Just a quick follow up on the email I sent out recently about the terrific Link Wheel we had had constructed for a client recently and a few of you had raised a couple of issues that I thought might be of interest to more of you.

First of all let me bring you up to date with the particular clientexercise that brought this about (within reason) the results of an SEO exercise we are carrying out for a client at the moment (without getting into too much detail for reasons of client confidentiality – though will check as I am sure they won’t mind but…).

We started off with 22 terms in the Health and Fitness Niche of which we were on Page 1 or 2 for all 22 so the summary of the position at the outset on May 28th was as follows:

Nos in those positions

Positions May 28th June 4th

Top 20          6             0
Top 10          4             5
Top 5          4             5
Top 3          2             3
Top 2          4             7
No 1          2             2

So the initial story is that the current round of promotion had taken the various key phrases and concentrated them now quite firmly into Page 1 for every keyword / phrase we were targeting and in most cases now quite firmly towards the upper half of Page 1

Now an analysis of the results threw up the following bits of information as well.

1. We had increased our profile of places where we had consecutive places i.e. 2&3 etc by more than double and in fact out of the 22 terms we now had 12 double positions.

2. The rise in SERPS appeared to be across the board with a rise in places for terms that we had scheduled to really get behind book marking wise later this week so the Link Wheels additional effect appears to be increasing the weight behind the entire site and not just specific terms.

All of this before we really could add any additional SEO behind the Link Wheel i.e. it is too early to count in the effects of additional RSS work or increased book marking of the pages, which of course we will do.

Once I get clearance from the client then I will post more details and information about this exercise into the members’ area so you can get a clearer idea of what we are talking about. As I mentioned it’s in the Health and Fitness Equipment Niche and though fairly small there are about 10 to 20 companies “taking chunks out of each other” at the top of this niche and it is fiercely competitive.

Now some of the other issues raised by members were as follows:

1. Is this type of Link Wheel a traditional one or is it random and how much use are they? Well an analysis of the structure makes it look fairly random to us and as to the continued efficiency of these as promotional tools I can only point to the results above achieved so far and they will get better once we swing the full force of the entire SLS Network behind each Link Spoke i.e. each Blog.

2. How effective are they for sites at various stages in their development and what about too many links? My take on this is as follows. As the great economist, John Maynard Keynes said “In the long term we are all dead”. The old concept of too many links is an old wives tail. If it wasn’t then you would crucify your site every time you released a successful Press Release that got picked up all over the place. Life is too short. If folks want to wait for “forever and a day” attracting 2-3 links per day whilst the rest of the world flies by then fine but I think life is about a little more than this. You need results if not now, certainly by the end of the week. It is that important.

3. Is it possible to have more than one Link Wheel active at any one time and how can we maximise the return? Can you have too many links coming from any one URL towards the same URL? Not really it’s called deep linking and anything that helps Googlebot find your internal pages is fine in my book.

The thing is that once you have this set up you have total access via username and password to each site so my advice would be to start adding spun content at random to the various sites and then bookmark these pages as and when you add them so you have a fairly organic growing “Link Mountain”.  Wow, forget about Wheels, Pyramids, Clouds etc we are building a Link Mountain!! These entire buzz phrases get a bit silly after a while, still I’m sure someone will use it one day. The other is that the cost of getting this whole thing up and running quickly (takes 6 days) is so cost effective that the best thing to do is get the basic structure in place and then enhance it gradually.

4. After you receive your report, how many links is ideal behind each spoke? I would hit it with the lot – read point 2…seriously why not? Hit it with your full allocation, your library pass, any pots and pans that come to hand and if necessary the neighbours cat!

5. After the report arrives what RSS promotion should be done and how to develop links further?  I would hit it with all the resources you have at your disposal. The thing about Google is that yes it finally gets round to recognising things with indexing etc but folks get too paranoid about Google. There are millions of web users and site owners out there with new sites coming on stream every day. It would be totally paranoid of me to assume that Google have a department set aside with my picture on the wall and every time I do something a buzzer goes off deep in the heart of the Googleplex with teams of “apparatchiks” all streaming out with “get Steve Morgan” emblazoned on their foreheads!

I hope this goes some way to clarifying any potential queries some of you might have had over this but as usual, any further questions then fire away and keep them coming in.

Lastly, Simple Leveraging has finally succumbed to Twitter. I know, I know, I preach on and on about Best Practice in this and that and here we are, Simple Leveraging has not has a fully developed Twitter Account. Well actually it has, it’s just that with all the other comings and goings and advising people “here and there” we never actually got round to developing it to its full potential.

