ONERank Internet Marketing Blog » Internet Marketing

100% Absolutely FREE Ways to Get Backlinks

Thomas Paquet — Mon, 03 May 2010 17:30:37 +0000

This was written by one of our staff members prior to joining the ONERank team. I find it interesting that the approach is a bit rudimentary (no offense) but can be fairly effective for smaller sites in non-competitive niches.

While adding backlinks is a big piece of the current SEO strategy for ranking improvements, don’t lose sight in the fact that it is just one piece of the proverbial puzzle. Derivative content metrics aside, we’re seeing a huge shift in several of the simple site improvement pieces we used to employ only 6 months ago. Google is setting the pace, so we maintain and keep up with implementation, testing, regression, reporting, analysis – constantly. Never lose site of the end goal, regardless of how it “works” for your own website – building traffic AND conversions/sales.

I’ve been working at website search engine optimization for some time and I’ve always thought that the content of the website was everything. It seemed to me that a combination of keywords, meta tags, and actual content was the magic formula and that a wise balance of these components would guarantee one of the top positions in Google search results.

At present it seems that having good quality website content is not enough to rank well in Google. I have read numerous articles about SEO and discovered that SEO experts and many webmasters considered link building as the main SEO strategy. It seems that everything is about backlinks now. The site which has more backlinks from other sites wins. So, I decided to focus on backlinks.

How to get backlinks? The first thing I thought of was web directories. Web directories are online catalogs which accept the links to websites and sort them by different categories accordingly to the site content. There are directories that will add your website absolutely for free. Some directories require a submission fee. Others will ask you a reciprocal link in return. There are plenty of directory submission services on the web. So, if you don’t have much time, you can outsource your site submission to a third party company. If you prefer managing your link building process by yourself, search for a directory submission tool. I used a free website submitter to add my site to directories. Such tools already have a database of web directories so you don’t need to waste your time for searching for the directories on the Internet. I submitted my site to about 2,000 directories in a couple of days. Link submission software also allows you submit your website with different anchor text and descriptions so each submission looks unique and more natural. The directories place your submission into the validation queue. It can take days or even weeks for your link to be approved. So, be patient and don’t expect an instant improvement of your site PageRank in Google.

Another good idea is WordPress Blog Comment Posting. Blog users can leave comments on the articles and stories they read. To leave a comment, you are asked to provide your name, URL, email address and comment itself. When your comment is posted your name becomes a link to your website. The key is to use your keywords as your name (although not all blog owners like it). So, I started posting comments in blogs that are relevant to our company’s business. In order for you to not take me for a spammer, I want you to know that I only posted a comment if I had something relevant to say. I have to deal with e-mail spam every day, so I hate spam whatever it is. Post a comment only if you have something of value to add to the discussion and not just to get backlinks. You can read the comments which are already posted by others and follow suit.

As my goal was to improve our retail company’s website rank for the keywords related to our business, I put the keywords as my name and for my URL (obviously a link to our site). Then I posted my comment. Like directory submissions blog comments are usually set as “pending” for moderator approval. Now I must admit I made a blunder (since I was doing it for the first time). I should have saved the links of the pages where I posted comments. You see blog owners may not like to see keyword links in the comment “Name” field and will promptly delete the comments. Other blog owners may not like the link in the name and will remove it. So, because not every comment is approved, you should find the blogs where the comments are posted and save them. You will return to those blogs later, post another comment and get one more backlink.

I worked at this for about two months. As I had other work to do, I didn’t dedicate too much time to find blogs and post comments. I managed to leave 2-3 comments a day. After a couple of months I noticed that our website was listed higher in search results. Now it is on the first page in the results for our keywords. I should say that it’s not a 100% guaranteed method but it is one of the possibilities to get a higher rank in Google. How much money could I spend trying to get listed? I hope someone else can benefit from this. Blog comments may stand as one of the truly free ways to get the search engine ranking you desire for the keywords you want.

Always trust that honest and trustworthy SEO professionals do not try to “GAME” or “MANIPULATE” the SERPs (search engine results page). An ethical SEO is just like a good mechanic – they all work on the same core principles, but some will use tricks that only employ a temporary fix – costing you more in the long run. An Ethical and Honest SEO Company works hand in hand with your business, growing assets and properties that will serve you and your business over the long term – think of it as an investment. These assets should belong to you and your company as a result of the efforts provided by your chosen SEO, saving you both time and money.

For all your internet marketing, SEO friendly web design & web conversion optimization needs, call ONERank Internet Marketing & SEO: +1 (877) 771-7265 or visit us on the web at: http://www.onerank.com

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Business Builder Tip #1: 4 Beliefs in Growing a Business

Thomas Paquet — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 20:07:04 +0000

Business Builder Tips

One of the great things about dealing with a variety of clients in different businesses has to do with just that – variety. We get to see both the good and bad sides of efficiency and the lack thereof… We’re kicking off this blog post with a new series; Business Builder Tips that can be little gems of information to help our clients increase their business sense as well as their online marketing values.

