These Google updates have attempted to address the age old problem of webmasters artificially trying to raise the rankings of their websites, but one thing remains a stalwart of the Google algorithm and that is ‘votes’ or ‘backlinks‘ left from a seemingly ‘unconnected’ website to yours. These ‘votes’ are in the form of hyper linked links which a user simply clicks upon taking them to your webpage.

So, we understand even in these times of change in terms of how you go about obtaining backlinks to your website one thing is abundantly clear; backlinks continue to be one of the most important aspects to high search engine rankings. Notice I say, ‘one of the most’;

Do not underestimate that there are over 200 ranking signals which form the calculation Google makes use of in determining your websites position in its search index.

OK, one of the most forgotten and often most important steps in promoting your webpages is keeping track of what backlinks you have. Understanding their overall health and crucially, whether Google has actually indexed the link is vital to ensure your efforts to obtain these high quality links are not in vein. If you undertake any form of promotion for your website you will know that managing your link building campaigns is often an extremely difficult and time consuming process.

Here’s what we look for in a top performing backlink checker and the reasons why;

1. Accuracy

Many tools on the market to monitor your backlinks do not give accurate readings. This can be the result of poor build of the software or being unable to locate accurately a backlink upon unconventional webpage code.

2. Speed

If you have run a decent sized backlinking campaign the chances are you may have many links to check to see whether they continue to be present upon the page. Processing speed is important.

3. Tiered Linking

If you keep up to date with movements in the SEO world you will probably know that building backlinks to your backlinks is an effective strategy to helping ‘power up’ your new links. A tool that also tracks additional links to your initial (sometimes referred to as ‘tiered linking’) links is crucial to understand how Google is treating your links and whether they are having an effect upon your positioning.

4. Indexing, PR, IP Address Data

In order to understand how effective your campaign is you will want to understand the key attributes of each link. Elements such as the page rank, whether the link is indexed in Google (and thus being counted towards your ranking), the IP address of the incoming link (i.e. are they from different websites or several websites hosted on the same server), how many out bound links (OBL) are on the page your link sits, the anchor text used amongst others.

5. Ease of Use

An extremely important and often overlooked aspect to an effective backlink checker software is how easy it is to use. Simply put, you just want to be able to input a list of your backlinks, provide the software with your webpage address and press go. The application will then go out and check to see whether your backlink is present upon the page and report back.

Backlink Checker Software

Having tried and tested the majority of backlink checkers on the market only one piece of software provided all these features and for a fraction of the price ($74.95) of many of its competitors.

Introducing “Backlink Monitor” from Inspyder.

This is the main interface of the application. As you can see from the top navigation bar, you can create separate ‘campaigns’ for each of your websites to keep things organized. Best of all though are the settings you need to input in order to get the software working;

1. ‘Root URL’

Simply input your websites homepage address. Within the advanced settings there are a number of options you can use here if for example your root url is referenced using slightly different urls (with www. or without etc). There is no need to input inner pages if you are looking to monitor backlinks to inner pages, the application will find them without any additional settings being needed.

2. ‘Backlink URLs’

All you have to do here is input a list of your known backlinks (copy and paste).

3. Hit Go!

It really is that simple.

More Backlink Monitor Features;

As you can see from the screenshot all critical data areas are covered including, OBL’s, Domain and Page PR, IP address and anchor text.

BackLink Hierarchy

One of the really impressive aspects to this backlink checker is the ability of the software to categorize and track multi tiers of your links. That is, links pointing to your links. This is important since you are able to see at a glance specific links which have more than one link pointing to them. You can then direct more of your efforts to only links within tiers which are not indexed for example – no other backlink tool we have seen offers this unique ability to track tiered links.

Integrated Indexing Services

One of the most powerful aspects of this backlink checker is the fact that you can easily see, from just a couple of clicks which links are broken and which are not. This provides a unique and very powerful element which ensures you are only applying your efforts to backlinks which are valid. This applies to both individual links as well as those which form your link tiers. But the software doesn’t stop there…..there are a number of integrated indexing services supported;

1. Backlinks Indexer (backlinksindexer.com)

2. Linklicious (linklicious.me)

3. Lindexed (lindexed.com)

4. Nuclear Link Indexer (nuclear-link-indexer.com)

You simply highlight all the links which you would like to send to any of the above indexing services (or whole tiers of links) and click ‘submit’. Using the associated API key for each service means its a one click solution to send your unindexed links to these services, the process is as seamless as that.

