Site Build It Updates Keyword Research Tool

Site Build It have added new functionality to "Brainstorm It", which is the built-in keyword research tool included with every SBI account. Known as the "Ultimate Verticalizer" it joins the Ultimate Outside Lateralizer and Ultimate Inside Lateralizer to provide comprehensive keyword analysis. Here's how Ken Evoy describes Ultimate Verticalizer:

"UV brings back 10 times as many (or more!) keywords that contain your Site Concept Keyword than every other third party keyword tool (including Yahoo!'s and Google's) combined.

How does it do that?

SBI!'s global, one-of-a-kind database of keywords includes all sources of keywords including...

• every keyword ever brainstormed by any SBIer
• every keyword that has ever found any SBI! Web site
• every keyword brought back by SBI!'s very own Web spider ("SBIder"), which has spidered billions of Web pages... and growing.

It basically brings back the collective wisdom of billions of sites plus every other way a keyword makes it into the SBI! database. This is the most comprehensive index of real, human-generated keywords, either through searches or through the brainstorming power of millions of webmasters."

Powerful stuff! Keyword research is one of most important, yet overlooked, component in building a successful website. The thing I've always liked about SBI is the whole process STARTS with keyword research and you build your site around your Master Keyword list. So, it's not an afterthought. You build your site the right way, right from the outset.

What if you don't use SBI? An online site builder may not be your preferred option. That's fine. But if you use website design software to build your site, or even hand code the whole thing, you absolutely must, MUST, research your keywords before you build a single page. I still recommend Keywords Analyzer. It's gone through several updates with new features added, such as the ability to pull in Google Adwords bids.

Steve

Keywords: sbi site build it website builder keyword research keywords analyzer website design software

SEO Advice - Who do you believe?

One of my favorite discussion groups is LED Digest. There are plenty of successful Internet marketers on this list (e.g. Ken Evoy, Allan Gardyne) and you'll often pick up some great tips on all manner of doing business online. Although it's not purely an SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) forum the discussion often turns to this topic simply because it's so important for achieving any degree of success online.

However, when discussing SEO you'll often find differences of opinion, which may leave you wondering "who is right?" and "whose advice should I follow?". For example, there is a regular LED contributer whose imparted wisdom I often disagree with. I shan't name him, but these differences usually produce some lively discussion. This is actually quite fun (I enjoy a good debate) but where does that leave you if you are trying to gather information on how to improve your search engine rankings? Before I answer that let's look at a recent example:

I recently posted my "to do" list for newly created sites (which you'll find on this blog as well). The purpose was mainly to get new sites fully indexed quickly, although old sites which are having trouble getting indexed can benefit as well. However, this list also forms the basis of a strategy to improve your rankings as well. Mr SEO Expert had this to say in regards to my post:

"It's a shame that people continue to pass around such outdated, bad advice despite months of debunking these kinds of SEO myths by many well-informed people in the industry.

To get good rankings, you need to write interesting content, post it on YOUR Web site, and optimize it....

Stick to the fundamentals. Don't go for these cheap tricks. Right now, many people are complaining across numerous forums that their sites have lost rankings on Google since March.

They all followed the bad advice about getting tons of cheap links from free article submission, press release distribution, obscure free directories, reciprocal links, and paid links."

So says Mr SEO Expert. Bad advice. SEO myths. Mr SEO Expert likes to impart his wisdom, usually based on what other people say (the so-called "well informed people in the industry") or his own experiences in very "niche" content sites. But let's look at an example, real-world, high-competition, BUSINESS website - www.bestbusinessbuyes.com.au. The keywords we targeted for this site are "business broker australia" and "australian businesses for sale". Those keywords are precisely what it's audience use when searching for the content that this site provides. That content comprises listings of businesses for sale in Australia. Of course, there are lots of other business brokers competing for those top search engine rankings.

So, is this content so "interesting" that other sites will naturally link to it, or the search engines will recognise it as interesting and give it high rankings? Hardly. Until we implemented a link building strategy it's rankings/traffic was abysmal. Was the link building strategy we adopted effective? Judge for yourself. Search those keywords at Google, MSN and Yahoo. March came and went, incident free. No dought the fact that this site has lots of original, frequently updated content is a significant factor, but if your business operates in a competitive, non-niche marketplace, good content is rarely enough. You need to actively build links using a variety of methods.

