Part 1 of “Improving the Online Shopping Experience” focused on the upper part of the purchase funnel and on ways to get customers to your website and to find your products. Today, we move down the funnel, looking at ways to enable customers to make the decision to buy and to guide them through the check-out process.

Ways to improve the online shopping experience and to reduce the drop in the purchase funnel. Part 1 covered points 1 to 3.

Enable The Customer To Decide
Inform and reinforce the customer’s buying decisions by offering in-depth product information. The content on product pages should be relevant and should give the customer a virtual feel for the product. Ensure that your website addresses the key elements of a product page, listed below.

Product name
Product names should contain relevant keywords to help customers find and identify the right product. For a product such as a book, information about the author and edition is required.
Images
Use clear product images, with alternate views. Where appropriate, allow customers to zoom in, see different color swatches, or spin the product around with a 360° view. The product page for a book could get away with an image or two, but apparel should offer most of these options.
Video
Static images are not always sufficient to present a product. Video is a good way to showcase complex products that need detailed explanation or a “how to” demonstration.
Pricing and availability
Clearly list the price and availability. When products have variations (for example, different capacities for a hard drive, or different colors for shoes), make it easy for users to identify size and color combinations that are in stock (see the screenshot for Kohl’s below). And provide sizing charts to avoid surprises and returns later. If your business also has brick-and-mortar stores, allow users to check in-store availability online.
Description
Give customers a clear understanding of your products by providing detailed descriptions, with text and multimedia. Descriptions should be simple, clear and jargon-free. Consider tablet and mobile users by providing alternatives to Flash and Java content, and don’t require mouse hovering to access essential information.
Customer ratings and reviews
Unbiased and unedited ratings and reviews by customers will help visitors make up their minds about products that they may not be familiar with (for example, customer reviews suggesting to buy half a shoe size larger for a better fit will help others not make the same mistake). Many users look up ratings and reviews when they are in stores, not only at their desk, so make ratings and reviews easily accessible from mobile devices.
Suggestions of related products
These could be complementary products (for example, a USB power adapter when the customer is buying an iPod Touch), alternative products (different styles, models or versions) or recommendations based on other people’s purchases (“Customers who bought this also bought…”). Whatever their nature, they should be relevant and valuable to the user, not just an attempt to sell more.
Tools
Give users ways to save and share pages on the website. Businesses commonly do this through wish lists, “Email this page” features, and social sharing and bookmarking. Speaking of social, companies such as Buy.com (see screenshot below) and Wet Seal are experimenting with social shopping, allowing users to shop with their Facebook friends.
Contact information
Make it easy for customers to reach you when they need help.
“Add to cart”
Last but not least, make the call to action clear and prominent, to ensure that customers know how to check out.

The key elements of product pages on Zappos.com are highlighted.

Kohl’s offers a visual way to identify color and size combinations that are in stock.

Social shopping on Buy.com includes: (1) friends who are currently shopping together, (2) a chat window.

Reduce Shopping-Cart Abandonment
Customers abandon their shopping carts for numerous reasons, many of which can be prevented by improving the experience.

Make the shopping cart always visible and accessible, and display a summary of items in the cart, keeping check-out a click away. As basic as this sounds, some websites still don’t enable customers to get to their shopping cart without adding something else to their order.

Deal Genius offers no visible way to get to one’s shopping cart.
A persistent shopping cart is important. Users who leave the website without completing their purchase should see their items in the cart when they return. If the user is logged in, the cart should also persist across devices, allowing them to seamlessly continue shopping anywhere and anytime.
Using the customer’s address or ZIP code, show taxes, shipping options and costs, delivery estimates, and the total cost, thus avoiding last-minute “cart shock.”
Give users the ability to update their shopping cart without having to go back to the product page.
If you offer promotional discounts or coupons, give users the option to redeem them without making others feel like they are missing out on savings. Let users know how they can get these discounts (“Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get a discount on your next purchase!”).
Offer contextual support to answer questions that shoppers may have regarding when their items will arrive, your return policy, and how to contact live help through a phone number, call-back or chat. Display this information in a sidebar, on the shopping-cart page or in a small pop-up window, so that users do not lose the context of where they are.

Office Depot’s shopping cart features: (1) a persistent shopping cart, which shows the total cost and expands on hover to show its items; (2) the estimated total; (3) options to update the cart; (4) discounts, if applicable; (5) help options.

Keep Registration Short And Optional
Make the registration process optional and short; forcing registration is one of the main reasons why users don’t complete purchases. If you still need convincing, “The $300 Million Button” should drive the point home.

When the check-out process starts, allow registered customers to log in, and provide easy ways for them to recover forgotten account information.
Allow new customers to check out without registering. At the end of the check-out process, give them the option to register and save their information for future use. By this time, they will be motivated to simply create a password in order to avoid typing all of that information the next time.

Sears has simple check-out options, allowing new users to register after checking out.
Simplify and minimize the information required during the check-out and registration processes, by logically grouping the most important information first, and putting optional information towards the end. Some retailers, like Adorama, have got their check-out process down to one page.

Streamline Check-Out
Streamline the check-out process with relevant recommendations, a progress indicator, an order summary and confirmation.

Relevant recommendations can be a valuable reminder to customers as they check out. Like product suggestions, recommendations at check-out should be relevant and useful to the customer, instead of a way to try to sell anything and everything. Buying the same noise-cancelling headphones from Buy.com and Amazon resulted in very different recommendations, as shown below.

Very different recommendations from Buy.com (above) and Amazon (below).
“Enclose” the check-out process by removing the header, navigation and footer. This will minimize distractions and guide the customer through the last few steps to complete their purchase.
Use a progress indicator to show customers where they are in the process. “Three steps completed. Just one more to go!”
Give users a choice of payment methods. If users prefer not to give their credit-card information, allow them to pay by PayPal, Google Checkout or another trusted local payment option. Make sure the third party displays the total amount to be charged before asking for any payment information.
Link to your policies in context: link to the privacy policy when asking for an email address, and a link to the security policy near the credit-card fields. This relieves users from having to hunt for these policies and also instills confidence.
When displaying the summary page of their order, allow customers to verify (and change, if necessary) the details before confirming the order. This is also a good place to restate the estimated delivery dates so that they can change the shipping method if desired.
The final call to action that directs users to complete their purchase (“Place order”) should be prominent. Don’t lose customers at this stage by presenting other options to them.

The check-out process on Adorama has been streamlined to a single page: (1) progress indicator; (2) multiple payment options; (3) contextual policies; (4) option to make changes; (5) prominent final call to action.
Once the order has been placed, display a confirmation page, with the order number, saving and printing functionality, and a summary of the customer’s next steps or options. The order confirmation page for Shutterfly, a photo publishing website, not only tells users what their next steps are, but also displays timelines for the fulfillment of their order and contextual links to the next steps.

Shutterfly’s order confirmation page informs users what to expect next, using contextual links.
If your website allows new customers to check out without registering (as suggested above), then that would be a good time to ask them whether they would like to select a password to create an account and save their information for next time. Highlight some of the benefits of creating an account, so that registering at […]

  


They say that ignorance is bliss and knowledge is power but somewhere between these clichés there’s a spot reserved for individuals who possess a little too much knowledge to be blissful but still only enough knowledge to be dangerous.

SEO, as an industry, is known unfortunately for the mass of rumours, myths, mistruths and unscrupulous gurus. This in part stems from the search engines’ unwillingness to discuss their algorithms (this lack of disclosure is completely understandable). This breeds a culture of myths where newbies and veterans alike get caught out by nothing more than hearsay that gains traction.

