I figured I should start discussing SEO, by beginning with one of the key ingredients in determining the rankings of ANY web site - link building! Link building is easily the most important ingredient for a large number of reasons, but primarily because Google uses the number of incoming links to your website as a primary factor in their 'search engine placement algorithm'. In other words, a successful link building campaign is vital to achieving high placement in any of the top search engines: Google, Yahoo, MSN, or Ask. There are a few techniques that you can utilize to gain backlinks, incoming links to a website or web page, to your website; however, it is first important to understand what types of sites you want linking to your web page before implementing your link building campaign.
Now here is a list of 5 important factors that should be kept in mind with your link campaign:
1.) PageRank: When your attempting to filter out your websites make sure that your getting back links from pages with a high Google PageRank. Google PageRank, or PR, is a score that Google has used to attempt to determine the approximate importance of a webpage. PR's are on a scale from 0 - 10, with 0 being a page of least importance and 10 being an extremely important page. If you just launched your website, and managed to get a backlink from a PR7 site, you can almost be ensured that Google will find your page fairly quickly and it will began to be included in the SERP's (search engine result pages).
Key Point #1: Try to get links from high page rank websites. To find out a website's PR you can download the Google toolbar or you can visit: http://www.prchecker.info/check_page_rank.php.
2.) Number of Links. The fewer outbound links the web page has the better; if you can find a high PR site with few outbound links you are in luck. This, however, also depends on the PR of the web page. For instance, while a PR1 web site with 100 outbound links will not be very valuable to your link building campaign, a PR7 page with 100 outbound links is very useful in obtaining better rankings.
Key Point #2: Keep in mind the page's ratio of links to PR. Focus on pages with high PR, but also keep in mind the number of outbound links.
3.) Focus on Related Sites. For instance, I own EclipseCarTuner.com (an auto parts site); I wouldn't exchange links with a hair salon website or anything not auto-related. The closer related the website is that links to you, the better off you will be. Ideally, you want to have sites link to you that have some of your keywords that your trying to rank for either in the title tag, or header tags, or at the very least have some context or text on the page in which your keywords exist.
Key Point#3: Complete link exchanges with related web sites for optimal results.
4.) Anchor Text. If the site's link page doesn't allow you to use anchor text the link will be nearly useless. Anchor text is the text that exists in the link; for instance, instead of just www.yoursite.com, you would ideally want to use your keywords: Blue Widgets (if you sold blue widgets). When you do this, your essentially telling Google a site has given you a 'vote' for that keyword and to rank it higher in their search engine.
Keep in mind that you will want to use keywords that people will actually search for. Otherwise, you will end up receive minimal traffic for optimizing the wrong keywords. To determine the number of times the keyword is searched use SEObook's keyword suggestion tool. To use this tool just type in a very basic keyword you are considering optimizing....I sell Eclipse auto parts on my site, so I typed in 'Mitsubishi Eclipse' and got a number of good suggestions. The results will list the number of searches performed per month for overture and the estimated number for Google and Yahoo.
Key Point #4: Get links from sites using high traffic keywords as anchor text.
5.) Be Wary of 'rel="nofollow"'. Fairly recently google and other search engines have begun to utilize the HTML tag rel="nofollow". This code causes the search engines to ignore the links on any web pages that contain it. Make sure to use the 'view selection source' function in IE or Firefox browser and check for this code before requesting a link exchange email to the webmaster.
Key Point #5: Avoid link exchanges with sites that utilize the rel="nofollow" code.
I'm sure I'm missing some other important considerations for link exchanges, however, this should give you a basic grasp of link exchanges. I will most likely be updating this post as I think of more ;) I've personally had a lot of success with link exchanges in marketing my website and if you put in the time and follow these guidelines with your website(s) you should too!
Friday, May 11, 2007
SEO for EclipseCarTuner.com
To get this blog started I figured I would give my readers a quick overview of my e-commerce website, Eclipse Car Tuner, that I will be referencing when discussing search engine optimization. Eclipsecartuner.com was officially launched Mar 23rd, 2007; the site is targeted towards Mitsubishi Eclipse enthusiasts who might be looking for an 'all-in-one' solution for their after market auto parts needs. If your interested in starting an e-commerce site it is actually not as difficult as it may seem at first thought, and requires little monetary investment to get started. I bought the domain from, GoDaddy.com, for only $7 (the regular cost for a domain is $8.95, but you can usually find godaddy coupon codes on the internet like this site: http://www.dealtaker.com/GoDaddy-coupon-code-a528-c40.html ).
