for search engines today.
1. Using the right SEO tools for link building
For those who really into SEO, it’s a very known fact that you probably need at least one SEO tool to help you with those ranking and link building tactics. Seriously.
I know many people who uses paid SEO tools like this one are having crazy time trying to create more quality backlinks to their articles. I would say, maybe they are having the time of their lives! 🙂
You might be thinking that, “Hey, take that you !@#$ paid SEO tools!”. Here’s the reality check. These SEO tools will actually … and still be rocking like any other days.
Yes! Let me repeat; link building isn’t dead but it just got tougher. That’s all.
For those who are using various link building tools, well, you just got to play smarter. You need to change the game plan but slowly.
Why? Google still loves quality backlinks and this doesn’t mean that you can’t get the best out of ‘virtual assistance’.
One thing for sure is that using SEO tools will not make you any safer from Google updates. You need to use SEO tools the right way and focus in your strategies. Always remember that misusing these SEO tools will actually destroy your traffic and your SEO ranking.
*p/s Looking at this article length, I’m going to write the so call ‘SEO game plan’ on another post.
2. Write articles for readers and not for bots
Optimize your website for your readers and not for search engines
Link building isn’t really link building only. For me, link building also means website marketing and communications. The more visibility people has on your website, the better chances you are going to create the ‘brand awareness’.
And with that (assuming you write great articles), people are going to share your articles even more!
More shares = More love from Google.
There ain’t any trick about link building and content sharing if you ask me. Write good stuffs, get your name out and let the people (readers) do the rest for you.
What you really need to learn about link building is you can’t get everyone to love your writing or even share your articles. Okay, remember that every visitor who comes to your site is a potential ‘buyer’.
Take the opportunity to get them spread the word for you and how you can possibly do that?
It really depends on how generous are you. For me, I do a win-win situation for my readers. I am using CommentLuv for WordPress and what this plugin does is simple. It allows users to share one of their links after they commented.
Wait! That isn’t all.
For those who share my articles on social media, they will automatically get a DoFollow link back. Sounds good right?
You see, blogging is all about giving and just not taking completely. I see absolutely no reason why one should be so secretive about backlink.
3. The relationship between backlink, social communities and tribes
Recently, I’m very active on several sites such as BizSugar and Triberr. I wasn’t actively sharing my links though. Instead, I was commenting and sharing other articles I felt useful.
The effect? One word: Tremendous.
As I had said about in #2, sharing is caring and there’s no better way than helping a fellow blogger to share their articles. Heard about karma or what goes around, comes around?
Whenever you share an article on social networks, you are creating a good chance for others to visit your website in return. And most of the time, they would probably return a favor by giving a shout (hey, that’s free publicity) for you.
Blogging isn’t everything about yourself. Instead, it is all about relationship building and sharing of information. Grow your audience indirectly by doing good to others.
So, stop being a link whore and start linking out to others!
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Yes mate. Right now! Don’t worry, I’ll wait!
4. Link building is closely related to sitemap
You have written an excellent article and you published it. After one week or probably a month, you ain’t getting a hit and you are no closer in creating a viral article that drives hundreds of traffic to your website. So, what’s wrong?
Okay. Here’s the deal. You want to build good traffic, link building etc. You probably won’t go far if you are not focusing enough on SEO. One of the search engine optimizations best practices is to have a sitemap.
Google just won’t put you on first page of SERPs if Google is not aware of your existence. This is where sitemap plays a huge role in your website ranking.
So, yes. The first thing is to get your sitemap up immediately … (moments of silence) …
What’s a sitemap? Site what?
A site map (or sitemap) is a list of pages of a web site accessible to crawlers or users. It can be either a document in any form used as a planning tool for Web design, or a Web page that lists the pages on a Web site, typically organized in hierarchical fashion. There are two popular versions of a site map. An XML Sitemap is a structured format that a user doesn’t need to see, but it tells the search engine about the pages in your site, their relative importance to each other, and how often they are updated. HTML sitemaps are designed for the user to help them find content on the page, and don’t need to include each and every subpage. This helps visitors and search engine bots find pages on the site.
Makes any sense to you? Maybe this image from Google might help out.
Sitemap usually gives search engines a list of links that you have on your website
If you are using WordPress, you can probably use WordPress for SEO (which comes with Sitemap functions) or Google XML sitemap. You won’t wrong with any one of those.
Creating a sitemap is no hassle and you can do that within 5 minutes or less. Once you have your sitemap ready, head over to Google Webmaster Tool and Big Webmaster Tool to submit your sitemap.
5. Guest posting – The pros and cons in link building techniques
We can’t deny the importance of guest posting especially when you are looking for a quality backlink. Writing good guest post will certainly drive traffic to your website without fail but there’s something you need to know first!
