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Houston SEO Link Building & How to Check Backlinks

Houston SEO

Houston SEO

Houston SEO What Is Link Building

Houston SEO experts know that an important part of optimization is link building. Link building used to only mean internal and inbound links. Internal links are links from one page on a site to another page on the same site. These links are usually in the form of text links, and the text they link through should contain the primary Houston Search Engine Optimization keywords for the site.

Inbound links are usually text links from blogs, deep links in directories, and inbound links from other sites. In the past, SEO strategies encouraged the accumulation of many links. However, a good Houston SEO Company knows that quality links matter more than quantity. Inbound links should be carefully selected from niche directories that drive relevant traffic to your site, as well as directories and sites that have a high Page Rank.

Remember that as of the Panda Update last February, link building has changed a great deal. Inbound links do not carry quite as much weight as they used to. Google did factor social media use into the algorithm. Social media ends up overlapping with link building, because social media creates inbound links to a site. These social media inbound links also relate to trustworthiness of the site, site activity, and popularity on the Internet. Cumulatively, link building and social media can make up about 24% of site traffic.

Local map listings are also very important, as are citations. Local map listings are the Google, Bing, Yahoo and Yelp listings that detail your business address and site. Many people use these directories to find local businesses, and the results will show immediately in Google Analytics. Customers review the business here on the local map listings through Citations.

Google recently changed the way citations from different domain names show up on Google organic searches. Citations used to appear cumulatively and greatly affect the order of map listings, however now you must click through to the reviewing domain to read full reviews. Google did this because of legal issues with the referred to sites. Citations are still very important. However, right now Citations posted directly to Google may be more relevant to SEO than ones posted to, say, Urbanspoon or Yelp.

Houston SEO How to Check Your Inbound Links

Houston search engine optimization checks inbound links at www.yahoo.com. In the search toolbar, type “link:www.yoursite.com” and hit Enter. A list pops up of all the links related to the domain name you entered. To see only the inbound links from link building, and to exclude inbound links from your own site, select Show Inlinks: “Except from this domain” at the right side of the navigation bar at the top of the page. The remaining links are all of the inbound links to your site.

While you’re on this site, it’s a good idea to check the links from your top competitors for organic search engine results. Finding and acquiring the same quality inbound links as your competitors is a great way to improve your organic search engine results and find relevant niche directories to your business.

You will probably find that many of the top competitors in Houston search engine optimization have bought links in the Yahoo Directory, Business.com Directory, or are listed in Dmoz – the best directory on the web. To keep up with these competitors, I would highly recommend that you also join those directories. They will help drive relevant traffic to your site. To learn more about link building and Houston web marketing, contact Directory One at (713) 465-0051 for Houston SEO services.

Authoritative Backlinks Through SEO Citations

SEO website marketing companies know that one of the quickest and easiest ways to increase your business’ ranking in the search engines is getting citations.

In the real world, receiving a citation is usually a bad thing. In the world of the internet, things are just the opposite; SEO citations are an effective way to increase your company’s ranking in the search engines.

On the internet, a citation means your business name and address has been mentioned on another website.  They are important because Google search spiders look for citations during their web crawls, awarding you a point for every citation about your business they discover.  The more citations your business gets, the more points it earns, which translates into a higher search engine ranking.

Increasing the number of citations isn’t a difficult task. Citations only have to mention your business name and address – they don’t have to be links leading to your web site. One way to rack up the citations is to make sure your company is listed in as many local and national business directories as possible. Joining professional and community organizations like the Chamber of Commerce or Better Business Bureau is another way to get citations.  Leaving a comment on a website with your business name or address counts as a citation. Reviews are considered a citation as well – be sure to ask your customers to leave reviews on local sites.

Just remember, don’t overdo it.  Too many citations too quickly could attract the wrong attention from the search spiders – Google doesn’t like businesses that yank their chains.  Build your citations in a slow, steady organic process.

If you don’t have the time to devote to this task, there are many internet website marketing companies that will provide this service. Houston website developers Directory One offers comprehensive SEO website marketing services designed to increase your company’s internet presence and they are dedicated to increasing your company’s rankings on the internet.  Contact them today at 713-465-0051 and find out the many ways to increase your business’ ranking on the internet.

Houston Social Media Marketing for Search Engine Optimization

Houston search engine optimization is most effective when it keeps on top of new developments in the industry. Google confirmed the inclusion of social media in its algorithm as of the Panda Update in February 2011. Services such as Facebook and Twitter now have a direct impact on SERPs. What does this mean exactly?

