Before you read this post, you may want to know my opinion on how to build a good business model. For a full account see my guest post on the Irish Internet Association blog Can an Ethical Online Business be a Successful Online Business? Here I pretty much say that developing solid long term relationships, providing value to your customers, is the best business model -- and one that you can be proud of. I've never been a fan of online directories. I believe that many people that start up online directories do so because they see easy pickings amongst small businesses desperate to get more visitors to their websites, but I do realise that this isn't the case for all online directories. Some genuinely believe they have a good idea and either go about it poorly or are out classed by the competition. Of course some, the vast minority, have a brilliant business idea that will help their customers as well as themselves.
General International Web Directories That Have Survived
Two international web directories that are still around from the earlier days of the Internet are Yahoo Directory and
The Open Directory Project. Both have been considered good links to have to help your Google results, but that may soon change.
- A few years back Yahoo started charging $299/year for new listings. I still recommend to new site owners to pay for one year to help get a jump start with search engine results, but the importance of the Directory for it's own sake is waning and it's value to Google may follow, especially as Yahoo has teamed up with Microsoft for it's search results.
- The Open Directory was once considered a link builder's best friend. Listings were easy to add and free and it feeds the Google Directory. A few years back it started taking ages to get a listing reviewed for inclusion and eventually it became known that, due to a lack of editors, some categories were not being reviewed at all, so many have given up submitting. Others have realised that if they volunteer to be an editor in their own category, they can keep the directory going and get their site included.
Other directories from those early days either no longer exist or are completely insignificant.
Irish General Web Directories
When I first moved to Ireland and started a web design business The Doras Directory was the main Irish online directory. It was good because 1) it was Irish when there wasn't a lot of pure Irish content and 2)they reviewed each site and you'd get a rating in shamrocks you could note on your site. So what happened to Doras? At some point Eircom decided to start charging for submissions (some say that they threatened some sites to pay up or be delisted) and the overall quality of the directory went downhill and then eventually disappeared.
This has been the fate of most of the lesser online directories that have been put onto the Internet, so...
Why do people still keep starting up new online directories?
1) It's a good project for an up and coming web designer, or as a marketing tool for an existing web development/online marketing company. If you don't have a portfolio of sites, what do you show prospective clients? You come up with your own project ideas and online directories are a natural choice. When I first moved to Ireland I found it really difficult to find out when and where activities and events were going on so one of my first web design projects was a directory of events going on in West Cork: West Cork Week. It was hard work getting all the listings together and keeping them up to date. The natural progression was then to create West Cork Directory - listings of businesses in the area. The small amount that people in the area were willing to pay for advertising wouldn't cover the time it would take to create and manage them, so I gave up on that idea. As I built up my list of clients, I had less time to keep up these sites and so added easy to manage Google AdWords to the site. It covers the cost to keep the sites going on a minimal level and as people are getting free listings I don't feel guilty about having those GoogleAds or that I don't have the time to update the sites more often.
2) There is a need for a directory to promote businesses and services in a specific region, industry or other marketing/networking group. Most tourism groups and business networks include a directory of members as part of their own websites. It provides value for their members and helpful information for visitors. In many cases inclusion in such a directory will be part of the membership fee.
3) The online directory offers potential to make a profit by charging for listings or advertising. Just after I quietly 'launched' West Cork Week in my home office, Dublin based web design company Webtrade decided to start up their Irish wide online communities in West Cork with West Cork Live. They had a big catered launch and our then local TD and Agriculture Minister Joe Walsh did the honours. They held meetings with business and tourism groups around West Cork and got a number of businesses to sign up for €100/year for a page on the site. (This pretty much made it impossible to get people to advertise on my site.) I don't think the momentum of that web directory lasted more than a year or two. I did end up doing business with many of those advertisers in the following years and most of them felt that they were really let down by that experience.
The funny, or not so funny, thing is that nearly ten years later more web directories, with less going for them than West Cork Live, are starting up and people are paying even more than €100 for a listing.
10 Things to Consider Before Paying for an Online Directory Listing
1) Is the directory THE definitive directory for your region, industry, niche marketing (i.e. West Cork Tourism, Irish Internet Association, Slow Food Ireland, Wedding Directories)?
2) Is there a significant number of visitors to the website? Are there a good number of page views in the section of the site where your listing will appear? (Are the site statistics audited so that you can trust the numbers?)
3) Does the site come up well in searches on phrases related to your business/organisation?
3) Will your listing appear in a section of the site that is easy to get to from the homepage?
4) Will your listing include your contact details, including a link to your own website? Is the information laid out to naturally bring the visitor to contact you and not just trap them within the directory? Will the link add to the 'authority' of your site which may improve your site's search engine results? (Read about Google's PageRank) Some directories use a method of linking so that they can see how many clicks you get, but this may keep Google from passing the value of that link onto your site.
