Thursday, February 24, 2011

Consistency Is A Very Important SEO Factor

If you ask people what they think is necessary to get a website ranking high for a particular keyword, most of them will mention things like an optimized title tag, unique content, backlinks and so on.

While those factors are indeed important for SEO, they will produce very small results if you don’t combine them with consistency.

That is, you could launch a new website today with a lot of unique content and many backlinks, but unless you keep adding new content and getting new links consistently over time your website, would not rank high for any competitive keyword.

The opposite is also true. Even if you launch a website with little unique content and no backlinks, you can still get it ranking high for competitive keywords if you consistently keep adding new content and getting new backlinks.

Let me illustrate this point with some numbers. Suppose we launch two websites targeting the same keyword, website A and website B. On website A we publish 50 articles right away and manage to attract 500 backlinks on the first day thanks to a viral campaign on social media sites. On website B, on the other hand, we work our way up gradually, publishing one article every other day and getting 10 new backlinks per week. After 6 months I would be willing to bet that website B is ranking higher than website A, and that is because of the consistency factor.

In fact Google confirmed in the past that the pace at which a website publishes new content and gains new backlinks is indeed used inside its algorithm.

Whenever you plan an SEO campaign for one of your sites in the future, remember that slow and steady can win the race, even on the Internet!

Into The Minds of Link Builders

This isn’t a hidden fact; link building is the missing piece of most online marketing plans. Onsite SEO and content are just part of the game, but there is no part of code you can change that will have an impact on ranking like good, strong, focused links to your site’s pages. Naturally, link building is the one thing we all hate doing. Most SEOs, when you mention link building, will either groan and put their headphones back on, or just cry. But it is a necessary part of SEO.

So instead of drowning out the part of your to-do list, or bawling, how about we get directions from three of the top minds in link building. I sent questions to some of my favorite link builders and mashed up their answers to give you some insight from those that truly love link building. If you want more after this post, check out some more top minds discussing link building at the Distilled Link Building Seminar in New Orleans or London.

Without further adieu, our link building ninjas are:

Julie Joyce owns Link Fish Media, Inc, a link development company headquartered in Greensboro, NC that focuses on helping clients in ultra-competitive niches all over the world. She also really likes pub snacks.

Ben Wills is the CEO and Co-Founder of Ontolo. While working at the largest SEO company in the early 2000s, he designed and directed implementation for thousands of SEO campaigns. And thus began his focus on scale and automation. While not figuring out hard SEO and link building problems, he road trips thousands of miles a year and rock climbs whenever his body and schedule lets him. Following him on Twitter: @benwills

Brian McDowell focuses on product development and customer success for Conductor. McDowell has designed and built multiple in-house proprietary technologies for natural search and built large in house teams consisting of developers and junior level SEO practitioners for companies such as LendingTree, RealEstate.com, Market America and Red Ventures.

Please note that these answers have been edited. If you want to see their full answers, download this Link Building Full Interviews. On to the questions:

You do something most SEOs hate to do, why? (Dear God Why?)

Julie: Haha! Honestly, I really love it. It’s tedious, it’s hell at times … I think it’s quite difficult to do well and that forces those of us doing it to constantly try to think of creative ways to keep going and stop the wall from coming down. There’s something very satisfying about seeing an amazing link … I’ve never felt like that looking at a meta tag.

Brian: It is exciting to measure and analyze specific tactics and techniques in order to get a better understanding of how external factors enhance (or dilute) your SERP positioning. Link building is a science and it takes a lot of effort to do properly.

Ben: Honestly? After 7 years of it, I got bored with SEO. … I realized that the problem of link building hadn’t been solved well and that I hadn’t built an idea I’d always wanted to. Boredom? Cured.

Is there one tool that is completely indispensible to you?

Ben: Ours I say that cheekily, but it’s also true. I really don’t like doing the same task twice and so we’ve built numerous tools around each of those tasks.

Julie: Rex Swain’s HTTP Header Check – It’s just so old school it’s crazy, and it’s amazing how many people do not use 301s properly. If I’m building links to a site, I’d at least like that redirect to be in there!

Brian: Tools to help with Automation – hands down. Good SEOs use tools to automate their efforts and become more efficient.

What is the one thing you wish you knew when you first started in link building?

Julie: I wish I’d known how worthless Google’s Toolbar PageRank is as a link building metric. (Amen Sista!)

Ben: It might be a rough road, that I’m not going to get it right from the beginning, and that that’s really ok and might be the best way to go.

Brian: I wish I knew the importance of auditing my investments (both pre and post publish). Audits are used to monitor your link investments in order to make sure your links are live, constructed properly and live in good neighborhoods. Fixing broken links (including internal 404s) should be considered another tactic in link building and not just general maintenance.

If you took on a client looking for link building help, what is the first thing they should know?

Brian: What are the expectations of these sites and what are they using to measure the level of success. I’d want them to know to focus on distributed relevance without a hyper focus on a specific term. Link building takes time and should have consistent and sustained growth. Patience is needed and the amount of time is purely dependent on the competitive landscape for their niche and which terms they are targeting. I’d ask things like:

• Does the customer care about lead generation, online sales, incoming calls or just visibility?
• How quickly can changes be made to the site (important in link building for managing relevance)?
• What analytics package and use of Google and/or Bing Webmaster Tools?
• Is the customer currently using an SEO platform to track and monitor their efforts?

Ben: Link building is the least measurable form of marketing in terms of impact on rankings. No one knows how to value a link right now in terms of search rankings and ROI…the math is simply too complex and constantly changing. Even if you figured it out, it would be irrelevant pretty quickly.

Julie: The first thing we tell people requesting a quote is that we do buy links and that paid links are risky business. We don’t just buy links, but link buying is definitely our specialty. If they are comfortable with the risk and I am comfortable with it, things progress, but if one of us isn’t, we part ways immediately.

What link building technique or source of links do you think is under used / undervalued by SEOs right now?

Julie: That’s a tough one. I definitely have a soft spot for good paid links so I’d probably say that those are the most undervalued types of links. I think there’s an assumption that all paid links are horrible spammy ones on irrelevant one-page sites, but it’s absolutely not true. Really nice paid links that are relevant, don’t leave a footprint, and drive traffic are definitely undervalued.

