Curious, I decided to have a stab at it myself, at the very small but possible chance of Google smiting me. I started with the Best of the Web Directory (at the time, BOTW was at a PageRank 7 but has since fallen to a PageRank 6), which offered either an annual recurring charge of $100, or a one-time only charge of $300. I personally like to jump in head first when I do on the rare occasion, take risks, and so I went for it with the one-time only for $300. What I can’t believe is that you don’t have any guarantee that your site will even be added to the directory, despite the very expensive cost. People have no problems buying into it though, and it’s amazing how many websites are in the directory; imagine all that money being made! Well, I’m $300 poorer than I was before, and all I’ve got to show for it is one link, which isn’t even on the homepage by the way. You see it’s only the homepage that actually has a PageRank 6, which is important to know.

Not feeling satisfied, I thought I’d give it a little extra push by buying a few more premium links in paid directory listings, which also included 100 submissions to free directories. The rate was $160, which is a lot less; however the PageRank of these websites is a bit lower, mostly averaging PageRank 3 or 4. Now I’ve spent $460, supposedly have 106 incoming links, and I’m hoping that my money is going to either bring me traffic, boost my PageRank, or both. Now remember, these things don’t happen overnight. It takes time for Google to make an update, determine how your website has changed and where it should fall. I don’t really know what kind of a time frame we’re looking at, and honestly I don’t think anybody but Google knows. To be safe, I thought I’d give it a solid 2 months from the day of buying the links to start looking around. Based on the data from my analytics, none of these directories that are supposedly linking back to me are directing any traffic, maybe 5-10 unique visitors in one month.

Naturally none of the very little traffic is proving any sort of conversion, and my PageRank hasn’t shown any movement. Granted, if my PageRank did show an improvement in the last 2 months, it could’ve been due to other factors, but it just so happens I was really busy in that time period working on client websites, leaving me unable to further push my website. In consideration, I can confidently say that if you were to buy almost $500 worth of links, you too would be suckered with no results. Link buying and in my opinion directory submitting is dead. If you want a real back linking strategy, build great content for your site and don’t look back. Save your money for something useful like a great copywriter or maybe an even better web designer, like myself! Har har.

Your website will be down all the time and who knows what kind of low budget security they’ve got setup. If you have an e-commerce store, you definitely need to aware because your database holds all your customer data and letting that fall into the wrong hands will end you. You also need to make sure that the web hosting you’re using has the hardware and software capable of powering the website you’re building. The worst feeling is having a website that’s actually do well, but keeps going down because your hosting plan can’t handle your success.

I’ll level with you, if you’re only building a couple pages and maybe a contact form, you can probably get away with spending the bare minimum. If that’s what you’re looking to do, I recommend Dreamhost. Pricing is competitive at $10.95 a month if you’re committing one month at a time, less if longer. Now if you’re looking to do something even medium sized that involves a serious monetization strategy, a dedicated server is the only solution in my eyes. You’ll need to be able to scale up as traffic demands, especially if you’re planning to sell products or services and dedicated is the way to do it.

When you’re a heavy hitter and you need some heavy hosting, I use Mediatemple’s dedicated virtual server and that starts at $50 a month. Their client list includes but is not limited to the likes of Sony, Toyota, ABC, Warner Bros, and the list goes on. Honestly I hate to name drop, but in this case you get the idea. I’ve used both web hosts for 10 years now without any problems. These guys are established and they’re going to give you the around the clock uptime you need to make sure that you’re always making money when there’s money to be made.

Nothing hurts more than seeing a huge order not go through because your hosting decided to take a break. Mediatemple and Dreamhost also have great support in case problems come up, and they do from time to time so you have to be ready. Alright, you’ve got hosting figured out; your domain name and web hosting have to come together. If you don’t have a domain name yet, that makes things easy. Both Mediatemple and Dreamhost will take care of the registration fees for your first domain name at no charge. You can’t beat free!

