Discover Your Search Engine Ranking Progress Using Google Analytics

Do You Know Where You Rank on Google and the Other Search Engines?

Here’s how…

The easiest way to find out how you are doing in the search engines is to install Google analytics on your site.

This will give you a comprehensive view of how each individual page on your site is ranking, with a list of keyword phrases showing areas where you have made progress. To find out exactly what position you hold you basically click through on the link from Google analytics and you’ll be taken straight to the corresponding page on Google.

Of course this method also applies to all the other search engines, yahoo, msn etc. etc.

Click Here to signup for Google analytics.

Once you’ve signed up you need to install the Analytics code on each page of your site. If you’re using a blog platform like Wordpress you simply add this code into the footer.php file of your Wordpress theme. For example if you are using the ‘Default’ theme then you would navigate to /wp-content/themes/default. Then open the footer.php file and add the Google analytics code just about the lt;/bodygt; tag.

If you are using a static html site then you will have to add the code to each page that you wish to track. Again, add the code just above the lt;/bodygt; tag for each page.

The Google analytics code looks much like the code below, with your own unique tracking number:

<script src=”http://www.google-analytics.com/urchin.js” type=”text/javascript”>
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
_uacct = “UA-123456-7?;
urchinTracker();
</script>

The great thing about Google analytics is it’s 100% free and is much more detailed in tracking than any paid services I have ever found.

It’s extremely important to track your progress in any Internet marketing endeavor. Obviously if you are paying for advertising of any kind then you want to track the results. GA is a perfect way to do this. There really is no reason why you shouldn’t install this code on your site.

Not only will it track your search engine ranking but you can virtually track anything happening on your site, ie. length of time spent on pages, % of bounces(That is number of visitors who leave directly from the main page without staying or visiting any other links on your site), Geo location of visitors, and many other important website visitor tracking variables.

Click Here to Download a Free 90 Page Search Engine Optimization Guide that is GUARANTEED to Help You Achieve Multiple Top Search Engine Ranking Positions for Your Top Keyword Phrases.

Please remember that gaining top rankings for your main site keyword phrases takes a little bit of work but you are sure to reap the benefits of persistently targeting the right keyword phrases, coupled with building quality backlinks to your site.

You’ll never know how well you’re doing however, without proper tracking of those phrases. So, do yourself a big favor and install Google analytics today.

Discover the Webs Number One Search Engine Ranking Tool

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Long Tail Keywords Phrases Are Good to Go

Long Tail Keyword Phrases are search terms that search engines users are using, that are longer than those usually targeted by search engine marketers and advertisers.

For example, if an advertiser sets up a Google Adwords campaign they will usually target a quantity of the most common and highest traffic search terms. What they fail to realize is that these terms only account for a small percentage of Google’s overall searches.

Here’s an interesting article for those of you who become discouraged about the amount of competition inhabiting the top spots for your chosen keyword phrases:
Long Tail Keywords

What the article is basically saying is that the biggest majority of searches entered by users ARE NOT covered by the top search terms.

I have often advised in my blogging and to interested partners not to become too bogged down chasing one or two search terms but to blog frequently with many variations of keyword phrases thrown in.

I say this because I find myself ranking and getting visitors for the most obscure search phrases. In fact much of my traffic comes from phrases that no one is targeting.

This fact is highly encouraging to newcomer bloggers who may think that most of the traffic is already taken by those who have been at this game for the longest time. The above article seems to put to bed any idea that this is true.

The moral of the story is, the more unique targeted content you add through blogging, the more chance you have of hitting the top spots – provided you are using phrases that fall within the theme of the market you are targeting. It would be virtually impossible to write about any topic without using these phrases naturally.

Click Here to Discover the Best Long-tail Keywords

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To Give Away Review Copies or Not?

I recently made a decision never to put another link on my site to products that I haven’t actually tried and tested or reviewed. This helps me actually sell more products – not to mention sleep better at nights.

If I’m gonna sell something then from now on, at the very least I am going to see the product or service and test it for myself.

Believe it or not, many marketers will sell and continue to sell services or products based on the sales conversions alone. Whether they are aware of the quality of the product or not, doesn’t come into the equation. I’ve done it myself! Not anymore though, going forward.

