Why did we do this? Mainly to prime the pump. To start the aging process on the domain. Any new domain needs to age a bit before it is taken seriously. Given that it will take us a few months to develop this site, we hope that once we are ready we can hit the ground running.

As a general rule, we recommend that all new domains get up and running, even if in minimalistic fashion, as soon as possible. Otherwise, you might find yourself waiting and waiting for the search engines to take your serious.

So, good luck to PaperProofreader.com as you start on the great new adventure of running a web business.

Let me explain by using an example. Over at College Crunch, we have built a wide-net resource around the phrase “starting salary” – but we are not really interested in that specific phrase. Rather, we are interested in phrases like “starting salary for engineers” or “average starting salary for biochemists”

The phrase “starting salary” is just the singular phrase that all of the many search phrases we are targeting have in common. By creating a very large resource article that discusses the starting salaries of many careers, we are accomplishing multiple tasks at once:

1. We are building a unique resource that is link worthy from many different types of sites
2. We are creating a single, strong, authoritative page (rather than diluting the strength over hundreds of smaller pages)
3. We are reinforcing our common keyphrase (starting salary)
4. We are creating an expandable resource that can be made more valuable by adding new informational units (adding careers)
5. We are creating a platform from which to quickly gain search traffic for related phrases by doing Post-Hoc keyword researc

In general, I encourage every serious website to build out a few Wide-Net resources each year. Once you see the benefits of building big, structured content like this, you’ll want to do lots more.

One thing we’ve noticed over the last year is that static websites are at a disadvantage. Over the past few years, search engines have added elements to their algorithms that often prefer fresh data. Or, at the very least, the search algorithms of today tend to prefer domains that provide a steady stream of new content.

At SeaWaves, we tried an experiment by setting up a series of static, informative websites called Guru Guides. For example, we created a guide to online colleges. When we first put this content up, it did quite well in the search engines. And it continued to do well for about 9 months. But then, search referrals started to fade significantly.

There’s a rule on the web that most search professionals now recognize: the websites you work on and develop are the ones that will succeed.

If you are a website owner, keep this in mind. Don’t just let your website sit and go stale. Add to it on a monthly basis, at minimum.

In fact, with every project we’ve taken on, we’ve managed to get front page Google results for some important local search phrases.

Most online experts agree that the next major revolution on the web will be the local web. The development of networks and websites that facilitate local interaction. We’re excited to be positioned to help businesses leverage search as this trend continues.

But the short term traffic spike from Digg is not worth very much on it’s own. In fact, there only two reasons that we continue to use Digg:

1. Authority link snowballing
2. Branding via Mainstream media recognition

Authority Link Snowballing

This is the idea that if your article is good enough to get a few solid mentions on some well read sources, you’ll likely get picked up by all the other sites that use them as sources. As an example, we recently had an article picked up by Sports Illustrated. Within an hour, the article was picked up by over 15 additional sports blogs. A few of those were powerful sites themselves, and resulted in even more coverage.

Snowballing is the idea that if you get noticed at the top, you’ll get noticed by even more people at the bottom. So your target should always be to capture the attention of big sites at the top of the mountain, so that smaller sites, on the way down the mountain, will notice you too. Starting at the top will allow you to gain momentum on your way down the mountain.

Digg is a good place to get noticed at the top of the mountain.

Mainstream Media Recognition

The fact of the matter is that a lot of new organizations carefully monitor Digg for interesting news stories that they can cover on their own websites. Often, these major media outlets will reference the original article that they see on Digg. Getting mentioned by Fox News or MTV can be brilliant for your brand and open a lot of doors. It ads to your credibility and makes others take you seriously.

Not All Linkbait Is Shorterm

At SeaWaves, when we develop linkbait, we like to think longterm, not short term. This is a strategy that is much more difficult for the client to grasp on a conceptual level, but let us explain.

The best longterm linkbait is a widely recognized, brandable website. To become widely recognized, you need to differentiate. You need to create quality resources that will draw attention to your website, not just in the short term, but over the long haul.

