Search Engine Eptimization, part 2 - Basics of Links

Hello again! In this second part of my SEO series, I'm going to explain the basics of off-page SEO. As mentioned in my last post, off-page SEO is generally the process of building backlinks to your site and which links are better etc... Here I'll talk about the importance of different links and how to implement this knowledge. I've had to put in this and the previous post, just to set the scene for anyone new to search engine optimization (if you're fairly experienced, skip through for the tips and techniques).
I assume you all know what a backlink is (if not, check out article on backlinks). Many beginners think that to get lots of traffic and a good search engine ranking, you just need to post your link all over the net. This is not the case. Certain backlinks have more 'weight' - influence your ranking better - than others. So what factors determine how much weight a link carries?

The main factor is whether the link is nofollow or dofollow. Nofollow is basically the presence of the 'rel=nofollow' attribute, in the link tag, in the HTML of the page. Dofollow is the absence of this attribute. What a nofollow link does is tells any search engines not to count this link when calculating the website it points to's ranking. Obviously, then nofollow links are not much good unless they are placed in a place on a page that will draw traffic. So you want your links to be dofollow, but many blogs where you can comment or article sites to post articles on use nofollow. Check out this article on dofollow/nofollow links for information on why websites use the nofollow attribute.
Ok then, but how do I tell if a link is nofollow or dofollow? Well, you could sift through tons of HTML markup, but that's not much fun and takes a looonnnggg time. Or you could use a tool like NoDofollow (and add-on for Firefox). What it does is highlights links on a page a different colour depending on whether they are nofollow or dofollow. This way you can see if your favourite article site or blog uses nofollow on their article backlinks or post comments. If the site uses nofollow, I would recommend you put it to the bottom of the of the list of sites you want a backlink on. Don't disregard nofollow links completely - they will still bring valuable traffic if placed in a suitable place on a page, it's just that a dofollow link will do this and help your search engine ranking.
In my next post, I talk about the importance of PageRank (PR) and how to increase your PR, that's where I'll get on to the actual techniques of SEO.
Thanks for reading, and if you enjoyed any of my posts, follow me on twitter!

Search Engine Eptimization, part 1 - Introduction

Right then, I have finally got round to planning and writing some of that promised SEO series. What it will include is basically a set of posts centering around search engine optimization for websites/blogs, ie - link building, on page SEO and getting more targeted traffic. It will mainly be aimed at beginner webmasters but I'll put in a few tips that may also appeal to those more experienced SEO-ers; some little pieces that could help you with your site optimization.
In this first post of the series, I'm going to talk to you about what search engine optimization (SEO) is. SEO has been around since the first search engines started to crawl the web and index web pages (I'm going to assume you know what a search engine is!). Nowadays, many people think Google is the 'god' of the search engines. It seems all powerful with its hundreds of seperate branches ie - blogging, e-mail and I think Google even owns YouTube now. And it seems to most people that The Big G has been around since the dawn of time (or at least the start of computing and the Internet). But in fact, Google is one of the newest of the big search engines as it was only launched in 1998. But since then, Google has introduced a huge number of techniques to help them rank sites more effectively, leading to them becoming so successful. An example of these is PageRank. This technique counts the number of links to a page, as well as analyzing the quality of the link (more on that in my next post), to influence where it ranks in there results. Google is constantly changing how they determine where to rank websites. This means that people have had to find ways to make their website rank better - come up higher in search results - than their competition, and also adapt to these changes, thus getting more clicks and therefore traffic. This process of SEO has become a large industry and there are many companies offering it as a service, but the best way is to learn it for yourself, so you can have total control over your website.

First of all, there are two types of SEO. On page SEO and off page SEO. They are both pretty self explanatory - on page search engine optimization is changing aspects of your websites to influence how much the search engines 'like' them. On page has the benefit that it is very quick to do, and easy to start doing but harder once your reach an upper ceiling. Off page search engine optimization mainly involves garnering links to your pages from all over the web. This is great because it can also bring you traffic from these links, but many links are hard to get (especially high PR links).
I will explain about these two types of search engine optimization in more detail, in my next post and what you can do yourself to help your site rank higher. EDIT: Click for part 2 of my SEO series.
Thanks for reading, and if you enjoyed any of my posts, follow me on twitter!

