Atlanta SEO Articles

In order to gain site traffic, you must build links.  Its inevitable.  There are no magic formulas or little red easy buttons to make this happen.  Most sites build their links manually until the site picks up steam and are able to gain links from great exposure and content.  There are two great plugins for wordpress that will help you in your quest for site exposure and search rankings.

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Reciprocal linking is dead! Wrong! It’s just different now. One of Google’s secret algorithms looks for classic signs that a page is full of reciprocal links and checks the links to see if links exist on the other side. Google knows that pages that are full of reciprocal links are simply webmasters trying to increase search engine positioning. However, I have seen some links that were reciprocals carry some weight with Google. These are called trackbacks in wordpress.

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When link building, blog commenting is an effective way of getting quality inbound links and site traffic. You can get a quality inbound link from an authoritative source. The key to good commenting is to stay away from spam. Put some thought into your comments. A well written comment that adds to the value of the page will give the blogger incentive to leave your comments in place and ask you for more. One of the keys to commenting is understanding the “nofollow” attribute.

Important Note on Dofollow and Nofollow Blogs

When commenting on a blog, remember that most blogs use the “nofollow” tags to keep from passing link juice or page rank to commenter’s websites. This helps prevent them from dealing with enormous amounts of spam. I still comment on these blogs, but only when the site has good traffic and I think I can generate some traffic by my comment.

On the other hand, some “very smart” bloggers allow link juice to be passed through comments. The reason it is smart is because Google likes for content to change regurlarly and good comments can add value to a page and have surfers coming back again and again.

In order to tell if a site is using the “nofollow” attribute, you have to look at the source code of previous comments:

<a href=”website.com” rel=”nofollow” >website</a>

This can be a very time consuming process because you have to find blogs with good pagerank that are related to your website, than you have to determine if they pass link juice. I did stumble upon a tool which I have found very effective. Basically, it does all the research for you. It does a search of blogs that are related to a specific keyword. Usually my searches return more than a thousand blogs. It gives you the pagerank of the blog home page, the pagerank of the actual blog page and most importantly it tells you if the blog is a dofollow or nofollow blog. I haved saved countless hours since I started using Fast Blog Finder (aff. link). The cost is $47. They have a free trial if you want to give it a test spin.

Keyword Usage

Identify an author’s keyword by looking at the page’s title tag and the content of the page. If possible, use the keyword in your post and if you are going to use a link, in your link as well. This gives the author a good reason to leave your comment in tact because your comment is benefiting his content.

Ask a Question

By asking the blogger or another commenter a question, it shows that you are involved in the conversation. Try asking something intelligent about the post. For example, if you are going to ask a question about this post, you could ask “do you really think Google pays attention to nofollow tags”. I would of course answer you with an explanation and a source for the explanation.

Say Something Edgy

If you see a comment that is just stupid or not well thought out, spend some time ripping that comment to shreds. People love controversy and usually you can start a pretty good debate that might end up with links to the blog you posted the comment on. If it gets really out of hand, you can do a post on your blog in response and post a link in the comments saying you have a detailed answer at your blog.

Say Something Intelligent

I would rather leave a well written comment on a blog than five not so well written comments on other blogs. By sounding intelligent and adding value, your comment can be a like a little nugget of gold for the blogger. A well written comment drives traffic to your site because readers will click on your link just to see who you are.

Recently, I left a comment on an entertainment blog. Two days later I received an email from the blog owner saying that she appreciated my comment so much that she would like for me to come back and comment more often. She also gave me a link from her front page which has a higher page rank. So I got two quality inbound links from her site. Thats the power of commenting.

I have been using a new tool for commenting (link building) that is very impressive. Basically, you do a keyword search and the tool returns around 1000 blogs related to that keyword. It classifies the blog as either “dofollow”, “nofollow” or “http error”. It is a great piece of software and I have gained some quality links for some of my sites using it. It has saved me countless hours when I am commenting on blogs to build links and add valuable content

Some of the features:

• Toggle “nofollow” tags highlighted on page
• Keeps track of when comment was posted
• Easily organize favorite blogs
• Keyword search returns around 1000 related blogs
• This is not spamware!

