Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Yup its like $200 or $300 a year . And the worst part is, sometimes they dont add you . NO JOKE. So its like a gamble but a gamble most people take i am guessing and Oleg is right i forgot about DMOZ but i would worry about it. Its more of a do it and forget it type of thing. So i would just do it and forget about it.

I mean your looking in the right place SeoMoz has a good list of directories.

But my opinion is same as Olegs, BOTW, DMOZ and YDIR.

Thats it. dont focus on anything else for now.

Later on its a different story

Kibin, some good questions here and honestly it really depends on your strategy and your budget ( $200-$500 ) that you can say that a plan should fall in place.

A few things are evident.

That google really frowns upon paid links. ( but most of us still do some FORM of paid advertising ) .

So it all really depends on your strategy. You are 100% correct in saying that you want to create a sustainable strategy and that is SOOOO important in your link building strategy.

A few things i would look at is the Yahoo Directories, which a lot of people still sign up for which is $200 a year. ( although it does not hold much value today, people still do it )

Best of the Web is another good example, you can actually buy advertising from them as well )

Depending on what type or product, service or business you are trying to build links for, i would suggest spending money into giving things away for bloggers or spending money in create a widget or infographic which is easily a good link bait.

Honestly and i think everyone will agree with me, there is no right or wrong answer. Just best practices thats about it.

I hope i helped you a bit, let me know if you need anything else clarified.

Best Wishes,

Hampig M

Dhee.

I actually have a client thats in the skin care treatment field ( not specifically acne treatment ) but more anti aging.

Ok a few musts. First off if you are trying to rank for the word " acne treatment " good luck. Too many companies vying for that keyword and to be honest based on the conversion and PPC cost ( NOT WORTH IT ).

Your better of trying to do a more long tail or chunky keyword ( which in the future will help you get ranked for the phrase " acne treatment " anyway ), do some good keyword research and you will find some really good ones trust me.

Second, i have seen google not give so much weight to EXACT MATCH ANCHOR TEXT, so your best bet would be a closely related variation of that keyword.

top ten acne treatments, best acne treatments, etc.  I am sure you can use some tools like adwords keyword tools to help you find good variation of closely related terms that hold weight in value.

Good rule of thumb. Make sure the page or content or infographic you are linking to matches what the anchor text is. You will be surprised, how many anchor text i came across that did not have matching content or even had 404 pages. Funny, but it exists.

Also if you have some say into what is being written or can get two links it would be even better. Make sure you use some good content related wording adjacent to your keyword.

" Runell has many skin care treatments available for any skin care needs , even acne."

Its a sloppy sentence, but in general is covers words like

*skin care treatment

*skin care needs

• ance Treatment

• Skin care Acne

I have seen some people even do an entire sentence linkable.

Site wide links are always better.

One-way best practice as well.

Also make sure they link the name of the site along with the anchor text. I have seen the rankings boost versus sites that dont.

Hope this helps, i know i went above the scope of Anchor text here.

Best Wishes,

Hampig Minassian (CEO )

BizDetox

Redo the Sitemap and resubmit.

Depends on what you are using for CMS there are some really good modules or plugins that help you do a good site map.

I use Joomla XML site map.

Works great and google initially only crawls portions of all your pages on your server side not all but 4% is fairly low it usually is like 50% ?

REDO everything you should have any problems

Highlander Thanks.

Yes i do run my own server. Virtual server from godaddy

Just as well i use Joomla and it does not have any 301 options. The coding is what i am mostly worried about , how do i code a specific page to 301 redirect in my htaccess.??

Is there any docs for that you may refer me to ?

My best guess without seeing the files is Broken Links, Either through the sitemap you created or actually on your site. Use the Marketing Ninjas broken link check tools. They really have a good one. It will show all your pages and the status code on each page.

Second, i would redo the sitemap. What are you using to do your XML site map and how are you submitting it, through Google Webmastertools, and through Bing webmaster Central ?

Google Webmaster tools also has some really cool self test tools, that it will show if any error did occur during the crawl and you can always do a test crawl with their robot.

Third check your Robot.txt file and make sure its correct. You would be surprised !

hey guys hope everyone had a new year.

I am ranking for a page on my site that i want to ( not specifically move ), but just change the url name: It is too long i think and i want to move it from one portion of my architecture to another menu.

I have never physically done a 301 redirect myself, always had someone do it for me.

I wanted some pointers. Since it is a fairly new site 4 months old!

What are my options.

Do i need to 301 redirect the page, if i am changing the Structure and AI of my site, or can i just change the url as is and it will still get ranked?

How do i keep that url put delete the page and redirect it ?