Brian: The ones I use. On a serious note, I think infographics are something that not enough people focus on. They require a creative mind, a great designer and a data analyst to work together and produce something amazing enough to be shared. Good infographics have a long lifespan, generate links and references as well as good social citations.

Ben: The most undervalued technique is more of a well-designed strategy that’s consistently executed, day in and day out. We hear a lot about one-off efforts, but rarely about recurring strategies that build on themselves over time.

When it comes to international or localized search, any tips on how to get links from your area?

Brian: Street teams work great. Shake some hands and kiss some babies to get the job done. Network. Is your lunch hour worth a link? Absolutely. Offer to exchange some SEO knowledge and straight up ask for the link. If you do not have easy access to the geographical area, become a part of its community: sponsor events and work with the local news media.

Julie: It depends on where the target market is. If you’re a UK site but you do business all over, I’d not be as keen to suggest as high a percentage of .co.uk links as I would be if you only sold in the UK itself. I don’t pay as much attention to hosting location … Relevant language links are nice if you’re working in a foreign language. In terms of how to get them, I always go back to the emailed link request. People say it doesn’t work but it works for us (perhaps because we’re offering cash!) For something non-paid, I think there is a massive amount of ideas too numerous to name here, but content and social media would be driving forces there.

Ben: For international, I would say to offer something unique to that area/country and distribute it through well-connected experts in that country. For local? Get involved! There are so many local opportunities from local bloggers to volunteering to holding free local events. I can’t stress enough how much simply “showing up” can help with local link building. If you’re in it for the long haul, “show up” to something new once a week for 3 months. After that, you’ll know better than anyone consultant could tell you what opportunities are out there.

What is the biggest misconception in link building today?

Julie: I’m going to harp on paid links here but I do think it’s that all paid links are crap. Secondly, I’d say that it’s the idea that you can compete in an ultra-competitive niche without buying links. People say it’s possible but no one is willing to step up and point you to an actual example. I can’t really imagine telling a client like that to just write great content.

Brian: That spending time and resources on link building is not necessary or a priority. On the flip side, a great link profile will only get you so far if you have poor site structure. SEO is a hybrid of technical aptitude with a deep understanding of industry best practices and a creative mind for marketing and brand management.

What sites/blogs would you recommend for people looking to learn about link building?

• Linkspiel.com
• paulmadden.co.uk
• wiep.net
• Ontolo.com/blog (Garrett French)
• blog.conductor.com
• seomoz.org/blog
• Distilled.co.uk/blog/
• seoroundtable.com

What is the most creative link building tactic you’ve ever seen?

Ben: People might not like it when I say this, but I’d say that negative reviews for that glasses company that imploded late last year was pretty creative. In poor taste and unethical? Yep. Creative? Absolutely.

Julie: I’d have to say that Lyndon Antcliff’s fake news bait was amazing. Not only did he fool people, he divided people, and he got our attention. I like a nice prank anyway so I thought the whole thing was hysterical. The story is still up and look at the backlinks!

Brian: A competitor built a site that had free hit counters before this tactic became mainstream. The hit counter site was clean and actually looked fairly decent. In order to use their “free hit counters” you had to use their code and accept the marketing agreement.

What I particularly liked about this hit counter site was the fact that they ranked #1 in PPC for many niche keywords and often times they were the only result. They were effectively buying clicks for people to put the hit counters on their site. The real cash cow here was that the hit counters came with a link to their many properties in multiple ways. Some links had keyword rich anchor text, some links were exact URLs and others were brand names. There was also the existence of image links with great alt text and titles. These links were distributed across a wide population of unrelated pages and the tactic was fairly effective for a long period of time.

I loved this approach since they were effectively attracting amateur webmasters looking for a free basic analytics tool (tracking visits). While something like this wouldn’t work well today (not that people aren’t trying) the reason I loved this was that it embodied the creative nature of link building in a new and unique way.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

7 Mistakes that Lead to Guest Post Failure

image of train wreck

Guest posting! The highway to unbridled blogging success! Nab yourself a spot on an A-List blog and suddenly it’s your name in lights. Traffic, engagement, the undying adulation of the unwashed masses!

Sounds great, right?

Well, it is, actually.

But what about those of us who really crave a bit of failure? The ones who like to start every anecdote with “One time I almost” or “I was this close …”?

What does guest posting offer for us?

Well, fellow failure-chaser, you’re in luck. Because writing and submitting a guest post offers some real opportunities for spectacular failure.

So start taking notes, because you’re going to be able to tell your friends about the time you nearly wrote an amazing post for an A-Lister that almost took your own blog to a whole new level.

1. Be as timid as humanly possible

The first opportunity for failure is the pitch. Confidence carries the day when it comes to guest posting.

So if it’s failure you’re looking for, don’t show any confidence. Try not to sell your idea, and make sure you don’t actually write the post you’re proposing. Be hesitant, and make it apparent that you’re wasting your host’s time. With a bit of luck, they won’t you send so much as a read receipt.

2. Don’t startle the readers

Maybe the A-Lister you’ve just pathetically pitched has taken pity on you, and asked you to draft up your post.

What he’s looking for here is some competence. So make sure you don’t show any. Starting with a bang and grabbing attention leads to success, so don’t do it. Write cautiously and quietly, so as not to startle your audience into action.

3. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery — so shamelessly copy content

Your lukewarm opening should have dissuaded all but the most persistent of writers. So it’s going to take some real incompetence to screw this up now.

The quickest way is to do something that’s been done before. Retread old ground — but not in a new and interesting way. No, simply regurgitate your host’s best piece with some added spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.

Be very cautious with this, as covering old topics in a fresh way is actually a terrific way to write a popular guest post. Make sure not to add your own twist or fresh angle and you should be fine.

4. Shamelessly plug Unmemorable Title your own blog

It’s now time to look over the content you’ve just haphazardly thrown together.

To hit the dizzying lows of total failure, you need to employ an ancient SEO technique known as “spamming.” In other words, drop your link into the post so often that the page becomes nearly unreadable.

This is going to fail for two main reasons. One; it’s going to make your host even less likely to publish your piece. Two; it doesn’t work.

5. Make your ending as flat as possible

If you’ve done everything wrong up until now, you should be faced with a pathetic piece of trash, where every second word is a link to your blog.

