Getting Started with Search Engine Optimization – Part 3
In case you missed, here are previous parts:
- Getting Started with Search Engine Optimization – Part 1
- Getting Started with Search Engine Optimization – Part 2
Linking
Internal, deep linking, home page, and back-linking are just a few of the many types of linking that you can do. Building links to your blog can be a natural process for some blogs but difficult for others. Original content can help build links, but some effort had to be done on your part to ensure that you are getting links from relevant and authoritative sites.
Whenever you link from one page to another, you are helping build internal site linking. You are helping to continue the artificial “web” that makes up the Internet, and search engines reward you for doing this. They will provide more value to the pages with more links pointing towards them.
Getting backlinks
Getting backlinks from other sites can happen without you even knowing. If someone likes you content, they could place a link to your site in their sidebar, within a post, or through a comment, although some methods may not prove as valuable, if the site has a “nofollow” attribute attached to it. However, even if this tag is attached, there is still some value attached to the pages that have more links pointing to them. Guest posting, creating link bait, submitting articles, and leaving comments can provide backlinks to your blog.
Focus on attracting links from sites that have more links to them already. They often have a page rank greater than six or seven, indicating that they are established and have a high ranking for many keywords.
Domain Names
No matter how long you’ve been in the top results for a keyword, you can be “bumped” lower if a site is started with a domain name that contains the keywords that you have been targeting. This is due to the fact that domain names are viewed highly against content that may be much older (and possibly more relevant).
The reason it is becoming more difficult to be recognized among search engines today is that there are fewer and fewer “good” domains available. Over the course of the past fifteen or so years, a majority of the main domains that make sense were registered and either established or left as a parked page with ads on it. Unless your domain contains relevant keywords, your content will have to say more about your site.
If you have a domain name with Blogger or any other free, developer-hosted service, you likely experience this situation, as the main domain has a lot of value, but the sub-domains don’t hold as much value. Someone searching for a particular .blogspot.com blog will have a more difficult time than a blog with their own URL, even if they contain the same words.
to be continued …
Twitter
Good to see this third post. Well, let me comment about domain names. Getting the keyword you are targeting right in your domain url is simply like hitting the jack pot. However there’s one thing but very important, existing domains with some good age and targeting the same keywords. I mean Domain age too really matters. Search engine result pages rank the search results according to the keyword popularity for a certain blog. In this case Backlinks for that particular keyword play greater role.
One thing i am targeting my site blogger user with the same domain name keyword but yet it doesnt makes the first position on the Google search results. The main reason probably is the another link has the domain age advantage.
Nice post. Keep it up.
Thanks for another great comment,Pradeep
Your site is ranked #4 just after blogger.com for keyword “blogger user”
I think Pradeep has done tremendous amount of link building to reach this level.. Great level of commitment. Also I have seen that he is quite active in themelib as well..
I see only about 446 links in total to the entire domain and 438 to the primary url (Yahoo linkdomain), so I think this does emphasize the value of your keyword in your URL, big time!
Nice guide work! I’ve run into a lot of technical articles about optimization. So I’m glad I found one to go on the basics. Thanks!
This really a great help for us blogger who tend to build our own page. I’m sure there are a lot of like me who learned much from this post. Just keep it up and enjoy sharing your knowledge.
The value of a keyword rich url just can not be emphasized enough. I’m fortunate to be operating in the South African marketplace, where there are more domains available than on the international .coms and the like.
Ya i agree with you. But one thing is that i really like the .com domains ( Business Name Domains) and i think they rank higher than any other regional or national domains.
Agreed, especially if the intended audience being marketed to is an international one. If it is regional however, and if you are relying on Google’s regional services, then getting the most relevant, keyword rich local domain is just dandy!
I love your tutorials.. I’m learning a lot. I did try blogging for a while, but without success. I’ll put some plans together and have a read through your tutorials again.. hopefully I’ll be a bit more informed now
Hi sarah,
Themelib is quite good in providing detailed information (but not that elementary Information)and i am sure you are gonna have success blogging with his wonderful tutorials.
Hello Sarah,
You can find hundreds of such tutorials on SEO but the main thing is how well you understand and apply in practical. SEO is very easy but very time consuming. All the very best..:)
With this post, I come to a conclusion that a website not a blog with a 5 years domain registration is likely to get more benefit in SEO than a website with only 1 year registration. Am I right? I would be waiting for you next tutorial.
yup. Domain age counts for search engines so after all that’s benefit to the overall SEO of the site.
Thanks Pradeep for the reply.. I will keep this thing in mind for my SEO works..
Age does factor, but I’ve seen good results for keyword rich domains that have a lot of quality links pointing to them, even if they’re only a few months old. All other factors being equal though, the older domain will be seen as more authorative / valuable than the newcomer.
Yes, for some blogs building backlinks is an automatic process because of their original, well-written content. This article is very useful as far as SEO goes.
Let’s face it folks. The backbone of the Google (and other search engines) algorithm relies on links as votes of confindence, conferring authority in the form of PageRank. The mores links you can get, from as high PR pages as possible, the better. The no-follow attribute also plays a factor here, but only in the transferral of PR. They still count as a vote for your page, regardless of no-follow or do-follow.
Yeah, I agree on your comment. On a recent study done by some of my fellow SEO’s. They found out that Google is really indexing or let say, counting those nofollow links as a link vote, just a lesser value than those dofollow links.
Wonderful post Michael,
Link building is very important part for any SEO project but it may affect negatively if you cant handle it properly. Follow only one myth :
Best Backlink = Relevant theme + Quality
never go for non relevant link it may affect rankings badly.
when i was in high school bout 2 years ago i had a graphic design class an when we needed pic’s my teacher had this web site she would give up to look for photos for our designs witch search engine would be best for that…
It is very nice article about SEO works its very useful. Link building is most important work in it. All your efforts are useless with out right links. Still looking forward to you for another interesting post.
With regard to your advice on backlinks…Is Google punishing reciprocal links? Or is it still beneficial to trade links with companies in your niche?
Very nice tips about offpage optimzation! I liked very much, especially the domain names part. Thanks.
Yeah you are right.. Its harder to find a good domain name of blogspot.com than actually purchasing your own.
Totally, I agree with you. Keyword domain name is very important for SEO.
i agree that domain name is one of important think in SEO.
Yes fadel,
Domain name is counted as a keyword which helps a lot in SEO. But these days most of the domains are already used up so new bloggers are left with little options..