We’ve recently come across Verne Harnish. He doles out little tidbits of info that are very practical and pragmatic, while delivering powerful results if you enable their content.

To start, find the 4 tips below on Verne’s 4 Beliefs in Growing a Business:

Whoever learns and acts faster, wins. A lifetime dedicated to learning and then acting on what you learn is the best (and quickest) path to success.

The power of ideas. The most important thing an executive of a growth firm can provide the company is ideas, which germinate from learning. The freer you are from the day-to-day firefighting, the more you can contribute to the essential vision and strategy for success.

Whoever taps into the most brains wins. Surround yourself with lots of people smarter than yourself and your business will thrive. But, if you’re a lone ranger-type (a genius with a thousand helpers, as Jim Collins calls these leaders) then my ideas and Insights aren’t likely to be useful.

Routine sets you free! Sounds profound, I know, but I believe in the power of discipline. And the disciplines we teach — priorities, metrics and meeting rhythm — lead to greater freedom, more money, and more time.

To get more from Verne directly, please visit: Gazelles.com

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How to Increase Website Traffic

Thomas Paquet — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:46:43 +0000

Increasing Website Traffic Takes Thinking

We often receive phone calls and e-mail from potential clients wondering how much traffic can we send to their website in a week?

While the answer is a definitive – “it depends” – we often worry about the focus of such an inquiry…

Website traffic is a quirky beast… With so many automated tools for generating illegitimate traffic, the market is ripe for people who are simply looking to “increase website traffic” by hiring a company online. I’ve been pitched by many a snake-oil salesman on working with our firm and partnering on website traffic programs, “For as little as $50, we can generate 1,000 visitors a day for your client’s website.” The old adage holds firm: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is…

While there are thousands of different ways to increase web visitors, that which we encourage FORCE our clients to focus on is not just increasing traffic to their website – rather increasing *interested* or *relevant* traffic to their website. And there is a very simple reason why.

Your purpose in online marketing is no longer to show off how many visitors your website stats can show for a monthly basis. Your purpose is to show how your sales grew 15%, month after month, for 12 months straight. By pushing useless, uninterested visitors to your website, you only gain their attention for 4-5 seconds before they move on to another website. This is only an effective tool when it comes to brand building. If there is no interest in your website or business subject matter, why would they stay or take an action?

However simple the following example may be, look for ways you may currently market in the same wasted manners:

A baby product review website wanted to find a way for us to send them at least 1,500 visitors per day, a feat their current “marketing guy” was accomplishing by working with an offshore company. Their budget was roughly $0.04/visitor ($60/day) that they paid to a firm out of Pakistan. So, for $1,800/mo, they were guaranteed to receive 1,500 visitors each and every day for 1 month straight. And guess what, they received about 1,500 visitors each and every day (according to their website statistics). But what did this do to their bottom line in regard to new user sign-ups? Nothing. What about referrals to affiliate links? Nothing. What about direct sales to product listings? Nothing.

What they failed to do was look at the behavior and referral source of these visitors. Within the first 20 minute phone call we had with their CEO, CMO and current “marketing guy”, we identified an astounding 98.7% bounce rate. Meaning that 98.7% of the visitors landing on their website had no further interest in finding anything else out (information, products, services, etc) related to their website. This means that 1,480/1,500 people (each and every day) just moved on through their website without even really looking at it. 20 people clicked on something in addition to the main page, which meant they were paying about $90/visitor (cost per lead) to take part in their website.

We target a different approach to growing website traffic both organically and strategically. Using various PPC (pay per click) networks, we can hone in on the most effective keywords & client demographic – those that are *interested* and those that want to *buy* or participate in a community forum. Once we’ve identified the best of the best, we build our marketing campaign around the identified focal points.

We were able to take the existing website, without making any significant changes to design, navigation, etc, and boost conversion rates by 10% within the first 2 weeks. We sought targeted and relevant traffic, for those interested in the services and products, causing the first real boost in marketing and acquisition that they had seen in over 6 months.

