Rae Hoffman wrote an excellent piece over at www.sugarrae.com on hiring link developers that could help many companies get it right. I know I’ve had some trouble finding and vetting good candidates and this article and it’s list of questions to ask a potential link developer is an excellent piece of advice.

Thanks Rae.

What kind of trouble have you had hiring link developers? Tell me below and we’ll compare stories.

I recently read an article by Patrick Altoft over at Blog Storm on how to get links that really helps you understand at link building from it’s core. Basically, you have to be like Wikipedia to get 135 million links, but while this may sound too difficult, we aren’t really expecting you to get 135 million links, but if you do what Wikipedia does, you can tons of links, read the article and I’m sure it will help you out. Click the link above “how to get links” or click here!

Do you think you would like to be more like Wikipedia? Leave a comment below and we’ll discuss it.

I recently read a coupe of articles that I found interesting and think you might too. They have to do with the building and selling of web sites. If you own a wbeiste and have ever thought of selling it, I highly reccomend you read both articles I mentions below.

The first is by Aaron Wall who wrote a nice piece about the main article on selling websites. You can view it here How to Buy and Sell Websites.

The second article on selling websites is by AskShane.org and is the written by Shanesel who recently sold his website, check it out and let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.

Have you ever bought or sold a website?

By Andy Beal 

This is tip #2 in my series of “Blog Marketing Tips Even the ProBloggers Won’t Share” series. See tip #1: How to Optimize Blog Post Titles.

In tip #1 I warned that changing your blog post slugs–also known as permalinks or post URLs–is to be avoided, once you’ve published your blog post. While you can use 301 redirects if you do need to change your slug–more on that later–even that can have an unfortunate effect on your post’s ranking in Google.

In this tip, I want to share with you a practice that I often use here on Marketing Pilgrim–optimizing my slugs before I hit “publish.”

Tip 2: Optimize Your Blog Post’s Permalink (aka”Slugs”)

1. Change your default slug - while you often hear that most blog publishing platforms are “search engine friendly” out of the box, there’s one configuration that is important when setting up a new blog: change the default way post slugs are created.
If I had launched Marketing Pilgrim with the default slug structure my post URLs would have looked something like this:

marketingpilgrim.com/?p=123

Yuk! WordPress would have used a numeric value to represent each blog post. Instead of using rich keywords in my slug, traffic generating buzzwords such as “marketing,” “blogging,” and “tips” would have been reduced to “123″. Not very helpful–for my readers or Google.

Instead, it’s important to pick one of the more search engine friendly slug structures that instruct WordPress to pull the post title–which you worked hard on in tip #1–and use that as part of any blog post URL.

Here’s a screenshot of the WordPress option for Marketing Pilgrim:

Notice how we used a “Custom Structure?’ OK, don’t necessarily follow that. While Google-friendly, we structured our slugs in a way that help with an old switch from Blogger to WordPress. Most of you will be just fine selecting “Date and name based” (or the equivalent for your blogging software).

Warning: While you might be tempted to use a slug default that shows only your post title you may want to think twice, if you have aspirations of seeing your blog syndicated in Google News. One of the requirements for entry is to have at least three numbers in your slugs, so that Google can identify your posts from your other blog content. Using “myblog.com/my-post-title” would likely preclude you from Google News. At the very least, you should use “myblog.com/2008/my-post-title”.

2. Optimize individual posts - with the basic slug structure in place, your post slugs are going to be very Google friendly–they include the keywords you use in your optimized post titles!

But, what if you find yourself publishing a post that is ten words long and most of those words are “fluffy”–meaning, they don’t help you much in Google? This is where the “post slug” box in WordPress is your friend. You’ll find the post slug box to the right of your blog post–when viewing your posts via WP Admin “Manage>Posts.”

Here’s what to look for:

(Note: If you don’t see the input box, you might need to hit the “+” sign next to “Post Slug”)

Any string of words entered will be used as that posts URL/slug/permalink. The best format for entry is to use “keyword-keyword-keyword”–hyphenating each word. Why hyphens? It helps Google to separate and understand each of your keywords. Your goal is to enter keywords that are a) highly relevant to your blog post, and, b) likely to be searched for (a lot) on Google.

Here’s an example of before and after.

If I had let WordPress decide on the slug, I would have gotten this:

Before: marketingpilgrim.com/2007/08/youtube-rival-finally-named-hulucom-almos t-in-beta.html

Far too long and far too many irrelevant words. Instead, I entered my own slug and used this:

After: marketingpilgrim.com/2007/08/hulu-beta-invite.html

The result? When Hulu launched the beta of its online video service, Marketing Pilgrim was #1 on Google for “hulu beta invite” and #2 for “hulu”–both brought considerable traffic to the site.

