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How To Build Organic SEO Links In 2015

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Search engine optimization is the process of ranking high on Google’s search results page. As a business, one of your major goals is to get Google to take notice. After all, they are the biggest search engine on the planet. They have the power to send you a lot of traffic and boost your profits significantly. Search engine optimization (SEO), comprises a number of tricks and techniques. However, one of the most important is link building.

Google is looking for authority sites. It wants to provide Google users with the best results and trustworthy websites. One of the ways it does this is by measuring authority. When a website has lots of other sites linking to it, Google can infer that it has something to offer. Lots of links suggests the website is respected. It provides value. Unfortunately, many tried to game the system by creating thousands of fake links across the web. Google cracked down on this and made it much more difficult. However, link building still matters. In fact, it’s still the best way to boost your search rank. But, how do you do it safely in 2015?

Guest blogging

Guest blogging is a great way to get organic links back to your website. The first step is reaching out to larger, relevant websites. Ask them if you can provide a free guest blog. In most cases, they’ll be more than happy to accept. Write a compelling and informative blog piece with one or two links back to your site embedded in the content. Most blogs will also give you a byline. This is a small line of text that describes who you are. Make sure you link to your website here too. Now you have a relevant, organic link to your site. Do this as often as possible on a wide variety of blogs and websites.

Build an active network

Let’s say you love to blog about SEO, like I do here at this site. There are hundreds of others that are also passionate about the topic. Make an effort to connect with them on social networks. If you’re new to the market, an SEO company might be able to help you find these connections. Use Twitter and LinkedIn to reach out to them and strike up a relationship. Then, when you post your next blog, they’re likely to see it and take notice. If it’s full of good content, they might just share it on their site. That’s another easy link.

Ask!

Many digital entrepreneurs are scared to ask for what they want. If you want to succeed, you need to take the leap and ask people for something. It’s less daunting than you think, and you often get the results you’re looking for. If you’ve written a compelling blog with good information, get in touch with others. Reach out to The Huffington Post, Lifehacker, Forbes and other major sites. They regularly accept and republish popular blog posts. If they post it, you’ll get a link back to your website. A link from a huge site like Huffington Post will make a big difference.

Natural, organic links will boost your search rank enormously. Try these techniques and watch your business take off!

3 Business Marketing Techniques You Have To Use

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(Image from flickr https://flic.kr/p/f9WyyH)

Sometimes your business can struggle to find new customers, leaving you stuck in a rut. You’re running around trying to find ways to make things better, but nothing’s working for you. It’s time to stop worrying, and start winning. Use these killer marketing techniques to win over customers and get your business booming!

YouTube

YouTube is a fantastic platform to market your business on. You can upload promotional videos to a YouTube channel as a way to get customers interested. Promo videos are great because they give you a chance to tell people the best things about your company. But it doesn’t just stop there, you should start using YouTube to its full potential. Millions of people watch YouTube videos every day, so it’s a massive market for you to tap in to. Start filming little Vlogs around your office each day as a little look ‘behind the scenes’ of the company. This makes your business look down to earth, and people might find it cool. It’s an excellent way to try and gain customers, while building brand recognition.

SEO

If you’re marketing something then you’re going to need a website. If you have a website, you’re going to need people visiting it. And to get visitors, you’re going to need to use SEO techniques. SEO is the single best way to gain web traffic. The main aim of SEO is to get your site soaring up the rankings and as close to the top as possible. Have a read of Gotch SEO’s blog to find ways of improving your search ranking. It’s important you rank highly, or people are going to find it hard to find your site. If you’re languishing on page three of a search engine, then you need to start using SEO right this moment. You have to use both on-site and off-site SEO if you want to achieve maximum results here. Also, there’s local SEO to consider too; it depends on your business plan. If you’re looking for a mainly local audience, then you’ll need to use it. If not, then local SEO probably isn’t worth your time.

Events

Perhaps the reason your business is struggling is because you aren’t utilizing marketing methods out in the real world. Not everything can be done online, there are some techniques you have to do physically. Hosting a business event is a wonderful way to seek out new customers and establish yourself in the industry. An event allows you to gather your target audience all in one space. You’ll basically spend a few hours bigging up your business and entertaining the crowd. If all goes to plan, you’ll end up with more customers and an improved reputation. The key to a successful event is making sure you put on a good show. Keep the crowd entertained and lighten the mood with a few jokes here and there. You want to talk about your business, but don’t drone on about it. Use words everyone can understand and try to make a good impression. You want this to be an event people remember, and that other businesses try to replicate.
Try something different if you want to up your marketing campaign. Use these three techniques and see the customers come swarming through your doors.

