Archive for February, 2008
The Power of Two: MySpace, Squidoo, and Free Link Building
Saturday, February 16th, 2008Link building is staple in online marketing for websites. Anyone that wants a chance at traffic will put their link out there on a variety of different sites. If you are focusing on building links to your own site within your own site by creating sub domain names and redirects then you will find your site a sinking ship in the vast ocean of the world wide web.
Link building is important in that search engines use them to determine a website’s popularity. There are a number of ways to build quality one way links to your site that only require your time. The amount of sites out there that allow you to place your text link on their site are numerous and these sites are aggressively putting themselves out there offering you this chance at a one way link.
To give you an understanding of why these sites are so willing to give up a link is that they are using their sites to advertise various types of companies, adsense and other means to bring in an income to their site. By having your link on their site typically means you have contributed in some way or fashion content in the form of blogs, articles, discussions and other various forms of content. Your time and effort is rewarded and rated by other users and this is all visible to the search engines.
Link building may sound difficult, but it really isn’t. There are many websites and programs that allow you to build your links quickly. The danger in this is that it’s possible to generate a lot of link building that end up going nowhere; if your site does not contain quality content, then visitors will stop by once and keep moving to another link that will not only capture but keep their interest and compel them to try or buy your services or goods.
Your Goal here is twofold in that you want to build quality and powerful links back to your site and you want to make sure your site has great content that directs them as to what you are offering and how or why they need your particular offerings. We will not cover how to prep your site in this article but wanted to make you aware that once you follow these steps below and start receiving a flood of traffic, that anything after that is in your hands so be prepared on both ends.
Two Methods for Powerful Link Building
MySpace and Squidoo are two powerful online entities that utilize link building in order to generate heavy website traffic. The cost to do this is free, but does require a bit of care and talent. The blog features on MySpace offer a great opportunity for link building, and the lens features on Squidoo are equally ripe for similar link building chances. Since the key to successful link building is quality content, MySpace and Squidoo are websites rich with link building potential: MySpace via the user-friendly website design options and blog feature, and Squidoo with its plethora of article lenses.
MySpace
MySpace (www.myspace.com) is a popular social utility site where people can create profiles, jazz up their profile pages with customized backgrounds, picture slide shows, music, and yes even start link building. MySpace also allows independent music artists a platform where their music can get out to the masses without the political red tape that may be inherent in a music contract with a major record label. One of the most popular MySpace features is the blog, where each person can blog on their profile and allow others to read it. Through the myspace blog is a great potential to use link building for other websites.
It takes about five to ten minutes to create a profile on MySpace. You create a profile name, enter your real name, address, email address, and other required information, and MySpace generates a personal link to your profile page. Your profile name can be changed as many times as you want, but your profile link is permanent unless you delete your account completely.
Squidoo
Squidoo (www.squidoo.com) is popular social website which allows people to post lenses (articles reflecting their own personal viewpoints and expertise) and have those lenses accessed by thousands. Visitors can leave comments on each lens, which is also an opportunity for link building. Lenses allow users to meet new clients, start fan pages, sell items, have virtual fundraisers, make recommendations, and more. It takes about ten minutes to set up a Squidoo account and from there, you can begin to create your own lenses, as well as access the lenses of others in the Squidoo community.
How Link Building Works with MySpace and Squidoo
MySpace
Blogs on MySpace are a prime opportunity for link building. With thousands of members, it is simple to search for blogs and read them, and leave a comment on what you’ve read. Music groups have increasingly used this phenomenon to sell albums and fan comments utilize link building as a self-promotional tool. The more comments you leave with links, the more chances you provide for link building traffic to your website.
Also, posting your blogs on subjects related to your industry carries over with it additional linking power. Make sure to put interesting facts or details that will cause others to comment on it. Don’t forget to spend some time each day adding new friends and encouraging them to read your posts and comment back on it.
Squidoo
Squidoo offers users the opportunity to comment on the lenses written by Squidoo community members. With each comment, a user can leave a link that will generate traffic to that user’s website. Squidoo has a member base similar in size to MySpace, which allows link builders many chances to increase the traffic generated to their sites – all from one powerful source.
You can also post your own lenses (articles) to Squidoo and make sure to take the time to build on the community and make friends.
