Search engine optimization (SEO) often sounds like a place where everybody has an equal opportunity; where rankings come naturally and are swiftly becoming more and more immune to being gamed. And, as we all know, there are over 200+ factors considering which Google ranks a web page, the most important one (yet) being links.

But let’s face it: big brands, thanks to their incomparable media acquisition, often bag rankings on most of the generally-searched keywords, and they can’t be eclipsed easily. This is what usually affects the bottom line for small businesses.

Here, I want to make a case that small business SEO is not as daunting as it sounds. Sure, there’s an uphill battle and budget constrains too, but if your strategy is right you can perform wonderfully in the SERPs.

Smart keyword research is a real must

It’s a myth as old as the time itself that generally-searched keywords are the best to go for. It actually depends on your business type. For small businesses, investing time and energy in such keywords is futile to the most extent or even a Sisyphean task. For them it’s about less-searched, non-branded, geo-based keywords which have less competition. For instance, the keyword “web design company Bristol” is better-suited for small businesses than “web design company”, because of more reasons than one:

• As per the SEOmoz keyword difficulty tool, the former has way too less global and local searches than the latter – which means you’ve more chances of getting top positions in SERPs.
• Geo-based searches usually lead to higher conversions.
• Using geo-based keywords, the company can bag many top rankings on a small budget.

Don’t underestimate the power of engaging, sharable content

Think of yourself as the master of your trade? Prove it by producing insightful, valuable content that people love to share on social networks. You must go for guest posts if you haven’t yet (never pay for getting them published). And don’t particularly do them for links, but for exposure and for building authority within your community. You could experiment with different kinds of contents on your blog and for guest post – infographics, podcast, white paper, video content, comics etc.

And yes, don’t post anonymously anymore and make sure that you’re using Google+ authorship benefit – it might not benefit you much today but tomorrow it’ll quite probably have more value than links in SEO. Google’s Eric Schmidt recently said:

“Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevance.”

Focus on little but high-authority, relevant links

Today’s is the age of relevance and quality. It’s now a bad idea to go for link building activities for which Google gives little to no value; activities such as article syndication, directory submission, comment spamming etc. Remember, Google’s Webspam head Matt Cutts gave a little Christmas surprise last year when he said this in a Google Webmaster Help forum:

“Note: I wouldn’t expect links from press release web sites to benefit your rankings, however.”

Though Matt Cutts’ statement triggered some debates over whether links from PRs are beneficial for SEO and some firm even went on proving him wrong, but it’s certain that Google is not likely to give value to such low-quality link building techniques in the long run.

Moreover, don’t fall for traps like “get 100 links in $50”, “enjoy 1000+ links per month at affordable rates”. Instead make sure that links you get are of high quality and from relevant sites. Curious to know some legitimate link building strategies? This article highlights around 131 of them.

Leverage local search

Local search is great in the present-day world that’s increasingly going mobile. It helps on-the-go searchers easily get your phone number or driving directions to your physical location. Google helps you upgrade to a local Google+ page through which you can share all that you want with your customers. You could also use premium local search features by Google: Adwords Express and Google Offers.

Conclusion

Finally, I’d love to reiterate that it’s not that hard to rank high for small businesses, provided their strategy is right – focused and targeted. Even with a small budget they can enjoy good rankings by targeting geo-specific keywords. Build authority domain by using legitimate link building practices. And increase their visibility by producing great content and by making the best of local search.

When Google announced its new policies for analysis of webpages it caused different reactions. On the one hand, it had a positive impact on search results; on the other hand, it has exposed new requirements for blog and website owners.

The following tips will help your blog or website not to lose its rank in Google.

1. Update your website content as much as possible:

You should regularly delight your visitors with new content. If you forget to do this, create a schedule when and what to update. Otherwise you will lose your page rank.

2. Use reliable incoming links:

However, one should ensure that the directories are reliable.

3. Do not use too many keywords:

Using just a couple of keywords at the beginning and in the end of the text is enough to influence your rankings. Pay attention to the relevance of adding keywords.

4. You should keep track of quality of websites from which you receive incoming links:

Incoming links are often received through leaving comments, but you should not strive for getting anyone linked to your website. Watch carefully if these links are suitable for your niche. And of course the quality of the content should be high enough.

5. Do not allow your blog to be down often:

Do not make your readers leave your website or switch to another one because of your hosting service. Or do you want to lose them?

