Build a "link pyramid" to rank your sites in Google.
Google's algorithm is all about ranking sites that are "naturally" popular. That means that, although you can sum up how to rank your site in Google in four words ("Get lots of links"), you need to make sure that your site's link structure is as "natural" as possible (in Google's eyes, anyway).
To do this, you want to construct what I call a "link pyramid" for your site. This pyramid is a 3-level structure of links: 1) your base links, 2) your mid-range links and 3) your highest quality links.
Now, before going into detail about the pyramid, let me outline what Google looks for in every link you have to your site. The more of these qualities each link possesses, the higher value Google places on it when ranking your site.
- Geographic Diversity. If all of your links come from web sites whose servers are all in Podunk, Texas, Google is going to see that as being very suspicious. It's easy to know the relative geographic location of any web site, and Google incorporates that data into their algorithm. So you want to get links from web sites that reside all over the web if at all possible.
- Link Text Variety. If every single link to your web site all has the exact same link text, Google will devalue your links and not rank your site. In case you're not sure what I mean by "link text", that's the (typically) blue, underlined words in a link (e.g. my blog has the link text "my blog").
- Steady growth. If your brand new site goes from having zero links aimed at it to having two thousand links the next week, Google is not going to rank your site very well. Your site will often rank well for a few days, but it will then fall out of the rankings. That's because Google will see your sudden link surge as a brief moment of popularity, but once that popularity passes, so will your rankings. You want to grow your links slow and steady, increasing the rate of growth as your site establishes a broader link base.
Okay, so now you know what attributes each link aimed at your site needs to have. Now let's talk about each of the three levels of your site's link pyramid.
Base Links
The foundation of your link pyramid are your base links. As with an actual pyramid, the foundation is the largest part of this virtual structure. You need more base links than any other kind of link.
Base links are, for lack of better words, lower quality links. Links from things like lesser article sites, social bookmarking sites, blog comments, links from deep inner pages, etc.
It's important that you have a lot of these kinds of links, because Google's algorithm thinks that this is "natural." After all, how likely is it that a web site will have a bunch of super-high-quality links from major web sites and not have magnitudes more links from "lesser" sites? So you want to make sure your link pyramid has a solid foundation of these kinds of links.
Mid-Grade Links
The next level of our link pyramid are your mid-grade links. These are links from web sites that have more authority than the sites mentioned previously, but still may not be top-notch sites. The kind of sites that usually reuse EzineArticles content often fall into this category, as do links from mini-sites and sales letter sites.
Mid-grade sites have a fair amount of links aimed at them in their own right, and so Google sees links coming from them as being more individually valuable than the base links. Of course, that means that you don't need as many links from these kinds of sites as you do from the base link sites.
Nor should you have more links from these kinds of sites than the base link sites. Remember, it's all about looking "natural" in Google's eyes.
Highest-Quality Links
For most long-tail keywords (keywords with less competition in the search engines), you don't even need the top level in your link pyramid. You can usually rank just fine with the base links and mid-grade links. I have numerous sites ranking quite well for many nice keywords without any top-quality links.
However, when you're aiming higher, you need to collect higher quality links. By "higher quality", I mean links from sites that already have a lot of links aimed at them. In Google's eyes, site with a lot of links aimed at them have "authority", and anyone these "authority sites" link to must also be important.
The great thing about links from authority sites is that a few links can make a big difference. So while these links are more difficult to acquire, you don't need nearly as many of them to rank well for your keywords. I've brought sites from page two for my keywords in Google to page one with just a dozen or two links of this kind (and I'm talking about some fairly competitive keywords).
Just For Emphasis
Again, because I can't emphasize this enough, it's important that your link pyramid look natural to Google. That means having a large number of base links, a lesser number of mid-grade links, and a few top-quality links.
Of course, some of your links will blur the lines between the levels of your link pyramid. Perhaps they're not quite "base links", but not really reaching the point of being considered "mid-grade", etc. That's okay. That's "natural", too, and will only help you in your ranking efforts.
The best rankings I achieve I achieve by gathering all three kinds of links at the same time. Of course, I get more base links than I'm getting mid-grade links, and just a few top-quality links at a time. This is the "natural" growth pattern of a popular site, and it's what Google likes to see.
My Personal Link Pyramid System
I've achieved top rankings in markets ranging from patio furniture to music downloads to local real estate listings and more. I accomplish this by taking advantage of my link networks:
- 1WayLinks.net - I use this network to create the foundation of solid base links that give my sites sure footing in Google's rankings.
- 3WayLinks.net - To get a smaller set of about 250 mid-grade links, I always put my sites into the 3WayLinks network.
- MyWayLinks.net - When 1WL plus 3WL isn't enough to break my site onto page one of Google, then I use my not-so-secret weapon: MyWayLinks. Google loves the links from this network, and I've used it to push my sites into top rankings for more difficult keywords.
