Can I Make Big Money Online » Link Building

Dominate the Search Engines with these 5 Link Building Services

Trent Brownrigg — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 01:37:41 +0000

Getting your website ranked highly on the major search engines for your keyword phrases is one of the best ways to bring in targeted visitors and make money from it. So how do you get those high rankings? One of the most important parts of getting them is through building keyword anchored backlinks to your site.

There are many different ways to build links but one of the most popular is by using services that help you do it. They come in various forms but typically what they do is distribute content (articles) that you write to numerous directories, blogs, web 2.0 properties, and other websites. They can work really well as a part of your overall backlinking strategy.

Here are 5 of the most popular of these link building services for you to consider:

1) Free Traffic System – I put this one first because it is completely free, easy to use, and works surprisingly well. It’s certainly not the best service of its kind but it does work, and you can’t beat the price. It’s definitely worth trying out.

2) Unique Article Wizard – This is one of the most well-known of all the link building (article marketing) services. It is also widely regarded as one of the best. You get a lot of link volume with UAW so you need to be careful not to overdo it.

3) Linxboss – It takes the least amount of work out of all the services on this list. You don’t have to write or spin any articles like you do with the others. All you do is plug in your link information and the system takes care of the rest. It’s relatively expensive and you don’t get a ton of links, but it can be very useful and you don’t have to spend any extra time writing.

4) Backlink Solutions – Here is one that’s balanced between the others as far as price, effort, and usefulness are concerned. They were one of the first link building services of this type and they’ve had their ups and downs, but have remained a solid choice. However, they aren’t accepting new members right now, so you have to join their waiting list if you want to use them in the future.

5) Linkvana – This one probably requires the most time/effort and it’s the most expensive, but it can work really well. They used to be THE place to go for this type of link building service but many others have caught up and even surpassed them. It’s still one of the best but not nearly as highly recommended as it once was.

Using any or all of these services should help your search engines rankings if you use them wisely and correctly. Don’t go blasting a million links to a new site from every service you can find. Doing things like that can often times do more harm than good.

I should also point out that you don’t necessarily need to use any type of service to help you build backlinks and you shouldn’t rely solely on them if you do use them. You can do it all yourself without spending any money and you should spread your links out among many different strategies. There are plenty of free ways to do it. However, using a service on the list above can certainly help quite a bit and make things a lot easier on you.

Alright, that’s it. Get going on your link building in one way or another right now. Your website traffic stats and bank account will thank you!

Main Street Marketing Machines Review

George Manty — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:24:37 +0000

Jill here. Obviously, George and I haven’t had time to review the entire Main Street Marketing Machines program yet because it’s HUGE! But we got an email that they’re closing the doors Friday at midnight (Pacific), so we wanted to update you on what we’ve looked at so far so that you can make a decision if you’re on the fence. Look, I like to procrastinate as much as the next person, but do not wait until the last minute if you really want to get in on this and don’t want to wait months and months until it opens again. You’ll kick yourself if you forget and don’t get signed up.

This is what we’ve discovered so far. No offense to Local Business Money Machine, which has been a complete blessing this past year and really helped us get off the ground and headed in the right direction, but this is a MUCH better program. Of course, it’s about three times as expensive, so that’s something you’ll need to take into consideration. But, especially if you’re a “newbie”, this program breaks everything down into very manageable chunks. And the videos are incredibly professional (what else would you expect from the guys at Traffic Geyser) and even entertaining.

In fact, this program is broken down so well, that I am going to try my hand at some of the technical parts of it. I’m going to create a landing page myself and see whether someone who’s technically capable but completely unpracticed can do this. I won’t get it done in time to tell you the results before the program closes, but the fact that I’m willing to even TRY is a testimony to this program. Keep in mind that when I graduated from high school, I asked that my parents give me a typewriter instead of a computer, and I usually tell people that “I eat breakfast and talk to people, and George does all the work.” Perhaps I’ll no longer be able to say that

What else have we discovered? We would have paid as much for the level of Traffic Geyser membership included as we paid for the entire Main Street Marketing program. So, even if you’re thinking about trying out Traffic Geyser, go this route instead. You’ll get not only the great video marketing training that Traffic Geyser includes but marketing materials for your new business; over 40 hours of video training by everyone from Mainstreet Marketing success stories (they really do tell you EXACTLY what they did to be successful, even role playing some of the client approach strategies they use) to Bill Glazer; planners; free report templates; fill in the blanks autoresponders… I really could go on and on.

