Havanna Travel

Over the years there has been lots of discussion in the SEO community regarding building links to a web site. The debate is particularly heated at the moment, as Google rolls out its “Jagger” upgrade.

Let’s start with what we mean by inbound links, also called backlinks. These are links from other sites to your URL, which direct the surfer directly to your site when the link is clicked. The basic premise is that if you have high ranking sites linking to you, then you must yourself be important and have valuable content, and hence you should rank highly. The way in which Google ranks sites is called Pagerank and can be seen as a green line on the Google Toolbar representing ranks 0 to 10. As Google states

PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.”

Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don’t match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page’s content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it’s a good match for your query.

So, back to the question “Does having inbound links to your site help your site’s credibility”, and hence visibility when searched. The broad answer to this question is “yes”, but with a number of very important caveats which we will cover in the other sections.

OK, so backlinks are basically good, especially from high ranking sites, so how do we get them? The first way, and best way, is by having such great content on your site that all these high-powered sites want to link to you. Downside to this method is that it is slow and takes lots of time and effort on your part. But don’t worry, when anyone tries to build a level playing field there are always people out there that will provide work-arounds.

The first one was reciprocal links, whereby you say that you will link to a site if they also link to you. That’s stretching the original idea, but it’s not too bad because how many of these sort of links are you going to set up? Well, actually, some people have created thousands of such links between sites, maybe not what Google initially intended!

But then, due to the emphasis Google placed on link popularity, the concept of link farms was born. These are sites that link to other sites purely to increase the links to the site. Pay a few dollars and get thousands of links to your site. Too good to be true - you bet. Google hates link farms and sees these links as spam and will actively penalise sites that use such links. So, the first rule of linking is do not use link farms. The second rule is do not use lots of reciprocal links, Google can easily check this and the “Jagger” update that is currently rolling out seems to be particularly focused on penalising sites with lots of reciprocal links. The jury is still out on whether “themed” links will be treated in the same way. “Themed” links are links to sites that are very closely aligned to the same primary topic as your own site. If you think about this, it makes a lot of sense and is much more likely to be based on real content-based linking.

We believe another area Google is focusing on is how quickly your site gains backlinks. If your site is one month old, it is hardly believable for it to gain 100 real backlinks in that time. So, the third rule of linking is to ensure your links build in a realistic way. In all of these ways, Google is trying to ensure fairness and that’s why new sites are often held back in the results pages.

Finally, we should mention the sites that will improve your ranking - the Directories. There are many of these, but the most important is DMOZ, also known as the ODP. DMOZ is the Open Directory Project and is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors. It gets the name DMOZ from the acronym for Directory Mozilla, as it is administered by Netscape Communication Corporation. It’s Pagerank is 9 and hence a link from DMOZ will help your site. We recommend that everyone visits http://dmoz.org and attempts to get listed, it’s free. The Yahoo directory is also important and free for non-commercial sites, but $299 a year for business.

So, in summary, by far the best way of getting links is by having a quality site that other people want to link to. So again, we are back to content. If you provide quality information, over time, more and more sites will link to you, and if they are in the same business sector as you, so much the better.

And now a poem

Written by my partner, reflecting the Jagger update.

Just when you thought it was safe,
To step once more into the water,
Google throws in an undertow,
For doing things you didn’t oughta,
Just when the surfboard is glistening,
And you’re ordering champagne,
Google has been quietly listening,
And feels you need more pain,
Those link farms you visited,
Weren’t health farms after all
Reciprocal now is the term
For what Big G’s doing to you all,
Your trillions of two way linkages
Now millstones to make you stagger,
Your new nightmare shrinkages,
Brought to you today by Jagger,
A strident voice proclaiming links,
Are running quickly out of time,
Under the boardwalk of history,
Lying decimated all down the line,
This will not be the last time,
That your website is torn and frayed,
That Google will paint it black,
Or the devils sympathy card is played,
Just shine a light on your website,
Is it still under your thumb?
Or is it hijacked like flight 505,
By others who would become,
Your link promoting partners,
Who just ask your link return,
And now you owe the reaper,
And your harvest starts to burn,
Simmering in the torrid glare,
Of a Google bent on being cool,
Where everyone should fight fair,
Everyone obey the golden rule,
And slowly and inexorably we move,
Out of shadow and into light,
With every upgrade evening up,
The distance twixt wrong and right,
And every route 66 drives towards,
Eliminating devious spam-like crimes,
And ever inexorably inches forward,
Towards its own stated guidelines.

