Here ‘s a question that a blog owner asked me recently:

“It’s fantastic that we are able to post free reprint articles to our websites, but isn’t this just an opportunity for blog publishers to give out links? Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn’t linking out damage our SEO?”

Thank you ever so much for asking that question.

Your online article submissions will offer 1 or 2 links to web pages that cover topics related to your specific niche. So, the first thing to keep in mind is that these are relevant links that you are giving out.

One of the big reasons that blogs do so well with the search engines is because they will generally link out to other relevant pages, which increases the value of your blog in Google’s eyes and your visitor’s eyes as well.

Consider this—the moment a viewer sees one of your pages listed on Google’s results page, they will click through to your site and try to assess as fast as possible if your website has the information they need or not.

One way Google will establish how useful a specific page is to a searcher is to measure how long it is before they return to search or try a different result from the list.

If your site is lacking in useful info, then the searcher will return to Google rapidly. The searcher could just hit the “back” button and go back to the results list and try again.

However, if this searcher lands at your site and sees content that’s helpful to him, and then there are some links (links from the free reprint articles) that lead him on to additional helpful content, he’s not getting back to Google very quickly.

Google uses this info to establish the usefulness of your web page to people searching for a particular search term. This info can then have a real impact on how your site is ranked when people search for that particular phrase.

When deciding how to rank a website, Google will assess how much value a visitor recieves when they click through to your website from the results page and how relevant your page is to the search term.

So, linking out to other relevant pages will provide extra value to your readers and improve your SEO.

When you are considering what sort of content to include in your website, think hard about the needs and interests of your readers right from the outset. Your readers are of course Google’s customers. So pleasing them will please Google. Linking out is not something that you need to be afraid of. Do it correctly and, you can actually help your search engine ranking.

Press releases can be a valuable tool for generating traffic to a website. traffic.com/TrainingCourse.aspx?course=10">Press releases are a great avenue for announcing ground breaking headlines to the media – they have to be on something newsworthy for the company to make a big deal out of it, and this can include product launches. Submitting press releases gives you a unique degree of control, especially in HOW people discover your news, your website and even your business. Considered a very proactive approach to keeping your target niche market and perhaps even helping raise awareness to the wider web community, press releases are fantastic in generating good PR for your website and henceforth your business.

No one ever said writing press releases would be easy, and so it takes a fair few techniques, especially going down the writing route, to really have the perfect press release. You can bring in a considerable range of positive traffic to your website and online business if you adopt a suitable format and what to do with the completed press releases – including where they should be circulated, and what they should contain. A skillfully written press statement will not only improve the credibility of your company, but it will also help generate traffic actively searching for the services you provide. This is best achieved by making statements vivid and fresh to remain in the reader’s mind, and should compel the reader to think they need to investigate further, perhaps by visiting your website.

All of these techniques can take time to master. The Complete Guide to Traffic is a great way to generate the right kind of traffic to your website. The press releases module from this training course is a fantastic introduction, as well as completely covering everything you could possibly need to really prepare yourselves for effective marketing via press releases. If you truly want the perfect start to getting noticed online, this module cannot be faulted, thanks to its clearcut guide on how to optimize your statements so that they serve as vessels of traffic generation once they are out in the ether.

A successful press release will get new information about your business to the public quicker than any other method out there. When it comes to promoting your activities to your target audience, having a strong press release to support the remainder of your online marketing campaign is an asset and skill set that you must have.

Search engine optimization has come a long way over the past two decades. When I entered the field in the mid 90′s most SEO was just entering a few lines of Meta tags and making sure your keywords were prominent on the page without overdoing it. Of course, back then there were maybe 25,000 to 50,000 competing web pages for any given keyword. Today typical competition ranges from 800,000 to 1,100,000. That’s a big difference! Go ahead and type in any keyword phrase into Google, Yahoo or Bing to see what I mean. Crazy, isn’t it?

OK, so we know that SEO has become a lot more complicated than it once was, while also becoming much more competitive. This is not exactly new news to most of us. We already knew SEO was a big deal. Even if we did not know exactly how big a deal, it becomes apparent that it must be both valuable and difficult when you see how much it costs to pay an SEO company.

As of June 2011, the average cost of SEO services in the United States hovers around $9,000.- to $14,000.- per year for a typical service industry company such as plumber or electrician. It is also about the same (high-end at 14k to 18k) for accountants and even more for legal practices going after ultra competitive keywords that bring in the big bucks in clientele (20k plus!).

When all is said and done, the typical business owner will invest ten to twenty thousand dollars per year in SEO. And although it sounds steep, they would not be doing it if they were not making even more money in return. In most cases; much more money. As I guess as the old joke goes – why is SEO so expensive? Because it’s worth it.

But how does that help you? Unless you have the money to invest, it does not help you at all. In fact, it hurts your position because now you are competing against those with a huge advantage. And that advantage is helping them pull even further ahead, steal your customers and make even more money. You have heard the old saying about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer? This is a great example of how it happens in business. But it does not have to be this way. They might have money but you have brains. Now if you are willing to match those smarts with a little hard work, you can take on your biggest competitor and never look back.