Is this program for everyone? I would still say “no”. There are plenty of people who won’t implement the steps and won’t follow the program. If this is you (you know who you are), don’t buy this program. If you don’t like interacting with people, and you’re not willing to take on a partner who can handle the client interactions, this probably isn’t the program for you. I think, however, that it is appropriate for people with varying skill levels when it comes to internet marketing. You do need some degree of comfort with technology, in general. But if you’ve ever blogged at all or are comfortable with Facebook, then you should do fine.

Like Local Business Money machine, you’ll need some time to set aside for this. The Traffic Geyser trainings are pretty quick and easy. There are eight lessons in the Express Lane training. The longest lesson I’ve seen so far is about 15 minutes. Then there are assignments that go along with those, which I think will take a minimum of 30 minutes to a couple of hours. So, you’ll need around 15-20 hours, probably to get through those trainings. And then, of course, you’ll need to go through the Main Street Marketing steps. Plus, making the pages and acquiring your clients. In other words, don’t think you’re going to buy this and five minutes later start depositing checks in your bank account. But, really, if any of you HAVE discovered a system that works that way, you should contact George about writing for this blog because clearly you’ve found a way to make money grown on trees and a quick way to harvest it.

I do think that you should be able to get through enough training and start implementing the program and figure out whether it works within your 30 day trial. That is, of course, if you don’t wait until day 25 to get started. And that’s my recommendation to you. If you’re interested, buy the program. Work the program for the next 30 days (no excuses— just get busy). If you realize it’s not for you, there’s no way you’re going to do it, you haven’t even opened the files— for crying out loud, return the program! It’s risk free if you’ll just take that step if you aren’t using it.

So, in summary, are we abandoning Local Business Money Machine and switching to Main Street Marketing? No. We’ll do a hybrid of the two for our business model because we’re already making money with Local Business Money Machine. There is a lot of overlap in these two programs, as they both target Local Search marketing opportunities. However, there are some areas that are mentioned in less detail in Local Business Money Machine that we haven’t really pursued as much as we could have (including doing more direct marketing and, of course, video marketing). These are the areas where we’ll be using Main Street Marketing Machines. Do I think you can use Main Street Marketing Machines without Local Business Money Machine? Absolutely!! It’s a completely different model and will stand on it’s own with no problem.

So, take some time to think about it. Write down the pros and cons, where you want to be a year from now and whether your current path is going to get you there. Then, if you think this is a good match for you, buy it! I think you’ll be glad you did.

P.S. Oh, and if you have any questions about the program that you’d like answered before tomorrow, let us know. We’ll be checking comments for the next couple of days pretty regularly so that we can answer anything that will help you make a decision.

PPS. To get our Main Street Marketing Machines Bonus, please remember to use our affiliate link by clicking here. Then send an email to info @ mantywebdesigns .com with a copy of your receipt. Once we have verified that you purchased through our link we will contact you to set up a one hour phone consultation with us to answer any of your questions after you have used the program for at least 30 days. Also, we will follow that call up with an email to check on your progress.

Please, let us know if you have any questions about our Main Street Marketing Machines review.

Blogs and the Humble Trackback

Ryan Ambrose — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:00:21 +0000

Blogs have a few interesting ways to build links that other types of sites do not. As well as being ranking magnets if you take the time to update them regularly, you can ping them, and get on the blogrolls of other blogs. But one of the easiest ways is the trackback.

A trackback is a notification sent to a blog when one of your posts links to it. In the latest WordPress versions, a single checkbox selection will automatically send a trackback to any blog to which you linked. These are very useful, and don’t cost you anything more than the willingness to show some link love to your fellow bloggers before you receive it.

Trackbacks appear in one of several forms on the linked blogs:

Some blogs, like mine, have a separate trackback section before their comments. This puts your trackback ahead of the comments, making a link to your site more visible. If that blog happens to garner a lot of traffic, you could be looking at a piece of it. These types of separated trackback sections also attract link love, and I recommend you organize them on your blog this way.

Other blogs post your trackback as a normal comment. It will appear as an excerpt of what you wrote, usually preceded and followed by an ellipsis (“...”). It appears in first come, first served order with the rest of the comments on that blog.

It doesn’t appear, but the link garners the owner’s attention. A link will be noticed by anyone who takes any kind of care at all of their blog. That means you might just wind up on the blogroll.

Now, traffic from trackbacks isn’t automatic. Real people have to click through, which means you’ll have to get their attention with something interesting. Since most of what you leave is a title and blog name, be sure to give the post that’s linking to another site a title that will pull people in. Plus, try to send trackbacks to blogs with similar topics of discussion as yours, and the people will be pre-qualified for your content.

