Viral link building is a fantastic method for building large quantities of links. Hopefully, you can build links that are specific to your site, but many times they may not be. This strategy focuses more on the mass link building aspect. Many search engine experts say that building a large amount of links in a relatively short amount of time may not help tremendously, but the links are permanent and one way, which is always an excellent quality.

The first method for building a large viral SEO campaign is to utilize social bookmarking and networking sites. Social bookmarking sites allow users to submit links of interest to them. They also have an extra added feature that allows users to rank the links through a voter system. The more interesting the website, the more votes received. This strategy can generate buzz and plenty of links.

Another strategy is blog commenting. Posting comments on blogs related to your industry can help boost your websites visibility. To create a viral effect your site has to have interesting content that will create word of mouth allowing other webmasters to link to you. You can also contact blog owners and ask them if they are willing to write a post about your site by enticing them with a fee.

Link bait is a term referring to a blog post or web page containing information that can be considered a great resource. It is content that other web masters have to link to because it is so useful. You can create this kind of content by thinking about what information people in your field are looking for. For example, if you own a site about cars, you could create a page of content listing all the different dealers in an area. Other websites will be more than happy to link to you and use the information in their articles.

The most important aspect of a viral link building campaign is that you attract attention to interesting content, as boring content will kill this strategy. If you expect people to be interested in your website you have to offer content that will bring people back to your site. A link bait page of content will be bookmarked and visited by the same people many times. People will refer others to the page and search engines will be more than happy to rank your page in the top spots thanks to all those links. Search engines are looking for relevancy and authority pages. A page with this kind of great content will definitely rank well.

One of these original methods comes from “abusing” large sites like E-bay. Many large websites today employ some kind of user generated content strategies. E-bay allows you to create a blog that can generate many very powerful links to your site.

Another method to consider is creating a contest on your website asking people to place a link on their blogs or websites to your site with specific anchor text. This may be a little difficult to do because you might have to be very careful with your instructions depending on what niche your in. If you offer a large enough prize you will be amazed at the response you will get. For example, many bands employ this strategy by asking their fans to place a link to their site from their Myspace or blog in return for an entry into a contest to win tickets for the band’s next concert.

In addition to these strategies you can tap into the power of pod casts. If you submit the pod casts to directories especially made for them, you will be generating great one-way links. Visit one of the many websites that can convert your RSS feed to a Podcast and you be set for this strategy.

Torrents are another very underused link building strategy. Torrent sites allow people to download all sorts of software for free. Many of these sites are not monitored and allow you to be very liberal with the links you create on the site. To use this strategy, all you have to do is create some kind of digital product. Create a short E-book or some kind of useful free software. By using Google you will find many excellent torrent websites. Read the instructions they give to submitting your torrent and then do so. In the area where you describe your download, place a link to your site. You can also add a link in your software, it won’t add to your link popularity, but you will gain some traffic.

Another method similar to the torrent strategy is to use PAD file sharing. Many websites allow people to download what is referred to as “freeware” or “abandonware. These are terms for software that was sold, but is now free or has always been free to the public. You can use the software you created through the torrent strategy and convert it into a PAD file, which is an XML type file that allows these freeware websites to easily understand what you are submitting to them. People are able to download your software in masses and you gain links from the PAD file sharing websites.

The challenge has become even more apparent now that we have obtained top rankings for the term “SEO services”. It’s not just regular website owners requesting our SEO services these days.

It always amazes me when I see a lead come through my website requesting SEO and it is from an SEO company. You would be surprised how often this happens. “SEO companies” literally want me to help them get ranked for SEO related terms. Are they really serious? Do they have no shame?

How are you going to start an SEO business helping others get ranked well when you are trying to hire someone else to get your site ranked. How can you speak to a potential client and with a straight face tell them you can help them get ranked high in the search engines when you have admittedly asked for help from another pro to do the same for you?

These are no doubt the same companies that I receive spam emails from all the time telling me they can help me get to page 1 of Google. Of course when I reply to the emails asking if they even checked my rankings or to send me the report of where their website ranks, I never hear from them again.

This is not the right way to start an SEO company. It is going to be slow at first. Target terms that are a little more specific, preferably geographic terms that you can rank well for quicker. No they aren’t going to bring in massive amounts of traffic and new clients, but slowly and surely you will build up a clientele and as your company gets older your rankings will grow and thus the business will grow.

