This week I thought I’d give you some more tips on how to improve your SEO rankings, as we could all do with some free quality traffic! By now hopefully, you should have built up quite a long list of things you need to be doing on a regular basis to improve your rankings.
If you haven’t already please read my first blog post titled 5 more tips for successful SEO

1. Don’t get hung up on page rank

Page Rank should not be the primary identifier of the quality of a potential link
It is a common misconception that a page with low Page Rank is not worth getting a link from. However, there are many other things to consider when building links including domain trust and authority, content relevance and position of your link on a page.
Similarly pages with high Page Rank may not be what they first seem. Try checking the page’s back link profile for any deceptive tactics or evidence of link buying or “blackhat” before you dive into getting a link from it.

2. Information Architecture

If your site consists of multiple pages, make sure they’re organised in a logical and hierarchical way. Apart from being essential to a good user experience, a logical and hierarchical architecture will ensure that link equity flows first to the most important pages and filters down to your deeper (lower traffic pages).
Generally, pages higher up the food chain will have broader keywords, more monthly searches and be harder to rank for. Pointing more link equity at these pages will increase the chances of them ranking competively and act as a great base to pass link relevance down to longtail targeted pages.

3. Linking out from your site

Be generous with links out. Sites you link to will notice traffic/pingbacks. If your content’s any good, they’ll link back one day. This is an important part of “web etiquette” to remember…you need to give before you receive!
Any webmaster worth their salt will notice incoming traffic sources, or when their blog is pinged and follow it upstream to your website / article. Having given someone credit and referenced them, you’ve extended the olive branch and put yourself in an excellent position to get links from them at some time in the future.

4. Find the right Social Networks

You want something that sends prospects and traffic while branding your website or business. You want a social news site with a long term returns on investment. And you don’t have much time, right?
Yahoo Business recently produced a blog titled “Which Social Media Channels Should I Use For My Business?” which can make for a great starting point to find which social networks are best for your niche, to start conversations, improve your business karma and promote your brand.

5. Vary your incoming anchor text

There’s a pretty easy way to spot if something has an SEO on the case – looking at backlink anchor text. Organic backlink profiles usually contain just the domain URL, with people (except kind bloggers) rarely bothering to use keywords when linking . Google, having a vast amount of link data, can quite easily spot unnatural anchor text linking activities, although Google penalties are seemingly fairly rare. To be sure you’re doing the best possible job, make sure you vary your anchor text in your link building campaigns.
To find out more about marketing your business, contact Tim Taylor at timtaylor@t3active.co.uk.