Finding ways to build High ranking Backlinks - domains that help.

There are still far too many legitimate website owners that falling for the guaranteed page one on Google for only $100 trick!

The key to optimising your presence on the web is influenced by over 200 factors within Google's search algorithm, which is also being constantly tweaked.

For the sake of this article we're going to cover a small but crucial part of one of those factors. Backlinking.

Backlinking is no longer the realm of the spammer. It has become the world of the strategist and the best ones, get the first page of Google. Backlinks are a critical tool to raise page rank and pagerank is what prioritises your page over others with the equivalent value in content.

You also need to understand the difference between nofollow and dofollow links and their value which is covered in a different post.

To gain a decent pagerank you need to be backlinked from pages with a high pagerank and those that have the golden goose are not going to share the golden eggs that easily. The first step is to identify highly ranked domains that will be the easiest to backlink from, with both dofollow and nofollow link status.

It would seem obvious but the high ranking pages to start with are your Social Media and high traffic interactive domains e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumbler and the like. remeber however that Facebook likes are not tracked as backlinks. The links have to be a clickable link to the site youre trying to rank. You also need to remember not to shorten the link because nofollow links credit the link to the url shortening service and NOT your website.

Then there is the use of the link wheel. Do NOT attempt this unless you have a thorough understanding of how the bots that crawl the web manage your information with the latest algorithms, however creating the actual links is the first step to building you valuable reputation.

Below is a list of high ranking domains upon which you can build information hubs that link back to your site. But also remember that if you only put one article on the blog/page domain, it will have less relevance than the page that has multiple articles, thus the job of SEO becomes an ongoing project.

Social Media platforms

Google+
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Tumblr

Then build your article and information hubs on high ranking web building platforms such as:

Weebly
Wix
webs.com
Blogger
Wordpress
Yola
Squarespace
Moonfruit
Angelfire
Lycos (Tripod)
Virb

This list is not exhaustive and you can hunt for  many more as you surf the net and discover the platforms that others are using to spread their reach.

Remember you can always check a domain's page rank by going to http://checkpagerank.net/

This is a small articel on SEO and you will need to apply a number of other strategies tomake it work.

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5 Ways to boost your Social Media Presence

Everyone is looking for new ways to boost their online presence and Social Media activity and there are without a doubt plenty of advice columns. Just in case a few people have missed them, here are another five hints.

1. Scoop.it! Yes  join scoop it and curate it daily. It only takes 5 minutes every day and compared to other platforms, it manages to drive crazy amounts of traffic to and from your website. The key to using Scoop.it is to remember to Scoop everyday. Don't forget to cross post to your favourite platforms and Scoop.its free account allows you to cross post to at least two platforms, FaceBook and Twitter being the first to come to mind!




2. Use a social Media Dashboard - It has become noticeable that the mainstream cheapies the likes of Sprout Social have suddenly become expensive! If you can afford it, we continue to recommend Postling which provides an easy to use, intuitive user interface and at a song $5 for five accounts and $1 for each additional account. This provides quick and easy management of all your active platforms in one place with control over cross posting and enables you to set up tweets and post well ahead of time.

3.Blog from a different domain. Most online blogging platforms have fabulous page ranks. So if you blog on Blogger, WordPress, Wix or Webs, you can be sure you are back-linking to your site from a ready made high ranking page. While this does not guarantee an immediate online presence it certainly helps a lot to get you closer to that all evasive first page of Google, and is a strategy we recommend to all our new clients. Keep your main site on your domain and blog with a subdomain link. - It all helps.


4. Recommend your article to Mashable. Reputable aggregating sites such as Mashable and Technorati, will not only drive traffic to your site, but also provide the kudos that you need to improve that page rank, and wow, what a long term digital footprint it leaves!

5. Check for plagiarisn EVEN if you wrote the article by yourself. The internet is so full of content that there is no way of knowing whether there are multiple duplicates of the phrases that you use. Google's algorithms can be quite pernickity and if you use just that little too much that appears to be cut and pasted even from several different sources, you're out on a limb. A fabulous free online tool for this can be found at small SEO tools.

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Tech ten minutes is back!

