Link Building

If you talk to any SEO guy about edu and gov links then 98% of them will tell you that in Google’s eyes they’re more powerful than a link from lets say a .com or a .net.

The fact is – this isn’t true!

No I’m not going mad you heard me right – .gov and .edu links are no more powerful than a link from a .com or a .net

There’s a big misconception about this in a lot of seo information you read,  well it’s more of a misunderstanding really. You see the power of the link is decided by a few factors, Page Rank being the main one and whether it is ‘dofollow’ or not. But it sure isn’t because its part of a .gov domain.

If you don’t believe me then watch the video below with Matt Cutts from Google’s spam team. Matt also gives you Google’s view on links from Facebook and Twitter and any other website for that matter

So there you have it, straight from the horses mouth. Not that Matt looks like a horse, more like Gollum with that hair cut – sorry Matt

Seriously though if your new to seo or webmastering in general then setup a Google Alert up for Matt Cutts and keep abreast of what he says. He’s Google’s mouthpiece to us mere mortals and his webmaster channel on Youtube has some really useful stuff on there.

Till next time….

PS. If you don’t know to setup a Google Alert, email me and I’ll show you

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The following review of Linkumate was written over 2 years ago now and it may now be better or even worse. From the recent research I’ve done on Linkumate it’s seems to be good for Yahoo and Bing rankings. So if that’s your bag, then check it out.

Here’s the original review………..

Well as promised here’s my brutally honest review of Linkumate after using it for 6 weeks.  I’m always on the lookout for good linking services and when Linkumate was launched, I’ve got to be honest I was a bit dubious after buying into the whole MSN loophole thing and it failing miserably.

However, I thought for $37 a month for 5 sites I’ll give it a shot.

My first impression wasn’t very good to be honest. I applied as soon as it launched and there was quite a few problems getting registered. The servers didn’t hold up very well and I ended up applying twice as I didn’t get any confirmation email. Further to that none of the emails I registered with ended up with accounts that I could login to. So after a few emails backwards and forwards to their support I ended up gaining access.

Inside you get presented with a webpage that asks you to enter your URL, Anchor Text and whether it’s a money site or blog. It looked very basic but hey it’s the links we’re after so I wasn’t too bothered.

So I entered my two test websites URLs etc and then that was it.

The Results!

2 weeks passed by, no extra links appeared.

3 weeks passed by still no links.

4 weeks passed by, still no links.

By this time I thought sod this, so I contacted support and asked why I can’t see any links yet and their reply was that you have to wait 4 weeks for your links to appear. Hmmmm, my first thought was….. Why wasn’t this stated in the sales letter?  (ed.  I think I already know the answer to that)

Anyway, I thought I’d give it a few more weeks. So at the end of week 6 (yesterday) how many extra links do you think I had………….. a big fat zero.

The Conclusion

So in conclusion I wouldn’t waste your money. You’d be better of going over to the warriorforum and hiring someone to do a link building campaign for you. The forums full of excellent link building services and there’s loads of feedback for them so at least you can see what you’re going to get.

Now I may be wrong about Linkumate and you may well get results but please be prepared to wait and wait and wait…..

Another option that I’ve come across is to join Commission Blueprint’s membership program. This month Tim and Steve from Commission Blueprint, have added a free membership to their new http://www.3waylinkblueprint.com service as part of your Commission Blueprint membership (ed. 3waylinkblueprint.com isn’t available to the public yet by the way).

This has already had some amazing results for its users. I can’t comment yet as I’m literally going to start my first campaign this weekend, but going of feedback from blogs i.e. http://blogwam.com/664 I’m going to give it a try and as ever I’ll report back here with exactly what I think about it.

Till next time.

PS. I just missed the payment date to by 1 day so it’s just cost me another $37 – gutted! On the plus side they said I can use it until 3rd April due to automatically paying for another month, so if anything changes I’ll report back here

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Arguably one of the most important aspects of SEO is building incoming links to your website.  Search engines have worked off this principal since they were first conceived. If a lot of people are linking to a website then it must be important – right, therefore it will rank higher than a site with less links. Well fortunately for surfers but unfortunately for us SEO consultants, there’s a bit more to SEO these days.

You see back in the day (ed. that phrase still makes the laugh), you used to be able to put your targeted keywords in your meta tags, buy a load of somewhat dubious links and voila, page 1 in Alta Vista. Well not anymore! However, one-way incoming links still play a huge part in your website search engine rankings.

These days though, it’s more about the quality of the links or the link reputation, as its more commonly known, not the quantity.   If you’ve been reading my blog lately then you’ll know that I’m currently writing a series of articles about how to generate 1000′s of incoming links. This article isn’t part of that series, I’ve only just come across this service and I just had to tell you about it.

Now there are a few link building services around like Linkvana.com and Lunkumate.com to name but two. However Linkvana.com will set you back $147 per month and Linkumate.com $47 per month.

Linkvana.com is way out of reach for most people and Linkumate.com is a very new product that I’m currently testing. I only purchased this just over a week ago so I need some time too evaluate the service properly. As soon as I have some solid numbers to work with I’ll be letting you know what I think of it here on my blog.

How much are these links then?

Well I’ve found a service that gives you 30 high PR links every month for $5. Yeah you heard me $5! I was going to wait until I’ve tested it before I told you about it, but for less than the price of a skinny late from your local over priced coffe shop – just try it yourself

These links vary from PR4 to PR9! I’ve checked the service out in the warrior forum too and it’s getting rave reviews. Now for any eager newbies that are reading this who’ve never heard of the Warrior Forum before , do yourself a favour and before you buy any Internet Marketing product (and I mean any) head on over to the Warrior Forum and check out what people are saying about it.

The Warrior Forum is a superb community of people to hang out online with and over time that forum has saved me so much money because it’s helped stop me  buying over hyped up crap products that unfortunately flood this industry these days. The Warrior Forum IMHO is the best Internet Marketing forum that I’ve visited.

When you sign up for your massive $5 subscription you get an email packet (as they call them) every month with 30 high PR links in, plus instructions on exactly how to leave your link there without spamming! If you decide to leave, you don’t lose any links, they just don’t send you any more packets. How good is that

Where can I sign up?

Anyway, click on the link below and try the service out. This really is a service that spreads by word of mouth because no affiliate is going to promote a $5 per month product even is they get 100% commission

http://angelasdiscountmarket.com/backlink_builder1.html

Let me know how you get on with it and I’ll report back myself in the next few weeks.

Using Top 10 Lists As Link Bait

People just love lists. Top 10, top 7, top 5 whatever the number, our minds are trained to just love a list. You might of come across 101 lists quite often; Affiliate Marketing 101, SEO 101 etc. These lists, especially when they’re kept up-to-date are fantastic link bait for your website and tent to get Dugg quite a lot too, hint hint : ) I’ve even seen some of them turned into authority pages.

What’s also great about these is that you don’t need to write a great deal of content on each. Just a few sentences should suffice and you could also maybe include links to products your affiliated with to monetize it.

Top X Lists can also be written for seasonal markets like Top 10 best Christmas Gifts; Top Ten best valentines Gifts for your loved one. You get the drift. The more specific you can make your list, the more you’re going to stand out.

So put it on your to do list for your website today to create a Top 10 list for your chosen niche.

Here’s an excellent example of the types of lists people are creating:

http://fresh-perspectives.net/2007/11/best-101-lists.html

Incoming links to your website are arguably one of the main contributers to your website rising up the rankings in the search engines. There are many ways that you can get links to your website or blog. However, it is important that you don’t fall into the trap of buying them from link farms. These type of links don’t carry any weight anymore and could DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD for your website.

I prefer much more natural methods. Actually putting content on your website that people find useful. (What? I here you shout). Yep, you might off heard of the terms link baiting or link magnets. These are all terms that basically mean the same thing, which is getting people to link to your website because the content is of good quality. Hell, this is how the search engines started back in the day and this technique now still widely used to rank webpages.

Over the coming weeks i’m going to post a series of articles were I reveal my top ten strategies that I use to generate one way incoming links. So lets get started with the first….

1. Writing Product/Service Reviews

Like the many millions of people who buy goods on the internet every day I, like them, like to read up on what people I saying about the product or service that i’m interested in. This is a major factor for me as to whether i’m going to get out my credit card and purchase the product or not.

Whatever it is your purchasing; web hosting, seo software, keyword research software etc. There is always an huge array of options to choose from. People want help from others who know more than themselves. They want help to sort through the mulitude of options that are available online.

They need the euiquavelant of an honest store assistant (if one exists hehe) that is going to guide them to the best product that will solve their problem or need. That person should be you! This technique has been around in affiliate marketing for years and it’s still used for one reason – It Works!

Now obviously you can’t own all the products that you may want to promote through your site.

If you don’t own the product: here are a few pointers to get you started writing your reviews:

- focus on the relevancy and potential benefits of the product to the market.
- set up a Google Alert “<product name> review” to get a feel for what other people are saying about it.
- look at the reputation of the product owner/designer.
- gather information from the product sales page.
- search forums and discussion boards.
- follow up on the testimonials for the product.

If you do own the product then think:

- what was my first impression of the product?
- what is my impression now that I’ve bought it?
- what one thing did I find most useful?
- which type of person is that product right for?
- what are the top five things that I’ve learned from the product?
- did the product deliver on its sales letter?
- can I recommend it?

I personally think the last point is very important indeed! You must try to give an honest opinion here as this could affect the trust your potential customers have in you. If you don’t think its any good, you could tell them this and then use this point to recommend another product you’re promoting in the same market.

I’ll cover this more in the article on product comparison tables.

When you start to craft yor review, it must be well balanced. It’s good practice to start with a major weakness of the product. For example, it could be something like, Product X has a major weakness in that it’s too full of detail. I know that might be a little cheesy but you get my point.

Other important points to think about when writing your review:

- speak directly to your audience, use a conversational tone of writing.
- create a good balance of pros and cons.
- try to spread out the main benefits across the article so that you keep things interesting.
- try to phrase your benefits into real world examples.

To summarise product/service reviews are an excellent way to get incoming links. People need social proof to help them make their decision whether to buy or not and product reviews provide this. Also if you don’t like writing, (me included) then just outsource it to a site like elance.com or getafreelancer.com and use the points above in your job description that i’ve listed in the if you don’t own the product section.

Stay tuned for the next article in the series – Generating 1000′s of incoming links through Blogs