SEO|The Full Insider SEO Details Exposed

As you already know, good link partners are vital to the growth of your website. Without good link partners you wont be ranked highly in the search engines, and you wont receive the traffic you need to gain new customers and make new sales. Building high-quality links to your website helps it to succeed.

Websites that maintain good incoming links will get many targeted visitors from their link partners. These link partners are also a good source of information and can offer value for the visitors that come to your website more often. The idea behind link partners is to find web sites with complementary content so that you enhance your web site. For example, if you sell computers, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to link to a site that sells printers.

Linking to your competitors is much more dangerous. The fact of the matter is that when you link to your competitors you are handing them your business. They may be handing some of theirs back to you, but the trade off simply isn’t worth it. If you are in a situation where it is your product or theirs, do not link to them. Aside from the obvious issue of losing business to their site, you may even lose the returning link if you don’t keep an eye on it.

When dealing with link partners, theres virtually no point unless you get reciprocal links. These links make your website look good, as well as getting you targeted traffic from users clicking on the links. When you are optimizing your site for key words, however, it is important to link to sites that provide more information regarding the content that you have provided. In cases like this, the link is already helping you. If you get a returning link in addition it’s like killing two birds with one stone.

With good-quality incoming links, you will benefit greatly from the increased traffic to your site. Most major search engines rankings are at least partly based on the number of quality links pointing to your website. Google, HotBot, AltaVista, MSN, Inktomi and more all use link popularity in their formula for calculating rankings.

The value of your link partner’s sites will be very important, as many of the search engines use this in determining how relevant your site is to the terms that are being searched on. A site with a page rank below three generally isnt worth exchanging links with. Then again, if the site is on its way up, it might be a good idea to get in on the ground floor. If you are curious as to whether a site is going to be accumulating a higher page rank in a short period of time try going to http://www.iwebtool.com/rank and punching the sites URL into the backlink tool or the page rank predictor. These will show you how many links the site has going to them and will let you know what the page rank could be within the next three months.

You must always keep an eye on the value, and use value-for-value exchanges only. Make sure that your link doesnt get removed from any sites you link to, and remove your own link to them if it does. Many people will agree to link with you and then remove your link after a week or two. If you leave your site linked to them, then theyre the only one benefiting.

Good link partners are hard to find, and it will take some time for them to respond. You may have to contact them more than once, and probably wont take you seriously if you just ask them to trade you links. It is important to provide them with information relating to your company and let them know why your link will be worth while to them. If you are serious about SEO, you will be able to let them know that you expect your page rank to explode within the next few months and you may be able to accumulate links this way.

Its important for to make sure that you links are checked on a regular basis. Of course you dont have much control over the incoming links, but you can still do whatever you want with the outgoing ones. You should immediately remove any links that dont work, as they can and will bring your search engine rankings down.

By understanding how link partnering works and maintaining good quality links on your website, you can increase your targeted traffic and improve your sales. After all, isnt that the whole point of having an online business? Just remember that your website, like any other business, takes time and effort to make it succeed, and any little way you can speed up the process is good as long as its not against the rules, of course.

Reciprocal linking is a topic that generates a lot of discussion: everyone wants to know how to get it to work for them. Much of this discussion involves link trading, or linking together their own websites, and whether its going to get you in trouble or not. They invariably fear that they will run into problems with search engines who may consider it cheating. Many of them have heard horror stories about Linking Farms which often get banned from Google along with every page associated with them. This fear is justified by the obvious disasters that link farms can ensue upon a web site. There are very few webmasters who are willing to take the risk and rightfully so.

Misunderstandings cloud the debate on reciprocal links on both sides. Reciprocal links deserve a fair hearing, because some are bad for a website, but most arent. In the beginning, almost all sites had plenty of reciprocal links (the tradition of the links page), and they worked exactly as intended. Links brought in additional traffic, and affiliate links let people make money. These links pages are less and less common now, but seem to be making a slight come back during this period in which SEO work has become a phenomena and a hobby for many web masters. The fact that SEO work is so common now will inherently lead to answers to questions which have been guarded for years. These answers will help people decide if the old fashioned links pages are worth having or not.

