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SEOmoz has released its latest Search Engine Ranking Factors report which gives an idea on how SEO works in 2009. A total of seventy-two SEOs participated in SEOmoz's survey that involved ranking possible factors used by Google while ranking websites, as well as a variety of questions pertaining current SEO trends and topics. The survey was completed earlier this year. The survey compiled the following as the top five ranking factors:

• Anchor Text from External Links
• Keyword Use in Title Tag
• Raw Link Popularity
• Diversity of Linking Domains
• Keyword Use in Root Domain

If we compared this year's list to that of 2007 survey by SEOmoz, it will come clear that the first three factors remain unchanged, however, the order is changed. The top five ranking factors in 2007 were:

• Keyword Use in Title Tag
• Global Link Popularity of Site (”Raw Link Popularity” above)
• Anchor Text of Inbound Links (”Anchor Text from External Links” above)
• Link Popularity within the Site’s Internal Link Structure
• Age of Site

SEOmoz's 2009 survey ranking factors survey features negative ranking factors separately. It also features a new chart of “Overall Ranking Algorithm” elements.

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Search Ranking Factors For 2009 Indicates Little Change In SEO

I came back last week from a relaxing vacation and found an email in my inbox sporting the following title: “PageRank is Dead.”

Upon reading the title, my mind went blank, closing up in an effort to prevent shock. Was this possible? The Death of PageRank? I tried to remember the predetermined events of the SEO Ragnarok: Facebook devours Odin; Twitter falls to the venom of the colossal snake, Jörmungandr; Google annihilates PageRank; the giant, Surt, sets the SEO world on fire…

I came slightly to my senses, and realized I don’t need to jump to eschatological conclusions. SEO can continue with, or without, PageRank. This was not the fiery end of linkbuilding or SEO.

Certainly it is true that, for many, PageRank acts as the guiding star for the value of any inbound link. The human mind naturally gravitates toward concrete numbers over the more abstract sentiments existing in a good link.

I consigned to fate. I would navigate my linkbuilding solely by the oft-overlooked principles of RELEVANCE, LINK ENVIRONMENT, and ANCHOR TEXT. Come walk with me while I explain…

Relevance is a principle frequently neglected in the frenzied piranha link building-style adopted by some. This explains why, on any given medical professional’s website, you are just as likely to find links to “Mexico Vacations!” as you are to truly helpful medical sites. But linking in relevant ways is better. (1) It strengthens user experience, (2) it looks natural, and (3) it makes you look more relevant to your industry in the eyes of the search engines. Want to know whether it’s worthwhile to try to put a link on a site? Ask yourself if the site is related to your own site, and/or links out to your competitors. And remember that this is not the 7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon. You need to be slapped by Common and Sense if your logic looks anything like this: My site is about doctors, doctors are typically wealthy, wealthy people like to vacation, Mexico is a great place to vacation, so clearly my doctor site is relevant to “Mexico Vacations!”

Link Environment is another principle by which to judge link potential. At this point we’ve determined relevance. But now we must ask where the link will be. While links on a link page are good, a link from a body of text is better. Imagine how someone would feel about your link were it lost in a gorilla-infested jungle of more links. You can only carry so many bananas in your hands, before some gorilla picks you up and carries you off to a more readable site. Imagine now that your link is highlighted amongst a bevy of text, all talking about your topic, and pointing to you as an authority on the subject, or an entertaining take. I guarantee the gorilla population is lower on those pages. But seriously, gorillas aside, your link is better off showing up in the body of a blog post or other content, than it is becoming just another body in a sea of link lists. The search engines think so too.

It is no secret that Anchor Text is the bread and butter of any link building effort. It is the crux, the golden child, the guitar solo. And yet many forget the power of anchor text. For a quick demonstration, type the word “here” into Google. At spot 3 you’ll find Adobe Reader, followed by Apple Quicktime, Windows Media Player, and so on. Nearly all the sites that require you to download Adobe Reader, or a Flash plug-in, or Quicktime to view their contents use the phrase “download here” with “here” almost always being the anchor text for the link. If you want to influence the search engines in what terms you should be showing up for, you better be paying attention to the anchor text of the links pointing to your site. Get too large a ratio of links with the anchor text “website” and you’ll find that your link campaign is a sad sorry affair. Your family will send you emails offering condolences. Your friends will stop returning your calls.

