Directories and Backlinks

Directories, everyone knows about Google, MSN, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, etc… but what about all the niche directories?  Did you know that there are about 1200 directories you can get a link in?  Did you know that about 1000 of them don’t want anything from you?

YEA free links from all kinds of sites. Well almost free you either have to go through and search or you can hire it out.

What is it worth to get a link?

Well I do directory submissions and for $450 I can get your site submitted to around 900 directories.  These are directories that have been set up for all kinds of reasons, many carry a good PR, and you will get a listing of the directories your submitted and what was submitted to them.

You provide your home page URL, an email address (some sites require confirmation that you need to take care of, I will for an additional fee), keywords, descriptions, name, address and other information and within about 10 days you will have been submitted to at least 900 directories.

This is an astoundingly excellent way to get hundreds of backlinks that get spread out over time.  Most of the directories do not list you right away, they have a backlog of sites to list, so the links start coming in right away and then continue over time as your submission is included in more and more directories and then crawled by the SE’s

If you would like to know more about this service please feel to email me at sparky@birrenbach.com

Sparky

UPDATE: Aug 2009  I have submitted many sites to the directories and each are reporting excellent results, I have an ongoing arrangement with a major SEO firm to submit sites that they get contracts for.

Search Engine Marketing, SEM for short.  This section of this site will give you various hints and tips on how to use the search engines to your advantage.

Being on the net consists of a number of areas in which you can market and expand your business.  One of the most focused on is the Search Engines, show up on the first, second or third page and your popular and visted often and probably selling lots of product.  Think about it. If you search for something and you don’t find what your looking for in the first couple of pages what do you do?  Try a new search? At the same time how do those websites get into those highly coveted positions? That is called SEM (and sometimes SERP Search Engine Rank and Placement).  Developing within your site stuff that the search engines figure people will want to see when they do a search is how you get there the fastest.

SEM covers many different things from website design, marketing techniques that are all designed to increase how the search engines find your site and decide that your site is important enough to be place higher than other sites.  Some things you have control over others you don’t.  No one knows for certain what the Search Engines like.  No one knows what Google looks at in a site, or MSN, or Yahoo for that matter.  Lots of people have ideas of what they look for and different things that can be done to increase your sites ranking but each Search Engine (SE) has it’s own method of determining who is important.

In this section I will direct you to things that not only help in your quest to reach the top of the searches for what it is that your offering the internet public.

Sparky

One of the most important things in Search Engine Marketing is the domain name.  Unless your a huge company like HP, Apple, GM, Toyota, Walmart, etc. your domain name is one of the keys to being a player in the internet game.

At one time it didn’t really matter what you selected as a domain name as it was all about content and other factors.  Recently however domain names that produce better search results are those that have the product in the name.  Again, the way the name is produced is another key.  In the past it was significant enough to have a domain name with one of your search terms in it.  Now with the way search engines are operating and changing the ways in which they rank sites it is even more important that your domain name be as Unique as the Search term that is used to find it.  This site is a prime example.  There is a reason why I took the name that I did. Super-Search-Engine-Marketing.com is read by the search engines as Super Search Engine Marketing, where supersearchenginemarketing.com would not be as well read by the Search Engines.  So the selection of a domain name, and or names, is one of the many keys to successful online marketing.

There are many factors that produce results that are great for your site, and the selection of a domain name that will stand out and be recognized in searches is one of the first important things that are needed for a site to rank well with the search engines and make your marketing more successful.

More to come, keep watching.

Sparky

In the world of SEO, SEM, and SERP Content is KING.  I think I have mentioned that before.  But how the content is presented is also important.  The SE’s have become more and more intelligent over the years when they used to just catalog the content of your site.  Now they have become almost intelligent and can find many things that they used to pass by before.

It used to be a common tactic to stuff in words that are the same color as the page at the bottom of the page.  These were words the user couldn’t see cause they were the same color as the background, but the search engines could, and the more times your search words showed up the better your results.  The SE’s became wise to this and now will ban sites that use the techinique.

What is the best thing to do now is to make sure your pages make sense to the average reader. If they make sense to them the will make sense to the SE’s and if you write your information about your product (hard or soft) with the SE in mind you can work in your keywords into the content and get the results your looking for.

Let me give you an example of what I mean from my coffee site. You look at each of the various coffee pages you find information about the flavor of the coffee and the like.  In the body of the content I use the key words Gourmet and Coffee and Flavor or Flavored as much as I can while at the same time keeping the content readable and understandable to the reader.  This has a dual effect of making the content unique with my key words in it and also perfectly fine for the average reader.

Unique content is also extremely important, copying and pasting from another site or source on the net will be discovered.  The SE’s are able to compare your content to the content of other sites.  If the other site used the content first your copying them, if you used it first they are copying you.  In either case the SE will read it and according to its archive determine who to punish.  So make your content unique.

The other thing is that you want to try to use as much text as you can.  Many SEO, SERP, SEM experts believe that you need at least 250 words per page.  This makes sense as it gives enough information for the SE’s to understand your page and also deem it important to the net because it contains a lot of content.  If you have more content than a competitor your more likely to rank above them.

Sparky

The way in which you present your content is also important. Who ever said a picture is worth a thousand words never built a website.  While for a viewer a picture is great, to a SE it means nothing (other than the alt text attached to it).

Do not get me wrong the use of good graphics is important to a website, in the case of hard goods it is imparitive that you show a picture of the product if available.  Customers want to see what they are buying. Unfortunately to a SE a picture only means what the alt text or the name of the file is.  So where you gain with customers you do not with the SE’s.

Words are what count as content, at least now.  In the future content of Video, Audio, and Pictures will be readable in one form or another by the SE’s.  Right now we have not yet achieved that state.  Where it nice if we were it would make building a site with pictures and some text, like a catalog, so much easier.  If the SE could see that it is a Red Dress with shoulder straps sites would be more equally ranked.  Unfortunately they can’t, yet.

One thing the SE’s do understand is that BOLD text is more important. You will notice that I use Bold and Italics on text on various pages.  It accomplishes two things.  First it drags your eye to the content. Second it does the same to the SE.  The SE sees the difference in the code of the site and realizes your trying to point something out.  Using Bold and other format of text tells the reader and the SE things you think they want to know.

So you need to use a combination of text and pictures to make your site look attractive to your customer and also to the SE. Look around the net at various websites.  Find what attracts you about their site and what doesn’t.  Make notes about how things are laid out and you will be able to design your site to the optimum.

Sparky