Earlier this week, we looked at busting some myths about linking to other pages. There is a lot of misleading information out there. As an award-winning California SEO service, we have clients come to us after they have received unhelpful advice from California search engine optimization companies that do not have their best interests in mind.

We want people who turn to us for help to see the connection between the promotional actions they take in real life and the ways that people promote themselves and their business online.

Myth: You can build permanent links
The only constant in life is change. In real life, your friends may move and your business contacts may decide to switch fields. The same thing happens online. There is no guarantee that you or anyone else will remain just as you are now.

You have no way of ensuring that sites that agree to link to you will remain as they are. What you can do is ask them to agree to at least keep the link to your site for a set period of time. And in return, you should also agree to make sure that you keep links to other organization’s sites up for a set period of time if they request it.

Myth: Reciprocal links aren’t helpful
While it is true that you cannot rely solely on reciprocal links to bring in loads of website viewers, this does not mean that they do not contribute to improving ranking. If you link to a site and they decide to return the favor then both sites get increased exposure and this is a good thing.

In the offline world, people trade goods and services all the time. Their business may not survive based on these exchanges, but they can make a difference. In business, you have to market constantly and reciprocal links are just one of the many ways to get the job done.

The idea that things will only work for you if you do your best to keep everything to yourself does not work in real life and it does not work for SEO either. Judiciously linking to other websites can be boost for your business.

If you are looking for a California search engine optimization company, to help you increase SEO and get better page rank, look no further than Increase Visibility.

Increase Visibility is a professional California SEO firm and we are in the business of helping businesses shine on the internet.

In the physical world, you rely on connections (or links) to other people and things are no different online. In fact, of you think about the successful ways that you link to people in real life, then you can transfer those skills to your efforts to build your business online.

Sometimes people approach us for help and after talking with them it is clear that they have received conflicting and erroneous information on what it takes to attract visitors to your website and get them to return. We want to bust some of those myths–

Myth: Outbound links will ruin your page ranking
When you have relevant outbound links on your site, you are ’sending people away’ in a sense, but it will not take away from your page rank. Whoever clicks on an outbound link on your site is already there, so they have already patronized your website.

If you told someone about someone you knew who could help them, do you think that person would then ignore you forever? No! That person may come back to thank you. Or that person will come to you again when then need advice or information, since you were so helpful the first time. It works the same way online. Don’t you go back to visit websites that you found helpful? Providing useful links to related sites established your company as a resource that people will want to return to time and again.

Myth: Only link to pages with high page ranks
In high school, sometimes an unpopular kid would try attach themselves to a popular kid to raise their own profile. Even if the popular kid did not tell the unpopular kid to scram, the association did not mean that the unpopular kid suddenly got asked to every party. That kid would have done better to find other kids with similar interests who genuinely liked him or her.

In the online world, linking to pages with high page ranks does not always bring promising returns. Some less than reputable California SEO companies will show you complex terms to explain just why you need to link with pages of a certain rank and they perhaps may ply you with exaggerated guarantees. Really, what you want to do is link to pages that are relevant. Do not get so hung up on page rank that you link to low quality pages because then website visitors will doubt your judgment and wonder why you recommended pages that are not useful.

If you are looking for help with California SEO, call Increase Visibility at 877 SEO ADVICE (877-736-2384).

So now that we have gone over the basic function of inbound links, you may be wondering just how to get them. After all, if they are kind of like a gift, how can you get lots of the right people to give you these gifts. Do you demand them? Do you make friends and send out invites to your birthday party, hoping they will give the gift that you really, really want? What do you do?

There was a time when anyone asked everyone to link to their site. But now that we as an internet-crazed society have become a little more sophisticated, it is less acceptable to make these requests without some consideration.

 It doesn’t hurt to ask (the right people)

Ask someone to link to your site after you have done your homework and know that they have a quality website. You may not want to link to a direct competitor, but rather someone whose site is related to yours, although maybe not directly. If you already are friendly, ask. If you do not know the people behind the website, then maybe it is time to pick up the phone. Yes, we are all very tech-savvy, but as one internet marketing guru advises, you probably need to state your case first. After all, the other company’s reputation is on the line. And inbound link is in many ways, an endorsement. People are not likely to endorse you if you and your company are unknown to them.

A little flattery never hurt either

Another strategy for getting inbound links is to use flattery. When you have researched certain sites and know that you might benefit from being linked to them, link to those site yourself. Mention them in a blog post you are doing or highlight an article about them in a Twitter update. To give is to receive and they will often be so flattered (and grateful) for the publicity that they will link right back to you. Now this is not guaranteed to work. Even if the company does not return the favor, you still look generous because you are willing to share the spotlight.

