What is Link Diversity and Why is it Important?

News Flash: Links pointing to your website is good for your rankings!

Now that we got that obvious bit of news out of the way, let me give you some insight to what I've seen google doing lately. For many years, a link was a link. That changed sometime around 2007. No longer are all links created equal. More important, not all types of links are created equal.

If you can get 50,000 spam comment links, do you think those links are just as valuable as 50,000 links from bloggers writing about your website? Absolutely not! There are three reasons why spam comment links aren't as valuable.

1. Plenty O' Spam

I firmly believe that Google has the resources to find spam links and devalue them. Notice that I didn't say "penalize". That is the most common misconception in the SEO community. You won't be penalized for spamming, but your links can be rendered useless by Google's algorithms. Spamming millions of links is easy to find, the reason is because everyone is using the same software and the same search terms (operators like "powered by wordpress" inurl:2011/03 make it easy to find blogs to spam to). If you think it's easy for you to find and spam these sites, how easy do you think it is for Google to find these same sites with 200 spam comments and devalue all outgoing links on the page?

2. Unique footprints

When bloggers (and other non-spam) websites link to you, many are using different scripts to run their websites. You've got hundreds of different content management systems (CMS) that each have a unique footprint. On top of that, most CMS's have themes that can change a footprint even further, or remove it completely. Many sites such as Ezilon are developed from scratch and don't contain any traceable footprints, links from sites without footprints are always ideal!

3. Link diversity

When you use software to spam links, you're getting links from one type of site, whether it's vBulletin, Wordpress, PHPbb, or whatever the latest software spam tool is spamming. With this type of link building your links are extremely easy to find and devalue, they're all coming from the same type of site! If every single one of your links comes from a url with member.php?u=82840, you're spamming vBulletin, plain and simple. Without any type of link diversity, you're links are easy to find and devalue.

What Can You Do?

If you find yourself never breaking the top 10, or getting stuck in the middle of the first page try these few simple fixes to boost your ranking even further.

1. Create Some Diversity

Create links on websites that you're not normally creating links on. Talk to your friends with blogs, network with other bloggers who write about similar but not competitive industries. Twitter is a great place for making contact with other bloggers and eventually trading posts or just asking if they would take a look at your site.

2. Nobody Needs More Spam

Spamming links to your main site isn't going to help boost your rankings. There are millions of the exact same type of link being created each day. It's easy to recognize and devalue, and I guarantee that Google already has algorithms in place to find and devalue your spam links.

3. Hire an Ethical Link Builder

Before hiring a link building, ask what types of links they build. Do they just spam links and hope it helps? Do they have their own websites to test their link building strategies, have they been link building for 8 weeks or 8 years? If they've been around for a long time, it's likely they've learned to adapt to what works.

TL;DR - Build links from multiple types of sites for maximum effectiveness.

Brandon Hopkins is a freelance link builder and recently started a link building service that focuses on building a diverse link profile each and every month.

20 Extremely Useful Freeware Apps For Blogging

Whether you use WordPress, Tumblr or Blogger in order to get the most out of your blog it helps to have some tools by your side.

Even just to manipulate images or upload files, some are downright essential to maintain a functioning blog.

I'd be willing to be bet you use a few of these already but I hope to show you some new FREE software that could potentially make your life easier and your blog even better.

If you need even more helpful tools check out: Over 120 Free Blog and SEO tools for a ridiculous amount of handy resources.

Do Some Spring Cleaning On Your Blog, For SEO Sake

In order to stay current on your SEO knowledge you have to keep an eye on the big G.

Doing so you'll learn some of the latest ways to optimize your blog for Google because after all, it's the one that really counts.

Lately there's been some major changes that may impact your blog and I figured you guys would like to see some of the better resources on the subject.

There is a ton of uproar over the latest update that changed the search algorithm, being tagged as the farmer update.

Aimed at taking action on content farms, which is primarily websites/blogs that only feature shallow or low-quality content.

But what does that really mean? How do I make sure I'm not lumped into those sites?

Basically the thing you want to focus on is make sure your content is original for starters. Copying and pasting just like in school is CHEATING and will obviously get you know where under Google's watchful eye.

If you've done this in the past those old pages will affect your entire site.

I'm not recommending deleting 80% of your posts but if you have a few "half assed" posts that you threw up by just copying and pasting an article, I would suggest you can it.

It's always a smart idea to do this anyway regardless of Google's latest changes. Let's remember who really matters to you, your readers they don't want to see junk content either.

So have a national cleaning day and go through and get rid of some of your worst posts, spring is coming up, maybe that would be a good time to look through and cleanse your blog of junk posts.

