I think it’s important to understand these changes, but don’t get carried away. The basics of solid SEO still apply to all of us.

Google last week announced that it had rolled out another significant change to the way it indexes websites. Without getting bogged down in the technical detail it is important that you are aware of these changes and how they are likely to impact on your website rankings in Google.

The emphasis of this most recent change is on rewarding websites that consistently publish fresh content.

In Google’s own words the changes reflect the fact that “with the advent of video, images, news and real-time updates, the average webpage is richer and more complex”. Google are claiming that these changes will result in “50% fresher results for web searches”.

Want to stay at the top of Google?

To ensure your sites remain at the top of the search engines,  You can follow a few basic steps.

• - Maintaining an up-to-date news area and/or blog on your website.
• - Keeping content fresh and if possible, diverse (for example new articles, video, audio and maps).
• - Engaging with readers via social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Is my SEO up to scratch?

Remember – the basics of SEO remain unchanged. But how can you ensure you’re doing all the right things?

Market Samurai is the answer for me. It is by far the easiest way to ensure I am targeting “buy” keywords, and producing content that can easily rank in the search engines. I really enjoy keeping track of my sites’ search engine rankings using the Rank Tracker module of Market Samurai. It’s fun to watch my sites move up the ranks!

What works for you?

Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below…

The best part is – it’s FREE!

Generating traffic is a huge issue for all of us, ins’t it? Do you pay for PPC traffic? Do you spend hours building links and social bookmarks? We need to increase traffic to our websites so we can test offers, get high search engine rankings, make sales, and build customer lists.

Targeted web traffic is essential for online business.

We all need web traffic. There is a way that doesn’t cost any money, and has been proven to be extremely effective. Lynn Terry discusses this in detail in a recent post at ClickNewz.com :

Increasing Blog Traffic

In this article, Lynn discusses proven methods to get:
- super targeted, responsive visitors
- increased affiliate sales
- high quality inbound links to your site
- higher search engine rankings

When it comes to building a business online, you can subscribe to the “Buy my $2000 product” camp, or you can follow simple, common sense advice. There are plenty of people willing to sell us big ticket products. But the truth is, you can get targeted web traffic without breaking the bank. Lynn will show you how.

Lynn shares real-world methods that work.

Check out Lynn’s blog & you’ll learn more about this business than you ever imagined. She’s an inspiration!

“How Can I Get Quality Backlinks to My Website?”.

There are a lot of tools and programs around that promise amazing things in terms of backlinks. If you’re looking to improve your search engine ranking over the long term, it’s easy to be tempted by promises of “automation”, “relevant links”, “instant results”, etc.

Should you use Search Engine Ranking Software to automate the process?

In my opinion, it’s difficult (or nearly impossible) to automate quality backlinks to your website by using a software program. Social bookmarking may get your website indexed in the search engines quickly, but the power of social bookmarking is not long term.  For long term success, you need a large number of quality, relevant links back to your site.

I’m happy for someone out there to prove me wrong. But so far, I have only seen positive results from hard work, quality content, and a few little search engine ranking tricks to help me along the way.

“What litte search engine ranking tricks?”, I hear you ask?

I use a 3 phase process instead of Search Engine Ranking software.

STEP ONE – MARKET ANALYSIS & KEYWORD RESEARCH

I use Market Samurai to track my own website’s search engine ranking and the websites I am competing against for a particular keyword phrase. If you click here, you will visit the “Dojo” area of the Noble Samurai website where you can watch videos which explain exactly what this software can do for you – including analyzing the links to your competitors sites! Seriously – you can see what sites link to your competitors, you can then go and get similar backlinks for yourself!

STEP TWO – QUALITY CONTENT

For my affiliate websites, I buy article packs from http://EasyPLR.com – I use these articles to produce high quality, unique content on all my sites. Specifically, I buy a pack of articles, re-write them and publish them as unique articles in the next step in my process. I am always in search of high quality articles and I have never been disappointed with these guys. PLR (Private Label Rights) articles are fantastic because it gives me something to start with. It’s hard work writing interesting articles, and for about $1 each, I get a fabulous head start from EasyPLR – Yes, Please!

STEP THREE – DISTRIBUTE CONTENT

Article Marketing Automation – Once I have a unique article with at least two links back to my website, I submit it using Article Marketing Automation. I use this service to hand spin the article myself (which takes awhile), but I am always pleased with the results. They then publish unique copies of my article on blogs relevant to my topic over a period of time. This is fantastic because it looks natural, the links are relevant to the topic of my site, and I can obtain over 200 relevant backlinks from every article!

This is my 3 phase process which (so far) has eliminated any need for Search Engine Ranking software. I know this is an ongoing process, and new tools and software are released every day.

Is your method of gaining quality backlinks very different from mine?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please join in the discussion & leave your comment below.

P.S. I have learned almost everything I know about SEO from the guys at AffiliIT. If you’re looking for serious internet marketing training, with no gimmicks and no BS, check it out!

Image courtesy of: John Althouse Cohen

SEO writing is not a mysterious, complicated process. So don’t freak out if you’re new to the concept. SEO writing uses common sense and a practical approach, and that aspect of it appeals to me.

Before I can share some SEO writing tips, it’s important you understand one of the ways I do business. I know many/most of you do not do things this way. However, this is one way I have found and so far, it’s very effective.

One of my approaches to internet marketing involves complete immersion into my niche market. This means that I become a member of that niche. For example, let’s say I have done some research and discovered there is a great opportunity around “digital scrapbooking”. I have found a fantastic affiliate program for some “digital scrapbooking software” and I want to promote it.  This is what I do: I create a personal blog related to “digital scrapbooking” which I update regularly. I also subscribe to other blogs related to digital scrapbooking, and spend some time getting to know other people who are also interested in it. I provide quality content related to digital scrapbooking, and participate in that market.

