It’s almost been one year since we’ve launched our Free SEO program. We’re honored to announce that we’ve optimized over 700 sites within the past year without charging a dime. These sites have benefited from the following SEO services:

-          Keyword Analysis
-          Home-page Optimization
-          Weekly Ranking Reports
-          Google Analytics Setup

The work that each of these sites received was valued at $500. In return, we’ve placed a text-ad on these sites promoting our services, which also proves to be very valuable to us.

We’ve recently adjusted this service to only include sites that have a PR3 or more (check your site’s PR here). And now, in exchange for a link to our site, we now do the following:

-          Multiple Keyword Analysis
-          Optimization of your entire site, instead of just the homepage
-          Submit a XML Site Map to Google
-          Fix any Webmaster Central Errors
-          Lifetime Weekly Ranking Reports
-          Google Analytics Setup

The perceived value now stands at $1,000.

So, if you or your friends own a site or blog that has a PR3 or higher, you should contact us now.

The optimization work has helped everyone’s ranking on Google, Yahoo! and Bing. In addition, we have received many comments on our blog privately thanking us for our services. We also want to thank all of you for your support.

On the other hand, if you are serious about Google SEO and you want your site to rank atop Google, you will need many natural links pointing to your site. To encourage sites to link to yours, you need to have fresh, high-quality content and network with hundreds of other sites to promote yourself. This counts for over 90% of the work that goes into SEO and it’s what we’re really good at. Sorry, we’ll have to charge you for it, though.

So, please fill out the form on our home-page and we’ll be happy to look at your site to see if you qualify for our Top of Google SEO program.

(Revised on Dec. 5, 2011)

In the previous parts of this article I narrowed down Google’s interests into three categories: 1) content, 2) relevancy and 3) popularity. We discussed content in Part I, and relevancy in Part II of these series.  Here we focus on popularity.

Popularity of a web page refers to the number and the quality of links pointing to it from other web pages on the Internet world. The more “inbound” links a site has and the more they come from reputable sites (in Google’s eyes), the better your site will rank. This is the most important factor in Google SEO.

Google’s success is mostly due to its decision to rate web pages based on the quantity and quality of the links they receive – much like the academia’s rating of a scientific article. The more an article is used as a source by other scientists, the more authoritative that article becomes.

Google uses the same rating method for all sites: the more a site gets referred to by other sites, the more authoritative it is. In other words, the more links a site has, the better rank it’ll get.

This aspect of Google’s algorithm is based on the principle that sites with good content should naturally be used as sources by other sites. But the older Google becomes, the more difficult it gets for sites to naturally generate the needed link popularity in order to rank at the top of Google search results – despite the quality of their content.

On the other hand, Google frowns upon sites that engage in “black hat” SEO to gain artificial link popularity. So, what are you to do if you want your site to compete for that #1 position in a competitive market?

The answer is not simple.

First, you cannot just sit and wait for others to link their sites to yours. That simply won’t happen. In a world where there are thousands of new sites built everyday, your prospective site visitors have no way of finding you to read your content (unless you already rank on Google). Second, you cannot just write comments on 100’s of blogs or forums to gain the popularity you need (because most of these comments and the links you gain from them have “nofollow” attribute – meaning Google gives them no value. And third, what might have worked six months ago (in successful link-building techniques), may no longer be a good practice.

But there are other ways.

At Master Google, our research and development team works everyday to discover new methods we can use to semi-artificially (and yet naturally) improve our clients link popularity and, therefore, their Google rankings. To help our readers, we share our newest techniques so you can engage in a tried-and-true link-building campaign that will help you improve your rankings on Google. And here is a list of what works for us:

Blogging: we build blogs for our clients and constantly keep them up-to-date with new posts, while linking from them to our clients’ sites.

Directories: we submit our clients’ sites to directories that have a PR3 or more. Here is a list of directories we recommend.

Articles: writing, optimizing and submitting articles to reputable sites helps us gain link popularity for all of our clients. Here is a list of article sites with good page rank.

Press Releases: writing, optimizing and submitting press releases to news sites has huge benefits for our clients. We can improve their rankings immediately when we submit releases for them. Here is a list of SEO friendly press release sites.

Freebies: we offer freebies to those site visitors that link to our clients’ sites.

Competitors: we go after those sites that are linking to our clients’ competitors and request links to our clients’ sites.

Partners: we ask our clients to request links from their partners and/or friends’ sites.

All of the above is much easier said than done. Engaging in all of these techniques requires months of hard labor, a complete understanding of SEO and, of course, cash. Nevertheless, we’ve been able to transform local, small businesses into large-international ones in a matter of a few months by practicing what we preach.

So, if you’re someone who doesn’t have the money to hire a professional SEO company (we mean us… lol), then you need to learn the ropes of SEO. With hard work it’ll take you a couple of years to master the techniques and, after investing some money and a lot of time, you’ll be able to rank your site above everyone else’s. Reading my ebook on Google SEO Secrets revealed will also help you.

