R = Relevance
Search engines like Google are all about relevance to a subject or keyword. Not only within the code of your webpage, but also in every aspect that is related to that page, including links to it. A link has relevance to a keyword by different factors on the page doing the linking. When looking for the right links, look for the following factors.

1. Link text
   The actual highlighted text included in the link says the most about the page it is linking to, therefore relevant link text is very important. When an image is used in the link, the alt tag of the image is seen as link text. Incorporating your actual search term is best, just make it look natural.
2. Surrounding text
   Text closest to a link tells much about the topic of the link. Search engines look at surrounding text and text in the same block-type element for relevance. Incorporating words that are often used along side your search term is best.
3. Surrounding links
   Links near each other or in the same menu should have the same topic. If a link is listed between totally irrelevant links it will loose some of its own relevance.
4. Page text and links
   The entire link page (the page doing the linking) should be as relevant as possible. Therefore you should select the page you want to be linked from carefully. Also check if the link page has many irrelevant links on it. Do an internal site search for your search term to find out which page is already the most relevant (a Google query like: “search term site:thisdomain.com”).
5. Links to the link page
   Just as links to you should be relevant, this is equally important for links to pages linking to you. Are internal and external links to it all on the same topic?
6. Domain relevance
   The entire domain of the page that is linking to you should be as relevant as possible, both in links to it as in the text on it. The domain should be an authority on your subject (more on authority later).
7. Most relevant landing page
   The page on your own website that is being linked to should be your best page on the subject. If you can use the relevant links for multiple search terms and pages on your site, link to them as directly as possible from your landing page.

A = Authority
The authority factor in search engine algorithms is used to see if a source can be trusted. Although this can’t be detected with any certainty, the sense of authority is enough for most search engines. There are many aspects that indicate trust and authority, but in links it means the following.

1. Relevant authority
   There is topic based authority and more general authority. The authorities you want your link from should be as relevant as possible. The best indicator of relevant authority is that the site scores itself on your search term.
2. Authority means time
   Search engines assess most authority aspects based on time. If an old site has held a specific topic for quite some time, has older links to it and is still acquiring new links; it has more authority than a new site with only new links to it. First index dates in archive.org give some indication of age.
3. Site and page authority
   Site authority is more important than page authority. An old site with a new page can still convey its overall authority. But older pages that recieve many internal links are the best pages to have your link from.
4. Other outbound links
   Other outbound links from the same site or page can reduce the authority of the website. For example: if it obviously sells links, has links to places like gambling or links out to linkfarms it loses some of its authority. The scrutiny of the webmaster makes sure authority is kept.
5. Age of your link
   Older links give more authority. When the link to you ripens, it will be worth more. But when you want to rank for something newsworthy, newer links from within newer content are worth at least as much.

T = Transfer
All I mentioned before is useless when the link doesn’t convey linkpoints. The link needs te be seen as a link by search engines, be directed at the right URL and share linkpoints with little other links. There are many points to check, but I will list the most important ones below.

1. Is the page indexed?
   The website you get your link from might be a real authority on a subject, but when the page your link is on isn’t in the Google index they can’t see the link.
2. Normal <a href links
   Only normal <a href=”http://linkurl”>linktext</a> links can be followed by search engines. Javascript links do not convey linklove.
3. Dofollow
   More and more websites started using rel=”nofollow” in their links. Or they place nofollow in their robots metatag. This means they don’t want to convey any linklove to the page they are linking to. Tools like The SEO toolbar for firefox show all nofollow links as red square, so you don’t have to look at the code to notice them.
4. Link URL
   Is the link directly to the URL you would like to rank with?
   Some sites link to an outbound link checker within their website. This URL then redirects to your page. Depending on the type of redirect, you get no linklove at all.
   If the link is to another page within your website, how are the linkpoints tranfered to the page that should rank? Direct is always better! And mind that most search engines see http://www.yourdomain.com, http://www.yourdomain.com/index.php and http://www.yourdomain.com/index.php?referer=othersite all as different URLs even if the content is exactly the same. Direct all links (internally and externally) to exactly the same URL.
5. Other links
   Linklove is devided by the total of links on the page. If there are 500 other links you get far less love than when you have the only link.
6. Link placement
   The best links are from within the text that changes on each page (the normal content). High up in the code is better than way down. And footer links recieve less love than links in the main menu. This is more a case of conveying authority, but the effect is the same.

RAT-checklist
The RAT-checklist tells you how much effort you should make to get a certain link. If the link passes all checkpoints it is bound to be worth something. Relevant authority transferers have much more effect on your ranking than non-relevant, non-authoritive transferers. And with non-transferers the link is worth only the visitors it brings.

Depending on the industry you are in you can set amounts for each point in the checklist and calculate how much you should be willing to spend in time or money to get the link.