5) Is the site well designed, easy for the visitor to use and does it use current web technology (RSS feeds, user interaction, etc.)
6) Is the cost of the link justified based on the return you expect? If a directory charges €300/year and you make an average of €30 profit per sale, will you make 10 sales over a year?
7) Are there other similar directories that may be better established, higher ranking, better publicised or more cost effective?
8) Is this the best way to spend your marketing budget?
9) How is the directory being promoted (advertising on other sites, in newspapers magazines related to the region, industry, etc.)?
10) Is the directory being run by an established business that appears to be around for the long term? Are you comfortable with their sales and marketing practices?
Think about this listing within the big picture of your entire marketing plan.
- Don't just try it out because they are the first to ask you, or you feel that you should help out someone starting up a new business.
- Look at what other marketing opportunities you have (online and off) and what free directory listings are available to you.
- Talk to people that are currently using the directory, or similar directories and see what the results have been like for them.
- Seek advice from others in the online marketing industry. There are a number of good, honest online marketing professionals providing such advice on our online networking channels (blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.).
If you run an online directory with paid listings, how does your site stand up to these questions? Are you truly providing value to the people that take listings in your directory, or are you just going to take their money and run?
The previous post on this blog; Link Building, more than just Link Exchanges and other posts under Link Building; will give you some alternatives to get more visitors to your website.
Showing posts with label link building. Show all posts
Showing posts with label link building. Show all posts
Monday, August 10, 2009
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Link Building: more than just Link Exchanges
For years people have known that the number of links into your sites effects your rankings on search engines, such as Google (see their page on Google Friendly Sites). Thus started the mad dash to get as many links into a site as possible; through all sorts of tactics, but mainly looking for sites that had an "add a link" button. That brought the masses of spam emails of people sending thousands of emails to any address they could find requesting a link exchange. Sadly, this is still going on, even though we've found out that you need more than just a large amount of links to improve search engine rankings.
Now it is understood that is not just the quantity of links that's important, but that the 'quality' of the links is most important. The site needs to be relevant to the topic and well ranked itself to bring any value to your site. There's a long list of other considerations where there's much debate on if they are relevant or how relevant, but are at least good to keep in mind: the Google PageRank of the page, the number of links on the page, using three way links instead of direct exchanges, etc. There are other factors to consider: your own internal linking structure, link text, etc.
So a good Link Building Programme, while not rocket science, takes a lot of thought and time. In this blog, I've given advice for running your own link building programme (see category Link Building), but while link exchanges are a way to get some links into your site, there are more efficient and effective ways to get links into your site; ways that will also help boost the overall presence of your site on the Internet.
I've spent many nights trawling the Internet looking for good link exchanges for clients, always thinking that there must be an easier way. All the easier ways, though, were dodgy paid links or link farms that were not going to get you quality links or may get you penalised or banned on search engines. Forums and articles on the topic across the net all pretty much said that it just takes time to develop this. When I went to the Search Engine Strategies conference in London this February I decided that Link Building would be one of the things to focus on while there. In many of the panels and talks, Link Building was discussed with all pretty much saying that, yes, it is still important and, no, there are no magic tricks to getting sites to link to you. The highlight of the conference, apart from having lunch with Jill Whalen, was the Link Building Panel.
While this panel didn't give out any magic Link Building Techniques they did confirm that while link exchanges are a good way to get started, you need to get creative in getting more quality links and that the focus should be on the content and quality of the site involved.
- Social networking sites and blogs have now become very important for link building, not just because they may bring valuable links to your site (in fact pages that can only be seen after login won't get indexed by search engines and bring no link value), but they can spread the word about your site more easily than your standard site which in turn may get you a valuable link to your site.
- Articles and Guest Posting on Blogs are a way that you can further push your site. Again you need to find quality, suitable sites.
- Explore other types of sites and media that suit your topic: YouTube, for example is one of the most searched on websites. You can create videos to promote your business, more easily than you probably think. There's also image site, podcasts, etc.
- Other kinds of publicity, online and offline: One of the most interesting stories on the panel was from Dutch Link Strategist Peter van der Graaf, who had set up a PR 'stunt' just prior to the last World Cup. A client had wanted to bring more soccer related traffic into his site prior to the World Cup. The online marketing company set up a 'demonstration', outside the Dutch soccer team's training camp, by women protesting the amount of time their men spend watching soccer - calling for the cancellation of the World Cup. A Brazilian news agency picked up on the story and it started getting mentioned on web sites across the world, eventually getting a spot on the CNN site -- and that online marketing company had one very happy client. So this shows us that a bit of creativity can take you a long way. Some times this sort of 'Website PR' can come for free. Take Dublin web developer Jason Roe. His post on his blog about how he nearly found a way to get a free Ryanair flight, received strong comments from Ryanair staff and the Irish blogging community did not take it kindly. This story was noted on blogs and news sites all across Ireland and Europe, and, like the Dutch story, was picked up and posted on the CNN website (and here I am talking about it again here 5 months later).