John Fowler trained as a Mathematician and has worked in the IT industry for over 30 years, much of the time in sales related functions. He now spends his time between being a partner in SEO Gurus and as a sales and management trainer for ICT companies. John can be contacted via www.seo-gurus.co.uk

Websites are fiercely competing with each other to gain new visitors. For any ecommerce site to succeed, it must capture the interest and the trust of its visitors. It is not enough that your site is perfectly designed or has the latest in animation of content but you should build traffic that is coming back regularly. You should focus your efforts not only in attracting visitors but also in leading them to make a purchase. Here are some tips you can use.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process by which website owners utilize strategic copy to improve their website’s status. It is certain that the internet has grown so fast over the years and the competition for the best search engine position has created an enormous market. Therefore, understanding the fundamental elements of Search Engine Optimization is vital for an online business success. It is also important in getting a good rank in all the search Engines.

Making use of effective search engine optimization techniques will improve the page rank of your website. There are many tricks that can be used to increase page rank; the most effective method is to provide high quality content consistently. This seems like a simple concept but there are many websites that fails to provide content that visitors find interesting. Sites which provide content that are interesting, well-written and regularly updated create highly engaged visitors who are more likely to return to the website in the coming days. So, if you can set your website apart from those boring, lifeless sites then do it. You’ll surely have a step closer to achieving high page rank through search engine optimization.

Writing good articles in various Ezines will help you in getting traffic. People are always on the lookout for good content and they need information. If you are write an Article in an Ezine or a newsletter you also associate your link with it and users downloading your article are most likely to pass that onto others promoting your link.

Another way to build website traffic is to maintain an opt-in list. When a person visits your website, you can offer some free product or suggestion and have the user sign in to your newsletter. In that way, you will build a huge list of users who are interested in your website or product you offer. And by periodically sending them some tips or articles you can make sure the user will be coming back to your site. You can do this by using an AutoResponder service. Autoresponder services allows you to send thank you letters, newsletters, product information, brochures, orders etc. to hundreds of clients almost immediately and simultaneously.

Balaji V, is the webmaster of http://www.fortuneinfo.com/ArticleSite Visit his website for more articles and also check http://www.fortuneinfo.com/ArticleCash on how you can write high quality articles to promote your website.

There are multiple ways to drive traffic to your website. You can use pay per click, search engine optimization, email marketing, ezine advertising and many more.

One of the strategies that has been neglected in the past but is now taking more and more importance is how to build quality content and use it to get more traffic to your website.

If you have quality content, you can profit from that in several ways to increase your traffic.
Here are 4 ways:

(1) Use content to attract the search engines

Search engines love good content and if your site has it, you can profit from that to gain exposure in them. How? You just need to optimize your article with proper relevant keyword phrases related to your content.

(2) Submit content to article directories or article banks

Some websites are in constant need for your valuable content. By submitting your content in the form of articles to the article directories, you increase your chances in getting your articles published on other websites. Many people go to these websites to look for articles which they can reprint for free in exchange for a link back to the author’s website. With this marketing strategy, you will increase your traffic because your author bylines at the bottom of your article will generate clicks to your website url.

(3) Submit content to ezine editors related to your industry

Ezine editors are in constant need for information to publish in their newsletters. If you can produce quality content and submit to them on a regular basis, you will receive massive exposure. Imagine your content article is published on several ezines each with only 1,000 subscribers, that adds up fast. Now there are even some big publications with tens of thousands of subscribers. That’s definitely huge publicity at no cost.

(4) Use content to get repeat visitors

Without any doubt, content is king on the Internet. People go online to look for information and if your site has good content, you will get repeat visitors and people will stay much more longer on your site, building trust and increasing your sales potential.

To find content, here are some tips:

(1) You can hire someone to write an article for you for instance and pay a fee for each article.

(2) You can write your own content if you have the necessary skills.

