Base Sites

Link Building Strategies: 69 Solid Tactics For 2009

MattG — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 20:59:38 +0000

If you are looking for a nice guide to link building for your website, then follow this link:

http://wiep.net/talk/link-building/link-building-strategies/

This gem of a post covers the following:

Internal link building strategies
Easy link building starters
Old school link building techniques
Places to submit your URL to
Ways to make people write about you
Common business tactics
Important considerations

Building Links with Directory Submissions

MattG — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:23:32 +0000

This is a republished article. (Original Article Written by Scott Van Achte from StepForth Web Marketing Inc.)

Building Links with Directory Submissions

A few months ago I wrote an article about 13 ways a webmaster can go about building links to their site. One of these ways was through the use of directory submissions.

There are many reasons why you may consider a directory submission. You could be trying to build your brand, focused on links for organic rankings, or simply want to drive traffic to your site. Below we will focus on the link building and organic ranking aspect of directory submissions.

There are countless directories out there these days, some are free, some are paid, and many are garbage. If you decide to build links to your site using online directories, there are some things you will want to consider before spending your hard earned money.

Page Rank
Check the Google Page Rank. The visible page rank is only a very slight indication of a page’s strength, but a PR 6 still represents a site of more value than a PR 2. Do not discount a site solely based on PR, but know that a higher PR site, if relevant, will give you more value.

Outbound Links
Check the number of outbound links on the category page you would submit to. If the page has more than 100 outbound links, then chances are it will help you very little but there are of course some exceptions to the rule. Let’s say that the page in question has a few sites listed that are organically ranking in the top 10. The page also has a Google PR of 6/10, and the page is highly relevant to your industry. In this situation, even if there were as many as 150 or 200 outbound links, you would probably still want to get your site listed.

The same holds true for DMOZ. We know that DMOZ is a great place to get your site listed, and while listing your site on a page with the fewest links will give you the most value. In the case of DMOZ, even if the relevant category for your listing exceeded 100 outbound links, I would not hesitate to continue with a listing submission.

Category Pages
Check the number of pages per category. If your main category has 10 pages of listings, you may want to forget it as the deeper you dive into these pages, the less value they will hold – they also add the risk of the directory being downgraded due to spam etc. If you still want to be listed, what page will your listing appear on? If you can’t get the first page, you will probably want to walk away.

Are listings alphabetical? Are new listings added to the top or the bottom of the list? If they are added to the top, you should know that in time, as more people submit, your site will get bumped down to the subsequent pages, reducing its value with every new bump.

Success of Other Listings
Take a look at other listings in the directory. Are any of these sites ranking for related top phrases? Try to assess if other sites in your category are benefiting from a link at this directory, especially if it’s a paid directory.

Anchor Text
Does the particular directory allow you to determine the anchor text used, or does it simply link you URL. If you can choose the anchor text, the link will be far more valuable as it will allow more value to be passed on due to the relevance of the anchor text and the target phrase for your site.

Indexed in Google?
Are the directory and your preferred category sub page both indexed in Google and the other major engines? If it is a paid directory and they are not indexed, don’t waste your money. If the directory is well indexed including your preferred category, and has a fairly recent last cache date, then it is worth considering.

Price
Prices for directory listings can range from free to hundreds of dollars, so you have to ask yourself “is it worth it”. If you find that the directory is in good standing, other competing sites in your industry are ranking organically and listed here, and the page has a decent visible PR, this may warrant paying a higher premium to be listed. Be sure to consider if the billing is a one time or recurring expense.

If you have only a $300 annual budget the $299 a year for Yahoo may make sense, however if you break that up into 10 listings in other top directories for $30 a year each, this may be a better investment – it all depends on what is available for your industry, how high its quality is, and at what price.

Can Google See the Link?
If your focus is on search engine rankings, then you definitely want to ensure that both your link, and the page your link resides on, are both fully spiderable by Google. Ensure that the rel=nofollow attribute is not used on your link, or on the pages that link to the directory page; also ensure that the page is not being blocked by a robots Meta tag or within the robots.txt file. The best indication that a page is seen by Google is if there is a recent cache of it within the Google index. If this page is also noted as a back link for others sites listed, it’s a pretty safe bet that yours will be seen also.

SPAM
Ensure that the directory you are submitting to is totally on the up and up. If you find that they are doing anything shady turn the other way. This could be in the form of hidden text or links, or abusive pop-ups, etc. If they are promoting some software or anything that may include adware or malware, you definitely do not want to be associated with this site.

