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Do it yourself: Increase Search Ratings

5K views 34 replies 14 participants last post by  jeffsko 
#1 ·
Hi, I recently launched the online presence of my company Edge Line Painting and Finish.

There is some STIFF competition in my market online!

The top google ranked competitor in my market has whats called "Backlinks"--126 of them websites all accross the country.

Back Links are anyplace on the web that have a clickable link to your website. Every Back-link is read like a vote of confidence to a search engine robot and increases your rankng on google, yahoo, and etc


I'm looking for 20-30 people who want to reciprocate back links with me. My only requirement, is that you are not in my work area Charlotte, NC region

How it works:

--I'll post a link to your website in the bottom of a page of mine,
You do the same with my link on your own website,

--we email, or message each other to check the link to see it's there

-- as long as my link is on your site, yours will be on mine


The Links don't have to be seen by humans, the search engines will still read them

That's it! We help each other out :thumbsup:...
 
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#3 ·
I would suggest you do a little more research before heading down the reciprocal link road. The recent changes with Google (Panda, Penguin) may end up hurting you more than helping.
Focus on good content, sharing on Social Media, guest blogging and other methods focused on providing good info, rather than just for SEO sake and Google will reward you.
 
#4 ·
Your absolutley right, ---in the case of automated link generation, or paying someone on ffiverr.com to "make 2000 back links".

But...

As long as the websites Have similar content... Ie two painter's websites, the links have heavier weight with search bots.

It also helps to have .gov or .edu websites link to you, but who knows how to get those for free

.... of course the algorithms are so advanced now adays that no single approach will give you an edge..... you gotta hit it with a combination of techniques, and give it time to be indexed.
 
#8 ·
I've also listed myself on like 20 directories... manta, Yellowpages & etc. Still waiting on google and bing to process my "verification and then get on their maps.

On Yellowpages, I went from # 147 to #5 in 2 days, but today I dropped to #8

Got another 5 star review today, so hope that helps me in the future
 
#22 ·
Plus the link juice degrades across every link so reciprocal linking now results in only loosing link juice.


This is per Matt Cutts.
If you don't know who he is you should google him.


Thanks... I'm still working on building up my site and getting more content in there. Have you checked it out? any thoughts?

http://www.edgelinepainting.com
Like said before... You really need to work on your site. AND be more creative than this to bait people to your site. If people are visiting and then bouncing off right away because there is no good content then your CTR drops and google considers you not worth listing. There are plenty of other painters that will and are doing more with their site.

However it sounds like you want to go the easy road. This road isnt so easy anymore but with alot more creativity you can do it. You'll just be chasing the next easy way every time google catches up to you though. In my opinion you should look at the quality content side of things.

I'm no expert but google sure loves my site and its only 6 months old. Check it out. LOL
 
#13 ·
Exactly. I was extremely lucky maybe six years back to get a reply posted on a major news site. The site was so powerful that even this particular story/page (on pressure washing) was a PR4. I was able to call myself "pressure washing company" and the URL was linked to my posting name.. so basically it became a keyword targeted text link. The link was a do-follow and within a week (before google places) my site became number two in the world when doing a global search for "pressure washing companies".

Getting a link from a new website, and even worse a link from some obscure "links" page with no rank whatsoever, is not worth the effort.
 
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#17 ·
Scott.. page rank. Its not how well a page appears in a Google search, it is more a dynamic of how popular the site is. Its also an exponential ranking. A PR4 is many times more powerful than a PR2.

Joe Painter: PR0-PR1
The local paint store: PR2
Strong forum, bigger company sites PR3-PR4
Manufacturers, megaforums: PR4-PR5

From there you have sites like Amazon, Ebay, Yahoo. Which are all probably PR9-PR10

The higher you're PR, the more authority is given to your links. If Sherwin Williams would link to your website from their homepage, it would be over. You would own the number one spot for all that is painting in this area and probably most of the country.
 