Other Features

There are countless other features including an excellent ‘summary’ feature whereby you are presented with key indexing and link data in a convenient summary. This is particularly useful for ongoing campaigns where you can track at a glace the progress of your linking campaigns. There are many other options available but if you are anything like us then the best way to learn and understand the power of this system is to try it yourself! download the free trial backlink software here.

In this case we were discussing the high bounce rates associated with a PPC campaign being run by a client. In recent discussions it became apparent that the bounce rates being experienced by many of the chosen keywords were very high (nearing 100%).

For most people they incorrectly assume this means a visitor has hit the landing page and immediately clicked away from the site by hitting the exit button. But is this really what happens?

Google Analytics Bounce Rates Explained

In order to understand this better we firstly need to get back to basics and understand what is occurring when a visitor lands upon a page on your website.

The first thing which will occur (we are talking about Google Analytics here other tracking applications may vary) is a user ‘session’ is created. This is classified as;

“A period of interaction between a visitor’s browser and a particular website”

The session is tracked for the next part of the user’s behaviour for example, navigating to another page on your website, but in order for the session to end certain criteria have to be met. These are;

1. The visitor exits the browser through clicking the red ‘x’.
2. The visitor navigates away from your web page and does not return before the session time has elapsed.
3. The user visits a web page on your site and remains on that same page until after the session ends.
4. The visitor clears the cookies from their browser.
5. Time zone settings in the profile for that report fall into the next day (12pm is passed).

In respect of our question here the key component to bounce rates is the ‘session time’. A session time is set at a default in Google Analytics for 30 minutes. This can be changed in the settings and options area but for the most part, remains at the default setting of 30 minutes.

Taking the above into consideration therefore, when a visitor hits a landing page and creates a session, they can remain on that page for 30 minutes before the session ends without any activity on their part. This would show in the analytics data as a 100% bounce rate. In effect however, the visitor could well have been sitting reading your compelling and interesting content for 25 minutes and although has not navigated elsewhere is still retained on that same page.

But why does this not show up in the time spent on site?

The image at the top of the page explains this very well graphically with a 100% bounce rate and 0.00 minutes spent on the page. If this hypothesis was correct then we would expect to see the time spent on site reflected yes?

No. This is a result of the way in which Google Analytics calculates the average time spent on the site by a visitor. For the techies out there this is achieved through deducting the timestamps from the first and the last page view of a visitor’s session. Seeing that the visitor did not navigate elsewhere within the website and considering the way in which behavior is tracked, it is currently not possible to calculate an average time on site for visitors that bounced because they did not have a second page view.

In summary we have learned;

1. A 100% bounce rate does not mean a user lands and immediately leaves the page.
2. If a user does not navigate from the landing page they can remain there for up to 30 minutes (subject to a few exceptions) without effecting the time spent on site metric.

Finally, whichever way you look at it the chances are that high bounce rates are bad news for your website and pages and you should consider ways in which you can encourage users to navigate around your site thereby providing you with valuable user information and more importantly, conversions.

Below is a video from Google’s Matt Cutts explaining this in more detail;

Is ‘content king’? interesting remarks he mentioned in the video around content being necessary and having quality content making things much easier to SEO but with emphasis upon the fact even great content is not enough to get it ranked in Google. That sounds familiar, read this creating content article for help on giving your website copy a kick start.

So, we know that many changes are made which only makes our jobs of identifying effective off site SEO techniques that much harder. Do not despair however given there are a number of key principles to follow which experience shows us do not change over time and can be consistently applied to your websites in order to achieve better search engine rankings than you would have otherwise.

Off site SEO techniques

1. Guest Posts

Guest posts are and continue to be an effective method in obtaining backlinks to your website and pages from domains with high authority. In order to achieve this you are going to need to create a good quality article for the guest post. If you maintain the quality webmasters will publish your content without question and will also in some cases allow you to leave a contextually related backlink within the body of the article providing even more juice to your website.

