Link development has long been a cornerstone of a successful search engine optimization (SEO) programs, yet few search engine marketers do the process correctly. With free-for-all (FFA) link farms and poor Web rings polluting search results, how do Web site owners know which SEM companies to avoid, and which are legitimate?

This column addresses some basic guidelines for successful link development. It will help Web site owners avoid common sales pitches from unethical SEMs.

Link Development 101
At a basic level, a link counts as a vote. If a Web site owner finds content on a site is particularly useful and informative, he’ll link to that site.

As both a Web developer and graphic designer, I always visit and purchase from stock photography and digital image Web sites. Therefore, I have a page on my site that links to the stock photography sites I use most. I link to these sites because I find their content to be useful.

One might think if a site receives more “votes” than another site, then the site with more “votes” has higher link popularity. Unethical SEMs have promoted this myth for years, just so they can close a sale. As outlined in a previous column, Link Development: The Key to Successful SEO, the quality of a link always carries more weight than the quantity of links. It’s much better for a site to have a small number of high-quality links than to have a large number of low-quality links.

In an ideal situation, of course, a site should have a large number of high-quality links. Link development takes time. If a site has (a) a large number of high-quality links; (b) keyword-rich text; and (c) a site and page architecture the search engines (and end users) can follow, then qualified search engine traffic isn’t an issue. It’s very difficult to imitate high-quality link development.

Reciprocal Linking - Is It Flawed?
I do not and never have believed in reciprocal linking because the fundamental concept: you link to me and I’ll link to you, is flawed.

If you find a site’s or page’s content to be particularly useful and believe its content will benefit your visitors, then link to the page. You won’t link to another Web page because they wouldn’t grant you a reciprocal link? Perhaps you didn’t find the content as useful as you thought you did.

Many Web site owners receive e-mails from SEMs saying they’ve added a link to their site, with a request the site owner read and edit the listing. The e-mail commonly mentions PageRank, or “PR,” as it’s known in the SEM industry. The expectation is the site owner will return the favour. Otherwise, the link will be removed.

Whenever you receive this type of e-mail, promptly filter out the address and delete it. If the SEM Company truly felt your site’s content were valuable, they’d link to your site with or without that link being reciprocated.

Besides, last time I checked, people who search for home refinancing don’t type “search engine marketing” into a search query. A high-quality link comes from a site with content related to your site’s content.

Web Rings - Good or Bad?
Another way unethical SEMs try to score link development points is by creating artificial Web rings. Unfortunately, many Web hosting and design firms try this strategy as well. What they do is create a directory of sites that are somewhat related and encourage these companies to link to each other.

Quite often, you’ll see a link that says, “Site designed by XYZ Company.” It in turn links to the various Web rings.

First of all, no client should be obliged to link to their Web design firm’s site. When people visit your site, they aren’t searching for the company that designed it. They’re searching for the products, services, and information offered on your site. Unless you’re selling Web design or development services, or offer products related to this industry, it’s not a good idea to link to your Web design or hosting company.

I’ve seen more bad uses of Web rings than good uses, which is a shame. There are some cross-links site visitors certainly will find useful. If all domestic violence shelter sites would link to each other on a state-by-state basis (shelters in New York, shelters in Arizona, etc.), that type of cross-linking will make it easier for victims of domestic violence to find the shelter closest to them.

Non-competitive vs. Supplemental Content
I get an e-mail from a link development company every day asking me to link to their client’s site. I wrote a book about search-engine friendly design, and have a book Web site. Many search engine markers seem to think is a magnet for link development. What amazes me about these link requests is they violate a fundamental concept: not only should link requests go to sites with related content; they should go to non-competitive sites.

Let’s return to what I wrote above. If a site offers useful and informative content, then I’ll link to it without expecting a reciprocal link. I’m always book marking content in Search Engine Watch and HighRankings.com. So I have no problem linking to those sites.

Additionally, whenever a company sends a link request, someone must read the content on that site before sending the request. Nothing is more annoying to a site owner than someone who doesn’t read their site, but still expects you to modify your own site in his favour.

Here’s another example. In my book site, I’m not in favour of Web positioning software. I’ve never supported Web positioning software, and I write about the topic quite often. Every week, without fail, I get a link request from SEM firms who offer Web positioning as a service, or I receive a link request from a Web positioning Software Company.

My reaction? Filter and delete. I won’t even read the entire e-mail. If a person requesting a link doesn’t have the courtesy to read the content on my Web site, then I certainly won’t grant that person the courtesy of reading his e-mail. Common sense isn’t always link development firms’ forte.

