Target Relevant Keywords

One cardinal rule of doing grayhat SEO is to always target relevant keywords. Targeting a keyword and then directing visitors to a page that has nothing to do with the keyword is a trademark move of the blackhat optimizer.

If you’re going to work with a particular group of keywords, make sure that the content on your page is directly relevant to those keywords. You can make the search engines ’see’ relevance by keeping a moderate density of keywords – about 1% to 3% (I find that 4 and 5% density spamming) – as well as other related terms. If you’re working with ‘bikes,’ for example, you could put that keyword along with words like ‘bicycles,’ ‘dirt bikes’ and ‘mountain bikes’ in your site content.

Stock Up on Links

Since you’re still constrained in the keywords department, you can just choose to play a little dirtier with links. Some sneaky link building strategies are common, even expected in the world of grayhat SEO, and you can put your pages ahead with that.

If you’ve decided to become a grayhat optimizer, you’re no longer limited to ‘natural’ link building techniques like article marketing. You can add to your link stockpile through other means, such as with forum posts and blog comments, and then surreptitiously adding your URL to the end of the post. This is widely regarded as more of a blackhat move but has never officially been defined as one.

This little trick is particularly useful for cases where link building is one of the few sources of an advantage in rankings. If you’re a participant in an SEO contest like the 2009 sulumits retsambew competition, this is a handy one to have up your sleeve without being a blackhat culprit.

Crib Content

Original content is one of the cornerstones of whitehat SEO, but isn’t an all-important factor anymore if you’ve decided to go grayhat. That’s because Web 2.0 is designed such that a single piece of news often gets repeated and reposted several times across the Internet. If you’d noticed, news aggregators and sites like Digg or Reddit use this model to get high rankings without uniquely new content.

Scrape content from the RSS feeds of news sites and then make it your own! Google has already mentioned before that it exempts news stories from the rule on duplicate content because they get reposted and syndicated so much. Put together some news articles and, voila, you have content.

Although some of these techniques are safe for now, caution and restraint should still be exercised when using them. Too much of grayhat seo tactics could attract the attention of the search engines, putting both your site and grayhat SEO into a lot of hot water. You’ll want to emulate the master rule breaker at school who’s able to toe the boundary of the rules without really stepping over it.

Day 1; 3-5 hours on average

1. Register a domain. Prefer an old domain if you have already. Otherwise new one would go equally well. Keyword domain are good but you need not to be obsessed about them.
2.  Set up wordpress or blogspot. Wordpress is easy to go for most webmasters. I personally am comfortable with wordpress.
3. Install plugins like all-in-one-seo, xml sitemap. Activate akismet.

Day 2; 10-12 hours

4. Make two unique posts of around 300 words each; in relevance to your niche. Make sure of a good quality.
5. Connect these two posts with 2-3 interlinks on certain anchor texts (prefer some good keywords).
6. Connect some anchor texts with authentic portals like wikipedia.org, wordpress.org, ehow, about, etc. It’s very easy to connect them. So each post will have 4 in-links. 2 self and 2 going out to authentic portals.
7. Use Pingomatic.

Day 3-10

8. Get backlinks from 5 high PR (2-5) sites if you have your own site network and it is set up on Unique IPs. Else, don’t hesitate to purchase some text links from run-of-sites (for now, no issues if they’re not for related niche). Just make sure these sites are updated regular and fairly known and running. It’d cost you $10-50 per link. Not a bad deal and you’d agree with me later.
9. Do 5-10 manual directory submissions to high quality and active directories if you can. Otherwise no issue.
9. Forget your site for 2 months (or till next PR update)

After 2 months

10. Now check your website after 2/few months or after PR update. You’d sure;y get a DECENT pagerank. And chances are high for your site to be in first 10-15 search engines’ pages. With my personal experience, this approach reduces your website’s chances of falling into sandbox. It has already covered it’s 2-3 months.

Now if you start a sound marketing plan, it’d not take more than 1-3 months to get page 1 rankings. All what you need is;

• 250 high quality directory submissions for next 2 months
• 15 unique articles marketing for next 2 months (1 article every third day submitted to top 10 article directories) – You may find my article marketing campaign presentation useful for that.
• Social bookmark your website to 25-40 do-follow sites
• Post comments on some high PR blogs (now you should prefer niche blogs and sites)
• 10-15 text links per month
• 1 Squidoo every month
• 1-2 good hubpages every month

Try to connect your articles, squidoo, hubpages, sites with each other to have most out of your campaign.