Sorry its very simple but i wanted to get the communities help to continue on !

Best Wishes

HAmpig

Ya i would not over do it. Internal linking is for contextual use, although it plays a slight role in SEO its not the end all be all of SEO. IE is for user benefits to keep them on your page and find the right content. If you have 1 million pages, your goal should not be to rank EVERY PAGE.

I would look at Todd Malicoats AI.

He really has a vast knowledge of this

See if you can view this link some people were not able to. If interested PM i can email you the videos

http://www.marketmotive.com/training/tutorials/search-engine-optimization/seo-workshop-site-architecture-a-taxonomy-todd-malicoat-33009.html

Best wishes,

Hampig M

BizDetox

Chris, Tommy is correct, all Twitter links are no follow. So i guess it would depend on what you are tweeting.

For the Social signal aspect of it, ie social recognition from the search engines, my best practice is to link to the BEST SHARABLE content. Whitepaper, Blog, Email marketing piece, the list goes on and on . As far as the url goes, it really doesnt matter if its shortened or not, because a link is a link. Make sure you share your most popular items and pages ( FROM AN SEO STANDPOINT ).

Check out Followerwonk. Really cool tool.

Best wishes,

Hampig M.

BizDetox

Hey Rhys.

A few questions.

Does this site have an affiliate feed.

For example, are other people copying the content from this site through an affiliate feed of some sort.

That could be one of the example here.

( actually they do just found it )

In the case of Dup Content, Google looks at the how trustful a sites content is based on this overall ranking. So if this site is putting out content everyday and then pinging the google bot to come crawl the site first, thats all they would need to be verified as the originator of the content. The other sites get then can easily copy the content from this site, but as long as it gets indexed on this site first, they would not really have a problem.

Same thing goes for a blog you write.

You would have to dig a little deeper with their link structure. They overall ranking is pretty high they have tones of spun link from each url, about 100 linked pages for each domain name . A few good links from Mtv and Vh1 and mostly a lot of blogs.

But ya your right their SE traffic is off the charts . They rank really well for some movie names as well.

what is your end goal in running a comparison against them ?

They root domain is fairly high and that does play a big factor in how well they get ranked for a lot of these keywords as well.

their age of site is about 5.3 years and their domain authority is around 74 to 79 , depending where you look.

PR6 but you might need to dig deeper.

Hey Ali.

Hope everything is well and here is my take on Keyword Research and what to focus on.

First and foremost you must execute a really great keyword research for your site and i must get this out of the way before i talk about what keywords to rank for.

Some of things i have found helpful in getting keyword research done is,

A. Competitors research. You can use your competitor sites and see what their page title tags are. Use open site explorer and look at anchor text. Just as well Semrush.com provides some really good insight on your competitors keyword research

B.    your own Site search. If your store currently has a search function. Take a look at what keywords your OWN customers are using to look for products on your store. A great insight.

C.   your own PPC campaign : If any, check out the existing or past PPC campaign and gage your anayltics

D.  Adword Keyword Tools. : Very helpful tool and most of effective one for me.

After you compile the list, I highly urge you to go after the Long Tail Keywords 3 to 5 words long. There are your low hanging fruit. And speaking from a sales perspective, these are the words that tend to give you a higher conversion rate for sale.

Incorporate Mozscore with your keyword research . Depending on you business i usually look for Mozscore rank keywords that are between 30 to 60 and look at Global volume between ( 1500 and 50,000 ) searches per month.

Going after those two word or one word phrases that are highly competitive, does not make sense, because after all is said and done, YOU NEED SALES !

Make your keyword list and share it with us on here and i am sure we all will be more than happy to give you pointers on what keywords to go after. Remember Less competitive with good volume is the key.

Also a great way to find out the popularity of the term is also to look at the PPC price of that keyword in Google Adwords. That helps a lot as well. Sometimes those keywords that are 4 words long and have only 800 searches per month but their PPC price is like around $5.00 per click are the SWEET SPOT keywords. They convert well.

Hope this helps.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Hampig M.

BizDetox

Whats your overall goal . It was difficult to get that in the post.

Do you want the traffic to land on your site ?

If so then 301 redirect all url to the url you want ?

Awesome post thanks for the reference .

So here is what i want to do .

My goal is to have my videos searched on the search engines via select keywords.

ie: A have a mommy bloggers thats doing a video on how to diaper your baby, and i want the video to get the maximum exposure and use links on the video to land on our site to a blog post or the actual video post

So what do you think my best method will be ?

Youtube or host on my site with vimeo or wistia

remember i want the maximum exposure in search

Christopher.  ya wisitia stats are pretty crazy i like them the best out of all the video platforms out there but my concern is visually showing the videos in search and in front of viewers

So whats my best approach

Irving, thanks for the reply.

