No one is real sure what the deal was/is with Google. Some speculation was that it was a PR update, some said that Google is changing its algorythm while some others said they were changing their inbound link filters as it apply’s to your inbound links.

I have no idea what caused it. I had many sites bouncing around a few days. The good news is that most of them have their rankings back where they were before this whole shake up started. This isn’t the first time that a big movement in the Google SERPS has happened and it likely won’t be the last.

I had a few keywords ranking on other sites that lost their rankings altogether. These weren’t major keywords that the sites were ranking for, but they did bring in a little traffic. I’m not sure why these keywords lost their rankings, so the theory about changing filters may have some legs.

Whatever the cause, don’t panic when this happens. Most of you who’ve been around a while have learned to live with it. Judging by my email, some of you new people have been freaking out about it. Just relax and the let the little ball on the Roulette Wheel come to a stop…errr…I mean…just relax and let your sites settle down in the SERPS before you go bonkers.

Either way, whether your rankings returned or if you discovered you previously high ranking keyword is not on Page 6 of Google’s SERPS, it brings me to a very important tip for all affiliate marketers. If you haven’t diversified, do it now. I know how tempting it is to keep working on a site that is making you money. But if that site is your sole source of income, you could be living on shaky ground.

Work on getting your low paying sites up to being profitable. If you only have one or two sites, get more. Make sure you have sites in different niches. Ideally, you want your income spread over several sites in case one loses its rankings.

In fact, I’d say increasing the number of sites you have or making the ones you already have more profitable, is a great project to work on if your site has nose dived in the rankings!

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!

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!

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?”

It has always been said that Internet users have short attention spans. That’s still true for the most part.

When I first started, the rule was the post should be between 250 and 500 words. I naturally write long articles as it is. So I was getting comments and email saying my post were too long. So I started trying to keep them around 500 words. That was hard for me to do!

Here are a few reasons why you should be writing long blog post:

• If you’re only interested in attracting Social traffic, stick to making those short, concise post. Most Social readers have shorter attention spans than a 3 year old, especially if they come from Digg.
• If on the other hand, you want your post to rank high in Google SERPS and bring in loads of targeted organic search traffic, you’re more likely to do it with longer keyword optimized post than shorter ones.
• You’ll naturally have more long tail keywords in your long blog post. Long tail keywords bring in more targeted organic traffic to your site.
• Looking at it from Google’s perspective, which post is more informative? A short one or long post? Google is in the business of delivering targeted relevant information to Internet searchers. Google’s algorithym searches for the most relevant and informative information on the Internet when you enter a search into the the search box. So which post do you think it will return higher in the SERPS? A 250 word post about ‘Mens Hair Loss’ or a 1400 word article?
• If you run a content rich site with Adsense, you can increase your CTR with longer post and articles. Why? Because you’ll stand a better chance of the reader losing interest and clicking on an Adsense ad. Yeah, I know, it’s a pretty underhanded Adsense trick hunh? But it works
• You may lose a few RSS subscribers who do not like long post, but you’ll also gain a few more who feel long post are more informative and detailed. They’ll see you as a detailed authority on the subject.

What constitutes a long post?

The way I look at it is, anything over 1000 words is a long post. I know some who say 700 to 800 words is a long post, but a 1000+ word blog post is much better, especially if it’s keyword optimized.

Long post are also more detailed. Instead of making some short-to-the-point sentences, you can take your time and go into more details with your post.

Tips For Optimizing Your Blog for Long Post

If you’re worried about losing your RSS subscribers to long post, here are a few tips that will help you keep them interested and to optimize your long post.

• Use the H3 tag to break up your long post into sections. Properly constructed H3 headings also add SEO benefits to your long post.
• Use bullets and numbers to break up list or for making points
• Use blockquotes when quoting others or for highlighting a resource
• Use Bold, Italics and Colored Text to get your point across and to break up your long post.
• Not all of your long post have to be a War and Peace novels. Just the really important post you want to expand on and the ones you want top rankings for. It’s okay to mix short post with long post. I’ve done this same thing here on AffiliateWatcher.Com

Still not convinced that long Blog post are better?

Take a look at the thumbnail picture below (click it to enlarge the picture). It’s a screenshot I did of a search for “How To Monetize A Blog With Adsense.” I posted it Monday morning and when I got home that afternoon, I was sitting at the #2 spot for that keyword term.

I jumped over some pretty big names to get to the #2 spot with nothing more than a 1400 word post about how to monetize a blog with Adsense. The only reason the B2evolution network outranks my post with their little generic post is because they have more backlinks to that page. It would be rather easy to outrank them and take that #1 spot away with fewer backlinks because my post has more weight than theirs.