Dofollow links

Hi! Since my last post ,which was quite a while ago, I've done some things to change it. You may have noticed I've changed the template - the other one was very bland whereas this template has a bit more variety. And probably the best change for you, I've made my blog commenting dofollow. Now if you're a web developer or the like, you will probably know what dofollow and nofollow links are. But for the layman I will explain what dofollow/nofollow is and how to change a blogspot blog, into dofollow.

Well then, dofollow technically doesn't exist. What it is, is when a link is posted it can contain an attribute that reads 'rel=nofollow'. This means that search engines will not factor this link in when they rank your pages, thus you get virtually no benefit from commenting on a nofollow blog because not many people will click on your comment URL. Sure, a nofollow link from a high traffic page, in a good position, will earn you traffic, but that link will not count for anything as the search engines see it. A dofollow link is basically one without this 'rel=nofollow' attribute. It is seen by search engines and they count this link when working out how to rank your site in their indexes (I'll talk about the importance of better/worse links and what they are, in that series I keep saying I'll; trust me I'll do it next post!). So commenting on a dofollow blog is useful.
There are drawbacks of a dofollow link though. If a lot of links are dofollow on a page, they get the link juice split between them. You can liken this link to the flow of water from a bucket with holes in it. The PageRank (PR)or link juice is the water, the holes represent dofollow links and the bucket is the homepage (or any other page for that matter). Out of these holes flows the water, thus leaving less water in the original bucket. If you stopper one of the holes (apply the nofollow attribute to it) then more water is left in the bucket. Having more holes in the bucket - links on the page - means that more water flows out, but less water  - PageRank - is passing out of each link. Basically, if a page has more links on it, these links will take some of the giver pages PR and each link gets less PR passed to it. Therefore a page with less dofollow links on it will pass more PR on to each link. But overall, dofollow is giving a bit back to the net.
How then, I hear you asking, do I make my blogspot blog's comments dofollow, so that people can benefit from it?

1. Go to Blogger layout and click "Edit HTML".
2. Check the box reading "Expand Widget Templates".
3. Search for "NoFollow" using a word processor or other program. You will find at least two of them in your template's code.
4. Remove "rel='nofollow'" from the tag that begins with
"<a expr:href='data:comment.authorUrl'”
   
5. The second nofollow is for trackback URLs. This displays links to blogs that link to your post. You may choose to keep this attribute or not. It's up to you.
6. And that's it! Your blogspot blog has now been made dofollow. You can now submit to dofollow search engines to get more traffic!

For more information on nofollow and dofollow links and other aspects of SEO, check back for the series on search optimization that I will start in a few days. Thanks for reading, and if you enjoyed any of my posts, follow me on twitter!

.edu backlinks

Hello again. Now I know I said I'd write a series about the basics of SEO, but I just realised a great way to build quality backlinks. We all know the importance of backlinks, and the better the giver website the better the benefit. Websites with a high PR will give a better quality link than those with a low PR. Also sites with a domain ending in .org or (especially) .edu, give links that are like gold dust. Because they come from a certified authoratitive site, such as .edu site would have to be, they carry a lot of weight. Now to be honest, the only real way you'll get .edu backlinks is by commenting on blogs. But how do I find .edu blogs to comment on?
Well click here and replace the '???' with your search phrase. This will dig out a load of blogs that come from .edu domains, thus giving you great quality links.