Depending on the age of your blog you may get a kick out of seeing how far you've come looking at some of your old posts. You could even learn a few lessons on what not to write about again when you go a bit further and look at that post's traffic.

That's easy to accomplish using analytics such as Google Analytics, it's what I use and it works well with blogs.

Another thing that goes along with being original is do your own research. Coming up with your own findings will ensure your post is yours and yours alone. Then who knows someone might actually link to your posts instead of them collecting dust.

Because there's nothing bloggers love more than new information that's not out there on the blogosphere yet.

One more way to confirm your posts are up to par for the update is quite simply, create useful content. If you can help people out and answer people's questions that's a sure-fire way to clinch Google's attention.

I've barely noticed a decline in my traffic since the update and I it's because I follow some of these simple rules and my entire site is full of these type of posts.

If you look at exactly what Matt Cutt's says the update targets what I've told you is the best strategy to counteract it so your blog can thrive.

Quality is the keyword now more than ever, you may have to change the entire way you blog, or maybe not. Maybe you have to spend more time on your posts, or perhaps do a little bit more digging for your research. The update will for sure give you more stiff competition against the already deemed "high-quality" sites. As it will rank those sites even higher now, the answer to this is make sure the whole of your site has good content. So open up some "Windows" and turn on some music and clean out the basement of your blog this weekend. We all have some junk down there, admit it!

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Lightning Fast Keyword Ideas With Keyword Eye

Usually keywords should come to mind pretty naturally but sometimes you may need some inspiration after your initial brainstorming session fizzles.

Some tools are better than others at getting the word you need.

Others do not provide any information you need to pick a lower competition search terms.

Keyword Eye is a free visual keyword research tool that is essential for PPC, SEO, niche marketing and blogging.

It is free but the first thing you need to do is quickly create an account so you can get going.

From there all you have to do is type in your selected word and you will be presented with a host of great keyword selections in cloud form.

Alternatively you can also see one of those old school pie charts if you're more of a Powerpoint aficionado.

Mousing over each keyword will give you its Google popularity and number of searches per month. This is a very important thing to know when selecting your terms when it comes to search engine optimization.

One thing Keyword Eye does well is it allows you to very quickly spot out some prime candidates using it's cloud view and its color coded competition system.

One thing to keep in mind is that competition doesn't stay stagnant it always changes so use them as a general guide.

Good news Chrome fans Keyword Eye comes in a Chrome Extension that fetches keywords off of any web page you wish.

Below is a short video demonstration I put together.

Increase Your Permalink SEO With SEO Slugs - WP Plugin Must Have

In my last post How To Edit Your Blogger Link Structure Easily I showed how it's possible to edit your Blogger permalink using a simple trick.

I didn't want to leave my WordPress friends out in the cold and it just so happens I ran across SEO Slugs a plugin for WordPress that automatically edits your filename for you.

It edits out all the unnecessary words to help shorten up the link and make it more optimized.

Of course there are other ways to edit your permalink structure in WordPress but this is a pretty good automated solution.

Plug-in Details

The SEO Slugs WordPress plugin removes common words like 'a', 'the', 'in' from post slugs to improve search engine optimization.

For example, when you publish a post with a title like this:

"What You Can Do Immediately For Higher Rankings",

WordPress automatically assigns a long filename to your post, called a post slug:

/what-you-can-do-immediately-for-higher-rankings

SEO Slugs plugin strips common words like "what", "you" or "can" out of your post slug to make it more search engine friendly. With SEO Slugs plugin activated, the slug for our example blog post would look like this:

/immediately-higher-rankings

The slug is generated on saving a post (so you get a chance to look at it before publishing, and change it), or on publish. It won't overwrite an existing slug. You can force a new slug generation by deleting the existing one.

The SEO Slugs WordPress plugin removes common words like 'a', 'the', 'in' from post slugs to improve search engine optimization.

How To Quickly Keep Track of Your Blog Post's Search Rankings

Free Monitor For Google

Keeping tabs on your SEO progress can be tricky. Often you don't have the time to check to see how well your posts are doing in the search engines. You may have a certain keyword your trying to get on the first page of Google with. The big question is "What's the easiest way of checking search engine result positions?"

I think I have found the answer to your question. With some 100% free software called Free Monitor For Google, that will completely take care of your SERP tracking needs.

Here's a short video demonstration I did to show the basic features:

Software Worth the Download

Rarely will you see me recommend software, I prefer the online counterparts. You can see my tools page is chalk full of them. But for being free and incredibly simple to use it meets my standard to take up space on my hard drive. I don't think I'll ever fool around with those online SERP checkers anymore. Not to mention those do not in any way keep track of your progress for you.

