There is often a great deal of disagreement about what equates to a “quality” backlink in the world of making money online. In general, most SEO moguls can agree that we can’t always completely believe or take literally what Google tells us is good or bad in terms of ranking. We know they don’t expose the whole truth about their “top secret” algorithm and perhaps they shouldn’t because then we wouldn’t be forced to “figure things out” on our own. Figuring things out, trial and error, and extracting uncommon knowledge about the Google algorithm can work out favorable for those of us trying to dominate the SERPs for our keywords such as make money at home. Thus, if we hit upon something that gives us an advantage, it’s possible that few other people know about it (maybe none in our particular niche).
What Doesn’t Work Anymore….
It is well known that direct link exchanges do not help now (site A links to site B; site B links to site A). There is also some speculation that 3-way links (site A links to site B; site B links to site C; site C links to site A) are losing power as well although there hasn’t been solid proof of this as of yet. Also, blogroll, sidebar, and site-wide links are losing their luster (these are still ok, but they aren’t as great as they used to be). Social media links, blog comments with do-follow, website directory, and any other links that the average Joe can easily get are losing their backlink juice as well. Don’t even think about copying and pasting some Blog Content Wizard posts into your blog to create your own farm network. Nope. None of this works anymore.
Well Sh^&… What DOES work then???
In-text keyword-anchored backlinks. As always, it’s best if they are on a niche-related site or blog. Guest posts work great for this. Or- write a really really good article about your niche (solve a problem, provide a new perspective, offer a free tool or resource, etc) and create social network or comment funnels that might attract visitors to your blog who might link to you. I can’t believe I just suggested using a social network, but it’s true: they work for funneling people to your link bait. I recently discussed the concept of natural backlinks in a recent post here at my make money at home blog.
Write lots of articles about your niche. 10-20 a day is a good number to shoot for. How on earth could somebody write 10-20 articles everyday? Read one of my recent blog posts about just that topic.
Do “.edu” Backlinks Work?
Matt Cutts recently tried to shoot down the idea that .edu backlinks are weighted heavier than any other links. Should we believe him? Maybe he just wants people to stop spamming the university library blogs and students’ travel abroad diaries, who knows? Most of those blog comments are “no follow” anyway, so please, just stop with them. Viagra spammers are evil! lol
And anyway, I truly believe that we shouldn’t have to spam to top the SERPs. The thought of that makes me feel a bit embarrassed about backlinking tactics I’ve used in the past.
I’m not sure how powerful good .edu links are anymore (I’m not talking about comments on a student’s .edu blog or a class wiki btw) – I’m referring to an in-text blog post keyword-anchored link on a niche-related blog that happens to be on a .edu domain. Not everyone can get that type of link (can you?), and something tells me it still packs a huge punch.
Spammers, Be Gone!
My speculation is that Google is trying everything they can to clamp down on spammers and blatant backlink cheaters. ***Hey, stop looking at me like that… I haven’t cheated on links – for this blog! :D :D :D I rather like the look of a white hat on my head these days, what do you think? To be legit, I’d appreciate a backlink from YOU, if you don’t mind.
Even professional backlink manipulators like me are going to have to turn over a new leaf for the long-term benefit. Eventually, all of those sites/blogs that spammed 20,000 .edu blogs and created strategic link farms en masse are going to get slapped harder and farther than they ever have before. I prefer not to be a part of it as I can see it coming…
I used to create lots and lots of crap content. Sometimes it was fun because I could say anything that popped into my head; no one was going to read it anyway because it was for my farms. Sometimes I’d use stuff my 6 year old said - that would make for some funny or often, surprisingly enlightening content! Actually, he could offer up some awesome content or topic ideas that could probably make an article go viral. Children are geniuses!
Anyway, then I’d go and create content for my money sites that was intentionally looped in structure to encourage clicks on the Adsense ads. To an extent, this still works if it’s not too obvious and if the niche is small enough. For niches like “make money at home” this isn’t going to suffice. If the niche has little or no competition, I’d say loop away and hopefully you will get away with it. My ebook Nomad’s Guide to Make Money Online focuses on tracking down these small niches (which is what beginners should focus on). The 2nd tier/3rd tier strategy still works as long as you are not trying to tackle the first page for Forex investing, make money at home, weight loss, and other such niches. Something tells me that those types of niches are under the Google microscope more than most other niches.