Congratulations. You’re nearly done with the writing. All that’s left for you to do is cobble together an ending that peters out. And whatever you do, don’t forget to leave out effective closing techniques like a strong call to action.

6. Treat your host like you’re one of The Sex Pistols

The chances are that you’re going to have to interact with your host, as they attempt to polish the steaming post you’ve just deposited in their inbox. So now’s the time to channel some old-school punk.

Just like The Sex Pistols in their first TV interview, start swearing at your host, avoiding giving direct answers, and give the impression that the conversation is beneath you. With luck, this should be enough to make sure you don’t get published …

(If you want to really nail it, you could try throwing up on their desk. The blogging equivalent of this is publicly trash-talking bigger blogs. This works spectacularly well at ensuring you won’t get your guest posts published.)

7. Run like mad and don’t ever look back

If after all of this, by some horrible stroke of luck you do get published, there’s still one more opportunity for failure.

Demonstrate a complete lack of commitment to your guest post. Don’t reply to comments, don’t promote it on Twitter or Facebook, and certainly don’t write a post on your own blog to take advantage of the new traffic that your guest post provides.

And with that, you’ll have blown your big guest posting chance.

Complete and utter guaranteed failure as a guest poster in just seven short steps. Not for you, the benefits of seeing your name alongside the luminaries in your niche. No, because to do that, you’d need to be confident, competent, and committed.

Far easier to just take my advice and slip quietly into obscurity and mediocrity.

An Outsourcing Resource You Probably Never Heard About

Suppose I told you I had one guy willing to work full time for you, so 40 hours per week, and that he had a good knowledge about SEO, Internet marketing and web design. What kind of salary do you think you would need to pay him?

$1,000? $1,500?

What if told you the salary he was asking for was $300?

Sounds crazy, but it’s true. I am talking about hiring people from the Philippines. There are plenty of recent graduates there who want to work from home over the Internet, and $300 (converted to the local currency) is considered a decent monthly salary.

Another advantage is that most Filipinos speak English almost fluently, and they are quite savvy when it comes to the Internet and new technologies.

At this point you might be thinking: “OK, sounds intriguing, but where can I find those workers?”

That is the resource I mentioned in the title of this post. It’s a website called OnlineJobs.ph, where you can find hundreds of Filipinos looking for online work. You’ll even find the skills they have, the monthly salary they are asking and how many hours per week they are willing to work.

You can browse the marketplace without paying anything, but if you want to see the contact details (e.g., email address) of the workers you’ll need to pay $40 for one month of access.

Before you go ahead on a hiring spree, though, here is a remark: you’ll need to spend some time researching and testing the candidates.

I have had both good and bad experiences hiring people from that site in the past. Sometimes the person worked as promised and delivered good results, but there were other times when I swear the other person was working 5 instead of 40 hours per week, and I couldn’t do anything about it except terminate the deal after the first month was up.

Still, I think it’s a valid resource if you are looking to outsource some parts of your online business.

What about you guys, what resources or websites do you use to outsource or find remote workers/collaborators?

Monday, February 21, 2011

Introducing Marketing Pilgrim Channels: Sponsors Welcome!

We are excited to provide our Marketing Pilgrim readers and sponsors new opportunities.

For our readers we are going to create content channels that make stories about important subject areas easier to find. These channels will include: SEO (search engine optimization), paid search (PPC), social media, Google, Web Site Analytics, Social Media Analytics, Local Internet Marketing (SMB), Mobile and Internet Law. Of course, with a rapidly changing landscape like the Internet marketing world these could just be the start of the channels we start to track.

For our sponsors and advertisers this a great new opportunity to reach our audience of Internet marketing influencers and decision makers.

We are really excited about this new phase in Marketing Pilgrim’s evolution. If you would like to learn more about sponsor opportunities with Marketing Pilgrim Channels contact Frank Reed ( editor AT MarketingPilgrim dot com).

Channels will be coming online in the next few weeks. If you have any suggestions of what you would like to see let us know!

Friday, February 18, 2011

Which Blogs Should You Be Watching?

This guest post is by Kevin Sanders, of strongandfit.net.

What if I said you’re only as good as the blogs you follow? Maybe that’s not completely true for everyone, but I’m willing to bet all the A-listers have several blogs they check out every day.

I think there are basically two types of blogs you should follow.

Type 1: Blogging blogs

I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but I believe every blogger should keep an eye on several pro blogs in the field—whether they’re on making money or SEO tips, etc). Why? Here are three reasons:

1. Game-changer posts

Every once in a while, I’ll run across a post that radically impacts my blogging from that point forward. One example would be a post I read here that explained how to optimize the position of ads. Following that advice greatly improved the profits I made through both Adsense and affiliate banners. I don’t find these high-impact posts every day, but they easily make up for the effort I spend following the blogs I read.

2. Motivation

I wasn’t even sure you could make money with blogging when I first started. It’s hard to keep posting every day when you aren’t even sure there’s a possibility of financial reward for your efforts. Following the pro bloggers gave me the encouragement I needed to keep going, even when profits were slow (or non-existent). It also helped me to have realistic expectations and patience. Building a good blog takes work and determination; never underestimate the power of motivation.

3. SEO tips

I was completely clueless about SEO in my early blogging days. I still don’t consider myself an expert—not by a long shot. I also don’t obsess over SEO. Having said all this, I needed to learn how to work with search engines—best SEO practices, so to speak. I learned most of what I know from reading what other bloggers had to say.

I follow about 17 blogs through feeds on my Google page. Do I read every post on every blog? No. I just keep an eye on them and click any titles that get my attention. Also:

Don’t overanalyze them. At some point you just need to shut up and blog. Don’t try to follow every single bit of advice you read—some of it may not apply to you, your niche, or your blog. You’ll even run across contradictory advice if you follow the blogging niche long enough. Just use what helps you and disregard what doesn’t.
Don’t snub the B-listers. Keep an eye out for up-and-coming bloggers who may not be well known yet. Some of these guys really know their stuff and are more accessible than their A-list counterparts. Some of my favorite blogs, in fact, are not nearly as popular as Problogger.net. One example is SEO-Hacker, a blog created by one of my friends here in Asia.

