Problem solving titles are excellent for attracting the attention of readers and search engines because the title itself mirrors the type of thing your readers would be searching for in the first place.

Think about it – when people do Google searches, they are usually looking for the answer to a question or the solution to a problem. In order to get your article into the “hands” of these searchers, you need to make it very clear (in your title) that your article provides the answer or the solution to that particular question or problem.

Here are some article marketing strategies for creating problem solving titles:

1 – The Long-Tail Keyword Based Title

Long-tail keywords are longer phrases (usually 3-8 words long) that are usually pretty specific. They may even start with the words “how to,” indicating that the person searching is trying to find out how to do something.
They may also just state a problem or solution that a person is looking for, such as “Sell Your House Fast.” When you have a long-tail keyword term like that, you can either have a title that is just “Sell Your House Fast,” or you can add more information to that phrase, for example: “Sell Your House Fast: 5 Tips For A Quick Closing.”
You can even create several problem solving articles that have that same long-tail keyword term in them, for example:
Sell Your House Fast: 3 Home Improvements That Will Attract More Buyers
Sell Your House Fast: Finding The Right Real Estate Agent
And so on…

Long-tail keywords are perfect for using in your titles and for your article topics. If one of your long-tail keyword phrases is “how to fix a flat tire,” then you can write an article on that topic with the title “How To Fix A Flat Tire.”
Many times people will just type a question into Google. The question in itself can form the basis of a great title.
The idea is to proactively create content that provides the solution to questions that your target readers are asking.

2 – Problem Solving Titles Go Great With Google
When you can create a title that mirrors (or almost mirrors) what your target readers are searching for in Google, you’re helping Google to associate your article with that search, which results in a higher ranking for your article when someone searches for that phrase.

A straightforward problem solving headline is more effective than a clever title that leaves the reader wondering what the article is about. If the reader isn’t clear on the exact topic of the article, neither is Google!
Now, you can’t create this type of title with every long-tail keyword phrase on your list – sometimes you’ll need to tweak the phrase or add onto it to make it make sense and provide enough information.

Your Homework:
1 – First off, you need to do long-tail keyword research.
This shouldn’t take very long – just use Google’s free keyword tool. Where appropriate, you might take some of your shorter keyword phrases and enter them into Google’s keyword tool putting the words ‘How To’ in front of them, and see what you come up with.
2 – For your next 3 articles, focus on writing these different types of problem solving titles:
=> Write a problem solving ‘How To’ title.
=> Write a problem solving ‘Top Tips’ title.
=> Write a title that is a question (based off what your target market is searching for in Google).
By Steve Shaw

Here are 5 of the SEO benefits of guest blogging:

Link building

It seems that the most obvious SEO benefits of blogging host, and is probably the main reason why they are always looking for new opportunities to the company blogging host. Most blogs allow their guest bloggers a couple references in a section of the author bio, so make sure that you have taken advantage of! Try to get the full http link to the Web site, in addition to the two texts with hyperlinked text if anchor blogger allows. Vary the author bio on various blogs to other keywords and ensure the concentration of buildings, natural search engines perspective. If you have a pretty good relationship with the owner of the blog, maybe allowed to place the post a link or two in the actual self back to your website, blog or other contributions that you have written on this blog to help with internal links.

The increase in Online touch points

The Web site is the most valuable part of online assets, it would be the only presence, have your business online. A successful SEO campaign needs to create multiple points of contact, where customers can interact with your brand, and pulled back to your website. Guest blogger is such one-touch. With a blog on a different industry pages allows you to not only your credibility as a leader of the thinking of the industry, it also provides potential customers who have never heard of the company the opportunity to learn from you, Content marketing should focus on consumer education and pressure at each stage of the purchase process. More guest posts that you have on industry blogs, the more likely to communicate with a potential customer, every step of the way.

