Google Penguin Update Causes Ranking Havoc with Penguinization

Published by in Google on May 15th, 2012 | No Comments »

Google unleashed the benign sounding update called Panda last year, and has now followed up with an equally cute Penguin which is really a monster in disguise. Google makes around 500 changes to its algorithm each year (the algorithm is the mathematical equation with over 200 factors which determine where a website will rank for a given keyword term).

Most of the time, the changes are small and affect very few sites, but as Panda had fur flying, Penguin is ruffling feathers and a lot of websites are affected.

If you have been watching your Google rankings disappear overnight, Penguin is the reason why, so here is what it is doing and what you need to do.

Penguinized rankings from Google

(Un)Happy Feet?

Penguinization – What Google’s Penguin is Doing

Penguin is targeting areas where SEO companies and website owners have traditionally operated to manipulate and build a website’s ranking in the search results.

Unfortunately, there are right ways to do this and wrong ways.

Guess what?

The wrong ways are cheaper and faster, and they are also the reason why your website is now getting hammered in the rankings today.

Penguin is specifically targeting backlink profiles. Links to your website are viewed as a vote of confidence from the web community, so Google pushes you up the rankings if you had links to your site, and broadly speaking it was a case of the more the merrier.

The problem is this – not all backlinks are equal, plus many websites have a lot of quantity but little quality…and Penguin can spot the difference.

If you have a backlink profile which looks like it has been built overnight, or has a disproportionate number of links using just your keyword terms, or from poor quality sites which have no relevance to your own niche – you’ve just been “Penguinized!”

(“Penguinized” – © Karl Hindle May 15th 2012 @ 4.55pm EST – I said it first)

What Can You Do?

First of all – don’t panic!

Second – call me – (804) 882-0944 or email me at karl4work@gmail.com

In practical terms, you need to rethink your entire SEO and web strategy. The focus is on quality (and it always has been) and by that I mean this:

  • Quality content on your site to attract and engage readers and visitors and encourage sharing
  • Quality links from trusted and authoritative websites – one link from a good site is worth more than a thousand links from spammy article submission and blogging network sites.
  • Quality also means Relevancy – you need links from within your own niche or somehow related to what your website is about. Getting a link from a baby site is of no value if you are a law practice.
  • Quality also means looking natural – link building takes time, not because I can’t throw 50,000 links at a website overnight, but because that just doesn’t happen in the real world (unless you are Lady Gaga and have 20 million Twitter followers). Build links in a moderated fashion so your link graph over time looks like a curve and not a set of clunky steps.
  • Quality also means diversity – diversify out the sources of backlinks you have coming into your website. This means adopting a whole range of back linking techniques so you are not putting all your SEO eggs in one basket.

Finally, if you have not been hit but you have engaged in dubious SEO practices, don’t be complacent. Panda was launched last year and is now on version 3.6 – Penguin is going to be reiterated too, so expect to be caught if you haven’t already.

Karl Hindle is an SEO and Internet Marketer with Big Oak Inc in Richmond VA

You can email him at karl4work@gmail.com or call him on (804) 882-0944

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Imaginative Link Building for SEO

Published by in Link Building on April 25th, 2012 | No Comments »

Building links is essential for Google rankings but use your imagination

This is a quick one on link building – an essential component of any SEO strategy and absolutely vital for gaining high rankings in Google, Bing or any search engine.

I’ll cover link building basics another time, but the point I want to make in this post is that using your imagination pays dividends for creating good link juice for your site.

You’ll hear the mantra, “Content is King” a lot, but creating good content which is interesting, and I mean truly interesting, as well as being on topic is what will get people hooked on your site and generate voluntary linking.

Here’s a really good example of what I mean – OSC is an orthopedic medical practice and rather than just create lots of verbiage on epidurals, spine surgery and pain management, they’re also thinking outside the box.