If you need links and traffic to your blog, add the trackback to your arsenal of techniques. It’s easy to do, helps build blogging relationships, and can accelerate the process of getting your blog off the ground.

Seriously, how do you make a beautiful, sellable ebook? Find your answers today with The Ebook Walkthrough!

My name is Ryan Ambrose, and I’m one of the co-authors of Can I Make Big Money Online.

Get Keyword Anchored Backlinks to Make Money Online

Trent Brownrigg — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 04:55:19 +0000

The best way to consistently make money online is to get to the top of the search engine results (mainly Google) for the top keywords related to your website. And the best way to get to the top of the search engine results is by having a lot of keyword anchored backlinks pointing to your website.

This has always been the case but most people have forgotten this simple fact because they are too busy trying to get traffic from social networking sites. The problem is that the traffic you get from social sites is either completely worthless or very close to it. How much money have you actually made from traffic as a result of social site? I bet it’s very little! Now compare that to the people who own the sites in your niche at the top of the search engine results who are making a ton of money every day.

Let me ask you this question…

Would you rather work your butt off every day trying to get a bunch of traffic from social sites and make a little bit of money from it, or work your butt off for a few months to get high search engine rankings then sit back while you make a lot of money every day?

I will assume you picked the latter unless you enjoy working 24 hours a day!

Let’s say your website (or blog) is about making money online. You will want to be ranked on the first page of Google for several keyword phrases related to your niche. For this example some of the main ones would be:

- Make Money Online
– How to Make Money Online
– Ways to Make Money Online
– Making Money Online
– Make Money Online Free

You can use the free Google keyword tool to find as many as you want.

Now, that isn’t exactly the best example because it’s very difficult to get to the top of the search engine results for make money online related keywords. However, it’s not so hard in smaller and less competitive niches. I just chose MMO because it’s an easy one to use as an example.

How do you get those rankings?

You get them by having a lot of keyword anchored backlinks!

A keyword anchored backlink is a link pointing to your website with your main money making keywords as the text of the link. A good one would be from a high quality, high ranking, high page rank website related to your site, but almost any keyword anchored backlink is better than none.

You can get these links a lot of different ways… link exchanges, guest blogging, forum signatures, directories, article marketing, do follow blog comments, some social bookmarking sites, testimonials, contests, and several other ways.

I won’t go in-depth about any of these link building methods because there is plenty of information out there about them already and this post will be way too long if I explain them all.

Honestly making money online is not very complicated. All you have to do is rank at top of Google for as many keywords as you can, add ways to make money to your site, and watch the money roll in. It takes hard work to get there but it’s definitely not complicated.

So, make this the year you really break out and start making the kind of money you always dreamed of. Get started on gaining backlinks right now so you can dominate the search engines!

Dedicated to your success, Trent Brownrigg

Owner of a highly successful internet marketing business and a popular online home business blog.

10 Things I Hate About Link Trading

Ryan Ambrose — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:02:25 +0000

You’ve heard great things about link trading, right? Well, I have too, and I’m sick of it.

When I first started building sites, I thought it was what I needed to do. A lot of hours and much frustration later, I accomplished next to nothing. Not only that, but I learned there were better ways to get back links, and realized just how much time I had wasted. For those of you that aren’t yet as convinced about this as I am, I present to you the 10 things I hate about link trading.

1.) I spent lots of time for little gain. Yes, they put my link on their related link pages, and I put their link on mine. Of course, that was when they bothered to respond, or actually knew how to alter the HTML of their own sites to do that. Some just didn’t care if they ever posted my link, and after a lot of wasted correspondence to them, I wound up taking theirs down. This is not my idea of time well spent.

2.) Link trading services aren’t much better. Yes, you can put your link in a marketplace and have people look you up, but the end results are still the same. Plus, the service sends you email asking you to upgrade to the paid service, which will cost you money to do more of the nearly nothing link trading accomplishes.

3.) I didn’t get jack for traffic. Oh, there were a few exceptions, but for the most part, no traffic. Seriously, when was the last time you went to a web site and thought “Oh, the first thing I’m going to hit is the related links page?” Neither does anyone else.

4.) Related links pages don’t have the same page ranks as the home page. I don’t know any exceptions to this rule. Don’t even take the time to believe that your link is going on the home page. Unless you can make a blogroll, that’s probably not going to happen.

5.) You don’t know if you’re going to be cheated or not. Yes, your link page could be nice, well organized, and short enough so that it’s not mistaken for a link farm by a search engine. Do you know your trading partner will have the same? Do you know they’ll even have a clue?

