Link To Us

Webmasters – you are most welcome to create a link to our site as per the example given below. Our Links Directory system was established to streamline the process.

If you would like to add your site, all we require is that;

1. You register first – this helps prevent spam listings
2. You can add as many links as you like once you have registered
3. You must submit to the CORRECT category – if one does not exist, suggest it and we will create it within 24 hours.
4. A RECIPROCAL link is required, details are to be found on the directory “Suggest Link” page and on this page, below.
5. Only one link per domain
6. Accurate Titles and Descriptions – no excessive repetition of keywords accepted.
7. No Adsense sites accepted
8. No gambling or porn sites accepted

If the correct category page does not have as high a Page Rank as you were hoping for… Sorry, but we will NOT accept any requests for placement on a higher ranking page.

Step 1 :: Add a link to us as follows;

Step 2:: Click -> Register

NB: This will take you to the Registration page at; http://www.comauth.co.nz/directory/register.php

Once you have registered, you will then be able to suggest your link/s in the appropriate categories.

Step 3 :: We will verify your link

• All link submissions are checked by the administrator before approval. We check spelling, content, reciprocal links etc.
• If the submission meets our requirements, we will usually approve and include it within 24 hours!

RULE No.1: We only accept sites which contain useful content!!!

Link Importantance

Link Building – 1-Way Backlinks are Absolutely Essential!

Link Building of incoming links, particularly 1-way incoming links (backlinks) to your site from high-quality, trusted sites is of mission-critical importance. According to recent assessment of the most important factors in search engine rankings, the consensus of opinion was that the single most important element in SEO today is keywords in Back-Link TITLE text!

Google and other major SE’s now take the view that;

• Each back-link to your website is a vote of confidence!

• The more important the website that links to you is, the more value the vote has!

• Sites with related content that link to you give the highest value!

• Links from pages with related content give good vote value.

• The keywords in the back-link Anchor Text (Link Title) text are the most accurate indicators of your site content!

The perceived value of your site is loosely expressed as Page Rank – the higher the PR is, the more important it is within its particular theme. The problem with PR is that the only data we can see is historical – 4-5 months out of date.

Links outward from your site:

Each link you place outwards effectively subtracts one vote from your accumulated total. Links to “bad neighbourhoods” can really hurt you – take care who you link to. If you want to link to a selection of sites that might provide useful information to your visitors, adding a NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW tag to the page stops your Page Rank bleeding away. Alternatively, add a “REL=NOFOLLOW” to individual hyperlinks – this indicates to the SE’s that the link should not be counted as a vote of confidence from you.

Reciprocal Links:

Are now of minimal value, unless the other site is significantly more important than yours. The keywords in the Link Title text still transfer value, because they build on the word picture that Google has of your site. Reciprocal links are a natural part of link growth, but are no longer regarded as the most valuable links.

1-Way Backlinks:

There is much higher value in 1-way incoming links from trusted sites – human-edited directories, academic or government sites for example.

For a new site its really important to get the link building process under way, to start developing the site’s “Page Rank” at the earliest possible time. In most cases (with a new site) you end up consigned into the Google “sandbox” probationary period and the sooner you start working your way out of THAT, the better!

Basically, the main search engines (Google/Yahoo) see it this way; if no one links TO you, you are not worth indexing, regardless of how well your content is optimised.

• the Title “link text”

• the surrounding Description text

• the link page content and meta-tags

NB: All projects will be quoted in your currency (NZ$, AU$, US$, GBP, Euro etc) as applicable.

Learn how we can make your Website grow – click HERE for a Free Site Assessment!

Suicide in Cyberspace – Your Outward Links Can Kill Your Rankings

Link building strategies have, for most people for a long time, revolved around reciprocal link exchanges. Whilst most people understand that links are important, they generally don’t understand why this is so. In a nutshell, a link to your site has traditionally been accepted by Search Engines as a vote for your site. A link from a topic or theme-related site to yours is better than a link from a site having a completely different topic. An important site’s link to yours carries more weight – for example from The Open Directory, or Yahoo Directory. All pretty straightforward…

BUT… the rules have changed… significantly! All the thinking webmasters worked diligently to build links – willy-nilly – in order to subvert the search engine rankings and gain an advantage to themselves at the expense of everyone else. For a long time, there have been mutterings about this, and comments from Google staffers about possible penalties from linking to “bad neighbourhoods’” and – heaven forbids it -  buying links! Google et al simply don’t approve of willy-nilly link-building schemes, and have recently tightened the screws a bit more, in two notable ways…

Bad Links

Some links are bad… for example, if you are a car sales company and you’ve got dozens of completely irrelevant links to international hotel sites… yeah, YOU know the ones! in Prague, Munich, Shanghai  etc! That’s a BAD neighbourhood over there! That IS going to put a world of hurt on you! And as for the Free For All link sites, web rings, and 3 way link schemes… that’s just suicide in cyberspace! Why? Coz its a blatant and completely indefensible attempt at cheating the system!

