Promote Websites

Here’s an interesting blog post about how to use website analysis software tool to improve internal linking and do PageRank sculpting, a fairly new search engine optimization technique made popular by SEOMoz, Gray Wolf and others:

Are you sure the internal link structure of your website has an optimal flow of link juice towards your important pages? If so, you stand a better chance of having search engines index and rank them. The process of optimizing this part of your website is by most search engine marketers called PageRank Sculpting.

It is well worth the read, and explains various strategies you can use to make sure your internal website linking gives the most link love to your important pages, thus making them more likely in getting indexed and ranked by search engines such as Google. Read the rest about link juice flow now.

Just came by an interesting article that discusses techniques to apply when optimizing ads, page titles etc. for maximum click through rate in organic and paid search. If you are Advertising on either Google, Yahoo or MSN/Live chances are you can get more out of your money.

Link Exchanges, History Lesson
In the good old days in mid to late nineties, exchanging links was how the internet worked, and how you would discover new websites on the internet. Surfers had no access to search engines of today’s standards, one exception perhaps being AltaVista. Webmasters and internet surfers found each other through links.

Banners, Webrings and Themed Links
Most sites linked to other sites, mainly those within the same theme and topic but usually also to interesting websites and portals. Groups of related websites were often organized in banner exchange and webring networks. All websites worth visiting did heavily in button and reciprocal text link exchanges. Most websites had a links page containing links, and actively sought out related websites to make text, button and banner link exchanges with.

Times Change for Reciprocal Links
However, as search engines and Google in particular began rating sites on incoming links, many webmasters began to aggressively seek link exchanges and free for all links, a.k.a. link farms. In response to this, search engines implemented various counter measures to penalize this when done too much.

Website Link Exchanges Today
You have to take care with reciprocal links. Do not have so many link exchanges that it resembles a link farm. Only exchange links with websites that cover related themes and topics. Make sure to avoid bad neighborhood websites. Do not link to sites with content of low quality.

10 11 tips to promote your website and get more sales

1. Make sure your primary keywords are found in page titles, headers, first in content etc. Research which keywords convert best and are easiest to get top ranking positions in search engines.
2. Keep your website design and navigation simple. Create HTML sitemaps for navigation and XML sitemaps for having search engines crawl and index your website faster.
3. Submit your important pages to popular search engines, website directories, social bookmarks etc. You can hire someone of use semi-automatic tools. Avoid using automated submission for important search engines, directories etc.
4. Used a varied set of website promotion strategies to rank. Just like reciprocal and paid links have been devalued, so may any current search engine optimization strategy. Optimize your pages, link build and keep up to date on search engine algorithms.
5. Monitor your competitors and try to find out how they are ranking higher than you. Incoming links? Redirects from other domains? Better optimized pages? Find out and start ranking higher!
6. Use logs and analytics software to understand where traffic comes from. Analyze your visitor location, if they come from searches or links, which keywords convert to sales etc.
7. Write and submit articles for your website or online magazines. This will help you get perceived as an authority in your field of work.
8. When selling products online, keep everything as simple as possible. No unnecessary sign-up fields or choices. Make the purchase process simple and fast.
9. Consider hiring professionals. It may seem costly, but less expensive than burning your money on a website that has no visits or conversions
10. Always optimize your website. Split test your landing pages. Entice people to link. Offer newsletters, free reports etc. Your website is a sales tool that is always changing.
11. Make sure all page META descriptions are unique and enticing. Search engine often show these in search results. Just like click-through-rate matters in pay-per-click ads, same goes for organic search. Even if you can not improve your position, you may still be able to improve the number of people clicking your listing.

Keywords are everything in search engine optimization
When you are designing your websites, you have to remember optimize at least the main elements for searchers. Make sure each page use keywords in page title and headers that match its content. Do not make the common mistake of having your company / website name first in all page titles. Have the most searched keywords matching your content appear first in the page title.

The text you use in titles is the single most important element in a page that determines how search engines rank your web page. In addition, all major search engines use the title text when showing your website in search result listings.

Cover search variations
Searchers, your future visitors, use unique combination of words when searching. However, if you use a keyword research tool, you will quickly find some phrases have more searches and less competition than others. Make sure your page titles and content focus on the most important search phrases. This will also help if you are doing Pay Per Click, and are trying to optimize your quality score. Remember, keyword optimize each page for only a few phrases!