First,
here's the rundown of some of the terminology I'm going
to use in this article –
Inbound
Links – Links coming into your site
Outbound Links –
Links leaving your site
Cross Links – Links that you
have "traded" with another site (i.e., they've got a
link from their site to your and you've got a link from
your site to theirs)
PR (Page Ranking) – Google's
measure of how "important" your site is
SEO
Is Not Dead
Ok,
now lets talk about what you really want to hear – how
to get those coveted 1-10 ranks for your keywords.
Remember this - SEO is not dead. In fact, it is very
much alive and important. The first thing to do in order
to raise your site rank is target specific keywords. I
say specific, because you need to target "key phrases,"
meaning more than one word keywords. Some people use the
words interchangeably (me included) so just ignore
one-word keywords altogether. You will waste your money
if you shoot for these, because chances are, there are
other, much larger companies who already have you
beat, and will continue to have you beat unless you've
got a bottomless wallet.
Check
Out Your Competition
Take
this example, for instance, if you sell computers, you
should not try to optimize your site for the keyword
"computer" or "computers." First, think about all of the
businesses that do anything with computers. Yeah,
that's a lot. They'll all show up if you search for
"computer." Now try to think of who would show up at the
top of that list. I'll make it easy, it's Apple, Dell,
Computer World, Computer Associates, IEEE, Computer
History Museum, Webopedia, ASUSTeK, WhatIs.com, and HP.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I 99.9%
guarantee you that you'll never get into that top 10
list. The HP link has almost 5,000 back links (discussed
later) and a PR of 7/10. Good luck. Then What Should
I Do?
So
what should you try to target? Lets re-visit your
computer store. What types do you sell? PCs, ok, what
types of PCs? Custom. Ok, that's a little better;
"Custom Computers" is still a vague keyword, though.
(How many people build custom computers?) What kind of
components do you use? Intel? AMD? SoundBlaster?
GeForce? There you go, that's a little better – "Custom
GeForce Computers." That returned 476k results instead
of our previous 633 million with "Computer." Just a
little bit less competition.
I
Want More
Want
to go further? Forget what types you sell; go for what
do your customers want. What do they use your computers
for? Gaming? Try "Custom Gaming Computers" - There are
672,000 results here, but the # 1 spot has a PR of 5/10
and only 41 back links. That shouldn't be too hard to
beat, we've just got to know who is linking to them, and
beat them at the back link game.
Oh
yeah, before we move on to beating the pulp out of your
competition, don't forget to SEO optimize your site for
your chosen keywords before spending any time on back
links. Otherwise, this next section won't mean much.
But
I Digress...
Ok,
now that your site is thoroughly optimized, how do we
find out who their back links are? Well, you can do it
by hand, or you can purchase a very helpful tool
called SEO Elite that will analyze all of the back links
to a site (and more). But, since you don't have SEO
Elite yet, we'll do it the long way.
First,
go to toolbar.google.com and download the Google
toolbar, this will save you some time. Ok, now type in
your keywords – "Custom Gaming Computers." The first
link should be overdrivepc.com (if it's not, then
someone may have already read this column and risen
above them!) click to go there. When the page loads, go
to your Google Toolbar, click on Options >"More" Tab
> Make sure the "Page Info" box is checked. Then,
click on the blue circle with the i in it. (This is the
aptly named: "Page Info") It should drop down and allow
you to select "Backward Links," choose it. Now you
should be looking at a Google search page again, but
this one is different, it only shows pages that link to
overdrivepc.com. (Wow, that's handy!) At the time of
this article, there are 41 pages that link to the site,
and you can view them all. Some are other pages in the
site, others are third parties.
Get
Your Site Some Friends!
Follow
each third party link and check out the page. Does it
have to do with your business? Would their visitors
benefit from coming to your site? (The answer is
probably yes) If so, email the webmaster - there should
be an email address somewhere on the site. Ask him or
her if they would link to your site. Be willing to trade
links with them, or to pay for a good link with a high
PR. That reminds me – look just to the left of the Page
Info icon on your Google toolbar, and you should see a
green bar. That is the Page Rank of the page you're
currently on. You want to target pages with higher page
ranks than your own, because for each of those sites
that link to yours, they effectively "give" you a little
bit of their PR. Kinda like in high school when the head
of the cheerleading squad flirted with the nerd in the
hallway, she "gave" him more popularity.
By
the way, if you can manage to get a link from the # 1
site itself, do it!
Do
this for all of these links you can, then move on to the
#2 listing for your keywords. Then #3, and so on. Don't
get discouraged if some webmasters don't reply to you,
it may take an email or two. If they say no, thank them
for their time and move on. I try my best not to burn
any bridges – you never know when you'll need to contact
that webmaster again, and if he remembers you were
polite, that will make you look good.
Whew,
Finally Done.
This
is a very easy way to move up the Google SERPS, no
"expertise" required, just good old-fashioned hard work.
It will take some time for Google to re-index those
pages and realize that they have a link to you now. And
it will take even longer for your PR to go up (from what
I hear, it's been around 3-4 months since the last PR
change [Today is 7/14/2005]) But be patient, get links
upon links, and keep adding great content to your site,
and you will jump up in the SERPS by leaps and bounds.
To
Your Success, and Your # 1 Website!