Type 2: Niche blogs

I mentioned that I follow several pro blogs through RSS feeds. I also follow several blogs within the same niche as mine (fitness blogs). Following blogs in your niche, or related niches, can help you in several ways:

1. Potential income streams

Your fellow bloggers can help you keep an eye on new ways of making money. You may learn of a new product or service to promote by watching other blogs in your niche. Most of us try to keep track of these opportunities through affiliate newsletters, but other bloggers can help you find even more opportunities.

2. Trends within your niche

Blogs within your niche will alert you to “hot topics” in your industry or specialization. You may want to post your own two cents about those trends—there’s always a chance you’ll get ranked well in search engines on a topic that everyone’s talking about (and searching for).

This is especially helpful if you live outside the country that’s responsible for most of your traffic. I live in Asia, but most of my fitness blog’s traffic (and revenue) comes from North America. It’s very beneficial for me to follow bloggers back in the States.

3. Rebuttal posts

Following other bloggers is also an opportunity to be a voice of dissent. If you read a post you disagree with, you can give your own unique point of view on a particular topic within the niche. This would likely be a post you would have never thought of if you weren’t watching the blogosphere in your niche.

The bottom line: watching blogs within my own niche gives me lots of new ideas for producing fresh, relevant, high-quality content. I think it will do the same for you.

What should you keep in mind as you follow niche blogs?

Be yourself. Don’t just repeat what everyone else is saying. Always try to find a way to stand out from the crowd. Loyal readers want to hear what you have to say.
Do your homework. Hopefully you’ll inspiration from other blogs, but be sure to do your own research. You’ll need to go back to original sources and studies to check the accuracy of other bloggers. You’ll also need to carefully look at products you choose to endorse—what’s right for one blogger may not be right for you (even if you are in the same niche).

Are there other types of blogs that you consider essential reading? Share them in the comments.

Kevin is a missionary, author and fitness enthusiast. You can check out his fitness tips at strongandfit.net. You can read his devotional thoughts and personal reflections at KuyaKevin.com.

For Bloggers, Now May Be the Time to Start Tweeting

Connect Twitter Google To tweet or not to tweet has been a question bloggers have had to ask themselves pretty much since the dawn of Twitter.

The main question is whether or not the time, effort and energy spent on creating and nurturing a Twitter profile is justified by the benefit one gets out of it. It’s always been a tough question and one where the answer heavily depends on the blogger, their niche and their audience.

Howver, with an update to Google’s “Social Search” feature today, Twitter just received a potential boost in terms of its usefulness. Now Twitter can not only be a way to communicate with your friends, family and readers, but now it might also directly impact your site’s position in Google itself.

Perhaps most interesting of all though is that, at this time, Facebook “likes” are not having the same impact as Twitter, meaning that, for the moment at least, Twitter is the only social network that can directly affect your Google ranking, other than Google’s built-in network.

So, if you haven’t been using Twitter because you didn’t see the point, now there may be one to give you a reason to start.

How it Works

SEO experts have long speculated that tweets affect search engine ranking, something that was confirmed in December of last year, but the impact seemed to be of dubious value, making other factors more vital to focus on.

However, today’s changes to social search have the potential, especially for your followers and their connections, to greatly boost your presence.

The reason is that, for logged in users who have connected their Twitter or other accounts to their Google Account, relevant links that were tweeted by the people they follow will be sprinkled in with the regular results, often bringing sites to the front page that would not have been there otherwise.

This means that, if you blog about microphones and tweet out your links, any follower of yours who searches for information on mics will, very likely, see your page high up in the results with an icon indicating who it is from.

It is also likely, though not confirmed, that these results may also help your Google ranking in broader searches, especially if Google sees that your followers find what they are looking for at your links.

In short, Twitter could become something of a proving ground for new content, letting webmasters show Google that their content is right for the search results and that, in turn, could be a powerful shortcut or boost to Google success.

How to Take Advantage of It

The good news is that, to take advantage of it, you really don’t have to do much of anything. All that you have to do is have a Twitter account, work to grow your presence and tweet out your content.

However, if you want to see results from the people you follow in Google, you have to connect your Google Account to your Twitter account, instructions for which are in the original Google post on the upgrades.

Bear in mind that this is a new Google feature that is being rolled out over time and may not be available until next week, depending on when your account has it activated.

But how big will the impact of this new feature be? That remains to be seen but there are several reasons to be wary abou spending too much time investing in your Twitter presence because of it.

Reasons to be Wary

As great as getting an immediate Google boost for relevant searches sounds, it’s crucial to remember that it only applies for the people who have connected their Twitter (or other relevant account) to their Google account and are following you.

Most likely, even if you have a large number of Twitter followers, that’s going to be a fairly small pool of people. The odds of them searching for content relevant to your links are, in truth, fairly small.

Still, those who do perform such searchers, click your links and find useful may, in turn, give your site a boost across broader Google results. It is unclear if that will happen and the issue of how Google interprets user data into its rankings is hotly contested, but it still seems that getting clicks and lasting visitors from Google is better than being ignored or sending visitors right back to the results page.

In short though, the benefits will likely be limited to a very small subset of your Twitter followers but, it is at least conceivable that it could have an impact across the broader results because of it.

However, it’s still up to individual bloggers to decide if it is worth taking part in, meaning that we are more or less back where we started on the “to tweet or not to tweet” debate.

Bottom Line

Once again, it’s up to bloggers to decide, individually, if it is worthwhile to invest the time and energy in setting up and maintaining a Twitter account. All that has changed is that now there is a new SEO benefit to factor in, even if the announcement back in December probably has a larger in the long run.

What is clear is that the search engines are taking Tweets much more seriously and, if you’re a webmaster interesting in maximizing the SEO potential of their site, then having an active and prominent Twitter account just makes sense.

Still, it is a lot of time and effort and there are many other factors that may be more important. So the decision is up to you, but if you’ve been on the fence about the benefits of tweeting for your site, now may be the best time to start.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Free Top Ranking Keywords Report from SEO Link Wheelers

Over the past few months I’ve been getting back into the game I love, and that’s focusing on building web sites and killer content. As much as I love building web sites, it’s never fun to work on the backlinks and social bookmarks it takes to truly get a web site indexed and getting the search engines to love you. With that said, I’ve been looking at a lot of different solutions for link building and bookmarking management.