Backlink building from guest posting is a double sided blade. Handle with care at all times.
Google and other search engines understand that many bloggers are actually trying to gain momentum and getting some quality backlinks from good page rank sites. When it comes to guest post, there isn’t any difference.
Don’t get me wrong. Guest posting is definitely worth it considering the quality of backlink. However, you do not want to over do it to avoid any penalty. The easiest methods which I see best fit for guest posting are:
Writing quality articles
Use maximum of three links per post
Taking advantage of the rel”nofollow”
Huh? Isn’t that rel=”nofollow” means zero backlink?
Yes indeed. This is my link building strategy. You don’t want search engines to consider your site as a link juice or link farm. Therefore, if the content in the link doesn’t provide quality information for your readers, it is better off with a no follow rule.
Do you understand why I say it as a double sided blade now?
6. The viral factor and link building under one roof
Go nuts … like Holmer!
Have you heard about viral video or viral content? So, what does the word, viral actually means?
For me, it means an action which is hit the world by storm … unintentionally. Here’s an example:
Years ago, a kid made a video to promote his band and uploaded it to MySpace. Sounds like, “duh” right?
The video was about a kid who ran around the garden smashing two Barbie dolls together, throwing tomato source all over the place and screaming the name of his band in a variation of pitches while his MySpace page flashed at the bottom of the screen.
And, guess what?
He received two million hits to his band’s MySpace … in just two days.
The kid didn’t do much … and probably took around 20 minutes trying to clean up the mess he did plus uploading the video.
Viral content, whether it be images, videos or quizzes – has the potential to drive massive amounts of traffic and generate a large amount of business leads or subscribers.
So, what the heck this has to do with link building?
Take the kid’s case study for an example. Do you think that out of the two million hits the kid got, how many people actually share the video or his band?
I call this … indirect link building since … it’s viral and we can’t really control it, could we? I totally understand that there is no possible way to actually create a perfect viral content.
Math lesson: Let’s say you manage (accidentally) create a viral content and it drives you tons of traffic. Do you know how much website traffic you are going to gain?
7. Old fashioned link building techniques. Are they dead?
I read so many articles about changing SEO techniques, so on and so forth. Question is, do you really need the traditional SEO building strategies now?
From what I see it, yes you need them and it is never advisable to ditch them. With all these Google Penguin and Google Panda, it is harder to score points with the old methods. But, each point you earned will worth even more than ever!
Fair deal for you?
We discussed about guest blogging, marketing techniques and SEO tool like this one above. Anyone of these could help you with SEO and this certainly doesn’t prove that ancient SEO methods won’t count anymore. Remember that most search engine optimization methods are based out of the trusted, ancient ‘recipe’.
Since so many algorithms are calculated based on page ranks and number of links, I bet you totally understand where this is heading.
Personally, I would advise you to start changing your game plan. Like me, my approach to SEO is way different than three years back. I even created SEO Blueprints library which consist of every SEO techniques I’m practicing right now.
8. Avoid the BIGGEST link building mistakes
Oh no! Holmer does it again!
For me, the biggest sin you can ever do when it comes to SEO is when you think you had done enough. The truth is … you aren’t able to to completely do SEO.
Why?!
Because SEO is a learning process and it has many implementation phrases. This means that what works today, might not work for tomorrow.
Now, tell me if you have ever (and I really mean e-v-e-r) thought of giving up.
Yes, you thought search engine optimization is too hard and you probably done everything you could. Yet, you’re ain’t seeing the results. People say you need to be patience and you waited for months and still, goddammit nothing happens!
Sounds familiar? Don’t be shy and admit it. It happens to you, to me and nearly every blogger out there. It felt like a never ending war right?
Now, this is the cold hard fact. SEO doesn’t happen overnight and certainly, there isn’t any proven methods for us to judge how far we had done or accomplished.
Giving up hope is definitely a no-no here. Content, article and website optimization are all, ever growing activities which will always keep you on your toes (and for some, might even make you stay awake at night).
Agree to disagree?
Back to you
Wow! This is a longest post (as of now) which I had written! So, how do you like it? If you had read this in just one shot, I’m going to give you my salute. No doubt on that.
As for the topic, these are the top 8 workable link building techniques that we all can practise to build authority and at the same time, traffic. I used these nearly every day and whenever I’m blogging.
What do you think? Tell me what you think and you can easily do it right below.
*If you like this article, could you please share this for me using the red Google+ button below?
I talk about SEO, think about SEO, eat with SEO and bathe with SEO but I am no SEO expert. And if you are looking for a SEO guru, I am not your man. Why?!
Because I am not going to lie to you what I know about search engine optimization techniques and how you can use SEO for your own good. And, this is not a sales thread…not now, not in the future in my books.
