How to Select Your Keywords and Key Phrases

Ninty-nine point nine percent (99.9%) of all online business conducted on the internet begins with a simple search on a search engine. That's why it's absolutely crucial that you research and select the key phrases you optimize your website for. In fact, selecting key phrases can, and often will be, the determining factor that 'makes or breaks' your online business.

--------------------------------------------------------
Become and AdhocAds Advertiser today at www.AdhocAds.com
--------------------------------------------------------


Some of the key phrases we optimize for will be natural. Product names in an e-commerce store for example, are examples of natural key phrases. Each product description page in an online store should be optimized for that product name.

But there are many other key phrases that are not as natural, and we’ll want to choose our key phrases carefully.

There are essentially 3 different factors we want to consider when selecting key phrases.

• Number of times the keyphrase is searched for in Google (where 90% of all internet traffic comes from)


• Amount of competition a keyphrase has. A lot of people think this means the number of results you get from the Google search for a keyphrase, but really we want to know how many people have optimized a page for this keyword.


• How relevant a keyphrase is to you. Obviously, we want to select key phrases that closely match the content of our website.

There are four different tools that I normally use to do my keyphrase analysis and evaluate these key factors. ...Read more

Can Link Wheels be Effective?

This has been a hotly contested debate over the past year as webmasters continue to try to find new ways to improve their rankings in SERPs.

The basic premise of a link wheel goes like this. You set up 5-10 hosted blogs on sites like Blogger, Wordpress, Sqidoo, etc. These are called the 'spokes'. Then you place a prominent link on each one of them to your main site that you are trying to promote, called your 'hub'. You also place a link on each 'spoke' to another 'spoke'.

When you are finished, your configuration should look a little like this...


Unfortunately, that's where most webmasters stop. "I've built my wheel, now where's my traffic?"

But that's not how it works. This configuration in and of itself is practically useless. Links to your site on these 3rd party hosted blogs, having no inherent traffic, no backlinks, and no PageRank, are worthless.

Unless, of course, you actively promote each 'spoke' in your wheel. If you build links for each one of your 'spokes' through traditional link building techniques, such as blog commenting, forum posting, social bookmarking, etc, then you build up traffic and popularity of these sites, which in turn pass some traffic and popularity on to your main target site.

But wait a minute. Now instead of promoting one site, you've got SIX sites to promote. Sounds like alot of work, doesn't it? Well, it is. Not only do you need to promote each spoke, but you also have to provide unique content to each one.

And what benefit is it to link the 'spokes' to each other? This just makes it look like some complex reciprocal linking scheme that Google hates so much.

But there ARE some advantages. For one, you control the content on each one of these spokes. You can optimize each page for your important key phrases, in some cases you can get on the same page of a SERP as your main target site. I've seen one site that has FOUR different pages, one on their target and 3 on their spokes, all on the same first page of a SERP they were targeting. Can you imaging having 4 out of the top 10 results of a targeted SERP? Talk about blowing away the competition.

My recommendation is that if you can come up with enough unique content for each spoke, and you have the time to do the extra search engine optimization and link building for each spoke, it can be very advantageous to set up a similar configuration. But I wouldn't link the spokes together. I'd set up more of a 'star' than a wheel.

View our inventory of over 600 pre-screened, high quality sites ready to publish your text link ad today.

Angela's Links Don't Work

If you're into SEO like I am, then this isn't news to you. What is surprising is how many new website owners fall for this dupe.

Angela's "system" says that the PR of the page doesn't matter. She says that it's really only the PR of the homepage that matters, and that if you get 1000's of links from pr0 inner pages on sites that have a strong homepage PR, then you will soar to the top of your SERPs. Of course then she goes on to try to sell you those 1000's or PR0 links.

The theory has been tested and dis-proven time and time again. If you look at her original argument, that her article on goarticle achieved high SERP placement with only pr0 backlinks, her argument is full of holes, and just doesn't hold water.

Let's take a look at her SERP, shall we? The search phrase is "backlinks"
http://bit.ly/TFifC

That's her page there, second from the top.
http://bit.ly/KSCCx

Now lets have a look at the backlinks of that page...
http://bit.ly/ypFYj

Well, that's funny, that page has ALL KINDS of high PR backlinks. Here's just a few...
PR3 http://bit.ly/N4tj3
PR2 http://bit.ly/N4tj3
PR4 http://bit.ly/1V8mg3
PR5 http://bit.ly/ekdUP
PR6 http://bit.ly/CC5Rs

Looks like Angela has some 'splaining to do!

I think Angela achieved her high ranking on that SERP from all of those links from high PR pages. Looks like she took advantage of Google's delay in showing backlinks and tricked newbs into thinking they could achieve similar results with just a bunch of PR0 links.