Fortunately for me, this happens a lot with my long blog post. Whether or not it’s on this blog or one of my other ones. Long optimized blog post rank better! I no longer ask; how long a blog post should be, I just start writing and stop when I’m done!

These illusions are quickly shattered when they see their Adsense accounts with .05 and .20 cents per click and a CTR of 1%. It doesn’t take the newbie blogger long to realize that their dream of living of off Adsense income isn’t a reality.

Is Adsense Still a Good Choice For Monetizing Blogs?

The quick and easy answer is Yes and No. In order for Adsense to be a viable option to monetize a blog, you need large amounts of traffic. And not any old traffic will work!

Many bloggers love to talk about Social Media and they spend a good amount of time writing articles and submitting them to the popular Social Networks like Digg and StumbleUpon in order to bring the masses of Social Networkers to their site. While this may increase traffic to a blog, it rarely translates into clicks on their Adsense ads.

Why Social Traffic Isn’t Good For Adsense

If you’re one of these bloggers who’s chasing traffic from Social sites and still wondering why your Adsense account is empty, listen up, I’m fixing to let you in on a little secret.

Social traffic doesn’t convert for squat. Of course, you already knew that didn’t you!

Why?

Because people who use the Social networks are pretty ‘Net savvy and they don’t click ads. They read blogs more for entertainment purposes than they do for the informational value. Sure, they may read a post about whether or not Adsense is still a good choice for monetizing blogs, but if there’s an Ad block on how to monetize a blog with Adsense next to the post, they aren’t likely to click on it.

Another reason Adsense is a poor choice for Social blogs is because the Click Through Rate (CTR) will be in the dumps. This will cause  your Adsense ads to be Smart Priced.

This is how it works. Google Adsense works of off the principle that a targeted Internet searcher is more valuable to the advertisers than a browser just clicking around the Internet.

So when your Social Network browser comes to your site, Google does not consider this a targeted user. If the advertiser is paying $2 per click, and a Social Network user comes to your Social blog about making money on the Internet and actually does click on a Adsense ad, you’ll receive a lower per click price than if that user had went to Google and typed in “how to make money online” and came to your blog and clicked an Adsense ad about ‘how to make money online’. Google considers this targeted traffic and will pay you the most for this type of Internet users. 

Why Organic Traffic Pays Off With Adsense

Stop and think about this one for a minute.  When an Internet user is searching for some knowledge, they want it and they want it yesterday! Many of us will not stop searching the Internet until we find the useful information we need. We’ll click on this or that, we’re frantic searchers and we need that information!

Let’s say you’re bills are piling up because gas is at $4 a gallon and food prices are skyrocketing. You need some debt relief. So you go on over to Google and type in ‘debt relief’. You then click on the first result that promises you quick and painless debt relief. After you browse the site for a few minutes, you realize this site can not answer your questions and you’ll have to go elsewhere. There’s an Adsense ad block to the upper left with an add about instant debt relief. Hmmm, that’s just what you need right now, instant debt relief.

What do you do?

Click the Adsense ad promising instant debt relief or hit the back button a half dozen times to get back to the Google SERPS page?

Yeah, me too. I’ll hit the Adsense link every time if it will lead me to what I’m looking for.

And you know what?

The Webmaster or blog owner gets the maximum payout for your click because you found his site by searching for the term ‘debt relief’.

If I had gone to his site looking for ‘Ways To Make Money Online”and then clicked the same ad, chances are good he would not have received the maximum payout for that click. That’s why you’ll see some of your Adsense ads paying out .20 cents for one click and the next it gives you $2. It’s all about how the Internet user got to your site.

So What Type Of Blogs Are Best For Adsense?

It’s not really what type of blog is best for Adsense, the question should be “What type of traffic is best for Adsense?”

And that question is an easy one to answer. It’s organic search traffic. Plain and simple.

Now having said that, you’ll see that many of the so called Social media blogs do not rank well for anything of value.

Ever see John Chow or some of the other popular social bloggers rank in the top 10 for terms like “how to make money with Adsense?”No, you don’t. That’s one of the biggest reasons you don’t see Adsense on their sites. They can’t bring in the organic search traffic they need to convert browsers into ad clickers and their social traffic sure as hell won’t click the ads. So they end up with a crappy CTR and get Smart Priced. The few clicks they do get, Adsense pays out a few cents here and there. Then the Social bloggers will proclaim to the masses about how Adsense doesn’t work any longer!

Adsense Can Be a Steady Income Producer For Blogs and Websites That Pull In Organic Traffic

This is the real secret to Adsense and how to make it pay the most for every click. If you have a blog or website that ranks well for a number of keywords and your pages are optimized to bring in targeted search traffic, you’ll do well with Adsense.