The aim of this post is to try and dispel some of the more widely held SEO myths:

#1 – Google is the Only Search Engine

Google may be the largest search engine but you shouldn’t ignore the others. Image Credit

It sounds ridiculous to say and whilst Google is the biggest of the search engines, Bing has certainly cornered a fair percentage of the market – some say as high as 30% of all US searches are powered by Bing. This means that while you should undoubtedly concentrate your SEO efforts on pandering to Google, you shouldn’t completely ignore Bing.

Many of the techniques and principles are the same across the search engines but you should also do things like register your website over at Bing’s Webmaster Center Tools.

#2 – You Need to Submit Your Website to Google
This is a myth that has been around as long as Alta Vista.

There are hundreds if not thousands of hosting companies, SEO companies and web designers offering to ‘submit’ your website to all the major search engines – and charge you for the privilege.

The fact is you just don’t need to submit your website to Google or any other search engine. Inclusion in search engines is free and usually automated. Google very often finds and indexes your website as a result of visiting a link contained on another web page.

#3 – You Can ‘SEO’ a Website Just Once
Search engine optimisation is rarely a one-time thing – we understand why people hope it is, since cash, particularly in small businesses, is precious. However, a website’s search engine performance needs regular attention.

This might sound like the plea of a salesman pitching a monthly retainer but the simple fact of the matter is that Google et al tweak their algorithms and search results constantly, not forgetting the fact that your competitors are likely to be investing in improving their websites too.

All of this can have a dramatic impact on your website’s performance in the search results. If you’re not investing in SEO on a regular basis then you’re falling behind.

#4 – You don’t need to worry about SEO
There are some people who will tell you to completely disregard SEO, saying that they’ve never given a fig about the search engines in their life and they’ve done alright.

Granted, some brands, rockstars and superstar bloggers can get away with not bothering. For everyone else however, optimising your website and working towards better search engine visibility is essential. Whilst you shouldn’t do things or make decisions solely on the basis of search engines, you should certainly contemplate them and understand how they work and what they look for because they are a truly astounding source of traffic.

#5 – Your Rankings Don’t Matter
The advent of personalised search results has reduced the importance of rankings somewhat but they aren’t obsolete by any means. They may not give you a 100% accurate picture but they are a fair indication or approximation of where your website ranks for the majority of users.

We understand why this myth came to be, and we accept that any SEO worth their salt should be focusing their attention on more than just rankings these days; overall search visibility, conversion rate and search engine traffic are core success metrics in many’s eyes.

But don’t forget that the lion-share of searchers will leave Google via the first page of results so knowing where your website sits is a very useful indicator indeed.

#6 – An XML Sitemap Will Boost Your Rankings
We imagine this started life as the perfectly legitimate advice that having a sitemap is a good idea from an SEO perspective – it certainly is a best practice.

However, whispers across forums and blogs likely transformed this into the myth that a sitemap would boost your rankings. The suggestion that a sitemap will give any page on your website a boost is pure fiction – search engines use your sitemap to learn about the structure of your site and to increase coverage of your webpages.

#7 – Keyword Domains Trump All Other Tactics

Keyword domains don’t hold the same power as they once did. In fact, the idea is somewhat dated. Image Credit

In case you are wondering, a keyword domain is a domain that includes a keyword you wish to target, for example cheapwidgets.com.

Registering a keyword domain was, at one time, a reasonable SEO strategy (not one that we favoured, but nobody can deny that it worked) however since Matt Cutts announced in 2010 that Google would be looking into why keyword domains rank so well and the search engine’s subsequent ‘tuning down’ of the power of keyword domains, this has become a far less effective strategy.

We will accept that in some markets it will still work but this isn’t going to be the case for very long since in most verticals and particularly on competitive keywords, Google has all but wiped out the keyword domains that didn’t really deserve the rankings they had suggesting they’ve gotten wise to the tactic.

If you’re looking to establish a solid foundation for your website then it is far smarter to opt for a brandable and memorable domain rather than attempting to shoehorn your target keywords into a long, often hyphenated, difficult to remember and spammy looking domain.

To be clear, if you own a keyword domain, it’s not going to count against you, you just need to embark on a proper promotional campaign including link development and social media marketing in order to build the authority and profile of the website.

#8 – Copying a Competitor = A Strategy
There is a widely held belief that firing up OpenSiteExplorer and taking a look under the hood of your competitor’s website constitutes an SEO strategy – it really doesn’t.

Replicating your competitor’s link profile or search strategy is rarely a smart move and may even count against you. This is because a technique or linking method that works for them may not work the same way for you.

There’s nothing wrong with learning from your competitors, as the old saying goes “Learn from the mistakes that other people make” and with the wealth of data available, it is a smart move to understand what your competition is doing and develop your strategy accordingly.

#9 – Meta Data is Worthless
Less important, yes. But worthless? No.

We’ve seen Google ignore meta titles and descriptions when it thinks there is a better one to use but by and large it will take your hint as to what the page is about.

Wouldn’t you much rather your preferred title and description were used rather than what Google can pull from the page itself? Meta data is your chance to convince searchers to clickthrough – it is your platform to engage and standout.

With the launch of Google+, each time a link is published on the social network, a title and description is scraped. If your website doesn’t have any data then Google will pull in whatever it can find, and your link could end up looking pretty ugly.

#10 – You Can Learn SEO by Reading Up
In every industry there are ‘gurus’ and the world of SEO is no different – wannabe experts who’ve got their website ranking for a brand term and suddenly think they’re qualified to teach others “how to get page 1 rankings”.

There are some gurus out there who spend more time theorising, pontificating and regurgitating opinions of others than they do actually SEOing, consequently their knowledge and advice often leaves a little to be desired.

Be careful who you take advice from and try to divide your time 10/90 so for every 10 minutes you spend studying SEO you should spend 90 minutes actually doing it. The best way to learn SEO is to experiment yourself.

That’s not to say that there aren’t some sharp minds out there, in fact there are many SEO blogs out there worth checking out.

With Google’s recent announcement that they will support the rel author attribute, trust and authority will start to play a bigger role in SEO in the future. This should help to increase the visibility of the true experts out there – which will be a good thing for everyone.

#11 – Google Adwords Can Hurt/Help Your Rankings
There is a definite conspiracy theory that advertising via the Google Adwords platform somehow impacts on your organic search rankings. There seems to be just as many people who believe the exact opposite. That fact alone should tell you that there is absolutely no truth to this.

Nevertheless, it is a myth that continues to spread despite the fact that Google has reiterated time and time again that “Google’s advertising programs are entirely independent of the unpaid search results.” (source)

It is understandable why some people believe this to be a fact but in reality having worked on close to 250 campaigns (which included a mix of SEO and PPC), honestly, there is no visible correlation whatsoever between Google Adwords spending and organic rankings.

#12 – Google Will Never Figure Out What I’m Up To

Be very mindful of the footprint you are leaving… Image Credit

Google is very advanced – there are undoubtedly some areas they could improve on – but by and large as each year passes their algorithm gets smarter and smarter in order to deliver better and better results for users.