Conclusion
Link development is fundamental for search engine marketers. It’s very difficult for a site to get long-term search engine traffic without it. The focus should always be on high-quality links, not a large quantity of low-quality links. SEMs must teach their clients how to correctly request links from high-quality, non-competitive sites. With successful link development, Web sites can receive long-term, cumulative search engine traffic. Just do it right.

By Shari Thurow

Search engines have moved beyond simply calculating keyword density and link relevance. More and more, the major search engines are mastering the ability to identify natural human language and evaluate a web page based on natural human language. AskJeeves.com was the first search engine to attempt to move to a natural human language system, although they focused on the user input aspect of search rather than evaluating the natural language of a web page itself.

By learning to identify natural human language, search engines are able to greatly reduce the amount of search engine sp@m. Search engine advances continue, especially on the heels of Google’s suspected algorithm change which will enable Google to weigh the relevance of links against the content of their pages. Search engines will continue to look at the entire content of websites and continue to attempt to identify the real subjects and themes of any given site.

As search engines learn to better identify the natural language structure of websites, sites that are well formed will have a natural advantage. Although good search engine rankings will always depend on more than just the structure and content of a website, the content of a website will always be the heart of a page’s rankings.

Make a Search Engine’s Job Easy
Search engine spiders have a lot of work to do. Not only do they spider billions of pages every month attempting to discover new web pages and update already discovered web pages, these spiders need to parse through hundreds or even thousands of lines of code trying to distinguish between titles, content, structural code, and even the occasional keyword stuffing by search engine spammers. By simplifying your website, you make the job easier for the spider and allow the spider to index more pages on your site in a shorter amount of time.

Avoid Bloated Code
Unfortunately for the sake of design, many website owners have paid absolutely no attention to how efficient their code is. As a result, they may have a lot of extraneous, unnecessary code. The result of bloated code is a page that may be difficult and confusing for a search engine to decipher, or the spider may misinterpret the code.

Fortunately, HTML and CSS is quickly catching up to the design standards of website professionals. Using proper HTML and CSS, you can design extremely appealing websites that do not rely on tables for their layout. If you would like to see just how versatile and effective HTML and CSS is, look at the examples laid out at CSS Zen Garden. CSS Zen Garden is a website that displays the power of CSS and properly formed HTML. There are several different designs all using the exact same HTML, but through CSS they are able to build sites that look completely different from each other.

If you want to see something very amazing about what CSS Zen Garden is doing, follow these steps. View the HTML of their page. It does not matter what style you are viewing, the HTML is the same for every style. Then copy that code and paste it into your HTML editor and view the output. The page that you will see is an extremely basic looking page. More importantly, though, the page that you will see is a very well organized page which would be easy for any spider to understand.

Learn More about HTML
If you are like most website owners, you know very little about HTML. You may know a little bit of code, but it really does not seem worth your time to learn the inner workings of HTML. If you feel this way, then you are really missing out on great SEO opportunities.

HTML is built to naturally identify parts of your web page that are more important than others. It was built to be extremely organized. Using the organization that HTML provides, you can help a search engine spider identify the parts of your website that are more important. Below are some uncommon tags that HTML provides that you can use to help organize your content:

Alt Tag - Most website owners know about this, but including an Alt Tag on your images is actually required if you want to have a properly formed website.

- The acronym tag allows for a website to explain what an acronym stands for. For example, the acronym SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. However, when the spider comes to your website, all it will see is SEO which may mean various things. The acronym tag will allow you to add this keyword to your text. The use of this tag should look like this: seo

- Although using tables to determine the layout of your website is becoming a practice that will soon be extinct, tables will still be necessary. The caption tag allows you to identify what a specific table is about. An example: 