First of all, use a free keyword suggestion tool to find the best keywords to target. Just run a search for “free keyword tool” and try a couple out. If you use Google’s free keyword suggestion tool you can even just enter your domain name (or that of a competitor) and let it suggest which keywords are best to target.

Second, make a list of three to five keywords that you think are right up your alley. If you sell items locally, be sure the keywords include your geo… IE/ “plumber in Boston” or “Boston plumber”. Of course, make sure there is plenty of search volume for the whole keyword, including the geo qualifier (city, town, etc.)

Third, run a search for each of those keywords on Google, Yahoo and Bing to see if your site comes up. If you do not see it in the first page or two, there is no need to look any deeper because nobody is going to find it anyway. Tip: You can also look into a piece of SEO software to do this for you by running a search for “rank tracking software”.

Now, make note of the keywords that show the most promise and make this your target list.

Note: If any of these keywords show up within the top ten pages of the search engine results, then you probably do not have to do any onsite SEO like adding SEO copywriting or updating Meta tags. In fact, you can do it all by just building quality one-way inbound links so you can skip to that step.

Finally, if you find you need to update the on-page factors such as SEO copy and Meta tags, follow these simple steps.

1.) Make sure you have at least 300 words of text per page and that your keyword in question shows up at least once per 100 words (1.5 times is optimal), without going over five mentions total.

2.) Most search engines will expect to see your main keyword mentioned more at the top of the page and less as you get toward the bottom. Please note however that you need at least one mention in the final paragraph to keep it feeling legit.

3.) Pay special attention to your Title Meta tag and keep it simple. Having each keyword separated by a “pipe” is a great way to handle this tag with the company name put toward the end. Just don’t use the geo too often and feel free to follow-up with the state abbreviation and state name spelled out. For our example it might be “Boston Plumber | Boston Plumbing Company | Emergency Plumbers | Boston | MA | Massachusetts”.

4.) Get as many high quality backlinks as possible from authority sites. An easy way to do this is to register with as many directories as possible. Easy, but it can be very time consuming as it typically involves setting up a user account, writing a good title, writing an SEO optimized description, verifying your account setup through an email, submitting your request and entering a captcha code to prove you are human and not an automated bot, and finally verifying your submission via email. There are plenty of other ways to get links, and you will need several to really succeed. If you do not mind spending $75 you can hire a link building company. If you don’t want to continue spending that money you might want to look into buying a piece of SEO software for $150 to $200. if you go this route, get one that does automatic rank tracking for you too and save a ton of time and effort.

Please note that as an SEO professional I am happiest when people choose to hire out the work. However, as a small business owner, I must say that if you can invest $150 or so, you can scoop up a tool that does it all for you. Most SEO professionals have at least this one in their toolbox; http://www.seoeliteweb.com but there are many out there. Just shop around and spend wisely. You can save an absolute bundle on your SEO efforts, and eat your competition’s lunch, if you do.

Mike Little has been in SEO since 1996. In 2003 he joined one of the oldest established SEO companies in the US; DotCom Pirates and has worked with over 200 companies worldwide since that time

With the online and web marketing continuing to become more important for sites and e-tail stores, SEO reports are a topic that is often discussed.

you’ll discover four ways in which in which an Search engine optimization report can benefit your organization. For instance it can support you to find out more about your rivals, plan for the future and boost your website’s profitability.

First, its vital to know the difference between an SEO report and a website audit. A SEO report could cover many items, but it will typically incorporate your current website rankings for your primary keywords and phrases, any feedback and advice for your on-page optimization and similar info about your competitor web pages, if readily available. It’ll likewise incorporate any analytics info that is available for your web site, for example if you have installed Google Analytics or something similar.

On the flip side a website audit focuses mainly on your internet site itself. It may also have facts about elements related to your on-page optimisation, such as the number of sites, key phrases, content and internal links. Probably a website audit will also have data about conversions, such as call to actions, design or copywriting.

Following are four particular ways an Web optimization report may help you greatly improve your internet site profitability:

An SEO report will clearly show you precisely where you are at now. Which key phrases you are ranking for, which search engines you are ranking in and exactly the ranking you have. Additionally, it will present you details about your current visitor numbers and therefore help you discover how your business has improved.

Show your competitors position Likewise, the report will clearly show your opponents rankings, which keywords and phrases they are optimising for and how well they rank. You will actually know how many incoming links they have and where they are coming from. There may be some details that is more difficult to know about your competitors, particularly info about how many visitors they have got and anything about their conversion rate.

Show areas for improvement One of the most valuable aspects of such a report is that it illustrates exactly where to raise your SEO strategy. When comparing your current position to that of your competition, you will quite easily see who has the bigger market share on the web. You will also discover what you need to do improve your rankings, whether it is to build inbound links or to improve your on-page SEO.

Create milestones In the end, a search engine optimization report will help you to set milestones and KPIs to track whether your ongoing Search engine optimisation is getting results. You will see exactly what recommendations for improvement have been made to improve your current search engine optimisation, so you can set the milestones of when they should be changed and how you can see improvements.

There are many other ways an SEO report can be useful – it points out the stability and professionalism of your search engine optimization provider and it can be a great way of showing your Chief Financial Officer that you need a bigger budget for search engine optimisation and internet marketing to increase your market share.