When link building, many SEO practitioners face the question: Should I focus on getting thousands of backlinks, or a few quality backlinks? The answer is you want to get as many quality backlinks as you can. Building tons of links might sound like the most effective means of improving your visibility in the search engines, but quality is and always has been more important.

Think about it like this:

Backlinks are like human citation on the web. The way we link out to sites expresses how we feel about them: better sites get more links from more authoritative sites. Just as an expert’s opinion on the news is held in higher regards than your average Joe, a link from an expert site is respected the same way. If you were looking to lose weight, whom would you trust more: an experienced dietician or some random guy you met at the supermarket? Just like we trust those with more credibility and experience in our day-to-day lives, Google trusts sites that display experience and authority more as well. This principle applies directly to link building and how we practice it.

Let’s say you’re the guy from the supermarket earlier, and oddly enough, you actually know your stuff. No one is going to necessarily believe what you have to say without further proof or evidence. But what if there was a health expert nearby that verified your opinions? With the support of an expert, your opinion would now be held in higher regards by others. Similarly, you have a small niche site on health; Google isn’t going to see you as much of an authority. But if you got a link from an authoritative health site…I think you get the idea.

If you are getting a ton of backlinks from non-expert, non-authoritative sources it is going to take a lot of links to achieve anywhere near the results you want. You can improve your rankings somewhat effectively with these types of links, but it takes a ton of them. To compare backlinks with real life again; how many people would it take to convince you of a stranger’s opinion if none of these people seemed qualified to make judgments about said stranger’s opinions? 5, 10, 200, 1,000? In other words, you would probably demand the support of many people if none of them were experts in order to trust this stranger. In the same fashion, Google is not quick to trust and increase the rank of sites with just profile links and other non-authoritative links. However, each one does count a little bit, and I mean a little bit.

We always want to aim for quality over quantity. Vast quantities of low quality backlinks can help, but the core of your link building strategy should revolve around acquiring high quality backlinks. These quality links also often send traffic to your site which is a huge added benefit. You’re not going to get any additional traffic from profile backlinks which is going to leave you entirely reliant upon Google and the other search engines. Most people find a balance in their link building efforts between the two. Find what works for you, and stick to with it until you hit the top.

Guest Author: Ben Jackson is an SEO expert/enthusiast and founder of www.seodiscovery.org.

It’s easy to take the idea of search engine optimization for granted. Yeah, the marketing landscape is abuzz with all things SEO today, but did you even know what the term “search engine optimization” meant ten years ago? The term has no doubt covered a lot of ground in a short period of time.

But let’s forget about SEO for a brief moment (gasp!). Trust me, it’ll be OK.

We spend a lot of time and money trying to make our businesses look good to Google. Maybe it’s time we listen to what Google already likes about our business and do something about that.

“What the hell does that mean?” Let me explain via a personal experience.

Shortly after I started blogging a few years ago, I experienced a less-than-optimal situation at my local gym. With one post, I ranted about it. Soon thereafter, I decided to try to be a small part of the solution instead, so I wrote a post filled with my own gym marketing tips. It was a short-lived and somewhat related departure from my normal topics (namely, marketing leadership), so I immediately returned to my regularly scheduled programs.

Here’s the deal: I’m not a gym marketing expert. I have expertise in certain areas of marketing, and I have frequented lots of gyms over the years, but I’ve never really combined the two. I was simply just giving my unsolicited advice on how gym owners could make things work a little better.

However, Google doesn’t quite see it this way. In Google’s eyes, I’m an authority on just about any phrase related to gym marketing. I get a minimum of 20 visits a day from people looking specifically for gym marketing tips. It wasn’t my plan, and it wasn’t on purpose. I’m not sure if the post is constructed well or if it’s simply a void niche, but Google has decided what I have to say on this topic matters.

Which got me thinking ….

How to Leverage Surprising Inbound Keyword Phrases

Let’s face it: expertise is in the eye of the beholder. If Google thinks I know what I’m talking about, and comments and emails and other analytics confirm that I know what I’m talking about, then maybe I know what I’m talking about. But how do I take advantage of such an unexpected gift?

I don’t know the answer to this question, but my pondering has led me to these six options, and I’d love to hear more.

