Website Linking.

haulie

Hi Guys,

Have any similar small business (or big business I don't mind) got any interest in linking our website on their page and we will return the favour linking your website in our Resources page. From what I can gather from the research I've been doing, this is good for SEO and gives you a better chance of being on the first page on google. Also it could increase both of our traffic and costs neither of us anything! Our site is almost complete, just needs some content to be added/changed which will be done in the next day or two.

Have a look and let me know what you think of the design. And as I said, if you want to trade links I would be more than happy.

www.avenue-house.net

Graham

Links for the sake of them don't do much for SEO any more, particularly if:

They are all gained over a short space of time.
They are from completely unrelated websites (e.g. a site about goldfish linking to a site about safety gear).
They are all reciprocal links.

Try to get some trusted sites to include your URL, e.g. an article in the newspaper about your company.

Google got wise to link-trading a while ago.

Should have mentioned, the link in your sig is probably enough for Google to sniff your site out but I wouldn't do that on too many forums.

haulie

Cheers for the insight Graham. SEO is a very new and foreign subject to me and I've been researching it mad in the last few weeks, loads of articles have great ideas but none of them seem to have an exact formula to get on the first page!

I posted a few links of the site to a few related forums, to help answer people's questions, but obviously don't want to P*** people off by just spamming links to my site on forums you know, theres nothing worse!

There seems to be a few business directories around that you can offer a link to your site on, yalwa is one that springs to mind. Have business ads with a link to the site on a few of them, I assume this would help and count as a link from a trusted site would it? Have a free ad on yourlocal.ie as well, but they don't allow website links on the free ad.

Can you tell me what you mean by reciprocal links?

Graham

Reciprocal linking is the 'if you link to me I'll link to you' kind of thing.

Best advice I could give you is to allow the linking to occur naturally by making your site relevant. Write articles about things about your industry, your products, host a forum on your website for customers/the public.

Relevant content is the best thing to get you noticed by Google. Deliberate link building is only likely to get you noticed for the wrong reasons and as such your search engine position is likely to suffer as a result.

I don't think cheap web directory links will help you much at all, in a lot of cases Google appears to treat these as link farms and again your positioning may suffer asa result.

Try writing one piece of relevant content a day, add it to your site/site blog. Allow comments, you may even get a few links back to your blog posts if the content is relevant to your readers.

seanaway

I found a good linking service that is legit - not just a robot service. PM me if you'd like the details.

I've been using it for about 6 weeks and I'm on page 3 of Google. It takes time but is worth the wait if you get there.

I agree - a sudden surge in links will get you blasted by Google. As it is my site went form 6 to 5 to 4 to 19 and back to 3 even doing it legit. Just the Google dance!:D

John

Graham

Personally I wouldn't touch it, I've seen too many websites vanish off the face of Google overnight because they've used some 'we guarantee to increase your rank/links'.

Google 'Matt Cutts Link Building' or 'Matt Cutts Link Exchange'

Matt Cutts head's up Googles Spam team:

Useful link http://www.great-seo.co.uk/11-top-link-building-tips-from-matt-cutts/

The Apprentice

Graham wrote: »

Links for the sake of them don't do much for SEO any more, particularly if:

They are all gained over a short space of time.
They are from completely unrelated websites (e.g. a site about goldfish linking to a site about safety gear).
They are all reciprocal links.

Try to get some trusted sites to include your URL, e.g. an article in the newspaper about your company.

Google got wise to link-trading a while ago.

Should have mentioned, the link in your sig is probably enough for Google to sniff your site out but I wouldn't do that on too many forums.

Graham im sorry to say but i dont agree with most of what youve said on the above at all..

Maybe im taking this out of context but you state above "Links for the sake of them don't do much for SEO any more" In my opinion serp is all about the links.. No ifs buts or maybes.. no links = no exposure on the internet.

All gained over a short space of time.. half incorrect. If its a new domain anything over 100 urls indexed a day is sandbox territory.
If its an aged domain ive personally seen 10k urls indexed and NO sandbox...

They are all on completely different unrelated websites.. ? I can put you in touch with a few link recip farms that have approx 70+ pr4 or above on all different C class ips with different areas, niches, everything.. Massive surge in rank.. so again incorrect.

Trusted sites to include your url.. yes this press release is a perfect example of link building..

Google got wise to link-trading a while ago .. i maybe mistaken what u mean with this .. but link trading is perfectly 100% above board and is reccommended.. Trading a link with your fish company with the tesco/fish section of there website is a working example.. Or bord bia annoucing the tommy walsh.com from tipperary is there 100% irish beef producer.. Goes on, will go on, and will never stop. tis not frowned upon at all. Interlinking via onpage seo is another example


"Should have mentioned, the link in your sig is probably enough for Google to sniff your site out but I wouldn't do that on too many forums."

