The internet has become one of the most powerful communication tools available with the ability to outperform traditional communication channels such as radio and newspapers. Some would even argue that today’s internet outperforms television when it comes to breaking news.

Sitting in the middle of the traditional Labor Day weekend, the power of the internet has never been more evident. Hurricane Ernesto threatens the coast and millions of people around the world are relying on their computers rather than other forms of media to get instant information.

In the meantime, the US Presidential race continues and again, it is the internet that is being used as a tool to both communicate by the contenders, and for users to seek information.

Businesses in the bricks and mortar world that don’t have an internet presence are going to find over time that marketing activities such as the creation of brand awareness won’t succeed unless there is some form of online presence, including search engine optimization.

More importantly, today’s commercial websites require professional development with professional SEO strategies applied if they are going to succeed. For those also looking for brand awareness, social marketing will need to be strongly considered.

The internet has reduced the size of communication world considerably. Where instant communication can be undertaken to any part of the world, virtually free, and international online trade booming, developing a professional well optimized website and online presence is now a must.

Yahoo! beefed up their Search Explorer a little more and now provide some useful search engine optimization information. The information is still fairly basic when compared to the data you can collect from Google Analytics; however, seeing how other search engines view your site is equally important.

Site Explorer has a new interface and provides information such as:

• Site URL
• Number of pages known
• Number of pages crawled
• Number of host on this domain
• Number of inlinks
• Number of inlink domains
• Number of outlinks
• Number of outlink domains

Other news from Yahoo!, although only rumored at present, is that Yahoo! may be starting to indent search results in a similar fashion to Google. Keep your eyes on Yahoo! search results to see if you can see any indented results.

Yahoo! is starting to look more like Google everyday!

If you are operating an online business then you have an opportunity to create content that is not only of value to your readers, it can be an effective SEO resource to develop links.

Build a Resource Directory
If you are going to build a resource directory then you need to be sure it really is a resource directory and not just a list of links. A list of useless links will do more damage to your sites credibility and provide nothing of value to your readers. From an SEO perspective, all links in your directory should be to related sites in your niche.

When creating your directory, spend some time and do properly. A list of site names with links, while providing a resource to visitors, is no different to a blog roll. Good directories that will encourage others to link back needs to be informative and provide value. Include the following information in your link directory:

• link to their websites
• contact information
• a map and street directions to their off line business
• brief summary of services

It may take 20-30 minutes to create each link in the directory, however, once completed your directory will look very professional, provide a wealth of information for your visitors, and prove to be the perfect link bait for other sites. If you limit the number of links to only the best sites, you will suddenly find other related businesses requesting inclusion as part of their SEO program. You are in a position then to dictate the terms of your links.

Create an Industry News Section
If you stay up-to-date with all the news in your industry, provide a page or series of pages that publish all the latest information. Try to keep your reporting unbiased be sure to only publish facts. If the information is based on rumor then be sure to clearly state that it is a rumor.

If you are publishing news on a regular basis, others from within your niche will comes to recognize your pages as a one-stop-shop for industry news. With this reputation will come links particularly as others start using your news articles in their content (with links of course). News articles can also be useful to promote on social media sites.

Many businesses utilize a blog to publish directories and industry or business news. While the blog is a perfect tool for these tasks, it can be done through standard web pages. From a search engine optimization point of view there are pro’s and con’s to both. If you have the time and resources to maintain a blog then there are opportunities to publish information on a wider scale. Whether it is a blog or through your web site, effectively done, these two tips can really boost your search engine optimization link building strategies.

An article by Patrick Altoft on Blogstorm seems to indicate that perhaps Google is placing less emphasis on keywords in anchor text and looking more for natural links.

The article raises some interesting points and if the situation is true, it could have a major bearing on search engine optimization and the way we try build links to out pages. I can understand his point where he feels that Google:

wants to show the most relevant and trusted websites at the top of the search results but anchor text has no relation to trust for most queries.

