Getting My Cousin's Site to the Top

[GriffinL]

Dear Warriors..

I come to you with open arms. I am a college student who both needs money and wants to help out his cousin (Who's quite a bit older than myself). So here we go..

My cousin owns a jewelry making business that is located in Utah. He mostly sells his rings to other companies so that they can then sell them to the public. He does have an in-factory shop, however, that is open to the public. He recently stayed over at my parent's house and we got to talking about my job as an article writer.

He wants his website (which is generally not meant for the general public) to be on the top of the search engines. So how do I make this happen?

My qualifications are pretty much as low as they come. I am an article writer. I can write many, many articles and can do them very well. But that's about all I can do.

How would I, as a well-qualified article writer, make his website be on the top of the search engines? His company focuses mainly on titanium rings (which is a HUGE business right now for ring companies) so I am a bit worried about the competition.

I've been a grunt for the past little while, always doing the articles but never truly understanding the process behind it. Sure, I know what SEO is, but I don't exactly know HOW to get people to read my articles. I know about ezinearticles and I do have an account there. It's not just simply writing articles, posting them on ezine, and then making links to his website is it? I have to host my own website and make some sort of blog right?

I apologize if I seem extremely new to this. I am new. But I am more than willing to learn. I love computers and technology and the whole concept behind internet marketing. So thanks for your help!

[metafever]

What keywords does he want to hit?

[GriffinL]

Titanium rings, titanium ring, rings (I know this one would be huge.), etc. He does specialize in a few types of rings that have a much lower competition rate which would be excellent for me. I don't know the specific ring types right now, however, as he is in vacation.

Ah, here we go..

Damascus steel rings, carbon fiber rings, mokume gane rings, etc.

[AidanKay]

If I were you I'd be targetting state-related keywords first, then the more general keywords secondly.

By state-related I mean things like; Utah Titanium Rings etc.

Have a look here for info: 4 Important SEO Basics | Search Engine Optimization Tips (It's my site, just to let you know)

It has links to Keyword research tools, and some info on basic SEO that you should follow.

Also, linking to his site with your signature link on this forum. Of course using a very targeted keyword/s.

If you need any help, I'm sure there are plenty here that will be willing to help. If not, or if you can't be bothered waiting PM me.

Cheers,

-Aidan.

[GriffinL]

Originally Posted by AidanKay

If I were you I'd be targetting state-related keywords first, then the more general keywords secondly.


[/I]It has links to Keyword research tools, and some info on basic SEO that you should follow.
[/COLOR][/INDENT]Also, linking to his site with your signature link on this forum. Of course using a very targeted keyword/s.

If you need any help, I'm sure there are plenty here that will be willing to help. If not, or if you can't be bothered waiting PM me.

Cheers,

-Aidan.

I do appreciate your help. The only thing is, I'm not truly all that worried about actual SEO stuff. Your localization of the keywords is a great idea..one that I should have thought of and posted about in the first place. But.

I'm more worried about HOW I start off this whole process. I can write articles and come up with keywords. But what's next?

[AidanKay]

Originally Posted by GriffinL

I do appreciate your help. The only thing is, I'm not truly all that worried about actual SEO stuff. Your localization of the keywords is a great idea..one that I should have thought of and posted about in the first place. But.

I'm more worried about HOW I start off this whole process. I can write articles and come up with keywords. But what's next?

I don't understand what you mean by 'start the whole process'.

But here's a few links that might help you get started.


If you mean keyword research, then I recommend you use:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Free Keyword Suggestion Tool from Wordtracker

For a list of Article Directories I recommend:

Articles Directories List: Ordered by Alexa Rating

List Of Top 50 Article Directories By Traffic, PageRank

Atlanta Web Development | Washington DC Web Design | Virginia | Georgia

For directory submission software (Article, Link Directories and Social Bookmarking:

Incansoft | Experience The Difference Today!

For Keyword Density analysis (3% - 9% recommended for good SEO):

Live Keyword Analysis

If you need more help, or are stuck on anything. Please let me know. I can walk you through some stuff.


Cheers,

-Aidan.

[GriffinL]

Ok, let's see if I can word this differently.

Let's say, hypothetically, that I have 100 articles written with keywords that are perfectly good for the topic at hand. Their SEO density is perfect, the keywords are perfect, the English is perfect. Yay, we are done with that.

