Every blog or website you build should have a Privacy Policy and a Terms and Conditions or a Terms of Usage page.

Why?

Because not only is it good netiquette but it will also help you out with ranking in many of the Search engines. Yahoo and MSN are sticklers for a Privacy Policy and Terms page. I thought I had already put those pages up here, but apparently I overlooked them.

It’s been my experience that new blogs and websites will be indexed quicker and have a better chance of moving up the SERPS if they have both a Privacy Policy and Terms page. Especially when dealing with Yahoo and MSN.

If you run a PPC campaign, then a Privacy Policy and Terms page will give you a better quality score with Google. I ran experiments last year with a PPC campaign. I compared landing pages and sites with Privacy Policies and Terms pages against those without these pages. I was able to get better quality scores, and keep them, with the websites that had a Privacy Policy and Terms page versus those without.

They don’t have to be elaborate. In fact you can copy mine or you can go to Google and search for “Privacy Policy Example” and get all that you need.

If your blog or website doesn’t have these, now is the time to add them!

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If the top SEO experts around the World can not come to an agreement about what should or should not be done when building links, then what is the every day Joe supposed to do?

Just take a look at the document over at SEOMoz about ranking factors.

Rand surveyed the Top 37 SEO experts in the World. Basically the Survey is a series of questions asked to each expert. This group of experts could not come up with an agreement rating more than 1 on many of the questions!

So now that we know the “experts” can’t agree, I might as well tell you the mistakes I’ve made/seen done by many Webmasters.

1. Failing to procure reciprocal links. I’ve seen so called SEO Guru’s say that reciprocal linking is dead and they will hurt your site. This just isn’t so. As we say in the South “They’re talking out their asses.” I have several blogs and websites with PR2 to PR4 that have nothing more than reciprocal links pointing at them. The important thing to remember is to make sure they links your trade are from quality sites. It doesn’t matter if they’re PR0, just make sure they’re not from a spam/adult/pharmacy/hate type site. Reciprocal links can be on a resource page if you run a website or a Blogroll for you bloggers. Just remember to trade!
2. Failing to acquire low PR links. For some reason, many Webmasters do not want PR0 sites linking to them. This is link building suicide! One day, those PR0 sites could be the next PR5 or better. Frankly, I don’t care who links to my sites. I can’t control it and if they’re passing any amount of authority, which even PR0 pass some, I’ll take it. It also looks natural when you have many more low authority sites pointing to your site than all high PR sites.
3. Failing to link out. Once again, we’re talking about making your site look natural to the Search Engines, especially Google. Authority sites link out to other authority sites. Google expects to see this. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a site stuck in the SERPS only to get a little boost when I linked to a higher authority site. In several instances, I’ve had the position right below Wikepedia. Seemed no matter how many links I added, I was stuck. I would then link to the topic in Wikipedia. In a few instances, that was all it took to leap frog me over them in the SERPS. So link out to authority sites! Before using a service like 3 Way Links, read reviews like 3waylinks.net review, it’s a good article on 3 way link systems.
4. Failure to check your reciprocal link partners websites. Once you exchange links with someone, you need to follow up on a routine basis and make sure the link back to your site is still there. Some sites go down, accounts are closed, domains let expired and purchased by someone else, Webmasters changing website topics and some Webmasters simply taking your link down after you exchange links. I’ve seen people put ‘nofollow’ on the links after they’ve made a trade. I’ve seen it all happen, that’s why I monitor my link partners and you should also.
5. Failing to use Anchor text in your link. If someone gives you the opportunity to use Anchor text in the link back to your site, use it! In my opinion, anchor text in a backlink is the second biggest off page ranking factor for seo. Only the relevancy and authority of the page where the backlink originates is more important in my experience.
6. Failing to cover up your paid link footprints. Look, from here to the end of time, people will sell links. And from here to the end of time, Google will be trying to find paid links. And from here to the end of time, you’ll see blogs, websites and blog networks (think Backlink Solutions) get de indexed for selling links. If you’re going to buy or sell links, you’d better be hiding your footprint or Big Daddy G is going to find you one dark, cold and stormy night. There are several ways of hiding your footprint, I covered one way in my link laundering article a few weeks ago.
7. Failing to build links. I see people on the forums all the time asking how they should go about link building or how to get started link building. Many say they don’t know how and so they don’t even try. People! I hate link building as much as the next person, but it’s not Rocket Science. You may be able to rank high in a low competitive keyword niche with on-page SEO, but for a competitive niche where’s there’s money to be made, you’re going to need some relevant backlinks! TIP: One of the most effective link building strategies you can perform is to find out who’s linking to your competition and get links from them. You simply go to Google and type in link:yourcompetitorssite.com. You’ll then get a list of sites that are linking to your competitors site. Browse that site to see if there is a place to put a link to your own site at. If not, simply Contact the person running the site and ask kindly for a link. Many times they will not respond, but some will. Now, out of those sites, do the same thing. See who’s linking to them and get links from those sites!