Build relationships with industry bloggers

In my opinion it’s much better than being a regular contributor to the blog, then try for a one-time deal. Although you can send an article every other month! Several more times to publish content to your blog, the stronger your relationship with the owner of this blog is all about. Somewhere along the line, maybe you could take advantage of this relationship and ask them to write a post revision/support any of your products. It is much easier to ask for a job after for the six months was the publishing of content to their blog.

More comfort for the owner of the blog post is better with you, and you will be able to jump from one post every two months for a month or even a week. Perhaps allow them to add a few more links to your contribution, or a list as the main author. But building a relationship takes time and a lot of writing.

Draw new visitors to your site

Author bio and links in the post itself is not only good for linking buildings; It can also help create new, targeted traffic to your website. Is there anyone who clicks the link in the blog host, who is interested in learning more about your company and your industry. May be the beginning of the buying cycle, and are just trying to get a feel for the company, which is out there, or might be looking for information on a specific topic and feel reliable source or maybe they will buy and they want to get in touch with your business. For whatever reason, that a visitor clicks through your web site, giving you a chance to convince them to convert. At the end of the day, that’s what SEO is about-increases volume of targeted traffic directed to your website.

Additional content fuels social media marketing campaign

Social media, SEO, thrives on content. More content can be shared, so that October is not dead, update and post, the more reasons you give the audience to interact and engage with your brand. Remember that social media should not be considered as additional advertising platform. Consumers are driving the conversations on the web sites of social media, and expects to tag with in them, every time some of the content is shared on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google +, it has created social signal that indicates that the search engines that this part of the content is valuable. More than once, which is the shared content, more links, the greater the value of, and better ranking in the SERPS! Each published a guest post to add to your social network Using current with great content.

Remember, than to care for guest blogging, blog business comes with a continuous stream of great content! 100 guest blog is not a substitute for your own blog. Once the blog is taking place, it’s time to start looking for guest blogging opportunities that will help you be successful SEO campaign.

The only problem?

Far too many of the content writers out there can’t actually write! As a result, they prey on people like you – hoping you’ll believe their promises and never notice that they don’t actually have any talent. Sadly, the odds are high that you’ve been lied to by an SEO content writer. Heck, you may have been told several lies!

There are some real doozies being told out there, but these 7 are the most common – and they’re also the most damaging to your business:

1. “I don’t outsource any of my work.”

This is a classic example of the ol’ “bait and switch.” Lots of SEO content writers promise that they (or a trusted associate) personally handle all of the writing. Then, they outsource the work to the far-reaches of the globe – and you wind up being the poor sap that gets stuck with content that’s not even remotely close to what you were expecting.

Before you agree to work with any SEO content writing service, you need to ask how they operate. If the person you’re talking to isn’t going to personally handle the writing, you need to find out who’s going to do it – along with what kind of credentials they have.

2. “I’ll have this to you in 24 hours.”

Have you seen those SEO content writing ads that promise tons of high-quality articles in just 24 hours? If you believe you’re going to get quality craftsmanship out of an offer like that, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you!

When you take advantage of promises like this, you end up with two scenarios – and neither one is good.

The first possibility is that you might actually wind up getting your order on time. The only problem is that you’re not sure if your content was written in English or some kind of Klingon-spinoff language.

The second possibility is that 24 hours pass, and you’ve got nothing to show for the money you’ve spent. Then, when you try to get a status update from your content writer, you get fed more lies – like the fact that the writer’s cat had the hiccups and, as a result, they were far too distraught to focus on your order.

3. “I don’t use article spinners.”

You wouldn’t believe how many marketers have been fed this line – right before they were handed a bunch of poorly-spun gibberish content. I’ve heard this same story from a number of new clients. They trusted some “writer,” and it wound up coming back and biting them in the, you-know-where. Adding insult to injury, they had to pay me to either fix the mess or to start over from scratch.

4. “I have tons of experience.”

