Search engine optimization is a huge challenge to many a webmaster. Especially low cost or free SEO programs that they often tend to carry out on their own.

Probably the most popular SEO method used by majority of webmasters is that of reciprocal linking. Little wonder that reciprocal linking software ha taken off in a big way in recent times.

Yet there is a much more powerful SEO tool available to any webmaster or blog owner. And that is a free article posted at leading article directories and popular article sites. Not very much is known about this strategy as an SEO tool. Therefore a lot of experience webmasters may be surprised that any body can consider using articles as their own SEO tool.

Actually there are two distinct and colossal advantages that Articles have going for them as potential SEO tools. The first is the sheer effectiveness of articles as a SEO tool and secondly is that rapidly multiplying the number of links that you have out there pointing to your site requires very little or no additional work from the webmaster or blog owner.

Let us start by examining the effectiveness of articles in driving targeted traffic to a site. There is little doubt that well written articles posted at a couple of good article directories and high traffic sites are much more effective in generating traffic for a site, quickly than reciprocal links tend to be. One of the reasons is that an article will tend to give much more detail than the short paragraph complete with text links that a reciprocal link will usually give about the site that it is pointing to.

Links in free articles submitted to other high traffic sites tends to have a much higher potential for rapid multiplication than just reciprocal links do. The reason is in the fact that the rule is that anybody who likes your article is free to re-post it at his or her site. The strict condition is that they ensure that they leave the article intact complete with your links pointing to your site or sites. So in actual fact, you can start off with a few articles containing a handful of links but with a very short period of time end up with dozens and even hundreds of links as a result of this marvelous viral effect.

This is what makes it very viable for any webmaster to use articles as their only SEO tool. And in fact an increasing number of webmasters are doing just that.

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Search engine optimization has evolved into a competitive, growing industry. There are plenty of hoaxes and scams on the web. It seems that as the Internet grows more complex, so do the scams. Choosing an effective company can be quite a challenge. There are many factors to consider when hiring an SEO service. This article gives advice on how to select a credible website optimization service.

Assess the services and credibility of the SEO company. Customer service is always the key factor that one should look at. There are many ways of assessing an SEO service. One can try to inquire by placing a call or by sending an email to the company. Depending on the courtesy and time of response, you can initially assess its customer service. Does the company provide an “about us” page on their website? A reputable online business will provide an informative look at the personal side of their company and who they are. Look for other company details such as, the company address and location.

Avoid a guarantee of instant results or the #1 position. There are many factors to consider when optimizing a webpage. Search engines use different algorithms and their spiders can vary. Any SEO company that guarantees the #1 position in the search results should be avoided. A legitimate company will be straight forward and honest and will tell its clients that no single company can give a guarantee of the top positions in the search results. A desireable SEO service should also provide reports and details regarding the standing of a client’s website. They will be able to track the developments of their clients website in terms of keywords, links and their rankings in the major search engines.

A customer testimonial can provide a valuable insight when assessing a company’s credibility. A satisfied customer is always a good indication of the effectiveness of a company’s operations and will always be the most valuable piece of information about its integrity. If possible try to locate and contact people who have received benefits from hiring an optimization service or at least try to validate the testimonials.

It’s important to consider the cost of website optimization. Keep in mind a higher price does not necessarily mean the expensive services are more effective than the less expensive ones. The optimization rates companies charge may vary greatly. Search engine optimization is a trial and error process which requires research, hard work and dedication. Make sure the SEO service is primarily involved in search engine optimization and does not treat it as a sideline.

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Now, here is the tricky part. Your content should be optimized for search engines, but still easy to read for normal people who don’t want to read “Cash Advance” every other sentence. The best practice is to write for your target audience first, then add your keywords in a few places (but not over kill the article with keywords). This way, when you get someone to visit your site, they’ll be more likely to order your products or services (or read your articles in that the goal of the site).

Also, search engines love fresh content because is more accurate then outdated information. So try to update your site on regular bases and add different articles or pages often. If your content is unique, it will stand out higher in search engines then copying other pages because search engines are able to find the original document sources and remove irrelevant duplicates. There are other advantages to using unique content in your site which I’ll cover below.

Now you got your King (content), but he is lonely and need some Queens (links) to bring him up. Links is how search engines find you and spider your pages. Most of the time, search engine will find your site without any links, but the more links you have the faster you’ll be found. Also, when other people link to you, this mean they like your site, which in return tells the search engines that your site will result in a better user experience. But now, with all the link farms and automated link services, it’s harder to find quality sites to link back to you.

Your site will need to be exposed to more site owners, so they can link to you. Also, it should be a very easy process, so always provide “Link to us” page with links and content. Second (and here where unique content comes in handy), include your site link in every article you write (something like By: My name and “my name” will be linked to your site.) This way, if someone copies your site, they’ll more likely to copy the link as well. Also, if you provide RSS, and a lot of sites grab content from all over the web using RSS feeds. Your link will be added automatically as well.

Have fun and good luck with you SEO efforts.

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Let’s go back to basics and understand the concept of linking. Linking in its simplest form is about taking a user on a stage in their online journey, whether it be to find a product, piece of news and information or to learn something new. Now most of the time we know what we are looking for online, so our session has a goal, and with that goal in mind we look to trawl the web and put our trust in navigating around websites till we achieve our goal. Sometimes it can take minutes and a straight forward visit to a search engine and a destination site, other times it can takes us hours, with a journey that takes us in and out of a number of different websites.