Top 15 ways of building backlinks

If you have a website or blog, you will know the importance of backlinks and SEO (search engine optimisation). They bring traffic to your site and, if it is a reputable site that is backlinking to you, your search engine ranking.
But for those who don't know, backlinking is the process of getting a link to your site placed on a webpage. Now that it is one their site, people who see it may click on it and land on your site. This is great because it brings more traffic and therefore (if you have monetised your site) more $$$. Backlinks also improve your search engine ranking. Search engine ranking is how much the search engines, ie - Google, Yahoo!, like your site. If it has lots of reputable backlinks, the website will appear high up on their search results for certain keywords. Obviously, being on the 1st page of Google results is great, but it takes a lot of work. Here's the top 15 ways to build backlinks:

1. Submit site to directories. These are basically giant catalogues of web sites and, in many cases, offer high quality free backlinks. One of the best is the Open Directory Project.
2. Article writing and submitting. You submit articles to article directories like these and they let you put your link at the bottom. This means your link is surrounded by keywords giving it more weight.
3. Forums signatures. If you take part in forums, especially those related to your site, post a link in your signature. If you are respected on these forums, or post a helpful nugget of information, then people will click on these links.
4. Blog posts. If you are blogging then always include a link back to your site. You can also interlink all your sites, especially if they are liked by the search engines. Some blogs also like a guest blogger - you could write and article and you'll get a free backlink from the site's owner in return.
5. Link exchange. Aah! Ye olde link exchange. Used from the dawn of the Internet, you mail a site owner to see if you can exchange links with him. You post a link to him on your site, and he reciprocates this. Easy!
6. Reviews. Ask for reviews of your website and you'll get a backlink from the reviewer.
7. Contribute/create something for free. Anyone who uses this will see your link. These people already like you so they may click on it.
8. Create a top 10 list. Top 10/15/50/100 lists are great pieces of linkbait. They will draw links from lots of sites if people know about them.
9. Run a contest. If you run a contest on your site this will also attract plenty of backlinks.
10. Host a collection of free tools. If, on your site, you have a ton of useful tools, then share them! These will attract links like there's no tomorrow.
11. Interview experts. Try and get some interviews from experts in your niche. Chances are they will link to your interview and this will also drag in links.
12. Get interviewed. On the flipside of number 11, if you know a lot about something, get interviewed about it. They'll let you have a link for your trouble so it's worth it.
13. Social networking. Create a group on Facebook or MySpace. Not only will you get a link, but loads of people will see the page and click on it.
14. Create quizzes. Again, just like top 10 lists, they are great for linkbait.
15. Make an offer to buy Microsoft! If it breaks through the news, you'll get a LOT of traffic to your site. Beware though, this could land you in court if you don't check it VERY carefully beforehand.

Right then, that's the top 15 ways of building links. If you follow these you'll get tons of links in no time!
Following on from this, I may write a few posts on general SEO and setting up a new website. Until next time, see ya'. 

Article publishing

Hello again! Since I last posted I've got a few articles up on article sites, and apparently I should link to them to get more traffic to them, to get more traffic to here, to them, to here etc...But anyway here they are.

Installing Linux
Netbooks - a short review
Ad placement

Anyway, what's the point in posting on article sites? I hear you say. Well quite a bit of point actually. Mainly for the fact that they increase your search engine ranking because it means you can have one-way backlinks pointing to your site, for free and from reputable sites. The more quality links you have to your site the better ranking you will have. Although some article sites use the 'nofollow' attribute on links - this means that these links will not help your SEO (search engine optimization). I think ArticlesBase does this which is quite selfish and defies half the point of you posting on there.
Secondly you will get traffic to your site directly from these articles. People who land on these articles from another place may read them, enjoy them and then click on your link, generating traffic. This means you get a large amount of targeted traffic.
Overall it is well worth submitting to these sites. These also help on the finer points of SEO, because your link is surrounded by related text and most likely the article site will have a high page rank (PR).
Some of the better article sites include:

• EzineArticles - high traffic and high PR
• Articles Base - high traffic although they do use nofollow attribute as said above
• Go Articles - high traffic and quite high PR
• Article Dashboard - articles indexed very fast by Google, so fast backlinks