Reciprocal Links – Almost a Waste of Effort

Reciprocal links are still of some value, providing the link titles are explicit, and if the page they link to you from has a higher Page Rank than the page from which you link to them. The concept of a link to you being a vote for you, and being added to your site’s Total Vote Count has a flip side. A link from you to someone else essentially deducts a vote from your total vote count… meaning its value is minimal when compared to a 1-way incoming back-link!

1-way Outward Links Are Toxic

Ok, lets assume you are a service provider, maybe a health clinic, and you deal with hospitals, other doctors, specialists, nurses, laboratories. So, as a benefit to your visitors, you place direct links to their web resources on your links page. Is that clever? Most certainly it is NOT! Transfusion time, because you’ll be haemorrhaging Page Rank with nothing in return! Do it, but be smart about it, because there is NOTHING to be gained (by you) from linking to any site that does not link back. So make sure your links include the “nofollow” attribute that tells SE’s that the link is NOT a vote by your site for that site!

Link Content Is Mission Critical

This is mission critical because Google and other have decided that they can’t trust you to be honest about your site! Basically, it seems like there are two web tribes – those who know not so much about how things work, and those who know more than they should. There should be a flourishing third tribe, who just build great sites with lots of terrific content that automatically ranks highly – but nobody’s seen nuthin’ from those guys for ages!

The tribe who know more than they should ruthlessly manipulate every available loophole to dominate search engine rankings, at the expense of those who have yet to read SEO For Dummies. Therefore, Google decided that its essential that there is some external correlation between what YOU say your site is about, and what OTHER people say your site is about…  This is done by analysing the words in the Link Title on all links pointing to your site.  Bottom line here is – if a keyword phrases does NOT appear on links to your site, you ain’t gonna rank for that phrase!

For many established sites, this is the main reason they might have experienced a noticeable decline in rankings in the last few months. Most older sites will have a majority of incoming links based on their business name, and NOT on their activities / products / services / location etc. To use the common “widgets” analogy – if you are selling “widgets” and all your incoming link Titles have your only business name e.g. Smiths Manufacturing Co Ltd, its now very difficult for you to rank for “widgets”!

Backlink analysis reveals this shortcoming rather quickly and, lucky for you, it is possible to remedy this by building 1-way incoming back-links using multiple Title / Description combinations that contain a good spread of relevant keywords. It does require some keyword research, and it is tedious – but if you don’t do it, you are certainly not going forwards! But your competitors might be…

Yet Another SEO Article by;

Ben Kemp, aka The SEO Guy

Web: www.comauth.co.nz

Email: SEO

Contact us for a Free SEO Site Review….

Link Value in SEO Campaigns

Links Defined

Link – a textual or image link TO another site – usually included for the benefit of your visitors because it contains important information relevant to your product or service. Usually set to open in a new window so visitors don’t “lose” your site when they open the link. Outward links are of minimal value to your search engine rankings – unless you have a lot of them relating to a common “theme” – in which case your site might be perceived as an “Information Hub” for referrals on a specific topic.

For example, it might be appropriate for a medical-related site to provide links to support groups, goverment/health agencies, doctors and pharmacies with whom they work etc.

Affiliate Link

You place a link to a provider in order to make a commission out of selling their product/service to your visitors. There is zero value in terms of search engine rankings. And of course, there is no point linking to them if you are not going to sign up and sell their products!

BACK LINKS:

Reciprocal Links

Where two sites agree to provide LINKS TO EACH OTHER for mutual exchange of visitors, and to increase the relative importance of both sites by increasing total incoming link count. Reciprocal links have value in terms of improving search engine rankings, although this value has diminished in recent times. It is still a “natural” form of linking and should not be avoided – just apply this test – “Will the link lead to relevant information, of value and interest to my site’s visitors?”

If the answer is yes, then by all means exchange links. Done properly, constrained to sites with a similar theme, this may also lead to your site being perceived as an “Information Hub” for referrals on a specific topic.