6. Ads should not occupy the entire page:

Otherwise a user visiting your website for the first time won’t want to visit it once more. To make users buy from your website, you need to focus on content and to push advertising into the background.

7. You should not load Footers in your blog with large number of links:

Undoubtedly blog Footer is a proper place for useful links. But too many links will not benefit your blog.

8. Avoid spelling and grammar mistakes:

It is not necessary to be a guru in the grammar, but you must conduct at least an elementary check of the text for errors in special programs. Ironically, the errors often deter potential customers. But in addition to users search engines can turn away from you.

9. Choose quality not quantity:

Of course this is good news to have a lot of clicks to your page, but not from one visitor. It is better to have quality, not quantity, and then the result will be longer lasting

10. Avoid buying and selling links:

Google does not really welcome buying and selling of links. So if you do not want to watch the consequences, it is better simply remove such links if you have any.

11. Incoming links should not lead only to your website’s homepage:

Some of the links should lead to other pages and posts as well.

12. Get rid of malware attacks:

Everybody can be subjected to malware, as a rule no efforts can guarantee protection. But Google’s Webmaster Tools can help you to avoid great number of threats.

13. Watch your competitors:

Are your competitors ranking higher? Then keep an eye on what they do and just use their methods.

Whether you like it or not Google is still number one among search engines. If you still do not know what exactly Google wants take our tips into consideration and your blog will go up.

Check out our previous articles!

• 8 Digital Diet Forms You Should Adopt For Marketing Efficiency
• 5 Factors You Should Prioritize Ahead Of SEO
• The SEO Co-Citation Crisis is at Hand
• Avoid Fake Reviews Google Warns SEO and Businesses
• Content Writing and StumbleUpon Traffic Driving Strategy

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Let’s get one thing clear, right from the start: SEO is not dead. As long as Google has an unknown algorithm for ranking organic search results, websites and companies will need people to help position them. Change in both Google’s policies and web culture in general might in turn change the specific tasks an SEO performs, but SEO will be a field that perseveres for the foreseeable future.

That said, SEO needn’t sit atop your priority list when creating and maintaining your site. It is a powerful tool that helps people discover your site, but there is more to website marketing than discovery — and there are other tools that can aid discovery as well or even better than SEO.

When building or maintaining a website, these factors should take priority over SEO considerations such as on-page indicators and link building.

1. Navigability and UI

SEO will bring visitors to your site, just as advertising a party will bring people to your house. Spend all of your time, effort, and money advertising the party, though, and you might neglect to create a party environment. If people show up to your house and it’s a dump, and you don’t have food and drink, chances are they won’t stay long. Not only that, but you’ll tarnish your reputation in the process.

If people discover your site through search engines, but find a clunky and un-navigable site, they’ll leave almost immediately. What good does that do you? For sites selling products, either directly or as affiliates, they’re more harmful than helpful. For sites that use CPM advertising, they earn you fractions of pennies. There’s no value in that.

The worst part is that these visitors are wasted opportunities. Prioritize navigability and UI over SEO and you might not get all those visitors in the first place. But when you finally do get around to optimizing your site, the people who do discover it will find a nice, tidy place that they’ll want to visit. With some luck they’ll come back again, click on some links, and maybe buy. But without that user-friendly interface they won’t stick around nearly long enough to make a difference.

2. Shareable content

The old adage claims that content is king, but that simply is not the case. Derek Halpern explains it best when he debunks the content is king myth. It’s a pretty straight forward idea, and not really controversial: people see your design before they see your content. But just as SEO is not dead, nor is content dead. It just places a close second to design — meaning it is still crucially important.

What makes quality content? For years marketers tried to define it in myriad ways, but it boils down to one simple idea. Good content is shareable. If people read it and then want to share it with people they know, or they leave a comment, that is the marker of quality content. If they read and leave without remarking at all, well, the article is unremarkable by definition.

Not every article you post on your blog will get shared heavily. That’s an impossible standard. A few heavily shared and commented articles per week, though, will earn you a reputation as a quality content provider. That creates a snowball effect: create quality content, get shares, realize more visitors, who in turn share your content, and so on.

3. Social presence

One important factor to remember when considering SEO is that by itself it won’t make you money. SEO is, at the core, a tool for discovery. As you optimize your site and climb the search rankings, more people will discover you. These days, though, it might not even represent the best method of discovery. After all, it’s an impersonal means of discovery. Even when you show up first, it’s still a blue link just like every other one on the page.