Okay, so there you have 7 of the biggest link building mistakes either I have made or I see made on a routine basis. What’s important to remember is that these mistakes are avoidable. Some have temporary effects on your rankings while others can have permanent effects on how your website ranks in the SERPS.

So what’s up with the flurry of link building articles lately? Well, it’s a work up to a document I’ve been working on and off now for nearly a year. It started off small and has taken a life of it’s own. Stay in touch if you’re serious about link building, because this article will have over 100 link building strategies outlined perhaps even closer to 125 or more!

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Warning: The following method of link building (link laundering) is looked upon as either a Gray or Black Hat technique by many in the Internet World. I feel it’s my duty to educate my readers about these tactics so you’re aware of them if you ever see your competition using them against you.

Have you ever ran across sites that ranked higher than your site, but felt your site was much better, so you wondered how that could happen? Some of you may have actually used tools like SEO Quake or SEO for Firefox and found that those sites had more links to them than yours did.

“How could they be getting so many links when I’m busting my ass for a few links a month?” you might ask yourself

“My content is better, my on page SEO is better, site design is off the chart, I have more RSS subscribers, my domain is older plus I’m better looking than those guys” you may think to yourself

Come my friend, let me introduce you to the underworld of link laundering.

Let’s me start by saying that link laundering usually involves a network of sites or blogs that the Webmaster owns or has access to. It can be done without a network, but link laundering is easier in many regards if you own or control a network of blogs or websites.

Link laundering is a lot like money laundering. You take low quality, crappy links and turn them into high quality, relevant, one way anchored links pointing to your main site. In reality, you’re turning these low quality “questionable” links into high quality “trusted” links.

What many of you do not realize is that many of the “White Hat” bloggers and Website owners out there use this same technique to boost their rankings.

I’ve spent hours upon hours of following their foot prints to figure this out. Some hide it better than others, but with a little determination you can find out where your competition is really getting those high quality relevant links.

How Can a Website With Fewer Links Outrank My Site with Hundreds or Thousands of Links?

Let me sidetrack just a little bit here to explain why this happens. First off, we’re talking about Google here just to make things clear.

In a nutshell, Google looks at the links pointed at your website and gives these links a value. If you have thousands of links coming into your site but they are all links from low PR sites, they’re passing very little link value (juice) to your site.

Let’s say your competition only has a few dozen links coming into their site. However, unlike the links coming into your site, your competitor has links from Websites that have related content and these sites have high PR.

Google looks at this and decides that your competitors site should be ranked higher because he has links from “trusted” (high PR) sites that are related to his site. Their way of thinking is these other sites are “voting” that your competitor has much more relevant information for the chosen Keyword because of all these one way links with the keyword in the anchor.

There are other factors that determine how much “value” or “juice” links pass, but this should give you some idea of how Google looks at links and determine why one link pointing at a site is more valuable than another.

Now Back to Link Laundering

Imagine if you will, a Pyramid with 3 tiers. The bottom tier has 3 blocks, the middle has 2 blocks and finally at the very top is the King block!

Now also imagine each of those “blocks” as websites.

On the bottom tier, the 3 blocks represent disposable websites. These are your crappy throw away sites. If they get banned or de-indexed, no problem link launderers will get more. Many of these websites are free Blogger or WordPress sites.

The way link laundering works is that the Webmaster will go out and get thousands of crappy, low quality links pointing at these disposable sites. These links may be questionable but certainly nearly all will be low quality. Links from places such as Guestbooks, comments, directories, trackbacks, etc. are all pointing at these sites.

It’s pretty much certain these links will be obtained by spam. Black Hatters use many tools in farming these links. Scripts and programs are designed to search out these places and leave the Mobsters links.

Now the sites at the bottom of the Pyramid have thousands of low quality links pointing to them. This will give these sites some value in Google’s eyes due to the volume of links coming in, provided they’re not de-indexed or banned first!

What the Webmaster will do now in the link laundering process is add some content to these bottom tier websites and place one way, relevant links with anchor text, pointing at a site on the 2nd tier.

The 2nd Tier of the Link Laundering Pyramid

Now the 2nd tier of the Link Laundering Pyramid are sites that have a little more trust. These are sites that generally have a PR2 to PR4. These are your intermediate sites.

They’re the Wiseguys and Lieutenants of the Internet Mobster family.

They have more value than the lowly crappy sites below, but they aren’t near as valuable as the guy above them.

These sites “wash” the links and make them legitimate.

The first tier sites may have general topics. This makes it easier to link out to the 2nd tier blogs or websites.

The 2nd tier will consist of sites that are specific. This will give their outgoing links more link juice to the top tier blog or website.

The Big Kahuna or Numero Uno Mafiaoso

This is the block at the top of the Pyramid. This is where the laundered links end up after they have been filtered through the lower sites or “washed”.

This is the Webmasters money site. It’s the site they want ranked well and it’s why they go to all the trouble to use link laundering and increase their “trust” and rankings.

