Majestic SEO Link Intelligence Tools

Updates to Majestic SEO

Majestic SEO have made some UItweeks to the look and style of our website. In addition our Fresh Index has enlarged to 145 billion urls. We feel that these updates will better explain our product offering than the previous layout. For more information on the layout updates, please head over to the blogpost regarding these updates.

 

Join us at the European Search Awards

You only have a day left to enter this! Majestic SEO are currently running a draw for one lucky person to join us in Amsterdam at the European Search Awards ceremony at the Majestic SEO table, to enjoy a fantastic meal on us. In addition those entrants who have either a gold, silver or platinum account at the draw time will also get to stay overnight at the Barbizone Palace. Already on the table with Dixon and Alex will be Joost, Wiep, Roy Huiskes and our key developers. To enter the competition, head over to our Facebookpage for all the terms and conditions.

 

Search Kingdom Podcast Show

In conjunction with WebMasterRadio, Majestic SEO have launched their own Podcast show. This show is recorded live at 5pm (UK time) every second or third Thursday of each month and will be broadcast on webmasterradio.fm/search-kingdom. Join Dixon Jones live on Thursday with special guest, Matt Roberts from Linkdex. 5:00PM London/9:00 AM PST.

 

Upcoming Webinar - How To Use Flow Metrics

For those of you who are still unsure as to how the Flow Metrics work, you won't want to miss out on the newest Majestic SEO webinar. The webinar entitled 'How To Use Flow Metrics' will be hosted by Dixon Jones. He will take you through exactly what the Flow Metrics are and exactly how they work. Tis webinar will be held on Thursday 28th June at 3:00pm London/7:00 AM PST. Register (no charge) here.

Top Search Engine Ranks, Part 2- Mastering The Secret- Explained

by: John Krycek

 

In the first part of this series on ranking at the top of the search engines, we discussed diversifying your Internet marketing efforts. We introduced several methods including RSS feeds, Link Popularity, Article Marketing, Blogs, and physically altering your pages to make them more target-able for select keywords. All of these share the key of great content in order to unlock success.

Think of each method as a vehicle that carries the greatest cargo in the world. That cargo is your business, your product, and the word you want to get out.

Now....

So you're thinking, "show me how to set up these things and get traffic coming in!" We'll get to that, but imagine if you go to all the trouble of rewriting ten of your web pages, setting up a blog, writing some articles, buying some text links, syndicating your site over RSS, and you flip the switch and everyone hears you...

But then surprise! Your audience feels like they're watching an old, dubbed Karate movie... the words come in English three seconds after the guy moves his mouth...in Chinese. Your new parade of eager visitors turns away and never comes back.

Then you'd hate me, the Internet, your old first grade teacher... and we don't want that! So before we start adding marketing bells and whistles to your site, lets focus on the secret ingredient they all share, the solid foundation... super, juicy, colossal content! And, you can start drafting that immediately.

Great Content- What Makes It?

Is there a site you visit nearly every day? Why do you go there? Do you learn something or take back some knowledge? Guess what... the site has "good" content.

In terms of business, you're probably on the web researching, buying, or selling something. The Internet is all about information exchange. In whatever vehicle it's delivered to you, if the information is simple to find and well packaged in easy to understand, bite size pieces, you're happy. And you'll probably go back to the same place when you need more of that information.

In your case, content is information about/promoting/creating awareness about your business. To turn a new visitor into a new client or customer, you want to convey that information in a genuine, honest, no strings, down and dirty package.

So then, on the surface, your packaging should be:

-Professional
-Clean
-Attractive
-Interesting
-Simple
-Straight Forward
-Intriguing/Enticing

Let's take this article... the layout, wording, sentence structure, and my personality package the content. The content is the underlying message I want to share with you-- that all of the latest e-marketing techniques won't help you one bit if you don't understand the ideology behind them first, how they work, and how to adapt them to attract people to your own, unique piece of the Internet.

Great Content- How to write it

That's going to vary depending upon your audience. So let's start there! First, know who your audience is. Be yourself. If you are dishonest and pretend to be something you're not, it will show in time and you'll lose all the work you put in.

Which brings me to another important point. Write with confidence. If you are confident in what you are writing and you aren't attempting to deceive anyone (i.e. you are not selling seeds to an audience of botanists when your only skill is brick laying), you will earn people's respect.