Tech ten minutes is back!

Our fabulous breakfast meetup is back.

May 4 to May 7

Monday May 4

Is your website working for you?

Tuesday May 5

Is your Social Media working for you?

Wednesday May 6

DIY or pay someone to SEO your site?

Thursday may 7

Making Social Media pay for itself -monetising your advertising

Tech ten minutes is a ten minute minute talk on a particular topic surrounding technology in business. the talks are structured so that even the small business entrepreneur can garner some knowledge that he is able to apply immediately.

The talk is followed by half an hour of discussion and questions and the guests are then free to network until 8:30 am .

The environment is informal and relaxed and BYOD (Bring your own device).

The coffee is free and  awesome and if you would like a croissant or breakfast sandwich please ask and we'll arrange one.

As we are a Cape Town based business with a strong interest in heritage, we ask our guests to bring a few coins to contribute to the St Georges Cape Town Cathedral roof restoration fund.  - every penny helps

PLEASE BOOK for this as there are limited spaces.

call the office on 021 828 9869 or 0748273548

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SEO and Digital Media Is it all just a huge rip off?

As I sat across from a Business manager this morning, I nearly collapsed on the spot when I saw what this particular organisation was paying for a single digital media campaign. As I'm one that will not hesitate to tell people that you get what you pay for, I was utterly dumbstruck by the figures before my eyes.

 I had been called in to offer some advice in a situation a little like shutting the stable door loooooong after the horse had bolted. He glanced over at me quizzically when I gulped for breath and asked in a slightly higher than usual pitch exactly what golden bells and diamond studded whistles were going to be attached to this particular digital campaign. I was given a copy of the PowerPoint presentation and took a copy back to the office to cogitate over the possibilities - and probabilities.

 The presentation is FULL of what if's and the campaign strategies rely heavily on the client. The client is expected to connect the agency with the relevant partners.It appears that the agency is being paid for the (rather mundane)ideas and the client is expected to provide the rest of the resources. The outline of the strategy is based on the platforms they will use and the strategies they will offer in order to facilitate the ingress of funds. But...... 

There is no clear demarcation of how the campaign is going to be targeted at different population sectors nor the implementation of calls to action. Because of the confidentiality of this particular request for advice, I cannot divulge ANYTHING....YET. 

What I do however see is a client that does not know what they should be spending and has no idea of the value of the quotes they are being given. I also see an agency grabbing the opportunity to cash in on a number of big names and losing sight of business ethics and objectives in the process. My greatest fear for the client is whether this agency is in fact going to be able to produce the goods. While we would have undoubtedly used the same or similar digital strategies and certainly encapsulated to some extent their approach, we would have by now identified different target groups and included a strategy as to specifics in terms of how we expect to employ a call to action for each of the different target groups.

 So many businesses seek to dip their toes in the digital media jungle. SO many get lied to and conned by fly by nighters and then there are the bigger guys, the agencies that by the very name they bear feel it is ok to overcharge. Having had a look at the brief, I see some really bright flashing lights. While we do not have a massive following - our social media is active and we can be contacted without a very long wait through any of our social media channels. The BIG NAME agency involved has what I woul termin client speak remedial needs for their social media. How can you sell a product you're not using yourself?

The agency claims some big South African clients. Their legacy is however quite poor. When you build a campaign for a client, achieving the end result is obviously the objective, but does the client enjoy a long term legacy or will their visibility gradually melt away into obscurity?

I was shocked when at yet another presentation, a prospective client told me that she was being charged R5000 for 5 tweets per day - and nothing else......

Dont give me the exponential reach stuff bla bal bla, because actually ignorant clients don't understand that stuff..... Many dive into the behemoth of Social Media because they think thats what they should be seen to be doing, when in fact its like doing DIY open heart surgery on your marketing strategy with only a medical dictionary to get you through.....

I refer to the SEO snake oil article that can be found here and I now see with absolute clarity why the bigger companies are balking at following the rest of the world into the digital frenzy that is out there.