Wise Webmasters will also be sure to mix the links coming from their network with those from other sources to make it look more legitimate. This makes it harder for search engines like Google to figure out the network.

The Webmaster will also have many low quality links pointing at their Main site as well, but these links will be from legitimate sources and from “white hat” sites with low PR. This is to make the links seem more natural.

Another Twist on Link Laundering

Another technique some Webmasters will use in order to launder links or to boost the rankings of existing low quality links to their site is to send a lot of these easy to get, low quality and questionable links at pages that already link to them. In many instances, they do not own these sites.

By boosting the PR of these pages, the links on them pass more juice (value). Which helps the Webmaster’s Main site.

For example, let’s say that Bob’s Blog linked to you back in 2003 from a page in his blog. You go back to see Bob’s Blog but see that Bob hasn’t posted since 2005. It’s safe to say Bob isn’t blogging any longer and is probably on a Tropical beach somewhere enjoying his Internet loot…or sleeping at the bottom of the Bay with the fishies.

Anyhow, the Webmaster will start sending a lot of low quality links out to the page on Bob’s site that is linking to his site. If something bad happens and Bob’s site gets slapped, nadda problem. The Webmaster just lost a low quality link. However, more times than not, the PR of that page increases and sends more link juice to the Webmasters site.

This 2nd technique can be used in conjunction with traditional link laundering techniques or by itself.

In Summary

The link laundering techniques above are but two examples. There are many variations and I used the Pyramid as a simple example to help you see how it works. Many times a link laundering Pyramid will have a really wide base with dozens of blogs receiving low quality links. Also, in many instances, the blog may have 4 or even 5 tiers to really “wash” the links and turn them into sparkling “White” links.

“So Boss, whadoya wanna dooz wit all dem lousy links we havz in da warehouse?”

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Why should any of us care? Because we can learn an important lesson here!

What’s the lesson? The Lesson to be learned is; no matter what Google or any other “Authority” states, Googlebombing still works and works well!

What is Googlebombing?

Googlebombingis when a mass amount of people create links pointing to a website with a certain anchor text. In the above example, Anonymous‘s groups went around the web leaving links to the Church of Scientology. The anchor text of those links were either “dangerous cult” or “brainwashing cult”.

What this did was make the Church of Scientology‘s website rank high for the terms “dangerous cult” and “brainwashing cult”.

When I first read about this last week, the Church ranked #1 for “dangerous cult” and #3 for “brainwashing cult.” Just before writing this post, the Church has scored a #1 spot for “brainwashing cult”.

What Blog Owners and Webmaster Should Know

It was a few years or so ago when people Googlebombed the word “miserable failure” and “waffles”. What happened was that when someone went to Google and typed in “miserable failure”, George Bush’s profile on The White House website would show up or in the case of “waffles”, John Kerry’s campaign site would show up.

Google claimedthat they tweaked the algorithm that would prevent future Googlebombs from working. For one thing, the keyword was suppose to have appeared on the page that was being Googlebombed.

However, in the case with the Church, the word “Cult” doesn’t show up on that page or any other page on the website. I’m guessing Google will be tweaking that algorithm just a little bit more….;)

What this really shows us all is how important anchor text is to the links pointed at our websites and how important Google considers anchor text when ranking a site!

You should never forget either one of those facts!

Does this mean you should forget about on site SEOand concentrate on creating backlinks with relevant anchor text pointing at your website?

Certainly not.

Optimizing your site for Google rankings, as well as ranking for other search engines, is still important. It’s just not as important as creating relevant backlinks to your website!

Googlebombing

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He emailed his site to me to take a look at it for him. It only took a second looking at the source to realize this guy had hired the wrong person to do SEO on their website. A quick look at his site with my Firefox SEO extension showed no backlinks.

The on-page SEO (or lack of) was horrible  plus his Copywriting was not optimized either. It was no wonder this site didn’t rank. This site was in a small niche and it shouldn’t have been that hard to rank well, especially over a year’s time.

If you have questions about your SEO expert, here are 7 signs that you’ve hired the wrong SEO expert or company.

1. Your Real Estate Agent website ranks #1 for Viagra in your City.
2.  There are no backlinks pointing to your website, but you find that your website has 367 outgoing links to Gambling and Porn sites.
3. When you pull up your SEO’s website, it says “This Account Has Been Suspended.”
4. Your think “BlackHat SEO” is the name of your SEO Company.
5. Your SEO expert’s idea of on-page optimization includes typing your keywords across the top of your index page, over and over and over.
6. More than 95% of people with Guestbooks on their websites know your URL.
7. Matt Cutt’s knows your URL by heart.

Okay, so that was a little tongue in cheek list, but there are a lot of people/companies out there who will take your money and do little to get your website ranked. There are also those who can actually damage your website. Buyer Beware when hiring an SEO Expert or SEO Company. Here’s a post about questions you should ask your potential SEO company.

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Fast forward a few years and that’s not necessarily the case any longer.