Download a free trial of Fast Blog Finder (aff link).

One authoritative link can help your search engine rankings increase dramatically. I saw a site jump to the top three pages of Google with one link. There are plenty of ways to get good authoritative links.

Always keep your eyes open. Recently, I discovered one of my clients was a member of the local chamber of commerce. I contacted them and they posted a link on their site. It had a total of three links on the page and the page rank was a three. That passed us some great link juice. The best part is that their closest competition also had the same link, so we were able to close the gap. You just never know when you have a great resource sitting there not being used.

One great way to get Authoritative links is to post in wikipedia. Not spam mind you because you will be deleted. I have had some success posting links in the surnames section of their site. I simply do a search for the surname of my client and post a bio there with a link. I also post a link in the references section. When taking this approach I have never had a link deleted. (update on wikipedia: Wikipedia now using nofollow tag)

Are you or your client a member of the Better Business Bureau? If so, don’t pass up the opportunity to get some link juice from them. The BBB is very authoritative and occasionally you can get a good link from them.

Amazon.com has an affiliate program where you can set up an astore. After you set up the store you can put a link back to your site from your Amazon.com store.

Make friend’s with a webmaster. Now the company’s policies might be that they do not sell links, however a webmaster may appreciate a little gratuity for his or her hard work. Technically you are not buying a link, you are just smoozing a webmaster who in turn will give you a good inbound link. Usually an online gift certificate does the trick. This is especially effective with distributors and manufacturers if you sell their product. They may even list their retailers, but quite possibly you could get a more prominent position if you brown nose a little bit.

Perhaps I am just late with this discovery, but it seems that wikipedia.org is using the nofollow tag. Some of my links are still showing up in Yahoo Site Explorer but are not in Google Webmaster tools. I wonder when this was done. Oh well, there goes another great source for authoritative links to your website.

I did not spam wikipedia.org by any means. I simply would look for a need on wikipedia and provide the content for a specific page on one of my websites and than list it as a source.

It seems the invent of the nofollow tag is a plague for some SEOs. However, I choose to view it in a different light. Since the nofollow tag was accepted by Google, it has leveled the playing field among website owners. Large corporations are now having to link build just like the little guy, if they don’t want to be penalized for buying links. Also, you can use the nofollow tag in your own blog to funnel link juice to specific pages.

I am sorry to see wikipedia go this route, however there are plenty of other wiki sites out there that still give good links. I will make a list soon and put up a post.

Are you looking for great Atlanta SEO!

A good press release can stir up buzz, generate traffic, give you links and help you be found in a whole different section of Google and Yahoo! Thousands of people search Google and Yahoo! news services everyday from news junkies to news pros.

A good press release has been known to bring in thousands of visitors. You know the ones I am talking about. Halo 3 is a great example. Every time they did a press release, Xbox’s site was flooded with visitors. Xbox (bungie) intentionally did releases at different intervals to create massive amounts of interest, and than tell you to wait. By the time the game was released, there was so much anticipation people were standing in line all night. A press release does not have to be boring. As a matter of fact, it needs to stir up intrigue or excitement or both.

A press release that is worthy to be put on a social bookmarking site can bring huge dividends. Every time it gets digged, more people are going to see it. It is important to learn how to write a press release that is effective, highly optimized and news worthy. After your press release is written, post it on your site first! If other people are going to carry your press release, make sure you are known as the original source in Google and Yahoo! The way you do that is by putting it on your site and submitting the url to both Yahoo! and Google. Once your press release starts picking up steam, your site will reap more benefits because it has the original content which is always more valuable to the search engines.

Reciprocal linking is dead! Wrong! It’s just different now. One of Google’s secret algorithms looks for classic signs that a page is full of reciprocal links and checks the links to see if links exist on the other side. Google knows that pages that are full of reciprocal links are simply webmasters trying to increase search engine positioning. However, I have seen some links that were reciprocals carry some weight with Google. These are called trackbacks in wordpress.

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