Thursday, January 13, 2011

How to Increase Your Web Presence Simply and Easily

To get noticed on the web you need to have a powerful web presence. But if you're like most site owners you're not sure how to do this. It's really quite simple and anyone can do it. One of the easiest ways it to have several incoming links to your site. You can do this with what is known as the "hub and spoke" method. Sounds sort of Western, right? Well what this refers to is having your main website (expertly SEO'd and glowing) and several spokes out on the web with links leading back to your main site.

http://ruttledge.se/category/car/
For example, I use this blog as a spoke for a web services site that I own with two partners. Each post has at least one link back to our site and a call to action to visit it. Shameless self promotion, well yeah, but also smart SEO. The more links you have pointing back to your site, the greater the network you build and the better Google's search algorithms will work for you and the higher your page rank will be. In other words, the more spokes the stronger your wheel. There we go back to the Old West again...

In his recent blog, Five Pillars of an Internet Marketing Strategy, Harvey Rivet uses this method as one of his pillars to increase your web presence. This is a great article by the way and worth a read. A Facebook page and a Twitter account are also great spokes as long as you keep them active and well maintained. You can use the other major blogging sites such as Squiddo, HubPages, Huddle and a new one called iThinkRevolution. (Shameless self promotion warning!) 

If you need some more spokes, get a free consultation from the experts at The Cutting Edge Pros. They can set up and maintain blogs, Facebook and Twitter accounts for your business that will draw visitors and get your page rank increased. Contact them today and become a force to be reckoned with on the web.
 

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

How to Kill Your SEO Juice and Suck the Life Out of Your Website

greencine.com
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the backbone of getting visitors to your site and turning them into clients, customers or regular readers of your blog. Like I've said before on this blog there really isn't a magic formula that will garner guaranteed results, but there are some basics that every site owner should know and practice. But sometimes knowing what NOT to do is as important as knowing what you should do. Here is a tongue in cheek list of practices that guarantee to kill your SEO juice and suck the life right out of your page rank. (If I offend anyone...too bad you shouldn't be doing these things anyway!)
  • Have crappy content. Copy and paste from other sites, in other words steal content and post it as your own. Never mind that Google will flag your site as a dupe and kill your page rank, go right ahead and do it if you're too lazy to write your own or too cheap to pay a writer to do it for you.
  • Don't worry if your links work. Never test them and don't be concerned if they lead to completely unrelated sites. 
  • Stuff your pages with keywords. Write your content around your keywords and make sure you get as many as you can in there. So what if it doesn't make any sense, no one reads your content anyway and you're just writing for the search engines.
  • Make your site as hard to navigate as you can. Keep your navigation a mystery. Everyone likes a maze right? If you visitors get lost it will just expose them to more of your pages.
  • Spam forums and comments. Post totally unrelated comments and have as many links as you can in your comments and forum posts. Copy and paste a form-letter type comment on all the blogs and forums that you find. 
  • Use Black Hat SEO. Use hidden text, misleading links, have one link for the search engine spiders and one for real people. 
These are just a few things to do if you want to kill your SEO juice. Don't be fooled into thinking that you can cut corners. Black Hat SEO may give you immediate results, but these results won't last and you'll end up killing your page rank or getting your site banned completely from the search engine's databases. A few posts ago I said that if that happens, you might as well be singing in a windstorm - no body is going to hear you. Real SEO does take time and diligence. Anyone who promises quick results doesn't know their facts. To be sure that you aren't doing anything that is going to hurt your site, get a free consultation from the experts at The Cutting Edge Pros. They offer complete SEO packages and can tailor one just for your site and budget.

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Increase Your Web Presence - 5 Easy Steps

We all want to have a hefty web presence. It's what makes people find us and want to be on our websites. Did you know that there are 5 easy steps to accomplish this? It takes dedication and a bit of work, so don't go looking for a magic wand or miracle formula. Just like everything else in this world, if you want results you have to work for them. But don't dispair, you won't end up working 60 hours a week or 12 hours a day. The internet moves quickly and if you keep up your efforts, you will see results.
  1. Make sure your site is optimized to the fullest. Is your content sharp and original? Do you have relevant incoming and outgoing links? Are your meta descriptions on target? If you answered yes to these questions you're on your way. If not, get busy and get your site some SEO juice. 
  2. Do you have a Facebook and Twitter account and if you do are you active on them? Do you have social bookmarking accounts like Digg, Diggio, Stumble Upon and Delicious? If not you need them. Bookmark each and every update, article, Facebook status and Tweet that you do. Post interesting links on Facebook and Twitter, not just promotions for your website. Invite comments and interact with your friends and followers.
  3. Use a blog either on your website or at one of the major blogging sites such as Blog Spot, Hub Pages, Word Press.com and Squidoo. Your blog is your voice and you can use it to build community, get links, point people back to your website through links and link with other bloggers in your industry. Post entries at least three times a week. They don't have to be long, just interesting.
  4. Use article directories to post interesting articles that give away your knowledge about your industry. Invite comments and have at least one link back to your website.
  5. Do you have a signature file on your email messages? This is one of the easiest ways to increase your web presence. A simple signature file with links to your sites reaches everyone that you email.
These are just 5 simple ways to get you noticed on the web. Think out of the box and you can discover different ways to market your site. If you don't have time to do these 5 steps, contact the professionals at The Cutting Edge Pros. Consultations are always free and they guarantee results.