They’ve created “Bad to the Bone”, a medical humor cartoon and here it is:

OSC Link Building Cartoon for SEO

By posting the cartoon on their practice blog, which is also attached to their main website, anyone who links to the cartoon is going to be linking to their website too.

Hey Presto!

Instant links from a wide range of sources, and especially from social media sites like Facebook, which is where this cartoon is currently floating around and I’ve spotted it on several medical blogs too.

Use your imagination when building links and that means being imaginative with your website content. In this instance, for a couple of hundred bucks a good piece of long-lasting content has been created which is generating links to boost ranking.  Given Google is bearing down on article and blog networks, where many people have been generating links using crappy content, you or your SEO partners are going to have to get creative.

Kudos to OSC.

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Google Algorithm Changes Causing Wild Ranking Fluctuations

Published by in Google on April 18th, 2012 | No Comments »

Why Your Search Engine Rankings May Be on a Rollercoaster Right Now

After a week off for vacation time with #1 heir on a visit from the UK to his dear old dad in Virginia, I returned to my desk to field emails and voice mails from clients.

Karl Hindle desk

The top topic of conversation is the wild changes in their keyword rankings on Google – some are ecstatic, some are concerned and almost all are confused.

Why are My Keyword Rankings Fluctuating so Wildly?

The answer is Google is currently rolling out a series of significant changes to its search algorithm. The algorithm is really a giant, convoluted formula which is used to determine where a web page will rank for a particular keyword search. Google is almost constantly rolling out updates and tweaks to this formula, but occasionally we go through a period where the changes create some significant volatility in the rankings for a large number of websites.

keyword rankings

I’m not going to get into how a search engine works in this post, but a useful infographic on how Google works is found here.

March 23rd saw the roll out of an update to an existing search filter, Panda. This update is Panda 3.4, and the impact appears to be negligible at this stage (though when Panda was launched just over a year ago, the impact was enormously detrimental on sites deemed to have low-quality content).

What seems to be making the search pond swirl around is a series of changes known as the March 50-Pack. The March 50-Pack is just what it says, a set of 50 algorithm changes aimed at improving search quality – whether that will achieve Google’s stated aim remains to be seen, but nevertheless, this is the major culprit at work for my money.

[SEOMoz has a page on Google algorithm updates and changes if you're really keen.]

What I’m Seeing Empirically with Keyword Rankings

I’ve detected several themes with the current roll-out of updates (which I believe is still going on as I write). This is current information based on my experience the last 3 weeks (today is April 18th 2012).

First of all, sites which are geared towards local audiences appear to be more affected than sites aimed at generic or national audiences. From my clients’ empirical data, I’m seeing significant positive and negative ranking movement for local keyword terms – you may be up or you may be down, and in some instances a lot of both.

Sites which are aimed at generic keyword terms, for instance, an insurance company looking to rank for straight insurance terms, appear to have had a boost in rankings. Introducing a local or state modifier to the keyword term seems to have increased volatility, for instance a law firm offering services in Virginia, e.g. “attorney Virginia”, appears to have been seriously bounced around, but their SEO campaign is in its infancy yet.

A national company using keywords with no local modifier, but which also has has exceptionally good, authoritative links using just the website domain name, e.g. www.companyname.com, has seen a dramatic improvement in its main keyword terms.  But at the same time it is experiencing exceptionally wide fluctuations (+/- 60-70 rankings) for its more numerous tier 2 keyword terms which are not so well supported with links.

Fortunately, the general metric I most care about, SEO traffic, is up almost universally with all my clients, no matter how they have been affected by the volatility in keyword rankings, and that is ultimately more important.