#18 ·
Scott.. page rank. Its not how well a page appears in a Google search, it is more a dynamic of how popular the site is. Its also an exponential ranking. A PR4 is many times more powerful than a PR2.

Joe Painter: PR0-PR1
The local paint store: PR2
Strong forum, bigger company sites PR3-PR4
Manufacturers, megaforums: PR4-PR5

From there you have sites like Amazon, Ebay, Yahoo. Which are all probably PR9-PR10

The higher you're PR, the more authority is given to your links. If Sherwin Williams would link to your website from their homepage, it would be over. You would own the number one spot for all that is painting in this area and probably most of the country.
Thanks for the info Ken.
 
#19 ·
It still goes back to content, and serving your customer. How will a backlink to a painter in another area help your customer? Where can you get your links added that will provide a resource? I did a search for "charlotte north carolina business blogs" and here is one example. What if you did a guest post linking your site? Win-win.

Ken, funny you mention SW, they put a link to my blog on their page here,. I get 2-3 hits a day from the market I am targeting, so I agree backlinks are good, for the right reasons.
 
#21 ·
Another thing you may want to invest in, is naming all your pictures to reference your company name.

Also, specifically name the areas in which you service.

Such as my site, instead of saying 'We serve all of WNY' or 'We serve Buffalo and surrounding areas'

I put it we serve Amherst, N.Y. and Williamsville N.Y. this way people searching for 'Amherst NY Painters' im right near the top.

I also broke down my pictures by what the contain - Painting, interior, exterior, plaster, drywall, sandblasting.

Then I went a step further and included which down said pictures were from. This way it 'seeds' my website better.

Also consider posting yourself on many business related directories as you can. Takes maybe 15 minutes a day. Sniff out your competiton and see what sites their cross linked with, such as the yellow pages, yahoo business directory, merchant circle, facebook, ect.
 
#23 ·
I subscribe to and read Matt's blog. His stuff is right from the horse's mouth.

There is some new stuff google is using that can be manipulated (star ratings, snippets, etc). Things are changing to social media driven but traditional SEO tactics still produce the results. The main thing for anyone trying to rank is to diversify and have links coming from everywhere including no-follows so it looks natural.
 
#25 ·
Reciprocal links are useless. Most directories are useless. The only real links that are going to matter soon are links where you can't control the anchor text. Google values those above all else.

In other words....

If I trade links with someone here...nada. I can game the anchor text.

If I get an article published in the NYT, I probably don't control the anchor text they will use to link to me...much more valuable.

Linking for the sake of linking is a dying art in the SEO game. There are many more indicators that as a whole are outweighing linking. I have been preaching about something Google has in it's arsenal called "AuthorRank". That is something to start to focus on going forward.
 
#27 ·
GrantsPainting said:
What about internal linking to other pages with (of course) anchor text. Will that still let google know a bit more about what I want it to show for? kinda like tags on posts do.
Only way I can reply to thread on iPad is through a quote. Anyway this thing with content, how many different ways can a painter say he does painting and where ? Same with all his content? All websites pretty much have the same content whether there roofers painters etc. Look I get the whole content thing hell I've had a nice website since 2000 . Just when I thought I had it all figured out google changes the game..

As for social media being so important I'm not so sure it's what all the experts say. I am a frequent poster on FB and love twitter have a good following. Maybe it's working for me and I just don't know it. As for back links. I haven't got the front links figured out yet and don't get me started on duplicate content...
 
#28 ·
thinkpainting/nick said:
Only way I can reply to thread on iPad is through a quote. Anyway this thing with content, how many different ways can a painter say he does painting and where ? Same with all his content? All websites pretty much have the same content whether there roofers painters etc. Look I get the whole content thing hell I've had a nice website since 2000 . Just when I thought I had it all figured out google changes the game..