None of these techniques are anywhere as boring as trawling the Internet in the wee hours of the morning, trying to craft non-spammy sounding link request emails and begging, begging, begging.
So define your target audience and what sites they go to on the Internet -- and get creative. Don't forget, that having a great site yourself, with a wealth of good content related to your business/organisation is going to better attract the best partners in this task.
If you would like a kick start, check out my workshop "Hands On: Your Own Website PR Campaign". The next one takes place on Friday 7th August, in our Clonakilty offices. The workshop is limited to 5 people so that we can work one on one and actually set up your own campaign on the morning.
Now it is understood that is not just the quantity of links that's important, but that the 'quality' of the links is most important. The site needs to be relevant to the topic and well ranked itself to bring any value to your site. There's a long list of other considerations where there's much debate on if they are relevant or how relevant, but are at least good to keep in mind: the Google PageRank of the page, the number of links on the page, using three way links instead of direct exchanges, etc. There are other factors to consider: your own internal linking structure, link text, etc.
So a good Link Building Programme, while not rocket science, takes a lot of thought and time. In this blog, I've given advice for running your own link building programme (see category Link Building), but while link exchanges are a way to get some links into your site, there are more efficient and effective ways to get links into your site; ways that will also help boost the overall presence of your site on the Internet.
I've spent many nights trawling the Internet looking for good link exchanges for clients, always thinking that there must be an easier way. All the easier ways, though, were dodgy paid links or link farms that were not going to get you quality links or may get you penalised or banned on search engines. Forums and articles on the topic across the net all pretty much said that it just takes time to develop this. When I went to the Search Engine Strategies conference in London this February I decided that Link Building would be one of the things to focus on while there. In many of the panels and talks, Link Building was discussed with all pretty much saying that, yes, it is still important and, no, there are no magic tricks to getting sites to link to you. The highlight of the conference, apart from having lunch with Jill Whalen, was the Link Building Panel.
While this panel didn't give out any magic Link Building Techniques they did confirm that while link exchanges are a good way to get started, you need to get creative in getting more quality links and that the focus should be on the content and quality of the site involved.
- Social networking sites and blogs have now become very important for link building, not just because they may bring valuable links to your site (in fact pages that can only be seen after login won't get indexed by search engines and bring no link value), but they can spread the word about your site more easily than your standard site which in turn may get you a valuable link to your site.
- Articles and Guest Posting on Blogs are a way that you can further push your site. Again you need to find quality, suitable sites.
- Explore other types of sites and media that suit your topic: YouTube, for example is one of the most searched on websites. You can create videos to promote your business, more easily than you probably think. There's also image site, podcasts, etc.
- Other kinds of publicity, online and offline: One of the most interesting stories on the panel was from Dutch Link Strategist Peter van der Graaf, who had set up a PR 'stunt' just prior to the last World Cup. A client had wanted to bring more soccer related traffic into his site prior to the World Cup. The online marketing company set up a 'demonstration', outside the Dutch soccer team's training camp, by women protesting the amount of time their men spend watching soccer - calling for the cancellation of the World Cup. A Brazilian news agency picked up on the story and it started getting mentioned on web sites across the world, eventually getting a spot on the CNN site -- and that online marketing company had one very happy client. So this shows us that a bit of creativity can take you a long way. Some times this sort of 'Website PR' can come for free. Take Dublin web developer Jason Roe. His post on his blog about how he nearly found a way to get a free Ryanair flight, received strong comments from Ryanair staff and the Irish blogging community did not take it kindly. This story was noted on blogs and news sites all across Ireland and Europe, and, like the Dutch story, was picked up and posted on the CNN website (and here I am talking about it again here 5 months later).
None of these techniques are anywhere as boring as trawling the Internet in the wee hours of the morning, trying to craft non-spammy sounding link request emails and begging, begging, begging.
So define your target audience and what sites they go to on the Internet -- and get creative. Don't forget, that having a great site yourself, with a wealth of good content related to your business/organisation is going to better attract the best partners in this task.
