25 link-building tips to drive traffic to your website - China LED Fluorescent Tubes

Relevant inbound links from authoritative, trusted and/or qualitywebsites are every search marketer's dream . (An inbound link, also called a backlink, is a link from anexternal site that points to content on your site.) Google, whichowns about 66 percent of the search engine market according to comScore , sees such links as votes of confidence for your content. BecauseGoogle wants to serve users the most relevant, freshest,trustworthy results, inbound links from trusted sites to yours cango a long way toward pushing your content up in search resultrankings. Of course, obtaining those inbound links takes considerable time,effort and resources. There are also a lot of myths andmisunderstandings related to link building.

For example, somebelieve Google will penalize you for getting too many links tooquickly (not necessarily) or that reciprocal links are a surefireway to boost your rankings (it depends). To help your site develop a quality inbound link profile, we'vecollected 25 top link-building strategies and tips from threeexperts: Eric Ward, a link-building strategist since 1994 and author ofLinkMoses, an email newsletter ($8 monthly). Debra Mastaler, president of Alliance-Link, which provides custom link building training . Scott Fasser, director of customer experience for Optify, developerof SaaS-based inbound marketing software.

Set Your Link-Building Foundation 1. Put someone in charge. Because link building is time-consuming and resource intensive,someone needs to be responsible for driving the effort, Fassersays. "You need someone focused on actively managing the program,promoting the right content and always looking for newopportunities." 2. Set up a process for monitoring and measuring progress. LED Flood Lamp

From the beginning, have a method in place--usually accomplishedvia SaaS tools--to monitor and measure your link-building effortson a regular basis. "If you don't have that process set up, whensomeone asks how effective your link-building campaign is, youwon't have a good answer," Fasser says. "And if you don't have agood answer, you're not likely to get the time and resources youneed to continue the link building." 3. Don't outsource your entire link-building campaign. China LED Fluorescent Tubes

"You can't outsource 100 percent of your link building or websitepromotion to a third-party and expect to get the same results you'dget if you had someone doing it in-house. You need someone in-housewho really knows your industry," Ward says, since that will givelink campaign strategies both context and focus. Every site, Ward adds, "was designed with a specific andpotentially unique audience in mind, specific objectives for thataudience and specific subject matter. Doesn't it make sense thatevery site is going to require a specific approach to link buildingand content publicity? You can't cookie-cutter the process." 4. LED High Bay Light Fixtures Manufacturer

Begin by examining the links on your own site. Unlike most inbound links, the links on your site are entirelywithin your control. Take a close look at how you're linking toyour own content on your site. Are you using keyword-rich anchortext to point to relevant content elsewhere on the site? (Anchortext is a hyperlinked phrase, such as click here , that links to content that typically exists on another web page.)If anchor text is not keyword-rich, revise it, Fasser says.

Thiscan help the content that's being linked to with anchor text get aboost in search engine relevancy. 5. Create a baseline of existing inbound links. Use a tool such as SEOMoz's Open Site Explorer to see which sites are currently linking to yours as well as theanchor text used in those inbound links, Fasser advises. Thisprovides a snapshot of your complete inbound link profile, which isuseful for tracking progress.

Open Site Explorer can help you improve your link-building strategyby providing a quick look at your inbound links--and the ones yourcompetitors have. Open Site Explorer data can be exported in CSV format. The basictool is free. Additional features are included in subscriptionplans that start at $99 monthly. 6.

Study your competitors' links. You can also use tools such as Open Site Explorer to investigatethe links your competitors have, Fasser says. This can provideideas for directories and other sites to pursue. 7. Go after links your competitors don't have.

It's not enough to simply find out which links your competitors aregetting and go after them. At best, that will simply put you on anequal footing with them. You should also pursue inbound links yourcompetitors dont have, Ward says. 8. Focus on link quality, not quantity.

Relevant links from a few high-quality, trusted, authoritativesites are worth more in SEO terms than a ton of links fromlow-quality sites, Mastaler says. 9. Develop a list of top-priority keywords and use them in youronline content. Determine which keywords have the most search volume, are the leastcompetitive and have the highest relevancy to your business and itsproducts or services, Fasser advises. Use those keywords in yourblog posts, white papers, press releases and other online content."When you get links from other sites to your content, you'll bemore likely to get good-quality anchor text links using yourimportant keywords," he explains.

Public-sector cloud computing: the good, the bad, and the ugly - Car Plastic Bumper Manufacturer

"Don't underestimate how far local, state and federal government isbehind [in computing]," said California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom at atech conference in Silicon Valley earlier this year. "We have towake up to the new reality." The new reality Newsom was referring to is cloud computing -- a versatile way for government agencies of all sizes to solve avariety of technological issues relating to cost, human resourcesand the ability to respond quickly to constituents' needs. Manygovernment agencies are doing just that -- albeit in limited areas,such as email and data center consolidation.

But overall, progress is slow: Federal agencies are struggling tocomply with the U.S. government's "cloud first" mandate , and state and local government entities, which tend to be lesswell funded, are even further behind. As noted by CIOs and technology vendors at the TechAmerica conference on public-sector computing in February, the cloudallows government agencies to decrease their costs and deploysystems more quickly -- all good news. And as in the privatesector, cloud computing can enable public entities to devote fewer resources today-to-day tasks like maintenance, so they can focus on moreimportant things, like improving services and increasinginnovation. But there's also bad news -- and some ugly realities -- when itcomes to cloud computing in the public sector.

