Link bait in search engine optimization

The quantity and quality of inbound links are two of the many metrics used by a search engine ranking algorithm to rank a website. Link bait creation falls under the task of link building, and aims to increase the quantity of high-quality, relevant links to a website. Part of successful linkbaiting is devising a mini-PR campaign around the release of a link bait article so that bloggers and social media users are made aware and can help promote the piece in tandem. Social media traffic can generate a substantial amount of links to a single web page. Sustainable link bait is rooted in quality content.

Types of link bait

Although there are no clear-cut subdivisions within link bait, many attempt to divide them into types of hooks. This is a short list of some of the most common approaches with brief descriptions:

• Informational Hooks - Provide information that a reader may find very useful. Some rare tips and tricks or any personal experience through which readers can benefit.
• News Hooks - Provide fresh information and garner citations and links as the news spreads.
• Humor Hooks - Tell a funny story or a joke. A bizarre picture of your subject or mocking cartoons can also prove to be a link bait.
• Evil Hooks - Saying something unpopular or mean may also yield a lot of attention. Writing about something that is not appealing about a product or a popular blogger. Provide strong reasons for it.
• Tool Hooks - Create some sort of tool that is useful enough that people link to it.

Examples of linkbait

For example, Fetch Softworks has just announced their Take Fetch Back to School, Win a MacBook Contest (4 runners-up win new iPod Nanos). This contest should be great linkbait because it is geared to students, staff and faculty just beginning the academic year; offers great prizes; and is happening at a time when some of those prizes, the new iPods, are making a lot of news. As a user of their product I've already started pondering what to write, and as a blogger I've already linked to them. So I think it's working!

When to use linkbait?

Like your birthday present, linkbait is for special occasions, meant to add to your content rather than replace it. The bait is only part of the overall mix. If you tried to use linkbait in every blog post you would soon end up with a site lacking in continuity. That wouldn't really serve your goals. But on occasion, if you come up with a clever idea that is related to your goals, adds value to your regular content, and attracts attention, then go for it. Strategic bits of linkbait can help you expand your readership, acquire more incoming links and raise your rankings while adding a bit of excitement for your regular readers.

I could proceed to bore you with more details, caveats, pros and cons, but plenty of others have already written on the topic. If you are considering adding linkbait to your marketing toolkit, the following resources should give you much of what you need to know.

Linkbait Resources

• Andy Hagans’ Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and SMM
• The Art of Linkbaiting
• Leveraging Linkbait
• 5 Link Baiting Methods
• Wikipedia: Link bait
• Matt Cutts: SEO Advice: linkbait and linkbaiting
• An Introduction to Linkbaiting
• Golden Rules of Linkbaiting
• 2007 Guide To Linkbaiting: The Year Of Widgetbait?

Source: http://www.cornwallseo.com

SEO Training & Website Optimization Steps

For an advertising agency to employ staff and train them on website design search engine optimisation, you can imagine the task to advise the account mangers on all aspects of online media solutions. Most advertising companies that deal with internet marketing promotions train their staff to know mainly about banner advertising. Any form of banner advertising is real easy pitch to learn. The employee just needs to be aware that it is one banner, one placement and it appears on a search engine.

SEO is a vast and rapid growing market in this day and age.

SEO training takes time and patience as there is so much to know and learn about that at first seems pretty daunting. Any advertising company that do SEO training will know that the employee will have to need to be aware of banner advertising in all shapes and sizes, cost per click advertising, cost per acquisition advertising, pay per lead advertising and the list goes on for your internet marketing strategy.
Before anyone wants to attempt SEO training be prepared for a long windy road as you integrate the knowledge of website design, keyword analysis and density checks, together with time taken for the actual SEO advertising campaign to have a good impact on your website. SEO training requires the employee to explain to potential customers the reason why SEO is the way to go for their online media solutions.

SEO Training - Website Design

When doing SEO training Weblinx let their account managers be aware of what a website design requires to be effectively picked up by search engine spiders not the web design itself. SEO training makes the account managers aware of page layout, internal and backward linking strategy and the text that is required on the web page for effective Google SEO.