As for social media being so important I'm not so sure it's what all the experts say. I am a frequent poster on FB and love twitter have a good following. Maybe it's working for me and I just don't know it. As for back links. I haven't got the front links figured out yet and don't get me started on duplicate content...
https://twitter.com/hubspot/status/306891729905270784
 
#29 ·
Here is the direct link to the article for the non twits.
That is a good article, and my take is that it emphasizes the fact the SM should be driving traffic to your site. Look at your analytics and see where traffic is coming from and build on that.
I think you need to have a consistent message, when someone from FB. Twitter, Linkedin, etc goes to your site, it should be similar in branding and content.
 
#31 · (Edited)
Thought this was worth mentioning. PR is not that important with how well you webpage ranks on google. PR is updated a few times a year...maybe 2-3 times. You can have a high PR value and come up very low when you search a desired key word for your site. I have a a PR value of 0 and my page ranks on the second page of google for all important key words...and climbing. I should be in the number one spot in a few months. I don't have any back links on other websites. I've done it by writing keyword rich blog posts but have done it in a way that is useful to potential clients. SEO is mostly based on writing. If you have a blog and make regular posts, you will rank high very fast. I wouldn't worry so much about getting traffic to your website. Just worry about writing blog posts.
 
#32 ·
RCP said:
Here is the direct link to the article for the non twits.
That is a good article, and my take is that it emphasizes the fact the SM should be driving traffic to your site. Look at your analytics and see where traffic is coming from and build on that.
I think you need to have a consistent message, when someone from FB. Twitter, Linkedin, etc goes to your site, it should be similar in branding and content.
What About My Service Area?
Unfortunately there’s not a great way for you to add a larger service area to your local citations. Google Places for Business has an option to add a service area, but it doesn’t seem to work nearly as well for ranking for local terms as adding a physical address does. This seems a little ridiculous – whether a plumber will come to my house is way more important to me than where that plumber’s brick-and-mortar location is– but it’s the way they like it.
I know it can be tempting to add fake locations in cities that you serve but aren’t located in, but resist the temptation! You’ll be found out quickly enough and it will negatively impact your overall local performance. Instead, try to use on-page factors to rank for keywords in your other target cities.
Exercise care when you’re setting up your local profiles – incorrect data is hard to fix and can stay around for a long time.
One awesome thing about optimizing for local search is that even sites with no website at all can still take many of these steps to be found on the internet. It can be a great option for businesses that don’t have a lot of time or resources to devote to their websites, as well.

This what I was talking about if your brick and mortar address is in a barren no work here land your screwed cause that's how google plays. If you service a area in a 50 circumference of your address how do you SEO for that? That's my biggest beef before duplicate content was bad it worked very well.
 
#33 ·
That was kinda hard to read &rsquo: Not sure if thats just my browser or not

To put a city name in google places categories is now against the quality guidelines. That's why if your not a brick and mortar, you have to use a "service area" and not show your address. This is good for people that live a little off the grid and away from where you service. However the ones that live in the service area are still getting this advantage for now at least. I use city names in site titles, page titles and meta descriptions and that helps my organics but as far as google maps I GIVE UP!

Does anybody really see business from maps.google.com anyway?

I get plenty from the organic search... Not to say I wouldnt like to get more from google places... I'll be more than happy to wait till they get it all figured out with google+ local and google places. Right now its just a mess.
 
#34 ·
GrantsPainting said:
That was kinda hard to read &rsquo: Not sure if thats just my browser or not

To put a city name in google places categories is now against the quality guidelines. That's why if your not a brick and mortar, you have to use a "service area" and not show your address. This is good for people that live a little off the grid and away from where you service. However the ones that live in the service area are still getting this advantage for now at least. I use city names in site titles, page titles and meta descriptions and that helps my organics but as far as google maps I GIVE UP!

Does anybody really see business from maps.google.com anyway?

I get plenty from the organic search... Not to say I wouldnt like to get more from google places... I'll be more than happy to wait till they get it all figured out with google+ local and google places. Right now its just a mess.
That was a quote I got from a SEO google blog although it is how they work.
 
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