amyrivers.com

Inbound links, links leading from other websites to your website, are very important in achieving higher search ranking and direct traffic to your site (provided they are high quality links and relevant to your business). The activity of link building allows you to connect with other businesses online, creating a strong online network and opening the door to professional relationships. Here are five easy ways to make link building a natural part of your business process:

1. Ask for links anytime you begin work with a new client or vendor. Whether you’re on the giving or receiving end of a product/service, its important to ask for a link and to be willing to provide one for the client/vendor - its mutually beneficial.
2. Ask colleagues, business partners and mentors to link to you. These are people who know you and can provide not only a link, but some related information to provide context for site visitors.
3. Request a link from any organizations  you belong to. And once the link is live, verify that the information is correct and that the link works.
4. Post press releases on online PR distribution sites like PR Web and PR Newswire. Be sure to include a link to your website in your press release.

Extra tid-bit: Allocate 5 minutes everyday to identify new websites that would make good link partners for you. If you make this task a part of your work schedule everyday, it will soon become second nature.

Just finished reading How to Win Sales & Influence Spiders by Catherine Seda. The book is divided into two sections. Section one deals with online public relations and includes discussions on SEO, blogging, press releases, etc - things that would help you earn higher ranking in the search engines, as well as attracting the attention of the press. Section two is a look at online advertising and how to make it more effective for your business.

The book is a great, non-technical introduction to these topics. It is not a resource for the experienced website designer or search engine marketer - but then, it was not created for those audiences. Instead, Seda provides an overview of website marketing, online public relations and online advertising for the business owner, focusing primarily on the potential benefits of these elements.

I would recommend this book to any business person who is trying to understand how the Internet can positively impact their business.

When optimizing a website, you’ll need to first identify the keywords that are most relevant to your business and are most likely to be used by potential customers to search for you. There are a variety of tools online that you can use to come up with your list of keywords, but before you start using a tool, I recommend brainstorming a basic list yourself.

First, think of all the words and phrases you would use to describe your core services. If you sell necklaces, perhaps you’d use keyword phrases like “buy necklace” or “jewelry store” to describe your business.  Try to think of at least 10 phrases relevant to your business.

Next, use the thesaurus. While you may use “car sales” to describe your business, your customer may be looking for “auto sales” or “buy new truck.” It’s important to think about the different ways a potential client might try to find you.

Then, look at competitor sites! It’s always a good idea to know what your competitors are up to, and they may have thought of wording that you hadn’t considered.

Finally, once you’ve come up with the widest variety of possibilities on your own, then you can use an online tool to figure out how many people are searching for the keywords your chose. You can use Overture, Wordtracker, or a variety of free tools you’ll find by searching for “keyword research tool” in Google or your search engine of choice. These tools allow you to search for a keyword and find out how many people searched for it over a period of time. You can use this information to prioritize your keywords.

For instance, if 1000 people searched for “auto sales” but 10,000 searched for “car sales,” you might want to use the higher volume phrase in your optimization efforts. On the other hand, more searches means more competition and it may be harder to rank high for high volume words. Tools like Wordtrackerwill also allow you to run a competiton search to see how competitive each keyword you chose is.