In addition to a regular dose of digg-bait, we recommend that our clients develop an ongoing series of resource landing pages. What’s a resource landing page? It’s basically a web page that organizes a comprehensive set of information about a particular topic, all in one place, and displays it in an attractive manner.

Ryan Caldwell over at Performancing has written up a resource landing page tutorial on the term tartans. What he shows you is how to integrate information, images, video and HTML code in such a way that helps you develop a solid resource for people interested in your topic.

By developing four solid resource pages per month, you will have close to 50 resource pages within 1 year. And by that time you will be well on your way to having the best type of linkbait possible: an authoritative website.

For example, currently WatchPart.co.uk ranks 36th and 37th for omega watch parts. However, the two landing pages are not the best pages on the site for the keyword phrase.

Here are the two landing pages:

1. http://watchpart.co.uk/dials-bezels-bezels-c-58_113.html
2. http://watchpart.co.uk/blog/2007/06/18/omega-watch-dials/

The first one looks like a blank page. The second page is a short blog entry about Omega watch dials. However, what if the searcher was looking for an Omega watch part other than a dial?

The best landing page for omega watch parts is

http://watchpart.co.uk/omega-m-10.html

However, this page isn’t in the top 100 results of Google.

Here’s another example. Petersons.com currently ranks 7th for graduate law schools. Here’s the landing page:

http://www.petersons.com/GradChannel/code/search.asp

The landing page is a page where you can search through graduate programs in different degrees – not just law degrees. A better landing page would be

http://graduate-schools.petersons.com/bydiscipline/u/Law/d/Law/di/2530/sponsor/7997.aspx

This landing page has a list of graduate law schools. However, this page doesn’t rank in the top 100.

How to Get Your Relevant Pages to Rank

If you want to outrank your current landing pages with more relevant ones, here are some things you can do.

Insert the keyword in the title tag of the relevant landing page The closer the keyword is to the beginning of the title, the better.

Point more internal links to the appropriate landing page.

Build links from other sites that point to the more relevant page.

Finally, as you’re creating internal links and building external links, make sure to vary your anchor text. You can do this by using variations of the keyword as your anchor text. For instance, in the first example, the keyword was omega watch parts. You can use variations like

buy omega watch parts
quality omega watch parts
omega watch parts for sale
different omega watch parts
omega brand watch parts
omega parts for watches

By doing this, you’ll avoid tripping the Google anchor text spam filter. Also, you’ll rank better for the variations of the search term.

However, some blog directories are GREAT. Below, we’ve listed what we view as the 5 best blog directories. To be on this list, the directory must be more than a link farm. It must offer some added value to the Internet. They must be *worth* submitting to.

1. Best of the Web Blog Directory

This is the most selective, comprehensive, and perhaps the overall best quality blog directory out there.

2. Blog Catalog

Blog Catalog is a social community blog directory. User interaction and comments makes it stand out. Submissions to Blog Catalog still show up high in Google SERPS.

3. Blogflux

Blogflux is a great directory because of the tools it offers to bloggers. We especially like Blogflux Top Sites which ranks blogs by traffic.

4. EatonWeb Blog Directory

EatonWeb is cool because it algorithmically ranks blogs according to perceived quality. Surprisingly, the algorithm does a good job at showing the best sites first. EatonWeb also assigns each blog a score, which is worth monitoring.

5. Blog Hub

BlogHub shines as a community of blog owners. Submit your site to the directory and join the conversation.

So there you go. If you’re looking for a condensed list of ultra-effective blog directory submissions, this is the one to use. The directories are quality and will actually benefit your blog.

1. Black hats are always on the run
2. The best SEOs are silent SEOs
3. All the SEO girls want Rand Fishkin cuz Rand Fiskin is the pretty boy of SEO.
4. Text link ads are like crack – their addictive and carry heavy withdrawal symptoms
5. Andy Hagans and Aaron Wall are thankful for their college educations
6. White hats don’t get anything done
7. Shoemoney loves ringtones and photoshopped checks
8. Grey hats have all the fun