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Search Engine Optimization! Magic or Myth
Google!
Need to get more traffic to your website but not sure how to start?
Think SEO is black magic? This guide helps you demystify search engine optimization.
In this simple introductory guide to search engine, I will try to introduce you to the
simple process of optimizing a website.
This is by no means a definitive guide but with this simple outlook approach, you can
start to optimize your website without the complexity involved. At one point or the other
you might want to outsource all or part of your SEO process but nothing makes more
sense than for you to fully understand how it all ties it together.
That is what this simple guide is all about.
Here’s what you’ll learn in each chapter:
 Chapter 1: Introduction to Search Engine Optimization – History of
search engine and its advantages to your business. A background check is never a
bad idea.
 Chapter 2: Onsite Search Engine Optimization – How to get keywords to
implement and where to put them on your webpage.
 Chapter 3: Introduction to Link Building and Link Building Strategies
that works- Wondering what the fuss is all about in Link Building and How to
build backlinks? You get all the answers here
 Chapter Four: Conclusion
Last things Last
As a small business owner, these are all you need to start optimizing your website.
PS: If you ever think of taking it to the next level, give the challenge to us.
PPS: Share this book with your friends if you ever like what it contains. A feedback to us
won’t be a bad idea.
You can contact the author using any of the following:
Email: Info@vtnssolutions.com
Twiiter: @vtnssolutions
Facebook: www.facebook.com/VtnsSolutions
Website: www.vtnssolutions.com
Why Did I write this?
I remember when I just started out with learning about Search Engine Optimization. I
knew there was a reason why some website will appear on Search Engine Result Pages
and others are exempted and I was curious to find out. So I started my journey into the
world of SEO. It looked all like a big giant puzzle to me but soon became very interesting
as soon as I learned all the ropes and what made the difference between being on the
first page of any search engine and just being on the internet.
Search Engine Optimization has numerous benefits it offers to any business and it is a
very interesting field for any aspiring SEO expert either as a part time job or full time. I
have therefore become compelled to share some of the things I have learned so far. SEO
dynamics changes a lot and what works today might not really be the main focal point
tomorrow. That is why it is very essential to learn the rudiments so that no matter what
the search engines comes up with, you are in a very better position to maintain your
sanity.
In writing this I have tried to make this tutorial very simple and to avoid unnecessary
jargons and terms that could confuse you as you read this tutorial.
If you are a beginner and just getting into the world of SEO, you will find this simple
tutorial able to set you on the right foundation for your campaign. Building a right
foundation is the most important aspect of learning anything new. When the foundation
is right, then you can be rest assured that your SEO effort will yield results. In this
simple tutorial, you will be introduced to pure White Hat techniques and nothing else.
You will learn about methods and tactics that will make you able to sleep at night and
not worry about the famous Panda or Penguin update which has sent numerous self
acclaimed SEO professional seeking to recover from the hit. If you are a die-hard SEO
consultant, you will find our tutorial very simple and easy to follow that you might use it
as an introductory note to your newbie’s before giving them the advanced techniques
you use.
If you are an owner of a business and you want to understand the fundamentals of how
SEO works, then you have the right medium of information at your finger tips. Knowing
how your SEO consultant will optimize your business is very crucial to the success of
your SEO campaign. Remember, you are paying money for their services so at minimum
you need to understand how it all fits together. This tutorial will help you find answers.
Search Engine Optimization is not magic and is very simple to implement. The same
principles have always been applied from the beginning and things won’t change much
in the nearest future. Search engines only are smarter and are continuously making
attempt to be more relevant. Remember, they are in business to make money also.
Therefore they have to be at their best. Just the same way you have to be at your best to
succeed as an SEO consultant. It will require hard work and long nights over numerous
cups of coffee but immediately you start seeing results, you will get the joy associated
with hard work.
Brief History
Quote: “When you know the rules, you can break them- Matt Cutts”
Search Engine Optimization is fairly a straight forward process and its benefits to every
small business cannot be overemphasized. Search Engine Optimization is the only
guaranteed way to continuously build web traffic to a website, although it requires some
amount of funding and a lot of patience. While ranking on Google First Page might seem
like the end result of a search engine campaign, good SEO’s know that lead generation
and conversion is the ultimate aim.
Whenever a user enters a string of information called a query in a search engine search
box and hits 'enter,' you get a list of web results that contain that information that are
related to the query term. These results are divided into three or two as is seen in most
search engine result pages but the focus is usually on the middle results which is called
the “organic listing” of web pages.
It has been proven over time that 53% of users or more normally tend to visit websites
that are at the top of this list as they perceive those to be more relevant to the query
therefore the technique of ensuing that a website is displayed comes into force. This
technique is referred to as Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Before Google, there were search engines but when Google came into the main stream,
they revolutionized the way search is being carried. Using the academic sector as a
benchmark, they focus more on “citations” or called “links”. Google founders believed
that the more links a website have, the more relevant to the text contained in the link
and therefore based their main algorithms on it. What they simply did back then was; to
display your website for a particular user phrase or query, the amount of links back to
your website using that same phrase is used. The more links you have for that word, the
higher ranking you get. This is one of the basic reasons why link building will never go
away.
So when Search Engine Optimization or SEO is done, what you are doing is
simply ensuring that a website’s content can be found in search engines like Google,
Yahoo and Bing for words and phrases that correctly define what the website is offering.
Search Optimization is process driven and it usually involves two major strategies. The
first SEO strategy involves carrying out what is called onsite optimization where
whatever you do will reflect physically on your website. Here you have practically 100%
control over and can determine what results you want to see. Here you will work on
various aspect of your web page. You will determine the keywords or phrases you want
to rank for and use it to write contents for your Title tag, Meta Description, URL syntax,
Image description and Internal Links. All these various aspects of onsite search engine
optimization enriches your website for the keyword you want to rank for and is the
building block of a successful SEO campaign so it is important you spend enough time
on it and get it right. When you do, you can now take your time to focus on the offsite
SEO which is never ending (don’t be sad, it is easy).
The second major phase on an SEO strategy is called offsite search engine optimization
or simply “link building”.
Usually in this phase you are simply going to employ various methods and process of
getting words out about your website so that the right kind of people can find it. Most of
the SEO effort is usually focused on building links but without a proper onsite
optimization, you will be shooting yourself in the foot. Link building exists for the
duration of the life of a website therefore it is usually a long time investment. Take a
break or take a nap and stop building links and you will suddenly find your competitors
outranking you.
While onsite optimization and offsite optimization are the SEO strategy that you use to
optimize your website, there are some other factors that Google also used in
determining if your website should be ranked. None of these factors work in isolation
and some have not been proven official by Google. Such factor includes Age of domain,
use of plug in content like flash, Click through rate called CTA and bounce rate amongst
others. The good news is if i have done a good job on your website, you will not have
many issues with other “unproven ranking factors”.
Benefits of SEO to business
Traditional small businesses have continually failed to take full advantages of the
internet and the benefits it stands to offer their business. With over 11billion monthly
web searches, 1million social media mentions, the potential of online presence for a
business cannot be overemphasized.
