www.Sail-Search.com: A successful web site does not happen overnight. It demands a few things; stay true to your subject, great content, the respect of your peers (i.e. other web sites in your industry should voluntarily link to you) and you should link out to them.

Of course a great linking strategy has to create benefits for both parties so the logical first step is to link to other sites that your visitors will be interested in. To put it quite bluntly, I do not think that people visiting a site that deals with V8 engines will be thinking "I must go sailing!". Given the choice between a sailing or power boat site, they will probably rather visit a site on power boats.

In addition your link on a power boat site will diminish the value of both the sites in the eyes of the viewer and probably on the search engines.

How many referral visitors do you think your site will get from a Viagra site? Of course the question must be asked; "How many sailors would need to click on on a link to a Viagra site from a sailing one?"

Jokes aside, we at Sail Search still reject 80% of link listing requests submitted, and around 95% of comments, as they are just not relevant to the directory categories.

When looking for potential partners remember 'Ice Cream Economics 101': On a hot and crowded beach two ice cream sellers that stand next to each other and sell ice creams will together attract a larger crowd of shoppers than if they stand apart at opposite sides of the beach.

And we have a not so subtle message for those "webmasters" who continually spam Sail Search with link requests despite our Submission form clearly stating; "Sailing and Related Sites ONLY!", the following may happen to you:

Click HERE to add your SAILING site for free

By the way, any words contained within the title, description, keywords or URL of a submitted site that most definitely have nothing to do with a sailing site, such as; viagra, cialis, porn, xxx, anal, gay, lesbian and so on are all part of a keyword filter system that automatically trashes the submission.

So, if you have a legitimate sailing site that contains words that have nothing to do with sailing and could be considered as risque then please contact Alan direct to have your site considered for inclusion.

And I will reveal him for the imposter that he is. Sailing folk are a bunch that have their priorities set up properly. We think nothing of dropping a couple of grand on new blocks or sails but refuse to enter any regatta that does not give us a free T-Shirt worth a couple of bucks.

New sails for the boat versus new curtains for the home, please, what a no-brainer - SAILS.

So it is great to be able to let my favourite people know of stuff that they can get for free to promote their sailing web sites:

Shawn Pringle promises to send you 5 free tools at the rate of one a week and the occasional product recommendation. Heck, some of us pay for that willingly so it is a no brainer to sign up for his e-mail list and press SUBMIT.

As he says on his site:

Why am I giving you 5 free SEO tools, and more to come?

Because I can, and I want to. I want to give incredible value and overdeliver by giving all of these tools away, just for joining my email list. And to make sure you get started on the right foot I am also going to send you a free 87-page SEO report that explains exactly how the search engines rank web pages, and the tips and tricks you need to know to outrank your competition. Watch for that free report in the first email I'll send you in 2 minutes from now after you fill in the form below.

What's the catch?

There isn't one. Enter your email, get free software emailed to you every week for 5 weeks. That's it. You will soon see that I don't email garbage, and I don't email often. I email you these 5 free tools, and perhaps the odd recommendation when it is truly warranted.

Click here to get your Tools

The 5 free tools are the following:

• Free Tool #1: Total Backlink Analyzer
• Free Tool #2: Barrier To Entry Analyzer
• Free Tool #3: Authority Site Finder
• Free Tool #4: On-Site Analyzer
• Free Tool #5: Rank Finder

I for one would like to see if Shawn's Tools indicate www.Sail-Search.com to be the Authority Site for sailing directories that I believe it to be.

www.Sail-Search.com: This month has been a bit of a Red Letter month for Sail Search as we have consistently clocked in excess of 1 200 UNIQUE visitors a day to the Sail Search site.

We thought that a list of the keywords used bringing sailors to the Sail Search Site via Google, Yahoo MSN and all the other search engines may help you optimise YOUR sailing Site:

Sample of the 3 942 Keyphrases used on search engines for the period 1 March to 27 March 2007:

Go to Axandra to get desktop software that will help you get to the TOP of the Search Engines and STAY there.

Tip of the Day: Not everyone knows how to spell correctly.

On the 29th January 2007 I received a press release from Rocket Boats mentioning Gale Force Sailing. I checked to see if Gale Force Sailing was listed on Sail Search and they weren't. Then I checked to see if Gale Force Sailing was listed on Google and they weren't. So I decided to help.

This is my first email to Kristen of Gale Force Sailing:

Hi Kristen

I got your e-mail from the recent mailing sent out by Anthony from Rocket Boats.

I must confess that I have a real soft spot for the Rocket.

Please ignore me if you think that I am being presumtious.

I visited your site www.galeforcesailing.com and think that it is visually stunning. You, are not listed on Google, though.

I am going to help you and have done the following already.

1. Listed your site on www.Sail-Search.com.
2. Added your site to be indexed by the Google Co-Op search on Sail Search. This Google Box searches the content of all sites listed on Sail Search.
3. Linked to the listing from the Sail Search News page.

The direct links to the above are as follows:

1. Gale Force Sailing ALSO here: http://www.sail-search.com/search/new/
2. http://www.sail-search.com/GoogleSearch.html
3. Presently on Front page - www.sail-search.com and also on Front Page of the Sailing News with the permanent link here.

I am also attaching a TEXT file and suggest that you add the meta tags to your sites pages - this will help with your listings on other search engines and directories.

The message dated 1 February 2007 to Kristen is self explanatory:

Hi Kristen

Look on Google NOW.

and you will see Gale Force Sailing listed.

Let me blow my own trumpet - a quality clean link from Sail Search with a press release almost guarantees a listing in Google within 24 hours.

