Linking can be complex, link building can be frustrating. Here are three quick and simple linking rules that may help boost your SEO efforts.

Link out:
Linking to other sites does help your SEO programs. Make sure the links are to relevant content on sites with good authority.

Link within:
Maintain a balance of links within your own site. Where there are pages of content that relate to each other, provide links, preferably within the content using appropriate anchor text.

Balance links:
Try to keep the right balance in your links. You want more links coming in than going out. This is per page, not just content so include links in sidebars, blogrolls etc. Include in the balance the links within your own content. Every link leaving a page has may take link ‘juice’ with it. Too many links leaving and the link ‘juice’ will be very thin - even to your own content.

These are three common sense link building tips that can help to balance your SEO. By controlling the flow of links in, out and around your web site you can increase the rankings of various pages that you feel are important.

If I could add a bonus fourth tip it would be - Don’t waste your links, use them to best enhance your SEO strategies.

In a world where the internet is booming and growing exponentially every day, it is becoming harder to rank highly for keywords in the major search engines that are competitive.

Google and Yahoo dominate search engine traffic to the tune of approximately 80% of all users. They are the most popular and they are the hardest to get high SERP rankings. While they may take 80% of all searches, that still leaves 20%. Considering there are billions of searches each day, in raw numbers, 20% is still huge.

Undertaking an SEO program that targets the smaller search engines for your moderately competitive keywords may prove to be more successful than trying to get to the front page of Google. Having a front page on result on several small search engines may generate far more traffic than a page two, three or four listing on Google or Yahoo.
Targeting the smaller search engines is no easy feat, however, with the services of experienced search engine optimization professionals you can achieve these results thereby increasing your traffic, your leads and ultimately your sales.

In a strange twist, if you can rank highly on the smaller search engines through targeted SEO strategies, your traffic may increase and with it other important optimization benefits such as inbound links. Over time, this can help to improve your placement on the larger search engines due to the including the smaller engines in your long term strategy.

For anyone doing a search these days looking for some good reading material on how to educate themselves on search engine optimization for either themselves or their company they know that it can quickly get overwhelming with the amount of information in existence.

So many books, so many authors and everyone seems to be an expert these days. How do you know whose information to trust anymore? It seems like everyone has a different strategy on how to get the search engines to find you easier and become more visible. We have uncovered a book that should help you on your journey to having a great optimized website or just too simply learn how to do it on your own. Websiteoptimization.com has recently announced a new book that is bound to stick around for the long haul, Website Optimization: Speed, Search Engine and Conversion Rate Secrets. This new book published by O’Reilly Media teaches those who read it how to take various online marketing tactics and combine them with web performance to create a solution that will undoubtedly bring their website to the next level.\

Author Andy King says this: “Website Optimization is about persuasion. Well-optimized sites persuade people to email, to call, and ultimately, to buy. Optimized sites are fast, engage users, and are easy to find and navigate. Using proven methods of design, copy writing and visibility, website optimization transforms prospects into customers. My goal in writing Website Optimization was to show people how to combine all of these techniques to maximize their online success.”

This book was written to touch upon search engine optimization strategies such as things you should always do and things you should always avoid like the plague. The book also gets into different aspects of pay per click optimization like various copywriting guidelines and over all campaign management tips. This book also helps out those that want or need more advanced topics such as HTTP compression, URL rewriting and insider server tips.

This book was written and designed to be a guide and to help those looking for a quality source to be able to turn to when seeking assistance website optimization. Something that doesn’t go bad with time but focuses on fundamental information that has a long lasting effect on your website and overall your business was needed for the industry. Everybody knows that Website optimization is a fast moving industry and often time’s new information is borderline outdated by the time it actually hits the bookshelves. This book stems from solid fundamental principles that will only age with time. Website Optimization Secrets successfully covers all bases of website marketing while at the same time keep the reader engaged in the text at all times. Website Optimization Secrets has clearly been written for the masses and with the idea the guidance is the most important trait that must follow this book from cover to cover.

For more information regarding this new book, please visit:
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/secrets/

The “404 Page Not Found” error can be a real problem for a site and their search engine optimization programs. This can cause many problems particularly if the page in question was ranking well in the past.

There are many reasons for this error to occur including:

- Page Deleted
- Page Renamed with a new URL
- Page moved to a different location/directory
- Moving Site to a new provider

When faced with this problem there are several options that can be undertaken to reduce the possibility of an issue. The main solution involves using redirects although if you have simply removed the page, then a request to Google to remove the page can be made. Without the request Google and other search engines will eventually drop the page for consistent 404 Page Not Found errors.

For pages that moved or changed URL’s, a simple redirect can take care of the problem. Over time the search engines will replace the old URL with the new one. The most common redirect used in SEO is the 301 Permanent Redirect.