I remember when I first paid a few hundred dollars for a company to help with building links and getting my site ranked in the search engines. It was complete crap… I rarely ever hear from them and I don’t recall seeing any results. This was around seven years ago, but it’s just a reminder of how horrible the link building industry can be if you don’t know where to go. With so many to choose from, how are you supposed to know where to go? One of the most trusted solutions around is SEO Link Wheelers, and they are actually heavily promoted and used by ShoeMoney as well.

How SEO Link Wheelers does Link Building

There are many different methods for link building, such as article marketing, social bookmarks, backlinks, using anchor text and forum posting. Trading links with other web sites may seem like a good idea, but one way backlinks is where the link juice really flows. Everyone has a different concept on what works best, but SEO Link Wheelers takes a bit of everything and builds actual “link wheels” to increase backlinks to their customers web sites. In addition to backlinks being spread across article directories, blogs, and web 2.0 directories, SEO Link Builders also creates original content and YouTube videos to build quality backlinks.

SEO Link Wheelers gives you a 100% guarantee that any links they build for your web sites will be Dofollow, all content will be relevant, unique, and created 100% by hand. The video below was created by SEO Link Wheelers to give a better understanding on how their service works, and why it’s important to cover all link methods when building the right link wheel for your web site.

What are Your Target Keywords?

Before even jumping into the SEO and backlinking game, you need to take a look at what your web site is ranking for and how you can improve your results. Head over to SEO Link Wheelers and submit your url into the box on their main page. You will quickly see a report with three of your top ranking searching terms. If you want the full list, just click the “Full Report” link and confirm your email, then you will have free access to a report like the one below.

seo link wheelers

This report is an excellent summary of how your web site is listed and ranking in the search engines. You will see up to 100 keywords and rankings, along with the average CPC, traffic volume and the url of your site that is ranked for that search term. This report is completely free to access. You then have the option to choose a link wheel package to improve your rankings.

Building Your Backlinks and Putting It All Together

Taking everything we’ve covered, SEO Link Wheelers will build a link wheel and campaign just for your web site and the keywords you are looking to rank for. With three different packages available, you can choose from 37 links ($379), 74 links ($479) or 119 links ($664). When you first look at these prices, they may seem high to you, but that is because SEO Link Wheelers is actually building a link wheel with original content just for your web site and backlinks… these aren’t just links thrown around on Twitter, Facebook and dead forums. The value in these links is that they are spread across high content sites with pagerank and original YouTube video is also created. You can see a breakdown of what links are included in each package below.

At the very least, I highly recommend you head over to SEO Link Wheelers and grab your free report on what search terms are sending you traffic. If you decide to signup for a backlinks package, be sure to use coupon code “ZACJOHNSON” for 12% off your first order with SEO Link Wheelers.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Google’s JC Penney Move Like a Grain of Sand in the Desert

While the SEO and search engine world in general is all fired up about the New York Times’ piece on JC Penney’s search dalliances it’s probably important to recognize what Google’s actions in response to the situation were: PR.

Now, that the New York Times is the new Google police (that’s for another discussion but between this, the Decormyeyes and Foundem it’s starting to look like the Times wants to make some waves by rocking Google’s boat) maybe the best way to get something done at the search engine is through the Times. When asked about this phenomenon of Google acting only when prodded by a major media outlet, Marketing Pilgrim’s Andy Beal had this to say

Google’s now too large of a company to take action that may be to the detriment of its business, unless publicly embarrassed into doing so.

So is Google losing its shine a little bit? Is all of this talk about content farms and spam and the like taken its toll on the search leader? Since most people who are involved in this dust-up depend on the engine to make a living by selling products and services either through Google or related to it, probably not.

What people really want is less junk in search results. What has happened throughout this ‘event’ is that the true situation may have some to bear. If Google doesn’t have the wherewithal or the stones to find and punish big players like JC Penney who are gaming the search results unless they are essentially cornered, then what makes anyone think they have the chops or even the desire to track down the millions of smaller search gamers out there?

Google has taken to spin on this whole spam issue by crying that Bing is copying their results. That’s just a diversion. What is kind of funny, though, is that JC Penney’s site does rank 4th in organic for the keyword ‘dresses’ on Bing’s engine as of this writing.

Google now has painted itself into a bit of a corner and it will be interesting to see how it gets out. Because of its constant harping on content being so critical to ranking (which was just a diversion from the fact that the real rank influence comes from links) it has now created a monster. Content farms have found a way to look like they are playing by the rules but all they are doing is abusing them. Quality is hard to determine when the limits of what is acceptable to the engines has been discovered. What comes out of all of this is maybe just that we now know Google can’t tell the difference between quality and junk after all.

So back to JC Penney. It looks like they have taken the link-abusing path to success which many, many, many others have and still do. Meanwhile, the other way to search success is create craptent to fill in the gaps. That makes Google sound a lot less attractive than it has been in the past.

Now, will that change anything? Not likely but let’s hope that Google isn’t going to rest on these rotten laurels.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Google launches two-factor authentication

Google just launched two-factor authentication, and I believe everyone with a Google account should enable it.

Two-factor authentication (also known as 2-step verification) relies on something you know (like a password) and something you have (like a cell phone). Crackers have a harder time getting into your account, because even if they figure out your password, they still only have half of what they need. I wrote about two-factor authentication when Google rolled it out for Google Apps users back in September, and I’m a huge fan.

Account hijacking is no joke. Remember the Gawker password incident? If you used the same password on Gawker properties and Gmail, two-factor authentication would provide you with more protection. I’ve also had two relatives get their Gmail account hijacked when someone guessed their password. I’ve also seen plenty of incidents like this where two-factor authentication would have kept hackers out. If someone hacked your Gmail account, think of all the other passwords they could get access to, including your domain name or webhost accounts.

Is it a little bit of extra work? Yes. But two-step verification instantly provides you with a much higher level of protection. I use it on my personal Gmail account, and you should too. Please, protect yourself now and enable two-factor authentication.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Google 2000 vs. Google 2011

I sometimes hear people say “Remember when Google launched and the results were so good? Google didn’t have any spam back then. Man, I wish we could go back to those days.” I know where those people are coming from. I was in grad school in 1999, and I remember that Google’s quality blew me away after just a few searches.