Find the balance; develop a strategy that gets the results you wa[…]

Jason Taylor is the vice president of platform strategy at Usablenet. Usablenet’s platform powers the mobile sites of 20% of the Fortune 1000, including Estée Lauder, Hilton, Delta, Victoria’s Secret, FedEx, ASOS and others. Follow @Usablenet on Twitter.
Google’s Eric Schmidt recently noted that mobile search is growing much faster than desktop search. As mobile increasingly becomes a primary gateway to the Internet, it is crucial for companies to incorporate forward-thinking SEO practices into their mobile strategies to ensure their mobile sites are easily detected by search engines and found by consumers.
More than 60% of consumers search for brands from mobile devices before purchasing, and another 49% of mobile searchers made a mobile purchase in the past six months. Businesses must view mobile as a significant piece of their overall marketing campaigns that can drive substantial traffic and increase revenue.
Here are some high level SEO strategies that brands can implement into their overall mobile efforts to ensure they are getting maximum visibility.
1. Develop a Device Agnostic ApproachSearch engines incorporate various criteria in mobile browsers to determine page rank. These factors include overall site performance, usability, download speed and screen rendering. A fully optimized mobile site that extends all functionality and key content from a website will rank higher in search results than a website that has simply been reformatted for a smaller screen.
For example, simply transcoding a webpage through the use of a cookie-cutter template will strip it of key content, leading to incomplete pages and decreased overall usability. Difficult navigation and broken pages will result in a lower page rank and a negative user experience that discourages repeat visits.
The type of devices that consumers use to search the mobile web also factors into site ranking. Different mobile web browsers render pages in different ways, which is why it is essential for brands to develop a device agnostic mobile strategy that supports the wide variety of available mobile operating systems.
For example, Staples’ mobile site was developed to support all web-enabled devices. To decrease bounce rate (when a user views only one page on a site, but then leaves), brands’ mobile sites must automatically recognize the consumer’s device as it loads, and render the page accordingly to ensure a view that is best optimized for the user’s particular screen.
2. Leverage Traditional SEO Practices on a New PlatformBrands will ensure that their site stands out in a crowded market by translating traditional web SEO practices to mobile. Common SEO tactics that should be incorporated into all mobile sites include:
Appropriate Keywords in Headlines and Text: Consumers use mobile for more focused and task-oriented searches (i.e. for a specific location or product). This is different from how most people search from a desktop computer. By understanding consumer behavior, brands can anticipate queries and incorporate key search terms into page text, increasing detection from search engines.Relevant Page Titles and Accurate Page Descriptions: Page titles are one of the first factors mobile browsers use to determine where a page will show in results. Similar to traditional SEO, it is important that these titles reflect the terms that people use to search, increasing the likelihood that the site will appear relevant and receive better page rankings.Outbound Links: Despite less real estate associated with mobile screens, incorporating outbound links to relevant sources provides a more complete user experience and associates the mobile site with other trusted brands.Standard Coding: The wide variety of operating systems supported by mobile makes it extremely important for brands to follow valid HTML coding. Browsers parse through HTML code to determine search relevance. Any errors or invalid coding will result in broken pages and a lower ranking. Sites built in accordance to standards will ensure a consistent experience across all devices. 3. Incorporate Linking and Digital NewslettersMore than 20% of email marketing is read from mobile phones, which is why it is crucial for companies to test and support all incoming links from digital newsletters and other promotional materials. But how can brands make sure that their linking practices translate to mobile? In practical terms, these links provide one fully integrated experience while also allowing brands to cast a wider net by creating a connected presence across the mobile web.
Further, effective traffic driving tools such as email newsletters and social media allow consumers to share links faster than ever before. Links that are not tested or properly maintained will lead to a loss of traffic from redirects to the mobile site. Additionally, these links are important for a mobile site because they can be used by all Internet-enabled phones, including those with limited or no JavaScript support.
For example, Staples incorporates multiple links in its digital newsletters that lead consumers to different product pages or special offers on its mobile site. Consumers who click on “Hot Deals” are directed to the Staples homepage, which is different from users who click links for product promotions which lead directly to the specific product pages.
The Future of Mobile SearchThe rapid consumer adoption rate of smartphones, coupled with increasing advancements in mobile technology, means that mobile SEO is a powerful tool to move the needle on mobile traffic. Next-generation coding languages like HTML5 can be incorporated into mobile SEO practices to enhance a mobile site’s usability and performance, resulting in higher page rankings in search engines.
Advancements in location-based search results and integrated real-time social search results will further impact how consumers use mobile search and how browsers position results. In order to increase traffic to mobile pages and drive revenue, it is essential for brands to think strategically about how to leverage common mobile SEO practices in order to increase brand loyalty and maximize traffic.
Disclosure: Staples is a client of the author’s company.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Palto
More About: business, MARKETING, Mobile 2.0, mobile search, mobile seo, Search, SEO
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There are tons of sites out there that help you build a website, but most of them are built for novices or, on the other end, developers. Many of them rely on template-systems: The user is given a couple stock molds to choose from — you can change a few colors, add a logo, and that’s about it. For example, those with Macs might be familiar with iWeb, which allows you to use a few pre-existing templates to publish your own website. These services are great; they’ve made building websites so simple your grandmother probably has one.

Then, going a step further for those with loftier ambitions, there are Content Management Systems (CMSes), which are designed to make creating and editing HTML content easier on publishers and developers. WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal, are a few well-known examples used by large publishers. But, if I’m using Drupal as an example (though I’m a big fan), designers are often forced to work with ready-made blocks of HTML and, generally speaking, designers want to be crafting their own HTML and CSS, which is possible in Drupal, but not always easy.

So, this is where Webpop enters the picture. The creative Spanish startup has built a CMS that it believes will solve a long-existing problem: How to put website creation back in the hands of designers without requiring lots of web development, while giving designers the tools they need to build powerful but flexible dynamic sites that prioritize good design over the pre-fab template model.

With Webpop, you get full control over HTML and CSS — there are no pre-defined blocks of HTML, nor any drag and drop interfaces requiring you to go through lots of clicks to get the result you require. Just good ol’ plain and simple HTML and a few custom tags and you’ll be able to make your content dynamic. For a deep dive of what Webpop means by “full control”, check out their blog entry here.

So, basically, Webpop’s cloud platform (like Scoble, it’s Rackspace-hosted) makes it easy for any web designer to take full control over both the design and content, with the result being a beautifully designed, robust website that stays true to the designer’s vision. The startup was conceived by co-founders Daniel Villegas, Julio Gonzalez Cotorruelo, who previously built Domestika (the largest CMS platform in the European market, with more than 10,000 SMB customers), and Mathias Biilmann. Following the success of the European platform, the team has set their eyes on the U.S., hoping to bring highly scalable, cloud CMS to the states.

Many CMSes conflate the distinction and admin privileges between user and designer, often leading to a situation in which designers suffer because things are too restricted and difficult to tinker with, while too advanced and byzantine for the average end user. So, Webpop is completely dividing the roles of the designer and the end user by providing an interface optimized to resist limitations to flexibility for the designer while providing the simplest possible interface for the end user. Overlays on the website itself will show clients shortcuts, what can be edited and quickly changed, and so on. The interface looks fairly similar to Drupal. Check it out here.

Webpop also integrates an active SEO system that allows you to design an SEO strategy for your client and measure your success. You can find the best keywords to drive traffic to your site, monitor search engine rankings, and track the progress of link building campaigns. The built-in reporting system makes it easy to share the results with your client.

Webpop is, as mentioned, hosted in the Rackspace Cloud, and takes care of caching contents, monitoring system performance, and adding new servers dynamically as needed. It also handles updates transparently, so you won’t have to worry about self-hosted WordPress installs getting a virus or anything like that.

