What to Look for in a Private or White Label SEO Platform

If you operate a marketing agency, web design company, or work as a web entrepreneur in any capacity, you should definitely consider expanding your portfolio of services to include search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is one of the most important marketing methods in use on the internet today, and there are numerous private label SEO companies that offer their services via a white label relationship, allowing you to act as a branded reseller.

There are a few things you need to look for when selecting an SEO company to work with. Not all SEO companies are ethical or capable of creating the results you and your clients need. Because your reputation is on the line, as well as the success of your business, you should carefully evaluate any SEO white label partnership opportunity you encounter.

1. Confidentiality

You're going to be reselling services that are performed by another company. In order for this relationship to be profitable for you, you're going to have to charge your clients more than what theSEO company you work with charges. You therefore must ensure that your clients remain your clients by keeping your relationship with your SEO company confidential. Avoid any private label SEO company that doesn't adhere to a strong privacy commitment.

2. Ability

This is one of the most important items on the list. Make sure you're working with an SEO company that has the ability to achieve the results you and your clients require. The services performed must work to rank your clients' websites high on the search engines, or you won't be able to build a successful business upon retuning customers and referrals.

3. Transparency

The recent algorithm updates made by Google have resulted in penalties for many websites that haven't followed SEO best practices. When providing SEO services to a client, you need to be certain that the services you provide are legitimate and valuable and wont' endanger your clients' web presence in anyway. This is why transparency on the part of your SEO company is highly important. Make sure youknow the type and extent of work that will be performed for your clients.

4. Value Added Services

Accurate SERP reporting, technical support, automated billing, and other similar services are highly important and can make your private label SEO relationship a breeze. Be sure to investigate what services will be provided to you as a reseller.

Learn more about GetSEObot's private label SEO program.  http://www.getseobot.com/private-white-label-seo-program.php

The Penguin Update – What's the fuss all about?

 Just like many other updates from Google, the Penguin Update is a new search algorithm targeting web spam — specifically, link spam. The update rolled out on April 24, 2012 and is designed to penalize over-optimized sites that stuff their content with keywords in an effort to raise their search rankings. The impact of this Penguin can go anywhere from catastrophic to hardly noticeable, depending on how well a site has been adhering to the best SEO practices that have always been proven effective. Many small to medium businesses have cried foul over losing their rankings virtually overnight because of the Penguin, but Google (as usual) claims to take no sides. It maintains that the update’s aim is to improve the web search experience, not to put particular businesses in danger.

 Well, it’s Google’s game – and we just have to roll with it. How can web businesses counter the effects of the update? Here are some expert tips:

 Start to break away from the claws of Google. Remember: Google isn't the only way to get free traffic. In this age of growing dependence on social media, businesses are encouraged to take advantage of social networking sites in order to: (1) build new networks, (2), socialize their content, and (3) interact with other businesses along with their customers regularly.

 Re-strategize. Your search engine optimization efforts should be as dynamic as the changing world of free web traffic. Study the changes that Google has made and you’ll see patterns. Get rid of any web spam you might have and focus on building a clean site.

 Focus on quality. Rather than spinning a single content, take out bits of information from your main piece and create whole new topics from them while still maintaining focus on your main service/product/content. Make use of sidebar stories, podcasts, infographics, top 10 lists, and other interesting content to improve substance.

 Pay it forward. Take time to visit industry blogs, forums, and message boards. Participate in discussions while subtly promoting your site. You don't need to rely solely on Google to bring you traffic. In fact, going direct to the source of your target traffic is far better to gain new visitors.

 Ever heard about Pinterest? It has gained a reputation as the 3^rd most popular social network in US alone, just behind Twitter and Facebook. What's more, it generates referral traffic even more than LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube, altogether.

 In the end, really, Google is only one platform. There are many other platforms that you can take advantage of for your web marketing efforts. If you were affected by the Penguin update (however unfairly), just dust yourself off and get back up again. Switch to established SEO practices, and you should see an improvement in just a few months. 

What is the Penguin Update?

In its efforts to remove webspam from its search engine results, Google released the highly anticipated Penguin Update last April 24, 2012. Combined with the Panda Update released last year, the Penguin is supposed to put Google another step close to spam-free results. It aims to penalize website that use (1) excessive link building strategies with absolutely no regard for quality, (2) keyword stuffing, (3) deceptive doorway pages, and (4) meaningless content written for search engines instead of people.  