Social media has proven an important modern discovery tool. With a critical mass of users on Facebook and Twitter, you stand to rope in many more users if you build up your social presence. This goes back to the idea of sharing. Content gets shared via social networks. If you are there as a friendly face behind that content, it will look more legitimate.

The additional benefit of social is reaching out to others with similar interests. That can help you build a following of people who read everything you write. They might not buy from you, and they might not earn you more ad revenue, but they can help spread your message. As Kevin Kelly said many years ago, the ideal is 1,000 true fans. Never has it been easier to amass those fans, thanks to social networks.

4. Mobile development

Website owners have notice an overarching trend in the past few years. While overall blog traffic has flattened a bit, the source of that traffic has shifted drastically. People are visiting sites more and more often from their mobile browsers, whether tablet or smartphone. While tablets pose little problem, since they typically load full-scale websites, but smartphones are a different story. Not all websites display properly on smartphone browsers.

The key here is universality. While your website might look squeaky clean on a larger smartphone, such as the Samsung Galaxy S3 or the Galaxy Note 2, it might not render that well on a smaller, more common phone. And make no mistake: the market is filled with more cheap LG phones than it is with high-end Samsung phones. That means finding a happy medium in mobile design, thereby pleasing both the top and bottom of the market.

The easiest solution is to install a plugin that allows readers to choose either the mobile site or the desktop site. A cookie saves that preference, so they get the same view on all future visits. That way high-end users can view the full website, while those with those cheap LG phones can view your mobile site, which is stripped down and made to read on a small screen.

5. A business plan

What good is discovery if you don’t know what you want people to discover? Every website sells something. Some sell products directly to people. Some sell products indirectly, though affiliate programs. Most commonly, websites sell their readers to advertisers. Different people have different opinions on what works best, but they can all agree on one thing: knowing what you sell is the most important part.

There is no good reason to spend time optimizing your site for search engines if you don’t know how you want people to behave once they do discover your site. It’s just like the site with poor design. A site with no real business plan will not know how to curate its content to readers. That will in turn drive them away, and leave a bad taste in their mouths. When you do finally develop that business plan, they might not return.

To repeat, SEO is not dead, nor is it something that bloggers can ignore. For most bloggers and site owners, though, it doesn’t rank atop the priority list. SEO is about discovery, and there are not only more important priorities than discovery, but there are also more personal means of discovery. Once you’ve created a user-friendly design, written shareable content, developed a social presence, provided a usable mobile interface, and laid out a business plan, then it’s time to apply some good old fashioned SEO.

Check out our previous articles:

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• How to Make Extra Money Using Craigslist

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The Email Diet

Craig Jarrow who blogs at Time Management Ninja suggests checking your email 3 times a day. Some other productivity experts go so as to suggest checking email just once a day. While the frequency of email checking really depends on your business, virtually no business warrants checking email all day long. Since email drains you of your precious time and sanity, it’s no wonder that Inbox Zero is such a sought after goal for many people today.

The Email diet can be any frequency you find apt for your business. Even the busiest of the web-based entrepreneurs can do with checking email three times day. Desktop notifications are distracting, so switch them off. Avoid opening your inbox except for specific time periods you set aside for just that purpose. Use smart tools and plugins such as RightInbox and Boomerang to schedule emails to be sent out later.

Information, Media, and News Diet

Work comes first; information and news can wait. Go on a media diet. Your work is certainly more important than to know about President Obama’s latest Immigration bill or healthcare reforms. You’ll really not gain much – certainly not at the cost of not being productive  — from checking out 50 Super Cars Owned by Celebrities and the humongous list of 100 places to visit before you die can certainly wait until the weekend or whenever you find time to catch up with reading. Tools such as Evernote, Pocket, and Flipboard can help you collect and organize your favorite reads for other times when you are off work.

Link Building Diet

Link building is a critical part of your online marketing campaign but it’s not a volume game. Lots of links don’t always mean success. Since there’s an element of quality inbred into your link building campaigns, your marketing approach should be ruthless. Seek links only from quality sources. Don’t trade your reputation and long-term goals for links. Predetermine and guard your link sources and backlinks. For instance, remove any accidental links from poorly written articles or blog posts. Remove links from web directories that don’t relate to your business. Audit your links, check for bad-quality links that point to you from irrelevant sources, guest posts, other articles on web 2.0 sites, etc.