These tactics work for garnering a few inbound links here and there, but if you are looking for volume, you will likely need to get some backup. Let Increase Visibility do some of this heavy lifting for you. We are a happy to research websites that are complementary to yours. Our experienced team may find companies in fields or areas that you never even considered.

There are tricks to every trade. On Tuesday, we explained how search engine optimization increases website traffic. SEO employs a proven variety of techniques to attract search engine spiders and maximize indexing of your website into Internet search engine data bases. SEO vastly improves the probability that your site will be displayed on the short list when a consumer inputs a query about products, services or information offered on your website. And that short list is where you want to be. Studies have shown that most consumers never click beyond the first page of search matches. The goal of SEO is to get your site ranked highly enough by Internet search engines to put it as close as possible to the top of the first screen of query responses.

As we mentioned, there are tricks to every trade and SEO is no exception. With more than 20 years of combined experience in search engine optimization and Internet marketing, the SEO experts at Increase Visibility have developed and perfected specific techniques proven to drive maximum traffic to your website. Among the most important of these SEO techniques are keywords, title tags, URLs and linking.

• Keywords. Deciding which words to optimize for search engines is the most crucial and most difficult task in formulating a SEO plan. The words selected as keywords must match those most often used by consumers to search for what you sell. Finding the specific words that are most popular and create the highest search volumes is as much art as science. There are tools that measure search volumes for specific words, but it’s selecting the right combination of highly-relevant keywords that will bring paying customers to your site.
• Title Tags. For successful search engine indexing, the text that appears in the title bar of your browser is the single most important element on your web page. Loading this title tag with keywords maximizes indexing when search spiders crawl your web pages. Each page should have a unique title to ensure indexing. Otherwise it’s like having a shelf of books all with the same title. No one knows they’re different books.
•  URLs. URL structure is equally important. Because search engine spiders crawl URLs much as they do individual web pages, your URL should be constructed to make use of keywords rather than the default numbers assigned by many publishing systems. To avoid confusing search spiders, each page should link to a single URL.
• Linking. The way in which other sites link to yours impacts your search engine ranking. Including keywords in linking anchor text improves search engine rankings. You can encourage this by providing copy-and-paste HTML code for linkers.

A growing number of businesses are fine tuning their online press releases to increase search engine optimization, adding value to their Internet marketing programs. Online press releases have become a fairly standard marketing strategy. A valuable tool for promoting the products and services offered on your website, press releases get your company’s name before the public, create an aura of authority and drive targeted traffic to your site. They also create vital link popularity that is important to search engine ranking. Realization of their search optimization potential has caused a shift in focus in online press releases. According to a recent Clemson University study, the purpose of online news announcements is moving away from traditional brand marketing to search engine optimization.

Titled The ROI of Online Press Releases, the Clemson University study revealed increased use of hyperlinks and keywords to enhance search engine optimization in online news releases. “Of course marketers also want to announce news, but increasingly they use news releases for SEO, driving click-throughs to their websites and to reach customers directly,” said study leader Mihaela Vorvoreanu, an assistant professor of communications studies at Clemson.

Search engine optimization techniques that have been effective on websites are now being applied to the formation of online press releases. Placing keywords in the tags, headline and first paragraph of a press release encourages Internet search engines to “crawl” news documents, indexing their content for response to user search queries. When optimized for search engines, press releases can:

> increase your search engine ranking when users search for information on the Internet, placing your business closer to the top of the results list

> increase the number of website visitors who provide their email address and contact information

> increase the number of consumers who complete online forms

> increase the generation of qualified leads

As part of an effective comprehensive SEO marketing program, search engine optimized press releases help create valuable link popularity, including important inbound non-reciprocated links. While reciprocal links are valuable in improving page ranking, search engines penalize bad linking choices with poor ranking placement. For this reason, creating inbound non-reciprocal links must be part of any effective SEO linking strategy. Search engines view non-reciprocal links as unsolicited, and therefore more valuable, endorsements from other highly ranked sites. Placing an optimized press release with an Internet newswire service that contains links back to a business’ website accomplishes this goal.

With more than 15 years of experience writing high-quality press releases, the PR specialists at Increase Visibility are well experienced in creating dynamic search engine optimized news releases. Visit our website to find out about the three SEO-enhancing press release programs offered by Increase Visibility.

Creating a crawlable website is one of the primary goals of effective search engine optimization. In order to drive traffic to your website, your site must not only lure search engine spiders, but maximize their ability to access and index the information on your site. No matter how fabulous your content or graphics, if they can’t be “crawled” by search engine spiders, they can’t help drive traffic to your site.

