Learning Stuff About ‘Website Traffic Building’ Category


How to Check For NoFollow/DoFollow

In the introduction to dofollow and nofollow, we looked at what these terms mean, and we saw reasons why one would want to do either. What I want to do now, is look at a couple ways you can check to see if a link is dofollow or nofollow, and hence whether a site would classify as dofollow/nofollow.

The first way I will look at is the manual way. It is not difficult at all, but if you had to do this a lot, it could get tedious and time consuming. Nevertheless, it is good to know how to check at will without needing any extra tools.  Here is how:

1. Take any website you want to check for. You want to check the links in the sections where visitors can make contributions. So for example, let us say you were checking a blog. You’d most likely want to check the comments section. Try finding comments that already have links in them. The link will most likely be in the name of the poster, or sometimes in the body of the comment.

2. Once you have found a post/page with the links you want to check for, right click on the page, and click the option to view source. This will open a window, maybe a notepad screen or another browser window, with the source code of the page. Don’t worry if you can’t understand the code. You are interested only in finding the source of the link.

3. In your source code window, select the Edit menu option at the top of the window. Then choose Find. What you’ll be looking for is the text of the link you want to check, or at least some portion of it that will take you to the link code. So for eg. if you were to look for this link about Unique Web Traffic , you could search for “unique web traffic”.

4. When you have found the text you’re searching for, you will see some html code surrounding the text you searched for. So if we use the example link mentioned above, we would see the following code:

<a href="https://learningstuff.necubed.com/2009/08/16/unique-web-traffic-to-your-website-you-can-get-it/"> link about Unique Web Traffic</a>

The <a href= code is what designates a link. The part we want to check for, is the tag, “rel”.  If this were a nofollow link, it would have “rel=nofollow”. For eg.

<a href=”https://learningstuff.necubed.com/2009/08/16/unique-web-traffic-to-your-website-you-can-get-it/” rel=nofollow> link about Unique Web Traffic</a>

Since it doesn’t, then we know it is a dofollow link. It is as simple as that.

As you can see, although this is not a complicated process, it can get tedious if you have to do this often. So I will introduce a another way to check whether a link is dofollow/nofollow.  The second way is by installing the SEO for Firefox extension. Yes, I am suggesting you use Firefox if you’re not already. Please, just abandom Internet Explorer.

With this plugin, once you install it and turn it on, all nofollow links will be highlighted for any web page you’re viewing. So for example, on this page, you should see the Register link on the left sidebar highlighted in red. That is because it is a nofollow link.  Note that this plugin has a lot of other uses too, but that is for another post.

So now you’re equipped to determine which sites are nofollow and dofollow, you can go forth and check which sites suit your purposes.

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Introduction To DoFollow and NoFollow

In certain circles, especially among those who are into search engine optimisation (SEO), the terms dofollow and nofollow often come up. If you are new to building and/or promoting websites, you probably have no clue what this refers to. But if you seriously want your site to get maximum visibility, you need to be aware of what these terms mean.

What is DoFollow and NoFollow?

The terms dofollow and nofollow refer to either links or sites. It is really links that are properly nofollow or dofollow. Websites are said to be dofollow or nofollow depending on the type of links they allow. I’ll explain this some more, but let us first understand what a nofollow link is.

As just about everyone knows, a link is basically some text that is encapsulated in certain html code which tells what the text links to. Now the html code allows some attributes to be set, one of which is nofollow. Specifying nofollow for a link basically is a message for search engines, to inform them that they should not use this link to affect the ranking of the target site. You see, a page’s ranking in the search results is to a large extent dependent on the external links which point to that site. So when you create a nofollow link to some site X, you in effect prevent site X from getting any benefit in the search results.

Note that specifying nofollow has no effect on a user’s experience in clicking on the link. Also, some search engines take nofollow literally, and do not even follow the target of the link when it does it’s crawling. However, others might indeed follow the target, but will just not let this link count towards a site’s page rank. So it is still possible to get your site indexed (that is, to be recognised by the search engine) with a nofollow link to your site.

Now that you understand nofollow, perhaps you can guess what dofollow means. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, understand that there is no attribute or tag in the html code that specifies dofollow. What we refer to as dofollow links, are simply links that do not carry the nofollow attribute or tag. Dofollow is simply a term to refer to the opposite of the effect of nofollow. In other words, if a link is said to be dofollow, then it means that the target will benefit in how the search engines rank their results. Therefore, the more dofollow links pointed to your site, the better your site will rank in the search engine’s results. For eg. with adding enough dofollowlinks, you could move from page 20 in the google results to page 1.