If you would like a kick start, check out my workshop "Hands On: Your Own Website PR Campaign". The next one takes place on Friday 7th August, in our Clonakilty offices. The workshop is limited to 5 people so that we can work one on one and actually set up your own campaign on the morning.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
10 New Year Resolutions for Website Owners
January is a busy time for people searching the net for bargains, holidays for the year, new business ideas, etc. So it is a good time to make sure that your website is getting you the best possible results. It's also a good time to set out the goals for the results you want from your website in 2009, in order to make sure that your website is working for you. Here are my recommendations:
- Get a face lift. Take a good, objective look at your website and ask yourself, "Does the design of my site reflect the image I want to portray for my business?" In the past you may have felt that you didn't have the budget for a professionally designed website and took on the job yourself; you may have used a student, relative or other less experienced designer; or perhaps the image of your business has changed over the years since your site was first designed. Now is the time to make the changes to make sure that your site is appealing to your market and portrays your brand in a way that will increase your sales. Find an experienced web development company with a portfolio of websites for clients in similar industries to yours, that shows that they can capture the image required for your business. It's important that your site isn't just a bit of text about your business, products and services -- make sure your site is based around proven online marketing techniques to move the visitor to become a customer.
- Get Management. (Content Management System vs. Website Management Service). It is important to keep your website fresh, interesting and attractive to keep visitors coming. Ask your web development company about adding a Content Management System , so that you can either update all the pages of your site or perhaps just relevant sections (i.e. News, Events, Rates, etc.) If you think that you will not have the time or desire to make changes to your site yourself, you may prefer to take out a Website Management Service. Most web development companies offer a contract service that will save you money on site alterations and perhaps include other benefits; such as priority or expedited service, a higher level of support, etc.
- Get Results (as in the best possible Search Engine Results). You cannot overlook the great opportunities to increase your traffic through better search engine results. If your site was developed a few years ago, or if you web developer wasn't search engine savvy, there may be some simple things that can be done throughout your site to improve results. If you are in a very competitive market on the Internet you probably understand the value of search engine placement, but better results may take more time and effort. I still get a lot of new clients that think that search engines are not going to be an important source of visitors to their sites, but within a year they then see the benefit of all that unexpected traffic to bring them new business, as well as PR/marketing and networking opportunities.
- Get Links. Quality incoming links are important for a few reasons. It's a good way to bring in more traffic. Link building is a good opportunity to network with like minded business people. Search engines track the links into your site and a number of good quality links will improve your search results. For more information, see my post on Link Building the DIY Way.
- Get Freedom (from Spam). Spam has gotten to be an expected factor in using the Internet. The problem is that it is easy to lose the good messages in the spam filter. First consider if you can stop using any addresses that are already getting spammed. Once they are in the spammers lists, they are not coming off and the amount of spam will just grown and grow. Use one address for yourself that will never be used on a website and kept absolutely safe, use another on your website (but encrypted so not exposed to email address harvesting programmes used by spammers) and a third address that you can post on third party sites that may be accessed by spammers (you know this one will get spammed, but you can change this account as needed). Make sure that your web developer "spam proofs" your enquiry forms.
- Get E-Mailing. A few years ago Email Marketing was called the killer marketing Tool. This is still very true and it's stood the test of time (well a few years is a long time in this rapidly developing industry). Start by adding a subscription form on your website and ask people to sign up every chance you get (enquiry forms, point of sale, etc.). Be sure that you don't spam - by sending messages to people that have not requested the information - besides being illegal, it's annoying and not a good way to market your business. Your best targets are people that have used your business before, and it's usually easy to get them to subscribe for special offers, news and other interesting information that you can pass on. Some businesses find it sufficient to send a newsletter 1-2 times a year, perhaps to help boost business during the slow period. If you can generate interesting, relevant content more frequently - and it suits the nature of your business - you may want to send mailings as often as needed (i.e. whenever new products/services are added, when you are offering a special offer, etc.) We recommend using a third party mailing list management service, like iContact
, as it provides a secure way to maintain your list, an easy way to compose professional looking newsletters, makes it easier to get through spam filters and provides good statistics on how many recipients opened your message and clicked links, etc.
- Get Blogging. A blog - a user friendly, online 'diary' - is another way to provide interesting, up to date information about your business. The search engines 'love' blogs and regular Internet users do as well. There are many tools to make it easy for visitors to refer your blog posts to others using the net. You just need to add links into your website and your blog becomes an excellent marketing tool. Including useful, timely information also helps to establish yourself as an expert in your field and is a good 'magnet' for incoming links.
- Get (Social) Networking. If any of the names MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. are not completely foreign to you, you are ready to take the plunge and use one/all of these Social Networking sites to promote your business. Like blogs, these sites are set up so that it's easy to send 'your message' to a large community of people. It takes time to build your community, but as you do, more and more people find out about your business. Using these sites can be less time consuming than writing regular blog posts -- but the more time you put in, the more you will get out of it.