There are a lot of things that can impede crawlability. One of the important functions of search engine optimization is to maximize the crawlability of your website. An experienced search engine optimization team knows the tricks to ferreting out the content and technical errors that interfere with search engine spiders and bots. Linking errors can be a major impediment to search engine optimization. Last week we talked about some of the linking errors that negatively impact crawlability. Today we want to share some tips that will improve your website’s crawlability.

> Use search engine friendly CSS code when creating navigation elements on your website. CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets, is a HTML feature that defines how design elements like headers and links appear on a web page. By ensuring design and linking uniformity, CSS provides better control over how pages are displayed and links are formatted, improving crawlability. CSS creates a more universally searchable site than Flash, JavaScript or Ajax while offering nearly the same dynamic functionality. 

> Use text links to create alternative navigation paths in the footer or breadcrumb navigation. Adding linking opportunities to non-content page elements increases spidering options, improving crawlability. Including a sidebar list of clickable links to your website’s main category and sub-category pages, as well as footer links to important pages, produces additional opportunities for spiders to crawl your site. 

> Add specialized text link pages to your HTML site map. Each text link page can list 100 or fewer text links to important pages on your site. You can create more than one site map page; the key is that each contain less than 100 links. Spiders regularly crawl HTML site maps. By providing links to interior pages within the HTML site map, you increase the opportunity for spiders to discover and crawl those pages. Spiders that miss or have trouble navigating to interior pages via content or other site links will nearly always be able to follow links through your HTML site map.

> Create a XML site map list of all the URLs from your website that you want search engines to crawl. Again, you want to give the search engine spiders as much help and direction as possible. Providing a list of important URLs to supplement information the spiders find on their own is one more way of maximizing the crawlability of your website.

Making certain that search engine spiders can crawl your website is one of the goals of effective search engine optimization. Your site can be well-designed and contain great content and graphics, but if the links to and within your website don’t allow search engines to access and index all of the pages in your site, you’re paying for a lot of dead space. Pages that aren’t crawlable are pages that aren’t actively contributing to your Internet marketing program. The more material on your website that is accessible — crawlable — by search engine spiders, the higher your potential ranking when Internet users initiate a search. One of the primary goals of search engine optimization is to maximize the amount of material accessed and indexed by search engine spiders.

Spiders, also called bots or ants, are software programs initiated by Internet search engines to find content, including web pages, images, videos, pdf files, etc. Spiders revisit website on a regular basis searching for new material. When spiders can’t follow links to or within a website, the destination page is not included among the index of web pages available to satisfy search results. As far as the search engine is concerned, that page doesn’t exist. Which means that the information contained on that page will not be available to potential customers initiating a web search.

What are some of the linking errors that negatively impact crawlability?

> Embedding navigation links in Flash. Although Flash indexing is expected to be available in the future, most search engine spiders cannot currently crawl links in Flash files.

> Embedding navigation links in JavaScript or Ajax. Googlebots and other spiders just don’t seem to like the taste of JavaScript or Ajax and are not able to crawl pages that use them.

> Embedding site navigation links in forms. Most search engine spiders don’t have the capability to interact with or make the selections required by online forms so they avoid them.

> Failing to provide authoritative links. Links provide the path by which search engines discover new websites. Inbound and reciprocal links from one site to another positively impact SEO rankings. Internal links lead from a website’s home page into important interior pages. A site that fails to provide authoritative links, while not uncrawlable, diminishes the frequency with which it is crawled which, in turn, negatively impacts SEO rankings.

Search engine optimization corrects these linking errors to make your site more crawlable and improve your SEO ranking.

Next Tuesday: Tips for improving your website’s crawlability

Adding a blog to your internet marketing arsenal is an excellent way to improve search engine placement. Blogging provides you with another opportunity to attract search engine spiders that will direct traffic to your blog. By adding keyword-dense links to your blog that point directly to your website, you channel more traffic to your website via direct linking while at the same time creating the kind of focused links that search engines gobble up, further improving the search engine ranking of your website. It’s a power play that provides dual benefits.

Links come in all flavors. Some will “taste” better to search engines than others. Outbound links are links you provide in your blog that point to other sites. Often they link to a source site for a news item or quote. Their purpose is to provide helpful additional information to your readers. Inbound links (also called back links) originate from other sites and point to your blog. Google search spiders appear to have an appetite for Inbound links, and many people believe that the more inbound links you have, the better your Google ranking. 

Creating outbound links isn’t hard because you’re doing the linking. Getting other sites to link back to your site is harder because you have to rely on the generosity of others. Probably the fastest way to attract inbound links is by submitting your blog to web directories. Directories are like an internet phone book that lists websites and blogs. By listing your site on a directory, an inbound link from the directory to your site is created. But the real value lies in alerting other bloggers and web writers to your existence. Bloggers use directories as a source when looking for information on a topic they are writing about.

