7 Signs You Hired The Wrong SEO Company

I was browsing a small business forum the other day and noticed a post by a business owner. The business owner had hired a “SEO Expert” to increase their rankings in the Search Engines. After nearly a year, their website was no where near the top of any Search Engine.

He emailed his site to me to take a look at it for him. It only took a second looking at the source to realize this guy had hired the wrong person to do SEO on their website. A quick look at his site with my Firefox SEO extension showed no backlinks.

The on-page SEO (or lack of) was horrible plus his Copywriting was not optimized either. It was no wonder this site didn’t rank. This site was in a small niche and it shouldn’t have been that hard to rank well, especially over a year’s time.

If you have questions about your SEO expert, here are 7 signs that you’ve hired the wrong SEO expert or company.

1. Your Real Estate Agent website ranks #1 for Viagra in your City.
2. There are no backlinks pointing to your website, but you find that your website has 367 outgoing links to Gambling and Porn sites.
3. When you pull up your SEO’s website, it says “This Account Has Been Suspended.”
4. Your think “BlackHat SEO” is the name of your SEO Company.
5. Your SEO expert’s idea of on-page optimization includes typing your keywords across the top of your index page, over and over and over.
6. More than 95% of people with Guestbooks on their websites know your URL.
7. Matt Cutt’s knows your URL by heart.

Okay, so that was a little tongue in cheek list, but there are a lot of people/companies out there who will take your money and do little to get your website ranked. There are also those who can actually damage your website. Buyer Beware when hiring an SEO Expert or SEO Company. Here’s a post about questions you should ask your potential SEO company.

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Will Google Deliver The Death Blow For BANS Sites?

Google and BANS. Once we thought this was a match made in Heaven. Nowadays, if you’re a BANS owner, you probably think you’ve been in affiliate marketing Hell. First there was the Ebay Partner Network canning hundreds of eBay affiliates, many who had Build A Niche Storesites up, and now Google has been either penalizing or out right deindexing BANS sites from the SERPS.

Yeah, for some of you BANS owners, it’s been a pretty tough last few months.

I’m knocking on wood here. If you remember right from my initial Build A Niche Store Review, my goal was to build 100 BANS sites. Now I’m thanking my lucky stars that I have AMADD (Affiliate Marketing Attention Deficit Disorder) and only made it to 30 sites before I lost focus and went off doing something else. So far none of my sites have been touched by either Google or eBay. I’ll give you my theories on why that is on down the page.

A Few Theories Why Google Is De-Indexing BANS sites.

I’ve been following a lot of the chatter on forums about this subject as well as receiving a lot of email. This is what I’ve figured out to this point. No one has 100% concrete proof why Google is de-indexing BANS sites. There are a few theories floating around.

1. The BANS program was being used by a lot of spammers. Many of these guys/gals were throwing up huge numbers of BANS sites on .info domains. They never bothered to change anything with the programs, their only concern was to get as many BANS sites up as they could, as cheaply as they could. This left a huge footprint for Google to follow.
2. Most of these same people never bothered to put any content on their sites. They were simply ebay sites with ebay auctions on them. This would be what Google calls a “thin affiliate” site. And we know what Google does with thin affiliate sites.
3. In order for Google to get all the spammy BANS sites, it had to take some legitimate sites along with them. It’s the shotgun approach. Use a huge pattern to make sure you get all of them. Try and limit the casualties but go forward knowing some innocent victims will be in the pattern.

My Theory On Why Google Hasn’t De-Indexed All BANS Sites

Even as far back as when I bought the Build A Niche Store program, there was talk about Google finding the footprint of all the standard BANS templates and possibly penalizing them. It seems this bird has come home to roost. From the start, here is what I did to try and make my BANS sites unique from all the other cookie cutter BANS sites.

