OK, so after my last rank about the SEO spammy company, let’s now go back to basics…
One of the most common questions that novice SEOs ask is the question.

What is the main purpose of link building for your site?

There are two things to consider when you are doing link building.

1. Links for targeted traffic
2. Links for SEO

Sometimes this will overlap, but for the most part your link building campaign will focus on these two main linking opportunities.

Link Building For Targeted Traffic

Forum links, nofollow links on high traffic sites, links on question/answer sites, all of these kinds of links will send a good amount of targeted traffic.

Even though those links may not be hugely beneficial for your SEO link building campaign, they can send highly targeted traffic to your site, and isn’t that the ultimate goal? Your link building campaign should not dismiss links for targeted traffic.

Link Building For SEO

But I am sure ranking on the first page of Google and increasing your search engine traffic is your primary objective, so I would like to focus more on link building for SEO.

GAB’S TIP: Look At the Bigger Picture When Building Links for SEO

In order to get good rankings you need to seek out links with SEO in mind. Above I have stated the attributes of a quality link for SEO purposes, now its time to start getting them!

By thinking about the bigger picture when getting links, you know exactly what you are trying to achieve and the direction you are heading.

When you are getting links for SEO to help with your site’s rankings, consider these four factors: PR, anchor text benefits, link diversity (authority), and the number of external links on the page.

They all have varying levels of importance, but your ultimate goal is to get links on a diverse number of domains, on high PR pages, with your desired anchor text. Without a doubt getting your desired anchor text in the link is crucial to your success.

Deep Linking – The Most Important Aspect of Link Building

As a general rule of thumb I would suggest getting 70/30% of links to the homepage/inner pages. Although want the many backlinks pointing to the homepage since you are targeting important money keywords on this page, you also want to make sure you are building deep links to other pages.

While a good navigation and site structure will allow flow link juice from the homepage to other important inner pages of your site to help with rankings, you also want to build links to those pages to improve your rankings.

Backlinks on external sites are more important then links from your own website, hence they will benefit your rankings more.

Making Anchor Text Look Natural (This is a Ninja Science)

In addition to getting deep links to other important pages on your site, you also want to make the anchor text you’re using for link text to look appear natural by varying up the anchor text as well.

To illustrate my point using an example, if you were targeting the keyword “flights to Melbourne” on the homepage, get other links with the anchor text “cheap flights to Melbourne”, “flights to Melbourne Australia” etc.

Basically you want to include the core keyword you want to rank for, but vary up the anchor text with additional words that also get searched often so you’re not always using the same anchor text.

You can use different variations of the keyword including google synonyms when varying up the anchor text, and you can also use links such as “domain.com”, “click here” or simply link directly to the URL to make your link building campaign more natural. But for the most part, especially for better quality links, you want to use your desired anchor text. This cannot be overstated enough.

We all know that about 90% of SEO is link building. The on-site stuff is just too easy to master, especially with all of the WordPress plugins and SEO guides out there these days.
What really separates the movers and shakers from the haters is link building. If you know how to build high quality backlinks that Google loves, your site is going to take off like a bat out of hell.

So what is necessary to become a solid link builder? I mean someone that can get the results they (or their clients) need to make serious $$$.
Here are a few of the most important traits to build/look for:

• Creativity
• Techie-ness
• Sociable/Likeable
• Analytical
• Hustle

Let’s take a look at each of these. I’ll prove to you that if you can master these traits, you’ve got link building in the bag!

Creativity
Most people aren’t creative- especially internet marketers.

Instead of thinking for themselves and designing a new way to do something, they would much rather just follow a system that’s already proven.

While this can usually lead to good results- good isn’t great.

Probably the most important thing a link builder can learn is how to be creative. How to really think outside the box, and not just stay within the norm.

Let’s face it- Google isn’t dumb, or static. It’s constantly evolving, changing the way algorithms pick top rankings for a keyword.
That means that there are always new losers or winners emerging. What used to work may not work anymore, and vice versa.
I can almost guarantee you that they winners are going to be those link builders with a little creativity.
For example, it’ll be the guys who got a ton of guest blog posts from authority blogs.

You’ll find more winners who found a way to sneak a link from major authority sites like ehow, Amazon, Wikipedia or news sites.
In other words- it was the guys who were creative in finding extremely powerful links that are going to come out ton top. Always.