6.) Two-way link trades are discounted in the search engines. Nowadays, search engines aren’t giving as much weight to them as they once did. They even have services that do three-way link trades now to get around that. Still, how long do you think it’ll take some engineer at Google to crack three-way link trading and get their happy little spiders to discount them too? It’s going to happen sooner or later.

7.) One way links are better, and you know the sad thing about them? They’re easier to get. You just trade some content for them with a little tried-and-true tactic called article marketing. You do less work for more gain, because once you’ve taken the time to create a good article and post it to some free article sites, it’ll spread on its own over time.

8.) There’s way too much effort being put into this now-worthless tactic. There are two-way link trading automation scripts. There are two-way link trading services. There are scripts to insure that if someone trades a link with you, they don’t cheat you. And they’re all a waste, because two-way link trading is miserable.

9.) There are ways to make your links go viral that take less time and effort. You can put them into YouTube videos. You can write viral reports around them. You can create cool content, put it on your web page, and have it bookmarked into a site like Digg. If you do a good job, any of it could go viral. If that happens, tons of people will see your link, and you won’t have to spend any time wondering why no web masters ever answer your emails. Ever do that with a two-way link trade? Not a chance.

10.) You might get so frustrated by the futility and low payoff of two-way link trading that you’ll write a rant about the 10 things you hate about it. You’ll really know you’re in trouble then.

As far as I’m concerned, two-way link trading is a waste of your time. There are better ways you can do more and get you better links for less time and trouble. Those tactics are all I ever use anymore, and I get more traffic now than I ever did tormenting myself with link trades.

You don’t have to muddle through your web site knowledge like I did. Discover the basics of web hosting and choosing a good domain name with my free mini-report series, Web Hosting and Domain Names 101 today.

I’m Ryan Ambrose, and I’m one of the authors for Can I Make Big Money Online.

Link Bait Example – Super Obama World

George Manty — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:30:41 +0000

I am starting a new ongoing feature on this blog called “Link bait Examples”. This is the first post in this ongoing series. Whenever I find something on the web that is an excellent example of link bait, I will write a post about it.

The other day I found a great example of link bait when I came across the site Super Obama World. Super Obama World is an online video game take off on Super Mario World that pits President elect Barak Obama against lobbyist, pork, etc. You get 50 lives and when you get to your last life it never ends. So essentially you can’t lose It’s a pretty cute game (my kids like it a lot) and it is a great example of link bait. Here’s why:

It Focuses On A Popular Topic (Barak Obama)
The game was launched during the election and let all of Barak Obama’s rabid fans have something they could send to each other for fun.

It Is Unique
There aren’t many video games made for Presidential candidates. Especially not professional quality video games that are as well made as Super Obama World.

It is Fun
Super Obama World is a fun game. Anything that is fun (NOT BORING) is much more likely to get natural links to it.

Super Obama World was such good link bait that major news sites (including Yahoo) linked to it.
This game is used by an online video game company to draw people to their game site. It’s a great way to do this and thus serves as a great example of link bait. This game could also have worked as great link bait for a liberal/democrat leaning political blog.

Free Traffic Secrets 2.0 Videos Are Very Cool

George Manty — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 19:06:19 +0000

One of my favorite Internet Marketing gurus, John Reese, has just released two free traffic secrets videos. I already use most of the techniques that John reveals in the videos, so I know they work.

Even if you aren’t interested in learning ways to increase your website traffic I still recommend that you check out the videos, because they raise the bar on what can be done with video.

Click here to see for yourself.

What Links Can You Point at Your Web Site?

Ryan Ambrose — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:34:33 +0000

I mentioned this before, but I’ll remind you of it again. I don’t link trade to get backlinks. Yes, every so often, someone asks to link trade with me, and I put them in my blogroll. But as a matter of course, I don’t actively pursue it. It’s too much work for a type of link search engines don’t respect all that much anymore.

However, I still have to have a linking theory, and it’s not magic or wishful thinking. It’s just that I trade something besides a reciprocal link to get a link pointed at my site. This sort of arrangement holds the potential of giving me more high-quality or targeted backlinks with less work.

So then, what links can you point at your web site that doesn’t require a link trade to get? Here’s a list of the common, and not quite so obvious, things you could do.

Articles: Put a resource box at the bottom of a good article, then let anyone use it. This is a long-standing ‘trade content for backlinks’ tactic.

Viral Reports: I’ve written, and put up for distribution, three viral reports as of this posting with links pointing at all sorts of things that are useful to me. Others can take those reports, rebrand them with their affiliate links, then use them as bonuses for their own purposes. In the process, they use their distribution power to put my links in front of people I might not otherwise reach. This is the larger-scale version of the article marketing theory, and another thing that’s been in use for some time.

