Level Up Your Article Marketing
Ok, if you’ve been trying to promote your website very long, you’ve no doubt heard of article marketing. It’s still an effective way to bring in targeted visitors AND build links at the same time. Needless to say, this double edge benefit is certainly worth the time you must invest in this tactic. Most people simply write an article, then submit it to a few directories by hand or use a service like ArticleMarketer, iSnare or submission software. This is ok, but you’ll get MUCH more out of each article you write if you use some other services. Here are some service that are pretty effective at taking your article and multiplying the benefit it will have:
Unique Article Wizard - This is a service that you must pay for each month. Basically, you take your one article and spin many unique versions from it, then a unique version is submitted to hundreds of different article directories. Because each article is at least somewhat different, you should get many links from that content. One of the best things about it, is that you can spin the article title and also the resource box, so you can get links with many different anchor texts from just one article.
Article Marketing Automation - UAW gets you links from article directories, but AMA is different. It spins the article for you and posts it to many blogs, including related blogs. So, each blog gets unique content with your links inside the text of each article. This is another great way to get links.
If you combine these two services, you are getting links from two sources, ie, blogs and article directories, just throw in a few links from other methods each month and you have link building synergy.
The great thing is that you are not spamming social bookmarking sites or social news sites or wasting hours trying to find dofollow blog comment links and all that. These two tools are fantastic for people trying to promote sites that are usually quite difficult to build links for, like BANS sites, eBay affiliate sites, Amazon affiliate sites and Adsense based sites.
If you hate article writing or simply can’t seem to find the time to get it done, there are MANY options for outsourcing. Decent quality articles that will work perfectly fine for spinning can be had for a few bucks each. Pay a little more and get better quality. Try the freelance sites and webmaster forums… but do watch out for scammers. Many article writers that do work cheap, even ones with good feedback ratings will disappear after a while and take the money and run. A reputable site to buy articles is Needanarticle.com, but also try Getafreelancer.com and Scriptlance.com to get bids on your work.
Link Building Tools - What works and what doesn’t?
While I usually tell SEO clients that link building must be done manually, I am always checking out the latest software that can streamline, speed up or complete automate some link building tasks. Here’s my opinions on the ones I’ve used:
DIRECTORY SUBMISSIONS
Autofill Directory Submission Software
SubmitEaze - This is a nice program, it does streamline the directory submission process quite a bit. The problem with it is that some directories in the list have broken captcha’s which makes them useless. Even with this program directory submissions can take a while to do.
Directory Submitter Gold - This one isn’t quite as slick as SubmitEaze but it seems to have more directories that work.
Semi-Automated Directory Submission Software
DigiXmas Submitter - This tool does a good job of automating the process as much as it can be done. You still have to enter the captcha’s for any directories that use one, but you do not have to visit each site, which obviously saves a lot of time. The problem with this program is they charge for each URL you want to submit. At $15, this can add up fast and not only that, you pay the $15 and still have to spend the time submitting yourself. Not exactly the deal of the century when you consider you can outsource directory submissions to someone for around the same price, leaving you to do NONE of the work instead. If they lowered their price or had some subscription plan, it would be worth considering if you do a lot of directory submissions. I should note that they do allow you to submit to 150 PR 0 directories for free.
Website Based Directory Submitters
GTSee - This is actually a service/script that you pay to use. It is $6.95 and it submits to 1000+ directories. It would be great if it actually worked. I tried it and found that I only got a few approvals from these submissions and tons of submission declined notices.
EasySubmits - This is a nice service, it’s free and best of all, it actually works. Now, this will cost you some time, as you have to enter the captcha’s for each site and you have to go through page after page of directories, but submitting with this tool was easy and I got loads of confirmations to my email and tons of approvals! You know a submitter is working well if you get actual APPROVALS to your email address.
Other Link Building Tools
SENuke - SENuke generally does what it says, it makes it much easier to do social bookmarking, create Wordpress MU blogs and links on those blogs, creating social networking account and links, submit videos, submit your RSS feeds etc. I found the software buggy at times, especially the social bookmarking part. Plus, it’s an expensive investment at $127 a month.
Bookmarking Demon - This one is for social bookmarking only. It does what it says it will do and it even creates social bookmarking accounts. That said, I found it buggy as well and slow at times. This could be because I was using the older version, and they did recently come out with a new version. Worth a look if you need social bookmarking done.
