Goongee Blog
Goongee Search Marketing Blog
Bing Powers Yahoo Organic Search This Week
Aug 20th
If you’ve been noticing more traffic than usual coming from Yahoo! search, there’s a good explanation.
Yahoo’s Canadian and United States organic search will be transitioned to results powered by Bing beginning this week. After this transition is complete Bing will power 5.2 billion monthly searches. This represents 31.6% of US searches and 8.6% stake in Canadian search.
This is one of the first strategic moves to capture search share from Google, as they continue on their own path to advancing technology.
Goongee Summer Coupon Code
Jul 30th
As a celebration of summer, we here at the Goongee Web Directory are offering a special coupon code for both new and existing customers.
To take advantage of a 10% discount on your Premium Submission at the Goongee Web Directory, please use:
SUMMER10
at checkout. (Registration is required.) This coupon code is valid through August 31, 2010 and is applied towards any ($19.99 USD) regularly priced Premium Submission.
To begin your Goongee Premium Submission, please enter your website details here.
We appreciate your consideration and look forward to serving your web directory listing needs!
Land’s End Advertising Dollars Going To The Recycling Center
Nov 19th
Ho-Ho-Ho! It’s getting to be Christmas time and the high season for catalog shopping is on.
No one seems to know this better than Land’s End. For the second year in a row my mailbox has been stuffed with barrages of Land’s End catalogs featuring Men’s wear, Women’s wear and kidswear. By prank or by computer mishap, the catalogs don’t stop coming in names of people that I’ve never heard of, and apparently the only way to discontinue the mailings is with a C code that’s on the back of every catalog.
Last year around this time I spent approximately a half an hour on the phone with a customer service representative reading off numerous C codes in order to remove them from their mailing list. There must have been more names because this year the catalogs are back.
I called the 800 number again this morning to have two more names removed and requested that no more catalogs be sent to my home. The customer service rep told me that there was no way to remove the mailings
by address and suggested that I call them back when I get more catalogs to have them removed. Not exactly the most user friendly way of doing business.
Knowing a little about databases, it seems hard to believe that a techie whiz at Land’s End isn’t able to delete entries by an address field.
In today’s cash strapped world, I wonder why any company – big or small – wants to waste money on advertising that won’t ever earn a return?
Sadly, the only destination for Land’s End advertising dollars is going to be the local recycling center, where it will at least do a bit of good..
Conversion Traffic Matters
Aug 13th
Conversion traffic is the most valuable type of traffic a website can have.
If you’re not familiar with what conversion traffic is, let me explain. Conversion traffic happens when a visitor at your website decides to purchase a product, results in an affiliate sale/lead, or whenever another desired action occurs as a result of the visitor being at your website.
Conversion traffic can be obtained using a number of methods. Webmasters can pay for advertising at other websites to help drive qualified traffic to their website. This type of advertising might be done using banner advertising or simple text link advertising. Both of these types of ads have been prominent on the internet over the years and are oftentimes cost effective to the advertiser, giving them exposure at a web address other than their own.
Internet advertisers also use Pay Per Click (PPC) as a way to drive potential conversion traffic to their web store. This method charges the advertiser any time their ad gets clicked by someone. Popular PPC programs include Google Adsense, Yahoo Online advertising services and MSN adCenter. These programs aren’t a “catch all” program, like banners and text link ads, and require the advertiser to create their ads based on a set of keywords they’re trying to convert into direct sales (or other desired action.) PPC can get costly if you don’t pay attention to your advertising campaign, but can also be very effective in sending traffic that converts to your website. Another benefit of PPC is the ability to track your sales, the ability to easily determine your conversion and your return on investment. PPC programs typically offer advertisers more tools than other types of ad programs.
Natural traffic is another preferred way to drive conversion traffic to your website. Natural traffic is built by attaining search engine rankings and appearing in search engine results when a particular search phrase is entered into a search box.
Developing natural traffic is usually accomplished by employing SEO techniques such as link building, viral marketing and press releases.
Conversion traffic is by far the best type of traffic to have, since this is the type of traffic that always pays off, no matter how you decide to approach it.
Can I Outsource Link Building?