With the above in mind, a site is considered dofollow if it allows you to contribute to the site, whether through comments or otherwise, without making your links nofollow. And conversely, a nofollow site is simply a site that makes the links you post nofollow. Sometimes sites might make certain sections dofollow while leaving some as nofollow.

Why Nofollow?

One of the first questions that might come to mind when encountering the concept of nofollow, is why would anyone want to do this? You would think that if you’re going to refer to another site, it is only fair to give that site the benefit of improved search rankings. Well one of the intentions of this html specification for links, was to reduce the amount of spam that plagues sites, especially blogs. Blogs generally allow readers to post comments where one is generally allowed to include a link. Spammers have taken advantage of this to build their backlinks to improve their standing in the search engines’ results pages. So this is one of the reasons why blogs now by default tend to make the links in comments nofollow.

Another reason for the introduction of the nofollow attribute, is to prevent your reputation to be passed to questionable sites. If you link to such a site without the nofollow, you are in effect saying that you approve of that site. This can have adverse effects on you, as Google for example frowns on such sites, and may penalise your own site. This is another reason why blogs make comments nofollow by default. There can also be times when you want to expose a scam site and provide a link to it to demonstrate a point. However, you wouldn’t want to be passing your reputation to it in this case, so this would be a good time you would want the use of nofollow.

Aside from the purposes behind nofollow, SEO experts have promoted another use for it. There is a theory that suggests that the number of outbound dofollow links on a page reduces the power of that page to affect the ranking of other pages it might link to. This link power might be better served in promoting other internal pages of your site. Whether or not this is true, the fact is, that people believe it. Therefore, SEO experts have advised on keeping the number of non nofollow (or dofollow) links to a minimum.

Another reason one might use the nofollow is to be able to link to one who might be a competitor, without lending weight to the competitor’s page rank.

Why Dofollow?

Since dofollow invites spam, and could weaken your page’s link power, then why do it at all for external sites?  Well there are a number of reasons one might want to do this. One good one, is that while it invites spam, it also encourages comments on your site. Comments can be good in that they add content, and they indicate that your blog is active and visible, which encourages your readers to come back and participate. Since you have control of which comments get posted, you can simply ignore the spam, and only allow those which add value to your site.

Another reason to go with dofollow, is that it indicates goodwill. When people recognise that you’re giving credit where it is due, they will more likely reciprocate and give you dofollow backlinks. Also, since people are constantly trying to build their dofollow resource list, you will tend to get linked to more often. Even though a number of these links will be nofollow, you’re still benefiting since these are still links that can bring you direct traffic. In short, dofollow will tend to increase your web traffic.

In my next post I will explain how to check for nofollow or dofollow. And in another post, I will provide a resource page for dofollow sites.

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Google Key Words for building unique web traffic

In this post I will address some more the matter of google key words for getting web traffic. In the prior post on getting unique web traffic, I mentioned that I wanted to flesh out certain points. That is what I’m trying to do here.

I advised taking a strategy where you focus on getting ranked in the search engines with key words that are not too competitive. Competitive does not only mean that the key words are very popular. It also has to do with how hard it would be to have your site outrank the other sites that also rank in the search results for these specific words.

In this post I will introduce you to the google key words tool which will assist you in choosing key words. In another post, I will explain how to tell how difficult it would be to obtain a better page rank than the number one result of this search query, or than any of the other sites in the search results.

The google key words tool is really meant for advertisers, to aid them in selecting the key words they want to target for displaying their ads. Nevertheless, this free tool can be very useful even if you’re not an advertiser.

All you do is enter a key word, or phrase into the google tool, and hit the button. You will then get a list of various key words related to what you entered, with some statistics associated with it. By default, there are two columns displayed which show statistics related to the traffic volume per month for these set of google key words. I would suggest you filter the Match Type to Exact to get a more accurate indicator of the kind of traffic you can expect from these key words. You can also see other statistics by selecting the available options in the Choose columns to display selection box.

Now if you see a very high traffic volume, then it is very likely that these key words are very competitive to rank for. So you will want to set your sights somewhat lower initially. Remember, the idea is to tap into some of the traffic available by managing to get your site ranked well for key words that do have some traffic. Once you can do this, then you can repeat it for other google key words, and steadily build your web traffic, not just traffic, but unique web traffic.