Incredible Ways to Market Your Company

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We all know how important marketing is when it comes to running your own company. You can’t expect to enjoy success if you don’t advertise your brand effectively. There are so many business components to think about and to get right before you launch. So it’s easy to overlook important aspects. You need to be sure you make marketing your number one priority.

The good news is that as an entrepreneur there are more opportunities than ever before for marketing. Because of how digital the corporate world has gone these days it’s made marketing much more accessible. Have a look at some of the techniques detailed here and try to decide the best ones to suit your company.

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Social Media

When it comes to successful methods of business marketing, the one with the biggest success rate is social media. Millions of people all across the world are active on social media sites every day. So you have a global audience of millions of potential clients you can target. For this reason you need to make sure you have an active social media presence. It’s important to get on there and drive your brand as much as possible. Try to keep up with current trends and topics to remain relevant and contemporary.

App

These days you can create business apps for smartphones. These apps are transforming business communication. They give customers a remote and portable way to interface with your company. People can use the apps when they’re on the move, and they’ll be able to access information about the brand. Use this as an opportunity to push and promote the company as much as you can. Apps are a simple and effective way to market, plus they’re a unique and attractive prospect these days.

Email

You’ve got to make sure you’re keeping up with your emails. You might have existing clients around the world you want to communicate with. Or you could be sending a blanket email to prospective clients. Either way, email is still an important and influential marketing technique. It’s a great way to personalise communication, and customise messages. You need to make full use of the email function. Try to experiment with emails to get the perfect content before sending them out.

SEO

One of the most significant and powerful marketing techniques is SEO. This is what determines where your website shows up on search engines. So, of course, it’s very important in driving the company forward in a promotional sense. SEO is among the most proven web marketing solutions out there. So you need to make sure you hire a team of professionals to put this into practice for you. This means you will enjoy the full effect of SEO, and you’re free to focus on other areas of the business too.

You’ve got to understand that there are plenty of ways to market and promote the business. Your job, as owner, is to come up with the most effective. Now, there are a vast array of marketing techniques to choose from. The best idea is to try to get the right balance of strategies to help business growth.

How do I determine my SEO rank and location?

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Rank and File (Photo credit: forestpurnell)

The SEO rank of a website/web page refers to where you rank on the search results page (SERP) of a search engine. To determine your SEO rank and location, you just need to type in the exact keywords you have optimized your site for into the Google search box (or any other search engine) and hit enter.

Now, the search results are going to give you a fair idea about your rankings (for your geo location), but those results can never be considered the absolute measure of your SEO endeavors.

Why worry about SEO Rank?

Unlike PR (page rank, which is a measure of global link popularity), the actual SERP rank of a website is dependent on three different factors:

  • Search engine data centers
  • Geo location of the user
  • Browsing history

So, the Google rank of a website is anything but absolute (unlike page rank) and one or all of the above factors can have a tremendous impact on actual rankings no matter how solid your SEO strategy is. That being said, it is possible to remain unscathed by the above factors and as long as you understand how the above factors impact rankings, you don’t have to surrender to the ordinary nuances of the search algos!

So, How Do These Factors Affect SEO Rankings?

  1. Data Centers:
    Every time a user hits the search button, a search query string hits a particular data center that returns results based on its own binaries (read data crunching abilities) and algorithms. The fact that Google literally has a boatload of these data centers across the globe makes things really difficult for webmasters.

    In a recent interview, Google engineer Matt Cutts said that different types of data are always being tested in different data centers and every time a new filter is added or an algorithm is changed, search results might get affected.

    How To Bypass Those New Filters and Algos:
    The short answer – you cannot bypass them. But, you can definitely stay glued to your search engine position if you follow the thumb rule of “ideal” SEO:

    Content – Create content for humans, not search engines. Perfect content would have primary keywords and LSI keywords, but it should, first and foremost, appeal to your targeted readers. Any attempt to trick the search bots by stuffing your pages with keywords could have detrimental effects.

    Organic Links – Google simply hates paid links. Even the slightest hint of “unnatural linking” is going to set the Pandas and Penguins free and it’s only a matter of time before those beasts start nibbling away at your SEO ranking!

    Social Media Marketing – If your content is likable, it’s going to be liked! The search bots are more inclined to sites that have a heavy social media presence.