It is almost not worth mentioning to you that the email title “PageRank is Dead” was spurious. Upon opening the email, I learned that PageRank had faked its own death in a publicity stunt.

Further reading revealed that it had, in fact, NOT faked its death, but that we were having a network problem involving a browser plug-in. PageRank is alive and well. And yet… it’s worth keeping the above Triumvirate of principles at the forefront when linkbuilding. They are far more likely to outlive PageRank, an arbitrary numbering system that is bound to be tweaked and changed. These three principles are solid. Allow me to conclude with this quote from a slideshow presentation about the History of SEO given by Greg Boser of 3dogmedia.com and Marshall Simmonds of NYTimes.com:

“The PageRank that is displayed in the Google Toolbar is for entertainment purposes only. Due to repeated attempts by hackers to access this data, Google updates the PageRank data very infrequently because it is not secure. On average, the PR that is displayed in the Google Toolbar is several months old.”

And just because you asked, were I to speak at PageRank’s funeral, I imagine my remarks would be something like this: “PageRank, we obsessed about ye far too much. So we’ve buried you upside-down in case ye decide to come back.”

Believe it or not, all SEO’s were newbies at one time or another. Launching a website can be a very exciting event for an individual or new business owner. However, that excitement can quickly turn to disappointment when the site owner finds out that they are getting little or no traffic. If they are getting traffic, it is most likely coming from family members or friends who they notified through an email or Facebook.

Being involved in SEO and marketing in general, I am usually bombarded by family members and friends with questions about marketing their website or their future website on the Internet. Because of this and my willingness to help just about anyone I know, you can usually find me in a small dark corner at a family party (it has to be small and dark because my wife gets ticked when I’m not up and socializing with everyone), on the phone in the car, or answering an email, Facebook message, or Twitter message about SEO and other internet marketing tactics.

I was on a call yesterday with one of my best friends from high school. Our conversation was focused on general search engine optimization principles and link building tactics that could provide a good foundation and hopefully, if he does them right, some strong rankings in the search engines. One thing I emphasized is the fact that what ever he does, he needs to build links naturally. A natural link building campaign is crucial for success in SEO.

A natural link building campaign is one that is just that, natural! Getting 50,000 links within the first twenty days of your website’s existence is definitely not natural. Getting a slow trickle of links coming into your website and then building up looks much more natural. Also, getting 50,000 links pointing to your home page with the same anchor text is not natural. Vary your anchor text and include long tail versions of your keywords. You should also build links to other pages of your site in addition to your home page. All of these things help with building a natural link campaign.

In terms of links, there are two types of links you can get for your websites, external and internal links. Both are very important and can make a huge difference in your search engine rankings. I want to discuss in detail, ten ways to effectively jump-start your link building campaign.

Friends & Family Members

When beginning a link building campaign, one very natural way of obtaining links is from friends and family members. I just opened up our family blog and counted all of the friends and family who we have added in our blogroll. The grand total… 41. How hard is it to simply call up (recommended – it’s more personal) or email your family and friends who have blogs or other sites, and ask them for a link to your new website? Not hard at all! In fact, because they are your friends or family members, they will probably do it without hesitation. You can do the same thing with Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.

Add A Blog To Your Domain

Google loves blogs! Google loves fresh content! Google loves internal links! Internal links from other pages of your website are a guaranteed way to help you increase your rankings in the search engines. Adding a blog to your domain is a great way for you to easily add new content to your website on a regular basis. In most cases, adding a blog to your main domain is rather simple and can be done in as little as three clicks of your mouse. Web hosting companies like myhosting.com, Hostmonster, & Bluehost offer one click installations of blog platforms like Wordpress or b2evolution.