* I changed up the CSS a little bit on every site. I made sections like the header and content fields larger and smaller.
* I changed the colors on every site.
* I changed the size of the headers on every site and used graphic headers.
* I DID NOT go out and start sending hundreds of backlinks to my sites. I built them up over time using blog carnivals, article submissions, reciprocal linking and adding one way permanent links.
* I added content to nearly every page plus I used a lot of graphics.
* I never put eBay auctions on my main page. I put content on the index page to make it look as much like a informative content site as I could. Just look at how many BANS sites have nothing more than auctions on their front page.
* On many of the domains that hosted my BANS sites, I added blogs, article directories and forums to many. (mostly just blogs that supported the main domain)
* I never put more than 2 BANS sites on one hosting account plus I paid extra for all sites to have a dedicated IP’s. I’ve read stories of people hosting all their BANS sites with one hosting company. Wow, I can’t fathom that idea. I’m just too paranoid I suppose.
* I only used dot com domains. Of course, these last two items is what I do for nearly all of my affiliate sites, not just for BANS. I want to make it as hard as possible for Google or any other search engine to spy on my websites.

Now, I’m not saying if you do these things that Google will not index your site. These are the things I did to every BANS site I had. I did these things from day one and as I said above, knock on wood, my sites haven’t been touched. In fact, many are still climbing the SERPS.
Is the Build A Niche Store Still Worth Buying?

I’ve had a few emails asking that question. Honestly, I’d say yes it is. But only if you intend to build sites that have a lot of content and you make them unique. If you’re plan is to buy it and throw up a bunch of BANS sites without adding any value to them, I think you’d be wasting your money. Google is on to you.
Alternatives to The Build A Niche Store program

If you’ve been reading this blog for more than a week or so, you know I’m impressed with the PHPBay plugin for WordPress. As I stated in my post Advanced Build A Niche Store Strategies, I’ve been using PHPBayand WordPress to make blogs and stores with eBay auctions. It seems every week that my PHPBay/WordPress stores outproduce my Build A Niche Store sites. Hey, it’s no secret that Google is crazy in love with WordPress blogs. Why not take advantage of that? Plus, to be honest, a WordPress blog and PHPBay combination site just looks much better than 99% of the BANS sites out there, mine included. (hey, maybe Google hates ugly sites?)

Whatever the real reason that Google is de-indexing or penalizing BANS sites, owners using this program need to proceed with caution. If you continue to make sites with BANS, then do everything in your power to make them unique and stand away from the crowd.

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Make Money Online Quick

For whatever reason, from time to time people need to make money online quick. Maybe you have Johnny Knee Breaker banging on your door wanting that $100 he loaned you …with interest. Or perhaps it’s a unsuspected bill that shows up and must be paid quickly. Either way, it all boils down to needing to get ahold of some quick cash. When faced with this situation, some people turn to the Internet to see if they can make money online quick. Some succeed but most do not. Here’s a few tips to put you in the “success” category.

Generally, making money online is a long term project. No, wait. What I mean is, making a sustainable income online is a long term project. I don’t want you to get the notion that making money online quick is common or a long term solution because it isn’t. Now having said that, I do know some places you can legitimately make some quick cash. You won’t be able vacation in Paris with the money, but you just might be able to keep Johnny from breaking your Knee Caps over that $100.

To begin with, if you’re reading this, I’m assuming you know how to operate a computer and get yourself around the Internet. If that is the case, then you need to check out Project Payday. This is a service that helps you make cash by filling out those offers you see all over the Internet. Project Payday is free to sign up for and they have loads of training Video’s and even a mentoring program (which, I highly recommend if you want to maximize your earnings over a long period). As if that wasn’t enough, they even have one sweet guarantee. It simply states that if you follow the easy 4 step process and don’t make money in 24 hours, they’ll give you $100. Now that’s a guarantee you won’t see many programs make! It’s one of the few legitimate ways I know of that allows you to make some quick money online. Click here to learn how to get started making money today with Project Payday.

If I needed a $100 within a few days and had no other means to get it, this is the program I would use.

Many people make full time incomes from home by selling things on Ebay. When I used Ebay for income, I visited Garage sales, Estate auctions and classified sites like Craigslist for stuff to resell. It wasn’t until I got the Free Ebay For Dummies starter kit that I learned how the Power Sellers make money. Over a fairly short amount of time my Ebay income tripled. This Starter Kit has loads of tips for Ebayers and even lists of Dropshippers and Wholesalers where you can get products.