How SEO can impact your business:
1. High ROI:
SEO is the only marketing method where the return on investment is high. Other
advertising methods require high amount of fund to keep them going but once a
properly SEO Campaign is carried out; it keeps driving traffic to your website
continually.
2. Long- term positioning:
Achieving #1 ranking position is the secondary aim of any optimization but once such a
position is achieved, it is easy to maintain it for a long time. This means your
competitors have only one person to beat- You.
3. Definite Increase in targeted traffic:
“Build it and they will come “. This statement has never held true. Optimizing your
website is the only way to drive targeted traffic to your website. Do you need a particular
set of people to visit to your website? Only SEO can get you that.
4. 24/7hrs Web presence:
Need a marketing medium that does not go to sleep even while you are sleeping or you
need a medium where people can find you at any time? Build a website and optimize it.
5. Brand Visibility:
Need to build brand recognition for a particular product or service? Optimize your
website for such and you can increase your brand visibility. Who would not trust a
website that appears on the first organic page of a search engine like Google?
6. Faster Loading Pages:
Trying to access a website and you have enough time to go brew coffee? No one has time
to wait for a website that takes eternity to load. Loading pages is a major criterion for
ranking on search engines. SEO enables you to identify potential page loading problems
and create a page that is loved by both humans and machines.
7. Increased Accessibility:
Proper SEO helps you create a webpage that is easily accessible. Good navigation menu
is derived from a good keyword research. With a good navigation menu, you can help
your clients to easily navigate your website. Search engines also love WebPages with
good navigation menus. This helps them crawl your website effectively and thereby
deliver pages that matches user’s request.
8. Cross-browser compatible:
Wondering if to build your website for chrome, Mozilla, Internet explorer? You cannot
predict what browser your users are going to use to access your website but you can
create a website that will display exactly as you want it on all browsing medium.
9. Lead Generation:
Not sure how to turn users who land on your website into customers? From broad
keywords to long tail keyword, you can help your site’s visitors to perform the exact
function you want them to carry out once they land on your website. That is the power of
SEO.
10. Your competitors are doing it:
Wondering how your competitor’s website appears above yours in search engine result
page? It’s the power of SEO. The higher ranking you get for a particular keyword, the
more traffic you get and the better chance of converting such traffic. Nowhere is it more
possible to beat your competitor than online.
11. Access to Data:
This is one of the reasons why I love SEO. With SEO, you have to set up analytical tools
that help you watch the pages people visit more on your website and why they are
leaving. With access to good data, you can understand why you have high bouncing rate,
where your clients are dropping off and how they are searching for your products.
CHAPTER 1
Onsite Search Engine Optimization
When carrying out organic search optimization, you start with optimizing your website
which is called onsite SEO. Basically in onsite SEO, you should be focusing on
1. Title Tags
2. Meta Description
3. Meta Tags
4. Headings
5. Body Content
6. Images
7. Internal Linkings
While all the above places are where you are going to be putting your keywords, we
might just have to talk about Keywords and why they are so important.
Keywords are terms people use when searching for a products or services online. For
example, if suppose a have a website selling cars. People who want to buy car might
search for things like Cars, Car Loans and Used Cars etc. All these terms are referred to
as Keyword.
Keywords are the building blocks of any Search Engine Optimization process. Target a
keyword that is irrelevant or that which cannot bring you the traffic you need and you
are on your way to failure. That is why it is very important to spend enough time on
carrying out your keyword research. You can read about the factors to consider when
carrying out your keyword research here but let’s simply outline what constitutes a good
keyword.
A good keyword must:
A. Have high traffic: You need traffic right? So your keyword must be able to
generate high traffic for you. Any keyword with less than 1000 traffic per month
is not viable.
B. Low Competition: This is extremely important when starting out online. You
just want to compete favorably. So you look for keywords with high traffic and
low competition. As your website become more trusted, you increase the
competition for the keyword you are ranking for.
C. Commerciality: Your keyword must be something people are ready to spend
money on.
D. Conversion: Your keyword must be able to convert your users.
A good keyword must pass the above test. There are lots of software that can help you
calculate these factors but for now, let’s stick with the best free SEO Tool that we all
know, the Google keyword Tool. What we are going to do is use the Google keyword tool
to generate keywords for our website which is going to be for selling cars.
When you start up the Google keyword Tool, here is what it is going to look like
Figure 1
There are some parameters you might need to set:
A. Match Type : Set it to “Exact”.
B. Locations: Set it to the Country you are optimizing for.
C. Login: Sometimes logging in to carry out your search is not a very good idea. This
is because of the fact that Google personalises search results based on your
reference and browsing history. Though, the difference is not really noticeable.
Now, let start by entering our “search phrase” or “seed keyword” into the content box
and this is what our result might look like.
Figure 1.1
Or you could use the New Google Keyword Planner
Learn more about the keyword planner
https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2999770
But here are a few screenshot from it:
Figure 2
Here is the first screen you see. Here you can pick your choice. Do you want to generate
keyword ideas ?
Figure 1.2
Or you could proceed to the second screen by clicking the “Check how your keyword will
perform” to get some basic idea.
Figure 1.3
Now back to Figure 1
I have sorted out the result by clicking on the competition button, so my result might be
a little different from yours.
Now, based on your result, you have an idea of what terms or phrases, people are using
when searching for cars. You would now need to export these values and keep it
somewhere because we will be using it a lot during the process of optimization.
Using these keywords, you are going to use it to develop a navigation menu for your
website. You would also need to remove the terms and phrase that you don’t need on
your website. So for the purpose of these tutorials which are simply about how to carry
out a Search Engine Optimization and not how to build a website, we are going to be
picking the term “Cars” and use it to optimize a webpage to illustrate how it all ties
together.
Keynote:
When starting out keyword research, user’s intent matters a lot. People searching for
cars might necessary not be ready to buy. You might want to target phrases like
Japanese Cars or Used Cars. All these depend on the theme of your website. Just note
that “Users Intent” is very important.
Now that we have our keyword and we have been able to generate navigation based on
them, we move to the next phase which is webpage optimization. You might not
optimize your home webpage because it’s not going to get many links anyway but, you
should put necessary consideration into creating a good home page. Remember, your
home page is going to be your landing page, so you should focus on creating a good
home page that will make your users want to know more about what you do.
Using our keyword “cars”, we would implement an onsite SEO by
Title Tags:
Your Title Tag is the first thing that a search engine sees and it is what is displayed to
users on your browser bar. The format for your Title Tags will be
Primary Keyword | Secondary Keywords | Domain name
So implementing your keyword, you would have something like this
Car | Japanese Cars | domain name
The recommended length is 60 characters including your separating tags, so you should
try to make your keyword into 55 or 56 characters long. Anytime you use more than 60
characters, Google cuts off the remaining word(s). So if you still have your keyword
towards the end of the characters, it will cut off.
Also always put your main keyword in the front. This will ensure that it is seen by users
when they visit your website.
Meta Description:
Meta Description tag does not have any effect on your ranking but it is good for
conversion or what is called teasers. A good Meta description is what will make users
want to read the full content of your webpage. So craft a good Meta description. Use Call
to Action words like “Learn, Get, Find, etc to compel users to click through to your
website.
A good Meta description should be less than 160 characters and try to include your
keyword early in the content of your Meta description.
