In an earlier blog post (Link requests = more traffic & sales.) I explained how getting other sites to link back to yours will increase sales, and I explained the basic method for asking for links.

Since then a couple of readers made the following comments —

Ed, Good blog and advice, although it’s not easy trying to get other people to reply when you want to exchange. All the same feel free to send me any new updates and I’ll exchange links with you, please let me know.

Graham – www.logo-n-stitch.co.uk

and…

Ed, I agree with Graham it is difficult to find ‘appropriate’ organisations to exchange links with and on the rare occassions they do there usually hidden on some back page etc. Are links worth it alone just for helping with your search engine position and forgetting about traffic coming from other sites?

Mark – www.sharp-technology.co.uk

First of all, I agree totally with the initial comment… that it’s not easy getting other site owners to even reply when suggesting they share links.

In fact I used to find the whole process of link building so tedious it simply didn’t get done. But I was making the common mistake of contacting sites who don’t understand the importance and benefits of link building.

Since then, I’ve discovered it’s far easier and more productive to be less direct about the process.

For example register with link trading community sites, like www.uklinkexchange.co.uk (I talk about them in my book).

They’ve been great for some of the sites I put together for private clients. They’re free, ‘white hat’ (they are not doing anything ‘wrong’ in Google’s eyes), and puts link building on virtual auto-pilot.

Also in my book I mention IBP (Internet Business Promotor) which has an awesome link directly manager, but that’s quite expensive for smaller businesses. The alternative less expensive program is called Zeus, which I also understand is very good at simplifying the link building process.

Here are more tips on link building the easy way…

1) Start blogging and frequently talk about (and link to) other blogs… many times the other blogger will notice and reciprocate.

2) Submit articles to directories themed on your industry/area of interest… articles can contain at least one link back to your site.

3) Comment on other blogs. Each time you comment you get a link back (in theory — if they don’t use NOFOLLOW.) Graham and Mark who made comments on the original blog post both linked back to their own site, and also I’ve repeated their links above. (I’ll bet a lot of my readers clicked those links out of curiosity and ended up on their sites! I did.)

4) Set up a self service link directory where other people can submit their own site. (IBP and Zeus help you with this.)

5) Seek out self-service link directories and submit your site.

There are a lot more link tactics, but there’s enough in this post to get anyone a tonne of links… and a lot quicker and easier than contacting site owners who don’t yet understand the benefits.

-Ed.

Part of my book launch strategy involves submitting press releases – lots of them.

Now many people don’t bother with press releases. I’ve been one of them. But recent research has proven that even Internet only businesses can benefit immensely from frequently submitting press releases.

One example of such research was conducted by Marketing Experiments.

They ran a 6 month trial where they submitted seven press releases, relating to specific items on either their own or third party own web sites.

The content of the press releases were mostly announcements about things like changes in pricing structure, mention of third party press coverage, and even basic announcements like new team members.

Through careful tracking they measured an extra 3,000 new visitors as a direct results of those free press releases. Not bad.

Would you like to attract up to 3,000 or more extra, and highly targeted visitors to your site, for free? By responding to press releases prospects are pre-qualifying themselves — anyone who visits your site from one is more likely to respond than someone who clicks on a single link or small Google Adwords advert for example. That’s also been proven.

Other benefits they reported include an extra 12,500 incoming links to their site. (Explained in the section of my book about link building.)

Given that the major search engines count the number of links to any web site as an indication of it’s authority — which has a direct impact on search engine rankings, having an ongoing press release strategy as part of your business systems could be highly beneficial.

But all this leaves us with one, ahem, ‘minor’ issue. Writing them!

What on Earth do you write about?

Obviously for the kind of results reported above you need to write press releases that sizzle.

Terry Dean has just written what I think is one of the best free courses about press releases anyone has written on the Internet.

It’s in three parts. Start here:
http://www.terrydean.org/21-ideas-for-hot-press-releases-part-1/

At the bottom of that post there are links to the other two sections of his article.

It’s a fantastic resource, as is Terry’s blog. Highly recommended.

-Ed.

The other day I revealed how simple it is to create a ‘link building’ strategy for your business.

Today I was going to explain how you can get links from non-business web sites – another worthwhile activity in terms of attracting new customers or clients. However, I’ll do that another day.

Today I’m going slightly off tangent due to a great post I read an another blog this morning.

Each day I scan-read a handful of blogs that I consider are essential to me not only as a Internet Marketer but as a business owner. It only takes a few minutes of my time and the benefits are many.