Now if you keep that concept in mind when thinking about link building you’ll soon realise that the ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ approach to building link popularity is fundamentally flawed. Links should be awarded on merit and not through back scratching.

Seeking out link exchanges is an inefficient use of your time

What I am going to tell you next is going to transform the way you approach building link popularity. Let’s take a look at a classic link swap scenario. You first of all spend a few days looking for sites that have link swap directories on their website. You contact the webmaster explaining that you would like to engage in a link exchange. The webmaster agrees to link to you once you have placed a link back to his site first. You set up the link and email the webmaster. You visit the site to check your link and you find your link buried deep within the site on a page that has a low page rank and surrounded by 50 other web links. You then repeat the process with another site. Now here comes the killer, you’ve spent all that time building up those links, a few months later you return to some of the site’s where your link was placed and you find that some of them have been removed. You get in touch with the webmasters and ask them why your link has been removed. They get back to you and tell you it was an accident. Yeh right, they removed the link deliberately so they could gain a one way link from you. After a few months has passed you notice that your link popularity has not increased in Google – so again you revisit some of the sites that were linking to you and check your links (or by now you might have bought some link checking software to do that for you). You see that your links are still there, but you’ve read that sometimes webmaster’s adopt sneaky techniques to prevent the search engine spiders from following the link. Low and behold you see within the source code of one site that they are using a “nofollow” tag on the link.

Now tell me is all this effort worth it? Link exchanges open up a new can of worms for you – coming into contact with black hat SEOs!

Now consider the opposite. Why not spend the time on creating compelling content or interactive tools that people will naturally want to link to. Not only are they likely to provide you with a link from a page that is likely to be visited, but it will be a one way link, and a few one way links from respected websites are worth more than 50 reciprocals, take my word for it. Plus you’ll have something of real value on your site that visitors will use and may even tell other people about. With this approach to link building you’ll generate more ‘noise’ about your website and encourage other website owners to link to you, because you’ll have something on your own site, that will be of interest to their own visitors.

With link building it’s better to think about building a name for yourself and focus on growing your online reputation as opposed to growing your list of reciprocal link partners. So the message is clear: ‘quality over quantity’ is what counts when it comes to growing link popularity.

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Search engines still use links to find new sites and to help with the calculation of a web sites importance or value. So the exchanging of links is still a very usefull way to promote your site and increase its importance to the search engines.

There are three main types of link exchange. The first type is the reciprocal link, where you literally exchange a link with another web site. They put a link to you on their web site, you place one to them on yours.

The second type of link exchange is not really an exchange at all. A visitor to your site simply decides that they will put a link to your site on their site. Maybe they like the information that is presented on your site or they like your product etc. These one way links are considered to be more important by the search engines than reciprocal links are.

This leads us to the third type of link exchange. This method of link exchanging is an “artificial” type two link exchange. How can that be? Aren’t type two links voluntary links placed by a visitor? Yes they are, but that effect can be simulated by doing the following. Basically the idea is to create a “triangle” of links - and it requires at least three web sites for it to work. Picture( or draw ) a triangle with a web site at each of the three points of the triangle. The web sites are any three sites, and they each only link to one of the other sites. So if the sites were to exchange links in a clockwise direction around the triangle they form an “artificial” set of one way, voluntary links.

So thats the three main link exchange types, now how do you go about the actual process of link exchanging? Well its really quite simple. The best way to exchange links is to ask the other web site if they are interested in do so. Usually the request is sent via email or a form on the site you wish to exchange links with. Regardless of how you contact the webmaster of the other site, remember to be polite and to give them all the information they may need to complete the exchange. For example, briefly introduce yourself and your site, with a link back to your site so they can have a look at it. It is good practise to have their link on your site before you contact them for an exchange. Once you start exchanging links you will soon work out what to say and how to say it. Unfortunately many sites are very slow to respond to link exchange requests, so it can take a long time to create a link directory - but it is still well worth doing.

There are “rules” for creating a link directory that should be followed if you want to get the most benefit from it. The rules are very simple and they go something like this.

1. Only exchange links with sites that are relevant to your site. Why? Isn’t any link a good one? Yes, to an extent all links are good - but some are better than others. If you concentrate your link exchange efforts to sites that are relevant to yours, then your site will be seen by the search engines as more important to your topic than if your links went all over the place. It is also better for your visitors to have a link directory relevant to the topic of the site they are currently on.

2. Don’t make your directory pages too long. In other words, if your directory pages scroll for more than 2 or 3 screens they are too long. Why? Because very few people will scroll further than 2 or 3 screens. So if your link is at the bottom it will rarely be found and that doesn’t encourage a webmaster to exchange links with your site. A common limit is 25 links per page of the directory. If you have more links than 25 for any particular catagory a numbered “sub” page is the best way take the extra links. For exanple if you have a directory page called “Software.html”, then once you fill that page with 25 links, the new page could be called “Software-2.html” etc. Remember to include easy navigation within the link directory - its not there just for the search engine spiders..

Thats about all there is to it, other than using link exchange sites and finding some link exchange software to make the job a bit easier. Happy Linking!

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