Do you also realize that there are people that have no Sam’s Club or Cosco nearby? These people shop the internet for household items you and I take for granted. There are many people on eBay who do nothing but buy bulk items at these Warehouse stores and resell them. Sometimes they break the bulk items down into single units, other times they can sell the whole product at a nice profit. Again, make sure you know what you can buy a product for, how much it will cost you to ship it and the price range of what you can get for it. You don’t want to be sitting on a basement full of Tang you bought from Cosco!

A lot of people have turned to Freelance Writing to make money online. They either sell articles on Forums like DigitalPoint or sign up for services like Freelance Home Writers. This is like a job board for Freelance Writers where you sign in and view Writing jobs that Companies and Individuals have posted. There are other benefits and features to this service, so visit their site to learn more.

One more place you can make money online quick is Etsy. Etsy is an auction site where people go and sell their crafts. This site has really exploded lately and many people find they can stay home and make crafts to sell. If you’re especially crafty, handy or other wise capable of making something useful or beautiful, you may want to give Etsy a try. Some people are raking in the money with their crafts.

Have you ever thought about selling an ebook? Do you know you can sell it on Amazon? You can thanks to the Amazon Kindle. You simply become an Amazon publisher and you can write ebooks and Amazon will publish them. They go into a library where Kindle users can download them, for a fee. You get a percentage of the fee each time someone downloads your ebook. The ebooks don’t have to be your’s either. You can grab some PLR ebooks and publish them as well.

These are only a few ways you can make money online quick. There are others I’ve discussed throughout this blog. These will get you started. Just use some common sense and don’t panic if you suddenly find yourself needing money. Just turn on the computer and go to work.

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9 Low Cost Ways To Promote Your Site

Here are 9 Low Cost Ways to Drive Traffic To Your Site

1. Pay-Per-Click Programs - You should try Adwords and other Pay-Per-Click programs such as Yahoo Publisher Network and Microsoft AdCenter, only if you have a good understanding of how PPC programs work. Newbies should not dive into PPC unless you have a large budget. A better way to use Adwords would be to use the site targeted feature of Adwords and choose sites that are relevant to yours. Site targeted Adwords are charged on a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis rather than a per-click basis.
2. Banner Advertising - In my blog post title “15 Adsense Alternatives“, I feature 15 programs to replace Adsense. You can use many of these same programs, such as AdBrite, to advertise on. Speaking of AdBrite, I’ve seen them on some very specific sites where Adsense was not used. This could be for a variety of reasons, but it’s worth checking into sites where you’d like to advertise and see which program they are using to monetize their site.

