SEO tips = better search engine ranking

Waiting for Google

A Yahoo! search for "google pr update" (no quotes) turns up message boards filled with irritated webmasters. Interestingly some of the results are quite old. Personally, I'm more interested in seeing the SERPs change as Google hasn't updated these either and they are not particulary good at the moment.

A lot of speculation goes that Google has updated PR but not made this information available yet. Having just sey up many quality links for my direcotry (which lists over 100 sites now) I hope that Google is doing it right now so they see all my new links.

Getting Google results

From a recent comment on Google's blacklist:

I have a Question I am hoping someone can help me out with. I recently started a work at home related web site. When I do a google search for realdealjobs, it shows about 40 results, but when I search for link backs (link:http://) my site doesn't even show up. If I do the same thing on MSN search it shows about 20 link backs so far. I have a google page rank of zero!!!!! I cant shake it. Frustrated, I am trying to redesign the whole site. I don't know what I did wrong to get a zero rank or have google not even recognize the site, but it stands to reason it is only fare if they are going to impose a rank on the relevancy of your content, potentially hurting ones search engine ranking, they should have some sort of information on how to remedy a negitive outcome. I would really appreciate it if someone might take a quick look at my site, http://www.realdealjobs.com and let me know if you see any "red flags" other than the reconstruction of the site. I have done alot of research on SEO lately, followed the recomendations, still google hates me. What can I do? Feel free to e-mail me directly if you like.

I wouldn't redesign the site. Google has been very slow to pick up new sites recently. Just keep getting links from sites Google really likes (high PR sites which rank well) and eventually they have to index your site. In your work from home industry this can be difficult. There is lots of competition, and many of your competitors will have well established sites. With a big enough budget you can submit to every paid directory, but even that may not be enough. Buy a few links from related contnet sites and make sure your content is unique. And wait. MSN seems to like new sites so you should see results there before you see them in Google.

See old and new sites of more info.

Speeding up PR to internal pages

I'm very anxious to have PR filter down to the individual categories at www.jtrotta.com but in my experience new pages on exising sites usually have to wait months before getting PR. I'v tried to increase the speed here by getting high PR links pointing at each category. I've got at least 3 PR 5 links (and in most cases more) pointing at each top level directory and a bunch more PR 4 links pointing at each top level. Hopefully that speeds things up and makes the directory a better value for submitters.

Google Yahoo! MSN old and new sites

A lot of people maintain that Google likes old sites. I've seen it with my directory The domain has been around for a year or so (and had PR) but all the subpages are two weeks old at the most. A site command shows the number of indexed pages:

Google = 659
Yahoo! = 31
MSN = 24

But when I do a site command for www.pxgo.com, a site only a few months old, I get

Google = 167
Yahoo! = 0
MSN = 1,177

In this case at least the rumors apply; MSN is quicker to index and rank (I am number 1 for health message boards on MSN) new sites while Google updates old sites more frequently than the others.

Kabooli directory

The Kabooli Internet Directory is not the typical directory web site. Each listing contains a paragraph about the web site and ratings of several different aspects including content, navigation, and organization among others. Each site also gets an overall Kabooli Rating score. This site certainly gets an A for orginality in this age of cookie-cutter directories.

From an SEO standpoint, this site offers static, permanent links. Because of the review structure of the site, there is only one link per "review" page. Overall this appears to be a promising site worth the cost of submission (currently $19.99). The latest developments related to this site are updated regularly via its blog.

My new directory

I got an email today asking to purchase homepage links on my new directory. Actually I won't be offering homepage links as I want as much link popularity as possible to filter down. However, in a few months the inside pages will show PR (they are already appearing in search results - a Google search for "patchara house hua hin" shows pages from my directory at 6 and 7 and that's as deep as my directory structure goes).

Of course you can submit later, when the internal pages show PR (I'm going for PR 5 on all top level categories and am promoting the directory not only with links to the index page but with links from topically related sites directly to the categories). However, after March 31 I won't be offering discounts. Currently you can buy 3 for the price of 1. Also, there is no harm in buying now since the links are permanent; they will still be there when the internal pages show PR.

More annoying webmasters and SEOs

First I get an email from vicky@seo... that went something like "Hi I'm Arnie and I'd like to invite you to link to my site because we sell high quality stuff" (no reciprocal link was offered).

Then I get a link request from one of those I'll write your term paper sites. I told him to fill out my form if he wants to link with me. He writes back "Link to me first". I said "You came to me because I have a PR 4 links page that your competitors are on and you're not. If you want the link fill out my form."

