Paying Google and other search engines to advertise a site is an easy path for driving audience, revenue and ideally some profits.

But sites often don’t make big profits that way because they underestimate the amount of labor involved on top of the actual ad costs.

And then there is the issue of return on investment.

What happens when a visitor reaches the site? Do they generate enough sales to make the campaign worthwhile?

Even higher profits are found via search engine optimization — if the site manager limits the amount of time required to build and maintain SEO — because that audience doesn’t cost a dime.

Again, it’s only the labor that costs with SEO. (more…)

Article rewriting is a fast way to improve search engine optimization and user experience at the same time.

Imagine the possibilities: Higher search rankings, lower bounce rate, increasing pages per visit, more social shares and more return visits.

It really isn’t too good to be true.

Start with a simple scenario. An article on the site was published three years ago. At the time, work was especially busy and the article didn’t get much attention.

Maybe it was only 300-400 words long. It didn’t have any photos or graphics. It also didn’t have any related links. Keywords were not well defined. If it did have a photo, the alt tag was missing.

That said, the topic of the article has lasting value. In other words, it is evergreen content. (more…)

Every site manager with a strong sense of marketing and search engine optimization knows that finding a high quality backlink is like finding a pot of gold.

Search engines love those kinds of links because they represent a vote in favor of the site getting the link.

That vote has become more important than every because the rise of “nofollow” links has resulted in many sites losing the “link juice” that the links provide.

“Nofollow” means the search engines shouldn’t follow the link and as a result shouldn’t look on it with any favor. The vote is gone.

That leaves far fewer opportunities to find (or build) backlinks from friendly sites, related blogs, article sites and other sites that still allow nofollow in one form or another.

It’s important to note that the value of the backlink is based in part on two factors — the page where the link resides and the site where the page resides. (more…)

Sometimes the proof isn’t there, but the evidence adds up and it just makes sense to jump to a conclusion.

That’s the case with bad links and search engine optimization.

Let’s start with one important piece of evidence in that vast and much-debated mystery of search engine algorithms.

One of the most important tools for any site is Google’s Webmaster Central. Anyone who is interested in using it can go to Google, click on Business at the bottom of the page and Webmaster Central at the bottom of that page.

Sign in, follow the instructions and add the site to track. Wait a day or two for data to start showing up. (more…)

The classic tongue-in-cheek movie Princess Bride has a scene that could easily apply to the life and death of link building for SEO.

Miracle Max: He probably owes you money huh? I’ll ask him.

Inigo Montoya: He’s dead. He can’t talk.

Miracle Max: Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there’s usually only one thing you can do.

Inigo Montoya: What’s that?

Miracle Max: Go through his clothes and look for loose change.

If you believe Google and Bing, link building for the sake of SEO is dead. Their search engine experts keep saying in public that sites should focus on building great content and forget about building backlinks. (more…)

Article marketing for SEO is a tactic that helps improve search engine results for a Web site’s most important keywords if it’s done carefully and done on high-quality sites.

In simple terms, it’s the practice of writing an article about your site and putting it on another site.

The other site typically specializes in articles written specifically for promotional purposes. Five of the largest are:

1. HubPages.com
2. EzineArticles.com
3. Squidoo.com
4. Voices.Yahoo.com
5. GoArticles.com

Anyone interested in building site audience and search engine rankings to build their online business will go to one of these sites, sign up for an account and start writing.

Some of these sites require a minimum of 500 words per article, and some require much more. (more…)