Your blog doesn’t have to be a custom made WordPress blog nor does it have to be fancy. In fact, you can start with one of these Adsense optimized themes. It does have to be SEO optimized with lots of backlinks to rank well for your keywords.

Forget about the Social traffic and getting your post Dugg and Stumbled. Sure, it’s nice to see all that traffic, but why bother when you know it’s not going to convert plus it’s going to ruin your CTR. And to top it off, it will get you Smart Priced with Google Adsense.

Go after the money. And in this case, the money is in ranking well for your keywords and driving crowds of targeted organic search traffic to your blog or website.

Your blog or website should cover one subject, such as ‘debt relief’. Don’t try to make a blog or website cover everything under the sun. Each page of your website should have an article or post covering one keyword.

For example, if you had a blog over the main keyword of ‘debt relief’, then you’d probably want your interior pages targeting keywords such as ‘bankruptcy’, ‘debt consolidation’, ‘how to pay off your bills early’ or ‘debt consolidation loans’.

While you’re at it, make sure your blog or website is optimized for Adsense. Don’t cover every page in Adsense ads. The top paying ad block is normally a 350 block at the top. You might also want a Tower block in the sidebar, but that’s where I’d stop.

In the past, I put those little Adsense link blocks on my sites, but have always done poorly with them. I’d rather someone click on one of the Adsense ads in the body so I’ll make more money per click. That’s why I’ve started putting only two Adsense ads on my content sites. More ads normally dilute your per click payout.

To wrap this up, if you want to make money with Adsense, forget about those cool social blogs, go with a keyword targeted blog or website. SEO optimize it, build backlinks to make it rank well for your chosen keywords and then sit back and watch the Adsense money roll in. You can still monetize a blog with AdSense, you just have to go about it wisely.

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

What?

Yeah, you heard me right. Your links suck!

You see, you proclaim to be a blogger or Webmaster. Yet, you make links like it was 1995! C’mon into the modern Internet age. Today, backlinks are probably the most important off page ranking factors for Google. And if you want to catch a bloggers attention, you’d better make them links properly!

If you’re going to take the time to make a link, then do it right and make it count!

How To Make A Link Like A Rockstar!

To make a proper link that will benefit the blog or website you’re linking to, you first need to structure the link correctly. I have several previous post on how to do this, but I’ll go ahead and spell it out one more time for those of you who are just joining us.

WordPress and many other programs with WYSIWYG editors make creating perfect links easy with the little link icon. Just fill in the URL and “Title” fields and it will take care of the rest.

If you don’t have that option, here is how to make a proper link using HTML code. Let’s say you want to link back to this site. This is how your HTML link structure would look:

<a href=http://www.affiliatewatcher.com” title=”affiliate programs”>Affiliate Programs</a>

This is how it should look when you post your article: Affiliate Programs

Now you’re probably asking yourself why I have the words “Affiliate Programs” as a link instead of something like affiliatewatcher.com. The reason is that the words “Affiliate Program” are my anchor text.

Anchor text tells Google what the page is about that you’re linking too. If you have two identical links and one has anchor text and one doesn’t, the one with anchor text will carry more “weight” with Google than the one without. So when you link to this site with the words “Affiliate Programs,” you’re telling Google this site is about Affiliate Programs.

Notice the red ‘title=”affiliate programs”‘ in the link structure above. Your anchor text goes between the quotes (“”). Your anchor text should be a keyword or keyword phrase that describes the site you’re linking to. Let’s take this site for example again. If you wanted to link to this site, you could use the Anchor Text (keywords);

• affiliate programs
• internet marketing
• top affiliate programs
• best affiliate programs
• ebay affiliate programs.

It’s also important to put the same keyword or keyword phrase (shown in red here) between the …”> and </a> signs.

If you really want to make a blogger or Webmaster notice you when you link to them, bold the Anchor Text (keywords).

Here is an example of how you might link to another blog or website:

Don at AffiliateWatcher.com had an interesting review on ebay affiliate programs. This review got me to thinking of how I could take advantage of the ebay affiliate program on my own blogs.

Notice that I didn’t link the bloggers name or their site’s name. Always use the most relevant keywords describing THE PAGE you’re linking too!

If you’re linking to a story on the front page of a blog, click the story headline and use the page URL for your link. If you just link to the domain, the post may be off the front page when your visitors click on the link.

Also by linking to the exact page, you’re helping that blogger or Wembaster build deep links to his/her interior pages which is excellent for their SEO efforts.