Trust goes a long way. You don't have the luxury of delivering your content in person. You have a very short time to convince people you are not the latest scam, you have something to offer that will help them, and they can feel safe doing business with you or at least willing to learn more.

That's a pretty tall order! But you can do it. Let's start with some guidelines for writing your content. Remember... a web page, an RSS feed or a news article will all share these commonalities.

Great Content- Thematic Essentials

-Be informal, but structured

-Know your audience. Pretend you're talking to them. If you wouldn't say something in person, don't say it online.

-Don't be boring. Would you read what you've written?

-Do NOT lie

-Writing for the Net is not the same as writing for print

-Keep it simple- one idea at a time, don't overwhelm

-Inform, educate and show the reader what's in it for them.

-Do not saturate your content with sales hype. You are slowly building trust, making a name for yourself, and not producing an infomercial.

Great Content- Mechanical Essentials

-Divide your document into headings and sub points. People scan a page until something catches their eye, they don't read.

-Make your titles and headings catchy, yet poignant.

-Do not try to incorporate a keyword in every sentence. Be natural, your keywords and synonyms will enter themselves.

-Spell Check

-Grammar Check

-When finished, put your document down and go do something else. Come back later and revise. Repeat, rinse.

How to keep it fresh and keep your audience

-Earn their trust by being honest
-Identify with a common problem or solution to which all can relate
-Don't shove your product or service in their face
-Show them something cool
-Give them something they can try immediately
-Leave them wanting to come back

Concluding Thoughts...

Internet marketing takes time, perseverance, and practice. A ton of all three. If you are swamped with work and honestly can't commit, hire someone to help you or do it for you.

You wouldn't allow a brochure to be printed with spelling errors and bad photos. Your online presence is no different.

Now that you're working on writing, next time we'll learn how to encase your content in some of the latest Internet marketing methods. I'll show you how they really can increase links and get traffic flowing. In this series we'll delve into details about the pros and cons of each method, and how you can start using each right away to increase traffic and links. Start writing and revise, revise, revise! See ya soon!

Branding: You are the Brand

by: Daniel Sitter

 
What's in a brand name? Everything! Think of these brands: Coke, Barbie, Hershey, McDonalds, Madonna, Pepsi, Bono, Microsoft, Kleenex, Xerox, Steven Spielberg, Dell and GM. Did you notice that brands can be things, replicas of people and actual people? Brands are the public perception of a thing or person. Companies work very hard to establish their brand, sometimes failing when they attempt to tie a secondary product into the popular brand name. Does anyone even remember A1 chicken sauce?

The people and companies behind the above brand names are well known. They are established. They have earned the right to be positioned where they are in the public's eye. Are you or your product clearly associated with the solution you seek to provide? What about your product? What about your name? How are you positioned in the marketplace? As an entrepreneur, a small businessperson, you have to be ever so keenly aware of every minute detail and opportunity to brand yourself. You need to be the expert. Your product must solve the problem, and the world needs to know about it. Branding therefore, may be the most important marketing challenge you face as your business plan unfolds.

It's all about public perception. Is Coke the real thing? Does Hershey make the finest chocolate? Does McDonald's offer the best tasting, most nutritious hamburger? Does GM make the finest cars? We have been trained by skilled marketers to make the above associations. We have been conditioned over time to accept the advertising as real, whether we actually believe it or not. Very clever indeed, these markers have been. You cannot afford to be any less convincing in your efforts.

As CEO of your own organization, you will most likely not have the extensive resources that a major company or big name star has. You probably are the marketing department, the advertising department, the sales team, the accountant and so on. As such, you must remain acutely aware of your image, the perception of each and every customer, and to a great extent, the marketplace as a whole. Your position in the marketplace, often dictated by the perceived quality of your products, your celebrity, your reputation for service, your leadership in your field and your consistency will certainly have a great deal to do with the effectiveness of your brand. You are the brand.

As the brand, you must take the position that you will always be under scrutiny, under the microscope. Assume leadership. You may not be the biggest guy in your field, but through leadership you can establish a market presence that will help you to become positioned along with the major players in your market. Take the lead on local issues or take a stand on a national issue that relates to your product, service and market. Through association, you will be perceived as a market leader, regardless of your size. Attempt to resolve a small problem and associate it with a greater one and you will achieve a level of notoriety, one that you can leverage to increase your brand awareness.