SEO Training - Internal and External Linking

Another important factor of search engine optimisation we take into account in SEO training is the use of a proper internal and external; backward linking strategy of the website.
An internal linking structure is how you can guide a search engine spider around the site easily and effectively. The most common form is the use of text navigation menus or links on each page of the website. These are extremely beneficial to your search engine promotion campaign, as a search engine spider can easily navigate around the site and access all the other pages on the site rather than just coming into the one page and being stuck on it and then leaving your website.
The external or backward linking also needs to be put in place or implemented as it can improve the way in which a search engine would position or rank the site.
The more relevant external links you have in place going to the relevant sections of your website the more beneficial it is to your website promotion as a whole. This is because search engine spiders can easily come to your site from various locations and visit the site and view the content more often.
We go through how linking for external and internal links should be put in place during our SEO training sessions for your most effective online media solution.

SEO Training Cost Per Click

With SEO training CPC our account managers are trained to let you know that we are an internet marketing company who design at least fifty new pages for your website. It will be these pages that get found in the listings on Google delivering potential buyers to your website. When a costumer searches for the keywords you have secured with us it will be the page optimised by Weblinx.biz that they click on to enter your website. Weblinx.biz SEO Training lets the account managers know that you pay on a thirty day invoice only when you have agreed to the charge on the invoice and sign it then fax the invoice back to us. Our SEO training covers the use of a stat counter to monitor your clicks and keep in communication with you throughout the campaign. SEO training also covers the fact that Weblinx.biz need your campaign to be successful if we are to cover our costs so we keep optimising the pages when appropriate to deliver a profitable website design search engine promotion.
More info on SEO cost per click

SEO Training Pay On Page Placement

SEO training pay on page placement covers the fact the customer only pays when the website pages that Weblinx.biz design, reach within the agreed search engine positions (top twenty and top ten) on Google. There is a charge for the top twenty placement and the top ten position. SEO training covers the value of advertising on Google for just one keyword. How much are you willing to pay to have your website appear in the search engine rankings on the search engine Google? All prices for gaining search engine ranking will be agreed to at the onset of your website design search engine optimisation campaign. All of these aspects are covered in our SEO training sessions.

Best SEO Tips

Below is an easy to follow SEO training steps compiled by professional search engine optimisers to assist the businesses with their search engine optimisation and to help you understand how to implement the changes to your website that are required for successful SEO on the major search engines. The following may be considered as SEO secrets for onsite SEO optimization but in order to deliver a successful SEO campaign on the search engines you require external resources to compliment onsite SEO. The steps below are guidelines and a lot more is required but they are the fundamentals in preparing your website to have the right tools to compete in the front pages using basic SEO techniques.