Oftentimes, smart business people who have substantial financial backing will delegate important tasks to professionals, instead of spending years mastering what someone else already knows and taking away the focus from their business. If you are one of those smart business people, fill out our form and we’ll be happy to look at your site and see if it qualifies for our Top of Google program.

• What is Google looking for when indexing and ranking your Web site?
• Why is site X ranking number one while your site ranks on the fifth page?
• Site X is not even a good site, so why does Google think it’s better than yours?
• Is it even possible to rank your site above site X?

Google SEO is not magic. Google doesn’t favor any site over the others without clear and measurable calculations. But what are these calculations?

Matt Cutts, Google’s anti-spam guru and SEO spokesman, has said numerious times that Googlebots, or Google Spiders, evaluate over 200 criterium to identify which site should be ranked above the others. In other words, there is a clear formula that these Mega software follow and score each Web page by, assigning each site a number. This secret number sometimes correlates with Page Rank- a number from 1 to 10 given to each Web page by Google- but not always.

The list of what Google looks for on your Web page is secret, but I have narrowed down the most important factors to be what’s written on the site, optimization and inbound links. In other words:

Content + Relevancy + Popularity = Top of Google Rankings

Google’s job is to show search results for any keywords you look for. It is true that Google looks at your Web page as a whole, but, in reality, it’s mostly interested in the content of your site (i.e. text, videos, images).

You might ask “what should I change so that Google likes my content?”

The simplified answer is have lots of original, relevant and fresh content without any grammatical errors. This will support your efforts to attract inbound links.

Original Content

The most important factor is to have original content. When it comes to Google, content that is copied from other sites is a big no-no. I have seen many sites get flagged and unindexed by Google for simply having duplicate content. To protect your site if you have original content, search for it on Google to find possible sites that have copied your content. Sometimes Google makes the mistake of degrading sites with original content because others have copied it.

If you cannot keep up with those that tend to copy your text, you can solve this issue by rewriting your homepage content once a month. That way, you can ensure that you have original content at all times.

Fresh Content

Blogs and news sites are good examples of sites that have fresh content on a regular basis. But if your site’s content remains the same, it is a good idea to rewrite it at least once a month. Google announced in Nov. 2011 that it is now more interested in fresh content.

Keyword-Rich Content

Having your keywords mentioned within your content is also very important. If your site is about selling shoes, make sure you mention selling shoes or synonymous keywords within your content.

What you should stay away from, however, is repeating your keywords more than once. Google will quickly degrade your site if it feels like you’re trying to manipulate it in order to place you higher on the search engine results.

Clean Copy

If your site has grammatical or spelling mistakes, it will negatively affect your site’s ranking. The best thing to do is to hire an editor to review your site’s content. You can get this done rather cheap, sometimes for just $25 per page.

In the next part of this article, I’ll be focusing on relevancy, another important factor in Google SEO.

BOULDER, COLORADO — The SEO experts at Master Google recently helped two international companies achieve higher organic search result rankings in record time, thanks to the company’s SEO services.

UK-based Cryoserver made it to the first page of organic search results for its two major keywords within four months of having signed up for Master Google’s SEO services, while Prognition Corp. in Canada has seen significant results within five months.

“While it isn’t impossible, often it is more challenging to achieve SEO success for clients  seeking to attract customers on a global level,” said Ali Husayni, Master Google’s founder and SEO expert. “I believe that our rapid success with these two clients proves that we are using some of the most effective SEO tools available today.”

The website for Cryoserver, which sells email archiving software, didn’t appear within the first 10 pages of Google search results when they signed up for Master Google’s services. In four months, Master Google had ranked the Cryoserver site for both of the company’s main keywords- “email archiving appliance” and “email archiving software.”

“Previously, we had almost a zero ranking,” said Cryoserver’s Robin Bingeman.

Bingeman’s expectations were to get his site onto page one of Google’s search results for his keywords.

“I would imagine if someone were to be looking for a solution that we supply, one would only look at page one or two,” he said.

Although his expectations have been met with the ranking, Bingeman said it’s still too soon to notice a difference in sales because of it. He’s optimistic, though.

Dr. Jay Winburn, president of Prognition Corp., which manufactures Mavenlive, a physical therapy software, is pleased with the results. Their new website had no Google placement on the first four pages of search results. They now rank on the first page in Canada for more than 15 keywords, including “physical therapy software.”

“We had tried doing SEO in-house and we weren’t successful at  it,” Winburn said. “We ended up realizing our time could be better spent with what we’re good at instead of the stuff we didn’t know a lot about.”

Prognition originally selected another SEO firm that provided “virtually no results,” before hiring Master Google to conduct the company’s SEO campaign, he said. Since then he has found a very clear, steady progression relative to SEO results.

“In the last five months, we’re averaging more than four sign-ups a day now for trials, Winburn said.