Are those farms still helping me now? Yeah, some of them. Most of them are still indexed, but I have no idea for how long. There was a period where they were really helping me and I was making gobs of money with Adsense. I’m still making a lot of money from Adsense in other niches, so don’t think that my income stopped. Google hasn’t banned my account, so apparently I’m not too incredibly obvious about what I do. To supplement, I’ve been creating a bunch of mediocre content blogs to replace the automated content farms and I have improved the content on some of my better performing Adsense sites.
However, I don’t put Adsense on blogs like this one for a reason. My strategy here is completely separate and I need to keep it that way. I’m trying to see how truly white hat I can get with this blog and I’m counting on my article marketing and natural backlinking skills to get me by. Only time will tell how this experiment goes. Will I rank for make money at home? Maybe with your help (you know – a backlink with make money at home as the anchor text).
I will be continuously editing the content of my ebook to reflect the changes to the rules. Anyone who has bought it will be able to receive a free copy of the updated version by contacting me on the make money online ebook’s main website. There is a link in the right sidebar.
Internet Marketer Syndrome
That’s the thing with being an internet marketer. Things are always changing and something that may be true one month, may not be true the next. It’s not that what I said before wasn’t true; it was true. It just may not be true NOW. We have to go with the flow and not resist these changes. What you resist persists, remember?
Don’t use this as an excuse to throw in the towel and harshly proclaim that making money online doesn’t work. It does work, but only if you work with its will and not against it. If you give up now, you will be going down with the blatant spammers. I know some of you who purchased my ebook are very talented at this and are already seeing success with the small niche method (which, as I already mentioned, still works!!!) Keep going and have some patience!
Who? Me? Paranoid? Well…
I’m officially paranoid and I’m more than willing to alter my ways if it means I will continue to keep my head above water. I think I’ll always be able to make a living with Adsense, but just in case, I’m creating a back-up plan that builds authority sites, link bait, and lots of creative measures. I suggest you do the same. I can’t completely guide you as this is another one of those “figure it out” situations, but I believe I have given you enough information to go on… Sometimes the “back to basics” strategy is the best long-term solution.
That’s all I’ve got for today. Did I ramble on enough to suit you? :)
Writing from Boulder, Colorado (Visit the Taj Indian Restaurant if you’re in this area – delicious food!!!! It’s near Broadway and Baseline Rd),
Janet Smith
Monday, February 1, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
Free Custom Wordpress Themes
I just recently took a liking to making Wordpress themes. It's a lot of fun actually... Yeah I know - I do weird things in my spare time.
With that said, this is why I'm making this blog post about free wordpress themes:
I'd be willing to design a custom wordpress theme for you for FREE. Yep, for free - free wordpress themes (sorry, I needed anchor text, lol). I can also do Blogger templates or plain HTML templates. Email me with any color/design suggestions and with the type of blog the wp theme is intended for and I will email you back with your free wp theme. My email address is located on the contact page of my NGMMO site. I'll try to get the theme to you within a week or less.
There's no catch... All I ask is that you keep the footer link intact. :)
If I get swamped with requests, obviously I won't be able to send everyone a free custom wp theme, so please understand if I'm unable to do it. Either way, I'll respond to your email to let you know whether or not I'll get around to sending you a theme. I can guarantee that at least the first 50 or so of you who email me will get it. Anyway, just ask and I'll let you know.
Here are a couple examples of WP themes I have already designed, to give you an idea. Keep in mind I can do any colors, fonts, etc that you want and the overall design can be different too. I'll try to tailor the design to fit your niche. My wp themes never look the same. :D
With that said, this is why I'm making this blog post about free wordpress themes:
I'd be willing to design a custom wordpress theme for you for FREE. Yep, for free - free wordpress themes (sorry, I needed anchor text, lol). I can also do Blogger templates or plain HTML templates. Email me with any color/design suggestions and with the type of blog the wp theme is intended for and I will email you back with your free wp theme. My email address is located on the contact page of my NGMMO site. I'll try to get the theme to you within a week or less.