1. Accept advertising for the specific post. Any niche is going to have its major players. If Google’s looking to you when it comes to certain keywords, then these top dogs probably should, too. If you’re entire site isn’t dedicated to the topic, then run-of-site advertising probably doesn’t make sense to them. But an ad per post probably would. Email them and make them aware of the traffic you’re pulling for specific keyword phrases, and then give them a price. You could do banners or simple text links. This is probably the easiest and most immediate way to leverage this traffic. In my example, I could go find software programs for gyms or even authors who write on the topic of gym marketing.
2. Build your list. Forget cash, at least directly. Build your email list or subscriber level with a special, targeted call to action within the post. Or set up an autoresponder that expands on the specific topic. Then, hopefully, your delivery of valuable content over time will build trust, which in turn could lead to business.
3. Create an information product. eBooks, white papers, videos, automated presentations, video, podcast, whatever. If your ideas on the niche have legs, let ‘em loose by creating a more robust information product. You could give it away and leverage the list-building and linking to your site as your form of currency, or you could sell these items at a reasonable price. Just be sure to link the title of the product to the keywords that are most often bringing people to the site. Might as well give them exactly what they’re looking for.
4. Use affiliate links that make sense. Whether you’re keeping it easy with a simple Amazon.com affiliate program or something a little more robust with a service like Commission Junction, affiliates oftentimes take a lot of the grunt work out of selling. Find some products that fit your niche and just post them. Or you could find creators of products that would make sense for you to peddle and offer to set up an affiliate program for them. Then everybody’s winning.
5. Manufacture your own hard good. Go ahead and go old school. Make an actual, tangible product, be it a book, a widget or whatever. No need to feel confined to the online space if an offline product is what people are looking for.
6. Build a company around it. If you’re really feeling ballsy, and if the niche is really ripe for the picking, and if you’re passionate about the niche, then maybe there’s a business waiting for you here. Just be careful: opportunities like this are great at taking your focus off of what you’re really good at it. Make sure you enjoy centering your business around this new niche, or else you’ll be miserable.

Remember to harness and harvest the gifts that Google gives you every single day. Google will let you know where you really stick out. If you can figure out a way to leverage it, you’re a step ahead.

I have no idea which of the above ideas I’ll move forward with, if any. If you were me, what would you do? What other ideas do you have for ways to leverage surprising niche keyword traffic?

Guest Author: Brett Duncan offers common sense for marketing leaders at his blog, MarketingInProgress.com. He spends his days as Senior Director of Global Online Solutions for Mannatech, and his nights chasing a crazy little boy around the house in between brief moments of cheering on the Texas Rangers. He lives in Irving, Texas. Sign up for his free newsletter now if you like practical, thought-provoking marketing tips.

After a partnership agreement was signed exactly one year ago, Yahoo! has finally started testing organic and paid listings from Microsoft Bing this week. Yahoo! states if all goes as planned, users should expect Yahoo!’s organic search results to be powered by Bing around August/September.

The organic search transition will happen automatically. However, if you perform SEO on your site and ranking high in these search engines is important to you, I recommend keeping a close eye on any updates and tips from both Yahoo! and Microsoft.

Yahoo has already provided its users with three valuable tips:

1. Compare your organic search rankings on Yahoo! Search and Bing for the keywords that work best for you.
2. Decide if you’d like to modify your paid search campaigns to compensate for any changes in organic referrals that you anticipate.
3. Review the Bing webmaster tools and optimize your website for the Microsoft platform crawler, as Bing listings will be displayed for approximately 30% of search queries after this change, according to comScore.

I also found the Yahoo! FAQ page to be extremely helpful in answering some the questions I had.

Here’s to a smooth transition!

Content scraping or theft is when original content is stolen from a blog to republish on another blog or site.  This is considered to be plagiarism or copyright infringement, but since the Web is not completely regulated yet, scraping has become an extremely common problem.  Although, this process can be done manually, normally it is done by automated software programs that allow content to be easily scraped from any blog.

Blog Post Theft

Some people practice scraping to intentionally harm others, but some do not know they are actually creating harm.  If the original content is published on other blogs or websites, it can cause duplicate content issues, especially if the copied content out-ranks the original content in the search engines (See my blog post on duplicate content).