This is accepted ^ also.. ure telling me u cant announce your computer repair website on 50 forums ?? This is accepted and perfectly natural .. its even on matt cutts tip section


Mod Edit: Additional comments removed - do not post your personal opinions of people on here be they famous business people or not.

Graham

A part of SERPS is about links, but it is much less of a part that it used to be.

Trading a link with your fish company with the tesco/fish section of there website is a working example.. Or bord bia annoucing the tommy walsh.com from tipperary is there 100% irish beef producer.. Goes on, will go on, and will never stop.


I think you agreed with me there, you said related links are good, I said unrelated links are not:

Links for the sake of them don't do much for SEO any more, particularly if they are from completely unrelated websites (e.g. a site about goldfish linking to a site about safety gear).

A low volume of high value links = good
A high volume of low value links = not so much

It's all about content now, links do play a small part but content is king.

A few useful links haulie:

http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/
http://www.webmasterworld.com/link_development/
http://www.webmasterworld.com/link_development/4361154.htm
http://www.webmasterworld.com/link_development/4316320.htm
http://www.webmasterworld.com/link_development/4331007.htm
http://www.sugarrae.com/link-development/link-building-with-the-experts-2011-edition/

If anyone tries to sell you a silver bullet that guarantees you a fast, high ranking spot in Google, don't think about trying it until you've researched it fully. Chances are, if they do manage it, it won't last.

If anybody had found a way to guarantee high ranking in Google for 'insert your keywords here', why would they sell you the service? They'd be better off selling 'insert you widget here' themselves or selling the leads onto you.

That said there are plenty of SEO strategies that will help but like anything they will take time, effort and/or money just like anything else that's worth having.

Graham

Haulie, I just did a search at google.ie for avenue house and you came back in position 9, that's a really great start to be honest. Especially given there appear to be several thousand B & B's and Hotels with almost the same name.

A couple of other suggestions:

As you don't have a .ie domain, is your website hosted in Ireland? That may help for Irish search results. Have you considered registering the .ie?

Have you considered Google Adwords to bring in traffic? You can usually get a free €75 trial voucher to give it a go, I just wouldn't go for keywords like 'heath and safety' as it's too generic, 'health and safety training' might work a bit better and specify to show only on Google sites for Irish searches too. It's not quantity of traffic you're looking for, it's quality targeted traffic.

Completely unrelated but I'd consider removing the Google/Amazon Ads, they'll never make anything on a lightly trafficked site and they spoil the look of what is otherwise a nicely designed site. I'm just looking at the page for Safety Statements, and the Ad at the top of the page is for a Daily Bible Guide. Not sure what sort of message that sends

The Apprentice

Well we can split hairs on what u said or meant but a pr7 link from a fish website to your christmas tree site is good juice..

the recip link farms are proving this ..


And to follow up on this comment "If anyone tries to sell you a silver bullet that guarantees you a fast, high ranking spot in Google"
what about the previous no1 rankings from local listings and google images that was a big hit...?
Just because ure not aware of the finer things it doesnt mean they dont exist..

"inurl:"go.php?url="

Graham

I hear what you're saying Apprentice but you have to balance the risks.

If you're churning out hundreds of auto-generated blogs with a script, your SEO techniques can afford to be a bit more spammy/risque. If one site gets hit by the google-hammer (or just never takes off) it's not a problem, you build another 1 or 100 before breakfast tomorrow and off we go again.

If you've got one web site to promote your business and it gets wiped out, there goes your entire online presence.

Different business models require different approaches to SEO, although there will obviously always be some overlap between techniques.

Haulie has made a great start in getting to page 1 on Google.ie for his business name, I for one wouldn't be prepared to risk that in search of a quick fix.

haulie

Cheers for the info lads, will have a look at those links for sure. Will probably be the weekend before I get a chance to giving them a proper look but they should come in very handy.

Have an adwords account alright but I have one campaign for the whole site, I'm probably going to split it into 2 or 3 more specific campaigns EG. one for manual handling and one for safety statements, so that the ad is more specific to what the person searched for, rather than just a generic health and safety ad.

I can manage the ads that are displayed on the website as well, can block sites etc so that as you said they ads that are displayed are more related and it doesn't look like we are trying to sell a bible! I just haven't got around to this yet, but its on my to do list as well. I'll stick with em for the mean time as I plan to put any money made from adsense into adwords, so that it pays for itself (obviously given the size and nature of the business it will probably never pay for itself, but you know what I mean might mean getting a few more ads on the first page of google than my usual budget would allow if you understand what I mean)

Very happy with how the site has turned out though, had made the previous one myself using templates and it sucked, so I'm very happy I took the plunge and paid someone as its much more appealing now.