Well, the gig is up. Shame on you Angela!

It's not the number of backlinks you generate, its the quality of the backlinks you generate. Pagerank is not passed from the SITE, it is passed from the PAGE. So, if the pagerank of the page your link is on is a PR0, you will receive very little SEO benefit from it. 1 backlink from a relevant, high quality pr3 site does more for your SERPS than 2000 pr0 links from forums and social bookmarking sites.

Angela's method never worked guys. It's been a joke for over 2 years now. There's no secret shortcut to building quality backlinks.

Top 6 Factors When Buying Text Links

1.) Relevency - Make sure the site is closely related to your own
2.) PR - still a very important factor
3.) Google Backlinks (not backlinks from yahoo site explorer, most of those won' count. Should have at least a couple in google that are of equal or greater value)
3.) Uniqueness (does it pass copyscape?)
4.) Traffic (if it has any PR at all, it should be better than 2 million in alexa)
5.) Number of outbound links (should be less than ~30 per page)
6.) Age of domain ( should be older than 3 months. I like to see at least a year)

Another Consideration When Buying Text Link Ads

Advertisers always look at pagerank when purchasing text link ads. That's a given. And Savvy advertisers know to look at other statistics of a web page as well, like Google backlinks, age of domain, and Alexa rank.

But there is one important factor that is often overlooked, and it could be one of the most important factors of all.



Uniqueness of content, in my opinion, should be one of the strongest factors in determining the link value of any webpage.

Uniqueness of content provides a good, quick indication of how good the content is. Obviously, the better the content, the better chance it has of retaining it's traffic, pagerank, and overall advertising value.

While it's possible that a page can be unique, and still not be good content, unless you have the time to read every word of a page, there's just no other easy way to weed out the good from the bad.

You can check the uniqueness of a page using one of my favorite online tools, www.copyscape.com. Copyscpe will take a webpage you give it, and scour the internet looking for other webpages that have the same content on it.

This will keep you from advertising on sites that are completely syndicated. Syndicated sites often will quickly lose their high placement in SERPS and pagerank. Advertisers should keep in mind this risk when considering advertising on syndicated sites.

Build Links NOW for the Holiday Season

Don't wait until the last minute... NOW is the Time to Position Yourself Well in Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) in preparation for the Holiday Season.

As we enter the fourth quarter of the year (my, how time flies) it a good idea to start thinking about where you want to be in the Search Engine Result Pages this holiday season.

While Google and other search engines are constantly working to improve search results, it still takes a few months for them to take into account new backlinks, update their PR, and rank results accordingly.

Therefore, if you're not where you want to be in the search results, and you want to be on that first page when the shopping season begins, then you'd better start building your backlinks up now.

We've got over a thousand quality sites now, available to publish your links. We've pre-screened, and captured statistics on them all, from PR to Alexa, to Google backlinks, to age of the site. We've also given detailed descriptions and assigned them to categories. You can search and sort on any of these values to help you find that sites to advertise on that are best for you.

Link Popularity - The New King in Search Engine Optimization

We've all heard the saying that content is king. Well, there's been a coup. Link Popularity is the new king of search engine optimization. Don't get me wrong, content is still extremely important, and is still the second most important factor in getting your site on the first page of Google for your most important key phrase. But Link Popularity is been proven to be the most important factor, especially on Google. Off page factors, such as the number and quality of websites that link to your website have exceeded the importance other factor found on your own site.

The three most important things in determining link popularity are..
1) The Number Of Incoming Links To Your Website
2) The Quality And Relevancy Of The Links To Your Website
3) The Anchor Text Of The Links To Your Website

The Number Of Incoming Links To Your Website
Simply put, the more links a site has pointed to it, the more popular it is deemed to be. However, it's not always that simple. Links that are 'reciprocal' (they link to you, you link to them) are often discounted. So, it's one way, they link to you links that are important here.


The Quality And Relevancy Of The Links To Your Website
While the sheer number of links that you have pointing to your website is important, it's also important to consider the quality of those links. All links are not equal. Some links are more important than others. A link from the very popular Yahoo would be much more important than a link from a website that just got started yesterday. The more popular the site is that links to you, the more important that link is. Popularity isn't the only consideration though. Relevancy is equally important. You want to be sure that sites that link to you are very similar in subject. A electronics site that links to a health site isn't going to count as much as a fitness sites that links to a health site.

The Anchor Text Of The Links To Your Website
The text that is used to link to your site is also strong consideration in determining link popularity. You want link to you site to be descriptive, easy to read, and have the key phrases that are important to you and that match the key phrases you have optimized your site for.