As many of you now… (off course you do!) link building is a very important task to do if you are trying to get your website to rank in the search engines. There are a lot of different factors that come into play in terms of how well a website ranks in the search engines and backlinks is one of the most important factors. Backlinks are the links that are pointing back to a website. In order to help improve search engine rankings and ultimately get more traffic to a website, link building is utilized. Link building is basically the process in which one builds backlinks to their site. Here are five powerful tips that can help maximize the effectiveness of link building.

One of the most important link building tips is consistency. When building backlinks, it is important to take a consistent approach. This means that if you build backlinks one month, you should continue to build backlinks the next month especially if you have not accomplished your goals in terms of search engine ranking and traffic. This also pertains to the amount of backlinks you build. If you build 100 backlinks to your site one month, you should try to build around the same amount of backlinks the next month. You don’t want your link building to look unnatural.

Another important link building tip is to make sure you are building high quality backlinks to your site. These types of links would give your site the biggest benefits. If your link was found on a website that was relevant to your website, had a high page rank, and was dofollow, the search engine spiders would most likely see that link as a high quality backlink. The more links you have like that, the better chances your website has of improving in the search engines especially if you are using anchor text with the keyword phrase you are trying to rank for.

Along with making sure you are building high quality backlinks, you should also try to build links from different sources. For example, if you are just building backlinks from forums alone, you are limiting your link building effectiveness. It is best to build links from as many different sources as you can. There are many ways to build backlinks such as writing articles, posting in forums, submitting press releases, blog commenting and so on. You would want to take advantage of as many link building methods as you can to maximize your link building effectiveness. Just make sure to avoid getting backlinks from bad neighborhoods such as link farms for example.

Analyzing your competitors backlinks is another powerful link building tip. A lot of people are not aware of the information that they can gather from their competitors backlinks. This information can help someone’s link building campaign a great deal. If you are trying to reach the top of the search engines for a keyword phrase and have yet to do so, you can examine where your competitors are getting their backlinks and what type of backlinks they have pointing back to their website that is helping them rank for that specific keyword phrase. This way you know what type of links are helping your competitors rank so well. By knowing this information, you can build the same type of links as well as obtain some of the backlinks your competitor has.

The final link building tip is simply patience. Patience is very important when it comes to link building. It takes time for search engine spiders to find these links your are building back to your website. It also takes time for the search engines to determine where your site should rank after finding these links. In some cases, the results of link building may take a while to show. That is why it is very important to be patient and maintain your link building efforts until you see your link building efforts pay off especially if you are very serious about increasing your search engine rankings for your website.

Link building can be a tedious process but the ending results can be very rewarding (you know what I mean $$$$?). These link building tips can help you build backlinks that can really improve your search engine rankings, which in most cases, can increase the traffic to your website especially if you reach the top of the search engines for a keyword phrase that gets a decent amount of traffic.

You want fast link building? Me too.. in the same way I want a Ferrari… a boat… a jetski…  and being adopted by Angelina Jolie.

If you don’t know it by now… (helllooo!!!) building backlinks to your website is essential if you want to improve search engine rankings and get traffic. Although the actual process of getting these backlinks can be quite a task (boring), there are plenty of ways to get them. The following are seven popular ways to build backlinks to your site.

1. Forum Signatures - Most forums will allow members to leave a few lines of text in their signature. This space can also be used to add a link depending on which forum it is. If you participate on a forum, you can leave a link in the signature area that points back to your site. In most cases you can set it up to be an anchored text link meaning that you can use your keyword phrase or whatever text you want to use as your website url title. Each time you would make a post including your signature, you would have a link pointing back to your website. Now keep in mind – if your site is a PET FOOD joining a forum about Iphones… well… you get my point ~ don’t u?