1-Way Back Link

A link to your site, not requiring a link in return. These are the most valuable form of linking in terms of search engine rankings. Usually these are from clients – e.g. a manufacturer such as Sony/Toyota/Kodak will have a gazillion 1-way back links from retailers, users etc, as will government agencies, airlines, academic institutions etc. This can lead to your site appearing to be an “Authority” on a specific topic.

In most normal web site situations, your main source of good 1-way back links will be Web Directories. In these, a listing in the most relevant category can provide a very valuable “reference” or “testimonial” for your site. Because most directories are human-edited, the search engines place greater value on such links and the well established ones are often regarded by the search engines as “trusted sites.” The more important the directory, the greater the value. In the case of Google, they place huge importance on a site’s inclusion in The Open Directory, and also in the Yahoo Directory… It is important to select the most relevant category in which to have your site included – the content of the page in which the link is contained may also be assessed.

Changes To The Way SE’s Evaluate Links

Google bases approx 50% of its assessment of your site relevancy to a specific search on the site’s that link to you, and on the words contained in the links pointing to your site.

Yahoo has recently filed for patents for technology similar to Google’s Page Rank assessment mechanism, and is expected to gradually implement a similar emphasis on incoming link quality.

It is important to specify HOW the link to you should be implemented on other sites – and to that end I always add a “Link To Us” page on any site I work on, which specifies the exact wording to be used on links TO you.

Good Site Design Criteria Incorporates SEO

1.1 Introduction
1.2 Focus on the Product
1.2.1 Decide on Site Name/URL
1.2.2 Internal Page Naming
1.2.3 Image Names
1.3 Design Issues
1.3.1 JavaScript
1.3.2 Flash
1.4 FRAMES
1.5 Splash Pages
1.6 Databases vs Text
1.7 Page Layout
1.8 Content
1.9 Links
1.10 Geographic/Location Searches
1.11 HTML Coding Errors
1.12 Choosing a Designer
1.13 Site Maintenance
1.14 Ten SEO Design Rules

1.1 Introduction
Should you be contemplating a new web site, or the rebuild of an older site, there are many issues you need to consider. High in the priority list at the outset should be search engine rankings, and design of the site to maximise the site’s potential web profile is crucial to success. A key design criteria should be to ensure that the web site, as launched, will require minimal remedial search engine optimisation. In the process of site creation there is almost always conflict between form (design) and function.

The key premise must be that without visitors, the site is worthless. To achieve a return on investment (ROI) the site needs to generate the maximum volume of “free” traffic. Your design goal is generation of qualified traffic i.e. potential customers who want what you offer, and arrived on your site by choice because it was relevant to their search. These days, you will see this referred to as “organic” search results.

Aside from this, the site may also generate traffic from newspaper advertising, mail-outs, your business stationary and business cards etc containing the site’s URL, and from pay-per-click advertising campaigns on search engines via Yahoo Search Marketing and Google Adwords. This is not “free” traffic because it is generated at additional cost over and above your site’s establishment and operating costs.

Ranking highly establishes brand recognition and there is the underlying impression of credibility if you are always in the Top 10 on search results. Organic search results achieve a much higher click-thru rate than paid advertising.

The items covered here are all elements within any serious search engine optimisation program, and should all be incorporated into the site design to varying degrees. Each of the major search engines has a great many elements in its ranking algorithms and the more you can get right, the better the results. You are setting out to make a crystal clear and unequivocal statement of what your site is all about.

1.2 Focus on the Product
Be very clear what it is you are selling… and aim all content and copy at ensuring that potential customers know that you have it available.

1.2.1 Decide on Site Name/URL
There is definite benefit in having primary keywords in the site’s URL. e.g. www.fast-food-delivery.com  There is a balance to be struck between wanting to include multiple important keywords, and user inconvenience in typing very long URL’s.

Separatong words with a hyphen; e.g. www.fast-food-delivery.com  is possibly better than stringing them together as  www.fastfooddelivery.com – although some SEO guru’s suggest being sparing with the total number of hyphens. Some say one is enough…

1.2.2 Internal Page Naming
There is also definite benefit in having keywords in the site’s internal HTML page names, e.g. www.fast-food-delivery.com/riccarton-food-delivery.html The more clues you can give to the search engines regarding the content of a page, the easier it is for the SE to rank it.

1.2.3 Image Names
There is also benefit in giving descriptive image file names e.g. gourmet-hawaiian-pizza.jpg is better than pic1.jpg

The keywords contained in the image names will not be ignored by the SE’s and will usually gain you some additional traction.