While it is possible to find a diamond in the rough, most of the good SEO content writers out there have solid credentials. Sure, writing involves having natural talent, but harnessing that talent – by doing things like going to college and majoring in something related to writing, or having legitimate professional writing experience – is what separates the cream from the rest of the crop.

Unfortunately, the world wide web lends itself to anonymity and resume-boosting (if not out-and-out lying). Some SEO content writers will swear up and down that they’ve got the experience you’re looking for. Then, they send you content that your third grader would be ashamed to put his name on.

A good SEO content writing service will be clear on its experience and qualifications right on its website. If you’ve got any questions, a good writer will be happy to answer them for you. If your potential SEO content writer seems a little too vague, chances are they’re not quite as experienced as they claim to be.

5. “I do tons of quality research.”

There are plenty of solid places to do research on the web. A good SEO content writer will take advantage of several of them, just for one article or blog post. The bad writers will tell you how thorough their research is – then head straight to Wikipedia and copy information that may or may not be accurate.

When you read the finished product, you’ll be able to tell immediately if your writer really did do solid research, or if they’re just passing on the same half-truths and rumors that are circulating around the web.

The best way to prevent this from happening to you is to check out other content that your writer has written – either on their own website or blog, or in a guest post somewhere. Even if the subject isn’t related to your niche, you’ll be able to tell if it’s chock full of legitimate facts, or if it’s all fluff.

6. “I can make sure that all of your keywords flow naturally.”

This is a big lie that content writers love to tell. After all, a huge part of SEO content writing is SEO!

Some keywords are tougher to incorporate than others, but a good SEO content writer will have the ability to make sure that none of them stick out like a sore thumb. The last thing you want is a keyword that screams, “Hey! Look over here! I’m a keyword! I hope Google loves the fact that I’m smack-dab in the middle of this sentence!” All you’ll get from content like that is readers that run screaming in the opposite direction.

How can you tell if your SEO content writer incorporates keywords the right way?

Ask!

A good writer will never say they have a “blanket” keyword density. They’ll say it depends on the keyword and how often they can incorporate it, while still having an article or blog post that flows properly. On the other hand, the bad writers will make crazy promises – like a keyword density of 3-5% for each of your target keywords, or promising to use each keyword at least 27 times in a 400 word article.

7. “I can create awesome SEO articles for just $2.”

The problem with content that only costs $2 is that it results in a terrible hourly wage for your writer. Personally, I write very quickly, so to research and write a 400 word article takes me about an hour (give or take, depending on the subject). Since I like having a roof over my head and food on my dinner table, I’m not willing to work for $2 an hour. I’m sure you couldn’t make ends meet that way, either!

When you’re paying a writer a couple of bucks per article, their focus isn’t on giving you a well-researched, carefully-crafted piece of content. Instead, their goal is to churn out $2 articles as quickly as they can, so that they can try to make enough money to live on.

Look at it that way, and it’s easy to see that you’re never going to get high-quality at those prices. But it makes for a great sales pitch, right? Too bad it’s completely untrue!

2. Blogging. A well-written blog article can bring search engine traffic. It can also increase the number of subscribers to your RSS feed which can lead to repeat visitors and more traffic.

3. Social bookmarking. To bookmark your blog URL into some of the top social directories use a bookmarking sites such as Social Marker. This helps the search engines to find you and can lead to more website visitors.

4. Article marketing. This is still a great long term strategy for promoting a website. So the reader can easily find you include a link to your website in your resource box.

5. Article videos. There are services such as Article Video Robot that will convert articles into videos. You then submit it to the top shared video sites such as You Tube and Yahoo.

6. Video marketing. Google owns You Tube which gets 85% of all video traffic. Doing video marketing is a good way to show up in the search engines and create website visitors.

7. Email marketing. Anytime you send a mailing out your list you can include a link back to your website. This should include blog updates and announcing new products.