Web-tools Diet

Technology just made running a business a lot easier. Today, you’d practically lose count of the number of web-based tools, applications, and services available for every aspect of running your business. CRM; accounting and Finance; Marketing; Human Resources and Recruiting; Link Building; SEO; Social media, etc. Each of these broad functions will have even more web-based tools and services to help you battle specific business problems.

By the time you get around to choose a few applications to work with, new ones go into beta and are then released. In a nutshell, you’ll have a tough time just to choose the right solutions for your business. Start with a few popular ones and try not to shift or grab a new tool for helping you solve the same problem. For instance, if you choose a CRM solution, work with it until you find that the tool can’t do something you need it to do. Pick not more than two options for every specific problem.

Social Media Diet

A Vertical Response survey reveals that social media is one of those things small businesses spend an inordinate amount of time on. First, it’s hard (but not impossible) to ascertain a specific ROI value for social media. Second, it takes more time than you can afford to spend. It’s important to have a social media diet to control your time, activity, and the returns for your effort on social media. Set yourself a schedule to get on social media. Tools such as HootSuite, Social Oomph, and Nimble CRM, help you plan and publish social media content. Further, spend not more than 1 hour per account per day.

Web Browsing Diet

On the Internet, one thing always leads to the other. Decide to browse casually online and you’ll be tempted to click, go on and read a post, watch a video, listen to a podcast, and then read another post before heading into a forum. The cycle never ends, unfortunately. Causal web browsing is one of the most distracting elements in your typical workday. Fight the need to browse. Resist the need to browse, except for work-related browsing. You can always spend your spare time, if any, to do this.

Human Connections and Communications Diet

Mobile phones are a convenience for you; they are not others to assert their right to reach you since the right doesn’t even exist. It’s just the way humans are built. People would invariable call to discuss absolutely nothing of value. Most people get distracted by incoming phone calls and short messages, which further eat into time available for the day. State your unavailability for periods of time clearly.

Shut off the phone and don’t respond to any messages (unless your response saves someone’s life). If possible, use an answering machine. Some others would like to have lunch, meet for coffee, and have a random chat – schedule these for another time. Let people know you are busy and that you have work to do. Only two things happen when you get ruthless about your time: either they respect you or they avoid you (both of which are good for you).

Lean Marketing Diet

Plan your online marketing strategy even before you set out to make your website. Lean marketing pertains to using only those channels that actually work for your business. For instance, lets say that you deploy online marketing campaigns through a variety of channels such as email campaigns, PPC campaigns, SEO, Social Media, content marketing (which includes blogging, guest posting, eBooks, sharable reports, etc.) – which of these work for you?

You can do monthly checks using analytics tools and then determine the best returns for your investment. Once you find the channels that work for you. These are only channels you’ll use. You can make exceptions when you want to experiment with other new ways as they come about but the channels you choose for lean marketing form the basis of your marketing code. Which of these diet forms will you adopt?

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The crisis to which I refer is the lack of understanding we (including me until very recently) have about this mysterious business of co-citation. I had no idea of the what, the why and the where of co-citation until I was schooled by my bosses at the SEO reseller firm where I’ve worked for about 6 years. During a recent meeting, someone said something about co-citation, I said “Co…what?” and my bosses said, almost simultaneously, “You didn’t just ask that question!” I said, “Yes. I did.”

Then one of them said, “You work for an SEO reseller and don’t know what co-citation is?” To which I replied, “I’m in marketing. I market. I don’t co-citate.” Well, that’s right about when the lesson started because co-citation, as it turns out, is a big part of content marketing. Once I was clued in to that piece of wisdom, it all became clear why my bosses thought I should know about co-citation. I do content marketing for our SEO reseller program!

The brain trust that explained co-citation to all of us at that meeting is consumed with SEO. They read and study and analyze and predict and prepare for every new SEO thing that comes along. It’s kind of annoying actually but my point is, they know too much and the way they explain things, frankly, it goes over the average person’s head sometimes. I’m making it a point to explain co-citation in a way that won’t go over the average person’s head. Read it and learn it. Your boss or clients or whomever…will be impressed that you even know there is such a thing as co-citation SEO. Trust me, most people don’t even know that much. I’ve asked around.

To begin, co-citation is the same thing as citation SEO, SEO citation, co-citation analysis and probably a few other combinations of those words.

