SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has become such a broad term today that whichever activity drives any traffic on your website is considered as an SEO Activity! In earlier days, we – as SEO Consultants -  used to focus specifically on the structure and content of websites only, which we called “On-page SEO”. We tried hard to make sure that our clients’ websites have been set up right with proper page titles, meta text, content placement, image names etc. But today, the definition of SEO has changed expanded drastically. Now-a-days, SEO as a service is divided into 2 categories :-

1. On-Page SEO - optimize content, internal links, meta tags etc
2. Off-page SEO - backlinks, social media, forum posting, press release etc.

Honestly, I don’t agree with the concept of Off-page SEO. You may call it ‘Off-page promotions’ or ‘Off-page optimization’ but ‘Off-page SEO’ definitely does not make sense to me. Wikipedia defines SEO as

the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via natural or un-paid (organic or algorithmic) search results.

Then why is everyone writing so much about “Off-page SEO” when, ideally, the term even doesn’t exist at all? I leave this up to you all to help me find the answer in your comments below.

Just because it is such a popular term these days, I could not stop myself from using it as the title of my blog article even though I don’t agree with it This is also one of the problems with SEO Consultants & business owners like us – that we have to keep our readers/customers happy with giving them what they want to take!

Image Courtesy – www.topspotoptimisation.co.uk

Coming back to the topic of today’s discussion, which is about the best “Off-page SEO” tactics or “Off-page Promotion” (for my own sake) that can help you drive consistent traffic on to your website for a long run. These techniques are just the ones which I have tried myself and achieved reasonable success for my clients. You may have tried something else which worked for you so don’t hesitate to share that with our readers.

1.  Participate in Forums & discussion boards: 5-6 responses or 2-3 new questions a day (with your website’s URL in the signature) in 5 different popular forums a day is all that it will take to get a decent traffic on to your website. It will hardly take you more than 2 minutes to write a response or come up with a question to ask the community.  Spending 20 minutes a day religiously on forums for 2 weeks will start generating traffic on your website that you won’t even imagine.  Of course, you need to make sure that your responses and questions are intelligent & look like real contribution. Do not post for the sake of posting. It will give wrong impression and other forum members will look down upon you with contempt! Some will even mark you as spam leading to deletion of your account and your hopes as well.

Many SEO companies offer this service really cheap, say 1¢ per post. DO NOT fall for that. They will do more harm than any good. My advice would be that you should hire someone who (1) understands your business’s objectives and can (2) write decent English. He should  really contribute in the forums to lure other readers in clicking on his signature URL.

Some of my favorite SEO Forums are :

• Digitalpoint
• Webmaster World
• V7n Community

2. Publish Blogs / News / Press Releases & submit them in bookmarking websites - Everyone in the web community knows the importance of blog and news updates on your company/ product website. Not only it attracts search engine crawlers to visit your website more often, it also helps you generate more back links by submitting these articles on press release and bookmarking websites. Tons of bookmarking websites have sprouted up recently. And believe it or not, most of them are a good source of traffic generation for your website.  The ones that I use most frequently for my clients are :

• Stumbleupon
• Digg
• Delicious
• Reddit
• Mixx
• Propeller
• Kaboodle (for online stores)
• Yahoo Buzz
• Technorati
• Clipmarks

There are still more than 200 bookmarking websites which you should definitely consider for this task.

3. Create your social profile & share your news update with the community – The first names that lighten up in our minds are Facebook, Twitter & Myspace. Make sure you create a public social profile for the company that you are promoting. You ought to have your Facebook Fan page, Twitter profile, Youtube profile, LinkedIn profile (of yourself and/or your clients). All the websites I just mentioned require you to sign up and they provide you a unique URL of your profile. This is your social profile. Following are must-do activities whenever you have a new blog or new story published on your website or blog -

• Tweet about it on Twitter
• Do a status update on Facebook & LinkedIn
• Update status on Ecademy as well. Ecademy (has a lot of junk but) is still a good source of traffic once you have a strong network.
• Share your blog article on discussion boards & forum of these social networks.
• Flickr – “A picture is worth a thousand words” is not exactly true in the world of SEO which relies heavily on content full of words. But still Flickr stands out and can become a good source of traffic for your website. Just make sure that whenever you write an article, you add an image in your post and submit that image on your Flickr profile with apt tags and description. If you have an online store and sell products, make sure all the images of your products are also submitted on to your Flickr profile. Picasa, Photobucket & Picli are some other photo sharing networks.

Once your profile has been set up, you should start building a community by adding/inviting friends to join your network.

• Youtube
• Vimeo
• Dailymotion
• Slideshare (See a sample below)

5. Yahoo Answers & similar question/answer websites – I love Yahoo Answers and On Startup Answers community where you can post any question you want and community members will respond within hours. SEO companies are using similar sites to drive traffic by maneuvering questions in such a manner that makes other members click on their URLs. It may not be the best way to get the type of traffic you want but still it is one of the widely used method these days. Again, you have to be very cautious with your language so that it does not appear as spam.

6. Article re-writing and distribution – Haven’t we covered this in point (2) above? Not really. This is about article re-writing. Numerous SEO companies are hiring writers to re-write the same articles many times in different versions and keep distributing them on hundreds of press release & bookmarking websites.  It works quite often since your content is not copied and the crawlers will see it as original stuff.

7. Local business listings on search engines & yellow pages- All major search engines like Google, Bing & Yahoo offer business owners to submit their business with full details of name, address, phone number etc. This helps in getting local traffic for your website. Optimizing for local search listings is the discussion of a different topic that I will publish sometime in near future. For now, you should just make sure that your business has been listed on all local listings websites. A few examples of such sites are -

• Hotfrog,
• Business.com
• Superpages.com

These are some of the widely used “Off-page promotion” techniques by SEO Companies across the globe. Please feel free to keep your opinions on this post in the comment box below.