If the site is free and without an approval process, you may as well forget it. It will (if not already) end up littered to no end with irrelevant links which will drastically downgrade the value of the link to as low as zero. While Free-for-All sites can be a quick source for links, the links will actually be useless, so avoid them.

There are many ways to build links for a site, and directory submissions are just one of them. By having your site listed in a number of relevant directories you can help your sites overall link reputation to grow. It is important to remember though, that directory links are usually not enough on their own, they are just one piece of the big picture.

By Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO

Revenue Potential of Promoting UK Premium Rate Numbers

MattG — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:22:00 +0000

It only takes one premium rate number combined with the correct advertising and promotion and you have a very lucrative revenue source. The readymade, off the shelf, premium rate services available from premium rate companies, are designed to have great hold times and the chat operators are so good, you’ll get loads of repeat calls, which earns you even more money in the long run.

Realistic Earnings Example

Here is a rough idea of the type of money you could earn from the advertising and promotion of premium rate telephone numbers.

From information gathered from premium rate companies, we know the average call time is around 6.5 minutes. If you are receiving 80p per minute in revenue, that works out at £5.20 per call, on average. Have a look at this earnings potential table to find out how much money you could make on a daily, monthly and annual basis. With the correct advertising and promotion of the premium rate services, these figures are very achievable.

Calls Per Day	Income per day	Income per month	Annual Income
5	£26	£780	£9,360
15	£78	£2,340	£28,080
30	£156	£4,680	£56,160
60	£312	£9,360	£112,320

The above is an illustration of the earnings potential with one single number. Now imagine you have a whole portfolio of numbers with different services and different themes, advertised all over the web or in many magazines and newspaper.

You can work out the sums!

A Simple Guide to Adult UK Premium Rate Telephone Services

MattG — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:00:45 +0000

One of the ways we make money online is through the promotion of premium rate numbers in the UK. Here is a simple guide to adult related services. There are so many premium rate services on the market, it wouldn’t be practical to list all of them here, but to give you an idea of what’s on offer, we have picked some of the main ones to outline for you.

Adult Live 121 Premium Rate Services

This type of service is a live service and the caller gets to speak to a real person in a 121 set up. After a short recorded introduction to the service (required by law) the caller will be connect to an operator where they can chat for up to 20mins. These services are arguably the most popular and can have really good hold times. Also with the live 121 services, callers are able to build up a rapport with their favourite operators and can initiate many repeat calls.

Adult Recorded Premium Rate Services

These are mainly recorded sex stories, where the caller just listens to the recorded story. These are really popular and can sometimes give better payouts than the live services.

Chat and Date or Virtual Chat Premium Rate Services

These are interactive communication services, where people call and record a message. They listen to other people message and decide if they like the sound of that person. They can then leave messages for that person and contact them.

Interactive Premium Rate Services

These are services where the caller can select from a choice of options. For example, they can select an option to make a recorded story change direction, or select from a library of stories.

Of course, you are only limited by your imagination when creating new services. If you have a good idea for a premium rate service, its always worth talking to an experienced company with knowledge of setting up custom services.

How to Stay Focused… Get Distracted by Shiny New Things?

MattG — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:57:55 +0000

If you are anything like me, you know what its like to get distracted from your goals and your current direction by the “next big thing”, the next new product, or the next new opportunity.

Staying focused and having clearly defined goals is one of the most beneficial traits an entrepreneur can have. However, it is also one of the most difficult to maintain (in my humble experience).

Here is a great post from onstartups.com on this subject, which many internet entrepreneurs will be more than familiar with.

http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/6739//Entrepreneurs-and-Hey-There-s-A-Shiny-New-Thing.aspx

Link Building for Website Promotion

MattG — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:29:06 +0000

Link building is a tried and tested method of promoting a website on the internet. It is not as simple as getting hundreds of links from any kind of site though. You need links that are relevant and themed to your website. The days of getting high rankings by getting thousands of spammy links are quickly coming to an end. The search engines are getting better at analyzing your links so keep them relevant to your visitors.

Here are a few of the different techniques used today

1) One-way link building

A one way link to your website is likely to be given higher weight. There are various ways to get these links, such as directory submissions, link baiting (where you provide outstanding and unique content that others want to link to naturally) and even paid links.

