Greetings! I hope everyone has recovered from his or her turkey coma
and is ready to tackle link popularity and strategies. This was one
of the more popular topics at the Search
Engine Strategies Conference in Dallas, TX in November. There were
quite a few questions regarding linking asked of the speakers; especially
the various search engine representatives that attended.
Before I begin telling you about a terrific tool to help you with your
linking strategies, let me pass along a couple of notes of interest
from the conference regarding linking.
A site that links to you can only increase your link popularity not
decrease it. This is because you don’t have control over who links
to you. While you can request that your link be removed from a "bad
site," the webmaster does not have to. The search engines understand
that you don’t have this control and will not penalize you if a
"bad site" links to you. Conversely, if you link to a "bad
site" you can be penalized. So I suggest that you thoroughly research
the site to which you are considering linking, such as checking the
site for tiny or hidden text. If the site has either, both and/or other
search engine spam techniques, you would be best served not linking
to it.
With that out of the way, let me introduce to you a terrific program
that will help you find hundreds, if not thousands, of sites related
to yours to which to link: Zeus
The Internet Marketing Robot. In a nutshell, Zeus goes out onto
the Internet looking for sites, guided by the keywords that you teach
it. It then looks at sites, reads the titles, meta tags and page content,
and gives the site a score. The higher the score the better the match.
It also retrieves any e-mail links on the site so that you can use it
to send e-mail later on, and outbound links to follow later on. Once
Zeus has found some sites that meet your criteria, he stores them in
a database for you to sort in various ways and review each site found.
While you review each site, you put them into categories or themes.
After you have catalogued some or all of the sites that Zeus has found,
you can then have Zeus build a link directory for you to upload to your
site directory. Finally, you can use Zeus to e-mail site owners that
you have added them to your link directory and ask them for a reciprocal
link. If the site owner adds your link, then you can designate the site
as a link partner, which gives that site greater visibility in your
link directory. If this all seems a little confusing, don’t worry;
I’ll be explaining each function in more detail below.
Training Zeus
Zeus is fairly easy to train although it can take some time. If you
want to get started immediately, all you have to do is point Zeus to
a web site similar to yours (or even your own if you already have some
outbound links) and click the teach button. Zeus goes off to the web
site to which you pointed him and he analyzes it. Any word or phrase
that he doesn’t understand, Zeus will ask you to classify it for
him: ignore, common, slightly unique, unique and very unique. The goal
during training is to classify a minimum of 100 keywords and phrases
in the slightly unique, unique and very unique categories. Once Zeus
has learned at least 100 keywords and phrases, you can send Zeus out
on his own to look for sites without having to actively train him anymore
during his travels.
You can also manually add keywords and phrases to Zeus’ vocabulary
to speed up the training process. I suggest that you do so, because
it gives Zeus a better starting point than having no slightly unique,
unique or very unique keywords with which to start. It also shortens
the training time Zeus requires.
After Zeus adds a few "theme sites" to the database, start
looking at what he has found. You may find that he has found some totally
unrelated sites. In this case you should go into the Keyword Manager
and reposition keywords and phrases that you have taught Zeus. You may
find that some of the keywords you taught him as unique need to be downgraded
to slightly unique, common or ignored altogether, or upgraded to unique
or very unique. If you go under 100 keywords while reclassifying your
keywords, you will have to train Zeus some more until he has more than
100 keywords again. However, by doing so, Zeus will find better web
sites for you to add to your link directory.
Categorizing Theme Sites
Once Zeus is trained well enough to search for sites without your help,
go to the Theme Viewer and begin reviewing the theme sites that Zeus
has found for you. Remember, you don’t have to use all of them.
If the site is unrelated, just delete it. If it’s a good site,
then put it in a category, or theme. I also suggest that you make some
additional notes, such "No Links Page," "Affiliate Program
Available," etc., so that you don’t have to spend time going
through all of your theme sites over and over. I also suggest that you
mark any site that you wish to include, but that does not have a link
page, to have no email sent. This will make it easier for you to determine
which sites you want to send email to later on.
If you improperly categorize a site, it’s simple to change its
theme or category. If you want to change the name of a category and
move all the sites into the new category, it’s a little more involved,
but not overly difficult.
Don’t wait until you have hundreds of sites to categorize. You
can send Zeus out into the realm of cyberspace while you are categorizing
theme sites he has already found.
Additionally, you can manually add sites to your theme site list easily.
This comes in handy when you know of sites that you want to have in
your link directory, but Zeus hasn’t found them yet. It’s
also handy for adding sites that use Flash or advanced programming.
Remember, Zeus is a spider and cannot view frames, JavaScript, and other
advanced site techniques and programming.
Creating Your Link Directory
Once you feel you have enough theme sites, it’s time to start creating
your link directory. This can be the most difficult part of working
with Zeus. If you have purchased the Pro Model [more information below],
then you can customize your link directory to fully integrate with your
site design and layout by editing the templates supplied in the help
files. If you have the Free Model, you are limited to changing the background
and a few other items.
Since I tested and reviewed the Pro Model, I decided to make my link
directory fully integrate in appearance and design with my web site.