Techie-Ness
Okay I know that isn’t a real word- sue me. You understand what I’m saying- the guys who know coding and technology will always have a leg up on those that don’t.

I know there’s a never-ending debate on whether profile links still work, but let’s say for a second that they do. The more profile links you get, the better you rank, right?
Well if you’re doing all of these links by hand, you might get like 100 a day, right.
Or you can do an custom software blast and get a few thousand at once.
Or perhaps you fire up indexing script and get the few thousands indexed in no time.
Then Link builder X fires up his own personal X script destroyer and blasts 100K links to his second layer of links….

Who do you think is going to win?

Again this is just an example, but hopefully you see the point. On the internet, knowing software and technology can lead to an amazing advantage.
Besides just backlinks, this also pertains to security, tracking, spying on competition- you name it.
Now, you don’t necessarily have to become a master coder to master link building, but it can put you a bitahead of your “competition”.

Sociable/Likeable

Do people like you? Are you warm and approachable, and people just think you’re a cool SEO Ninja?
If so, you can open up doors that the losers with no social skills never will be able to.
Those doors are called relationships.
We all know that joint ventures are one of the keys to successful business. JVs can be done in any industry, both between competitors and non-competing businesses.
If you know how to build relationships with the owners of authority sites or blogs, or maybe just with the developer of some hot link building software- you’ll be in a very sweet place.
Remember that relationships aren’t just about what someone can offer you. In fact, you should never start a relationship with “hey, can you do this for me?”
Instead, remember that it’s a person that you’re talking to- build a relationship with them, maybe do them a favor- then reap the rewards.

Analytical
Are you analytical? Can you look at how something is being done, or how someone is doing something, then figure out why?
Not only can you figure out why it’s being done that way, but also why it works? (if it does)
Going back to the creativity thing- most marketers aren’t going to really analyze the competition. They may fire up Market Samurai or something and that’s great- but you can definitely do more.
For example you can check out the competition’s website itself. What kind of content do they have? How many pages? Are they using WordPress or another type of script?
Link building and SEO has some fierce competition. Although there are definitely keywords you can rank for without too much analysis, for the big money keywords you should definitely dissect your competition’s link strategy.

This means not just looking at how many links they have, but also what types of links they have.
In a few words: Use your brain baby!

Hustle

This may seem obvious- but you have to hustle.
Get a fire under your tail- or get rocked by the competition.
Going back to the profile link example, let’s say you’re in a link building race with your competition.
If you don’t hustle, for every 1000 links you put up your might competition might throw up 2000 or more.
Or let’s say you’re commenting on authority blogs. If you aren’t hustling, your competition may get up 3-4 comments for every 1-2 that you do.
It’s not just about working long hours, either. It’s about getting the most out of your time.
For example, blog commenting. You (or your team of course) should always be looking at if you can increase how many quality comments you leave per hour. If last week it was about 20 per hour, this week try to make it 25.

Work long- work fast- work smart. That’s hustling!

Conclusion

That’s pretty much it, folks. Although I think Creativity is probably the most important thing for a link builder, if you can master these other qualities too then you will dominate the link building game and then one day if you are lucky you can work for me

If you’re working in SEO, I highly recommend you learn how to create link bait content. Whether this is for yourself or for your clients, this is a great way to get tons of extra backlinks and traffic to your site.
….so what is link bait content?

It’s basically an article, blog post, video, etc. that is going to attract a lot of attention.
It’s called link bait because it’s originally designed to attract a lot of attention.

Remember, the attention doesn’t have to be positive, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

One example of a site with tons of linkbait is YouTube.
Think about it: when you see a really funny or touching video, you want to share it with friends, right?

So you go to Facebook and link to it. Maybe you put it up on your website, or tweet about it. (Well, not me, I never tweet about anything… but you get the point)
This happens every single day, and you want to be on the receiving end of all of those links and traffic!
This is very powerful indeed, yet very few webmasters or SEO companies are doing it. If you can master the art of creating link bait content, you’ll see a major boost in your $$$.

That said, let’s get into it!

Creating Link Bait Gab’s Way

There are a few types of link bait you can consider creating. Each has to be designed a certain way, but they can all have great results if you use them right.
Here are a few types to consider trying:

• Shocking news
• Very heated debated topics (abortion, welfare, social security, wars, etc.)
• Funny images/videos/news
• Great, researched information
Let’s dive into each of these a bit

Shocking news is probably going to work best if you run some kind of news site. That said, it can also be used on a website that has a large target audience (such as a weight loss blog).