I put this down to several common factors:

  • Good content i.e. not written in “Ingrish” or as if it reads as though written by a 5-year old, on topic, edited, written and created for people first, search engines second.
  • Good quality backlinks – sure there is “cloud cover” derived from article submissions and the like, but all of my strategies involve doing something of everything – backlinks are diversified with a focus on backlinks from high quality and authoritative sites.
  • Diversified keyword portfolios – instead of worrying about where you rank for a small number of keywords, worry about ranking for 1,000 terms – all my clients with smiles on their faces today have blogs attached to their company website which are regularly updated.
  • No Over-Optimization -  a common problem I encounter is very heavily spammed keywords in both the site content and meta, plus the backlinks created keep using the same keyword to form the link, typically comment spam or on non-relevant sites, all using the rel=follow attribute.  Too much SEO can be worse than not enough!

What Does This Mean to You?

A good SEO will advise you not to focus solely on where you rank for keyword terms. This may seem silly, and it is counter-intuitive, but I would rather increase the number of keywords a client site ranks for than worry about one keyword term’s position, i.e. increase keyword diversity and reduce keyword risk.

diversifying Google keywords

Just think of your stock market portfolio – don’t put all your eggs in one basket and spread the risk.

Instead, treat keyword rankings as a “wind sock” – they help you gain a feel for what is happening to the site as a whole (and remember you will be gaining SEO visitors from multiple keyword combinations you will never think of ranking for, but which you will because that’s how search engines work).

The key point is that rankings are not the be all and end all – you must put the overall ranking positions in context, and keep in mind that what they appear to be telling you can be just plain wrong. For instance, this morning I spoke with a client and advised them that the dramatic increases they were seeing in ranking was NOT because of what I’d been doing as an SEO – they just got lucky today. Equally, another client is “discouraged” at a drop in ranking and is struggling to understand why he isn’t seeing an upward trend after 5 months of link-building work – it’s too soon and we’ve just got unlucky that Google is rolling these changes out now.

In both cases, they are right to be happy and upset, but this is really about timing and nothing more.

If you have been fortunate enough to benefit from the changes, then good for you but don’t be complacent or think you just did a good job, find out why you rose.

If you have been less fortunate, figure out why.

In both cases :-

  • SEOs are still trying to work out what the changes are and how they are impacting sites.
  • Make sure your SEO is monitoring how the keyword metrics are changing as a whole, and what is there about your website which is causing these changes – good ranking spots need to be replicated, while deteriorating positions need to be countered, but for this you need to know why they are moving the way they are and that will take some weeks to figure out.
  • We will not know the answers to everything ever, but from now until the end of May at least, you should be engaging in some trial and error work to figure out what you need to do for rankings.
  • If your SEO traffic is up, don’t fret too much on the ranking volatility. If it is down, you probably focused on ranking for a few keyword terms and now you’re paying the price, so learn from this.
  • Keyword diversity is the goal you should be targeting, not just top billing for a small number of search terms.
  • If you’re new to SEO (and by that I mean started a campaign less than 12 months ago), don’t worry too much, this is all part of the Google game and why you need a good SEO and Internet marketer in the first place.

 

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SEO Issues to Consider When Performing a Website Redesign

Published by in SEO Advice on March 30th, 2012 | 3 Comments »

Karl Hindle outlines why you must consider the SEO value of your existing site when making design changes.  Today he covers how you can reduce the risk of losing your search engine rankings when improving the look and feel of your website with a makeover.

Redesigning Your Website Without Damaging SEO Value

website design and SEO

SEO Issues and Website Overhauls

If you’re savvy enough to have had a website for several years, more power to you, but like anything else as a site ages it will start to look and feel like a geriatric. Users demand more functionality, faster page loading speeds and more interactive and engaging content to play with.

An older site is simply not going to be able to work as well as the latest models running off the production line, and that means diminishing ROI from your website.

I’ve recently had a slew of clients talking about site redesigns, which is a good thing, but the biggest headache is not how the new site is going to look or how sleek and fast it will be, but whether the website’s existing search engine rankings are going to be affected by the changeover. There is always a risk this may happen no matter what preventative steps you take, but you are virtually guaranteed a drop in rankings if you approach the makeover in a cavalier or haphazard fashion.

