SEO Linking and Submissions

Actually, getting in the #1 spot is best, but I will settle for the top 5 or even anywhere on the first page for very competitive keywords. Obtaining those top rankings for your targeted keywords in Google will obviously be very important to achieving your online goals.

I don’t have some magic formula, just marketing online stuff that works. Very simple stuff that everybody can do to get those top rankings. Here are some of the tactics/things I do:

– article marketing through the free article directories

– create videos on my niche products

– make blog posts in my niche areas

– do press releases for my targeted products

– create free ebook guides on my subject areas

– build separate lists for each major niche market with follow-up emails

– participate in online forums with my sig links added

– make regular tweets about any new content

– find out my competitors’ main backlinks and duplicate them

– create Google Alerts for my major keywords and add comments/links to the ones I like

– keep adding fresh content pages to my sites keyworded to phrases used by buyers

Now on second thought, some of those are not so simple, but they can be easily done by most webmasters. Or, you can get someone to do them for you. For example, I get my videos done for me since I simply don’t have the time or expertise to do them myself. If you’re poor at writing or have little time, you can even get someone to write your articles for you as well. Same goes for your web content, but you have to be careful and make sure it is of the highest standard.

Still, these tactics are fairly basic marketing stuff which anyone can do to get those higher rankings. Perhaps, what many webmasters fail to realize is that getting and keeping your keywords on the first page of Google does take a lot of work and time. For very competitive keywords, I usually put in a year’s work to get to those top spots. It sometimes takes a lot less if your content (an article or video) becomes viral and lands on a lot of sites. That does happen, but for me it is mostly building steady one-way quality links back to the page or site I want ranked high.

However, it is this time factor which DEFEATS most people. They don’t have the patience or the resources to wait it out. After a couple of months they throw up their hands and come away believing all this Internet marketing stuff is for the birds.

Don’t get the wrong idea, there are probably programs and systems out there which will give you instant success on the web. I just haven’t found them yet, nor am I really looking since I have figured out how to get those top rankings and earn money on the web. However, the catch is, it usually takes around a year or two of hard work before the serious money starts flowing.

There are exceptions. If you’re good at writing articles, you can get immediate traffic and a few sales. Same goes if you’re into making videos and they become popular and featured in Google… you will make some sales.

However, for steady traffic which flows regularly and keeps the sales coming each day; you will need to keep those top rankings in the search engines for your keywords, especially in Google. Once you get those top rankings, I find you have to maintain them by continuing to build links by writing articles, making posts, creating videos… and so on.

My goals are very modest. I am doing affiliate marketing or sales where I usually get from 2% to 5% since I am promoting high-end electronics which provide low commissions. I also do some ClickBank type info products where the commission rates are much higher – 50% or more.

I also concentrate most of my time on products/services which give me a recurring income – make one sale and earn a percentage for years to come. The trick here is to promote services where once clients sign up they tend to stay with these services for years… services like web hosting, auto-responder services, telephone services, internet services and so on.

If you have your own products, your daily earnings will be much higher. Same thing if you do drop-shipping… but that also brings in other complications and worries. I like affiliate marketing because it suits my lifestyle. I refer the sales or clients and the merchant does all the rest.

Now, I have also found if you target longer keyword phrases which have little traffic but also much less competition, you can bring in sales in a matter of months, sometimes weeks. This “long tail marketing” as it’s called, goes faster, but you have to cover a lot of ground to be successful.

I prefer picking “mid-range” keywords that have competition, but if you put in the work, you will land on the first page of Google. I usually stick to keywords which have around 1,000 – 10,000 searches a month. Highly popular keywords which get hundreds of thousands or millions of searches I don’t bother with because I know I just can’t compéte with multi-national companies getting most of this traffic.

So it is a matter of picking the keyword battles which you have a good chance of triumphing. You do need to do a lot of research to see who is ranking for these keywords, what kind of backlinks they have and what kind of resources they’re pouring into obtaining/keeping those rankings.

I also check to see who owns the domains in the top five spots or on the first page. If one person or company owns 4 or 5 of these sites, it means you’re going to have your hands full trying to grapple for the top spots.