- Although using tables to determine the layout of your website is becoming a practice that will soon be extinct, tables will still be necessary. The caption tag allows you to identify what a specific table is about. An example:Table 3.2. Raw Sales Data
- If you ever want to display programming code on your site, you should use the code tag which will set that text off as being programming code. Example: < ?php echo "this is a code example";?>
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The H Tags � H1 tags became popular in SEO circles once website owners learned that Google did pay attention to this tag. However, there are actually 6 different heading tags. The H1 tag is the most important while the H6 tag is the least important. If a search engine were to try to create a table of contents from a website, it should be able to do so from the H tags.
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These are just a few examples, but HTML provides several tags for your content to help you organize your material, and help search engines know what to emphasize in your content.
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The lesson from this should be that learning HTML is not an endeavor that has few benefits. There is a lot of HTML that can help you both simplify your code and add more content to help your rankings.
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Consider Moving to a Table-less Layout
The demands of web surfers unfortunately increased faster than website technology could keep up. As a few website owners were able to present visually appealing websites through tabled layouts, web surfers quickly became used to the graphic rich and well organized content. Unfortunately with tabled layouts, HTML code became sloppy and full of information that dealt only with the layout of the site, not with the content.
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Fortunately, web technology is catching up. It appears as if Internet Explorer 7, which was announced to be released this summer, will finally adhere to the CSS2 standards. If you are not familiar with CSS, just read that previous sentence as being a very good thing. As was demonstrated by the example of CSSZenGarden.com, CSS can be used to create a page that is as appealing, if not more appealing, than standard tables.
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Most website owners know CSS to be a tool that they can use to edit the appearance of text and the colors of their site, but CSS is also a tool that can be used for the layout of your site. As CSS comes out with newer versions (CSS3 is in the works), layout will become a more important development.
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So how do you move to a table-less layout? The answer is simple: learn HTML and CSS.
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The Side Benefit: Accessibility
Did you know that blind people surf the Internet? That may not seem shocking initially, but consider that the Internet is a highly visual medium of transferring information. Blind people are able to use web readers and Braille machines that interpret HTML code.
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Unfortunately, the vast majority of websites are not accessible for blind people because they are not well formed sites. By moving to a well formed website, you will be adding access for an audience who marketers really do not focus on.
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Bringing it Back to SEO
Many website owners are reluctant to take the time, energy, and money to really learn HTML and CSS, or to learn how they can make their websites truly accessible. However, in the end, they could be hurting their search engine rankings once search engines move closer to identifying natural human language.
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The creators of HTML have done a magnificent job in creating a structure that can be used to organize your content in ways that make search engine optimization extremely easy. As the owner of your website, you should take care to make sure that it is running the way it was intended to. You wouldn’t purchase a car that fails to meet basic standards of quality, so why would you trust your company’s income to a website that is based on code that does not meet the quality standards of the Internet?
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Designing your site properly does take time and effort, but the rewards are numerous. Not only will you have the satisfaction of having a website that is both light in its code and efficient, but search engines will be able to identify the key points of your content much easier, thus giving you more control of your rankings.- If you ever want to display programming code on your site, you should use the code tag which will set that text off as being programming code. Example: ?The H Tags � H1 tags became popular in SEO circles once website owners learned that Google did pay attention to this tag. However, there are actually 6 different heading tags. The H1 tag is the most important while the H6 tag is the least important. If a search engine were to try to create a table of contents from a website, it should be able to do so from the H tags.?These are just a few examples, but HTML provides several tags for your content to help you organize your material, and help search engines know what to emphasize in your content.?The lesson from this should be that learning HTML is not an endeavor that has few benefits. There is a lot of HTML that can help you both simplify your code and add more content to help your rankings.?The demands of web surfers unfortunately increased faster than website technology could keep up. As a few website owners were able to present visually appealing websites through tabled layouts, web surfers quickly became used to the graphic rich and well organized content. Unfortunately with tabled layouts, HTML code became sloppy and full of information that dealt only with the layout of the site, not with the content.?Fortunately, web technology is catching up. It appears as if Internet Explorer 7, which was announced to be released this summer, will finally adhere to the CSS2 standards. If you are not familiar with CSS, just read that previous sentence as being a very good thing. As was demonstrated by the example of CSSZenGarden.com, CSS can be used to create a page that is as appealing, if not more appealing, than standard tables.?Most website owners know CSS to be a tool that they can use to edit the appearance of text and the colors of their site, but CSS is also a tool that can be used for the layout of your site. As CSS comes out with newer versions (CSS3 is in the works), layout will become a more important development.?So how do you move to a table-less layout? The answer is simple: learn HTML and CSS.?Did you know that blind people surf the Internet? That may not seem shocking initially, but consider that the Internet is a highly visual medium of transferring information. Blind people are able to use web readers and Braille machines that interpret HTML code.?Unfortunately, the vast majority of websites are not accessible for blind people because they are not well formed sites. By moving to a well formed website, you will be adding access for an audience who marketers really do not focus on.?Many website owners are reluctant to take the time, energy, and money to really learn HTML and CSS, or to learn how they can make their websites truly accessible. However, in the end, they could be hurting their search engine rankings once search engines move closer to identifying natural human language.?The creators of HTML have done a magnificent job in creating a structure that can be used to organize your content in ways that make search engine optimization extremely easy. As the owner of your website, you should take care to make sure that it is running the way it was intended to. You wouldn’t purchase a car that fails to meet basic standards of quality, so why would you trust your company’s income to a website that is based on code that does not meet the quality standards of the Internet??Designing your site properly does take time and effort, but the rewards are numerous. Not only will you have the satisfaction of having a website that is both light in its code and efficient, but search engines will be able to identify the key points of your content much easier, thus giving you more control of your rankings.By Mark Daoust