Social Bookmarking Sites
Some alternatives to the above social bookmarking software are these sites that allow you to post to your accounts for free:
OnlyWire - This is not free anymore, but you can use the service by just providing them a reciprocal link, which I think is worth it. Supports quite a few sites, basically all the biggest and most important ones, even sites like Twitter. The only drawback is that you must create the accounts yourself. Which will take you a bit of time. Also, it doesn’t support multiple accounts or anything like that, you must log in and change the account information yourself if you want to do that. Still, I do believe this is the best service of its kind right now.
SocialMarker - This one is a good alternative to OnlyWire. You have to create the accounts yourself but it supports more sites. Not as automated though as you have to visit each site to submit the bookmarks.
Places to Buy Websites Online
With the current global economic state, just like in the real estate market, it’s a true buyer’s market. Great deals on websites can be had right now if you have some cash available.
I’ve done a bit of buying and selling of websites over the years and here is my opinion on some of the popular places to buy websites online:
SitePoint Marketplace - You are most likely to find a legitimate website deal here. The only bad part is that most everybody knows about it, so you aren’t as likely to get a bargain. Ask lots of questions and you should be fine.
eBay - There’s a ton of crappy websites being sold on eBay. Probably 90% of websites on eBay are total crap and have little to no chance of making money. There’s these membership sites like DotComBuilder and Prozilla where people can sign up and easily create any number of websites built on templates and cheap or free scripts. They market these memberships on eBay for people to turn around and create and sell the individual cookie cutter sites on eBay. The problem is that you end up with tons of these sites on there to sift through. You can find many of them at 99 cents starting price and the seller will just make money through the hosting. Maybe at first you could make money on these, but once more than a few people started selling these sites on eBay, forget about it. This is not to say that there aren’t legitimate sites being sold on eBay, but that it’s just hard to find them. You have to look hard and do your research. Take a look at the sellers other items and previously sold items to see if they just copy the same site and sell it over and over. Lots of sellers do this.
Digital Point - There’s tons of websites being sold on here. Unfortunately, this site is also loaded with tons of scammers. There are ways to fake the iTrader ratings, I’ve seen threads in some black hat forums where people ask for or trade fake iTrader ratings, so it’s that easy. So you can’t really trust the rating of someone who has just joined recently. For me to even consider buying a website on there, the person needs to have been on there for some time. That said, you can get some great deals on here if you are fast. I’ve gotten some domains, websites and scripts for a steal on here. Yet, I’ve also been scammed a few times as well. You have to be vigilant. One thing scammers do is create a website quickly, then send some traffic to it by buying it or faking it to inflate the stats and any Adsense earnings. I bought a blog last year about a sports star. The seller said it had made about $6 from Adsense in the last month. Well, once I took ownership, I saw the stats after my Adsense code had been placed on it. The pageviews numbered at 1 and 2 each day, which is virtually nothing, or likely me looking at the site.
A Prescription For Link Building
I do a lot of SEO work in addition to my own projects, and link building is a huge part of SEO. I often get clients who can’t afford a big monthly package for link building work, so I try and give them tips for how to do it themselves. Maybe that’s not a wise thing to do as far as making money, but I hate to see people struggling when they get started and helping people in this way makes for some very satisfied and very loyal customers. I always get more business from them once they get going, plus lots of referrals. Anyway, I tell them each something a bit different, since every site is different. However, for most sites, I recommend the following to start with and to do on a regular and consistent basis:
- Local Search Submissions - Get listed on Google Local, Yahoo Local, Merchant Circle etc., there’s about a dozen or so big ones currently.
- Major Directory Submissions - Submit to Yahoo Directory only if you have plenty of space in the budget for it, then submit to DMOZ, then to JoeAnt and the other large and reputable ones, 20-50 submissions should cover the important directories.
- Niche and Regional Directory Submissions - For most niches, there will be a directory that pertains to it. For example, if you have a health related site, submit to health directories. Another example: If you have a wedding site, you can submit that to all wedding and bridal directories, women’s directories and shopping directories. Don’t forget to submit to your regional directory, like if you’re in the UK, submit to UK directories. If you are in Canada, Canadian directories. If you are in a big city, most of them have a directory or search engine. Just do a search and you’ll see there are directories for every region and niche.
- Forum Profiles and Posting - For just about every niche, there will be appropriate forums that you can join. Find the main ones in your niche, join, add your link to your profile and your signature, then add something of substance to the discussions on a regular basis.
- Press Release - When you launch your site, announce it via press release. Every time you make a major addition of a new service, product, feature or have some other news, announce it in another press release.
