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Backlink 101, Day 8 : Map your site into the Neighborhood

All we ever hear is numbers numbers numbers. So and So has this many links, we need this many links, how many links can you get us, buy 100’s of links cheap, get your link on 100 pages, argghh!!

The Numbers Game Died

The numbers game died a few years ago. There’s another line of thinking out there that you might not know about.
It’s not always “He with the most links” who wins the game. Often, “He with the right links” can win the game as well. Really, pretty often. He with the right 10 links can beat the guy with 1000 of the wrong links. I see this last one, all the time.

I’m sure most of us have looked at search results, and followed it up by checking the backlinks of the top 10 sites, and then scratched our heads and said “Uhm, why is that site in the top 10? It only has X amount of links! Doesn’t make sense.” I know I used to do that a lot. Upon closer inspection I’ll usually find that the sites with fewer backlinks that rank on the first page of search results have links that are more relevant, or more trusted, or seem to come from the “right places” (trusted industry related sites).

Sure, there’s different ways to play the game of SEO. Go for volume of links or go for Trusted links. But few go on the angle of “get the right links” and you might not need as many links as you thought you did.

Problem with the Volume War
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Backlink 101, Day 7 : 5 Pointers for the Love of Lists

Our Day 7 discussion is the Love for Lists. There’re 5 things you need to take a closer look about lists.
Here goes..

1. Build a “101 list”.

People tend to love lists. 101 lists, 10 easy tips, top 10 myths.. They seem to drive the most traffic.
These get Dugg all the time, and often become “authority documents”. People can’t resist linking to these .

2. Create a “10 easy tips” articles.

10 easy tips to improve your Alexa rank, 10 easy tips to help our pagerank boosted, 10 easy tips to help you gain more adsense earning. You know, that kinda stuff.
These are exceptionally easy to link to.

3. Create extensive resource lists for a specific topic.

Provide users some useful lists they might need in a particular area. List of Competitive Research Tools, list of Weblog Promotion Tools, list of SEO and Web Development Sales Tools, and stuff.

4. Create a list of the top 10 myths for a specific category.

Ever heard a myth? Or have heard some myths? List them, sort them, create a top 10 or top 5 or top whatever. Chosen category is yours to choose. Make sure it still the same as your site ‘s niche.

5. Create a list of gurus/experts.
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Backlink 101, Day 6 : 8 Things to Avoid!

Here’s the Day 6 topic. “8 Things to Avoid!” Why should we? Well, some of us still practicing these 8 things below in this link building area. Bad things happened. Got penalized, hurt our site’s reputation and stuff.
Make sure to read each, so they won’t happened to yours.

Don’t participate in link popularity farms.

Don’t participate in link popularity farms. Don’t participate in programs that send out e-mails soliciting people to swap links (link spamming). Never place a link on your own site for the sole purpose of trading link popularity. Only place links that are valuable to your readers. Never try to get low-integrity Web sites to link to you. The link will actually hurt your site, not help it.

Create your link directory to be tightly themed. DO NOT include directory listings unless they match the themes or subjects of your Web site.

 

Tell people to LINK OFF.

Yes, it’s really odd. Turns out my marketing site was also known for wicker furniture and adult chat among other things. What?

Yes, a couple of sites thought it would be a good idea to link to me, just because I do well in the search engines. The problem was their links didn’t make sense as they were totally off topic. We both ended up getting penalized.

Usually you cannot make people remove incoming links, unless they are infringing on some kind of patent. But if you kindly explain that what they are doing is actually giving their site a penalty and hurting their findability, the links come down pretty fast. What they are doing is building the reputation of my page with what they say in their outgoing links. If what the links say do not match the topic of my page, the search engine gives the page containing the link a penalty.
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Backlink 101, Day 5 : 7 Ways to Be A Content Provider

Alrite, it’s the day 5 of our 30 Days Backlink 101, the in-depth discussion for the oh so called backlink. Fasten our seatbealt, coz we’re on our way to begin the discussion to this Day 5 Topic, “7 Ways to Be a Content Provider.”

How come, being a content provider could be such a way in link building subject. Well, read on. You ‘ll found out the why and the how pretty soon.

1. Provide the best resources on a particular topic

The bottom line is the easiest most obvious answer. It’s also the toughest to do. Give people a reason to link to you. Think about it. Sites get linked to for a reason: usually if they provide the most information or the best resources on a particular topic. Is there any reason WHY people should link to your site? How is your content? Even if you are not a writer, ask the writers if you can use their stuff. The answer is usually yes. The writer gets a link from you. And you get great content. Now people will start linking to you.