Graham

You're definitely on the right track with making more specific campaigns, I'd hazard a guess that most people doing a generic search for health and safety are doing it from an employee point of view rather than an employer perspective.

The secret to adwords really is laser targeting, I'd also opt out of advertising on Google Network/The Display Network. In my experience these referrals rarely convert.

If you're not already, use Google Analytics on your website to help identify what source of traffic converts.

haulie

By google network/display network do you mean like adbanners on other sites like for instance youtube etc? Wasn't aware you could do that, would probably be a lot better off actually as would be much more targeted because wouldn't it? Like would it just display for peoples searches. Is that what you mean?

Yeah got my web-guy to sort out the analytics part today, although adsense tracks it a bit as well have had over 450 hits in the last 2 days which isn't bad I suppose, but will wait to see the analytics data to see how many unique users there were and the time spent on the site etc.

Graham

haulie wrote: »

By google network/display network do you mean like adbanners on other sites like for instance youtube etc? Wasn't aware you could do that, would probably be a lot better off actually as would be much more targeted because wouldn't it? Like would it just display for peoples searches. Is that what you mean?

That's exactly what I mean Haulie, you can specify to display on google search site only for searches from Ireland for your soon to be tightly targeted search terms.

To be honest, until you've done that I'd switch off your adwords campaign as a very large proportion (most) of it is going to the wrong people. You should find your ad spend drops significantly, and hopefully your conversion rate will rise as a result.

There's lots of guides to Adwords out there, I'd really recommend getting one and settle down for a good read. A good understanding of how Adwords works will save you hundreds if not thousands of wasted advertising €'s over time.

The old saying "I know half of my advertising is wasted, I just don't know which half" no longer applies. With Adwords and Google Analytics, you will know (or at least have a much better idea).

The Apprentice

Graham wrote: »

I hear what you're saying Apprentice but you have to balance the risks.

If you're churning out hundreds of auto-generated blogs with a script, your SEO techniques can afford to be a bit more spammy/risque. fix.

No one mentioned autoblogs at all..U can read my last 100 posts if u wish to find out "risque" ventures all you want. if u read what i was saying instead of sitting on the "im right because i wrote it horse" you might learn something today. Hi pr comments on blogs sites which is totally white hat and approved by the google queen mr matt cuts.. THEREFORE its accepted and its only a wrong answer if u think or write otherwise. So ban hammer is literally non existent if u know what your at and how to do it.


Your sitting outside the top 100 for both keywords "manual handling courses" "safety statements" 104 and 106 on google.. not a jellybean on bing or yahoo. You prob need to get working on these 2 search engines also.

If grahem had of followed up on the keyword research he would have found that both those keywords get a monthly exact keyword traffic of about 200 searches on google.. which is **** and more than likely not going to pay the bills.. which literally your wasting man hours creating an online presence that might not convert potentially.

And i might add also that the addwords traffic for Both these keywords is about 12 clicks.. which is frowny faces all round for you.

I ran a check on https://www.spyfu.com and my account is uk or usa only so i cannot help you on what adds your competitors are running.

"safety statements" and your other keyword "health and safety cork" are pretty easy to rank for just keep doing your links from different sources and you,ll be fine. But really and truly the traffic isnt there, my best advice on this would be to research a few more different long tail keywords to actually get the traffic in, im very unsure on this niche area but the results are worrying so far.

And by the way the site is fantastic, the guy you hired did a great job it looks smashing. !!

Graham

I don't recall suggesting that posting to blogs with a link is a bad idea, in fact I agree it could be a relatively easy way of obtaining links if used appropriately.

I would add to that, the blogs should be relevant to the topic being promoted and the posts should also add something to the conversation that follows the blog posting.

12 clicks from highly targeted traffic can be much more profitable that 1200 clicks from auto-generated built for adwords sites, especially when you're paying for each of those clicks.

You talk keyword targeting, I talk of relevant content. Relevant content includes relevant keywords so by it's very nature will attract links/Google, the only difference is my approach focuses on the content rather than just looking for keywords/keyword-density.

From Google http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en//webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

Axwell

haulie wrote: »

Have a look and let me know what you think of the design. And as I said, if you want to trade links I would be more than happy.

www.avenue-house.net

Get rid of the amazon ads, they make the site look cheap,tacky and unprofessional. They are also pushing the contact form way down the page out of sight.

Fix the background image at the top of the page in the header section.