It weighs in at 1.45 Mb and is available for Windows 98/2000/XP/Vista
Download Now from CleverStat.com - Web ranking and SEO software

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How do I get on the first page of Google results?

Yesterday I launched a new section of my blog "SEO Frequently Asked Questions" where I will be answering some of the most popular and misunderstood questions concerning search engine optimization.

I will periodically be highlighting some of the more important questions as they are added.

11/8/2010

How do I get on the first page of Google results?

When it comes to getting on the first page, competition plays a major role. It's going to be harder to get on the first page results for "make money online" than it is "cheeses made in new york."

Once you've got the keyword you want to get on the first page with, place that keyword in your blog's title or in a few titles of blog posts.

It helps to have as much content as you can pertaining to that keyword or phrase. One mistake you do not want to make is placing too many of the same keywords on the same page, this is known as keyword stuffing and they will be ignored.

Having a few solid back links on higher page ranked related websites will also go a long way to boosting your SERP.

Be patient - It will take time to achieve getting good search position on a highly competitive keyword but it's not impossible. Just using these simple techniques I got a blog on the first page in 2 months on a competitive keyword.

Related Resources:
SEO Frequently Asked Questions
Other posts filed under SEO.
SEO Compendium: The Very Best Sites to Learn SEO

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SEO Compendium: The Very Best Sites to Learn SEO

One of the most asked questions new bloggers have is "Where can I learn about SEO?", I know it was one of my own questions. With all the information on the internet you want to make sure you're getting the right kind of advice.

Backlinking Boot Camp, Effective Link Building Strategies You Need to Know

Step in line and get ready to learn some link building techniques! Before this article is over you will be link building machines and ready to go out there and make your website proud. Your mission is to gain quality backlinks and increase search engine rankings. Your enemy is all the junk websites that won't get you anywhere! Alright, I will stop yelling at you, but let's get this underway, shall we?

Chrome Extension Must Haves: PageRank Status

PageRank Status by ChromeFans.org
The very best Chrome Extension for tracking Google Page Rank and Alexa Rank. At a glance you can see a websites PR and with a few more clicks quickly check its back links using Yahoo Site Explorer. Another thing I like to use it for is seeing just how many of my pages are indexed with Google, you can do that with a click as well.

From what I've seen PageRank Status is very accurate. Many of the online PR tools you input your domain into do not work most of the time and give out of date or inaccurate information. Another key feature of this extension is it's extremely easy to use. Just go to a website and point and click and your checking out all it's search engine data. If you're looking for an on the fly means of checking out a websites validity or monitoring your own everyday without hassle I strongly recommend this extension.

DOWNLOAD

NOTES:

If you have a Blogspot or Tumblr like blog it's not going to track your website because remember it's tracking "Blogspot.com", all the more reason to step up to the plate and get your own domain.

You have to hover over it to get Alexa data but Google PageRank is always displayed.

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Everything You Need To Know About Meta Tags in the Modern Age

Basics

Meta Tags are a way to add a non-visable text to an HTML document. They were originally used to make web pages easier to find and for search engines to categorize. The internet is essentially a massive database, finding a simple way to discover websites was a necessity. Meta Tags were an invention to attempt to label a website using a short description and a series of identifying keywords.

A new HTML tag was introduced, placed in the <head> element and not readable on the page but parsable by a crawler or viewing the HTML source. This day in age they are of questionable importance and there is a lot of confusion on whether they are needed at all.

The Debate

Nearly every SEO website you visit will have information about meta tags, suggesting it's one of the best ways to optimize your website. On the contrary there is a lot of evidence suggesting you do not need to worry about them as much as they claim. During the "search engine dark ages" when they were first introduced many search engines started to utilize the meta tag. But not since the ancient days of Lycos and Hotbot have they been of very much use.

Mainly the reason meta tags faded from usefulness is they became an unreliable source of information about the website they were trying to index. Predominantly due to keyword stuffing and other such ridiculous efforts to increase traffic. Keyword stuffing is the act of jam packing your website, above all, the meta tags, with as many keywords as you can "stuff" in there. As you can see if every joker has placed iPod and Justin Bieber in their tags and do not have a Bieber fan page or tech blog this can cause a problem.

If you're still not convinced we can ask the all mighty Google. Surely if meta tags were of any importance Google would take advantage of them in some way right? Google admits that they do not use meta tags to judge page rank. Why? Essentially for the reasons mentioned above. Long ago, websites were only judged on content. That is, only a web site's text even meta tags were looked at and not other various off page formulas such as quality incoming links did not come into play. But this does not mean you need to phase them out all together.