Off-page SEO tactics to drive consistent traffic on to your websiteSEO(Search Engine Optimization) is such a broad term that whatever activity drives traffic on to your website, is considered as an SEO Activity. Earlier, we as the SEO Consultants used to focus specifically on the structure and content of websites only.  We strived hard to make sure our clients’ websites have been set up right with proper title, meta text, content placement, image names etc. But today, the definition of SEO has changed. Now, SEO as a service is divided into 2 types -1. On-Page SEO – optimize content, internal links, meta tags etc2. Off-page SEO – backlinks, social media, forum posting, press release etc.But I don’t agree with the later one. There is nothing called as Off-page SEO. You may call it “Off-page promotions” or “Off-page optimization” but “Off-page SEO” definitely does not make sense to me. Wikipedia defines SEO as – the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” or un-paid (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results.Then why is everyone writing so much about “Off-page SEO” when the term does not exist at all? I leave this up to you to help me find the answer in the comments below.Just because, it is such a popular term these days, I could not stop myself from using it as the title of my blog article even though I don’t agree with it. This is also one of the problem with SEO Consultants & business owners like us – we have to keep our readers/customers happy with giving them what they want to take.So coming back to the topic of today’s discussion, which is about some of the best “Off-page SEO” tactics or “Off-page Promotion” (for my own sake) that can help you drive consistent traffic on to your website for a long run. These1.

Advanced Link Building: Clone Your Most Successful Link Profiles | WordStream

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April 20, 2009 By: Justin Britt
Website: http://www.hawaiilife.com/

Before we begin the creative link building process, its important to understand what search engines are looking for when ranking websites. I know, youʼve heard it before, Page Rank, Page Rank, Page Rank. Well, Iʼm here to tell you, forget about Page Rank! While PR used to rule the SERPs (search engine results page) several years ago, Googleʼs algorithm changed, and today PR isnʼt even as important as on page optimization.

So what are search engines looking for?

• Affiliations and associations – “who” you do business with.
• Relevancy – “where” you do your business.

Think about it like this, if youʼre affiliated with other authority (a.k.a trusted) businesses and programs within your community, then you yourself will gain trust as an agent within that same community. This type of “good” business naturally leads to referrals and other opportunities. In the search engine world referrals = links. Getting links from authority website tells search engines that you are a trusted real estate agent in your niche market. And trusted websites tend to rank high in Google.

Now that weʼve established that ranking in search engines is really just standing out as an agent or brokerage within your community, the next and obvious question is, how do you become “the” real estate agent / brokerage known within your target market?

To answer this question, lets work through the thinking process backwards. We know, that to be a top agent / broker, we need referral business. So the more important questions here is, how do I create referral business? And this is where the creativity comes in.

Creating a company based on referrals is really just good business practice.

Who do you work with? Helping a client sell or buy a home requires more then just you, the real estate agent. The process includes a broker, home inspector,
contractor, gardener, cleaning service, moving company, agents you refer to…and the list goes on. You refer out business and these companies should be referring business back to you. Part of this referral process should be links between your websites (yes the gardening service we recommend has a very nice website).

Community service. Are you participating on the PTA of your childʼs elementary school or do you offer reduced commissions for first time home buyers graduating
from your local University (hint: .edu sites are highly trusted by search engines)? Just last week, I volunteered on a government committee for a new bike path in my neighborhood. The next day, I received an email from the committee asking if I would like to be recognized on their website and in the local newspaper.
Ummm…yes (hint: .gov and news sites have high authority as well).

Rotaries and Clubs. Are you participating in mixers at your local chamber of commerce, Lionʼs club or church? These are all highly trusted sources and great
places to create connections and earn referrals.

Non-Profits. Even if you donʼt have the money to donate to non-profit groups you can still volunteer. In my state, there is a great non-profit organization that educates 1st time homebuyers on home ownership. I have my agents volunteer at these classes doing whatever the instructor needs. Not only do my agents earn business from these 1st time homebuyers, the non-profit links back to our site.

This is just a start to the creative link building process, but these are all tactics I use, not to get links, but to make my brokerage stand out in the state of Hawaii. And by standing out as “the” real estate agent / brokerage within your own community you will be rewarded by the search engines.

Are Internal Links The Same As Inbound Links?

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Sometimes a website needs a little more than implementation of keyword magic and linky goodness. If you have an older website and you’ve seen rankings fall then it might be time to upgrade your CMS, shopping cart system, or even your photos and graphics.

Yes, your website elements can get old and wrinkled. It happens.

What happens is that shopping cart system and checkout that was cutting-edge technology in 1999 got old. Your competition has updated their websites and they’re using the latest technology. Site visitors know this because it’s in the website’s look and feel. Your site visitors are migrating over to the competition and the reason is because they can get a better user experience. Price be danged.

Since Google measures bounce rates and traffic patterns and ranks websites based on those, your site architecture and shopping cart of hurting your business. It might just be a few visitors per day, but over time that adds up. And while your site is slowly in decline your competition is slowly climbing.

Trust me, this didn’t happen over night. It seems like it, but the problem has been manifesting itself slowly over time. And now it’s picking up speed. What do you do?

You fix the problem. Upgrade your systems. You have to do that from time to time. And if that doesn’t fix the problem then you can try some link building and content optimization. But get rid of the relics first.

How To Build Links With JavaScript

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