Videos: Ever heard of YouTube? Know what happens if you produce a video and it goes viral? Any link you happen to display in that video could be seen by millions. Video marketing is becoming a trend in Internet marketing lately, and if you know how to make videos, it’s time to looked into making one that can work for you.

WordPress Templates: Ever programmed one of these from scratch? You could make one for anyone’s use, and include your link in the footer.

Put them in your products: If you sell something to someone, why stop there? If that product is related to some other site you have, why not mention it? Information products are especially useful in this regard, and can include links pointed at affiliate programs or your other sites.

Offline methods: Put your site names on business cards, letterhead, and other offline products if you have offline businesses. If you’re printing them anyway, put that expense to more use by promoting your sites too.

Do you have your own favorite backlinking method? Feel free to comment.

Seriously, how do you make a beautiful, sellable ebook? Find your answers today with The Ebook Walkthrough!

My name is Ryan Ambrose, and I’m one of the co-authors of Can I Make Big Money Online.

Type Your Way to Worthwhile Backlinks

Ryan Ambrose — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:38:11 +0000

The SEO strategy I intend to use with my new sales letter page is noteworthy in one big way. I have no intention whatsoever to engage in any link trading to build my link popularity. There are no reciprocal linking pages, and I’m not sending out requests every day to other web masters. Frankly, it’s just too much effort for me.

I don’t miss it. I did link trading through an automatic service on my last sites, and it didn’t amount to much of anything. The search engines don’t give reciprocal links all that much weight anymore, and no traffic ever came from more than one or two of them anyway. So the results really weren’t worth the trouble.

This isn’t to say you shouldn’t build links, because I have every intention of doing so, just like you. You still need them just as much today as you ever did. But what you need are one-way links that don’t require you to reciprocate, and are thus worth more in the eyes of a search engine.

If you want these kinds of links, and you do, you’ll have to find something else to trade for them. With affiliate programs, for example, you trade commissions for someone putting a one-way link to your site in front of interested people. But a classical, inexpensive, and worthwhile tactic is to trade content for them.

This is called article marketing, and it’s been around for a while. Blogs, ezines, and web sites are always looking for content, and you could provide it for them. You write an article in your niche, polish it until it’s desirable for someone else to publish, then put it on a free article site or pay an article announcer to mass broadcast it. Your payment is called a resource box, which is a short blurb about you, a one-way link to your site, and a reason why someone might want to visit it.

This will give you those highly desirable one-way links you want. Plus, articles do all sorts of other things on top of that.

When you write an article relevant to the topic of your site, it helps pre-qualify the traffic going to your site, giving you far more targeted traffic. That helps the bottom line of getting someone to your site, such as conversions, sign-ups, additional RSS syndication, or whatever your desired result happens to be.

Demonstrating your aptitude by giving away small but useful bits of information in an article helps increase your credibility in your niche.

Articles and their attached links are viral. The same article could be posted on a growing number sites or blogs over time, increasing your link popularity without any effort on your part across months or even years.

If your article is used in an ezine publication, you could see a traffic spike.

For some added incentive to get people to use them, you can put an article or two in your affiliate areas and tell your affiliates they can rebrand the resource boxes with their affiliate links. This is the small-scale version of the viral, rebrandable report theory.

I highly recommend article marketing to anyone who wants to create one-way links, link popularity, and the occasional traffic spike to their web sites. Once you get good at it, you can simply type your way to worthwhile backlinks. It’s a far better method than wasting effort on near-useless reciprocal link trades, or spending money buying traffic from paid sources.

Seriously, how do you make a beautiful, sellable ebook? Find your answers today with The Ebook Walkthrough!

My name is Ryan Ambrose, and I’m one of the co-authors of Can I Make Big Money Online.

How Not To Ask For A Link Exchange

George Manty — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:47:13 +0000

Last week I got what I considered to be a hilarious request for a blogroll link exchange. In case you want to know how NOT to ask me for a link exchange, here is the email I was sent the other day (name of said person and sites have been removed):

Hi {find name of blogger and put here},

I am writing on behalf of the blog team at xxxxxxx, which runs the popular xxxxxxx Marketing blog.

We are hand picking a few really great blogs to add to our blog roll. If you’re interested in having your blog recommended on xxxxxx blog, please consider adding our blog to yours.

The name of our blog is xxxxxxxx.

Thanks!

I often get requests for links that I think are form letters. However, in this case it was an obvious form letter. I was laughing out loud when I read the line:

“We are hand picking a few really great blogs”

Really??? Hand picking???

