ProStores Design, ProStores Customization, ProStores SEO

Link Building and SEO Tips

Link Building:

• Link building is the single most important part of achieving a high ranking website.
• When possible try to get your keywords in the links pointing at your pages.
• Trade links with topical hubs and related sites.
• Look for free links from related sites and directories.
• If you have some good internal content try to get direct links to those inner pages.
• Write articles and get them syndicated at other sites.
• Issue press releases with links into your site.
• Leave super glowing testimonials for people and products you really like. Often times when they post them they will include a link back to your site.
• Mix your link text up. Adding words like “buy” or “store” to the keywords in your link text can help you rank well for many targeted secondary phrases.
• Link Brokers-
  Here are a couple of link brokers that we use and recommend:
  1. www.text-link-ads.com (buy high-quality links individually)
  2. www.wildnettechnologies.com (a link broker who will find and buy links for you)
  3. www.seoranksmart.com (another link broker who will find and buy links for you)

Directory Submission:

A directory is a website that allows internet users to browse through links based on categories. Directory listings not only offer exposure to potential customers, but they provide powerful inbound links to your site, which can help you build link popularity and Page Rank. It’s a good idea to submit your site to high quality directories that offer relevant categories. Below is a list of 40 of the top directory sites. Note: the longer that the directory has been on the internet and higher the Page Rank generally indicate a higher quality directory.

Submit to Google:

Google is the world’s largest search engine. They continually add new sites to their massive index of the world wide web, and luckily, they allow you to share your web site’s URL with them for consideration. We highly recommend that you submit your web site to Google as one of the first steps involved in promoting your website.

To submit your site to Google, simple visit: http://www.google.com/addurl/ and follow the instructions that they provide.

Google Webmaster Tools:

Google Webmaster Tools provides a free and easy way for you to submit all your website’s URLs to the Google index and get detailed reports about the visibility of your pages on Google.

Getting Started

To get started, visit https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dashboard

In order to access Google Webmaster Tools, you’ll first need to sign up for a Google account. If you already have a Google Account, you may use the login information from your existing account to access Google Webmaster Tools. If you do not have a Google account, use the “Create an account now” link to sign up.

Once you are logged into the Google Webmaster Tools Dashboard, you’ll simply need to enter your website’s URL (ie. www.mywebsite.com) into the provided input field and click the “Add Site” button.

Once the site is added, you will be able to view Google’s indexing statistics from the Webmaster Tools panel.

Note: there are many advanced features of Google Webmaster Tools that require site verification. Verification is performed by adding a special meta tag within your web site’s underlying code. We highly recommend that you allow us to handle this process. We’re happy to offer advanced setup of your Google Webmaster Tools, along with the setup of Google Analytics (see below) for 1 hour of billable work. If you have other minor adjustments that you’d like performed to your site at the same time, we can generally perform these changes within the same 1 hour of billable work. If you’d like to request these services, simply submit a support ticket. We ask that you sign up for a Google account and provide us with the login information when requesting this work.

Overview

Within the Overview section of Google Webmaster Tools, you can find out whether or not pages from your site are included in Google’s index. If you are not yet indexed, the Overview section also provides links to information that can help you get your site indexed. Once your site is indexed, the Overview section allows you to see the last time that Google has visited your site for indexing purposes, along with a web crawl error report.

Diagnostics

The Diagnostics section allows you to view potential problems that Google encounters when their website crawls are accessing and indexing the pages of your website.

Statistics

Statistics gives you an opportunity to see the top search queries that bring people to your site, an overview of the links on other websites that point to your site, along with other useful index statistics.

Links

The Links section of Google Webmaster Tools gives you detailed reports on in-bound links that are pointing to your web site from other locations on the web. Additionally, you can view your site’s internal link structure and find out which links on your web site are being considered for display directly in Google’s search results.

Sitemaps

The Sitemaps portion of Webmaster Tools allows you to submit a sitemap directly to Google. Sitemaps serve as a guide to Google’s crawlers, allowing them to index your site more efficiently. You can find more information about sitemaps within this section of Webmaster Tools.

Tools

The tools page gives you access to a number of advanced indexing settings. Some features include the ability to set the rate at which Google crawls your site, a tool for removing specific URLs from Google’s index, and a tool for creating a robots.txt file.

Google Analytics:

Google Analytics is a great tool for gathering statistics about your website and tracking the behavior of your web site’s visitors and it’s absolutely free to use. The service boasts a simple user interface and the stats are presented in a way that’s easy to understand. The data gained from Google Analytics is invaluable when making decisions regarding search engine optimization. Likewise, Google Analytics is a great tool for analyzing marketing statistics, making it a must for e-commerce web sites. Google Analytics helps you find out what keywords attract your most desirable prospects, what advertising copy pulled the most responses, and what landing pages and content make the most money for you.

You can find out more about Google Analytics and sign up here: http://www.google.com/analytics/index.html

Note: The setup of Google Analytics requires that you insert specific code on each page of your website. Additionally, the ability to track ProStores e-commerce data requires advanced ProStores programming. We highly recommend that you allow us to perform the work involved in setting up Google Analytics for your website. We’re happy to offer advanced setup of your Google Analytics, along with the setup of Google Webmaster Tools (see above) for 1 hour of billable work. If you have other minor adjustments that you’d like performed to your site at the same time, we can generally perform these changes within the same 1 hour of billable work. If you’d like to request these services, simply submit a support ticket. We ask that you sign up for a Google account and provide us with the login information when requesting this work.