To make a long story not much longer, according to the Daoists, humans lost the Way by becoming too much Yang and by losing the capacity to harmonize their Yin and Yang within themselves and in their interaction with their surroundings. I see this all the time with Internet newcomers brandishing their brand new web sites. They have no history of success on the search engines; they’ve done nothing to deserve to be number one but they fully expect to conquer the world by next week Friday. They write to me saying: “I need to be number one on Google for….”
Introduction
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Basically link popularity and optimization go hand in hand. Link popularity is like fuel for your car. Optimization is like having a car pointed in the right direction. Without fuel the car won’t go anywhere. Without being pointed in the right direction the car won’t end up where you want it to go. With an unfocused optimization, you can’t fully exploit the benefits of link popularity. Without link popularity you can’t get to where you’re going assuming you have a destination in mind. Optimization is about having a destination in mind.
YOUR WEB SITE’S OUT-OF-THE-BOX POTENCY: Chapter II
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Before we discuss the “how-to” of optimization, I need to say something about the search engines. There are only three important search engines: Google, Yahoo and Msn (some will add ASK). Of course, everyone knows that Google is by far the largest engine. But here’s an interesting result from a recent 2007 analytics study. People tend to use Google at work but they tend not to shop at work. They shop when they go home in the evenings and on the weekends and often the family is using Yahoo or Msn at that time since that’s where they have their email or chat programs. It turns out that people often shop at home using the Yahoo and Msn engines. So, I guess that’s another vote for ‘size doesn’t matter’.
THE SEARCH ENGINES: Chapter III
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If you a B2B (business to business) enterprise then you might consider this directory. It costs $199USD per year to join and also offers Pay Per Click advertising. It has a good reputation in the SEO world and it’s estimated that about 12% of searchers in the B2B community use this engine. So, while overall, Business.com may not be considered one of the top engines, it certainly is important in the B2B niche. And, it may provide a nice one way link.
THE DIRECTORIES: Chapter IV
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The key to creating a money-making site is what's known as the long-tail search. It's all the less common search phrases that the competition ignores in their obession to be number one for the number one search phrase. Have a look at the keyword phrases associated with "mens suits". Notice the.......
THE HOW-TO OF SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION: Chapter V
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Over the years, clients have done many things that have caused me to yell “Yikes” (mostly under my breath). Before making changes to your web site or your web business ask whether or not the changes will help. Most changes I’ve witnessed have arisen due to faulty assumptions both concerning the cause of the ‘problem’ and the usefulness of the change. There’s a saying in Daoist philosophy that radical change is not necessary as change will take place when it’s ready. I guess the trick is to know when it’s time for change. That Lao Zi rascal knew how to play it safe. He also said: “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”
MISCELLANEOUS PITFALLS: AVOIDING SEARCH ENGINE HELL: Chapter VI
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Link baiting is another way you can attract one-way links to your site. Probably the most powerful thing you can do is to write some software or have someone write some software for a free Internet tool. It doesn't have to be very expensive. Most of you probably check your PR by using such tools and when you add such a tool to your site it’s creator or licensor gets a nice one-way link. You could be that person. Another way to link bait is to take advantage of the social networking or social media bandwagon and simply create some interesting content on your website that people will link to. An example of a link baiting web site is the Subservient Chicken web site created by Burger King. So many people linked to that web site that to this day it is top ranked on Google in a keyword search for chicken. You can type in a command for the chicken! Try it.
OTHER IDEAS FOR OBTAINING ONE-WAY LINKS: Appendix I
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Keyword stuffing in the meta tags is another waste of time dealt with by the engines years ago. We discussed meta tags in Chapter 4. The most abused meta tag is the meta keywords tag. I’ve seen them stuffed with hundreds of words. That’s why most engines have stopped reading it. Just the fact that Google has publicly stated that it uses the meta keywords tag largely as a method for detecting spam web sites should sober you up from this tag’s intoxicating appeal.
BLACK HAT SEO (WHAT NOT TO DO): Appendix II
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Here’s a really cool tool if you think you might be in any sort of suspicious linking program. It allows you to check what are called C-Class Back-links. What it does is group your back-links according to the C-Class IP addresses they come from. So, for example, if one back-link comes from 53.25.14.5 (be aware your real web site address is a number not a domain name) and another comes from 53.25.14.6 they would be grouped together. Back-links coming from the same C-Class IP are most likely hosted by the same company, which may then diminish the value of such links and consequent search engine rankings. This may also be a smoking gun for spam linking. As mentioned elsewhere, Yahoo penalized 20,000 real estate sites recently due to spam reciprocal linking. Since they all had the same host there’s a good chance many of them were classed as having the same address. To check your C-Class back-links go here.
Cool Webmaster Tools: Appendix III
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