I have mentioned before that Market Samurai is one of my preferred Search engine optimisation programs, it helps me achieve 1st page rankings on a variety of niches both for my own sites and clients sites.
One thing I love about Market Samurai is it pulls in not only Google ads searches but also Google organic search data and Google Trends as well, saving you time going to Google Trends and then Google Ads Tool, you have it all combined under one umbrella. It is very useful on defining your niche and choosing keyphrases that are not too competitive and still have a good search volume. It does also gather data for Bing and Yahoo in the Rank Tracker tab which is on the latest version.
On the other hand other sections such as SEO competition is really good at analysing on-page and off-page factors and giving you a nice summary of competing sites and the backlinks they have along with how well optimised those sites are including whether they have titles, description and meta keywords as well. It’s much better to track and have all this under one program.
Furthermore getting authority backlinks and finding article content is also one of the highlights. Another thing which is great for affiliate marketers is a section called monetizing where you can manage your affiliate programs and and connect with Clickbank and Commission Junction and Amazon.
Also for bloggers there is a section called Publish content where you can add posts from your WordPress blog in there without having to login to WordPress each time.
Another feature I also like, cause I’m obsessed with buying domains is the domain feature, you can enter one keyphrase and it will give you around 100 suggestions on keywords for that domain, then you can bulk register. You can find new or aged domains on there as well. very very handy for SEO purposes.
I hope that be demonstrating some key features this now gives you some better over view of what Market Samurai can do.
Don’t forget that if you are looking to purchase a copy, then make sure you get the Market Samurai discount which saves you 35% off the normal price of $149, so it only costs you $97!
Buying Links Is Good For Search Engine Optimisation if done the right way! I repeat… if done the right way!
It has been told in the SEO world, that if you buy links it will hurt your rankings and could get you dropped in rankings or possibly banned. This is not entirely true. If you buy links in the natural way it is good for the search engines. The natural way is usually by hand picking authority sites that will put your link on their page for a small monthly or yearly fee.
The best way to find reputable links is from sites that do not clearly state “Links Here For Sale!” or from sites that do not already have a crazy amount of outbound links from other sites displayed on their site. That is when Google picks up that it could be a bit unethical, particularly if the site sells links based on page rank and also publicizes it.
Don’t be scared or believe the hype when other SEO companies say you should not buy links because 99% of them are buying links themselves, whether this means that they are outsourcing to India to get links done, or simply hiring other webmasters to put links to their clients sites, its usually those webmasters that are buying them in some way or form from somewhere.
You can of course build links naturally by posting nice fresh content in your site regularly and people who find your site interesting will naturally link to you or you can simply create social profile pages and submit your site in directories such as Business.com, Local.comBotw.org etc. but at the end of the day you need to get some other links from somewhere and buying them from sites like TextLinks.com is a great idea as you can target certain sites which you find relevant or appropriate. Just be careful to make sure the backlinks you buy are from reputable sites, or sites that have good age and backlinks themselves.
Of course if you only buy links then this will send off alarm bells, but if you mix up your links form natural sources then this is more then ok. Google also bases their algorithm on keyword density which I explained earlier in my SEOPressor post. Programs such as SEO Pressor will help you get your pages more fine tuned.
But getting back to buying links, sites link TextLinks.com for example have a full market place of links to be placed on certain pages of sites and these sites generally do not have “buy link here!” all over the place, they are very discrete and links are usually placed within content so you are getting quality links from content pages. So when Google do their random crawl to find dodgy backlinks you will be certainly very safe.
One of the website my team worked on got a Google Penalty. The possible reason for the penalty might have been external site-wide links. The first thing I did was to look for the rankings of the website in other major search engines Yahoo and Bing. The keywords were still on top on both the other search engines. The next thing was to avoid the panic situation which webmasters and SEO experts face when they see one of the websites their team work upon gets a penalty for some wrong action/wrong SEO practices. The penalty for our website might have been due to some sort of spam link building tactics done on the website. I tried to handle the situation as calm as possible. Below are the steps I took to remove the effect of the penalty.
Day 1: First thing I did on the page is to change all the file names to show new page URL thus removing the spam link effect of all previous off-page submissions done. I blocked all the old pages using robots.txt. I changed all the content in newly created pages.
Day 2: Created new Title and Meta Tags for the newly created page and uploaded the same. I also removed the old RSS feed. I then re-submitted the Sitemap.
Day 3: Send a reconsideration request to Google through webmaster tools account.
Day 5: The website has got all the SERP back and some keywords got higher SERP.
The first and the formost thing is to check whether your website is having a penalty or not. There are many ways to check the same. You can read about 10 Ways to Diagnose a Google Penalty .