Adding a blog, posting to it at least once daily, and linking back to your home page and other important pages of your website with keyword anchor text is a great way to gain a lot of internal links. When blogging, you should also link out to other websites that interest you and websites that are in similar industries. You might also consider adding images, videos, polls, etc. Mix things up! Make it look natural! Most important, have fun!

Local Organizations

Just about every city in the country has a local chamber of commerce; mine would be the Lehi Area Chamber of Commerce. Joining a chamber of commerce will not only get you a very good link back to your website, but also provides networking opportunities with other local businesses. Most times, depending on your business, you can generate new leads rather easily by getting to know other individuals and businesses in your area.

Local News

Developing relationships with local newspaper writers and always making yourself available for comments on news stories that involve your industry is a great way to build awareness about your company and get links back to your website (if the newspaper is published online).

Help A Non Profit Organization

You would be surprised how many non-profit organizations are operating in your city and your state. Every one of us has been given talents and certain things that we are good at. I guarantee that there is a non-profit organization that could use your help, whether it is with designing their website or painting the conference room of their new office building. If you offer of yourself and your services freely, you can most likely ask for, and get a link to your website from theirs.

Submit Your Site To Local & Industry Specific Online Business Directories

Anyone studying SEO can usually find a blog post about submitting your website to directories on the Internet. Yes, this is a valuable link building tactic, but before you go crazy and start submitting to thousands of directories, seek out local directories and directories that are specific to your business. Submit to these first and take your time filling out all of the information that they ask for. These will be some of your most valuable links since they are so relevant to your website and business.

Social Bookmarking

You have probably heard the term social bookmarking. You have probably heard that social bookmarking is a great way to build links. Well, it is and it isn’t… You can waste a lot of time social bookmarking if you are submitting to the wrong sites. I limit my social bookmarking to Mixx, Propeller and sometimes Kirtsy. The trick to social bookmarking is to not only bookmark your website, your blog posts, and other things related to your website, but bookmarking lots of different things that interest you. This will make your bookmarking profiles look much more natural to both viewers and the search engines.

Write An Article And Submit To Article Directories

Writing articles and submitting them to sites like Ezine Articles, Article City, and Go Articles, also known as article marketing, is a great way to get links back to your website. Take time to write a very detailed article about your industry and submit it to a few article directories like the ones I listed above. You will get links back to your website by properly using the author resource or bio box at the end of the article. You should tell a little about yourself and your company, while adding keyword rich anchor text links pointing back to your website.

Write And Submit A Press Release

Writing press releases and submitting them to places like PR Web or Web Wire is a great way to generate interest and buzz about your business and also to get links back to your website. This method of link building is a little more difficult than other links that you can get for your website. Writing a press release takes skill… a skill, which the average person, like me, does not have. Press releases have certain requirements that must be met, a certain format that must be followed, and in most cases, need to be super interesting. Not having any of these elements can almost guarantee that your press release will either be outright rejected or not distributed to other news related websites.

Build A Hub Page Or Squidoo Lens

Building a Hub Page or Squidoo Lens is a fun way to get links back to your website. To date, I have built 73 Hubs and 25 Lenses for my own personal websites and hundreds for clients that I have managed. The most effective Hub Pages and Squidoo Lenses are those that have at least 450 words of text about a certain topic or subject, videos, pictures, polls, and other gadgets that are easy to add. You want to make the page as interactive as possible so it provides value for anyone who happens to read it. You are allowed two links to other websites from your Hubs and a handful of links (be conservative, don’t spam) from your Lenses.

Building links isn’t pretty. But, in order to rank well in the search engines, it is absolutely necessary. These are ten excellent ways for new companies or new website owners to start building links to their websites. There are many others and I encourage any of our readers to add to this list by commenting on this post.

It does not take long for ecommerce webmasters to learn that links impact their rankings in the search engines. However, many webmasters make a big mistake with the links within their own site.

In order to develop a clear understanding for this article, let’s lay down some basic information about internal links. When discussing internal links, I am referring to any and all links within your website and links that stay within the same domain. I make this clarification because some may refer to links across domains, but within sister sites, as internal. For this article we will only refer to links within the same domain as internal links.