- Get a 'Tech Check'. The best €150 I spent in 2008 was to the West Cork Enterprise Board for a Tech Check, technology audit of our business. The result was a detailed, independent report on the technology we were currently using in our business, along with recommendations for new systems and procedures that we could use now and for any expected expansion. I hesitated to sign up for the service initially as I assumed that the person assigned would be pushing his own services and his recommendations would be geared to that; but it is part of the scheme that the auditor cannot provide the follow up services. In fact, my auditor doesn't provide such services for a living and most of his recommendations were things I could do myself, were free or very cheap and easy to download from the Internet. So if you have concerns about the security of your data, how to do back-ups more efficiently, if you need a better programme to manage your accounts, etc. this service will get you the answers you are looking for.
- Give Outstanding Service. The one area where many web businesses fall down is in providing a decent level of customer service, so this is a great opportunity for you to stand out from your competitors. Many Irish e-commerce site owners are concerned about the fact that Irish VAT, one of the highest in Europe, has risen and UK VAT has dropped; so prices on Irish sites will appear higher than ever. Yes people are more price conscious these days, but when shopping online more people are concerned about doing business with a reliable, established business that they can talk to if needed. Be sure that your website provides clear contact details. Answer enquiries within 24 hours (sooner, if possible, even if just to say that you've received the message and will get back to the sender promptly). Offer delivery times and costs equivalent to your competitors (even if in neighbouring countries). Focus on the customers needs and strive to provide that to them, even if it means giving that little bit extra. This will set you apart from the pack.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Writing a Persuasive Link Request Message
As promised - sorry for the delay - how to write a persuasive Link Request message, a follow up to my post Link Building - the DIY Way.
Remember owners/webmasters of well ranking sites get a lot of these requests and most of them are from spammers looking for links to irrelevant sites, so you need to be more geniune and unique. Make sure you have a good look at the site you are requesting the link from so that you can 1) be sure it's a suitable link, 2) determine any good networking opportunities between the sites and 3) genuinely discuss the site in your messsage.
As you should focus on sites that are very relevant to your own content and therefore of interest to your visitors, your link building campaign can be a good opportunity to create other networking opportunities and partnerships. From this linking opportunities can arise more naturally.
Guidelines for each section of your email message --
To: Send individual messages to each of the site owners/webmasters so that you can personalize the message by mentioning his/her name (if available) or at least the site name. If you send to multiple recipients you are more likely to get caught in a spam filter.
From: Send you messages from an email address from the domain you are requesting the link for -- which make the recipient more likely to feel your request is personal and not from a third party.
Re: The subject of your message is very important.
- If worded poorly it may get you straight into the spam filter or immediately deleted by the recipient. I test out different subjects to see what gets caught in my own, fairly high level, spam filter. What can get you into the spam filter: phrases with "link exchange", "link request", "reciprical links", etc.; a subject that is too short or too long (I am surprised at the number of people that send messages with no subject).
- I hesitate to give suggest a specific phrase to use, but 'Enquiry from [then list their website address or name] usually gets them to open it as it may be sale. It isn't really deceiptful as you do have an enquiry. You need to then be genuine in the body of the message so they don't feel they've been mislead.
Body: Now you have to 'sell' your proposal to the recipient.
- Introduce yourself (I am Ann Donnelly from O'Mahony Donnelly Chartered Certified Accountants, www.omahonydonnelly.ie)
- Explain how you found the site; i.e. either referred to you by someone, you know of the business locally, found their site researching related sites on the internet (I found your site, www.namethesitehere.com, while researching websites with information about starting a business in Ireland).
- Ask for the link (Many visitors to our site would be interested in the content on your site... Would you be interested in exchanging links?)
- Note where you would place their link and request how they would like their link to appear.
- Specify the link text you would like (As the wording of links can be beneficial to search engine ranking, if possible please use the following wording for our link: <a href="http://omahonydonnelly.ie" target=_blank">Accountants Ireland</a> - O'Mahony Donnelly)
- Use this communication for more than just a link -- perhaps this would be a wider networking opportunity and you may have other ideas for work or promotions you may be able to do together (i.e. offering a package deal or referring people to each others businesses on a more regular basis, etc.)
- Don't forget to say thanks and make it clear how they can get back in touch with you.
What to avoid:
- Don't bother discussing PageRank unless you can see from their site (or previous communication with them) that it's something they are concerned about. When I get requests that go on about Google PageRank I usually don't believe what they are saying. Often they are talking about the PR of their homepage and the page they want to link from has none. PageRank can change and links should be more about the relevancy of the content of the site to yours and what it can offer your visitors than about the PageRank.
- Don't go over the top with compliments on their site (i.e. You have a great site.). Compliment the owner/webmaster if you genuinely like something specific about the site.
- Don't make the recipient feel under pressure. I get many requests saying, "I've added your link to my site and if you don't add our link in 5 days we will remove your link." I delete them thinking, "I never asked for your link, buddy! Don't give me that attitude!"