So now you know how to build proper links and the reasons why you should be building the perfect links. No more linking to names and website URL’s! Now that you’re a link building Rockstar, go find those linking Groupies!

What follows is a list of blog post I consider to be some of the best about making money on the Internet.  This includes articles about Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Programs, SEO, Traffic Generation and Making Money Online. Some of them are my own post on this blog, some are from other bloggers. I hope you enjoy them and learn from them!

Affiliate Programs  

By far, the most popular post I had in 2007 was my review of the Build A Niche Store program and the follow up post on the PHPBay program. I’m still getting a flood of emails about both of those reviews.

I also showed you how to pick a profitable affiliate program.

Carl Ocab, the 13 year old blogging wizard, took a long hard look at Adsense monetization strategies with his post “A Hardcore Advice On Making Money with Adsense.”

Affiliate Marketing

Also in 2007, I showed you how to create a successful affiliate marketing empire  with blog networks.

Here are some post and reviews I did on Affiliate Marketing tools.

• Golden Can Review
• Pop Shops
• Auction Ads
• Blog Profit Blueprint
• Webmerge

DoshDosh had a neat article about T-Shirt affiliate marketing. It’s worth checking into even if you don’t sell T-Shirts!

Ian Fernando uses video to demonstrate how to use Excel to help you with keywords. It’s a great tutorial!

Everyone needs a little inspiration, especially when you’re starting out. Linda over at 5 Star Affiliate Programs posted a story about an inner city kid who took $70 and turned it into a 3 Million dollar business. You know, it’s these type of stories I think about when I see or hear someone say “The Good Old Days of the Internet are over, there are no more profitable Niches” or some other lame excuse for not succeeding.

PPC Marketing

 High Performance Affiliate Marketing was a review of the ebook I bought from Jeremy Palmer. If you’ve ever wondered if you could make money with PPC, or wondered if people can make a million dollars a year from Affiliate Marketing, read this ebook and you’ll have your answers. Jeremy takes you step by step and shows you how to make money with Affiliate Marketing and PPC.

Kieron Donoghue wrote an excellent article back in June about how to build a landing page that won’t get banned by Google Adwords. If you’re thinking about jumping into PPC, or have lost your butt trying out PPC and can’t figure out why, give his article a view.

Staying with PPC for a second, Fraser Edwards had a pretty nifty tutorial on how to transfer your Adwords Adverts to Adcenter. This technique saved me some time with my PPC campaigns.

Back in October, Super Affiliate Zac Johnson published his guide “Super Affiliates Guide To PPC Marketing.” It was on par with Jeremy’s ebook on how to make money with PPC. This is a step-by-step guide to getting started with PPC. Zac holds your hand all the way through the process. Very informative and user friendly!

Another Super Affiliate in the PPC world is Amit Mehta. Amit has a two part series “What’s The Secret of Affiliate Success.” These articles really opened my mind up to new ideas and out of the box thinking.

Traffic Generation

Some Affiliate Marketers are still driving targeted traffic to their websites and converting the traffic into sales with article marketing, even though some “guru’s” claim that it’s dead. Just goes to show you can’t always believe what “gurus” say! I showed you how to start article marketing in this post.

I gave you some tips on building a opt in email list. Some of you told me that this helped you a great deal in building your own list. I’m glad I could help.

We’ve all heard the buzz about viral this and viral that…haven’t you? Well, DailyBlogTips wrote an excellent piece about why viral content is King. And you know what? He has a good point!

Nate Whitehill shared his How-To post about the 5 Types of Blog Post That Generate Traffic. Follow his advice if you want tons of traffic!

Quadszilla at SEOBlackHat showed everyone (by example) of what the perfect link baiting article was when he posted an article “250 Best Movies Made In The Last 30 Years.”   He then followed it up later with a post called “3 Link Bait Lessons From a Master Baiter” where he explained the article about the top movies and why it went viral. This is a must read for any of you wanting to perfect your Link Baiting game.

How To Make Money Online

For some silly reason in 2007, I kept seeing people ask how to get their Adsense Account banned.

I thought the post by Shoemoney about his little arrow trick to increase Adwords CTRwas a joke…until I tried it myself. My CTR did go up! Shoemoney also had a nice article on 5 ways to Make Passive income from your website.

Mark @ 45n5 has some damn good articles on making sites that bring in the Moo Lah! Here’s one article he posted about creating a basic business plan to profit $600 a month from blogs.

Caroline Middlebrook has done a helluva job documenting her journey about making money online. She wrote a very in depth post titled “10 Strategies For Making Money Online.” I think you’ll find this post to be very helpful. A lot of thinking outside the box on this one.