If you are moving a complete site, there are small software programs that can through and quickly redirect all broken links to a better page with more relevance. You can also use your META tags to prevent Google from following any links within a particular page.

This can result in the missing page being removed. It does however take time for pages to get deleted and for the new pages to be indexed. However, if you just leave the pages with links to non-existent sites, the Page Not Found error could cause more harm than good.

You would think when reading some articles that there was some confusion over relevance and authority when it comes to link building. For most website owners, obtaining a link from a relevant page on an authority site is heaven. I was not aware they were mutually exclusive.

A post on SEORoundTable on determining authority for link building could give rise to some confusion. More confusion could be generated given that PageRank was used as one method of determining authority. PageRank of course is a Google score that is terribly unreliable - it also ignores the other search engines.

While authority and relevance are not mutually exclusive, it is worth thinking about. Many would claim that a link from a site with authority is far better than a link from a relevant page. I would argue this point on two levels.

1: Who is determining authority? There is no reliable ’score’ that suggests one site has more authority than another. PageRank is not reliable and only indicates a Google assessment. Perhaps keyword SERP placement across a variety of search engines could be used as an indication.

2: Even if you could determine authority, if the link is not from a page that is relevant to your page, the link will most likely be devalued anyway.

Receiving links from pages with relevant content, particularly if the link uses keywords in the anchor will over time prove to be more valuable than an unrelated link from an ‘authority’ site.

Ironically, links that meet the ‘relevance’ test will help to build authority over a period of time and over time the page containing the link may well grow in authority.

Authority and relevance are not mutually exclusive and in any link building campaign I would prefer to see links that incorporate both. However, given the choice, I would prefer to see links from pages with relevance. Having said that, links are links and in a link building campaign it would be a rare situation where I would ask a site to remove a link.

It may not sound like an SEO problem, however displaying a simple calendar on your site has the potential to send the Googlebot into outer space - well maybe infinite space at least.

The problem arises where your calendar has a next month/previous month option. The Googlebot follows links so it will click on the ‘next month’ link, and the ‘next month’ again, and again - you get the picture. It will never leave your site as it continually follows that link. From and SEO point of view this is real bad news. The Goolgebot doesn’t leave that loop so the rest of your site doesn’t get indexed.

If it wasn’t serious it could be funny. However, one of the side effects is an unnecessary use of bandwidth and a failure to read any other links further down the page. The Googlebot is smart enough to learn that it is going nowhere so it backs off. However, by backing off it may simply stop reading and indexing your site at that point. Whilst Googlebot is smart enough to recognize that problem, there are others that could escape. As the Google blog states:

Another common scenario is websites which provide for filtering a set of search results in many ways. A shopping site might allow for finding clothing items by filtering on category, price, color, brand, style, etc. The number of possible combinations of filters can grow exponentially. This can produce thousands of URLs, all finding some subset of the items sold.

This is a good example of why you need to think carefully about every component of your web page. Everything on the page has the potential to affect your search engine optimization activities. In this case, a simple ‘NoFollow’ added will prevent any problems.

Many criticize the use of ‘NoFollow’ as part of an SEM program, however its judicious use does help the various robots follow the links that need to be followed whilst preventing the following of links that provide no value to either the user or the search engines.

Before starting to build a web site, and more importantly, before commencing a search engine optimization program on a web site, you need to answer one fundamental question. WHY?

If you cannot clearly define why you want to optimize your site, you are not ready to have it optimized. In fact, you are not ready to have it built in the first place. For a well defined search engine optimization program to be effective it needs direction, understanding the WHYs is important:

1. Why should your audience purchase from you?
2. Why are you building the site?
3. Why do you want to rank well in the search results?
4. Why do you need people to visit your site?

If your site is commercial based, that is, you want to be able to sell goods or services then the sites design, content and SEO program needs to focused on those goals. Web design and content need appropriately placed call to action points. Your targeted keywords need to reflect what potential buyers may use as search terms.

Commercial sites are not the only pages on the web. Your site may be designed to attract affiliate sales, or perhaps purely information with Adsense or similar affiliate marketing based income streams. Understand how you are going to build your website and business first before you tackle SEO…make sure you answer the WHYs!

Most web sites are built on a template like design basis where the general design of a page is repeated across the whole site, the only change being in the content. This can often affect the outcome of your search engine optimization efforts.

The concept of site wide designs is fine and allows for consistency and familiarity for visitors. However there are certain aspects that may not sit well with search engines. One of the reasons that links within content are so valuable is the fact that they don’t appear site wide.

Links in footers, on the other hand, do appear on every page. Some of these links could be viewed by search engines as paid links, the end result being a reduction in page ranking. The reason of course is because footers have often been the home of paid laid links.

Bloggers that use free templates are often unwittingly displaying the most inappropriate links in the footers; links that are masquerading as designers name or website. If you are using a free template, I suggest you click on those links and see where they are actually going.