If you ever handpick a blog to exchange links with, don’t start your email with:

Hi {find name of blogger and put here},

It kind of gives the impression that you weren’t exactly handpicking my blog.

P.S. My name is George.

SEO Training Program From Aaron Wall

George Manty — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 15:22:57 +0000

I have been ill all week with the creeping crud, but one thing I did want to mention before the weekend is that Aaron Wall of the SEO Book has changed his business model and is now selling a monthly membership for access to his SEO knowledge.

I was half way through writing a review of the SEO Book when Aaron sent the notice about this change. Given how good Aaron’s book is, I am sure that membership in The SEO Book Training Program will be well worthwhile. I plan on signing up for it and doing a review of it sometime in the next few months. In the meantime, you can click here to go check out The SEO Book Training Program for yourself.

Am I A Sheep In The Googlesphere?

George Manty — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 17:42:35 +0000

There were some rather interesting posts and developments this week. Most of them were about Google. So instead of my normal “Internet marketing tips from the web” post, this post should be titled “Internet marketing tips from the Googlesphere”.

Hmmm… Did I just create a new term?

I will have to go “Yahoo” it… back in a sec.

Nope, Yahoo shows 999 results for Googlesphere, rats!

Anyway, the biggest news of the week across the blogosphere was that Google is lowering the pagerank of sites that sell text link advertising. I don’t know if this includes buying and selling banner links or not, but it should since banner ads normally don’t use the no-follow tag.

I think that those who made this decision at Google don’t understand how powerful the blogosphere really is, or they expect most bloggers to act like sheep and fully support Google.

Here are some of the many posts I have read this week about paid links causing websites to lose Google page rank:

Official: Selling Paid Links Can Hurt Your PageRank Or Rankings On Google (I read it here first)

Part Three – NoFollow is for Blog Spam…no Paid Text Links, wait…Paid Ads…Aww Heck, Just Stop Linking and Let Calacanis Decide the Rankings

Penalty Confirmed – But I Don’t Sell PageRank

Dancing With The Gevil – Defamed By Google?

Garry Conn and Google

How to Profit from Google’s War on Paid Links

Last, but not least, Aaron Wall pretty much takes the words out of my mouth on this topic:

Google is Becoming Wikipedia Without the Talk Page

So, what am I going to do about this issue?

I haven’t decided yet. On the one hand, I have come up with a plan that could REALLY tick off Google, on the other hand I can be a sheep. Decisions, decisions...

In other news…

Tiny start-up rival to Google?
A new company called Proximic has come up with a very cool new technology. From the sounds of things it might become a great way to monetize your site and be a huge competitor to Google’s Adsense. Microsoft, Yahoo, Google… let the bidding wars begin!

Lastly, I got an email from Google’s Adsense program last night about a new service that lets you make money from YouTube videos. I am very excited about the possibilities for some of my other blogs.

That’s it for now…

Make Big Money Online Winning Contests

Matthew Henrickson — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 17:49:14 +0000

Guest post by Matthew Henrickson

In my last post, Create Buzz for your Website with a Contest, I mentioned that you can really drive traffic, build links, or get RSS feed readers for your website with a contest. Its fun, simple, easy and most importantly it works.

Because it works so well, many bloggerss have been hosting contests, and some prizes are really appealing.

To make contests successful they really have to be easy. Bloggers are giving away large sums of money and prizes, and making it easy to win. There isn’t much of a reason NOT to enter when the reward is so high.

Win Money Entering Contests

By spending very little time entering in contests, I have personally won well over 100$ and smaller prizes including a very nice MP3 player.

In most of these contests it does take a little bit of luck, but if you enter a contest everyday, you are bound to win something. Even if it isn’t something you exactly want, you can turn around and give it away on your own blog.

Big Prizes to be Won

Blogs like INVESP are doing huge cash prize giveaways. There is 400$ up for grabs! To win that contest you must subscribe to their RSS feed. Sometime in the month of August, they will post a ‘secret word’ in their RSS feed. When you see the word you email it to contest@invesp.com. One lucky person who sends the secret word to that email will be randomly selected to win. If you win, make sure you are a member of their mybloglog community, so you can receive the full 400$.

Not Every Contest Can Do That

Not everyone can afford to give away 400$, but say you win the contest. You can turn around and re-invest 100$ of that money on your own contest. If you can market the contest right you can expect quite a few linkbacks and RSS Feed Subscribers.

Everyone likes free stuff, especially free money.

