The "Insanely Simple SEO Plan" is being massaged and added to as we speak. On June 1st this new plan will be live here. On May 31st we will be having a webinar to go over the new & improved approach, so watch for an email about that! In the meantime, the techniques shown below are still great ways to get traffic and rankings!
Doing SEO for a website can be totally overwhelming! I would say in my 8+ years of mentoring people in ecommerce, link building is the #1 thing people complain about most. It's not that people aren't willing to do it, they know it's necessary for their success, but they just don't know how! They understand the basics of SEO, they just don't know where to start and what to do on an ongoing basis to build backlinks and improve their rankings. That is precisely why I'm creating this guide. This is a simple, step-by-step approach on how to handle your link building efforts!
Please note, you should not start link building until you've gone through the Store Pre-Launch Checklist and the Store Launch Sequence. The steps outlined in those guides are vital to getting results from your link building efforts.
The below plan has been created to give you a clear cut, step-by-step process for working on your rankings in Google. If you would like to outsource this work, take a look at Coach's Link Building Service. We basically follow the exact plan below for obtaining solid backlinks for your website.
Without further ado (whatever that means), here's my insanely simple SEO plan:
Using this plan & this plan alone you should be able to get to the top of Google for your targeted keyword phrase (assuming you took our advice and selected a phrase with an
MOS of 75 or higher). Of course, this statement is not a guarantee, this is just what we have been seeing with the work on our own ecommerce stores since the
Panda Update in Google last year.
Post at least once a week in 2 different authority forums in your market
You need to identify at least 2 forums within your market (that are considered authorities by Google) and become an active member of each! You should establish yourself as an active member, and then after you've done so, you should put a link to your website in your signature. Try to visit each forum at least 2 or 3 times each week (preferably daily) and post in all the threads you feel knowledgeable enough to post in. If you don't know your market yet, this is a great time to learn it! :)
Finding these authority forums is simple, because Google will tell you who they are. Use these techniques:
- Search Google for your targeted keyword phrase and cruise through the results looking for forums. You will likely see multiple forums showing up in the first 20-40 results. If these forums are centered around your market, they are authority forums for your market.
- If technique #1 didn't work, you may have to step our to the niche level, rather than the micro niche level. For example, search google for 'dogs' if 'dog houses' didn't give you any solid results.
My suggestion would be to bookmark each of these forums, and place them in a bookmark folder called 'promo forums' in your browser's sidebar. As I said above, make sure to establish yourself in the forum
before you add a signature link to your website. Otherwise, you run the risk of getting banned from the forum. You should also avoid promoting your products within you actual posts, having the link in your signature file is all you need!
This technique is hugely powerful because the links can help you rank, but you will also get traffic and sales from the link in your signature file. See an example of how I use a signature file to drive traffic to StoreCoach.com
at the Warrior Forum (a "market authority" forum in the 'make money online' market).
Post as a "researching shopper" in 2 forums per month
A good strategy for getting backlinks is posting in forums as a researching shopper that's looking for advice from other forum members. The idea is to find existing forum threads that are already discussing the topic you are wanting to get ranked for. Then simply pose as a shopper that's researching products within that market, and placing a natural link to your website within a post. Follow these steps to do so:
- Search Google.com for a forum thread that matches the product type you are trying to rank for. Use this advanced search query 'inurl:forum keyword phrase' to find possible forums to post in. (sample search using the "dog house" example)
- Once you find a forum thread that you want to post in, register a free account with that forum.
- Place the link to your web page naturally within your post. An example of a good post would be: I am shopping around for [keyword phrase] and found http://domain.com. Does anyone have experience buying from them?
Some tips:
- It is best practice to post at east 2 or 3 times within the forum you are trying to post a link in prior to placing the link-containing post. This makes the link much more likely to stay in place and not get removed by a moderator.
- It is recommended to use a unique username at each forum you are placing a link on. Otherwise, someone can search google using your username and find several of the same basic posts on numerous forums.
Answer at least 1 'Yahoo Answers' question a week
You may or may not know what Yahoo Answers is, but it can be a powerful tool for sending highly targeted visitors. The entire point of Yahoo Answers is for people to post questions and get answers to their questions. Think of it as a giant FAQ that's 100% user-generated content.
