What I've learned in my first 6 months doing SEO

[LangeTroels]

Good input about researching the strategy of websites ranking #1 in the most competitive niches.. Thanks..

[brandonbaker]

Originally Posted by getin2learn

That's why I wouldn't minimize importance of profile pages and backlinks from it, especially if they are built on high PR properties.

Oh, I totally agree with you. I've seen profile backlinks do wonders for plenty of people, especially if done on a mass scale. I think it can serve well as a supplementary backlinking campaign, but it's my opinion that if you want to rank #1 for the most competitive niches, you're going to need to seek out better options. That applies to blog commenting as well.

After months of research, I realized that the most powerful type of backlink is a contextual, dofollow link from high PageRank pages. Everyone covets a link from an article on CNN--it's the exact type of link I'm talking about.

So I set out to acquire as many high PageRank domain names as I could, and place my own link in the bodies of those sites--not in the blogroll or footer. The beauty of these links is that they are permanent, and they have whatever anchor text I want. And each one counts for hundreds, and probably thousands of profile links.

[ocd]

Originally Posted by brandonbaker

Yeah, it was fun learning CSS and HTML and all that, but when you spend an entire day trying to figure out how to move your nav bar 50 pixels to the right, you know there is something wrong.



-Brandon

Unbelievable! I thought I was the only one. I spent an entire day trying to remove that stinkin nav bar through the editor but couldn't comprehend which editor to use.

Moving the sidebar was much more fun though. Good Lord.


Anyway, the REAL frustrations have come from putting in hours for backlinks and getting a 1% return of backlinks. I just don't get it. I'm getting nothing it seems. Is that par for the course?

[jeremya23]

I got fed up with trying to get hundreds of profile backlinks. 1. It took forever to manually post. 2. Most sites never got crawled and the backlink never showed up anyway.

[evazk]

Thanks for the articles, I also learned a lot from it.

I believe that if you focus on just one thing then it would be very advantageous I think as well.

[sortshots]

awesome post!!! i think every newbie should learn from your experience.. thanx for sharing..

[maahi]

I have learned so many ways to promote to website in short time and how will promote to it. And so many ways to earn money in my 6 months experience. Now i am expert in this field.

[studioensigns]

I'm not new to internet marketing and still learning new things everyday information you provided will help me in the future.

Thanks

[mlord10]

Great post. Seems that you have come a long way in your first few months with SEO. While I can't say I ever dreamed of being an internet marketer, I absolutely love SEO!

Here are a few more SEO tips for anyone that is interested.

-Make sure that your website has a good internal linking structure. Include plenty of post to post links, and make sure that you have a site map. These are crucial on-page SEO techniques.

-As far as link building is concerned, blog commenting does work, and it works well. Blog commenting is a big part of my SEO strategy for every site we launch. Also, make sure to focus on getting links from other related blogs (even if they are your own; hint-hint) and other web 2.0 properties.

[jhonsean]

This story serves an inspiration to all newbies like me. What I have observed is all these stuff that builds SEO is just an clue to our never ending methods to perform well optimization in our sites. Thanks.

[Abdi Shakur]

Great Post love all this info. Am a newbie as well I haven't got to SEO yet in my IM project. but was just browsing and already found out more than i bargained for in this one post greatly appreciate it. Also a big thank you to all the helpful marketers on this forum hopefully i will be able to return to this community like brandon done here one day. Good luck everyone.

[Vortex015]

Thanks so much for this post. I am now on the hunt for high pr homepage links.

[mistermint]

vortex:

Thanks so much for this post. I am now on the hunt for high pr homepage links.

Don't make all your backlinks go to your homepage...get links to pages, posts inside your site and...

pingler.com is quite handy! it's free.

If you do article marketing don't forget to bookmark your articles...

RSS feeds are also very good for traffic...

Gordon.

[brandonbaker]

Originally Posted by mistermint

vortex:



Don't make all your backlinks go to your homepage...get links to pages, posts inside your site and...

pingler.com is quite handy! it's free.

If you do article marketing don't forget to bookmark your articles...

RSS feeds are also very good for traffic...

Gordon.

Gordon, I think what he meant was that he was looking to get links from homepages of other high PageRank domains to his site. I didn't go into it in very much detail when I first wrote my original post, but the conclusion I came to after all my research was that high PR contextual links were the most effective tool to improving your SERP position, and I've now begun to offer this as a service to serious internet marketers who've begun to feel the same way.

But yes, by all means send backlinks to every page on your website, not just your homepage!

[mistermint]

Hi Brandon,

Yes, understand what your saying...my mistake sorry.

High PR contextual links are very powerful and essential for long term rankings.

A lot of the link building methods available today only give short term credibility to your link juice whereas high PR links are quality and give longevity.

Gordon.

[lesterlim85]

Hi guys

May I ask a question? I kinda messed up a bit. Can anyone explain what is contextual links and how are they different from the so called "normal" links?

Cheers,
Lester

[hilhilginger]

your post sounds great and informative. I have made key points recorded in my pc for my SEO work. Let me thank you for putting this wonderful writings.

[rinor81]

Originally Posted by lesterlim85

Hi guys

May I ask a question? I kinda messed up a bit. Can anyone explain what is contextual links and how are they different from the so called "normal" links?

Cheers,
Lester

Hey Lester,

Contextual links are links that come out from inside your text, from a paragraph.
You write some sort of article let's say in your site and from that article's body you link using the anchor text you prefer to another site or a different page, whatever you choose.

Understood man?

Google loves these sorts of links way more than so called regular links so do use this even basic I should SEO method to promote your sites/products.

All the best,

Nir,

[Turbo Chicken]

Hey Brandon,

Wow, I have read your post with great interest. The business of reverse engineering top listed urls to find where the best link juice is hanging out is really ingenious.

Is there any software available that does the whole reverse engineering thing i.e. a Super Spyglass maybe? Or is there no way around to doing some manual work is well?

Marc

[JackPowers]

Good post.

But..

You automate creation of low value links and manually find high value links.

You're correct about in context high pr links being the best by far.

[clwest]

Brandon,

Thanks for verbalizing what some of us found out by accident (especially not trying to make things perfect). I know in my case, I was able get the PR raised quickly using many of the things you mentioned.

Keep it up!

[iresh]

Thank you for sharing your personal experience with us,Great article Thank You very much

[ilovejdmtoy]

• Keyword Research
• Competitive Analysis

are the two most important things for SEO in my personal experience.

[jazbo]

Good post. I absolutely love reverse engineering competitor sites. If you have no tried that as a tactic, then I urge you to do so.