Need Links? Give them something for free!

I ran across an interesting website today that listed the top 100 US domains with the most unique back links.  As any good SEO guy would tell you back links are one of the key factors in ranking well on the search engines so it got me thinking what are some of these websites doing to get so many unique back links?  As you look at the list the answer is quite clear- GIVE WEBMASTERS SOMETHING THEY CAN USE!

Coming in first is Google Maps- This surprised me.  I though for sure it would be just plain old Google but I guess when you think about it Google has done a great job of making their maps easy to import right into a website and it's unusual these days to find a site that doesn't have a Google Map on the contact us page.

In the number 6 position was Wordpress-  Wordpress is one of the best FREE blog software tools. 

Number 10 Youtube.com -  Free video hosting with the ability to embed the videos onto a website (When you embed the videos you create a back link to Youtube)

Number 57 on the list - ezinearticles.com really stuck out in my mind as well.  This site offers articles on a wide variety of content that webmasters can put into their website as long as they link back to ezinearticles.com.  Apparently they do because the back links to this site are off the chart.

Check out the list for yourself.  It's clear to me that if you really want to build a lot of great back links offering free tools or content is where it's at. 

So I know what your thinking..."I'm a wedding photographer, how can I build a bunch of good back links I don't have anything to give away?"  Let's think outside the box a bit here.  How about a page on your site where you have a bunch of photos that anyone can download and use as long as they gave you credit in the form of a link below the photo(Free Wedding Stock Photos).  Next time you shoot a wedding take some pictures of the cake, the buffet line, the decorations etc.  Wouldn't you love some back links from a catering company, a cake decorating company a DJ???  All of these types of companies could benefit from some fee stock photos for their website and in return you could build some great links.  You may not be in the top 100 but some good related back links will make a great deal of difference in your search engine rankings. 

In the words of Jim Rohn:  “Giving is better than receiving because giving starts the receiving process.”

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The home page is not the only page on your website

A lot of the folks I speak to seem to think that the home page of the website should be the page that pops up on the search engines for every search term that is related to a company.  In other words a lot of companies try and optimize their home page for every search term they want to rank well for.  This is a big mistake.

As a general rule your SEO efforts will be most successful if you try and optimize for only one to two closely related search terms per page.  You have a much better chance of ranking well for one or two closely related terms on a page then a bunch of somewhat relevant search terms.

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Analyzing the value of a paid web banner ad

Every so often I get a call or an email from a client that has just been approached by a publisher or marketing website trying to sell them the banner add.  The jist of the question is something like this:

Do you think this site would be worth advertising on? It runs about $500/yr. with first page placement.  www.websitenamehere.com  He’s telling me that they’ve had 14,000 hits, 3,000 per year, which doesn’t include members.

The first thing I do is check a site like http://www.compete.com/ for some more meaningful and realistic traffic levels.  Hits really mean nothing to a marketer and are are typically used by a webmaster that either doesn't know any better or is trying to make his site look better then it really is.  Basically a hit is registered any time a file is requested on a website.  A typical HTML home page with 3 pictures on it and 1 video on it could easily log 5 hits (3 Photos+1 Video +1HTML file=5 Hits) when viewed by a web surfer.    A site like Compete.com will give you a better estimate of Unique Visitors Per Month- which I will use below in the analyzation process.

So I check out Compete.com and see that the site in question averages about 800 visitors per month.


That's 9,600 visits per year so you are paying 5.2 cents per visitor just for them to see your add.

If you get a 5% click through rate- (That's probably on the high side) That's 480 visitors or over $1.00/Click.

So now the question is would I be willing to pay $1.04/Click for leads from this site?????

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The Facts on Search Engine Optimization

The primary benefit of search engine optimization (SEO) is widely known as a prime placement on a search engine’s first result page. Companies across the globe are manipulating their website in order to achieve the elusive status of a first page appearance. There are many things that a company should be aware of in the SEO process. First, it will necessitate change and a significant amount of time. Along with this, keywords will be chosen and links will be earned. Above all, your company should set realistic goals for your search engine optimization.


Change

In order for SEO to be effective, you web page will change; it may be as simple as minor wording adjustments or it may be a complete overhaul. The HTML code on your site must be changed so that search engine spiders can easily scan your site. Along with this, the keywords for which you want to be known must appear throughout your web pages. If you are a small site competing against large sites with various blogs, communities, archives, and forums, your site will most likely require significant change in order to compete.

Time

SEO does not garner immediate results for your website. It should be seen as an ongoing marathon, instead of a ½ mile sprint. A search engine has to first find and index your website. Older, more established sites are rewarded a higher ranking because of their long-standing success. New sites require much more time, sometimes even years, to rank well in big search engines. On the other hand, some sites may only require relatively quick fixes to appear on the first page. Be persistent and continually work toward optimization success.