You see, I designed all three of those link networks. That means that all of the links coming from them are the kind of links Google is looking for. They all have the geographic diversity, link text diversity and steady growth rates that launch sites to top rankings as quickly as possible (without rising too fast only to fall back down again).
Right now I'm offering a trial rate of only $7 a month for the first month of each of the three link networks. That means you could sign up to all three for only $21 for your first month. See if those networks work for you as well as they're working for me and thousands of other web sites.
Remember, though, a little patience is in order here: it usually takes two to three months for a brand-new site to see real traction in Google's rankings. However, if your site already has some links established, you'll often see results faster than that.
(Incidentally, this was my first post ever written from my new MacBook. I'm trying to become more Mac-savvy.)
Please post your thoughts and questions in a comment below.
Selling physical products online (part 2 of 2)
Two days ago I posted the first part of this two-part series on how to sell physical products online. The first post dealt with finding an in-demand product, pricing it correctly and getting traffic using second-tier pay-per-click sites.
This second post deals with getting traffic from search engines (primarily Google) instead of pay-per-click sites. As I mentioned in the first part, Ted now gets almost all of his traffic from Google instead of pay-per-click (PPC) sites. That's because it's far cheaper to generate traffic from search engines than it is to pay for traffic using PPC. Getting started using PPC is great if you have the budget for it and your conversion rate is good enough to turn a profit, but the more traffic you can get from search engines the higher your profit margins will be.
Here's what I did to start generating razor-targeted traffic from the search engines for Ted's porch swing business:
Do The Keyword Research
Before doing anything else, you should always research your target keywords. You need to find out what the best terms would be to rank for. To accomplish this I use Google's AdWords Keyword Tool to find out what people are looking for and how much traffic I can generate.
I also check out the competition to see how hard I'm going to have to work to get the site ranked for the keywords I think will be best. This basically involves seeing how well linked the competition is, which tells me about how many links I'm going to need to rank well.
Setup A Feeder Blog
Rather than try to rank Ted's porch swings site directly, I chose to setup a Wordpress blog on a new domain, rank that site and use it to pass traffic over to Ted's site. There are a few reasons for this:
- Ted's not a search engine guy, so his site wasn't really built for getting ranked well in the search engines.
As I said in the first part of this series, Ted was doing great without getting any traffic from the search engines. He's not a search engine guy, and he was doing fine without the search engines, so his site isn't well optimized for search engines. It is, however, very well optimized to get people to buy!
- Having a site that recommends another site is a great way to increase conversion rates.
Good affiliate marketers have been using recommendations to increase conversion rates for years. If you write an article that praises a site and product you don't personally own, that recommendation provides a level of legitimacy that product owners can't generate themselves. It's like a testimonial, and increases conversion rates significantly.
I chose Wordpress for my feeder site because blogs are fantastically easy to rank due to the fact that each time a post is made it "pings" a variety of sites that automatically index your blog's content. That means you immediately get a bunch of free links back to your blog, which gets each new page indexed fast and improves your overall link popularity (and thus your ability to rank well in the search engines).
Use The Right Wordpress Plugins
I like to use the All-In-One SEO Pack for Wordpress, because it lets me give the blog a more search-engine-friendly title and meta description, as well as allows me to disable the indexing of categories and archives. I don't like the categories or archives getting indexed because I don't want Google to rank anything but the permalinked blog post pages. I don't want folks landing on the category pages and having to click again to get to the full article — I want them sent straight to the articles.
I also use the WP-Sticky plugin for Wordpress, which allows you to select a post that will always be on the home page of the blog. That way I can optimize the home page content for my chosen keywords.
Fill The Blog With On-Theme Content
Once the blog was up I seeded it with a bunch of EzineArticles.com articles related to porch swings. That way the site is chock-full of content that is very specifically related to my target keywords. I wrote a post targeting my chosen keywords and then made it the "sticky" post that is always shown on the home page. That post strongly recommends my brother's porch swings and links to the site in the end.
In addition to the recommendation and the link, I also put up an attention-grabbing banner ad for my brother's site. As of today this combination is generating a better than 50% click-through rate. So one out of two people who visit the feeder site are continuing on to Ted's site. That's like getting a 50% click-through rate for AdSense ads. How cool is that?
The result is a lot more sales for Ted. Ted's conversion rate is about 5% (yes, 5% on physical products ranging in price from $60 - $260 dollars), so his site is obviously setup to get visitors to buy. Combine that great site setup with the razor-targeted traffic from the search engines and you get a super-successful real-world business selling physical products.
Get Links to the Blog
The final step was to start getting links to the blog. I always get links from a variety of sources (3 sources in particular). All the link sources are absolutely necessary to the successful ranking of the blog. I can't emphasize that enough. The search engines want to see a variety of links from a variety of sources.
The result is that the blog ranks #2 for its primary keywords in Google, #5 in Yahoo and #2 in Bing (formerly MSN Live).