To further clarify information you should already know, (but we won’t hold it against you, if you don’t) the clickable text in a link is called “link text“, or “anchor text“. These mean the same thing, so no need to argue which phraseology is correct, right? Anchor text is vitally important in search engine algorithms.

Good. Now that we have ground rules, let’s discuss why internal link structure is the “enemy” for most webmasters. A large portion of webmasters do not take full advantage of the ability to link to themselves using the right anchor text. Many of you are eating, drinking, and sleeping link building. You are dreaming up new ways, reading endless information on the latest link building tactics, and working hard to obtain links with the right anchor text from outside websites. How many link requests have you sent with unsuccessful results? How many hours have you spent building other web pages all in the name of link building?

Now, how many hours have you spent ensuring the links within your own site use the correct anchor text? I can hear all of the excuses already, but before you go there, let me answer the most common questions. If you still have a question, leave a comment and we will address it.

Many webmasters do not use the right anchor text within the links of the navigation bar due to lack of space. I get it and understand. No need to have an ugly site. If you cannot fit the correct anchor text in the navigation bar (top, left, right, or any combination) without the text wrapping or a really wide or tall nav bar, then just use the root word.

Example: keyword = “Easton little league baseball bats”

nav bar link suggestions = “Easton baseball bats”, or “little league bats”.

Do the best you can with the navigation bars. The truth is, they are important, but not the most important internal links you can have.

Many webmasters also overlook the page footer. This space works well for longer keywords, as it allows greater space flexibility without negatively affecting site aesthetics. Check your footer for correct anchor text usage on all relevant links. For larger sites (in terms of pages), it is not recommended to use the footer for every link. If there are too many links, navigation can be messy or difficult for site visitors. Like anything else, this can be abused and a footer stuffed with keyword links is impractical.

Another way to get anchor text is to use the alternative text (commonly misnamed the alt tag) of an image. Search engines count alternative text as the anchor text for a link within an image. Be careful to use alternative text that relates to the image, or there is danger of being labeled a spammer.

The best place for obtaining value from internal links is the content area of your page. Search engines look at this area with more trust. Why? The odds are more likely that a webmaster will place relevant and helpful links in this area, which is what search engines want. I recommend that the text color on these links matches the color of other links within the site, and that links are underlined. (For most sites this would be blue and underlined.) Don’t try to disguise the link because it shows the search engines you are not trying to hide something.

You tell the search engines what each page is about by using anchor text within the site. Search engines use the external links pointing to your site to verify this information. Get your internal links correct, and it will likely take fewer external links to rank well for the keyword phrases you are targeting. Go fix those internal links today to see improved rankings.

“Hundreds and thousands of times, for her I searched in chaos, suddenly, I turned by chance, to where the lights were waning, and there she stood.” –Chinese Song Dynasty Poem

The name Baidu was literally taken from an ancient Song Dynasty poem written about the persistence of searching for the ideal. Well la de da! Ain’t that dandy. Sure it is. Baidu lives up to its Chinese origins. It is a combination of innovation and tradition in this increasingly fast paced SEO world.

“What a piece of work is a [search engine], how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god.” -William Shakespeare

Often times “thems folks out west” misunderstand the ways of the East. Unfortunately this cultural misunderstanding seeps into SEO. What do we know about Baidu? How does it work? Why should we even care?!

Why “Do the Baidu”

Firstly, it’s relatively easy to understand. Just think, Google, five years ago. Baidu does work much like Google and Yahoo once did in the late 90’s early 2000’s but has come through with some quality innovations. “Pin-yin” is a new search feature that allows users to enter search queries in the more phonetic English alphabet as opposed to Chinese characters. This makes for a quicker search for the user and search engine alike.