Webpop offers a 15-day free trial, with pricing plans varying according to how you will use the platform. Personal use, which offers 5 projects and 1 GB of storage is priced at $15 a month, while “freelance”, which allows 10 projects, 5 clients and collaborators, and 5 GB of storage, is priced at $50 a month. Large-scale “Agency” pricing plans very from $100 a month to $300 a month, depending on your requirements.

With many of the CMSes out there already operating as well-established entities, Webpop has its work cut out. But, I think anyone who uses WordPress or Drupal, while appreciating the many benefits these services offer, will be more than willing to admit that there’s plenty of room for improvements. While Webpop is by no means perfect, it’s nice to see a CMS that gives some of the power back to designers while making it easy for we noobs.

To learn more, check it out for yourself.

CrunchBase InformationWebpopInformation provided by CrunchBase

Filed under: Internet
If you run a website and you care about getting your site listed in relevant search results, then you may want to check out the brand new Bing Webmaster Tools.

When Microsoft first launched Bing, they started inviting feedback from web site administrators and SEO specialists about what they thought of Bing's initial Webmaster Tools. Microsoft reports that users consistently asked for more transparency regarding how Bing is indexing sites, more control over a site's content in the Bing index itself, and to have access to more information and analytics that they could use to optimize their sites.

With this feedback in mind, Microsoft started working on a new version of the Webmaster Tools (written completely from scratch) that would accommodate the features the Web administrators had asked for. The new version of the Webmaster Tools breaks down into three areas: crawl, index, and traffic.
New controls allow you to customize how your site is crawled and indexed, submit specific URLs to be explicitly indexed or blocked in the search results, and view detailed information about how Bing has indexed your site (down to an individual page level of granularity). If you're really interested in the long term analytics data (on crawling, indexing, and site traffic) that is collected by Bing, six months of the data is viewable in Silverlight driven rich charts.

If you've already been using the previous Bing Webmaster Tools, then your account is ready to go, and it doesn't need any manual changes on your part. If you aren't already a user, signing up is free and fairly painless. Not surprisingly, you'll need to use your Microsoft Live account, enter some details about your site, and then either upload an xml file onto your Web server or add a line of code with your unique ID to your HTML headers.

Microsoft promises that more features are in the works and will be showing up in the next several months. They are also still interested in your feedback.Bing reboots webmaster and SEO tools originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Bing - Microsoft - Bing Webmaster Tool - Google Webmaster Tools - Search engine optimization

From an SEO perspective there's no point in displaying the exact same content in every single sidebar on your WordPress site. A great piece of snippet offers a great solution on a very dynamic single post sidebar. Just to be clear, this snippet only works if you use just use one category per post for your posts.

PLAIN TEXT
PHP:

<?php global $post;

    $categories = get_the_category();

    foreach ($categories as $category) :?>

    <h4>More posts from this category</h4>

        <ul>

        <?php $posts = get_posts('numberposts=7&category='. $category->term_id);

        foreach($posts as $post) : ?>

            <li><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></li>

        <?php endforeach; ?>

            <li><strong><a href="<?php echo get_category_link($category->term_id);?>" title="See all posts in the category <?php echo $category->name; ?>">Archive for '<?php echo $category->name; ?>' Category &raquo;</a></strong></li>

    <?php endforeach; ?>

        </ul>

As you can see this snippet does two things. First, it displays the seven latest posts of the category used for the post you're currently reading. Secondly, it shows a link to the category archive used. A great way to get your readers to stay longer on your blog. While you're at it, consider styling those category views using WordPress category templates.

You need these two too
If your theme currently doesn't have a separate single post sidebar you should have a look at the Widget Logic plugin. It allows you to specify which widget should be displayed on which view. Also, you will need plugin that will allow you to use php inside a widget like Exec PHP.

I was considering myself strong on social media and marketing field, but then I gave a try to do my own research to find great blogs specialised just in this topic. Findings were amazing and I understood I have SOOO much to learn and there is so much great information available out there!

Learn how to use social media sites more effectively, think about SEO and how to monetize your site a lot better! Maybe you will find courage and right advice how to start new project and earn online? Keep reading those blogs, put their techniques in action and I am sure your new or existing project will become a lot more successful!!

1. SocialMediaExaminer
Social Media Examiner is a free online magazine designed to help businesses discover how to best use social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to find leads, increase sales and generate more brand awareness.

2. Soshable | Social Media Blog
Great site sharing all the latest news and tips in social media community.

3. Chris Brogan
Chris Brogan is President of New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency, and home of the Inbound Marketing Summit conferences and Inbound Marketing Bootcamp educational events.

He works with large and mid-sized companies to improve online business communications like marketing and PR through the use of social software, community platforms, and other emerging web and mobile technologies. For more information on this, please contact Chris directly.

4. SocialMediaToday
Social Media Today LLC helps global organizations create purpose-built B2B social communities designed to achieve specific, measurable corporate goals by engaging exactly the customers and prospects you most want to reach.

5. Mashable – Social Media Section
I think Mashable doesn’t require any introduction, they cover everything happening in social news section. Check out their social media section to get only tips and latest buzz there.

6. ViperChill
Very inspiring story and blog of Glen – “one of the few people who makes a living online without doing it by teaching you how to make a living online. Because of that, you’ll find no ads and no affiliate links here. It’s all about the content and helping you as much as possible. As it should be.”

Sounds good? Articles are very exciting and great discovery for me!

7. TwiTip
TwiTip is about capturing some of the lessons that I and others have been learning about Twitter and how to use it more effectively. It covers Twitter Tips of all varieties including Writing for Twitter, Branding, Growing a Following, Corporate Tweeting and a lot more.

Any project Darren Rowles puts his mind in is a huge success and this is not an exception.



8. Dosh Dosh
Dosh Dosh is a blog offering internet marketing and blogging tips, alongside social media strategies. Best consumed by bloggers, entrepreneurs, web publishers, marketers, freelancers and small business owners. Only downside – this blog had last post on December 14th, 2009.

9. BrianSolis
Brian Solis is Principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning New Media marketing and branding agency in Silicon Valley. Solis is globally recognized for his views and insights on the convergence of PR, Traditional Media and Social Media. Considered one of the original thought leaders who paved the way for Social Media and PR 2.0, Solis is co-founder of the Social Media Club and is an original member of the Media 2.0 Workgroup.

BrianSolis.com is among the top 1.5% of all blogs tracked by Technorati and is ranked as one of the leading voices in the Ad Age Power 150 index of worldwide marketing bloggers. Solis is also the publisher of bub.blicio.us, a popular lifestyle and technology blog,  and is also a contributor to TechCrunch, BrandWeek, and Mashable.

10. Social Media Explorer
Social Media Explorer is the online home and blog of Social Media Explorer LLC, which is also a consulting company. You will find a lot of valuable social media and online marketing related information here.

11. ConvinceAndConvert
The Convince & Convert blog is recognized as one of the best marketing blogs in the world by AdAge, Junta42, Alltop, Social Media Today, Scribnia, and a host of other arbiters of that sort of thing. Jay Baer has a huge experience working in this field, he definitely has much to say!





12. Altitude Branding
Amber Naslund is a social media and marketing practitioner, and the Director of Community for Radian6 social media monitoring. There, she’s responsible for client engagement, community building, and helping companies build sound strategies for social media listening, measurement, and engagement.