You’d see a pleasant rise in your search engine rankings – guaranteed. Ranking would vary with niche competition though.

Same method goes with a site (if you’re not using wordpress or blogger). Bet that you’ll get the Google authority status on your site within 7-8 months after this. Just follow a regular, slow and steady plan. And I’ve achieved authority status for my SEO Business website in 9 months.

You may find my article on Complete Marketing and Website Promotion Plan useful to some extent.

Now while I conclude, let’s have a look at sulumits retsambew leader board

Hellas is #1 strong and determind
Sony’s biz entry is pretty stable..
My sulumits entry on #3 but trying come up
webmasterstimulus.org, doing a great great job
Sllideshare entry has recovered its position after that long drop – Good job
Other entries are fluctuating frequently. Firetown.com is enjoying many up and downs for some time.
sulumitsretsambewblog.com is doing an incredible job being on first page. The guy is not updating the blog much but working nicely on link building probably. I keep seeing his entry swinging between 7-15.

That’s all for now. Will be back soon

Chill & cheers!

It means, what I assume that Google keeps finding backlinks for long. And that’s the reason why we get sudden improvement in rankings after completing a marketing plan. You can not expect rankings right after executing some link building methods. If you’ve done everything in a right manner; from directory submissions, article marketing to one-way link building from link exchange and 3-ways, it may take 2-4 months to get that pleasant improvement in rankings.

I think most of you know by now about my personal blog as my second sulumits retsambew entry in contest. I start working on this entry in April end. It was on page 7-9 (#80-90) after 3 days. There was no change in position till yesterday. Now my personal blog is on page 3 (#28) all of a sudden. So Google recognized the link building after 15 days. Fair enough.

Now, what I believe that Google recognizes social bookmarking links more than quickly. Second comes some authority and high value article directories like Bukisa, ezinearticles etc. Third comes blogging platforms. However, most blogging platforms get indexed within no time. I’ve seen posts getting indexed within 2 minutes as well (provided ping service is used).

That’s the reason why contextual link building was popular recently. It was in demand because of wordpress, blogspot set up and Google  counted the links pretty quickly that led to ultra-quick improvement in rankings. But it didn’t take Google smell something fishy out of contextual posts later and it started banning blog networks. (That actually led many network owners shut down their service). Contextual link building still works well if used safely and smartly.

Main thing is; Google loves everything natural and slow that meets its webmaster terms of use and guidelines (no matter even if you pretend acting naturally in building links)

So what I conclude; Google is lazy? Probably no.. It’s keeping an eye at almost every site from spam to genuine coming up everyday.. Not just site but all backlinks and whatever goes live (rather Google makes it live if it likes).

Google is slow? Well I think it’s not. It indexes some pages, posts, links with the blink of eyes (Oh.. that blink is just to exaggerate :p). It’s not slow.

Next time, when you’re worried why you didn’t see as many backlinks as you tried to build. No worries!! Google keeps following your backlinks and will count them in  sooner or later (whenever it is in mood) and probably, improvement in rankings is an ongoing process. However, it doesn’t mean that you shpuld do the job once and it’s all over. A regular plan (few quality directory submissions + 2-3 article marketing + do-follow blog comments + social bookmarking + website update) can make your website outrank  even a very very competitive niche that too with a Google authority status.

Before I leave, just a glance at my first sulumits retsambew entry position (I’m dropped to #4 and replaced by webmasterstimulus.org). Good job, Nux I know you :p

I’ll work on some link building for my entry after updating this post. See you soon with some new freaky idea.

Till then, chill & cheers!

Page size is something that Google marketers haven’t really been looking at, mostly because it’s a factor for MSN and Yahoo optimizers. But does it really play a role in how well your pages fare on the Google SERPs? It would seem that the competitors for Sulumits Retsambew are playing it safe; none of the first 50 results have pages over 100kB, and a good number even keep it under 10kB.

Back in 2008, web masters were all trying to figure out if there really was an optimal size for a web page to get ranked better by Google. Some SEO firms claim that it’s at about 20kB, but nobody really knows for sure. Google, on its part, has remained fairly mum about the whole affair. You can get a few hints from some of their pages, though. I use this tool to check page sizes; it gives some other nice info as well.