(3) You can use other people’s content on the condition that you give them proper credit and a link back to their website. If you are submitting articles to article directories or ezine editors, of course this should be your own content that you have written or content that you have paid for to get.

There you have it. Use your own content or other people’s content to start driving more traffic to your website. It will pay off in the long run if you continue to build content.

This article can be freely published on a website as long as
it’s not modified in any way including the author bylines,
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Webmasters have so much information available to them on the Internet about how to increase traffic to their web sites, but how do you keep visitors on the site when they get there? If you happen to use the articles format in order to provide interesting content for your readers, have you considered what they do when they finish reading one of your articles?

Actions the reader will take, will include: navigating to another part of the web site (if you are lucky and have a well designed site); typing another web site address into their browser; and, closing down their browser and doing something else - perhaps resuming their work after a lunch break. If you are a webmaster, the first of these would obviously be your preferred outcome. But a reader who randomly navigates through your pages at speed, is not the ideal. How do you not only keep a reader on your site, but also keep them engaged with your articles and possibly the products you are offering, while they finish the second half of their lunchtime sandwich?

The answer is very simple really, but many webmasters do not use the strategy I am about to outline, when they place articles on their sites - the inter-linking strategy. What is it? It is simply the practice of linking one article on your web site to another related article and clearly signaling the link to your reader. People who write articles in different steps or parts use it already e.g. at the end of “Tips on How to Save Money - Part 1″ they will have a link to “Tips on How to Save Money - Part 2″. But there is no reason why we should not all be taking advantage of this simple but very effective strategy.

For example, you may have written a general article about dental floss (ok so you have a really tough job on your hands of keeping your reader onboard!). In order to ensure that your reader does not leave your site after reading the article, you could include at the end of it a once sentence paragraph that says “If you have ever wondered how they get the mint flavour into dental floss, click here for an article which explains all”. This is a much more powerful strategy than just having a long list of “other related articles” at the bottom of the page, which the reader may not even be able to see because they have not scrolled down far enough. Another benefit of this strategy is that with some clever and imaginative wording in that last one sentence paragraph, you can steer your reader towards a particular page, again possibly with information about a product that you wish to sell. As with all strategies, there is lots of room for experimentation to see what works best. As well as playing with words to come up with a sentence that will ignite your reader’s interest, you can try different formats for the text itself. For example, if the last paragraph looks just like the rest of the article, it will almost certainly be read and taken in by the reader.

Implementing this inter-linking strategy may take a little more time and thought, if you have previously only carpet-bombed your site with as many articles as possible. However, it is definitely another valuable tool for the webmaster’s toolbox, or weapon for his armory, depending on how fanatical you are about keeping visitors on your site as long as possible!

Emmanuel Mendonca is the webmaster and publisher of Debt Genius at http://www.debtgenius.com - a free source of information and advice on debt consolidation, getting out of debt and saving money.

In the internet business world productive web traffic is the key to success-this means that not only do you need to get traffic to your site, but they also need to purchase a product or service. Potentially there can be hundreds of sites selling the same product or service that you are-and not only do you have to compete with them for business, but also the brick and mortar businesses out there. In order to increase web traffic to your site there are some innovative marketing techniques that may be helpful.

Double Targeting: this type of marketing narrows down your potential customer base to those “web surfers” who are truly interested in what you are selling. Here’s how it works: a person types a keyword or keyword phrase into a search engine. Then the web traffic is directed to an informational site that is directly related to your product or service. The page also features an ad for your business which interested customers can click on. The customers have shown interest not only once, but twice in your particular product or service.

Pay per click services: These are not one of the newer types of online marketing. It increases web traffic by targeting customers through a keyword based search engine. You bid for the right to certain keywords or keyword phrases and then if you win, you will be placed at the top of a search engine for those words or phrases. Each time someone clicks on your site, you pay the fee for those words. Now, you can also find pay per sale services, which means that you only pay a fee if you make a sale from the web traffic.

Informational articles: You can write an article or have someone else write an “expert” article about your product or service, that does not sell your product and place it on a site which contains thousands of other articles. When the web traffic there enters search terms that bring up your article, you can have links to your site. It is also a form of double targeting.

Opt-in e-mail services: This is where you contract with a service that sends out e-mails to people who have asked for information on related services and advertisements. This can be risky if the company that you contract with uses unethical methods such as SPAM in an attempt to get web traffic.