Following up:
- If you haven't heard back from the recipient in a couple of weeks, send a follow up message. Just note that you are following up in case they didn't receive the initial message and just wanted to check back with him/her. Don't hassle them or sound annoyed that you haven't heard back. The other party doesn't owe you anything.
Remember owners/webmasters of well ranking sites get a lot of these requests and most of them are from spammers looking for links to irrelevant sites, so you need to be more geniune and unique. Make sure you have a good look at the site you are requesting the link from so that you can 1) be sure it's a suitable link, 2) determine any good networking opportunities between the sites and 3) genuinely discuss the site in your messsage.
As you should focus on sites that are very relevant to your own content and therefore of interest to your visitors, your link building campaign can be a good opportunity to create other networking opportunities and partnerships. From this linking opportunities can arise more naturally.
Guidelines for each section of your email message --
To: Send individual messages to each of the site owners/webmasters so that you can personalize the message by mentioning his/her name (if available) or at least the site name. If you send to multiple recipients you are more likely to get caught in a spam filter.
From: Send you messages from an email address from the domain you are requesting the link for -- which make the recipient more likely to feel your request is personal and not from a third party.
Re: The subject of your message is very important.
- If worded poorly it may get you straight into the spam filter or immediately deleted by the recipient. I test out different subjects to see what gets caught in my own, fairly high level, spam filter. What can get you into the spam filter: phrases with "link exchange", "link request", "reciprical links", etc.; a subject that is too short or too long (I am surprised at the number of people that send messages with no subject).
- I hesitate to give suggest a specific phrase to use, but 'Enquiry from [then list their website address or name] usually gets them to open it as it may be sale. It isn't really deceiptful as you do have an enquiry. You need to then be genuine in the body of the message so they don't feel they've been mislead.
Body: Now you have to 'sell' your proposal to the recipient.
- Introduce yourself (I am Ann Donnelly from O'Mahony Donnelly Chartered Certified Accountants, www.omahonydonnelly.ie)
- Explain how you found the site; i.e. either referred to you by someone, you know of the business locally, found their site researching related sites on the internet (I found your site, www.namethesitehere.com, while researching websites with information about starting a business in Ireland).
- Ask for the link (Many visitors to our site would be interested in the content on your site... Would you be interested in exchanging links?)
- Note where you would place their link and request how they would like their link to appear.
- Specify the link text you would like (As the wording of links can be beneficial to search engine ranking, if possible please use the following wording for our link: <a href="http://omahonydonnelly.ie" target=_blank">Accountants Ireland</a> - O'Mahony Donnelly)
- Use this communication for more than just a link -- perhaps this would be a wider networking opportunity and you may have other ideas for work or promotions you may be able to do together (i.e. offering a package deal or referring people to each others businesses on a more regular basis, etc.)
- Don't forget to say thanks and make it clear how they can get back in touch with you.
What to avoid:
- Don't bother discussing PageRank unless you can see from their site (or previous communication with them) that it's something they are concerned about. When I get requests that go on about Google PageRank I usually don't believe what they are saying. Often they are talking about the PR of their homepage and the page they want to link from has none. PageRank can change and links should be more about the relevancy of the content of the site to yours and what it can offer your visitors than about the PageRank.
- Don't go over the top with compliments on their site (i.e. You have a great site.). Compliment the owner/webmaster if you genuinely like something specific about the site.
- Don't make the recipient feel under pressure. I get many requests saying, "I've added your link to my site and if you don't add our link in 5 days we will remove your link." I delete them thinking, "I never asked for your link, buddy! Don't give me that attitude!"
Following up:
- If you haven't heard back from the recipient in a couple of weeks, send a follow up message. Just note that you are following up in case they didn't receive the initial message and just wanted to check back with him/her. Don't hassle them or sound annoyed that you haven't heard back. The other party doesn't owe you anything.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Link Building - The DIY Way
For best results on search engines, you need a number of incoming links from sites that are related in topic to yours and that do well on search engines themselves. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I've seen proof of this in the sites that I've developed. All other things being equal, the sites with more, better links get better results in search engines.
We offer Link Building as one of our Search Engine Optimization Services, but getting links is not brain surgery, there are no magic tricks or dodgy methods to get the job done -- it just takes hard work, perservence and a bit of organisation (to keep you from going insane). Many of our clients hire us to do this for them, but you can do it yourself:
PageRank
If you are exhausted already after just reading this article find out about our Link Building Service.
We offer Link Building as one of our Search Engine Optimization Services, but getting links is not brain surgery, there are no magic tricks or dodgy methods to get the job done -- it just takes hard work, perservence and a bit of organisation (to keep you from going insane). Many of our clients hire us to do this for them, but you can do it yourself:
- Identify the key phrases that you are targeting on your site. (What phrases do people search on looking for your business?)