Your company must be credible. That is to say that your products and services must do what you say they will. You must also be credible personally. If you cannot be rightfully associated with your product or service offering, it will be difficult for the public to be receptive to such a contradiction. Honesty and integrity will be assets of great value to you as your marketplace gets to know you.

You must be consistent. You must find your niche, take your stance, establish some position and build from it. If you change every week or every time a new wind blows, people will not take you seriously. They will begin to doubt your leadership and find it difficult to perceive you as a credible source for your goods and services. You will lose whatever market position you have gained and whatever leadership position that you have achieved by wobbling among various directions. The public sees consistency as strength and strength as character. When you are a small company, struggling to grow, the perception of you in the marketplace is a critical factor.

Your marketing plan should certainly include these concerns as well as the incredible importance of the awareness of your market image. Since you are the brand, few components within your business plan should receive more of your attention than the development of the public's perception of you, your evolving position in the marketplace and the development of your brand image.

Google's Good Writing Content Filter

by: Joel Walsh

The web pages actually at the top of Google have only one thing clearly in common: good writing. Don't let the usual SEO sacred cows and bugbears, such as PageRank, frames, and JavaScript, distract you from the importance of good content.

I was recently struck by the fact that the top-ranking web pages on Google are consistently much better written than the vast majority of what one reads on the web. Yet traditional SEO wisdom has little to say about good writing. Does Google, the world's wealthiest media company, really only display web pages that meet arcane technical criteria? Does Google, like so many website owners, really get so caught up in the process of the algorithm that it misses the whole point?

Apparently not.
Most Common On-the-Page Website Content Success Factors
Whatever the technical mechanism, Google is doing a pretty good job of identifying websites with good content and rewarding them with high rankings.

I looked at Google's top five pages for the five most searched-on keywords, as identified by WordTracker on June 27, 2005. Typically, the top five pages receive an overwhelming majority of the traffic delivered by Google.

The web pages that contained written content (a small but significant portion were image galleries) all shared the following features:

Updating: frequent updating of content, at least once every few weeks, and more often, once a week or more.

Spelling and grammar: few or no errors. No page had more than three misspelled words or four grammatical errors. Note: spelling and grammar errors were identified by using Microsoft Word's check feature, and then ruling out words marked as misspellings that are either proper names or new words that are simply not in the dictionary. Does Google use SpellCheck? I can already hear the scoffing on the other side of this computer screen. Before you dismiss the idea completely, keep in mind that no one really does know what the 100 factors in Google's algorithm are. But whether the mechanism is SpellCheck or a better shot at link popularity thanks to great credibility, or something else entirely, the results remain the same.

Paragraphs: primarily brief (1-4 sentences). Few or no long blocks of text.
Lists: both bulleted and numbered, form a large part of the text.

Sentence length: mostly brief (10 words or fewer). Medium-length and long sentences are sprinkled throughout the text rather than clumped together.

Contextual relevance: text contains numerous terms related to the keyword, as well as stem variations of the keyword. The page may contain the keyword itself few times or not at all.

SEO "Do's" and "Don'ts"

A hard look at the results slaughters a number of SEO bugbears and sacred cows.

PageRank. The median PageRank was 4. One page had a PageRank of 0. Of course, this might simply be yet another demonstration that the little PageRank number you get in your browser window is not what Google's algo is using. But if you're one of those people who attaches an overriding value to that little number, this is food for thought.

Frames. The top two web pages listed for the most searched-on keyword employ frames. Frames may still be a bad web design idea from a usability standpoint, and they may ruin your search engine rankings if your site's linking system depends on them. But there are worse ways you could shoot yourself in the foot.

JavaScript-formatted internal links. Most of the websites use JavaScript for their internal page links. Again, that's not the best web design practice, but there are worse things you could do.
Keyword optimization. Except for two pages, keyword optimization was conspicuous by its absence. In more than half the web pages, the keyword did not appear more than three times, meaning a very low density. Many of the pages did not contain the keyword at all. That may just demonstrate the power of anchor text in inbound links. It also may demonstrate that Google takes a site's entire content into account when categorizing it and deciding what page to display.

Sub-headings. On most pages, sub-headings were either absent or in the form of images rather than text. That's a very bad design practice, and particularly cruel to blind users. But again, Google is more forgiving.