But it’s a misconception that there was no spam on Google back then. Google in 2000 looked great in comparison with other engines at the time, but Google 2011 is much better than Google 2000. I know because back in October 2000 I sent 40,000+ queries to google.com and saved the results as a sort of search time capsule. Take a query like [buy domain name]. Google’s current search results aren’t perfect, but the page returns several good resources as well as some places to actually buy a domain name. Here’s what Google returned for that query in 2000:

Seven of the top 10 results all came from one domain, and the urls look a little… well, let’s say fishy. In 1999 and early 2000, search engines would often return 50 results from the same domain in the search results. One nice change that Google introduced in February 2000 was “host crowding,” which only showed two results from each hostname (here’s what a hostname is). Suddenly, Google’s search results were much cleaner and more diverse! It was a really nice win–we even got email fan letters. Unfortunately, just a few months later people were creating multiple subdomains to get around host crowding, as the results above show. Google later added more robust code to prevent that sort of subdomain abuse and to ensure better diversity. That’s why it’s pretty much a wash now when deciding whether to use subdomains vs. subdirectories.

Improving search quality is a process that never ends. I hope in another 10 years we look back and say “Wow, most queries were only a few words back then. And we had to type queries. How primitive!” Mostly I wanted to make the point that Google looked much cleaner compared to other search engines in 2000, but spam was absolutely an issue even back then. If someone harkens back to the golden, halcyon days when Google had no spam–take those memories with a grain of salt.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Want More Copywriting Clients? Here’s a Surprising Way to Find Them

image of postage stamp

As a freelance copywriter, I’ve put together a nice portfolio of major corporate clients, ranging from Bay State Gas to Pizzeria Uno. And I found most of them in a rather unusual way.

I didn’t use SEO or pay-per-click. I didn’t go to networking events and shake hands with half the Rotary Club. And I didn’t take out billboards by the highway that said AWESOME COPYWRITER FOR HIRE.

I got most of these lucrative gigs in a way that wouldn’t cross many people’s minds — a way that’s unconventional and highly effective.

I sent them a sales letter.

Not the kind that’s an HTML page, but a good, old-fashioned paper letter in an envelope with an honest-to-goodness stamp.

The same copywriting techniques you use for online pages can be moved to the physical mail world. (In fact, that’s where they came from in the first place). Direct mail can still be surprisingly effective, and it has a few real advantages.

Why prospect by direct mail in the internet age?

I conducted my first direct mail campaign in 1997 and got an amazing 11% response rate of prospects asking for my information kit. From that I landed several high-paying, long-term clients. After a hiatus to focus on magazine writing, I decided to get back into copywriting this year and garnered a good client base (and a lot of interested prospects for my pipeline) with my very first wave of direct mail.

Here are a few benefits of prospecting via mail as opposed to e-mail:

You stand out. When hordes of other freelance copywriters are shooting off e-mails (which are all too easy to delete), you stand out from the crowd by sending a nicely-presented mail package.
You can customize your mailing. With e-mail, you wouldn’t want to send an unasked-for attachment because you run the risk of being labeled as spam. So all the prospect gets is your bare-bones e-mail introduction, and you hope like crazy that she clicks on the link to your online portfolio. With a direct mail sales letter, you can include your business card, a reply card, a sample, a white paper — anything you want.
You don’t feel overwhelmed. E-mail can reach prospects all over the world and in all different industries — but just thinking about where to start can be overwhelming. When I tried prospecting via e-mail, my efforts were scattershot and mostly fruitless. Using snail mail forces you to focus on either a particular geographic area or a type of business. For example, with my first campaign I concentrated on businesses of a certain size in my home state of Massachusetts.
Prospects can keep your information on file. I recently got a $1,000 assignment from an exec who kept my information kit on file for over two years. It’s difficult for your potential clients to dig through (or even remember) old e-mails, and often a lot easier to pull a paper packet out of a file.

Want to try the low-tech way to land clients? Here’s where to start: the essential components of a simple direct mail campaign.

The letter

Multi-page sales letters typically pull in clients better than single-page ones, so my sales letter is two pages long.

It starts with a question that readers are sure to answer “Yes” to, tells the reader about the benefits my clients experience when they work for me, and makes the offer of a free information kit with my samples, client list, testimonials, and fee schedule.

Sound familiar? It should — the ingredients of this paper letter are the same ones you’d include in an effective landing page.

If you’re looking for the mechanics of writing a killer sales letter, you’ll find articles on persuasive copywriting every week here on Copyblogger. Even better, sign up for Copyblogger’s Internet Marketing for Smart People newsletter. It starts with a 20-part tutorial that includes lots of tips for writing killer sales copy.

The mailing list

For my first campaign, I went through a business directory at the library and entered likely prospects into a Filemaker file. I then called every one of those businesses to make sure the information was up to date. Only then did I compile my mailing. Time consuming, yes — but also effective.

For my second campaign (which started late last year), I bought a list of 900 marketing executives in my new home state of New Hampshire from Hoovers.com for around $225. (There are tons of list services out there, but most of the ones I found had a $500 minimum order.)

I stupidly had faith that a purchased list would be as accurate as the one I compiled myself — and received an e-mail from a prospect complaining that both his first and last names were spelled wrong. (Though, thankfully, he still did ask for my information kit.)

Now before I send a letter I always call the business to check all the key information, or I at least verify the information online. You’ll save yourself from making a poor first impression with someone who could turn out to be a great client.

The reply card

I include an old-fashioned reply card that the prospect can fill out and mail back. My mailing address is on one side, and there are blanks for the prospect’s name, phone number, e-mail address, and mailing address.

The prospect can choose to receive my information kit via snail mail or e-mail, schedule a phone call to discuss a project, or be removed from my mailing list. (By the way, to date, no one’s ever checked that last box.)

For my first campaign, there was the question of whether to include postage on the reply card. I did this for the first wave or two, but another, more experienced copywriter told me that something as small as a stamp is not a barrier for people who are genuinely interested in contacting you. In other words, if someone really wants to send the reply card back, they’re fine with sticking on a stamp. I stopped stamping the cards and my response rate didn’t budge.