You can use directories to find likely sites for reciprocal linking which can be used to create a wealth of inbound links to your blog. In reciprocal linking, you agree to link to another party’s blog and they link back to yours. While this sounds like a win-win scenario, it can be a dud if you choose reciprocal linking sites unwisely.

Before implementing a reciprocal link, check out the quality of the blog. It should offer plenty of fresh content that supports or augments the content in your own blog. The more relevant a reciprocal link, the more good it does you in search engine placement. One way to judge a potential reciprocal site is by its page rank. A good ranking indicates the link will provide positive value to your site.

As you may already know, it takes a good amount of effort to get the kind of SEO that keeps your blog at the top of the heap and in front of more and more customers. We’ve already discussed how you can use relevant reciprocal links to your advantage. But while these links can help you with SEO, they are connected to content on other websites that complement yours. It is good to connect with others, it is also crucial to examine the content on your own site as well. Increase Visibility can analyze your website and its content to give you an in-depth look at how you can really be seen in online searches.

What can you do with the content on your own website to maximize its usefulness? Well, one thing you can do it make sure it is fresh. Google and other search engines feed on fresh content. Since search engines are created by people, they operate in some of the same ways that we do. You don’t want stale crackers, moldy peaches, or rotten meat, do you? Well, neither does a search engine. For a search engine, a static website is a stale website. Without fresh content, a search engine may pass you over in favor of something newer.

But you may be thinking: the basic info about my business stays pretty much the same. Or, you may think you don’t have time to continuously re-write the pages you already have. One way you can keep things fresh is by using Twitter.

If you have not heard of Twitter, it is a micro-blogging application that lets you give very brief updates and allows interested parties to follow your micro-blogs or “tweets.” Each update is limited to 140 characters, so you cannot get carried away, but you can give a bit of info to clients and stay on the search engines’ radar.

This election season, several news outlets used Twitter during the debates to give minute-by-minute analysis of the proceedings. And lots of people who didn’t want to wait until the end for commentary kept up with these tweets. Or they read the Twitter commentary later to get a sense of how the media saw the debates.

Even if your website pages have updated content, Twitter is a great way to boost your ranking even further. You can have an employee give Twitter updates during an industry convention or important industry function. Both your clients and the search engines will welcome being kept up to date and in the loop.

Twitter is just one way to get better SEO and Increase Visibility can work with you to let you know if it is an effect method for you. And of course Twitter itself has been tweaked a little lately, so come back on Wednesday to learn more about Twitter and SEO.

Web marketing doesn’t start and end with development of a website. You can have a dynamic looking website with lots of bells and whistles; but if no one finds it, your web marketing program is dead in the water. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the solution. SEO is a multi-step process that maximizes your Internet exposure by optimizing your website to better target major search engines. The resultant higher search ranking ensures that your website appears in the critical first 10 to 20 sites listed when potential customers perform a search for your product or service.

SEO is a proven method of increasing online traffic, business exposure and sales. To meet the individual needs of our clients, Increase Visibility offers three graduated levels of search engine optimization, all of which include: website optimization, social media marketing, directory submission and custom reporting. 

Bundle A.

Keyword determination is the first step in optimizing a website for search engine placement. Keywords that are incorporated into your site during optimization to current search engine standards. At the Silver level, up to 10 traffic-driving keyword phrases are promoted.

To improve social media presence and drive more traffic to your site, we build link popularity by posting comments about your products and services on relevant blogs. We promote your company on social bookmarking sites and will submit whitepapers you’ve created to the top article marketing sites.

To generate site traffic and build link popularity, we submit your website to key Internet and industry-specific directories. In addition to the top free directories, the Silver level includes  submission to two primary paid directories.

Real-time web analytics provides you with valuable data about website traffic 24/7. A monthly report tracks keyword positions, pay per click activity (if contracted), and traffic statistics.

Bundle B.  In addition to Silver services, the following additional services are provided:

Up to 15 traffic-driving keyword phrases are promoted.

Podcasts you have created are submitted to podcast directories and popular social media sites like iTunes. Raw audio files can also be formatted. Formats downloadable from your website can be created.

At the Gold level, your website is submitted to three paid directories.

Bundle C In addition to Silver and Gold services, the following additional services are provided:

Up to 30 traffic-driving keyword phrases are promoted.

Video marketing is added to the social networking mix. We compress, convert and promote your raw video feeds on your website and top video marketing sites, including YouTube and Break.com.

At the Platinum level, your website is submitted to four paid directories, including Business.com.

Customized packages and add-ons are also available. Visit the Increase Visibility website to view SEO optimization program specifics.