Properly planned offpage optimization will make the difference between your website ranking #900 on Google, to ranking #1! So, what is offpage optimization anyway? Offpage optimization basically consists of all of the offpage ranking factors like
* Which websites link to you
* The number of websites linking to you
* The Google page rank of the website linking to you
* The page title of the website linking to you
* The anchor text used in the link linking to you
* The number and type of links linking to the website that's linking to you.
* The number of outbound links on the website that is linking to you
* The total number of links on the website that is linking to you
* Whether or not the websites linking to you are deemed by Google as an authority website.
* Plus some other things that we'll get to later
In order to optimize our original website for the keyword "structured settlements", we need to analyze the linking strategy of the top 10 ranked websites for our keyword.
Copy The Top Ranked Websites To Get A #1 Position
The goal here will be to copy exactly what they're doing, and then do things slightly better. We want to give Google exactly what they want, by making our linking strategy as close to the top ranked websites as possible, but as I said, slightly better to edge them out.
First, we need to open up a spreadsheet using Microsoft Excel. You should create the following columns
* Linking Website
* Anchor Text used
* Page Rank
* Link Popularity
* Page Title
* Number of Outbound Links
Next, we need to visit Google and enter the keyword "structured settlements". We'll then visit the top 10 websites for this keyword and collect the information above. You should create 1 spreadsheet for each of the top 10 websites.
Linking Website is the specific website linking to structuredsettlements.org. In order to find all of the websites that link to structuredsettlements.org you can do a couple of things. The most common way is to go to Google and enter this search criteria: link:www.structuredsettlements.org. Once you do this Google will return a large list of websites that link to structuredsettlements.org.
Over the past several months, Google has cut down on the number of backlinks that it will show you, so you may be better off going to Yahoo and entering link: to get a larger list of websites that link to them. Note that for Yahoo you must include "http://".
link: to get a larger list of websites that link to them. Note that for Yahoo you must include "http://".
Anchor Text is the actual text used within the link linking to the specified website. For example, the anchor text in the following link would be "structured settlements".
structured settlements
Page Rank is the actual Google Page Rank of the webpage linking to structuredsettlements.org. In order to see the Google Page Rank, you'll need to download and install the Google Toolbar for free from:
Link Popularity is just the number of links that are pointing to each of the webpages pointing to structuredsettlements.org. You can find their Google link popularity by entering this search command into Google: link:www.thewebsite.org then counting the total number of results that are shown OR you could go to a website like www.linkpopularity.org to find each link partners link popularity much quicker.
Page Title is the title of the page that is linking to structuredsettlements.org. Does it contain the keyword "structured settlements", "structured settlements for cash" or "settlements"? If so, you should note which links pages those are. You'll want to approach those websites and try to get them to link to your website.
Getting links from webpages that contain your main keyword in the page title is extremely powerful and is something many people often overlook.
Number of Outbound Links is the number of links located on the webpage linking to structuredsettlements.org. The less links located on the page, the more a link from them would increase your ranking.
Once we've collected all of the information, we now can see structuredsettlements.org's linking strategy.
We'll need to calculate the percentage of websites that contain the keywords "structured settlements for cash", "structured settlements", or "settlements" in the page title.
We'll need to calculate the percentage of websites that contain the keywords "structured settlements for cash", "structured settlements", or "settlements" in the actual anchor text linking to structuredsettlements.org.
We'll then need to mirror these numbers, as close as we can, for our linking strategy. This may take awhile to do, but once you've done this...
You'll Have The Exact Blueprint You Can Give Google For A #1 Ranking!
Once the blueprint for our linking strategy is complete, we need to contact each of these websites individually and ask them if they will add our link to their website in exchange for us adding their link to ours.
Tip: The more personalized you can make the email, the better. It is always best to include a blurb stating that you liked "X" about their website and was very impressed etc...
Now, if all of that seemed like it would take many days to do, you're right... it would. It works, but it does take A LOT of time. There is a specific software program out there that can do ALL of this for you in a matter of minutes. It's what I use on a daily basis and it works very well.