- Social Media and Community - Like forums, there are going to be social sites and communities that cater to your target market. If you have a wedding site, join wedding, bridal and women related communities. Add your link to your profile, post blogs, join groups and discussions. Don’t forget to join business and entrepreneur sites like Ryze, LinkedIn, Startup.biz etc.
- Social News Sites - Submit articles, blog postings and content (of good quality) to social news sites like Digg, Mixx, Reddit, Propeller etc.
- Content Syndication - Create content sites and blogs at sites like Squidoo, Hubpages, Vox, Livejournal, Blogger etc. Put unique, interesting content on each site like tips, articles, recommendations, reviews etc. Try to update these sites once a month, at least.
- Article Writing - Write quality articles and submit them to article directories like EzineArticles and GoArticles. Put this method on steroids by using a service like JetSubmitter or UniqueArticleWizard.
- Link Exchanges - Consider a few highly targeted link exchanges with reputable sites.
With every method, don’t forget to vary anchor text and don’t forget to build links to internal pages of your site as well.
More About Ranking Check Software
Traffic Travis was a bust… buggy and sometimes didn’t give results for certain engines. I’ve switched to Rank Tracker, which is very accurate. The only thing I don’t like is uploading the reports. The reports have too many unneeded files, images and directories. I have to delete certain files before trying to upload, otherwise my server times out or the upload is corrupted. The reports seriously need to be streamlined. I wish their reports were more like Traffic Travis, very simple and clean with no images.
Best Ranking Check Software
I do quite a lot of search engine optimization for selected clients on the side. Pretty much every client wants a progress report of their rankings. While sales and/or traffic is a much more effective and important indicator of the success of a search engine optimization campaign, most clients simply don’t want to hear that. They want to see themselves #1 for whatever oddball phrase that they think is important. Nevermind what you tell them. Hence, the important of giving your clients a weekly or monthly report of their search engine positions for their targeted keyword phrases. So, what to do, what to do…
I’ve tried, bought and used many different pieces of software over my 10 years of doing SEO. It’s much more difficult to find a reliable program that generates easy to read and understand reports, that you can send to clients than you might think. Here are my experiences:
WebPosition - I used this program way back last century and dropped it around 2000 or so. You know it’s bad when Google talks about it in their webmaster guidelines. The reports were ok, but it’s expensive for what it does and you have to keep paying for updates. Haven’t used it in a while, so perhaps it has gotten better. Still wouldn’t use it again though.
AgentWebRanking - This used to be a freeware program that generated reports that were ok. It stopped getting results from each search engine after a while. Then the company introduced very expensive paid versions. While the new program and reports are excellent, I can’t justify spending so much for the relatively small amount of reports I need to generate each month. Not only that, but you have to factor in the updates you have to keep buying. (the cost is in Euros as well, so for US customers, the price is quite high)
Search Engine Commando - This one I liked a lot. The reports were nice and customizable and you have lots of search engines available to check. However, I ran into problems using this software after about a year or so. I found that the reports weren’t very accurate. So, back to searching for another program!
Ranking Manager - This is a nice program as well. I love that it’s dedicated to ranking reports ONLY. No “submission” tools or analysis or anything else. Just good, solid reports with lots of options! I purchased this one in early 2007, and it came with 1 year of updates. Unfortunately, it stopped getting results from Yahoo after about 6 months. I used the support contact form again and again, with no response. Is there an update? Is it a bug? What’s the problem? No answer! Ever! So, I’m stuck generating reports and then having to check Yahoo manually, which added a couple hours of extra work each month. The update period has passed and I haven’t bought an update… and won’t… not without support.
So, my search begins again…
Then I found this thing called Traffic Travis:
Now, I usually don’t go for the kind of software that seems to be everything in one, but this one seems different. I’ve only tried the free version but the ranking check is very fast, faster than the other programs I have tried, not sure why. If you upgrade to the professional version, which is not exorbitantly priced at $99, you can generate reports for clients. I’m really liking the program so far, and I haven’t even tried the other tools included like the keyword research tool (which I can certainly make use of) and PPC tools. One thing I don’t like so far is that every time I open up the program they have a new update to download. I opened the program earlier today and then this afternoon and they are already prompting me for another update. Perhaps that’s a good sign though, but it’s annoying to me. I’m going to sign up for the professional version and will update this post with any additional thoughts on the product. Hopefully I’ve found the solution!