There's no catch... All I ask is that you keep the footer link intact. :)
If I get swamped with requests, obviously I won't be able to send everyone a free custom wp theme, so please understand if I'm unable to do it. Either way, I'll respond to your email to let you know whether or not I'll get around to sending you a theme. I can guarantee that at least the first 50 or so of you who email me will get it. Anyway, just ask and I'll let you know.
Here are a couple examples of WP themes I have already designed, to give you an idea. Keep in mind I can do any colors, fonts, etc that you want and the overall design can be different too. I'll try to tailor the design to fit your niche. My wp themes never look the same. :D
How to Write Unique Content 3 Times Faster than Everyone Else
I like to write make money at home articles that contain information you don’t come across everyday, and that’s why I end up not writing a lot of content about the subject. Most of the basics have already been covered by Grizzly, Court, Vic, and others. They know far, far more about how to make money online than I do. Hopefully one day I can evolve to their level and, as a result, get unsolicited backlinks left and right. LOL
However, sometimes there comes a time when I do have something unique to contribute (something I think is unique anyway). Like Griz, Vic, and Court, I too make a living online and have a trick or 2 up my sleeve. I do not undervalue my abilities as an internet marketer and have a high satisfaction with my current level of success. What I do online pays the bills and supports my chosen lifestyle, so I’m happy! I don’t have a “job”, I make money 100% online, and I can live where I want. Life is good.
Anyway, on to the actual meat of this make money online with backlinks article:
To dominate a niche on the search engines, we need backlinks and content for our blogs and websites. The best kind of backlinks are in-text links mid-sentence in an article about a related topic. Oh – and we need lots of those types in article/blog post links. Lots. In addition, that content needs to be original to be most effective – no PLR, dup content, or spun article crap. It’s even better if our link is the only one on the page.
All that sounds like a headache waiting to happen since no one naturally wants to give us the “perfect” backlink – especially in niches that are oversaturated like MMO. In addition, no one can afford to outsource all the heaps of content that we need exclusively for backlinks. Also, to start out, most of us have day jobs and don’t have time to write endless articles ourselves because we’re dead tired when we go home at night. What a vicious cycle most of us are stuck in! It really sucks and I truly feel for those of you in that situation because I’ve been there too…
How can we make the backlink process go faster without our fingers hurting and constantly gluing our eyes to the computer screen? All we will get out of this method is an early case of arthritis and deteriorating vision. Wow, what a trade-off. Our health and social/family life are priceless and precious, so don’t ruin them by marrying your keyboard. After all, the whole reason most people break into internet marketing is because they are trying to free up their time – not tie themselves down.
I don’t know about you, but once I get going with a particular niche – I get really sick of writing articles and really disgusted by the amount of time it takes to type out a decent sized article of 500 or 1000 words. My goal has always been to output at least 10-20 unique (absolutely no spun or automated content) niche-specific articles per day solely for the purpose of backlinks, but if I do it the way everyone else does and at the volume I need to in order to rank for keywords, I would have no life! I would be sitting at the computer all day long writing articles, and I don’t want that. I also don’t want to wait forever in order to start ranking well for my niches. 1 article a day isn’t going to cut it for most niches.
Here’s another thing to chew on: What about the times we’re away from the computer thinking about our niche and come up with good content in our heads? We can’t always write it down immediately and we can’t always remember it for later, so what do we do?
I have a secret article generating method and I will share it with you. It is totally legit and there is nothing Google can do about it to shoot it down. I hope you find the following information useful:
It is a proven fact that we can speak approximately 3 times faster than we can type. Furthermore, we can speak anytime, anywhere. Typing has to be done while at our computer and what kind of life is it to carry our laptop around with us all day?
I create articles 3 times faster (unless there are some superhuman-typers out there!) than most people can because I use a handheld voice recording device designed for use with the speech recognition software called Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred Mobile (make sure it's the mobile one so you get the voice recorder). You can buy it here at a discount: Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Preferred Mobile
(Yes, it’s an affiliate link. If you think I deserve credit for the idea then feel free to use my affiliate link. Or, delete my affiliate code and buy it directly if you can’t stand the thought of me earning a commission from it, LOL!) At the very least, how about a backlink to this article with the anchor text “make money online” or "make money at home" or something like that? :)
I carry the voice recorder around with me and whenever I get the inspiration or whenever I need to sit down and bust out 10 quick articles about my niche, I talk into the recorder. It takes me about 5 to 10 minutes or so (sometimes less if I thought out what to say) to speak each article that would take me 15-30 minutes each to type out manually, depending on how many words the article needs. It has about 99% accuracy and has gotten better the more I use it as it gets used to my speech patterns.