I write this blog for the benefit of business people looking to use the Web to generate ROI, and not for technical geeks who want to debate to the Nth degree in an abstract dialect, but some technical language is unavoidable.

Caveat: this post deals with a site redesign but NOT what happens when you migrate your site from one domain name to another – for instance www.company1.com is changed to www.company2.com – that scenario is outwardly a similar, but practically a very different can of worms!

Two Big Issues with Redesigning Your Site

Firstly, Google does not tend to like a lot of things to change at the same time. For example, changing all the content (different words, images, video on a page which previously ranked); the domain registration information or where the website is hosted. If you change too much all at the same time, Google seems to flip a switch and demotes you. I think this is because such changes are seen by Google to occur when a site changes hands, so it will wait until it can “trust” you again, even though it is still you.

Secondly, changing a website can alter the URL structure of the site. A URL is the website address you input into the navigation bar in your web browser, for instance www.google.com or www.karlhindleseo.com

Let’s take a closer look at what I mean here:

You have a website and your products section has a URL which looks like this – www.companydomain.com/products The new design team comes in and they make some slight changes to where everything is arranged on your website, so now the URL to get to the same content becomes www.companydomain.com/US/products – while the content on the new webpage looks the same as the old website, the URL itself has changed.

Why is this a “bad thing”?

The answer is that the search engines will have given SEO credit to the old URL, plus any SEO work will have been directed at building links to that old URL. Now you have a new URL housing the same content, but the credit is being given to the old version and the links built will not be changed to the new URL but retain the old version – the SEO credit is not directly transferrable.

The result: the new web page does not rank and the old URL starts dropping out of the SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Position).

What Can You Do To Retain the SEO Value and SERPs for Your Website?

frustrated website owner and computer

 

The first thing you need to do – and I mean you really need to do this – is to retain someone who truly knows what the ramifications are for your site’s SEO value.

 

 

Overhauling a website is not for the gifted amateur or for the web developer who dabbles in SEO on the side.

Here is my basic Redesign/SEO checklist of things you should be doing to preserve your site’s SEO value:

Retain the Old Navigation Structure and Page URLs

If you do this you stand a much better chance of escaping any SEO shifts, because while your site may look different, it won’t to the search engine algorithm.

You may not be able to keep the navigation of your site exactly the same, but that is not so important as making sure that the old URLs match up to the new URLs exactly.

Even then, this is not always possible, so where you have old URLs which are not the same as the new ones, you can use a technique known as a “301 Redirect“.

A 301 Redirect tells a search engine that your content has been permanently moved from one URL to another.  Most of the time, this works with Google after an initial bouncing around, but be warned, sometimes the 301 Redirect is itself rejected and you will need to work out a Plan B to save your rankings.

Change Nothing Unless You Have To

I’ve already mentioned that Google in particular does not seem to like a lot of change happening with a website. If you are engaged in a redesign, that’s OK, but don’t change where you host it or amend the domain registration information or anything else which you don’t need to change at the same time.

If you have a blog, don’t move it off or on to the main domain (main domain means main company website) at the same time as performing a redesign. Instead, leave it where it is for the time being and come back after the redesign changes have taken effect with the search engines.

For instance, I am currently working with a client who has an off-site blog, e.g. www.companyblog.com, which is not on the main site, i.e. www.company.com or the main domain. One issue they want to resolve, as part of their redesign, is to bring the blog onto the main company website (normally a good SEO move), so it would be www.company.com/blog. However, introducing, or removing, a large chunk of content is contributing to a lot of change to the website, so it is better if we handle such changes in piecemeal fashion.

Generally, my advice is to change nothing except what you have to change. Allow those changes to be picked up by Google, Bing, et al, and then return after two or three months and perform another change, such as adding the company blog content onto the main site.

Make Sure You Only Have One Website – Canonical Issues

Search engines do not like duplicate content and if they believe you are copying from somewhere else, for instance simply cutting and pasting someone else’s work into your own website, they will not give you any SEO credit.