One simple strategy for getting those top spots in Google is to create two or three keyworded domains competing for the top spot. Link these together and one or, in most cases, all of them will land in the top three or four positions. For lucrative keywords, this can prove very profitable because your sites are receiving the majority of the web traffíc for those keywords.

Keep in mind, however, that in many niche markets major companies are now hiring content writing services, SEO advisors and webmasters to get those top spots.

It sometimes can be unnerving. Imagine you’re a small webmaster operating in a niche for years and suddenly you have four or five top brand multi-billion dollar companies competing with you for the same keywords in the search engines. This happened to me and to Google’s behalf, small webmasters still have a chance to keep their spots on the first page.

How long before these small webmasters are totally wiped out is anyone’s guess, but I believe for very lucrative keywords, it is only a matter of time before big companies throw so much advertising revenue and SEO resources at getting those top spots that the little guys will have a very slim chance of holding their keywords.

Fortunately, there are countless small niche markets and products that an online marketer can target and rank well for in Google with just a little hard work and patience. Using some of the tactics listed above will get you to those Top 5 spots in Google – just give them and yourself some time to reach your goals.

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Search engines love blogs, and are always pretty fast to index them. Getting yours out there for the world to see is not going to be hard. There is this cool tool that you can use every time you update your blog that is known as pinging. Pinging your blog after every entry that you make will let everyone know that your blog has a new entry and updated.

Many people think that they can write it or build it and they will come. This is not the case at all.

Just because you put something out there on the Web, does not mean that it will be seen by all. There are some things that you can do to ensure that your blog will be seen and seen by many. Blog marketing is really only as hard as you make it.

Building links for your blog will definitely help get it out there and get it know. However when you are trying to build a customer base and get your blog known, just a few links are hardly every enough. You will need to continue to work on your blog and get links to it all of the time. The more the better in this case.

Also keep in mind the higher authority sites, the more links you can get from the high authority sites, the better off your blog is going to be. Obtaining links is something that you will never stop doing. While you may take a short break, you will never be done.

Adding videos if possible to your blog is also a great technique that you can use for blog marketing. This is because you can then submit your blog to the video directories.

So if there are any videos that will fit into the market of your blog it would be to your advantage in the blog marketing world to add them. Then submitting your blog to all of the directories that it would fit in would be a great plus for your blog.

If you have funds for your blog marketing campaign, you should most definitely use those to submit your blog to the paid directories. Google trusts the paid sites, and they know that money was used to get your blog into those sites. They will also use the fact that not all paid directories will take just any site or blog. No matter how much money you have.

So, seeing if you can qualify for their blog standards will be something that you can use as well and get you in with the best sites and blogs on the web.

Using a press release as part of your blog marketing is another awesome way that you can get your blog out there. For a fee, you can have a press release written about your blog and then submitted to all of the hot off the press news sites. Your blog will get many hits from a press release and having it linked to these kind of sites will also help the page rank substantially as well.

While the cost of all press releases range from the company or person that you have do them, many times they are affordable and will fit easily into a marketing budget that you may have.

Using discussion boards such as forums and message boards with your blog link in your signature is still a great way to get your blog out there and known. Be sure that the message board that you post on is relevant to your blog or chances are that no one will be interested in clicking on your link.

Also, if you came off as an expert in your market, you should have no problems attracting new readers to your blog from the use of message board posting. This can also be a great way to market a website and get that out there as well to be seen by the world.

Find other blogs that are in the same market as yours and leave the writers comments. This will take them back to your blog and will also take their readers there as well. Doing this will bring some more traffic and is a great way to get your blog seen.

Getting links to your blog is a good way to gain new readers. Another great tool you can use is the RSS feeds. When you use the RSS feeds, it allows people to publish your blog on their site, and in return it gets you more visitors.

Blog marketing can be pretty effective if it is done right. However, you cant just set up a blog and expect people to find it. Get your blog out there and make it known to others just as you would a website. Exchanging links with others will help, so will article marketing using your blog.

Follow all of these great tips for easy blog marketing and you will have more readers reading your blog in no time.

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How much is too much to pay for SEO? (…or should you try to do it yourself first?)

Yes, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be an excellent way of getting leads.

Yes, good SEO can level the playing field between you and competitors.

Yes, you should do some level of SEO.

…but how much is too much?