Here’s some basics for increasing website traffic:

Keep fresh and relevant content in your site. Blog, Twitter, Facebook, Social Media, articles, How-To, and anything else that keeps you updating your website with relevant and interesting content
Make it known. Use a service such as Ping.fm to get the news out about your blog or content posting
Make it social and easily linked. Use a tool like Sociable or Digg, Sphinn, Delicious, etc.
Submit your website to Search Engine Sitemap services (Google Sitemap, Bing Sitemap, etc)
Ask for links back to your site (make it easy for people to link to you – provide HTML code, anchor text, link URLs)
Submit to directories (Yahoo, Google, Ask.com, Dmoz, etc)
Ensure proper HTML tags are present and relevant on each and every page

The program works when people put aside the “quick fix” mentality and understand that online marketing is a science, as well as an art. By carefully crafting a well thought out and thorough marketing plan, increasing website traffic will directly correlate with an increase in revenue (if that is your focus). Whatever the bottom line goal, don’t forget to look into the details before you jump into contract. Price isn’t always the determining factor to isolate dollar-for-dollar value.

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Tips for Creating A Quality Business Website

Innovation + Technology = Business Success?

Thomas Paquet — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:09:54 +0000

Thinking Outside the Box

One of the great marketing sources I love to follow is Seth Godin. His insights into “out of the box” thinking and marketing clarity are second to none. He recently wrote a compelling article about the effectiveness of using competitive advantage to catapult a business into dominance. Seth’s observations, which I must admit make perfect sense in our current technological climate, realize that the equation doesn’t always add up. Creating a dominant new technology may get you a jump start ahead of the competition, but it doesn’t always set you apart far enough to coast into first place.

We are constantly meeting, researching, and developing new technology services and tools for our customers. Many of our favorite clients have trouble thinking outside this paradigm – if you build a better mousetrap, the world will come knocking. While this is very true, our new culture tends to see this as a fleeting chance. Today a company can develop the “next big thing” only to be outdone by an equal and more financially equipped competitor.

Back when Coca Cola first bottled its secret recipe and sold it to the masses it was a hit. A few years later a competitor created Pepsi. We’re now looking at the two most dominant soda production companies still in existence, over 100 years later. If it were possible that Coca Cola was able to create and perfect a bottling/canning process that Pepsi could not replicate, we probably would only find Coca Cola products around today.

The point is this… In business there are very powerful equalizers of industry. If it can be created or innovated it can be replicated. Don’t expect your technology to set you apart from your competition. Create a brand that is superior and awards its target demographic with value-added benefits and the world will be pounding a pathway to your door.

Business Builder Tip #1: 4 Beliefs in Growing a Business

Do Not Lose Sight! Narrow Minds = Narrow Focus

Thomas Paquet — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:53:24 +0000

Don’t get stuck thinking the biggest market share in search engine searches will equal the biggest market share for marketing for your specific search term or product/service.

If you look at the narrow focus, you see Google represents 70% market share of all internet searches. What this means is that 70% of the aggregated searches in the USA are fed through Google. This doesn’t mean that 70% of YOUR TARGET CLIENT searches are fed through Google. Perhaps the focus of your product/service doesn’t even exist on Google. Stay with me, it all comes together soon.

You may be surprised to find out that most people that buy Yellow Handled Scissors (your #1 product) despise Google. It is a known fact that Yellow Handled Scissor lovers want to use Yahoo because they both start with the letter “Y”. There is 1 guy out of every 100 that tries to search on Google for Yellow Handled Scissors – but he has no money to spend, he just likes to look at the pretty pictures and fancy words.

Amazingly enough, you would be missing out on 100% of the sales of Yellow Handled Scissors if you only marketed on Google AdWords PPC. Yahoo represents 99% of Yellow Handled Scissor searches. So where should you spend your money? Google or Yahoo?

Yahoo – of course. You should want to convert 10% of Yellow Handled Scissor searches into a sale, rather than 0% of Yellow Handled Scissor searches – right?

But you ask, I want to get 100% of all Yellow Handled Scissor searches to visit my site. But here is where it makes the most sense (as if it already hasn’t)… Google advertising cost of $100/mo to try to get those stragglers, who aren’t using Yahoo, is a complete waste of money. They will never buy, and Yellow Handled Scissor searchers only buy from Yahoo. So rather than throw $1,200/year into the abyss, take $600, go buy some new clothes and take the other $600 and spend it on Yahoo advertising to get more sales.

By limiting your overall view of the market – your market – you lose focus of why we advertise in the first place. Our goal isn’t to only get more people to see us, it is to get more people who will want to buy from us, to see us. The “buy” is the complete call to action that makes it all worthwhile.

Focus on the specific target client, learn what they want and need, give it to them and you will continue to gain market share. Don’t lose sight of the target! Try to get 100% of your target audience into a room and pitch them your product/service. It will always be less hassle, higher conversion, and less overall cost per acquisition for each sale.

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ONERank Internet Marketing Blog » Internet Marketing

100% Absolutely FREE Ways to Get Backlinks

Business Builder Tip #1: 4 Beliefs in Growing a Business

Top 6 Most Effective Link Building Strategies

How to Increase Website Traffic

Innovation + Technology = Business Success?

Do Not Lose Sight! Narrow Minds = Narrow Focus