If you as an SEO company can get your own site ranked for terms that are some of the most (if not the most) difficult phrases to rank for, then you should earn the trust of your potential clients. I literally have people tell me on almost every phone call I take, “I found you at #1 for “seo services” so you must know what you are doing.”

Build your SEO business the right way and the success will come with it.

I was actually a bit surprised at how much of it there was – some of the extreme being the praising of the completely fabricated 13-year-old’s story as brilliant marketing and statements like, “We’re not here to be moral; we’re marketers” and “You’re not going to get creamed, the site will, so don’t worry about it.”

Since when is telling a bald-faced lie brilliant marketing? And for morality I think, do you have no morality? None? You’ll just help child pornographers, arms dealers, tobacco companies, etc.? If the answer to that is “No”, then there clearly is a line that even the blackest hat will draw. So it’s just a matter of where the line is drawn, and how the line is decided.

“There’s a market for it. Somebody will fill that void. Why not SMX?”

By that logic, it’s fine to have a session on how to:
- carry out an email “pump and dump” stock scheme,
- develop a Nigerian email scam,
- get past the spam filters and send at a million emails.

The fact that there is a demand, does not mean it should be presented at a conference purporting to represent a professional industry.

I think the question then becomes strategic. Where does the industry want to be in five years?

Then make decisions according to that goal and plan. It cannot be based on “anything goes” or “whatever we can get away with”.

I think that just deepens the perception of “they’re just fringe geeks with their own rules and no morals” — which to most people with money means “jerky little twerps” — which means the companies with big money are going to go to Ogilvy for their web stuff.

I am sure that most SEO’s want to build solid, professional, long-term success for their clients and for themselves. I don’t think that comes from pump and dump stock schemes — or by making making completely fabricated news articles.

The times have changed and the clues and tricks that were very functional till only a little while ago have been badly exposed. Google, the ace search engine does not fall for it. Needless to say, the respective sites, for their own sakes have to necessarily update themselves to be in the roving eye of Google.

Google sends spiders or crawlers on getting a keyword placement through the relevant sites and makes a statutory index of the site by analyzing its contents. It then hands the site a page ranking status depending on how well or badly the site has done its homework.

Gone are the days when a prominence of keywords in the top half or the first page of a particular websites received brownie points. Major search engines like Google, yahoo and MSN have outgrown their feathers and now gauze the fake attempts of the sites even if the latter try to use the old tactic of link exchanges.

The current SEO trends that are running the internet market are of inbound linkages and submission to relevant blogs and forums. The hyperlinks attached to major related sites do wonders to the credential of a site. Submission of RSS feeds and URLs are also of benefit.

User content on interfaces have to be seriously analyzed by the core team of a site before giving final touch to the product the site is playing on. The keywords and tags work differently in different sites and the effort has to be there in diligence to understand the algorithms of these search engines through several trial and errors.

Pay-per-clicks and bought spaces in forums and blogs have an elixir like action and such sites automatically command respect. The search engines have the requisite machinery and skill to detect which is a serious shopper and which is not. The general logic is to be rather on the former side than the latter.

If rumors are to be believed, Google’s Webmaster 3 is coming up with a very unique concept which is mysterious to others in terms of algorithmic manipulations. If someone types ‘television’, then even the sites that have the word TV in any form, maybe a part of taxi no., will come up. That will include a gamut of more such sites and a ghastly increase in results. Therefore, the task would be really cut for the sites to be on the first pages of a search.

Even on the advertising front, there are drastic changes coming up and advised to the trend-setters to be a big name in the business. The alert website programmers have to buck the trend and follow basic principles. The domain and meta tags with clear keywords are still a must. Getting approvals from other sites in the form of inbound links is very efficient and a research on keywords a very essential part.

As a result, new Internet marketers can get simply overwhelmed when looking for the right solution. It it important to note however that, looking in the right spots, even a total n00b aka novice aka newcomer – should be able to discern and filter out the good advice versus the poor or untimely advice. But they have to know what they are looking for.

So what’s a newcomer to do? How is a newcomer able to tell who is “doing it” right? Who is the proper SEO master?

Google is the answer. Whoever turns up on page one on Google (and stays there) for a competitive keyword is doing it right. All you have to do is do what they do.

Just remember…the fact that a certain SEO strategy is out there, doesn’t imply that it is right or it is the proper way to do it. So this immediately disqualifies a bunch of so called SEO gurus. After disqualifying the self-proclaimed gurus who don’t have tangible evidence, you are left with a few SEO specialists who know what they are doing. You just do what they do. But you won’t be alone. There’s a lot of people out there who know what to do as well.