I have experienced this problem myself in the last few months, and I have let it slide because I know people who copied my posts meant no harm.  Although I appreciate and encourage sharing of content, there are netiquette rules that should be followed (I will cover this topic in a different post).

Unfortunately, we cannot completely prevent this growing problem, but there are steps that can be taken to reduce the problem.

Simple Steps

1. Put a copyright statement with every blog post.  This can be done manually or automatically (I will share some plug-ins in the next post).
2. Inspect your blog’s back links often.  This can be done manually in the search engines or a back link checker.
3. Set up keywords related to your blog posts in Google Alerts.  This method will alert you of similar posts and may help monitor scraping.
4. Use absolute links if you are interlinking any blog posts or pages of your sites (i.e., a href=”http://www.domain.com/pagename.html”; vs. a href=”pagename.html”).
5. Place a link to your blog in the footer of each post.  This can also be done manually or automatically if you have a WordPress blog.
6. Link to your blog posts within your RSS feeds.

Advanced Steps

If you are not a techie, you can ask an experienced webmaster to perform the following steps for you.

1. Utilize cloaking to change the source code by sending content other than what is originally seen on the blog, making it harder for automated programs to scrape.  This is normally thought of as a black-hat SEO technique, so should be used sparingly with caution (only use this as means to protect your content if you are having a huge theft problem).
2. Make use of IP Blocking methods to prevent future content theft.  IP Blocking is done through your site’s .htaccess file.  This method finds the IPs of sites publishing your content without permission, and then blocks them.
3. Use captchas to effectively block automated scraping.  Captchas are randomly generated strings of words and numbers that can be displayed in picture format. Some scrapers have found a way around captchas.  Also, this will not work if someone is copying your content manually.

If you use the above methods and find scraping incidents of your blog posts, I recommend you leave a comment and a link to your original post to warn both the scraper and the blog readers.

Look for my next post on WordPress plug-ins that will help you streamline your efforts.

If you’ve caught content thieves in the past, share your story in the comments below.

QUESTION:

“Hi Mirna.  Just how crucial it is for a start up e-commerce business to invest in an SEO campaign, and when would you say is the best time to do that?” — Ali Badruddin

ANSWER:

This is a very common question and most e-commerce business owners fail to budget for (search engine optimization) SEO into their start-up plans.  SEO for e-retailers is as important as e-commerce site functions and the products you are selling.  Many end up spending a fortune on web site design neglecting to save dollars for SEO.  This is a huge mistake because majority of online users go to the search engines to research products so it will do you no good if your site shows up beyond page one or two of the search results for your targeted keywords.

SEO should start at the conception of the web site during the web design phase.  During this stage you will be making design decisions that will either benefit or damage your SEO efforts.  Starting early can save you from having to put more time, effort, and money in re-designing the site later.

I recommend starting right away even if you start slow.  If you are looking to outsource this time-consuming task make sure you do your due diligence and search for the right SEO firm or web developer who have experience with e-commerce sites.  Unless you are doing the optimization yourself, I would budget at least 20-30% of your investment into search engine optimization since this an ongoing process and not something you stop and finish.

If you would like to get your questions answered by Mirna, please visit the Ask Mirna page.

As a business owner, you know that search engine optimization (SEO) is important. Without it, your website will languish in anonymity. It can be very easy to get obsessed with getting higher rankings and more traffic, something that everyone wants. Unfortunately, there are many unscrupulous people out there who prey on those desires to make your website the best that it can be and they set up scams to trap unsuspecting website owners.

It’s easy to be lured by a site that offers extra traffic or better SEO and while there are certainly plenty of legit operations out there. Here are five scams that you should be aware of.

1. Submitting to thousands of search engines.

This is a scam that has been around for quite some time. You pay a sum of money (usually astonishingly low for the service) and your URL will be submitted to not 10, not 50, but hundreds or even thousands of search engines. It sounds great because you figure that you’ll be covered no matter where people are searching, right?

Wrong. Most of the sites your website is submitted to are actually spam sites that may even pay the scammer for your site. You’ll be getting hundreds of spam emails from them which are a waste of time and energy and certainly not worth paying someone for.