Oh Directories, How I Use To Love Thee

As I said above, in the past Directories were a short cut to a bundle of backlinks that would help your rankings.

So what has happened?

The same thing that happens to many good things on the Internet.

Spammers.

Many Directories, especially free Directories, are nothing more than Made For Adsense sites and Spam ads.

The Search Engines, especially Google, have gotten very good at weeding out these Spam Directories and devaluing links from them.

Will links from these sites to your site hurt you? Not in my experience, but why would you throw good money at a fruitless effort, not to mention the time and trouble of submitting your site to all these Directories?

Shoemoney had an interview with some top SEO experts a while back and they believed that only Directories that sent traffic to your website were worth the money. You have to be you own judge as each site is different, but I like them for backlinks also.

Where Have All The Good Directories Gone?

I know some of you may be asking “Are there any Directories worth submitting my sites to?”

Of course there are. Unfortunately most Directories worth submitting your site to are paid Directories.

The reason many paid Directories are still beneficial to website owners is because the better ones actually review websites that are submitted. Not all websites will be accepted. It’s these types of Directories that Google actually likes due to the “Trust” factor.

Having your sites listed in better paid Directories will lead to additional backlinks from other websites. Granted, most of these additional backlinks will be from sites with lower authority, but they’re backlinks none the less.

Tips For Making The Most Out Of Your Directory Submission

Hey people. If you’re going to pay for a submission to Directories, take your time and do it right for maximum SEO benefits. I’ve seen sites submitted to paid Directories that had the lousiest descriptions and no anchor text. What a waste of Money!

Here’s a few tips for submitting your site to Internet Directories.

• Forget about paying some so called “Directory Submission” company to submit your site to hundreds of Directories for $20, $40 or $50. Most of these are automated submissions which return very little to nothing at all on your investment. If you choose to have someone else submit your site, make sure actual humans are hand submitting your site to each directory and then ask for a report that will show you which directories your site was submitted to and whether or not it was accepted. Expect to pay a few hundred dollars for this service.
• If you really want to take advantage of Directories, go ahead and pay the admission fee to top Directories. You can easily drop a few thousand dollars on submission fees to the top 50 Internet Directories. Consider this a good investment for your website, especially if this is a website you plan on keeping for long term.
• Don’t keep submitting your site over and over. Many Directories will blacklist your for this. This is why many Webmasters get into trouble by having someone else do it. They keep blasting Directories with your website via automated software until the Directory blacklist your site. Many times the unaware website owner doesn’t even know their site has been blacklisted.
• Use Anchor Text. If you’re going to the trouble and expense to submit your website to Directories, take full advantage of the submission by using Anchor Text. Also, never use the same Anchor Text over and over. Use several related keywords for Anchor Text pointing back to your site.
• Spread out your submissions. Want to grab Google’s attention quickly? Then submit your site to many directories at the same time. When Google Bot finds all those links pointing back to you site at one time, bad things can happen. Spread out your submissions over a period of time. This is another reason NOT to use a Directory Submission service or Directory submission software.
• Use good descriptive descriptions. Just like Anchor Text, take the time to use good descriptions. A good description can set your site apart from all the other websites in your chosen category.
• Make sure the Directory page you submit too is actually indexed in the Search Engines. If the Directory or the Directory Page you’re submitting to isn’t indexed, you’ll receive little, if any, benefit.
• Go Deep. Make sure the page you submit to the Directory is relevant to the category. If you have a website about Pets including sub pages on Cats, Dogs and Birds, submit your inner pages to relevant categories for maximum benefit.
• Forget Directory wide links. Forget about submitting to Directories that promise you site wide links. This too will get Google’s attention. Google will likely not value these links due to the lack of editorial integrity, ie; trust and authority, of the Directory.

The Top 25 Directories Your Site Should Be Submitted To

If you want to take advantage of Internet Directories, here are the Top 25 that you website should be submitted to.

1. www.dmoz.org
2. dir.yahoo.com
3. www.lii.org
4. www.business.com
5. sbd.bcentral.com
6. whatuseek.com
7. cannylink.com
8. 123world.com
9. www.botw.org
10. www.goguides.org
11. www.joeant.com
12. www.gimpsy.com
13. chiff.com
14. gango.com
15. www.americasbest.com
16. mavicanet.com
17. jayde.com
18. uncoverthenet.com
19. rlrouse.com
20. elib.org
21. avivadirectory.com
22. www.directory.v7n.com
23. ezilon.com
24. site-sift.com
25. isedb.com

In Summary, Internet Directories can still be beneficial to Webmasters. However, not all Directories are created equal and a Webmaster needs to be careful as to which sites they submit their site too.

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Optimize Your Links with the “Title” Attribute

I covered Anchor text in my post Overlooked Steps To Boost Traffic and Rankings, but it’s important enough to go over here again. 

This is how most links look if you look at the source code of a website.

<a href=”http://www.yoursite.com” mce_href=”http://www.yoursite.com”>www.yoursite.com</a>

That’s okay, but by adding Anchor text and a Title, you can change that little link into a Superstar.

