Portland Web Design

Secrets from the cave.

So this post is gonna be dedicated to sharing my favorite resources that I have found to be very beneficial and very helpful in learning more about Search Engine Optimization. There are some basics about SEO that remain consistent but the method of optimizing your site for the various search engines change as the Search Engine Algorithms change.

Linking has been around for years and is one thing that still remains strong in helping you achieve high ranking. Granted there is a lot of junk links out there, and link farms that I highly recommend you stay away from. Below is a new creative way I have found to generate great inbound links. Take a peek and let me know what you think.

Catapult Site Search Engine Rank in 30 Minutes

Going to this year just made so much sense since everyone wants to learn more about getting good rankings. The group that was in attendance seems to have grown from last year or should I at least say from the InnoTech event, which just tells you more companies & freelancers are out there spending money to marketing themselves online and to play the SEO game. Terms that were so easy to dominate a year ago are much hard due to the growing number of fish in the pond. Finally people are realizing the power of local searches. As of this post I still came in at #1 for Portland SEO in google which I am amazed at because I just have been so busy with helping others acheive good ranking I haven’t had the time to Promote my own business. A friend of mine named Gregg does very well in dominating the Engines I’ve learned a lot by watching him. He’s got quite the network and in today’s market networks are very powerful. In addition to being busy with clients I have been taking a 12 week course from the most amazing online marketers I’ve ever seen. In the coming weeks I want to dive not only into SEO and WEB DESIGN but also talk about the power of Social media, and online videos. Till then..

Here is Vicki Genfan’s Cause of you Video I have been promoting this Video this week and just look at the results. Video is so powerful in getting good natural search engine ranking for specific key word terms.

It’s amazing how fast videos will get you to the top of the search engines

I submitted the video, created long tail keywords and tagged it, wrote the description and submitted it to 10 bookmarking sites & 25 video sites on 5/4 and here’s the results

On 5/5 searching on Google:
cancer Research fundraiser #11 out of 931,000
vicki genfan # 10 out of 12,200
cause of you vicki genfan #1 out of 301
vicki genfan cause of you #1 out of 7,830
vicki genfan cancer fundraiser #1 out of 45
cancer research fundraiser video #1 out of 374,000
vicki genfan mother’s day song #1 out of 144
vicki genfan acoustic guitarist #3 out of 1,720
cause of you on google videos #1 out of 112350

Not bad!

Even though a one way inbound link has more weight in terms of ranking.. It is still totally worth exchanging links with similiar sites of interest.
If page rank is what you’re after then the best advice is to beg, plead and buy links from related authority sites. The catch 22 is — you have to have a great site to entice an authority site to link to you. Plus it can be expensive to have inbound links from authority sites.

What it comes down to is ALWAYS focusing on producing great content for your users, updating it regularly, and being selective in who you exchange links with so that your reputation isn’t in jeopardy.

Here are some tips when contacting similiar site of interest for reciprocal linking.

• Take the time to visit the site and find out who the appropriate contact is and include their name in the email. This isn’t alway possible but worth spending 5 minutes looking into it.
• Start with a complimentary statement about what you like on their site.
• Introduce yourself and your site.
• Write why you your site is a beneficial link partner, and mention that you are not a competitor.
• Always try and post their link first on your site and include the url of where they can see their link on your site. You will have a much higher return on your efforts if you take the time to post their link information on your site first and give them a short amount of time to reciprocate before their link will be removed. It’s important to keep track of who you contact, when you have contacted them and where your link to them is and where your link will go.
• Provide them specific linking text that you would like included on their resource page: Include Title, Description, and Linking url
• Lastly thank them sincerely for their time and sign with your first name to make it more personal and natural.

Doing this correctly is time consuming but it will pay off as you build useful links for your users and benefit from inbound traffic from those sites that you exchange links with.

Growing up my dad told me .. if you learned something new then you had a good day. Luckily in the world of Online Marketing everyday can be a good day! So lately I’ve been seeing, reading and hearing alot about Twitter. By now with all the coverage you probably know what it is and how you can benefit from using it. THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION is how do you find the time to twitter, surf the net, work on SEO tactics, create Squidoo pages, Hub pages, and also market yourself or your clients on Facebook and My Space????????

Or maybe the big question is how do you become good at all of these tactics? Or is it okay to focus on one at a time and really become a successful twitter or the best at Squiddo pages.

Online Marketing can be overwhelming if you don’t sit down and figure out a strategy. Having a strategy and really analyzing and planning out your approach is what seperates the wanna be’s from the pros.

No-one can dispute the power of Social Networking and that it has to be a part of your Online Marketing Plan. Personally I think the trick is to break it down and focus on each tactic at a time and follow your marketing map. Also don’t forget after you develop a strategy to actually DO IT!

I was pleasantly surprised that the first day was field with worth while information but an overall review for me, which was encouraging to know that even if I am not in an agency I am able to obtain, learn and apply all the best current practices. Which sometime working for myself I can feel like I’m working in a bit of a bubble. The 2nd day covered more advanced topics and was useful as well. So overall I would recommend it for those looking to learn more about what you can do for others as a web designer and emarketer.

Welcome to our first post.. it’s a new fun adventure. Come along for the ride. Portland Web Design has been a passion of mine for 5 years now and I am happy to say we are growing bigger each year. SEO has taken over the web with it’s twists and turns making for exciting times. Achieving success in the search engine optimization game can be a real high. There are a millions of sites out there and only a handful who know how to promote themselves. It’s quite amazing when you think of the money some companies invest in having a site designed but then have no budget for promoting their business online. You can have the greatest most expensive site out there but if you don’t have traffic then it’s essentially useless. And on the other hand companies like Working Web Solutions are here to prove that you don’t have to have an office in a brickstone store front with a NW office address to know Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and how to achieve page one ranking on google for it’s clients.