Share your thoughts and experiences of avoiding Google penalty. You can a share the things you have done to avoid a Google penalty. You can get in touch with me personally through my Twitter Handle @cijoaj2003
I have noticed a new Name Search feature on Twitter. I think this is due to excess number of celebrities and brands joining the platform . This new feature will help us to search out a brand or a celebrity easily. This name search placement is going to be a free for the time being but Twitter might charge brands for a sponsered place as more brands start to join the platform.
Here is a screenshot of Twitter's new name search
Currently twitter is suggesting the top accounts which are related to the specific term for which are conducting the search. In future twitter might just make this feature a paid one so that tweeps/brands can place their accounts featured near a particular search term.The above search feature could also be turned out to be a follow suggestion in feature.
We need to wait and see what twitter team is planning to do with this new feature.
Here is the screenshot of previous normal name search on Twitter
I think that the new name search feature is more effective than the old one as we can easily get the tweeps with real time search terms.
I would like to hear your views on Twitter new name search as well the old name search feature.
I am a big fan of video optimisation, in particular Youtube optimisation. What I find is that if you can find certain keyphrases that have a good chance of being found in both Youtube and Google, then you will get a large amount of traffic come through to your site as a result.
You can do this usually by simply typing a keyphrase in Youtube search area and it will usually start coming up with suggested terms, then you just decide which title you would like to go for with your video.
The key thing here is to get good amounts of subscribers and friends to your channel, this will get you popular and have others link to your channel and give it more power in the serps. So getting backlinks to your profile an videos is one thing.
The 2nd thing is adding the right meta title and description and keywords for each video, be sure to add good titles and keywords.
And 3rd most important thing which not many people are aware of is submitting your video to niche video sites, for example if your video is about comedy, then submit it to Break.com before submitting it again to Youtube, this ensures you will get quality score to your Youtube video. If you have a video on SEO, then submit your video to GSEO.net/video-submit.php again this is an extremely score to Youtube.
You can monitor how you are doing and to some degree where your links and traffic are coming from through the insights tab. Here I have included some screenshots:
This gives demographic and regional information, very handy if your targeting a specific age group or city or country.
Here is very interesting information on the type of backlinks you are getting to your video:
The great thing about the insights tool is you can drill down even further by clicking on each area to get more information, then you can also generate a report using a csv file.
Here is some helpful information that can help you understand how to optimise a youtube video a bit better.
And lastly if your serious about ranking well then GSEO.net have an amazing video backlinking tool that can increase your video in the serps in literally minutes. By submitting your video through GSEO it will appear something like this with tags and be recognised to youtube as a quality backlink, check it out here:
It seems that Google has changed its local business listing/map listings to be shown as a place page for brand name search results. This change seems to help website URL’s to rank higher for their domain names and dominate the search with maps. Google also has a benefit as the visitors only have the option of going to Google Maps page via the Place page link and they cannot go directly to the website. This will increase the traffic to Google Maps.
Here is a screenshot
Note some of the differences:
1) The business website now shows above the map listing pushing the map listing one place down in the SERP's.
2) URL of the website is not displayed and there is only one option to Place Page.
3) The map pin next the business name becomes larger
4) No more stars for business reviews.
5) Reviews are not shown for all listings. The reviews are shown in the SERP listing only if the map listing of the website has significant number of reviews.
I am not sure if this is just a testing done by Google Maps Team. The change seems to have happened on July 10th , 2010.
If you like to send me your comments then you can send them through my Twitter ID
I thought it is worth to discuss the same with my readers. The issue with duplicate content is that if the duplicate content is published on a more authoritative site then it will outrank the original site in long run. The same thing has happened with the experiment of "credit card concierge.” You can see the screenshot below
The The Four Hour Workweek website which is more authority website than Credit card chaser and was ranked 7th just below credit card chaser on 6th position and now it is ranked 5th while credit card chaser went down a place to 7th.The above rankings might have Datacenter variances. However you can now see what is the after effect of duplicate content.
I have also had similar situtation in which duplicate content outranked my website but then I slowly regained my position. Patience and determinated work can make you back on top. We need to collect more authority links to rank higher. Great content and good links are the key to SEO success.
I don't want to go much deep into the penalty of duplicate content. In the above experiment there is no chance of a penality as they have provided backlink to the orginal resource.
If you want to discuss more about this contact SEO Consultant Author Cijo Abraham Mani @seoherald
I today checked one of my client website in Google Webmaster Tools and saw that there is a huge increase in the backlinks . Is this a fault in Google Webmaster Tool tracking ? . Many of my friends too experienced the same. I think the reason might be that Google has started counting all links which are not previously considered to be a priority. I have checked the same with SEO Round Table and came to the following post http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/022454.html
I think this might not be a techincal error as I have already heard that Google will start to give no follow links also linkjuice but the priority to this links would be very less considered to do follow links. We would all have to wait until we hear what the Google Webmaster Team has to speak.