The argument he uses however, is fairly narrow using people’s names. The problem with anchor text in general is that it is used by both trusted sites trying to link intelligently to other sources, and by those who are trying to amass links with only keywords as anchors. Anchor text in itself does not imply trust, however, search engines, particularly Google, have enough information on sites to determine whether or not the link is to be trusted or not. Anchor text provides the contextual link that can then be associated with search queries.

I wrote a post not too long ago, the real power of anchor text, where we pointed out how Adobe ranked number one for ‘click here’. This is a common term associated with Adobe and not one that would be optimized by them. Checking today, they are still ranked number one for that term.

In a natural link building program, you are going to receive links in a variety of formats. There will be links to the domain name and root page. There will be links to page URL’s. There will also be links where ‘here’ is the anchor. Good search engine optimization practices should allow for a variety of anchors in links with the more powerful links carrying the best anchor possible.

If his observations are true, SEO will need to undergo a rapid change in procedures and many links will require re-evaluation. Until there is further evidence to the contrary, aim for a balance of anchor texts in your link building activities.

At present, one of the major search engine optimization factors in determining website authority, and subsequently search result placement, is the number and quality and relevant links coming in to the pages of your website. If you set aside a small amount of time each day you can steadily build and manage your links effectively. These five tasks will go a long way to making you task easier.

1. Your first task is to ensure that all current links are active and going to the right places - this includes internal links. If there are any dead links, check them and repair or remove them altogether. Every day check on the number of links on any one page and keep them under control.
2. Spend some time researching your niche and looking for link opportunities. The best links come from sites that complement yours, not compete. If you sell cleaning detergents, look at sites that sell brooms, mops or even buckets and other related cleaning accessories. Contact webmasters and ask for a link to your pages. Be prepare to exchange links so make sure the site is one that you would be happy linking too.
3. Finally, while not directly link related, check all aspects of your site to ensure everything is functioning correctly. If you send out link requests you need to be sure your site presents itself well if they decide to check you out. Naturally, you want your site working properly when you receive visitors.

If you set aside a set time each day to cover these tasks the whole process will run smoothly. It is very easy to get caught up responding to emails as they arrive. This takes you away from other equally important parts of your online business. SEO is an important aspect to building traffic to your website: it should not dominate your day.

When you set out to get a website ranking well on the search results pages, it can be a good idea to set out goals and a timetable for your search engine optimization activities. There are times however when individuals set goals that are unrealistic and timetables for events that are out of their control.

Every webmaster would like to see their sites ranking at number one for their preferred keyword. In niches that are highly competitive, achieving number one may rather difficult. I have no problems with an individual setting that as a long term goal. In the short term you may only make page two or the bottom of page one despite a concentrated search engine optimization program.

Over time, with a lot of hard work and little relevant link building luck, you may reach that number one spot. In the meantime you need to set realistic milestones that are achievable. Your SEO program can only achieve so much.

Timetables are one area that can be a concern. Having a timetable of when you are going to have components of your SEO program completed by is fine. Setting a timetable of when you expect to see results can often be demoralizing and frustrating.

Achieving your timetable of task completed is a smart move. The results however are generally out of your hands. Yahoo! for example often takes longer to index new pages than Google. There are so many components that can affect your results that setting a timetable is not realistic.

The most important component is the search engine itself. You have little control over when and how often they visit and index your pages. While you may be able to prompt them, in reality they come and spider and index a site in their own good time.

Part of an effective search engine optimization campaign is to set goals and to establish a timetable. You should also understand that some of the components that go into establishing rank, components such as indexing and the discovery of inbound links can take time. I have seen pages rank well after only a couple of weeks while a similar page elsewhere has taken several months if not longer.

SEO is an activity that, like a fine wine, takes time to mature. As it matures it will grow and as your PageRank climbs, so too will your inbound links. One of the most important virtues to SEO is simple… patience.

A WebMasterWorld forum thread discussed one members view that they had run out of link building ideas. Some of the suggestions were interesting; some were also quite valuable from an search engine optimization perspective.