Getting to the point of this post, I emailed the staff at Clickbank Code to ask for a review copy of the product in return for reviewing it on this blog. Here’s their response:

Dear Mal,
If you wish to review the ClickBank Code, please purchase it.
After the purchase you will find all the material that we offer to our affiliates.
Kind Regards
Karen

Did I get them on a bad day? This doesn’t make sense!

Given the fact that I made them aware of the amount of traffic I get to this blog and that I’ve already made sales of the product to prove myself, I fully expected to receive a link to the download in the return email. Having checked my Clickbank stats I actually made 14 sales of this product in a couple of months totalling $100s in commissions for myself and the company.

I find it unbelievable that they would not send me a copy of a DIGITAL product – giving away one download, or a million copies, does not deplete their inventory of the product at all. So, they have nothing to lose and potentially a lot to gain by giving away copies to successful affiliates.

I was totally pissed off to be honest, as I had been looking forward to selling more of the Clickbank Code, and honestly reviewing what it had to offer.

What do you think? Please leave your comments below.

“Let Me Know How I Can Help You Get Started Today”
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P.S
If you have a top quality, high converting internet opportunity that you’d like me to review please get in touch. It has to be of value to the end user.

Link Building – How Many Links are Required?

How many links required to make an impression on your ranking in Google and the other major search engines, will mainly depend on the search phrases you are targeting. Also, the quantity and quality of the competition that you need to beat to achieve a top search engine ranking.

When I first started out building my business it was enough to build loads of reciprocal links with others sites. At one stage I had a couple thousand reciprocals. Today it seems that Google – and maybe the other major search engines too – are more concerned with the quality of the links, rather than quantity.

One-way links are favored over reciprocal links basically because they are more difficult to achieve and appear more of a natural process than reciprocal links.

A few well sourced links from authority sites will likely grab you a top spot for a ‘long tail’ keyword phrase in a less competitive niche. There is no exact science but from my own experience, usually less than 10 links is enough, providing the sites that you link from are well established sites with good Google page rank.

You can check the number of links to yourself and competitors using the tool below:
Link Popularity Check

If you are going after very competitive terms then there is no telling how many it will take as,. Again, it depends on how many competitors are targeting the same phrase. It may take 50, 100 or maybe even 1000 backlinks. For example if you were targeting a phrase like ‘Online gambling’ it may take forever to make an impact for that search phrase.

Hint: When targeting a search phrase through backlinks don’t always use the exact same phrase as link text. Mix it up a little every 5-10 links.

For example if you were targeting the phrase ‘work at home opportunities’ change it to ‘work at home programs’ then maybe ‘work at home businesses’. This is called LSI.

I believe Google is becoming more and more efficient at spotting unnatural link building strategies. Mixing up your search terms in accordance with LSI will look more natural and will benefit you long-term as all the other link builders begin to lose their positions.

On the subject of ‘natural’ link building, IF you provide quality content then naturally other site owners are going to post links back to your pages or blog posts. This is something to keep in mind when starting any website or business.

Quality content is going to win over every time. I believe, after many years, that concept is beginning to finally sink in.

“Let Me Know How I Can Help You Get Started Today”
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My Top Pick Wordpress Plugin and Widgets

Today, I am going to detail my pick of the best Wordpress plugins and widgets. These are the plugins that I have currently installed, activated and use on the Freeadvertz.com site.

Below you can find a list of the plugins and widgets, with their official descriptions as seen on the Wordpress plugin page, along with a link to the plugin site where you can go download each one for FREE. I have also added my comments to each, revealing how I find them useful and/or why I added them in the first place.

All these plugins are working perfectly with Wordpress 2.8.4. You can usually keep plugins in working order by downloading the latest versions, as they are released.

In order to install these plugins simply download the files from the plugin site links, upload the plugin folder to your “wp-content/plugins” directory on your web host and activate in the Wordpress admin panel. You can find further instructions in the ‘Readme’ file of each individual plugin download folder. Configure each of the plugins – that need to be configured – from your Wordpress admin.

You can upload the plugins via your web host control panel or via FTP. I find FTP to be handiest. Download FREE ftp software here. If you need a web host that works perfectly with Wordpress and all plugins, I highly recommend Bluehost.