Fix the roll over on the navigation so its not so big, it looks out of place.

Change the css for the email link on the contact page to a colour less contrasting than the blue, its way too hard on the eyes.

Change your meta tag titles so they are more tailored and specific, at least have it saying Health and Safety Cork.

MrPicante

I think it's worth employing the skills of an SEO consultant to develop a strategy for you that you will heavily implement yourself (if trying to save costs). I say this as it will save you both time (lots of) and money on an ongoing basis. SEO is a labour intensive service - but does pay dividens

haulie

Hi guys,

Just said I'd let ye know how I got on with the whole SEO strategy.
So after a few months and a lot of trial and error I'm now on the first page for most of my targeted keywords.

If you type any of the following you should see my website www.avenue-house.net on the first page.

Manual Handling Cork
Manual handling course cork
Manual handling training cork
Safety statements cork

Next key words to target will be the same only without the "Cork" at the end, hopefully to gain more national exposure and business

Manual Handling
Manual Handling Training
Manual Handling Course
Safety Statements

As I said there was a LOT of trial and error, there's no exact formula really but I found linking to be a huge help obviously, I suppose a big thing to get on the first page is high quality links like I'd say 1,000 blog comments or forum comments would only be as good as 5 high quality links from sites such as irishjobs.ie or examiner.ie or whatever. Still though I have now links all over the internet and it seems to be doing the job.

In the time since I last wrote the website traffic went from probably 10 or 20 visits per month from paid advertising and as we all know that costs a lot if the website visit isn't converted into a job.

Now the site is averaging about 110 visits per month with about 50-60% of that coming from google organic clicks so it's great getting that much exposure and it costs me nothing.

Now I must admit I have about 100 euro spent as part of the link building process, paying companies to submit links and comments and blogs etc as this would be very time consuming to do yourself. But that 100 quid is definitely better spent on link building than paying it to google per click.

The google keyword tool is pretty handy actually for choosing keywords to target. You're better off choosing keywords that have less competition but high search's, you can type in any keyword that you would think is related to your business and the results could be surprising as you may discover some keywords that you would have thought would be high competition that actually aren't.

So anyway all in all I'm very happy with the results as it's bringing in the traffic to the site, which in turn is now starting to bring in the business and we are starting to get enquiries from all over the country.

Continuing the efforts anyway to stay on the first page!

Take it easy.....

haulie

Suppose I should just elaborate, I know 110 visits per month is tiny in the online world, bringing a lot of enquiries, especially when you consider that it's for a sole trader business and the traffic is targeted I mean if someone is looking for a manual handling course and end up on my site then we are laughing as they need it and wouldn't be looking for it otherwise. So I know it's small traffic but it's not bad traffic at all when you consider the little number of searches that are done monthly for services from the health and safety field.

The Apprentice

Firstly great ****ing stuff..
Secondly i wouldnt depend to heavily on google keyword tool on specific keyword traffic and data i find it to be a bit inaccurate at times

I would suggest "market samurai" as an alternative to this, its metrics are very accurate, the tool may be a little slow at times but overall i think its a must have in any SEO arsenal. U can test it to have a little trial and error for 7 or 14 days if u want, its only like 50 or 60..

Again, well done .. good stuff.

haulie

Nice one I'll have a look at that and chance the trial.

JMR

Hi Haulie,

Just came across this thread and I would say I am in just about the exact same position you were 6 months ago!
My website, www.drypro.ie has been live since the start of the year. I currently get approx 600 visits per month from Adwords (majority UK) with a further 250 from organic searches / referrals etc.

As I am in a very niche market I am on the first page for my major keywords
"waterproof cast protector" and "waterproof cast cover" but unfortunately this is only true for google.ie and I am way down on google.co.uk

I have been trying to build links but am really getting nowhere.
My approach has been to find a site that is in someway related to my business and send a mail to the contact address, openly asking if they would be willing to place a link to my site on theirs.
This is patently not working as the vast majority of these mails go unanswered.

You mentioned that you paid a company to submit your site to directories etc, could you give more detail on that (or PM me if you feel the need)

Any other link building techniques that worked for you?

Thanks

haulie

I'll PM you there, have a look at some of the previous posts from the lads as they really know their stuff I'm just a bit of a chancer who's trying everything and anything! Have you tried adding in locations after your targeted key words like UK or London or Birmingham or wherever might be easier to get first with them EG "Waterproof cast cover UK" than "waterproof cast cover" and you'd never know they might have good search traffic!

haulie

Another tip actually, do a search on the top competitor websites on opensiteexplorer.org and find out where they are being linked as you may be able to get links from the same places. And by the way if you want to exchange links on our websites let me know