20 Hard Core SEO Tips

For those of you loyal readers who wish I would just take a break from the theoretical musings, here is the type of list of SEO tips I rarely give out. You may have seen some or all of these ideas before but I’ll explain some of the benefits for each tip below.

20 Hard Core SEO Tips – The List

1. Redesign your Web site once or twice a year.
2. Add 5 pages of content to your site every week.
3. Change the titles on your least successful pages twice a year.
4. Stop using keywords in your URLs.
5. Stop using keywords in your titles.
6. Find 3 SEO forums that accept site review requests and write 20 reviews in each forum before you ever ask a question.
7. Create your own SEO book by collecting your favorite SEO forum and blog posts, newsletter articles, and tech tips in a .PDF file that you review once a month.
8. Create a new SEO book once each year, replacing the one you just created in the previous step.
9. Optimize your best peforming page for the exact mirror of your targeted keyword expression (turn an ABCD page into a DCBA page).
10. Find 5 low-traffic blogs or forums that are consistently active and support them through comments, links, and referrals WITHOUT being self-promotional.
11. Write 10 blocks of ad copy (no more than 25 words each) every week. Place them on the Web where they won’t offend anyone.
12. Write 1 full-page announcement about your Web site each week. Post it some place where it won’t offend anyone.
13. Get a text editor like Wordpad (the fewer frills the better) and use it to code one of your Web pages from scratch.
14. Learn how to write Who, What, Where, When, and Why in 4 paragraphs or less.
15. Create a 1-page listing of 20 UNKNOWN Web sites you wish you had created. Post that page on your site.
16. Create a forum signature that does not promote your Web site. Put it into every forum profile you have created.
17. Design a 5-10 page Web site about a community project or charitable activity. Promote that site to number 1. Now repeat the process without changing or building more links for your first site.
18. Find a niche directory you have never heard of before that you feel is honestly listing unique, useful Web sites. Promote that niche directory through links and comments on your own sites until you see improvement in its Compete, Quantcast, and Alexa metrics.
19. Find a friend or relative who has no clue about Web sites and persuade him or her to create a Web site. You must restrain yourself and ONLY give advice on how to build and promote the site.
20. Define a metric that uses from three to five factors OTHER THAN Google PageRank, Alexa Rankings, Compete Rankings, Quantcast Rankings, and backlink counts. Use this metric to track five to ten sites you don’t control for six months.

20 Hard Core SEO Tips – The Explanations

Change is the only constant you can count on in search engine optimization. Although we often say that the fundamental principles of search engine optimization don’t change, pretty much everything else does. If you want to be really, really good at this, you cannot be inflexible. You cannot afford the luxury of becoming emotionally bonded to any particular idea.

Redesign your Web site once or twice a year. Why? Because you’ll find things you broke the last time around and you’ll be able to fix them. Because you’ll finally be able to tweak the optimization for pages you have known could do better but for which you never found the time to do anything. Because you’ll have an opportunity to improve your visitor experience and make your presentation more competitive (but avoid the “Web X.0 pitfall” — don’t marry your site to any particular concept).

Add 5 pages of content to your site every week. Why? Because it gives you opportunities to expand your search visibility. Because it gives you opportunities for more free links that actually help. Because it gives you opportunities to try out new ideas. Because it increases the value of your Web site.

Change the titles on your least successful pages twice a year. Why? Because obviously those titles weren’t helping your least successful pages.

Stop using keywords in your URLs. Why? Because if you don’t know how to optimize a page without slamming keywords into the URLs, you don’t know how to optimize a Web page.

Stop using keywords in your titles. Why? Because if you don’t know how to optimize a Web page without stuffing your title, then you don’t know how to optimize a Web page. Titles and URLs are options, not requirements, in search engine optimization. Learn to understand and fully appreciate the difference between being able to do something and needing to do something.

Find 3 SEO forums that accept site review requests and write 20 reviews in each forum before you ever ask a question. Why? Because looking at someone else’s mistakes and brilliant ideas with an unemotional, critical, helpful point of view will only help improve your own self-analysis. Keep your ideas and opinions to yourself. Just share your feedback on how other people’s sites look. You’ll learn more faster by helping with your honest, gut-level reactions than by helping forum idiots attack people whose ideas they don’t agree with. You’ll also look more professional, too.