2. Forum Profiles - This way of building backlinks is also becoming more and more popular. The way it works is by finding a forum that has quite a high page rank and registering and filling out the profile information. In most cases, these forums will have a place where you can insert your website url which would be publicly viewable and clickable on your public profile. Sometimes, there are also other sections where you can include your website url or even anchor text links such as in the “bio” section. Search engine spiders crawl forums all the time and this is why this is a great way to build backlinks. This is OK to do… if you understand that the proper way to do this is to be an active part of the forum. give back to the forum what you are getting from it. Don’t just register for a link… be more original than that.

3. High Page Rank Profiles – This approach to building backlinks is quite similar to forum profiles. It is basically taking advantage of the opportunity to leave a link back to your website on high page rank websites through profiles. Some of these authority high page rank websites allow members to include information on their profiles about themselves and other types of information including their website. Their may even be features such as having their own blog which they could use towards link building.
Want to know what sites you can find links from ? mmm join my SEO Training course to find out more .

4. Blog Commenting – Blog commenting has been a popular link building method for a while now and continues to be a great way to build backlinks to a website. The idea is to find blogs that you can comment on. Most of these blogs will allow you to leave your name and website url. When your comment goes live, you will have a link pointing back to your website. The search engine spiders love blogs so if you want to build some backlinks that can be found pretty quickly, blog commenting is a great way to do it.

5. Articles – Writing articles and submitting them to article directories is another great way to build backlinks. When you submit articles to these directories, you are allowed to include your url to your website in the author resource area and sometimes you can even include a link within the article itself. Once the article is published, you will have a link or multiple links pointing back to your site. The more articles you have published, the more backlinks you will have. Although this “sound” simple… proper article marketing is an art. (believe me) . Balancing the time spent writing articles and the amount of links you may obtain from each site is difficult to balanace.

6. Social Bookmarking - Social bookmarking sites are websites that allow users to save their favorite links which they can share among other members of the website. If you bookmark your website or articles using social bookmarking sites, you will also be gaining backlinks. Bookmarks from social bookmarking sites are picked up by the search engines a lot and do count as backlinks. Now… obviously Google is not stupid, so don’t push it… use social bookmarking in a smart way. Change the way you bookmark your pages… or may be original and try to bookmark the articles pointing to your site? (just an idea…)

7. Web 2.0 Websites - Web 2.0 websites represents a large portion of sites including social bookmarking sites. These types of sites are great for building backlinks. Hubpages, Squidoo, Wetpaint, Blogger, and Weebly are all web 2.0 sites that you can use to build backlinks to your website. You can share your content while also leaving a link back your site. Web 2.0 websites range from social networking sites to video sharing sites. Making the most of these sites and finding a way to leave a link back to your site can really help your link building campaigns. Personally I hate squidoo… (sorry Seth Godin!) and I love hubpages…  it all depends of what you like the most…  what is hot today will loose “juicy” next year, so you need to keep trying new system and web 2.0 sites.

These are some of the just some basic ways to build backlinks. Just by using a few of these methods on a regular basis, you could increase the number of backlinks pointing to your site greatly. If you use them strategically, you could also get a nice sum of traffic while at the same time gain quality backlinks.

Remember: There is no magic bullet here… so build… build and build…. until you want to stop. Then, once you stop: Start again.

Want to get more backlinks…. let me plug the following product below:

But what is interesting is when the “link exchange” spam comes from an Australian Marketing and SEO company.

Yesterday I enjoy an email from Cameron Norsworthy from a so-called SEO company in Perth.

The email started like this

Hello,

I would love to exchange links with you, I have 2 web design sites, please see the text below. Please add my link to a relevant (theme: marketing, web design, seo etc) website and send me the link. I will then add your site to my sites

The funny thing is that Cameron websites,  Wave Marketing and Wave SEO (sorry no links today!) are sites with ZERO Pagerank, ZERO Authority and I bet ZERO Traffic.

Although this is OK… what kills me is how non-original Cameron was to request a link exchange from me.

Some typical lame mistakes done by compulsive link exchangers

1. Copy and paste template: If you are going to ask me for a link… at least write a unique email. Don’t be lazy .. come on dude a bit of an effort and try at least to tell me in your own words

a) who are you? Tell me your story… inspire me!

b) why should we exchange links with YOU?

c) Why did you choose my site?