8. Publish a newsletter. These are known as Ezines and have been around now for almost 15 years online. This is a good way to provide useful information to people as well as promote products in your online newsletter.

9. Viral marketing. It is a good thing anytime you can get somebody to tell somebody else about your Internet business. Ways to create viral marketing include reports, articles, ebooks, and so on. This could also include posting the video on You Tube that goes viral all over the Internet.

10. Go offline. You can still drive traffic to your website the old fashion way including flyers, business cards, newspaper advertising, and radio. Many times this is dependent upon what your actual budget is as off-line marketing can be expensive.

These are 10 ways to get more website traffic. Rather than concentrating on one specific way if you spread your advertising tactics around your traffic will increase

Because of this, local visibility has become more important than ever before. It is not important whether you are a work from home business or a large corporation, by employing a local search engine optimization strategy it is possible to directly increase the amount of first time buyers. You do not need to create a complicated local SEO strategy in order to encourage local business, there are a few easy steps that you can implement to generate more sales.

A simple thing to do, especially if you are an online home based business, it to claim your own business profiles that are already in existence. It would in all likelihood amaze you just how many search engines and major websites have your business profile already online. Included amongst the most common examples are Google Places, Yahoo Local and Bing Local. If you go through all the verification steps, you will then be able to claim your business profile and modify it so that it is easier for people to find, and also to be sure that the information is actually correct and useful.

It is essential that you take control of the information that is already in existence about your business online.

The majority of local listings come through aggregation sites that search through the internet collecting the information that can then be displayed in a single place.

If for some reason these aggregation sites find information that is not right about your business it is possible that they will be unaware that they are displaying something that is incorrect. A common error is that phone numbers or addresses are not displayed correctly. This results in the possibility of a prospective customer who could be trying to get in touch with you will be unable to do so because of incorrect data. In most cases they will not really try too hard to contact you, they will simply move on to the next local business in the same line of work as you.

Another great idea would be for you to set up a central data location of your own. It is incredible just how many information aggregation websites are online that have information about your business and the best way to take advantage of this exposure and generate more local organic traffic is to have a place where your prospective customers can go directly which could be either your own website or a social network such as Twitter or a Facebook Fan Page. This will ensure that any customer, no matter where they learn about your business, will be sent to the same place. You must allow these sites to send you traffic, but at the same time you need to still be able to take control of this traffic as quickly as you can.

So you can see from this that there are numerous methods that you can use to benefit from local organic traffic for your business. The key is to understand why local SEO strategies are necessary to your online income business and the way you can get the best leverage from the aggregation websites. The three main steps you can take is to be sure to claim all of your business profiles that are already in existence, to take control over that information that is being displayed with regards to your business, specifically the phone numbers and the address, and finally you must make sure that you have a central location to which all of this organic traffic is sent such as your own website or a social network profile.

Before writing the post, I simply sat down and penned my SEO experiences. As a beginner, I used to waste a lot of time on different SEO methods that later on turned out quite useless. So, I made a list of those. I’ve also “interviewed” some of my SEO buddies and included their piece of advice in this post, too. So, what I would like to present to you is our distilled wisdom. Enjoy!

It is NO use:

1. Hanging Out at SEO Blogs/Forums

Ironically, this is what you are doing now, aren’t you? Well, it’s not the same, and let me explain why. There is a difference between CHOOSING to read a blog post or a forum thread that looks really helpful (this is what experienced SEO’s do) and simply reading everything in sight to stay informed about everything at all times.

I remember the days when I used to read every reply in a forum thread that I started, even when I already knew the answer to the question I had asked in the thread. I was just curious! So, guess what, I don’t have the time for curiosity anymore.

Also, one of my SEO buddies had volunteered to moderate an SEO forum. He thought it was gonna be fun, but it turned out to be extremely time-consuming. Well, if you have nothing better to do, you might as well do that.