Create your own SEO book by collecting your favorite SEO forum and blog posts, newsletter articles, and tech tips in a .PDF file that you review once a month. Why? So you have all your favorite advice in one easy-to-read-and-search compendium. Don’t sell it. Just use it.

Create a new SEO book once each year, replacing the one you just created in the previous step. Why? Because after a year of using all the advice you put in the previous one you’ll have a far better idea of just how much crap and bullshit you’re getting from SEO blogs and forums. But that also means your next SEO book will be ten times better than the last.

Optimize your best peforming page for the exact mirror of your targeted keyword expression (turn an ABCD page into a DCBA page). Why? You can’t do better than to nail the number 1 position for a query, so why not aim for a second query? If you can optimize a page forwards and backwards, you should be able to handle just about anything.

Find 5 low-traffic blogs or forums that are consistently active and support them through comments, links, and referrals WITHOUT being self-promotional. Why? It teaches you just how hard it is to build a good community, and maybe you’ll appreciate what “good community” really means before you act like an ass in an SEO forum or blog and flame someone else for disagreeing with you. But there is another reason. Keep reading to see if you can find it in the explanations given below.

Write 10 blocks of ad copy (no more than 25 words each) every week. Place them on the Web where they won’t offend anyone. Why? Because you can never write too many advertisements. Your audience is always changing. Your venues are always changing. And GOOD ad copy (not the cheap, shlocky crap you see most of the time) makes GREAT meta description tags. BTW — you should write that ad copy for sites other than your own until you learn to stop using cheap, shlocky crap expressions like “Proudly announces”, “pleased to admit”, “best prices”, etc. Be informative. Be compelling. Be classy.

Write 1 full-page announcement about your Web site each week. Post it some place where it won’t offend anyone. Why? Because you should spend some time promoting your site while you learn how to become a better search optimizer. Besides, practice makes perfect.

Get a text editor like Wordpad (the fewer frills the better) and use it to code one of your Web pages from scratch. Why? Because when you’ve seen just how stupid your templated CSS code really is, you’ll begin to understand why ugly works better than pretty.

Learn how to write Who, What, Where, When, and Why in 4 paragraphs or less. Why? Because you should never write a press release that starts out with, “John Shlock Smith the Shmuck proudly announces….”

Create a 1-page listing of 20 UNKNOWN Web sites you wish you had created. Post that page on your site. Why? Because it’s an opportunity for you to create an honest, sincere resource that no one else on the Web has the ability to create. Because people are actually more interested in your opinion of OTHER people’s Web sites than your opinion of your own Web sites. Because if you haven’t found 20 sites you wish you had created that no one else has talked about in your regular Web communities, you need to spend less time with your buds and more time with the rest of the Web.

Create a forum signature that does not promote your Web site. Put it into every forum profile you have created. Why? Because it makes you look confident, professional, and less like a shlocky self-promotional shmuck who doesn’t know what forums are for. More importantly, it will teach you to write compelling content (think of those 25-word advertisements I mentioned above).

Design a 5-10 page Web site about a community project or charitable activity. Promote that site to number 1. Now repeat the process without changing or building more links for your first site. Why? Because you’ll never compete with anyone harder to beat than yourself.

Find a niche directory you have never heard of before that you feel is honestly listing unique, useful Web sites. Promote that niche directory through links and comments on your own sites until you see improvement in its Compete, Quantcast, and Alexa metrics. Why? Because you need to know what it takes to become an influencer without cheating through social media Web site spam.

Find a friend or relative who has no clue about Web sites and persuade him or her to create a Web site. You must restrain yourself and ONLY give advice on how to build and promote the site. Why? Because I’ve had to suffer through the frustration of not being able to take the computer away from someone who wants to do it their own way. Misery loves company. Besides, it teaches us to be humble and appreciate the people who at least listen half the time.

Define a metric that uses from three to five factors OTHER THAN Google PageRank, Alexa Rankings, Compete Rankings, Quantcast Rankings, and backlink counts. Use this metric to track five to ten sites you don’t control for six months. Why? Because you need a competitive advantage that you cannot possibly get from using someone’s backlink checking tool. Because you need to understand and appreciate that there is more to the Web than links. Because you need to be one step ahead of the other guy, who may very well have his own metrics in place before you even get started.