The information kit

When someone requests your information, it’s really helpful if you have something to actually send them.

For my first campaign, my information kit was in hardcopy and I kept all the components — samples, testimonials, etc. — in folders, ready for me grab the components when needed and stick them in a large envelope.

Now, I also have each component in PDF format so I can send the kit via e-mail if that’s how the prospect chooses to receive it.

You can use any electronic resource you have available (your blog, some great web sites you’ve done copy for, or even a well-crafted Facebook page) to support your direct mail efforts. Just because you’re prospecting by direct mail doesn’t mean you have to stay there.

The cover letter

Along with my information kit I include a one-page cover letter that restates my experience and the benefits I offer, and invites the prospect to call me to discuss any projects she may have.

If I have a particular interest in this company, I can easily customize the cover letter to show that I’ve done my research and understand that company’s needs.

The follow-up

Over the last 13 years that I’ve been freelancing, I’ve learned the value of the follow-up e-mail or phone call.

Every few months, go through your database of all of the people who have asked for information from you — your prospects. Touch base with each one to let him know what you’re up to and to ask if there’s anything you can do for him.

I know this sounds like a lot of work, but once you have a system in place it becomes second nature.

Also, I prefer putting in some work up front and reaping real rewards, rather than taking the seemingly easier route of shooting off e-mails to untested addresses and not get any response for my time.

How about you? Have you ever tried a direct mail campaign to land clients? What did you learn? Would you do it again? Let us know about it in the comments.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Interview: Corey Bornmann

Corey Bornmann comes to Internet Marketing from a strong programming background. Born an Entrepreneur, he loves to watch anybody selling anything to anyone. Corey is the founder of AffPortal.com, an ever growing Internet Marketing toolkit that is born of tools he developed to build his own profitable campaigns. Corey also has a 1/2 stake in PPVPlaybook.com, an internet marketing forum that teaches PPV, PPC, SEO and general shop talk having to do with making money online.

Tell us a little background info about yourself. Where are you from? How old are you? How long have you been working in this industry?
I am originally from Doylestown Pa and now live in central Pennsylvania with my awesome wife and super good daughters. I just turned 40 years old this fall, gulp, and have been in Internet Marketing for over 4 years now.

What accomplishments so far are you the most proud of?
I am proud of three major accomplishments so far in marketing. 1. That I had made enough in affiliate commissions two years ago to allow my wife to quit her job and stay at home full time with our youngest daughter and run our home.

Second is that I kept working hard to build an income stream that allowed me to quit consulting and work from home full time.

Third is how AffPortal has grown to be a multi national presence in Internet Marketing with long term members from all over the world. When we combined with PPVPlaybook.com last year it completed us to be more than just tools but a killer community as well. I'm very proud to be part of the AffPortal.com / PPVPlaybook.com community.

How did you come to learn about this industry? Why did you choose this career? When did you first realize the full potential in affiliate marketing? When did you first “hit the big time?”
I first learned of making money online when I purchased a book at Borders about Adsense and started down that rabbit hole. Once I gained a little traction I found my account had been closed and I was back to square one. That was the best piece of bad news I had ever received.

It was then that I really dug in and discovered the old forum at Click Consultants. Ironically Jon, you were in the same group as I was if you remember.

I realized the potential in affiliate marketing when one of my first sites started to gain some traction in the email submit realm and dishing out free baby stuff. I hit my first $30 on Superbowl Sunday night and from then I knew I could scale this to MUCH larger heights.

It was that next monday that I wrote my first tool, a keyword permutator, to help build a massive list of city relative keywords. That was the beginning of AffPortal but I didn't know it at the time.

I had initially chosen Affiliate Marketing as a second income and eventually realized with enough work I could build this into a full time income.

I "hit the big time" with a killer funnel I built for the netflix offer using PPV as a paid traffic source. The income from that far surpassed what my wife was making and it allowed her to quit her job and come home for good.

What do you think it takes to be successful as an affiliate?
It takes a never say die attitude to become a successful affiliate along with realistic expectations. It's not easy, won't always work, will be challenging, will keep you from sleeping your full 8 hrs and will test your creativity. But most of all it takes a Village. Seriously, if you're an island in IM, you won't reach your potential because by talking things out with others in the industry you get insights and new ideas you may not have.

What have been your biggest failures and frustrations?
My biggest failures in IM has been that heart breaker of a niche, dating. I have promoted about every offer and only found one that made a profit for me. THEN, that one, mature dating, switched up their lander and never converted the same for me because I was direct linking and the automation on their new lander wouldn't get approved by my traffic source. Geeze that's a frustrating one. I'm gonna get that niche eventually though, you'll see…

What is the single toughest problem you've had to face, and how did you get through it?
The single toughest problem I had to face has been when I was working full time consulting and learning Internet Marketing in the evenings and super early mornings. Up at 4am for 3 hrs of IM work then off to work at 8. Pick up the kids, make dinner, wife comes home, have dinner with the family then down to my office from 7:30 PM until at least 12 midnight or later.

I averaged about 4 hours of sleep every week day for about 2 years and the only way I got through it was with the encouragement of my wife and friends online that were doing the same darn thing… clawing forward and burning the midnight oil.

Is there anything that you don’t like to do, that you just hate working on?
I'm not crazy about writing content. I don't like to write about things that don't interest me like recently, Wedding Favors. So I have a girl in the Philippines that I outsource content writing to. She has been with me full time for a month and it's working out better than I ever could have imagined. It was hard to find someone I trust and that could deliver content that I didn't need to edit but the search was worth it.

What is the future of marketing?
Internet marketing is never going away. It grows every year and I'm looking forward to the day that we can build campaigns for automobiles. Now that would be a fattie commission.

If it’s possible for you to share, are there any particular niches that you currently favor? Or that you aren’t necessarily in right now but that you would recommend?
I favor niches that I see that are popular around me. I watch what my kids like, what my neighbors and friends are up to and what I see on TV. This Christmas I got into promoting popular stuffed toys because my daughters like them and there was a good search volume online for this particular toy.

I really recommend evergreen niches and to stay away from fad products if you are looking for sustainability. If you can bring traffic fast and furious for any keywords, then get into fad products but I like long term assets b/c we spend quit a bit of time on our campaigns here.