SEO - Process	SEO - Descriptions	SEO Significance
SEO 1 - Keyword Analysis	The first step of any website optimization for SEO is to define which keywords or search terms you would like to be found under. The keywords selection is usually defined by the client; along with suggestion from your Weblinx account manager. Keyword sources generally tend to include search tools such as Google Suggest, overture and keywords related to the website/business the client is involved in - other keywords will generally be defined by client recommendations. This is because in all likeliness clients generally tend to already have an idea what they need to target for the SEO campaign.	Keyword selection is imperative for SEO and can often decide how effective your website can be. If the right keywords are targeted you would expect to see a much better return of click and enquiries as opposed to 'less relative' phrases for your SEO.
SEO - Process	SEO - Descriptions	SEO Significance
SEO 2 - Keyword grouping	Keyword grouping involves an analysis into the keywords which have been agreed by client and Weblinx for the SEO package. This SEO process is to define which keywords are to be targeted on certain pages. An old method many SEO's use is to create a new page targeted for each keyword. Due to Google algorithm changes a more efficient way we feel is to group 'like/related' keywords together and target these phrases across one optimized page. This reduces the risk of content repetition across the site which can have the effect of holding the site back from obtaining its anticipated search engine ranking for the SEO	It is important to target key phrases on website pages which are relevant for successful SEO online. For example if a keyword 'cars' was optimized on a page related to 'walking' the likeliness of an increase in enquiries would realistically be small thus the SEO campaign will be unsuccessful.
SEO - Process	SEO - Descriptions	SEO Significance
SEO 3 - Content Generation	We create content around the agreed keywords for your SEO to reap rewards. This content is then placed onto the web pages targeted to ensure the density of the keywords targeted is ideal for ranking on search engines.	Content plays an important part in any website. In SEO content plays a vital part. Google algorithms prefer sites which have relevant content rich information related to the targeted keywords.
SEO - Process	SEO - Descriptions	SEO Significance
SEO 4 - On Page Optimization	This SEO technique is to ensure the pages targeted have the correct foundations in place. This usually involves ensuring titles, meta tags, alt tags, h1, h2, bold text, underlined text are in place	To ensure your site is in the right state for optimization is to ensure the page is laid out correctly containing the tags which Google search spiders look out for
SEO - Process	SEO - Descriptions	SEO Significance
SEO 5 - Internal Linking	Internal linking is the SEO process of ensuring the site has a strong linking structure internally. This ensures Google spiders stay in the website longer and can easily navigate around the site to the pages you want to focus on for the SEO campaign	Linking can play an essential part in SEO. The bulk of optimization for SEO is done mostly on-site and internal linking via keyword anchor text links.
SEO - Process	SEO - Descriptions	SEO Significance
SEO 6 - External Linking	External linking is the process of ensuring the site has a strong linking structure externally (often referred to as backward links). The process is to generate links to the website from sites in a clean cache on Google. This is what is known as quality linking	External linking (provided the internal on site optimization is done correctly) hugely compliments work done to a website for SEO. It is through external linking and on site optimization that best results are achieved for SEO

Source: http://www.weblinx.biz

SEO : Google,Yahoo,MSN

Google (SEO) Search Engine Optimization

A well built site is useless unless people know where to find you. This is where need of search engine optimization arises. The methodology of Search Engine Optimization depends on your knowledge as to how Google ranks it index. Since only the engineers employed by Google know the answer, it is up to the rest of us to speculate on what may work, and what we know doesn't work. The easier your make your site to be understood by Google, the better chances you'll have of getting top spots in Google's index.

There are some guidelines or techniques which are helpful to get higher ranking in google as follows:

• On page optimization
• Keyword analyzing
• Meta tags analyzing
• Checking Page Rank Leak
• HTML Validation
• Broken link checking
• Assurance of unique content
• Off page optimization
• Link building
• Reciprocal link building
• One way link building
• Three way link building
• Site submission
• Directory Submission
• Article writing
• Article Submission
• Press Release submission
• Software submission (If any)

SEO for Yahoo

Yahoo! is the second most popular from the three major search engines and includes an enormous network of websites. The algorithm of Yahoo itself can pose a problem for some SEO's as we optimize client websites to rank highly on multiple search engines due to the way that it differs from Google and MSN. That said, any issue can be addressed provided that the right attention is given to the right details.

There are some guidelines or techniques which are helpful to get higher ranking in Yahoo. On Yahoo! the major areas are as follows:

• Keyword density
• Site structure
• Backlinks

Keyword Density

Keyword Density is the most important factor that yahoo cosider while ranking websites. Generally you will see a range that appears much higher is 5.0 to 8.0%. Beyond this range or crossing this range your ranking in yahoo will go down on regular basis and after certain time your website will be removed from Yahoo's index.

Site structure

Site Structure is more important factor on Yahoo! for two key reasons. First, the site structure determines the order in which your page content gets seen by the search engines and thus, which content will be given the highest priority. Content that occurs higher up in the code of your page is given a higher weight than content lower down in the code. Second, a properly structured site will be lower in code through the use of CSS, reduced or eliminated table use, etc. The reduction in code will push the content higher up the page as far as a search engine is concerned and thus, it will be given more weight.

Backlinks

Like in the other major search engines, having a solid backlink count from relevant sites using good anchor text practices is a major factor on Yahoo! for any reasonably competitive phrase. When it comes to calculating backlinks Yahoo! is far more similar to Google than MSN.

SEO for MSN

Like all of the major search engines, MSN also builds their index of sites using spiders to crawl the web finding new and changed information. This information is then processed by the MSN servers using complex algorithms to determine which sites are most relevant to the search query entered. All search engine algorithms are mathematical and thus, there is a fixed set of rules and factors which, if addressed correctly, will result in a high ranking.