Making Consistent Money With Content Sites - Optimizing Your Site
Optimizing your content site for your researched keywords and phrases is another extremely important step you can’t skip over. In order for search engines to find your website under your desired keywords and phrases, they need to show up on your website pages somewhere. This is especially important when are targeting long tail keyword phrases. Here’s how to easily optimize your pages:
First, break up your phrases into small chunks of several phrases each. This also assumes you have prioritized your phrases already, according to importance, relevance and number of searches. Then start integrating the phrases into your site in these areas:
Page title - The #1 most important place for your keyword phrases! The page title appears at the very top of the web browser and appears in the code between these tags: <title> and </title>
Example page title: <title>Free Hand Stitch Quilting patterns for quilting by hand, free hand quilting designs</title>
Notice 3 phrases are included here.
Body text - Write some natural, flowing text for each page, including some good information whenever possible. Include keyword phrases naturally in the text.
Meta information - The meta tags should be filled in for each page. This mainly includes the description and keywords tag, but other meta tags such as copyright, author can also be filled out. Include your most important phrases in the keywords tag and write a concise, but brief description of your site for the description tag, integrating keyword phrases naturally.
Internal link structure - On every page of your website, you will be including links to your other pages. Make sure the anchor text of these links makes sense but also includes keyword phrases. If you have filled in your page titles with proper keyword phrases for every page, then this element should be no problem, as you can use the same text, or shorten it slightly for your anchor text.
File names - Instead of page1.htm or quiltpage.htm, name your page file names with keyword phrases. Example:
hand-quilting-patterns.htm
free-hand-quilting-patterns.htm
Alternate image text - Each image on your website can include plain text that will show up should your site not load all way for whatever reason, if a browser fails to load the image or for people surfing with images off. This is called alternate image text. Inside the image tag, you’ll find this attribute:
alt=”this is the alternate text”
Integrate keyword phrases in this area for your images, but don’t go overboard. For each image, make sure you describe it, whether or not you are integrating keyword phrases. Example:
alt=”hand quilting logo” (for the logo of your site)
alt=”about hand quilting” (for the about us image)
For other images, it’s a good idea to name them properly, example:
alt=”contact us” (for the contact us button)
Be careful not to spam here, 1 relevant phrase maximum for just a few images just to be safe.
Headings - For each page, use a keyword phrase in a heading tag. Example:
<h1>Keyword Phrase</h1>
Insert informational paragraphs here.
<h2>Keyword Phrase</h2>
Insert informational paragraphs here.
Text Attributes - It’s not yet proven that these make a difference with search engines, but they are helpful to your visitors, at the very least. Consider using the following attributes in your text to place emphasis on keyword phrases:
Bold: <b> </b>
Italics: <i> </i>
Strong: <strong> </strong>
Different font sizes, bulleted lists etc.
These are the main optimization factors for on page optimization. If you use XSitePro, you’ll find it easy to use the SEO tab for each page.
Making Consistent Money With Content Sites - Researching Keywords
One of the most important aspects of creating content sites is choosing the right keywords and phrases to target. You want to choose phrases that are actually searched for on the major search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo, but you also want to choose phrases that aren’t insanely competitive. So, forget that #1 ranking for “quilting”, it brings traffic that is too broad anyway. Just what kind of quilting are they interested in? Do they want to learn about it? Do they want free patterns? Do they want to buy stuff related to quilting? Who knows. This is why we want to research and target what they call “long tail” phrases. Long tail phrases are simply multi word phrases, usually at least a keyword or two or more tacked onto the main phrase. So, if we’re looking for long tail keyword phrases for our subject of hand quilting, here is what comes up:
free hand stitch quilting patterns
quilting by hand
hand quilting thread
free hand quilting designs
quilting hand stitching
dot to dot hand quilting designs
hand quilting templates
hand quilting needles
free hand quilting patterns
hand quilting how to
hand quilting class az
hand quilting without a hoop
hand quilting techniques
designs hand quilting
hand quilting instructions
used hand quilting frame
As you can see, these are generally 3 to 5 words total each. Each of these phrases gets traffic, not substantial traffic like the simple phrase “quilting”, but the reason we target these phrases is that it’s relatively easy to rank for them since there are far fewer competitors. In some cases, you’ll find few if any competitors targeting some phrases that actually get traffic. These phrases are easy to rank for and mean free traffic for you! You’ll want to compile a nice list of as many long tail phrases for your niche as you can find. You will then use these phrases to optimize your website pages. In some cases, you’ll even want to create a special page to target certain phrases. Here are some handy tools to use for finding long tail phrases for your site (each has a free option or trial, but the paid versions are worth the money if you can afford it):
Making Consistent Money With Content Sites - Creating A Header/Logo
It’s also important to have a nice looking header/logo for each site. This gives a professional look to your site and increases the trust and confidence people will have in your information. Trust and confidence will also make people more likely to trust your ads as well, so they are more likely to click them! This is what we want, right? Well, you don’t need to be a graphic designer to make a nice header or logo for your site.