Here’s how to structure your link.

<a href=”http://www.yoursite.com” mce_href=”http://www.yoursite.com” title=”your keyword here“>Your Keyword</a>

Notice the “Title” at the end of the URL? You should always have a descriptive keyword between the quote marks. Also, instead of using www.yoursite.com, use Anchor Text instead. Anchor text will be a keyword, preferably one you want to rank for.

For example, if you had a Dog Grooming business in Akron, one of your keyword phrases would be “Dog Grooming Akron.” Your Anchor text and “title” attribute would then read “dog grooming Akron.”

This will help you rank much higher in Google than not performing these extra steps. It may just shoot you right past your competitors!

 How To Optimize Your Images for Higher Rankings and More Traffic

Another area where Webmaster and Blog owners fail to take advantage of on page optimization is with their images.

Believe it or not, some people actually browse the Internet with Images turned off. The pages load faster and most of the time the ads won’t show up either.

There are two reasons to optimize your Images.

1. Higher SERP rankings
2. Google Image Search

Using keywords in the “alt” attribute for an image will help you rank higher in the SERPS. It also describes the image to someone who has the images disabled in their browser.

Another benefit of labeling your images in the “alt” attribute is that they’ll show up in Google’s image search.

For example, let’s go back to your Dog Grooming business in Akron. Let’s say you have a picture of a Beagle on the front page.

Here’s how the link structure normally looks.

<img src=”http://www.yoursite.com/images/beagle.jpg” mce_src=”http://www.yoursite.com/images/beagle.jpg”>

And here’s how it will look after you Optimize it with the “alt” attribute.

<img src=”http://www.yoursite.com/images/beagle.jpg” mce_src=”http://www.yoursite.com/images/beagle.jpg” alt=”dog grooming akron”>

Now, if you were a Kennel selling Beagles, your “alt” would be “Beagles”. Be just as descriptive with the “alt” attribute as you were with the “title” attribute!

This way, if someone goes to Google and types in “dog grooming akron” and then hits the “Image” button at the top, it’s likely the picture of that adorable Beagle will show up. When they click on that adorable little Beagle picture, it will shoot them to your site.

See how simple that works?

Now go and optimize your links and images for higher rankings!

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The Importance of Internal Linking

Google has pretty much said that it looks at how your internal pages are linked to each other. So why not take advantage of this?

One way you should be doing this is to use links to other pages on your blog or website in as many of your post as you can.

Don’t just do it once either. You should have as many links pointing to your other pages as you can. If you can get 20 or more links pointing to an internal page, then you’re on the right path.

Anchor Text Can Make Or Break You

Another area where I see bloggers and website owners failing to take advantage of internal linking is the use of anchor text.

Anchor text tells a search engine what the page that is being linked to is all about.  IMHO, anchor text is the most important part of a link and getting the rankings that come with them.

For example, if I link to this page on this blog called http://www.affiliatewatcher.com/how-to-get-adsense-showing-relevant-high-paying-ads/ you can see this is a pretty poor looking link. There is also no anchor text associate with this link.

Now, let’s look at how the link should be constructed.

Make Money With Adsense

This link goes to the same page but now I’ve used descriptive text and most important I’VE USED MY KEYWORDS AS ANCHOR TEXT.

For a little added weight, I bolded the link as well (use the <strong> tag instead of the <b> tag).

If you run your cursor over that link, you’ll see a tiny pop up that says “Make Money With Adsense.” These are my keywords and they tell the search engines that the page is about a making money with adsense. Google loves anchor text!

Here’s how to structure your links, both internal and external. Your link should look something like this <a href=”http://www.yoursite.com” title=”my keyword”>My Keyword As Anchor Text</a>

In the above example, you see the basic link as www.yoursite.com  the “title” is what will make your anchor text. Always used your keywords as your anchor text! The words “My Keyword As Anchor Text” is the phrase that will be linked. It should be your chosen keywords as well.

Turn Your Blogroll Into A SEO Linking Machine

If you’ve noticed, I don’t have the traditional Blogroll on this blog, or any of my other blogs for that matter. For one thing, experiments that I and other bloggers have done showed that Google doesn’t give as much weight to these types of links as they do one good anchor text in an article.

So what to do with your Blogroll?

Turn it into an internal linking machine!

Instead of using the default text of “Blogroll”, I used the words “Popular Articles on AffiliateWatcher.Com.” You can see this on the left side of the page, a little below the fold.

Now, look at each article and run your cursor over them. See the anchor text?

If you have 200 pages on your blog and you create a “Blogroll” like this, along with the anchor text, then you have created over 200 SEO optimized links with anchor text to each of those pages. Google will notice this!

On a weight loss blog I have, my main keyword for a page had stagnated out on page 3 of Google Serps. Once I linked that article in my custom “Blogroll” along with anchor text, I shot up to #5 on Page 1 within 2 weeks!

How To Customize Your WordPress Blogroll For Super Internal Linking Powers!