    Bottom Line: If you try to trick Google, you’d end in a big puddle of filth! Don’t do it unless you have the right shoes for it!

  2. Geo location of the user: If a user from Atlanta searches for a service on Google, his search results are going to be a bit biased towards businesses in Atlanta offering that particular service. Google does this all the time in the name of “enhanced user experience” and unless your site is optimized to show up in location based search queries, the local businesses are always going to win hands down.

    How To Fix The Problem: If you want to achieve location specific rankings, you’ll have to treat your business as one belonging to that place, even if you don’t in reality. Content targeting local users would certainly help. Backlinks from related websites targeting users from the same location would also help you secure a position in location specific listings.

    But, a single static page would never rank in the same position across the globe, unless of course it’s an authority site on the topic and there’s feeble competition.

  3. Browsing History: Even though a bunch of SEO pundits lambast the “browsing patterns” contingent, it is actually a good practice as far connecting the right products with the right customer is concerned.

    Google closely takes note of the browsing patterns and history of users and the search results it presents to that user are always influenced by that browsing pattern. For example, if someone frequents a particular site offering information on “Acne”, chances of him seeing that particular site high on the search results page for a related term (eg – get rid of acne scars) are very high even if there are better websites on the topic.

    Google strives to present with “what a user wants to see” rather than “what the webmasters want to present”. This is a good practice because your website would easily reach out to people having an inclination for similar information or products.

    But, such results could be deceptive for web masters.

    If you are looking to determine your SEO rank and location and are also signed into your Google account, the search results would most likely rank your site higher than it actually is. That’s attributed to your numerous visits to your own site (in the course of updating information or something else) in the recent past.

    How To Determine Your Actual Rankings: If you want to see the real results, you’ll have to log out of your Google account and check your rankings for a keyword on the search engine. Clearing your browser’s cache would also help.

Some Common Myths Busted

Hosting server location cam impact search rankings: That’s a myth. Your site could be hosting anywhere and as long it’s a decent hosting provider, your rankings are not going to get affected. In some rare cases websites hosted on shared hosting with other sites that exist for the sole purpose of spamming, fishing and scamming etc. might get affected but the problem can be easily solved by switching to a reputable host.

Domain name extensions can impact rankings: That’s a myth. Extensions have nothing to do with rankings – they are more about user preferences. However, .info domains are usually a bit more difficult to rank because that particular extension is commonly used by Blackhatters and spammers to trick users and search engines. But, once the trust has been established and a site has started ranking, the domain name extension completely ceases to be a ranking factor.

Content Creation or Content Curation? (It’s Not an Either-Or Scenario)

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I’ve heard a lot of buzz lately about whether you should be spending most of your time on creating your own content or whether you should really just be curating other people’s stuff. It’s really a false argument.

You can’t get by simply on curating other people’s content, since you won’t develop your own voice that way. You aren’t really demonstrating your own expertise, no matter how much people will appreciate your skill at finding great links.

And you can’t get really get much attention by churning out content without ever poking your head up to see what other people are doing. First of all, your information could wind up becoming vastly out of date that way.

Second of all, there are so many people competing with content these days that it’s really hard to get “heard” above all of the noise, even if you have the best keyword strategy on the planet. The people who get heard are selflessly making connections with other people, and those connections generally go way beyond commenting on their blogs. They’re usually actively sharing other people’s links in their own blog posts.

So what’s the right way to go? How many posts should you write? How many should you curate?

Well, that’s really not the right way to think about it.

In general, it’s best to think in terms of joining a conversation. Every now and then you can share something awesome just to share it. Blog round-ups are really good for this kind of curation.

But it’s usually better to share it, and then add your own thoughts about that content. Talk about the issue. Add some opinions. Expand on points that the original poster didn’t have time to cover.

Give a screen shot from the comment section that demonstrates your point of view. Or use those comments to spark full blog posts while sharing both the comment and the original post that prompted the comment.

Now what happens? Well, now the original blogger has plenty of reasons to come over and comment, not just with a “thanks for the post!” comment, but with a continuation of the conversation as well.

When you do this you find that you rarely run out of things to post about or talk about. You also find that your content becomes a lot more trustworthy in the eyes of the people who visit your site. You become a recommended thought leader, someone that people take the time to talk to and about.

You don’t have to do this on every post. Just do it on enough posts. You will see the difference almost immediately.

About the Author:

Carmen Rane Hudson is the Content and Social Media Manager for TVS Internet Marketing, a local SEO company that helps small business owners get more visibility and sales online.