20 Hard Core SEO Tips – What They Mean

You have to keep moving forward. When you stop learning about search engine optimization the idea of getting back into the game becomes overwhelming. Worse, if you become dependent upon any one tip or technique, you hobble yourself in ways you cannot possibly imagine.

Let the idiots spend their days arguing in the SEO blogs and forums. They don’t need your help to look stupid.

You can learn from other people by watching them, helping them, promoting their sites, and putting the community ahead of yourself. They won’t always appreciate what you do. But you can knock a self-promotional shmuck out of the search results any day of the week if you know more about search engine optimization than he does.

You get to that point by doing it, not by talking about it in SEO blogs and forums.

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by Michael Martinez

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sources : http://www.seo-theory.com/2007/10/16/20-hard-core-seo-tips/

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95 SEO Tips and Tricks for Powerful Search Engine Optimization

Ninety-five SEO tips and tricks you should and should not be doing on your Web pages to make them rank higher in search engines. This list looks at more than just meta tags and the basics of SEO, so even if you've got some of the factors, you may not have everything. Scroll to the end of the list to look at the things you should never be doing, as well as the things you should always do at the beginning.

High Priority
Medium Priority
Low Priority
Avoid
Avoid or Get Banned

Write great content (HIGH PRIORITY)

Great content is where it all starts. You can have all the keywords in the world, but if your content is no good, people won't stick around on your site and search engines won't find your site valuable.

Write unique content (HIGH PRIORITY)

Unique content is important too. You need to provide content that has different information than what is on other sites and other Web pages.

Add new content all the time (HIGH PRIORITY)

Sites that have new content added on a regular basis are seen as more reliable than sites that rarely do. This also helps you to increase the amount of relevant content on your site, which also improves your rankings.

Create a great keyword phrase (HIGH PRIORITY)

The first thing you should do when working on search engine optimization is find a great keyword phrase for that page. You shouldn't try to optimize your entire site to one keyword phrase - instead focus on writing pages for specific keywords and phrases.

Choose a phrase that is popular, but not too popular (HIGH PRIORITY)

When trying to decide on a keyword phrase, you want to find one that is popular but not extremely popular. This may seem counter-intuitive, but the reality is that extremely popular keywords are very desirable and so very competitive. It's better to try to optimize for keywords that you can rank higher. You'll get more pageviews from a less popular keyword when you're on the first or second page of the search engines, than from a super popular keyword that you only make it to page 50 of search engines.

Write an accessible site (HIGH PRIORITY)

Accessible HTML is accessible to both search engine spiders and screen readers. The more accessible you make your pages, the easier it will be for search engines to read and rank your pages.

Use the keyword phrase in your title tag (HIGH PRIORITY)

The title tag is one of the most important tags on your Web page. And placing your keyword phrase in the title tag, preferably at the beginning, is very important to get that phrase into the search engines. Plus, that puts your keyword phrase as the link in the search engine index.

Get a domain with your keyword phrase (HIGH PRIORITY)

Putting your keyword phrase in your domain name is a great way to optimize for that phrase.

Use the keyword phrase in your URL (HIGH PRIORITY)

Even if you can't get your keywords into your domain name, you can put them into your URLs. Search engines read the URLs and assign value to the text they find there.

Use your keyword phrase a lot, but not too much (HIGH PRIORITY)

The ratio of your keywords to the rest of the text on your page is called the keyword density. It's important to repeat your keywords in your document, but not too much. Keyword density should be between 3 and 7% for your primary keyword phrase and 1-2% for any secondary keywords or keyword phrases.

Things You Should and Shouldn't Do for SEO
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By Jennifer Kyrnin, About.com Guide

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sources : http://webdesign.about.com/od/seo/tp/seo_tips_and_tricks.htm

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SEO Tips using Facebook

everyone knows the massive pulling power of facebook on the web. Though till recently, it has not had any great uses for internet marketings as it lacked the search engine pulling power no great viral pulling power..

Now this has all Changed. Facebook has implemented PAGES!!

Why am I so excited about this?