When you are writing blog posts or articles in your niche market, there are a few key things to remember:

1)      Keep the Reader in Mind – Who are you writing for? What are they interested in? Will they gain anything by reading your blog post or article? Provide value and interesting, informative content and you’ll find people will keep coming back for more.

2)      Keyword Research – Research your market and find out what they need. Are there questions that go unanswered? Is there a hot topic buzzing around the forums? Research long tail keywords and write your blog posts to address those keyword topics.

3)      Tools & Plugins – There are several awesome SEO tools and plugins available to help bloggers and internet marketers. My favourite right now is the All In One SEO plugin. Be sure to use “tags” and keywords in your blog posts. You can also create a category on your blog for your keyword to help you rank highly for that phrase.

4)      Social Bookmarking – Although this is not a long term SEO strategy, bookmarking your blog posts on Digg, Propeller, StumbleUpon, etc can help you gain quick search engine listings. Experts debate the value of social bookmarking on every SEO forum, however, I still use these services to gain visibility quickly.

One of the drawbacks to my method of “complete immersion” into my market is the sheer volume of work required to keep niche blogs updated with high quality SEO content.  If you are unable to keep up with the volume needed to maintain high visibility on the Web, consider hiring the service of a professional writer skilled in SEO practices to enhance the relevancy of your site. You’ll find the work will pay off as you gain the trust of new customers.

At first outsourcing may seem daunting (it sure was for me). But I see now that everyone can do this. The job I posted was a very small job – only $20. If you can spare $20 to have someone write a few quality blog posts or articles for you, it will free up some of your time to focus on other things.

But that is a topic for another day! Time for me to get back to work! Enjoy your day!

I like SEO.

There. I said it. It’s out in the open. PPCMom is officially an SEO convert and I love every minute of it!

I have been learning a lot about internet marketing, building websites, writing blog posts, and developing products for a few different niches that I work in. It’s been a lot of fun to watch my sites rise in the search engine rankings over the past few weeks. I’ve even started to get sales on sites where I have never used any Pay Per Click advertising.

Free traffic!

And not just any old traffic – traffic that converts! WooooHooo!

I’m so excited that I find it hard to sleep. The potential of this is huge and exciting!

I know to many of you more experienced internet marketers, this does not seem newsworthy. But to me, it is huge news. SEO has always been a mysterious voodoo, witch doctor type science that I knew nothing about. I didn’t know much about writing SEO content or keywords and phrases. I could never find a formula to follow to ensure I’d get traffic to my site.

PPC, on the other hand, is completely straight forward. You create an ad, pay for clicks, and receive traffic to your site within minutes.

But that’s the thing. You have to KEEP paying for clicks to keep getting traffic. If you stop paying, the traffic stops as well. Not so with SEO. With a well-optimized blog, your traffic is free and continues to flow to your site over time. The key phrase here is “well-optimized” and I have learned there are several steps you need to take to maximize your SEO potential. I’m eager to share a bit of what I have learned.

Stay tuned for some SEO tips from me….(never thought I’d say that!) 

P.S. I’ve included some links to sites that have helped me recently in my quest to learn more about SEO. You may be interested in reading more. Lynn Terry has an amazing amount of valuable internet marketing information on her site – ClickNewz.com , and I’ve been learning my SEO formula at AffiliIT.

Today we are going to discuss PPC vs SEO and why I believe these two methods go hand in hand for all successful affiliate marketers.

First, the definitions for anyone who does not know already:

Search Engine Optimization ‘SEO’ : the process you follow to improve your website’s position in the search engines. This process involves ‘keyword research‘, ‘quality content on your website’, ‘external and internal link building’, ‘article marketing’ and of course ‘tracking’.

Pay Per Click ‘PPC’ : A form of advertising where we pay for every click on our advertisements. Usually we place our ads on the larger PPC engines such as Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing and MSN/Bing, Facebook, and MySpace.

So what are the differences between SEO and PPC?

* Costing methods : a click from a search engine listing will cost the website owner nothing whereas a click on a PPC ad will cost you something (anywhere between 0.03 and 5.00 per click or more!).

* Time to see a result : PPC ads can be live within an hour whereas a search engine optimized listing may take weeks or months to achieve

* Longevity : A PPC ad disappears as soon as your budget has been spent whereas a search engine optimized listing may remain for months or even years.

* Expertise : The two techniques require varying types of expertise and knowledge but everyone has to start at the beginning, right?

SEO and PPC are both valuable online marketing techniques. Both have the affect of increasing your website’s visibility. If your site, or links to your site, are more widely available on the web, then this will usually translate into an increase in traffic and hopefully sales. Many people make the mistake of only focusing on ONE method – PPC or SEO. However, massive power is generated when you COMBINE these two methods together into one powerful marketing force.

I have learned that if you combine these two methods you will build a strong, solid business online. When you build a landing page for your PPC campaign, be sure to use relevant keywords, and optimize the site for SEO. This way, while you are sending paid PPC traffic to your landing page, you are also increasing its perceived value in the search engines.

The golden rule in marketing is that you should constantly strive for maximum results and ROI for your budget. In other words, if your marketing is making you a profit – even if it’s a thin profit – it’s worth it. Knowing this, pay per click is certainly worth doing, and you can make a lot of money quickly. Overall, using pay per click alone will leave you with thinner margins. If you focus on search engine optimization for your landing pages, you will significantly increase your margins over the long term.

In short, PPC Mom says : PPC and SEO are both very valuable. Combine the two, and you become unstoppable!