Since achieving those rankings I've also begun to work on ranking the site for an even tougher set of keywords that gets about fourteen times as much traffic (according to Google's keyword tool). As of today, the site ranks #10 in Google and Bing for those keywords (I've got a bit more work to do before it makes it into Yahoo for those terms). I expect it to be in the top 5 in a few weeks.
Exact Instructions Coming Monday
What I've given you here is an overview of how I set things up. But there are some very detailed things I do to assess keyword competition (and the value of a set of keywords for conversion purposes), as well as the linking methods that I use which are not stated here.
However, this Monday (June 29th) you'll have an opportunity to get all of the details of how I go about researching keywords and ranking sites in the search engines (including my sources for getting the all-important links), as well as the exact methods my brother uses to find in-demand products, price them right and get cheap traffic from second-tier pay-per-click engines to start generating profits immediately. Look for an email from me about that on Monday.
Until then, please post your thoughts and questions in a comment below.
Selling physical products online (part 1 of 2)
Most of the time Internet Marketers talk about how to sell products that deal with, well, Internet Marketing. I've been guilty of that, too, although for some time now my focus has been on promoting products that either help you create content or help get you ranked in the search engines.
I thought you might like to hear about how one guy (my brother Ted) runs a successful business online selling real-world physical products: porch swings. And man does he sell some porch swings! Last month alone he sold $42,848.31 in porch swings out of a small shop he has in his back yard.
Find that hard to believe? Here's a link to his May 2009 PayPal statement (he does all his business through PayPal):
Click here to see his PayPal statement for May
That kind of success begs the question: how does he do it!?! Let me start off my answer by telling you what he doesn't do.
No Gurus Involved
First of all (and I may be shooting myself in the foot here), Ted has never read any Internet Marketing courses. He's not invested time or money in any of the flood of material out there by self-proclaimed "gurus." He was seriously turned off by the hype and obviously overblown promises, so he decided to do things for himself.
Really, to sell anything online, you only need to know how to do three things:
- How to find a great product that's in demand to sell.
- How to price your product in order to get it to sell very well.
- How to get traffic to your web site so you can start making sales.
Ted took the time over the last three and a half years to figure out how to accomplish all three of those things very well. Let's talk about each one.
Finding A Great In-Demand Product
For the most part, Ted makes his own porch swings in his backyard shop. When he gets too many orders, he offloads some of those orders to another company in a neighboring town — but he mostly builds them himself.
He's not a trained, professional carpenter. He's just a guy who took up the hobby of woodworking and got really good at it.
So naturally, when it came time for him to find an in-demand product, he leaned toward something he could build himself. He used eBay to determine what products were selling like hot cakes, found one he could build and started selling it himself.
It's hardly a requirement that you manufacture your own product. Although the profit margins are generally higher, there are no doubt plenty of folks in your area who have quality physical products but a dismal web presence. Most "mom and pop shops" have a web site but few get any real traffic. Find these shops and resell their products!
Pricing Your Product
Regular folks who are looking to buy products online are very price conscious — especially in this economy. Ted discovered this early on. So he worked hard to find ways to cut his costs and stay competitive. One of his best tricks allows him to undercut his competition because he's a small business owner and not a "big dog" in the industry.
Being a small business owner has certain advantages in keeping overhead down: fewer employees, lower operating costs, etc. So find ways to keep your price lower than the other guy and you can expect much greater success online.
Getting Traffic to Your Site
Of course, no matter how in-demand your product is, or how low your price is, if you've got no traffic you'll get no sales! So you have to learn how to drive traffic to your site.
Although Ted is now getting most of his traffic from Google (thanks to yours truly–more on how I did that for him coming up in my next blog post), for the first year and a half Ted was doing great without getting hardly any search engine traffic at all! He used pay-per-click almost exclusively.
Ted did not, however, use AdWords to drive traffic to his site. Too expensive, he said. He found alternative sites that he could buy traffic from — again, keeping his costs lower so he could price his products better than the competition.
So if you're looking to sell physical products, try to think outside of the box and find second-tier pay-per-click sites to advertise in.
Coming Next Post: Ranking in Google to Sell Porch Swings
As I said, although Ted did great using pay-per-click traffic to sell his porch swings, most of his traffic comes from Google now. That really helps him cut costs because his traffic is virtually free. My next blog post will talk about the steps I took to get him the rankings in Google he needed to get the razor-targeted traffic that launched his business to the serious six-figure business it's become.
Coming this Monday, June 29th, you'll have the opportunity to get all of the details about how Ted found an in-demand product, how he cuts costs as a small business to price himself better than his competition, as well as what second-tier pay-per-click sites he used to sell his porch swings. Look for more information on that in the next blog post as well as in an upcoming email.
Please post your thoughts and questions in a comment below.
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Jonathan Leger has been earning his living online full-time since the fall of 2004. He regularly posts advice about search engine optimization (his current passion), AdSense and Internet Marketing. 
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