What niche has worked best for you?
My favorite niche to date has been Netflix. The checks coming in from that campaign and the dollars being spent on PPV traffic was big. I have yet to find one like that again.

Which methods of promotion do you favor?
I like a healthy balance of diversification. For affiliate products currently I am splitting my time 50/50 between SEO niche blogs and PPV traffic. However my partner and I are developing our own front end adware and private PPV network using a very interesting open source (not free) script that we are helping to expand on.

How have you made those promotion methods successful?
SEO is new to me and I love a challenge so have tried just about everything out there and let me tell you there's a lot of crap advice and techniques. So with SEO I have a back to basics approach of solid upfront research and strive for exact match domains (but not always possible). I rely HEAVILY on my google suggested keywords scraper inside of AffPortal to find kw phrases that translate into available domains in the .com, .org and .net range.

Next with SEO is consistant content creation and for back linking I employ a strategy that we discuss in length inside of PPVPlaybook lead by a long time SEO expert that goes by DanTheMan.

What have you been up to recently? What projects are you working on?
It's no secret that I love making and selling things online to anyone and I also use PLR a lot of the time as a foundation for those products. So what I'm doing is building a searchable PLR library of all my PLR material at www.PrivateLabelRights.cc. I'm still adding content every day and it's open for foundation members for less than $10/month but it's a ways from where it will be. This is a long term project.

The key with PLR is to group several products together so you can pick and choose pieces of each to use, rewrite and combine together to make your own product or content. This site, with it's searchability will allow that once the products are all loaded.

What problems have you had with those new projects?
It takes FOREVER to go through mountains of PLR material and sort the crap from the good stuff that's going into my library. Setting up the membership system, DAP, is a little tricky too to make sure the content is locked down enough but still shows enough to get indexed well.

Also I put this on a .cc domain really as a test to see if I could get substantial rankings over time using a .cc domain. So far we have luke warm results but it's still a new site.

Do you think anything particular in your past prepared you for this industry? Your education? Jobs you’ve held before?
I know being a programmer has helped me BIG time to prepare me for this career choice. Not only for myself but for my partnership with David Ford at PPVPlaybook.com as well. We compliment each other like yin and yang. I'm a stronger tech guy and he's a stronger marketer and together we are a solid one, two punch.

What are your greatest strengths?
I am not afraid to fail. This enables me to try things that some people may not try for fear they will fail. I am also naturally technical minded so the more technical aspects of this industry do not intimidate me. I see a lot of opportunity in the tech aspects of IM.

What are your greatest weaknesses?
I have general anxiety disorder so sometimes even though things are solid business wise, I find myself worrying about the future and if this or that falls apart, what will I do. This is where I try to rely on my faith.

What motivates you?
I am naturally an entrepreneur from a very early age. I used to dig through dumpsters to gather out wine bottles that my brother and mom and I would decorate and sell back to the residents at our complex when I was in 3rd grade. I made candles to sell every Christmas and I LOVE infomercials.

On top of that, my family motivates me. I want my wife to be able to spend her days with our youngest while she is still young.

What is the best advice you’ve been given and try to apply to your life?
"Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle"…. yea Ryan!

Who has impacted you most in your career, and how?
My partner David Ford. He's always there to bounce ideas off of and is not afraid to tell me if an idea is good or bad. He's also not afraid to tell me when I spout off a little too hard in our forum. We're in the same phase of life, live on different ends of North America, partners to the end and have yet to shake hands in person.

What kinds of people do you have difficulties working with? Any good stories?
I can work with pretty much anybody that is genuine. I have worked with a few guru's and some are impressive and I consider friends, and some others, well… they are matchstick men.

What are some of your long-term goals? How much is enough? If money was no object, what would you be doing?
My long term goals include a solid portfolio of aged niche blogs selling physical products on auto pilot using only SEO traffic that provides for all my family expenses.

I want to write a SEO Scheduler program to track an SEO project from conception to managed maintenance and all points in between.

I am building a private PPV network for myself and my partner to test out which could develop into a much larger network for PPVPlaybook down the line.

If money were no object I'd be making niche blogs and snowboarding to keep in shape at least 3 times a week.

Where do you want to be ten years from now?
I would like to be back to working 40 hours a week and get in some of those snowboarding days back into my life. Living possibly in Sedona AZ with a large portfolio of my own products and seo niche blogs.

How do you like to spend your free time? What doe work-life balance mean to you?
Now my free time goes to my family. My daughter Araella is 13 now and I am trying to steer her into her teen years as smoothly as possible. My youngest Greta is 5 and I'm savoring every little girl thing she does while I'm still bigger than life in her eyes. Finally I'm working on building a strong marriage stronger with my lifelong love Carrie.

If you could go back to being 18, what different career choices would you make?
I would pursue programming and wait around for the internet to be unleashed from Arpanet.

What is your greatest achievement outside of work? What are some of your unfulfilled dreams?
My greatest achievement outside of work was probably being an all conference center in college playing football for Shippensburg University in PA.

I have an unfulfilled dream of cruising on a power boat for a year all over North America.

What is your favorite quote?
"Look beyond the Battle"

Do you have a Twitter account or Facebook “Like” page?
I can be reached at AffPortal.com, affportal@gmail.com and on skype at "affportal"

When the Game Changes, Change With It

My thoughts on this week’s debate

Earlier this week I was on a search panel with Harry Shum of Bing and Rich Skrenta of Blekko (and moderated by Vivek Wadhwa) and the video now live. It’s forty minutes long, but it covers a lot of ground:

One big point of discussion is whether Bing copies Google’s search results. I’m going to try to address this earnestly; if snarky is what you want, Stephen Colbert will oblige you.

First off, let me say that I respect all the people at Bing. From engineers to evangelists, everyone that I’ve met from Microsoft has been thoughtful and sincere, and I truly believe they want to make a great search engine too. I know that they work really hard, and the last thing I would want to do is imply that Bing is purely piggybacking Google. I don’t believe that.

That said, I didn’t expect that Microsoft would deny the claims so strongly. Yusuf Mehdi’s post says “We do not copy results from any of our competitors. Period. Full stop.”

Given the strength of the “We do not copy Google’s results” statements, I think it’s fair to line up screenshots of the results on Google that later showed up on Bing: