When you begin SEO for your Web site, you first need to select your main keywords.

Keywords are the terms that Google’s users use to seek out a Web site like yours. “For example, if an individual needs a Philadelphia orthodontist who supplies invisible braces, he or she could search for ‘orthodontist Philadelphia’ or ‘braces Philadelphia’ or ‘invisible braces Philadelphia,’” says Master Google’s Ali Husayni. “Those are all possible keywords for a Philadelphia orthodontist’s Web site.”

Some businesses need only one keyword and others use hundreds. If your list of keywords is long, you need to know how to prioritize them. The most important keywords are not always the most popular – because those are frequently very competitive. A national or international keyword like “physical therapy” is a good example.

Devoting your SEO activities and budget to just very competitive keywords means that you probably won’t get the results you’d like. You’ll get exhausted and discouraged after only a couple months. However, if you select your keywords carefully, you can make progress in a fairly short period. “Once less competitive keywords such as ‘physical therapy software’ have worked for you and your business increases, you can allocate more money to SEO and go after the more competitive keywords,” suggests Husayni.

Below are steps for compiling a list of prospective keywords:

1. Spend some time thinking of the words or phrases that guests at your Web site might employ in a Google search.
2. Search for these keywords on Google and visit the Web sites you find on the first page of your search results. Scrutinize those sites to identify other keywords you may not have already pinpointed.
3. Use Google Adwords Keyword Tool to search on one of your keywords. This tool will provide a thorough list of the keywords from the previous month that relate to your original keyword. Add these terms to your keyword list.
4. A different Adwords column displays those keywords’ volume for the past month. So you can learn which keywords were the most popular that month. The greater the search volume, the more vital that keyword is.
5. Some keywords will have fewer than 1,000 searches per month. Delete them from your list. They usually aren’t worth your time.

What you have left is your list of keywords. These keywords can help rank your Web site on any search engine; however, we only work with Google.

Another option is signing up for a service like WordTracker.com whose function is to help you find and evaluate keywords. WordTracker.com can also supply a service similar to Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

Popularity: 59%

Google looks mostly at the links pointing to a site (inbound links) as the main factor to determine a site’s rank on its organic results. I give this factor an 80% over all the other factors Google looks into. And for most SEO’s, whether experts or newbies, link-building is the most difficult of all the tasks.

To rank your site, Google closely looks at the number of inbound links pointing to your site, the quality of the sites that have the inbound links, the anchored text links associated with each link and finally any traces of human interference to “artificially” increase a site’s link popularity (which will negatively affect your rankings).

I can go into a lot of details on each of the above, but for the sake of this post, I want to focus my attention to the press release development/distribution as one of the easiest ways to acquire quality inbound links for your site. My team has previously put together a list of press release distribution sites you can use for this purpose. Now, I want to give some advice on how to best use press release distribution sites to stay ahead of the game.

Please note that we use the following tips internally and have seen great success within the past few months.

• Hire a professional writer to write your press release. If your press release is not written in the format accepted by the news outlets, they will simply reject it.
• Ask your writer to write multiple versions of your press release. By multiple versions I mean a complete rewrite to the point that only the meaning is similar, but the content is completely different on each release. Much like the same news we read on Google News from different sources.
• One of these versions will be posted on your site as the source and the rest will be distributed.
• The other versions will be posted on a different press release distribution site. This will help you to avoid duplicate content on your releases thus increasing the chance that they will be picked by Google and ranked better with the engine.
• On the bottom of each release, you should include a copy-right sentence to avoid readers to copy/use your press releases.
• Link to the original post on your site (as the source) as well as your site’s homepage or the internal pages from these press releases.
• Your anchored text links should be different, yet contain your main keywords in them.
• Avoid multiple keyword text links. It’s best to link only one word to your site.

Like always, we appreciate your comments.

Popularity: 45%

One of our clients brought up an issue with me a few days ago. While trying to visit relevant blogs to his site and placing a comment there with a link back to his site, he noticed that almost 100% of these sites have a “nofollow” tag.

- Is it worth to place a comment/link where the link will have a nofollow tag?
- Are there blogs that do not have a no-follow tag for the comment sections? How can we find them?
- If leaving comments on blogs has no link-value, then why should we do it?

What is a nofollow tag?

A nofollow tag has the following format (HTML code):

<a href=”http://www.website.com” rel=”nofollow”>text link</a>

The nofollow tag indicates to Google (and other) spiders to not follow the link to its intended place. Thus, making such links value-less from an SEO point of view. The only intended audience for these links are human visitors who cannot tell the difference between a followed link and a nofollowed link (because the code is hidden in the back-end).

Now, getting back to the original questions. The short answer is that if you leave comments to get some link-juice for your site, don’t do it. You won’t get any SEO benefit from them. Because many black-hat SEO companies have abused the comment section of the blogs, almost all blogs have nofollow tags for the comment sections.

On the other hand, they don’t have nofollow tags for the main blog pages or other links on the site.

Instead of leaving a comment with your link in it, contact the blog admin and tell him that you’re interested in placing a link to your site on his blog/site.

Here are some tips to get the most benefit from your efforts:

- Check the blog’s PR (Page Rank). Sites with less than PR3 are usually not worth your efforts.
- In your first contact, indicate that you’re willing to pay a fee if necessary. Most blog owners crave for such business generating from their blog and most are honest people that will honor your agreement.
- Ask for a link on the home page. Home page links have far more value than links from the internal pages.
- Try to make an arrangement for a year at a time – the longer your link stays on a site, the more value it will have with Google.
- Pay monthly if you can.
- Give the blog admin the exact URL and anchored text-link to be used for the link.
- Also give him a description to go with/around your text link – a text-link without any text around it could be viewed negatively by Google.
- Varry your anchored-text as well as the URL for the best results.
- Monitor your link on a regular basis.

Still, visit blogs and leave comments with links to your site, not for the benefits of SEO, but for encouraging other blog visitors to visit your site. That generates traffic/customers and if you have excellent content, could lead to natural links for your site.

Popularity: 65%

Updated on July 13, 2010 (we added 15 new websites to the previous list.)

Press release distribution was the focal point of 2009 link-building campaigns. Many high-end SEO companies used this technique to:

1-     Provide their clients with a presence on Google News

2-     Drive more targeted traffic to their clients’ sites

3-     Obtain high-quality inbound links. Read more…

Popularity: 80%

One of the primary tenets of SEO is this: always have updated content. When Google reads, indexes, and ranks sites based on their content, it examines more than 200 criteria to rate Web sites for every key word. One of these criteria is how often a site’s content is refreshed.

Fresh Content: Google’s Web site rankings give priority to Web sites that stay current on the events in their field of expertise and that can show they are doing new things. Fresh blog posts, additional pages, or re-written pages show that the Web site is up-to-date and helps to encourage visitors.

“Major search engines not only rank pages upon relevant content…but by fresh content as well,” writes Loren Baker on SearchEngineJournal.com. “Even after your site has been ‘optimized to the max,’ your rankings will increase to a certain level and then not go much higher. To get to the top and stay there, your site should deliver fresh, relevant content on a regular basis.”

“Here at Master Google, each month we create one or two new writings for every client and put them on their site,” says Ali Husayni. “You can also refresh your content by re-writing your homepage – or a different page on your site. You are providing your visitors with identical information, but you’re giving the sense that your Web site is current – and that will get it a better Google Web site ranking.”

How Much Fresh Content? The more frequently a Web site is refreshed, the higher it will move in the rankings. For example, news sites tend to receive high Google Web site rankings because they’re updating their pages several times a day.

“We can create new Web site content for our clients as often as they like, but the expense could outweigh the positive effect if we refresh it more frequently than 2-3 times a month,” explains Husayni.

Other SEO experts support this idea. On SEO.com, Scott Smoot relates this story: “I noticed a huge drop in my traffic from organic search…It provided a powerful example of the need for fresh content…I hadn’t updated for almost 4 months. I have no doubt that other sites competing for my keywords were updating more regularly. I went into my site and submitted a blog post… just a ‘sorry I haven’t posted anything lately’ post…The result was a complete return of the rankings and traffic (and then some).”

How Much Contend Must be Re-written? No one really knows. Google reveals very little of its page ranking formula – and that information isn’t included. “If we revise a Web site’s content, we strive to re-write 100% of it,” remarks Husayni.

Popularity: 24%

We are experiencing greater success in placing our clients’ Web sites at the top of Google than in any other time in our existence. This success is the result of carefully honing our skills in optimizing complex sites and improving their rank on Google.

We employ a unique combination of press releases, articles, and SEO blogs to continuously update each client site’s content. Our sophisticated link building methods have permitted us to help many clients move into Google’s upper echelons.

“We never stop working to improve our SEO services to our clients,” Ali Husayni notes. “Google rank and SEO optimization are crucial to a successful Web site. Our staff works diligently to make sure that each site receives the meticulous attention that improves these rankings. It’s a thrill to see our efforts bearing fruit. Now our clients will see better results more quickly than ever.”

We have also been successful in improving the speed with which we remove detrimental Google “red flags,” indicating that Google finds some of the site’s content problematic. We recently removed a sophisticated red flag from the Web site of the cutting-edge UK based company, Cryoserver.

“We were pleasantly surprised when Google placed Cryoserver on its first page results less than one month from starting SEO efforts,” says Mr. Husayni. “I’m very proud of my team. They worked very hard to help this company achieve its rightful Google ranking – in a very short period of time.”

Popularity: 30%

We recently agreed to a partnership with the cutting-edge orthodontics marketing company Ingenuity. The two companies will recommend each other and cross-promote to create a dynamic synergy.

Ingenuity helps orthodontists: improve their number of referrals; build brand recognition; and increase revenue. It does so using a system of internet promotions, user-generated video and photo competitions, and social networking. Using Web 2.0 interactivity to engage patients, Ingenuity improves a client’s capacity to introduce the larger community to his or her practice.

The company uses contests in which patients ask their friends and family to vote for their entries – a picture, video, or essay – on the Ingenuity Web site. When friends and family log on to vote, that orthodontic practice suddenly “goes viral” in its market. The patients have effectively introduced their orthodontists to their acquaintances.

Ingenuity’s marketing system is very effective at increasing clients’ business. Ingenuity’s clients averaged a growth rate of 12% in 2009 – at a time when most of the industry was declining.

Here at Master Google, we are famous for our “Top of Google” offer which guarantees that, within a few months, we will get our client’s Web site to the top of Google for that client’s primary key word – or we will return 100% of the client’s money.

Our profile has been increasing since we launched last summer. Our Google Page Rank recently increased from a 4 to a 6 and, in March 2010, we published our e-book: Google Secrets Revealed.

“Master Google and Ingenuity have complementary objectives and experience,” Ali Husayni said about the partnership. “We are always asked by our orthodontist clients how to market their services and improve patient referrals. Those clients can benefit from Ingenuity’s unique marketing techniques. Ingenuity’s clients will have access to our SEO marketing services.”

“Our clients are constantly asking for SEO advice,” notes Carleton Wilkins CEO of Ingenuity. “Although our program does help our clients’ Web sites’ popularity, we are not specifically an SEO marketing company. We’re happy we can refer them to a reputable Google marketing company like Master Google, a company with a lot of experience with orthodontics and dental SEO. So, it makes sense that we align to better serve our clients’ needs.”

Popularity: 45%

Many of you may have seen your site’s ranking on Google Search Results (SR’S) fluctuate and you have wondered why. Recently, one of our subscribers asked me the same question and I thought it would be beneficial to post an answer for everyone.

I have personally seen Google search results fluctuations since I started my SEO career. For one thing, if it wasn’t for Google changing the search results pages, none of our clients would have had top of Google rankings, right?

But what we mean here is gaining and losing first page or top positions in cycles. Normally, this doesn’t happen for very competitive keywords, as top players always have SEO experts on their sides. But for less competitive keywords, this is a common phenomenon.

Here are some reasons that you see your site’s rankings fluctuate on Google:

1- Posting fresh content: Google values fresh content on sites. Adding a new story to your blog, posting a new article on your site or simply rewriting your site’s homepage could trigger Google bots to move you up the scales a few notch. Same could go for your competitors. However, the improvements in rankings don’t last that often unless you keep on updating your site’s content.

2- Optimization Removal: if our SEO team has optimized your site and you have over-written the optimization work by uploading your old files to the server, you have caused your site’s rankings to be dropped. In this case, you can ask our team to re-upload the files.

3- Different Google bots: each Google bot (spider) uses a slightly different algorithm; so, theoretically, when different spiders visit your site, they would rank your site according to their algorithm.

4- Duplicate content: this is also more likely a theory as I have not seen the proof of it, but I was just reading Google Webmaster Help and someone had claimed if your site’s content is copied by someone else, it could fluctuate your rankings. However, what I’ve seen with duplicate content is that rankings will drop to 10+ pages of Google SR’s.

We appreciate your comments/questions.

Popularity: 45%

On May 10th, we went live with our re-designed Web site and already the site is paying dividends. The “Top of Google Guaranteed” deal has been receiving far more inquiries than previously. Four to five new businesses a day are now seeking our help with marketing their Web sites. Compared to the previous Web site, this is about a 100% improvement.

“I am very excited about all the attention the new site is generating,” said Master Google President Ali Husayni. “It is attracting people who are looking for our services and now they can contact us more easily. Our SEO services business has gotten a real boost from the new Web site.”

The “Top of Google Guaranteed” package promises that we will get a client’s Web site among the top five sites when searching on that business’s main keyword. If we cannot get the site within the top five after a few months, the client’s fees will be refunded 100%.

Simpler to use, our new Web site is also more technologically advanced than the earlier version. Designed with Web 2.0 standards in mind, it is more interactive, making the Web site user the center of the experience. Each part of each Web page is designed to give visitors superior performance.

With a contact form that is simpler to fill out, the site also loads more quickly. Visitors can navigate the Web site more quickly and locate the information they are looking for. The site also includes a new video explaining how our SEO Web marketing services are unique.

Although we can help most of the prospective clients who reach us through the Web site, we must turn away companies that do not qualify for Top of Google placement (most often because of their market’s extreme competiveness) or that cannot devote enough funding to their Google SEO marketing efforts.
“Our plan for placing each site at the Top of Google is individualized for each client because each market is different,” said Husayni. “But, clients do need to understand the realities of the market when they select a budget.”

With greater competition in national and international markets, businesses at that level need to designate at least $20,000 – $50,000 to their annual SEO marketing budget – if they want to be successful. Although some kinds of local business are more competitive than others, most local businesses need to allocate at least $10,000 annually.

“I personally give each qualified prospect their proposal for Top of Google rankings,” explained Husayni.

Since launching the company in the summer of 2009, our profile in the SEO world has been rising. Recently our Google Page Rank went from a 4 to a 6 and we released our e-book, Google Secrets Revealed, in March 2010.

Popularity: 36%

Google rankings of many Web sites suffer greatly because of a phenomenon called “duplicate content.” Our recent client, cryoserver.com was penalized (red-flagged) for this particular reason prior to signing up with us. The site was ranked on page 13 of Google SERP’s for one of their main keywords.

Duplicate content refers to “substantive blocks of content” that match or are similar to “content within or across domains”, according to Google webmaster central. Google simply reduces the ranking of both pages/Web sites if it notices similar content being posted.

Here are some examples of duplicate content and tips on how to resolve them:

Mirrored Sites
Having mirrored sites refers to the same Web site being hosted on two or more different domains. This was basically what cryoserver.com had done. They had their site hosted on cryoserver.com as well as forensiccs.com.

Use a domain-level redirect from one domain to the other to resolve the mirrored sites issue. Also, use 301 redirects for any linked-to Web pages within the redirected domain.

We asked cryoserver.com to redirect the mirrored domain to the main one. After only one week, Google removed the red-flag and now their site ranks on the 3rd page (still some SEO work is needed to get them to the first page).

The same for-sale items on e-commerce Web sites
This is very common when it comes to e-commerce sites. Many URL’s are dynamically created and linked to from the home-page or other pages. Or simply, one product is placed within different categories. To resolve this issue, you should avoid dynamically building your pages and use different description even for the same products if they’re placed on different categories (having different url’s).

Copied text to be placed on competitors Web sites
If someone copies your text and place it on their site, your site could be penalized (flagged) by Google spiders for having duplicate content. This doesn’t happen too often, but when it does, it reduces your site’s rank on Google dramatically. To resolve this issue, you should contact the site that copied your text and ask them (by using all means) to remove the stolen text from their site. If they don’t comply, you should just rewrite your own content (painful, but it’s easier and less expensive than hacking the other site and removing your text).

Print-only versions of Web pages
Avoid print-versions if at all possible. If you cannot, use a “no-follow” tag wherever you link to a print-version copy of your Web pages.

Web pages that generate a mobile-friendly version
Similar to above, use “no-follow” tags so Google spiders don’t follow the link.

If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to ask. We will respond to all questions in a timely manner.

Popularity: 50%