Some of you may not know how to create a Custom Blogroll name or add anchor text to a Blogroll link.

Here’s how.

Go to your WordPress Dashboard and then click on “Blogroll”. Next, look for “Add Link” in the sub menu.

One there, look to the left side of the page and you should see the box labeled “Categories” with an empty text field box below it. All you do is adf the Title of the new Blogroll category you want to create, for example “Popular Pages on AffiliateWatcher.Com.” Then just make sure you tic the box beside the Blogroll category you want your link to go under. You can make as many of these Blogroll categories as you want.

Now to create the Optimized text that will link your page, look back to the right and fill in the “Name” field. In this case it would be “Make Money with Adsense.” Now in the “Address” field you’ll type in the URL of the page you want to link to.

After that comes the “description.” This is where you’ll put your keyword or keyword phrase to make your anchor text. In this example it will be “Make Money With Adsense.” Now click on the “Add Link” buttom and you’re ready to go.

One Last Way To Link Your Internal Pages

In addition to the technique outlined above, you should also be using a plugin like Aizzato’s Related Post plugin.

You can set the number of post it show’s after each post. I use 5, but I’ve seen others use as many as 10. This will help tremendously with your internal linking efforts!

That’s it, it really is as simple as creating good links to your internal pages to increase your traffic and rankings. These simple tips should have your blog or website moving up in the SERPS soon.

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Part of that article told readers not to be linking to questionable or bad neighborhoods per Google Webmaster Guidelines.

Here’s a quote from Google Wemaster Guidelines.

Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

Does Google See John Chow dot Com as a Bad Neighborhood? 

A question popped into my head. If Google has penalized John Chow to the extent that his site doesn’t even rank on the first page when searching for his own name, John Chow, do they consider this a bad neighborhood? Would I be penalized for linking to John Chow dot Com?

So for sake this blog’s little pittance of PR, I put “no follow” on those outgoing links. At least until Google decides what to do permanently, if anything, about John Chow. Maybe they already have?

I guess only time will tell whether or not Google sees his site as a “bad neighborhood.” For many of us who linked to him, I certainly hope not!

More Questions for Google…

Which brings us to another question I’d like to ask Matt Cutts. What if we link to a “good neighborhood” only to have that neighborhood (or site) turn bad on us down the road? Are we suppose to remember who we linked to two years ago?

I’m also wondering, just for curiosity’s's sake, if John Chow dot Com will lose PageRank due to the penalty? I guess we’ll have to wait for the PR update for that one…which should be any day now. A loss in PageRank could hurt his income since it’s one of the guidepost used to measure how much some company’s such as Text Link Ads pays out. This is interesting the more I think about it.

I’ve got to stop, it seems I’ve opened a flood gate of questions in my mind. I hate it when that happens. It’s worse than when the voices in there start answering their self!

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To make this easier, I suggest using the Firefox browser with the SEO Extension. You can do this without the extension, but you’ll save a lot of time if you’ll use Firefox with the SEO Extension.

It also goes without mentioning that your page should be SEO optimized in order for this to work. I’m also going to assume that your domain has some age on it. Don’t bother trying to outrank an authority site that has been in the SERPS for years with your new domain. Google loves old domains!

Let’s get started. For this example, let’s say your site sells beer glasses. Your main keyword then would be “beer glasses”.

Step 1 would be to use a keyword density tool like the one from Aaron at SEObook.com to make sure you keyword density is between 1.5 and 3.5%. This is the range that I’ve used over the years. By the way, the top site listed below for “beer glasses” has a keyword density of 2.78%. That’s great.

A couple warnings are in store here.

First, do not OVER OPTIMIZE your pages. You can be penalized by Google for doing this. This is why I keep my keyword density to between 1.5 and 3.5%. It’s been my experience that anything much over 4% and the Search Engines look down on you for keyword stuffing.

Also, when you keyword stuff a page, it doesn’t sound natural and can turn your visitors off.

Step 2 would be to visit the Keyword Suggest Tool  to see how often the word “beer glasses” is searched for.

In the photo below, we see that “beer glasses” was searched for 5399 times in one month. To get a ball park figure for Google rankings, you’d multiply that by 10x and come up with a number like 53,990. Not bad, in fact, it’s just what we’re looking for.

I want you to also look down this keyword list at other possible keyword terms. If I was selling beer glasses, what I would do is make a specific page on my site for every keyword on this list that was related to my business. For example, by looking at the above keyword list, I’d have pages on my site titled; German Beer Glasses, Pint Beer Glasses, Belgium Beer Glasses, Antique and Collectible Beer Steins and Glasses, Beer Steins and Glasses, etc, etc. (as long as you actually sold such products) 

Next, go to Google and pull up the keyword “beer glasses” and see who your top competitors are for that keyword phrase.

The above photo will resemble the SERPS when you type “beer glasses” into the Google search box.

This is a list of your top competitors. This list may change slightly over time, but it’s a good point to start.

Now, click on the first website.