2. Providing an Asset

We all want to get on the top ranking sites listed in Google with few, if any outbound links. But what if they don’t have a links program in place? Here’s one way to get yourself linked from these choice sites. The top sites in a keyword category often don’t have a links program, but they do have an e-zine or content library on their site. So… Write a 300-500 word article on a topic of real interest to their target market and submit it to the Webmaster, as well as to other e-zines reaching the same target audience. Include in your article sig file (or credit box) your site link and an enticing description. In other words, give the site owner something they can use that delivers real value to their constituents.

By providing them with an asset, you’re reaching them in a new way that goes beyond a simple link request. A couple of notes:

• Don’t market in your article. Deliver real value instead.
• Before writing anything, subscribe to their e-zine first or go through their site content. Fill any gap you see create something new that they don’t already have on file.
• Market in your sig file only – and be sure to include your full site URL!

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Backlink 101, Day 4 : Who Should You Target?

Next is, Who Should You Target? Well, there’re 14 pointers from the seo pros, we could take a look at to.
You may need to pay more attention on each below, to get things in its proper way.

1. Inktomi’s link analysis program policy is that sites that link to its relevant topic category page on Yahoo! receive improved hub factor rankings because of Yahoo!’s popularity. A reciprocal link with Yahoo! is even more beneficial. Get your site listed with Yahoo!; it is easier today than before with the Business Express option.
( Detlev Johnson with The Ascendant Group )

2. While you’re at it, link back to the search engines. Does it help? I don’t know. But what if it does? What if the search engines check if your site leads back to them? What if they give 1% boost if you do? Would 1% matter if everyone else had 99% relevancy and you got an extra 1%? Hmmm, something to ponder. I always link every important site back to the major search engines and directories as a little thank you gesture.
( Michael Campbell with Internet Marketing Secrets )

3. Get a link in an appropriate category from an About.com Guidesite. The popularity of About and the extent of their quality links positions the network as a mandatory stop in a marketing campaign. Also, make sure to thoroughly annotate links on your Web site with targeted keyword phrases. This will aid Google and other engines in their partial indexing.
( Marshall Simmonds of About.com )

4. Your homepage is not the only part of your site that you can get links for. If you offer an online newsletter, there are directories just for newsletters you can get links from. If your site has multimedia files, there are multimedia search engines you can submit to. If you have other files, like .pdf files or even image files, there are search engines you can get links from.
( Eric Ward, President, NetPOST and URLwire )
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Backlink 101, Day 3 : 16 Must Have Linking Strategies.

Strategy Number 1

1. First, build a content rich site, narrow in scope.
Say half a dozen high potential keywords, with a smattering of lessor important but still related keywords.

2. Then, contact other sites that have the same scope as yours does, and ask for a reciprocal link.
After you have already linked to them, of course!]. If you build a site that is content rich, informative, and above all else has unique content, then all your peers will beat a path to your door, asking you for a link!

3. Get your site listed at Yahoo
Yes, it does force you to yank out your wallet, but it IS one of the best links you can get. Do the research necessary to find the most appropriate category [which is where the Link Relevancy comes from], and get that title and description optimized!

4. Get into the ODP.
Do the same research as you did at Yahoo for the best category.

5. Find out which of the thousands of specialty SE’s and directories that your site is a good fit for, and submit to them.

6. After you are done with 1 – 5, build another content rich site.
And on this one, concentrate on your next batch of kw’s. Cross link the home pages. Repeat.

7. Even though blogging is all the rage these days, I think it will go the way of link farms in the not-too-distant future, especially if/when the SE’s determine that it is just another case of spamming.
We are staying away from it, and concentrating on the 6 tactics above.
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Backlink 101, Day 2 : Link Exchange Letter Sample

Be very clear with your request for reciprocal linking. After you have thoroughly researched a potential site to ensure they are appropriate and actually do have links to other sites, consider the following:

- Start with a very brief description of your site’s content and how it relates to their site.

- Provide the exact URL of their page you think the link would be most beneficial. Show them that you’ve actually visited the site and given some thought to the link.

- Finally, give the HTML code for the link so the Webmaster can cut and paste it directly into his page code. That gives you some control over the link placement and lets you include your keywords into the link text.