Jul 21st
Being a webmaster is an extremely time consuming activity. Even if you are bringing in profit, chances are you still need an additional job to make ends meet. And in the event that you run your website as your full time job, you still will likely find yourself running behind on your work. No matter where you are or how successful you’ve been, saving time is always worthwhile. If you want to save a lot of time, you can outsource your advertising and promotion, your content production, and even management jobs. This helps give you time to focus on the really important aspects of building your internet based business.
Out of all of the jobs that come a long with running a successful website, the hardest and most time consuming tends to be promotion, especially link building. It can take hours to find the right places to submit your links, and even then you need as many links as possible, so it’s an ongoing job that never stops. The good news is that there are many different options that allow you to outsource your link building. From blog commenting to directory submission, there are people who are willing to do the work for you for a very modest price. Although there are plenty of honest workers on the internet, you need to be careful with who you trust to run your link building campaign. If you hire someone who likes to cut corners and follow black hat SEO tactics, you may end up paying for their mistakes. If possible, you should consider going to a reputable business that you know you can trust.
There are many web directories that actually offer these services for you, through bulk directory submission to various paid directories. Although there is also usually an option to pay for mass submissionsoptical communications to free directories, this is often not as effective – as free directories aren’t as reliable and sometimes require a link back. And worst of all, free directories can sometimes become infested with spam, which could prove very harmful to the search result placements for your site. Whenever it comes your time to choose whether you want someone to post your links on free sites or paid sites, be sure and weigh all your options and consider the consequences of taking the cheaper route.
If you prefer to hire an individual, you may have a bit more control over how you want your link building campaign to be run. This will require a bit more knowledge on your behalf, however. You will need to be sure that you understand what type of links will work best for your website. Chances are, the person you hire will know a bit about link building already. Nonetheless, if you are extremely specific about what you want done, you can lower the risk that they will try and cut corners or use black hat methods.
Outsourcing the link building for your website is an extremely viable option for most webmasters, regardless of budget. If you hire the right person or company to build your links, you will see extremely positive results that make the initial investment seem like nothing at all.
What Is Quality Link Building?
Jul 14th
As you may know already, one of the best ways to promote your website cheaply and efficiently is through link building. Like many things, the phrase “quality is better than quantity” applies here as well. There are sites with millions of spam links that have basically no representation in the search engines, while there are also sites that are ranked #1 for their keyword even though they only have four or five backlinks.
The difference here, of course, is quality. There are a few simple steps that you can take to be certain that you are building quality links for your website that will actually give you results for your effort.
First of all, avoid spam. This should be a no-brainer, but many people just have to learn the hard way and try to take the easy way out. Spam, through methods such as mass blog commenting or forum spamming, is a very black hat route to take. Risky methods such as these can actually make your search engine placements worse, meaning you are only hurting your website while wasting your time and money. However tempted you may be to try spam promotion – avoid it like the plague.
When you go for quality link building, you also want to pursue links that are relevant to the content on your website. Even if there’s a really great quality fashion website that you can purchase a link from, it probably won’t help much if the product you are selling is lawn mowers – you get the point. If you are using article directories or web directories, be sure and select the category that is closest in relevance to your topic; this will help you get the most benefit from each link that you post up.
Another criteria to look at for quality link building is the age of the websites that you are getting your links from. Because the search engines know that the older sites are more likely to be trustworthy, they also carry more weight when it comes to the value of links that you get from them. The only problem is that buying links from reputable aged websites can be quite a bit more expensive than purchasing links from brand new websites. The best way to do this without busting your wallet is to go after aged web directories. Also, if you prefer, article directories work alright as well. Either way, you should be able to quickly find quality directories that have been around for a while.
Earlier, I mentioned that quality is definitely more important than quantity. The truly best option, though, is both quality and quantity. By getting a large number of quality links, you can boost your website to the top of the results and start receiving tons of traffic on a regular basis. Bulk directory submissions or other massive link building campaigns are a great way to get your link out on the web in mass quantities while still retaining the high quality that you need. If you always strive to put forth a quality effort, you will get quality results!