2. Your URL submitted to 500 directories.

We all know that getting backlinks is very important and can raise our value in the eyes of the search engines, but just how smart is it to submit to 500 directories? Not very. The reason for this is because first of all, there aren’t that many good directories. The vast majority are link farms (yes, they still exist) which can actually lower the value of your URL. Google in particular notes when your URL shows up in “bad neighborhoods”. The second reason this is a bad idea is that Google gets suspicious when a brand new site abruptly gains 500 backlinks within 24 hours. You could end up in the sandbox or otherwise penalized for your “SEO” techniques.

3. An insider.

You’ll actually find that some SEO companies claim to have someone inside Google. This can be pretty appealing for several reasons, but it is 99.9% unlikely to be true. Even if someone were spilling the secrets of the search engine giant, it is an every changing algorithm, meaning that it would be virtually impossible to keep up with the changes. The algorithm is also far more complex than most people imagine, making it virtually impossible to crack completely and actually implement everything.

That being said, having someone on the inside could be useful in making sure your site is in the top results for your chosen keyword, but what happens when the mole is discovered, as they always are? Play it safe and stick to real SEO tactics.

4. Guaranteed top spots in Google.

Every website owner dreams of seeing his or her site in the top results for their chosen keywords, but the truth is that this is just not always possible. It’s quite ridiculous for anyone to promise it, since they can’t actually guarantee anything when it comes to Google. Even the masters move up and down in the rankings on a consistent basis and that is totally normal . . . but unpredictable.

Something else to look out for is which phrases they are guaranteeing top ranking for. Often these will be long tail keyword phrases that no one is actually looking for. You could easily rank for these on your own with minimal effort, but what’s the point?

5. Trade Secrets

Run away from anyone who claims it’s too complicated to understand and they fail to fully disclose and explain everything that is being done to your site.  They tell you these are trade secrets; they can’t discuss their proprietary technology, or speak in quasi-mystical jargon and non-specific terms.

Real SEO experts have a true interest in their field and enjoy educating their clients about the details. They don’t hold anything back and more than willing to share the whole process with you.

What other SEO scams have you heard of?

SEO firms or consultants can be of great benefit to your business, but unfortunately, there are some frauds out there. You can’t just assume that someone is an expert in the field because he says he is. It’s up to you, the consumer, to take the time to do your due diligence, but the following questions can help you get a straight answer and figure out if the company is the right one for you.

Search engine optimization (SEO)

1. How long have you been in business? A company that has only just started might not be legit. That’s not to say that no new company is trustworthy, but you will want to know more about the people behind it and their experience with SEO before committing to them.

2. How is success measured? There needs to be a specific method of checking for success if you are going to hire someone to do your search engine optimization for you. Otherwise, there’s no telling if you are getting what you paid for.

3. What are some of your more successful campaigns? An SEO company that has been in business for a while should have some case studies of happy clients to show you. If they don’t, you might want to look elsewhere.

4. Can you share your general SEO process? This question needs to be asked because you don’t want spam tactics being used. A badly done SEO campaign can destroy your company’s online reputation and ruin your search engine rankings, so make sure the company isn’t using anything but white hat techniques.

5. Do you offer a guarantee? If the answer is yes, clarify, but be suspicious. It’s impossible for anyone to guarantee specific results when it comes to search engines, so if someone says they guarantee top spots, you should look elsewhere.

6. How will I know what you’re doing? Your SEO company should give you frequent updates on what they are doing. How frequent? That’s between you and your SEO firm . . . you should be able to request updates more often if you need them.

7. What is the long term plan? SEO isn’t just about optimizing your content and leaving it, a good strategy is ongoing. Check with the company to see what their long term plan is for your site.

Ask the right questions and you should be able to tell if the firm you are considering hiring is legit or not.  What is your advice to selected an SEO firm?

These days, video is really growing on the Internet. Where text was once the content of choice, that’s not necessarily true anymore. Video and audio are becoming extremely popular and the fact that more people have faster Internet now means that videos can be more complex and longer than the 30 second bites from before.

While video is an excellent way to show people what you do or promote your business, many don’t realize that videos can also boost traffic and increase SEO. Not sure how that works? Here are some tips for you.

