This is why monitoring incoming links is a worthwhile activity. Monitoring your links is simple: check your links on a regular basis, record figures, and map out the growth of your links over time. Doing this will give you a good grasp of your situation where links are concerned. Of course, the more important thing is not just peer at your numbers but to act upon them. You have to build lots of links, as many of them as possible.

When we say lots of links, how many links would that mean exactly?

Like business planning, the number depends on how many links you want to target. When we talk about targets, we mean realistic and short-term goals that are achievable. So how do we compute how many links need to be targeted? There is no surefire formula but targets don’t come out of a vacuum, either. When we talk about links, our basis of measurement will always be relative to that of another site. For instance, we may say we have “lots” of links but this number may be “very few” relative to another site. This would depend on the nature and the competitiveness of the niche. Fortunately, SEO practitioners have tools that can help us generate realistic targets for our link building campaigns. Some of these tools include Link Diagnosis (powered by iAcquire), Open Site Explorer, Google Webmaster Tools, and Majestic SEO. All four tools have different processes in computation and will generate slightly different figures. This is because the system of indexing itself is quite arbitrary. Nonetheless, each of these tools can be used in order to establish realistic link targets.

What’s better is that to the trained or observant eye, Majestic SEO, Open Site Explorer or Link Diagnosis can be used to check out the competition. Strategic advantage in the SEO industry also comes from gathering intelligence and information on your competitors. Analysis of your competitors’ links can be done by looking at the raw numbers of the links and the linking domains of your rival sites. Looking at these figures can also give you an inkling of what realistic targets you might want to set for yourself.

Start weighing the competition by knowing who they are first. You need to differentiate who your competitors are in the “virtual” world from those in the “real” world by poring over the sites that currently rank for keywords you’re already targeting. As far as link building goes, the sites that inhabit your desired spots are your genuine competitors. After you finalize your roster of competitors, just plug each site to your preferred link checking tool and get the numbers for analysis. Sites that occupy the top position in terms of number of links and linking domains are your true rivals.

If you prefer the white hat side of things, you will see that making valuable, high quality content is really the best way to approach an SEO campaign. Building an excellent user experience means making users aware of your content through social media, PR outreach and other more traditional methods.

On the other hand, while you continue practicing honest-to-goodness SEO tactics, you will most likely constantly encounter competitors of your clients that utilize spammy strategies for building links, including posting below par content all over article directories. The bad news is that if you get frustrated about dishonest competitors actually getting the top rankings, you might be pushed to use article writing only for link building as well.

The Fallout

The bottom line is, poor quality article writing for link building shouldn’t be recommended to a client, especially if that client has been managing its brand very carefully. Plus, publishing low quality articles will come back and haunt you sooner or later. Possible risks include staining your brand and search engines eventually catching your misdeed. Taking this risk is very damaging because you might lose keyword positions and your site might be devalued in the indexes of Google and other search engines.

Intelligent Article Writing for B2B Companies

With all these things said, there are still ways to use superior article writing to the advantage of B2B companies. Good links to your website can still produce good search engine performance. Moreover, you can bring in qualified visitors.

The key is producing great content that will make you (and your company) look like experts in the articles’ subject matter. Relevant websites and articles posted on sites with good traffic will allow your websites to show up in users’ SERPs. If readers find your articles valuable enough, they may continue clicking through or research more about your company.

So, you see, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t combine link presence, direct traffic building and brand developing for B2B companies or any other kind of company.

Why SEOs are meticulous about Duplicate Content Search engines are designed to provide the most relevant results to their searchers. Google got its name and achieved success by mastering this art of web searching. Many search engines before have not yet figured out a way to fully filter content and post relevant ones for their visitors. Today, search engines have developed tools and filters that catch and remove web pages that have duplicate content in them. This method keeps the search results relevant and clean. This setup though, poses a problem for web developers. With search engines automatically eliminating web pages that they deem to be redundant, web developers might initially be oblivious that search engines aren’t giving weight to several of their web pages. Many web developers are just surprised to see that some of their pages are not indexed by search engines mainly because of duplicate content. What makes it even more complicated is the fact that web content today is not only confined to text articles; it also comprises pictures, videos, PDF and other files that one may not suspect of being duplicated.

Reasons for Content Duplication While duplicate content may not be avoided all the time, some web developers have nurtured the habit of deliberately duplicating content in the assumption that search engine algorithms won’t be able to detect the copies. There are several reasons why many developers fall into this bad habit of duplicating content. This includes:

• better positioning in search engine results
• multiple listings in search engine indexes and
• increased keyword density due to the duplicated content.

On the other side of the coin, some web developers do unwittingly commit duplication mistakes because of underdeveloped websites, mismanagement of web content or duplication through affiliate websites. Some affiliate websites post similar web content in their pages that are present in the original site. Fortunately (or unfortunately for those who deliberately post duplicate content), search engine developers have developed algorithms to identify redundant content, presenting search engine users with streamlined search results and providing web developers food for thought on how to properly play the SEO game.