Meta tags do have their use even at Google. The description tag is used to display search result information about your site in the form of a "snippet". But it has no bearing on your page rank, it is simply used for descriptive purposes, go figure.

Google isn't the only fish in the pond of course, there are many other major SE's. Most of which will use meta tags in some way but won't allow them to have much significance in the search ranking. For this fact alone it will not hurt to have an acceptable list of keywords in your meta tag as a backup precaution. But with all of this being said if you wanted to leave them out completely, go for it. There are several other SEO techniques that are incomparably more important that should be given more attention.

Implementation

The two main tags you need are the description and keyword tags. They are placed in between the opening and closing <head> tags.
Here is an example:

<head>
   <title>Jerry's Fishin' Shack</title>
    <meta name="description" content="Online retailer of many popular brand fishing items.">
    <meta name="keywords" content="fishing, poles, tackle, rods, line, reel">     </head>

Visit w3schools.com for more technical information about meta tags

Ways to maximize your meta tags

There are two things you want to keep in mind when coming up with keywords for your meta tag.

One is relevance, you want the keywords to pertain to your website in some way. The other is frequency, you don't want to use the same words over and over.

On my tool's page I have outlined a few decent meta tag related tools.

And a healthy dose of keyword tools here.

There is one tool I want to bring to attention that I just found recently for keywords. It's called Meta Glossary. This online tool allows you to search out relevant keywords based off of a single word. Some results for different words will be hit and miss, but depending on what you're looking for this can be a great asset to have.
 
To have your meta tags analyzed go here. Take this with a grain of salt, but it will tell you if you are repeating too many words and other various things.

The least you need to know

Meta tags lost their importance very long ago, they still have some use but the days of tricking out your meta tag for amazing search ranking are over. Google uses them only for little descriptive snippets for your site and does not formulate meta tags into your page rank. I know several web developers who have not used them in years and have seen no difference in their sites. It doesn't hurt to have them but bottom line is you don't need to go SEO crazy when it comes to meta tags. Would love to hear your view, do you use them or not?

Optimize your Blogger post titles for better PR in minutes with one code

There is a ton of competition on Google for page rank and just as many ideas on how to increase it. When it comes to finding a website when searching what do you look at first? The page's title and so does Google's spiders. The title of your post is one of the key ingredients to any successful high traffic page. I'm going to show you how to fix your titles in Blogger permanently with one section of code.

The average Blogger post in Google will look like this. Beards and Burgers Blog | Top Ten Ways to Shave your Beard. As you can see the name of the blog shows up first. A better way of doing it is having the post show up first, people will be more keen to click it because it will catch their attention faster and at a glance know what it's about. So let's change it so it will read, Top Ten Ways to Shave your Beard | Beards and Burgers Blog

Step #1 Goto your Blogger Dashboard (Link opens in new tab)

Step #2 Click on Design

Step #3 Download your template so you can revert back to it if there is a problem.

Step #4 Check the Expand Widget Templates, this ensures all the code will be there, wait a few moments for it to load. If your computer is slow give it some time. Then proceed.

Step #5 Click anywhere inside the HTML box and hit CTRL+F to find:

<title><data:blog.pageTitle/></title>

Step #6 Highlight that code and replace it with:

<b:if cond='data:blog.pageType == &quot;index&quot;'> <title><data:blog.title/></title> <b:else/> <title><data:blog.pageName/> | <data:blog.title/></title> </b:if>

Step #5 Save your template and test it out.

More Blogger Tricks and Tweaks

Over 20 great sites to submit your articles

Looking to do some article marketing?

Submitting your posts as well written articles is a great way to gain some back links in conjunction with search engine optimization.

Here are some excellent recommendations for places to submit your articles and start generating some traffic. I have ranked them based of the Alexa ranking. The ranking is proportional with how much traffic they get. It's not to say though that the ones with the higher number aren't great sites, they just don't get as many hits.

EzineArticles is on top and for good reason. It is widely known as one of the best article directories on the internet. If you only wanted to sign up for one site this may as well be it. Goarticles.com and Articlecube.com are two other great sites I have to mention.

For more information about articles: Build incoming links with articles

For additional blog promotion: Over 25 great sites to submit your blog and get it noticed

Updated Sep 14 - 2010   Remember to bookmark for reference.