3. Sponsored Reviews- Paying for a few site targeted reviews of your site could bring in a huge flood of new readers to your site. Sites like PayPerPost, ReviewMe and SponsoredReviews can be a low-cost goldmine for site owners.
4. Private Advertising - You don’t have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to get your ad on sites like JohnChow or ShoeMoney to take advantage of private advertising. There are a lot of popular sites on the Internet that have very targeted readers where you can buy an ad for peanuts. You can get a nice banner ad on some of these sites for as little as $25 per month.
5. Text Link Ads- Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know what Google says about buying text links. When done right, Google or no one else can spot a paid link. They’re effective when placed on the right site and when done correctly. I Do Not recommend buying site wide text links in sidebars. I think the best links to buy are the ones in related post about relevant services or products you offer. You can find links on sites such as the Marketplace on DigitalPoint Forums, SitePoint, Text-Link-Ads and TextLinkBrokers. Another effective method is just to email the site owner and offer them some money to buy a one way link to your site. Don’t try to be cheap, it’ll turn off the site owner and they may never respond!
6. Blog Networks - I’ve never used Blog Networks, but I know a few site owners who swear by the traffic from Blog Networks like Blog Explosion, Blog Advance, Blog Soldiers and the new Blog Rush. With these networks, you get credits for sending traffic to other Network members sites. In many cases, you can also purchase credits at a reasonable rate. In turn, you use these credits to “buy” impressions back to your site. As good as that sounds, I still bring in more traffic with article marketing and ezinearticles.
7. Stumble Upon Ads- StumbleUpon sends me a lot of traffic naturally on many of my sites. But for those who just don’t have the time or expertise to get that rush of traffic from SU, they do have ads and many can be had for as little as 5 centers per click. This is cheap in anyone’s book!
8. Paid Posters - This is another method I’ve never used, but know some people who swear by it. This works by paying people to post on forums and blog comments and leaving a link back to your site. From the prices I’ve seen, you can get this done for as little as 10 to 20 cents per post. Browse the Marketplaces on DigitalPoint Forums and SitePoint to find paid posters.
9. Automobile Ad Wraps - (bet you didn’t see this one coming!) These can be very effective if you have a product or service that serves a local market. This program works when a broker pays drivers to drive around with magnetic signs or auto-wraps on their vehicles. People pay attention to ads on vehicles and this can drive some very targeted traffic to your site or local business. Places to look are; Ad-Wraps, AutoWrapped.Com and AutoMurals.Com. I know a small businessman in the Northwest that post “Want Ads” on Craigslist, Kijiji and other local classified ad sites looking for driver. He cuts out the Middleman and saves some serious money in the process.

The important thing is to test, test and test more if you want to take full advantage of any of these programs! I think you’ll be amazed at how much traffic you can generate with a little bit of money.

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10 Niches To Make Money From in 2009

Yesterday I was reading this article from Forbes about the 10 things that people are still buying even in this down economy. After reading it, I realized that Forbes just outed 10 hot niches for 2009. I thought I’d share them with you and comment on how you might make money with a few of them.

The first thing according to Forbes that we Consumers are still spending money on is Smart Phones. If I was in this niche, I would concentrate on building sites over a specific phone. Say, the Blackberry Storm or a Samsung. The iPhone niche is very competitive and unless you already have a authority website about iPhone’s, I’d stay away and go after one of the other lesser known Smart Phones.

Video Games and Consoles are the second item on the list in the Forbes article. Their theory on why we’re still buying this is that Consumers want a quick escape from reality. I say it’s because Video Games are addictive and addicts buy stuff! Whatever the reason, people are still buying them in droves. Pick a game and build a site around it. Websites about the Wii, PlayStation and XBox are really popular. Unless you can come up with an unique angle, I’d concentrate on picking a game since the Console market is flooded right now.

Gym memberships are also on the list. I’m not sure why people would cut back on their spending then blow bucks on a Gym membership when you can get a decent workout at home or by walking/jogging around your neighborhood, but Forbes says it’s so. I’ll just stick with my Health niches and maybe write some articles on Gym reviews if I need that traffic.

Personal care also made the list of things we keep spending money on. This would be an easy one to implement with Health. You could also start a affiliate site with a lot of persona care items. Just research the niche and try to find one not full of big players like Johnson and Johnson.

Toy building sets also made the top 10. This one surprised me a bit and I’m still not sure if they mean the Toy Building Sets their self or Toys in general. Their theory is that it’s hard to say NO to you kids. There’s a lot of truth behind that statement as I can relate to that! The article says that Lego sales were up 12 percent in 2008! In November, the word “Lego” was searched for over 673,000 times according to the Google Keyword tool. Anyone have a Lego blog? ;)

Car Maintenance is also on the list. Consumers aren’t rushing out and buying a new car now days but they are spending money on the ones the do have. This would be a good niche if you could find some specific products and build an affiliate site around them. Everything from products that clean and beautify your car to performance enhancing products would be good sellers.

Another surprise for me on this list was Dress Casual Shoes. Google shows 33,000 searches for Casual Shoes and 49,000 searches for Dress Shoes. Grab a domain with the words Dress Casual Shoes in it and you have several options to profit from this niche. A blog reviewing Casual and Dress shoes to an affiliate site selling both Casual and Dress shoes would be a hit if you can rank the site on page one of the Google SERPS.