2. Commenting on SEO Blogs/Forums

First, let me make myself clear and say that I do NOT mean using blog/forum commenting for SEO purposes, I mean using it for commenting purposes. Like, sometimes you’d get caught up in a heated discussion, especially when the “wow, I didn’t know that” stage is over, and you can give your opinion on different SEO matters, and you don’t hesitate to do it. So, this just eats up your valuable time and doesn’t really do anything for you.

3. Thinking That Manual is Better

To all of you perfectionists, double-checkers and sure-makers out there, I’d like to say that manual is seldom better. At least not when it comes to SEO. Many of my SEO friends, including me, say that, as SEO newbies, they had tried to do everything by hand. Partially, that was striving for better quality, and, partially, it was not trusting the SEO tools.

Anyhow, once they did try SEO software, they never got back to the olden do-it-yourself ways, ever. The general principle here is, if there IS a tool that can do it FOR you (like, a rank checker), go for it. Will save you loads of time.

4. Submitting to Crappy Article Directories

One of the SEO managers I know admitted that she used to spend a lot of time submitting to crappy article directories. Later on, she discovered that article marketing was all about quality, not quantity; that it was better to find fewer better-targeted, perhaps even paid directories and submit there.

5. Spinning Content

Another friend of mine did a lot of article submission, too. But those were not unique articles, but spun articles that were being submitted to hundreds of directories on the Web. At some point, he realized that writing and promoting one unique and useful article had a much bigger impact on site rankings, than spamming the Web with hundreds of “clones.”

6. Doing Manual Link Exchange

When I was still a beginner, the way I used to do link building was one link at a time. I would find a site, offer to exchange links, write “best regards” at the end of each email – Hah, now, when I think about it, it seems just so ridiculous.

I don’t do that any longer, of course. I now use SEO tools like LinkAssistant and SEO SpyGlass to build links. I now sometimes build 100 backlinks a day, with very little effort on my part.

7. Keyword Stuffing

One of the SEO’s, who I have great respect for said that he used to engage in keyword stuffing at the beginning of his career. He just wanted to rank faster for his major keywords, you see.

Well, of course, that affected content quality. His bounce rates went up, and the rankings went down. So, my acquaintance decided to work on interlinking instead! He provided useful links between different pages of his site. This worked both ways: to help SEO and to improve user experience. Users began following those links and, as the result, were staying longer on the site.

So, this is it. Are you practicing any of the above-mentioned techniques? If you are, take our word, they are not worth it! There is a saying that goes like ‘a smart man learns from his mistakes; a wise man learns from the mistakes of others.’ So, be wise and save your precious time!

This article gives some quick article marketing tips on how to appropriately use your keywords in your article submissions:

1 – The Headline:

The purpose of your headline is to indicate the topic of your article.

Try to place the keyword phrase that you’re targeting at the beginning of your headline. This takes some thought – the goal is to create a headline that would capture the attention of your potential reader, but that also prominently displays the keyword phrase. The title also has to be grammatically correct and contain correct spelling.

The best SEO-friendly titles just look like a great title – no one should be able to tell that you have specifically crafted it with your keywords in mind.

Please note: In addition to the keywords you researched for your website, it’s a good idea to also do keyword research for the topics of your articles. The phrases associated with your article topics will naturally be longer, say 3-8 words long. They are more specific than the keywords that are associated with your website, but that makes them perfectly suited for article topics.

The main difference between these two types of keywords is that the ones you use in your title and article body are what you’d like the article to rank for, and the keywords you use in your resource box are the ones you’d like your website to rank for.

2 – The Article:

The topic of the article is determined by the title.

Try to repeat your keyword phrase in the first 5 sentences or so of the article, in a natural sounding way of course.

Then, just write naturally about your topic. Since the keyword phrase is closely related to the topic of your article, then variations of the phrase should appear naturally in your article. Don’t try to force it too much, and by all means don’t pepper your article with the keyword phrase.

