If you want to be instantly found on the first page of the search results and start driving traffic to your website before your SEO campaign kicks in, than there’s no doubt about it - a sponsored link campaign is the way to go.  Sponsored link campaigns, also know as PPC (pay-per-click) is the process of bidding on keywords / phrases that allow search engine users to come across your website in the search results.  Similarly to any auction, the higher you bid, the more you get.  In the world of sponsored links - the more you bid, the higher your placement will be.

Most search engines have some form of sponsored link programs.  The 3 most popular ones are Google Adwords, Overture (Yahoo! Search Marketing), and MSN.  My personal favourite of course is Google Adwords.  As many are aware, Google gets the largest share of searches, so that’s one good reason to start your sponsored link campaign with them.  Other reasons include: they have a great adwords program, quick response team (good customer service), and they have an extensive help guide.  There are also a lot of resources out there to help you jump start your Google Adwords campaign.  One that is highly recognized in the industry is Perry Marshall’s Literature on Google Adwords.

Optimizing a sponsored link campaign is very important, in order to achieve the best results.  As a marketing company, if I was targeting multiple keyword phrases and all my adds looked like the one bellow, we would not be getting the desired results we were hoping for:

Ex. #1

WebStar Multimedia Inc.
Toronto Internet Marketing 
Online Services for GTA.

Instead, it would be smarter to target different keyword phrases, and optimize a separate ad for a particular group of keywords.  For example, if we wanted to target the phrase ‘Toronto internet marketing’, we might make an ad such as the one bellow:

Ex. #2

Toronto Internet Marketing
Web Design Services, SEO,
Copywriting & Much More.

If we were creating an add specifically for the keyword phrase ‘web design’, than our ad would probably look something like this:

Ex. #3

Web Design Company
Toronto Web Designers,
Flash, CMS & More…

By optimizing your campaign, you will surely increase your ROI.  Make sure that your also sending your users to the appropriate pages.  You should not be sending your online visitor to the same page every time.   You should have targeted pages that will convert your reader into a customer.  

At the end of the day, if all this is not for you, and you don’t have time to manage your own sponsored link campaign than you can always hire a company that knows what their doing!

Now that search engines like Google produce accurate search results, more and more users find themselves using a search engine to find what they’re looking for.  So are directories listings completely useless?  The simple answer is: “No…well at least not all of them”. 

What you will find is many ‘General Directories’ out there are loosing their significance.  General directories tend to produce little to no traffic whatsoever.  If you’re submitting your website to a general directory simply for ‘link juice’; don’t be mistaken – major search engines can acknowledge the fact that there is little relevance between your website and the general directory you submit to, and therefore putting very little weight on the link established.  There are a select few general directories that are still worth submitting to.  My top 3 include:

http://www.dmoz.org – Free submission (but probably the hardest directory to get in to), and most likely the most valuable directory link you can create.  If you get into this directory, you are also in Google’s Directory, since Google uses Dmoz results for their own directory.  

http://dir.yahoo.com – This paid submission directory has a recurring annual fee of approximately $300.  Yahoo directory provides a very trusted link and also generates  quite a bit of traffic.

http://botw.org – This paid submission directory has 2 options for payment.  You can either pay a recurring fee of approximately $100, or $250 for a one time fee.  This directory has been around the longest and boasts the fact that they only cater to the ‘best of the web’.  BOTW is a very trusted link according to the search engines.

If you are a business than you might want to look into http://www.business.com. This paid directory is very good for businesses in many industries.  It also has a pricy recurring fee, just like Yahoo!, but has a fair bit of traffic and also provides a trusted link.

The future of directory submissions and link building for search engine optimizers is in niche directories.  By submitting to a directory in your niche market, you are creating links that are much more related to your content and thus more trusted by the search engines.  Ultimately you can expect higher search engine rankings by creating fewer, more trusted links; as apposed to 10 times the amount of less important links.

For example, if you are a Canadian mortgage company you may want to look for mortgage directories or perhaps even real estate directories.  Another good option is to seek Canadian based directories where you can submit your website to.  All these directories would be highly relevant and would be more beneficial than submitting to spammy, general, low traffic directories.

There are a few good lists of directories out there.  One fantastic, but more general directory one is: http://www.avivadirectory.com/strongest-directories/.  

In essence, stick with the top general directories, and search for the niche / relevant directories to submit to.  Directory listings should not be your only means of link building, but should be one of several means of building valuable one-way back links.

So many people ask me - How did you learn search engine optimization?  The truth of the matter is, you never stop learning.  ‘The day you stop learning is the day you die’, and that also applies to your website’s rankings when your no longer staying current with today’s SEO. 

I started off like any other person curious about learning search engine optimization.  I Googled various terms like ‘SEO’, and was overwhelmed with millions of results.  Many sources seem to have repetitive information.  Sure you will also find a variety of perspectives - but who can you trust with your SEO knowledge? 

Over a period of time, I have researched various SEO resources and have developed a top 5 list.  This is not to say that these are the top resources for SEO necessarily…this just happens to be my favourite ones.  The below list is in no particular order:

1. www.seobook.com
2. www.bruceclay.com
3. www.seomoz.org
4. www.searchenginewatch.com
5. www.google.com/support/webmasters/   

I know the last one is a little ironic because it’s Google.  But hey, if anyone is going to tell you how you can market your website properly and rank well on the largest search engine in the world…than that person must be Google.