Since my web site uses extensive use of layers, stylesheets and dynamic
HTML, this proved to be rather difficult, but not impossible.
Once you have created your link directory to your liking, upload the
pages to your site directory in a subdirectory called, appropriately
enough, "links."
Getting Reciprocal Links
After you have uploaded your link directory, it’s time to start
asking for reciprocal links. Open the Theme Viewer in Zeus. I suggest
sorting on "Email Not Sent, Not Link Partner" since you want
to send e-mail to site owners that you have not sent a reciprocal link
request to yet and are not Link Partners. Zeus comes with some suggested
e-mail content for you to use. I strongly suggest that you edit these
to make your e-mail different from other Zeus users, and to give your
e-mails a personal touch. It’s not difficult to do and you can
do it right from within Zeus. You can also create your own e-mail content
without difficulty.
In many cases, Zeus has found multiple e-mail addresses. I suggest
that you review the site again to find the correct e-mail address to
which to send a reciprocal link request. Don’t send an e-mail to
all the e-mail addresses. Site owners might consider it spam and refuse
to respond. Zeus keeps track of when you sent e-mail so that you don’t
have to do so in a separate program.
Once a site owner adds your link to his or her link page, find the
site in the Theme Viewer and check the Link Partner in the lower right
corner, recreate your link directory, and upload it to your server.
That site is now listed in your Link Partner section and you have a
reciprocal link. Congrats! You are on your way to better link popularity.
Putting It All Together
Zeus is a real time saver. Using Zeus, I was able to find more than
130 good sites to add to my link directory in about 48 hours of computer
time [over the course of a week, including training time]. Not all of
them have link pages to ask for a reciprocal link, but they are important
enough to add to my directory anyway. Training Zeus was not difficult
or all that time consuming for me. If you have a good idea of the "theme"
of your web site, or the keywords you are targeting for search engine
marketing, you should have no trouble training Zeus to find good sites
for you to include into your link directory. Imagine the time I would
have spent combing through search engine and directory listings for
that many sites.
As I previously mentioned, the most frustrating part of the program
for me was customizing the theme index and theme page templates, because
I use a lot of dynamic HTML, layers and stylesheets. Be prepared to
spend some time developing and fine tuning your templates, especially
if you use complex page structures and advanced HTML like I do.
The e-mail function is a breeze to use. Just remember to edit the supplied
e-mail templates and/or make your own, so that they are personalized
and not like those of other Zeus users who don’t take the time
to edit them. I like the fact that it keeps track of which e-mail you
sent and when it was sent right in the program so that I don’t
have to use another program to track them.
Pricing
You can actually get Zeus for free! However, the free version has limitations.
- You must put up a link directory in 14 days or Zeus is deactivated.
If this happens you’ll have to download and install a new copy
of Zeus.
- The free version incorporates sponsored banner advertising on your
link directory pages.
- You can only customize the background, header and footer information.
You cannot customize the actual directory layout using the templates.
The Pro Model is $195. I highly recommend that you purchase the upgrade.
The Pro Model allows you to completely customize the actual directory
layout, including fonts and colors, in addition to the background, header
and footer information. The Pro Model does not require sponsored banner
advertising, and also allows you to purchase cgi-script add-ons, such
as turning your link directory into a search engine, allowing your visitors
to search on any topic in your link directory. There is no time limit
in which you must upload your link directory with the Pro Model either.
Order
Zeus, the Internet Marketing Robot today and begin building your
link popularity!
If you are interested in seeing a complete comparison for the free
version and the Pro Model, the URL is
http://www.cyber-robotics.com/demo/index.htm.
Final Thoughts
Zeus The Internet Marketing Robot is a fantastic program that helps
you create a focused, themed link directory. It’s a huge time saver
and beats wasting time going from search engine to search engine looking
for the sites to add to your link directory. You can run Zeus while
you are categorizing your theme sites or working on other projects.
You can even have Zeus work while you sleep! Zeus isn’t all that
difficult to train and use. If you are working on link popularity and
strategies for yourself or your clients, I highly recommend buying Zeus
to assist you. You’ll be glad you did. One final advantage to using
Zeus: if you send him off to your web site, you’ll be able to see
it as a search engine spider sees it!
If you want to see the link directory I created while testing Zeus
for this review, you can find it at http://www.rookiesnstars.com/links/.
Finally, thank you to David Notestine and Peter Ridley, who supplied
me with a free registration code so that I could test and review the
Pro Model for you.
I’ll be back in January with a in-depth review of NetMechanic,
which offers several tools for search engine marketing and optimization.
Everyone have a safe and Happy Holiday season and I’ll see you
in 2002
***About Bill Gentry:
Bill Gentry has been a professional Web designer since 1999 and a Search
Engine Optimization and Online Marketing specialist with Look Sharp
Designs since February 2000. Earning a Bachelor's of Science in Geology
and a Master's of Business Administration in addition to his employment
as an Aircraft Armament Systems Specialist for 10 years contributed
to his attention to detail.
Review may not be reprinted without permission of Look Sharp Designs.
To request permission for reprinting rights, please contact Look Sharp Designs.
