SEO Outbound Link Relevance

by Joel Walsh

You know search engines evaluate a site based primarily on the links going to it (inbound links). The PageRank of the sites on which the inbound links are located, and the anchor text of the links, matter a lot. But if you're like most webmasters, you don't appreciate the value of outbound links.

Outbound Link Relevance & Anchor Text

The clearest way that outbound links can affect SEO is through their anchor text.

Outbound links' anchor text affects a page's search engine ranking in much the same way that inbound links' anchor text affects search engine ranking. Anchor text of inbound links is arguably the most important factor in search engine rankings for particular keywords. For instance, if "fuzzy keyword" is in the anchor text of a link to a webpage, that webpage may well appear in SERPs for "fuzzy keyword" even if neither the word "fuzzy" nor "keyword" appears anywhere on your site.

Outbound links' anchor text works the same way, though it is slightly less powerful. If you have a particular keyword in the anchor text of a link on a webpage, that webpage will likely show up in search engine results--even if it appears nowhere else on the page, and even if there are no inbound links with that anchor text.

Don't believe me? Look at your web traffic logs. Check out the search engine traffic to specific pages. You'll likely see plenty of instances of the page getting traffic for search strings that appear nowhere else on the page but in the anchor text of outbound links.

One example from a site I own is on endometrialcancer.org, a project devoted to provided information about a disease. There are separate pages for symptoms, diagnosis, prognosis, and other aspects of the disease. Strikingly, one page my rank highly for another page's target keyword, if it links to the other page with the target keyword in its anchor text. For instance, the "diagnosis" page may outrank the "symptoms" page for the keyword "endometrial cancer symptoms," merely because the "diagnosis" page has that keyword in the anchor text of its link to the symptoms page.

How to shoot yourself in the foot with outbound link anchor text relevance:

There are four main ways to shoot yourself in the foot by mishandling outbound links' anchor text:

1. Don't include relevant outbound links on the webpage. There are many sites nearly all of whose pages have no outbound links but a standard navigation bar, and perhaps a link to the site's web designer, host, or CMS maker. What exactly is a search engine algorithm supposed to make of a webpage if the only outbound links it has have anchor text such as "about us," "contact," "privacy," "site map," "Design by TechGnome," and "This site powered by Mambo Open CMS"?

2. Don't include off-site outbound links on the webpage. Think about it for a moment: what is the one thing a truly informative webpage would have to have, besides content? Links to other sites! If a page has no outbound links to other sites, there is a good chance the page is a dead end, or worse, a billboard. At the very least, include at least one intra-site link that isn't part of the standard site navigation.

3. Include irrelevant links. I have a client site that sells computer equipment. After paying me all the money for my services largely in hopes of getting more search engine traffic, they decide to sell irrelevant links on the homepage, for a fraction of what they paid me. If you were a search engine algorithm, what would you make of a site that had "computer equipment" in the page title, headings, and inbound link anchor text--but had two outbound links with "Costa Rican beach resort" and "Low-cost mortgages" in the anchor text? If I were the algorithm, I'd get a little confused, and play it safe by ranking the site for none of those keywords. After all, there are plenty of sites that make a less ambiguous case for their relevance for any of those keywords.

4. Include relevant outbound links, but forget the anchor text. If you are linking to a relevant webpage, whether on-site or off-site, by all means, use your page's target keyword in the anchor text! Now is not the time to get lazy and use the URL as the anchor text. You are doing the right thing by linking to relevant webpage. Make sure you get credit for your good deed!

After all, they call it the web because the links go both in and out, tying sites together like nodes of spider silk. If links were only meant to flow one way, they'd just call it the chain.

Don't chain your website down. Start sharing the links.

http://ezinearticles.com/?SEO-Outbound-Link-Relevance&id=122112

Walsh, Joel "SEO Outbound Link Relevance." SEO Outbound Link Relevance. 3 Jan. 2006. EzineArticles.com. 12 Aug 2008 <http://ezinearticles.com/?SEO-Outbound-Link-Relevance&id=122112>.

Advertise Your Website or Blog For Free

by Neccia Celli 

 

There are many ways to advertise your website or blog for free. Advertising online is easy to do and just takes a few minutes in most cases, depending on what type of ad you're promoting. You can take the first step in starting your free advertising by doing a typing “free advertising" on major search engines like Google, Yahoo or Msn. Keep in mind when posting your ads to remember to bookmark the website where you’re posting your ad so you can return often to repost, edit or delete your ad as needed. You can save yourself a lot of time when placing multiple ads, by first copying your ads in Microsoft Word, then simply copying/pasting them onto the online ad forms.

