Website owners from all niches are looking for high quality backlinks to increase their site popularity. This speaks to the off-site search engine optimization component to ranking high in Google. Unlike making minor keyword tweaks to one’s website, building up targeted organic traffic can often require patience and time. This post will look at commenting on .edu blogs as a means of increasing relevant backlinks.
So why is blog commenting thought to be an important technique for internet marketers? The primary reason is to increase your own site’s SEO but building up one-way backlinks to your site. In Google’s eyes the blog comment backlink serves as a popularity vote in a sense. The more reputable the source the more weight the backlink holds. The way we do this is searching for do-follow .edu blogs with high pageranks.
Let’s look at why each of these is important. The term do-follow refers to the linking capability. After many marketers started abusing blogs’ social nature solely for backlinks, blog owners in turn added the “no-follow” tag to their blog comments. While the link may be active and clickable, Google announced that it wouldn’t recognize it as a backlink. Fortunately there are tools available to search out the do-follow blogs.
Secondly, you want to stick to moderate to high pagerank sites whenever possible. These are more favorable since they pass on some of that pagerank (or “juice”) along to the outgoing links on the page. You can easily assess the blog’s Google pagerank by installing the SearchStatus Add-on for Firefox.
The last element of high reputation rests in the type of blog it is: .edu, .gov, .com, or .org. Search engines assign higher preference to .edu and .gov sites such as large universities and governmental agencies. Two of my favorite .edu blogs are the business and marketing departments of Harvard and Stanford.
Thus far I’ve covered the technical end of things. Other reasons include attracting .edu blog subscribers by having them click on your icon or linked text, and subsequently networking with these subscribers. The final aspect of effective blog commenting is perhaps the more obvious one. Be real, genuine and personal to set yourself apart from all the comment spammers out there. Build your trust with blog authors and moderators by contributing your honest and relevant opinion. This greatly improves the likelihood for having your comment approved and makes blog commenting that much more enjoyable.
How often while surfing the internet to do you come to a site and wonder its Alexa rank Alexa rank or Google pagerank? If you’re an avid internet marketer the answer is quite often. Fortunately there’s an easy way to find both these values instantly and without visiting alternate sites.
The SearchStatus tool accomplishes this and much more. It’s actually not technically a toolbar but rather a toolbar extension or add-on and is compatible with the Firefox and Mozilla browsers. In general it provides information on how every possible website is performing. Using a tool like this is being leverage by more than just the savvy search engine marketers. Small business owners with even a minor internet presence are finding value in the SearchStatus add-on.
The most common objection to adding another toolbar or add-on is the finding room for it. Unlike other more bulky toolbars, SearchStatus fits snuggly at the far end usually only occupying an inch or two. Viewing backward links or Google trends for a given site creates a new Firefox tab instead of directing you away. It also won’t eat up memory or slow down your connection like some toolbars will.
In addition to Google pagerank and Alexa rank, you also can view the Google category, contact info, and related keywords. Many internet gurus supports it functionality saying that it can quantify overall site relevancy by comparing traffic importance as well as the link importance. These and other added features are available by right clicking on it.
Knowing a site’s Google pagerank is important because it indicates the general importance of a page. High pagerank sites have a considerable amount of inbound links from other sites. These other sites are in a sense casting a vote by linking. This is why many marketers advise commenting on high pagerank blogs to increase your sites inbound links from reputable sources. Nonetheless, it serves as one factor determining a site’s rank within Google’s search results.
If these added benefits were not enough, consider that installing the SearchStatus add-on can contribute to your own site’s Alexa ranking. Internet users with the toolbar installed form a large conglomerate that in part serve to strengthen Alexa and Compete statistics. Visit my blog for a tutorial video on installing and using this valuable tool for any internet business.
Follow the video above for a visual aid and comment below if you have any remaining questions.
This post is for all you frequent Alexa visitors. Lately, you may have seen the ads to download the free Alexa toolbar. So why is it important to add this to your firefox browser? After all don’t we all have enough toolbars to fit ‘up there.’ Here are several reasons why you should consider using the Firefox toolbar as a serious internet marketer.
Like many handy toolbars there are two versions based on your preference in internet browsers. The Firefox toolbar is nicknamed “Sparky.” If you’re wondering the name originates from the traffic date “sparkline” which the toolbar places in the status bar. They exist primarily to provide a quick visual aid of the change in the website’s Alexa rank over the previous three months.
The Alexa traffic rank sites right beside the sparkline, in addition to a bar giving the site’s popularity in a visual depiction. The toolbar gives viewers the site’s related sites after clicking anywhere on these features. This is great way to identify similar websites that may contain relevant content you need.
Another valuable reason to consider installing the toolbar is for your own ranking. It’s well known that one of the primary means by which we recognize a site’s popularity is by the Alexa score. However, a lot of marketers aren’t aware that Alexa rank is based on how visitors who have the Alexa toolbar installed. So when you surf the internet with the toolbar installed you’re passively casting votes for the visited sites, especially if you click on multiple pages within the site. This operates much like the Nielson ratings for television.
By now it should be obvious how the Alexa toolbar can play an invaluable time-saving role without taking up precious real estate. Follow the video in my blog post for step by step installation directions.
Many of you have asked how social bookmark across dozens of sites without taking gobs of time. The service I use is Onlywire which can be found at www.onlywire.com . This free service has allowed me to supplement my off-site SEO by increasing my backlinks and overall online exposure.
Now, instead of my content solely occupying a blog post or article directory, the content and link can be distributed to some of the most highly visited bookmarking sites. These sites, which include Digg, Propeller, Bebo, Ask, Delicious and Furl, provide a social platform that enables easy content sharing.
The video here shows you how to further speed up the process by installing the Firefox add-on. This eliminates copy and pasting URLs or even signing in to onlywire (assuming your username and password are saved). After clicking on Onlywire’s blue box in the toolbar, the user receives a confirmation email notifying him of any minor requirements before bookmarking is completed. Filling in captcha codes and specifying subjects or tags only takes a few additional minutes and is a small price to pay.
The other advantage is the small space that the add-on occupies within the browser’s toolbar area. Unlike other toolbars which consume valuable screen space, the add-on is a small square which typically sits just next to the search bar.
Look for additional social bookmarking video tutorial videos in future posts.
