Many PR firms and search engine optimization companies know that press releases distribution online are a great relevant link building outlet as well as a promotion and buzz building outlet. But many SEO companies still do not employ press releases on a regular basis despite knowing their SEO potential because of the amount of work that is sometimes involved. Well, since social media has risen in popularity in the last couple of years, the press release has become even more important.

A press release, like an article or a web page, can be optimized and faces the potential to be found in the search engines as well as any of online content. But social media can drive even more traffic to the press release and to the website, or websites, it promotes.

Real-time search, which all the search engines are not tinkering with, makes the potential for press release optimization even better.

To make the most out of your press release opportunities, here’s a recommended strategy:

• Write a well-written, well-optimized press release
• Distribute your press release through a professional press release distribution service, such as PRWeb or PRLeap
• Blog about the event your press release promotes and link to the press release “for more information”
• Promote the press release and link to it from Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn

Take these steps in increments, not as an all-in-one solution. For instance, write and distribute your press release on one day then blog about your event with a link to the press release a day or two later. About 3-5 days after you blog about it, promote the press release on one of your social networks. Promote it on another social network the following day and another on the following day, etc.

When you promote your press release or event the press release is promoting, be sure to use the same keywords that you optimized your press release for. You want to exploit those keywords as much as possible. You should even use them as anchor text when linking to the press release and when linking back to your website.

Press release optimization is not difficult. But you want to promote the press release like you would any other online content, if you do then you increase your chances of generating relevant links, visitors and you can create a “buzz” for your company all at the same time!

The age old question in the search engine optimization world is if you build wonderful, user focused content, will this lead to great search engine positioning and rankings? It’s repeated often enough that you’d think it is true. Great content will get linked to and that will increase the search rank and the cream will rise to the top. Isn’t that how search engine marketing works? In theory, yes, that is how it is supposed to work. And it’s a nice theory. However, as is often the case, there is a gap between theory and practice. This gap is carefully pointed out by Rand Fishkin at SEOmoz.

I’m not so sure about Rand’s remark about 70%+, but I do agree that relevant inbound linking is very important. And I also agree that second-rate content can rank higher than great content merely because the second-rate content producer is better at marketing his content. It is, after all, a popularity contest. Rand hit that nail right square on the head!

When it comes to ensuring you get the rankings you deserve, you should of course strive to write the best content you can produce. But you should also be a promotion hound and get out there to build relationships with other companies, partners, etc. The bottom line is great content will help convert a sale, lead and should speak to your audience. But there is no substitute for good old fashioned marketing ability. To build your website and your company online as a leader in your industry, market or niche it is should be your main goal. If you and your in house team work hard building your reputation, over time you should be able to build your visitors as well. To build your website as an authority through relevant link you should be proactive with your marketing, social networking, blogging, commenting, online publicity, article marketing, industry associations, etc…all of it!

Social bookmarking has become a part of an every day routine for many online marketers (social bookmarking websites such as: Digg, Stumble Upon, etc.) But search marketers submit content to social bookmarking sites for different reasons. Some online marketers, I’ve noticed, emphasize the search engine optimization benefits of social bookmarking. Others, on the other hand, emphasize the social connectivity aspect of the practice. Which is right? To be sure, social bookmarking has SEO benefit – and it also has the benefit of social connection and networking. But which is more important?

I think, personally, they are both important. It is very important to your business that you meet new people with like interests and that you help them while they help you. That’s one aspect of social bookmarking. But it’s also important to build inbound links to your website and social bookmarking can do that for you. But you should realize that not all social bookmarking websites provide dofollow links. Some of the best ones, in fact.

When it comes to social bookmarking, you have to decide what values are important to you. Know what those values are and how they can benefit your business.

Link building is one of the most important tasks for any webmaster or marketer that is looking for long term search engine optimization growth. Google has taught us all that. But what about Bing? Now that Microsoft has waged a third quarter blitz to gain some competitive advantage against its arch nemesis, the folks in charge of indexing websites at Bing want to make sure we all understand the best practices for building inbound links to our websites.

The good news is it’s not a far cry different than building links for Google. The bad news is it’s not a far cry different than building links for Google.

Let me explain that. First, a little snippet from the Bing blog:

Bing’s position on link building is straightforward – we are less concerned about the link building techniques used than we are about the intentions behind the effort. That said, techniques used are often quite revealing of intent.

That’s pretty much Google’s take as well. Rather than focusing on good technique versus bad technique, the search engines are more concerned with why webmasters perform certain tasks. That’s why one technique may work well for some webmasters, but get other webmasters flagged for spam. So how does Bing know whether you have good intentions or bad?

That’s the same question that many people have been asking of Google for several years now. And the answer is just as muddled as the answer for good technique/bad technique.

Again, from the Bing blog:

The webmasters who create end user value within their websites, based on the needs of people, are the ones who will see their page rank improve. So where does that value come from? Content. Good, original, text-based content.

In essence, all good link building starts with good content. That’s true for Bing and Google alike.