Most free group and advertising forums will rotate free ad forums rotate ads so if you don't post your ad at least once per day, it will disappear and you take the chance no one will see it. I have listed some ways to jump start your free advertising below from personal experience and research on my own. Try them all and see what works. Remember, this is a learning process and it’s a good idea to continue to add more websites to your list of bookmarks as you find what free advertising websites work best for you.

1.) Sign-up and post your ads to Free Classifieds, Network and Banner exchanges and Affiliate websites. Once you sign up with Network Banner exchanges and affiliate websites, they will ask you to advertise their link on your website in return for free traffic on their website. This method of free advertising works very well for both parties. You will want to do a search for the top “Network, Banner Exchange, Affiliate websites and Free Classifieds” so you don’t waste your time on low traffic sites. You can also do searches for “How to Advertise for Free” for more tips. Once you find these sites, it’s very easy to sign-up and get started.

2.) Advertise your website or ads on a blog. There are many free blog websites like, www.blogger.com, www.yahoo360.com, and http://hubpages.com. Once you start writing articles or blogging, you can post websites or ads into your blogs. So when someone uses a search engine and types in keywords, if the keywords match your blog, the link should pop up on the list of websites without you signing up with an expensive ad campaigns such as Google Adwords. This is a great way to start advertising and increasing your web traffic for free.

3.) Post your website or blog to free web directories. You can do searches for free directories but keep in mind, two out of the three listed below require a business e-mail rather then a personal e-mail such as yahoo, hotmail, or msn due to spam issues. The five largest free directories you should consider posting in are www.dmoz.org, www.worldsiteindex.com, www.domaining.in, www.webworldindex.com, www.searchsight.com.

4.) Join Group Forums on websites such as Yahoo, Google and Msn. When you join group forums, you can post your ads free and they will be visible to all forum members once they log into the group forum or via e-mail if they sign up to receive messages that way. Your ad will show up in the main forums, major search engine of the provider who provides the group forum and all forum member’s inboxes. You should post your ads at least once every day or few days for your ad to be seen, otherwise rotating ads will replace your ad with the most recent post and your ad will most likely not be viewed.

You can also utilize free group forum mailers. Most group forum mailers will charge you a fee for this service but there are some that offer free trials. The great thing about these mailers is they already have a form set-up to mail your ad to all the group forums you have signed up with so instead of visiting each group forum and posting your ad manually, you do it in one shot. Most group forum mailers require that you join the group forums they mail to before sending your ad out. This method can be very effective and can mean your ad reaching hundreds if not thousands per day! You will need to post your ad thru the mailer at least once per day for your ad to be viewed.

5.) Join Free Advertising Forums. This is a great way to start posting ads for free. Free Advertising Forums are easy to find on any search engine and easy to get signed up and started. You should post your ads at least once per day if you want your ad to be viewed due to the high volume of ads being posted by other members.

6.) Post your website or blog in Social Networking sites. Posting your link to Social Networking sites is one of the most effective ways to advertise free. Most Social Networking websites have millions of users and viewers and growing. Sites like Technorati, Del.ic.ious, Blinklist, Digg, Reddit, LinkedIn and MySpace are some great websites to start with. If you do a search for “Social Networking”, they are easy to find on any major search engine.

7.) Request or submit your link to websites with high traffic. This could be the most effective way to advertise and receive high traffic for free. If you find a website that has high traffic, click on “links” or “submit your website” and follow their instructions. Different sites have different policies but once you are listed on a high traffic site, this method can really increase your traffic! If you don’t see “submit or suggest a site” link, click on “contact us”, and e-mail the webmaster sending a nice e-mail about why you like their website requesting them to add your website link to their page.

Try all these methods and see if your traffic doesn’t increase. There are many ways to advertise, so you will need to use several methods to see which ones work best for you. Keep in mind, high web traffic can depend on what kind of website you are promoting, how well your ad is written and how often you post it. I hope this article was helpful to those who need advice on free advertising in today’s competitive market. Happy advertising!

www.squidoo.com/advertiseforfree

How To Use YouTube To Drive Massive Traffic To Your Site

by Dan Lok Print

Everybody's talking about web 2.0 or how to use new traffic strategies to drive more people-rather, buyers to your web sites.

And today, I'm going to show you a very powerful to do just that, without spending a dime (well, maybe a few dollars).

What am I talking about? YouTube.

Now you should know YouTube pretty well. But allow me give you some facts:

Fact #1: YouTube went from ZERO to 4,000,000,000 MONTHLY visitors within 3 months. And it's still growing by a staggering rate each day.