Ok, so now you have a tool to help you decide on key words you can target. What you now need to be effective, is the knowledge for how to check if you have a chance of ranking well with these google key words. That is what I will explain in another post to come soon. So stay tuned…

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Unique Web Traffic To Your Website -You can get it!

Everyone wants to get traffic to their website, if they have information or knowledge to share. In this post, what I want to focus on, is not just getting traffic, but getting targeted unique web traffic.

The importance of this should be clear. For while repeat visitors to your site is important, to expand your reach, what you really need is unique website traffic that is targeted.

I am going to look at a couple ways of achieving this goal. The first requires time, dedication and careful planning. The second requires some amount of money.

Perhaps the best way to get unique web site traffic is through the search engines. This not only gives unique visitor hits, but also targeted traffic. You want targeted traffic because this increases the likelihood that the visitors are interested in what you have, and will benefit from what you are offering.

So how does one go about getting search engine traffic? The solution is easy to say, but difficult to implement. Simply put, you need to get your page/site ranked on the first page of the search results and the closer it is to number 1, the better. And how does one get her page ranked this well in the search results? Well it is a combination of multiple factors, but there are two that are key and will take you a long way. These are, key words, and backlinks. Backlinks are links from other sites to yours.

I have elsewhere addressed the importance of backlinks or incoming links, and how to get such links, so I won’t reiterate here. On the matter of key words, you need to decide which words you want your page ranked high for when the search engine user enters them in his query. Now there is a strategy to this. You want to select key words where you can compete in. Chances are, if you targeted the key words, ‘make money’, you will not be able to get your page ranked near the top because there are already many sites targeting these same words, and which already have a solid base of backlinks which will make it very difficult for you to out do them.

It is best to choose key words that are not very competitive, yet are likely to be searched by more than a few people. Naturally you would not expect to get as much traffic from ranking high in this search phrase, as you would if you could rank high in the popular search phrase. However, do this enough times for different pages of your site for the less popular key word searches, and your trickle of traffic will eventually coalesce into a steady stream or even river of healthy unique and targeted web traffic.

The second way to get unique web site traffic, would be to pay for it. For example, there is google adwords. You pay google to have your ad shown when certain key words are found in the content of web pages. This is an effective way to generate the traffic you want. So if you have money for this activity, why not try it? Yahoo also has a similar adword model. So does kontera.

Aside from the adword models, there are a number of sites that make it their business to funnel targeted traffic to your site. You basically decide how many unique visitors you want and then you pay for the package that will meet that target. Do some research into this if you’re inclined to go this route.

So having looked at the two main ways of increasing unique web traffic to your site, you can see that the easier and quicker route to take for results, would be to pay for it. However, if you cannot afford to do that, you can invest the time and effort needed to increase your ranking in the search engine results. And of course, you can combine these two methods when it makes sense.

I intend to add future posts that will flesh out some of the points made here.

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Building Web Traffic -Getting backlinks

Now that we understand the importance of backlinks to your site, let us explore some of the ways for getting backlinks.

Perhaps the easiest is if you already have another website that has some amount of visibility, then you can simply add a link on it to your new site. Try to make the link relevant to your site though. If you must start from scratch, then you can try the following:

1. Visit forums that have some relevance to the content of your site. Post on the forum and interject a link to your site when it is appropriate. Don’t violate the rules, and don’t spam. Make sure your post is relevant, and linking to your site is seen more as adding value than simply trying to advertise your site. Or instead of trying to include the link in the main body of your forum submission, include it in your signature and profile (if there is a profile facility).

2. Find sites that are related to yours in terms of content or service, and make a request to the webmaster to do a link exchange. This means you will include a link to the other site on yours, and he/she will in turn link to your site from their own.

3. Make comments to posts on various sites/blogs and where appropriate include a link in your comment. Usually you are given the opportunity to specify your website along with your name when making the comment. Be aware however, that quite often when you include a link in a comment, the link is a nofollow link so won’t be counted towards your page rank by search engines. Webmasters do this is to cut down on spam. But a link out there in your comments still can be useful, as someone reading it might just decide to check out your link, especially if your comment is sensible and relevant.