Use a
free personal Yahoo account to post answers to questions posted on the
Yahoo Answers website. At first, don't worry about the answers being in the market your ecommerce store is in. Just answer any & all questions you can on the YA website. Once you get to 250 points with your YA account, you can start placing links to your website in the resources section on your answers. These links can drive traffic and also count as valuable incoming links in Google's algorithm.
Post 1 article a month on an authority article directory
There are several authority article directories on the web that are worth submitting self-written articles to. Article directories come in the form of traditional article directories & Web 2.0 article directories as well. We suggest submitting at least 1 self-written article per month to one of these directories. Rotate through them until you've submitted one to each and then start over again.
Post 1 press release a month
Submitting press releases can drive traffic to your website and it can also give you some mid-quality backlinks as well. We recommend creating 1 nice press release per month and submitting it to a press release submission service. The following services are free to submit your press release to:
Press releases are different than articles. You need to be "announcing" something in a press release. It doesn't need to be Earth-shattering news by any means, but you do need to format it correctly in order to get it accepted. Check
this great tutorial on writing a solid press release.
Post once a week on your on-site blog
For numerous reasons it is smart to create an on-site blog and post to it at least once or twice a month (preferably once a week). This doesn't have to be complex or time consuming. Simply install a free WordPress blog in a sub-folder of your store and make a short "blurb style" post weekly. It can be about anything really; a product, a story, a random thought. Optimize that blog for your targeted keyword phrase and mainly link to your "money" site with keyword targeted hyperlinks. Read
this article to learn how to create a free WordPress blog on your website.
Post once a week on your off-site blog
Mainly for the purpose of pleasing Google, you should have an off-site blog and post to it at least once or twice a month (preferably once a week). Much like the on-site blog, this doesn't have to be complex or time consuming. Simply set up a free blog at one of the suggested blog hosts below and make a short "blurb style" post weekly. Just like the on-site blog posts, they can be about absolutely anything loosely related to your micro niche. Optimize that blog for your targeted keyword phrase and mainly link to your "money" site with keyword targeted hyperlinks.
Here are our recommended free blog hosts:
- Blogger.com
- WordPress.com
- BlogSpot.com
Get at least 5 social "likes" per month
You should try to get at least 5 "likes" from the bigger social networking websites each month. These would be FaceBook.com, Google+, Twitter.com & Pinterest.com. Simply ask friends, family members, or people here in the Store Coach community to "like" or "link" your homepage (or the page you're targeting for SEO).
Get at least 2 "personal or hobby site" links per month
These are absolutely
vital backlinks to get for your ecommerce store. Simply because, you cannot "fabricate" these backlinks. A webmaster has to physically place a link to your website, and Google knows this is the case! You get backlinks on these types of websites by manually contacting the website owner through the contact options they provide on their website (or by looking up their email address through a WhoIs search). We recommend using a
templated message when you email them and ask them to place a link to your website.
There are 2 methods for getting hobby & personal sites to link to you:
- Find them in the list of backlinks your competitors have by using the Link Thief Tool.
- Manually search Google for your targeted keyword phrase and manually visit each website in the top 100.
Get at least 1 guest article posted per month
A great way to get high quality backlinks pointing to your website is writing an article (containing a link to your website) and getting another website owner to post that article on their website. This is called "guest writing" and is becoming more & more popular. Guest writing is awesome because it's a win-win partnership. The website owner wins because they get great free content for their website. You win because you get a good free link pointing to your website. Each article must be unique, or the article page is unlikely to get
cached by Google.
This Summer StoreCoach.com is launching our own guest writer exchange community. In the meantime, we recommend using
Guestr.com. Simply create a free account, and then search the community for websites where it would be logical to place self-written articles. Once a website owner agrees to post an article, write one that matches their website's topic, but also includes some good info relating to your products. Then simply embed 1-2 links to your website in the article.
Following the plan above you should be able to rank inside the top 5 of Google for your targeted keyword phrase within 3-6 months. If you want to get ranked more quickly than that, simply double or triple the amount of each backlink you get per month. Remember, that as discussed in
Chapter 5 of Store Coach's free training, we want to get ranked and stay ranked in Google. The above techniques are SEO techniques that are considered
white hat techniques and will last through Google's ongoing algorithm tweaks. You may be able to find a
gray hat or
black hat technique that gets you ranked more quickly, but the ranking simply won't last like a ranking achieved using the techniques shown above.
Also keep in mind, if you want to outsource the above work you can hire
Store Coach's SEO team!
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