2.  Harvest my email : Obviously Cameron decides to ENGAGE my attention by writing : Hello ! … instead of … “hey Gabriel, I love your website and I have read all your articles. How are you mate?”

The thing that makes me upset is that an Australian “SEO Expert” uses this LAME tactics to get a backlink. Come on ! Is this as good as it gets?

3. Link Exchange Tactics are Useless : And this is the most scary part. If you really know about SEO, you don’t go wasting your time by asking for link exchange… specially NOT to other SEO companies.  It is time to dance to the 2010 Google tune.  Do you really think Link exchange works? Do you really think that sending emails asking for link charity is the proper link building path to go?

It is time to act like a real internet marketing company: Create your own links for god sake.
Go and create authority content, be part of communities, write articles, reports, provide value and then links will start coming in a natural way.

So to recap:

1). Whatever happen avoid any company that offers you in their SEO packages any link exchange solution or strategy: They are wasting your time and money.

2) If you get an email from Cameron Norsworthy requesting a backlink to his PERTH SEO business… give him the following links to feed his SEO brain cells:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-mistakes-link-exchange-emails/

http://seo2.0.onreact.com/3-way-link-exchange-with-seo-spammers-is-a-dead-end

3) Be smart, be original… use creativity to create back links : there are THOUSANDS OF ways to go to get backlinks… so instead of “begging” for links. Go out there and show the world how good you are. Instead of aiming to be a link exchange spammer be a Link Building Superstar… o a freaking Ninja like me

So Cameron if you are reading this: Dance with the tune of the the Video Below….

So this is the question of the day: Do you really need SEO tools?

The answer is: Yes.

and the answer is : No

Yes and No. and No and Yes. Like same same but different.

mmm let me explain…

SEO tools are for sure usefull if they provide DATA that will help you to save time and improve your productivity.

In my case SEO tools are simply vital to save time… for me time is money and good data is extremely important.

So before I go and review PAID SEO tools… let’s talk about the FREE SEO tools you can use Today, without spending a fortune.

Cool bananas?

So here is Gabriel’s amazing -Ultra-fantastic Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO from Google

A good keyword research is definitely an important thing in an SEO campaign. The research is a critical stage that will determine the results of the campaign. This stage is one of some stages in SEO that cannot be done manually. You need to use good SEO tools in order to research and analyze keywords effectively.
There are many tools for keyword research available. Some of them were designed by Google in order to help webmasters to analyze a large number of keywords and key phrases. These are 4 of the most effective tools for SEO designed by Google that you can use to get the best results for your campaign.

Adwords Keyword Tool
This tool is the most powerful and widely used keyword research tool on the web. This tool was actually designed to help PPC advertisers, but it is also useful for SEO research. Adwords keyword tool gives some keyword suggestions based on the main keywords that you provide. The tool also displays the search volume for these keywords on Google each month and the bidders’ competition for them. This information is really valuable for internet marketers, so if you haven’t used the tool already, you should try it.

Google Search-based Keyword Tool

This tool is just like the keyword tool from Adwords, but the keyword suggestions that you get from this tool do not fully overlap. That is why it is a good idea to use both Adwords keyword tool and Google search-based keyword tool. The keyword suggestions that you can get from this tool are grouped into many categories so that grouping and managing the list become easier. Using this tool, you can also see each keyword’s search volume.

Related Searches
This tool is not actually a keyword research tool. It is an advanced search function. However, you can use this function to find some good keywords. When you do a search on Google, at the end of the search results you will get a list of related searches. You should pick the keyword suggestions that are relevant, and check their search volumes using Adwords keyword tool. You will surely find some high traffic search terms this way.

Google Suggest
Google suggest is the simplest keyword research tool designed by Google. Regardless of its simplicity, it can give you a great insight about the words and phrases that internet users often search for using Google. When you do a search on Google you should see that when you are typing something in the search box, you will be presented with some keywords that might help you. Google Suggest’s algorithm is behind this feature.