Ryan Healy’s “On Copywriting” blog is one of my regular reads, and he’s just posted a great entry on the subject of ‘Trackbacks’.

In a nutshell, a trackback is way of creating a two way link between blogs. But rather than me explain why you should trackback… over to you Ryan!

Ryan Healy’s On Copywriting Blog.

What if you don’t have a blog? Well, maybe you should consider running one?

• Blogs are easy to setup and manage.

• They’re a lot easier to update than ‘normal’ web sites. (Which is one of the main reasons they’ve become so popular.)

• They’re favoured by search engines due to the rich content and frequent updates.

• And as Ryan explained, they are a great way of increasing visitors to your own site…

• …and making friends at the same time!

Yes, blogging CAN be a lot of work. But like anything, if you have a system or set of procedures, blogging can be relatively painless.

What if you don’t have time to write for your blog each day or even each week? Well it is possible to create a system that automatically finds people who can write in your voice - so readers can’t tell the difference. That way your blog is updated frequently (which is important) with fresh, quality content. (The latter point is critical).

I’ve made a note to myself to explain the simple steps required to setup and maintain a profitable blogging system… no technical skills required and it will take you less than 2 hours. Will do that soon.

~Ed.

Did you know you can simply ask other web sites to link to yours, and actually share a percentage of their web site visitors?

Get leverage on this and you can significantly increase sales (or sales lead generation) on your own web site. Because the more sites that link to yours, the more traffic you’ll get. And more web site traffic = more sales.

Step 1: Find out how many web site’s link to your web site – and also how many (and exactly which) web sites link to your competitors… (because probably many of the sites that link to your competitors will also link to yours.)

Here’s a link to a tool that can tell you.

Step 2: Use that information–and also plunder the search engines–to find and contact web sites owners. Then simply ask for a link. No brain surgery required.

The most successful approach is to tell them you’ll reciprocate and link from your site to theirs also. Even better — add a link to their site first before you contact them. More power to you.

Here’s what’s really important: Focus on getting links from sites that have a similar theme to yours. Then the traffic that arrives from those sites will be targetted. (And search engines will like the fact that both sites are on topic.)

In my Ultimate Web Marketing Strategy ebook I explain this tactic in far more detail, and give the specific steps we use to build links for our clients at Sumatrix.

Happy link-building,
Ed.

This afternoon I had a phone call from a ‘search engine optimisation’ company.  (One of my private clients received their phone call and because they weren’t sure whether to proceed with them or not referred them on to me.)

I’m glad they did!

Here’s the basis of what this particular company were offering…

“Pay us just £100 a month and we’ll get you on the first page of Google!”

“Wow — that’s unbelievable!” I said… (because it really is unbelievable! ;-)

Getting a web site in the ‘free listings’ (on the left hand side) of Google’s first page of search results is a glorious thing. Sales can easily double or triple the moment that happens.

But the problem is, for the most important keywords any business could aim for it’s usually a pipe dream!  (Or certainly takes a darn site more effort than £100 a month could enable.)

It takes a combination of backlinks (how many other sites link to your and how relevant they are), how many outbound links you have (links to other web sites), internal links to other pages in your site — and especially the text content of your web pages (it’s length, wording, etc) and many other factors… even the domain name (web address) itself can have an impact on search engine ranking.

So just working on a single ‘ranking factor’ (like backlinks or site content) is almost never enough.

For example one keyword I gave the guy as a test — my private clients single most important keyword in terms of generating sales — returned more than 4.6 million pages when searched on Google.

And yet the salesman still said — albeit unconvincingly by this point (I think he had an inkling he was talking to someone technical) – ”oh yes we can get first page Google on that phrase.”

Funnily enough — I’ve spoken to the salesman before. He didn’t remember me — probably because he makes hundreds if not thousands of calls a year (so why would he?)

But I already knew he’d failed another business a few years ago in providing the same service.  I choked the call off early and I’ll remind my client — in fact all my private clients please if you’re reading this… BE VERY CAREFUL.

Don’t get sucked in with hype. Be wary about anything relating to search engine positioning — it could cost you.

For example, early on in the call the guy was saying “it’s only £100 a month” …but later on he happened to mention “minimum contract 12 months!”. In other words the real cost £1,200.

(And you can bet your bottom dollar there’s no money back guarantee if they fail to achieve page 1 on Google.)