I personally liked Serge Bondar’s page size experiment though. The crux is; Google loves and awards fair rankings if your web page lies between 20kb – 80kb. Google bot has a limit of around 500kb. Yahoo bot can index only 210kb of a page and MSN is the king when it comes to page size – it can scan up to 1.1 MB. Though the experiment is pretty old but MSN and Yahoo are not so frequent with their system and algorithm changes. Google changes it frequently though rankings are indirectly proportional to page size. Lesser/optimum the page size; better the rankings.  Needless to say, it’s just one factor and we have lot many to consider.

Tips to keep page size under control -

1) Use of CSS - The use of CSS in HTML document helps in reducing the size of code as it separates the presentation layer coding from the actual text.
2) Clean markups - Always try to keep the markups clean and tidy by proper nesting of the tags and closing all the tags.
3) Use of H Tag - Provide important headings in H tags instead of visually increasing the font size or making them bold as search engine crawlers gives special importance to H tags.
4) Minimal use of Flash - Use of flash leads to two disadvantages. Firstly that they are over burden on the size of the site and secondly the text within a Flash cannot be read by the search engine.
5) Separate style sheet for Mobile devices – You must try to create a separate CSS style sheet for mobile devices containing less graphics and taking up less screen space. This will help your site attain better rankings as your site is optimized for such devices as well.
6) Page Text - Most of the websites have good navigation and separate pages/topics, so page text is optimum. Problem comes with blogs as they’d have many posts on same page, the home page. You might have noticed that posts rank higher at times. Page size is the reason. Try keeping 3-5 posts on your homepage. If you keep a static blogpage as homepage; it is the best. But make sure that you do necessary changes in your XML sitemap for daily updates or static page updates.

Well, I was just thinking if the contest entries gonna face the Google’s sandbox effect. As most of us know; most of the new websites would rank sweeter in the beginning (first page) and then dropped to 100 or deeper rankings for 90-120 days in most of the cases.

Now we have certain points -

• Keyword is new (there was nothing existed like “sulumits retsambew” before in Google)
• Almost 70% of the entries would be new websites or blogs
• All are working equally, almost at same time. Nobody is new or old significantly.

So, question is; will these entries face sandbox? My guess.. Yes as well as No.. LOL. That’s not diplomatic at all. Let me try to explain.

Why “Yes”?

Entries may face sandbox effect. Reason is; keyword may be new but 30 % of sites/blogs are not. There are many entries that have joined the contest with old and already reputed sites. Google will give them more weight. At first look, entries with keyword domain may seem to have more weight but sooner or later, they’d have to be dropped back in rankings; may be shorter time. Google may find many entries as spam results. It is quite evident that keyword domains would overpower non-keyword entries. But what matters more is number and quality of backlinks. How frequently the blog/site is updated. How natural and fair the on-page and off-page optimization the entry has.   

Why “No”

Entries may not face any sandbox effect. Because even if some of the sites and blogs may old but they’re competiting to rank for a completely new keyword. So, almost all are taken equally (if Google doesn’t prefer the aged domains). Because the old blogs/sites may have strong foundation online already in terms of backlinks and authority, but now they’d have to build links  for that particular keyword i.e. sulumits retsambew. And that’s what make them rank higher. So, it may be difficult for Google to determine what’s new and what’s old (again if it doesn’t determine the entry with age factor)

Take advantage of sandbox if you fall into it

Well, some of the entries may have a lovely honeymoon with Google on first page and then dropped to somewhere on page 3, 5 or 10. No issues! You can take advantage and keep doing this regularly to ensure your first page or better rankings recovery after 2-3 months (Don’t fret.. Contest is still up for next 4 and half months)

1. Don’t stay idle assuming you’re out. That’s just temporary. Keep adding content to your entry after every 4-5 days if not daily.

2. Try to do some article marketing with 1-2 unique articles every week.

3. Keep submitting to 5-10 quality directoeries daily. TRy to re-write your description little bit.

4. Keep reading others’ blogs and commenting. PLease note, even if you don’t comment with keyword but your name or nick, it’d be counted because your website URL does get attached to a relevant website.

5. Keep building and gathering backlinks from your friends, knowns, or your own websites (as long as they’re on unique IPs) etc.