- Search on those phrases on Google (or your preferred search engine, but Google is the most used by far) and see which sites rank well for those phrases. These would be the best link partners. If there are directories that you can submit your site to for free, submit to those straight away. If there are competiting sites that you don't want to link from/to, check to see who is linking to them (they may be good link partners for you, too).
- Contact the owner or webmaster to request a link. Keep in mind that these people probably get a lot of requests for links by email so you want your message to be personalised and direct. (I will follow this up with a specific post on wording your request letter as it is very important). Also keep in mind that the owner may need to pay someone to update the links page so may not be able to do so immediately.
- As you receive positive responses add the links to your site as requested. You can have a links page for this, but it is more effective if the links are on a related page (car hire site on a transportation page, wedding services on a hotel's wedding page, etc.). File away the negative responses to be sure that you don't contact them again.
- In two weeks time, send a gentle reminder to the sites that have not responded. If it is someone you know, perhaps located in your area, you may want to give a ring -- if you think it's appropriate. As I said, site owners get a lot of these requests and often put them to the side and forget about them, a reminder may help, but you don't want to annoy.
- Use a spreadsheet to keep track of the sites that you've identified, contact details, each time you've contacted each and the responses received. (You can get very detailed with this, but keep it simple so you don't get too bogged down with it.)
- Don't request links from random sites -- it's best if the site is related to the content of your own.
- Don't accept a link from a site that is going to put you on a page buried way down in the site where no search engines or visitors will find you. It's not worth your effort. Instead try to negotiate the best placement possible. This will usually depend on the quality and ranking of your own site, but you may have something else to offer.
- Don't 'blackmail' a prospective link partner by saying, "I've already added your link to my site. If I don't hear back from you in two weeks, we will remove your site." That will probably just annoy the person. Don't forget that you are asking them for a favour so you cannot expect to always get a response.
- Don't pay to be listed on a directory unless it is the definitive directory for your industry or region; has proven results on search engines, with stats or a known profile to back it up; and you get a link back to your site. I usually only advise my clients to pay for a Yahoo Directory Listing ($299/year). This is a valuable link in Google's eyes and worth the investment, especially if you don't have a number of other quality links.
- Don't get involved with sites or businesses requesting/offering paid links or link farm. Search engines, Google in particular, consider this an undesireable way to get links and may ignore the link or even worse, penalise or ban your site. Read Google's article on Link Schemes.
PageRank
- This is one of Google's methods to determine the importance of a webpage considering "over 500 million variables and 2 billion terms". Each web page gets a PageRank (PR) of 0-10 (5 is pretty good, more than that is very good). "Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results." (Read more on Google's Technology Overiew Page.)
- For this reason it is beneficial for you to try to raise the PageRank of the pages on your site, by getting links from sites that have higher PageRanks. It's important not to get too obsessed with this, but if you get links for sites that are all PR0-2 it wont be as helpful as sites that are 3 and above.
- How do you know what PageRank a page has? You can download the Google Toolbar for your web browser and change the settings to show PageRank and you will then see the green bar. Many experts feel that this isn't the true PageRank that Google uses, but it will at least give you guide. If the bar is greyed it means that there is no PageRank, which is the case for very new sites. PR0 often means the site has been live for awhile, but there are no links to the page. (You can also see the published PageRank for pages in the Google Directory but it would be more work to search through that for all the sites.)
- Search Engines track the text of links and it is best to use your targeted search phrases in the text of links to your site. When targetting 'web design' -- web design is better link text than www.e-business.ie or O'Mahony Donnelly so I ask for people to link back to me that way. Perhaps 'Web Design by O'Mahony Donnelly'
- When requesting a link, indicate how you would like your link added. Not all sites will honour this request. Many have their own style of adding links (either just the business name or domain name), but many will understand and follow your request.
- Make sure you add links to your site in the way requested by the other party -- as long as it isn't too long or over powering to your page. Loads of people ask you to put really long descriptions. If you are trying to do a concise listing, just indicate this to them and they probably will be satisfied if you do the main link text they way they'd like.
If you are exhausted already after just reading this article find out about our Link Building Service.
Friday, November 14, 2008
New Site - dreamcakes.ie - Getting Results First Week Online
I warn clients upfront that their site will not really do well in search engine results for any time from 3-12 months (maybe even longer for sites in very competitive industries: holiday accommodation, property, etc.). The site www.dreamcakes.ie launched on the 31st of October, just in time for a Wedding Fair that the client was attending. On 2nd November, the site got 3 visits via Google!! And in the past two weeks, since the launch 202 visits (15.35% direct traffic, 18.81% referring sites and 65.84% search engines)!
When the first contact form submission went through a couple days after the site went live, I thought, "Oh, no, the spammers have got us already!" but it was a genuine enquiry for a birthday cake.