Too much? Good question.

You’ll find that everybody that uses the word “Internet” is going to suggest that you engage in SEO and many will make you an offer to do it for you. There’s nothing wrong with that as far it goes. But what you have to decide is how much you should pay for having it done.

Some Perspectives On Paying For SEO

Here are a few important tips to help you decide the answer to that question:

(1) First, make sure you really do need outside assistance. If you’re looking for better SEO placement for relatively unique or so-called “long tail” key words (e.g. “pine street rental condominiums” ) it might be worth trying it yourself before you involve an SEO consultant or SEO firm.

(2) SEO is not rocket-science. Mostly it’s monotonous drudgery. So what you pay should not be about hiring “expertise”. The SEO effort is more like 90% drudgery, 8% experience, and 2% expertise and you should compensate accordingly.

(3) The value of SEO boils down to “clicks” – preferably clicks that result in a sale conversion. SEO should be measured on the same cost-per-click basis any search-engine-marketing (SEM) or pay-per-click (PPC) campaign would be – i.e. the basis of ROI. If you don’t know how many clicks or orders you want, do not engage SEO until you do.

(4) SEO is not static and optimization is competitive. You may be on the first page today but your competitors aren’t necessarily going to sit still forever. You could be bumped at any time. So if you’re not prepared to maintain an ongoing and strategic SEO effort – no matter what the competition does – then save your money.

(5) Search engine “secrets” are just that – secret. The search engines aren’t telling them and anybody that claims to know the secrets is just guessing. It doesn’t mean they can’t help but it’s not as if they have some special advantage. Impossible.

(6) Frankly, from the search engine point-of-view, if your site doesn’t have enough useful and relevant content to be on the first page, ethical SEO notwithstanding, eventually it won’t be. This is the objective of the search engines and there’s little likelihood that the SEO “expert” pitching you is going to out-think Google, Yahoo!, Bing and others in the long run.

Is Doing SEO Yourself An Option?

It’s almost always worth taking a first crack at SEO yourself. Often only a little effort can make a significant difference. If you do want to make the effort, invest a few dollars in a do-it-yourself SEO guide and try to adhere to the following minimum suggestions:

(1) focus on keywords that are realistic. You’re not likely to get a good placement with a keyword like “real estate” but you might get first page with a keyword like “Hill street real estate”;

(2) make sure your keyword is mentioned in the link to your page. Instead of saying “click HERE” make sure the text for the link says something like “for more information about HILL STREET REAL ESTATE”;
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(3) Make sure your keyword is mentioned in your page title, your keyword list, your page content, bolded page content;

(4) For every keyword you’re interested in, make sure you have an appropriate page to focus on it (and that it complies with #1, #2, and #3 above)

(5) Register with search engine webmaster accounts so that you can submit your site to them quickly and efficiently (search for “google webmaster”, “bing webmaster”, or “yahoo webmaster” to find the details).

Don’t Forget Links

Lastly, if you going to make an initial stab yourself, understand that quality links to your site are a vital factor in your ultimate placement. The more the merrier. To get a headstart on building links to your site, do the following:

(1) enroll in all relevant local or regional directories – (search “free directories” to find lists of these); many will be free, some will want nominal fees or backlinks. You decide.

(2) Ensure that any press releases and announcements you make refer to your site and specific pages within it.

(3) Post pages of your site to delicious.com or to digg.com and to similar bookmarking sites.

(4) Ask local friends and business acquaintances if they will exchange links with you.

(5) On the other hand, DO NOT sign up for paid links without the guidance of someone experienced in Internet marketing.

Do these things sound particularly difficult? No.

And well worth taking a stab at by yourself. From there you can decide whether its desirable or worth the cost to pay for SEO services from a 3rd-party.

No Matter What You Do…

You need to think in terms of what kind of return you are going to get on your investment. The calculation is simple: Divide the total SEO cost (yours or a 3rd-party’s) by the number of orders/sales you’ve received as a result of the effort. Then compare that cost-per-sale against your margin-per-sale. If you have margin left over, you’re in the right territory. If you don’t, you’ve got a problem.

