Most Google ranking tips deal with getting incoming links (or backlinks as they are also referred to) to your website. And for good reason. The more quality incoming links (determined by the rank of the site that the link originates from and the relevance of the keyword) you have, the higher your Google Page Rank will be and the more visible you will be to your prospects and/or customers. Here are some tricks to build your incoming links.

Submit your site to search engine directories. some directories charge a fee but many of them are free. If you’re on a tight budget, stick to the free ones. These can get you some free links back to your website. Sign up with as many as you can. The more links you have into your site, the better your page rank.

This is one of the most overlooked but best of Google ranking tips. Join forums that are relevant to your industry. When you participate in forums and include the link to your website in your signature, you will get links back to your website. This is a very effective way to establish your reputation in your industry and raise your page rank at the same time.

Take advantage of article marketing. If you can create (or hire someone to do it for you) articles that pertain to your business, with your website information at the bottom, and submit them to article directories, you will get more traffic and links.

Ask for links from other related sites’ webmasters. This is a rather “old-school” tactic but is still effective, albeit frustrating and time-consuming. Find sites that are related to your industry and write to their webmasters requesting that they link back to you. Some will not answer you. Some will say “no”. Some will ask you to link to them as well. And others will just link to you.

You have higher chances of getting the results you want with this if your site contains valuable information. While your ultimate goal is to have high-rank sites linking to yours, you can start out with any rank (as long as the content is valuable and relevant to what you have to offer). As you bring in more links, your rank will go up as well and you will be able to attract the higher ranking sites.

Create a newsletter. Taking the time to create a newsletter that you can send out to subscribers is definitely worth it. This keeps your visitors up to date with what you are doing and brings them back to visit your website on a consistent basis. You can also submit your newsletter to an ezine directory which will link back to your website and give you more free incoming links.

Hopefully these five Google ranking tips will help you achieve the ranking and traffic you’re aiming for.

Tagged with: google ranking • ranking tips for google • SEO tips

Filed under: Internet Marketing • Link Building • SEO

A/B testing has been around for quite some time, and it is really a great tool. It was a tool used to determine market trends by comparing data with other data to observe and record possible outcomes. Market research companies all over the world have done it. There are of course many ways to look at A/B testing, in fact some people have even compared it to a baseball match where you put your slugger against many pitchers and then see how he fares against each one of them.

But now it has been given an online makeover as many websites, large and small, use this form of data for their marketing. Big name websites such as Amazon.com, Google and even eBay have known to use this service, and you should too.

Online Makeover – The Use of AB Testing Online

A lot of sites have started to use this testing procedure because it allows them to make educated decisions on everything from banner advertising, page design and functionality, site branding and so on. For example if you have an eCommerce website that typically deals with online purchases – this form of testing can be very useful. You can test out functionality of a site by comparing two versions of a particular page, which is an important page in the process and chose the most effective one.

When a user selects several items into his cart but leaves the site because he cannot properly click on Proceed to Checkout because of its location or the way the page is design; in this scenario, you can create two versions of the cart page and serve up the new version to certain select users while continuing the old version with the rest of the users. One can easily look at statistics which functionality allowed users for a faster and more appropriate check out procedure. This is a classic example of AB testing.

The advantages of having this form of testing are that it is a low risk approach. In case we look at our example, if the second version does not fare well with the selected group of users, other solutions can be looked into, rather than making expensive changes. Therefore it is more cost effective and certainly gives the right data to make informed decisions.

Google offers their own A/B testing method with their Website Optimizer. This is a great starter tool because the coding involved is very basic. If you have installed Google Analytics on your website, or even a small widget, you will have ZERO problems running an A/B test.

Now, once you have a good test set up, and start tracking the data, start putting that data to action. If you do nothing with the information you get from these tests, you have failed. This is a valuable tool to increase conversions, sales, and readership.

Tagged with: A/B Testing • converting more • seo help • split testing

Filed under: Internet Marketing • Search Engine Marketing • SEO

Hey all, some really good links today. I will get right to it, as I am finishing up some last minute edits on the eBook I hope to launch this week. If you are one of the subscribers to my newsletter, you get advance look at the eBook, as well as some pretty sweet bonuses that WILL save you some money if you do not have any hosting plans yet. Stay tuned, as I will be posting more information on the site throughout the week! Happy blogging!

7 Questions Small Businesses Should Be Asking

If you have a small business, these Internet Marketing questions are essential. This should be the top of the list questions for anyone trying to gauge their place on the Internet. Great read!

Battle of The Business Cards

PrintingChoice.com has a really good write-up of some of the online business card printers handled the same business card design. This is great to see the side-by-side comparison on quality, ship times, etc.

Busting the Top 3 Blogging Myths

This article explains the top three blogging myths, including guest posting on blogs. Guest posting is one of the major items on my list of things to focus on this year. I already started writing some articles specifically for guest posting opportunities.

Tagged with: blog tips • blogging links • business card printing • internet marketing links • social media links

Filed under: Fun Stuff • Internet Marketing • Social Media