What is the long tail?
If you order search queries by the amount of searches they recieve, you would get a curve like the one below.

As you can see, the curve drops quickly after a few very popular seach terms and after a steep drop it levels out. This indicates that there are a few thousand top search terms that recieve millions of searches each month. It also shows that the curve doesn’t drop to zero. If you would continue the curve further to the right you will find that it doesn’t reach zero at all. There are millions and millions of search queries that recieve at least one request and most of them recieve multiple requests each month. The millions of search terms below the drop in the search curve are called “The Long Tail”.

What does this mean?
The problem with popular search terms is that they are just that; popular. They are not only popular with searchers, but also with search engine marketeers. This way the competition gets fiercer because there is a limited amount of top positions with high exposure in the search engines.

This causes higher costs per click for the sponsored results and more tricks and spam tactics for the organic results. Both increase the cost of reaching the top spots and decrease the return on your investment (ROI). This is why search engine marketeers are now aiming for the long tail.

Further down the search funnel
The long tail consists mostly of more specific search terms than queries from the top of the curve. This means the searchers need to know more about what they are really trying to find, are further down the decision making process (AIDA) and are closer to the action.

Long tail search terms will most likely convert better to sales because they are further down the funnel. But you will need much more search terms to get the same amount of visitors than from terms higher up in the funnel.

Ad matching
The long tail is not only defined by what query the searcher uses. Targeting specific characteristics of the searcher gets you further down the curve and decreases competition. Ad systems like Google Adwords allow you to target specific languages, locations, times and much more. Keyword matching options allow you to further specify when your ad needs to show and when not to. But does that mean costs per click wil drop if you match better?

Better targeting of your audience gives you a better conversion and ROI. But many websites target as broad as possible because they don’t have this insight. This causes costs per click to rise for all searches included in that match.
If a search engine bids five dollars on the broad match “search” he automatically bids the same amount on the search query “house search in templeton virginia”, which is not exactly relevant to their services. But it might be to your realty website. To beat the search engine on this query you will need to bid at least the same amount.
Because of bad matching by irrelated websites, the long tail isn’t as cheap as it could be. Long tail ads are cheaper, but not cheap enough to focus on them entirely. How is this with organic search?

Organic long tail
The long tail in organic results is mainly targeted unintentionally. Especially when the search query contains more than three words it is unlikely that someone has intentionally focussed on it in the text of their website. This makes the organic long tail still something that can be targeted with little effort. The only hard part of organic long tailing is incorporating every search term variaty (singular, plural, verb, noun, adjective, superlative, etc.) and every combination in the text on your website. When you include all these variaties of the same text onto separate pages, these pages need to have a viable reason (for your visitors) to exist.

The other hard part of organic long tailing is link point distribution. You need to get every page indexed and search terms with more competition need more linkpoints then others. The internal link structure needs to distribute linkpoints, but also needs to group related topics in the right way. Targeting the organic long tail is something you can do with every website, but targeting large amounts of long tail search terms is something that needs some SEO expertise.

Long tail misconception
The long tail is not by definition cheap or easy to achieve. It isn’t always converting better than other search terms. Depending on the competition in your branche most long tail targeting is accidental, but that doesn’t always make it easier to achieve better rankings.

It is possible to target every search term you can think of. Even if every used term is only queried once a year, they are still worth integrating in your texts or ads. The shear numbers have a much bigger potential than any top search term you can think of. Just make sure you offer services that are related to the possible queries.

Top search terms (so called Hits) aren’t always a good investment. Not because they don’t get visitors or don’t convert to sales, but because most of them have a short life span. If you’re one of the first to enter a hyped search category, it can be relatively cheap to target it for a while. But once the hype has started it might be a bad investment for the long run. Choose your search terms (both hits and long tails) based on competition (effort), visitor count and popularity lifetime.

“All you need is love” by the Beatles already told you in 1967: “Love is all you need …” to rank high in search engines. If people love your website, they will show that love by getting you links. Either by placing a link on their own website or by talking about your site in forums, blogs, del.icio.us, or offline to webmasters.

To make people love your website, don’t just make a good website! You need a kickoff so people know your great website exists. Then if your website is great, people will start promoting your site to each other and this can spread like wildfire. If you return the love to your best promotors they will even promote your site even harder.

Linklove is the best way to return linklove. Link to your best promotors and have them compete to be your favourite (just like I want women to fight over my love, it just never happens).

My Search Engine Marketing Tip of the day:
Treat anyone willing to link to your website like family. Just be careful who you share love with. Use a condom! (if you’re not sure use rel=nofollow)

If you really like someone, you should link to them. See here:
Snoep, drop and more sweetness on Snoepzooi.nl