The bottom line is that when you talk with any SEO service provider, you must think in terms of ROI. Not in terms of “secrets” or first pages or top spots, but ROI. (Note: it is theoretically possible to be on the 3rd page and still get a positive ROI – not likely, but possible) If the ROI doesn’t work, then search engine optimization may not be for you and other Internet marketing methods might yield better results and a better ROI.

About The Author

Kurt D. Lynn offers business consulting services for growing businesses in the U.S. and Canada. klynnbusinessconsulting.com – For more information or more articles, check out his blog at www.klynnbusinessconsulting.com/blog.

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If you have a website and are trying to earn a living from it, then you need to know Search Engine Optimization. SEO is key to driving more visitors to your site. More visitors means more business, so you definitely need to read on.

As with anything, you can take it to the limit and hire an expert in the field, but there are things that you and your web designer should be doing to optimize your search engine rankings. Here is a list of 20 things you can do now, to improve traffic to your website.

1. Use a keyword tool such as the Google Adwords Keyword Tool or their Search Based Keyword Tool . You will then be provided with other key words and phrases that users search for that you can then integrate into your site. Take care, however, not to stuff your text with keywords in an unnatural way, which can count against you.

2. Content dominates. Web crawlers love ever-changing content, so update your site regularly. Post good, well-written material that is unique and be sure to include your keywords within the content. Consider a blog, if your site content won’t change frequently. Spiders LOVE blogs!

3. Content may dominate, but links rule. Make sure to get your site lísted in numerous trade directories, associations, colleagues, etc. Be sure the locations of your backlinks are quality ones, and relevant to your site.

4. If you like image maps or Java script drop-down menus, be sure to include text links in another location on your pages. Web crawlers can’t decipher your images and they require real text to follow.

5. Page titles are important! Title each page individually according to its subject matter. Title tags should be keyword focused, and if you insist on putting your business name in it, put it at the end.

6. Write articles. As usual, be sure to include your keywords, post them to your site, and then post them to article sites. You will be surprised at where your articles will end up after a few months, all linking back to YOU!

7. Hyperlinks within your site should be written with the proper keywords, i.e. “green t-shirts” and not “click here”.

8. Go easy on the Flash. Spiders cannot crawl flash animations, so keep them to a minimum, especially if the animation contains text that you want your visitors to read. Integrate that text into the page instead.

9. Make sure that external links to your site link to the actual domain, i.e. http://www.redroses.com, and not http://www.redroses.com/index.html.

10. Renew your domain name promptly! Domains that are about to expire, or even that have less than one year remaining can be considered spammers by some search engines, and this will hurt your rankings.

11. SEO is not a one-shot deal. Since searches, and searcher’s needs, change quickly and frequently, expect to work on your optimization daily, in order to get the best results. Getting crawled initially can take weeds, and getting high rankings can take months, sometimes a year or longer, depending on how much effort you put into in. Nothing ventured, absolutely nothing gained, in this case.

12. Use captions with your images. No brainer, and use ALT tags with them as well. Include the words “picture” or “image” in your ALT tags, as searches will often be for a keyword along with one of those words.

13. Use an XML sitemap. You can get one of these from Google as well. Sitemaps provide very crawl-worthy text for hungry little web spiders.

14. Search engines love video, too! Be sure to include video in your sites, and then upload the video to other quality sites, such as Metacafe, AOL, MSN, Yahoo and, of course, YouTube.

15. Get a Google Webmaster account. This will provide you with numerous tools that you can use to better enhance your visibility.

16. When you have your Google Webmaster account, enable the “Enhanced image search” feature. Allowing Google to find your photos will help in your SEO efforts.

17. Monitor your account. It’s vital to know what page your visitors are coming in to your site on, and what page they’re exiting from.

18. Link back to yourself. Putting links to other pages in your site is an easy way to improve traffic to individual pages.

19. Name your URLs clearly. It’s easy to understand what www.cowboyboots.com/women/buckarooboots.html would contain, but if your page is titled www.cowboyboots.com/45773/bbb.html, search engines are much less likely to figure that one out.

20. Don’t make the mistake of paying money to companies that say they can get you ranked higher! With a little time and effort, you can improve your site’s rankings yourself, and some search engines consider links from these sites to be of poor quality.

I hope these tips help you on your way to better website optimization!