Whose SEO advice should you follow? I don't for one minute pretend to have all the answers. Everyone has an opinion and is entitled to it. Take in all the advice that is given, but adopt your OWN strategy. If you are not getting good search engine results and you do nothing, you will continue to not get good search engine results. If your strategy produces good results, run with it. Don't stop using a tactic because some "well informed person in the industry" says you shouldn't. Do what works for YOU. If your strategy doesn't produce results, modify it. Try something new. Be active. Work at it. The results will come.

Steve

Keywords: seo search engine optimisation ken evoy allan gardyne link building strategies

To Do List for Fast Search Engine Indexing

The first task you should undertake after launching your new site is getting all your pages indexed in the major search engines. That does NOT mean simply submitting your site via each engine's submission page. Using that method alone could take months for the engines to fully index your site. Perhaps even never.

Google, Yahoo and MSN will actually "discover" your site by following links from other places on the Web. This process is known as "spidering". But to ensure they find your site, spider it and include all your pages in their database you need to put "hooks" in place so you site is acknowleded as a worthwhile addition to their search results. That doesn't necessarilly mean you'll rank well for your targeted keywords - that's an ongoing process - but this "to do" list will get your site indexed and get the ball rolling for good rankings.

1. Create a Google Site Map

This is not the same as a regular sitemap on your site. It's a special file which you create and upload to your site. Google will use this file to spider all your pages and even report back to you on your indexing stats, HTTP errors, crawl errors, search query stats and more.

https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/

http://enarion.net/google/phpsitemapng (Free Google Site Map Generator)

2. Get a free sitemap/search from FreeFind.com

http://www.freefind.com

FreeFind will crawl your site and create a sitemap page, hosted by them, with links to all your pages. They also have a great site search function. Here's what my sitemap page looks like:

http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=32405908&m=0&p=0

3. Add your site to Social Bookmarking sites.

http://Del.icio.us
http://furl.net/
http://www.simpy.com/
http://www.jots.com/

Sort of like bookmarking sites on your own computer, except you actually share those bookmarks with other users. Some of these sites will create direct, one-way links from high PageRank "authoritive" sites. What better way to get indexed? Some sites will not create direct links but the bookmarks you create will be shared with other sites who WILL create direct links.

Generate direct traffic and more links by creating 'tags" for your bookmarks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bookmarking

Find the RSS feed for each personal page you create at the social bookmarking site (look for the little orange RSS or XML button). Right-click it, select "Copy shortcut" and add the feed to your Google Personalized Home Page, My Yahoo and My MSN. Look for the "Add Content" links.

4. Submit to Paid Directories

There are good free directories around but a paid listing will be reviewed and accepted much quicker. My favorites are:

http://www.skaffe.com/
http://www.bluefind.com/
http://www.goguides.org/

A very comprehensive list here:

http://info.vilesilencer.com/main.php?rock=seo-friendly.php

5. Submit comments to blogs

Find blogs which:

a) accept comments
b) have a discussion on topics which interest you and you can contibute to
c) allows urls to be posted

Don't spam them or use software for automated postings. My favorite is:

http://www.bradfallon.com

6. Start a Blog

Blogger is the easiest for the non-tech types

http://www.blogger.com.

Host your blog on your own site. Blogger will show you how to do this when you set up your blog. Post often. Submit your blog to RSS submission sites:

http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/

Add "tags" to your blog posts so sites like Technorati detect and list your tags: http://www.technorati.com/help/tags.html

Ping when you post:

http://pingomatic.com/

7. Write an article and submit it to article directories

There are lots of article directories out there, and software for multiple submissions, but start with the best:

http://www.ezinearticles.com

Make it around 250 - 500 words. In your resourse box include your full url without a period at the end e.g. http://www.yoursite.com/ and an anchor text link with your targeted keywords.

Here's an example:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Linking-for-Fun-and-Profit&id=4507

This will get you a high value link very quickly. Take note of the PageRank of that page and the anchor text link in the resource box. This is an article I wrote some time ago, but if you search "linking for fun and profit" at Google you'll see plenty of other sites have picked up the article and created more backlinks.

Follow my "to do" list and your site should be fully indexed by the 3 major search engines within a couple of weeks at most.

Keywords: search engines indexing search engine spidering search engine indexing
site submission launch new website submit to search engines search engine rankings