Are All Marketers Evil? Why Building Links Can Save Your Business

Hi everyone. I have a special post here for you today, written by a close friend of mine. The question on whether or not you should backlink your content has been a raging debate for years now, especially now with Google’s algorithm change. I asked Brian to write this post because I think that it’s important to understand the other side of marketing and how marketing, the good kind, isn’t bad as some people say. In fact, it’s even necessary.

Give this article a read. You’ll be glad that you did.

This is a guest post by Brian, author of the blogs Residual Income Online with Chezfat and How to Live a Longer Life. If you think this post rocks, I encourage you to check him out.

Photo by Steve Keys (flickr)

Want to know a secret?

Your website or blog is your business.

Whether you make a few dollars a month on that site or thousands, it is still your business. Even if you don’t have it monetized, it is your PR campaign for your own brand; therefore it is your business.

Can you think of any businesses in the offline world that don’t do any marketing?

I can’t think of any. (more…)

Link Wheels and How to NOT Get Your Site Sandboxed

This is part 2 of a two-part series. In the first part of the series, I talked about Understanding Link Wheels (and Avoiding Sandboxes): The Beginner’s Guide. I highly recommend that you check part 1 out first if you haven’t already done so.

In the last part of this series, I defined link wheels and talked about how to use them in a way that would increase search engine traffic. I also gave you an example of a link wheel that I personally use for my own niche sites.

Well, now in this post I’m going to share with you all of the benefits and drawbacks of link wheel building, how to create a link wheel that works for you, and how to use link wheels without sinking your site into the deadly sandbox, another way to get backlisted by Google. And if you don’t know what a link wheel is, I strongly suggest reading my article Understanding Link Wheels before moving on.

Ready to dive in? I knew you would be. Let’s get started…

Benefits and Drawbacks of Link Wheels

As you might have guessed, there are many advantages to using a link wheel (why else would people use them?). But, while there might be many more benefits than drawbacks, you simply can’t rule out the disadvantages.

And if you are thinking about creating your own link wheel, it’s important that you’re aware of the potential obstacles you might face in the process – particularly how much time you’ll need to devote to your link wheel and why link wheels have such a negative denotation.

So, without further ado, let’s get our hands dirty! (more…)

Understanding Link Wheels (and Avoiding Sandboxes): The Beginner’s Guide

This is part 1 of a two-part series. Next week on Wednesday, I’ll publish part 2 in the series – Link Wheels and How to NOT Get Your Site Sandboxed. Stay tuned!

The dreaded sandbox is every blogger’s worst nightmare – that is, if you’re making a living primarily by creating and monetizing niche sites. But don’t worry; I have a way you can put those fears to rest – and it starts with understanding link wheels.

Now, I’m sure some of you are staring at this with wide eyes and opened mouths thinking, “But I loved playing in the sandbox when I was younger! So why should Internet marketers fear boxes of sand?”

Well, just read on.

Boxes of Sand

Think Back to When You Were a Child.

Do you remember going to the beach? Maybe you had your very own sandbox. Like many children, you probably enjoyed building castles in the sand, which really looked like giant ant hills (but nobody ever told you that).

When someone else knocks your cherished castle over and it’s permitted to fall back into a sand mound, you can’t help but cover yourself in it – admire the way each grain of rock works together to hide your little body, as you gather bunches of sand and fling it across your legs.

First you bury your toes, then you bury your thighs, then your stomach, and lastly your shoulders – laughing giddily while your mother tries to find you. Eyes squeezed shut, your high-pitched squeals give yourself away entirely; but you don’t know it, and your mother is more than happy to play along. (more…)

How to Use Meta Tags to Increase Website Traffic

The degree of impact that meta tags have on your website is discussed by many entrepreneurs and is often disagreed on. However, it has been proven that meta tags do have some effect on search engine results. The effect they have vary depending on the search engine. According to Michael Fleischner, author of the book SEO Made Simple: Strategies For Dominating The World’s Largest Search Engine, the MSN search engine especially loves on-page optimization, including meta tags.

Meta tags are just HTML codes that tell search engine bots what your website is about. Visitors browsing your website won’t be able to see the metadata at all, unless they looked at your source code. Search engines basically use your meta tags to label your website and decide where to put your website in search results. Since meta tags aren’t seen by website visitors, they are perfectly harmless and can help increase search engine traffic to some degree, as long as you aren’t keyword stuffing your meta tags. (more…)

Keyword Stuffing: When Keyword Density Becomes a Problem

Keyword density, the percentage of keyword phrases in the web content of an article or website, can increase your position in search engines if you also take advantage of other optimization methods, like meta keywords and backlinking strategies. Though keyword density does have its benefits, it can’t be overused. Overusing keyword density is called keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing isn’t just harmful to your search engine rankings. It is also harmful to your readers. (more…)

Using Keyword Density to Your Advantage

Webmasters use keyword density to determine the percentage of keywords or keyword phrases that are in their articles so that they can optimize the number of keywords in their content. Keeping track of your keyword density is just one way to optimize your websites or articles for search engines. Though major search engines don’t place a heavy weight on keyword density as they did before, it’s still good to know, since it will help you boost your search engine rankings.

To calculate your keyword density, divide the number of keywords or keyword phrases by the number of total words in your article and multiply this number by 100. For example, if I have 8 keyword phrases in my blogs post and the total word count of my post is 400, my keyword density would be 2% (8 / 400 * 100 = 2%). (more…)

Backlinking Strategies: Increase Search Engine Traffic

Have you ever written content online, only to find that the articles written weren’t performing well on search engines? Whether you write for a blog, business, or content website, you want other internet users to find your content. You also want to increase search engine traffic and earn money for your search engine optimization efforts. However, sometimes optimizing articles or blog entries on the page for search engine traffic isn’t enough to rank high on major search engines, like Google. This is where backlinking strategies come in. While Google does look at on-page optimization, like keyword placement and keyword count, Google also looks at how many websites are linking in or backlinking to your optimized content. In fact, many webmasters believe that Google places a heavier weight on the number of backlinks a given page has. This is why taking part in backlinking strategies and increasing the number of backlinks each web page has is essential to getting your content on page 1 of Google and increasing your overall website’s page rank.

(more…)