This tool can help your SEO campaign by finding new keywords and search terms for you. Using this feature is simple. All you need to do is to start typing seed keywords and you will get some keyword suggestions. Note the keywords that are related to your business, and check their search volumes later.

The advantage of using this feature is that the keyword suggestions that you get are derived from live searches performed on Google.

Firstly, if you have your own blog site, then you are no doubt more than aware that an awful lot of the incoming comments that people leave on your blog site are complete and utter garbage! —. I know you know what I mean.

Those that are not advertising Viagra or promoting adult sites will often say nothing more interesting or engaging than ‘very interesting blog. well done’ or ‘excellent advice. thank you’.

Such comments add nothing whatsoever to the quality of the blog site, and as a consequence, any sane blog site owner will simply delete such nonsense comments before they ever see the light of day on the site itself.

Which I am sure I am not alone in thinking amounts to a complete waste of time for both the commenter and the blog site owner too.

But, the fact is that most blog site owners are more than happy to have valuable comments added to the site, and therefore all you need to do is make sure that you actually say something when posting a comment and everyone is likely to be happy!

So, you need to find blog sites that are working in your niche so that you can eave appropriate comments on them.

How do you do this?

Well, the first method would be to open up your favorite search engine such as Google, Yahoo or Bing, and type in ‘XYZ blogs’ (XYZ being your topic) and see what results came up. In this case I will type “SEO blogs”

This however is likely to be a time consuming and frustrating experience as many of the sites that you will find will have little or no relevance to your own niche targeted site.

The second option is to use software like Blogfinder… what this does is search all WordPress blogs for postings that feature content related to your niche targeted site, based on the key word or phrase that you input to the software itself.

It will also all indicate the Google page rank of the blogs that it finds as well, so that you will immediately know which sites are the most important ones to try to post comments on.

So, once your list of blogs sites is sorted according to PR, you simply post high-quality comments to each blog on the list.

Incidentally, the paid version of this type software allows you to post comments to blogs sites hosted on many other different blogging platforms.

The idea of posting comments on high PR blog pages is twofold:

• It can drive real human visitors to your site, and

• It can create back links to your site as well.

As you have read from my previous posts… back links of this type are becoming increasingly important as the major search engines like Google and Yahoo are giving increasingly high priority to ‘off page’ search engine optimization tactics like linking, with ‘on page’ tactics like old fashioned keyword stuffing quickly becoming less critical.

However, please note that I have used the phrase ‘can create back links’, rather than ‘does create’.

This is because WordPress blogs in their default state will have what is known as the ‘no-follow’ tag activated on the ‘comments’ page, unless the blog owner has changed it.

What this means is that, should you leave a comment on someone else’s blog, the next time that Google spiders visit that blog, the spider will NOT follow the link from your comment back to your site. Thus, you are effectively losing search engine ‘credit’ and incoming links.

Unfair? you bet… but SEO is unfair so deal with it… and move on..

So should you be posting comments in HIGH Traffic Blog Sites? You bet. You can’t go wrong. Just be decent, write good content and do it often enough to increase backlinks, reputation and readers back to your blog.

The idea is not new…  “apply today to get your site certified with us and receive the great honor of having our “certification” in your website.

Although this idea exists in other countries with a big more professionalism … I found this Australian version a complete joke.

the Slogan of the site is “restoring confidence” … and I can’t stop asking myself: Restoring confidence in what?

The terms and conditions to be “approved” as an Australian Certified website seem so irrelevant that I clearly don’t see the point of being certified by a website run and own by one sole trader with zero approval or support of any other organization or leader in the industry.

Some of the of their conditions instead of restoring my confidence, give me more doubts than anything..

Have reasonable contact methods

I love the idea of “Reasonable” …  mm is email reasonable? I presume MORSE code is not Reasonable.
What about If I don’t want to be contacted? or what if I want to be contacted only via SMS? is that reasonable…?