Factors to be considered while optimizing for MSN:

• Page Content
• Linking Structure
• Number of pages
• Title, Meta & head Tags

The above factors if addressed correctly, will have very significant results on your rankings.

Page Content:

The content of your page must be perfect. What I mean by this is that the content must appeal to both the search engines and the algorithms. In order to write properly for the visitors you must be able to write clearly and in language that is both appealing and understandable to your target market.

Internal Linking Structure:

The way your pages link together tells the search engines what the page is about and also allows them to easily (or not-so-easily) work their way to your internal pages. If your site has an image or script-based navigation it is important to also use text links either in your content, in a footer, or both. The text links are easy to follow for a spider and perhaps more importantly, the text links allow you the opportunity to tell the spiders what a specific page is about though the anchor text and, in the case of footers, allows you to add in more instances of the targeted phrases outside of your general content area.

The Number Of Pages & Their Relevancy:

MSN wants to please their visitors. For this reason they want to insure that highest likelihood that a searcher will find what they need once they get to your site. For this reason a larger site with unified content will rank higher that a smaller site or a site with varying content topics. (note: this assumes that all else is equal in regards to the other ranking factors)

When you are optimizing your site for MSN be sure to take some time to built quality content. Do a search on your major competitors to see how large their sites are, over time you will want to build yours to the same range through general content creation or the addition of a blog or forum to your site.

Titles, Heading Tags & Special Formats:

Titles are the single most important piece of code our your entire web page for two reasons. The first is that it holds a very high level of weight in the algorithm. the second reason is that it is your window to the world. When someone runs a search the results will generally show your page title in the search results. This means that a human visitor has to be drawn to click on your title or rankings your site is a futile effort (this isn't about bragging rights, it's about return on investment).

Heading tags are used to specify significant portions of content. The most commonly used is the H1 tag though there are obviously others (or they wouldn't bother numbering them would they). The H1 tag is given a significant amount of weight in the algorithm provided that it is not abused though overuse (it should only be used once per page). Try to keep your headings short-and-sweet. They're there to tell your visitor what the page is about, not your whole site.

Source: http://www.indianwebseo.com

Social media : Distinction from traditional media

Social media describes the online technologies and practices that people use to share content, opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives, and media themselves. Social Media Optimization is improving the linking structure of the websites by making it highly visible in social media searches.

Social media can take many different forms, including text, images, audio, and video. The social media sites typically use tools like message boards,forums,bookmarks, communities etc.

Social media has a number of characteristics that make it fundamentally different from traditional media such as newspapers, television, books, and radio. Social media does not have a finite limit: there are no set number of pages or hours. The audience can participate in social media by adding comments or even editing the stories themselves. Content in social media can take the form of text, graphics, audio or video. Different formats can be mixed. Social media is typically available via feeds, enabling users to subscribe via feed readers and allowing other publishers to create mashups.

Social Media is a term that is used for a broad spectrum of topics, and has several different connotations, however in the context of internet marketing, Social Media refers to a collective group of web properties that primarily driven by the users. For example, blogs, discussion boards, vlogs, video sharing sites and dating sites. Social Media Optimization (SMO) is the process of trying to get one's content more widely distributed across multiple Social Media networks.

There are two sides to Social Media, the first side is known as SMO as stated above. This refers to on-page tactics that a webmaster can do to improve their website for the age of social media. Such optimisation includes adding links to services such as Digg, Reddit and Del.icio.us so that their pages can be easily 'saved and submitted' to and for these services.

Social Media Marketing on the other hand is the off-page characteristics of Social Media. This includes writing content that is remarkable, unique and news-worthy. Marketing this content can be done by trying to get the content 'popular' on the services mentioned or even creating a video that is likely to be viral on the likes of Youtube and other video sites. Social Media is about being social so this off-page work can include getting involved in other similar blogs, forums and niche communities.

Source: http://www.searchengineoptimiser.biz

Google Takes StarOffice For Its Pack

Google is adding Sun Microsystems' StarOffice suite to Google Pack, its freely downloadable collection of productivity software. The software is available immediately.