I will update my blog with new plugins as they become available, or needed. So, don’t forget to come back soon.

Akismet

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not. You need a WordPress.com API key to use it. You can review the spam it catches under “Comments.” Akismet is automatically installed with new Wordpress installations. If you haven’t got it though you can download here.

My Comments:
Akismet deals with most Wordpress comment spam. What’s great is that you don’t even have to configure it in anyway after installing Wordpress. Just activate and let it go to work on that pesky comment spam. I do browse through my comments to make sure it hasn’t spammed any legitimate comments. In my experience this usually only happens in about 1 in 1000 comments. Great stuff!

All in One SEO Pack

Out-of-the-box SEO for your Wordpress blog. Get the All in One SEO Pack Plugin Here

My Comments:
I added this plugin for it’s capabilities in helping me attain top search engine rankings. It does this by allowing me to customize the header, title and other page tags. I can also stop Google indexing certain areas of my blog – for example the tags and category sections, which unless customized will serve up duplicate content. Google does not like duplicate content. My main reason for installing this plugin however was because I wanted to remove the site name from the title area to leave just the post title.

You can see below how the title tag contains only the post title. If you look at your own blog it may contain site name AND post title which dilutes the power of your post title keywords:

Title Contains Post Text Only:

Comment Whitelist

Admin list of whitelist commenters. Get the Comment Whitelist Plugin Here

My Comments:
I installed this plugin so that I could allow certain commenters on my blog to post comments without having to wait for approval. Once they have been whitelisted their comments will appear immediately after posting. If you’ve been whitelisted after your first post, then I consider you a trusted person.

Whitelist Option Below Comments in Wordpress Admin:

Democracy

This poll plugin is easy to use, install, and manage. It uses AJAX to load data, making it quick and fun to use. Add n

to your posts to include polls in your posts, where *id* corresponds to the ID of your poll. Get the Democracy Plugin Here

My Comments:
My purpose for this plugin was to encourage some interactivity on my blog. This is an important aspect of building a successful blog – IE. visitor participation.

Democracy Widget

Adds a sidebar widget for use with Andrew Sutherland’s Democracy Poll widget. Get the Democracy Widget Here

My Comments:
The widget allows me to simply add the above plugin to my blog using a handy drag and drop function in the Wordpress admin panel – without having to touch the php code.

My Democracy Blog Poll:

DoFollow

Selectively disable the “nofollow” tagging for comments. Get the DoFollow Plugin Here

My Comments:
In order to entice visitors to comment on my posts it is crucial to give a little back. Wordpress by default makes all comment links ‘NoFollow’. That means that these links do not count in aiding the link posters’ search engine ranking. By using this plugin and making the comments ‘DoFollow’ any comment links will now give the commenter some link juice for the sites the insert in the comment posting field. In short, every time you post a comment on this blog, it WILL help your website’s search engine positions.

Google XML Sitemaps

This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO. Get the Google XML Sitemaps Plugin Here

My Comments:
It’s vitally important that you make it as easy as possible for search engine robots to find all your web pages. This plugin lists all my blog posts on one page and automatically updates with each new post. Make sure to post your sitemap link in the footer of your blog or website as I have done on Freeadvertz.com. You should also add this xml sitemap URL to your Google Webmaster tools account to keep an eye on your blogs’ visibility on Google. Click here to see my sitemap.

MaxBlogPress Stripe Ad

A new non-obtrusive way of displaying a single line of advertising message, a special note or other information right at the top of your blog. Get the MaxBlogPress Stripe Ad Plugin Here

My Comments:
There are many ways to grab your visitors attention when they visit your blog. You need to be careful not to put people off coming to your site by bombarding them with multiple ad popovers, popunders, hover ads etc. etc. These ads can be very annoying – to me anyhow.

I believe this stripe ad does the trick. It isn’t too obtrusive AND it does get clickthroughs regardless, which of course is the whole point of having the ad there in the first instance. I recommend you set the ad to appear at most, ONCE per day per visitor – not every time.

Here’s How it Looks at the Top of My Blog:

NoSpamNX

To protect your Blog from automated spambots, which fill you comments with junk, this plugin adds additional formfields to your comment form, which are checked every time a new comment is posted. Get the NoSpamNX Plugin Here.