This is a nice idea… but anyone with skype can buy an Australian Skype number and redirect them to their evil HQ…

Well… to register a .com.au you need to be located in Australia, but regardless… why is this relevant? If you are buying digital product, or watching a video online from X website… why do you need to know their office is located in Australia?

Interesting point but very unlikely that they check that every single stock item is being sent from Australia…

I doubt that Australian Certified Website really goes in the trouble of checking this. Do they purchase all the products to verify their are LEGITIME?

Mmm we are entering a difficult area. What is offensive content for you? Is this what is offensive for Jessica Urquhart, the owner of Australian Certified Websites? so if my site posts a joke about certain religion… do I fail the approval process? By posting THIS post am I offeding Australian Certified Website?

Well the ACMA code of practice is not only complex but it requires serious research , specially in the e-marketing and email delivery code and standards.  Once again (may be I’m wrong) I doubt that enough amount of time is spend to verify that the e-marketing code of practice put by the ACMA is followed.

Example: Australian Certified Website HAS a newsletter… but the newseltter system is hosted by Your Mailing Listing Provider

http://whois.domaintools.com/yourmailinglistprovider.com

your Mailing Listing Provider IS NOT an Australian company or has to follow the rules of the ACMA… so you may have a website that follows Australian ACMA rules… but your email delivery solution can be hosted in a country with differnet law regarding privacy and online marketing?

Holy cow…  so if you use Paypal… you can’t be verified my friends. Because remember: Paypal is not an Australian Bank.

Overall I think this points don’t bring any confidence at all. Instead it will be good to see some REAL conditions.

What about

• Ecommerce Standards and Certified SSL – online payment systems
• What about a Privacy Policy ?
• may be the support of a 3rd Party Guarantee… what about including being certified by someone like TrustE or Comodo
• Certified agreement for customer resolution?
• Browser and Privacy Safety —> following a similar idea as Verisign

It seems to me the idea of Australian Certified website is… well, cute…  but we need to be professionals here. Online trust is a serious issue, in fact is something companies spend millions trying to build, grow and mantein… I doubt a $12 investment per year and a dead ugly logo is going to increase customers “trust” in any Australian company brand, ecommerce or service provider.

For more info:

TRUSTe is an independent organization whose mission is to build users’ trust and confidence in the Internet by promoting the use of fair information practices

Comodo is the Higher Certificate Authority. Dedicated to keeping our customers one step ahead, we have ensured that Comodo SSL is 2048-bit ready to keep our customers safe for the next 20 years

Verisign Extended Validationl “EV, or Extended Validation, provides the same strong level of security as traditional VeriSign® SSL Certificates, but with an added feature. When a customer visits a secure page using an EV-enabled browser, the address bar turns green, immediately alerting the customer that it’s safe to proceed with a transaction.”

For all of you looking for Seals of Approval… go nuts… save as.. and post in your site and see your SALES GROW…

Bye bye Kevin 07 , hello new Red Hair female Prime Minister.

Do I really care? Not really…. in a strange way I like Julia… and why not? She is a red hair, has great legs and can’t do any worse than Kevin… but this post as many of my posts here, are about SEO.

So what Kevin Rudd learned in the last 2 weeks about SEO?

1) Loosing Ranking can happen overnight. One day you are 1st…. the next day you are in nowhere to be seen… 

2) Links are Gold Baby. If you don’t have enough supporters (let’s call them LINKS) your competitor can get ahead of you. The one with more “Supporters” wins. Being outranked is easier when you have less links than your closest competitor.

3) The Ranking Algorithm changes. (like the public opinion). One day you are up… and one day one decision in your goverment or website, can put you down thanks to the “Algorithm” . How to survive? Build a proper policy, a strong goverment, guarantee solid backlinks… and have a PLAN B to prevent loosing your ranking overnight.

4) Being Paranoid is Good.  Don’t be overconfident, specially if the odds seems to change against you. Always build new supporters, make new partnerships, increase the “weight” of your website (goverment)…  gaining support… and backlinks is a CONSTANT job.