3. Don’t get trapped by lazy slugs - it’s one thing to optimize the slug for your new blog post, but you can still take it one step further. Whether you’re writing a blog post, or creating a new page for your blog, think about its future use.

What do I mean? Let me show you with a real example.

Remember tip #1 I wrote?

Here’s my original post title: “Blog Marketing Tips Even the ProBloggers Won’t Share: Tip #1″

Practicing what I preached, I’ve now changed that post title to be more “Google-friendly.”

It now reads: “Blog Marketing Tips: How to Optimize Blog Post Titles”

Now take a look at the post slug.

Optimized slug: marketingpilgrim.com/2008/03/optimize-blog-post-titles.html

Doesn’t match either the original post title or the optimized version, does it? Instead, when I first wrote the post, I knew that I wanted the post to rank for keywords related to “optimize blog post titles.” By thinking ahead, and optimizing the post slug, that page is currently #1 on Google for “optimize blog post titles.” Sounds genius, but as you can see, it was really quite simple.

4. Changing old slugs - whether you want to change a single post slug or all of them, don’t even attempt to do so without the help of a 301 redirect. While you might think that changing your slugs is a good idea–after all, let’s get some great keywords in there–you can damage your Google credibility (sacrificing any inbound links) by changing a post slug without telling Google.

How do you safely change your blog post slugs? You use a 301 redirect to instruct Google that you’ve changed the location of the post to a new URL. How do you do that easily? If you’re a WordPress user, you install the fabulous Urban Giraffe “Redirection” plugin and make sure you have the following box checked:

Now, you can change your slugs, safe in the knowledge that a 301 redirect will be automatically created. Be warned! Just because you tell the search engines where a new post lives, doesn’t mean they’ll always be smart enough to get there–so use 301 redirects with caution, not free abandon!

5. Repurpose your content - there’s another great reason for changing your post slugs. It’s a tactic that, once I share it with you, you’ll start seeing the crafty bloggers using. We use it here on Marketing Pilgrim. What’s the tactic? That’s the subject for tip #3, but I’ll only share tip #3 if enough people ask me to–these tips take a lot of work to compile you know.

Do you have any tips to share on blog post slug optimization? Do you want to see tip #3? Let me know in the comments below.

Thanks!

Joe at PPC HERO Wrote this Excellent Article on Business.com

Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing comprise approximately 82% of search traffic. Therefore, we focus approximately 82% of our articles toward these two search engines, logically. Today, I am going to take a diversion and discuss optimizing your advertisements for Business.com.

Before you can enhance your listings, you have to know your core audience. As the name implies, Business.com is geared towards professionals looking for business solutions. It is a directory and pay-per-click network that serves approximately 40 million unique users every month. According to their company description, “Business.com helps business decision makers quickly find what they need to manage and grow their businesses, and enables advertisers to reach these users wherever they are across the business Internet through premier partners, including Forbes, BusinessWeek, Hoovers, Financial Times and Internet.com.” Basically, these individuals are looking for services and business solutions.

A Business.com search engine results page (SERP) is a mixed bag. The top of the page displays sponsored links for companies who are advertising directly with Business.com. The rest of the SERP is a blend of organic results, sponsored ads distributed by Google, and other Business.com sponsored links. If you are running a Business.com campaign; running ads within AdWords; and you rank organically, it is possible to have 3 more listings on a Business.com SERP. This means you can have a lot of realty on this site, but how do you make your Business.com sponsored ads work optimally? Here are some tips!

Have a well-thought-out campaign structure: As within any paid search campaign, you need to have a clean, logical account structure. Your campaigns should contain tightly themed keywords and highly targeted ad text.

Write relevant, compelling ad text: In order to craft relevant, compelling ad text you need to stick to the basics: make sure your keywords are highlighted within your ad (headline and body copy, if possible); include a clear call-to-action; and remember who your target audience is (individual looking for solutions). Remember, present your product & service as the solution the user is seeking.

Pay attention to your performance indicator: Performance Indicator reflects the performance of your listing relative to other advertisers bidding on the same keyword and your rank. If you have a low ranking then your ads may not be as compelling and relevant as possible. Revise your ads to increase your click-through rate (CTR) and your PI should increase.