Anyways, after purchasing the domain name and getting GoDaddy's cheapest hosting package I am able to keep EclipseCarTuner up and running for only $3.99/mo. + $7/yr. hosting.
My site was just launched 7 weeks ago and has been climbing steadily both in the search engines and also in terms of traffic since it was launched. I have used a variety of techniques (to improve my rankings) that I will be discussing in detail in future posts. My profit margins on the site range from 5 - 50% depending on the product genre and shipping costs, but on average I typically receive a 15% margin. I have signed with 3 auto parts distributors, all of which dropship the products for me so that I can focus my efforts on customer service, marketing (seo in particular), and maintaining my website.
A few people have asked me how I expect to compete with large auto parts dealers that carry as many as 50, 60, or 100 thousand auto parts and also offer extremely competitive pricing. My response is that none of these sites will offer as many products for the Eclipse as I do, and that I also have a forum focused on just Mitsubishi Eclipse's as well. With such a narrow niche, I will always understand my specific market better than the 'massive e-commerce auto parts stores' and will be able to easily cater to their changing needs as necessary. Additionally, it will be easy for me to rank higher in the search engines than my competitors for my keyword terms. For instance, Since I sell only parts for the Mitsubishi Eclipse, I can focus ALL of my efforts on optimizing keywords for the term 'Mitsubishi Eclipse' and variant terms such as 'Mitsubishi Eclipse Body Kits' and 'Mitsubishi Eclipse Parts'; this just means I will have a significant advantage in competing on these terms with my competitors.
Anyways, this should give you an idea of what my website is all about and how I will plan on running the site and dealing with competitors; I will now be concentrating primarily on the aspects of SEO in future posts.
Anyways, after purchasing the domain name and getting GoDaddy's cheapest hosting package I am able to keep EclipseCarTuner up and running for only $3.99/mo. + $7/yr. hosting.
My site was just launched 7 weeks ago and has been climbing steadily both in the search engines and also in terms of traffic since it was launched. I have used a variety of techniques (to improve my rankings) that I will be discussing in detail in future posts. My profit margins on the site range from 5 - 50% depending on the product genre and shipping costs, but on average I typically receive a 15% margin. I have signed with 3 auto parts distributors, all of which dropship the products for me so that I can focus my efforts on customer service, marketing (seo in particular), and maintaining my website.
A few people have asked me how I expect to compete with large auto parts dealers that carry as many as 50, 60, or 100 thousand auto parts and also offer extremely competitive pricing. My response is that none of these sites will offer as many products for the Eclipse as I do, and that I also have a forum focused on just Mitsubishi Eclipse's as well. With such a narrow niche, I will always understand my specific market better than the 'massive e-commerce auto parts stores' and will be able to easily cater to their changing needs as necessary. Additionally, it will be easy for me to rank higher in the search engines than my competitors for my keyword terms. For instance, Since I sell only parts for the Mitsubishi Eclipse, I can focus ALL of my efforts on optimizing keywords for the term 'Mitsubishi Eclipse' and variant terms such as 'Mitsubishi Eclipse Body Kits' and 'Mitsubishi Eclipse Parts'; this just means I will have a significant advantage in competing on these terms with my competitors.
Anyways, this should give you an idea of what my website is all about and how I will plan on running the site and dealing with competitors; I will now be concentrating primarily on the aspects of SEO in future posts.
What my blog is about
This blog will focus on the numerous aspects of seo (search engine optimization) including link building, content creation, Google page rank, etc. I will not be discussing using or implementing black hat seo techniques or other tips that are looked "down upon" by Google that will cause your site to eventually become banned. I will also be using this website to keep track of the rankings and seo progress related to my website, eclipsecartuner.com. In addition, I will be showing readers charts and progress of my website and how I achieved my rankings in the SE's.
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