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SEO Basics Part 2

SEO Basics Part 2
In Basics Part 1 we discussed the best way to go about internal ways of implementing SEO within your website. This is something that you have complete control over.
In Part 2 we will be looking at external ways of implementing your SEO which in comparison is a lot harder but it’s what fundamentally brings you the good results.
So, now that you have completed Part 1 and your website is fully optimised it’s time to take it to the next step. Everything that you have put into practice in part 1 has laid down some great foundations but if you don’t follow up with your external SEO then you may as well of put your feet up and watched TV instead.
DIRECTORY LISTING
Before you do anything else – make sure that you get listed in some of the main players in the directory world. DMOZ is crucial and it can take 2 weeks to several months to get listed. So sooner rather than later! At the end of this article, you will find some more directories – you don’t need to submit to them all but do submit to a few.
LINKS
QUALITY INBOUND LINKS ARE CRUCIAL
So – first up, let’s take a look at links. Most of you have an idea about this but it’s an incredibly important aspect and one that people do get very confused about. You need some good quality links into your site. By good quality, I mean that they need to come from a website that is considered to be ‘Good Quality’. The measure of a sites quality by Google is the sites PageRank. As I have mentioned before – it’s not imperative for your site to have a high PageRank to do well in the search engines but it is beneficial to have a link from sites that Google has given a good PageRank to.
The amount of quality inbound links that you have will determine how highly placed your site is in the Organic Searches. This doesn’t mean to say that you won’t rank highly for certain niche terms anyway – but for your site to have a good overall placement – you need quality inbound links.  A handful of high quality links blows away 100’s of low quality ones.
Don’t waste your time on overused directories or link farms as these won’t do you any favours. There is very little value in having a site link to yours if it has no PR and nothing to do with what you promote on your own site. You may even get penalised for using these directories that offer numerous link swaps or various other promises. For example Web Mums has a nice little directory on the home page and we are wavering between a PR2 & a PR4 (Google has been a bit random recently), so that’s a nice link.
Also link exchange partners are of little value as you are effectively cancelling your link when you swap. If you have a links page it really should be there to serve your customers. You should be linking to sites that are similar to yours and also sites that you feel would be interesting to your customers. If you have a ton of sites on there that are there because they linked to you – I would get rid! The links page is a place that your customers will go if there is a product they can’t find on your site. You may lose that customer but gain another from the same courtesy – hence why it’s important to link to sites that are similar.
This is what a links page started off as originally. Websites would offer alternative quality sites for their customers and Google caught on to this. They deemed that if lots of sites linked to a particular site then it was the peoples choice and that site must be important – so it was awarded with a high PageRank. This caused frenzy amongst webmasters and suddenly everyone wanted this new PageRank that Google had introduced. It wasn’t long before people figured out the ranking system and found that by linking to each other it improved their PR. Unfortunately, Google is always one step ahead of the game and it soon realised these link swaps were useless and regarded them as so.
Sites with inbound links do well because Google still uses this system (amongst many other high tech and coveted techniques). Google (quite rightly) regards sites that are being linked to as important. Sites that link to each other are not considered particularly important.
WAYS TO GET LINKS
GET A BLOG
I’ve said it time and time again – but get yourself a blog and blog about your site. If you don’t have a site yet – get a blog and use that as your site. If you use WordPress there are many PlugIns available now that can turn it from a simple blog to a selling platform. Ideally you want your blog integrated with your site but if you can’t do this – get a blog anyway as you will be generating inbound links. Use your blog to sell your products or services. Talk about the new range just in, how to look after your pet rabbit, the artisans that have produced your products, how you sourced your range – the list is endless. If you focus on a different aspect each time with links to your site then the search engines will pick it up and you will get traffic either via your blog or directly from your links!
If you don’t know how to get a WordPress Blog then check out this tutorial http://www.becomeablogger.com – it’s a great step by step video tutorial covering every aspect!
People read blogs and search engines love them because they are a continuous source of fresh content that they can bring up in the organic search results for their customers.
Please, please, please make your links SEO friendly! Don’t write on a blog or anywhere CLICK HERE to see the new range. CLICK HERE is not conducive to your SEO campaign at all. Why waste an opportunity for a quality back link with CLICK HERE. It’s fine to use it in many cases – I use it on Web Mums to bring attention to something, but only if it’s not something that I’m bothered about being picked up in the Search Engines.
JOIN SOME DISCUSSION FORUMS
You can get some great backlinks by joining a discussion forum. Most forums allow you to have a signature which will appear at the bottom of every post you add to the discussion. Again, make sure you have quality SEO links – not CLICK HERE to view my website!
So, if you sell baby products – join some mother & baby forums. Swing by a few times a week and get involved in the discussions. You will fair much better if you add value to a discussion. Be helpful, polite and offer knowledge if you have it. This will encourage people to go and check out your website as you seem to know what you are talking about! It will also give you backlinks!
WRITE SOME INTEL OR ARTICLES
I’ve mentioned Qassia before and it’s a good way of generating traffic to your site. You can add little nuggets of intel or full articles all will come with curious readers to your site and more backlinks. You can check out Qassia here http://webmums.qassia.com. I get some Qassia points if you sign via that link but you can only join via a referral. Qassia points don’t convert to cash – so I’m not selling you anything there!
Also, try writing some articles and submitting them to places like http://www.ezinearticles.com as they will publish good quality articles. Again you get a backlink – but what is even more alluring is that people scour the site for suitable articles they can use as fillers or articles for their ezine or website. The deal is that your details and links have to remain intact so if you are lucky a really good article could get it distributed to thousands of readers!
Whatever kind of site you have, E-Commerce or otherwise, write some really good intel up for it and put it onto your site as either a free download or accessible pages. This will encourage people to bookmark you and share your link with others. Don’t forget that you can make use of some internal links here too (which we covered in Basic pt1).
To Summarise;
1.       Submit your site to some big directories; (to view these links properly – visit Web Mums as they will be all gobbley-Gook in the newsletter)
You do not need to submit to them all – but do submit to DMOZ.
2.       Refrain from link swaps unless they are a similar site. Aim for quality links or quality directories.
3.       Join some forums and get actively involved in the discussion with a good link to your site in your signature.
4.       Get yourself a blog – preferably WordPress.org but Typepad is good and Blogger is ok too.
5.       Get really good content onto your site so that it is worthy of people deciding to link to you.
6.       Submit some intel to places like Qassia or articles to Ezinearticles.
7.       Do a little every day but not too much in one go. This will stop you from getting bored out of your face and disillusioned with it all. Don’t throw the towel in or give up. It will all come good in the end but it can take weeks for you to see the fruits of your labour.
 
So, all in all – quite a bit of info for you to take on board here – I hope it’s not been too heavy going. Don’t forget that you can contact me about SEO if you need any extra help and keep an eye out for more in the Basics series in future! Next time we’ll take a look at some basic online marketing.
To view the article with all it’s links in place and looking far prettier – pop over to Web Mums! Can I also take this opportunity to remind you all that if you wanted to join the Web Mums Mall you chance of 2 free months is very nearly up!
 

Last updated by Nikki - Web Mums 30 Apr.

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