You may already have heard about how Google penalizes duplicate content, but in fact Google doesn’t penalize you, it simply ignores you.

But I hear you say, “My site is 100% original content – how can this apply to me?”

Look at these URLs – try putting them into your web browser and see what happens:

KarlHindleSEO.com

www.KarlHindleSEO.com

http://www.KarlHindleSEO.com

They all take you to the same website – this one. But look more closely in the browser navigation bar – in particular, watch what happens when you try the 1st and 3rd URLs – you see the URL change by itself to www.KarlHindleSEO.com – the www version.

What is happening and what has this got to do with duplicate content?

Berns Triplets Courtesy of ABC News

My site deliberately reverts to the www version of the URL no matter what variation you put into the navigation bar.

The reason for this is because unless you tell the search engines, “This URL version is the one I want you to give all the credit to and none to the others.” They will assume that you have several different websites with the same content. In other words, they treat each URL variation as a completely different website address – you have the same content published on 3 separate websites.

This is known as the “Canonical Issue” – canonical comes from the old English word, “canon” which essentially means the original source.

Which URL version you use is up to you – personally I use the www version because I find most people/users are more comfortable with that as it is what they have grown up with. You may choose another version, but a hint here is to make sure you build links using only the URL version you have selected as your canonical site and encourage everyone else to use the same URL format.

Stay On Top of the Designer/Developer

Web designers (who design what a site looks like) and web developers (who code sites) are frequently one and the same, and there is a lot of overlap between the two so we use the terms as synonyms.

seo and wesite redesign issuesWhat is not widely understood is that there is a very big gulf between a web developer/designer and an SEO/Internet Marketer. The former designs/builds the car body, the latter drives it very fast.

Too often, I have been consulted after the fact when a redesign has been launched, only for the website’s ROI to plummet because the rankings have been damaged – a case of the surgery was a success but the patient died (or is in dire need of resuscitation).

It is your responsibility to stay on top of your developer/designer and unless you have a trusted SEO expert on retainer, here are some questions to ask your designer/developer and the reasons why:

1. Is the code you are using able to be seen by the search engines?

There are many different coding languages to render a website, and they offer advantages and disadvantages for each. A major disadvantage is using code which cannot be “seen” by a search engine, and the major culprit is known as “Flash”. Flash produces great looking websites, full of interactive video and smooth loading imagery, however search engines cannot see or watch it and any content contained within it is invisible to them. This means you get no SEO credit for it, and making it rank as you continue with SEO is extremely difficult.

Make sure the coding language used to create your website is visible to the search engines.

managing website design

2. Have you installed an XML Sitemap?

A Sitemap is simply a map of your website, and charts out where all the pages are on the site. You probably have seen one when designing or redesigning the site.

An XML Sitemap is simply a map which is used by the search engines to help them understand what you have on the website, where the content is and it helps the search engines to get you indexed faster. They are simple to create and load, and while they are visible to search engines, human users can’t see them.

Always make sure an XML Sitemap is installed.

3. Will page loading speeds be improved?

How fast a page loads is a factor in how high you rank in Google search results. An old site is likely to be slower than a new site, but the page speed depends on how graphics heavy the site is and how “clean” the coding is (from a design point of view).

If your web developer is not coding in clean code, which means they have a lot of convoluted instructions for loading up the page elements, then this will slow down how fast the site loads.

Also, the graphics and video used should be “compressed” and properly sized. The smaller the size of an image, then the faster it will load, but it is possible to have a “small” looking image actually be a great big file because it has not been properly resized. If you see a photo taking its time to load on the screen, this is an indicator of incorrect resizing which should be addressed and this will speed up the site.

4. Have you installed a robots.txt file?

A robots.txt file tells a search engine what you don’t want included within the results (specifically the Index of the search engine, which is the database the search engine builds and uses to then select the results from which you will see on the results page).