Advantages Of Paid Web Directories
Jul 7th
Web directories are a very powerful tool when it comes to link building. They have been around for many years – in fact, web directories were popular on the internet even before search engines became available, far outdating the big names today, even Google. Because of this, web directories are considered to also be one of the most trusted methods of getting additional backlinks. Not only have they proven themselves over many years, but they are also known to be widely accepted in search engine algorithms, which help determine what rank a website will place in search results.
The one dilemma that many people arrive at when they are choosing web directories is the conflict between paid directories and free directories. Although it seems that free directories would be the better path because they have no cost involved, you may be surprised to learn that paid web directories are much better in the long run.
First of all, paid directories tend to be much faster than free directories. With an income at stake, owners will be constantly checking for new entries to post. With some of the free ones, you may end up waiting weeks or even months before you find out if your link was approved or rejected! For those who want to improve their ranks quickly, waiting that long is simply not a viable option.
Secondly, you should take into consideration the fact that paid directories stick around much longer than free directories. So many free sites fail to get any sort of true hold on the directory market, and after a while are no longer worthwhile for the owner. What’s the use in building hundreds of links if they are all going to disappear in a few months? When you buy a placement in a directory, you can be confident that your link will remain on the internet for as long as you paid for, perhaps even forever.
In addition, free link directories end up becoming a link farm after a while – basically a directory gone bad, filled with spam. With paid directories, they can afford to only accept sites that meet high quality standards. Going with the clean and professional paid option is definitely the smarter choice, as you don’t have to constantly worry whether or not your site is being associated with spam content.
Lastly, free directories usually require a reciprocal link. Reciprocal linking is fine in some cases, but too many links leading outward from your site can actually hurt your rankings. Any link that is reciprocal is never worth anywhere near as much as a one way link. Part of the premium service that you are paying for in a directory is the one way linking feature – this makes the links you receive much more valuable in the long run.
If you’ve used free directories in the past to promote your website, it’s okay. There is no need to worry about getting your link taken down, unless you notice your site on a directory that has been overrun by spam. However, you should definitely explore the possibilities with paid web directories – it’s a much better alternative.
How To Kick Off A Link Building Campaign
Jun 30th
Advertising your website is an integral part of running a successful online business. Unlike out in the real world, where people can see your building as they drive by, an unadvertised website will get absolutely nowhere. You may ask, “But wouldn’t my site at least show up in the search engines?” The answer is no. If you don’t put your name out there at all, then even that won’t happen. Even once you do get a few links to your website and you are showing up in the search engines, it’s a very challenging journey from page 100 of the results for your keyword to page 1. The best way to get there is by waging a well planned massive link building campaign.
There are two methods to building links – free links and paid links. As you would expect, the paid links nearly always perform better in the long run than free links. For one thing, free links are not guaranteed to stay up for any certain period of time, whereas paid links are definitely going to remain live. Secondly, areas that accept free links often get saddled down with a lot of spam content; you definitely want to keep your website far from this, as any association with spam sites can shine a negative light on the reputation of your business.
To build high quality links, you’ll need to find a reliable place to purchase your placements. First of all, you can buy sponsored posts on blogs that rank well in the search engines. However, in recent months, it has become evident that the search engines are not too fond of this method of advertising. For a safer bet, you may consider a method such as article submission or directory submission. If you would like to save time, bulk directory submissions are an easy and cost effective way to get a lot of high quality links very quickly, which will all work together to push your site forward as fast as possible.
You can also hire a link building professional to run your campaign for you. These are people who really know what they are doing, and will work to ensure that you improve in rankings as fast as possible. Hiring a professional is a bit more expensive than buying the links yourself, but it will save you a lot of time. Plus, these people rarely make mistakes, and if they do, it’s on them instead of you. If you can afford to fit a link building professional into your budget to run your campaign, it’s well worth the cost.
Starting up a large link building campaign could be the only thing stopping your business from growing to the next level of success. It takes a bit of investment of money and patience, but in the long run it will pay off very well, especially since there will be little or no recurring costs. Get started as soon as possible – the sooner you get started, the sooner you will see the results!
What Is A Link Building Expert?