Perhaps this inclusion was a prelude to the implementation of Google’s social media. In March Google announced the implementation of the +1 button. When users click the Google +1 button, they are recommending the page to Google for their contacts. If someone in their network of contacts makes search queries that return similar results, the accumulated Google +1 for their network will show beneath the page title and description that we usually see on search queries.

Yet another social media button to add to your website! Many people have resisted the new + 1 button and it’s relevance. Since it is still in its experimental phase, we don’t really know exactly how the button affects search engine results, whether those effects are restricted to social networks, or how they compare to Facebook and Twitter. However, since Google – the biggest search engine on the web – supports the button, it will probably influence your SERP. If it influences your site’s ranking, the sooner you implement the button, the better.

The main reason to start using Google +1, is that it improves your SERP, along with other social media. Even though the button has only been in use for a couple of months, there has already been an experiment testing the effects of the button on SEO. The final result shows a 24% increase in Google search ranking for the same number of impressions, or appearances of a site on search engine results.

Why use Google +1 rather than other “Like” buttons such as the ones on Facebook or Twitter? The +1 button doesn’t direct you to a third party site where you need to log in to express your approval. Once you express your approval, it doesn’t flood the pages for all of your contacts with information about something they don’t necessarily share a common interest in. People will only see your recommendation if they make searches that bring up the same results as the searches you made.

If your company has these social media platforms, it’s important to post the linking buttons on your website pages. Remember that search engines take the presence of these links into account when determining SERPs. If you don’t have these services affiliated with your website, and don’t have the time to set them up, Directory One can do it for you. Contact your Houston Search Engine Marketing Company Directory One at (713) 269-3094 for more information about how we can help your company gain new customers through the use of web marketing and social media.

SEO Blogging Attracts Reliable Customers

Houston Search Engine Optimization Consultants at Directory One encourage clients to attract reliable, interested customers to their website through blogging. Blogging can be a great way to showcase your business’ services, cutting edge developments or newly trending topics. For example, if you are a Houston Door Company, your blog is an excellent place to showcase recently completed projects.

Blogs are already set up to be search engine friendly through tags and categories. Use them. Google recognizes those tags and factors them into search engine terms for your site. Keep your tags at five to ten and direct them at the blog post content– if you exceed this limit Google spiders may be wary of the blog trying to attract irrelevant traffic. Tags and categories are also a great way to drive blogosphere traffic to your site, since they link blog readers in through trending.

If you want to drive closely targeted customers to your blog and website, include search terms in the post title, URL, and link important words to earlier blog posts. Set these links to open in a new page if you can, so visitors can easily navigate back to your page to explore additional content. Remember to put keywords in the alt tags and titles to photos and videos in your blog too. To learn how to identify relevant keywords for your site, please consult this Houston SEO Service post on keyword research. An SEO plugin for blogs can help integrate the keywords into the post’s metadata.

Once you are publishing optimized posts to your blog, posting your content to forums and blog comments can help people find your brilliant ideas. Another way to improve your blog site is to submit it to a number of excellent blog directories. Directories make your blog readily available to surfers who are mixing, stumbling, digging, and bookmarking cyber sea treasures. These inbound links can greatly help your sight’s optimization by anchoring it to offsite relevant content and increasing the flow of traffic. Post to social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook to tie the blog post in to your social network.

When it comes to Houston writing for your blog, always remember the principle quality content over time. Make sure to regularly update your blog. Google reads consistency as reliability, which improves your ranking. If you are really excited about your business’s new blog and love to write, go ahead and write those riveting, targeted, search engine optimized blog posts and save them to the blog as drafts to be uploaded later when you don’t have as much time to write a well considered blog post that a week.

Call (713) 465-0051 to contact Houston SEO Experts at Directory One. If you don’t have a blog yet, don’t let that stop you from calling. We can set up an SEO friendly blog for you that matches the design of your website. We know how to help you optimize your website’s blog today!

Houston SEO Site Map & Keyword Research

Once your Houston Search Engine Optimization Consultant has completed the keyword research and targeted your company’s area of interest, the keyword research will immediately be put to use in the site architecture.

The structure of the site should be easy to use and easily navigable by clients. Examine your keyword list. There should be a primary keyword for the whole site, the top 5-6 keywords, top 10, top 25, and the full list of 50 keywords. The primary keyword for the whole site would make a good URL if available. If not, try to add a word to the primary URL so that keyword appears on every page of the site, helping Google identify the content of your site with those words. For example, if you were a Houston DWI Lawyer, then www.dwilawyerinhouston.com would be an excellent choice for a site name.

