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Some SEO Basics for Affiliate Marketers

Search engine optimization — or SEO, is the art of configuring your website to appear at the top of the rankings in Google, Yahoo, or other search engines when certain terms are searched for —  can be extremely difficult and time consuming.

 

Google has SEO rules in place that makes its traffic very difficult to reach to new websites. In short, websites do not see serious traffic until they are considered authority websites. Authority websites have a natural flow of back links and content. In some cases, authority sites have hundreds, if not thousands of pages in their websites. Authority sites also have thousands of websites that link to them. Because these sites have premium, unique, and useful content, they attract website owners and bloggers alike to link to their pages.

 

Google ranks a website based on its quality and quantity of back links, as well as the back links' reputation/history online. Some sites are ranked almost 100 percent organically; the rest of them imitate this natural process with hard work. They are forced to mimic these authority websites and trick the google algorhythm into believing these websites have the size and in-bound linking structure of an authority site. Many websites have very little onsite content but  have thousands of back links that they pay for every month that they have accumulated over time. They simply adhere to the google guidelines and optimize their sites accordingly. Google wants SEO and endorses it — but it must be done on their grounds. You can't buy your history in google but you can help make up for it with proper work. A new site generally won't get many organic links. This is because It does not help a website to link to a brand new site.

 

So why not just link to on older site or show an older more proven site to your visitors? This is a situation that every SEO expert has to deal with. They get around it by buying links. They simply purchase a text link off of desired websites. A desired website is one that is relevant, and one that has enough search engine authority to pass on credit to the hosting website. Again, these websites may choose to link to the hosting website for free, naturally, but they will do it on their time.

 

Google, however, is not fond of link purchasing. There are many ways that google combats this kind of optimization. They put a cap on the amount of new inbound links a website can get. They know that if the site gets thousands of links overnight that it is likely spam, and they will prevent the site from ranking any further. This is one of the many issues with optimization. In order for the site to get ranked fast you need to be purchasing links from very high-quality authority sites. If a site is large enough it does not always have to be 100 percent relevant or matching the linking site. A site like CNN or ESPN or even Linkshare.com that links to a website will pass on a great reputation that will catapult the linking site. These websites are very expensive to link to and hard to come by. They are gold.

 

If you want to purchase a link on a site that would compare online casinos, you will have to be very patient and selective as it has always been very saturated.  Relevant websites are easier to buy links from, but the larger relevant ones have no reason to sell a link. Most of the smaller gaming websites or portals are willing to sell links but, as stated, Google keeps a close eye on the amount of new links coming in, so it is best to pay for the highest-quality websites. This is a very competitive practice.

 

The other half of optimization is with the actual website. The layout of content, amount of content, layout of linking structure and titles will affect the rankings. This is something that can be done in-house with occasional consulting. Tricking Google into believing that you are a authority website by having the proper links is the most important, and toughest method of getting high rankings on Google — and skyrocketing your traffic. Affiliates will be much more likely to add your banners higher and take less money, if they know you are a key player in the search engine world and they see your brand rising up in the google results — without a doubt.

 

About the Author: Edwin Goldberg us a senior writer at www.RomeCasino.com and has been working in the casino affiliate industry for 11 years.