2. Directory Submissions

Yes, you heard that right – many people consider the days of submitting your website to hundreds of low weighted directories a complete waste of time and if you adopt this approach you will indeed be wasting your time. There are however a large number of high quality directory websites which have superb inner category pages with high page rank (PR). For the most part you will have to pay a small fee for inclusion however typically the fees are as low as a few dollars per year. Given the strength of these pages you do not need many of these – I recommend around 5-10 submissions to inner pages of no less than PR4 with a low outbound link count each month to achieve excellent increases in search positions.

How do you find these high page rank directories? That is a trade secret I am afraid and one which we offer all our clients therefore if you would like to see your sites positions in the serps taken to the next level drop us a line.

3. Web 2.0 Submissions

Leveraging the power of the many web 2.0 properties is a tried and tested approach to building links and authority to your domain. Web 2.0 off site SEO techniques include creating a quality article to the likes of Squiddo or Scridb each with a anchored back link to your website. Those of you experienced in SEO may notice that Scridb utilises the “rel=nofollow” attribute within its outbound links. In our experience this has not stopped this powerful platform from providing significant search engine ranking improvements as well as driving targeted traffic to your website.

Off Site Seo Techniques Roundup

These are just a small selection of the off site SEO techniques we employ at rmgseo.com, there are many more. The main issue to take away here is that renowned ethical and constructive practices will always rein over that of lower quality methods. This is particularly true in the current search climate following the Panda update. Focus your off site SEO techniques in areas which provide consistent and high quality results and the search engines will sit up and take notice and remember, great content by itself is not enough to rank it well in the search engines.

Backup

When you make changes, back up your website. This may seem like common sense, but only a very small percentage of webmasters actually back up their website to their own computer (or another server, depending on the size of the backup.) Backups fail, so relying on a single backup done by your host could be dangerous!

Keyword Selection

One surefire way to identify the most relevant keywords for your site is to purchase pay-per-click (PPC) ads. These ads, which are purchased from the search engine itself, offer insight into which specific keywords generate the most traffic, as well as which keywords may be dragging your site down. If you want to drive more traffic to your site using search engine optimization, you must change your keyword density when it is necessary. You should make keywords and phrases make up approximately three to five percent of all the text and links of any page. This is the most efficient way to get the most out of search engine optimization.

Add your keywords in text close to and in your site’s links. Search engines reward you more for links than for plain text, so it’s important to use textual links in your content. For example, instead of saying “click here,” you would make the actual text for the link say something like “visit our huge selection of puppy and kitten checkbook covers.

Setting up Your Webpages

Give each page its own title tag. This way, search engines won’t think every page is the same and fail to index it properly. Not to mention that it becomes easier for the reader to tell the differences between the pages as well. Something as simple as titling your individual pages can push up your ranking in the SERPs.

Title tags are tremendously important in Search Engine Optimization because they appear up in the very first line of search engine returns. This is where you need to tell potential visitors exactly what your site has to offer. You should always use different title tags for each web page in order to insure effective Search Engine Optimization.

When you remove a page from your website, really remove it! Implementing a 301 redirect is great, but search engines may still find the original page through links to it on other sites or even on your own website. Delete all obsolete files from your server when they’re no longer needed. Suggestions for terms to include within the tag of your web page. Include those words describing the physical location of your shop, the name of your business or website, and the products or information you have to offer your visitors. Don’t use this area for relatively meaningless information like page numbers!

Freebies and Giveaways

Giving away free things can help with search engine optimization. The more content that is free, the better chances you have of people linking to your website so they can share the information. Free things are always attractive to people. You can include free tips, software, samples, tutorials, e-books, coupons or even have a contest with prizes or even free SEO Reports. Give your customers points toward free products. Be generous with the points, so it is easy for them to visualize cashing them in after a few orders. The points could be toward products or information, available only to those redeeming points, so customers feel special because they have access to those products. Another option is to throw in a freebie of some sort, with every order.

Quality Unique Content

Aside from quality content, the best way to optimize your website’s ranking in a search engine is with quality external links that point to your website. While search engines do take the number of links into account, the quality of the links is also important. For example, avoid inconsequential link farms and aim for links that are relevant to your business. Do not simply focus on your web copy to carry your keywords. Incorporate your keyword into all aspects of your site. This means being creative in your domain name, folders within the site and individual page names. Keywords in these areas, along with keywords and phrases throughout your copy, greatly increase your chances.