When you get there, there’ll be two ways to find out who’s linking to this site. One is with the Firefox SEO extension. The picture below is what you’ll see when using the Firefox SEO Extension.

Use the pull down menu in the upper left, scroll down to Show Backward Links > Domain > Google. When a new tab opens, you should see a page of all the other websites that are linking to this site. It should look like the picture below. Notice this site has 27 other sites linking back to it.

You’ll notice some of these are blogs, which is good for you. In my opinion, blog owners are more likely to give you a backlink. Your next chore is to contact each Webmaster of those sites and try to get a link on their site back to yours. You only need one link on each of those sites.

Browse through the pages of those sights and see if you can find your keyword “beer glasses”. When you find it, if it’s on a high PR page, ask the Webmaster of that site if he’ll make the keyword phrase “beer glasses” a link and point it toward your site. This is called anchor text.  Anchor text linked back to your site is much more powerful than www.yourdomainname.com type of link.

When you’ve contacted all the sites that link to the Website in the #1 position, go to the website in the #2 position and start the backlink finding process all over again. Wash, rinse, repeat. Eventually you’ll have lots of links pointing back to your blog or website, hopefully 30 or more from relevant sites and you should make a move on the #1 position for the search term “beer glasses”.

If you don’t have the Firefox SEO Extension, you can go to Google and type in link:www.competitorswebsite.com to see all the pages linking back. You can then start the process of contacting the Webmasters of these sites and asking for a link.

I’ve used this tactic ever since 2001 when I made my first Real Estate related website. This tactic worked as good back then as it does today, it’s just a tad bit harder to out rank your competitors in Goole today with all the highly competitive keyword terms, but it can be done if you’ll stay persistant with building backlinks.

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Update: Some people are asking for a viral link and removing the post after they get a link back to their site. We check for links. If the ViralTag link is missing when we check, your link will be removed. The ViralTag post is to remain on your blog and accessible by the link to the post. 

Last week I gave you Andy Coates’ ViraLink system. This week it’s Jimmy Huen’s ViraTags system.

This system is different from the ViraLink system in that you can add anchor text with your links. If you don’t already know, adding anchor text to your link increases the value of the link back to you, especially if you want Google to share some PR love with your site.

This system is easy to use. Just cut and paste the system below. Note: There are those who are using this system and not linking back. One way to get “blackballed” by the community is to be stingy. There should be no “no follow” tags attached to other peoples links plus you should not be altering other peoples links.

Just add your anchor text and your link and share the love with others and it will be returned

=======Copy and Paste below this line========

Instructions:

1. ) Copy and paste the matrix of “ViralTags” below courtesy of Founders Cafe.

2.) Substitute the Host Tag and one of the “Viral Tags” in the matrix with your anchor text of choice with your blog’s URL. Please keep anchor text to a max of 3 words to keep the matrix size manageable.

3.) When you get a ping back from someone that has your link in one of their “Viral Tags”, practice good karma by copying his/her Host Tag’s anchor text (automatically the associated link will also be copied) and paste it over one of your “Viral Tags” below.

4.) Encourage and invite your readers to do the same and soon this can grow virally.

Host Tag: Affiliate Program

Important: Once I get a ping back from you, I will add your anchor text and the associated link you designate as “Host Tag” here, replacing one of the “ViralTags” from the matrix above. As more and more bloggers copy and paste this matrix, the more backlinks you will have with your anchor text. If everybody who copy and paste from your blog does the same, pretty soon this will spread and go viral. So, the sooner you participate, the more links with anchor text you will receive.
====== Copy and Paste from Above this line=====

See how easy it is? Now put it up on your site. The more you promote it, the more links you get back!

Before long, you’ll have lots of backlinks pointing to important information on your site. Good luck and let me know how this works out for you.

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Viralink is a link exchange with other websites/blogs.  The way I look at it is that it’s sorta like a MLM for links. I’m willing to give it a try. If you’d like to participate, just follow the instructions below. Sometimes these things work really well.

———copy and paste the Viralink and instructions below this line———

Below is a matrix of 120 stars, I have already added a link to my blog onto one of the stars, all you need to do is copy and paste the grid into your blog and add your own link to one of the other spare stars, and tell others to do the same!

Viralink

When I receive a ping back once you have added the Viralink to your site I will add your link to this grid, and each person who copies the grid from here will also link to your site!

No Porn Sites
Only 1 link per person (i.e don’t hog the viralink!)
Please don’t tamper with other peoples url’s
Enjoy!

———copy and paste the Viralink and instructions above this line———

Andy has a great explanation along with a few diagrams on his site as to how this all works. Check it out at his site. Keep me updated if you use this and let me know how it works for your site.

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I was browsing Matt Coddington’s site the other day and came across his post “Internet Marketing In The Public Eye”. Matt makes good observations about how the “get rich quick” or the “too lazy to do it right” crowd has gave those of us in Internet Marketing a bad rep. It’s safe to say that in the past 10+ years of Internet Marketing, I probably unintentionally tried a spam technique or two. Nowdays I know the score and only shoot straight. Life is too short to look over your shoulders.