Most people see nothing wrong with good, old-fashioned link trading, but swapping links is only one aspect of reciprocal linking. These link swaps are allowed and, in many cases, considered beneficial. Link trades are great for web sites because they allow them to communicate a greater amount of information to their visitors. These link swaps are only beneficial, however, if they link to pages that are somehow relevant. Links to completely random pages that visitors will not find interesting are useless and could be considered fraudulent exchanges.

There are also automatic link exchanges on the good side of things, and link farms on the bad one. Link exchanges can be extremely beneficial, but before you allow yourself to get roped into this kind of situation, make sure that it pans out as a legitimate source of traffic. If you subscribe to a link exchange, the links should be hand made by you. They should not be kept in a gigantic database on the middle mans server. They should also be done upon request rather than automatically. You should be able to look through each link and view each page to insure quality.

Reciprocal links are popular because of the good things they give you: they act as ads for your site as well as increasing your search engine rankings. Some people, however, say that you shouldnt link to other websites as it decreases your own link popularity they dont realize that you need to give a little to get a little.

Third Party Link Sites.

These sites allow anyone to join, like a club but they dont usually work to your advantage. They say theyre going to make it easier to find sites that will exchange links with you, but in reality you often wont get the kind of link quality you were expecting. Its a bad idea to use one of these link agencies, as many of them lack basic linking knowledge and have no idea of the best link strategies.

There are some rules that you should follow when you agree to link to another site, and some rules that you should expect the other sites to follow. Many webmasters dont know how to trade links effectively you need to teach them. Theres a right way and a wrong way to manage links always remember that quality is more important than quantity. FFAs with hundreds or thousands of links are completely useless, and no search engine wants them in their index. Many have been banned from the search engines.

The abuse of linking going on today is proof of the ignorance that surrounds link trading just look at an FFA if you dont believe me. Trading links has been going on since the beginning of the web, but all it would take for it to lose its popularity is for the search engines to start paying less attention to it, as they will soon be forced to do.

It’s the timeless question: how do you get other sites to link to you? The most commonly discussed ways are reciprocal linking (swapping links) and buying links. Yet there’s another important tool for building links that should be a part of your toolbox: distributing content in exchange for one-way inbound links.

Comparison with Other Linking Methods
Reciprocal Linking: The big advantage of content distribution over swapping links is that the links built are one-way, and therefore presumably more valuable. Of course, reciprocal links still have value, but relying primarily on them might hamper your SEO efforts.
Indirect Reciprocal Links: I link my site A to your site, so you link your site to my site B. The problems are that this can be a lot of work, and also, Google can detect indirect links if you do it more than once with the same group of sites, which might make your linking arrangements look like a link farm.
Paid Links: The problem with paid links is 1) the costs add up; 2) search engines are getting better and better at discounting paid links. According to Matt Cutts’ blog, “I wouldn’t be surprised if search engines begin to take stronger action against link buying in the near future…link-selling sites can lose their ability to give reputation (e.g. PageRank and anchortext).”

Kinds of Content to Distribute
Articles. This is the essential kind of content distribution, to the point that many people consider content distribution simple as “article marketing.” However, you’re missing out on a few other sources of links if you only do articles.
News blurbs. A lot of news-style sites will only reprint pieces of a couple of paragraphs. The good news is that often enough the whole point of these news blurbs is to include links to other sites, in a sort of “look what we’ve found” kind of way, a la Slashdot.org
Press Releases. There are some sites that aggressively reprint press releases. A press release is like an article, only in a very specific press release format, and frankly that’s not that enjoyable to read. I don’t know why some sites are so head-over-heels over press releases, but, hey, that’s their business. The good news is that even if you can’t write and don’t want to hire a writer, press releases (at least basic ones) are pretty easy to do.
Tools, games and other webware. Sites with popular tools, software, Flash games and other webware often let other sites use it in exchange for a link. The big potential downside is technical support.
Images. Images, especially charts and photographs, are important forms of content on the web. If you have great images on your site and people ask you to use them on their sites, require a backlink in exchange. The problem with images is that they are so easily stolen. Stolen words can be uncovered with a web search. You could try to watermark images with a copyright symbol, URL, and the link requirement. But in the process you’d make the image much less desirable.
Web design templates. These have been freely distributed for a long time. Yet they are even more easily stolen than images. Also, if you embed a link in the footer of a web template, what you’ll get back are sitewide links, which are often thought to be filtered out in search engines.