About The Author:

Theresa Sheridan runs a freelance website and graphic design company in Central California.

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This is one of the basic rules of content development when you’re preparing an SEO campaign. Home pages no longer exist. The days of visitors coming in only through the front door of your website are long gone. With search engines indexing each and every page of your site, they could enter anywhere. That’s why it’s important to make sure you have keywords and keyword phrases on every page, not just the one where you think potential clients or customers are going to land.

This brings in another important element of search engine optimization: your site navigation. If you website is designed to send visitors from your home page to a specific “sign-up” or “purchase” page, that’s great, but what if they land on your “about us” or “service” page? Is there a clear path for them to follow from there? What about all the other pages on your website or even on your blog? If someone is reading something of interest to them, can they jump right over to a purchase page and buy your product?

The traditional website is no longer effective if you’re going to be successful in any internet based venture. When designing your site, you’ll want to take into account the possibility that any page in that site could outrank the page you actually want visitors to come in on. It’s not inconceivable to have the most remote section of your website be the most popular. Low competition, high search volume keywords can take your most obscure product and make it a best-seller, but only if you have a clearly defined path for customers to buy it.

Content, as always in SEO, is king. Do some research on your industry keywords. Find out what people are searching for and incorporate those keywords or keyword phrases into all of your web pages, not just the one where you think visitors will land. You can add specialty keywords for individual product pages, but make sure your overall site design includes some base keywords that will appear everywhere. If you don’t know how to do it yourself, hire a professional content writing service to do it for you.

Once your base content is in place, make a plan to add pages or blog posts regularly using those same keywords you chose in the beginning. Competition in all industries is fierce on the internet, so never get complacent after your first round of writing. In order to continually move up the search engine page rank ladder, you’ll have to keep building.

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Last week, Google published an official statement about quality links and their effect on your website rankings. In the statement, Google wants to explain their viewpoint on earning quality links.

Backlinks

Google recommends that you do the following to get more links to your website:

1. Get involved in the community around your topic

You should interact and contribute on forums and blogs that are related to your website. Building a good reputation can drive people to your website. If these people like your website, they will link to it.

2. Offer long-lasting, unique and compelling content

This is a no-brainer. The more compelling your website is, the more people will link to it. In addition to unique articles, you can offer useful tools on your website.

3. Solve the problems of your target group

If your website offers solutions to common problems of your target group, your website visitors are likely to link to your site. Publish tutorials or videos on your website or offer practical tools.

Surveys and original research can also attract links. According to Google, both methods grow your credibility in the community and increase visibility.

4. Humor can help

Entertaining content is shared more than ever before. If your website offers something funny (a humorous downtime message, amusing content, etc.), chances are that people will link to your site.

However, these short-lived link-bait tactics usually wear off quickly and they do not contribute much to a long-term linking strategy.

5. Directories help you to get links

According to Google, there are great, topical directories that add value to the Internet. However, there are also a lot of low quality directories.

When you submit your website to a directory, make sure it’s on topic, moderated, and well structured. Do not bulk-submit your website and make sure that your website will be added to the right category.

6. Avoid spamming methods

Any legitimate link building strategy is a long-term effort. There are those who advocate for short-lived, often spammy methods, but these are not advisable if you care for your site’s reputation.

Buying PageRank-passing links or randomly exchanging links are the worst ways of attempting to gather links and they’re likely to have no positive impact on your site’s performance over time.

If your site’s visibility in the Google index is important to you it’s best to avoid them!

To Read More: Click Here

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Nothing on the internet remains the same, at least not today in this modern world of social networking platforms and Web 2.0. In order to be successful in any web-based business venture, you need to pay attention to what is happening in search. Google, Yahoo, Bing, Alta Vista, and others are constantly changing the criteria and algorithms they use to determine search engine page rank. To stay ahead of those changes, your search engine optimization strategy needs to evolve on a regular basis.

A good example of the changes in search criteria is the way in which links are now counted in the formulas that determine page rank. In the past, you could get a back link from anywhere and it would improve your positioning. This allowed many companies that had inferior products and services to rise to the top, making a search for services a frustrating exercise for web consumers. Today, the search engines have taken steps to eliminate this “link farm” method of marketing by discounting links from sites that are not credible themselves. Linking to them can actually hurt your rank, not help it.

