Posts Tagged ‘SEO’

Add A Blog To Your Site

May 7th, 2009  |  by Court  |  Published in Link Building, SEO  |  6 Comments

A few years ago I created my first website. I didn’t know HTML and I certainly didn’t know about blogging (even though it already existed at the time). Since I had no idea how to put a website together, I fired up Microsoft Frontpage (it was already on my computer) and started fiddling around. A few months later I had a functional, 5-page site.

I put the site online and started trying to figure out how to get links. I understood at least partially that links were the key to success with an online business.

The huge disadvantage that I had was that my little site didn’t get any links for itself. I could have left it online for 100 years and it never would have been found. It wasn’t in Google, wasn’t listed anywhere, and most definitely wasn’t being visited.

I worked on getting links for about six months before anything significant started happening. I didn’t understand most of the methods that could be used to get links so I had to do some really monotonous stuff. I had a job back then and I spent most of my free time searching sites like Linkmarket.net for link partnerships. I didn’t know of any other ways to get links so that was the only choice I had. They were mostly low quality links BUT they still worked and I made a lot of money with that site ($3,500+ per month at its peak).

While I owned that site, it did really well for me. However, getting links for the site was extremely difficult. It was really ugly first of all and it didn’t generate any links on its own.

Blogs have a ton of advantages over static HTML sites and I firmly believe that any site that’s serious about getting traffic with search engine optimization should be a blog or add a blog to their site. If you already have a static HTML site and you don’t want to change it to a blog, add a blog in a subdirectory, i.e. yoursite.com/blog. Here are some of the advantages you can get with a blog:

  • Blogs literally create their own links. When you hit publish on a blog you can expect to get links from blog search engines and other sites. WordPress, Blogger, and most other blog platforms notifiy search engines and other sites that you have published something new and they will link to it. Other sites also find you on blog search engines and will link to you if they like what they see. I sometimes talk to bloggers who complain because their sites get a small amount of search traffic. What they don’t know is that there are people who complain in the static HTML community because they haven’t had a search visitor EVER and that can go on for years with static sites because they don’t create their own links. The owner is on their own to get every single link.
  • Blogs are a lot easier to update than static sites so you can easily focus on producing more content. When I had my static sites I would spend all day trying to figure out how to create a link structure and that was ridiculously frustrating. Looking back I can’t believe I did all that work when I could have been focusing on the content for the site.
  • Bloggers are by far the most generous group of online entrepreneurs. When people complain to me about how hard it is to get links to their blogs I just have to laugh. I would love for everyone to have to work on a static site for a year or two so that they can appreciate all of the advantages that come from blogging. Bloggers are very generous and will help you out if you know how to ask the right questions with respect.

People ask me all the time how much they need to post on their blogs. You need to post as much as you can. Everytime you post you get new links that will help you to get more search traffic. You will also be adding content that will help you to get more search traffic.

What some of you are really asking is for me to set the bare minimum of work that can be done and I would urge you to shift the way you’re approaching it. I would start to think of ways to get as much done as possible and try to figure out how to get satisfaction out of the work itself.

A few years ago I had a partner that I was working on a site with. He would ask almost every day how much more we had to do until the site made a lot of money. All day long it was, “How many articles do we have to write for the site?” or “How many people do we have to email?”. He was thinking about things the wrong way and wasn’t willing to change. I had to walk away from that partnership because I could see that my partner wasn’t willing to pay the price. You can’t expect to make money if you aren’t willing to put in the time.

I have always tried to figure out how to do more and have tried to focus every day on making things better.

Whether you have a site that’s a blog or a site that you have a blog on, your focus should be the same. Post as much as you can or hire someone to do it for you. In the long run, the link juice you gain will pay off nicely.

We’ll be covering more and more ways to get links over the next few weeks as we continue the 30 Days To Better SEO.