‘Scuse the French, but this kind of thing really p****s me off!

It’s what gives the web development industry a bad reputation — it makes it so much harder for the ethical web development companies out there to gain trust and achieve a good client relationship.

In a nutshell… if it sounds too good to be true… it probably is!

[tags]SEO, Search Engine Optimisation, Cons, Scams[/tags]

Writing and submitting short articles about your chosen area of expertise – for inclusion on other web sites – is a proven way of getting free traffic back onto your web site.

Article Marketing is well known in the Internet Marketing world, but my experience here in the UK is that many small business owners are either not using the strategy, are aren’t even aware of it. Which is a shame, because performed regularly, the tactic can significantly increase the profits of almost any type of business I can think of.

How? Simply because getting the articles you’ve written published on other web sites will increase the traffic to your own web site(s), and in two major ways.

1. Search engines will more likely find your web site by following the links in the articles you submit.
2. And people who read the articles can click the links and go directly to your web site. (More on this below).

Where to start?

First I’d recommend you get an idea of the type, size, style and approach to article writing. Visit articles directories like www.iSnare.com. Have a quick browse around categories relating to your industry and find out what people have already written.

Then, create your own articles and start publishing!

The key is to be concise, interesting and informative. The goal is that by the end of your article you’ve got the reader interested enough to click one of the links in your resource box.

What’s a resource box? It’s the last paragraph of the article which should always explain who the author is, and also briefly mention other factors like a link to your own corporate or e-commerce web site for example. As mentioned above, read some of the articles on iSnare to see how other people write resource boxes.

To get your articles on other web sites: First understand there are literally thousands of web sites out there who accept third party article submissions on all manner of topics – you can either look for them by manually searching for them, or you can automate!

One thing I would say is that you need to focus on building your own list of publishers – don’t just rely on the Internal list. (Watch the excellent video tutorials that come with the product and that bit of advice will make much more sense.)

Next: Once you’ve submitted your articles you’ll start wondering if any web sites have published it. In a future blog issue I’ll explain how you can automate that monitoring process also. Happy publishing!

The second most important tactic for increasing the number of relevant (interested prospective customers or clients) to your small business web site is link building.

Which simply means getting other web sites with a similar theme to your own to place a link on their web site that when clicked takes people onto your web site.

Here’s my ultra quick guide to getting good links from other web sites, increase traffic to your web site… and increase sales…

Step 1. Use Google and other search engines to find web sites that sell products or services that complement your own (but they shouldn’t sell or promote the same products or services as your web site.)

Step 2. Add a link to their web site on your own web site. Yes, that’s right! Before you contact the other web site and ask them to link to yours… you first add a link to their site on your own. Why? Because being able to say ‘My web site already links to yours’ makes it far more likely they’ll agree than if you play a game in saying “I’ll link to you after you link to me first.”

Step 3. Browse their web site and get a feel for what it’s all about. And at the same time, find and make a note of the email address of the webmaster or web site owner.

Step 4. Email them a friendly and personal email. Explain you’ve had a good look at their web site, that you believe it complements you’re own web site (give them reasons) and reveal that you’ve already linked to them. Finish off by asking ”would they link to yours?”

Step 5. If you’ve not heard anything then after maybe a week or so (at your discretion) go back and check their site. Are they linking to you?  If not, try contacting them again. Maybe even use the phone this time. Explain you’re following up your original email and wondered if they would be able to to link. (Maybe they intended to but simply forgot?) Many times at this point they’ll agree to place a link.

And that’s it! An ultra simple link building strategy.

When my team and I perform link building for clients we use special software that automates a lot of the searching, contacting, following up and tracking of who will and won’t link to our clients web sites… but at heart that’s basically all that’s happening.

So, this probably leaves opens up a new question in the minds of many small business owners and readers of this blog, (who perhaps don’t understand technical aspects of the web but know they want results from it)

“Why bother spending time to get links from other web sites?”

Well that’s a whole other topic entirely, but let me finish this article with this final statement… if you can get a good number of relevant web sites to link to yours, not only will you get traffic from those web sites (which will increase your sales), but you’ll also start making the search engines take more notice of your own web site.

Because they’ll notice other web sites are linking to yours… meaning your web site is more ‘important’ than a similar web site that doesn’t have any (or very few) web sites linking to it.

And when the search engines start to take notice of your web site… well that’s when the web really starts to make your business results glow.

Expect more–much more–on this subject soon!