Affiliated advertising: If you can find a business that offers a product or service that is not the same as yours, but that is relatedsuch as an RV park and an RV dealership you can both increase web traffic by advertising on each other’s sites.

There are many creative ways to increase your web traffic if you just look for them. Keep an open mind and do what works for you. If it is not working do not continue to put time, energy, and most importantly, money into it. If it is working, you may want to increase its use.

Eriani Doye writes articles about internet business. For more information about how to increase web traffic, go to rtraffic.com.

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With our latest well equipped eight man minibuses and Maserati, Kia, Aston Martin, or SsangYong cars we can take as many people as 16, or twenty plus should you and your group request this. Moreover our chauffeurs are very experienced in challenging snowy conditions for you and your groups comfort. Naturally we are completely insured and licensed.

The company do organize mountain bike airport transfers from Jan through to Nov and have transfers to locations such as our top ten: Verchaix, Les Arcs, Savoie, Les Houches, Auron, Plateau de Beille, Flegere, Flaine, Montgenevre, Portes du Soleil, La Plagne, Hautacam.

Getting to Chamonix, Les Menuires or Espace Killy from the airport has never been so easy. For luxury Chamonix transfers from your airport to your chalet accommodation in Chamonix town call Geneva Chamonix Ski Transfers right away, afterwards chill out and relish in your skiing trip.

Now that more emphasis (to get better ranking in SERPs) is put on the quality of links rather than the quantity, I will try, in this article, to identify the signs that may be precursors of bad link exchange transactions.

1. Quality of content

   I try to make sure that my links come from pages with original content that are not sourced from an affiliate program or duplicated hundreds of times on the Internet. I want links from websites that someone seemingly to have taken time and effort to put together. In addition, it is steer clear of ecommerce sites that is only recently launched and heavily SEOed.

2. The links page

   Check what the links pages are like. Definitely avoid links pages that have over 50 links, or use dynamic URLs, or are not ind exed by search engines.

3. The links page should be too far from the home page

   Search engine bots are unlikely to go more than three levels deep on any website. So links buried deeper may not be found. When looking for quality links look for websites that provide links as close to the home page as possible. Even a massive site like BBC News has a rule that every piece of content must be available within three clicks of the News home page.

4. The topic

   Unless the links page of the site receives a large amount of traffic or that they have a high PageRank, stick to sites about the same topic as your own. If your site is about widgets, I usually look for sites that are about widgets, widgeting, or anything widget-users would find useful.

5. The request email

   When I receive link request emails, anything that

   • Has a generic subject line (i.e. attn webmaster, link request, We linked to your site! etc)
   • Makes ludicrous claims (ie.e we believe …)
   • Doesn’t use personal names (i.e. Dear Site Owner — you want a link from me - find out my name!)
   • Resembles an automated form email from bots
   • Contains excessive grammar/spelling mistakes
   • Are long and tells me how good links are for me etc etc etc.

   goes to the trash.

6. Quality of website
   

   I look for glaring typos, English mistakes, excessive fla shy banners, broken images, or the ever infamous animated Under Construction gifs.

7. 
   Format of link
   

   I usually look at the source code of the links page to make sure that I will be receiving honest inbound backlinks. Does the site use rel=nofollow or external redirects for their outbound links? If so, they won’t benefit you at all (SEO-wise) unless the link gets many human clickthroughs.

8. Are they willing to put the link in a “real” page of their site?
   If they are willing to place your link on a content page, then they are definitely my valued link partner.
9. If I see their phone number in the request email…

   Then I’d classify them as a valueable link partner. The same goes to your request emails: always include your name and phone number in order to be trusted.

That’s it for me. As you can see, I’ve only mentioned PageRank once. I believe that as long as a site has quality, it has a good potential (PageRank or otherwise) and is worthy to trade link with. Finally, although these are good criterias to stick to in order to identify good link partners when receiving requests, don’t forget to see if you are adhering to these when you are the one sending requests!

Tony Zhu is the owner of an online business resource website, InaWhim.com, the largest free resource for the new and experienced home business owner. At InaWhim.com, you will find massive listings of paid survey companies, products with free resell rights, exclusive quality articles, friendly community, and much more.