Link Juice Explained

May 5th, 2009  |  by Court  |  Published in Explanations, Link Building, SEO  |  42 Comments

Link juice is the currency of Google. In other words, it’s the secret sauce that allows you to beat your competitors for rankings in Google. Sure, there are some other factors that Google uses to calculate rankings (see Search Engine Optimization), but link juice is by far the most important aspect of dominating Google and in order to understand Google, you have to understand link juice.

Google looks at how sites link to each other to figure out which ones are the best. To show this in a way that’s understandable, let’s show a few examples. Let’s say that Site A and Site B are both about ’some keyword’ and would both like to rank for ’some keyword’.

Google is going to take a look at links to determine which of these two sites is likely the best. At the most basic level, let’s say that Site A gets a link from a site that Site B doesn’t get:

Site A now looks better to Google and will outrank Site B. Let’s say that Site C decides to link to Site B, as well:

Now they both look the same to Google, who will now have to look at another ranking factor to determine which one is the best. There are other factors but none of them is nearly as important as the link juice factor.

Let’s add two new sites into the mix to further illustrate different scenarios that can happen:

In the above example, we now have Site D linking to Site A and Site E linking to Site B. To figure out which site is better between Site A and Site B, Google will have to look at the sites that are linking to Site D and Site E:

In the above example, Site D has more link juice than Site E because it’s getting links from Site F, Site G, and Site H. That means that Site A has more link juice than Site B. Site A will therefore outrank Site B.

Google is able to map out link relationships on an enormous scale and that’s what makes them Google.

For competitive keywords, the ranking sites have millions of links from other sites who have hundreds of thousands of links from other sites who have links from other sites who have links from other sites.

There are also non-competitive keywords that would require very few links to get ranked #1 in Google. I have #1 rankings that were achieved because of one link. This happens because all of the other sites have zero links from other sites or they have links only from sites that have no juice.

Every keyword is different and if you want to rank #1 for your keyword, your job is to get more link juice than the other sites that currently show up for that keyword.

To increase your juice you need to get more links, especially from sites that have a lot of juice.

Prepare Yourself For Link Building

May 5th, 2009  |  by Court  |  Published in Link Building, SEO  |  26 Comments

I’ve seen a lot of people make it in this business. I have also seen a lot of people fail. Almost all of the original friends I made when I started Court’s Internet Marketing School have gone the way of the dodo. The ones that are still around are doing really well, mostly.

I’m guessing that a lot of you will dismiss this post immediately when you start to read it. It’s hard to look at yourself and realize that you might not be prepared mentally for what has to be done. Others might take this to heart and move forward. I guess we’ll just have to see. Please don’t take offense to anything I’ve written here. It won’t apply to everyone but will be extremely helpful for some people.

The fundamentals of search engine optimization aren’t that complicated. The problem is that the implementation is extremely challenging mentally. Most people fail at the implementation and I’m going to explain why. You can do what you want with this -  I’m going to tell it how I see it.

Fundamentally, link building is pretty straightforward. There are two main aspects that you really need to consider:

  1. The most link juice wins (I should say anchored link juice).
  2. The most link momentum wins.

Link juice and link momentum go hand in hand. Each one can gain you a lot of benefit and each can override the other (kind of).

If you have a ton of link juice you’ll be really hard to beat. This is the case for us with CourtneyTuttle.com. We haven’t tried to add a link for like 8 months for that site and we still rank in the top 10 for ‘internet marketing’. That’s because the site has tons of sites linking to it – it has a lot of link juice. It doesn’t have good link momentum right now because it doesn’t have that many new links. The content on that site is still generating some links but most of them don’t point to the homepage. They still help but the link momentum isn’t anything like it once was.

The link juice in this case is enough to override the fact that the momentum isn’t there. With more link juice or link momentum, the site would climb higher in the SERPs (rankings).

Link momentum can also override link juice somewhat. The Keyword Academy is starting to rank for some really good terms even though the link juice isn’t really that high right now. That’s because the site has a lot of new links – the momentum is really high right now. If we stopped getting new links the rankings would tank fast because the overall link juice isn’t there to sustain the rankings.

If you have both you can be virtually unbeatable, but most people don’t get either.