Keywords

In order to attract your target customer to your site, your keywords should be chosen specifically and deliberately. Although common words may appear on your list, it is also important to target the keywords to the best products/services/information on your site. For example, the website of a cosmetic dentist will contain keywords of elective dental treatments rather than general dental provisions. In this way, you are attracting your target audience to your site rather than those that are looking for something else entirely. It will often take time to find the best keywords.

Links

The right backlinks are crucial to your placement on Google’s results pages. Generally you are looking for links to your site from related websites. Your keywords should appear in the link text. If you only have links that were simple to get, it is likely that their influence will be minimal to Google or another major search engine. Create a high-quality, dynamic, attractive website in order to obtain good links. After all, if your content is bland and dull, no one will find it linkworthy.

Goals

Successful search engine optimization involves setting realistic goals. First of all, the objective is to draw your target audience to your website based on the keywords they have entered into the search engine. You need not lure just anyone to the site; the goal is the draw potential buyers to the site. Additionally, your goal should be to increase your sales based on the SEO efforts.

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Notice of Internet Intellectual Property Rights Dispute in China???

Update 4/22/16-

 I can't believe this scam is still going on. Today one of our clients received a version of this message but the spammer was claiming to be part of Network Solutions. 

We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in China. We received an application from Huabao Ltd on April 18, 2016. They want to register " rockcountyalliance " as their Internet Keyword and " rockcountyalliance .cn "、" rockcountyalliance .com.cn " 、" rockcountyalliance .net.cn "、" rockcountyalliance .org.cn " 、" rockcountyalliance .asia " domain names, they are in China and Asia domain names. But after checking it, we find " rockcountyalliance " conflicts with your company. In order to deal with this matter better, so we send you email and confirm whether this company is your distributor or business partner in China or not? 

We still get a call on this topic once a month or so. Be careful out there people.

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The information contained in this message and in any attachment is intended only for the recipient. It may be privileged and confidential, and should be protected from disclosure. If you are not the intended recipient, or you have received this communication in error, please immediately notify the sender by replying to the message and delete it from your computer. Please be aware that any dissemination or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited.   ­­  

For about the last year or so I have been getting calls from many of our manufacturing customers that are in a panic because they have received an email with the subject line: "Notice of Internet Intellectual Property Rights Dispute in China". 

The email claims to be with the department of Asian Domain registration service in China and they claim to have received a application from a company that is attempting to register my clients brand name  in a domain. 

This is a scam.  They are attempting to sell you a bunch of over priced domain names.  Don't be fooled.   Often times the phone numbers in the email actually work but in none of the cases we have looked at have we found the companies initiating the emails NOT legitimate ICANN registrars.

Here is an example of one such email:

Subject: Notice of Internet Intellectual Property Rights Dispute in China
(If you are NOT CEO,please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent.Thanks.)

Dear CEO,

We are the department of Asian Domain registration service in China, have something need to confirm with you. we formally received an application on July 19,2010. one company which called "Brazil Kpore Investment S.A" are applying to register "YourCompanyName" as Brand Name and Domains.

YourCompanyName.asia (Asia)

YourCompanyName.hk (Hong Kong)

YourCompanyName.com.tw (Taiwan)

YourCompanyName.hk (Hong Kong)

YourCompanyName.net.cn (China)

YourCompanyName.org.cn (China)

YourCompanyName.tw (Taiwan)

YourCompanyName.com.sg (Singapore)

YourCompanyName.com.vn (Vietnam)

YourCompanyName.sg (Singa pore)

YourCompanyName.vn (Vietnam)

YourCompanyName.my (Malaysia)

YourCompanyName.ae (Arab Emirates)

YourCompanyName.co.kr (Korea)

YourCompanyName.kr (Korea)

YourCompanyName.cn (China)

YourCompanyName.com.cn (China)

But we found that "Brazil Kpore Investment S.A" is not the original owner of the brand and trademark in the checking period,which belong to your company .I need confirm with you whether your company authorized that company to register these domain name.If you have done that ,We will finish the registration for them and link to their website.

If not, please let me know ASAP.

In addition, we hereby affirm that our time limit for dissent application is 7 workdays. If your company files no dissent within the time limit, we will unconditionally approve the application.

Best Regards,
Peter Yan(Mr)
Auditing Consultant

Tel: +0086-566-2629-555 Fax: +0086-566-2629-666

Address:Room205, No.D4 Qingxi South Garden, South-ChangJiang Road,Guichi Shi District,Chizhou,China

UPDATE- 12/20/2011

Here is another email I received from what I believe is the same group:

Dear CEO,
(If you are not in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO, because this is urgent. Thanks)
We are a Network Service Company which is the domain name registration center in Shanghai, China. On Dec 15, 2011, we received an application from Hantong company requested "foremosthunting" as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names. But after checking it, we find this name conflict with your company name or trademark. In order to deal with this matter better, it's necessary to send email to you and confirm whether this company is your distributor or business partner in China?
Kind regards 