1. We now have the ability to name the pages we create on facebook.com. Facebook.com is an amazingly powerful website in Google. Now we have the ability to leverage this awesome power by creating Pages, just like the one you are on now. Meaning, we can put the title of our page at the top of any page we create in Facebook. The title Is one of the main factors in determining a listing in the Google.com Search Engine.

2. Putting our great keyword rich title on the page, also creates an internal page on Facebook.com using these words in the URL of the page. 2nd massive bonus :) Having your niche in the name of the internal page is another strong factor into getting listed highly in the Google.com Search Engine.

These two points above are enough to be able to target nice long tailed keyword phrases, and have them ranking highly in Google :-)

For members of my http://www.BruteForceSEO.com/ (a) you've got your great keyword phrases in the title and URL, and have a great URL to stick in the software to produce 100's of quality backlinks in just 1 hour. My BF members using the power of http://www.BruteforceSEO.com/ and the enormous strength of Facebook.com in Google will be now able to target the much more competitive terms, that obviously make us more income.

Though this is not all of it.. see No 3 below.

3. The Viral Aspect mentioned above.
See on this page you are reading now.
There is the link

Become a Fan.

Please Click on this link Now.

This is where it really gets interesting.

By becoming a fan of this page. Whenever I update this page with more SEO Tips. Your facebook wall will be updated. So I now have an excellent medium to distribute this SEO Tips Information. (btw, notice how I'm dropping my main keyword phrase within my text? "seo tips" , helps with onpage seo for the search engines, plz do the same)

Plus. Being a fan of this page, whenever I update this page. You get this update on your wall, and heres where it gets really exciting from a viral perspective, this update from this page, is then distributed to all YOUR Friends walls as well.. alerting them to something very cool being updated on this page.

This spreads the info Im sharing here, plus shares between friends of fans this page URL. This is the massive Viral component to using Pages on Facebook for viral marketing, additionally, this could have a positive effect on internal linking on facebook, giving even more SEO love to this page in Google.com

This is very new and hot off the press. So make sure you become a fan by clicking on the link top of page, so you get the next tips, most likely on design and how to maximise this to sell products.

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Seo Tips by Peter Drew

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Small Is Beautiful 21 Essential SEO Tips & Techniques

Small businesses are growing more aware of the need to understand and implement at least the basics of search engine optimization. But if you read a variety of small businesses blogs and Web sites, you’ll quickly see that there’s a lot of uncertainty over what makes up “the basics.” Without access to high-level consulting and without a lot of experience knowing what SEO resources can be trusted, there’s also a lot of misinformation about SEO strategies and tactics.

This article is the second in a two-part SEO checklist specifically for small business owners and webmasters. Last week, I shared 20 “don’ts.” Naturally, this week addresses the “Do’s”—things to make sure you include whether you’re hiring an SEO company or doing it yourself.

Small Business SEO Checklist: The Do’s

1. Commit yourself to the process. SEO isn’t a one-time event. Search engine algorithms change regularly, so the tactics that worked last year may not work this year. SEO requires a long-term outlook and commitment.

2. Be patient. SEO isn’t about instant gratification. Results often take months to see, and this is especially true the smaller you are, and the newer you are to doing business online.

3. Ask a lot of questions when hiring an SEO company. It’s your job to know what kind of tactics the company uses. Ask for specifics. Ask if there are any risks involved. Then get online yourself and do your own research—about the company, about the tactics they discussed, and so forth.

4. Become a student of SEO. If you’re taking the do-it-yourself route, you’ll have to become a student of SEO and learn as much as you can. Luckily for you, there are plenty of great Web resources (like Search Engine Land) and several terrific books you can read. Aaron Wall’s SEO Book, Jennifer Laycock’s Small Business Guide to Search Engine Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day by Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin are three I’ve read and recommend.

5. Have web analytics in place at the start. You should have clearly defined goals for your SEO efforts, and you’ll need web analytics software in place so you can track what’s working and what’s not.

6. Build a great web site. I’m sure you want to show up on the first page of results. Ask yourself, “Is my site really one of the 10 best sites in the world on this topic?” Be honest. If it’s not, make it better.

7. Include a site map page. Spiders can’t index pages that can’t be crawled. A site map will help spiders find all the important pages on your site, and help the spider understand your site’s hierarchy. This is especially helpful if your site has a hard-to-crawl navigation menu. If your site is large, make several site map pages. Keep each one to less than 100 links. I tell clients 75 is the max to be safe.

