Small Business SEO | Small Business Social Media

Matt Cutts recent posted on his blog that Google is now enlisting the help of us average Joes to help them find and report linkspam. The form to report linkspam is at http://goo.gl/linkspam

Now, while I will applaud Matt and the Googlebunch for actually giving a sh*t about the quality of the SERPS for a change, I can’t believe the timing/irony of this announcement as Google continues to fill the SERPS with meaningless doo-doo such as Tweets, Facebook status updates, etc. – all in the name of progress for ‘real time search’.

Now don’t get me wrong. Paid links, link farms, three-way linking, etc. are all complete shite and need to be done away with. Needed to for years. All are ‘SEO tactics’ give all respectable SEOs a bad name and help give the SEO ‘industry’ the snake-oil salesman reputation we are so regularly labled with. Hopefully this new push by Google will help clean up the streets, and I am all for it.

But I find it way too ironic that at the same time Google is deputizing all of us as linkspam cops, they continue to dilute their (what was once cutting edge and extremely useful) search tool with utter n0nsense posted by folks on Twitter and Facebook.

To me, it seems like we are just trading one pile of dung for another.

What do you think?

Looking for killer web 2.0 quality backlinks? They are out there. But how in the world do you find them? Google, of course…

Use the following custom Google search queries to find even more sites that may be good candidates to link to your site. The following list just barely scratches the surface of what you can find, but it will give you a great head start over your competition…

Comment Luv (Blogs)
CommentLuv is a popular Wordpress plug-in that displays the last post from your blog when you make a comment to someone else’s blog. This provides you a nice keyword related deep anchor text link.

To locate blogs in your industry that use CommentLuv, use the following search. Make sure to replace KEYPHRASE with your target/industry term. Once you get the results, simply go to each blog and see if there is a discussion(s) you can join by adding your intelligent/useful comment.

“title=”CommentLuv Enabled”” KEYPHRASE

Squidoo Lenses
Squidoo lenses are user created websites, similar to blogs. To locate Squidoo lenses in your industry that allow links, use the following search in Google. Once you have the results, click on a lens and scroll down to the ‘List’ near the bottom of the lens. Click ‘Add to This List’ and add your website URL to the list, making sure to vary your keywords/title for each lens you submit to (i. e. DO NOT use the exact same title/description for every submission).

KEYPHRASE + site:squidoo.com + “0 points”

Youtube
To locate Youtube channels in your industry that allow comments, use the following searches. Once you have the results, scroll to the comments section at the bottom and make (you guessed it) a useful comment about the video(s) and nab a few links. Note that these links will point to your own Youtube channel (not your website).

“KEYPHRASE” “Channel Comments” site:youtube.com/user
[site:youtube.com/user “KEYPHRASE”]

Facebook
Search your KEYPHRASE and become fans of good pages that you find. Post to those pages with helpful comments and links.
[site:facebook.com/people “KEYPHRASE”]

Twitter
Find likeminded Twitter users with the following search. Once you have the results, you can follow, direct message or add the users you like to a list. Again, you’re not going to get direct links to your website, but you will expand you reach dramatically.

[site:twitter.com -inurl:statuses -inurl:status “KEYPHRASE”]

Tumblr
Use the following search to locate Tumblr blogs with your KEYPHRASE in the title. Peruse the blogs and bookmark/post to the one’s you find interesting.

KEYPHRASE inurl:tumblr.com

LinkedIn
Find groups in your industry and post relevant articles. Or, if you have just updated your blog (or posted an article somewhere else), just post a note to the group explaining the article and the URL.

[site:linkedin.com inurl:in “KEYPHRASE”]

MySpace
Find MySpace users with the following query and post comments to the ones that seem appropriate.

[site:profile.myspace.com inurl:myspace inurl:fuseaction “KEYPHRASE”]

Flickr
Use this query to find groups with similar interests and  (of course) post useful comments to them (or join them outright as well).

[site:flickr.com/people “KEYPHRASE”]

This post is an excerpt from my High Rankings Traffic SEO and Social Media system. High Rankings Traffic will show you how to get massive traffic to your site by leveraging my 12+ years of SEO and social media experience. Get your copy today and start exploding your traffic!

Matt McGee shares some great info about the SEO benefits of blogging in a recent post. Hubspot recently posted some stats about their users and found that

“businesses that published at least 5 blog articles in the last 7 days draw 6.9 times more organic search traffic and 1.12 times more referral traffic than those who don’t blog at all.”

For those of you still on the fence as to whether you need a blog or not for your small business, hopefully this will finally help push you into the blogosphere.

You need a blog for your business. Now.

For those of you looking to secure a domain name for a NEW website or blog, make sure to follow these basic rules:

Pick a domain name with your main keyword phrase in it.
This is a simple way to get a nice boost right out of the gate.

Example: Your site is about purple widgets, so some good domain names to consider would be:
purplewidgets.com
bestpurplewidgets.com
yourcompanynamepurplewidgets.com
toppurplewidgets.com

If you are really stuck coming up with your domain name, the free tools at NameBoy (www.nameboy.com) or GoDaddy (www.GoDaddy.com) may give you some fresh ideas.

Always, always, always grab the .com version of your domain.
It is much better to have a less than perfect .com domain (purplewidgetsreviewsandinfo.com) than to have a perfect scenario secondary .net/.org/.info domain (purplewidgets.info). Dot coms look better, are more easily remembered, and are expected by Internet users.

Do not fall into the trap of cramming every possible keyword into your domain and separating them with hyphens.
purple-widgets-reviews-and-purple-widget-information.com will not win your any favors in the SERPS anymore. This tactic may have worked for a boost once, but those days are long gone. Keep your domain name on target and a reasonable length of 3-5 words.

Register your domain for multiple years.
This makes you look more legitimate in Google’s eyes, as many spammer domains are registered for only a single year. Spend the extra $10-15 and register your domain for 2-3 years at a minimum.

Do not register your domain as private.
This is another spammer favorite. Choose a ‘normal’ public registration option for all of your domains. You won’t get any more spam in your inbox than normal.

Choose a reliable hosting provider that doesn’t host a bunch of spammy sites.
This isn’t particularly fair, but you can be penalized for having your domain hosted on the same server as a bunch of spam/porn/gambling/linkfarm sites.

This is pretty easy to avoid by choosing a reliable (yet cheap) hosting provider such as 1and1.com (www.1and1.com) or Blue Host (www.bluehost.com) to host your sites. I highly recommend them both.

Finally, a quick note for those of you who already have a live website or blog and are considering changing the domain name solely for SEO purposes. DON’T.

Unless your domain has been blacklisted by Google, or you are facing some sort of legal/copyright infringement action against you, I DO NOT recommend changing your existing website’s domain name. The negatives greatly outweigh the positives. Keep that old domain name intact, and keep on reading to discover how to optimize your current domain to increase your traffic.

These handy SEO tips are an excerpt from High Rankings Traffic, my new two ebook set of my 12+ years of SEO and Social Media knowledge in an easy to read and implement format.

Stop paying insane fees for SEO and Social Media and do it yourself
with the help of my High Rankings traffic system.