Now the real reason that we are finally pushing our Twitter account is that it is the ideal platform for advising people quickly and effectively regarding any potential networking issues that might exist at any one time and that might be affecting submissions. So from now on we will be using Twitter to notify folks of any networking issues so if you want to keep “in the loop” then add our account at http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=DXfSd&m=1dpXxD4cF9P1kG&b=3GMYcjF5nAhnghX7XBf9FA  Also any issues that it is quicker to notify folks about via Twitter than conventional media then we’ll use it that way too.

In the meantime, have a colossal weekend, don’t catch too much sun and enjoy…

Cheers

Steve

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Hi Gang

I was talking to one of our first SLS members the other day and he was reporting how he was getting new blogs indexed and cached within Google in under 6 hours and we both realised that this was being done because he had activated and was using the SLS Premier Ping Server List. This is available as another one of the free members bonuses found at Simple Leveraging

I then realised that that although members were aware of this list, perhaps the newer members had not found time or the necessary location to download this list. This list is a real killer of a list and will improve the efficiency of your Wordpress Blogs no end.

The process is the usual one whereby you login to your blog dashboard and go to “settings” and then “writing” then insert the contents of the text file and replace the entry for Pingomatic – Pingomatic is included in this list anyway.

This list kicks butt and is yet one more way that we can say yet again, thanks for being a member. It is at least 30 servers bigger than any of the other services available and as I said, delivers.

Cheers

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I was speaking to one of our first SLS Members the other day and he was seeing terrific result from his Campaigns and the key we both felt was to make this system “sweat” as much as possible i.e. submit as many links as you can and really get up as much accumulated momentum as possible, as soon as possible.

The key thing is to remember that this sort of link building is all about driving as much link power as you can towards your target sites and then not to forget to support your supporting sites and that’s what SLS is all about. Targeted link support for your links too!

Our first members are seeing sites indexed within 24 hours (SEC Guidelines tell us that we can’t guarantee this but we have seen the results etc) and we have direct evidence of a couple of Blogs that were created for clients 7 days ago that are now on Page 1 in the Search Engines for their chosen terms.

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Hi Gang

We had a few issues with the network last week that we have only just recovered from and it appears that the issue revolved around the incorrect implementation of the DNS configuration of a number of domains that we have hosted with one particular supplier. I say this though to be honest in our exchange of information with the technical support at this particular web host they haven’t exactly been that forthcoming with exactly what the problem was. We informed them that our scripts were working prior to their actions and afterwards ceased to function but they seem to have missed this point. We have documented all the correspondence so will start a discusion stream in the members forum where folks can get a clearer idea of how well this lot have performed.

As we always get asked with regards to our recomendations regarding web hosting, we are at present seeing ( if as a test exercise and nothing else) what efforts they going to, to resolve the matter and then considering the aggravation that I know a lot of you suffered, what extent they wish to try and make good matters.

As all of you will know, it takes an awful lot to get us wound up at all and even to a state whereby we even enter into correspondence at all over matters like this so I guess that shows how strongly we feel about this. My philosophy is always, “heck we all screw up from time to time”, its not what has been done that matters, its what we do afterwards and how we look after our customers. To be honest a goodwill gesture will suffice which will leave us singing their praises and possibly keep them from appearing on our “Internet Wall of Shame”.

Watch this space.

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Well…..er……..linking and by linking I mean real serious deep indepth linking. You can create Bookmarks and link to anything you can find and as a backlink tool this has no equal it really hasn’t. Check out the videos to the right and see how quick and powerful this tool is.

This is great for supporting links i.e too often people buy or create links on supposed High PR Sites and then wonder why they take forever and day to ge these links recognised. Get some powerful links to them and get some action going.

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For those wishing to find out the forums then follow the link on the menu bar to the right.

You will have to register and then supply me with an email as to why etc. I know this sounds elitist but it is a private members only forum and we take a zero tolerance policy to those clowns out there who wish to join just to spam the living daylights out of the rest of us with Link Spam.

We aim to help as many people as we can as our members will testify and we are a hardworking and actually very friendly bunch once you get in but sadly there are too many losers out there who just try and abuse the system so we have to follow this path.

Our Youtube channel can be found here

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Why am I being so flippant today? I’m not too sure; perhaps it has more to with the fact this it is a Friday and that within a few hours I can stop by at my favourite “Watering Hole” on my way home and generally reconnect with the real world i.e. those who don’t make their living from life in this massive “Goldfish Bowl” we call the Internet?

Perhaps it is also due to the fact that I have spent quite a bit of time this week looking at existing link Building Campaigns from folks who should know better and wonder how they have ended up getting their butts kicked by the “Mighty G”.

