Money Schemes - Learn How To Make Money Online

–NOTE– I’ve just updated my version of the commentLuv plugin, it looks like the later versions comply with how WordPress handles nofollow by default, i.e. unless the blog owner is running a DoFollow plugin then these links are not followed. There is still some value in using this, most blog owners don’t like spammy keyword rich “user names” associated with comments, at least this way you can use whatever link text you like.

I don’t think there is a SEO’er out there who doesn’t appreciate the benefit that leaving comments on blogs can bring. WordPress in particular gives you a very easy way of getting a 1-way link back to whichever website you specify in the comment form. The major problem with this is that these links are nofollowed by default, in other words Google won’t count them. There are a number of WP plug-ins designed to bypass this and reward your commentators with a followed link, one of the best (and one I’ve been using since it was first written) is CommentLuv. The CommentLuv plugin works by looking for an RSS feed associated with the domain you specify in the comment form, it then creates a followed link to the top entry in that feed. If you’re the sort of person that only creates blogs then commenting on blogs that use the CommentLuv plugin is a perfect way of building your link profile. My problem is this, most of my main money makers are not blogs, they are static websites. Where there’s a will there’s usually a way though. This is a trick I’ve been using for a while to get the CommentLuv links back to my static websites and it’s one I’m going to share with you now.

There was a page rank update last week, me, personally, I’ve lost all interest in that little green bar but I know there are a lot of people who still hang on that figure. To them “unranked” is a dirty word, a dirty horrible nasty word! I’ve had my fair share of unranked pages in the past and for the most part where I’ve chosen to I’ve managed to get them “some rank”, here’s my tips for getting back on Google’s good books.

Anybody want to guess what this chart represents? There is a bit of a clue in the title. Give up?…. That chart shows organic traffic for a new website built almost entirely from freely available articles. It is the laziest type of content and according to every SEO expert out there should not be getting organic search traffic.

What domain name should you use? Well there are 2 schools of thought about this.

1. Use your business name
2. Use a product/service related name

The first of these is obvious, if you company is called John’s Cars then look for johnscars.com, johns-cars.com etc etc Are you a well known brand? If not then this could be a very bad idea. I’ve seen plenty of local companies go down this route, of course the only way anybody ever finds their website is if it’s told to them via some other means e.g. in person, via the radio, newspaper ads. Sort of defeats the point of paying for a website doesn’t it if you then have to pay to get people to even find the thing?

The second approach is to use product or service related keywords. John’s Cars is an Isle of Man based second hand car dealership. Something like iomcarsales.co.uk or carsforsale.com are going to give him a huge boost (depending on search engine) in terms of search ranking. His website can then work to attract new customers instead of just being somewhere for all his other paid adverts to point to.

As you might guess I prefer the second option, however the next question is “But doesn’t that domain look dodgy, what about my business cards etc?” The beauty of this approach is that there is no reason not to use both. Domain names are cheap, if your business can’t afford another $7.95 a year for a domain name then your website should be the least of your troubles. I’d advise that you go for the second approach for your physically hosted website, and then use the first to host your e-mail. That way you can be contacted by e-mailing johnscars.com, can have johnscars.com on your business cards as your web address but you get the search benefits of being called iomcarsales.co.uk The only thing needed to make this happen is a simple 301 permanent redirection from the johnscars.com domain to iomcarsales.co.uk

But how important is the domain name?
Without mentioning any names, I know of 2 companies that operate in the same area, trying to attract the same clients. One went company name, the other went service related. With equal amounts of SEO in place, 1 had filled their books within 2 months, the other was struggling to get one enquiry a month. Obviously one had better search rankings, not only that but a major part of what Google shows you in the search results is the domain name. A lot of people clicked through the one which had the serice they were looking for in the domain name.

The ODP (Open Directory Project) located at www.dmoz.org should never be under estimated. The directories aim is to make some order out of the internet and to do this is uses thousands of volunteers to act as editors. Any website that you see featured in the ODP has had to have passed the watchful eye of at least one editor, because of this manual processing of the websites the major search engines take significant notice of the Open Dierctory Project.

Google for example bases its directory on the ODP and let’s face it, Google isn’t going to include a website in its own directory that it doesn’t trust. It’s this trust gained by being approved by an ODP editor that can help your search rankings. Whilst the ODP may not generate much in referral traffic what it can do is provide a signifcant boost to your natural search placements. However, it is this trust issue that has become the problem, a lot of webmasters now ignore the ODP because they consider it corrupt, that editors only edit for their own personal gain. Whilst there are bad editors, there are also a lot of good ones, and in terms of SEO it is best not to ignore the ODP, it is after all free.

One of the biggest complaints about the Open Directory Project is that it can take a long time for your website to be included (6 months or more), this is simply down to the number of submissions. If you can find a highly targetted category then you stand a better chance of being included faster. It may also help to find a category that is edited by somebody who is not also editing a broader category. One of the best ways of achieving this is to look at the regional areas. Another thing to think about is your entry, do not write promotional material, got that? NEVER write promotional material when attempting to get a listing in the ODP! The more an editor has to change your application to make it acceptable the less likely you are to be entered into the directory quickly, or maybe more importantly at all. They are volunteers and under no obligation to add your website, it’s in your websites interest to make life as simple as possible for them.

These are my main pointers for submitting to the ODP, do each of these and you stand a great chance of your website being listed:-

• Have original content that can’t be found elsewhere on the internet
• Spell check your website, the ODP is about quality information and not design
• If possible have a friend give your website a once over before submitting
• Make the title that of your company, or failing that your website, either way do not stuff keywords
• Your description should be as simple as possible, just say what you do and what is found on your website, DO NOT USE PROMOTIONAL LANGUAGE! Excellent, best etc should not be used.
• Only submit to one category, make it the most relevant one.

At the end of the day a listing in the ODP can be significant, it’s also free. Stick to the rules, be patient and you should be ok.

When it comes to the layout of your webpage there used to be only one option, using a table or more often nested tables to position yout html elements exactly where you wanted them. In these days of CSS, XHTML and building search optimised web sites there is a much better way, but it can give you some real nightmares.

I had a strange request from a client recently, they have a great website that is on the up and up but this one request could have blown all of the work that had been done on their website out of the water! It’s an honest mistake that any company could make.

Whenever the majority of people need to find a website they “Google” it. Google is by far the best known search engine in the world, with Yahoo second and MSN search third. MSN Search gets (depending on what figures you believe roughly 9% of web searches), when you think of the numbers though this is still a significant amount and it doesn’t pay to ignore MSN search when optimising a website.