The general idea behind this is to make something that makes people say “holy cow- that’s crazy! I gotta show this to someone else!”

Then they go light up Facebook and Twitter about this crazy article or whatever they found (giving you some traffic and backlinks).

The trick to spreading this kind of information is knowing where to find out about the shocking news yourself. Then once you do find it, you have to share it with the rest of the world before they all hear about it.

Even though this is a way to generate some link bait- I think the other ways are a bit easier (and you’ll probably get better results).
If you can put together something discussing a very heated debate topic, that can generate a lot of attention. All you have to do is get both sides of the debate interested, and all hell will break loose!
For example if it’s about abortion, you’ll have the Pro Life people bringing in their Pro Life buddies to give their comments. Then the Pro Choice people will come in and start saying why abortion is the right thing to do or whatever.

All you really have to do here is 3 things:

• Get the argument started
• Allow comments (so people can comment on why you’re so wrong or right or whatever)
• Get the initial traffic

That said, you have to get the initial traffic with any link bait method.

As far as getting it all started, just surf around the internet and find some very heated debates. Put up some debatable content, drive traffic and you’re set.

Probably the biggest trend over the last few years is funny link bait content. The reason this works so well is that almost everyone is part of the target audience, plus you’re much more likely to share it with everyone!
For example if I see a debate on abortion, I may just share the link with people who agree with me. (but abortion is not a great topic… is it? I mean, people will not love the idea of smiling around the abortion topic) ..
But if I see a funny video or article then I might share it with everyone on Facebook or my email list (yes it’s annoying, but people still do it).

One of the best ways to create some funny link bait is to check out YouTube and see what videos are hot. You can then either

a) Make something similar to another hot video, or

b) Make a parody of a more serious video

Either way, you’re likely to get some traffic.

The thing to remember with funny link bait is that your traffic won’t exactly be looking to buy something. It’s quasi-junk traffic, so the main benefit may just be the backlinks that it can give to your website (if that’s where it’s posted).

Finally, you can put together so very well-researched, quality information that people love. This can take some time, and you have to make sure that it’s a topic that people would be interested in.

If you spend 10 hours researching how to play Stairway to Heaven with floss strung between two pencils… then you fail. <— I hope you get the point

But if you spend 10 hours researching some crazy way to increase fat burning by 300%, or discover a way to make a guaranteed 20% return on the stock market- then people are gonna love your stuff!

Just make sure that you do a lot of research and know your stuff. You want to make sure your visitors are learning something. You want them to love it so much that they share it with everyone else (so they can learn it too).
Conclusion

So there you have it! There are other ways to get some link bait out on the net, but there are a few ideas to help get you started.

Want an Example of Link Bait? Check my SEO company interview… and you will see why it went viral

Ok… so now that I’m back from Fiji… it’s time to talk about WordPress SEO. Are you kids ready?

Those who are looking to improve their websites by taking the SEO approach will need to consider WordPress and all of that it has to offer.

Although you may be currently undecided with regards to which type of software you wish to use; however WordPress can be an excellent choice.

Before going about using it though, you should know as much as possible so you will be able to significantly increase your chances of creating a quality website which will be able to yield great results with regards to traffic and other important things in this messy-world of SEO. By taking advantage of the SEO WordPress training that exists online, you will be able to learn everything you need in order to help yourself become successful with the websites you create and promote through search engine rankings as well as indexing which can seem challenging at first.

Out of all the blogging platforms which are available, WordPress is easily one of the best.

Once you start to use it you will find that it is quite intuitive and user-friendly, but it is also a good idea to familiarize yourself with it before you start putting together a blogging site to put content on and promote. One of the reasons to use this particular platform is the fact that it is easy to initially install and you will not have to pay a thing to use it. WordPress is also searching engine-friendly, specifically with Google which is important as almost everyone who is involved in SEO knows. If you want to take full advantage of what it has to offer, you will want to think about carefully doing keyword research because it is a very important step in this entire process. Make sure that your list of keywords is the result of lots of research, because otherwise you won’t get very far, even with a platform like this on your side.

The Google keyword research tool should help you in finding the right ones to run with when you are trying to put together quality content that will get your site indexed.