So let’s say now it is between you and about a thousand other bloggers. You all know the right strategy. You all know what to do. How do you trump your competition?

You could 100% focus on the SEO strategy. While this is not easy, remember that most of your competition will focus maybe 50% on the strategy and then divert their attention to another strategy. This is where you can dedicate yourself and breathe, eat, drink and live for the one foolproof SEO strategy that you know works. Just do it.

And remember, even though you are doing it, you have to do it right. Don’t just focus on doing something and then do it all wrong. For example, you do not want to spam Google and other search engines when trying to get your keywords indexed.

It is a lot of work. And will not happen overnight. But one thing is for sure. If you get a strategy that works and you focus on it, then there is no doubt whatsoever that in the long run, you are going to trump your competition and get the high organic search results that are the bread and butter of most websites and businesses.

Like a famous company once said, “Just Do It.”

What to Consider When Hiring an SEO Firm

If you’re a small business person with a web site, you’re probably working 12-hour days to keep things running. Hiring an SEO firm might be the answer. SEO has proven to be one of the most cost-effective forms of marketing available.

Many SEO’s and other agencies and consultants provide useful services for website owners, including: Reviewing and providing recommendations on your site content or structure, technical advice on website development (for example, hosting, redirects, error pages, use of JavaScript), content development, managing online business development, advertising campaigns, keyword research and SEO training.

Before beginning your search for an SEO, it’s a great idea to become an educated consumer and get familiar with how search engines work. In a recent news article on Newsweek Magazine and the Washington Post, Rand Fishkin, chief executive of Seattle-based search consultancy called SEOmoz, said he focuses on getting editorial links for his clients, partly by creating feature articles that Web publishers will link to: “We call it link-baiting,” he said.

Search

Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results or the higher it “ranks”, the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As a marketing strategy for increasing a site’s relevance, SEO considers how search algorithms work and what people search for. We believe that a Search Engine Optimization Company should cater to the individual needs of the client and be readily available to handle any request at the drop of a hat.

We believe that this sharing of information will help our members to increase their rank, while our SEO clients come to understand the processes involved in attaining and maintaining high search engine ranking.

For example…an unusual question came up at WebmasterWorld recently, asking if you can request a site to be completely removed from a country specific Google search engine. In this particular case, the site owner wanted to remove his site from Google Netherlands, because the site had some issues being available to Holland searchers.
So the owner of the site wanted to remove it from all search results within the Google Holland and Netherlands search engine.

This is where a professional SEO firm becomes invaluable. A professional SEO firm will look at the specifics and then tell you how to go about it without risking getting the whole site banned from Google.

Satisfying user intent from off-site search engines or on-site internal search is a crucial way to reach modern-day searchers. Leaving organic search results to chance can be costly for your brand.

Remember…keeping up with the always evolving technologies and techniques of the Search Engine Optimization industry requires both a purpose driven focus and a visionary streak. To be sure, there are now structured search marketing methods with established returns to serve the very tangible needs of the business community at large.

So what are those “other things” that a good SEO firm will or should do for your business?

- First and foremost, when you are hiring an SEO firm, they should be willing to provide references that you can call to confirm, that yes, the SEO firm that you want to hire is top notch. Case studies and especially testimonials are just not enough. At a minimum, you should at least be able to talk to a past client of the SEO firm. Some of the past clients will not be willing to divulge their secrets or how they are currently getting their traffic since it might be a threat to their business but you should at least be able to talk to a few willing clients.

- All web sites are not created equal. Each and every website has it’s own unique needs that need to be attended to differently. A good SEO firm will not treat your website with a “one-size-fits-all” kind of mentality. Some websites just need more content. Some websites underlying structure is so non-web compliant and SEO unfriendly that it needs to be fixed before anything else can even be attempted. The SEO firm has to go in and find out what’s wrong with the site. That’s why you went to them in the first place, right?

- A good SEO firm should be able to tell you how they intend to accomplish the job. Like mentioned before, the main job of the SEO firm is to get inbound links to your site. The stronger (read “from more authoritative or respected sites”) the link the better. A good SEO firm will not hide the process and will lay it out to you. In fact, you want them to teach you all the basics of SEO while they are doing it. Not that you want to become a master SEO yourself, but it doesn’t hurt to know the basics.