Later, when I am ready to post some backlink articles, I plug the device into my computer and the voice recordings are automatically converted into word processing documents that I can copy and paste into my desired backlink source. I use it for on-page content as well.
Most of my time is now spent locating places to post the spoken articles rather than relentlessly typing them out by hand. That’s how I make money online and generate unique backlink content at superhuman speed.
As a side note, if you always have tons of emails to answer like I do, it helps tackle those quickly, too.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments section and remember to send me a backlink if you appreciate this make money online tip. I estimate that this article is about 1000 words, give or take a few, so I’ll stop there…
Writing from Denver, Colorado (it’s so cold here!!!!!),
Janet Smith
However, sometimes there comes a time when I do have something unique to contribute (something I think is unique anyway). Like Griz, Vic, and Court, I too make a living online and have a trick or 2 up my sleeve. I do not undervalue my abilities as an internet marketer and have a high satisfaction with my current level of success. What I do online pays the bills and supports my chosen lifestyle, so I’m happy! I don’t have a “job”, I make money 100% online, and I can live where I want. Life is good.
Anyway, on to the actual meat of this make money online with backlinks article:
To dominate a niche on the search engines, we need backlinks and content for our blogs and websites. The best kind of backlinks are in-text links mid-sentence in an article about a related topic. Oh – and we need lots of those types in article/blog post links. Lots. In addition, that content needs to be original to be most effective – no PLR, dup content, or spun article crap. It’s even better if our link is the only one on the page.
All that sounds like a headache waiting to happen since no one naturally wants to give us the “perfect” backlink – especially in niches that are oversaturated like MMO. In addition, no one can afford to outsource all the heaps of content that we need exclusively for backlinks. Also, to start out, most of us have day jobs and don’t have time to write endless articles ourselves because we’re dead tired when we go home at night. What a vicious cycle most of us are stuck in! It really sucks and I truly feel for those of you in that situation because I’ve been there too…
How can we make the backlink process go faster without our fingers hurting and constantly gluing our eyes to the computer screen? All we will get out of this method is an early case of arthritis and deteriorating vision. Wow, what a trade-off. Our health and social/family life are priceless and precious, so don’t ruin them by marrying your keyboard. After all, the whole reason most people break into internet marketing is because they are trying to free up their time – not tie themselves down.
I don’t know about you, but once I get going with a particular niche – I get really sick of writing articles and really disgusted by the amount of time it takes to type out a decent sized article of 500 or 1000 words. My goal has always been to output at least 10-20 unique (absolutely no spun or automated content) niche-specific articles per day solely for the purpose of backlinks, but if I do it the way everyone else does and at the volume I need to in order to rank for keywords, I would have no life! I would be sitting at the computer all day long writing articles, and I don’t want that. I also don’t want to wait forever in order to start ranking well for my niches. 1 article a day isn’t going to cut it for most niches.
Here’s another thing to chew on: What about the times we’re away from the computer thinking about our niche and come up with good content in our heads? We can’t always write it down immediately and we can’t always remember it for later, so what do we do?
I have a secret article generating method and I will share it with you. It is totally legit and there is nothing Google can do about it to shoot it down. I hope you find the following information useful:
It is a proven fact that we can speak approximately 3 times faster than we can type. Furthermore, we can speak anytime, anywhere. Typing has to be done while at our computer and what kind of life is it to carry our laptop around with us all day?
