e your entire site via text links. Create a text based site map which links to every page and which every page links to via text links. If your web designer is not an SEO expert make sure you provide them with some optimization rules. SEO Secrets V1.3 Copyright Divine Write Copywriting Pty Ltd 27 Step 5 Generate links back to your site 27 Step 5 Generate links back to your site Links are the single most important aspect of SEO. Generally speaking the more links you have back to your site the higher your ranking will be. Of course nothing is ever that simple. There are links and there are links. Before launching into a discussion about the rankmaniac 2012 best ways to generate links lets first discuss what kind of links you should be trying to generate. When deciding whether to display your site in its rankmaniac 2012 search results a search engine looks to see if youre part of a credible network of rankmaniac 2012 related sites. This means that the ideal kind of links are those that rankmaniac 2012 come from relevant sites sites which use the rankmaniac 2012 same keywords come from important sites have a high ranking include your keyword as part of the visible link text include varying link text not the same link text each time and come from a page that links to few other sites. When a search engine sees a link which satisfies most or all of these conditions it says Hey this site must be credible and important because others in the same industry are pointing to it. How do I generate lots of ideal links There are many possible ways to generate links. Some are dubious like autogeneration software and sites set up by webmasters simply to host links to their other sites and I wont be discussing them here. Others like those discussed below are legitimate. NOTE Link generation is an ongoing often tedious task. You need to
be dedicated and systematic. In other words you need a strategy. Take a look through the link generation alternatives discussed below to see what suits you best. Then put your thinking cap on and get SEO Secrets V1.3 Copyright Divine Write Copywriting Pty Ltd 28 Step 5 Generate links back to your site 28 creative. Its a new and very exciting field there are undoubtedly many undiscovered ways to generate links. This chapter is just a starting point. Add your site to DMOZ Yahoo Directories The first thing you should do is add a link in the following two directories DMOZ Open Directory Project rankmaniac 2012 httpwww.dmoz.comadd.html the largest most comprehensive humanedited directory of the Web. It is constructed rankmaniac 2012 and maintained by a vast global community of volunteer editors. DMOZ does not charge for submissions. NOTE This is the same as the Google Directory. Yahoo Directory httpsecom.yahoo.comdirsubmitintro Yahoo charges for submissions at the time of writing the submission fee was USD299. The search engines regularly crawl these directories in search of new links and they value these links quite highly largely because the directories are humanedited. Check where your competitors links are coming from Next check who is linking to your high ranking competitors. This method takes a long time but youll be surprised where some of their links come from. To check on the links of your competitors STEP 1 Go to Google and search for your keyword. STEP 2 Make a note of the top 5 competitors who appear write down their domain name. STEP 3 Return to Google and search for the first domain name in the list i.e. type www.competitorsdomainname.com in the search field. STEP 4 Google will then display a screen which says Google can show you the following information for this URL At the bottom of the list of option is Find web pages that contain the term www.competitorsdomainname.com. Click on this option. STEP 5 Google will display all the pages it can find that link to your competitors website. TIP If there are many results bookmark the search results page as this process will take a long time possibly months. STEP 6 Visit each page TIP Right click on the first result and select Open in New Window. By opening a separate window to see the page you wont rankmaniac 2012 lose your search results page. STEP 7 Try think of a way to get a link to your website on the same page TIP Avoid sending them an email as webmaster receive a lot of SPAM and your email will likely go unnoticed. Try calling them instead. SEO Secrets V1.3 Copyright Divine Write Copywriting Pty Ltd 29 Step 5 Generate links back to your site 29 STEP 8 Repeat for each of your top 5 ranking competitors. TIP In the list of results the sites which appear high up in the list rankmaniac 2012 of results are likely to have a higher Google PageRank PR see Glossary than the sites which appear toward the end of the list. You should be more interested in obtaining links to sites with a high PR assuming theyre also relevant. Article PR Write and submit articles for Internet publication Next write articles and do some article rankmaniac 2012 PR Ive always found this to be the best way to generate inbound links. Write helpful articles and let publishers of newsletters and ezines use them for free on the proviso that they link back to your site. People who publish ezines and newsletters are always hungry for quality content. And there are many websites out there dedicated to giving them just that. If you submit a well written rankmaniac 2012 relevant helpful article to