Restaurants was on the list also. Most specifically fast food chains as people are looking for inexpensive meals. I’ve always thought about starting a blog and reviewing the popular menu items at fast food places since I eat out a lot. But I just haven’t had the time.

Movie tickets took my be surprise also. I guess the American Family is looking for alternatives when it comes to entertainment. The article says that attendance is down but profits rose in 2008. I’m not sure how good a niche this would be because I the prices of everything at Theaters are outrageous these days. I also believe services like NetFlix, Blockbuster and Red Box have taken a big chunk of money away from the Theaters. But hey, maybe you can get an unique angle on this niche and make some money from it.

Netbooks is a niche I think some money could be made at. These are relatively new to the market and due to the low price, becoming more and more popular. Review sites and affiliate sites would be a good way to monetize these niches.

If you were looking for something to make money from in 2009, the above 10 hot niches should do you well. Several have been good niches for years and will likely be so in the future. Do some research on them and pick one or two and give them a try!

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Link Laundering - Link Building Like An Internet Mobster

How To Turn Low Quality and Questionable Links into High Quality One Way Links

Warning: The following method of link building (link laundering) is looked upon as either a Gray or Black Hat technique by many in the Internet World. I feel it’s my duty to educate my readers about these tactics so you’re aware of them if you ever see your competition using them against you.

link launderingHave you ever ran across sites that ranked higher than your site, but felt your site was much better, so you wondered how that could happen? Some of you may have actually used tools like SEO Quake or SEO for Firefox and found that those sites had more links to them than yours did.

“How could they be getting so many links when I’m busting my ass for a few links a month?” you might ask yourself

“My content is better, my on page SEO is better, site design is off the chart, I have more RSS subscribers, my domain is older plus I’m better looking than those guys” you may think to yourself

Come my friend, let me introduce you to the underworld of link laundering.

Let’s me start by saying that link laundering usually involves a network of sites or blogs that the Webmaster owns or has access to. It can be done without a network, but link laundering is easier in many regards if you own or control a network of blogs or websites.

Link laundering is a lot like money laundering. You take low quality, crappy links and turn them into high quality, relevant, one way anchored links pointing to your main site. In reality, you’re turning these low quality “questionable” links into high quality “trusted” links.

What many of you do not realize is that many of the “White Hat” bloggers and Website owners out there use this same technique to boost their rankings.

I’ve spent hours upon hours of following their foot prints to figure this out. Some hide it better than others, but with a little determination you can find out where your competition is really getting those high quality relevant links.
How Can a Website With Fewer Links Outrank My Site with Hundreds or Thousands of Links?

Let me sidetrack just a little bit here to explain why this happens. First off, we’re talking about Google here just to make things clear.

In a nutshell, Google looks at the links pointed at your website and gives these links a value. If you have thousands of links coming into your site but they are all links from low PR sites, they’re passing very little link value (juice) to your site.

Let’s say your competition only has a few dozen links coming into their site. However, unlike the links coming into your site, your competitor has links from Websites that have related content and these sites have high PR.

Google looks at this and decides that your competitors site should be ranked higher because he has links from “trusted” (high PR) sites that are related to his site. Their way of thinking is these other sites are “voting” that your competitor has much more relevant information for the chosen Keyword because of all these one way links with the keyword in the anchor.

There are other factors that determine how much “value” or “juice” links pass, but this should give you some idea of how Google looks at links and determine why one link pointing at a site is more valuable than another.
Now Back to Link Laundering

Imagine if you will, a Pyramid with 3 tiers. The bottom tier has 3 blocks, the middle has 2 blocks and finally at the very top is the King block!

Now also imagine each of those “blocks” as websites.

On the bottom tier, the 3 blocks represent disposable websites. These are your crappy throw away sites. If they get banned or de-indexed, no problem link launderers will get more. Many of these websites are free Blogger or WordPress sites.