I will say with absolutely no fear that if Shoprite, and Edcon and the other large corporates are investing more than R500 000 per month into digital media management (Have they actually defined what that entails I wonder, or is that term as fluid as the perception of one manager compared to the next?) - Then somebody counting the pennies has been conned and please give us a call so we can disabuse you of your errors. Woolworths on the other hand have got the best retail Social Media presence Ive seen in SA, so whatever they're spending, its a good investment, but theyre till a little behind the curve.

Campaigns are a separate matter and if youre looking for a ROI, then you need to pay your agency on a commission basis. I know commission is a dirty word, but if your agency's bread and butter depends on it and they know what they're doing, then trust me they will outperform your wildest dreams because the bottomline dependson it.

The money matters and if you dont want to throw a whole lot of greenbacks into a hole, check your stuff out. AT the very least if the agency youre talking to doesnt have social media activity worth noting......I would recommend that you leave...

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Social Media and SEO

Something we always discuss with our clients is just how important a great all-singing all-dancing social media campaign is for their Search Engine Optimisation. In this day and age, the Social Web is driving everything forward on line, and a static website is just never going to cut it out there on the wild wild web...

This great article explains just why... http://veepopat.ca/social-media-optimization/

And for a view in an instant graphic,check out this one

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All about website keywords, optimisation and search engines

In the most recent past we've heard a lot about how keywords are not the be all and end all of the search engine. While the way that Google operates their algorithms may change on a regular basis it is absurd to think that what you put into the internet won't be churned out!

 A lot of newbies hear all the tech speak about "keywords" and "optimisation" and grab snippets from all over the place but unless they get some form of education be it in a course,or a qualification, or by extended reading, that's what it remains. Snippets. Knowing where to look to find the information can also take years. So here are some resources.

 When a client hears that their Strategist optimises keywords usually it is just a whole lot of techno jargon that just goes right over their heads. So what exactly is it, and why is it important? Keyword optimisation is associated with the research analysis and selection of the best targeted keywords that will drive qualified traffic from search engines to the desired url (website) This is part of, but don't be mistaken, not all of the process in Search engine optimisation.

 I am often also astounded to see how many people will pay huge amounts of money for a once off optimisation service and then wonder why their page ranking indeed goes up, but then progressively drops.

Keyword optimisation is an ongoing task and requires maintenance with new keyword opportunities need to be discovered and cultivated. After all if you don't do it, the competition will. By expanding the keyword database, and cultivating the target words, performing regular analyses and monitoring performance levels, site traffic, and leads will continue to grow.

 All this may be very well, but if you don't start off with the right and most appropriate keywords, it could take a long time to get it right, and that means lost clients customers and leads. It may sound all very simple and cut and paste, but actually most good strategists will tell you that keyword ooptimisation can be the single most difficult task involved in SEO.

Remarkably many people are not prepared to pay for skilled strategists to work on this part of their digital marketing and indeed do not understand the loss. If you dont have the correct keywords, you dont get the traffic, you arent found online and your site doesnt perform. In some cases the construction of a whistles and bells website is completely moot, because the lack of keyword optimisation, renders it undiscoverable.

 To cut a long story short practicing search engine keyword optimisation should do these things:

•  Drive traffic (not any traffic, but qualified traffic) to your website 
• Analyse popular keywords by measuring the potential of traffic Include effective content which incorporates optimised keywords into your website 
• Understanding the language of your customers, means that you will know what they are searching for and how.

Keyword optimisation is vital in every aspect of digital marketing,  content strategy and link building inclusing the grouping of keywords in Google Adwords, Ad groups, not however ignoring sites information architecture.

So how do you ensure that your site is keyword optimised?

• Your keywords must appear in the title tag -front loaded
• Link building strategy is an integral part of keyword optimisation -link text should be tracked and managed.Include keywords in your link names.
• Image alt attribute and filenames should be keyword optimised
• Despite the debate over met optimisation, there is little doubt that the keyword connection produces more clicks.
• URL slugs. Remeber your website url has several versions, use keywords to name pages and slugs.
• Site Architecture, Just as your site has a hierarchy, so your keywords should feature in the hierarchy in terms of their importance.

This article is the first in a series on keywords. Part two of this series will cover keywords for PPC campaigns

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