1. Choose your video site carefully. There are a myriad of video sites out there, but the bigger ones will give you more Google juice. Search engine optimization is key, so YouTube is a good place to start since it is already huge with the search engines.

2. Make a meaningful video. While you can still gain traffic from a short, useless video, ideally you want something that will go viral. The more sites that pick up the video, the better. Humor is something that will always go over well and tends to get passed on, so if you can pull it off, this is a great way to go.

3. Use tags. All video sites will let you fill in tags to describe the video, so use your keyword phrases in this section. This will help them come up in relevant searches, as well.

4. Write a great description. This is what people will be looking at to decide if they want to watch your video or not. The description can have a main keyword phrase in it, but don’t overdo things. You’ll get the best results with subtlety.

5. Write a killer title. Your video title should be something that makes people sit up and pay attention, but still include your main keyword. Remember that this is one of the best places to boost SEO, always with the right title.

Video marketing isn’t new. How you use it for SEO is definitely a technique that is just starting to become popular, however. If you want to boost search engine rankings, you can start by creating some viral videos to drive links and traffic to your site.

Of all the social media sites available, StumbleUpon is perhaps one of the most complex bookmarker available. It allows you to connect with others, message them, send links to friends, vote up and down and a myriad of other actions. If you are using SU for business promotion, chances are you’re missing out on a few of the better methods of using this handy tool.

1. Install the toolbar. If you really want to make good use of this social bookmarking site, you’ll definitely need the toolbar. It will let you rate and share the best websites as you find them, without having to log into StumbleUpon each time to mark a site. After all, let’s face it, you probably won’t bother to do.

2. Discover new sites. While giving sites thumbs up after someone else has already marked them, being the one to actually discover a webpage and give it the first review is good for two reasons. First of all, it puts your avatar at the top of the page as the one who discovered it. That means others who enjoy the site will want to click on you and find out what else you have found. The second reason is that StumbleUpon itself is on the lookout for those who are discovering numerous sites, so you will get a better status by providing quality content.

3. Deep link to your site. If you do link to your own blog or site, never go for the home page. Instead, make sure you link to a deeper internal page or specific blog post. This not only means you have a lot of options when it comes to stumbling, but you will boost SEO in a more natural way. Keep in mind that you should only stumble your own stuff once in a while. Most of the time you will be far better off giving someone else’s content thumbs up in exchange for them rating your pages.

4. Write a real profile description. Entirely too many people put an ad in place of their profile. Instead of frightening off potential followers, try being more realistic and personable. Tell a bit about yourself and then introduce what you do. This will work far better than a straight up ad.

5. Stumble posts that link back to you. If you are writing good, consistent content, chances are your URL will end up on a few other blogs, whether in context or a list post. The important thing is that it links back to your site, so stumbling that post will help you out, as well as the blogger who was nice enough to give a linkback.

6. Thank the person who discovered your site on SU. They’ll keep you in mind next time they’re looking for great content to stumble.

7. Build up that friends list. If you look for friends with similar interests, chances are much higher that they will want to help you out and link to your content or give it a thumbs up. It’s fairly easy to find friends because if you find a page that relates well to your business, you can simply look at who else liked the page and then add them as friends. You already know that they are interested in the same things and if you stumble their picks from time to time, they will start to notice you, as well.

Are you using StumbleUpon to its full potential? The social bookmarking site is one that offers a lot of value if you use it right, but so many people never realize how to maximize their use of it.

Google has just rolled out a new feature that makes the descriptions shown under each search result title more useful. You can now search within a page right on the search results by clicking on a link below the description. It’s essentially a search within a search, something that can make it far easier for users to find just what they are looking for.

According to Search Engine Journal, these snippets are only appearing for wikipedia at the moment, because most webpages aren’t correctly optimized for the search feature. So how can you ensure that your website gets full benefit of the new description search feature?

1. Create subheadings. A good webpage will include subheadings anyway, if it is over 300 words long. This can help search engine spiders find out more about a page and accurately catalog the information. It’s also useful to human users who prefer content to be broken up into more manageable pieces.