Using descriptive verbs in your text next to your keywords will catch searches that use the same words. “Soft plush puppy” is very specific, meaning your site will end up at the top of the results far more easily as most other sites won’t get so detailed in their search engine optimization. While it is very important to create and maintain keyword-rich content on your pages, it is also equally important to include these words in a natural manner of speaking. The keywords should flow logically within their overall context and should never be randomly thrown in. This practice, which is known as ‘keyword stuffing’ greatly compromises the overall integrity and professionalism of your site.

A very simple strategy for SEO is to use your own site to boost traffic. Use the integration of internal links to your site. Create back links to your archives often, but be sure that the links that you are providing are appropriate to the information that the readers are seeking.

Building Backlinks

To get a significant page rank boost from a single link, sponsor a non-profit .edu domain site. Any site must meet strict criteria to obtain this domain and because of that, a link from a .edu domain will increase your page rank significantly. Sponsoring a site is one of the most cost efficient ways to boost your page rank.

Linking over and over again to and from the same site is considering link spamming and you want to avoid it. Your site will look like a spammer to the engines and will create the impression that you are paying for links. Even if the engines don’t flag your site as spam, they will only include the first link or two in their ranking system. In order to optimize incoming links to raise your search engine rankings, try to have links to different parts of your website, not just your homepage. Search engine spiders read links to different parts of your site, as meaning that your site is full of useful and relevant content and therefore, ranks it higher.

When creating anchor text on your site links and on incoming links, you can boost your search engine rankings by varying the text content of the links. If the anchor text on every link is the same, it can hurt your rankings as it looks like an automated program. Varied links appear as the work of many different people and are rated more highly.

Build an exceptional website. Before you do any SEO to get your website onto the first page of search results, ask yourself honestly whether your website really is one of the best 5 websites in the world on your chosen topic. If you can’t answer that question positively with confidence, then work on improving your website.

Offline Businesses

If your company has brick-and-mortar locations, be sure to include the names of those locations in links and titles about those stores. This will help increase the likelihood of being found when a user performs a location-specific search. You are much more likely to be the best of the business in your city or state than globally, and so you rank higher in local searches.

SEO Hurdles to Watch Out For

• You should make sure that you are not on a proxy that is shared with a banned site if you are using a shared server. Sharing a proxy with a banned site or a site that has been deemed spammers could negatively affect your ratings and thus not get you the traffic you desire.
• If you must use Flash on your website, boost your search engine rankings by providing an alternative HTML-only option. Not only will the search engine spiders have an easier time crawling and ranking your page, but your human site visitors will appreciate it as well. The easier your site is to use, the more links people will make to it, which also boosts your search engine ranking.
• People sometimes type in your domain name without the www, so ensure that they get somewhere! Either set up your site at the server level to accept both www and non-www links, or create a 301 redirect for one way or the other to point to the correct canonicalization.

Google Places

If you own a local business and want to make yourself more visible to search engines, make sure you list your business on Google Places. This step will bring up your business to the top of a Google search and will show any information you include (address, phone, website), as well as a map. You will greatly increase visits to your website – and visits to your business.

Make sure that you use a proper permalink structure, otherwise it could eat up valuable space that can be used for the SEO of your site. Modify it to where you can create completely relative links to your content. Don’t allow that space to be filled with gibberish, keep it relative to your content to help your search engine ranking.

After you’ve read and memorized these great tips, you can begin to build or rework your existing website so that it’s as search-engine-friendly as possible. If you’re putting the right SEO tweaks on your site, the search engine spiders will have no trouble at all finding it and bringing it to the top of the heap.

UK area 51 is a very busy and interesting website which showcases a range of strange and interesting articles. We were asked to refresh the design of the website to produce something which allowed visitors to navigate the wealth of information easily. With an eye catching design and new logo the results were ‘out of this world’!

Apollo Hypnotherapy is one of the run by one of the leading Sussex Hypnotists. We were commissioned by the owner to create a new website which had much improved visitor engagement. With access to sound files and radio broadcasts in addition to a wealth of hypnotherapy information the new website has seen significant increases in customer engagement.