Links: Most of the web pages contained ten or more links; many contain over 30, in defiance of the SEO bugbears about "link popularity bleeding." Moreover, nearly all the pages contained a significant number of non-relevant links. On many pages, non-relevant links outnumbered relevant ones. Of course, it's not clear what benefit the website owners hope to get from placing irrelevant links on pages. It has been a proven way of lowering conversion rates and losing visitors. But Google doesn't seem to care if your website makes money.

Originality: a significant number of pages contained content copied from other websites. In all cases, the content was professionally written content apparently distributed on a free-reprint basis. Note: the reprint content did not consist of content feeds. However, no website consisted solely of free-reprint content. There was always at least a significant portion of original content, usually the majority of the page.
Recommendations

Make sure a professional writer, or at least someone who can tell good writing from bad, is creating your site's content, particularly in the case of a search-engine optimization campaign. If you are an SEO, make sure you get a pro to do the content. A shocking number of SEOs write incredibly badly. I've even had clients whose websites got fewer conversions or page views after their SEOs got through with them, even when they got a sharp uptick in unique visitors. Most visitors simply hit the "back" button when confronted with the unpalatable text, so the increased traffic is just wasted bandwidth.

If you write your own content, make sure that it passes through the hands of a skilled copyeditor or writer before going online.

Update your content often. It's important both to add new pages and update existing pages. If you can't afford original content, use free-reprint content.

Distribute your content to other websites on a free-reprint basis. This will help your website get links in exchange for the right to publish the content. It will also help spread your message and enhance your visibility. Fears of a "duplicate content penalty" for free-reprint content (as opposed to duplication of content within a single website) are unjustified.

In short, if you have a mature website that is already indexed and getting traffic, you should consider making sure the bulk of your investment in your website is devoted to its content, rather than graphic design, old-school search-engine optimization, or linking campaigns.

Link Popularity: Distribute content, not just links.

by: Robert Raught

You've spent many hours trying to increase your online traffic with your linking campaign. You've sent out 200 e-mails pleading with other web sites to trade links with your site. Many of your e-mails bounce back.

The requests that find thier targets get rejected for numerous reasons. For example, your Google pagerank is too low or your links pages are dynamic and not static, etc., blah, blah, etc., ad nauseum. Out of those 200 requests, you wind up getting 25 reciprocal links, if you are lucky.

So, you say to yourself, "Great, now i have 25 more links!". But are these links really worth it? Do they generate any traffic?

There are many reasons why your links won't even get counted or indexed by the search engines. If your link is on a page among 100 other links, or the page is irrelevant to your subject matter, the page probably won't hold much weight with most search engines. It's also rumored that Google is changing it's algorithm to discount reciprocal links altogether.

So, what can you do to get your links indexed and noticed? Write your own content, distribute it to article directories or trade it with other related websites!

Here are 8 tips on increasing your online traffic with distributed content.


1. Try to write about popular content. The more popular it is, the more people will download it and want to include it on their websites and the more links you'll have pointing back to your site.

2. Try not to use any promotional jargon or sales pitches in your articles. If you do, many webmasters will not want to include your article on thier site.

3. Use plain English. Don't try to get too technical. Read it back to yourself and make sure you don't get tongue-tied while reading it.

4. If possible, work in your site's main keyword phrases into your articles. If your site is about online marketing, write articles about online marketing.

5. Make sure you include an "About the Author" section at the bottom. Make it somewhat short and always include a link back to your site in an anchor tag. And once again, include your keywords in the link text.

6. Proofread your article carefully. I see so many articles out there with misspellings. It just makes you look bad. After you spell check, have a friend or co-worker read it to double check for errors.

7. When you're finished with your article, submit it to popular article directories like goarticles.com, articlefactory.com, amazines.com and imparticles.com. For a fee, there are even services out there that will submit your articles to the top directories for you.

8. Make sure you publish your articles on your own website too, more content equals more traffic. Don't worry about getting penalized by search engines for having duplicate content. You only get penalized if the content is duplicated on your own domain, not if it's duplicated on other websites.

So there you have it. Distributed content allows you to make every link count, by creating targeted links that directly contribute to your search engine rankings, and by delivering targeted traffic on it's own. And besides, it might even make you famous!