Search engines now index image files, and it is therefore useful to give all your image files descriptive names. Some traffic will be generated this way, so you might as maximise the opportunity.

1.3 Design Issues
There are many elements to be considered in building site that will rank well on the search engines.

1.3.1 JavaScript
Bear in mind that pretty much anything contained within JavaScript is ignored by the search engine spiders. A nice JavaScript menu is all very fine and dandy, so by all means use one – I always do. However, because the links to internal pages within that menu will not always be seen by Googlebot and other spiders, it is crucial to provide an internal HTML pathway that allows the spiders to index all your content. Achieve this by;

• Content links – provide text links to internal pages from within the Home page. Anchor text that uses primary keywords, linked to an optimised page that has relevant information, will score you lots of brownie points. Pages with direct links from the Home page are also accorded a higher value.
• Site map page – ensure you have a text link on the Home page to a site map page which has a text html link to every internal page. Spiders seldom go deeper than 3 levels, so this tactic ensures all pages are accessible at no more than 3 levels deep.

Use JavaScript sparingly – every additional word and comment tag within a page diffuses keyword density within that page.

Use an external file and “call” your JavaScript applications instead of adding them to the pages. This is more efficient and, where a change is required, means editing one file instead of dozens of pages.

1.3.2 Flash
Do NOT use it to build a site in its entirety. There is no known benefit and lots of downside. Seriously, Flash animations should only be used where they can serve a key purpose – perhaps to establish a theme, or to tell a story. Images should be kept small, and file sizes less than 200k if possible.

On the Internet, attention spans are short, time is precious, and we want as near to instant page load times as possible. Flash is slow to load, content is not easy to index, and maintenance is more complicated and expensive. Please remember that not everyone is on Broadband yet…

1.4 FRAMES
Frames are an architecture solution for strictly controlling what the viewer sees on the screen. They are also a disaster from a search engine perspective, as search engines cannot readily penetrate into internal content Were search engines able to index internal pages, a viewer directed to the indexed pages would not see that page within the normal context of framed page menus, headers and footers, making navigation a confusing experience. Do not allow your web designer to use FRAMES.

1.5 Splash Pages
A growing trend on web sites is to have a “splash” page which might have a nice animated Flash graphics introduction etc, and looks superb.

Do not permit your designer to use a splash page. It forces your users to “click to enter the site” and this irritates people enough the first time, and really reduces their enthusiasm to return.

A “Splash” page is like the box-within-the-box type of present – really amusing for the guy who cello-taped up the boxes, but bloody irritating for the person trying to get inside to the goodies.

Splash pages are invariably a monument to the designer’s graphical and artistic genius, and serve no purpose in the site’s function.

1.6 Databases vs Text
I am fixated on not using databases, as this is generally an awful approach to building a web site from a SEO perspective. For most “small business web sites” there is simply no sound justification for a database-driven approach. However, on an e-commerce web site it will almost certainly be necessary to drive your online ordering system via a database, often using extensive JavaScript programming etc. What I’d recommend is building an “outer” HTML-based site with an inner Shop.

For an example of this, take a look at www.kozitoez.co.nz or www.BenArthur-Photography.com  – These are modest little static HTML-based sites with an osCommerce core and a reasonably seamless integration of SEO requirements… Perhaps your online ordering application could work in a similar same way, where the outer HTML pages would be unique and fully optimised with individualised file names, titles, description, keywords etc.

Most database-driven sites make it difficult to produce unique pages – usually there are generic title, description and keyword tags to make it easer to maintain. Databases are also famous for impenetrable URLs – any URL having a “?” or “&” in it makes life difficult for search engine spiders trying to index internal content.

Databases are often promoted on the “ease of maintenance” grounds. Instead, I recommend the use of “include” pages to produce standard elements such a header, footer, side menu. One change on one page is reflected across all pages.

1.7 Page Layout
Keep it simple. There are some basic rules to be observed that will ensure best results in search engine rankings. These can conflict with the site designer’s view of the world, and you need to make informed decisions when/if compromises are to be made.

The search engines place greatest emphasis on the top of the page – the 1st heading or title, and the 1st paragraph. Your keywords must be placed prominently there. Use a narrow header holding a company logo, this header could be common to every internal page.

Follow this with a Title/Heading in H1 style to emphasise its importance, and containing the keywords/ key phrase. Follow this with a brief first paragraph, containing the keywords/ key phrase at the beginning, highlighted in bold. If possible, using an iteration of the keywords/ key phrase as the anchor text, add a link to an internal page containing more detail.