Current and formerpublic-sector CIOs say it can be difficult to drag governmentagencies forward. It remains to be seen whether government CIOswill be able to convince politicians and bureaucrats that cloudcomputing is the antidote for the financial and technologicaldoldrums they're experiencing. The state of the state (and the county, and the city...) A March 2012 survey conducted by Government Executive magazine,co-sponsored by Cisco Systems, found that government entities significantly lag behind the private sector when it comes to cloud deployments. The report's findings were based on responses from 429 governmentexecutives and managers in 10 countries, as well as responses from808 private-sector executives. Of the government executives whoresponded, only 12% said that more than 10% of their agencies'overall annual IT resources were allocated to the cloud in 2011.While researchers expect those percentages to grow by the end ofthis year, even doubling them wouldn't represent a significant move to the cloud. AUDI Water Pump

A more-optimistic 2011 survey by Red Shift Research put the penetration of cloud computing inthe public sector at 23%, compared with 42% in the private sector. Either way, Thom Rubel, an analyst at research firm IDC GovernmentInsights, concurs that the cloud computing adoption rate is lowerin government than it is in the private sector. He says that's primarily due to the fact that government agencieshave to comply with more stringent security and privacyrequirements. Moreover, Rubel says he believes that governmentagencies are still in the "data sorting" process -- that is,they're trying to figure out what kind of information can go intothe cloud. Car Plastic Bumper Manufacturer

Right now, "you can put 3-1-1 informational services in the public cloud, but you want to keep tax and revenue data ina private cloud," he says. Within the next three years, hepredicts, we'll see government agencies figuring out how to besttake advantage of the cloud. The bad and the ugly Public-sector CIOs have no qualms about discussing the ugly side ofgovernment computing. To them, it's a fact of life. Automotive Wheel Hub Manufacturer

Challengesrelated to parochialism, funding, politics, governance and more getin the way of progress, especially when it comes to cloud computing . One of the biggest obstacles is the long-held belief that any givenagency's needs are special and must be handled in a specific (andusually siloed) way. (For ideas on overcoming this mindset, see"Government CIOs Battle Parochialism," below.) Government CIOs battle parochialism To overcome the parochialism that can be rampant in the halls ofgovernment, several CIOs recommended convening IT councils to boostinteragency collaboration. In Oakland County, Mich., CIO Phil Bertoline brings togetherrepresentatives of different departments to collaborate on ITissues.

"The more we can look ahead, the better we can plan," hesays. With that kind of foresight, he adds, it's easier toaccommodate shifts in technology. IDC analyst Thom Rubel cites a recent collaborative effort withinthe federal government among the Social Security Administration,the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Center for Medicare andMedicaid Services. The agencies are beginning to work together totrack fraud and improper payments, which Rubel says is a $100billion problem at the federal level.

"They're looking at it from abudget standpoint to avoid duplication, but the bigger effort islooking at creating holistic services that create better outcomes." In Ohio, 33 CIOs of state agencies have been working together onvarious IT issues, such as infrastructure, architecture andidentity management. That effort has been under way for a while,but when Stu Davis took over as state CIO, he ratcheted up theschedule so that they now meet every six weeks instead of every sixmonths. "That's been a great help in looking at issues through theprism of an enterprise, rather than departmental, structure," saysDavis. "A state government is not all one entity," says Carlos Ramos, CIOof the California state government. "Some agencies report to theexecutive branch, some agencies are constitutionally mandated, andso they're managed differently." Nor, he says, do agencies likegiving up control, even to colleagues in the public sector.

Just assome citizens mistrust government, "sometimes government doesn'teven trust government," he says. "People focus on more on best practices than utilizing a commonsystem to accommodate them," says Douglas Cotnoir, deputy statecontroller in Maine. "People in government interpret the rules forone group differently than they do for another. It depends on whoyour constituents are." That may be true, but the problem can snowball in unintentionalways. For instance, the individual government agencies of the stateof Virginia might each require accountability, but does that alsomean the state needs 94 separate e-mail systems? Resistance to change is one of the biggest obstacles to cloudadoption by state and local governments, says Andrea Di Maio, ananalyst specializing in public-sector issues at Gartner.

"Itdepends on the maturity of the organization," she says. "Clients ofours who have experience in outsourcing have an easier time moving to the cloud." Another obstacle is the way the reins of power change hands on aregular basis, whether in the governor's office or even on amunicipal city council. "Every new elected official coming in wantsto make an impact," says Steven Fletcher, CIO for the state ofUtah. "But new officials don't think about operations, they thinkabout programs like education and economic development. They're notpaying attention to the most efficient way to provide services,which makes it difficult for the CIO to provide those services." Sometimes regulations gum up the works.

When John Letchford, CIO ofthe state of Massachusetts, decided to try cloud computing bymoving the state's e-mail system to a cloud service provider, hegot more of a challenge than he had bargained for. "Maybe this was na ve, but we thought e-mail was simple," saysLetchford. "But we found that we had to adhere to a variety ofcompliance rules, because you're touching every business functionin some shape or form. It was like boiling the ocean." The RFP formoving the mail, which is still in progress, had to comply with IRSPublication 1075 (Tax Information Security Guidelines for Federal,State and Local Agencies), the Social Security Administration'sSection 1128E (Health Care Fraud and Abuse Data Collection Program)and more than 100 state regulations.

Letchford, who spent 10 years in IT at Procter & Gamble, isfrankly surprised by how polarizing the idea of cloud computing isin the public sphere. "Some people in government see it as athreat, and some see it as a solution, but I haven't met anyone whodoesn't have an opinion.".