8. Make SEO-friendly URLs. Use keywords in your URLs and file names, such as yourdomain.com/red-widgets.html. Don’t overdo it, though. A file with 3+ hyphens tends to look spammy and users may be hesitant to click on it. Related bonus tip: Use hyphens in URLs and file names, not underscores. Hyphens are treated as a “space,” while underscores are not.

9. Do keyword research at the start of the project. If you’re on a tight budget, use the free versions of Keyword Discovery or WordTracker, both of which also have more powerful paid versions. Ignore the numbers these tools show; what’s important is the relative volume of one keyword to another. Another good free tool is Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool, which doesn’t show exact numbers.

10. Open up a PPC account. Whether it’s Google’s AdWords or Yahoo’s Search Marketing or something else, this is a great way to get actual search volume for your keywords. Yes, it costs money, but if you have the budget it’s worth the investment. It’s also the solution if you didn’t like the “Be patient” suggestion above and are looking for instant visibility.

11. Use a unique and relevant title and meta description on every page. The page title is the single most important on-page SEO factor. It’s rare to rank highly for a primary term (2-3 words) without that term being part of the page title. The meta description tag won’t help you rank, but it will often appear as the text snippet below your listing, so it should include the relevant keyword(s) and be written so as to encourage searchers to click on your listing. Related bonus tip: You can ignore the Keywords meta altogether if you’d like; it’s close to inconsequential. If you use it, put misspellings in there, and any related keywords that don’t appear on the page.

12. Write for users first. Google, Yahoo, etc., have pretty powerful bots crawling the web, but to my knowledge these bots have never bought anything online, signed up for a newsletter, or picked up the phone to call about your services. Humans do those things, so write your page copy with humans in mind. Yes, you need keywords in the text, but don’t stuff each page like a Thanksgiving turkey. Keep it readable.

13. Create great, unique content. This is important for everyone, but it’s a particular challenge for online retailers. If you’re selling the same widget that 50 other retailers are selling, and everyone is using the boilerplate descriptions from the manufacturer, this is a great opportunity. Write your own product descriptions, using the keyword research you did earlier (see #9 above) to target actual words searchers use, and make product pages that blow the competition away. Plus, retailer or not, great content is a great way to get inbound links.

14. Use your keywords as anchor text when linking internally. Anchor text helps tells spiders what the linked-to page is about. Links that say “click here” do nothing for your search engine visibility.

15. Build links intelligently. Submit your site to quality, trusted directories such as Yahoo, DMOZ, Business.com, Aviva, and Best of the web. Seek links from authority sites in your industry. If local search matters to you (more on that coming up), seek links from trusted sites in your geographic area—the Chamber of Commerce, etc. Analyze the inbound links to your competitors to find links you can acquire, too.

16. Use press releases wisely. Developing a relationship with media covering your industry or your local region can be a great source of exposure, including getting links from trusted media web sites. Distributing releases online can be an effective link building tactic, and opens the door for exposure in news search sites. Related bonus tip: Only issue a release when you have something newsworthy to report. Don’t waste journalists’ time.

17. Start a blog and participate with other related blogs. Search engines, Google especially, love blogs for the fresh content and highly-structured data. Beyond that, there’s no better way to join the conversations that are already taking place about your industry and/or company. Reading and commenting on other blogs can also increase your exposure and help you acquire new links. Related bonus tip: Put your blog at yourdomain.com/blog so your main domain gets the benefit of any links to your blog posts. If that’s not possible, use blog.yourdomain.com.

18. Use social media marketing wisely. If your small business has a visual element, join the appropriate communities on Flickr and post high-quality photos there. If you’re a service-oriented business, use Yahoo Answers to position yourself as an expert in your industry. With any social media site you use, the first rule is don’t spam! Be an active, contributing member of the site. The idea is to interact with potential customers, not annoy them.

19. Take advantage of local search opportunities. Online research for offline buying is a growing trend. Optimize your site to catch local traffic by showing your address and local phone number prominently. Write a detailed Directions/Location page using neighborhoods and landmarks in the page text. Submit your site to the free local listings services that the major search engines offer. Make sure your site is listed in local/social directories such as CitySearch, Yelp, Local.com, etc., and encourage customers to leave reviews of your business on these sites, too.

