It’s almost one year that 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 value these sites received was $500 each and in return, we’ve placed a text-ad on these sites promoting our services (this is also 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). In turn for a link to our site, we now do the following:

-          Keywords Analysis (instead of just one keyword)
-          Optimize your entire site (instead of just the homepage)
-          Submitting a XML Site Map to Google
-          Fixing any Webmaster Central Errors
-          Weekly Ranking Reports (life-time)
-          Google Analytics Setup

The perceived value is now at $1,000.

So, if you own a site/blog that has a PR3 or more (or you know someone who does), you should contact us now.

The optimization work has helped everyone’s ranking on Google, Yahoo! and Bing. We have received many comments on our blog as well as privately thanking us. We also 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 need many natural links pointing to your site. To encourage sites to link to yours, you need to have fresh/quality content and contact hundreds of sites promoting yourself. This counts for over 90% of SEO work and that’s what we’re really good at (sorry… this is not free).

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.

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In the previous part of this article I narrowed down what Google is interested in into two categories: 1) content and 2) links. We discussed content in Part I and here we’ll focus on links.

Generally when we talk about links we mean any link that is either placed on your site pointing to another Web page (outbound) or placed on other sites pointing to your Web page (inbound). By “links” in this article, I’m only referring to the latter.

Google’s success has been mostly because of its decision to rate Web sites based on the quantity (as well as the 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 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.

Google’s principle is 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 atop Google search results – despite the quality of their content.

On the other hand, Google fawns 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^st page position in a competitive market?

The answer is not simple.

First, you cannot just sit and wait for other sites to link to you. 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 R&D team works every day to find new methods/techniques so we can semi-artificially (and yet naturally) improve our clients link popularity and therefore their Google ranks. To help our readers, we share our newest techniques so you can engage in tried-and-true link-building campaign to help rank your site atop Google. And here is a list of what works for us:

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

Directories: we submit our clients site to many directories (that have a PR3 or more). Here is a list of directories we recommend.

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

Press Releases: writing/optimizing/submitting press releases to news sites has huge benefit 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/friends’ sites.

All the above is much easier said than done. Engaging in all the techniques above requires months of hard labor and 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, then you need to learn the hoops of SEO. With hard work it’ll take you a couple of years to master the techniques and with investing some money and a lot of time, you’re able to rank your site above everyone else.

But smart business people who have financial backing delegate important tasks to professionals instead of spending years mastering what someone else already knows and instead focusing on YOUR business. If you are that person, fill out our form and I’ll be happy to look at your site and see if it qualifies for our Top of Google program.

Popularity: 52%

• What is Google looking for when indexing/ranking your Web site?
• Why is site X ranking number one while my site ranks on the 5^th page?
• Site X is not even a good site, so, why does Google think it’s better than mine?
• Is it even possible to rank my 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 and SEO spokesman, has said numerious times that googlebots (Google Spiders) look for over 200 criterium to identify which site should be above the others. In other words, there is a clear formula in these mega software that scores each Web page for these factors and gives it a number. This secret number sometimes correlates with Page Rank (a number from 0-10 given to each Web page by Google).

The list of what Google looks for on your Web page is secret, but I have narrowed down the most important factors to: 1) content and 2) inbound links.

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 only interested in the content of your site (text, videos, images). As long as the back-end code is not interfering with its spiders to crawl your site, then everythign else except the text becomes irrelevant (one exception is the title tag –which is in the code; the other is the description meta tag).

Then we should ask “what should I do so Google likes my content”?

The simplified answer is “having lots of original, relevant, fresh content without any grammatical mistakes”. This will in turn help your efforts to attract inbound links.

Original Content
What is 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 de-indexed by Google for simply having duplicate content. On the other hand, even 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 an 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 re-writing your home-page content once a month. So you maintain having 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 re-write it at least once a month.

Updating the Site
What we’ve learnt in many years of optimizing sites for Google is that the more often a page is updated, the more Google would be interested to index it. This is one of the important factors in ranking your site on Google search results.

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 synonym keywords within your content.

Clean Copy
If your site has gramatical or spelling mistakes it will negatively effect your site’s ranking. The best is to hire an editor to edit your site’s content. You can get this done rather very cheap (sometimes at $25/page).

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

In the next part of this article, I’ll be focusing on inbound links as the other important factor in Google SEO. Stay tuned.

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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.

Popularity: 48%

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: 72%

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.

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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: 100%

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: 82%

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: 54%

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: 52%