5) One Week in Politics is a lifetime. (same on the internet) . So move fast. Keep building. Keep getting links. Increase your site Authority. Too slow? Taking to long to consider the “market” , too long studying your stats? your competitor… or your keyword research. Time flies… and the only way you can keep ahead of your competitors is to ACT now…  before you end up crying in front of the cameras announcing you lost all your Ranking and Glory.

Today I read at FlyingSolo a post from a company called Perth SEO… Perth SEO is suppose to be an SEO company that is the “leader” in their market/region/city/whatever .

So I decided to take a look at their SEO service….

HOLY COW!

Welcome to another BS SEO company… that decides to charge customers $190 for “Search Engine Submission”

If you don’t know it by now… Search Engine Submission is as useless as loosing weight just by watching “people running on the TV”

In their website PERTH SEO define that for $199…. they

“No.5 – Search Engine Submission

This is a step that requires allot of time and patience. Your website will be submitted manually to most search engines. However we use strategies, to index a new website within 48-72 hours.”

Regardless how great this so-called company is… the fact of charging for something that is useless, makes me believe they have very little idea of what they are doing.

So regardless how “expert” an SEO guru or company claims to be, I want to believe integrity comes first.

So dear PERTH SEO Experts: have the balls and guts to tell your customer the following:

“No.5 – Search Engine Submission

This is a step that is not really needed now a days, mainly because Google will index your website just by following natural links. We know is useless, but because you don’t know is useless… we decided to charge you more money for this service. The more you pay, the more we make.

and if you still don’t believe Search Engine Submission is useless…

READ , LEARN and DEMAND MORE.

http://www.webproworld.com/webmaster-forum/threads/87232-SE-submission-is-USELESS

http://seobullshit.com/seo-myths-crap-submitting-search-engines/

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-search-engines-find-your-content/16809/

http://www.link-assistant.com/blog/search-engine-submission-services/

For him Elmo is the coolest thing on earth, so my wife decided to buy some Elmo Balloons, Elmo hats, Elmo party gifts, etc… for his little b-day party.

Well, one week later a huge Elmo package arrived with all the products being delivered from an online store in the USA. I was a bit surprised… why not buying it from an Australian store?

The answer? she couldn’t find any Elmo products in any Australia party website…

So Elmo, Mate… if you are reading this is the keyword analysis of your industry.

elmo invitations 210 unique per month

elmo birthday 170

elmo party 1000 !

The results

elmo party – 1st place – USA site

http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/html/elmo.html

elmo invitations – 1st place – USA site

http://partysupplieshut.com/elmo/elmo-invitations.htm

elmo birthday – 1st place – USA site

http://www.birthdaypartyideas.com/html/elmo.html (once again)

The conclusion

a) Longtail keyword ranking is WORTH every penny and energy invested…

b) REAL buyers will buy from any country if they really WANT and NEED the product

c) Regardless how old you are… ELMO Rules

d) Happy B-day Dominic… having you as part of our life is great… have an amazing elmo-red-happy-b-day-party!

I bet the answer to my quick poll is D…

The tool that I used is http://websitegrader.com a way to “Grade” the SEO quality of your site.
I seriously doubt my site is a scored 99…. that’s why I decided to try to “grade” other sites.

ready?

Let’s do it…

Google Grade ….. 98 (oops Sorry Matt Cuts people… Internet Ninja is better than you!)

So what about Yahoo ..?

The funny thing is the tag line at the end of the “grading”
“The website yahoo.com ranks 3,885 of the 2,533,421 websites that have been ranked so far. ”

So I decided to go for the ultimate challenge and Grade the GRADER… Grade the master… how high does Websitegrade grades itself?

Mmmm…. I rest my case.

Overall websitegrade site is worth nothing if you are serious about SEO.

The resuls are very poor. The analytics are even worse… if you want to waste 5 minutes of your life, then use it… but if you really want to get SERIOUS data don’t waste your time .
At least.. I’m not the only person that thinks websitegrader is a bad idea.