Get links and traffic from Ebay

I sometimes auction advertising space on Ebay. When I do, I always link to a few of my sites - Ebay is busy, and this is a good way to get exposure. For the next 7 days this one will be up: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7501988091

The people buying links on Ebay are probably trying to promote their sites so if you have an SEO blog or a directory (and I have both plus an advertising blog) an auction is more than looking for a customer - place links to your site and it's getting more traffic.

New web site and web page directory

A special introductory offer for readers of my blog.
Add a site to my new web directory. If I approve the site I'll add it to the directory. Then I'll invoice you via PayPal. When you pay I'll let you submit two more sites completely free (equal or lesser value submissions). When you pay write "I read your blog". If you decide not to pay, your link will expire in 7 days. Once you pay the link becomes permanent and the two free links will also be permanent. You may submit web sites or web pages to any of the following categories or their subcategories:

Art and entertainment
Communication
Computers
Education
Finance
Games
Health
Home
Industry and business
Internet
Jobs and business opportunities
Real estate
Relationships
Shopping
Sports
Toys and hobbies
Transportation
Travel

264 links in 5 minutes

I'm experimenting with a new tool for my network marketing blog:

Some of you may remember that I needed a plan. Well I still don't have one but I decided to try this out. It's pretty easy to sign up and if you act very quickly you can sign up for half price (4.48/month). In return for that money and a link to some remotely hosted directory, I have 264 links pointing at me.

Each new site will get to link to me also and I doubt I'm the last person to sign up. When they get to 500 members people start paying full price and things may slow down. Even then I don't think they'll stop.

Now I'm guessing that most people will choose the remote hosting and that all these links will come from basically duplicate pages on one IP. Eventually I think that will matter, but I'm expecting some benefits in the near term.

Warning Powernet Burris

A lot of talk on digitalpoint these days about Powernet advertising, also doing business as Burris Media Group or Vernell Burris. Many people claim to have been cheated out of significant money.

Crazy webmasters

The craziest email I've gotten in a while came from someone who wanted to trade links with me. His links page had a few hundred totally unorganized links on it so I told him I would need to be on a better links page, organized and with fewer links. He replied "Sorry, but we have only one link page and we are trying to have many many links."

#1 on MSN

So my health message boards are #1 on MSN search for "health message boards" and overall MSN is getting my site ranked well much quicker than Yahoo! and Google. The other day I had 65 visitors from MSN, 3 from Yahoo! and 1 from Google.

How much do I have to pay for a forum moderator/admin?

I was thinking it could never be worth it to pay someone to run or help run my forums. Now I'm thinking it might be very possible because I saw this ad on the V7n forums offering really little money for a lot of work:

* Minimum of 200 post a month (Half of this MUST be new threads)
* Promote forum in at least 10 other forum/directory a month
* Run contents for members
* Help choose contest winner
* Help with putting contents of site newsletter together
* Provide ideas to stimulate forum growth

Remuneration
------------------
* $100 payable by PayPal, MoneyBooker or UK cheque
* Share of advert revenue i.e. can sell two text link or promote your own websites free)

As I attempt to hijack the thread, I asked this question:

So how much should I offer to someone for moderating my forum? Let's say I demand the first two:

* Minimum of 200 post a month (Half of this MUST be new threads)
* Promote forum in at least 10 other forum/directory a month

but NOT the others:

* Run contents for members
* Help choose contest winner
* Help with putting contents of site newsletter together
* Provide ideas to stimulate forum growth

The newsletter one sounds like a lot of work...

New PR

My NuSkin online store and my network marketing blog are now PR 3. I haven't decided what my plan is with these pages so this PR is kind of accidental.

I do have to begin promoting these sites at some point - This business can really help people who find me on the web - I mean the right person finding my network marketing blog could become a millionaire but that won't happen to anyone finding one of my other sites. From a personal perspective, network marketing can and does bring in a lot more money than all my web sites combined...

Branding and advertising

Kate Burns from Google UK has some important information about advertising and branding:

"Some online marketers forget branding's importance as a search engine marketing component. When they regard search advertising as direct-response marketing -- as they often regard all online marketing -- they believe they save money by paying only for conversions. They don't realise how much greater clickthrough and conversion rates would be if their brands were recognised and trusted by that same search audience."

One must also consider what happens when an ad is seen on Digital Point's free advertising network where an ad for your site might be displayed on thousands of sites across the web. Awesome for SEO, but good for branding?

A few more spots

Yahoo! search has ESL go ranked #12 for "ESL" right now. I need to move up a few spots to get on the first page. My plan is to use Digital Point's free coop advertising exchange network on a few more sites.

I think this will work because while the coop has helped me a lot with Google it has helped even more with Yahoo - My travel blog was nowhere unitl I started using coop and now I'm getting hundreds of people from different travel related search terms...