The Rank Magic Blog

Finding Potential Link Partners

December 30, 2008 ::: Link building is often a slow and arduous process that unfolds over a long period of time. But the rewards are large and it's a fundamental requirement for marketing any web site.

Creative link research can provide you with some real advantages. It focuses your link building efforts on targets that are likely to provide a high response rate (or a high success rate) and also likely to be pretty meaningful links.

Eric Enge's article at Search Engine Watch has some great ideas to get you started.

The Small Business Guide to Choosing Keywords

December 23, 2008 ::: In her article for Search Engine Watch, Carrie Hill explains well the use of KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) in evaluating keywords. Basically, the KEI compares the frequency with which a keyword phrase is searched for with the number of competing web sites that show up in the results. If the frequency of search is high compared to the level of competition, that results in a high KEI, and indicates a "niche" keyword that may be easier to get great rankings for.

An earlier article in ClickZ also does a good job of explaining KEI, which is always a factor in our own keyword recommendations to clients. She also discusses the two keyword evaluation databases we like: Keyword Discovery and Wordtracker.

Two First Impressions

December 18, 2008 ::: First impressions are important, and for your web site to contribute to your bottom line, you need to worry about two first impressions.

First there's the "impression" your site makes on the search engine spiders. That's the impression that will get you god rankings and drive visitors to your site.

The second "first impression" is the few fleeting seconds you have to convince your visitor that you have what they’re looking for and that you're a company they'll want to do business with. That depends on the "look and feel" of your web site and written copy that conveys an irresistible marketing message.

Either one of these, by itself, isn't going to do your bottom line much good.

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How Much is a Link Worth To Your Business?

December 14, 2008 ::: A number of factors go into making one link better than another. Here are some.

<More here>

Bill Hartzer's SEO Tip #5 - Links To Your Home Page

December 9, 2008 ::: This issue is called "canonicalization", but don't let that unpronounceable word throw you. It's all about the potential for confusion when more than one URL points to the same page. 

Many web sites have links to their home page that look like this www.mysite.com/index.htm or www.mysite.com/default.php . They all point to the same page, which most people think of as www.mysite.com.

All of those links pass "link juice" or PageRank, but search engines treat those URLs as different URLs ... which they are .. kind of. That means that your "true" home page of www.mysite.com is getting less link juice benefit than it deserves, because some is being siphoned away to www.mysite.com/index.htm.

By the way, this also applies to the "www." version of your domain name and the "non-www." version. Choose one and stick with it. I prefer the "www." version, so make sure all links, whether internal links or external links, point to your web site as www.mysite.com instead of as mysite.com.

<Here's Bill Hartzer's discussion on the subject>

Greatest SEO Mistake?

December 2, 2008 ::: One of the biggest mistakes made by people working on SEO is forgetting the focus of the website. That focus needs to always be on the human end user, and never on the search engines.

Creating web pages specifically for the search engine spiders may garner good rankings,  but if that results in people finding your page and leaving immediately in disgust, it does your business no good whatsoever.

Content stuffed with keywords, too many heading tags, title tags that are no more than a list of keywords at the expense of informative or marketing copy that makes sense is counterproductive.

As Rebecca Appleton says in her article for Search Marketing Standard, "Lavishing those likely to buy from you with care, attention and unique content is wholly more profitable than trying to please a search platform. After all, a number one ranking won’t pay the bills. Happy clients will."

How you do that is addressed somewhat in her article. I recommend it.

Other blogs of interest

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