Google Pack is quite a collection that includes Google Earth, Norton Security Scan, Google Desktop, Firefox with Google Toolbar, Adobe Reader, Skype, RealPlayer and other Google products.

StarOffice is Sun's commercial version of OpenOffice, the open source office suite that is available from Sun for $69. The $69 fee gets you product and technical support from Sun along with indemnification from any legal action.

"That's really what you're paying for," Mark Herring, senior director of marketing for Sun, told Internetnews.com. "If you couldn't care less about support, then Google has a distribution for you."

He added StarOffice also has a few extra features OpenOffice does not have, like an extra spell checker, Web search and some conversion filters. Both support Open Document Format (ODF) and can read Microsoft Office documents.

Rob Helm, director of research for Directions on Microsoft, thinks this is more of an effort to get the low-hanging fruit than a real effort to take a chunk out of Microsoft's bread-and-butter Office business.

"Google has been competing with Microsoft at the low end of Office for some time, so this is a further expansion of Google's strategy," he told internetnews.com. He said StarOffice has some shortcomings and is not a worthy replacement for Office in a business/enterprise market, but it's perfect for users with fewer demands.

"I'd say [StarOffice] is not so much a competitor to Office today as Works, the free software a lot of people get with their PCs," said Helm. "Of course, they would love to sneak into the enterprise market, but considering the functionality StarOffice is offering, I don't think most enterprises would look at it seriously."

Mostly, he sees StarOffice as a way for Google to get into the desktop, and perhaps extend its Web-based application offerings, Docs and Spreadsheets, or perhaps create some connection between StarOffice and the online applications.

Source:www.internetnews.com

Mobile Social Networking on the Rise

Mobile media authority M:Metrics today released its first ever measurement of mobile social networking, revealing that 12.3 million consumers in the United States and Western Europe accessed a social networking site with their mobile device in the month of June.

Not unexpectedly, America had the largest audience for mobile social networking sites with 7.5 million (3.5% of all subscribers) accessing a social networking site from their device at least once in June. The U.S. was followed by Italy (2.8%), the United Kingdom (2.5%), Spain (2.3%), Germany (1.9%), and France (1.7%). MySpace and Facebook were the most popular sites accessed in the United States and United Kingdom, while MSN reigned in the rest of the countries surveyed. MySpace’s U.S. and UK numbers were 3.7 million and 440,000 respectively, while Facebook came out to 2 million and 307,000 users, respectively. YouTube was third the United States with 901,000 mobile visitors, and Bebo rounded out the top three in the UK with 288,000 mobile users. Unsurprisingly, those under 25 are the most active users - the 13 to 17 demographic reigned in France, German, Italy, and Spain while the 18 to 24 college crowd were the most active in the U.S. and UK.

Of course, a lot of these numbers are dependent on the availability of these social networks across operator portals. MySpace had strong distribution, appearing on the Amo’d, AT&T, Helio, and NExtel decks. Facebook was distributed on Spting, AT&T, Virgin, and Amp’d decks and YouTube was available on the Verizon deck. YouTube’s numbers are likely to go up because of its inclusion in the iPhone deck, which was not released at the time of the survey. In the UK, MySpace has distribution on Vodafone and Bebo on 3, but interestingly MSN is not offered on-portal anywhere. This shows that while there is strong correlation between popularity and being on-portal, off-portal activity is emerging as well.

It’s clear that the industry is noticing the compatibility between mobile devices and social networking sites. Some more on this from Mark Sullivan at PC World:

“Still, a lot of people believe that mobile social networking is going to be huge, especially as faster wireless networks become available. Meanwhile, mucho venture capital continues to flow into mobile social networking tech in its many forms.

What is it about mobile devices and social networking that make them a match made in heaven? Is the urge to social-network so strong that we simply can’t wait to get home to do it? Or will new mobile social networking services simply do things that static, desktop-based sites cannot? Will mobile devices take social networking to a whole new level? If the future is really ‘unwired’ and ‘always on’ as they tell us, then people will demand it.”