Fact #2: In 2006, YouTube won Times Magazine's "Invention of the Year."

Fact #3: YouTube is in the Top 5 most valuable web properties in the world.

Fact #4: YouTube features videos from hundreds and thousands of members, and has made MANY people famous.

Fact #5: And get this-more than 75,000 new videos are uploaded every, single day (you see that right.)

Fact #6: Last but not least-YouTube serves up to two hundred MILLION clicks daily.

What does that mean to you as a marketer or an Internet entrepreneur?

Well, it only means there's a HUGE amount of traffic ready to be tapped into if you know how to use YouTube to drive more visitors to your web sites.

We'll discuss how you can use YouTube to drive massive views on your web sites in a while.

Read entire article here: How To Use YouTube To Drive Massive Traffic To Your Site

How NOT to Promote Your Website on Forums

by Lori Redfield

Internet entrepreneurs, work at home moms, network marketers... you're all fed the same hype about how to promote your website, get leads, recruit members or what have you.One of the first things you will be told is to post your ads on forums. Lots.

This article is a guide to proper forum etiquette so that you don't waste your own and many other peoples time.

The first thing you need to know is that forum owners deal with a ton of spam. I could easily spend an hour a day cleaning up spammy posts in the forum and deleting and banning
members that don't abide by forum rules. It's unnerving to have to waste my time doing that rather then engaging in conversations on the forum and providing my members with useful information.

So from the forum owner perspective, spam is a very bad thing. On the other hand, to help out forum participants and to try to deter them from spamming every forum in the message boards, most forum owners will provide an advertising forum of some sort where you can post an ad.

If all you are planning to do is post ads on forums, then look for this particular section of a message board. Especially don't post an ad in the introduction section of a forum.

But here is the thing about ads. Nobody really reads them. Your time would be far better spent actually engaging in conversations on the forums you frequent. You will gain the trust and loyalty of the forum population if they get to know you. They will much more
likely decide to sign up for a biz op under someone that they talk with in a trusted forum then from some fly by night forum spammers post. Doesn't that make sense?

You will be taught that posting your website link on many forums will help to build your websites backlink popularity which will in turn increase your websites ranking in the search engine results. The truth is, your post is most likely going to be deleted as soon
as the forum owner or moderators find it. All you really will have done is wasted your time.

How you can be certain that you will build your backlinks by forum posting is by putting your website link in your signature on a forum and including your signature in your quality posts. The website owner will be happy to have you posting and in turn will be happy to
allow you a small advertisement in your signature when posting.

Another trick you might not know is this. If there is a keyword phrase that you would like to rank well for in the search engines, use this as the 'anchor text' in your website link. That means if you want to rank well for a term such as 'ameriplan business opportunity' - then you would type that into your signature and have that link to your website.

Keep a folder of forums in your favorites folder on your browser and spend some time every day going to each of the forums. Make it a goal to leave at least one quality post and a few welcome posts to new members.

Informative and engaging comments, coupled with a well optimized signature will win you far more traffic and prospects in the long run. And you might even pick up a thing or two through your engagement on the forum!

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imnewswatch.com%2Farchives%2F2006%2F11%2Fhow_not_to_prom.html%3FvisitFrom%3D1&ei=m12iSIL8A4mSsQOrnuX7Dg&usg=AFQjCNEETUG1o7BJhAOzz_R0IhIJq1hsDw&sig2=jY4sMhQjN5__zlE0lEYzoQ

3 Simple Steps to Start Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways to earn money on the internet. It is also one of the easiest to learn, provided you have the right knowledge base and outlook. You can't expect overnight success without having the key skills and know how to do so.

Many people do not even know the meaning of affiliate marketing so lets start there first. Affiliate marketing is basically a partnership between you and your affiliate where you agree to sell your affiliate's products. Every product that you sell for your affiliate you will receive a commission for the sale. The types of products you sell vary from physical products such as electronics and clothes to intellectual products such as ebooks.

Now there is a lot to affiliate marketing so I will just give you the brief notes on what to do.

Ok so what are the 3 Steps to start Affiliate Marketing?:
http://ezinearticles.com/?3-Simple-Steps-to-Start-Affiliate-Marketing&id=1360047

Clark, Edwin M. "3 Simple Steps to Start Affiliate Marketing." 3 Simple Steps to Start Affiliate Marketing. 27 Jul. 2008. EzineArticles.com. 12 Aug 2008 <http://ezinearticles.com/?3-Simple-Steps-to-Start-Affiliate-Marketing&id=1360047>.