Types of Duplicate Content

1. Recycled Content: This is a basic example of duplicate content. This is where a writer, blogger or developer posts a unique and original content online only to use it again (maybe with some added paragraphs or sentences), and post it in another web page. Search engines have a very keen eye in finding these.
2. Published Article Duplication: This is especially true for writers who submit their original articles to web and article directories. Many web developers submit articles to these sites, in the hopes of gaining exposure for their content. The directories typically don’t charge for submissions, making them more appealing to website owners.
3. Web Page Duplication: As has been said earlier, duplicated content is not only confined to text articles but also includes other types of files and even web page styles. Search engines sometimes erroneously consider websites with similar lay-outs as duplicate content and exclude them from their search results. This is common with affiliate websites, which are usually patterned to look similar to the original website.
4. Paraphrased Content: Many web developers post similar content with just a few added sentences or words. Search engine developers, however, already know of this tactic and have already created algorithms that exclude these in search engine results.
5. Other Media Files: Search engines have now developed several ways to find duplicate content in all its varied forms including videos, images, and PDF files. Though not as reliable as the ones used in detecting duplicated text content, the technology is developing and in time will be as reliable in detecting other duplicated media as the ones being used with text articles.

Eliminating Duplicated Content Publishing purely original content is still the best way to avoid duplicating content and being blacklisted in search engine result pages. Although resources are always needed in producing relevant articles, make sure that the majority of the views you expound on are unique with resources being there just for reference purposes. It also helps to make a clear resource box for your published articles — if you are using someone else’s article, make sure to properly cite sources and also add your own ideas to spice up the content. Developers can also pull one trick under the search engines by choosing which pages they want to appear in the search results page. Developers can do this by utilizing robots.txt files on the files that they want the search engines to omit. In this way, developers can be assured that the pages they are marketing will be the ones that will come up in search results.

Using 301 Redirects 301 redirects is an SEO tool that effectively eliminates the problem of duplicated content by pointing search engines to the original web page where the content was originally posted. In basic terms, 301 redirects are like tour guides that ensure developers that the original webpage will be the one that will appear in search engine result pages. Applying all of these strategies will lessen the possibility of having duplicate content. It will also ensure that the web pages you worked hard for will gain customer traffic and the search engine attention that they deserve.

1. Article Title
2. Article Description or Summary
3. Name of Author
4. Article Body
5. Resource Box
6. Category
7. List of Keywords

Prior to submission, it is wise to read the directory’s terms of service to make sure that you understand and consent to the process of republishing your work. The good thing about article submission is its “viral” nature. A well-written and interesting article will be published, re-published and spread over and over again, giving your site tremendous publicity. Thus, when done effectively, article submissions can indeed give you the link popularity results you need. In accomplishing article directory requirements, keep these snippets of advice in mind:

1. Make a strong article title. Come up with a unique, snappy, and content-relevant title that contains at least one strong keyword. Readers gravitate to catchy titles. Your article title has to be distinct because directories usually reject duplications. You can test your title’s uniqueness by typing it on the search field and see if there are hits on the search engines.
2. Write an attention-grabbing article description. This is not a requirement in all directories but it helps to write a summary prior to proceeding with submission. Readers get a sneak peak of what the article is going to be all about with your article description so it is equally important to come up with (an) attention grabbing sentence(s).
3. Include the author’s name. You can use your real name, or a pseudonym for that matter. Attaching your academic degree may also help establish prestige. You can also use the company or organization name.
4. Write a 100% original article body. Everything in the article has to be original. High-quality articles incorporate expertise, wisdom, and knowledge so it is easy to spot software-manufactured articles. Another option is to hire a freelance writer or copy editor to come up with original and relevant articles. In addition to original content, produced work must be free of marketing undertones. Written pieces must be journalistic in style. How many words should an ideal article contain? The preference lies within the range of 400 to 800 words, but a 200-word stand-alone article will suffice for publication. Moreover, articles for submission need to have simple formatting. Curly quotes, extended formatting, apostrophes and quotation marks will cause problems. Writers are advised not to use contractions or dashes (-) because pieces that have them do not get published properly. Article directories go for very basic html formatting.
5. Resource Box. Be sure to place crucial contact information and credentials that will be valid within a six-month period in the resource field. Also, a 30-50 word sentence about yourself will work. This way, publishers pass on information and link you provide in article directories when they are interested in republishing your work. Some experts advise against including an email address and recommend you to input a phone number instead. Include your web URL and if you have more than one, pick the most relevant link.
6. Select a proper category. Article directories have an assortment of categories for you to choose from. Some directories allow you to configure your own category in case nothing in their selection suits your article.
7. Use the right keywords. Keywords are a tool to enhance the article. If used effectively, keywords enable readers to find your site through search engines. Several resources and software are available to help you decide which highly-searched keywords to use.

When done right, article submission can be an effective link building technique that will boost your rankings in the search engines. Article submission creates a reputation for your company and establishes your position as an authority in your industry. Although it can be a time consuming link building strategy, article submission is an economical investment that could generate a massive volume of back links for link popularity and topnotch search engine rankings.