Now what? Now that I have my articles, where would I publish them in order to get my preferred site more traffic?

[AidanKay]

Okay. Good.

Well, use the list 'Article Directories' I posted above.

Here it is again:

For a list of Article Directories I recommend:

Articles Directories List: Ordered by Alexa Rating

List Of Top 50 Article Directories By Traffic, PageRank

Atlanta Web Development | Washington DC Web Design | Virginia | Georgia

Some of the sites require signing up, some need a 'screening' period before articles are added to the site. Others are accepted and published straight away (GoArticles.com).

-Aidan.

[TTran]

Hey Griffin, I couldn't post any links here cause of my low post count, but I'll PM you with what has helped me out a lot with article marketing.

[koolmeg]

IMO there is a lot more you can do besides article marketing! There are lots of people in this forum who can tell you the best places to get link backs....
That is what I would do anyway

[GriffinL]

Originally Posted by koolmeg

IMO there is a lot more you can do besides article marketing! There are lots of people in this forum who can tell you the best places to get link backs....
That is what I would do anyway

Originally Posted by AidanKay

Okay. Good.

Well, use the list 'Article Directories' I posted above.

Here it is again:

[B]For a list of Article Directories I recommend:


-Aidan.

Originally Posted by TTran

Hey Griffin, I couldn't post any links here cause of my low post count, but I'll PM you with what has helped me out a lot with article marketing.

Thanks for the PM, I'll definitely look through it!

When you say there are better ways to advertise a website than articles, what specifically are you referring to?

And with those article directories, all I have to do is publish the articles? Then, when people search for my stuff, they get linked back to those websites with my article showing up? It sounds too simple!

[mouseffects]

Just Google "Article Directories" and start placing your articles out there. Make sure you create a good resource box that contains your information; specifically a good (text) keyword link back to your site.

And, don't dump them off all the time at your home page. If you have a specific page for a certain kind of ring and that's what the article is about then send the visitor to THAT page. Don't make them search for it.

If you prefer to get a list of article directories, search this forum. I'll bet someone is selling one dirt cheap.

BTW.. you still should concentrate on good on-page SEO also. The two together is better than one will ever be.

Good luck

[AlbertF]

If you are thinking that article marketing is the only form of getting backlinks, then you are dead wrong. Simpy continue to gradually build backlinks as the domain age progresses. A simple article on how to get your site up and running that I believe you can benefit from is How to Make a Website and Make Money Off It ? Moola Days

On-page optimization is a must as well. 14 Effective Search Engine Optimization Tips ? Moola Days

If you need any more help, feel free to ask more questions.

[K1]

You could also join some article networks my article network $47 a month UAW $67 a month, if it's not out of your budget.

[GriffinL]

Hah. I do believe I'm starting to get this.

Okay, so I get the 100 articles and post each one on ezinearticles and 2 other article directory websites (Just 2 for now).

Now I'm a bit confused on the next part. Backlinks. A backlink, as far as I understand, is a link on someone elses page that leads to your page. But why on earth would anyone ever put a link to your page on their website? Apparently there is software that puts out lots of backlinks, but why would they do that? Does it cost money?

And what exactly do these backlinks look like? Just straight website writing or is it a little bit of an article then the website?

Thanks!

[CDawson]

Originally Posted by GriffinL

Hah. I do believe I'm starting to get this.

Okay, so I get the 100 articles and post each one on ezinearticles and 2 other article directory websites (Just 2 for now).

Now I'm a bit confused on the next part. Backlinks. A backlink, as far as I understand, is a link on someone elses page that leads to your page. But why on earth would anyone ever put a link to your page on their website? Apparently there is software that puts out lots of backlinks, but why would they do that? Does it cost money?

And what exactly do these backlinks look like? Just straight website writing or is it a little bit of an article then the website?

Thanks!

That is a good question. A lot of people who "auto blog," will take your article that you have published and place it on their site for content, of course, the link you had in the article will stay there, which will get you more traffic to your site.

[G Singh]

What i would do is first research article marketing and how resource boxes are used in order to get backlinks. Check this article on EZA...

How Does Article Marketing Help With SEO?