2. Optimize, optimize, optimize. We know that search engine optimization is valuable, but if you haven’t optimized your subheadings and titles on a page, you can’t expect Google to provide accurate searches within the page description.

3. Set up a table of contents. One of the best ways to make your site friendly for both humans and search engines is to add a table of contents for any page with a number of subheadings. This will allow people to jump quickly and easily to the section they want. It looks like this will also help Google set up the search within a search function for your site.

Search engine optimization is becoming more and more complicated now that there are more players in the field. Everyone is working hard to be the best and while that is a good thing, it does mean we need to pay more attention than usual to how we optimize our websites. Staying on top of the latest developments can help boost your site in the search engine rankings, so it’s worth following SEO news.

The standard for search engine optimization has been Google for a very long time, but now people are starting to think about another option. Bing has been far more popular than anyone anticipated. Even with Google Caffeine on the horizon, it would be foolish not to take this new up and comer into account when planning your SEO strategies.

Still not convinced? Here are a few reasons you should be optimizing for Bing.

1. It is rapidly creeping up on Google and if this deal with Yahoo goes through, you’ll definitely want your site in Bing. It’s important to consider all the possibilities, especially since it can take some time to get picked up by the search engine.

2. There are already many loyal users. These are people who no longer use Google. If you want to reach as many people as possible with your marketing message, you definitely want to include the newer search engine in your SEO plans.

3. If you get decent traffic from Yahoo right now, you’ll want to make sure you start optimizing now for the transition which is expected to occur early 2010. This will ensure that you don’t end up losing too much traffic when the two companies join up.

4. Who couldn’t use more traffic? If dual optimization helps you boost your incoming traffic, then it is definitely worth it. This is the main reason people have started aiming for better rankings on both Google and Bing.

5. It takes very little time. SEO for this new search engine isn’t much different from that of Google, so making some small changes or additions to your website can drastically change your results.

Despite the fact that Google has been such a big player in the SEO field for so long, we shouldn’t become complacent and ignore other traffic sources. Even the Romans ended up losing out, so keep your options in mind and don’t put all your website traffic in the hands of just one search engine.

The brand spanking new version of Google Caffeine is about to be launched, but the internet is already buzzing about it. Last week, a developer’s version was released and the testers have been reporting some excellent results. So just what can you expect from this new and improved search engine when it finally makes a full appearance?

Faster Searches

That’s right. Preliminary testing shows that the new Google search is roughly twice as fast as the current version. That’s excellent news for anyone who likes their info fast and let’s face it, who doesn’t? This could prompt searchers to refine their searches a little more, as well, resulting in more targeted results.

More Results

While Google has been the leader of indexing pages in the past, more recently it has fallen a bit behind. This may be because of so many sites winding up in the Sandbox or simply because Google is not that great at finding new pages on old websites. At any rate, Google Caffeine is showing up with hundreds of thousands of new results, indicating a drastic change in how its spiders check new pages.

This is great from the SEO side of things, since it means your site will be completely indexed faster.

Better Optimization

Keywords are extremely important in the new version of Google’s search engine. It looks like keywords used in titles are now particularly useful and that is great news for anyone who has been using proper SEO from the start. If you still haven’t optimized your business site, now is the time to get on that!

Google Caffeine isn’t just a slight upgrade to the current version, however. It is a full-blown, brand new way to search. From the looks of things, it is also going to change the way we do business and improve SEO.

These days, everyone knows that SEO is important to running a successful website, but not everyone is aware of how to implement search engine optimization successfully. Could you be sabotaging your website’s search engine ranking? Read on to find out.

The 7 worst SEO mistakes are:

1. Using Flash or JavaScript. It might seem like a great idea to use JavaScript or Flash to set up your site navigation, but the truth is that this simply makes your site a black hole for search engine spiders. The spiders can’t follow these “invisible” links, meaning your website will be invisible to them and thus impossible to rank. Your best bet is to use CSS or XHTML, but if you do decide to continue using this type of navigation, just be sure to add in real text links, too.

2. Not using ALT text. If you only have one or two photos on your website, this isn’t a big deal, but when you rely on graphics to carry your business, you could be in trouble. Minimal content could cause your website to be ranked lower by search engines, unless they realize that your photos are also content. Using ALT tags to add keywords to the photos can help boost rankings.