The most important part about the article is that it is easy for a reader to understand and that it provides helpful information. So, focus on writing a well-written article that teaches your reader something. After carefully placing your keyword phrase in the 5 lines, don’t worry too much about how many times the keyword phrase appears in the article. It will show up every once in a while as you naturally write about your topic.

Also, it’s okay for the phrase to appear in different forms, for example, ‘race cars,’ ‘racing cars,’ ‘race car gear’, etc.

3 – The Resource Box:

The resource box is where you can tell a little about yourself and your business and where you can encourage the reader to click the link leading back to your website. This is also a great spot to put one of the keyword phrases that you’d like your website to rank highly for.

Many directories will allow you to create an anchor text link in your resource box. With an anchor text link, you can use your keyword phrase to form the link that leads back to your website. This helps search engines to associate that phrase with the topic of your website and can influence the search engine ranking for your site for that phrase.

Be sure not to use the same phrase each time though – you should have a list of keyword phrases for your website, and you can alternate those in your resource boxes. If you use the same phrase as anchor text each time, it can look suspicious to search engines, which could have negative SEO consequences for your website.

Let’s recap the main things to remember when creating an SEO friendly article:

=> Do your keyword research, and find phrases to target in your articles as well as phrases that you’d like your website to rank for.

=> Write naturally. The phrases that appear in your article should not be conspicuous or awkward sounding. They should just be a natural part of a helpful article.

=> Be sure to use proper spelling and grammar. This is necessary for the article to be published and also for readers to be able to understand what the article is saying.

After doing this a few times, writing an SEO-friendly article will be like second nature. You’ll become very skilled at creating content that’s useful to your readers, while at the same time crafting an article that will attract the attention of search engines.

And the best part? Almost no-one is using this to its full potential.

What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a business directory that specializes in finding businesses, talent, and opportunities. It is therefore a place to discover businesses and for others to discover you. A place to discover talent; for recruiting, outsourcing, partnering with, or consulting. In short, people who can help your business.

It is a place where you can see credentials, build a relationship first then trust. It is a place where you should be able to generate 4 – 5 leads per day for your business. 75% of your business should come from LinkedIn.

In short – you are the talent that others are looking for.

But are they finding you?

LinkedIn has a record number of searches per day for SEO, Reputation Management, Mobile Marketing, List Management, Web Development, PPC, Lead Generation, YouTube management, and many others.

Why is LinkedIn so Popular for Business?

The main reason is that it is a search engine where you can search for people rather than information. You can see their credentials, and get to know them first before you commit to anything.

You also get geographically targeted search results so you can search for local people.

LinkedIn is perfect for you if you have the skills that are searched for, or if you want to outsource to people with those skills.

Benefits of Using LinkedIn

- You can only have one profile.

- You can generate leads all over the country and even the world even if you have a free account.

- You can use apps on your profile which help you to showcase yourself and your business.

How to Use LinkedIn:

You need to have a well written and well-presented profile that is SEO optimized with keywords. It is best to have a salesletter or similar copywriting for best results. Only talk about what you do for your clients and how you do it. Your past is irrelevant, unless it shows your experience in your current position. Use apps to help you. Slideshare is a good one to use as you can upload powerpoint presentations or YouTube videos to slideshare which will then show on your profile.

Always keep Search Engine Optimization in mind as people need to find you. Also, make your email address visible on your profile.

A systematic approach to networking works best. So decide first what you’re going to offer, and make sure it will pre-close clients for you, and generate relationships with your prospects. It should help you find business, and generate value for your leads.

In our case study, a start-up business approached his target market and asked them if they knew a good accountant in their area. They had one of three responses: No, I don’t know an accountant; yes I know an accountant; or no response.

He mentioned his business only in his signature with a keyword rich sentence and a link. He contacted 100 prospects. Of those 100, 22 responded that yes, they did know an accountant and made a referral. 43 responded that they didn’t know an accountant, and 35 gave no response. He then wrote to the accountants, told them that they came highly recommended and asked if he could recommend them to others.