If you’re reading this, then good as we are on the same page now. So let’s go with our first lesson (and my first SEO post here) on search engine optimization, shall we?
What is search engine optimization all about?
I am no SEO guru but at times, it is cool to call myself a Search Engine Optimization Ninja
The term search engine optimization or SEO is already a household name for many bloggers and webmasters today. Now let’s go with some simple language course on what SEO really means.
Search engines literally refers to Google, Yahoo and Bing to name a few.
Optimization means the process of improving or increasing the optimal result from a certain action.
Make any sense? As I said below (on my profile), I am not a techie person. So, I will be explaining what SEO is all about in simple terms so that it is easily understandable to both beginners and professional bloggers.
Why search engine optimization is important? What’s so important about SEO?
I get this all the time and I even asked myself before in the past. Good search engine optimization techniques will actually improve the chances of you ranking well on result pages.
This means that the better your SEO methods are, the better chance search engines will see your website. Of course, the more your articles are featured on result pages, the better and more traffic you will get.
Here, we can conclude that good SEO techniques will increase your website ranking on search engines, boost traffic to your website and ultimately, increasing the chances of affiliate sales or making money through your website a reality.
How to SEO correctly? What are SEO best practices?
Using right SEO techniques will increase and improve website page rank
Regardless which website I visit, I keep seeing bloggers asking the same questions over and over again. Before you continue reading, take 1 minute off and think what you really know about SEO…don’t worry, I will wait.
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Welcome back and I really hope you didn’t take more than one minute though.
The biggest perception I ever seen in my life about SEO is many bloggers believe that SEO can be learned and mastered. Hint: Just Google and see how many SEO gurus you can find out there.
Perceptions on search engine optimizations:
You can master SEO
SEO is straightforward and easy to follow
Learning SEO will help me for tomorrow, next week and the future
The real deal about search engine optimization are:
SEO is a practise and guideline for bloggers
Learn what SEO is and modify each search engine optimization techniques to gain the maximum advantage over others
Understanding how search engine optimization works is more than just important
What are SEO best practices?
I am not going very detail in this as I will be creating separate topics on this. Yes, I want to go into detail and make sure you understand everything about SEO. And I do it for free.
1. Content is king but focus keyword is God
You hear me right. Good content will not bring you to the top spots of the search engines but focus keywords will.
Don’t get me wrong as I know how important content it. What I am trying to say is good search engine optimization or good SEO strategies are to use as very specific and focused keywords.
The biggest mistake here is bloggers tend to stuff hundreds keywords into one article. Don’t ever stuffed all those keywords you can think of into one article as you are going to give a hard time for search engine bots to figure out what your content is all about.
SEO strategy 1: Rank your blog with very specific keywords (between one to five keywords)
SEO strategy 2: Rank your blog with a bigger range of keywords (more than five keywords)
As for the record, both are equally good when it comes to finding the best SEO strategy. However, the paths of both these SEO best practices are very different.
SEO strategy 1 will lead to a better page rank or SERPs ranking within a shorter time frame. Here, your blog or website can even rank better even when you do not have an upper hand in domain age.
One the other hand. SEO strategy 2 will take a longer time to build a good SERPs ranking compared to the above. The SEO process here is long but what makes it worthwhile is it will also produce good domain authority for your website.
Never underestimate both of these SEO practices as they are be very lethal in the hands of a good blogger.
3. Choosing the right SEO tools in your SEO projects
Choosing the right SEO tools will either improve or break your website ranking
I bet you heard about others saying that they ranked their website faster and better without any SEO tools. This is particularly true and I am not denying the fact.
However, we are in the technology era for Christ sake! Do you think that you can compete fairly with other bloggers or websites without using any SEO tools?
I am also not denying that there are many premium SEO tools that worth your every buck. And for beginners, I do not recommend them (unless it has a trial period) as there are also many free SEO tools which can help you in your search engine optimization project 101.
One of the best SEO tools is Google Keyword Tool and you can find useful tips and tricks on how to use it, Killer SEO Tips Using Google Keyword Tool.
Of course, I will be writing more on this topic as well so stay tune.
*p/s One of the best way to stay tune is to subscribe to my newsletter (yes free for life as well) at the end of this post or on the box on the right sidebar.
What I’m trying to say here is if you want to compete in this SEO world, then you have to compete in the smart way. I am sure you will be amazed on how many free SEO tools there is which many bloggers do not use at all. Such a waste right?
Okay folks, give yourself a pat on the back (or a beer treat) as you have completed the first part of my SEO best practices.
Wait! Don’t click on the Close button yet!
Test your understanding on search engine optimization knowledge (after my post above):
Do you understand what Search Engine Optimization really is right now?
Are you practising the right SEO methods?
Are you using the right SEO tools for your blogs and website?
Talk to me and share with me using the reply form.
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