She’s spent the last 15 years or so working with businesses of all sizes, from the Fortune 50 to startups and local nonprofits, and has enjoyed a diverse career as a fundraiser, client services professional, corporate marketing director, and an entrepreneur.

13. Copyblogger
Copyblogger was founded in January of 2006 by Brian Clark. Brian is a writer/producer, entrepreneur, and recovering attorney.

Brian built three successful offline businesses using online marketing techniques before switching to a producer model that involves building, monetizing, and occasionally selling online media properties.

Copyblogger has over 100,000 subscribers and more than 240,000 unique monthly site visitors.

14. Kikolani
Kikolani is about the art of blogging – blogging tips, social networking strategies, and other useful information to help bloggers become more successful in blogging. Kristii is really one very, very friendly soul and I have seen her doing great on social networking, she is my friend as well!

15. The Future Buzz
The Future Buzz is a blog about web marketing/PR strategies, spreading buzz in the blogosphere and building long-term visibility for your brand, business, and art on the web. Bloggers, marketers, freelance writers, entrepreneurs, artists, small business owners and public relations professionals will all benefit from the content here.

16. Web Ink Now
Web Ink Now is written by David Meerman Scott, author of BusinessWeek bestseller “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” which is published in 24 languages.

He writes about how marketing and PR have changed because of the Web. Many of his posts include information on how to use social media, online video, news releases, blogs, podcasts, viral marketing and online media to reach your buyers directly.

17. Scott Monty
Scott is a marketing and communications professional focused on the digital industry — specifically on social media. His career spans a number of industries such as healthcare, pharma, biotech, travel, automotive, tech, and communications, and includes a wide range of clients, from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies.

18. SocialMedia.biz

19. Marketing Profs
It’s a rich and trusted resource that offers actionable know-how to help you market your products and services both smarter and better. Entrepreneurs, small-business owners and marketers in the world’s largest corporations make up its 360,000 subscribers, making it the largest in its category.

Through the MarketingProfs Web site, newsletters, conferences, seminars, forums and so on… they will help you navigate your way to market your business and keep you informed of the newest and best tools.

20. Collective Thoughts
Their team seems to be professional, articles very interesting and valuable, definitely worth subscribing and reading!



21. BritoPian
Michael considers himself a student of social media and community building. He has worked for major brands in Silicon Valley (HP, Yahoo! and Intel) and was instrumental in driving social media programs and campaigns emphasizing authenticity and long-term relationship building.

22. DaveFleet
DaveFleet.com is about communications, public relations, marketing and social media, and the areas where those topics intersect.

23. Socialnomics
Socialnomics(TM) is a blog designed to cover the latest trends in social media.  It primarily focuses on covering the latest news on social media and what it means for users and businesses, often taking irreverent view points of a popular topic.

24. Search Engine Journal
Search Engine Journal, established in 2003, is a 6-year-old publication of Search & Social Media, LLC, which specializes in a community approach to the reporting of search engine news & the sharing of Search Engine Marketing knowledge & tactics.

25. Networlding
Melissa is President of Networlding, a consulting, training and coaching organization specializing in helping individuals and organizations harness the power of social networks to leverage brand.

26. Conversation Agent
Conversation Agent is ranked among the top 25 marketing blogs in the world on AdAge Power150. Handpicked by Fast Company as Expert blogger, Valeria is on the Advisory Board of SmartBrief on Social Media and a co-author of The Age of Conversation, a groundbreaking eBook collaboration by 103 of today’s top marketing writers.

27. Techipedia
Tamar Weinberg is a freelance writer and author of The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web (O’Reilly, July 2009) who specializes in social media consulting and strategy, blogger outreach, reputation management, and search engine marketing (SEO, link building, and Pay Per Click Marketing).

28. Danny Brown
This blog talks about everything from social media, PR and marketing to making the most of the various online tools and communities. It’s aimed at everyone.





29. Danzarrella
Dan Zarrella is an award-winning social, search, and viral marketing scientist and author of the O’Reilly Media book “The Social Media Marketing Book“. He has a background in web development and combines his programming capabilities with a passion for social marketing to study social media behavior from a data-backed position and teach marketers scientifically grounded best practi[…]

Inside the sorcery of SEO

SEO ranking factors have long been a popular and highly debated topic in blog posts, at conferences and in forum conversations. But if you’ve been in the SEO game for some time, you may roll your eyes when you see a new post about ranking factors. Why? Because the sorcerous world of SEO that was once brimming with tests, algorithm-chasing, controversy; a frenzy of webmaster vs. search engine push and pull; and techniques and ranking factors changing on what seemed like almost a weekly basis, has simmered down to a slow rolling boil, if that.

But this is good news, since our once moving target is now much easier to see. In this article, we’ll look at today’s top five ranking criteria, and simmer it down to the one most important factor that envelops most of them: Buzz.

Let’s take a look…

SEOmoz composes a regular Ranking Factors publication that compiles the top ranking factors based on input from experts in the industry. Here are the top five for 2009:

Keyword-focused anchor text from external links
External link popularity (quantity/quality of external links)
Diversity of link sources (links from many unique root domains)
Keyword use anywhere in the title tag
Trustworthiness of the domain, based on link distance from trusted domains

Hitting the links
All but one of the top five ranking factors is related to links. Ask any SEO, and he or she will tell you emphatically that inlinks are the essential factor to ranking well.

More specifically, what we’re looking at are several qualities of those inlinks: optimized anchor text (meaning the site/page that points to you should have keywords related to your page in the link), quantity of inlinks (the extent to which they come from high-ranking pages relevant to yours), diversity and links from trusted domains.

If you’re wondering how to get all of these quality, relevant, trusted links, there’s a hard way and an easy way. The hard way is to manually go out and start a link-building campaign for your site, looking for places where you can get links from bloggers, in directories and other sites around the web. If your site is newly launched, link-building can help you attain visibility, as well as potentially boost search rankings, but you need to be very careful where your links come from, since many sites that allow link lists might be considered spam or are blacklisted. It can be a very tricky practice.

So let’s talk about the easy way, which is not only easier for you, but it’s also the way that the search engines say they prefer. The natural way for a site to gain link popularity is for the site itself to have buzz. By buzz, I mean people are visiting, sharing, linking to, bookmarking, emailing and generally excited about your site in a way that can be tracked digitally, especially through links. A great site will do this naturally. Sites like Wikipedia, IMDB and others launched and were wildly popular before their on-page SEO was completely implemented. They gained gobs of links from relevant pages and dominated search results because their sites had buzz. Buzz is inlink gold.

Next steps
So how do you get this “buzz”? Start with strategy. When you’re thinking about creating a site or optimizing a site, look into what is hot in your industry. Do some keyword research, check out your competitors, and get a good feeling for what your target audience wants.

Then, look at three things:

How can I build what my target audience wants into my site?
How can I make it better/cooler/more relevant than my competitors? (If they’ve got a similar offering)
How can I make this content as sharable as possible? (Providing URLs to copy, share links, email to friends, grabbable widget codes, etc.)

By doing these things, you’re not only implementing natural link-building assets into your site, you’re also providing your visitors with tools to share your content and create more overall visibility for your brand. A naturally buzz-worthy product will have you on your way to conquering many of the top ranking factors, without having to try to make them happen by force.

Have ideas for how you can naturally build buzz around a site? Have questions that aren’t answered here? Feel free to share them in the comments, and stay tuned for more SEO posts each week here on the blog.

—Laura Lippay

Visit Laura Lippay at Lip Service. See also her previous post, “12 Stellar SEO tools.”