You should also make sure to customize the blog you make with WordPress for Google SEO, because in the end this is one the most important things you can do. The first thing you will need to do is to log in to your dashboard and go to “settings” and then “permalinks” where you will be able to change the default setup of your blog. It will be necessary to click on the radio button and insert “/%postname%/” in the “custom” box. This will give you a better chance of being successful with your SEO endeavors, so your blog site has a much better chance of ranking higher on Google.

By continuing to write content for your WordPress blog on a regular basis, you will be able to achieve the desired results with your site as far as ranking is concerned. You will have to make sure that you update the blog on a daily basis and that all of the content you put on it is top quality; doing these things will be able to get you one step closer to achieving amazing results in terms of ranking your site and helping it to do well overall. Search engines like Google respond well to quality content that is well-written (not like this blog! lol) , so make sure that is exactly what you are putting on your blog.

Another one of the more important things to do is to make sure the theme you use for your blog is SEO-friendly, because you want it to respond with the search engines. While some themes are designed simply to look good they don’t really do anything for helping with search engine rankings and generating traffic to the blog itself. You will want to make absolutely sure that you do everything you can to get use a theme that is made for SEO so you will not have any problems. This might mean taking a look at some of the premium themes which you have to pay for, but in the end it might be worth getting one of these.

It is crucial when you are working with WordPress to install the “All in One SEO Pack” plugin, because it will help you in trying to make your blog a total and complete success online (one of the best free plugins in the history of blogger-kind). You will need to enter in a title for it as well as certain keywords and an overall description. This plugin will also allow for entry of meta data with each page post as well as putting limitations on duplicate content by ensuring that it is not indexed. These are invaluable things to have when you are doing SEO work with a blog and you will definitely need to consider using all of them to your advantage.

For each page and post you will want to make sure that the title you write as well as the keywords should be compelling. If the title you currently have for your URL is long, you will want to shorten it as much as possible while keeping the keyword intact. Make sure to use the keyword in every single one of the headings and write a good quality Meta description as well. It is also important to have links going to other pages and posts on your site, so you will need to make sure you do this.

Ultimately the quality of the content you produce is going to determine just how successful you are, so you will need to make sure you do proper keyword research and make sure to check every post for spelling and grammatical errors before publishing them. When you take the time to put well-written and relevant content on your WordPress blog, you will be able to become very successful as far as SEO is concerned. Those who want to experience as much success as possible will certainly want to consider using this blogging platform and exploring all that it has to offer.

Ok… disclaimer: I don’t love Joomla as much as many web designers out there… but still… for those who are involved in SEO work will want to know as much as possible about Joomla and all of the benefits which are associated with it.

When you are going about trying to improve your methods of search engine optimization, it will be important explore all of the different things which Joomla will be able to offer. One of the best things about Joomla is the fact that it is an open source application and is therefore free of charge, so you will not have to spend any more money that is necessary when trying to drive traffic to your websites.

By using this application you will be able to make your website much more SEO-friendly and therefore help to make it more successful. The CMS or Content Management System which Joomla works off of can be extremely helpful when trying to improve how your websites are doing overall. There are also a lot of great built-in features which makes managing your website and optimizing for search engines much easier than ever before.

There are many different options you will have when using this application, including creating your own titles and using Meta tags.
Because of all the different repercussions that can come from using duplicate Meta tags in search engines like Google, it is important to use Joomla because it can offer you customized tags and titles which will never appear twice.

There is also the “NoFollow” feature which will be able to help you with excluding certain pages of your website, including those which are for privacy policies, terms and conditions, and contact pages, with regards to ranking in search engines. These are the pages that do not have any content so you will therefore need to avoid ranking them whenever possible. Joomla is a great decision for those who are trying to make their websites as successful as possible and rank high in all the major search engines.

With the help of Joomla you will also be able to generate different error messages for broken links, other than the standard error 404 page which everyone gets when a certain part of a site is down temporarily or permanently. You will also be able to change certain header tag features so you can get them exactly how you want. Another important part of SEO work is link exchange and with Joomla it is extremely simple and effective. With the proper software you will be able to do exactly what you need to help drive more traffic to your website so you can start making more money as a result.

One of the reasons why so many people favor this application is because it is fairly user-friendly while still offering a sort of effectiveness that is rarely seen with regards to SEO. When you use Joomla for SEO purposes you will have the ability to do a lot of different things, including turning on search-engine friendly SEF URLs which can be of great help with trying to promote your site as much as possible.