Some people really should know better and I know those who are reading this will know better but let me reiterate this message for once and for all. There is effectively no such thing as a bad inbound link. There are good links and there are very good links but effectively there is no such thing as a bad inbound link.

The reason for this? Well one of the things that Google likes to see is a nice spread of inbound linking types as well as sources of IP’s. Hence to take full advantage of this Google is expecting to see direct links, indirect links, redirects, dofollows, nofollows, typos you name it. Why? The answer is simple, Google wants to see an inbound Links landscape that very closely resembles what humans would provide and that includes mistakes.

If it doesn’t see that then look out as your entire approach could be seen as too controlled and manipulative?

Have a great weekend and keep those messages and emails coming in.

See ya soon folks!

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Hmnnnn, this one’s actually a biggie and speaking as someone who is the main principal behind a keyword rich site name i.e. Simple Leveraging then technically that should “nail my colours” to the mast.

In the interests of fairness let me highlight two opposing viewpoints on the issue and then give you my take.

First up there is Scott Boyd at Fused Nation ( http://www.fusednation.com/seo/q-are-keywords-in-your-domain-name-an-important-ranking-factor/ ) who is of the opinion that “there was a time when keyword domains were synonymous with spam (because as I said, spammers used to buy up keyword domains and throw up spam sites because they used to rank well because of the keyword in the domain). Personally, I ignore link requests and business requests from keyword domains for that reason – this may be the exception rather than the rule, but I believe there are probably a good percentage of website owners who feel the same.”

Whilst I agree with him on certain points in that it did cause a whole wave of “brain dead SEO” i.e. never mind about anything else just get a domain name linked to your keywords I still think having your keywords in a domain name still does have a certain amount of kudos.

These probably relate more to branding awareness and associate issues more than anything else. For example David Airey in his post about the “Real Value of Keyword Rich Domain Names” (http://www.davidairey.com/domain-name-keyword-importance/ ) uses two of his own sites as examples, logodesignlove.com and davidairey.com. He states that: “logodesignlove.com has significantly gained ground on davidairey.com because people use the text ‘logo design’ within their links, as opposed to ‘David Airey’.

An inbound link (one coming from another website) pointing to davidairey.com is most likely to be typed as David Airey. A similar link to logodesignlove.com is most likely to appear as Logo Design Love.

Considering the importance of anchor text on inbound links, this will have quite a bearing on web searches for ‘logo designer’.

With that in mind, the main point still reverts to your content, because if it’s not good quality, you won’t create any inbound links.”

I can understand and agree in parts with all that the above are talking about but as of the date of this post it has to be said that in empirical tests that if possible give me a keyword rich domain name (if available) any day of the week. I am currently looking at a domain name (a .com) registered as part of a potential joint venture in an ecommerce project over 3 months ago that as I write this piece has only a Title tag, a few lines of text and nothing else but is 100% keyword specific for its market (this is DIY and Home Refurbishment) and the domain name is sitting at No 1 in both Google and Yahoo in categories where there is over 450,000 competitors and a limited amount of traffic.

So to sum, if you can, get a keyword rich domain name but don’t lose any sleep if you can’t as a successful name and profile can just as easily be built up using great content (now that’s another issue) and smart SEO.

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There has been a great amount written about which types of links are the best, which work best and which ones to avoid.

I hope to refer to this in more depth at a later date but all I will say at this point in time is that (in my opinion) any links are good and indeed there are some Article Directory scripts that only report links in their basic url form as opposed to anchor driven variants.

The other thing to remember folks is that the anchor phrase used in inbound links only represents one of several factors in Google Algorithm and not the only factor. Bear in this mind and also consider the other (quite often) hidden aspect to all of this and this is the fact of IP spread.

This is quite often overlooked by a lot of folks and even when considered by most still don’t completely understand this. It is not always just a case of just getting links from sites with just a slight variation of C Class IP address.

People seem to forget that actually it is much better if you can fill your boots with links from as many A and B Class IP’s first if possible.

For more information about A and B Class IP’s and actually about Internet Protocol matters in general then go here:

http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/i/ip.htm

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classful_network

More later

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It appears that as of the time of the post that Google have either completed or in the final stages of completing another Page Rank Update.

As with all events like this there are winners and losers but all I have to say to anyone is that at the end of the day, Page Rank matters damn all in the universal scheme of things, its SERPS that matter and many’s the time I have seen in the SERPS, medium to high PR sites (PR4+) get their butts whipped (as an american colleague of mine so eloquently puts it) by relatively low PR sites (i.e 1 or above).

Here are a few links to how the update is being received in parts Google Page Rank Update Discussion and more detail about this can be found at this Google Info Blog

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