(Image courtesy garethjmsaunders via Flickr, CC 2.0)

Well it is Search Engine Strategies (SES) in London this week, so I thought I had better be writing something about search engine optimisation.  This year's SES has been taken over by web analytics guys (or so it would seem from the home page).  I'm a bit surprised that is has taken this long to get so many Analytics guys there, because analytics should be the basics of your SEO efforts.  So today I thought that I'd blog about something that I have been wittering on about at work for ages (although without actually getting any where with).  That is we're going to talk about keyword footprints.Do you know what they say about the size of a dino's footprint?What is a keyword footprint?A keyword footprint is a series of keywords that you want to make sure that your site is optimised for.  These should be a series of phrases that users will type into search engines, which you are likely to be able to rank for (given some work - see below) and that will provide value to your website (whatever that may be).Really what we are looking for here are a bunch of keywords that you'd really like to (or already do) rank for that give you lots of money through sales (or whatever your other conversion points are).  High volume and high value should be the things that you think about.My recommendation on the size of the footprint is that it should be as big as you think you are able to cope with.  As soon as you make it so large you are not actively doing anything with some of the keywords it suggests that you should rationalise it to something more manageable.How do you build your keyword footprint?My recommendation for this is to draw on as many sources as you possibly can:Use your own keywords that currently drive traffic to your site.  You're probably already monitoring these anyway, so it should be something that you can easily pick up out of your web analytics toolUse the keywords that users type into your internal search engine.  These are usually not quite the same as those that they type into Google to get to you, so they'll give some variations on the themeUse the titles of the most visited content on your site.  If you are a typical content site then this should be relatively easy to pull from your Analytics tool (although you may need to do some mapping if your titles and urls don't match each other)Use Hitwise to find out what your competitors are doing.  Find out who your competitors are (either through Hitwise as I've discussed) and then turn them into a custom category (either including or not including your own site, depending on how large it is).I reckon if you did this you could come up with about 100 phrases for each of the four groups listed above.  That is going to create a very large list, but you are going to have a lot of cross over.  My recommendation is to file that list down to what are going to be a manageable group of search terms.  My recommendation is to do this in a group by inspection (rather than running through a tool).  It will allow you to notice duplication of terms and allow you to work out where you are likely to have misinterpretations (eg "Sole Trader" always amuses me slightly).  Then work out what the volume of searches for each of those search terms is.You can do this in a number of ways.  Firstly you could use Hitwise's search tools to find out which are the high volume terms.  This is useful because it will allow you to see all the subsidiaries of that term and group them together.  The next option is to use Google's own tools in this process.  You can look in Google Trends for keywords to see how often they have been searched for and how they compare to other keywords.What do you do with your keyword footprint?You optimise the hell out of it.  Seriously.  What do you mean you don't know what that means?  Well let's go back to the basics.  You have to optimise your site technically first.  Go read this post on technical search engine optimisation.  You know I said that you should you should have a title, meta description and meta keywords (although these are of less value)?  Well suddenly you've just created a load of keywords that you can put into those fields.  Makes it suddenly seem very simple doesn't it?Put your keywords in your headers: Title tags, meta description, etcPut your keywords in your content: If there already - make sure they are titles, make sure they are bold, make sure they are used in contextCreate content that links to those pages with those keywords in the anchor textThen there is the none technical stuff.  This is the hard bit.  This is the bit where you have to ask other people for links.  But fortunately you are a step ahead, because you created a custom category earlier on in Hitwise, you should be able to find those sites much more effectively.Use Hitwise to find out which sites are driving traffic for your search terms and ask them for linksUse Google/Yahoo!/Bing/Whichever other search engine to find out which sites appear top for your search terms and ask them for linksThis process is hard.  People don't want to give you links.  Sometimes you might have to find ways of getting them to give you links that may be unusual ("I'll give you one if you give me one").  Sometimes they just won't do it.  If your content is good though, then people will be more likely to want to link to you.The next step is to get on out there and start commenting on blogs.  Funnily enough blogs are written by the same groups of people who own websites.  It's true.  The more you can get into the blogging community the better it can be.  I like using Technorati and Google blogs to find blogs that are on a particular subject and then I read them.  If they have anything that my content will enhance, I will leave a comment on their blog telling them so.  Usually I'll be explicit ("Disclaimer: I write www.whencanistop.com, so this may be a bit biased, but I've written a post on so and so and thought that it added weight to your argument").  These links probably won't add value directly, but they should give the writer of the blog more of a sighting of your blog and then they are more likely to link to it next time.Create new content around those keywords.  This is something that I cannot stress enough.  If you don't have content relating to those keywords then either drop them or create some content.  Build it into your content creation plan.  Tell your writers/editors to put them as frequently as possible into their content.  Make sure you have the best content so that if someone searched for your terms they would be glad that they found you. This is all user centric - there is no point shoe horning terms into places that the user won't get value out of.Measure the effect of your keyword footprintEven if you are a genius your initial list is going to only be average at best.  What you need to do is a continuous process of measuring the effect of your optimisation and then updating your footprint accordingly.  I've mentioned how you should measure your SEO before, and I see no reason to stop doing this.  However for your keyword footprint I would go a couple of steps further:Measure your position in the search engine results page (SERPs) over time for your keywords.  You can't do this manually, it could take forever so I suggest using an automated toolMeasure your conversions from your keyword footprint.  If I tell you only one thing today - this would be it.  You need to show that you are adding value through the work that you are doing. Measuring the money that you are making (or the additional conversions) will show that this has had the desired effect.Some of your keywords that you have chosen for your keyword footprint will not convert well.  Don't forget that optimising for search means that you need to optimise your landing pages for conversion too.  If the keyword doesn't perform well in terms of conversion you can think about how you can alter the landing page to improve this.  Don't forget that you could do this through creating custom reports in whichever tool it is that you so happen to use.If you think that you are spending a lot of time optimising for a phrase but aren't getting any incremental increases in conversion, then it may be time to drop that keyword from the list and start with others instead.  Remember though, you don't want to un-optimise for those keywords, you just want to move your effort elsewhere.  This may mean that you move to a sub category of your key phrase (eg instead of having "Car Insurance" you move to "cheap car insurance"), or it may mean that you move on to something completely different from your earlier list.So in summary - your keyword footprints are a short list of keywords you specifically want to optimise for.  They are the keywords that are going to provide you with the most value over time (not just volume).  And the amount of effort you put in should be less than the increase in value you get out (otherwise you wouldn't have an ROI).

WordPress out of the box comes SEO friendly, however there are many tweaks you can make to further optimize it for search engines.   We recently covered 10 important tips to optimize wordpress for search engines, however this post will go more in-depth and offering further optimization tips.

Here are a number of  advanced tweaks and WordPress plugins you can install to help with URL structuring, search engine crawling, handling duplicate content, optimizing title and meta tags, images and internal linking.

Setting Up the Permalink Structure

In WordPress:  Settings >> Permalinks

WordPress gives you a number of ways you can structure your post urls.  By default WordPress sets the urls like www.domain.com/?p=123. This is obviously not optimal because you are not gaining the benefits of having keywords in the url.

They also have options to set the urls organized by year/month/date, for example www.domain.com/2010/02/07/sample-post/. This is getting better, because you are able to add a unique post name in the url, however the post is four directories deep which can cause potential crawling issues.