Examine the keyword list again, this time focusing on the top 5-6 keywords. Each intended page on your site should have a primary keyword associated with it that is relevant to the content of the page. This keyword will be integrated into the URL, title, h1 tags, and content. For example, if a Houston Probate Attorney has several pages on her site describing services that include special needs planning, then www.houstonprobatecounsel.com/special-needs-planning.html clearly tells Google what the page identified by that URL is about. Google reads the dashes in the second part of the URL as word breaks. Pages describing other services offered would be titled accordingly.

Make sure to map the URL keyword tags out before the site is online so that you don’t have to retrace your steps and repeat work later. Once your Houston Web Design Company goes live with the site name and URLs according to your keyword list, Google begins to index your pages over time and any changes made to the URLs sets the indexing back. The next step in integrating your keyword research into the site map is to optimize the title tags, h1 and h2 tags, and page content according to the completed site architecture and keyword mapping. A title tag identifies the name of the page, and usually shows up above or below the URL on the browser tab depending on which browser you are using. Google pays special attention to these tags, and they should include the primary keyword for the site, as well as the primary keyword for the page. Keywords in the title tag should be separated by a | which Google reads as a phrase divider. For example if a Houston Orthopedic Surgeon specializes in Sports Medicine, I would probably set title tags associated with his homepage as Houston Orthopedic Surgeon | Kaare Kolstad, MD | Sports Medicine Specialist.

The h1 tags, or headings, should include the primary keyword of that page. The content or the page should be sprinkled with inbound links according to relevant page keywords. Keep the inbound content links at 2-3% of the content word or else Google may read the page as spam, which harms your site’s SEO Website Marketing.

Make sure to include the top keywords of that specific page in the metadata of the page. The metadata is located in the Source header and consists of meta code for title, description, and keywords. On certain search engines the meta title and description are the information that shows up describing your page content, so it’s important that this content be relevant and interesting if you want visitors to click through to the content.

Cumulatively, this entire site mapping process positions your site to show up under the set keywords over time, so it is very important to your search engine optimization that the process be specific and thorough. It’s a long process! If you need help with natural search engine optimization, contact Directory One today at (713) 465-0051 or information@directoryone.com

Houston SEO Includes Link Building

Houston SEO Includes Link Building

Houston SEO includes link building. There are two main types of link building plans. Contact Directory One at (800) 477-1324 for more details and please feel free to continue reading this blog to learn a bit more about link building, the types of link building and the benefits that Houston SEO companies will provide you from link building plans.

The two main types of link building are external links and internal link structures for business websites. Both internal and external link building plans are essential to establishing and maintaining search engine positioning, generating leads with a business website and receiving the product and company branding you seek.

Linkbuilding Plans Are Important for Internet Advertising in Houston

Linkbuilding plans are important for Internet advertising in Houston.

Internal link building creates navigational ease within a business website, increases page ranking, when handled properly it creates anchor text to provide excellent results for key phrase targeting to precisely reach the buying audience your business needs to contact for growth and increased sales.

Internal link building is accomplished through main website optimization and article writing packages from Directory One, your best choice in Houston search engine optimization.  Houston SEO accomplishes many marketing feats that translate into sales conversion to meet your business’ bottom line.

External link building plans are also a necessary part of Houston SEO. Back links create credibility and help to increase search engine positioning for key phrases that your potential customers are searching on every day in their effort to locate the products and/or services that you sell.

Back links can be a tricky business however, because every link is not created equal. The value of links is an important factor in external link building plans. Some links have little to no value and only provide temporary results. Other links establish credibility, relevancy and help to build SERP and page rank, which does still  have a number of benefits for online business marketing plans and Houston SEO.

Houston Internet Advertising Company

Your opportunity to benefit from Houston SEO that includes link building, as well as to learn much more about this search engine optimization process is made possible by contacting the leading search engine marketing company in Houston, Directory One at (800) 477-1324.

Our integrity-driven business methods will help you to rise through the ranks online with measurable online marketing benefits that you can rely upon to achieve sustainable business growth for your company.

We have been in the business of helping companies to grow for over 20 years. We remain current with the latest trends and methods as the search engine technologies change and we can help your business to adapt to the modern marketplace with successful Internet advertising strategies right now.