6. Spread a word about your entry and updates through social bookmarking. Icrease your friend circle at these bookmarking sites. They’d help you spread your entry.. (don’t underestimate that. In a contest each link matters. If evn a single friend helped you get one link, it worths )

7. Try building links with keyword varitaions too; like sulumits retsambew contest, sulumits retsambew seo contest, webmaster stimulus sulumits retsambew. It WORKS. Don’t forget that Google measures value of site, working, links and optimization with more than 200 pointers. You should broaden your ideas.

8. Get one squidoo and hubpages too. Write something interesting and not just fluff.

9. Meanwhile, you can test your skills with yahoo, msn and other search engines.  Let Google take its time to find you and it’ll award you with something encouraging and amazing anytime as a surprise.

10. Be a sport, not a loser. Even if you don’t win, you got to learn lotta stuff around that would help you get many win-win situations in this online business later.

If you’re entering the contest after 1-2 months, prefer not to register a new domain or blog, rather enter with an old one. It’d give weightage and better results.

Well, I’m really feeling sleepy and tired after this long traveling. I want to write little more but may continue with a different concept next time. My next post will have some contest updates too. All I saw is # and #2 stable positions. All others are fluctuating still. Will cover everything new and latest in next post. Keep an eye and thanks for visiting again.

Chill & cheers!

To be very honest, I was blank for a while and confused about how to deal with this keyword. What would it actually mean.. and even if it means, how far it would go. But yes, I had to kick off my mind and it splurged many ideas. I’m happy, comfortable and all set to compete with my other contestant friends.

I’m writing this first post on this domain (sp. registered for the contest and I hope I would take it to some good level even if I don’t win) not just to fill it up with fluff but with some nice ideas too. The first thing, why did I choose this domain. Well, not to deny I want the exact keyword and at the same time, I was sure somebody must have picked it while I was in dreamland (Damn this timezone) Anyways, thought of grabbing SULUMITSRETSAMBEWNO.COM (On Webmaster Stimulus – read it backwards too, guyz) that would discuss the stuff about contest, about SEO, about what I’ll be doing, about latest SEO news, about whatever I’ll feeling on my first contest throughout these 3 months. I hope it’d come up with something interesting and valuable for others as well.  The slogan speaks it all.

Now about the keyword and contest, Thanks to Chris, for the idea, to Will for running this contest, to contestants who will try to beat me up, and to me..lol.. for trying to beat all of them.

Now about SULUMITS RETSAMBEW.. err.. webmaster stimulus.. What does it mean in my perspective. Stimulus – something that causes response; something which influences or assists a performance. Webmaster Stimulus – Some strategy  that would influence a webmaster and make him to go ahead or withdraw. 90% of the webmasters will/do follow certain trends. I don’t think they can have this webmaster stimulus. It is for someone who tries to create new trends in SEO, promotions, marketing or just anything related to web. Webmaster stimulus would provoke new idea no matter the stimulus is positive or negative. It’d end up giving a new idea, a new trial.

This contest should (as I think) highlight some new trends, some new strategies and some new failed as well as successful experiments after the winner is declared. Of course on a sound ground of seo skills and stratgies, some new ideas and steps will be combined. I just noticed that many people would be experimenting with blogspot, wordpress hosted blogs. Great effort and experiment for not choosing the private domain name. I wondered at testing and jumping in with twitter profile and squidoo lens. Definitely a wonderful experiment it’d be and it may lead to some new seo ideas and trends.

I myself have not come up with something solid yet but yes, many things are crawling in mind.

May be, I’m going to read Matt Cutts with more interest or would stick to Aaron’s posts 18 and half hours of the day :p. I may keep sitting at search engine roundable for some unread and unexplored posts  more hours.. kicking my mind to come up with better seo tactics to beat my friends :p I’d like to read more of blogs I’m fond of. William Slawski, Michael Gray and David Naylor are few to name.

I was just thinking if every participant would keep his strategy, a secret, for next 3 months. It may limit this webmaster stimulus to some extent and if the strategies and plans are disclosed, may be the competition would become even fierce or thin. Well.. lot of stuff to be seen around. For now, I’m finding this post more of a fluff but yes, something to start with and something that’s far better than “Hello Word”. Once again, good luck to all!

Chill & cheers!