I create articles 3 times faster (unless there are some superhuman-typers out there!) than most people can because I use a handheld voice recording device designed for use with the speech recognition software called Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred Mobile (make sure it's the mobile one so you get the voice recorder). You can buy it here at a discount: Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 Preferred Mobile
(Yes, it’s an affiliate link. If you think I deserve credit for the idea then feel free to use my affiliate link. Or, delete my affiliate code and buy it directly if you can’t stand the thought of me earning a commission from it, LOL!) At the very least, how about a backlink to this article with the anchor text “make money online” or "make money at home" or something like that? :)I carry the voice recorder around with me and whenever I get the inspiration or whenever I need to sit down and bust out 10 quick articles about my niche, I talk into the recorder. It takes me about 5 to 10 minutes or so (sometimes less if I thought out what to say) to speak each article that would take me 15-30 minutes each to type out manually, depending on how many words the article needs. It has about 99% accuracy and has gotten better the more I use it as it gets used to my speech patterns.
Later, when I am ready to post some backlink articles, I plug the device into my computer and the voice recordings are automatically converted into word processing documents that I can copy and paste into my desired backlink source. I use it for on-page content as well.
Most of my time is now spent locating places to post the spoken articles rather than relentlessly typing them out by hand. That’s how I make money online and generate unique backlink content at superhuman speed.
As a side note, if you always have tons of emails to answer like I do, it helps tackle those quickly, too.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments section and remember to send me a backlink if you appreciate this make money online tip. I estimate that this article is about 1000 words, give or take a few, so I’ll stop there…
Writing from Denver, Colorado (it’s so cold here!!!!!),
Janet Smith
Thursday, January 21, 2010
How to Make Money Online – Get Natural Backlinks
Before I proceed with this make money online article, we need to go over what natural backlinks are.
What are natural backlinks?
There are all sorts of backlinks people use to make money online: spammy backlinks, comment and forum signature backlinks, “whined for” backlinks… None of those are natural backlinks – and if you want to make money online you will need mostly the natural variety to satisfy the ever-changing demands of Google.
I know, I still didn’t answer your question about what exactly natural backlinks are. I’m getting to it… don’t worry…
Natural backlinks are the backlinks you get from some random person who decided to link to you. You didn’t ask for the link and you didn’t spam anyone to get it; you didn’t comment on a bunch of “.edu” student blogs and you didn’t write a paid post on someone’s blog. The beauty of natural backlinks is that you can often get them from people who have blogs and websites related to your niche. These related, unsolicited backlinks are the most valuable you can possibly ever get. How do you get them?
“Post good content and post it often!” all the blogging gurus proclaim. Most people who try to make money online simply want to make a blog, slap up some Adsense, write blog posts everyday with recycled content when they run out of ideas, get a couple comment backlinks, and waste away their days promoting the blog on social media sites.
“Attract natural backlinks and attract them often!” I proclaim. No, this is not the same thing as posting good content. Let me explain.
My approach to natural backlinks is different. Most gurus and so-called experts say to write spectacular, unique content and the natural backlinks will take care of themselves. Trust me, backlinks (the kind we need and want) never “take care of themselves”. Backlinks are not passive no matter how you slice it. True, your natural backlinks will be unsolicited, but they sure as hell don’t happen simply by writing a blog post. Yippie… another blog post! There are millions of blog posts written about backlinks everyday and no one cares. Due to oversaturation (especially in the make money online niche) it takes more than good content to get natural backlinks – it takes a pioneer approach.
Blogging gurus are mostly full of s%^* and flock to blogging conventions to collect their meaningless awards touting their self-indulged expertise. The real gurus, those who don’t refer to themselves as such, never attend blogging conventions and never flaunt their skills – they simply demonstrate those skills through their actions. As we all know, actions speak louder than words. Most of the real gurus never even show their faces, so we will never know who most of them are. They lurk in the shadows, make their money, vacation in the south of France, and laugh as everyone else follows Darren Rowse’s blog like it’s a cult. Instead of reading about celebrity train wrecks for entertainment like most people do, they read noob comments and blog posts written by Yaro Starak and Caroline Middlebrook.
Content is only a small piece of what it takes to get natural backlinks and in some cases good content has been totally sidestepped. For example, just look at some of the sites that rank #1 or #2 for very competitive keywords! Most of their content is either sparse or heavily regurgitated from the same crap they have blogged about time and time again. Either that, or they hop on over to Grizzly’s Blogger blog to find something they can paraphrase and pass off as their own “expertise”.
Back to the question: How do we get natural backlinks without annoying the competitors in our niche to death? Good content is a great strategy if you use it to attract backlinks, but it needs to be paired with that which makes people want to link to you – it needs to be a tool that they can’t live without (and free is always a great incentive for someone to give you backlinks). Essentially, you are creating a “niche within your niche” so that the people in your niche will not feel threatened by you; they will link to you.