A few questions.

1. Don't i get more exposure putting the videos on youtube, via search.

My goal is to have my videos searched on the search engines via select keywords.

ie: A have a mommy bloggers thats doing a video on how to diaper your baby, and i want the video to get the maximum exposure and use links on the video to land on our site to a blog post or the actual video post

2. would i get the same exposure using hosting on my site ?

Whats my best approach to maximize my efforts

Hey guys , Happy Tuesday !

I am not too familiar with Seo for Videos too much except for the fact that Youtube has some really good tools to do SEO for videos.

But i am wondering which company i should go with when hosting a video.

1.   Youtube channel ? and utilize what they have

2.   Vimeo and get their business package and analytics and all the goodies

3.   Wistia , which i am not really familiar with .

So my question is , when specifically talking about SEO for video for your videos to show up on Google and search engine searches, which company is best and what is each companies pros and cons.

Any help would be great !

Thanks Guys

Best Wishes,

Hampig m

BizDetox

Thanks for the great input. I will further investigate the validity of this by asking it on webmaster forums.

I still strongly feel ( as directed, conducting business in a city ) justifies your physical locale. That being said, it is users best interests basis, not spam .

Again doing good business and being honest when specifically ties into the city at hand then it is not against googles guidelines.  Because you are conducting business. Again i am referencing what Michaels case is.

Thanks Again Miriam this was very helpful. Lets deep in touch.

Again i strongly feel that this is a case of branded search and should not be dismissed.

Please take a look at the keyword he is ranking for. No stats exist in googles database which only tells me two things

1. It is a VERY LOW producing keyword where getting ranked is virtually inevitable. Because google recognizes that word just as that . i.e.: ( his page title and eve domain url is fairly close to the keyword he is ranking for ) and if no one else is competing for that keyword then the serps will show what is relevant.

2. Branded search . Its his name . Its the business name. The business url , etc and with low competition for that phrase it only makes sense.

Hope i was clear.

Best Wishes

Hampig M

CEO

BizDetox

Miriam thank you for the awesome feedback you placed with this post. Who says you cant learn something new everyday

I would like to ask you if you can give me a link to a post where google directly says or indirectly frowns upon use of virtual offices. This is the first time I have heard of it not being a viable option.

I take two examples into consideration and i would like to politely disagree with that and " only that " comment you made.

First there are a lot of office buildings that offer virtual offices with Suite # as box numbers, even UPS does that ( not saying ups is an option ) A Po. Box, well obviously we all know you cannot get listed with a po box address, but where i live in Los angeles and around my surrounding area a lot of people get a virtual office . ( i.e.: use of an office building facility, conference room for meetings, use of business services with dedicated phone lines, use of conference halls, and of course a mail box. ) So i would not think that google would not be in " favor " of someone conducting business in an environment such as that. Can you please explain how a business with a unique address can come under scrutiny? ( unless they specifically do something wrong ). I am not sure i understood that portion.

A lot of start up internet business's utilize this feature due to the extensive cost of getting an office and getting off the ground.

Just like actually getting an office in an office building, a virtual office will be just as fine, ( As long as business is being conducted in that facility or in the surrounding area ) Also, i am not condoning going and getting a virtual office in evert metropolitan city. Just does not make sense.

So that being said in Michaels case getting listed for a Major city in VERY CLOSE proximity, where he is conducting business, does make sense.

Second, i would have to take into consideration conducting business outside the city where you are located. ie: ( if you provide legal services or even if you are a contractor and your main business is outside the city you are located in then it would only be fair to get listed for the city you provide service to. Don't you agree.

If i am a user and i am searching for a contractor in the city of los angeles , i ( from a user stand point ) would like to see a good mix of contractors ), not only people located in my immediate zip code. Because we have to consider that major cities , like Austin , or Los angeles cover a big area on the map.

I hope i was able to clear up on my part what i meant by getting a virtual office and from this perspective I think it is only fair for Michael to properly get listed in the city he conducts business in.

This is not  black nor a gray area subject, just straight facts based on the needs of a business.

Best wishes and Happy Holidays

Hampig M

CEO

BizDetox

what i was saying the only way to get SEO value to your youtube video. is there the Title, url and keyword tags for searches. Mostly the Title.

As brad said the more your video is shared the better SEO value it creates ( FOR THE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE not on your site ! that is what i was trying to convey with the message i wrote. Your site will not gain SEO value because the links as Brad said are No-follows . But you gain seo value by your embedding your Url so people visit your site. Also you gain social signals as more people comment and share.