Meta tags:
Most Search Engines don’t use Meta Tags again and it has no effect on your ranking so
you might just want to ignore this part. But if you must use it, two or three phrases in
your Meta Tag is just fine. Avoid the temptation to repeat words.
H1 – H6:
Consider your webpage as a newspaper. You are going to have Main Heading, Sub
Heading etc. The same principle applies when constructing the content of your webpage.
You should have your H1 tag containing your Keyword, H2-H6 containing derivatives of
your keywords.
Content:
Based on your Header tags, you then create contents for your WebPages. Include your
keyword in the body of your messages and avoid keyword stuffing.
Keyword stuffing is repeating your keyword over and over again that it just stops
making sense or it becomes annoying to your readers. The best way to do this is to use
variations of your keyword or phrases in your content that matches your keywords. Also
don’t worry about keyword density. Google has said it doest bother itself about keyword
density so it won’t hurt your website. Just make sure to include it at least once in the
body of your content so that Google can know that that page relates to the Title on the
title bar. Write your content in such a way that it makes your readers understand you.
The best place to start learning how to write content for your website is to create a good
“About us” page. This page has long been ignored by most small businesses. Stand out
from the crowd by having a good “about us” page.
Image Title:
Search Engines have not found a way to read images so you should endeavor to label
your images very well. Also use appropriate images on your WebPages. Your naming
convention for images on your page should contain your keyword. Avoid using
underscore (_) in your naming convention and add appropriate “Alt text” for all images
on your webpage. This allows the search engines to understand what the image is about.
Where possible, surround your images with words that describe what the image is all
about.
Internal Links:
Links are very important factors for ranking. While you must have less control over how
people link to your website, you have perfect control over your internal Linking profile.
Make sure you include your keywords in internal links via your navigation menus and
link appropriately to pages that contains content for each keyword. Your webpage name
should also contain your keywords. Like we have said before, avoid using (_) underscore
as a naming convention.
That is basically all the areas you have to focus on when carrying out a website
optimization. Remember to have a good website design. If you do not have the technical
know-how to design a website, hire a Web Design Agency. You will be driving traffic to
your website so it is worth spending time on it to get it right. There is no point in
optimizing a website that does not follow the minimum web standard.
CHAPTER TWO
LINK BUILDING
When you are done with your onsite optimization, what is next is how to build as much
back links to your website as possible. The amount of back links that you can build to
your website is going to have a major impact on what ranking you have on Google SERP
page. As you create and target keywords, your competitors are also doing the same
thing. Therefore to beat them, you need to have more links than they do. It is at this
phase that you are probably going to spend the rest of your lifetime.
Link Building is time consuming and expensive and never a one off process. This is
particularly where most business and people get it wrong. At this point you might want
to outsource your link building to an SEO Agency that specializes in it. However, if you
have decided to carry out your link building yourself, you can still take the ride with us.
What are Back links?
The best way to be found on the Internet is by building links from established sites,
which have already been 'found', to these new sites and pages. The more links you have
to your website, the higher ranking your website gets on search engines result pages.
That being said, there is actually a downside to having too many links linking to your
site rapidly, especially when it is a new website. This is because getting quality links
takes a lot of works and will never happen over-night so if your website suddenly gets
too many links, it will raise a flag most often times “red” with the engineers at Google.
You will need to have links from various sources, all of good reputation, to your website.
Link Building is definitely the hardest part of an SEO job. As with every aspect of SEO,
Google is trying hard to weed out unnaturally link building and people. One important
question to ask when you are outsourcing to a SEO company is if the SEO agency also
outsources any other part of their link building process. This is to make sure that they
employ ethical technique in link building. Resist at all times, the temptation to buy links
in whatever form. Sooner or later, you will be found out and penalized. When that
happens, it will take a lot of work to undo the damage(s). Sometimes, affected websites
hardly ever recovers.
Factors to consider for Link Building:
Certain factors have certain effect on the types of links that are good from a search
engine point of view. Before building your back links, you have to make some judgment
on the type of links you are obtaining. Any link you are chasing after must pass some
basic test. Your link should be judged based on:
1. Quality :
How trustworthy is your link? Where is it coming from? Is the link from a website
whose reputation you cannot vouch for? Is it from an education website .edu, or
a government link .gov or an organization .org. All links are not equal; some links
are valued more than the others. Links from government website and educational
website are usually the hardest. Seek those types of links.
2. Quantity
The amount of links you have also matters. Even if you have quality links, you
want them in high quantity. While one “.edu” link is worth 100 “.com” links, it
will never be worth a 1000 .com links so you need your links in large quantity. E.g
Godaddy has ranks #1 for the phrase “Domain Names”. As at last check,
Godaddy has over 700,000 plus backlinks.
3. Relevancy
How relevant are your links. Is it possible on the sidebar of a blog? Is it included
on the main content of a webpage surrounded by relevant terms or the link is
from the footer of a webpage? The position of your links and the content
surrounding it plays a big factor on how relevant your link will be.
None of the factors can be used in isolation. That is why link building takes time and lots
of patience. You want high quality, relevant links in great quantity.
Now that we know what to look for when building our links, let us go straight to
strategies you can use to build links. You should endeavor to combine all these strategies
and not focus too much on only one part of it. Your focus should be to get links in
different forms and from different sources.
Link Building Strategies
Link building strategies involve using your relationship both via online and offline to
build links. Website is built by humans and for humans. Therefore Links are given both
for the ability to create good contents and for relationship sake. If you chase only after
getting links, you will miss the added benefits of getting to know new people and how
you can add value to each other.
When chasing links, you must be linkable. That means you have to create linkable
assets. Linkable assets are materials that you have that people want to link to. So in
building links, you have to be able to create contents that people will like. There are
various ways to create content and it should be part of your link building strategy.
You can employ the following strategies to get into building back links. As you employ
them, you get to understand how it all ties up. Then you can come up with your own
method and employ the strategy that best suits your personality.
 Directory Submission
One easy way to start building links is to submit your website to directories.
There are various Paid and Free Directories that you can submit to. Make sure
you submit your link to the appropriate directory. Two main directories you must
submit your website to are Yahoo Directory which is paid and DMOZ which is
the free version. Try to dilute your keyword and submit different variations of it
to different directory. Also use variations of your Meta descriptions. Avoid the
temptation to use automatic channels of submission. Choose your directories the
same way you will choose all other places you will want links from.
You can use Google to find directories to submit to. Just use the search string
allintitle: resources directory
and it will give you a list of directory. Check it out very well and select the most
relevant to your niche.
Examples of other directories
www.yahoo.com
www.dmoz.org
www.somuch.com
www.botw.com
 Newsletter Marketing
Email marketing has existed for ages and it is still as relevant today as it was
when it came into being. A newsletter is a great way to build trust among your
customers as it suggests that you have their loyalty. Start building your email list
now. Any website that wants to remain relevant and make sales must find a way
to collect email of its clients. The only golden rule is not to spam your users. You
can start by signing up with Email providers like Chimp Mail.
Using email, you can build backlinks straight to your website. When you send
emails, all you need to do is include a link back to relevant various pages of your
website.
