So, you built a beautiful optimized web site and now it’s time to sit back and let the leads roll in. Maybe that worked 2 years ago, but not likely today. Online marketing is an ongoing event that must show continual change and improvement.
You need to think about your off page optimization. Your competitors are probably thinking about this and so should you. I’m talking about your search engine optimization (SEO) strategies away from your web site and how they influence how your company ranks in search results.
Off page factors, such as inbound links and social mentions, account for 70% of the weighting variables considered by Google.
- The Quantity of Inbound Links to the pages on your site is the biggest factor search engines consider when ranking your site in search results. However, the inbound links must be meaningful and relevant or your site could get black listed and that can be difficult to reverse.
- The Quantity of Web Sites that the inbound links are coming from. Meaning if you have 50 inbound links from 50 different web sites, you are ranked better than if you have 50 links from 1 o2 web sites.
- The Quality of Links. Quality speaks to relevancy of the inbound links. The search engines are now evaluating whether an inbound link makes sense from an Internet user point of view. If the inbound link is coming from a trusted, relevant site, your SEO efforts will be rewarded and your site will rank higher. If the inbound link is from an unrelated industry site or from a site known as a “link farm” the link will actually count against you. We work with clients to get these links removed and in extreme cases we have had to scrap the URL and get a new one as too much damage has been done and the site cannot recover.
- The Anchor Text associated with these links is an effect way to telling the search engine what the lined to web site should be ranked for.
- Social Media Mentions tells the search engines that your site is relevant and will help your site pages rank better.
- I know I said 5 ways but the 6th is a comment around Implementation. Slow and steady wins the SEO race. In other words, develop a plan and set your targets e.g. 50 inbound links within 12 months, and then add 4-5 links each month instead of 50 all at once. You will send the right signals to the search engines and rank better than if you had no inbound links on Day 1 and 50 inbound links within a short period of time. You number of inbound links has to grow naturally or the search engines can view too rapid a change as a negative.
Thanks Robert Dunford (rob@owen-media.com or robertdunford.stagingwordpresssite.com)
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