The results: one accountant offered him $500 to buy his list of people in his area who needed an accountant. And 21 people wrote back and asked about his SEO services. He made five sales resulting in $4300 income.

Now you don’t have to offer the same, but you need to offer something of value. This way you will build excellent relationships and trust with your prospects.

Links from Multiple Domains

While your link building strategies should focus on volume, your plan should not be to get most links from a single site. Instead,
work towards just a few links from many sites for best results.

As search engines rank sites, they consider how relevant the content is to the keywords and search terms. When you get links from multiple domains, you demonstrate that many sources find your content useful.

This is critically important when you develop additional backlinks from authoritative domains.

Deep (Ingrained) Links

Instead of directing links to your site’s main page, use links directly to specific pages of content or images. These are known
as deep or ingrained links, and they show that you have important information throughout your site, not just isolated on the home
page.

Using deep or ingrained links adds to your ability to use important keywords for greater ranking in search engine results. You can spread these words throughout your site as appropriate, which will ensure a user-friendly overall appearance.

Links to Local Sites

If your link building strategies don’t include neighboring customers, you are missing out on a large opportunity. It is exciting to develop international backlinks, but it is the locals that will keep you in business.

Obtaining authoritative links from local sources is far easier than from nationwide or internationally renowned experts. Nearby
specialists enjoy building their communities by working with neighboring businesses. SEO rankings will climb when you include
local authorities such as the Chamber of Commerce or the Better Business Bureau for your state. Consider local organizations,
libraries, museums, and similar sites as well as your local government agencies. Directories like yellowpages.com and superpages.com are also excellent options. You might have to pay a fee for the service, but this tends to be very low. Some of
those you approach will jump at the chance for a quid pro quo linking relationship.

Links to Authoritative Domains

Sites classified as authoritative on a subject are those that offer expertise in a given industry or specific field. For example, nytimes.com has extensive, reliable, and accurate information on events relevant to New York. Its strong reputation as a source of specialized knowledge lends it authority on New York news.

Link building strategies that include government and university websites lead to high ratings, as these are accepted as authorities on their subject matter. They can be easily recognized by their .gov and .edu domains, for example IRS and California State University.

Authoritative domain links lead visitors to extensive amounts of quality, well researched information, and they often contain
additional links that lead to good sources for further exploration.

Linking through Anchor Text

The strongest and most popular tool available today is linking through anchor text. For best SEO ranking results, be sure to make this part of your link building strategies.

They work by turning your text into hyperlinks, so as readers go along, they can click on an interesting keyword. The link directs them to the page you specify, which makes your keywords even stronger, improving your site’s ultimate ranking.

Grow Your Rankings with an SEO Expert Today

Higher rankings mean higher traffic to your site, which results in more business for you. Don’t delay in designing and implementing your link building strategies. Begin with the five ideas listed here, and consider a professional SEO expert for
even greater success.

To illustrate, if you were looking to be found locally when users search for SEO services in your area, and you’re based in Wales, one such search term you may look to optimize for may be ‘SEO wales’. This would naturally vary depending on the location in which you’re situated and what users are actually looking for.

So let us take a look at the 5 most important things to remember when optimizing for local search terms:

1) Keyword Research

It all starts with keyword research. This not only involves knowing your niche but also knowing the keywords that people use to search for your niche specific products or services. One great way to establish if there is relevant traffic for a particular keyword, before optimizing your site, is to use the Google AdWords keyword tool. A quick Google search will allow you to find the tool.

Let’s assume you are a Cardiff based company that sells second-hand cars throughout Wales. The first thing you’d look to do once you’ve opened the Google keyword tool is, adjust the search settings so that they are set to display only results relevant to the UK.

