The anchor text that you use to link to your website is very important.  From the best of my research if your anchor text corresponds with your product you will do very well.  If your anchor text does not match it then you will still get search engine traffic from this, but your queries will not be specific to your product.

One test that I did not to long ago was to get a page to rank for some word that I made up. The rules of the test were that the made up word could not be located anywhere on the page.

Well it turns out that I eventually ranked for my made up word, and this was done only by specifically manipulating the anchor text.

Also, (getting a bit off topic here.. but it must be said) there is somewhat of a misconception that untargeted links aren’t worth anything.  Sure, if you get a bunch of links with the anchor text “Cool Website,” these won’t help you rank well for your keyword “Stock analysis.”  What they will do, however is send pagerank to your domain name that you can then “transfer” to other pages of your site using targted anchor texts.  So, always do your best to get as many links as possible.  They will all help you out in someway.

If the content of the page the link is placed on is not related to your content, the link will not be worth as much, but it is still worth something… and this will most likley be a viable process for tipping the scales in your favor.

On one of the tests that I ran, I linked Domain A to Domain B by placing an insane amount of links (something like 300,000 links from A to B).  Resultingly, there was a dramatic effect: Google did not count all the links (Yahoo counted more), but these links were still enough to push the domain past my competitor.

Another hint of advice that I can give is to verify the links are placed on a page that will remain indexed within Google.  This goes without saying, but if the pages you are on get removed, or are not worth anything, your links will also be worth nothing.

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In the past, I’ve paid for other people to do my link building for me.  It’s cheap, effective, and allows you to spend your time doing important stuff (like quality content creative).  Plus, who actually wants to spend 10 hours in front of the computer doing mindless directory submissions?  I sure don’t.

Last week I found a guy to submit this blog to 100 ‘dofollow’ social media bookmarking sites.  He charged me $25.  I told him to use the anchor text “getting more visitors to your website.”  Just a few days after he finished his submissions, I searched Google and I was suddenly #1 for that phrase.  $25 well spent.

My opinion is that outsourcing things like this is 100% well worth it.  Here’s the rundown:

You can outsource directory submission cheaply.

You can outsource article writing cheaply (though you should submit it yourself to make sure it’s done properly)

You can outsource social bookmarking cheaply.

You can outsource blog commenting cheap.

These things are all things that should be done for any website.  They can really help kick start your site’s launch.  If those services are what you need, then find an Indian team (search Digital Point forums) as they will be cheapest.

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You need to do a lot more than the “easy stuff” to see results from your link building efforts.  Search engine results take a LONG LONG time to see good results.  You need to get links from many different sources around the ‘net.  Social bookmarking sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, etc. will send you some good, quick traffic but for the most part, it will only be temporary.  You will need to search around and get links from other sources as well. Think of it like the difference between food you consume.

Blog pings and social posts are like energy drinks with lots of caffeine. Targetted links on high PR sites are more like a balanced diet.

One is fast and the other is slow.

If I want a quick traffic push, I go for pings and bookmarks. But permanent high quality links make much more of an impact, last longer, and also send traffic. The only thing about those is they take a bit longer to see results (and are harder to get).

Think of it like a food pyramid: Sure, I consume caffeine sometimes to give be a boost, but I eat healthy things as my biggest part of my diet because its better fuel.

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Why do people add tools, funny pictures, 101 lists of (something), and other nonsense to their website? Well, despite being fun and enjoyable, they are a valuable resources to attract people to link to your site (aka link bait)

For example - today I was writing an article about finding old, expired domains with a lot of back links. I usually do not link to other sites for no reason but….Without thinking about it, I linked to Yahoo’s Site Explorer to tell people how to find the back links of a domain…. this is one example of how natural links are created.

Believe it or not, you can go from 0 to 1000’s of backlinks in a few months with 0 work. Trust me I have done it before and it works. Any link building that takes work will never be as effective of getting natural links to your website. Remember that JibJab.com political cartoon during the Bush/Kerry election? Do you think they did any SEO link building? I think not. They got all their links because people wanted to link to them.

When I launch a new website, I add 5-6 viral (linkbait) components, in around 3-5 months the sites will naturally rank for the keywords that I want and I never have to go back and update or do anything else to them - these sites are essentially on auto pilot.

Then I will move on to the next site. I will focus on the same thing: quality content, viral components, link bait, etc. and then move on to the other. With this method you can launch 3-5 sites a week and sit back and watch your empire grow!

Successful link baits all have the same similar qualities. If you want people to link to you like crazy, consider doing some (if not all) of these 10 things:

1. Be appealing - Make people want to come have a look. Perhaps be controversial.
2. Be focused on a specific topic - Be super specific. The more specific, the better you’ll do.
3. Be the first to do something - Be a pioneer and you will be rewarded.
4. Be creative - Be innovative with fresh ideas.
5. Be timeless - Make content that will still be enjoyable months, years from now.
6. Be passionate - If your passionate in the content you write, others will make passionate comments (and link to you!)
7. Start out with a bang - Have the opening sentence or paragraph of your writing really catch the user’s attention.
8. Make it easy to link to you - Give every piece of content it’s own separate page. Provide a short description for everything. Make your URLs easy to remember. Have social bookmarking links/buttons.
9. Be investigative - Investigate something in your niche. People like detective work.
10. Write efficiently - Use simple and clear English. (Don’t be afraid to make bold statements.)

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Website loading time is a very important thing for you, as a webmaster, to consider. One of the first things you need to look at before marketing your website is whether or not the loading time is FAST. If your website is loading too slow, most likely you you are getting your visitors pretty pissed off! Don’t even think about doing any type or promotion unless your website is running the fastest it can be… otherwise, your hard earned visitors will abandon you!

First, let’s look at the basic stuff you can do:

• Reduce the number of graphics on your pages
• Compress the graphics (make them smaller in KB)
• Clean up your HTML coding
• Switch webhosts (if you don’t rent your own dedicated server)

Now if none of those things work, and you are feeling brave, try out these more technical solutions:

• Start by analyzing your server load. Are any of the components running out of memory?
• Check your SQL queries to find the slowest ones.
• Enable Apache file caching, gzip and mod_deflate, then check if you have eAccelerator running to cache your compiled PHP.

(There’s a dozen other things you can do, these are the most basic. It’s all a question of how much time you want to spend.)

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