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.

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• 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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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.

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Google recently upgraded the Page Rank for our Web site from a 4 to a 6. This accomplishment is a result of our skill with SEO and hard work – and demonstrates how our clients can benefit by signing up for our SEO services.

Page Rank is the result of Google’s search algorithm, which gives a number to every hyperlinked set of documents as a measure of its importance on the Web. The algorithm assigns each Web site a number from 0 to 10 representing that site’s value to Google. The 0 to 10 scale is logarithmic, like the Richter Scale, so that each number is exponentially harder to achieve than the previous number.

Google does not reveal all the factors that go into determining Page Rank, but the score does depend in part on the number of inbound links for a Web site as well as the quality of the pages providing inbound links. In other words, if site A links to site B, Google interprets that as a “vote” by site A for site B. The weight given to site A’s vote, however, depends on its Page Rank. If there are no links to a Web page, there is no support for that page. Another factor influencing Page Rank is how often the Web site is updated with fresh content.

“We are very pleased to have Master Google’s Page Rank increase so dramatically,” said Master Google CEO Ali Husayni. “Since each number on Google’s Page Rank scale is exponentially harder to achieve than the previous number, the fact that Master Google’s rank has increased so quickly to a 6 is a tribute to the hard work of our employees and the high quality of our Web site’s material. Most SEO Web sites never achieve a Page Rank of 6. So, we’re ranked right up there among the best SEO companies in the world.”

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Almost eighty percent of users click on organic links on Google’s first page. And being there requires that your site has a high Page Rank and is perceived by this giant search engine as an authoritative Web site. For Google, the determining factor is how popular your Web site is on the Internet. In other words, how many high quality sites are “endorsing” your site or “referring” to it by placing a link on their site pointing to yours.

There are many ways to improve your link popularity and therefore your Google Page Rank (PR), but some of the techniques are more controversial than others. The “organic” way is to provide top-notch content and encourage other sites to link to yours.

Although much of Google’s formula for determining Page Rank (or a Web site’s popularity) is secret, they have revealed that the more sites link to your site, and the better Page Rank (PR) these sites have, the more link juice your site will receive.

However, link building the “organic” way can be a slow process and isn’t always guaranteed to work. So, many Web site owners are tempted to use paid links – simply paying 3rd parties to place a link on their sites. The process of buying links for the sole purpose of improving PR is frowned upon by Google and other search engines since they are trying to provide their users with organic search results.

“The best links are not paid, or exchanged after out-of-the-blue emails – the best links are earned and given by choice,” says Matt Cutts, a Google engineer who blogs about these issues. “Google does consider buying text links for Page Rank purposes to be outside our quality guidelines.”

It is important to note that buying links from 3rd party Web sites shouldn’t be confused with paid advertising or Sponsored Links. With paid advertising, search engines have provided a platform where you can pay them directly to place your link on their search results pages – clearly defined as “Sponsored Links.” Usually, you won’t be charged unless someone clicks on the link to your site – thus Pay Per Click is another name for these advertising methods.

Many Web sites do buy links and, done correctly, it can have a positive effect on your Web site’s Page Rank as well as its ranking on Google search results. But, before you start spending your marketing dollars, you should start with a well-organized SEO strategy – which relies on a variety of “white-hat” (and sometimes not-so-much white hat) Google SEO techniques.

If you still think you need a boost from paid links, keep in mind the strategies and cautions below.

Choose Reputable Sites: If you’re link building by buying links make sure the site you are paying for has a high Google Page Rank (PR 5 or above). Remember that your Page Rank increases because of the quality of your links, not just the quantity. Google gives a higher ranking to sites it views as having more organic back-links and offering legitimate content.

You cannot be penalized by placing a link on a link-farm or a site that has been banned by Google, mainly because your competition could have done that in your place. However, that’s just a waste of your time, since the link coming from a link-farm wouldn’t have any value for your site. But this works both ways. Links from reputable sites will increase your site’s PR. Multiply that by an entire network of second-party sites and you’re on the fast-track to success.

Text Links: If you pay someone to provide a link, you want to make sure the link either looks like an organic part of the Web page (like an endorsement of your services) or like an advertisement. If the purpose of a text link is to funnel traffic to your site, then that’s a perfectly acceptable link-building technique. Note that you’re NOT having the link there for improving your PR, although that’s a bi-product (and could well be your main objective). As far as Google is concerned, you have not crossed any lines.