Other site wide links may help your search engine optimization efforts in the long run. These include links back to the home page on all other pages.

As a general rule, footers can be an ideal location to place links to all your important internal pages. They can also be used to display important non linking information such as shop front locations and telephone contact numbers.

If you are using a template that displays the same information site wide, check on the links in areas like the footer. If there is the slightest doubt that they may negatively impact your rankings in the major search engines then, remove them or “nofollow” them.

While it is hard to find concrete figures, it seems that only half of all internet users actually rely on search engines when they access the internet. If only 50% of the online population uses a search engine, should we be primarily concentrating on search engine optimization, or should we be seeking out alternative methods to secure visitors and sales online?

Statistics can be manipulated, twisted and turned inside out to suit a particular argument. My statement above suggested that only 50% of users relied on search engines. The real question should have been how many people looking for information use a search engine? The answer to that would probably see the number jump well above the 50%. However, as web 2.0 matures to 3.0, search engine optimization, rather than being the only way to attract traffic, has become just one of many different strategies.

Search does indeed continue to be the number one supplier of traffic when it comes to users who are looking for something. Because of this, it would be crazy to ignore search engine optimization in favor of other traffic streams.

The current trends are to combine a variety of strategies, all under the one umbrella of marketing, to attract visitors that are ready to buy or complete some action. These strategies are no longer confined to online activities. Social media marketing is the second most popular source of traffic; however offline media and marketing activities are now starting to bear fruit for businesses integrated with online channels.

By using a blended approach to your marketing, you can attract traffic from users with diverse internet abilities and usage habits. As long as search engines deliver traffic that is targeted towards a website’s niche, search engine optimization will be useful. If search engines become too complex in their abilities to provide links to simple questions, they will fail. Search engines are quickly coming to crossroads where they will need to determine which direction they wish to go in. Search results are becoming less relevant whilst at the same time including unnecessary information.

As web 2.0 grows, search engines will become less relevant and with it the need for search engine optimization. At present, search engines provide much of the traffic, so SEO still has its place. The future? It’s in the hands of those seeking the information and how they go about finding it.

Rules were meant to be broken or so the saying goes. It is probably a part of human nature, however as soon as you say to people, “don’t do….XXY”, they bust their gut trying to do it. Search Engine Optimization is no different.

You may hear terms such as ‘white hat’, ‘black hat’ or perhaps even ‘gray hat’. These all represent strategies that either follow ‘rules’, don’t follow, or sort of follow.

The problem is who sets the rules? There is no industry standard for Search Engine Optimization although there has often been talk about establishing standards; and with it training standards, qualifications and everything else that comes with setting standards. The next question would then be, “who sets the standards?”

At present, search engines, rather than having requirements, set out what they consider ‘black hat’. They set the rules, determine if you have broken them, and then issue the punishment. The problem with these rules is that they set out what you shouldn’t do.

As search engines work hard to protect their algorithms and the data that goes into them, they won’t release standards that would make optimizing easier. At present, there is a set of basic SEO concepts that most experts agree on. Once you start to venture beyond those basic concepts you run into problems.

If one group of experts feel that A-B-C is the best path and that X-Y-Z should not be used, you will get another group of ‘experts’ who refute those steps claiming that A-B-C is fn when it comes to basics, however, X-Y-P should also be used.

In this regard, even basic concepts are hard to establish. If search engines ever decided to set a minimum set of concepts, then perhaps everyone could work to a common standard.

Rules were meant to be broken? When it comes to Search Engine Optimization, rules cannot be broken since no-one can agree on the rules.

For web site owners that have established their site with reasonable search engine rankings, getting to know and communicate with the power players in your niche can help your search engine optimization efforts and perhaps give your site that little extra lift in the rankings.

The power players you need to associate with are not going to be your competitors. The power players you are looking for are those with sites that complement yours, or perhaps your site complements theirs. Get to know them. If they have a blog, leave appropriate comments. Link to them appropriately - and yes links leaving your site to authority sites can help your SEO.

If any of these sites use social media, then join in their conversations - intelligently. This is one time where the old saying, ‘if you don’t have anything positive to say then say nothing’ comes into play. You need to appear intelligent with something to offer. Over time, they will start to relate to you as an equal. When that happens, you have two options; sit back and wait for links to your pages to happen (and they will); or request links - both will help your search engine optimization efforts over time.

The ultimate aim is to be considered a major player yourself. To become important in that particular niche or industry. As you become more important, you will be seen as a website with authority and smaller or new web owners will start to link to you. Why? They are going to be in the same situation you are in now - looking to grow beyond being an established middle of the road web site to an important site with authority.

Search engines were never created equal and as they have grown up they have taken slightly different paths. Consequently, identical search terms entered into a different search engines will return different results. If different search engines return different results then it stands to reason that different techniques may be required for each of the search engines.