My Comments:
Even with Akismet installed I found myself spending 20 minutes every day trawling through comment spam ensuring there were no legitimate comments before deleting the spam for good. NoSpamNX allows me to add words, email addresses and IP addresses to block the comment spam even reaching the spam list. Thus I never have to see it at all. For example you could add the name of a pharmaceutical product to the block comments blacklist. Such product names appear regularly in spam comments but would NEVER be present in a legit comment – unless you run a pharmaceutical blog:-) . You get the idea though?

SexyBookmarks

SexyBookmarks adds a (X)HTML compliant list of social bookmarking icons to each of your posts. Get the SexyBookmarks Plugin Here(Click the ‘Download’ image at the top right of that site to download the plugin).

My Comments:
This plugin is eye catching and hopefully encourages visitors to repost my blog posts on their Web 2.0 social bookmarking accounts. As with the TweetMeme plugin below, this helps spread your web presence and traffic – via repeat visitors, new visitors seeing your links and clicking through to your blog, and increased search engine ranking.

How the Sexy Bookmarks Plugin Appears on Freeadvertz.com:

Subscribe To Comments

Allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry. Based on version 1 from Scriptygoddess. Get the Subscribe To Comments Plugin Here

My Comments:
The idea behind this plugin from my perspective – and anyone else using it, I suppose – is to bring commenters back to the site. Often times you would post a comment and forget it. If there is now way for you to be aware when you get a response then it’s less likely you are ever to revisit the site where you left the comment. This plugin helps encourage repeat visitors by sending a link via email to those comments that commenters have subscribed too. It works!

Top Commentators Widget

Adds a sidebar widget to show the top commentators in your WP site. Adapted from Show Top Commentators plugin. Get the Top Commentators Widget Here

My Comments:
I love this Wordpress widget. It allows me to post a list of commenters on the sidebar of my blog with ‘DoFollow’ links back to the sites of those commenters that take the time to add their contributions to my blog. It’s a way to give a little back. Bloggers do actively seek out other blogs with the ‘Top Commenters’ widget. So, it pays off to have it installed if you want to increase your comment count.

My Top Commenters for the Month on 2nd November:

TweetMeme Retweet Button

Adds a button which easily lets you retweet your blog posts. Get the TweetMeme Retweet Button Plugin Here.

My Comments:
Social networking should be a part of every Internet marketers arsenal. This plugin allows my visitors to easily share my posts via their Twitter accounts. In essence they are then helping me spread the reach of my blog posts.

The TweetMeme Plugin:

W3 Total Cache

Dramatically improve the user experience of your blog. Add transparent page caching, database caching, minify and content delivery network (CDN) functionality and more to WordPress. Get the W3 Total Cache Plugin Here

My Comments:
I installed this plugin to maximize the load speed of my blog. Typically visitors will click away from your blog if it doesn’t load within a few seconds. This plugin helps in a variety of ways to ensure speedy delivery of your blog content.

Wordpress Smilies

This plugin will generate series of clickable icon buttons for wordpress built-in smilies. Get the Wordpress Smilies Plugin Here

My Comments:
It’s difficult to express emotion in plain text. For that reason, I use smiles wherever possible. This plugin makes it easier for me to add them to my comment replies.

Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Returns a list of related entries based on a unique algorithm for display on your blog and RSS feeds. A templating feature allows customization of the display. Get the Yet Another Related Posts Plugin Here

My Comments:
YARP Plugin was installed to give visitors easy access to similar posts within my blog. If a visitor reaches Freeadvertz.com via the search engines searching for specific information, they are likely to click through to other content if it is readily available at the end of the post they first arrive at.

Related Posts at the End of My Professional Keyword Research post:

In Conclusion

I hope you find these plugins useful. They certainly make my job of becoming a successful blogger a lot easier and my Internet marketing efforts much more effective.

Please leave your comments or questions below. I’d love to hear about your favorite plugins or other Wordpress resources.

If you’d like me to set up your blog today just click the link below:

Get Your Professional Wordpress Blog Now!

“Let Me Know How I Can Help You Get Started Today”
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