We’ll have to keep our eyes open for the next advances in mobile social networking. Pretty soon we may see contact lists consolidated between Facebook and your phone book, for example. Either way, if you’ve ever felt that getting home to check who just posted on your wall takes too long to bear, rest assured that you’re not alone.

Source:www.searchviews.com

Social networking evolves

"Evolution is fascinating to watch"
Shana Alexander

We are an electronic civilization and as it spreads deeper our family, professional and social lives are getting increasingly electronic. While sms today speaks the language of our personal and professional relationships, the web and internet are increasingly driving our personal and professional lives. Consider the case of social networking. Orkut probably has been the largest facilitator of getting old friends and family together in the recent history. Perhaps Google itself didn't anticipate the revolution Orkut would bring about and has only recently started taking the "Orkut business" seriously. Social networking has become such a huge revolution that by the time I write this there must be atleast a good triple figure clone of social networking sites on the web. It isn't any longer about just a forum where millions of Internet users connect, express themselves and communicate. Social networking is now evolving to another level and getting into areas as interesting as jobs to food and much more. Revenue models unknown before are evolving around social networking sites.

Food on your network - iFood.TV

How about a site where you can connect with other people with diverse backgrounds, ethnicities and countries, make friends, chat about shared interests etc. All this sounds quite mundane for a social networking site, right? Ok then how adding an ingredient of culinary traditions and culinary curiosity. IFood.tv does exactly that. It's probably the only site that focuses on connecting people through food. What's more you can load and create your own videos, you can use text (blogs, comments) or pictures or video to interact with other foodies. Hence people who love food can create their own online food channel, it could be either textual (blogs, comments), pictures or video. There is more you can upload your own recipes along with learning and sharing with others foodies. iFood.tv goes further you can even view multiple channels or simply decide which cuisine you want to focus on. According to the iFood.tv founders Nitin Agarwal, Sharib Khan and Alok Ranjan "The common thread is simple- share and spread your love for food."

Online Recruitment gets a social networking twist

The growth of social networking can be gauged by the fact how it is spreading into our social and professional lives. If iFood.tv was about taking food on the network and a bit on the personal front then on the professional front sites like techtribe.com and yellojobs.com are adding a twist to online recruitment by combining a social networking angle to it.

We all have heard about job sites. Techtribe.com and yellojobs.com have brought the power of personal referrals in recruitment. While techtribe.com has a program called 'frontfoot' which they claim is the world's first referral recruiting service of its kind. A simple successful referral could earn Rs 10,000 plus more for other referrals. Plus they have a quality control mechanism to keep the weed out.

Yellojobs.com on the other hand recently introduced a referral driven online recruitment service, called YelloRewards, under which employers can offer cash rewards to those who refer their friends to the posted jobs. The company hopes to place over 50,000 candidates annually by this model. The revenue model is also a bit different in terms of subscription. While other job portals charge a subscription fee from companies, yellojobs.com allows them to place ads for free, provided they pledge to pay cash reward to the referrer when they hire a candidate. The reward amount could be Rs 5000 or more.
Taking social networking seriously
Social networking is about serious business now. Consider the case of Google renewed emphasis on Orkut and the activities it is conducting there now. Earlier this month Google conducted an opinion poll on the Orkut site to celebrate India's 60th Independence along with its users. The seriousness can be gauged from the fact none other than Google India's Managing Director, Shailesh Rao sent a message to its users saying, " We are proud to be a part of India's 60th Independence celebrations and know that the energy, enthusiasm and conviction so apparent throughout Orkut communities will be on display as we ask users for their opinions through this poll. Orkut has always been associated with youthfulness and zeal and w e are very pleased with the response and affection that Indian users have shown towards Orkut."
On the other hand the success of these sites can be seen from the fact iFood.tv is about to launch a new feature called the ifood explorer based on a p2f2p (person-to-food-to-person) concept. According to the founders "The purpose of this is to simply reflect the interconnections or the links between multiple individuals in the network, a host of foods, food products, restaurants and relevant information."

The Last Word

Social networking with a twist is the new mantra in the world of ecommerce. As our friends, jobs, foods get transformed into their electronic avatar one wonders what's next on the agenda.

Source:www.hindustantimes.com