The way link laundering works is that the Webmaster will go out and get thousands of crappy, low quality links pointing at these disposable sites. These links may be questionable but certainly nearly all will be low quality. Links from places such as Guestbooks, comments, directories, trackbacks, etc. are all pointing at these sites.

It’s pretty much certain these links will be obtained by spam. Black Hatters use many tools in farming these links. Scripts and programs are designed to search out these places and leave the Mobsters links.

Now the sites at the bottom of the Pyramid have thousands of low quality links pointing to them. This will give these sites some value in Google’s eyes due to the volume of links coming in, provided they’re not de-indexed or banned first!

What the Webmaster will do now in the link laundering process is add some content to these bottom tier websites and place one way, relevant links with anchor text, pointing at a site on the 2nd tier.
The 2nd Tier of the Link Laundering Pyramid

Now the 2nd tier of the Link Laundering Pyramid are sites that have a little more trust. These are sites that generally have a PR2 to PR4. These are your intermediate sites.

They’re the Wiseguys and Lieutenants of the Internet Mobster family.

They have more value than the lowly crappy sites below, but they aren’t near as valuable as the guy above them.

These sites “wash” the links and make them legitimate.

The first tier sites may have general topics. This makes it easier to link out to the 2nd tier blogs or websites.

The 2nd tier will consist of sites that are specific. This will give their outgoing links more link juice to the top tier blog or website.
The Big Kahuna or Numero Uno Mafiaoso

This is the block at the top of the Pyramid. This is where the laundered links end up after they have been filtered through the lower sites or “washed”.

This is the Webmasters money site. It’s the site they want ranked well and it’s why they go to all the trouble to use link laundering and increase their “trust” and rankings.

Wise Webmasters will also be sure to mix the links coming from their network with those from other sources to make it look more legitimate. This makes it harder for search engines like Google to figure out the network.

The Webmaster will also have many low quality links pointing at their Main site as well, but these links will be from legitimate sources and from “white hat” sites with low PR. This is to make the links seem more natural.
Another Twist on Link Laundering

Another technique some Webmasters will use in order to launder links or to boost the rankings of existing low quality links to their site is to send a lot of these easy to get, low quality and questionable links at pages that already link to them. In many instances, they do not own these sites.

By boosting the PR of these pages, the links on them pass more juice (value). Which helps the Webmaster’s Main site.

For example, let’s say that Bob’s Blog linked to you back in 2003 from a page in his blog. You go back to see Bob’s Blog but see that Bob hasn’t posted since 2005. It’s safe to say Bob isn’t blogging any longer and is probably on a Tropical beach somewhere enjoying his Internet loot…or sleeping at the bottom of the Bay with the fishies.

Anyhow, the Webmaster will start sending a lot of low quality links out to the page on Bob’s site that is linking to his site. If something bad happens and Bob’s site gets slapped, nadda problem. The Webmaster just lost a low quality link. However, more times than not, the PR of that page increases and sends more link juice to the Webmasters site.

This 2nd technique can be used in conjunction with traditional link laundering techniques or by itself.
In Summary

The link laundering techniques above are but two examples. There are many variations and I used the Pyramid as a simple example to help you see how it works. Many times a link laundering Pyramid will have a really wide base with dozens of blogs receiving low quality links. Also, in many instances, the blog may have 4 or even 5 tiers to really “wash” the links and turn them into sparkling “White” links.

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7 Link Building Mistakes You Should Avoid

There is so much B.S. flying around Webmaster circles these days about what you should or should not do about link building. One “Guru” will tell you that you should “Do This” when building links and another will tell you “Not To Do This” when link building.

If the top SEO experts around the World can not come to an agreement about what should or should not be done when building links, then what is the every day Joe supposed to do?

Just take a look at the document over at SEOMoz about ranking factors.

Rand surveyed the Top 37 SEO experts in the World. Basically the Survey is a series of questions asked to each expert. This group of experts could not come up with an agreement rating more than 1 on many of the questions!

So now that we know the “experts” can’t agree, I might as well tell you the mistakes I’ve made/seen done by many Webmasters.