Start with the Basics

Say you’re a small business with a primary goal of selling products for dogs. You’ve got your website for which you write targeted content that contains your targeted keywords. And of course you do all of the basic things you have to do for onsite SEO. You want to rank for keywords like “dog grooming,” “dog behavior problems,” “dog toys,” “dog chew toys” and other keywords that will draw dog owners to your site.

Link It Up

Co-citation comes into play when you write content and place it offsite for the purpose of building links back to your website. For example, you find a site called dogplay.com and submit your article. Your article is published and within that article is a hard-earned anchor text link to your website.

The Company You Keep Reflects On You

Now, you have your link on dogplay.com. It so happens that dogplay.com has linked some of their content to authority sites like Wikipedia and petswebmd.com. Those sites are very highly ranked on the keyword “dogs,” making that link you got on dogplay.com even more valuable. Think of it as….not guilt by association but SUCCESS by association. You’re cited on that site, WebMD is cited on that site – you’re co-cited. You’re in good company. You benefit from having a link on a page that links to other authoritative sources. You can feel extra good and extra accomplished when you’ve achieved co-citation.

Prove It!

So after all of this explaining about co-citation, I asked my bosses, “Why isn’t everyone writing about how important co-citation is for SEO? Are you sure Google is even factoring co-citation into the rankings anymore? Maybe co-citation got thrown out with one of those Google algorithm updates.” (Excellent question that shows I’ve been paying attention and I know about Google updates, right?!) The answer is: Yes.

Co-citation is important to Google rankings. And because my bosses are such data junkies, they have data to prove it. They always have data. They track all of our content marketing and they see it working for our targeted keywords. Apparently, with all of the content marketing I’ve been doing, I’ve scored some co-citation quite by accident and I’ve helped our rankings on some of our most important targeted keywords. That’s why they keep me around.

If you want to know more about the crazy experiments my bosses do to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that things like co-citation, content marketing and SEO in general works, you’ll have to talk to them. Sorry, this is where I check out.

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The problem is that too many of the articles and posts I read have a very negative tone to them that comes off as bitter and unpleasant. These will be articles by people who have been burned by one of Google’s algorithm changes, or by people who have struggled to get to the top and become very frustrated as a result, or even sometimes by people who are at the top of their game but still seem to be angry that they’re not doing better or that search doesn’t work the precise way they want it to. And the worst part? People lap this stuff up.

Why We Love to Moan

People love this kind of content you see because it gives them a license to get mad at Google and at the world for not putting them where they feel they ought to be. Too many site owners and writers have an inflated sense of self-worth and believe that they have some kind of ‘divine right’ to succeed even when they haven’t put in the necessary time.

It’s much easier to be mad at Google, or at negative SEO, or at other bloggers because it means you don’t have to be mad at yourself for not succeeding. But to this I feel I must make one inconvenient observation – if the world is so unfair, why is it that some sites have managed to succeed? And more to the point, what’s the point in whining about it when you’d be much better off just getting on with it?

Conserving Energy

Being angry takes a lot of energy. Writing letters to other bloggers because they used photo you took years ago or because you want them to take your link down takes time. And if you have time to spend doing that, then clearly you’re not focussing enough on your blog.

You see what the truly successful blog owners know is that their time is not best spent moaning about the system or lashing out at the world, but rather just sticking to what they know to work, serving their visitors first, and just knuckling down to work.

Stop Worrying About Other People

Often when I was out of line my Mum would tell me to ‘stop worrying about other people and worry about what you’re doing’. Normally this didn’t apply to business or SEO so much as how much cake my friends had, but this sage advice is still relevant. So what if someone stole one of your images? Chances are they steel images all the time and eventually someone else will take care of them. You think that XKCD or IGN don’t get images stolen all the time? And has it affected their success?

Likewise who cares if you have one link pointing at you from a less-than-upstanding website? Again, think about how many useless links the big websites get and live with – having low PR links as well as high PR links is all part of having a natural links profile.

But if you’re constantly updating your site with good quality content, constantly promoting that content on social networking sites and in guest posts, and really thinking about what the best and most useful looking design for your particular website might be – then all that is going to far outweigh a few bad links.

In other words, when SEO changes and things get tougher this doesn’t call for you to throw the toys out of the pram, it calls for you to knuckle down and get working harder. Let the moaners moan, but you should be a doer. And doers do.

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As far as I can remember, the dawn of the internet age welcomed us with keyword-heavy websites and irrelevant search results – then came Google. The development of Google’s ranking algorithm greatly changed the quality of the websites that are online now, and with it, the algorithm help create a new industry: Internet Marketing.