3. Reciprocal linking. Note that this is certainly not a terrible thing, but reciprocal links get you virtually nothing. Instead, look for real one way links that you can build up. There are several ways to get these links and they are infinitely more valuable than linking to a site which links right back to you.

4. Poorly formatted anchor text. When link building, it is in your best interest to use keywords as part of the anchor text. So why is it that so many links simply say “Click here”? Part of the reason is fear, but any SEO expert can tell you how to adjust your anchor text to give you maximum exposure without being slammed by Google for spamming keywords.

5. Using black-hat techniques. You know it’s wrong, but if it works and you don’t get caught . . . Too many people have discovered the hard way that trying to fool Google simply doesn’t work, at least not in the long run. If you’re tempted to use the latest trick to get that coveted #1 position, think again. Using evergreen SEO techniques will get you there and keep you there, without fear of being discovered.

6. Using more than 65 characters. If you look at the top listings in Google, you’ll notice that almost all of them have relatively short titles that fit into the 65 character limit. Most search engines will cut you off after this, so it’s important to format your title correctly . . . something most website owners and bloggers neglect to do. If you go over the limit, be sure to make those first 65 characters count so they can stand alone.

7. Not staying on top of the latest guidelines. Search engines are constantly changing their guidelines and rules to help keep spam off the front page, but if you aren’t aware of these changes, you could be doing precisely the wrong thing for your website.

Reading blogs like this one is a good way to ensure you won’t fall behind and end up using outdated SEO techniques that could end up dropping your site into the depths of the search results.

Are you making any of these mistakes? The good news is that they are all completely fixable. With careful attention and the right SEO techniques, your site can rise to the top.

One of the biggest advantages to promoting your business online, even if it`s a brick and mortar business, is the fact that it is affordable. You can literally spend tens of thousands of dollars for the same results that you`ll get for a fraction of the price online. Search engine marketing is one of the best methods of building your business without spending a fortune.

What is Search Engine Marketing?

Quite simply, search engines are always looking for relevant content to give their searchers and if you have optimized your business site or blog for your top keywords, then the search engines are will recognize you as an appropriate search result. The higher you are in the search results, the more people will see and click on your link.

Very few business owners have the time or energy, much less the know how to do their own search engine marketing, but that`s not an issue these days. Everything can be outsourced, from building your website to providing SEO content. An entire online marketing campaign can be worked up and executed by an expert in the field for far less than an offline endeavor would cost.

What does this mean for you? Search engine marketing is far too important to miss out on. It`s an affordable method of promotion for any business, no matter what the marketing budget. Without creating your site with search engines in mind, you are essentially dooming it to a life of hiding on page 55 of the search results, never to be found by those looking to buy your products and services.

Marketing to the search engines is something that can be done every time you add content to your site and over time it will pay off, particularly if you`ve chosen a knowledgeable expert to do the optimization for you.

Everyone wants their website to be seen and with your business website, this is particularly important. If no one ever comes to your site, how will they learn about you to buy? Unfortunately, too many businesses set up shop and then leave their website to gather dust, frustrated that no one is showing up. Meanwhile, everyone is heading over to the competition`s site!

There are a number of factors in building a site that potential clients will see, but the main thing to keep in mind is visibility. How do people know you exist? A comprehensive social media plan is essential to ensure that your website gets the exposure it needs.

While search engine optimization is important and can drive a lot of traffic, there`s no reason not to go with a multi-pronged approach. Rather than relying on just one source of traffic, step it up a little and look at other methods of bringing in visitors. Social media, optimized content and social networking are all important pieces of the puzzle and will help get your business noticed, but only if they are done correctly.

Many people figure that if they`ve sent out a few links on Twitter and Facebook, they should be getting plenty of traffic. Unfortunately, it doesn`t work that way. You need a marketing strategy to begin with, a plan that can then be executed, making full use of all social media outlets. Visibility doesn`t happen overnight, it`s a process that requires a lot of work and a good idea of how search engines and social networking work. Without having a well-thought out plan and knowing your goals and objectives, how will you know where you are going?

Don`t let your business website languish in the dark . . . make sure people know how to find you!