Jun 23rd
With online businesses that generate income, promotion is sometimes handled by link building experts. These are people who will do all the promotion and advertising for a website – however, they mainly focus on an organic and long lasting method of advertising through link building, as this will result in long term placements high on the search engine result pages. The prices can vary greatly depending on who you go to; some operate on very small budgets, while some are so expensive that only a fortune 500 company would consider using them. What is it, though, that makes us consider them experts? Can’t the average person build links just as well as they can?
Although getting links to a website may seem like an extremely easy task, it’s actually quite a daunting feat. If you want to get the most effective link campaign, you’re going to go after reputable sites that have been around for a while. You are also going to try and make sure that the links are one way, because reciprocal links are not as effective as their single counterparts. It can be hard just to find where to get links from, much less to actually get your link there and make sure it is showing up in the best possible locations for your purposes. That’s where link building experts come in.
Link building experts are people who are extremely knowledgeable in the field of search engine optimization. You see, rather than just haphazardly building as many links as possible, it is best to carefully select locations and types of services to use to gather links. Quality blog comments are always preferred over spam comments, and paid web directories are always preferred over free directories, for the same reason – free directories can quickly fill up with spam, and often require a reciprocal link as well in order to be displayed among the selection of listings. These experts also have a vast knowledge of the inner workings of various niches and how they relate to each other, and can quickly determine if a certain link will be valuable in the long run or not.
Although no one truly knows the secret algorithms used by various top search engines, and there is not a single person who can truthfully promise to take you all the way to the top of the search result pages, these experts have lots of knowledge and experience that helps them promote your site in the most efficient way possible, allowing you to get the best quality links at the best possible prices. Don’t be fooled into thinking their services are overpriced – if that were the case, they wouldn’t have near as many return customers as you see on the web nowadays.
If you want to increase your visibility on the web in a cost effective manner, you may want to hire a link building expert to help you climb the ranks. Don’t consider this as a sign of weakness or laziness – even the most motivated marketers are known to turn to the link building experts to help make their business blossom. It’s definitely a smart move to make!
Advantages of Bulk Directory Submissions
Jun 9th
If you want to rank high in the search engines and unleash a virtually limitless supply of traffic, your best bet is through off site search engine optimization. One of the best ways to improve your rankings is to build links through directory submissions – usually, it’s best to go with the paid directories, as the links are of higher quality and are guaranteed to remain live. However, going to many different directories can take up a lot of time. The good news is that you can use bulk directory submissions to get your listings placed in numerous web directories all at once – saving you a lot of time, and perhaps even a lot of money as well.
Some people prefer to build links by using black hat SEO methods, including spamming on blog comments and making spam forum posts. Be warned: this method does not work for long. The top search engines are constantly adding ways to detect spam links and make them worthless. Even if a method like this pays off in the short run, the glory will not last. Additionally, if your website is continually associated with negative promotional techniques, your site might even get hit with a nasty spot in the “sandbox”, or simply put, search results that have no hope of making it anywhere close to the first page.
With bulk directory submissions, you don’t have to worry about this kind of penalty because everything you are doing is totally white hat and approved by search engines. This is a much wiser way to spend your time and money; the peace of mind you’ll have is worth quite a bit, too.
Bulk directory submissions are a wise choice for search engine optimization and internet marketing companies with numerous clients. Bulk submission services remove steps and save time on behalf of the company submitting by streamlining the submission process. Instead of having to visit a submission page and enter payment information over and over for multiple clients, they forward the information of said clients to the manager or editor of the website and let them take care of the rest. Payment for these services can be paid for with a single invoice from Paypal, which is a faster way to take care of business. It’s also a great deal for webmasters that have a number of websites they’re trying to promote.
In most cases, there will be a few things that the editor in charge of completing your bulk submission will need to know. These are common things like the website URL, the website title, a brief description and in some cases, keyword selection. Once this information is provided and payment arrangements have been agreed upon, the editor will then review the sites, make necessary changes (correct spelling errors etc.), add the site to the most relevant category and lastly, click through the link to make sure that it works correctly.
This frees up time for the companies and webmasters to focus on other aspects of search engine optimization and offers the benefit of having the job done right by a professional editor.
Are you interested in bulk submissions at our directory? Please send an Email to directory @ goongee.com (remove spaces) for more information.