Some search engines will look for the first iteration of the search phrase, and include a portion of the paragraph as their results for the search. Its crucial that you control what searchers see by providing good copy.

You need to have around 300-500 words on the page. Place some strategic links to key pages on the footer, plus your address with all relevant geographic location details.

1.8 Content
Content is king, content rules, ok! To achieve consistently high rankings, you need good content, able to be readily indexed. To me, this means a series of simple heirachical HTML pages, which might include;

• Products and/or Services 
• Contact Us – a form-based interface for customers to contact you with suggestions, complaints etc
• Web Resources – a links page to sites of interest to your clients
• A “Link to Us” page outlining your preferred link-back text
• Site Map page listing every in text hyperlinks
• Company Profile
• Newsletter
• Location Map if applicable
• Coverage Area Maps
• Special Deals and promotions
• Hours of operation
• Rates

Build yourself a dozen or so unique pages with around 400 words apiece, targeting slightly different keywords/phrases on each page. Now you’ve got some substance for the SE’s to work with.

1.9 Links
Incoming links to your site are a crucial element of the search engine ranking game, and especially important on Google. In fact, its very difficult to get indexed at all on Google if there are no incoming links to your site.

The quality of links and their context are more important than the quantity. E.g. a link to your site from Telecom’s Internet Yellow Pages, on a page of content related to your theme is worth 25 links from B&B’s, hotels etc.

Search out all the local business directories in your area of operation. See which ones rank well and get listed on them even if it costs you a few $ annually to do so.

When you have nothing to do, sit down and look for sites that link to your competitors and contact their webmasters seeking reciprocal links.

1.10 Geographic/Location Searches
These days, most searchers refine their query with multiple words, frequently using location e.g. “fast food delivery Christchurch” or “hotel accommodation Ashburton.” If you are city or suburb specific, be specific about that. E.g. specify this in page Title, Description, Body text etc. Include city, suburb, address, postal code in the page footer on all pages.

Search engines are also heavily focused on “location” as an indexing element that enables increased relevancy searches, in particular geographic location.

1.11 HTML Coding Errors
Ensure the designer does produce perfect HTML code. You can easily validate (check) this, but be sure to indicate to the designer that this is a prerequisite. Yahoo in particular will not index a site if there are HTML code errors – and this as a consequence would exclude you from MSN and many other search engines and portals as well!

1.12 Choosing a Designer
By now, you’ve got a better idea of the overall design goals, and you can use these points to help in specifying your design requirements. Set out a design brief and circulate it to several designers for appraisal and request project cost estimates.

Refine the list to a group of 3 potential designers from the preliminary response to your design brief. Meet with each and discuss the site project with them, ensuring that they understand what you want. Redefine the plan, refine costs.

Request a “fixed price contract” which requires that you have agreed on everything before hand. If it takes longer than estimated, that becomes someone else’s problem, not yours. Any amendments required by you are obviously a variation to the plan, and must therefore be made at additional cost to you. All such amendments should be requested in writing, costed by the designer, and agreed to by both parties.

1.13 Maintenance
Site maintenance is a key issue. There will be ongoing site changes – to the links pages, food specials, pricing etc. You need to figure out who will do that for you, and to keep it as simple as possible. Rather than requiring expensive, complex software, or arcane FTP file transfers etc, you need a simple maintenance process, no more complex than using a word processor.

Many of my clients use MS FrontPage 2003 for site maintenance because it gets the job done reliably and at a modest price. A good alternative, although somewhat more complex, is Macromedia Dream Weaver.

Maintenance becomes an issue for many, either from a technical or lack of time perspective. Usually the task does not require a full-time webmaster, and but for small business there are not always skilled staff available to handle it the task. Your site designer will usually offer to do maintenance for you, and there are also “contract webmasters” available to assist.
1.14 The SEO Guy’s 10 Design Rules

1. No “Flash”
2. No “Splash” page
3. No “FRAMES”
4. No unnecessary databases
5. Simple layout – Logo, Heading, 1st paragraph, followed by balance of body text
6. Use HTML pages – fast, easily indexed
7. Unique Pages – every page has a different title, description, keyword targets
8. Fast page load times, minimal graphics use
9. No Coding Errors permitted
10. Use of Headers, Footers, Side Menus– via “include” pages, to minimise maintenance

Hell, if all designers did this, The SEO Guy would be looking for another job!