Marketing gurus have already established that it is not possible to maximize the results of your marketing campaigns. This is because you never know which new and clever trick will bring an ever better result than what has gone before. Email marketing, like any other form of direct marketing, follows this essential rule.
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However, it is possible to optimize your marketing campaign results, meaning to measurably improve the results you are getting now relative to the results you had in the past. This applies to all forms of marketing, direct marketing, and advertising. The best way to do this is to test different variations on the message, the creative, the timing, and the frequency.
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MESSAGE
For example, all marketing messages begin with a headline that communicates an offer or benefit. “Learn more about solar power heating for your home??? and “Get a free solar powered radio with any solar heating system??? are both possible messages for a company that sells solar equipment, but clearly are quite different in their approach. And it’s not just the big pitch, but also small subtle variations on wording that can make a big difference. As Mark Twain said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is like the difference between lightning, and a lightning bug.???
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CREATIVE
The look and feel, colour choices, design layout, and other aesthetics are the creative elements for an email marketing campaign. Should a specific campaign be bright and edgy, or sober and business-minded? Should you use mostly pictures, or lots of text? Managers responsible for bottom-line business activities tend to respond to text and interactive emails from people they know and trust. On the other hand, managers responsible for more creative activities (i.e. marketing, advertising, design) and consumers respond best to highly creative email campaigns.
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TIMING
The time of day or day of week can have a big impact on the results for your email marketing campaigns. So is Tuesday afternoon or Thursday morning better for your particular offer? You can only find out by testing. Please read our article “Timing Is Everything: When and How Often To Use Email Marketing For Best Results” for a more detailed discussion of this topic.
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FREQUENCY
How often and how many times that you make contact, can significantly influence the results of your email marketing campaigns. Should you send once a week for three weeks, or every two weeks? Only testing can tell. Typically, rules of direct marketing show that “hitting” your target audience multiple times will ensure a higher response rate. The “Timing Is Everything” article also talks about the topic of frequency for your email campaigns.
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Preparing To Test
One of the most powerful marketing testing techniques is the concept of the “split run???. The idea is a very simple one that dates from long before the Internet. Basically, you segment your list into multiple groups, and then try different variations on each group. Once you determine which variation draws the better response, you can improve your results by incorporating these “lessons learned??? into future campaigns.
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Segmenting Your Lists
Marketers who have large enough lists can split off 10-20% of the total addresses to use just for testing. Whatever yields the best results will be used on the remaining 80-90% of the list. Those with smaller lists will have to do testing on the full list, and may not get to test as many variations. The more factors that you want to test, the more complex it becomes to segment your list, while avoiding sending to the same person twice, or to recipients that have opted off of your list at some point during the testing.
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For example, let’s say we want to test three different factors within a single mailing: creative “A??? and “B???, message “F??? and “G???, and timing “X??? and “Y???. We would need to first divide the list into “A??? and “B??? groups. Then divide the “A??? group into “AF??? and “AG??? groups, and the “B??? group into “BF??? and “BG??? groups. Lastly, we would need to divide the “AF??? group into the “AFX??? and “AFY??? groups, the “AG??? group into the “AGX??? and “AGY??? groups, the “BF??? group into the “BFX??? and “BFY??? groups, and the “BG??? group into the “BGX??? and “BGY??? groups (see Figure 1).
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Figure 1
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Whew! These three letter designated groups are the ones that we are going to use for our testing.
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Interpreting the Results
Determining which variation performed better is simply a matter of comparing all of the sibling test group results with each other. In the example above, how did “AFX???, “AFY???, “AGX???, “AGY???, “BFX???, “BFY???, “BGX???, and “BGY??? compare to each other in number of opens? How about click-through? Make sure that you have a large enough sampling of recipients that have been exposed to each variation or you may not be able to draw solid conclusions about how effective your campaign has been. Remember, you can test factors for a single mailing as well as testing factors over multiple mailings.
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Conclusion
Only once you have started to measure the effectiveness of your email marketing campaigns, can you begin to optimize the results. Split testing can help you get information much more quickly. When you test and analyze the results you can determine what is working well, or not, and use that information to improve your bottom line.

By Ron Evans