After thinking about his post, I can understand where he’s coming from.

Do you remember the amount of spam emails you used to get in “the day”? Gosh, I remember having to actually close accounts because of spam emails. And popups and other browser tricks so called “affiliate marketers” pulled.

Without a doubt, the porn industry was the leader (and still is IMHO) in this kind of spamming/black hat seo. Now before you flame off here, let me say I know there are stand up people in porn (no pun intended) but you have to admit, when a lot of people think of porn, they think every crappy email, pop up, pop under, spyware, hijacking scripts and other crap they’ve received in the past from porn spammers.

I’ll also admit that more than likely, the porn industry pushed the envelope of developing new tools and technologies in the internet marketing industry. Some of those tools aren’t used in the best interest of internet browsers, but a few are.

I’m not saying that all is well and fine today but I think as an industry, we’ve came a long way with a long way to go to clean up our public image.

The flood of new Internet Marketing “make money online fast” newbies coming into the industry won’t help things. What we have to do is educate them that there is a rigth way and wrong way of Marketing to Internet users. There are things that the industry and public will not put up with and a few of these are also illegal. The sooner they realize that slow and steady win the race, the quicker we’ll get out from beneath this dark cloud….at least to a light grey cloud.

If you’re new to the industry, one of the best places you can go and ask questions is the ABest Web Affiliate Marketing Forum. These guys and gals will set you on the straight path. They’ll tell you which marketing practices are, and which practices are not, acceptable in today’s Internet Marketing industry.

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But wait, this isn’t the same ole dry, boring and in-depth type review that brings us to tears. This is Google Analytics the way I see it

I’m assuming most of you know about Google Analytics. If you don’t, go over to Google and sign up.

Let me see a show of hands of those who thought the original Google Analytics sucked?

Good, that’s what I thought. So did I.

The old version was clunky and not user friendly at all. I had all but stopped using it and relied on other tracking software.

What I want out of a tracking service is this;

• How many vistors to my site and how many pages they viewed. I like to drill down to single days or out to an entire month
• What pages they viewed and the pages viewed most often
• I want to know what pages people are linking to
• I want to see the most poplular pages on my website
• I want to see who’s sending me traffic and how much
• I like seeing what times of day people are visiting
• And while I won’t loose sleep if I don’t know, I like knowing where my visitors call home.

Google Analytics has always done this but now the new Google Analytics does this without sucking!

The new interface of Google Analytics makes it a breeze to find the data on your websites traffic.

My two favorite features are the Referring Sites feature under the Traffic Source button. My other favorite feature is the Top Content feature under the Content button. For me, these two features are worth the Price of Admission. (which is free)

Just a few weeks ago I had a major surprise when one of my articles was StumbleUpon and drew hundreds of hits. I’d never thought that article, titled The Secret Of Making Money With Affiliate Marketing, out performed all my other post.  While I thought this post was good, I didn’t think it was almost 12 times as good as my next post! However Google Analytics said it was.

You also have a feature called Bounce. Bounce is the percentage of people who come to a particular page then exit that same page. As if to sample that page of the website, find it boring, disinteresting or whatever, and leave without visiting other pages.

A high “Bounce” rate may mean are finding your page and not finding your content useful, or it could mean that whatever source is driving them is faulty. For example, let’s say ou spammed MySpace with a promise of sexy girl photo’s and when the clicked to come to your page, they found a slog about phome cards. You’d have a high Bounce rate on that page I’m sure.

There are a couple things I don’t like about the new Google Analytics. For one, I seem to get error messages quite often. I’m sure it something on their end since it’s still in Beta.

The other thing is the new Geo Tracking format. In the Old control panel, there were litle dots that would show up where your visitor was located. Move your cursor over that dot and it would tell you how  many visitors you had from that town. That was cool.

Now I have a Map of the Earth with highlighted green areas and muted green areas. It tells me how many visitors I had from each contry. Not cool.

All in all, Google has made a Grand Slam with this version of Google Analytics. It’s cool, useful and easy to navigate. I can get my info quicker which makes me less of a crotchety of fart!

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That is, until I found Aizatto’s Related Post Plugin.

Why hasn’t someone told me about this plugin? There’s no code to cut and paste into your WordPress themes or databases to deal with. This has to be the simplest “Related Post” plugin I’ve ever used, and it works!

You install the plugin as you would any other WordPress plugin. Go to the “Plugins” section of your WordPress control panel and activate it. Then go to Options >> Aizatto’s Related Post >> and choose how you want your related post to show up. It’s that freakin’ simple!

You have the option of choosing how many “Related Post” it shows, whether or not you want excerpts from the Related Post shown to show up and whether or not you want related post to show up in RSS feeds.

So simple in fact, that once I found it, I went and installed it on every WordPress blog I own!

If you’ve fought with “Related Post” plugins, or hate to mess with code and databases, give Aizatto’s “Related Post” plugin a try.

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