This will inturn be a big change and this might be just shift in link importance and authority. Google might want the webmasters to be aware of all the pages which link to their website. This seems to have lot of positive impact like we can analyze which linkfarms/content spams are linked to our website and we might also get an additional feature to report spam websites which link to our website.
I am not doing a strong research now but I will wait till I hear something from other SEO Experts.
Have you recently noticed this type of a link count difference in your webmaster tools accounts ? What do you feel about the change ? Do you think that Google is now going to change the way they give priority to backlinks ? I would like to see you comments about this topic.
You can also discuss the same with me through my Twitter Account
There are many ways to promote your business through Twitter. Here are the 6 most effective ways to promote your business on Twitter.
1. Know your audience
Twitter is a community and so each member in the community should follow a set of rules. If you are planning to be part of the community then you need to first understand the rules. Spend some time watching how the community members do conversation and start learning the rules if the community. Find people who are interested in your area and start connecting with the right set of audience.
There is no harm in asking for help as you are new to the community. There will be a lot of members who would be ready to help you. The sharing of knowledge and interaction makes Social Media great.
2. Connect with people who are interested
When you are in Social Media space you should always know that you are not a brand and just a brand ambassador. You need to get real people who are interested in your brand and use them in an effective way so that they will become brand ambassadors for your brand. Customers should get the benefit of real time and they should get the information they require within less amount of time. You need to track each and every individual who is following you. There might be specific reason why they are following your brand. The competition in Social Media is going to be much stronger in the coming years as creating a database of people who are interested in your product/brand is always going to be a great asset to your brand.
3. Conversation is Key
Conversation is the most important thing for Social Media marketing. In a Social Media like Twitter you should be a real person rather than a brand. People like to connect with a real person rather than a brand. There is no point how big your brand/company is or how small your business. In social media the most important thing is conversion. You should have already noticed the success of @RSHotel. If you trying to conquer the space as a brand you may never win but if you are trying to create a conversation you will always get the right kind of output.
4 Be an ambassador:
The biggest thing to make sure is that you do not handle Social Media completely to a new person. Social Media must be handled by employees who have been with the company for a larger time and who knows about the company as you are going to promote your brand in front of a new set of audience.
We find that it works best when our clients designate a single person internally to act as a social-media liaison, or ambassador. Doing so ensures that the updates occur more frequently and result in less clutter. The social-media ambassador can then begin to build relationships with key customers, and those customers are then able to act as brand ambassadors.
Be sure to also establish some "rules of engagement" for your ambassadors. They will need guidelines to help them decide which conversations they should participate in and which should get escalated within your organization.
5. Give a reason to follow
People love to pass valuable information. If someone is following your brand that person might be interested in your product/services or might be eagerly waiting to find the right kind of offer. The people who follow your brand are your greatest strength on Social Media. Why not reward them? Give special offers, Discounts using Promo Codes. Do one-to-one conversation you’re your follow. Be active as often as you can and get engaged with your followers.
The next biggest thing you have to look into is “how to turn your followers into brand ambassadors?”. Ask your followers opinion when you plan to launch a product/service. Collect valuable information/feedback from your followers and use this data for future offers and promotions. The positive word-of-mouth in Social Media is more valuable than hundreds of testimonials on your website.
6. Track your conversations:
Last but not the least tracking your conversation is one of the most important factor in Social Media. Ensure that you check your @ replies and direct messages frequently and give necessary information to the people who ask for the same. Twitter search is another great feature to check the real time conversation about your niche.
There are a lot of twitter tools available and these tools help you to monitor positive and negative sentiment among users. If you want an in-depth understanding about the conversations it is better to use these tools.
If you want to discuss about any social media/SEO related topics you can follow me @cijoaj2003
Earlier I posted about business.com promo codes and what is even more exciting is that Local.com are now also offering discounts off when you submit your link to their directory!
The way Local.com works is very similar to a local yellow pages website, where you can add your address and map location, this is also great for SEO particularly Google local map optimization. When you add your business in Local.com you will have a very good chance of Google picking this up in their citations which will automatically show in the “more about this place” or “reviews” sections of your Google map page. The more citations you have the better you will be ranked in Google local!
Here is a list of what is included with the offer:
* Basic Business Information * Website URL * Description * Guaranteed top of the results * Listing published on major search engines – let us do the work for you! * Company LOGO * Special offers available to your customers * Web page * Call tracking * Up to 5 photos * Listing in 2 categories * Bold, eye-catching color
$69.95 Promotion Price – $49.95 To save $20 off Local.com directory listings click the following banner:
To have a listing which includes your own web page in such a high quality directory is a fantastic backlink and very trusted for the search engines and as a result should gain you much more authority leading you to better ranking in Google, Yahoo and Bing.
What is also good is that Local.com have a page rank of 7, so any inside page well be picked up and indexed quite quickly!