Then enter a seed keyword relating to your product or services, plus insert the area name which you’re targeting e.g. second-hand cars . You’ll now be able to see how many searches are performed for that keyword phrase, plus get an indication of the level of advertiser competition for that particular keyword or phrase.

But don’t just assume that because you sell second-hand automobiles in Wales, that people looking to buy in that region will simply type ‘second-hand automobiles in wales’ into Google. As a further analysis might reveal that the actual search term people are using is actually ‘second-hand cars in wales’.

So, had you not performed proper keyword research and simply made an assumption, as many webmasters do, you could be wasting precious time optimizing for the wrong keywords.

Tip – If the keyword tool shows that the search terms you’re looking to optimize have a high level of advertiser competition, don’t be put off. This normally indicates that they are also highly commercial terms, meaning people may be more likely to buy!

2) Onsite Optimization

Once you have created your list of the most relevant keywords, it’s time to start optimizing your site. Make sure that your main keywords appear in your title tags and in your H1 tags.

As in the above example, you would now use the keyword phrase ‘second-hand cars in wales’ in your home page title tag. Ideally aligned to the left followed by the pipe character, and then insert your domain name or company name last. But make sure that you optimize each page for a different, yet related keyword so your site has a natural feel to it.

Also ensure that your keywords appear throughout your content, but don’t go overboard on this. You don’t want to appear spammy. Instead, try to write naturally and let your keywords just fall into place where they seem relevant.

For example, you might write sentences that include your keyword phrase, or variations of them, such as ‘If you’re looking to buy a second-hand car, then you’ve come to the right place. At Joe’s Auto Store we specialize in second-hand cars in wales.’

Also make sure that your company address is showing in the contact us page as this will also be indexed and can reaffirm to the search engines exactly where you are located.

Additionally, if it’s a brand new site, you may want to buy a .co.uk domain name (which ideally contains your location) as well as host your site on UK based servers, as this will also allow you to rank better locally, especially if you’re customers are all searching from within the UK.

3) Create Unique Content

Create regular unique and fresh content that will draw visitors back to your site. Make sure you add value and people will naturally come back. They may even point a link or two at your site in the process and always try to get some backlinks from websites and companies that are also located in your area.

These links will not only drive visitors from linking sites to yours, they will also help boost your search engine rankings.

One good way to do this is to include a resources page, listing valuable information such as ‘The Top 10 Driving Routes in Wales’. You might even want to make things more interactive by including a Google map so people can plan their driving routes for the holiday seasons.

4) Build High Quality Backlinks

As mentioned above, one of the best ways to build backlinks is to create unique content on your site. If what you’ve written is newsworthy, you may want to use a social bookmarking site such as DIGG to let the world know.

An important point to remember when building backlinks is to focus on quality over quantity. So make sure that the links pointing to your site are from reputable and related sites. A simple rule is this – if a site complements your site but is not a direct competitor, then you should ask them for a link.

For example, in the second-hand cars example, you could try to get a link from the Welsh Tourist Board or the Drivers Association for the Wales area.

Plus you will definitely want to get your site listed in Google Places (Formerly Google Local). This will require a small confirmation process, but is well worth the effort.

Also, don’t be afraid to point some links outwards. Just make sure you point at reputable sites because the search engines won’t like it if you keep bad company so to speak. Plus your readers will love it if you help make their experience better. You could for example point a link to the main automobile breakdown associations in the area, so they can bookmark your website for future reference.

5) Article Marketing

Another great way to create backlinks, other than simply asking webmasters to point links at your site, is to write great unique articles and post them on article directories. If readers like what they see, they may pick your articles up and place them on their own sites and in the process credit you with a backlink.

A tip would be to include your search phrase you want to be found for in your author bio box since this will give the search engines a better idea as to what your site is about.

In the above example, it could read along the lines of ‘Joe’s Auto Store has been helping local car lovers throughout Wales & England find second hand cars in Wales for over a decade’ and then making the keywords become the hyperlink back to your site.