You will use a robots.txt file when you don’t want sections of the site to be “seen”, such as the dev (development) section or the site administration section. If you do include them in results, then this simply dilutes your SEO ranking power because pages and content which have no user value steal some of it.

Always make sure a robots.txt file is installed before you launch the site because it is easier to keep content out of the Index than try to get it removed once it is in.

5. Have you transferred the SEO titles, tags and descriptions?

This is extremely important!

Titles, tags and descriptions are used by search engines to understand what a website page is all about. The page title is probably the most single, important SEO factor of all, but all of them carry a lot of SEO weight.

If these are not carried over to the new redesigned site, you are heading for a drop in rankings no matter what else you do, so it is vital they are transferred properly.

Finally…Launching the New Site and Deleting the Old Version

My advice is to keep where you host the site the same as before, at least until the changes have taken effect and Google is cool with what you have done. This means you will have an old site and new version on the same server (the computer where the files for your website are stored and which users see when they visit your site on the Web).

When the time comes to launch the redesigned site, you should make a backup copy of the old site first. Then make the change and ensure you delete the old site and remove all the old files off the server.

This is done to ensure that the search engines cannot still “see” the old site files and are in no doubt that your redesigned site is the one you now want them to count and rank in the results.

Remember, just because you cannot see a website does not mean a search engine cannot see it – they are using different “eyes” than real humans.

launching your website

Key Points

Redesigns are necessary to improve user engagement, speed up slow sites and enhance functionality.

Don’t change things unless you need to; break big changes down into smaller piecemeal steps which are executed over time.

Retain an SEO who truly understands what is involved to avoid damaging or losing your search engine rankings.

Site redesigns involve complex SEO issues which may not be readily apparent at first glance.

(c) Karl Hindle – 2012

Email: karl4work@gmail.com

Cell: 804.882.0944 for business enquiries

More reading

Google’s Webmaster blog on migrating your domain to a new one – do not try this at home children!

Google’s take on building high quality websites - pithy but gives you an idea of how Google’s search team thinks

Local Search Issues by Karl Hindle - my last SEO post on local search and leveraging your physical location within SERPs

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Local Search Best Practice Hints & Tips

Published by in Local Search on February 22nd, 2012 | 3 Comments »

by Karl Hindle

SEO & Internet Marketer based in Richmond Virginia

Local Search provides the ultimate Goliath-killer for smaller companies leveraging the Internet. No matter how much money and resources larger nationals put into gaining high ranking for local search terms, you have a big advantage over them – you have a physical location and presence, with local customers, local coverage and exposure plus a footprint which cannot be duplicated virtually.

There are three main areas to concentrate on:

1. Local SEO
2. Local PPC
3. Local Submissions & Backlinks

Local SEO Considerations

I’m based in Richmond Virginia, my home address is Richmond, my office is Richmond, my area dialing codes for my cell, home, office and fax numbers are all 804 – the area code for Richmond VA. Clearly, I am a Richmond-based entity and it is easy to make Google realize this by simply including that information on my website.

Your business is probably already doing this because you include a telephone number and address in your contact page, but you can do much more.

Include your address and contact information in the footer so it is displayed on every page. You can put it elsewhere, you don’t have to use the footer, but make sure it is on every page of the site.

Use local dialing codes alongside your toll free numbers, because Google will use the area code to pinpoint you geographically.

Claim your Google Places and Maps listings, which is free and simple to do. One word of warning: don’t use your toll free numbers within your Places or Maps listings because it is against Google’s Terms of Service and will be removed.

Use your location terms within header tags, for instance:

“Karl Hindle – The Leading Richmond VA SEO“

Now I’m really pushing the idea to Google that (a) “Karl Hindle” is connected to “SEO” and (b) “Karl Hindle” is connected to “Richmond VA”. The result is that I will stand a better chance of ranking for a keyword such as “Richmond VA SEO” or something similar, but which does not include my name, “Karl Hindle” – after all, a searcher is unlikely to know of me personally, but they will if I’m ranking highly enough for these and related search terms.