Then once you have familiarised yourself with this I would pick up on of the WSO's on article marketing. But check out reviews before you buy. This way you'll have a basis for article marketing and then when the time comes you'll have (hopefully) a step by step guide in making best use of your articles from one of the WSO's.

Hope this helps.

MrEyeconic

[debra]

Seems to me that he could develope a private "Wholesale Titanium Jewelry" membership site. And maybe offer the Drop Shipping Services too. Which he then would be tapping into the drop shipping manufactorer side as well and recruite power sellers out of ebay.

His keywords would be:

Wholesale Titanium Jewelry
Wholesale Titanium Rings
Wholesale Jewelry Manufactorer Drop Shipper

And a thousand other variations of that.

[debra]

Opps! Got interupted by the phone and forgot to finish stating my opinion.

Your opproach needs to incorporate onpage seo then focus on market reach within the area you want to do business. It diffentantly is a B2B market.

[GriffinL]

So essentially by me submitting my article to 12 different directories, I'm getting 12 different backlinks? And then I can just use software to get even more backlinks? What information does the software require from me?

[FriendlyRob]

If you want to write articles, then just write a lot of articles. Many article writers waste a lot of time on research. Research is good but only to a point. Just write lots and a few of your articles will turn out to be gems (no put intended) and really fire a lot of traffic there.

[GriffinL]

Okay. I can do research. I can write the articles. I can submit them to mulitple article directories. There's one more thing I'm a tad confused about.

What are these backlinks that people keep talking about?

I know that, in a sense, my articles are generating backlinks because the links are in the article. Why would I write articles to get backlinks when I can just use software that automatically gives me hundreds of backlinks?

And how much does this software cost/how much information and what kind of information does it need?

[TTran]

Griffin, I don't know what software you're talking about that can provide you with hundreds of backlinks, but the backlinks from your articles are FREE. And, you'll also get some traffic from the people that read your articles.

Article marketing is just a good way to get backlinks and a little traffic.

If you have a not too competitive niche + solid article marketing plan, combined with on-page SEO, your cousin's search engine results ranking should be good to go.
There's a lot of other ways to get backlinks and traffic as well such as posting comments in forums and other blogs, but I mainly get backlinks from articles.

There are programs out there that can massively submit your articles to directories so that might a software to consider.

Other than that, I don't have too much experience with any other backlink method, so I'll leave that up to the rest of the warriors. =)

[awaxler]

Backlinking is extremely powerful...in fact, it is the biggest part of my seo strategy and has given me the most success (and the quickest)

Yes, article writing will get you backlinks from your resource box, but there many other ways to get backlinks...and easier too...

Basically, you can put a anchor text link on other people's blogs, forums, and on your profiles other people's social sites...some sites even let you set up your own blog where you can post your articles with links...

The key is to find sites that are "do follow" as opposed to "no follow" and also have a high page rank.

You can do this by spending countless hours searching through the internet and checking the sites to see if they are "do follow" and then hopefully the site will actually allow your comment...

OR

You could simply sign up for one the popular WSOs offered by Paul Johnson, Angela Edwards, and/or Steve Aylor.

I posted links to all their WSOs below. PJ and Angela even offer an outsourcing service so you don't have to bother doing the linking yourself.

In my opinion, this is the way to go.

I have gotten my sistes on the first couple of pages of google very quickly using these WSOs, some are withing the top 3 spots on google...

Take a little time to read through Angela's WSO thread and you'll learn more about backlinking then anywhere else on the internet...

Hope that helps...

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...inks-free.html


http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...inks-free.html


http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...-upgraded.html

[GriffinL]

Originally Posted by awaxler

Backlinking is extremely powerful...in fact, it is the biggest part of my seo strategy and has given me the most success (and the quickest)

Yes, article writing will get you backlinks from your resource box, but there many other ways to get backlinks...and easier too...

Basically, you can put a anchor text link on other people's blogs, forums, and on your profiles other people's social sites...some sites even let you set up your own blog where you can post your articles with links...

The key is to find sites that are "do follow" as opposed to "no follow" and also have a high page rank.

You can do this by spending countless hours searching through the internet and checking the sites to see if they are "do follow" and then hopefully the site will actually allow your comment...

OR

You could simply sign up for one the popular WSOs offered by Paul Johnson, Angela Edwards, and/or Steve Aylor.