Although search engine friendly URLs are not on by default (and that sucks), it is a good idea to think about activating them and for a number of reasons. When you have these kinds of URLs you will be able to benefit immensely, especially if you have a website which generates pages automatically using a page-creation generator such as PHP Java or something similar.

By activating search engine friendly URLs you should have absolutely no problem getting your pages indexed on major search engines so you can get one step closer to improving how they do overall online.

You will also be able to install the sh4040SEF plugin through Joomla which will be able to help you customize your URLs in case you are not fond of the ones that are generated automatically. Another one of the great things about this plugin is that you will be able to manually set the Meta tags as well as titles, so you can get them exactly how you like. This particular feature is especially good for setting up advanced security functions so you will be able to keep your website running smoothly without any problems whatsoever. Joomla also makes for great page titles as well as 100% clean URLs. With the help of this application you will be able to generate URL names that are easy for all of the major search engines as well as humans to recognize; they will not be jumbled or nonsensical, so you will not have to worry about dealing with this problem like so many others do.

The fact that you will be able to inset H1 tags with the help of Joomla will also benefit you with regards to doing SEO work with your websites. Although doing this is considered to be an old SEO technique, it has been proven to work well for many people. People who utilize these special tags usually find that their websites do better in Google as well as a variety of other search engines. If you really want to see a major difference in how your website is doing online, you will also want to consider the issue of duplicate content which Joomla can certainly help with.

The sh404SEF plugin which you will be able to take advantage of with this application helps to reduce the issues associated with duplicate content, but not all of them. Those who publish icons on pages may experience problems with duplicate content, some of which Joomla will be able to help with. All in all Joomla is one of the better options for those who are looking to improve how their websites do in terms of ranking on major search engines. Since the better your site ranks the more traffic it will get, you should strongly consider using this application to your advantage like so many have before. Sometimes optimizing a website to rank well in search engines can be difficult because of all the obstacles, but Joomla can make doing this a little easier and more efficient.(Not as easy as my beloved WordPress… but not bad for a big whale-open-source-system like Joomla)

I believe Google it’s like a 5 year old boy and many of my customers think in the same way Google does…

Ooops… so that means that many of my SEO customers are like a 5 year old????
Well…before you think I’m calling them childish… read this post

Today my oldest son… gave me an amazing lesson.
Here it goes.

Sebastian approaches to my wife and says:

- Mummy I have a headache… I think I need a drink of water.
- Ok Sebastian, I will give you some water
- Mmm mummy wait a minute. What it’s a headache?

That’s it.
Classic!

You have to smile (if you don’t you don’t have a heart)

So what’s the lesson here?

Sebastian comes to his mum asking for the solution to a problem.
He thinks he has a problem…
but he has no idea what the problem is,
what the problem means
or even if he really has a problem

This happens to many of my SEO customers

1) they think they have a problem
2) they believe their problem is how strong their competitors are in Google
3) They clearly don’t know why their competitors are strong or even if they are REALLY strong or not.
4) They think they have a headache and the solution is a glass of water… but they don’t really know what’s the problem of if their problem it’s really called a “headache”

So how to identity your SEO problems.

The 1st step is to detect the STATE OF YOUR LINKS

How many backlinks do you have vs your competitor backlinks.
You really need to understand this before doing any serious SEO campaign. I mean, you will not have a boxing fight without knowing how strong, big or fast is your competitor…

You can use a backlink analysis tool in this case you can use some tools like

http://www.opensiteexplorer.org

or http://www.linkdiagnosis.com

Go out there and see how many backlinks do you have….  do you have more than your competition? Are your links coming from REAL sites instead of crappy-spammy sites?

Are your links contextual links or part of low level no value auto-generated junk sites?

If your links are enough…
if you think you have some level of authority, your site enjoys of solid backlink from authorities in your industry/arena .. and even Google thinks you are the Bomb, and you have some level of page rank… then move on to the next point.

2nd STEP STATE OF YOUR SITE

SEO can’t help if your site sucks… (a very famous Jedi said that)

So first really look at your site from the Eyes of a search engine. in a few words: How clear, how precise , how accurate it’s the info you display REGARDING YOUR topic/keyword.

I’m not going to give you the whole “Onsite SEO” Process…. instead what you need to do it’s to think if your site has enough content and information to be an Authority in your arena.