It’s the question so many people ask: how do I bring more users to my web site? It might seem like a simple question, but it is not. Although the answer to this question seems to change on daily basis, there are a few things you can do to boost traffic to your web site.

Search Engine Placement
A big way to increase traffic is making sure you are indexed by the search engines, and then trying to increase your ranking. This is another article all together, but here are a few pointers. Make sure your site is “search engine friendly” and that the search engines can index your site. Check that your META tags are in order and correct. Put together a list of keywords that you would like to key in on and make sure those words/phrases are incorporated into your site. Also try to keep your keywords as specific as possible. It is extremely hard to rank high for broad keywords. Make sure the content you have on your site is quality content and grammatically correct. If writing content is not your strong point, hire a copywriter or web developer to help.

Web Directories
Get your site listed in as many web directories as possible. Web directories are sites that list sites by categories. Try to find some directories that specialize in your industry. For example, if your site is about real estate then try to get your site into as many real estate directories as possible. The Yahoo Directory is probably the best directory, but it’s not free. Getting into these directories can also help with search engine ranking.

Link Exchanges
When you think about it, getting traffic is a numbers game. The more exposure you get the more chances that people will come to your site. The idea behind a link exchange is you find other sites that compliment your site, and then contact the owner to see if they will put a link to your site on their site. In return, you add a link on your site to their web site. This has been an integral part of the internet for years and it is a proven way to increase traffic.

Writing Articles and Newsletters
In order to bring people back your site, you need a good hook. Providing a newsletter or articles on your site that people would be interested in reading is a good start. Once you write these articles you can post them on some article directories to get some traffic to your site. Newsletters are also good for getting residual business from your existing customers. Another good idea is to have a blog. Everyone else has one, so why not you?

Cost Per Click (CPC) Advertising
Cost Per Click advertising has been the money maker for companies like Google, MSN, and Yahoo. Whenever you do a search on Google, you see that box of paid listings on the right. Companies pay for every person that clicks their ad, hence the cost per click name. The weird thing is that Google can somehow see how interested the user is in your site and then charge you more for that click. That might sound retarded, but its great when you pay less for the clicks that only visit your front page and then leave. I highly recommend Google Adwords to all of my clients as a cost effective way to get traffic to your web site.

While there are many other ways to get more traffic to your web site, this should be a good starting point. The key to getting more traffic is getting your site’s name out there. Post it everywhere you can and with every thing you do. It’s a long process, but well worth the effort.

Eric Friese is President of Tiger Web Solutions, a web design firm located in Auburn, Alabama. He can be reached through the Tiger Web Solutions web site at http://www.tigerwebsolutions.com.

Traffic. It’s what we all are striving for. Every webmaster designs their site with visions of people flocking to it. Unfortunately it takes a little more work than submitting your link to Google and Yahoo.

First of all, patience is the name of the game. Too many people give up too soon. It takes time and you have to be willing to keep on plugging along even though your traffic that day was 5 people. If you don’t have patience, you probably will give up before you achieve any kind of success.

Another important thing is content. You need content for your visitors and the search engines to take you seriously. Use your meta tags and content to let everyone (and the search engines) know what your site is about.

And now to the heart of this article. Exchanging links is the job you will probably spend the most time doing. The more quality, relevant links you have going to your website, the better the search engines will like you, which increases your chances of coming up higher in searches. So what is the easiest way to find relevant websites to exchange links with?

Find a web tool that pulls up backlinks. Type in the URL of your competition. You will find out who is linking to them and have a list of prospects for relevant links to your website!

When approaching prospects for link exchanges, always be courteous. It is a good idea to place a link to their website first and mention this to them in your email. Don’t place their link on a page that has a hundred other links on it and all on different subjects. Definitely don’t use a links page that is full of banners. Your links pages should be well organized and categorized with a limited number of links on each page (preferably 25 or less). Target websites whose content is similar to yours as relevant links are more valuable for you and the person you wish to exchange links with.

While building up relevant links can be time consuming and monotonous, the pay off is worth it. More traffic.

For more web tools, articles, and tutorials visit Webmaster Nook - Directory, Resources & Web Tools. Be sure to list your site in the search engine friendly directory.