Utilize your mulitlink option: The feature that makes Business.com paid listings unique is the fact that you can include up to 5 links within your ad. Your headline is a link, and you can include 4 additional links at the bottom of your ad. Be sure to utilize this mulilink option as it can draw more attention to your ad; build more trust with users; and increase your CTR by up to 20% (on average). Here is an example of an advertiser who using these options; the first ads are Business.com sponsored ads that are using the multilink option:

As I stated earlier, Google and Yahoo own the lion’s share of search traffic, but that doesn’t mean you can’t devote some of your time and efforts to alternative search venues. Sure, Business.com will generate far fewer clicks and conversions, but this could be business that you’re leaving on the table by ignoring it.

Link Building Best Practices wrote this great article

It’s a simple question, but plenty of people get confused by this one. There’s a huge difference between outsourcing your link building and buying links. One is a simple exchange of cash for particular links. It’s a straightforward transaction – you pay for a particular link; that’s it. I’m not saying that there aren’t many different types of links you can buy – there are. 

Link buying is generally a pretty standard transaction. In most cases, you are renting text links from websites, but you could also be buying reviews or sponsoring a website theme. The key is that you are making an out-and-out purchase. There’s a cash transaction specifically for the link itself.

Outsourcing Your Link Building

Outsourcing isn’t about buying links at all. When you outsource your link building campaign, you are hiring someone to do all of the dynamic link building work you would do if you had the time and resources to do it yourself. It doesn’t mean making credit card transactions to buy static links or put up banners.

Outsourcing means you trusting your campaign to a link building service who will take the time to learn about your business, your goals and your vision. They will do in-depth research about your industry, your competition and your company so that they can create dynamic links that aren’t purchased. They’ll be doing the kind of interactive link building that creates real buzz in your industry. 

If you find the right company to outsource to, they will invlove an industry researcher and a professional copywriter familiar with your industry who can develop articles, blog postings and press releases about what you do that will capture the attention of visitors to your own website and countless others.

They will be familiar with authority sites, industry sites, education pages and quality news feeds that you just wouldn’t have the time to research or the access to if you were trying to build links yourself. It’s this unique combination of skill and access that makes outsourcing your link building campaign a good idea for many businesses. 

What Sets Link Building Apart from Purchased Links

Link building is inherently content-rich. It isn’t about just the link – it’s about what surrounds the link. Because the link is imbedded in some kind of content that has to justify its existence, it naturally has to be something interesting enough to be of value. It may be an interesting how-to article, a thought-provoking response on a popular blog, a press release that’s been picked up on an industry news wire, a YouTube video…it really doesn’t matter where the link is. 

What matters is that the content is valuable to the reader, which makes the link more credible than a typical purchased link. It’s also why outsourcing your link building can be such a great investment – you aren’t buying links; you’re buying a team of researchers, bloggers, writers and industry experts who are doing what you would do if only you had the time and energy!

GrayWolf’s SEO Blog wrote this interesting article on links.  

I really find scandals interesting because people who are on the ball, plugged in, creative, not afraid to take chances and stir up a little controversy can do really well.

Case and Point Playgirl Magazine offered Ex-Governor Elliot Spitzer 1 Million Dollars to pose nude.

It’s a win-win scenario for Playgirl. Let’s go with the most likely outcome and assume client 9 says no, playgirl generated a decent amount of press, links, and attention, for the cost of a press release and some PR work.

Let’s enter dreamland and imagine he goes for the deal, I have no doubt that it would turn out to be the highest selling issue of Playgirl, attracting a huge amount of sales and advertising, more than enough to cover the $1 million dollar paycheck.

I recently asked Rand Fishkin at SEOmoz the following question and he was kind enough to reply, view his reply in bold below:

Hi Rand and Danny ,

Hope all is well. I have a question and I’m going to post your answers
on my blog if you don’t mind (if you answer at all, I know you guys
are busy

I have identified old domains with inbound links such as www.orlando-car.com
and www.albarentacar.com to purchase for my client site www.prestigeluxuryrentals.com

Their age and inbound links are attractive and the prices for the
domains are reasonable. Under $200 each.

Do I:
A. buy old domains and 301 to www.prestigeluxuryrentals.com
B. buy domains 301 non www to www then 301 to www.prestigeluxuryrentals.com
C. buy domain, build out sites and link to www.prestigeluxuryrentals.com

What do you think is best option? I think C is a waste of time,but I
wanted your opinion.