Now, everything seems to be going well, but people have begun to find dubious ways to manipulate Google’s search result algorithm. And the trend seems to continue, up to now. Which clearly explains why Google’s algorithm updates have been happening more often than they did in the past. And because of those updates, SEO Specialist have been adjusting their methods, whether they are white hat or black hat, in order to cater to the updates requirements.

Google’s vigilance in promoting a positive online user experience is even more evident this week, when Google’s spam detection algorithms have been screening the number of reviews appearing on some Google+ local pages. And this is because of a huge influx of “fake glowing testimonies” written by SEO or reputation management companies have been running rampant in our times.

Google has warned those that are investing in this questionable method that their fake reviews will be taken down. Other than this statement, Google has not announced other reprecussions of creating fake reviews.

Now, it really is about time that Google takes action on this kind of search engine optimization method. Fake reviews are really running rampant on social media sites for the past few years, and Google+ is just a tip of the iceberg. Facebook Pages, and a couple of microblogs that serve this purpose, and users are being misled. By now, almost all of us should be aware that an online review has an impact on as to whether a user will actual trust an online entity. More often, reviews promote businesses and services, which from time to time, causes users headaches, and confusion.

Google also said that, “if a business accepts paper comment cards it might be tempting to collect them and ‘digitize’ them by posting the reviews on Google+ Local,” Google says in its advice for SEOs. “We ask that all reviews come from first hand experience and do not allow posting reviews on behalf of others.”

Clearly, positive reviews on Google+ Local can possibly help attract new customers. But when it comes to negative reviews, Google emphasized that it won’t and doesn’t take down negative reviews, unless they violate Google’s guidelines, or work with third-party reputation management companies. Google urged business owners to respond to such reviews and address the reviewer’s concerns.

As for reviewers, Google asked that they should:

• Write reviews are about one specific location if a business has multiple locations.
• Not write reviews for a company they currently work for.
• Not include links in the text of reviews.

Anyway, it really is about time for Google stepped it up a notch when it comes to making sure that reviews are genuine. This would greatly help users in making their online decisions, and further improving our online experience. As for search engine optimization specialists, if white hat methods are being applied – then again, they will not, and will never be affected by this. So, you guys can breathe a sigh of relief. You are safe.

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1. Content

You do not have enough relevant content to your site to make sure that it is indexed. Make sure that all important pages have good content that includes the keywords for which you want your site to appear whenever they are sought. Also be sure that these keywords are appropriate for the structure of the environment in a natural way.

2. Your internal link structure.

Make sure that all the pages you want indexed are all well connected to each other so they are easy to find for your visitors. This can be done through a menu bar, a sitemap (sitemap) and through links from pages which link together related content. Index a website without a good internal link structure could not be easier.

3. Age of domain

More old is your domain, the better. It ‘s easier index a site dated web. The oldest domains give confidence because there some time. This factor also distinguishes your site from tons of other sites now dead, that have not been updated for ages and that are present in the network only to gather dust. Index a site Web newborn is not always an easy task.

4. Keywords (Keywords)

If you want Google decides to index a web site that is to make sure that your site appears in search engines when certain keywords are searched, you should know how to use these keywords to make it clear that the search engine to your site is relevant for those particular keywords. For example if your site is about gardening, do not use keywords that relate to cars. It ‘also important that you do not have to fill your pages with keywords. The density of keywords or a particular word or phrase should be around 4-5 percent. Any value greater than this could be considered spam.

5. External links pointing to your website (inbound links)

Google determines your page rank (a sort of quality score) of a site and its location within the same based on what is pololare this site. The best kind of links that you might want is called ‘one-way backlinks’, especially from sites that already have a good page rank. If you are unable to immediately obtain this type of website submit your site to social bookmarking sites like Digg and Stumbleupon.

6. Outgoing links (outbound links)

This are the links that point to your site from other sites or external blogs to your website. While it is important that you also have this kind of links, keep in mind that this number is lower than that of these inbound links. Also make sure that none of your outbound links points to malicious sites. Having links pointing to your site they put in their own category, and can even make sure that your site is deleted from the search engine.

7. Bounce

The longer people remain in your site the more your site will rise in the ranking of search engine. The best way to keep visitors on your website is to have a high quality content. Furthermore, it can also help you add videos or any other means which would hold up the visitor’s interest and hold it for as long as possible on your site.