2) Reciprocal link building

A traditional and common method of link building is reciprocal linking. This is where two websites effectively “swap” links. This is still a valid method of building links if the sites are relevant to each other and provide value to the visitor. There is a chance that the search engines, will not place as much weight on this type of link though.

3) Article submission

Writing and submitting articles to sites such as ezinearticles.com is a good way to get natural inbound links and can help identify you as an authority in your chosen niche. Obviously the better the content, the more chance there is of someone using your article on their site or newsletter. They will then credit you with your link back to your site – a win-win situation. Other sites that use your articles also provide one-way link to your site from other websites.

4) Press release submission

Press release submission in various press release directory and leading news site is a best way to get natural back links from your press release articles. You need to write press release article about your new product launches or news releases in your industry.

5) Triangular links (three way link exchange)

This is related to reciprocal linking and effectively gives you a one way link to your site by linking back to a third website. Eg. Site A links to Site B, then site B links back to Site C

6) Social bookmarking

Social bookmarking is a more recent way to get back links and more visitors to your website. This involves submitting your sites content to services such as digg.com. This can be an effective way of generating traffic to your site.

There are more methods that havent been listed here but the main point to take away is that quality is nearly always better than quantity and you should always think about adding value and keep your visitors in mind, avoiding spammy techniques.

List of Ping Services For Blog Marketers

MattG — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:26:45 +0000

With more and more people continuing to use blog software such as Wordpress to promote their products and services, it is increasingly important to optomise your blog as much as possible. One way to do this is through your blog’s “ping” list.

Ping services allow you to automatically notify blog directories and search engines that your blog has been updated. The more services that your ping list contains, the higher the chances of your blog posts receiving traffic from those sources. Please feel free to take the list below, which we use on our own blogs, and use it for your own blogs.

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

If anybody has anything to add to this list, please leave a comment.

Should I advertise my premium rate services online or in print?

MattG — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:18:46 +0000

How much time do you have and how much effort do you want to put in?

If you are looking for an investment that pretty much looks after itself and you just make the initial funding, then go for the print advertising. If you are looking for something to get into and work on, then web advertising will be harder work but may end up being cheaper and returning a revenue for a longer period of time, albeit with a slower increase in revenue from month to month.

Another thing to consider is how much money you have to put into advertising your services. If you have a large budget, then the print advertising can be really appealing as you can make more money very quickly. If you have limited funds but more time and effort, you can still make really good money from getting online and advertising your services there.

If you have no expertise or experience in either, I’d suggest starting in print advertising. If you have a large advertising budget for your premium rate numbers, then go for the glossy magazines or national newspapers, if your budget is much smaller, then go for the smaller local newspapers and advertisers, if they’ll take adult adverts.

Get in contact with some magazines and newspapers direct, for up to date information on advert pricing and packages. If you’re advertising premium rate numbers with an adult content, then go for the lad magazine types and men’s lifestyle magazines like Nuts, FHM, GQ, and Bizarre, these will take adverts of an adult nature but be aware that advertising in these magazines will be expensive, if they have any space at all. Sometimes certain companies will block book the space and basically price you out of the market, that’s why, in some cases it is cheaper to go through an advertising agency that already have a block of space booked that they them sell on to clients like you.

Both print advertising and web advertising is tried and tested and they both work, however print advertising can bring a return back quicker than setting up a new website. If you want to advertise online and can get your numbers onto an existing website with good traffic, then this might be a cheaper way of advertising your numbers. Please bear in mind that advertising is not an exact science and sometimes it goes wrong, it cannot be guaranteed that an advert will work, even if a similar one has, there are so many variables to consider when advertising. The first thing to do is try to get a good deal from your advertising agency or the publication you are advertising with, thus meaning you have less far to go to break even.

If you have experience in advertising online, building or promoting websites or SEO, then I’d just advertise online as it seems to work out cheaper, with less risk and you can still make a lot of money. The down side to working online is you have to put the hours in. The more you advertise and promote your online numbers or portfolio, the more money you are going to make. It is a long old road to getting the big bucks from advertising online but once you’re there, you’re there and the money keeps rolling in pretty much regardless of whether you put in any more work onto the websites.

So, in conclusion, what are you the most comfortable with? They both work, just in different ways, do some research, make a few calls and try to speak to someone who is already advertising premium rate telephone services. Ask the questions and just try different things out, that’s the best way to find out for sure if something work or not.