Internet Marketing Tips From Around The Web 6/22/2007

George Manty — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 17:57:46 +0000

I had a very busy week this week. It was my five year old’s birthday this week, I worked on the design of my new money making project, and kept busy with a lot of other things. Anyway, here are some of the articles I read this week that I thought would be of interest to you…

The Things That Get You Successful Won’t Necessarily Keep You That Way
Wendy’s post was very interesting for me, because I have been facing this problem. My problem may be slightly different, because I feel like my online business direction was better BEFORE I started blogging. Wendy asked some good questions and because of Wendy’s post I found out Darren had posted some advice for Wendy:

7 Reflections on Scaling a Blog to a Sustainable Business
Darren makes some good points and I think this post will be very helpful for people in Wendy’s situation.

Because of Darren’s post, I found Desty’s post:
The Perils of Owning a Growing Business
Desty’s answer is REALLY good. It is what Rich Schrefen talked about in his Internet Manifesto series, it is what Alex Mandossian has been talking about for years, and just about every other Internet Marketer/business person will tell you that you need to build systems. It’s something I have known about for a long time, but never implemented. It’s time for me to build some systems….

Better Blog Branding: Is Your Brand Breaking Promises?
Chris’ post came at a great time for me. This blog is taking a slightly new direction, because of all the guest bloggers that have been signing up to write guest posts. Chris’ post reminded me that I don’t want to take it easy because of the guest bloggers. You still expect to hear from me and you will. What the guest blogging will do is allow me to make this an even better resource for you.

Increase Google Rankings, Backlinks And Advertise For Free
My friend Garry Conn has a very creative blog link exchange program going on. Go check it out if you are interested in getting more links to your blog.

Never stop experimenting
This was one of several good posts I read this week by Martin Reed. I came across his blog when I was doing some online searching. He mentioned that you could even try changing your writing style. Changing my writing style is something I think about ALL the time on this blog. I much prefer to write stuff like this, and this. I guess I should go ahead and try to be funny more often on this blog. What’s the worse thing that can happen? Google won’t penalize me for having a bad sense of humor, will they?

Use Blog Directories and RSS Aggregators To Build Links To Your Blog

George Manty — Wed, 30 May 2007 17:53:23 +0000

This is the 4th installment of the blog traffic series...

Once you have chosen the right niche and picked the right domain name for your blog, there are tons of steps you can take next to increase your blog traffic.

I believe that one of the biggest reasons for the instant success of our 2006 Torino Olympics blog was the fact that I submitted it to almost all of the directories and RSS aggregators on Robin Good’s list of RSS directories

Side Note: I mentioned Robin’s list all the way back in my first post on this blog in July of 2005 and it’s still as useful now as it was then. That is a sign of a great blog post!

I think this step is crucial for blogs that are “one time” event blogs like our 2006 winter olympic blog was. On the other hand, if your blog isn’t a one time event blog then this step can still help you to get extra traffic to your blog.

Submitting your blog to these directories helps the Search Engines find links to your blog. Not only that, but many people use the RSS feed aggregators to find recent news. If your blog posts are being added to tons of RSS feed aggregators, then your blog is more likely to be found. Especially if you add it to Technorati.

Additionally, having your posts listed in various RSS feed aggregators will help with the Search Engine optimization of your blog. I don’t want to go into all the reasons that RSS aggregators help your blog’s SEO, but I will say that one reason is because it helps your blog avoid the dreaded Google Sandbox.

If you don’t want to submit your blog to all of the directories and RSS aggregators on Robin’s list, then I suggest that at a very minimum you submit your blog to Technorati. In my mind, Technorati is the most important feed aggregator.

Note: In addition to being the 4th post in my blog traffic series, this is an entry into Fit For Freedom’s group writing project (link building tips).

Do-Follow Plug-in – Your Comments Now Pass Page Rank To You

George Manty — Thu, 24 May 2007 02:18:17 +0000

I have been wanting to do this for a while now, because I despise the no-follow tag. It was a ridiculous creation, destined to be abused. That is why I am SO glad that I just activated the Do-Follow WordPress plug-in.

The do-follow plug-in removes the no-follow attribute from all of the links in your blog’s comments. Not only does this make me happy, but it should encourage you to comment more on this blog. The links you provide in the comments “count” to the Search Engines.

Either way, it’s a win-win plug-in in my eyes…

Internet Marketing Tips From The Web 5/11/2007

George Manty — Fri, 11 May 2007 15:02:05 +0000

Here is some of the reading I did this week. I also really enjoyed many of the top 5 posts in Darren’s group writing project…

The Paid Link Blog Meme
Excellent counter to Google’s position on paid links. Found via Andy Beard. The truth of the matter is that the Search Engines have to come up with a revolutionary way to rank sites. The current methods won’t be acceptable five years from now.