Because with no content… SEO it’s a bitch

So in a few words: You need to have content regarding the topic you want to rank. Google it’s mainly content search engine, and content it’s what Google monster loves to eat.

So before you move towards claiming that you have an SEO problem stop, and try to understand what SEO it’s all about, and if you do your homework and research properly and you still think you have a problem, then contact your nearest SEO Ninja consultant

———————–

And for all you with NOOOOO idea, here are some educational-basic-web-traffic-newbie videos. (Adding 3 from 11…the rest at SEO course)

Researching the current state of affairs both internally (in your business and website), as well as understanding your competitors and what they are doing, is the first step to effective and successful website SEO.. and this is usually what I do with my customers before we start

Ninja Business Research

In conducting your research, you will need to begin with an honest assessment of your business, and what its online presence should and will mean in relation to the rest of the organisation. There are a lot of questions that you will need to answer.

Admittedly, some of these will already have been answered in your business plan, and your overall web strategy documents. Questions about your unique selling points, the intended aims of your website are important, along with a look at any other marketing efforts you already have.

You will need to decide whom you are trying to reach with your website; a specific demographic, age, or geographical location? What are your general expectations from your online marketing efforts? How will you measure success and failure? Do you have a specific timeline or time limit for achieving these goals?

What is your online, and specifically your SEO and SEM budget? Just as important too, is the question of who will ultimately responsible for your online marketing efforts.

The list above is just a small sample of the questions you should be asking and answering. The more you introspect, the easier you will find your SEO efforts in the long run. When decisions have to be made in the future about whether to take a specific course of action or not, it does help if everyone involved is singing from the same hymn sheet. Answering these questions about your business in general and your website in particular, will ensure that this is the case.

Your competitors (The Enemy)
Once you have a good idea of what your business and online marketing goals and expectations are, you can begin to look at the competition.

This is not just to identify who they are (although this is important), but also what they are doing online.

Spend time looking at your competitors sites. Evaluate their online marketing efforts. Learn who is linking to them, and where possible why. If they have been online for a long time, use web archives to study how they got to their current state and position. Check how many pages they have indexed in Google and the other major search engines.

Find out the particular keywords they are targeting. Using a number of tools available today, you can even come up with a reasonable estimate of the amount of traffic that they are getting. (check my previous post about market Samurai)

The short version is that the more you know about your competitors, and their websites, the better you can manage and direct your own efforts. If you need to, get an independent SEO consultant (Like me… come on… come on… hire me!!!!) to give you an honest assessment. Rest assured that once your site launches, your competitors will be doing the same on your site. (mmm evil bunnies!)

As any business guru would say, know yourself, and then know your competition.

In SEO as in any other endeavour, beginning without this knowledge is probably the quickest route to if not failure, sub-par results.

Trust me… I’m a Ninja…;)

Ohhh god… I did it. My first video blog. Yep… very amateur… yep… bad camera operator…. yep… not great “sound effects”. Anyway.. my first video blog. If you like it and you want me to post more “vblogs” . Let me know. I need some encouragement I’m a bit of a camera-shy-SEO-nerd – Enjoy

It is quite important for everyone involved in this weird industry, in this business of developing online presence to have a full grasp not only of their own business, but also of the competition. Similarly too, it is critical that the person ultimately responsible for your website’s SEO really understand the technical details behind your website arquitecture and structure.

Any REAL SEO profesional will tell you that the best place to start, is with what is generally referred to as a ‘site clinic’. This requires delving a bit deeper into your current (or intended) website.

Similar to the assessment you should carry out on your competitors’ websites, this ‘site clinic’ will be an internal look at your website, from many different angles. The key factors to examine will include

* Current site rankings in the targeted search engines (if any) for all your chosen keywords
* Current state of internal (on-site and on-page) optimizations. These include the use (or lack thereof) of and tags, your internal linking, the site structure, elimination of duplicate content, and your URL structure.
* Current site size and visibility – how big is your site currently, and are all your pages indexed in the search engines? Should they be?
* Current site performance – is your current server and bandwidth connection serving pages fast enough to your target audience?
* Current state of external factors. Chief among these will be the number and nature of any backlinks that you already have to the site. Who is linking to you? Why?
* Current use of monitoring technology on the site – do you have and do you use any web analytical software? Do you regularly analyse your server logs? Do you measure your traffic conversion rates?
* Current capabilities -do you have the expertise (and capacity) to do all that will be required internally, or will you need to bring in external help?
* Current resources – are you allocating sufficient budget, time and effort to ensure that your site is not just an afterthought, but actually adds value to the rest of the business?