Just head over to their website by clicking on one of the links in this article and you’re on your way; they’ll ask you what domain name you’d like to register with the web hosting. If you haven’t yet, check GoDaddy to make sure the domain name you’ve got your sights on is available. At GoDaddy, you can check any domain name to see if it’s been registered already. I always go for the .coms and if I can’t get it, I think of a different name entirely, but it’s your call. If you’re really stumped and can’t think of something clever, they also make recommendations for similar domains based on keywords.

Unfortunately if you’ve already registered a domain name, either with GoDaddy or some other registrar, the process of changing web hosts is a bit more involved and requires a basic understanding of server administration. You’ll need to change the domain name servers that your domain points to. I suggest you have a chat with your webmaster to make sure he or she does a complete backup of all your files and databases, while making the transition as seamless as possible to ensure there’s zero downtime. If you don’t have a webmaster, please engage me for my services.

If you’re wondering why I use GoDaddy over anyone else, my reasoning is very basic actually. They’re the largest domain registrar in the world, offer competitive pricing and around the clock support. No one does it better! I was only supposed to talk about registering domains, but I figured web hosting is pretty important and should be addressed at the same time you’re figuring out your domain name. Now it’s almost 3 AM, time to get some sleep!

The early days of SEO were interesting to say the least and are probably the root of every misconception in SEO today. You used to be able to rank well for any keywords you wanted by increasing keyword density (overwhelming the content of your pages with your targeted keywords), but search engines are a lot smarter these days and the algorithms that power them are far more complex. Google came on the scene in 1998 with the idea of creating a search engine that would make sense of all the information in the world and make it intuitively accessible. They developed the infamous PageRank (apparently the term is derived from the name of Google’s cofounder, Larry Page) which counts the inbound links of each and every page on the web as well as determines the quality of said links.

Naturally, the Google algorithm is much more complex than counting links and analyzing them, but that initiative is what’s separated Google from the others and has led to their overwhelming market share (now over 70% in the United States alone). With the greater part of the world using Google, it’s in your best interests to be Google friendly and not just search-engine friendly.

If this isn’t a priority in your marketing strategy online, I’d say you’re in a spat of trouble. Having a great looking website is great, but if you can’t bring in the traffic let alone traffic that converts, it’s not doing anything for you. To be competitive, you’ll need to develop relevant content for your targeted keywords related to your product or service and establish your authority.

Regardless of what techniques you might try, there’s no guarantee you’ll achieve placement in the top ten and more importantly, there isn’t a single SEO professional on the planet that can guarantee it either. SEO is a never ending battle that demands patience and hard work for you to be able to not only maximize, but also maintain top positions in the organic search engine results. Good luck!

Assuming you don’t already have a domain name established, you must pick your path in this never ending battle for high rankings in the search engine results pages (SERP). You can either take advantage of the relevancy bonus by going with a domain name that has keywords you’re after, or you can go for the branding (domain names that make no sense until you’re rich). Google is a great example of a domain name that had absolutely no meaning whatsoever until its share prices entered the stratosphere. Today Google is the absolute definition of search and often replaces the word in day to day conversation.

Most of the good keyword stuffed domain names have already been picked up and flipped a couple times by domaineers. Those that are actually for sale will most likely involve facing a high price to pay (business.com sold for over $300 million 2 years ago). I personally almost always go for a domain name that you can brand your own, preferably something that will connect with your product or service on some level and is short as well as easy to remember. If you have to spell it out over the phone, dumb it down a notch.

Although if you’re developing a website for a new niche in a market, then you can probably get away with including 1 or 2 keywords without having to jump any hoops. Keep it simple though; don’t be using all these hyphens thinking you’re going to string up a whole sentence of keywords for your domain name. That’s what spammers do, and anything they do gets shut down in a hurry. Tomorrow I’ll be discussing how to register a domain name with my ICANN accredited registrar of choice: GoDaddy.