But what constitutes a “high-quality link”? Links from sites that have a high value to the search engines are good sites to link back to your site. Search engines place value on the site by how much free and useful information it has on it. Sites of value have many sites pointing to it, telling the search engines that it is a relevant and important source of information.

Types of sites that produce high quality links

• Reliable news sources
• Educational Facilities (.edu websites)
• Encyclopedias
• Information Portals specific to your topic or industry
• Forums
• Blogs
• Link Directories

The fastest and easiest way to get links back to your site is to submit to Directories. (more…)

However this technique does have it’s downside. Reason being is that PPC campaigns are so convenient, easy to set up and get started that the small business owner can easily spend upwards to thousand’s of dollars in just a period of weeks until they learn some hard lessons on what will be successful and what will bury you.

So here are some of the most common PPC mistakes, hopefully this is a useful outline on strategy that will start generating leads as quickly and efficiently as possible.

1. Problem: Using the home page as your landing page

There are many search engines that you can setup your PPC campaign with: Google, Yahoo, and others. It is your responsibility to decide where to direct the traffic that clicks on your ad. Most businesses send their traffic directly to the home page. Which seems to make sense since the home page is the equivalent to he store’s front door where you would think you would want to send your traffic. Right?

Wrong. Here is the dilemma in that. Most peoples home pages are so cluttered with information, and generally cover such a broad topic. It’s like pushing someone on to a site that contains the info. they need along with topics on totally unrelated issues. Good luck is what you mind as well say when they get to the home page. Obviously this will lead to a high frustration and failure rate.

Solution: Always take a clicker to a well crafted, easy to use and specific landing page. (more…)

Below I will give you my top 10 Landing Page Optimization Tactics

1. Keep it simple - In today’s “gimme it quick or I’m out of here” world you have to keep your landing page very focused and pretty simple. You all know how annoying sitting staring at your computer reading information that may or may not be pertinent. Everyone does too much of that anyways. Assist the visitor to your landing page so they may digest what you have to offer quickly and with ease. Use bullet points and short paragraphs
2. Tell visitors where they are - For example: when people click on an ad in a Readers Digest email newsletter or just a link in a solo email they are being transported from one medium to another via the web. Putting the heading at the top of the page for them to read first when they arrive is comforting to the user, so they know that the navigation was a success. That eliminates the first question that a visitor may have, “where am I?”
3. Don’t take over their computers - Some landing pages get too tricky trying to impress their visitor. This generally just frustrates them because they have lost control , and the easiest way for them to get it back is to just click on the browser window and close it. Then kiss that one goodbye. Also remember that many computers aren’t running the most up to date software, therefore they may not be able to view some of your brand imaging, thus not letting them view the site. Many computers and systems have firewalls that prevent those programs from running. Just keep it simple and you will please most everyone. (more…)
   ]]> http://www.allinanchor.com/2007/11/02/tactics-for-landing-page-optimization/feed/ http://www.allinanchor.com/2007/10/28/anchors-aweigh/ http://www.allinanchor.com/2007/10/28/anchors-aweigh/#comments Sun, 28 Oct 2007 21:37:31 +0000 mwolfe http://www.allinanchor.com/2007/10/28/anchors-aweigh/ One of the most important elements to the SEO of a website is the anchor text. But what exactly is anchor text, and how is it optimally used? Just how important is anchor text?

   Anchor Text is defined as the visible text of a hyperlink. For example, http://www.allinanchor.com is a hyperlink. Rather than displaying the link address we can use anchor text that is relative to the site or page the link is pointing to. So, rather than this: http://www.allinanchor.com we get this: killer SEO blog. Both links point to the same place, but the link containing the anchor texts helps to establish relevancy of the content on the page to the content of the page the link is pointing to.

   As we know the search engines work primarily off the relevancy and importance of the content in a website. There was a time long ago when the search engines placed most of its importance in keywords. People would stuff content full of keywords that had nothing to do with the subject of the website. Now, the websites that have been around the longest, and have the most relevant content are the ones that are on top.

   Anchor text optimization is the process of optimizing anchor text using relevant keywords to get higher rankings in search engines. Using keywords as anchor text to link to pages on the same topic helps the search engines establish relevancy of all the text contained in a website. All major search engines place huge level of importance to anchor text in comparison to simple hyperlinks.

   (more…)

   ]]> http://www.allinanchor.com/2007/10/28/anchors-aweigh/feed/ http://www.allinanchor.com/2007/07/17/dont-blog-on-your-blog/ http://www.allinanchor.com/2007/07/17/dont-blog-on-your-blog/#comments Tue, 17 Jul 2007 17:57:46 +0000 Michael http://www.allinanchor.com/2007/07/17/dont-blog-on-your-blog/ Seems oxymoronic doesn’t it? What the author of this article is really saying is that if you want to attract and keep users visiting your blog, you have to write meaningful and unique content. If all you are doing on your blog is posting information that you got somewhere else, then your visitors would just be better off going to your source instead of having to go to your site first.

   What matters is that the user experience is that of immersion in comprehensive treatment of a topic, as opposed to a blog-style linear sequence of short, frequent postings commenting on the hot topic of the day.

   I am not sure that I totally agree with this. Personally, when I find a blog that acts as a sort of mini-portal I find myself perusing it for any information that is pertinent to my current situation (whatever that may be). For instance, as a PHP developer (my other life), I appreciate phpDeveloper.org. The vast majority of posts that hit my RSS feed reader are all little snippets about information going on in the industry and other posts that are relevent to the topic. I love getting this information, and I regularly browse to their site for more information.

   I believe that this has several benefits to your blog. First, I think that people willf find it interesting and useful to have a site that does all the legwork of finding the noteworthy information and aggregating it for them. Also, the exposure to these ‘blogmasters’ to which you are creating all the trackbacks has value. These guys are interested in the same subject matter, and they might also find value in using your blog as a portal to more info to which they are not yet privy. Maybe then they will add you to their blogroll. That’s the ticket to traffic, no doubt.

   Having a successful blog is more than just writing all unique content. It’s about creating content and an experience that users appreciate. Give them something they like, and they’ll be back. That doesn’t mean you have to write an ‘article’ every time you post (or ever).

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