It’s refreshing to see Bing get serious about link building quality. That hasn’t always been the case. I think the people at Bing have spent a few years studying Google from the inside out. As a result, they’ve modeled some of their own indexing and ranking practices on Google’s policies. The result for Bing is a better search engine and more respect from the SEO community. So what about link building for Bing? What makes a good link?

Well, from their own blog, here’s the bucket list:

• Seek links from relevant sites
• Seek out high authority websites
• Stay natural

The same old message we’ve heard from Google, right? Yes.

And to answer the How question, here’s what Bing says (again from the blog):

• Develop your brand
• Let relevant industry people with blogs and websites know of your website
• Publish optimized online press releases
• Do some article marketing
• Participate in blogs and forums
• Build relationships through social media
• Create an online newsletter
• Write a blog
• Join some industry associations
• Become a trusted expert in your niche

Sound familiar? If it does then it’s probably because you’ve been listening to what the folks at Google and the thousands of SEOs (including me) have been saying about link building for the past ten years (or five years at least).

The good news is, Bing’s list of link building best practices is the same as what we’ve all been saying for some time now. The bad news? Bing isn’t being particularly innovative here. But then, they shouldn’t be.

More and more, I see articles popping up as guest post’s on blogs and as premium content on websites. Of course, people are still using article directories to mass submit their articles to a variety of websites as well. But is that still an effective way to do it?

It is true that article marketing has changed a lot in the last couple of years. The top-tier search engine marketers today are writing premium original content and sending it out to other websites for a link back. That’s becoming much more effective than the old school way of mass distribution. But I wouldn’t count mass distribution out just yet, just pick better places to submit your articles, such as eZine Articles, HubPages or Work.com.

People said the same thing about website directories. They’re no good, the provide no benefit any more, and they are a thing of the past. Not true. High quality directories such as Yahoo! Directory, Best of Web, Business.com, etc. still provide good links to marketers who know how to leverage them. True, they’re not as powerful for link building as they used to be, but that is mainly due to the search engines wising up to the ways of spammers and implementing controls to detect it. True directory submissions still work.

But keep in mind that getting an article in an article directly is no guarantee that you’ll be published elsewhere. It’s also no guarantee that you’ll see an ounce of benefit from your articles. The best guarantee of effective article marketing you have is the writing of great original content that provides value and to submit it to excellent article places, I have mentioned, but spending time developing relationships with top sites in your industry and submitting content is still a great way to leverage article marketing as part of your relevant link building program.

Off site search engine optimization or relevant link building is not just about building inbound links to one site and forgetting about it. A true link building plan is about building links for the purpose of driving up authority. But how do you do that?

Well, authority is based on a number of factors, but one of those factors is link relevance. Another factor is link age. And another is the authority of the site linking to you. If the authority of the site linking to you is important then it makes sense that your inbound links need to be from a high authority site – some of them, at least.

So how do you get high authority sites to link to you? One way is to go and find a bunch of high authority sites and bet for links, another way is to build those sites.

Let’s say you have Site A and you build another site, Site B, to link to Site A. That helps Site A, but how does Site B build authority without attracting links of its own. You need to do your normal link building for Site B to increase its authority so that links from that site to Site A become more valuable. Those are called second generation links.

Links to Site A from Site B are first generation links. Links you build to Site B are second generation links. Their purpose is to increase the authority of Site B so that links from there to Site A carry more weight. You can also link from the same sources that link to Site B to Site A as long as you don’t also link from Site a back to those sources or from Site B to those sources. You don’t want to give off signals of a network. But you don’t want to build solid and relevant one-way links that over time grow in authority for all your relevant sites. The bottom line is to provide value in any of the websites that you own with a solid purpose and goals. Promote your websites the right ways, from many different relevant sources over time and the search engine authority will follow.

There are many white hat ways to build relevant inbound links, but there is one method of link building that is almost guaranteed to build you links if you do it the right way. I am talking about building an affiliate program. But you do have to do it the right way. Remember, I always recommend building your offsite search engine optimization efforts (link building) from many different relevant sources over time. Launching an affiliate program can be another excellent way to build your inbound links to your website. So what is the right way?

Let’s first talk about the wrong way. Don’t go to one of the third-party affiliate program sites like Commission Junction. It doesn’t matter how good they are at managing affiliate programs. Any links that point to your affiliate program pages will be redirected through your affiliate manager’s website so they can track clicks. That will give them the link juice, not you. So I recommend that you build your own affiliate program. Let’s not forget that building a proper affiliate program can produce an additional excellent source of leads and sales for your business.

What you do is build an affiliate sign up page where you capture the pertinent data from your affiliates. Then you’ll need to assign an affiliate ID number. There are methods for doing this and you can Google it, but once you do that then you’ll want to include the affiliate ID number of each of your affiliates as a parameter in your landing page. Also, be sure to have an excellent commission structure (cost per lead, percentage of sales or cost per sale) affiliate program. If you don’t offer affiliates an excellent commission structure then they will not link to your website.

When you build an affiliate program this way you’ll get inbound links to your website. Use a third-party service and someone else will get the benefit those inbound relevant links.