Secondly, Baidu focuses on the quantity of links as opposed to quality of links. Good news SEO’s, bad news users. The way to get “quality” links according to Baidu is to create a lot of links with Chinese characters as anchor text. Even better is to have completely Chinese content, with anchor text included. However, Baidu doesn’t necessarily take into huge consideration where the anchor text comes from. Just make sure your content doesn’t include adult content, or anti-China material. That’s definitely a Baidu “no no.”

Thirdly, Baidu has a “load capacity friendly” spider. That means it won’t overload your site with visits, and will obey the robots.txt agreement.

Optimizing tips for Baidu

1. Brush up on your metadata vocab because your gunna need it. Baidu, like Google, puts emphasis on the title. However, unlike the all-knowing Google, Baidu also looks at other metatags such as description and keywords. Make sure it is relevant.
2. Always include an Alt tag with images. It’s an easy code adjustment and can add more relevance to your site.
3. The higher your keyword density in your content, the better. Whoa there tiger, don’t get too hasty, 6-12% density will do just fine.
4. Try to get hosted in China; Baidu is a local search engine. If you can’t do that, get a local domain like a .com.cn. That’s should do the trick.

References:

• http://www.shanghaiexpat.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1104033
• http://www.metamend.com/baidu-search-engine.html
• http://www.filination.com/blog/2007/03/25/chinese-baidu-search-engine-optimization-seo-in-china/
• http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/1185/Search-Engine-Optimization-for-Baidu.html

In my last post, How to Create a Huge Keyword List, I suggested to spy on your competition for keyword ideas. Well, today I want to delve a little further into that topic, and give you some techniques and tools for doing just that.

Learning from your competition is one of the best ways to get keyword suggestions. One of the great things about marketing online, is your competition is right in front of you, and can’t hide everything they’re doing. Here are a few ways to get keyword ideas from your competition:

1- Inspect Meta Tags
This technique doesn’t always work because enough sites have learned that meta keywords are not as important as they used to be. If your competition is still using meta keywords, it is a very easy way to get an idea of what keywords they’re targeting.

You can use SEOBook.com’s SEO XRay (part of SEO for Firefox) and easily see this information. Just do a right click and choose “SEO For Firefox”, then SEO XRay. Or you can always just look at the source code and find it there.

2- BacklinkWatch.com
I find this tool is hit and miss, but sometimes you can get some really good information from it. Just go to BacklinkWatch.com and type in the URL you want to check. It can take a while to load everything, but this tool will provide a list of pages that are linking to the site and the anchor text of some of the links. The anchor text is what you should be looking at for ideas.

3- Google AdWords Keyword Tool
You can use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool to get suggestions for keywords based on the URL. Just choose the option “Website content,” type in your competitors URL, and see what suggestions it gives you. This can be a great way to brainstorm other keyword ideas as well.

4- Yahoo! Site Explorer and SEO Link Analysis
This is one of my favorite techniques to see what keywords your competition is using in their anchor links from other sites. First, you’ll need to download and install the Firefox plugin SEO Link Analysis by Joost de Valk. Then, go to Yahoo! and type “site:www.whateversite.com” into the search bar. This will take you to the Yahoo! Site Explorer.

Once the site explorer comes up, click on the button that says “Inlinks.” Once the next page loads, change the first dropdown menu to say “Except from this domain.” Here’s a shot of what the results look like with the SEO Link Analysis plugin working:

This plugin shows you what the PR and anchor of the links are. As you go through the list of links, you’ll be able to see what keyword phrases they are using as anchors from other sites. Chances are you’ll find a lot of your competition’s main keyword phrases this way.

5- Other Tools
There are a bunch of websites that offer to provide your competitors AdWords lists and other information. I don’t really believe them; but I figure you can use some of them for ideas. So, before you go spending a lot of money on a software program that claims to steal your competitor’s keyword list, understand that it’s a marketing ploy. Get some ideas from their free tools, if they have any, then leave them alone and don’t waste your money.

Here are some more credible sites that provide useful information:

• SpyFu.com
• Compete.com
• QuantCast.com

Of course, there are other ways of spying on your competition that I haven’t covered in this post. If you have tools or techniques that you have found helpful, please share them in the comments below!