The question was based on one member’s frustration. They had done all the normal link buildings tasks such as article submission, forum participation, blogs, directories and “traded links with pretty much every site I can find in my niche that’s worth exchanging links with”.
The final response to the question was probably the most pertinent:

are you really out of places to get links? That’s impossible!(sic)

It really is almost impossible to run out of sites to acquire links from. Sometimes the problem can also be one of trying too hard and not having the patience to see the results of the current activities. While they may have developed hundreds or even thousands of inbound links, the search engines may not spider all of them for several months.

There are times when you may feel you have all bases covered. The reality is, perhaps you need to do more. The writer claimed to have four or five articles written and submitted to directories. Perhaps they need to double that number and spread across as many article submission sites as possible.

If they are experienced in their given field, finding related blogs and undertaking guest posts using your target page in your links also results in links. More importantly, you are getting your name out and with your reputation. One of the major benefits to any search engine optimization campaign is your reputation as there is little doubt that reputation goes a long way to encouraging others to link to your pages.

There are endless opportunities to developing relevant one way links to your sites. Sometimes you need to look outside the square. It can often help to check out your competition to see where they are obtaining links. This may provide ideas for sites or areas that you have not considered, or perhaps considered and discarded. As an exercise in SEO management, you need to be aware of what your competition is doing - find what they are doing in the way of link building - and do it better.

If you talk to bricks and mortar business owners and suggest an online presence, their first reaction is often, “why, I don’t have the resources to sell online as well”. It can be difficult to point out the advantages of an online presence as a pure marketing tool, especially when you then need to encourage strong search engine optimization and social media marketing programs.

There are thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of businesses that are brick and mortar based, yet have an online presence that is purely advertising. There are far more that have developed both offline and online businesses.

Using the web as a marketing tool can be very effective. A simple blog that looks good and contains plenty of useful information can be a good start. Blogs can be easy to optimize for search engines, provide an opportunity for two way communication, and are easy to promote in social bookmarking and social networking circles.

If a blog is not your style, then a well designed website with links to content that visitors will find useful. Products reviews, store and/or personnel reviews, and maps to your bricks and mortar business are ideal subject matter. However, it doesn’t matter how good your site looks, or how good the content is, if people cannot find you, they won’t see it. This of course involves effective search engine optimization strategies designed to get your site as close to the top of the search rankings as possible.

When you think about an online presence, don’t just assume product sales. The internet has become the second home to millions of people around the world, this is makes it the perfect environment to market your business. However, just because you are not selling doesn’t mean you don’t need a strong search engine optimization program.

There are times when organizations question the need for search engine optimization. There can be conflicting information around that often confuses those considering search engine optimization and perhaps social media marketing.

One event that leaves many website owners, particularly those who also run a blog, is the freshness factor when it comes to the SERP’s. A lot of content does seem to appear at the top of the SERP’s within hours of publication. This is due to its freshness. Within 24 - 48 hours that content has often dropped out of the SERP top pages and gets lost amongst the millions of other pages. If there has been a decent search engine optimization strategy carried out on that page then over time it will steadily climb back. Many website owners and bloggers point to this front page phenomenon and question the need for search engine optimization. The 24-48 hour factor should answer that question.

If you are in any more doubt, then perhaps the statistics put together on invesp.com would interest you. Admittedly these statistics relate to blogs. However the same theories can be applied to any website.

The most important statistic was that of inbound links, take several major online marketing blog’s as examples: Online Marketing Blog had over 700,000 links coming in to their pages, the Matt Cutts blog almost 300,000 and Marketing Pilgrim almost 250,000.

While not quite as important, the number of pages also made an interesting stat. Online Marketing Blog had 2,779, the Matt Cutts blog 4,306 and Marketing Pilgrim 11,464. What makes these stats interesting is that there is little correlation between the number of pages and the number of links. In fact, Online Marketing Blog had the fewest pages of the three chosen yet the highest number of links. Other factors such as quality, search engine optimization and perhaps social marketing may have some bearing.