AND - you did not have to pay one red cent.

Want your sailing site listed in the major search engines?

Follow the above advice.

Two last tips
- hover over any of the links and you will see a site thumbnail captured by Snap.com
- Get desktop software that helps you find Quality Directories like Sail Search from Axandra

Sailing folk are known to be a rather tight bunch. I know that many would prefer the term 'eccentric', though.

How many sailors do you know that drive around in vehicles that they navigate by counting road lines through the holes in the floorboards, but will think nothing of dropping a couple of grand on a few lengths of halyard?

Another thing that sailors are notorious for is squirming their way out of paying for anything except beer and their chandlers account.

For these reasons we hesitated to sign up with Review Me - a service that puts advertisers together with bloggers. The bloggers write reviews of the web sites or products submitted and in that way create a social marketing buzz for the advertiser.

The advertiser pays for the service and may not hold any editorial sway over what is written. This, in itself, should ensure that only quality services are highlighted by the bloggers in each category.

There are a number of categories available for the prospective advertiser and blogger to choose from and it appears that Sail Search is the first news site to be accepted in the Sport category dealing with sailing.

We have always said that a link to your web site from a similar one is the gift that keeps on giving. Now, Review Me have taken the directory concept one step further and are offering to put bloggers and advertisers together at a price. That personal reccommendation from a respected blogger or news site will certainly go a long way to establishing your trust relationship with prospective clients.

Sponsored By Review Me

You will hear many people telling you how beneficial it is to promote your web site/s on forums. What they neglect to tell you is that effective promotion takes time and dedication. (It is normally at this point that lazy spammers leave this article and move on....)

Promoting your web site/s on forums demands time, dedication and patience.

Here is a quick 10 point Forum check list:

1. Choose forums that are relevant to your web site/s; i.e. sailing on a sailing forum, local business on a local community forum etc.
2. Check that the forums allow uploadable Avatars and signatures that link to your web site/s.
3. Check that the "No Follow" meta tag is NOT in place on the forum.
4. Having the "No Follow" is not a train smash, though, as you are trying to get CUSTOMERS and not VISITORS.
5. Make sure that your forum posts are ON TOPIC, BRIEF, and NOT SPAMMY.
6. Become the recognised authority when you post.
   If there is a keyword phrase that you would like to rank well for in the search engines, use this as the 'anchor text' in your website link.
7. Bookmark the forums that you visit.
8. Check your SPELLING and grammar.
9. Visit the forums regularly and ONLY comment if your comment CONTRIBUTES.

Modern forums are the equivalent of the Village Pump - a place for people to gather, swop ideas and catch up on the latest gossip. Treat the other forum members with respect and your business can only benefit.

Browse a list of Sailing Forums Here.

I have had a few questions from some sailing webmasters with regards to the 302 Re-Direct and how it can be a major boost for Page Rank.

To bring you up to speed:
1. The old way that Sail Search USED to link to your sailing web site was by use of a 302 OFF DOMAIN link. This was done in order to make the counting of clicks and visitors to your web site more efficient.
2. Sail Search now links to your web site via a CLEAN LINK.

There has been lots of talk and speculation in SEO circles about 302 domain hijacking etc and we felt that the most ethical way to deal with the question of linking to your site would be via a CLEAN LINK.

We even had one webmaster recently accuse Sail Search of making unsubstantiated advertising claims

Be that as it may, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and we would like to direct you to a number of articles dealing with the 302 re-direct question made by Matt Cutts, a senior Engineer at Google and also to an article by Shari Thurow at the Search Engine Watch web site:

Matt Cutts: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-discussing-302-redirects/
Matt Cutts: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/bacon-polenta/
Matt Cutts: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-canonicalization/
Search Engine Watch: http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3109261

I think that, based on the above information, we at Sail Search made the right decision that could only be seen as good for the sites that we list in the Sail Search search engine and directory.

Just an observation that is pertinent to this web site; Louies Last Regatta along with many other Sailing web sites.

Do a search on Gooogle for www.louieslastregatta.com and see that you get Sail Search results as the top two results and then a page deeper down in the Louies Last Regatta site - CLICK HERE FOR THE GOOGLE RESULTS

Now, this is what so incences me - the web is about information and getting the right information quickly and when I see instances like the one above where Sail Search time and time again ranks above the ACTUAL web site I just want to scream in frustration because one look at the source of the web page shows that the web designer only wanted to make a pretty web site.

Make no mistake the Louies Last Regatta web site is a pretty and relevant one, but if we want to make sure that we get sailing web sites to the top of the search engines then we need to work at a little bit of SEO.

Message to any potential web site owner; "Before you employ a web designer download two free Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Books to help you understand the importance of ranking high in the Search Engines"

FREE SEO EBOOKS

Sometimes you come across a site that makes you say; "Absolutely Bloody Brilliant!"

You have to try this search box on Sail Search

Everyone these days talks about Optimising their web pages and submitting to directories and search engines.

The buzz words are: Niche and Qualified Traffic.

The Sail Search web site was linked to by the good folk at Cruise News on the 30th November 2005 and I can attest to the following: This one little link that I have to scroll down the page to find has consistently brought in excess of 30 visitors a month every month ever since.

Try it - go to the page (click on the title of this post) and see if you can see the Sail Search link first time!

And my point - don't forget to thank people who link back to you and make sure that you give them something tangible in return.

The internet is all about relationships - just as the telephone on your desk WILL NOT bring you business unless you use it properly, so too the internet or your web site WILL NOT bring you business unless you use it properly.