Maximizing Content Distribution Links’ Effectiveness: Anchor Text
Anchor text. You need optimized anchor text to rank high for any competitive keyword. That means you need your target keyword in the anchor text, and very importantly, variants of the target keyword (too many links with the exact same anchor text may be filtered). The problem is that some sites by default don’t let you choose the anchor text of the link to your site. So you need to: 1) look for sites that do reprint content with optimized anchor text; 2) specifically ask for your target anchor text to be used. Also, do keep in mind that a true natural linking structure will require you to have a number of links that are not anchor-text-optimized, typically with the URL as the anchor text.

How to Find Sites
Finding sites to submit content is the biggest challenge. You can start by asking around to any other webmasters you already have a relationship with. Next, web-search. The classic method is “submit article” + [keyword]. Most of the sites you find this way won’t be good candidates, which is why this can be a bit labor-intensive. I use offshore labor for this step, as well as a program that will sort and store all the search results into a spreadsheet; otherwise it might not be worth it. Then again, the same would be true for finding reciprocal linking partners.

Ethical Issues & Best Practices

Golden rule: remember that there’s a human being who has to approve your article for submission.
Read and adhere to all submission guidelines.
Avoid automation. There’s almost always some detail of submission that requires a human eye: a multitude of html formatting requirements, changing site themes, etc.
Don’t submit by email unless specifically instructed. Using a contact form prevents possible sp@m accusations.
Only approach websites that request content submissions.
Don’t misrepresent reprint content as original.
Don’t submit the same content too often. After about two hundred reprints, a lot of people will be seeing the same thing over and over again and possibly complaining.

In short, as SEO gets more competitive, having more and more linking methods at your disposal gets more and more important. Don’t overlook this important tool.

Every website listed in the search engines has a position, or ranking, and each one of these rankings can change very quickly, in some cases as often as weekly or even daily. One day your websites in a good position, then the next youre wondering what happened to it. Staying on top of this situation is a must for any SEO professional you need to become a search engine ninja. If thats what you want to do, then you need to keep these things in mind at all times:

1. Good SEO requires frequent updates and ranking checks.

You might have a good spot today, but all it takes is for a few new sites to open, and before you know it youre back down at the bottom. If you pay attention to your rankings, then you have a shot at fixing things that go wrong before your rankings fall too far.

2. You should check all your links weekly to make sure they work.

Maintain high-quality, relevant reciprocal links and check them weekly to make sure theyre working. Remove any dead links, as search engine crawlers may mark you down if they find them on your site.

3. Tweak and assess your website on a daily basis.

You need to continually assess and tweak your listing to keep your site in its proper place that is, at the top. This ensures that your site is in the best position possible, and helps you keep your competitive edge.

4. Maintain the content on your website.

Update your content weekly at the very least, to make sure that search engine crawlers come back frequently. Even the smallest changes will be picked up on by the search engines and will help to maintain your ranking. If you cant write, find someone who can: you need content.

5. Keep up-to-date with the latest developments in SEO.

If you cant decide what you should be doing or you dont want to keep up with SEO on your own, you could consider hiring a specialist. Consulting with an SEO specialist will still allow you to make your own changes to your website and learn which things work best, but youll have someone to answer your questions if you need them.

You should review your SEO techniques at least every few months, to see how the algorithms have changed and to devise new plans and strategies for increasing your rankings based on those changes. Any SEO ninja will tell you that there are only really two major search engines that you need to worry about: Google and Yahoo. You can do well even if you only have the time or energy to focus on these two engines. Being an SEO ninja is hard work, but it can be very rewarding if youve got the dedication for it.