In the past I had noticed that it seemed that Google's 'sandbox', that holds new sites out of search results for a certain period of time, applies mainly to the primary search phrases (or most competitive phrases) you are targeting on the site and that the new sites were getting results for many other phrases used throughout the site -- but never at this level.
Of course there are many factors that determine your search engine results -- strength of the competitors sites, when google does it's crawl, number of visitors searching on your target phrases, etc. Perhaps these were all working in our favour.
One other thing that benefited this site -- a number of our existing clients were in related industries (weddings & gifts) so we were able to add links from those sites so the site could get a very good start.
So for all those sceptics that think that SEO doesn't work -- our Search Engine Placement strategy definitely works. While I am confident that we are using the best techniques for best search engine placement for our clients and have achieved excellent results for them -- this is the first time I have seen such a quick result!!!
Read more: Search Engine Optimization - or contact me for more information on how we can achieve these results for you!
When the first contact form submission went through a couple days after the site went live, I thought, "Oh, no, the spammers have got us already!" but it was a genuine enquiry for a birthday cake.
In the past I had noticed that it seemed that Google's 'sandbox', that holds new sites out of search results for a certain period of time, applies mainly to the primary search phrases (or most competitive phrases) you are targeting on the site and that the new sites were getting results for many other phrases used throughout the site -- but never at this level.
Of course there are many factors that determine your search engine results -- strength of the competitors sites, when google does it's crawl, number of visitors searching on your target phrases, etc. Perhaps these were all working in our favour.
One other thing that benefited this site -- a number of our existing clients were in related industries (weddings & gifts) so we were able to add links from those sites so the site could get a very good start.
So for all those sceptics that think that SEO doesn't work -- our Search Engine Placement strategy definitely works. While I am confident that we are using the best techniques for best search engine placement for our clients and have achieved excellent results for them -- this is the first time I have seen such a quick result!!!
Read more: Search Engine Optimization - or contact me for more information on how we can achieve these results for you!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Links - Who should I link to?
I get many enquiries from clients about whether they should have links or not on their website. The answer is a very big YES -- but only if they would provide a good resource for visitors to the site.
Links are also very important to the success of your sites on search engines -- but not so much the links on your site -- it's the links into your site that matter most. The search engines track which sites are linked to you taking into account the relevancy to the topic of your site and how well ranked that site is.
So if you are a hairdresser in Clonakilty a bunch of links from sites for holiday homes in Asia are not going to help your site's rankings. You need to have links from sites related to hair dressing, and perhaps other beauty topics and other local business sites. It's not so easy, as the most relevant sites are probably your competitors and you probably don't want to promote them.
One other thing to keep in mind if you are working on getting links into your own site - the 'link text' should be made up of key phrases (i.e. phrases that people will search on to find your site). So when you ask for a link to your site, indicate how you would like it to appear on the other site. "Holiday Cottages Ireland - Inish Beg" is better than "Inish Beg" or "www.inishbeg.com".
We have hard proof that links are important for good results on search engines. For sites we have done where all other things are pretty equal (coding, content, etc.) the sites with a number of incoming links do better than others. The more competitive your industry is on the internet, the more links you will need. There is no magic number and quality is definitely better than quantity.
It's hard work requesting web site owners and web master to link into your site -- especially as most of us are bombarded with spammy link requests -- but definitely worth the effort. Or, you can hire us to do all that hard work for you. We have managed Link Building Programmes for a number of our clients. Read more: Link Building
Links are also very important to the success of your sites on search engines -- but not so much the links on your site -- it's the links into your site that matter most. The search engines track which sites are linked to you taking into account the relevancy to the topic of your site and how well ranked that site is.
So if you are a hairdresser in Clonakilty a bunch of links from sites for holiday homes in Asia are not going to help your site's rankings. You need to have links from sites related to hair dressing, and perhaps other beauty topics and other local business sites. It's not so easy, as the most relevant sites are probably your competitors and you probably don't want to promote them.
One other thing to keep in mind if you are working on getting links into your own site - the 'link text' should be made up of key phrases (i.e. phrases that people will search on to find your site). So when you ask for a link to your site, indicate how you would like it to appear on the other site. "Holiday Cottages Ireland - Inish Beg" is better than "Inish Beg" or "www.inishbeg.com".
We have hard proof that links are important for good results on search engines. For sites we have done where all other things are pretty equal (coding, content, etc.) the sites with a number of incoming links do better than others. The more competitive your industry is on the internet, the more links you will need. There is no magic number and quality is definitely better than quantity.
It's hard work requesting web site owners and web master to link into your site -- especially as most of us are bombarded with spammy link requests -- but definitely worth the effort. Or, you can hire us to do all that hard work for you. We have managed Link Building Programmes for a number of our clients. Read more: Link Building
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