4. Alert sites like Digg, Reddit, and Stumbleupon of your page(s). Each of these sites basically allows you to share your content with the world. The way they work, is by submitting a title and a little description of what your page/site/article is about. Your entry is then visible to the thousands of others browsing these sites, and they may either rate it good or bad. The more good ratings you get, the more visibility your entry gets. Now, keep in mind that even if your entry doesn’t get anywhere in terms of popularity on these sites, it still helps you because the search engines love these sites, and you’ll quickly become more visible in the results of search engines like google. Bear in mind that if the site is a nofollow site, then it won’t do much to increase your ranking in the search engines. However, even with the nofollow sites, it does seem to help in getting your site indexed, in case your site is not yet indexed.

5. Bookmark your site. Bookmarks count as incoming links. There are sites that actually allow you to store your bookmarks online. This can also be good for getting backlinks to your site. Join up with a site like del.icio.us (or delicious.com) and add bookmarks to the sites you want promoted. Search engines are able to see these bookmarks, so it can possibly improve your search rankings. However, these bookmark links could very well be what are called nofollow links, which means that they don’t carry weight in terms of page rank. In another post I will explain how you can determine if a link is a nofollow link.

(You can see more example sites that allow link sharing by putting your mouse over the Share/Save icon at the bottom of this post).

If you have any other ideas, please do post them in the comments, or even do your own post submission.

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Building Web Traffic -the importance of incoming links

There are basically a few ways that people will come to your site.

1. Entering your website address directly into their browsers

2. Finding your website in a search engine

3. Clicking to your site through some link found on another site

The first of these requires that one knows your web address, or that you have a domain name (like realestate.com) such that one might just try entering the term they want info on. This can be a difficult way of getting traffic if you’re not fortunate enough to have one of those nice domain names.

So really the main ways of generating traffic would be through #2 and #3. Now it is possible to get indexed by a search engine so that others could possibly find your site, without having any other sites linking to yours. However, it generally takes longer to get indexed without some link reference from another indexed source, and it is also not likely that you would get a good page ranking from the search engine’s results without some links to your site.

It is therefore most important that your site gets incoming links (also called backlinks) from other sites if you want to grow your web traffic. The more links you have directing people to your site, the higher the chance that people will visit your page. But not only that, it also stands to increase your ranking in the results of search engines. Naturally you want a good ranking, because people don’t tend to look beyond the first page in the search engine’s results.

What is also important, is the quality of backlinks. Not all pages are equal. Some pages have a better standing with the search engines, and so getting a link from one of these pages to your site, will carry greater weight than if you got a link from a page that is also struggling to get attention.

It should be abundantly clear by now the importance of getting incoming links (backlinks) to your site in order to build your web traffic. In the next part of this series we will look at ways of getting such incoming links.

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Avoiding Duplicate Content

One way to get traffic to your website is through search engines. The ideal is to have your site appear at the top of the search results, or near to it, when a search is done for the key words related to your site. So it is important that we don’t do something to cause the search engines to penalise our sites, and make our ranking way down in the list.

This means we should be aware of what search engines don’t like. One of the things you can get punished for, is having a lot of duplicate content at your site. This must be avoided if you want to have any chance of getting a nice page rank.

Now if you build your site using something like WordPress, you could easily find yourself inadvertently duplicating content multiple times over. This is because it is easy to have different links (or URLs) to one particular post. For eg. if you post something to multiple categories, then you will have different links for each category. This is also a problem for archived posts, and your tags could potentially be a problem too.

So what to do about this?

In the case of posting to multiple categories, you can alleviate the problem by showing only excerpts on the category pages, and by ensuring that none of your category pages have all or most of the same posts listed.

The solution really though is to include some meta code in the header of your pages, to specify “noindex, follow”. So in your header you’d include:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow">

The “noindex” part of this tells the search engine not to index your page, so if you have duplicate content there, it won’t be counted against you. The “follow” part tells the search engine you still want the links on this page to count towards page ranking. There is a “nofollow” option that would say you don’t want any of the links on this page to contribute to the page rankings for the targets of these links.

If you’re using WordPress, this can easily be done by just modifying your header.php file to include code like the following:

<?php if(is_home() ¦¦ is_single() ¦¦ is_page()){
echo ‘<meta name=”robots”
content=“index,follow”>’;
} else {
echo ‘<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,follow”>’;
}?>

If you’re averse to tampering with the code yourself, an alternative, and attractive option is to simply install the All in one SEO plugin. When you do that, you can specify “noindex, follow” for categories, archives, and tags.

Oh, in case you’ve also installed the Google XML Sitemaps plugin, you’d want to see that categories (probably), archives and tags are not included in the generated sitemap. (You can specify this in the plugin options).

If you have other suggestions, please do comment!

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