Indirect Profits, Business and Corporate Blogs
Chris Garret’s series has been really good reading all week. If you haven’t kept up, then start with the article above and work your way through the series.

Long Overdue Praise For PayPerPost
John Reese wrote an excellent post on PayPerPost on his new blog. My favorite part was when John says:

IT’S NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS WHAT SOMEONE ELSE CHOOSES TO PUT ON THEIR BLOG!

So true…

My Top 7 Blog Monetization Methods
It was good to see Yaro’s top monetization methods listed out like this.

Update on Me
Interesting update on Amanda’s blogging income. I haven’t tried any of the review systems, but Amanda’s post makes me think that I could make a fairly decent amount of money doing paid website reviews.

Internet Marketing Tips From The Web 5/4/2007 Take 2

George Manty — Fri, 04 May 2007 20:44:51 +0000

I mentioned earlier that I read a lot of good articles this week. Well, I read so many good articles this week, that I decided to post a second group of articles for your reading enjoyment…

How to Make Money with a Video Blog: An Introduction and Guide
I haven’t read the guide that Maki talks about yet, but I can tell you from experience that this is an excellent way to make money with blogs. Like I said in the comments, “...I have been considering turning some of the blogs that I don’t have time for, into mostly video posts. I also tend to get more links to the posts with videos. I highly recommend testing this out. I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the results.”

Copy Is Not About Selling, It’s About Serving
Excellent post by Michel Fortin on the future of copywriting.

Should You Build a Blog or an EMail Newsletter List?
I totally agree with Chris’ conclusion in this post.

Interview with Search Engine Guide’s Jennifer Laycock
Excellent interview with some solid SEO advice.

Stay Away from In-Text Advertising
I removed Kontera ads from this blog, but I am continuing them on my other blogs for now. I might discuss this more later. Come join in on the argument (errr… discussion).

Clicking Adsense Ads
Interesting discussion on clicking Adsense ads. Do you click on them or ignore them?

Unique Content – Where to Find Topics and Ideas
Good post by Gayla on places to find topics to write about. I currently use all of them.

There were other good articles that I read this week, but between part 1 and 2 you should have plenty to read…

Internet Marketing Tips From Around The Web 4/27/2007

George Manty — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 16:08:43 +0000

This week, I took a bit of a break from business activities. However, I still read some of my favorite blogs and did some searching for new gems. In no particular order, here are some of my favorite reads from the web this week:

New Calacanis link-baiting rules
Jason Calacanis’ post on how to link bait him is an EXCELLENT read for those wanting to learn how to link bait top bloggers. Jason left me a comment last year when I listed him as one of the people I would like to meet in this post. I think that I followed most of his rules, which would explain the comment. I would still like to meet him, along with the other people on that list. I should probably write a new list, since the list of bloggers I would like to meet has grown quite a bit since last year.

Tim Ferris Interview – Part 1
Tim Ferris Interview – Part 2
This two part interview by Darren Rowse provides some excellent business advice. Tim’s book sounds like a really good read.

WordPress Theme Generator
This was a pretty cool find by Mark. The only thing I didn’t like about the wordpress theme generator is that it can’t generate three column themes. Otherwise, it’s pretty cool.

The Ultimate Guide to Productivity
I really liked Wendy’s simple tips in this post.

Using Stumbleupon and Squidoo Advertising to Promote Blogs
Chris Garret reveals his results with Squidoo and Stumbleupon advertising. Based on his results, I might test out Stumbleupon’s paid ads.

The Husband and Wife Blog Traffic Battle
Now this was real interesting. A husband and wife are doing a year long contest to see who’s blog can get the most traffic. Found this via the Sitening Blog. Something worth keeping an eye on.

Develop Your IM Network
If you are interested in gaining some new Instant Messaging friends, then check out Daniel’s invitation. Personally, I don’t use Instant messaging systems. I will probably join one in the near future, because so many of my online friends use instant messaging.

Internet Marketing Tips From Around The Net 4/13/2007

George Manty — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 15:42:27 +0000

I haven’t done much online reading this week, because I have been spending a lot of time going through both recent and previous editions of the Reese Report (more on that next week).

However, there was one article in particular that really caught my eye. I found it via this post by Aaron Wall.

The article is titled, “SERP Domination“. (SERP stands for – Search Engine Results Page and means the pages of results returned after searching for a keyword phrase in a Search Engine).

One of the most interesting things about the article is that I know people are doing similar things. The only things they weren’t doing was removing competing website links from wikipedia. I find that to be very underhanded, but I guess we all draw our own lines in the world of Internet marketing…

Anyway, you can click here to check out the article, but be forewarned that there is some colorful language.