 PPC
Pay per Click ad is a great but fast way to build links. PPC is also a great way to
dilute your link profile, so should you ever get caught in a Penguin penalty, it
should be a way out. PPC works when you pay advertisers to display your ads on
their website or partner websites and you pay when someone clicks on your
campaign. Don’t focus too much on PPC, rather use it as a means to gain short
wins, promote a new service or product. The amount of money spent on PPC can
be easily channeled into producing great content or linkable assets for your
website.
How to set up a PPC campaign
Be clear about your aim: Do you want more leads, sales or generate buzz
Have you done a keyword research?
Secondly, add a relevant image to your ad copy
Make sure you include what they will get in your ad copy
Optimize your landing page to suit the ad copy
Less is more
Be clear on what they should do when they land on your website.
Do A/B testing
 Quality Content
Content! Content! Content! The best way to generate links is to create good
quality content. This is because good contents allow you to build your customer’s
trust. The best way to add content to your website is to add a Blog to it. You can
use either Wordpress blogging platform or Blogger which is from Google. The
only rule is to make sure it is hosted on your own domain. That means you should
have something like:
www.blog.vtnssolutions.com or www.vtnssolutions.com/blog/.
So how do you create good content? While writing via blogging is a great way to
start, once you get the hang of it, instead of plain writing, you should try to make
your blog into something else. Can you make a video of your content? Can you
turn that content into an Infographic? Rather make it a power point
presentation? All these are channels to create good content. Don’t just be
satisfied with writing alone as a means of creating content. With practically every
business becoming a publishing house, production of your contents in forms
different from writing is what will stand you out. Strive to produce unique and
quality content. Producing good content is not difficult. Pick a topic and study it
to understand it, and then produce it in your own words. Don’t just go to websites
and copy paragraphs from them only to paste them on your own site.
How to generate ideas for content:
Method 1:
Start with Google.
Enter your keyword into Google.
Check the top 10 and see what people have written about.
Take your own approach to the topic.
Method 2:
Go to topsy.com or use alltop.com
Enter your keyword.
Set date
Click on Links
Go through the top post
Find a new angle or approach to take about the topic.
Method 3:
This is by far my favourite way of generating content. I put myself in my client’s
position and ask questions that is affecting the business then I write about them.
Examples of contents that sells
My favourite example is
How to rank on Google’s First page
and
131-Legitimate-Link-Building-Strategies
While it is a good idea to produce content, remember that producing content on
its own will not go viral. You need to do some marketing. So how do you market
the content you have produced?
A. Tweet to your followers
B. Share it on Facebook
C. Share it on Google +
D. Submit it to reddit
E. Use stumbleupon to promote it.
 Article Submission
Article submission is another way to build links. But avoid article spinning.
Article spinning is creating the same version of one article and submitting it to
various article farms. You can look at article websites like Ezine and Goarticles as
a start and learn from there. You can create your articles using the same
technique of creating good content for your own website.
 Social Media
The New trend is social media. While Google has said it has not started using
social media as a ranking factor, with its entrance into Google+ and Google
hangout, sooner than later, social media might be a signal though I don’t expect it
to be a main factor for ranking. But with the business potential of social media, it
will do no bad to your business to utilize it as a means of generating new contact
and also as a link building avenue too. So this time, join the bandwagon. Create a
web presence on as many social media as possible. Get on Google+, Facebook,
LinkedIn and Pinterest at the minimum. For your social media strategy, try to
pick a social media where your potential clients can be found and focus your
energy there. Don’t try to hang out everywhere. With the resources involved, you
will be doing your business a great favor if you can actually focus on one social
media and get the hang of it. Remember, you are trying to build a community.
Post interesting topics and try to get people to share your post. Join other groups
relevant to your business. Be engaging and have fun.
Golden Rule of Social Media:
1. If you think your post will not add value to your readers and followers then
don’t post. Don’t post simply because you have the opportunity to. Post
because you have something interesting and fun to share.
2. Also try to follow as many of your current clients and potential clients.
 Forum
A major way to give your website exposure is by participating in communities.
Look for a forum that is relevant to your niche and join it. Offer good advice and
leave links back to your website. You necessarily don’t have to join all
conversation if you don’t have something meaningful to add but when you help
solve people’s problem, they will visit your website and spread the news around.
One forum that is local to my business is
www.nairaland.com
but I also participate in other forums that are related to my business. Eg
www.warriorforum.com
www.openforum.com
www.startupnation.com
www.digitalpoints.com
When you participate in a forum, try to make meaningful contribution to the
topic while dropping your Keywords in your post.
 Press Release
Need to get exposure? Then try press release. Press release might not be a very
great way to build back links but remember that the fundamental of any link
building strategy is to get as much exposure for your product or post. So schedule
press releases and blow your horn. If you have anything newsworthy, run to the
press with it. Talk to local press agents. You can also write posts and promote it
via a press release. Someone might pick up your post and link back to you. Also
people normally set up alerts for information regarding their business or
competitors. Sending out press release will help get words out about your
website. A good paid Press Release website to use is prweb while the non- paid
version is Release news.
So what are the ground rules for maximizing a press release:
1. Avoid having more than 4 outgoing links in your release
2. Vary the anchor text you use. Use both branded and non branded
anchor text. Even go as far as using your URL as an anchor text
 Do Something new
Have a great idea or a great product that no one else has? Or do have you
discovered a new way of doing something? Nothing sells more than something
that help solve people’s problem. Look for ways to create wordpress themes,
plugins or develop software that people can use. Give this away for free. Just
make sure it is useful to people. For example: If I were a financial institution , I
would make a Loan Calculator part of my website where people can find out how
much it takes to replay any loan they have taken.
 Generate controversy
The fastest way to build links to your website is to create controversy. You could
pick a topic in your niche and research it very well, then look at it from a different
perspective. Or suppose you were able to debunk a myth. Such things tend to
generate buzz or if you were the first person to try something and you talk about
it online, there is no way that it would not attract links. A journalist said
something about your business or niche? Make a great fuzz about it every where
you can. You will definitely draw attention to yourself and your website.
 Guest Blogging
Doing guest posting is another fantastic way to boost your Google ranking. When
you do a guest post, you are actually increasing your audiences and building links
back to your website. And all this counts towards your link popularity .You can
start your guest blogging by searching for top blog in your niche. Read about
them to understand the kind of articles they publish. Then write for them. You
might not succeed initially but with time and practice, you will get the hang of
things. Also remember that you are building relationships when guest posting, so
approach with caution when making a request as a guest blogger. When you guest
blog, you are always rewarded with links back to your website and you have the
added advantage of reaching a wider audience.
So how do you go about finding guest post prospect. Head over again to our
favorite tool, Google. Type the word below
Keyword “guest posting sites”
Or use the string
Keyword + guest post
It will return a list of website that accepts guest post based on your keyword. Put
all these into an excel sheet and go through them one after the other. Check for
Page Rank, Social media influence. How long ago the content was updated and
most importantly; is it relevant to your niche?
After identifying your prospect, read the guideline and then follow it to the letter.
If you don’t follow the instruction, your guest post will be denied. Also follow
your prospect on twitter at a minimum.
CONCLUSION
I hope you have enjoyed reading this simple guide as much as I have enjoyed writing it.
During the course of writing, I have even learnt a thing more.
Put this information into use and you will discover how easy it is to take a website from
zero traffic to over 53% increase in traffic when you optimize a website.
The best approach to learning is to follow a strategy to the end, taking notes along the
way. That way you can refine the strategy to suit your need and even come up with a
better way of doing it which can be your own unique selling point or if you are like the
rest of us, you can share it for free with the rest of the world. Nothing beats giving.
Adegboye Adeniyi
Follow me on twitter:
@legendcrest
niyiadegbiye@vtnssolutions.com

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The simple-guide-to-seo

  • 1. Search Engine Optimization! Magic or Myth Google! Need to get more traffic to your website but not sure how to start? Think SEO is black magic? This guide helps you demystify search engine optimization. In this simple introductory guide to search engine, I will try to introduce you to the simple process of optimizing a website. This is by no means a definitive guide but with this simple outlook approach, you can start to optimize your website without the complexity involved. At one point or the other you might want to outsource all or part of your SEO process but nothing makes more sense than for you to fully understand how it all ties it together. That is what this simple guide is all about. Here’s what you’ll learn in each chapter:  Chapter 1: Introduction to Search Engine Optimization – History of search engine and its advantages to your business. A background check is never a bad idea.  Chapter 2: Onsite Search Engine Optimization – How to get keywords to implement and where to put them on your webpage.  Chapter 3: Introduction to Link Building and Link Building Strategies that works- Wondering what the fuss is all about in Link Building and How to build backlinks? You get all the answers here  Chapter Four: Conclusion
  • 2. Last things Last As a small business owner, these are all you need to start optimizing your website. PS: If you ever think of taking it to the next level, give the challenge to us. PPS: Share this book with your friends if you ever like what it contains. A feedback to us won’t be a bad idea. You can contact the author using any of the following: Email: Info@vtnssolutions.com Twiiter: @vtnssolutions Facebook: www.facebook.com/VtnsSolutions Website: www.vtnssolutions.com
  • 3. Why Did I write this? I remember when I just started out with learning about Search Engine Optimization. I knew there was a reason why some website will appear on Search Engine Result Pages and others are exempted and I was curious to find out. So I started my journey into the world of SEO. It looked all like a big giant puzzle to me but soon became very interesting as soon as I learned all the ropes and what made the difference between being on the first page of any search engine and just being on the internet. Search Engine Optimization has numerous benefits it offers to any business and it is a very interesting field for any aspiring SEO expert either as a part time job or full time. I have therefore become compelled to share some of the things I have learned so far. SEO dynamics changes a lot and what works today might not really be the main focal point tomorrow. That is why it is very essential to learn the rudiments so that no matter what the search engines comes up with, you are in a very better position to maintain your sanity. In writing this I have tried to make this tutorial very simple and to avoid unnecessary jargons and terms that could confuse you as you read this tutorial. If you are a beginner and just getting into the world of SEO, you will find this simple tutorial able to set you on the right foundation for your campaign. Building a right foundation is the most important aspect of learning anything new. When the foundation is right, then you can be rest assured that your SEO effort will yield results. In this simple tutorial, you will be introduced to pure White Hat techniques and nothing else. You will learn about methods and tactics that will make you able to sleep at night and not worry about the famous Panda or Penguin update which has sent numerous self acclaimed SEO professional seeking to recover from the hit. If you are a die-hard SEO consultant, you will find our tutorial very simple and easy to follow that you might use it as an introductory note to your newbie’s before giving them the advanced techniques you use. If you are an owner of a business and you want to understand the fundamentals of how SEO works, then you have the right medium of information at your finger tips. Knowing how your SEO consultant will optimize your business is very crucial to the success of your SEO campaign. Remember, you are paying money for their services so at minimum you need to understand how it all fits together. This tutorial will help you find answers. Search Engine Optimization is not magic and is very simple to implement. The same principles have always been applied from the beginning and things won’t change much in the nearest future. Search engines only are smarter and are continuously making
  • 4. attempt to be more relevant. Remember, they are in business to make money also. Therefore they have to be at their best. Just the same way you have to be at your best to succeed as an SEO consultant. It will require hard work and long nights over numerous cups of coffee but immediately you start seeing results, you will get the joy associated with hard work. Brief History Quote: “When you know the rules, you can break them- Matt Cutts” Search Engine Optimization is fairly a straight forward process and its benefits to every small business cannot be overemphasized. Search Engine Optimization is the only guaranteed way to continuously build web traffic to a website, although it requires some amount of funding and a lot of patience. While ranking on Google First Page might seem like the end result of a search engine campaign, good SEO’s know that lead generation and conversion is the ultimate aim. Whenever a user enters a string of information called a query in a search engine search box and hits 'enter,' you get a list of web results that contain that information that are related to the query term. These results are divided into three or two as is seen in most search engine result pages but the focus is usually on the middle results which is called the “organic listing” of web pages. It has been proven over time that 53% of users or more normally tend to visit websites that are at the top of this list as they perceive those to be more relevant to the query therefore the technique of ensuing that a website is displayed comes into force. This technique is referred to as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Before Google, there were search engines but when Google came into the main stream, they revolutionized the way search is being carried. Using the academic sector as a benchmark, they focus more on “citations” or called “links”. Google founders believed that the more links a website have, the more relevant to the text contained in the link and therefore based their main algorithms on it. What they simply did back then was; to display your website for a particular user phrase or query, the amount of links back to your website using that same phrase is used. The more links you have for that word, the higher ranking you get. This is one of the basic reasons why link building will never go away. So when Search Engine Optimization or SEO is done, what you are doing is simply ensuring that a website’s content can be found in search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing for words and phrases that correctly define what the website is offering.
  • 5. Search Optimization is process driven and it usually involves two major strategies. The first SEO strategy involves carrying out what is called onsite optimization where whatever you do will reflect physically on your website. Here you have practically 100% control over and can determine what results you want to see. Here you will work on various aspect of your web page. You will determine the keywords or phrases you want to rank for and use it to write contents for your Title tag, Meta Description, URL syntax, Image description and Internal Links. All these various aspects of onsite search engine optimization enriches your website for the keyword you want to rank for and is the building block of a successful SEO campaign so it is important you spend enough time on it and get it right. When you do, you can now take your time to focus on the offsite SEO which is never ending (don’t be sad, it is easy). The second major phase on an SEO strategy is called offsite search engine optimization or simply “link building”. Usually in this phase you are simply going to employ various methods and process of getting words out about your website so that the right kind of people can find it. Most of the SEO effort is usually focused on building links but without a proper onsite optimization, you will be shooting yourself in the foot. Link building exists for the duration of the life of a website therefore it is usually a long time investment. Take a break or take a nap and stop building links and you will suddenly find your competitors outranking you. While onsite optimization and offsite optimization are the SEO strategy that you use to optimize your website, there are some other factors that Google also used in determining if your website should be ranked. None of these factors work in isolation and some have not been proven official by Google. Such factor includes Age of domain, use of plug in content like flash, Click through rate called CTA and bounce rate amongst others. The good news is if i have done a good job on your website, you will not have many issues with other “unproven ranking factors”.
  • 6. Benefits of SEO to business Traditional small businesses have continually failed to take full advantages of the internet and the benefits it stands to offer their business. With over 11billion monthly web searches, 1million social media mentions, the potential of online presence for a business cannot be overemphasized. How SEO can impact your business: 1. High ROI:
  • 7. SEO is the only marketing method where the return on investment is high. Other advertising methods require high amount of fund to keep them going but once a properly SEO Campaign is carried out; it keeps driving traffic to your website continually. 2. Long- term positioning: Achieving #1 ranking position is the secondary aim of any optimization but once such a position is achieved, it is easy to maintain it for a long time. This means your competitors have only one person to beat- You. 3. Definite Increase in targeted traffic: “Build it and they will come “. This statement has never held true. Optimizing your website is the only way to drive targeted traffic to your website. Do you need a particular set of people to visit to your website? Only SEO can get you that. 4. 24/7hrs Web presence: Need a marketing medium that does not go to sleep even while you are sleeping or you need a medium where people can find you at any time? Build a website and optimize it. 5. Brand Visibility: Need to build brand recognition for a particular product or service? Optimize your website for such and you can increase your brand visibility. Who would not trust a website that appears on the first organic page of a search engine like Google? 6. Faster Loading Pages: Trying to access a website and you have enough time to go brew coffee? No one has time to wait for a website that takes eternity to load. Loading pages is a major criterion for ranking on search engines. SEO enables you to identify potential page loading problems and create a page that is loved by both humans and machines. 7. Increased Accessibility: Proper SEO helps you create a webpage that is easily accessible. Good navigation menu is derived from a good keyword research. With a good navigation menu, you can help your clients to easily navigate your website. Search engines also love WebPages with good navigation menus. This helps them crawl your website effectively and thereby deliver pages that matches user’s request.
  • 8. 8. Cross-browser compatible: Wondering if to build your website for chrome, Mozilla, Internet explorer? You cannot predict what browser your users are going to use to access your website but you can create a website that will display exactly as you want it on all browsing medium. 9. Lead Generation: Not sure how to turn users who land on your website into customers? From broad keywords to long tail keyword, you can help your site’s visitors to perform the exact function you want them to carry out once they land on your website. That is the power of SEO. 10. Your competitors are doing it: Wondering how your competitor’s website appears above yours in search engine result page? It’s the power of SEO. The higher ranking you get for a particular keyword, the more traffic you get and the better chance of converting such traffic. Nowhere is it more possible to beat your competitor than online. 11. Access to Data: This is one of the reasons why I love SEO. With SEO, you have to set up analytical tools that help you watch the pages people visit more on your website and why they are leaving. With access to good data, you can understand why you have high bouncing rate, where your clients are dropping off and how they are searching for your products.
  • 9. CHAPTER 1 Onsite Search Engine Optimization When carrying out organic search optimization, you start with optimizing your website which is called onsite SEO. Basically in onsite SEO, you should be focusing on 1. Title Tags 2. Meta Description 3. Meta Tags 4. Headings 5. Body Content 6. Images 7. Internal Linkings While all the above places are where you are going to be putting your keywords, we might just have to talk about Keywords and why they are so important. Keywords are terms people use when searching for a products or services online. For example, if suppose a have a website selling cars. People who want to buy car might search for things like Cars, Car Loans and Used Cars etc. All these terms are referred to as Keyword. Keywords are the building blocks of any Search Engine Optimization process. Target a keyword that is irrelevant or that which cannot bring you the traffic you need and you are on your way to failure. That is why it is very important to spend enough time on carrying out your keyword research. You can read about the factors to consider when carrying out your keyword research here but let’s simply outline what constitutes a good keyword. A good keyword must: A. Have high traffic: You need traffic right? So your keyword must be able to generate high traffic for you. Any keyword with less than 1000 traffic per month is not viable. B. Low Competition: This is extremely important when starting out online. You just want to compete favorably. So you look for keywords with high traffic and low competition. As your website become more trusted, you increase the competition for the keyword you are ranking for.
  • 10. C. Commerciality: Your keyword must be something people are ready to spend money on. D. Conversion: Your keyword must be able to convert your users. A good keyword must pass the above test. There are lots of software that can help you calculate these factors but for now, let’s stick with the best free SEO Tool that we all know, the Google keyword Tool. What we are going to do is use the Google keyword tool to generate keywords for our website which is going to be for selling cars. When you start up the Google keyword Tool, here is what it is going to look like Figure 1
  • 11. There are some parameters you might need to set: A. Match Type : Set it to “Exact”. B. Locations: Set it to the Country you are optimizing for. C. Login: Sometimes logging in to carry out your search is not a very good idea. This is because of the fact that Google personalises search results based on your reference and browsing history. Though, the difference is not really noticeable. Now, let start by entering our “search phrase” or “seed keyword” into the content box and this is what our result might look like. Figure 1.1 Or you could use the New Google Keyword Planner
  • 12. Learn more about the keyword planner https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2999770 But here are a few screenshot from it: Figure 2 Here is the first screen you see. Here you can pick your choice. Do you want to generate keyword ideas ?
  • 13. Figure 1.2 Or you could proceed to the second screen by clicking the “Check how your keyword will perform” to get some basic idea.
  • 14. Figure 1.3 Now back to Figure 1 I have sorted out the result by clicking on the competition button, so my result might be a little different from yours. Now, based on your result, you have an idea of what terms or phrases, people are using when searching for cars. You would now need to export these values and keep it somewhere because we will be using it a lot during the process of optimization. Using these keywords, you are going to use it to develop a navigation menu for your website. You would also need to remove the terms and phrase that you don’t need on your website. So for the purpose of these tutorials which are simply about how to carry out a Search Engine Optimization and not how to build a website, we are going to be picking the term “Cars” and use it to optimize a webpage to illustrate how it all ties together. Keynote: When starting out keyword research, user’s intent matters a lot. People searching for cars might necessary not be ready to buy. You might want to target phrases like Japanese Cars or Used Cars. All these depend on the theme of your website. Just note that “Users Intent” is very important.
  • 15. Now that we have our keyword and we have been able to generate navigation based on them, we move to the next phase which is webpage optimization. You might not optimize your home webpage because it’s not going to get many links anyway but, you should put necessary consideration into creating a good home page. Remember, your home page is going to be your landing page, so you should focus on creating a good home page that will make your users want to know more about what you do. Using our keyword “cars”, we would implement an onsite SEO by Title Tags: Your Title Tag is the first thing that a search engine sees and it is what is displayed to users on your browser bar. The format for your Title Tags will be Primary Keyword | Secondary Keywords | Domain name So implementing your keyword, you would have something like this Car | Japanese Cars | domain name The recommended length is 60 characters including your separating tags, so you should try to make your keyword into 55 or 56 characters long. Anytime you use more than 60 characters, Google cuts off the remaining word(s). So if you still have your keyword towards the end of the characters, it will cut off. Also always put your main keyword in the front. This will ensure that it is seen by users when they visit your website. Meta Description: Meta Description tag does not have any effect on your ranking but it is good for conversion or what is called teasers. A good Meta description is what will make users want to read the full content of your webpage. So craft a good Meta description. Use Call to Action words like “Learn, Get, Find, etc to compel users to click through to your website. A good Meta description should be less than 160 characters and try to include your keyword early in the content of your Meta description.
  • 16. Meta tags: Most Search Engines don’t use Meta Tags again and it has no effect on your ranking so you might just want to ignore this part. But if you must use it, two or three phrases in your Meta Tag is just fine. Avoid the temptation to repeat words. H1 – H6: Consider your webpage as a newspaper. You are going to have Main Heading, Sub Heading etc. The same principle applies when constructing the content of your webpage. You should have your H1 tag containing your Keyword, H2-H6 containing derivatives of your keywords. Content: Based on your Header tags, you then create contents for your WebPages. Include your keyword in the body of your messages and avoid keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing is repeating your keyword over and over again that it just stops making sense or it becomes annoying to your readers. The best way to do this is to use variations of your keyword or phrases in your content that matches your keywords. Also don’t worry about keyword density. Google has said it doest bother itself about keyword density so it won’t hurt your website. Just make sure to include it at least once in the body of your content so that Google can know that that page relates to the Title on the title bar. Write your content in such a way that it makes your readers understand you. The best place to start learning how to write content for your website is to create a good “About us” page. This page has long been ignored by most small businesses. Stand out from the crowd by having a good “about us” page. Image Title: Search Engines have not found a way to read images so you should endeavor to label your images very well. Also use appropriate images on your WebPages. Your naming
  • 17. convention for images on your page should contain your keyword. Avoid using underscore (_) in your naming convention and add appropriate “Alt text” for all images on your webpage. This allows the search engines to understand what the image is about. Where possible, surround your images with words that describe what the image is all about. Internal Links: Links are very important factors for ranking. While you must have less control over how people link to your website, you have perfect control over your internal Linking profile. Make sure you include your keywords in internal links via your navigation menus and link appropriately to pages that contains content for each keyword. Your webpage name should also contain your keywords. Like we have said before, avoid using (_) underscore as a naming convention. That is basically all the areas you have to focus on when carrying out a website optimization. Remember to have a good website design. If you do not have the technical know-how to design a website, hire a Web Design Agency. You will be driving traffic to your website so it is worth spending time on it to get it right. There is no point in optimizing a website that does not follow the minimum web standard. CHAPTER TWO LINK BUILDING When you are done with your onsite optimization, what is next is how to build as much back links to your website as possible. The amount of back links that you can build to your website is going to have a major impact on what ranking you have on Google SERP page. As you create and target keywords, your competitors are also doing the same thing. Therefore to beat them, you need to have more links than they do. It is at this phase that you are probably going to spend the rest of your lifetime. Link Building is time consuming and expensive and never a one off process. This is particularly where most business and people get it wrong. At this point you might want
  • 18. to outsource your link building to an SEO Agency that specializes in it. However, if you have decided to carry out your link building yourself, you can still take the ride with us. What are Back links? The best way to be found on the Internet is by building links from established sites, which have already been 'found', to these new sites and pages. The more links you have to your website, the higher ranking your website gets on search engines result pages. That being said, there is actually a downside to having too many links linking to your site rapidly, especially when it is a new website. This is because getting quality links takes a lot of works and will never happen over-night so if your website suddenly gets too many links, it will raise a flag most often times “red” with the engineers at Google. You will need to have links from various sources, all of good reputation, to your website. Link Building is definitely the hardest part of an SEO job. As with every aspect of SEO, Google is trying hard to weed out unnaturally link building and people. One important question to ask when you are outsourcing to a SEO company is if the SEO agency also outsources any other part of their link building process. This is to make sure that they employ ethical technique in link building. Resist at all times, the temptation to buy links in whatever form. Sooner or later, you will be found out and penalized. When that happens, it will take a lot of work to undo the damage(s). Sometimes, affected websites hardly ever recovers. Factors to consider for Link Building: Certain factors have certain effect on the types of links that are good from a search engine point of view. Before building your back links, you have to make some judgment on the type of links you are obtaining. Any link you are chasing after must pass some basic test. Your link should be judged based on: 1. Quality : How trustworthy is your link? Where is it coming from? Is the link from a website whose reputation you cannot vouch for? Is it from an education website .edu, or a government link .gov or an organization .org. All links are not equal; some links
  • 19. are valued more than the others. Links from government website and educational website are usually the hardest. Seek those types of links. 2. Quantity The amount of links you have also matters. Even if you have quality links, you want them in high quantity. While one “.edu” link is worth 100 “.com” links, it will never be worth a 1000 .com links so you need your links in large quantity. E.g Godaddy has ranks #1 for the phrase “Domain Names”. As at last check, Godaddy has over 700,000 plus backlinks. 3. Relevancy How relevant are your links. Is it possible on the sidebar of a blog? Is it included on the main content of a webpage surrounded by relevant terms or the link is from the footer of a webpage? The position of your links and the content surrounding it plays a big factor on how relevant your link will be. None of the factors can be used in isolation. That is why link building takes time and lots of patience. You want high quality, relevant links in great quantity. Now that we know what to look for when building our links, let us go straight to strategies you can use to build links. You should endeavor to combine all these strategies and not focus too much on only one part of it. Your focus should be to get links in different forms and from different sources. Link Building Strategies Link building strategies involve using your relationship both via online and offline to build links. Website is built by humans and for humans. Therefore Links are given both for the ability to create good contents and for relationship sake. If you chase only after getting links, you will miss the added benefits of getting to know new people and how you can add value to each other. When chasing links, you must be linkable. That means you have to create linkable assets. Linkable assets are materials that you have that people want to link to. So in building links, you have to be able to create contents that people will like. There are various ways to create content and it should be part of your link building strategy.
  • 20. You can employ the following strategies to get into building back links. As you employ them, you get to understand how it all ties up. Then you can come up with your own method and employ the strategy that best suits your personality.  Directory Submission One easy way to start building links is to submit your website to directories. There are various Paid and Free Directories that you can submit to. Make sure you submit your link to the appropriate directory. Two main directories you must submit your website to are Yahoo Directory which is paid and DMOZ which is the free version. Try to dilute your keyword and submit different variations of it to different directory. Also use variations of your Meta descriptions. Avoid the temptation to use automatic channels of submission. Choose your directories the same way you will choose all other places you will want links from. You can use Google to find directories to submit to. Just use the search string allintitle: resources directory and it will give you a list of directory. Check it out very well and select the most relevant to your niche. Examples of other directories www.yahoo.com www.dmoz.org www.somuch.com www.botw.com  Newsletter Marketing Email marketing has existed for ages and it is still as relevant today as it was when it came into being. A newsletter is a great way to build trust among your customers as it suggests that you have their loyalty. Start building your email list now. Any website that wants to remain relevant and make sales must find a way to collect email of its clients. The only golden rule is not to spam your users. You can start by signing up with Email providers like Chimp Mail.