When it comes to PageRank, Matt Cutts has a PR7 whilst the other two register as PR6. The ultimate statistic however comes in the number of visitors. According to Compete and Alexa data, the following is an estimate: the Matt Cutts blog registered the most visitors with over 300,000 monthly unique visitors. Marketing Pilgrim registered over 160,000 and Online Marketing Blog over 120,000. Matt Cutts has an unfair advantage as his reputation as a Google employee helps to drag in visitors, particularly when he makes a Google related statement.

You may look at these stats and wonder about their relevance to search engine optimization’s ability to rank well and draw traffic. Online Marketing Blog may appear to receive less visitors that the other two blogs mentioned. They do, however have far less pages that could appear in the results.

Raw statistics are always difficult to draw conclusions from. However, what is evident with this group, (and the others mentioned in the full stats), is that the amount of content is important. Of more importance is the number of links coming in to a site. In previous posts we have spoken about the need to work on the off page search engine optimization strategies if you want to rank well. Every blog mentioned in the original post had inbound links number in the thousands.

While Google PageRank is not a key indicator these days, the top blogs all had PR rankings of five or better. They top dozen or so all had visitor numbers measured in the tens of thousands.

As a business building its rankings in the major search engines it is very important to look at all of the stats that you can locate for your online competitors.

With Google’s introduction of Suggest, it may be time to reassess the use of long tail keywords. From an SEO point of view, most long tail keywords won’t result in streams of traffic but depending on the search volume of those keyword phrases it could product highly targeted visitors. However, who said you had to use only the one long tail?

As you add a word to a keyword, you almost halve the number of likely queries. By the time you get to five or six words in your long tail, the number of search queries is likely to be small. This is why researching your keywords is very important. Having said that, the longer the tail, the more targeted the traffic will be.

If you intend to go down the long tail keyword track, you will need to select plenty of them. For each or several long tail keyword phrases, create at least one page of good content, the more the better that has been optimized for that long tail. You will need to do this for each of the long tail keywords selected. Use the URL to your long tail content pages in your resource box. Getting these pages indexed and collecting inbound links will be needed to get to the top of the search results.

Each long tail keyword may only attract small amounts of traffic compared to standard keywords. However, as you add additional long tails to your list, the traffic will grow. Take a handful or more of well optimized long tail keywords and you will be surprised at the increase in traffic. More importantly, as searchers take to Google’s Suggest, you will be there, prepared with those long tails already optimized. That’s when your hard work will really start to reap the rewards.

When it comes to search engine optimization, Google Suggest has mixed outcomes. Suggest has now become the search default for all Google search interfaces. Similar to Yahoo!’s Search Assist. Suggest brings in a drop down window with suggestions to complete your query. I am sure millions of users will find it a useful addition. Millions may also find it annoying.

For the new Google suggest feature you can start to rethink some of your keywords, particularly misspelled words. As users come to understand how to use the feature, they will shortcut to a term that best matches their query.

There is an opportunity lurking behind Suggest. At present, you not only see a list of possible search terms, you also see how many results match that term. From a search engine optimization angle, this is good news and bad news.

The good news, you can quickly find a range of long tail search terms for your niche that have relatively low results and include them in your SEM strategies.

The bad news, every site owner can see the same info and some long tails will quickly explode in numbers as they try to capitalize on them.

Google Suggest will affect some aspects of search engine optimization. Time will tell whether or not it changes the habits of people using Google.

One important aspect of your search engine optimization program is how you structure your internal links. It does raise the question whether or not you can have too many internal links on the one page?

I have never seen a formula for links, keywords, or any other search engine optimization tactic. Common sense would tell you that internal links should meet certain criteria such as:

• Relevance: One of the most important criteria. Linking pages that are not relevant could be counterproductive.
• Anchor Text: If you are going to link to other pages on your site then be sure to use the right anchor text.
• Quantity: Here we go - how many? Sorry, not the answer you are looking for! It appears to be accepted now that search engines will only follow the one link to a page. Having more than one link to the same page, even with different anchor text, will not be followed by the search engines.

