Unique Way To Get Links Back To Your Site

One great way to get links back to your site is by providing your clients with a “badge” with embedded HTML code pointing back to your site.  Now, you might be thinking, “Why would my clients put a link on their site pointing back to me?”  The answer is simple:  Prestige.

Let’s take a look at a sample.  If you look at the bottom of the home page of my website, you will see a small badge from Manta.com.  I put the badge their myself because I think it looks nice and offers me some level of credibility with potential customers.  Since I am not yet a member of the BBB (and unwilling to pay their fee) or my local chamber of commerce, I felt the Manta badge was the next best thing.  This way, a client can click on the badge and be taken to my business page that is located on the well-known small business directory.

How would this work for your business?

Let’s say you operate a business that sells an online training course for Excel.  As people complete your course, you could award them with a badge like the one below that they can place on their personal website or the website of their business.  Now, this “certification” provides them with a nice-looking badge or emblem that they can put on display.

Of course, you’ll include HTML code so that the badge creates a link back to your website, using your brand name or your keyword as the anchor text.  I would recommend using your brand name because too many exact match anchor texts can cause your site to get penalized by Google.

Not everyone will post the badge on their site; you will have no control over that.  But for all those who do, you will be the recipient of a number of “hands free” links right back to your site.  This helps establish you as an authority, makes your site stronger, and leads to higher rankings in Google.

What About Other Businesses?

Other businesses can take advantage of a link building system like this, too.  For example, in my business, after I work with a client for a little while, I ask them if they will allow me to place a small, tasteful link directly on the bottom of their website that reads, “Powered by Small Business SEO”.  In my case, I have not taken the time to design an emblem, so I am just using a text link.  This works just as well.

Retail businesses are a bit more challenging, but almost any business that provides a service can create a certification badge or some form of prestigious “medal” that many clients would be proud to put on their site.

If you would like some help coming up with a creative idea to help get auto-pilot backlinks for your small business, just give me a call!

Be Careful With “Don’t Pay Unless You Rank” SEO Services

Be weary of “Don’t Pay Unless You Rank” or $75 per month SEO ranking services.

Any SEO company that is selling SEO services at rates this cheap are usually using automated tools that create cheap links back to your website by creating webspam.

Don't Pay Unless You Rank, Baby!

I’m familiar with many of the automated toold out there and used in moderation, they CAN help provide a few links to your site to give you some link diversity; however, misuse of these tools can quickly land your site in the Google sandbox.

Being in the Google sandbox basically means that your site has been penalized or that you simply do not rank anywhere near the top 100 in search results.

Do Your Homework Before Hiring

When you are qualifying an SEO services firm, make sure to ask them what sorts of methods they will be using to rank your site higher in Google. Ask them what strategies they have found that work the best. And by all means, check out the testimonials of their clients, to make sure they do a good job.

With a little bit of research, you can find yourself with an ethical SEO services provider who will help you increase your sales.

But remember, SEO does not happen overnight. While it is possible to see quick results, this is not typical. It usually takes several months to begin seeing any sort of results from search engine optimization.

The key is to work with a provider who is going to be in it with you for the long run. Choose someone who uses ethical practices and adheres to Google’s guidelines.

Even though your results may take a little longer than someone taking short cuts, you’ll sleep well knowing the decision you made is one you can keep, because your results will be long lasting.

When it comes to SEO, slow and steady wins the race!

Click here to find out more on what to expect from SEO.

What Is An “Alt” Tag?

The alt tag attribute is used to tell search engines what an image is.  Search engines read text; they do not understand what images are.  Therefore, in order for a search engine to understand the photos, graphs and other pictorial representations on your website, you need to describe the photo using the image alt tag.

Here’s the HTML syntax for an image that I posted on this webpage.  Note the RED alt tag syntax.

<div id="attachment_3017" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 1056px"> <a href="http://mikemunterseo.com/blog/what-do-i-do-with-all-these-blog-comments -on-my-site/attachment/blog-comment-spam-sample-4/" rel="attachment wp-att-3017"> <img class="size-full wp-image-3017 " style="border: 0pt none;" title="blog comment spam sample" src="http://mikemunterseo.com/wp-content/uploads/ blog-comment-spam-sample.png" alt="blog comment spam sample"
width="1046" height="626" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">
Example of Blog Comment Spam</p></div>

In the example above, note the “alt” tag where I have denoted “blog comment spam sample”. This alt tag is a brief description of the photo that tells search engines like Google what the image is. Without the alt tag inserted, search engines do not know what the picture is.

Why Is The Alt Tag Important?

The image alt tag is very important for your site in terms of SEO.  It is one of the checkpoints of thorough on-page optimization work that helps you get found by search engines.

When you define what your images are about, you help tie together the theme of your page for search engine optimization.  For example, since this page is about “what is an alt tag”, it only makes sense that the photos I use on this page would be the same thing, or something that is related.  If I were trying to rank this page for the keyword phrase, “what is an alt tag”, then having my photo’s alt tag say the same thing helps me outrank other sites trying to rank for the same thing.  The reason for this is that the default “alt” tag for photos is left blank.  So, if you post a photo to your blog and do not denote its alt tag, your syntax will look like this:

alt=""

This is why you should take the time to go through each image on your site and tell search engines what it is by defining their alt tags.  It gives you a leg up on your competition.

How Do I Check My Alt Tag Syntax?

To check to see if your alt tags are clearly defined, you can look at the Page Source.  If you right-click your mouse on any web page, you will see an option called, “View Page Source”.  When you view the page source code, you can look through it to see the images on your page and see whether or not the “alt” tag has been been defined.

Not having an alt tag defined will not hurt you, but it definitely won’t help you.  Defining the alt tag for images on pages I am trying to rank for clients is one of the best ways to tighten up on-page optimization and help improve search rankings and traffic.

And if you really want to dial in your images, there are many other ways to optimize an image, in order so that your image may appear in search results.  You can read about that here.

As always, feel free to contact me if you have any questions!