Many sick people, especially those with terminal illnesses, are not doctors nor do they have advanced medical degrees but they know the names of their medications and exactly what it’s for. So learn to ask and a good SEO firm will tell you the basics of what they are doing and how it’s going to help your business. After all, you don’t want your site banned when an SEO firm uses black hat techniques, do you?

- Content, in any shape or form, is the ultimate link getter. A good SEO firm will create “link-bait” content that’s going to attract links from other sites. Content can be in the form of videos e.g. Jib Jab type of videos or it can even be thought provoking articles.

- Last but not least, a good SEO firm will not just tell you what you want to hear, but will tell you exactly what the problem is. You have a problem. And your problem is that you are not ranking on the front page, preferably number one, for your search term. You want an SEO firm that will tell you straight up that the pretty flash design on your website just ain’t working. Yes, you spent a lot of money on it, but the flash has got to go.

Look for an SEO firm that will be upfront and honest with you even if what they tell you is hard to hear.

Think of back links. Back links or reciprocal linking was celebrated once but today its mass abuse has made top search engines like Google and yahoo ensure that the sites dealing in back links do not get any merit. The black hat measure of enhancing search engine ranking was not acceptable to the search engines though they could tolerate sites going for advertising through it. Also, inbound links from authentic, well-established websites are most welcome and they increase the prestige of a site.

Also, the entire theory behind keywords has changed. Earlier, deep keyword intensity was appreciated by search engines who thought that it was a smart means given to the sites to enhance their search engine rankings. Today, extra thrust on the keywords are being taken as a liability and such sites are not recommended by the engines.

This is because the emphasis of search engines has changed. Today, they look towards humans as the main focus and not themselves. According to search engines, the reason why sites do business is the visitors and in fact without the visitors nothing is worth it. Extra thrusting of keywords makes an article stretched and tedious. The unique element of an article is what a visitor comes to see. Yes, at times, the agenda is to shop and buy a service but most of the time its readership. In such a case, keywords can be a kill.

An advice from the search engines for the budding websites is to use long tail keywords. Search engines believe that long tail keywords bring sales whereas short tail keywords bring enquiries. Think of it. People who type “shoes” are least likely to buy shoes. Those who type “rexin poly-coated “shoe” are your buyers. This makes the long tail or the long stream keywords a success.

You must remember that the right ways of tweaking the Meta tags and page contents and also the correct way of page navigation along with dealing with HTML is the route to steer clear of Google-letdown.

You must remember the bots or spiders of Google can only read texts and not images. This is why it is more important to track the Google software and find out what part of your site is there for Google indexing. What cannot be indexed by Google cannot be read by it and hence it does not reach visitors.

Google might not be the giant anymore and the Yahoo split has really cut it in wrong places bringing its share down by 27 percent yet it rules the search engines and ensures that SEO does not incorporate any black hat manipulative measures from website owners.

To create consistency and variety in your SEO efforts simply write out a plan of action detailing what types of strategies you will use and how often they will be conducted.

To create a simple plan you can use the rule of 5, meaning that you will plan to do 5 different SEO activities each day. You can submit articles, make a blog comment, submit your website to a website directory, post in a forum with a link in your signature, and social bookmark one of the pages on your site.

These 5 actions you take each day may be small, but you will build 150 links a month and 1800 in a year! This will definitely boost your ranking for a moderately competitive key phrase or two. If you have more competitive key phrases you want to rank well for, you can take the rule of 5 and use it in each category of link building. This is a lot of work, but it can be accomplished. It takes a great amount of devotion as well. Many people cannot do this type of work day after day because it gets boring. Consider hiring someone to do it for you.

Completing this link building strategy for one year will lead to 12,600 links pointing to your site. With this large amount of links, you will be able to rank in the top 10 for a competitive key phase as well as the top space on Google for less competitive key phrases.

Before you take on the task of creating this large search engine marketing project, you must write out a plan. The plan should contain specific details of the project. Create a monthly plan, a weekly plan, and a daily plan of action. Additionally, write out the key phrases you plan on targeting in 2 in two columns. One column will contain your key phrases listed in order from greatest to least KEI score, the other column will contain your key phrases listed in order from greatest traffic to least. A key phrase can have no competition but if it is not searched, it is worthless.

Now that you have everything written out, it is a matter of daily work. You have simplified SEO to basic tasks and you will see results in a few months or as soon as a few weeks. You may not reach the number one spot as soon as you would like, but given enough time with this consistent plan, you will see your rank rise high.