one of those sites you can have thousands of newsletter rankmaniac 2012 publishers ready rankmaniac 2012 to snap rankmaniac 2012 it up. Then you just sit back and watch the links multiply TIP The article PR method is beneficial in other ways too. Readers of your article will see that you know what youre talking about and because youre rankmaniac 2012 published theyll see you as an authority. Youll find
web traffic and requests for quotes increase after every article. Heres how article PR works STEP 1 Youre an expert in rankmaniac 2012 your field so you possess knowledge that other people want. STEP 2 You write a helpful article sharing your hardearned knowledge and expertise without compromising your income stream. STEP 3 You submit your article to recognized rankmaniac 2012 and highly trafficked Article Submit sites on the World Wide Web. STEP 4 Publishers of online newsletters ezines etc. gather content from these sites for free. STEP 5 Helpful well written articles are snapped up by thousands of publishers from all rankmaniac 2012 around the world in virtually every industry. STEP 6 The only condition is that they must publish the article with a functioning link to your site. STEP 7 If 300 people publish your article you get 300 links back to your site. And the best part is that every link is relevant and rankmaniac 2012 you even get to choose the link text SEO Secrets V1.3 Copyright Divine Write Copywriting Pty Ltd 30 Step 5 Generate links back to your site 30 Article PR FAQs Below are some FAQs that will help you write your articles and manage your article PR campaign. Q What should I write about A Write about what you know. Make sure its related to your business so you can use the keywords you want to rank for and helpful so it gets published. For example if youre a manufacturer of industrial plastics you might write an article or series of articles on how best to handle Teflon tubing prior to installation. Once rankmaniac 2012 you get thinking about it you'll probably find there are hundreds of articles you could write that are helpful. You may even have some of them partly written already in your instruction manuals or installation guides etc. Another good idea is to think of all the questions you get asked by customers
and potential customers. These questions rankmaniac 2012 show you rankmaniac 2012 what people are interested in. If you write an article answering every one of these questions you'll get published and you'll also show yourself to be a credible expert. You may even cut down phone support time Q How rankmaniac 2012 long should my article be A The best articles are only as long as they need to be. Keep it short and sweet theres nothing wrong with a 400 word article. By the same token if you need 1500 words to say all you need to say thats fine as well but Id still be thinking about how to break that into three parts and get three times as many links. Q How often to submit A Whenever you write an article. Q What kind of writing should I use A Simply write in a style that your audience will be comfortable with. If theyre from the old school dont write like I am. Dont use contractions dont end sentences with prepositions and dont start sentences with and or but. But if theyre not old school just use conversational English. In fact the more of yourself you include in the article the more engaging it will be. The key is to make it readable. Q Should I focus on keywords A Yes Yes Yes Optimize your articles just as you optimize your website. In fact rankmaniac 2012 as youll probably post the articles on your website youre really are writing for your website anyway. If possible rankmaniac 2012 rankmaniac 2012 turn a few keywords into links back to your site. And always try to include keywords in the headline and byline of your article. And dont worry about being seen as Spam if your article provides good quality information and guidance it won't be seen as spam by rankmaniac 2012 the search engines even when its keywordrich. Q Do I need to vary the byline A There is some evidence to suggest that the search engines prefer varied link text in links back to your site otherwise rankmaniac 2012 they may view the links as artificially generated i.e. SPAM. Therefore its probably a good idea to vary at least the link text of your byline without departing from your keywords. SEO Secrets V1.3 Copyright rankmaniac 2012 Divine Write Copywriting Pty Ltd 31 Step 5 Generate links back to your site 31 Q Should rankmaniac 2012 I always use the byline to link to my home page or should I also link to other pages A Link back to whatever page matches the keywords used in your article.