One option is to pay a site to place content with embedded text links leading back to your site. Be careful which words you use as text links. If you use the same text link words over and over on different Web sites, Google’s algorithm may think that your Web site is spamming. Be sure to vary the keywords you use as text links.

Directories: Directories exist for a wide variety of topics and will provide a link to your Web site for free or sometimes for a fee.
When I try to explain the pitfalls of posting links to sites, I remind clients of all the spam and viruses floating about the Web. Now apply that concept to link building. Sometimes it’s not so easy to recognize the sheep from the wolves. In these situations, it’s best to consult with SEO experts before posting links to bad Web sites. Master Google has a lot of experience with guiding its clients through these treacherous waters and has helped many sites get to the top of Google in 2 to 6 months.

Safe directories have competitive Page Rank and have been vetted by Google’s AdSense or a similar service. Google doesn’t consider such sites to be link farms since they are run by human editors who evaluate each submitted Web site for relevance and quality –and there is a chance you will be rejected. Some of these sites operate in a bit of a gray area ethically, but usually Google allows them. However, many paid sites aren’t legitimate directories, so be careful. Only a reputable directory can increase your Page Rank and Web traffic.

Staying Power: Paid links offer another downside: they don’t last as long as organic connections. If you take the time to set up a network of organic links, those links will remain in place – directing traffic to you and raising your Page Rank – for a while. Paid links disappear if you don’t keep paying for them.

Getting Links for Free: Whether or not you decide to buy links, you should also consider how you can get links for free. First, offer great content that people want – and keep it fresh. You can also write articles for another Web site and ask for a link from the byline. Or you can offer good blog content or send out press releases.

So, use paid links if you wish, but be extra cautious when you do so. We’ve seen Google penalize sites for specific keywords when spam techniques were used. Pay only for reputable sites and make sure your text links vary from site to site. Then you’re off to the road of Google SEO success.

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Two days ago, Internet search engine giant Google announced that it has pulled its search engine operations out of China and now redirects all Chinese users to its Hong Kong site. The move is a risky one for Google and an embarrassment to the Chinese government. China’s failure to find an accommodation with Google is also part of an overall pattern of worsening trade relations between the U.S. and China.

In January, Google announced that its computers, along with the computers of over 20 American companies, had been aggressively compromised and sensitive information was stolen by hackers who were traced back to two Chinese universities. The hackers were almost certainly working for the Chinese government since American businesses–and even U.S. government agencies that work with China–have seen a consistent pattern of such hacking. At the time Google said it was evaluating whether it wanted to keep its search engine operations going in China, which has demanded that Google censor its search results for sensitive topics such as protests by Tibetans or Uighurs and the events at Tiananmen Square in 1989. Read more…

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It is now clear that the partnership deal between Microsoft and Yahoo! is going to take place after regulators in the European Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice did not object to it.

“The (European) Commission’s… market investigation has indicated that scale is an important element to be an effective competitor in search advertising,” the EU executive said in a statement.

According to the latest analysis of StatCounter Google now holds 90% of the total market share compared with 7.4 percent for both Yahoo! and Bing.

The actual deal was struck in July of 2009, under which Bing becomes the search engine for both, while Yahoo! will go after the bigger online advertisers.

This is going to mean little for those who have a good ranking on Google search results. A combination of Yahoo!/Bing is not going to affect their market share in the near future. Of course, Yahoo! and Bing hope to take away a chunck of Google loyal searchers by this partnership, but that’s unlikely to happen.

Google has been great in changing its search tactics based on the latest trends in the industry. The other two giants are too slow to follow through.

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Upcoming eBook notification.

I’m currently working on an eBook, which is going to encapsulate what I have learned in the past several years through training courses, studying Google as well as research and development. The eBook on Google SEO techniques is going to be out by March 1^st- I’ve already completed the first draft. Read more…

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Google doubled its search market in 2009, compared with 2008 (so did the number of our clients and revenues). Growing this fast is not an unusual trend for the search engine giant. Yahoo! and Bing schlepped and screamed to “dent” Google’s popularity and yet, Google is no game loser. Its search strategy was as strong as ever. Read more…

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You’re not alone. I’ve heard this at least ten times in the past month. About 50% of our clients don’t believe we can actually deliver on our promise of getting their sites ranked at the top of Google search results. Some leave keeping their beliefs and some decide to let us prove them wrong.

If you honestly don’t believe this is possible, then read on; I may have you believe otherwise.

First, there is a difference between guaranteeing to rank your site at the top and guaranteeing to refund your money if your site is not ranked at the top. Read more…

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