2007 saw eMomsAtHome go from a single blogger, Wendy Piersall, to a multi-blogger platform. Wendy wrote a very good article about the Top 10 Internet Home Based Business’s You Can Start and Run In Your Underwear.

Back in February, Strategic Profits had a series on what’s holding you back. If you’re thinking about getting into affiliate marketing or you’re having a hard time making money at it, go to their site and read up and actually do what they teach!

Andrew Wee caught my attention real quick with his post “Creating Content For Traffic Generation and Profit.” Andrew told us how he finds quality content writers. If any of you are running multiple content sites, then you know what a task this can be!

Blogs

This list of WordPress Adsense Themesis still one of the most popular post on AffiliateWatcher.Com

This post about which is more profitable in the long run, blogs or traditional websites, has been linked too and blogged about quite a bit.

I found Courtney Tuttle’s post on starting a profitable blog to be very helpful in getting this blog started. While there, take a look at his series of post on keyword sniping.

ProBlogger underwent a face lift, the blog, not Darren…lol In Feburary Darren wrote a timely piece on 11 ways to find new RSS Subscribers.

Ryan Caldwell wrote a post on Performancing about how to sqeeze more income out of your blog. This is an excellent article that will get you to thinking outside the box about ways to increase your income from your websites.

Lorelle @ LorelleOnWordPress threw up a post about resources to find content for your blog. This is one of the most comprehensive list of resources I’ve seen on the ‘Net.

SEO

GrayWolf had an excellent series of interviews about local search. He interviewed some of the biggest names in SEO and Search.

Andy Beard wrote a post about the Top SEO linkng mistakes even the Pro’s make. It made me step back a minute and look at my SEO abilities. Thanks Andy!

Over at Entrepreneur’s Journey, Yaro Starak blogged about 80/20 Of Search Engine Marketing. This is part 1 of a 2 part series on SEO. Very well done!

Ades @ adesblog.com showed us how to PROPERLY write a link exchange email. This is very important in your link building efforts for your websites.

Mark @ Digerati Marketing guest posted on Eli’s BluehatSEO site about making money with a video blog. I know this won’t be everyones cup of tea, oh well, for others it will help them with their business of making money online. Enjoy and learn from it even if you don’t use it.

2007 saw Google cracking down on sites that sold paid links. Jim Boykin of WeBuildPages had a great response to all the hoopla that was running rampant around the Internet.

Okay, I do have more bookmarked. I didn’t realize how many post I bookmark! I have to stop here or this post will turn into a War and Peace post.

There is gold in the post above and a lot of it. Study the post and take action if you want to be successful in 2008!

What were some of your favorite ways to make money articles of 2007? Share them with the rest of us!

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.

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.

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!

Today I dug deep in my files and pulled out a free ebook by Allan Gardyne, CEO of Associate Programs. This ebook outlines 77 ways to drive traffic to your site.

This is one of those ebooks I downloaded and read over a couple of times, implemented a few of the techniques outlined and filed it away and forgot about it.

When I found it today, I reread it and was pleasantly surprised at how well it was written and how effective the techniques still are.

Driving traffic to your site can be challenging, you need all the tools you can get. “77 Ways To Get Traffic” will certainly give you both basic and advanced strategies to get the Internet hordes headed your way.

I’ve covered a few of the traffic generating techniques here on this blog before. Traffic techniques such as linking internal pages, submitting to directories, building opt in email list and article submission. But there are a lot more tactics outlined in this free book, many of them are not ever talked about (like techniques #4 and #54) or at best, just talked about in close circles of affiliate marketers. Allan has done an excellent job in showing us many little known techniques of driving traffic to websites and blogs.

I think you’ll find 77 ways to get traffic just as useful as I did when trying to build a new website or blog!

Download your free copy of 77 Ways To Get Traffic by clicking the link. 77 Ways To Get Traffic

Of course there’s a catch, you have to write a review of his site like I’m doing here.

At first, I wasn’t going to write one. I have a system for hunting out .edu backlinks that work pretty well. However, I spent almost an hour on his site and realized I liked what I was reading.

Tim has some very good articles and comes at some of them with a different point of view than most bloggers. I like that.

Tim is currently in J-school so he’ll have plenty of time to get some links sent out.

Well, the common misconception is that Google places a higher value on .edu links than links from .com sites. While that is somewhat true, it’s not entirely correct. Google places a higher value on .edu links from relevant sites and from .edu pages with some PR.

As far as Yahoo and MSN are concerned, I’m not sure and I don’t know that anyone else is sure either, but heck, a link from a .edu site can’t be all bad so grab ‘em when you can.

Don