It is never too early to conduct a thorough site clinic.

If your website has not launched yet, carry out the evaluation on the current intended plans for the various aspects of the site. If these plans do not yet exist, this is as a good a time as any to make them, taking SEO into consideration in every decision.

If you are hiring a decent SEO consultant, you will get a honest assessment that will give you a good picture of where you will need to begin, and possibly concentrate your SEO efforts, to get easiest and most immediate returns.

It is one thing to have vague notions of the answers to the questions posed above. Documenting the response though will not only force you to really ask and answer the questions, but also provide you with a document highlighting any gaps that need filling, or problems that need resolving. The more areas you can cover in the document, the better.

While SEO is not rocket science, it can initially seem daunting to the new website owner, or the future SEO practitioner, professional or webmaster.
Thankfully though, with a bit of effort and planning, anyone can successfully SEO their website.

I decided to put today a quick post with the six distinct phases to the SEO process that I follow with my everyday customers.

These include research your current position and the competition, coming up with a good SEO strategy and a workable plan, effectively and properly implementing that plan, monitoring your sites traffic and search engine placements, assessing that performance against your desired goals, and once everything is working, maintaining that performance. For the most effective SEO practice, you will need to complete each phase competently. That naturally leads to you needing to have some understanding and knowledge of each phase.

+Research

If you don’t know about it, you can’t measure it.
If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
And if you can’t manage it, you will fail.

SEO therefore, like many other things in life, requires that you be fully aware of the environment you are operating in. This will require you to spend a bit of time researching the business or niche your site is in, and evaluating your online competitors, giving you a clear picture of the current state of affairs in your niche. Naturally, you will then need to explore the various keywords and search terms you should be targeting for your site.

+Strategy and Planning

Depending on what you determine from your research, there are a few fundamental questions you will need to answer in order to develop the best strategy and plan for your website’s SEO efforts. Things you will need to consider will include the amount and type of content you want to have, what sort of link building you will focus on, and how best to use the many social networking sites and tools to boost your SEO. In addition, you will need to determine whether you need to do any search engine marketing (SEM), and consider the various technical implications for any choices you make. The result at the end of this process will be your site specific SEO plan.

+Implementation

The best laid plans will not improve your search engine rankings unless they are implemented properly. Armed with a good and workable plan, you will need to ensure that the implementation is just as thorough as the planning was. Broadly, your implementation will cover two primary areas: external and internal site optimization. It should be noted that this will be in addition to creation of quality content that will not only be interesting, but be useful to your site visitors and other external webmasters.

+Monitoring

Once you start implementing your SEO plan, you do need to track the results, to ensure that you are doing the right things that have the right effects on your search engine rankings.

There are quite a few metrics you can track to help you keep a good eye on your performance. These include search engine web crawler activity on your site, the amount of traffic you are getting from search engines and other referring sites, your rankings for the various keywords, and a lot more, like your traffic conversion rates. Many of these metrics are related, and a good place to start would be a careful analysis of your web server logs, or any other web stats monitoring software or service you might be using.

+Assessment

Monitoring gives you the raw figures. Assessment allows you to check those figures against your intended goals and outcomes.

For example, while more traffic is generally a good thing, it is effectively detrimental to your sites performance if the sort of traffic you are getting is no converting into sales, or some other business goal. In carrying out your assessments though, you do need to be careful not to rush to (often negative) conclusions, but assess your performance over a reasonable and defined timescale.
Monthly, quarterly and indeed yearly assessment periods are the norm. Assessing your performance should also force you to examine your initial assumptions and stated goals, refine them, or in some cases, alter your plan and implement any changes to it. In some cases, you will need to all the way back to your initial research, and your interpretation of it.

+Maintenance

Once the major work is done, and your SEO efforts have started paying dividends, you cannot rest on your laurels. You will need to continue to monitor and assess your site’s performance. During this maintenance phase, you will also need to tweak and adjust your SEO to take care of minor problems, improve your current implementation, and also incorporate new SEO techniques and tools as they become available.
Remember, once your site is at the top of the search engine rankings, it becomes the site that all the other webmasters are trying to dethrone. You just become then.. the new target!