I posted links to all their WSOs below. PJ and Angela even offer an outsourcing service so you don't have to bother doing the linking yourself.

In my opinion, this is the way to go.

I have gotten my sistes on the first couple of pages of google very quickly using these WSOs, some are withing the top 3 spots on google...

Take a little time to read through Angela's WSO thread and you'll learn more about backlinking then anywhere else on the internet...

Hope that helps...

http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...inks-free.html


http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...inks-free.html


http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...-upgraded.html

Wow, great stuff. I do have a few abbreviations/words that I'm a bit confused on.

WSO means what?
DoFollow..what's the difference between the dofollow and the other kind? (Forgot the name, I apologize.)

Thanks!

[procoach]

Ok, the very first thing you need to do is get very clear on which keyword phrases your cousin wants to get ranked for. Pick say 3.

Then go to google and search how many sites are optimized for each keyword phrase. You can do this by putting the keywork phrase in quotes or by using the allintitle: syntax.

If there are less than 50K-100K sites competing for a keyword, then ranking in the top 5 is relatively straightforword using on-page SEO and backlinks.

The way backlinks work is you link from other sites (for example article directories) using the keyword phrase as the anchor text. That's the blue text of the link, e.g. "Pierre Recommends" in Pierre Recommends .

The main pieces of on-page SEO is the domain name, the title, the description meta tag, the H1, H2, etc. tags and the content.

You can look at the "Pierre Recommends" HTML source to see some of this in action.

Pierre.

[awaxler]

WSO means what?
DoFollow..what's the difference between the dofollow and the other kind? (Forgot the name, I apologize.)

WSO = Warrior Special Offers (Warrior Special Offers Forum - WarriorForum - Internet Marketing Forums)

DoFollow...basically means the site is allowing the search engines to "follow" the links and give credit (link juice) to that site it is linked to. If it is "nofollow" the site is telling the seearch engines to NOT follow those links thereby not giving the site any link juice. Now some will argue that it doesn't matter that much, but I disagree...my experience is that you should shoot for "dofollow" links...I do agree that you still do get some link juice from "nofollow" links, but not nearly as much...in my experience.

Firefox has a great add-on called NoDoFollow which allows me to quickly check if the links on a site are DoFollow or NoFollow. I simply click a button if the links are highlighted in blue they are DoFollow and if they are highlighted in red they are nofollow.

Hope that helps...

[GriffinL]

Originally Posted by procoach

Ok, the very first thing you need to do is get very clear on which keyword phrases your cousin wants to get ranked for. Pick say 3.

Then go to google and search how many sites are optimized for each keyword phrase. You can do this by putting the keywork phrase in quotes or by using the allintitle: syntax.

If there are less than 50K-100K sites competing for a keyword, then ranking in the top 5 is relatively straightforword using on-page SEO and backlinks.

The way backlinks work is you link from other sites (for example article directories) using the keyword phrase as the anchor text. That's the blue text of the link, e.g. "Pierre Recommends" in Pierre Recommends .

The main pieces of on-page SEO is the domain name, the title, the description meta tag, the H1, H2, etc. tags and the content.

You can look at the "Pierre Recommends" HTML source to see some of this in action.

Pierre.

Originally Posted by awaxler

WSO = Warrior Special Offers (Warrior Special Offers Forum - WarriorForum - Internet Marketing Forums)

DoFollow...basically means the site is allowing the search engines to "follow" the links and give credit (link juice) to that site it is linked to. If it is "nofollow" the site is telling the seearch engines to NOT follow those links thereby not giving the site any link juice. Now some will argue that it doesn't matter that much, but I disagree...my experience is that you should shoot for "dofollow" links...I do agree that you still do get some link juice from "nofollow" links, but not nearly as much...in my experience.

Firefox has a great add-on called NoDoFollow which allows me to quickly check if the links on a site are DoFollow or NoFollow. I simply click a button if the links are highlighted in blue they are DoFollow and if they are highlighted in red they are nofollow.

Hope that helps...

Thanks for the clarification on the two words, what I wanted completely.

And thanks for the tips. I'm definitely starting to feel like I can do this. At first I was going to recommend him to a place I've been writing articles for, but I'm just going to tell him to have me to do it. Because I can!