Jean-Pierre,

Best wishes,

Rand Fishkin 

BeefJerky.com Website Analysis

It’s pretty well known that orange and yellow hues make us think cheap when it comes to website design. When I landed on beefjerky.com (amazing domain, by the way) I was struck by the overall lack of quality design (orange colors) and I didn’t feel the good ol boy, pat you on the back, cozy feeling, that should be expected from a quality online retailer.

Why would you put so much time, energy and money into translating your site into over 14 languages and then hire someone with only novice web design skills to create your store? Would you hire someone who has never built a building to build your brick and mortar store? If the answer is no (and it unequivocally should be) then you’ll realize that’s exactly what you’ve done with beefjerky.com This is one reason you’re not selling as much jerky as you definitely should be! Here’s your schedule for tomorrow. Wake up, find the best designer you can, don’t sleep until the website is re-designed.

Now to increase traffic…ahh…this is my favorite part. Your title tag is currently “Beef Jerky,com. The Best Beef Jerky, Fresh from Beefjerky.com”
Sorry to break it to you, but not many people are typing in “Fresh from beefjerky.com” or “the best beefjerky” according to Google’s keyword tool. And this is prime keyword real-estate your giving up to non-performing keywords that are with out a doubt holding you back from receiving greater traffic.

Consider these keywords instead: Gourmet Beef Jerky, Beef Jerky Online, Buy Beef Jerky.

These keywords are searched by potential relevant customers that are more likely to make a purchase online. And there are tons of other keywords you should be using across your site to drive traffic.

For example: Start a page on how to make beef jerky and then sell your visitors a starter kit which comes with a sample of how the jerky should taste when done (they’ll like your sample better and return for more!) Obviously the keywords for that page should be “how to make beef jerky”. And don’t worry about teaching your consumer how to make your product, most people are way to busy with there every day chores and responsibilities, to become serious jerkers (is jerker the proper terminology?)

There’s a million other things I would fix on this site to probably quintuple sales in less than 60 days, but if you can’t see the mistakes your making, you should just sell beefjerky.com to one of your competitors for a couple million and retire.

Otherwise find a good website navigation design company, web designer and SEO company to arm you with the latest and greatest tools to launch your sales into the orbit and get ready to make more jerky than you ever have before.

I recently messed up bad by suggesting a friend should use Pay Per Post for some link building love. Well, what ended up happening is far from ever reaching a link building “How To” book.

I’ll make it short and sweet.

• Friend is on page six of Google for his desired key phrase.
• Friend buys $700 worth of PR 5 and up links on Pay Per Post.
• No real change happens.
• 30 days later friend buys another $700 worth of PR 5 and up links on Pay Per Post.

Poof, friend vanishes from page six and and top 100 search engine results pages too. They’re still in the index but no where near the top ten pages.

Here’s what I think happened. The same people who took the “post opportunity” the first time around, took it the second time around as well. Google noticed multiple links from not so relevant sites within 30 days apart from one another and punished my friend (thank the heavens it wasn’t a big client…lesson learned!)

So I write to Eric from StoneTemple.com the guy with all those Rambling’s About SEO and this is what he had to say…

“Hi Jean-Pierre,

Sorry for the slow response, but I am at SMX West in Santa Clara right now.
A couple of things to think about:

1. Is it possible that the pay per post links originally benefitted you, and
once they were detected and disabled, they simply stopped providing any
benefit? This is a scenario in which you would not recover, simply because
you were not actually penalized. Another words, in this scenario, all that
happened is that your paid links stopped adding value.

2. If you have in fact been penalized, and you have stopped buying links, I
would file a reconsideration request. Make sure you do this from within
Google Webmaster Tools. The standard advice for this is to keep it short
(no more than 3 paragraphs) and direct, admit your sins, point out that you
have cleaned it up, and ask for them to remove any penalty that may have
been applied.

Do NOT do this if you are concerned about what may happen to your site as a
result of a human review by a Googler. I.e. if they found some other
practice you have been using that they are not happy with, a reconsideration
request could make your situation worse. So make sure you are squeaky clean
before doing this.

3. With or without a reconsideration request, the process can take as little
as a few weeks, to several months. Unfortunately, there is no formula to
how quickly these types of things progress.

The other thing you need to think about, to drive your long term rankings
strategy, is what are you going to do to get natural links? These will be
the keys to long term success.

Hope that helps!

Eric”

Thanks for the great advice Eric, I appreciate it.
I think I will tough it out for a few more weeks though, considering we’re still in the Index and see what happens. If there isn’t an improvement soon, I’ll have to beg Google for forgiveness.

What do you think I should do? Apart from get my brain checked ofcourse…