One of the keys to establishing your web presence is to make sure your website or blog has fresh content on a regular basis. A great way to make sure this is done is to make a short outline of all the subjects or themes you want to include.
Types of SEO Writing Calendars
Content and links are the most important parts of determining where you will show up on search rankings. A generally accepted formula for Search Engine Rank = Content Relevance * PageRank. Content relevance means how many keywords or phrases match what people are searching for. PageRank is primarily determined by the amount and quality of links pointing to your site and is used by Google to measure the credibility, authority and relevance. Both content and links are equally important in order to attract customers, clients, advertisers and even raising capital for your new venture.
With this in mind there are two primary types of writing calendars and they can be set up using anything you that you might look at frequently such as a desk calendar, spreadsheet etc. Each writing calendar has a different purpose. The two types of writing calendars to help improve your SEO rankings are:
Subject Calendar
A subject calendar notes the innovative ideas or subject matter you will writing and when you plan to complete the tasks. This may be an individual subjects of interest or a series of articles. For example, the series The Ultimate Checklist for Entrepreneur, Innovators and Micro-enterprises was mapped out in July and was intended to be a straightforward 10 piece series on helping entrepreneurs and professional practices learn how to establish a web presence without paying for outside help.
Your writing calendar can include ideas for writing for professional practice associations, websites (guest blogs) and articles that can published on the numerous article submission sites.
It does not matter if you keep the original timetable that you set. Stuff happens to all of us that can put us behind schedule or new ideas may pop up that become a higher priority. You can change the schedule as you see fit. It only matters that you have planned content that you can think about over time. This will help eliminate writers block as well as keep you focused.
Linking Calendar
A linking calendar is a little more complicated and requires additional time. However, for those willing to put in the effort the rewards can be huge. In essence a linking calendar is a road map of the different places on the web that you can place a link back to your website. Each link back to you increases your web page prominence. Some of the methods to accomplish this include leaving comments on other blogs, writing articles for different websites and making sure one page on your site links to another.
It is important to note that not all links are created equal. Links on pages that have a higher Google PageRank than yours will help establish your web presence much faster. Google PageRank varies from 0-10. It is calculated in part on a logarithmic scale which means that it is hard to get a page rank of 4 or 5 and extremely difficult to get a rank of 7-10. The overwhelmingly vast majority of websites have a PageRank between 0-3.
Although PageRank is important, it is also important that you are linking with your target customer base. For example, if you are marketing a new technology product, a link from a scientific journal is more important that having a link back to you from Sam’s Pizza.
The Importance of Links for Entrepreneurs
In its simplest terms, a link can be defined as a click able path to a website or from within a website to a specific page. In our last post, The Entrepreneur’s Advisor | Learning the Basics of SEO, we discussed how to code links for maximum SEO juice. The reason for this is because links have multiple purposes which include:
- They enable potential customers to find you from another person’s or company’s website.
- Links allow you to point and describe content that you feel is important for your readers.
- The more links you have pointing to your site the easier it is for potential clients to find you.
- The more links you have pointing to your site the greater your PageRank.
Link Building Options for Entrepreneurs and Technology Ventures
Remember that links are only half the equation of determining where you will show in searches. There are two major ways to build links for increasing website traffic. The first option is to build your traffic organically which is the purpose of this series and one of the goals of The Entrepreneur’s Advisor® blog. Organic SEO means using unpaid techniques and tools. Some good SEO internal link tips for your website are:
- One link per 200 words of content. Use the basic HTML for entrepreneurs and professional practices SEO coding tips from our last post.
- Cross link between your pages. Google seems to be placing more importance on this lately.
- Have at least one link above the fold which means in the top half of the half of the article or page.
Our next sub-post will be a guest article by Internet marketing guru on effective external linking strategies.
The second option is through paid advertising such as Google Ad words, Pay-per-click (PPC) or the purchase of SEO services from companies that promise to build hundreds if not thousands of links for you. If you have the start-up capital and wish to go this direction, we will list a number of SEO providers at the end of this series.
But please be careful, many link building sites are automated programs that spam other sites. Spam is the number one reason LinkedIn and many other sites now require Captchas when logging in. If Google identifies your site as a spam site you may not show up at all in search rankings. Make sure the SEO service company you engage can get links with high PageRanks. You can expect this to cost you thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars per month.
Regardless of the option you choose, it is absolutely critical that you understand that building a web presence for a micro-enterprise, professional practice or technology venture takes time, perhaps as much as 12 – 24 months before you see substantial results.
Articles in The Ultimate Checklist for Entrepreneurs, Innovators and Micro-enterprises so far are:
- The Ultimate Checklist For Entrepreneurs, Innovators and Micro-enterprises
- Choosing Your New Venture Legal Entity
- Choosing Names for New Ventures, Domains and Social Media
- How Entrepreneurs Can Determine Their Web Presence Needs
- The Entrepreneur’s Advisor | Choosing What To Do With Your Website
- The Entrepreneur’s Advisor | How to Determine Your Keywords
- The Entrepreneur’s Advisor | Creating Keywords
- The Entrepreneur’s Advisor | Understanding Sales Metrics
- The Entrepreneur’s Advisor | Learning the Basics of SEO