  • 21. Using email, you can build backlinks straight to your website. When you send emails, all you need to do is include a link back to relevant various pages of your website.  PPC Pay per Click ad is a great but fast way to build links. PPC is also a great way to dilute your link profile, so should you ever get caught in a Penguin penalty, it should be a way out. PPC works when you pay advertisers to display your ads on their website or partner websites and you pay when someone clicks on your campaign. Don’t focus too much on PPC, rather use it as a means to gain short wins, promote a new service or product. The amount of money spent on PPC can be easily channeled into producing great content or linkable assets for your website. How to set up a PPC campaign Be clear about your aim: Do you want more leads, sales or generate buzz Have you done a keyword research? Secondly, add a relevant image to your ad copy Make sure you include what they will get in your ad copy Optimize your landing page to suit the ad copy Less is more Be clear on what they should do when they land on your website. Do A/B testing  Quality Content
  • 22. Content! Content! Content! The best way to generate links is to create good quality content. This is because good contents allow you to build your customer’s trust. The best way to add content to your website is to add a Blog to it. You can use either Wordpress blogging platform or Blogger which is from Google. The only rule is to make sure it is hosted on your own domain. That means you should have something like: www.blog.vtnssolutions.com or www.vtnssolutions.com/blog/. So how do you create good content? While writing via blogging is a great way to start, once you get the hang of it, instead of plain writing, you should try to make your blog into something else. Can you make a video of your content? Can you turn that content into an Infographic? Rather make it a power point presentation? All these are channels to create good content. Don’t just be satisfied with writing alone as a means of creating content. With practically every business becoming a publishing house, production of your contents in forms different from writing is what will stand you out. Strive to produce unique and quality content. Producing good content is not difficult. Pick a topic and study it to understand it, and then produce it in your own words. Don’t just go to websites and copy paragraphs from them only to paste them on your own site. How to generate ideas for content: Method 1: Start with Google. Enter your keyword into Google. Check the top 10 and see what people have written about. Take your own approach to the topic. Method 2: Go to topsy.com or use alltop.com Enter your keyword. Set date Click on Links Go through the top post Find a new angle or approach to take about the topic. Method 3: This is by far my favourite way of generating content. I put myself in my client’s position and ask questions that is affecting the business then I write about them.
  • 23. Examples of contents that sells My favourite example is How to rank on Google’s First page and 131-Legitimate-Link-Building-Strategies While it is a good idea to produce content, remember that producing content on its own will not go viral. You need to do some marketing. So how do you market the content you have produced? A. Tweet to your followers B. Share it on Facebook C. Share it on Google + D. Submit it to reddit E. Use stumbleupon to promote it.  Article Submission Article submission is another way to build links. But avoid article spinning. Article spinning is creating the same version of one article and submitting it to various article farms. You can look at article websites like Ezine and Goarticles as a start and learn from there. You can create your articles using the same technique of creating good content for your own website.  Social Media The New trend is social media. While Google has said it has not started using social media as a ranking factor, with its entrance into Google+ and Google hangout, sooner than later, social media might be a signal though I don’t expect it to be a main factor for ranking. But with the business potential of social media, it will do no bad to your business to utilize it as a means of generating new contact and also as a link building avenue too. So this time, join the bandwagon. Create a web presence on as many social media as possible. Get on Google+, Facebook,
  • 24. LinkedIn and Pinterest at the minimum. For your social media strategy, try to pick a social media where your potential clients can be found and focus your energy there. Don’t try to hang out everywhere. With the resources involved, you will be doing your business a great favor if you can actually focus on one social media and get the hang of it. Remember, you are trying to build a community. Post interesting topics and try to get people to share your post. Join other groups relevant to your business. Be engaging and have fun. Golden Rule of Social Media: 1. If you think your post will not add value to your readers and followers then don’t post. Don’t post simply because you have the opportunity to. Post because you have something interesting and fun to share. 2. Also try to follow as many of your current clients and potential clients.  Forum A major way to give your website exposure is by participating in communities. Look for a forum that is relevant to your niche and join it. Offer good advice and leave links back to your website. You necessarily don’t have to join all conversation if you don’t have something meaningful to add but when you help solve people’s problem, they will visit your website and spread the news around. One forum that is local to my business is www.nairaland.com but I also participate in other forums that are related to my business. Eg www.warriorforum.com www.openforum.com www.startupnation.com www.digitalpoints.com
  • 25. When you participate in a forum, try to make meaningful contribution to the topic while dropping your Keywords in your post.  Press Release Need to get exposure? Then try press release. Press release might not be a very great way to build back links but remember that the fundamental of any link building strategy is to get as much exposure for your product or post. So schedule press releases and blow your horn. If you have anything newsworthy, run to the press with it. Talk to local press agents. You can also write posts and promote it via a press release. Someone might pick up your post and link back to you. Also people normally set up alerts for information regarding their business or competitors. Sending out press release will help get words out about your website. A good paid Press Release website to use is prweb while the non- paid version is Release news. So what are the ground rules for maximizing a press release: 1. Avoid having more than 4 outgoing links in your release 2. Vary the anchor text you use. Use both branded and non branded anchor text. Even go as far as using your URL as an anchor text  Do Something new Have a great idea or a great product that no one else has? Or do have you discovered a new way of doing something? Nothing sells more than something that help solve people’s problem. Look for ways to create wordpress themes, plugins or develop software that people can use. Give this away for free. Just make sure it is useful to people. For example: If I were a financial institution , I would make a Loan Calculator part of my website where people can find out how much it takes to replay any loan they have taken.  Generate controversy The fastest way to build links to your website is to create controversy. You could pick a topic in your niche and research it very well, then look at it from a different perspective. Or suppose you were able to debunk a myth. Such things tend to
  • 26. generate buzz or if you were the first person to try something and you talk about it online, there is no way that it would not attract links. A journalist said something about your business or niche? Make a great fuzz about it every where you can. You will definitely draw attention to yourself and your website.  Guest Blogging Doing guest posting is another fantastic way to boost your Google ranking. When you do a guest post, you are actually increasing your audiences and building links back to your website. And all this counts towards your link popularity .You can start your guest blogging by searching for top blog in your niche. Read about them to understand the kind of articles they publish. Then write for them. You might not succeed initially but with time and practice, you will get the hang of things. Also remember that you are building relationships when guest posting, so approach with caution when making a request as a guest blogger. When you guest blog, you are always rewarded with links back to your website and you have the added advantage of reaching a wider audience. So how do you go about finding guest post prospect. Head over again to our favorite tool, Google. Type the word below Keyword “guest posting sites” Or use the string Keyword + guest post It will return a list of website that accepts guest post based on your keyword. Put all these into an excel sheet and go through them one after the other. Check for Page Rank, Social media influence. How long ago the content was updated and most importantly; is it relevant to your niche? After identifying your prospect, read the guideline and then follow it to the letter. If you don’t follow the instruction, your guest post will be denied. Also follow your prospect on twitter at a minimum.
  • 27. CONCLUSION I hope you have enjoyed reading this simple guide as much as I have enjoyed writing it. During the course of writing, I have even learnt a thing more. Put this information into use and you will discover how easy it is to take a website from zero traffic to over 53% increase in traffic when you optimize a website. The best approach to learning is to follow a strategy to the end, taking notes along the way. That way you can refine the strategy to suit your need and even come up with a better way of doing it which can be your own unique selling point or if you are like the rest of us, you can share it for free with the rest of the world. Nothing beats giving. Adegboye Adeniyi Follow me on twitter: @legendcrest niyiadegbiye@vtnssolutions.com