How To Get Links From Major Industry Associations!

External Links are one of the major contributors towards getting a better placement in the search engine results. Link Building with major industry associations will go a long way to improve search engine rankings. But more often than not, a simple link exchange program with a leading website of your niche will not work. They are already the industry leader, hence, they really don't need a link from you. So what can you do in this case? It is to understand and then implement these steps.

Why Are Authority Sites Important?

The most important thing- these authority websites are trusted by the search engines- they believe that where these sites are pointing, it is a good and relevant page. The absolute authority websites are mostly '.gov', '.edu', '.org' etc. They have gained their authority status over time and are well established and several years old. With time, they have many backlinks from other sites.

In the case of relative authority, or niche authority websites, they belong to the most important sites for a particular niche. Like maybe a trusted android forum may be an authority website for a mobile retailer.

How To Find High Authority Sites?

Well, the PageRank (above 7) can be considered in deeming a site as authority or industry major in your niche. When these come first in search results, it shows that they have great links to them, and are interlinked-also they're well-known names (trusted and not spammy). Here is how you can find them:

In a country specific Google home page- a search for "www" displays the local authorities. Like in the screen shot, you can type in '.gov' and get a list of authority government sites.

For sites in your niche, you can do a search like- “Big companies in health care, electronics etc” “popular news sites and media houses” “top universities”, “top government agencies, and charity”. See the screen shot for better understanding.

If your linking campaign needs more, then you can link to sites that have been linked to by the authority sites- and then you can link to these second tier sites. For this you can use the Bing operator "linkfromdomain:authority.com" to find out what sites is the niche authority site linked to.

The more authoritative your domain is, the more damage it can sustain
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How To Get Links From Industry Majors?

If you have a link from a government site or an educational site, your site's weight increases considerably for the search engines. Even with the leading sites of your niche linking to you, your domain will gain credibility. But these sites have offers to link to a hundred sites, why should they do that  with you? To ensure linking from industry majors, follow the strategic steps below-

Offering Them An Affiliate Program:

Yes, you have to part with your money here. To gain a link, you will have to pitch in some cash. However, this will be small investment, seeing the amount of traffic and higher ranking you will get on linking with the authority site. As a part of your strategy to get links from the biggest names in your niche, you can offer them an affiliate program that pays the company a percentage of any sales resulting from the link. Government sites, military websites, News sites and educational institution & universities, are of high authority. So, if it seems possible, you can choose from the numerous affiliate programs and services on the market to offer these websites.

Now, some may take up the offer, but some, including esteemed publications, may not take a share in the sales, as it goes against their image of unbiased reporting. There are ways around such non-profit modules too. You can provide the sites with yearly dues etc., and in return get those precious links.

Offering Discounts To Their Users:
This strategy could work. If you approach an authority site in your niche, like-Bloomberg News, if you are an online retailer, and offer their members or readers a discount on your products. Moreover you can also pitch them the idea of creating a special web page on your site for their members/readers only, that will feature special discounts. So, in exchange of the link to your site,  you'll provide this discount for free. Authority sites or organizations may take this offer, as it will put them in a positive light for being so concerned in bringing down their employees' expenses by offering them discounts.
If this also doesn't work, then you may go further by offering them a share of the profits in addition to the customer discounts. The industry major will like it if you offer it or its users some kind of 'exclusive' bonus or benefit that they can pass on to their customers.

Write Content For Them:
One of the best ways to get them to link to you is- great and unique content. When writing the content for the authority site, make sure that is is well written and original- only then will they will publish it. Send them the piece for free and get a link to your domain from somewhere in the write up. A link in the reference box always helps. Apart from articles, writing tutorials for them will also work. Tutorials- as in how to do a thing- is something that these sites appreciate and so do the users. So write an understandable tutorial and garner authority links. See in this screen shot of how the USA.gov has linked to interesting articles on prescription drugs.

Source:http://www.pagetrafficbuzz.com/links-major-industry-associations/10114/

Top 5 SEO Mistakes To Avoid!

You are doing everything by the book, but still there is always chance of an error. So just pause. Think for a while. You might be making some mistakes, that can prove to be death traps for your site. Listed below are the Top 5 SEO Mistakes, that many commit unknowingly.

1. Not Doing The Proper Keyword Research- You may be targeting the wrong keyword. You may have picked up on a keyword that may not be what the average user will pick up. You SEO campaign can shoot up or go completely for a toss, depending on the choice of your keywords. Tip: use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool – to help you find keywords best suited for your site.

2. Lack of keywords in the URL or the content – You have done your research and know what your targeted keywords are. But, the entire effort is gone waste if your URLs are not search engine friendly and the targeted pages/urls don't have keyword rich content. Getting your keyword on your URL (the domain itself, or the file names that may be part of the URL) will rank you better with Bing, and often also with Google.  As for the content, make sure you put the keywords keeping users in mind and not the search engines alone. It is also advisable to highlighting them or making them bold.