In addition to including your specific location, look for alternate terms which are closely associated with your town. In Richmond, we have The Fan, James River, Shockoe Bottom, Glen Allen, Short Pump, Tobacco Row and surrounding it are the towns of Petersburg, Chesterfield, Williamsburg, Fredericksburg and Charlottesville. Then there are the counties in the immediate vicinity – Chesterfield, Henrico and Hanover.

By beefing up your references to terms associated with your location, you are building up your trust and authority with Google for that area, as well as improving your ability to rank for long-tail keyword terms. You are also making yourself look less of a spam site for that location term.

Create a separate page for your location, which is especially important if you are serving multiple locations. Based in New York, then have a page on which areas you serve in NYC, e.g. Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan etc., but if you are based in NYC, Washington DC and Richmond, then create pages for each of these locations (you can make them sub-pages off your About Us or Contact pages or better still, create a Service Area section of the site and make them sub-pages under that).

Local PPC Considerations

Paid advertising is known as PPC (Pay-Per-Click) and sometimes as SEM (Search Engine Marketing). You may know it as AdWords if you are using Google’s ad serving platform, but there are plenty of others.

Adwords allows you to restrict when and where your ads will be displayed. You can set display parameters so your ad will only be displayed to searchers in your target location, or based on search intent.

But there is a sting in the tail for the unwary – not every searcher looking for your company will be physically situated within your area.

If you are offering vacation packages to Virginia Beach, you not be looking to sell to people within the area. You will be looking for customers across the East Coast or student Spring breakers at colleges as far afield as Maine, over to the Midwest and down to Georgia. By setting location terms to serve up ads within your locality, you are cutting yourself off from your customers.

With my own situation, I have plenty of clients from Richmond and Virginia, but my major clients include companies based in Florida, Oklahoma, Missouri, California, Indiana and New York, plus being British I have clients in London and the UK. I don’t want to be restricted to just marketing to Richmond-based prospects.

One piece of advice is to include your telephone number within the PPC ad body. This gives you a free billboard displaying your contact number which costs you nothing, assuming the searcher does not click on your ad and simply picks up the phone to call you. You may not always be able to do this because of character restrictions in the display ad, but use a local dialing code number where you can.

Local Directory Submissions and Backlinks from Local Sites

“Content is King” is the SEO/Internet Marketing mantra: you just have to have the best content that can be provided or you will lose business.

This is a myth (in part) and I’m as guilty as anyone for spreading it.

The fact is that no matter how good your content is, unless it ranks highly it is not going to get many readers. I can get really bad content to rank highly – it just needs to be optimized for the keyword terms and then add the secret ingredient.

The “secret” ingredient is no secret – it’s getting backlinks.

Creating backlinks is the primary means of getting any content to rank, whether you are mounting a local or national Internet marketing campaign.

Fortunately, you can create some high quality backlinks very easily which will target you at your locations. Here’s a short list to get you started: Yelp.com, MojoPages.com, InsiderPages.com and CitySquares.com – but there are many, many more you can get free listings in. Include your company name, website URL, and also your local physical address (not a PO box as these are largely ignored by Google as unreliable geo-location indicators) and a local area code telephone number.

It is common for Google Places and Maps listings to include information Google has found in directories, such as Yellow Pages and other directories, so make sure your listing information is current and correct too.

Finally, look for links from sites both within your area and those using your location as a theme for content on their site. For instance, for this site, gaining links from other Richmond-based companies and websites is a good idea for me if I want to optimize for Richmond markets. So gaining links from sites dedicated to the city, such as within a local newspaper for instance or on a site dealing with local affairs, tourism or local business group will all be helpful for me to rank for local terms including Richmond and then my money terms, such as SEO, Internet Marketing or PPC.

If you need help, email me, Karl Hindle at Big Oak Studios or call me on (804) 882 0944 for a consult.

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