Everyone loves the person who gives away things for free, but no one wants to BE that person. Most of the time, that person who gives away things for free is the one who ends up winning out because ‘free’ is part of their strategy. When something is ‘free’, the assumption that you have ulterior motives suddenly disappears.
Thus, you mustn’t be blatantly selling something if you want backlinks. On the flip side, we all need and want backlinks because, ultimately, we all want to be able to sell something. To put it a different way: We need backlinks so we can rank for our keywords, get targeted traffic, and sell stuff - but no one wants to give us backlinks if we appear to be some money hungry, heartless internet marketer. Do you see the dilemma? If we didn’t want to make money online, we wouldn’t be chasing backlinks like there’s no tomorrow.
I can’t give you a solid answer on what your tool or natural backlink magnet should be. It depends on how creative you are, what your niche is, and how actively you pursue and implement your ideas. My best advice is: Find a hole in your niche and fill it. Come up with some tool or unique information that you can offer for free; in exchange you will attract natural backlinks if you market it properly and if it is truly an asset to your niche.
If you want to know what I’m talking about, I advise you to watch very closely what I do (not just what I say) in the next few months. I have some natural backlink magnet strategies in place and I will be implementing them. Remember that actions speak louder than words.
One last thing about Grizzly… He is a pioneer. I have an educated guess as to why he would offer the world so much priceless make money online information for FREE (besides the fact that he’s a nice guy!). Grizzly, a true internet marketer who practices what he preaches, inherently knows the value of attracting natural backlinks. His blog is a giant natural backlink magnet! Everyone and their mother who is interested in how to make money online links to his blog without the need for him to ask them to.
Sure, when he first started the blog I bet he had to work his tail off to get backlinks, but once he obtained some and people began to realize the value of his knowledge – everyone else did the backlink work for him. It was a snowball effect that pushed him to page 1 for “make money online”. This is a case of content winning out, but only because he has the backlinks and actual knowledge to “back” it up; this situation is rare and I think only Grizzly and a select few others have been able to pull it off.
Grizzly was the first person to really open up about how an average person can make money online – and most respectfully of all: he does it for free. His honesty and helpful attitude have allowed him to stand out in the make money online niche, and this gives me great hope. For once, honesty wins. How’s that for a slap in the face for all the sneaky internet marketers out there?
Remember, you don’t need to be a “Grizzly” to get natural backlinks. Implement the free tool approach in your own way and you will be successful in your quest to make money online – even if you don’t have the means to create great content like Grizzly does.
So let it be written; so let it be done.
Writing to you from San Jose, California,
Janet Smith
What are natural backlinks?
There are all sorts of backlinks people use to make money online: spammy backlinks, comment and forum signature backlinks, “whined for” backlinks… None of those are natural backlinks – and if you want to make money online you will need mostly the natural variety to satisfy the ever-changing demands of Google.
I know, I still didn’t answer your question about what exactly natural backlinks are. I’m getting to it… don’t worry…
Natural backlinks are the backlinks you get from some random person who decided to link to you. You didn’t ask for the link and you didn’t spam anyone to get it; you didn’t comment on a bunch of “.edu” student blogs and you didn’t write a paid post on someone’s blog. The beauty of natural backlinks is that you can often get them from people who have blogs and websites related to your niche. These related, unsolicited backlinks are the most valuable you can possibly ever get. How do you get them?
“Post good content and post it often!” all the blogging gurus proclaim. Most people who try to make money online simply want to make a blog, slap up some Adsense, write blog posts everyday with recycled content when they run out of ideas, get a couple comment backlinks, and waste away their days promoting the blog on social media sites.
“Attract natural backlinks and attract them often!” I proclaim. No, this is not the same thing as posting good content. Let me explain.
My approach to natural backlinks is different. Most gurus and so-called experts say to write spectacular, unique content and the natural backlinks will take care of themselves. Trust me, backlinks (the kind we need and want) never “take care of themselves”. Backlinks are not passive no matter how you slice it. True, your natural backlinks will be unsolicited, but they sure as hell don’t happen simply by writing a blog post. Yippie… another blog post! There are millions of blog posts written about backlinks everyday and no one cares. Due to oversaturation (especially in the make money online niche) it takes more than good content to get natural backlinks – it takes a pioneer approach.