Here’s what I do:
First, go to stock.xchng, this is my favorite free stock photo site. Now, let’s say that we are doing a site on hand quilting. Simple, let’s search for quilt pictures then. Type in “quilt” in the search box. Some interesting possibilities pop up. There’s a lovely one with a nice variety of quilt colors, we’ll use that one. Now, open up your trusty graphics program, Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Gimp, any of these or your other favorite will do. I’m going to use Photoshop. First, we need to size the image down a bit. I usually make my headers around 800 pixels wide, with varying heights, usually around 150 to 200 pixels. Somewhere between there, makes a nice header that’s not too large or too small. Now, we need to size it down to about 800 pixels wide. Then, select a nice section of the image that you want to use for the header. Now, crop the rest out. I like to add a little border to my headers so that the border matches the color of my sidebars and footers, so add that if you like. Now, add the name of your site in an appropriate color and font to the image. Here’s my final image:
Ok, it’s not going to win any awards or anything, but for two minutes of work, it’s not bad. It’s also appropriate to the site and welcoming to anyone interested in home quilting. There’s no mistaking that the site is about quilts! If you put a little more time into it, your results will be much greater. I just wanted to show you how easy it is. There is no excuse for not having at least a decent logo/header on your content sites!
Making Consistent Money With Content Sites - Building Your Website
hen building your content site, you have many options. Do you use Dreamweaver, Expression Web (formerly Frontpage) or perhaps use a CMS like Joomla or even a modified version of Wordpress. All of these are possible solutions, but I have found an easier solution. I use a program called XSitePro. It’s easy to use, makes it easy to optimize pages for keywords and phrases, allows you to create pages fast, makes adding Adsense and affiliate ads a snap, makes it very easy to update and is very easy to learn. These are features that the rest of the options simply don’t have. I can put up a perfectly nice, 100% search engine optimized site in an hour or less, complete with a professional looking logo/header, navigation menus, sitemap, unique page titles and meta information for every page etc. There is also a feature that allows you to add many pages at once, which I find immensely helpful. For one site, I created about 400 pages in about an hour. Due to this and many other features, I have found XSitePro to be the best solution for my content site building work. It’s also nice that, unlike doing a site in Dreamweaver, I don’t tend to dread or have a mind block from doing any updating to my sites, which is great, because the more updated your site is, the more search engines will like it.
I forgot to mention that I also add a Wordpress blog and sometimes a forum as an adjunct to each site. The Wordpress blog allows easy updating of the site without having to upload anything and also gets the attention of the search engine spiders. Once I put a site up, I make sure to make regular posts to the blog. I’ll even recycle some content, change it around and rewrite it a bit and include links to my content pages in the post. It’s also handy to be able to announce on your blog when you have added something new to the site and include a link straight to that fresh content. Search engines love that sort of thing.
As far as a layout is concerned, I like to do a three column layout in XSitePro for most sites. This allows for excellent placement of Adsense ads and affiliate ads. I usually put a leaderboard at the top of the site, just under my header/logo, as that’s the most clicked area for ads. I also put some Adsense boxes on each side, usually some 120×600 vertical ads or banner ads. It’s a good idea to experiment with different banner ad sizes, different affiliate ads and different Adsense boxes and placements. What’s good for one type of site may not work as well for another. I also like to place an Adsense search box at the bottom of every content site. Even on sites that I don’t think people would want to search, sites that don’t really have that many pages, I’m always amazed at the amount of searches that each site gets. People love to search your site, they think they will find what they need easier without having to go through your menus and links. Might as well give them what they want and make some Adsense $ at the same time! I find that Adsense search boxes work really well for my largest sites, sites with hundreds of pages. It’s also very handy that you can check your Adsense account for what keywords and phrases people are using on each site. This is imminently useful for creating new pages. If they are searching for it and not finding it on your site, then create a new page for it. And with XSitePro, it’s very easy to add new pages.
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