(Terry Plank with the Academy of Web Specialists and Search Engine Marketing Consultants)

Creating the Letter

Take care in crafting your reciprocal links letter. Make sure it’s the best it can be before sending it out. Remember, you’re asking for a favor (a mutually beneficial favor, but a favor nonetheless), so be polite and respectful in your letter. Otherwise, you’ll get nowhere fast.
(Gil Sery with Search Engine Optimization Pros)

Create a “Link Exchange Letter,” requesting a link exchange with your site, to each of the sites you have noted in your list. Make sure you’ve come up with at least 50 good quality content, non-competitive sites with a decent PageRank score of their own to email.
(Chris Genge with 1st on the List Promotion Inc.)

 

Example of a Link Exchange Letter:
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Backlink 101, Day 1 : Always Begin with the Basics

In search engine optimization, “off page” factors have become more and more important as they relate to rankings. In particular, solid link popularity can literally make or break a site with the search engines.

Before we go any further, what is “link popularity”?

In very simplistic terms, link popularity refers to the number and quality of the incoming links that are pointing to your site. These other sites consider your site important enough to link to. So, in the engine’s view, your site is considered important as well. What is meant by “link popularity” can get much more complex, which will be discussed further in this topic series.

However, one of the most difficult areas of SEO is building link popularity. Why?

Because the engines don’t want “artificially created” (or useless) links, so there are no easy ways to build link popularity. The days of link farms and huge link exchange programs are over. Try those strategies now and you can easily find yourself booted out of an engine.

Rather, the engines want links from authoritative sites, or links from sites that share the same focus as your site.

But besides the link popularity you gain by getting an authoritative site to link to you, you also gain additional visibility for your Web site. So, when working on building link popularity, don’t forget those two basic reasons for requesting links.

Direct Email Exchange Request

This is by far the oldest and best-known method of improving link popularity. Basically you email or contact the Webmaster of a site that is complementary but generally not competitive to your own. You ask them to link to your site while outlining the benefits of doing so. You would generally offer to link back to them in exchange for this courtesy. Be sure you have developed genuine content on your Web site of interest to the trading partner. Explain the advantages to them and to their visitors by providing a link to your content. Tell them where the link on your site will be or set the link up in advance with the stipulation that you’ll be glad to leave it there if they’ll add a link to you in kind. Take the time to look over their site and then suggest where a link to you might be appropriate. Most importantly, personalize your emails! You must distinguish yourself from all the spam they receive daily. If the link is particularly important to you, call them personally or write them a letter or send a fax to show them you’re serious.
(Brent Winters of First Place Software)

Here’s the simple means to find those good links :
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Backlink 101, 30 Days In-Depth Discussion about Backlink. Prolog

Well, well.. It’s been a while since my last post. Just finished my latest compilations and scheduling, for this next interesting topic. The Backlink. I ‘m planning on to write the in-depth discussion about backlink and this June is about a great timing.

I ‘ve sorted the backlink materials to be post each day, starting now, and will be ended by the end of this month, June the 30th. There will be 30 Hottest topics we ‘ll discuss. So be sure to check back often ( read: daily ), ‘coz this month is gonna be the Backlink month!

Let’s call it, 30 Days Backlink 101.

The Goal

I ‘m hoping, by the end of this month, this topic answer all questions which mailed to me all the time.
Self educational purposes still my best goal to reach, but the most is,

Educate our self to educate others freely.

That’s what open source all about, right?

Here goes..

How to make US$6,549.52 per Month with Just 2 Hours Daily Work!

Earn US$6,549.52 per month with just 2 hours daily work? Come on now,.. You gotta be kidding me, right?

Nope, you heard me right. I just finished reading a fantastic report on how to make money blogging.

It’s Yaro Starak. You ‘ve all knew about Yaro, right?

He’s a professional blogger who makes over $5000 USD per month from his blog!
A full time income with a blogging part time!

Even Darren Rowse, “the” Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net amazed about how Yaro done with his achievement. Wanna hear what Rowse said about Yaro? Here goes..

Darren Rowse, the owner ProBlogger.net:

“I wish there was something like this around when I first started out making money from Blogs”

Yaro Rocks! – What more can I say?

I’ve been watching Yaro’s Blogging profile and expertise grow over the last couple of years and have had the pleasure to meet and work with him on a number of occasions.

Yaro knows what he’s talking about and has built his Blog into an authority on the topics that he writes about. Bloggers can learn a lot from him!

How he do that? Yaro Revealed his Secret!
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