Paul PangOffice Manager Shanghai Office (Head Office)3002, Nanhai Building, No. 854 Nandan Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai 200070, China Tel:             +86-21-6191-8696       Mobile: +86-182-2195-1605Fax: +86-21-6191-8697Web: www.yiguannetwork.comP Please consider the environment before printing this email

I responded to the latest email from these guys posted above stating that the domain in question was our brand name. This is the response I got back:

"Dear Sirs,We are Hantong company based in China. We will register the "foremosthunting" as internet keyword and CN domain names .cn, .com.cn, .net.cn, .org.cn. We have handed in our application and are waiting for Mr. Paul Pang's approval. We think this name is important for our products in Chinese market. Even though Mr. Paul Pang advises us to change another name, we will persist in this name.Best regardsGareth Lee"

I responded again saying I wanted to protect my brand and this is the response I got back:

Dear Jon Ballard,

Based on your company having no relationship with them, we have suggested they should choose another name to avoid this conflict but they insist on this name as CN domain names (.cn/.com.cn/.net.cn/.org.cn) and internet keyword on the internet. In our opinion, maybe they do the similar business as your company and register it to promote his company.
According to the domain name registration principle: Domain name and internet keyword which applied based on the international principle are opened to companies as well as individuals. Any companies or individuals have rights to register any domain name and internet keyword which are unregistered. Because your company haven't registered this name as CN domains and internet keyword on the internet, anyone can obtain them by registration. However, in order to avoid this conflict, the trademark or original name owner has priority to make this registration in our audit period.
If your company is the original owner of this name and want to register these CN domain names (.cn/.com.cn/.net.cn/.org.cn) and internet keyword to prevent anybody from using them, please inform us. We can send you an application form with price list and help your company register them.

Kind regards

As you can see the end game here is to get me to buy some over priced Chinese domain name extensions.  The next correspondence I received from this company was a invoice.  The invoice contained:

$144/Year from a "Internet Key Word" (My Brand Name)
4 different Chinese domain name extension versions of my URL at $44/Year.

The invoice said it was the "Internet Keyword & CN Domain Name Application Form"

Attached please find this application form. You can find the price from this form. If your company want to make this application, please fill out this form and send it back with the copy of company business license (company registration certificate).

I also asked what a internet keyword was (Only $144/Year) and this is the response I received:

Thanks for your email. Internet Keyword is one of the new accessing ways to internet, which is the real-world brand’s extension and incorporeal property in the network. It is also a new generation of network accessing technology, which can help users get the companies and products’ information directly by inputting the name of company, product, trademark etc. into browser, search engines, regional infoports and so on.
Kind regards
Paul Pang

Here is the latest version of this scam from an Abby Wang 11/13/12 :

Dear Manager,
(If you are not the person who is in charge of this, please forward this to your CEO,Thanks)
This email is from China domain name registration center, which mainly deal with the domain name registration and dispute internationally in China and Asia.
On Nov 12th 2012, We received Kenya Ltd's application that they are registering the name "foremosthunting" as their Internet Keyword and "foremosthunting.cn "、"foremosthunting.com.cn " 、"foremosthunting.asia "domain names etc.., they are China and ASIA domain names. But after auditing we found the brand name been used by your company. As the domain name registrar in China, it is our duty to notice you, so we are sending you this email to check. According to the principle in China, your company is the owner of the trademark, In our auditing time we can keep the domain names safe for you firstly, but our audit period is limited, if you object the third party application these domain names and need to protect the brand in china and Asia by yourself, please let the responsible officer contact us as soon as possible. Thank you!
Best Regards,Abby Wang

 

General Manager
Anhui Office (Head Office)Registration Department Manager
Room 1008 Shenhui Building
Haitian Road, Huli Anhui, ChinaOffice:  +86 0553 4994789
Fax:     +86 0553 4994789

web:  www.ygcompany.org

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What's in a font?

Typography. It's such a beautiful art. Simple adjustments can drastically improve not only how we read text, but how we feel when reading text. Conveying emotions through text via the web has some serious limits. Only a small subset of fonts are going to work cross-platform. Here's the basics.

Arial / Helvetica
Courier New
Times New Roman

Of course it is possible to use other fonts, but those are the basics that are "guaranteed" to work.

Luckily, Google has done it once again. Using Google's font directory we can finally use a wider variety of fonts on the web. This is an awesome service that provides the web with open and royalty free fonts. Not only are these fonts free to use, but Google hosts this service for you. Embedding fonts is as simple as adding a few lines to your web page. Just check out this tutorial on Google's website.

We here at Foremost Media are really excited about this. We are always on the look out for cool new technologies to make your websites look and work great.

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Google announces new features

"We introduced a new way to view search results for sites with lots of images. Each result will now include a strip of images from the website, so you can get a better preview of what each page has to offer. [...]


This week, we released a new version of Goggles with translation capabilities built in. To use it, point your phone's camera at a foreign word or phrase and use the 'region of interest button' to draw a box around specific words."

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