Another trend that is being addressed in new algorithms is the number of ecommerce or affiliate sites that appear at the top of a search page when you’re looking for information only. There’s nothing more annoying to someone seeking direction or research material than having to wade through a dozen pages of offers and gimmicks. The companies that are presenting those pages use certain tactics to get to the top of search pages, so search engines are looking for ways to detect and discount those tactics.

There are certain elements that do remain constant. A link from a credible article directory will always be counted in your favor. The new algorithms that have been developed in recent years seem to be heavily weighted in favor of quality content. If you’re serious about your ecommerce or service venture, hire a professional content writing service to write your web pages for you. You could do it yourself and maybe save a few dollars, but the content creation phase is too critical in SEO to pinch pennies on.

When planning your next SEO campaign, or rather your next SEO phase, because SEO should be a constant routine for you, use common sense. Search engines look for original content, relevance, and links that actually pertain to the industry you’re in. Choose your categories carefully and make sure that you’re not submitting any type of “spun” material. Check the PR rankings on any site you do link exchanges with. If they are higher than yours, that site will be a benefit. If they’re lower, they might not be.

Most importantly, be open to change. Search engines are still trying to get it right, so changes are being implemented frequently. Remember, the web itself has only been a viable place to do business for the past decade. Roll with the changes. Keep your SEO strategy loose and simple. Look for good links from credible sites and you’ll do fine.

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Effective search engine optimization is not as complicated as the “professionals” would have you believe. Search engine page rank is calculated using formulas, or algorithms, that give weight to certain elements of your website or the sites connected to your website. Contrary to what you may have heard, the elements of these formulas are not all that mysterious. To those watching the industry, some factors have been fairly consistent over the past decade.

Content is one of those elements. Quality content carries major weight, and volume of content comes in a close second. If you are launching a web-based business in this era, you will need to have a large website content-wise if you want to compete in your niche market. Rest assured, those who have the same plan you do, and there are many, will be building their sites by adding additional pages regularly and by using the most effective tool there is for content creation, the blog.

Blogs, initially created as a way to express personal thoughts, have become an essential marketing tool for ecommerce sites and service providers on the internet. By scheduling regular posts to publish on a pre-determined cycle, you are in essence inviting search engine spiders to come and visit as often as possible. The more often your site is indexed, the higher your page rank will be for your industry keywords.

To add to the power of the blog, you can also set up an RSS feed. This is fairly easy to do. You can go to a site like Feedburner or one of the many other services that burn feeds and have one in just a few moments. Once you get it, make sure you get the code for one of those little orange chicklets and post it on your website. Subscriptions to your feed are wonderful for SEO marketing. They each show up as a link back to your site.

Finally, connect your feed to Twitter. Connect your Twitter feed to Facebook, Linked In, Digg and Technorati. Use your blog and write something once a day, anything related to your industry is fine, even a quick announcement. Connect the blog to your main site at least once per post using anchor text. If you don’t know what that is click one of the links on this post and you’ll understand. If you don’t have the time to write, hire a content writing service to write for you. There are many that offer both quality and affordability. The return, regardless of cost, will more than justify the expense.

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The days of “Search Engine Marketing Professionals” keeping secrets from the rest of the world are long gone. SEO, long a mysterious realm that only a few privileged individuals and firms were allowed to venture into, is now available to everyone. Starting today, we are making SEO services available to you directly, explained in a way that anyone can understand. We’ve put together a list of the most common SEO techniques and we’ve broken that list down so you can purchase individual services instead of paying ridiculous monthly fees for that “all-inclusive” package.

Search Engine Optimization is done primarily with link building. Good links to acquire come from human-edited article directories, credible classified directories, search engines, and press releases. In addition to those, there are several RSS, blog, and social networking (Web 2.0) methods of obtaining useful links that the search engine algorithms will recognize and count in the calculations that determine your page rank.

SEO Linking and Submissions is a simple site for everyday people who would like to see their website on the front page for keyword searches in their target market. Take a look at the SEO services we’ve made available here. If you know what you need, you can use the automated Google Checkout options at the bottom of each page to purchase what you need. If you have questions, use the contact form to get in touch with us and we’ll walk you through it.

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