Outcome3 Search Engine Optimization Blog

There's no way of getting around it. If you want your site to dominate the search engines, you need lots of quality links to your content. The important word here is quality - anyone can get many links that won't do much for their rankings. Luckily, there's plenty of great ways to generate links (and all five of those listed here are free, requiring just a little bit of elbow grease to get started!)

1. Start a blog about your business on blogger.com or Wordpress.com. Make sure to link back to your site in the footer of your template. Create create content and keep viewers updated on the happenings of your business.
2. Create social media accounts for yourself or your site. LinkedIn, Delicious, Reddit, Furl, and many others are great places for link generation.
3. Make real (this is important) and helpful comments on blogs in your industry. You'll get some traffic out of the deal, and you may establish important relationships in your industry, which can be great for later link building.
4. Send out some emails! You never know if someone will link to you until you ask. Make sure to return the favour before you do though.
5. Search for free directories in Google and Yahoo. Make sure to only use those with PageRank as these sites are worthy of being included in Google.

As always, you can drop us a line through our contact page if you need help with your link building campaign!

Vancouver is a thriving capital for search engine optimizers and marketers. Join us for the inaugural Vancouver Internet Marketing Meetup where search gurus, curious parties, and all in between come together to talk trade.

There will be no formal speeches, so come with your business cards to mingle with Vancouver’s online marketing community.

Please RSVP by sending your confirmation to lyal.avery@outcome3.com by October 5th, 2008 to reserve your spot at the event. Outcome3 will be providing free appetizers based on RSVP response.

In a few short hours, BarCamp Vancouver 2008 will be kicking off at WorkSpace in Gastown, followed by Granville Island the next day.

If you can't make it down, stay posted to this blog and our Flickr feed for all the latest updates.

Look forward to seeing you all there, and don't forget to say hello!

The Wrapup

Why yes, we look good in our BarCamp t-shirts!

Thank you to all of the organizers, speakers, and sponsors for another successful BarCamp Vancouver! We took a copious amount of photos, so be sure to check out the Flickr feed to see if we caught you.

Links make search engines go ‘round. Sadly, they can be the most time-consuming part of a campaign to develop. When looking at blogs, generating links usually entails a lot relationship building. Though that holds great value in itself, let’s get our brains rolling and look at three alternative ways people have generated links.

Blog Layouts

Let’s say you just started a new blog, and you found this gorgeous free template. But, then you stop to wonder, “Why is this free?” If you skip down to the bottom of your blog, you’re likely to find a row of credits with links like Custom Template Design. Though a good number of hours went into designing the template, each page you create will now generate a new set of links pointing to the websites found in the credits row.

Plugins and Modules

Plugins and modules are applications that can be integrated into a platform for added functionality. For example, let’s say the generic contact form doesn’t suit your needs, so you find and install a new one. Similar to layouts, a link is attached at the bottom of each contact form pointing back to the creator’s site. This model can be expanded to other applications, such as photo galleries. Though plugins and modules don’t see the same number of links as blog layouts, the quality of links improve as they appear on specific pages rather than site-wide.

Widgets

Widgets are portable applications that are hosted elsewhere, but displayable anywhere. Oftentimes, widgets are ties back to other services, such as a photo stream from Flickr, a music player from Project Opus, or an RSS subscriber count from Feedburner. On another level, widgets can include “link bait” (e.g. viral hooks), such as the personality quizzes that proliferate many blogs. Widgets are often more temporary than plugins, though can be found within site content, and thus hold more link value.

So there you have it – three alternative ways to build links leveraging other people’s blogs. In closing, there are three guiding principles to follow:

1. Offer value – no one will use it if doesn’t do anything
2. Don’t mislead – no one will use it if they feel cheated
3. Make it easy to share – enable users to spread it for you.

If you’re not the adventurous type and need consulting on anything I covered above, please feel free to contact us and we’d be happy to get you started.

Search engine optimization (SEO) can be a nebulous field, which has lead to lots of speculation over the years. Many old “truths” persist today as myths. Let’s dispel five common myths about search engine optimization.

Meta-tags rank a website

For many years, stuffing description and keyword tags was touted the key to search engine success. While helpful in the early days of search engines, they have since been depreciated almost in entirety for rankings. However, that is not to say they are without merit. Carefully written description tags can draw attention in results pages, much like a powerful advertisement would. In practice, keywords can also be used as a personal guide for outlining the emphasis of each page’s content.

SEO is a one-time endeavour

Looking back to years past, this may have once been true. Today, heightened competition and stronger interest in search marketing guarantees that optimization remains a constant process.

Flash-based websites mean terrible rankings

While partially true, there have been search-compliant methods to overcome poorly ranked Flash-based websites. Give us a shout to learn more about improving your Flash website’s rank.

The more terms I have in my content, the higher I’ll rank for those terms

Once again, this is true to an extent, but all good things are done in moderation. Little emphasis on terms leaves spiders confused about a page’s theme, while too much emphasis guarantees a spot in the spam index.

“I guarantee you the number one spot for your keywords no matter what.”

As mentioned above, search ranks are an ever-changing landscape. A number one spot is entirely plausible, but the time, skill, and effort it takes to reach that point relies on the market you want to enter. Your competitors may be entrenched and make constant headway, so ensure both you and your optimizer understand the competitive environment before settling on number one.

There are countless other myths and new theories that spring up every day. For the inside story, please contact us and we’d be happy to clear the air about search engine optimization.