8. The factors of trust

This means that you should give your visitors a way to contact you to ask questions or whatever is still their mind. If you have a company such as it is good that you include at least one form that the user can fill in or you should leave your email address indicated. Whether your site is for your personal or commercial is still a pleasant thing to make a page like, “I am / we are” to explain quickly what your visitors are on your site or your company.

9. Who hosts your domain?

The more popular your hosting provider is more your site will appear reputable and reliable.

10. Your internet address (URL)

Make sure your URL is plain and simple, without any character or string attached randomly at the beginning or end. This is another factor that Google takes into consideration when it comes to index a website.

Check out our previous articles:

• Tips and Trick for Finding the Right Mentor
• Common Internet Business Terms You Need to Know
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• How to Make Extra Money Using Craigslist

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There are certain types of pages that StumbleUpon users tend to favor. If you Stumble sales pages and product information pages, you are not likely to find that they do a lot for your traffic figures unless you happen to big a big player in the market. Great content writing is the key to doing well in this arena, since users have the opportunity to vote up the pages they like. They will also give a thumbs down to pages they see as inferior. You will want to make sure that anything you are putting up for consumption is excellent quality.

Lists tend to do well. Internet users like bullet points and numbers, and tend to share them with others. Images are also very popular. Infographics are another good choice, and this community has embraced them quite well. Videos and tutorials round out the list of most popular items on the site.

1. Don’t Stumble your own content.

It’s considered a faux pas to submit your own stuff to StumbleUpon. Ideally, you want other users to “find” your pages and submit them. You can encourage your site visitors to share what they have found by putting a Stumble button on your content pages and inviting them to share it.

2. Use one StumbleUpon account.

Open up your own account but stick to a single one. If you get caught creating multiple accounts, you run the risk of getting temporarily banned from the site. Serious infractions may result in a permanent ban, which will not help you drive traffic to your site.

3. Stumble other site owner’s content. 

Participate in the StumbleUpon community and behave like a good neighbor. If you are generous about sharing other people’s content, they will return the favor. Make friends with people who have similar interests to your own. The more people you know, the more opportunities you have to get the word out when you add great content to your site.

4. Writing interesting title and description.

The titles for pages being submitted to StumbleUpon should be interesting to a reader. He or she should be able to discern exactly what your site is about at a glance. You can include links to content on your site to encourage some deeper exploration if you wish, but for StumbleUpon purposes, simpler is much better.

Get creative when you write your descriptions as well. Make sure that you use catchy phrases in your writing that make the reader want to learn more. They should include appropriate keyword but still reflect the content of the page.

5. Consider StumbleUpon’s Paid Service.

You may not be able to rely on organic traffic to give you the traffic results you are looking for. They do take time to generate results. If you want to get up and running quickly, consider the StumbleUpon Paid Discovery program. It can send Internet users directly to your site.

The service has multiple plans to choose from. You would simply enter the URL you want to use and choose up to 10 topics for the campaign. You can set the demographics for your audience based on age, gender, device or location. (StumbleUpon can also optimize this for you, if you wish.)

The next step is to set a budget. Priority customers go to the front of the line. An investment of $30.00 per day means 300 visitors will be sent to your site. You also get to choose a schedule for your ad. Once you add funds, your campaign will start on the schedule you select.

6. Add a StumbleUpon badge to your website.

Make it easy for your site visitors to submit pages they like to StumbleUpon by adding a badge to your site. The process is not difficult. You would simply cut and paste the html code onto your site and it’s ready to go.

When used properly, StumbleUpon can be an excellent tool for driving traffic to your web page through sharing your own writing with fellow Internet users. If you are relying on organic traffic to boost your site’s numbers, you will need to give the process some time. The results will be worth your efforts, though. Make a point of spending time in the community regularly and read what other members are posting.

It takes time to develop good relationships, both in person and online. Give yourself that time and you will be surprised at how well StumbleUpon will perform for you in the content marketing area.

Check out our previous articles:

• Tips and Trick for Finding the Right Mentor
• Common Internet Business Terms You Need to Know
• Mobile Survey App for Better Client Interaction
• Techniques and Strategies to Increase Your Profits with LinkedIn
• How to Make Extra Money Using Craigslist

We hope you enjoyed this article! Please don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS-feed or follow Inspirationfeed on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook! If you enjoyed the following article we humbly ask you to help us spread the word!