1. Failing to procure reciprocal links. I’ve seen so called SEO Guru’s say that reciprocal linking is dead and they will hurt your site. This just isn’t so. As we say in the South “They’re talking out their asses.” I have several blogs and websites with PR2 to PR4 that have nothing more than reciprocal links pointing at them. The important thing to remember is to make sure they links your trade are from quality sites. It doesn’t matter if they’re PR0, just make sure they’re not from a spam/adult/pharmacy/hate type site. Reciprocal links can be on a resource page if you run a website or a Blogroll for you bloggers. Just remember to trade!
2. Failing to acquire low PR links. For some reason, many Webmasters do not want PR0 sites linking to them. This is link building suicide! One day, those PR0 sites could be the next PR5 or better. Frankly, I don’t care who links to my sites. I can’t control it and if they’re passing any amount of authority, which even PR0 pass some, I’ll take it. It also looks natural when you have many more low authority sites pointing to your site than all high PR sites.
3. Failing to link out. Once again, we’re talking about making your site look natural to the Search Engines, especially Google. Authority sites link out to other authority sites. Google expects to see this. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a site stuck in the SERPS only to get a little boost when I linked to a higher authority site. In several instances, I’ve had the position right below Wikepedia. Seemed no matter how many links I added, I was stuck. I would then link to the topic in Wikipedia. In a few instances, that was all it took to leap frog me over them in the SERPS. So link out to authority sites! Before using a service like 3 Way Links, read reviews like 3waylinks.net review, it’s a good article on 3 way link systems.
4. Failure to check your reciprocal link partners websites. Once you exchange links with someone, you need to follow up on a routine basis and make sure the link back to your site is still there. Some sites go down, accounts are closed, domains let expired and purchased by someone else, Webmasters changing website topics and some Webmasters simply taking your link down after you exchange links. I’ve seen people put ‘nofollow’ on the links after they’ve made a trade. I’ve seen it all happen, that’s why I monitor my link partners and you should also.
5. Failing to use Anchor text in your link. If someone gives you the opportunity to use Anchor text in the link back to your site, use it! In my opinion, anchor text in a backlink is the second biggest off page ranking factor for seo. Only the relevancy and authority of the page where the backlink originates is more important in my experience.
6. Failing to cover up your paid link footprints. Look, from here to the end of time, people will sell links. And from here to the end of time, Google will be trying to find paid links. And from here to the end of time, you’ll see blogs, websites and blog networks (think Backlink Solutions) get de indexed for selling links. If you’re going to buy or sell links, you’d better be hiding your footprint or Big Daddy G is going to find you one dark, cold and stormy night. There are several ways of hiding your footprint, I covered one way in my link laundering article a few weeks ago.
7. Failing to build links. I see people on the forums all the time asking how they should go about link building or how to get started link building. Many say they don’t know how and so they don’t even try. People! I hate link building as much as the next person, but it’s not Rocket Science. You may be able to rank high in a low competitive keyword niche with on-page SEO, but for a competitive niche where’s there’s money to be made, you’re going to need some relevant backlinks! TIP: One of the most effective link building strategies you can perform is to find out who’s linking to your competition and get links from them. You simply go to Google and type in link:yourcompetitorssite.com. You’ll then get a list of sites that are linking to your competitors site. Browse that site to see if there is a place to put a link to your own site at. If not, simply Contact the person running the site and ask kindly for a link. Many times they will not respond, but some will. Now, out of those sites, do the same thing. See who’s linking to them and get links from those sites!

Okay, so there you have 7 of the biggest link building mistakes either I have made or I see made on a routine basis. What’s important to remember is that these mistakes are avoidable. Some have temporary effects on your rankings while others can have permanent effects on how your website ranks in the SERPS.

So what’s up with the flurry of link building articles lately? Well, it’s a work up to a document I’ve been working on and off now for nearly a year. It started off small and has taken a life of it’s own. Stay in touch if you’re serious about link building, because this article will have over 100 link building strategies outlined perhaps even closer to 125 or more!

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