That still hasn’t answered the question. Really, there is no real answer, however a balance is needed and to avoid being accused of sculpting, a ratio of less than 50% is probably the safest approach. There are times when you are going to exceed this. Most bloggers appear to get away with ‘best of’ posts or ‘weekly recaps’ where they link to older posts. Their link ratio could be as high 60-70% internal.

Internal linking to pages that are relevant is always going to be the most important issue. If you are helping the visitor find more information then there is no reason to expect a penalty from the search engines. Search engine optimization is always going to be a matter of achieving a balance between what is right for the visitor and what is appropriate for the search engines.

If your primary focus is regional or perhaps even focused on the one town, using local search is a must. Your keyword should include the town or regions and be a primary target of your search engine optimization strategies.

One of the biggest aids to appearing near the top of the search results pages is by including your town or region in your title tags. One mistake that many web owners make is to include a town with no further information.

If you were to check a map of your region or country I am sure you could find two three towns with the same name. Take a simple name like Orange. There are several variations. Apart from the obvious fruit relationship, there is Orange County, Orange NH and Orange Cove. Depending on what other search engine optimization strategies you have in place, search engines may find it difficult to pigeon hole you based simply on the term Orange.

There are times when you need to be more precise. Using the term Orange County, or Orange NH enables the search engines to match queries more precisely. Including on page strategies such as including your business address in the footer also helps the search engines determine which queries should be matched to your pages.

Search engines are becoming much smarter. They can determine where a searcher is located and generally match search results based on their local area first. If your pages are optimized to for your local area you stand a much better chance of being included in the results. The added benefit, particularly if you also include your region in the page description tags, is that the searcher can see from the search results exactly where you are. This can lead to an increase in targeted local visitors and sales!

There are times when you do a search and find the results less than stimulating. In fact, you have to wonder how these pages made it to the top of the SERP’s. Links are one of the major factors in determining a pages rank. When scraped content is making the first or second page of the search results, you know something strange is afoot. A link check will often find several thousand links coming in to these sites, links that often appear to be from link farms.

As an search engine optimization professional we never use or suggest unethical link building. This however, appears to put many sites at a disadvantage - at least in the short term. We know that over time the search engines weed out these sites. In the short term, they are able to capitalize on an apparent weakness in the search algorithms.

Search engines, particularly Google, place a high emphasis on penalizing sites that sell links, or sell Google PageRank as they phrase it. I am somewhat cynical at times when I see the same search engines profiting from the advertising of link selling and link farming sites. Google in particular talks a lot about ethical SEO and ethical relevant one way link building - where are their ethics when it comes to profiting from sites that promote unethical practices.

The one thing you can be assured off, with ethical search engine optimization strategies and link building tactics you will eventually gain your rightful place in the SERP’s. You may have to wait until the search engines remove those sites that have used unethical means. Is it fair, no. But ethical is at least safe - in the long term!

404’s otherwise known as Page Not Found errors can have a serious effect on your SEO efforts. Google have provided a little widget that may help resolve some of these errors while also helping your visitors.

Often a URL will get damaged in transit so a 404 error is returned instead. If the user is impatient they are just as likely to hit the back button or try a different site. This widget helps the visitor find the right page, make suggestions for appropriate pages on your site, or use the search box to find what they are looking for.

From Google WebMasterCentral:

There are various ways to help your visitors get out of the dead-end situation. In our quest to make 404 pages more useful, we’ve just added a section in Webmaster Tools called “Enhance 404 pages”. If you’ve created a custom 404 page this allows you to embed a widget in your 404 page that helps your visitors find what they’re looking for by providing suggestions based on the incorrect URL.

If you know what you are doing, or have a good web designer, then having a custom 404 page is the best option. Having employed a strong SEO campaign the last thing you need is to have your visitor leaving your site.

The Google option is good attempt at trying to provide one solution for the 404 error and is better than no page at all. Optimizing for any 404 errors should be an essential part of any search engine optimization campaign. There is a use for both.