Think Local For These Six Easy To Score Incoming Links

Incoming links are not always easy to obtain!  Fortunately, search optimization experts are really good about finding and securing plenty of quality, appropriate links to help build your site’s link popularity ethically.  But there is one way in particular that you can help move the process along, right from your own neck of the woods.

More often than not, local organizations are eager to help out fellow organizations and businesses within their own communities.  This means that asking for a link will often receive an automatic “yes” response.  Here are 6 great places to start...

1. Chamber of Commerce – That’s right, if you’re a member already, be sure you’re website’s link is listed at your local Chamber of Commerce web directory.  Almost every Chamber organization offers this as a little membership perk.  And if you’re not a member already, you should seriously consider joining—the rewards are well worth it!
    
2. Convention & Visitors Bureau – Most communities have one.  If you provide a service or benefit to the community, and especially if that service might apply to those visiting your community, this is a win-win proposition.
    
3. The Local News – Here’s a thought...the news is always looking for possible stories that involve the community.  If your business is finding unusual success during the current recession, or if you just have a unique story to tell, inform the media via PR or perhaps even a simple phone call.  Be sure to give them the link to your website so they can share it along with the news story.
    
4. Local Only Directories – Chances are, your web optimization strategy includes promotion to several important global-audience web directories.  But have you forgotten to look up the local online directories?  Even most small communities have one—see if you can score a link with yours.
    
5. Provide Testimonial – This works great nationally too, but it works especially well locally.  Contact a few of the businesses you contract with on a regular basis and offer to provide a short testimonial about the merits of the service or product they offer for them to freely post on their website.  It’s not unusual at all for a link back to your site to be included with such a testimonial.
    
6. Better Business Bureau – Providing your customers with assurance is just one respectable reason to become a member of the BBB.  Another reason is that your local area’s organization will probably give a link to your site from your profile on their site.

Again, sometimes it’s easy to overlook the obvious.  Don’t forget about asking for links according to these six tips and also from any other organizations you might be involved with.

Content Accuracy or Content they want?

is now going to rate content on websites base on accuracy!

I can't see why this is required? I think people can determine who they prefer to listen to without help from Google.
Is it really help that Google is giving? After all a company as powerful as Google being in such a position can be a major propaganda tool.

I can't see that this is a good idea or is needed at all.
Why is it they seem to want to target content rather than false advertising?
Why not lower the rank of all these Hosting companies that claim to give people unlimited space and transfer?
Or SEO companies that claim to put you on the first page of Google?

Ralph Nader

There are so many false claims by companies and no one takes them on.
There seems to be a lack of people out there like Ralph Nader who was a champion for the consumer for many years.
And here we have Google who for whatever reason seems to think it knows best what political views you should have or what conspiracy facts are in their mind factual.

I hope the new CEO of Google has a better take on this then the not so bright people that seem to think this is required.
After all if some people want to believe that men from Mars built the Pyramids or that some planet X is heading towards earth that is their right to believe what they want.

What makes America a great country is our right to believe whatever we want to believe.
And if a view is popular Google has no right to try and downplay or squash it.
After all that's something dictators like to do and Americans don't like dictators!

Torrents that maybe everywhere

A problem took place with one of our servers at CW3 Web Hosting.
A reseller had created an account for a client which then canceled the account some time later.
The account was found to have 235 torrents in a folder.

The reseller having been also the website designer didn't delete the account.

So it seems for years unnoticed this account was part of thepiratebay inventory.

But because their website ( thepriatebay.org ) was shut down it somehow caused a ton of traffic to our server.
At first we thought that someone had given the wrong IP address to users which sent them to our server.
Our logs showed that the website variations of tracker.thepiratebay.org had a request for /announce.php
Of course our server does not have such an account ( thepiratebay.org ) nor does it have a file named announce.php.
So we had no clue why thousands of people from China were hitting our server which was causing it to crash.

But after we found these files we believed it maybe the cause.
These files were placed there by the someone as a remote library of files for users of Pirate Bay to use.

So we thought the closing of the website Pirate Bay revealed these files tucked away on our server.
Had their site not been closed we would have never know they were there.