Top Picks

EzineArticles	GoArticles	ArticleCube

Article Directories	Alexa Rank
EzineArticles Submission - Submit Your Best Quality Original Articles For Massive Exposure, Ezine Publishers Get 25 Free Article Reprints	121
Free Articles Directory | Submit Articles - ArticlesBase.com	340
Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web	687
Article Directory - Free Expert Article Directory - GoArticles.com	1,637
ArticleSnatch Free Article Directory	1,808
Article Dashboard Directory | Submit Articles | Search Find Free Content | Author Submission	3,174
IdeaMarketers | free content directory	4,273
Free Articles at Amazines.Com - Author Publishing and Free Article Database	4,905
Free Content Articles Directory and Search Engine for your Ezine or Website - Isnare.com	5,256
SearchWarp Writers' Community for Do It Yourself and Current Events Commentary	5,500
ArticleCity.com - Free Articles for Reprint. Free Articles for your web site and newsletters. Submit Your Articles to Our Articles Directory.	5,756
InfoBarrel - Crowdsourcing How To Guides | Earn Money Writing	6,482
Free Ezine Articles Directory | Submit Articles - ArticleRich.com	6,904
Free Articles | Submit Articles | Article Directory - ArticleCube	7,513
Free Articles, Free Web Content, Reprint Articles	10,737
Free articles - Article collections - Article database | Free Article Submission	15,123
Free Articles Directory | Submit Articles - Articlebliss	15,539
ArticleMotron Article Directory	18,146
Article Land	57,209
Submit Your Articles | Get Free Content | Add an Article to Article Showroom	61,986

Did I miss your favorite one? Let me know in the comments. "Get Unlimited Supply Of High PR Backlinks And Laser Targeted Traffic From Article Marketing... All Done In Minutes On Autopilot!"

Build incoming links with articles

...and gain pagerank in the process
If you're just starting your blog a great way to gain pagerank which will in turn increase visitors is submitting articles. In the world of SEO this method usually gets swept under the rug, mainly because it takes a bit of hard work. You actually have to write some content. The truth of the matter is Google loves articles. They also like seeing links to your site from various related website sources. 

Why are articles good for building pagerank? Well, Google spiders are smart, sophisticated little critters and they have learned to sniff out related content links. Where better to find a link and related content than an article? Sounds simple doesn't it? One of the many things that will determine your pagerank is how many inbound links you have. They need to be quality links as well. Links from link exchanges and unrelated websites have little to no effect and can actually do more harm than good. The good thing is Google happens to consider articles one of these quality sources. Mainly it’s because your article talking about a certain subject, then it’s linking to a webpage of that subject. That is the one two knockout punch for a quality inbound link.

What makes a good article? Following a few simple guidelines when writing an article can greatly increase it's effectiveness. I'm not gonna teach you how to sell your website or a product. This advice applies to optimizing your article for search engines.

1. Know your topic and make sure it's relevant to your website. If you have a website solely about motorcycles and you write an article about hang gliders and then link to your site. Google will no doubt virtually completely ignore your article for this one reason alone. Just as true, if a human reads your article they're going to be quite mad when they show up to find the "Big Rex's Custom Choppers" staring back at them. So keep the article in the vein of your website and you'll be fine.

2. Once you have the topic of your site and the premise of the article sorted out the next thing you need to do is think about keywords. Keywords is a term used a lot these days when it comes to SEO. One caveat when it comes to keywords is do not over use them. Having a few well placed keywords in your article will go a long way. Think of keywords as a spice, a really hot spice like cayenne pepper. You just want to gently sprinkle the right amount on there. Using too much is called "keyword stuffing" and can greatly increase your risk of being ignored by a spider.

3. Think of a good title for your article. Make sure it's a bit unique in some way and contains those relevant keywords creatively. Instead of "Make money online" you might want to go with something like "Discover 10 easy ways to make some quick money online". The title is the first thing spiders and people look at so spend some time to think of a good one.

4. When writing the article keep it short within the 600-1500 word range. Once again, just like with the keywords you have to find a nice goldilocks zone so to speak. Not too short but long enough to ensure you've got some good informative content. A super long article no one will read and will no doubt have way too many keywords littered in.

5. Be sure not to talk about your site too much in the article. Do not put a link to your site or many other links but yours throughout the article. Just one well placed link at the end of the article is best. For example: "For more about anything motorcycles check out bigrexcustoms.com"

6. Submit it and forget it. Overtime link building like this will help drive a consistent stream of visitors to your site.

See also:
Over 20 great sites to submit your articles
Over 25 great sites to submit your blog and get it noticed

"Get Unlimited Supply Of High PR Backlinks And Laser Targeted Traffic From Article Marketing... All Done In Minutes On Autopilot!"

Free Blog and SEO Tools