Whether the Penguin will be effective is yet to be seen, as it’s still too early in the game. Meanwhile, search engine optimization experts are scrambling to keep up and protect their websites from the effects of Penguin (expected or unexpected). What is the best way to deal with these new developments? Is dong ‘too much SEO’ actually hurting your site more than helping it? The consensus seems to be simple enough: play by the old rules, and you should be safe.

Some Guidelines to Protect Your Site from Penguin

Way before Penguin was even rolled out, Google warned webmasters in advance about an upcoming ‘webspam algorithm update.’ Those who chose to ignore these warnings seem to be suffering. We’ve seen competing sites that used to rank high drop into oblivion, virtually disappearing for their niche keywords.

Some sites deserved the drop, and other didn’t. Those that truly deserve to rank higher are most likely to climb back up again; this has happened for some sites who were unfairly penalized after Panda. However, abusive websites are likely to continue dropping.

Instead of fearing Google’s regular algorithm changes, the best thing you can do is to never over-optimize. Here’s what we mean:

• Get only relevant links. The Penguin Update seems to be targeting sites that buy links in order to rank higher. They will penalize you for buying inbound links from sites that are obviously unrelated, for example. The key is to get natural links, or join networks of high-quality sites that are related your niche.
• Don’t allow low-quality sites to link to you.
• Avoid signing up for SEO services that over-promise. If they claim to guarantee a #1 listing overnight, they are lying.
• Build quality content. You want to buy content that truly deserves a good place in the index. With the new Penguin Update, content that simply rambles on will no longer rank well, even it is supposedly ‘optimized.’
• Include important keywords naturally. Do not fall into the trap of high keyword densities that can cause you to get dropped from the index. Use your target keywords only it is relevant. Stop worrying too much about densities and optimization. Simply focus on grammar and quality.
• Go social: Your goal should be to create content that people will share in social networking sites.
• Decrease your reliance on Google. Try to get members to whom you can share constant content in the form of emails or newsletters. Amp up your social media efforts. Start promotions if you must. Get out of that ‘Google is the end-all and be-all’ mentality.  
• Distribute your content to reputable blogs and sites. If you can, try to write ‘guest blog posts’ so you can gain exposure and quality back links.
• Publish real (relevant) content in forums and comment sections. Even if you don’t get back links from these sites most are no-follow), the exposure is well worth the effort. Make sure your comments are informative and never spammy.

 Report a Site

Do you know of a spam site that is still ranking (undeservedly) despite the Google Penguin Update? Report it here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/spamreport?hl=en

Complain to Google

If you think your site was unfairly hit by the update, you can fill out this form:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEVxdmdRWFJRTjRoLWZVTHZkaTBQbkE6MQ

Relevant theme based related Links are a major component of search engine optimization, now more than ever in todays post Panda and Penguin updates by Google. Many website owners have long understood the importance of obtaining links that point to their websites. But as search engines have continued to evolve, things have changed. It's no longer enough just to have links that point to your site. Those links must be relevant.

Links have traditionally been understood in the SEO world as “votes of confidence,” or as signals of value or authority. Essentially, links tell search engines that a site is respected and valued by other members of the web community. But links do more than just attribute value.

Each link to your website gives the search engines a little information as to what your site is about. In other words, links provide context as to the nature of your site, which helps your site rank for the right keywords.

In order to determine what type of context is communicated by a given link, search engines check at least two signals. The first signal is the anchor text of the link. The second signal is the context of the linking site. For this reason, the site that is linking to yours needs to contain information relevant to the context you hope to establish for your site. The alignment of context between your two sites is called relevancy. The higher the relevancy, the more valuable the link.

Let's look at some examples. If you've created a website that sells health care products, a link from the website of a well-known doctor would be highly relevant. A link from a website that sells products similar to yours would also be highly relevant. A link from a website that talks about healthy living would be relevant.

What types of links would not be relevant? A link from a website that sells automotive machinery would not be relevant. A link from a website that sells enterprise software solutions wouldn't be relevant. You get the idea.Obtaining links from relevant websites can be very difficult, because no one is going to link to their competitors. This means websites that sell products similar to yours are not generally going to be willing to link to you. GetSEObot offers a solution to this problem and provides an easy, automatic way to gain relevant links.