3. Empty Title tag – The title of the page is one of the most important place to use your keyword. Having a keyword rich title tag helps you in getting better rankings. It is understood that with your keyword in your title, the search engines will show the same in the page title in SERPS

4. No use of header tags -Header tags : <h1>, <h2> — are of primary importance. Why? Because they highlights what are your web page is all about. Remember that Search engines always scan the header tags for important keywords, so always use them to highlight the main points of your text. You may also use your chosen keywords in header tags.  

5. Ignoring Social Networking – This is one of the most common mistake. Social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Myspace are huge traffic sources. Sharing your posts on these sites, will drive huge traffic to your sites. Focus on Social Media too, while optimizing your site. Check out recent presentation by Navneet on Slideshare.

Stay away from too many backlinks as well, as too many of them may lead to your site being penalised or worse, banned. Remember, the real task is not getting heavy traffic only. Its the conversions. You need to focus on the kind of traffic you are getting too. Question yourself- Is this the kind of traffic I want on my site?

Keep these pointers in mind, the next time you set to work on optimizing your site, and see the better results with time.

Source: http://www.pagetrafficbuzz.com/top-5-seo-mistakes-avoid/9462/

Now Bing Webmaster Tools To Show Integrated Data From Yahoo!

Bing's Webmaster Tools now shows integrated data from Yahoo Traffic in some reports and areas.
The integration began on the 12th August, however, September will the first month that will see complete merger of the combined data. Justifying this amalgamation, Bing's Duane Forrester commented, "Given the combined effort the Search Alliance represents, it makes sense to showcase relevant data from both engines within a webmaster account."

The good news is, most areas and the data within your accounts itself are not going to be affected with this merger.

Following are the noticeable changes that are seen in the Traffic Tab's, Traffic summary report and Page Traffic reports:

• Impressions- will increase as a result of showing combined impressions for the listings across both search engines
• Clicks- will also increase because of the integration of the two data numbers
• Click Through Rates (CTR) will also either rise or fall as a direct consequence of the above two

If you are worried if this will affect your actual ranking, rest assured as these changes will only reflect the numbers shown and not your actual rankings.

Also note that, at the moment the data is combined by default and is updated in all the markets wherein Bing powers Yahoo search.

Source: www.pagetrafficbuzz.com/bing-webmaster-tools-show-integrated-data-yahoo/10085/

Use Local Listings To Rank Higher in Mobile Search

Mobile Search Is Becoming Standard:

Searching the Web from a mobile phone is increasingly part of everyday life. Looking for some new sports equipment and not sure where to go? Just type it into your smart phone, and you’ll get a list of businesses eager sell you their products.

One thing you can be sure of: If you like fast and easy information, your prospective customers feel exactly the same way. So if you own a business dependent on local traffic, you’ll want to be right there on people’s phone screens when they’re searching for what you sell.

Getting there is pretty simple: Claim your business listings on all the major search engines – Google, Yahoo and Bing. Each of these search engines returns local results when someone searches for a product or service. You’ll have a much better chance of appearing front and center in mobile search results if you claim and optimize your business listing.


You should create your Google Places listing before your Yahoo and Bing listings for several reasons. First, Google is the most widely used search engine, and its local listings – called Google Places – include a mobile app.

Second – but no less important - Google recently rolled out product listings, which help searchers find products available in their area. If you provide Google your product availability data, your Google Places page will display products available at your store. It’s a great way to introduce what you’re selling to people who don’t know your business yet.

How To Optimize Your Google Listing

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• Claim your business listing using a business email address. Don’t use a @gmail.com address – instead, use a @mybusinessname.com address. This helps strengthen the trust Google has in the authenticity of your listings.

• Make sure you list business categories that are relevant to your store. For example, if you sell sporting equipment, use some variation of “Sporting Goods Store” as one of your categories.

• Use the city and state where your business is located in the description.

• Use a page from your website that includes the address and phone number of your business on it as the website link on your listing – for example your “Contact Us” page.

• Keep all important location information, such as business name, address and phone number, consistent across all local listing platforms. This sends a strong signal to search engines that your local listing is legitimate, and that the information is accurate. Your consistent information creates greater trust in your listings and site, and that ultimately helps your rankings in search results. 

Click to Call

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If you decide to use Google’s pay-per-click advertising program - called AdWords - be sure you add Click to Call. People using their phones to search often want to locate something quickly, and Click to Call offers them a one-step option to get in touch with you.

Click to Call lets you set up ads that allow someone to simply click your business number and call you directly from your ad. It’s so easy that a shopper is much more likely to call you than a competitor whose number isn’t as readily available.

Click to Call is easy to set up in the AdWords campaign settings. All you need to do is set up location extensions and provide your phone number.

Don't know how to set up AdWords yet? Read Google AdWords Guide for Beginners.

Location Extension Set Up

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To make things even easier, you can link your Google Places listing directly to your AdWords account, and your location and contact information will automatically be included in your ads. Next, make sure you’ve chosen to show your ads on iPhones and other mobile devices that have full internet browsers.

That’s it – once you complete these few easy steps your customers will be able to call your business with the click of a button.

Source: http://www.aboutus.org/Learn/Use-Local-Listings-To-Rank-Higher-in-Mobile-Search