The most effective way to optimize your urls is by using the custom permalink structure.  Choose “Custom Structure” and enter “/%postname%/ “.  By setting this custom structure your urls will look like www.domain.com/post-name/.  This puts your post directly off the root level and uses keywords based on your post title.

Setting Up non-www to www Redirect

In WordPress:  Settings >> General

The newer versions of WordPress make this extremely easy to do.  Simply change the Blog Address (url) to http://www.domain.com. WordPress will automatically update your htaccess file to redirect the non-www version to the www version.  If you have an older version of WordPress you will have to copy and paste the code provided into your htaccess file.  However I would upgrade to the latest version of WordPress before I manually add it.

Search engines treat the www and non-www version of a page as two different pages.  If not corrected, this can cause your blog to have hundreds or thousands of duplicate pages.  By fixing this you are minimizing potential duplicate content issues. 

Optimize Post Titles

In WordPress:  Settings >> All in One SEO Pack

By default WordPress creates page titles like “Blog Title >> Blog Archive >> Post Name”. This is ok, but not optimal.  Search engines will place more importance on the keywords at the beginning of the title tag so we will want to modify the tags so that the post name is at the beginning of the post and not the end.

To do this, make sure you install All in One SEO Pack.  This plugin will automatically set up your title and meta description tags the proper way.  Your page titles will now look like “Post Title | Blog Title“.  You will have the option to override a specific post title within the post if you would like.  Make sure you create a unique description after you have written your post.  All in One SEO Pack will not create meta descriptions, so when creating a post there is a section for adding unique titles and descriptions.

Block Certain File Directories in Robots.txt

There are certain directories that you should block from search engines.  Check out the Robots.txt guide I wrote that will show you exactly which directories you should block.

This will help with controlling which content you want search engines to crawl and not crawl.  There are many directories and files that are unnecessary for the crawlers to spider.  This will help the crawlers find the content you want spidered faster.

Install SEO Plugins

All in One SEO Pack

This SEO plugin is probably the best and most robust plugin for optimizing your blog for search engines.  This plugin will automatically optimize your blog category and post url structure, auto generate title tags, avoid duplicate content issue by restricting search engines from accessing pages that have duplicate content on them, and canonical tag integration.

Google XML Sitemap Generator

This plugin will automatically generate a XML sitemap of your wordpress blog that is formatted for Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Ask.  Your sitemap will be sent to all of the search engines every time the plugin rebuilds your XML sitemap.  Having this plugin, ensures that the search engines are aware of all of your posts and will help with the overall crawling of your blog.

Google Analyticator

This plugin will add your Google Analytics tracking script to every page on your blog.  There are also other options and features which give you more accurate tracking.

Disable Admin Tracking
Enable Event Tracking
Track Outbound Link Clicks
Track Downloads (PDF, CSV, DOC)
Google Adsense Integration
Ability to Modify Tracking Script

SEO Smart Links

Interior linking will help with the overall crawling of your website, along with keeping readers engaged in your content.  You can also leverage your content by using keyword-rich anchor text and linking to other content within your blog.  This plugin does just that.  It will take keyword and phrases within your post and comments and link them to corresponding posts on your site.  This can significantly cut down on having to manually search for relevant posts on your site that you can link to within a post.

SEO Friendly Images

SEO Friendly Images will automatically optimize all of your images by adding alt and title attributes.  If you do not have an alt or title attribute for your images, it will add one for you.

W3 Total Cache

Load time is becoming an important factor in search engine algorithms.  Not to mention a page that loads fast makes a visitor much happier and is more likely to stay on your site longer.  W3 Total Cache will help speed up the page load times by caching pages, removing white space and comments, and compressing css and js files.  Here are a few reasons why this plugin boasts it’s at least a 10x increase in site performance.

Enable Page Caching
Enable Minify
Enable Database Caching

More SEO Quick Tips for Wordpress

Allow commenting for user generated comment and higher engagement
Use good categorization for usability
Add compelling graphics and images in your posts
Ask questions at the end of your posts to encourage comments
Syndicate your content to your Twitter and Facebook profiles
Social bookmark your best content

Share your tips and tricks with us via comments section.

Related posts:How To Create Your Permalink Structure More User And SEO-friendly
10 Important Tips to Optimize Wordpress for Search Engines
Wordpress Plugins : 17 Handy Toolbars For Your Blog
20 New, Useful And Promising Wordpress Plugins
110+ Massive Wordpress Video Tutorial Collection

The real estate bubble popped. Will the link bubble be next?

The real estate bubble was the product of greed, low interest rates, loose lending policies and derivatives. Nearly anyone could get a house and people bought into the idea that real estate would always be a good investment. The result of this irrational exuberance? Homes were valued far more then they were worth.

The Link Bubble

Are links that different than real estate?

Links have traditionally been a reliable sign of trust and authority because they were given out judiciously, a lot like mortgages. For a long time link policies were tight. You needed references and documentation before you earned that link.

In addition, links weren’t looked upon as an investment tool. The concept that links influenced SEO hadn’t taken hold. The motivation behind links was relatively pure and that meant Google and others could rely on them as an accurate signal of quality.

Links or Content?

Many have recently bemoaned the death of hand crafted content and the rise of content farms as a threat to search quality. But is content really the problem?

Content has little innate value from a search perspective. Yes, search engines glean the content topic based on the text. It’s like knowing the street address of a house. You know where it is and, probably, a bit about the neighborhood. But it doesn’t tell you about the size, style or quality of the home.

Long tail searches are akin to searching for a house by street address. So, content without links may sometimes produce results. But the vast majority of searches will require more information. That’s where links come in.

McDonald’s Content

Lets switch analogies for a moment. Some have called Demand Media the McDonald’s of content. There’s a bit of brilliance in that comparison, but not in the way most think.

Both McDonald’s and Demand Media crank out product that many would argue is mediocre. Offline, McDonald’s buys the best real estate and uses low prices, brand equity and marketing to ensure diners select them over competitors.

Online, Google holds the prime real estate. But that real estate can’t be outright purchased. And in the absence of price, we’re left with brand equity and marketing. Online, brand equity translates into trust and authority. And links are the marketing that help build and maintain that brand equity.

Demand Media has brands (their words) that give it automatic trust and authority. Publish something on eHow and it automatically inherits the domain’s trust and authority, built on over 11 million backlinks.

Writers for Demand Media are provided revenue share opportunities on their articles. Here’s one of the tips they give to writers to boost traffic to their articles.

2) Link to your article from other websites.

Link from your own website or blog, from a message board or forum, from your social networking profile on MySpace or Facebook and more. The more high quality links to your article there are on the web, the more highly a search engine will rank it.

Demand Media combines the installed brand equity of multiple sites (which happen to be cross-linked) with an incentive to contributors to generate additional links. The content doesn’t have to be great when links secure premium online real estate.

There might be something better down the road, but McDonald’s is always right there at the corner.

Link Inflation

The last few years have produced major changes surrounding links. Linkbuilding is now a common term and strategy. A number of notable SEO firms tout links as the way to achieve success.

Linkbuilding firms sprung up. Linkbulding software of various shades of gray were launched. Paid links of various flavors flourished. Social bookmarking and networking accelerated link inflation. And new business models like Demand Media sprung up to take advantage of the link economy, creating a collection of sites and implementing incentives that result in something that resembles derivatives.

Link policies went from tight to loose and people got greedy. Anyone can get links these days. So what’s the natural result of this link activity?

Link Recession

The value of links is inflated and at some point the system will correct. The algorithm will change to address the abuse of links. Unlike The Federal Reserve, Google probably isn’t looking for a soft landing, nor are they going to extend a bailout.