Blogging gurus are mostly full of s%^* and flock to blogging conventions to collect their meaningless awards touting their self-indulged expertise. The real gurus, those who don’t refer to themselves as such, never attend blogging conventions and never flaunt their skills – they simply demonstrate those skills through their actions. As we all know, actions speak louder than words. Most of the real gurus never even show their faces, so we will never know who most of them are. They lurk in the shadows, make their money, vacation in the south of France, and laugh as everyone else follows Darren Rowse’s blog like it’s a cult. Instead of reading about celebrity train wrecks for entertainment like most people do, they read noob comments and blog posts written by Yaro Starak and Caroline Middlebrook.
Content is only a small piece of what it takes to get natural backlinks and in some cases good content has been totally sidestepped. For example, just look at some of the sites that rank #1 or #2 for very competitive keywords! Most of their content is either sparse or heavily regurgitated from the same crap they have blogged about time and time again. Either that, or they hop on over to Grizzly’s Blogger blog to find something they can paraphrase and pass off as their own “expertise”.
Back to the question: How do we get natural backlinks without annoying the competitors in our niche to death? Good content is a great strategy if you use it to attract backlinks, but it needs to be paired with that which makes people want to link to you – it needs to be a tool that they can’t live without (and free is always a great incentive for someone to give you backlinks). Essentially, you are creating a “niche within your niche” so that the people in your niche will not feel threatened by you; they will link to you.
Everyone loves the person who gives away things for free, but no one wants to BE that person. Most of the time, that person who gives away things for free is the one who ends up winning out because ‘free’ is part of their strategy. When something is ‘free’, the assumption that you have ulterior motives suddenly disappears.
Thus, you mustn’t be blatantly selling something if you want backlinks. On the flip side, we all need and want backlinks because, ultimately, we all want to be able to sell something. To put it a different way: We need backlinks so we can rank for our keywords, get targeted traffic, and sell stuff - but no one wants to give us backlinks if we appear to be some money hungry, heartless internet marketer. Do you see the dilemma? If we didn’t want to make money online, we wouldn’t be chasing backlinks like there’s no tomorrow.
I can’t give you a solid answer on what your tool or natural backlink magnet should be. It depends on how creative you are, what your niche is, and how actively you pursue and implement your ideas. My best advice is: Find a hole in your niche and fill it. Come up with some tool or unique information that you can offer for free; in exchange you will attract natural backlinks if you market it properly and if it is truly an asset to your niche.
If you want to know what I’m talking about, I advise you to watch very closely what I do (not just what I say) in the next few months. I have some natural backlink magnet strategies in place and I will be implementing them. Remember that actions speak louder than words.
One last thing about Grizzly… He is a pioneer. I have an educated guess as to why he would offer the world so much priceless make money online information for FREE (besides the fact that he’s a nice guy!). Grizzly, a true internet marketer who practices what he preaches, inherently knows the value of attracting natural backlinks. His blog is a giant natural backlink magnet! Everyone and their mother who is interested in how to make money online links to his blog without the need for him to ask them to.
Sure, when he first started the blog I bet he had to work his tail off to get backlinks, but once he obtained some and people began to realize the value of his knowledge – everyone else did the backlink work for him. It was a snowball effect that pushed him to page 1 for “make money online”. This is a case of content winning out, but only because he has the backlinks and actual knowledge to “back” it up; this situation is rare and I think only Grizzly and a select few others have been able to pull it off.
Grizzly was the first person to really open up about how an average person can make money online – and most respectfully of all: he does it for free. His honesty and helpful attitude have allowed him to stand out in the make money online niche, and this gives me great hope. For once, honesty wins. How’s that for a slap in the face for all the sneaky internet marketers out there?
Remember, you don’t need to be a “Grizzly” to get natural backlinks. Implement the free tool approach in your own way and you will be successful in your quest to make money online – even if you don’t have the means to create great content like Grizzly does.
So let it be written; so let it be done.
Writing to you from San Jose, California,
Janet Smith
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