I wonder how many other Hosts have these files on their servers.
I never thought to scan the server for *.torrent until this took place.

We have an Update on this problem from Ernesto at torrentfreak.com
He found the problem was due to the Chinese Government.
This info from  came from viewdns.info.

Ernesto has informed me that many hosting companies were having this same problem with some of their servers.

To me I find this as unacceptable behavior by the Chinese Government.
This has cost me time and money.

Thanks for sharing that info Ernesto.

Website Hacking is becoming a big problem.

We have just upgraded our website to the latest version of Joomla.
The following day the traffic went up ten times the normal.
At first I thought this was great. I thought it was from search engines looking over the new stuff.
This was not the case.

It seems hackers somehow know when a new install of Joomla has happened.
This may also be true for Wordpress but I can only speak of my experience.
The number of hackers was what surprised me all working together at the same goal.
These hackers must have some place where they share info as to have so many hit a site at once is no coincidence.
I have a development website also where we test changes prior to applying them to the live site and it too was hit.
These people must have a way to know a new install of Joomla has taken place.
Either a Bot or somehow a way of getting this info from Joomla's Website.

The page they all hit was the login page.
The countries they came from was:
Russian Federation  14,494 visits
Ukraine  9,954 visits

Our site was hacked once long ago when we were running Joomla version 1.5
We failed to upgrade it and had to restore the site and upgrade it.
After upgrading to version 2.5 we not only keep it upgraded but also have a brute force plugin installed.

If you are installing Joomla or any other application for the first time be sure to use strong passwords.
Change the default user of "admin" to something else.
Install the Brute Force plugin.

Explaining Search Friendly Design To The Marketing Department

Sometimes they just don’t get it.  They mean well, and of course they have the best intentions of your company in mind, but they continue to insist on just getting the company’s web strategy all wrong.  Does this sound all too familiar?

If your company’s marketing department insists on applying traditional, but often outdated marketing tactics to your website, then this scenario probably does ring a bell.  Unfortunately, experts at using the web to its fullest potential all too often are fighting an unnecessary battle with traditional marketing folks who don’t quite see eye to eye with how a website and overall web presence can be used for maximum effectiveness.

Hopefully, you’re one of the lucky ones—working with marketing professionals that really get the web.  But if not, here are a few talking points you might consider bringing up the next time the inevitable conversation takes place again...

• Flash is great—just not for searchable text!  While using Flash as part of a website’s design can look really great and really appeal to the visitors, relying it for 100% of the website’s presentation is a fatal flaw for search engine friendliness.  Search engines rely on the text within your site to index and rank your site.  The bottom line is that the search engines can’t read or understand your site if all text is presented to the readers as a Flash design.
   
• Web visitors want more than your company’s brochure copy.  Yes, web visitors are looking for more than the traditional company brochure—they’re looking for detailed, easy-to-read content.  Sales copy can and does often work on the web, but there’s a time and place for it.  Lengthy, formal dissertations are not acceptable to most visitors of your site; instead, visitors want the details presented in a friendly context.
   
• It’s about more than looks.  Graphic design plays a vital role in both offline and online marketing, but websites must be about more than graphic design alone.  Websites have to have real content to attract visitors through the search engines—a pretty site alone that’s informationally empty just won’t cut it.
   
• A good website is easy to read.  Remember, visitors to your site want to find the information they came for quickly and easily.  Believe it or not, the way the information is presented has a huge impact on whether or not they’ll stick around long enough to find it.  The first rule is to keep the default font size large enough for comfortable reading.  Next, it’s a really good idea to keep paragraphs short and use bullet points, headers, and subtitles frequently to add whitespace and guide the reader to what they’re seeking.  This might not be necessary in traditional print, but it is the way of the web.
   

In the end, it’s all about keeping in mind that the web is a completely different beast than offline marketing.  While some ideas are cross-functional, in practice, all web experts will tell you that there are major differences too.  Understanding how visitors use the web and offering a solution based on those facts (rather than just the offline marketing goals) is the best way to build upon a foundation of success.