You could try to undertake optimizing your website for all of the major search engines, and most sites do. Many sites concentrate their search engine optimization efforts on Google and hope it is enough to satisfy the other search engines. However, with a little research you may be able to concentrate your efforts on the search engines that will deliver the most traffic and sales. Demographics of your audience is one set of statistics that could be very important to your decision making processes.

Finding statistics on demographics for search engines takes a little research. However, the following statistics, although approximate, may give you an idea of current trends.

Age:
18-34 year olds prefer to use Yahoo!
Over 55’s prefer to use MSN

Gender:
Males tend to prefer Google
Females prefer either Yahoo! or MSN

Buyers:
Google searchers are more likely to buy compared to Yahoo! and MSN

If your target audience group is female and between the ages of 18-34 then targeting your SEO towards Yahoo! may be more effective in the long run. If your target group is female and over 55 then perhaps MSN may be more productive.

Statistics never tell a complete picture and since Google receive over 70% of all search traffic, it would be foolish to ignore their search engines. However, knowing where your potential customers are likely to come from can help to refine the SEO for your website.

One thread that you will see in every SEO guide is that content is king and to rate well in the SERP’s you need to provide fresh content on a regular basis. Since search engines only index pages, does it matter how many pages you have and how often you add new content?

It is an interesting question and search engine do only index pages. That doesn’t mean they don’t look at the overall site. More content, from a search engine optimization point of view, does help. From the search engines perspective, the amount of content is not nearly as important as the content itself and the other factors such as inbound links.

To a certain extent, that is where the issue sits. The more good quality content you have, the more you will be seen as an authority website on particular topics that are relevant to your content. With authority comes respect and the willingness for other site owners to use you as a reference using quotes and links. More authority equals more links. That said, adding content on a regular basis is a big help - if it is good quality.

Blogs are a little different. Blogs rely on a regular supply of content to keep their regular readers coming back. Regular readers who find the content valuable will link back to content when it is appropriate.

Adding regular content can also help with the internal links structure of a web site. This can help to boost the home pages rankings within a search engine. While increasing Google PageRank is not an important issue as it once was, you will often see a home page with a PR of 2 or 3 yet most of the internal pages are only sitting on a zero or one. Using internal links, where every page links back to the home page, helps to improve the home pages rankings.

The final major reason for adding content on a regular basis is that it encourages the search engines to visit and index your pages on a regular basis. The more often the search engines visit and spider your content, the more your pages will be indexed. Does more content help with search engine optimization - indirectly, more content can help a lot.

Designed for advertising and marketing, Google’s new tool, Google Insights For Search, may also become a handy little keyword research tool over time.

The tool returns a lot of information for any search term although the standardizing of results makes it a little difficult to make comparisons. However, there are other tools that can be used to refine your research.

Google Insights looks like more like a trends analysis, which in a way it is, with more information that standard trends results.

Results can be filtered by category, geographical region, and date ranges going back to 2004. The results produce a line graph with significant news events plotted along the graph.

You can also see related search terms and how they rank to the original search term. The most interesting area, particularly when it comes to keywords and SEO is the ‘Rising Searches’ area. Here you can see which related search terms are rising.

All in all, this is a handy easy to understand tool that can provide a lot of help for those in advertising and marketing. It may also be a big help as a keyword research tool.

Many web owners veer well away from stat packages such as AWStats or Google Analytics. They data can be confusing to the initiated. However, once you get an understanding of those stats you will see that often they hold real SEO treasures that can be used to increase your sites visitor numbers.

Keywords are always a problem. Which keywords should I use; how much competition is there for them; how many people are using those keywords? If you check your stats and AWStats if you have in on your server, or Google Analytics, both provide results based on keywords used to find your pages.

If check those results you will be surprised at what you find. Along with the keywords that you have optimized your site for will be search terms, particularly long tail, that are delivering significant amounts of traffic. If you take those search terms and work them into your long term search engine optimization strategy, you may find that more traffic is generated.

Search engines look at the search term and do a comparison with pages that have been indexed. If your content appears to satisfy that search term it will then have a good change to rank in the major search engines for that keyword phrase. The results are then published to the searcher. If you check through your pages you may find that certain terms have been used often enough that the search engines flag those terms as important (keywords or keyword phrases).

Use that accidental ranking by working those terms more frequently into your pages. Good SEO practices encourage the constant review of search terms used to find pages so that optimization can be tightened.

As a side note, there is also the problem of searchers finding your pages for the wrong reasons. Sometimes you need to go back to old pages and remove repeated phrases so they do not show up in the search results. The question is - is any visitor, even a wrong visitor, better than no visitor. If you are selling from your web pages, the answer has to be no. Your main goal should be trying to generate visitors that will lead to sales, generate leads or whatever your conversion metric might be.