Some links will continue to matter. Links that are in the right neighborhood. The ones with tree lined streets, good schools and low crime. But will links from cookie cutter planned communities still be valuable? Strong links will mean more because they’ll hold their value, while many more links will be neutralized.

I’m no Nouriel Roubini, but I do believe that a major link correction is coming in 2010. Google must address the link bubble to make search results better.

Share and Tell:

In past SEM 101 articles, we've talked about the importance of inbound links to successful ranking (see "Links: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" - Part 1 and Part 2). We've already discussed many issues surrounding them, but we haven't done a dedicated post on how to be successful at link building from a search engine's perspective. Let's finally address that omission here and now.

What is the point of building links?

Your website is your self-representation on the Web. It's a major asset to your business, often simultaneously serving as your online business card, an introductory company brochure, detailed sales literature, supporting documentation, and a point of sales distribution point for your products and/or services. It's also your place to demonstrate your expertise in your specialized field of interest. If your website offers something of worth, valuable to web users interested in that topic, then it behooves you to let the world know about it. Consider the effort your contribution to the betterment of humanity (or at least a chance to make a few conversions!).

Link building is a very important form of self-promotion on the Web. You contact webmasters of other, related websites and let them know your site exists. If the value that you have worked so hard to instill in your site is evident to them, they will assist their own customers by linking back to your site. That, my friend, is the essence of link building.

Think of link building as your chance to build your reputation on the Web. As your website is likely one of your business' most valuable assets, consider link building to be a primary business-building exercise. Just don't make the mistake of believing it will result in instant gratification. Successful link building efforts require a long-term commitment, not an overnight or turnkey solution. You need to continually invest in link building efforts with creativity and time. Good things come to those who wait (and work smartly!).

Bing's policy on link building

Bing's position on link building is straightforward - we are less concerned about the link building techniques used than we are about the intentions behind the effort. That said, techniques used are often quite revealing of intent. Allow me to explain.

Bing (as well as other search engines) places an extremely high priority on helping searchers find relevant and useful content through search. This is why we regularly say that search engine optimization (SEO) techniques oriented toward helping users are ultimately more effective than doing SEO specifically for search engine crawlers (aka bots).

The webmasters who create end user value within their websites, based on the needs of people, are the ones who will see their page rank improve. So where does that value come from? Content. Good, original, text-based content.

How do I get valuable inbound links?

Make no mistake: getting legitimate and highly valuable, inbound links is not a couch-potato task. It's hard work. If it were easy to do, everyone would do it and everyone would have the same results - mediocrity. But this is not to say that it is impossibly hard or that successful results are unattainable. Persistence and diligence are extremely important, but so is having something of value, content-wise, to earn those inbound links to your site.

We've said it before, and you'll hear it said again: content is king. Providing high-quality content on your pages is the single most important thing you can do to attract inbound links. If your content is unique and useful to people, your site will naturally attract visitors and, as a result, automatically get good links to your site. By focusing on great content, over time, your site will naturally acquire those coveted inbound links.

But are all inbound links created equal? Not at all. Your goal should be to focus on getting inbound links from relevant, high-quality sites that are authorities in your field.

Site relevance

Relevance is important to end users. If you run a site dedicated to model trains, getting an inbound link from an illicit pharmaceutical goods site is orthogonal to the interests of your customers. Unless the outbound linking page from such a site makes a relevant case for linking to you, this type of unrelated link is of minimal value (and if the intention is determined to be manipulative, may even lead to penalties against your site). Why? Because so many sites today are set up solely to serve as link exchanges, where they have no specific theme to their site (other than seemingly random - and usually paid for - outbound links). As these sites do nothing to advance the cause of the web user looking to find useful information, search engines regard them as junk for end users, and thus as junk links to their linked-to sites.

You see, search engines know everything about the sites linking to your site. We crawl them just as we crawl your site. We see the content they possess and the content you possess. If there is a clear disconnect, the value of that inbound link is significantly diminished, if not completely disregarded.

Authority sites

So what links are valuable? That's pretty easy, isn't it? If relevance is important, the most highly regarded, relevant sites are best of all. Sites that possess great content, that have a history in their space, that have earned tons of relevant, inbound links - basically, the sites who are authorities in their field - are considered authoritative sites. And as authorities, the outbound links they choose to make carry that much more value (you don't get to be an authority in your field by randomly linking out to irrelevant, junk sites). Good SEO practices, a steady history, great content, and other, authoritative inbound links beget authority status. The more relevant, authoritative inbound links you earn for your website, the more of an authority your site becomes in the eyes of search engines. These are the natural results of solid content and smart link building.

Going unnatural

So what does it mean to go unnatural? It means you're trying to fake out the search engines, to try to earn a higher ranking that the quality of your site's content dictates as natural through manipulation of search engine ranking algorithms. This chicanery can range from relatively benign but useless efforts to overly aggressive promotion to outright fraud. And as the major search engine bots are continually crawling the entire Web, we see what is being done, the relationships between linked sites, the changes to links over time, which sites link to one another, and so much more, we account for these cunning behaviors in our indexing values applied to those pages.

Examples of potentially conspiratorial hocus-pocus that might be perceived as unnatural and warrant a closer review by search engine staff include but are not limited to:

The number of inbound links suddenly increases by orders of magnitude in a short period of time
Many inbound links coming from irrelevant blog comments and/or from unrelated sites
Using hidden links in your pages
Receiving inbound links from paid link farms, link exchanges, or known "bad neighborhoods" on the Web
Linking out to known web spam sites

When probable manipulation is detected, a spam rank factor is applied to a site, depending upon the type and severity of the infraction. If the spam rating is high, a site can be penalized with a lowered rank. If the violations are egregious, a site can be temporarily or even permanently purged from the index.

Using the Webmaster Center Backlinks tool

Are you curious to see who is linking to your site and how authoritative Bing considers each site to be? Check out the Bing Webmaster Center tools, specifically the Backlinks tool. (If you haven't yet registered your websites with Webmaster Center, go to About the Bing Webmaster Center tools to learn more.) Once logged in, click the site you wish to review from the Site List page (a webmaster can register multiple sites on one account), then click the Backlinks tool tab. The Page score field associated with each linked page indicates a relative value for that page.

So what can I do to get good, legitimate inbound links?

OK, so you have great content. You built it, and now they will come, right? Well, if you have the patience of Vladimir and Estragon, sure. But sometimes you want to nudge the world a little bit. You want to speed up that process, all the while remaining legitimate in your efforts. You want to actively participate in link building!

I described link building earlier as hard work. But perhaps smart work is a better description. Check out a few of these smart ideas and determine how they apply to your site, your customers, and your industry's niche. Note that all of these ideas are predicated on the assumption that you've already created useful, original, expert content that users will want to read and webmasters of relevant sites will want to link to. That done, let's spread the news! Here's how:

Develop your site as a business brand and be consistent about that branding in your content
Identify relevant industry experts, product reviewers, bloggers, and media people and let them know about your site and its content
Write and publish concise, informative press releases online as developments warrant
Publish expert articles to online article directories
Participate in relevant blogs and forums and refer back to your site's content when applicable (Note that some blogs and forums add the rel="nofollow" attribute to links created in user-generated content (UGC). While creating links to your content in these locations won't automatically create backlinks for search engines, readers who click through and like what they find may create outbound links to your site, and those are good.)
Use social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to connect to industry influencers to establish cont[…]