20. Take advantage of the tools the search engines give you. Sign up for Google’s webmaster Central and Yahoo’s Site Explorer to learn more about how the search engines see your site, including how many inbound links they’re aware of.

21. Diversify your traffic sources. Google may bring you 70% of your traffic today, but what if the next big algorithm update hits you hard? What if your Google visibility goes away tomorrow? Newsletters and other subscriber-based content can help you hold on to traffic/customers no matter what the search engines do. In fact, many of the DOs on this list—creating great content, starting a blog, using social media and local search, etc.—will help you grow an audience of loyal prospects and customers that may help you survive the whims of search engines.

Just like last week, this list could continue well beyond these 21 “DOs.” Your additions are welcome in the comments.

With this checklist and last week’s list of “Don’ts,” you should be able to develop a good plan of attack for your SEO efforts for your small business.

sources : http://searchengineland.com/21-essential-seo-tips-techniques-11580

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Top 20 SEO Tips & Guidelines

1. If you don?t want too much competition from other SEO?s, choose your keywords precisely.
For example, Instead of keyowrd Loan choose keywords like Bank Loan, Equity Loan, Student Loan, Home Loan etc.
Order of keyword also matter for search engines. Search engine treats ?Loan Equity? and ?Equity Loan? as different keywords.


2. Best seo practice is to get at least one of your primary keywords in domain or sub domain name of your website.
You can use hyphens (-) to separate multiple keywords.
For example: seo-service, seo-guidelines, free-seo each cover two keyords.


3. Get your second or third keywords in your directory name and filename.
For example http://www.hiddentricks.com/seo/free-tips.html is best for keyword ?free seo tips? , ?seo hidden tricks? or "free seo tricks"


4. Keep your webpage free from any syntax error, declare document type at the beginning and validate your HTML and CSS because search engine don?t like pages with too many errors.


5. Give a short Title in of your page in 3-9 words (60-80 characters) maximum in length containing your primary keyword.
Remember it will be displayed in search results so choose wisely.


6. Try to include your most important keyword phrases in heading tags on your page if you can but keep in mind it should not be exactly same as title of your page.
You can use (H1 H2 H3) tag for specifying anything important.
To reduce size of heading use CSS.


7. Specify Meta keywords in heading of document. Limit it to 15 to 20 words. Although not all the search engines give importance but there is no harm doing it.
Search engine like Yahoo still give it importance.


8. Write Your Meta Description tag attractive containing keywords because it will appear on the search engine result pages.


9. Use text for navigation menu instead of using images or Java scripts.


10. Try to include your most important keyword in hyperlinked text and text and text that immediately precedes or follows the hyperlink.
Do not use same keyword always use synonyms at few places.
Jusk like instead of seo, I have use search engine optimization at many places on this page.



11. If you are using images then use ?alt? attribute to describe your image with proper keyword.


12. One of the best webmaster guideline is to submit sitemap of your website to make sure all pages of your website are indexed by search engine crawlers.


13. Keep size of your webpages less than 50KB so it is downloaded fast and visitors don?t have to wait for long.
For good SEO site page size ideal should be 15KB.


14. Try to avoid your content in Flash, frame, images, java script because crawler find it very difficult and it is against seo tips and guidelines.


15. Don?t use dynamic url because it don?t contain keywords so its not search engine friendly.
If you are using any script which shows dynamic pages then make sure at least it should include one keyword.


16. Don?t try to spam and never use methods like cloaking, keyword spamming or doorway pages.
Many seo advices to have multiple domain name and link each other but according to our SEO tips and guidelines search engine can penalize you for this.
Instead of that try to add more quality content to your existing website.


17. Submit your website only once to google, Yahoo, AltaVista and other search engines and open directory.
Don?t use any script or website for automatic submission.


18. If your website contents changes very often then provide visitor with Newsletter and RSS feed.


19. Write articles on website related to yours having higher page ranking and leave your websites link.


20. Get link from other sites related to yours, search engine consider it as vote in your favour.


sources :
http://www.hiddentricks.com/seo/

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