People always take offense when I write posts like this but honestly I find them necessary. If you’re already making money by all means stop reading this post. There may be some beginners that truly need more information before moving forward. However, if you’ve been around for a while and aren’t reaching your income goals, I bet you have a mental barrier that’s getting in the way. That barrier will have to be broken down before you get anywhere. Here are the two biggest culprits:

Analysis-Paralysis

You get a few links and think that your ranking should change immediately. You start watching the rankings on Google and find that your ranking doesn’t improve or that it gets worse. This causes you to think that everything that you’re doing is wrong so you stop trying to get links and that stops your progress. You feel that what you know must be wrong or that you’re getting the wrong type of links.

The solution to this issue is focusing on the fundamentals and forgetting about rankings for a while. Links influence rankings, period. If you have convinced yourself that a link didn’t help you’re watching rankings too closely. There are about 8,000 things that can make you move down in the rankings and watching them everyday isn’t going to help you (unless you are REALLY experienced). It could take weeks or months for Google to find the new links.

You need to make yourself a spreadsheet that you can start to use for keeping track of the links you get. When you get a link from another site, add it to your spreadsheet. Find the satisfaction in blowing up your spreadsheet, not by looking at rankings. If you add enough links to your spreadsheet (and site), the rankings will come.

I’ve had quite a few conversations with people whose rankings are fluctuating. Recently I talked to a friend whose site is fluctuating between #1 and #8 in Google for his main keyword. He keeps telling me stuff like, “Court, I’m never going to understand Google. I just can’t figure out why I keep moving up and down in the rankings.” I keep telling him, “Brian (name changed), you’re never going to get enough links to stabilize because you only think about the rankings.”

My friend for some reason thinks his situation is different than every other situation and he thinks that there’s a variable that he doesn’t understand. There isn’t. His rankings are fluctuating because of the daily fluctuations of link momentum and link juice. Maybe yesterday Google found a new link and that gave him a boost. For two weeks before that Google didn’t find any new links so he started to slide. Maybe last month Google found some new links for a competitor. His real problem is that he’s relying on link momentum because he still doesn’t have enough link juice. Link juice is what brings stability.

My friend’s keyword isn’t really that hard. If he would figure out how to get two links per day for about two weeks he would be taken care of for a long time. He doesn’t do it because he chooses not to. He would rather try to ‘figure out what’s going on’.

ForuBlog-Rotunditis

The fun for you is in running around learning about the marketing and you’re too lazy to do the implementation. You find yourself arguing about theory with people that are much more successful than you. You may not realize this about yourself. The only way to know if you have this issue is if you feel like you know what you’re doing but aren’t reaching your income goals.

If you have this issue, link building will be extremely difficult for you because you’re seeking the high of reading a great piece of information – in other words your focus isn’t on making money.

To solve this issue you might have to go on a media-fast for a while. You may have to rediscover yourself. If you can’t find satisfaction in making yourself successful, I would honestly walk away or I would at least try to admit to yourself that this business isn’t for you. I find it fascinating that people like the information more than making money. I have actually been criticized for focusing too much on ‘making money’ on my sites that teach people how to make money.

Step one, in my opinion, is realizing that you aren’t working when you’re reading. You’re working when you’re working. You need to at least set a percentage-based limit for how much you’re going to let yourself read. The rest should be spent working and the majority of your work time should be based around getting links.

My friend with the fluctuation problem also has ForuBlog-Rotunditis. Since he doesn’t understand his fluctuation he tries to figure it out by visiting forums, blogs, and by calling me (very ironic that he won’t listen to me). I’m pretty sure that the next time I talk to him I’m going to tell him that I’ll solidify his ranking for $1000. It would probably take about an hour to get enough links to do that. Instead of getting the links he chooses to waste dozens of hours reading about his problem.

The Big Picture

He who gets the most/best links, wins. No matter what picture your mind is showing you, if you aren’t ranked #1 for your keyword, you’re getting beaten with links.

Yes, this is day 7 of my 30 Days To Better SEO series.

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