Conclusion:
If you spend about 15 minutes on each site commenting or adding new fresh content and building new friends you will have great success in link quality link building.
Successful link building is the result of great content, not link farms (groups of several websites that have links to each other, solely with the intent of building their search engine rankings). Keep the content of your site fresh, witty, and engaging, and make sure to update it regularly. Write it, and link building will come.
Content Media: The Race is On
Sunday, February 3rd, 2008When I took my first typing class, the last thing I ever thought was that I would be using the typing skills I was diligently learning for SEO Tactics. Back then, SEO had not even been created yet. Now that SEO has become a huge deal in the business world, I am very glad that I learned the skills that can allow my fingers to keep up with my thoughts as I compete for traffic in the major search engines.
This is real work that produces real results. Content Media is my chosen phrase for what we are doing. Some of the different seo tactics for using these skills include:
- Writing notes to friends on your social networking sites. like MyBloglog, MySpace, FaceBook, Squidoo, and more
- Writing articles to submit to 1,000’s of ezine friendly sites
- Writing emails to subscribers
- Writing Ad copy to place PPC or PPI on different adword sites
- Writing blogs to create an audience of subscribers that you can email
- Writing content for your website to compel people to action
- Writing meta data
- Writing titles and descriptions for directories
The list just goes on. It’s no wonder that sites are getting buried in the search engines because the search engines are changing their search strategies. Because of this, finding a true SEO professional is becoming more and more difficult. Content is “key” to this whole new era of web marketing, and a true SEO Tactic that will bring you traffic is to be able to provide a daily batch of fresh content.
The idea of having fresh daily content, however, may make some of you a bit ill. I know that many people can’t type well and that it is even more difficult to come up with new content concepts on a daily basis. I talk to different people every day and the thought of having to do all this work just to have a fighting chance seems a bit out of reach.
”Wake up! Pay attention and get creative,” some say. This is easier said then done. But, it is time to apply these SEO Tactics in a practical way where you will be able to benefit the most without having to waste your entire day writing. One area that everybody I know seems to fall short in is planning. Making a plan can help you to get ahead faster than you ever believed. Here are some tips to get you focused:
Do not attempt to do everything in a day or on your own.
- Don’t try and apply all the concepts at one time and don’t try to do all this work on your own.
- I have a routine down where I spend 15 minutes a day on Facebook and on MyBlogLog. I do as much as I can in those 15 minutes and after that time is up, I click away from those sites.
- Then, I spend another 20 – 30 minutes writing a blog. First, I will spend about 5 minutes looking for new articles, reading them and coming up with a plan of my own. I don’t copy these articles or use what they say in my own content, I just read up to get the creative juices flowing a bit.
- Then I send my blog to my friend to review and edit. In fact, this very piece you are reading was edited and spell checked in order to allow my readers to enjoy their visit as much as possible.
- I then have a writer that will create an article that is around 500 words long for my keyword focus. I place it on my site and submit it to over 1,000 ezine sites for backlinks.
- Another associate will go into directory sites and submit my titles and descriptions. Before this process got started I sat down with my writer and came up with 5 keyword titles and 10 different descriptions. My associate then randomly submits these to directory sites. Yes, directory sites still have merit, but I don’t do more then 5 per day.
Notice that in most of my steps I am relying on someone else to work with me to make these things happen. There are many other SEO Tactics that can be used and at different times I do apply them. Of course, before I complete my site, I make sure that the meta data, content, etc is all done correctly and professionally. The key here, however, is help! If you can handle these on your own without help, that is great, but most people have too many other things to do to spend their time researching, writing, editing, and submitting to different sites, yet you need this process to get traffic.
I know what you’re thinking and can almost hear the sigh already. This approach will require that you do this every day, but don’t panic just yet. In a short time, you site should be getting the kind of rankings that you desire and then it will be much easier for you to maintain them. For instance, I don’t do this routine on weekends, and at some point your site should be ranking the way you want it and this will afford you the opportunity to take a bit of time off from this routine.
If you don’t have people that you know and trust to help you in your routine, then you should seriously consider a company to handle some of these things for you. As long as you have a plan, a task list, and some kind of budget, you can find someone who will be able to follow your instructions to the letter.
Conclusion:
Writing is key for SEO Tactics, but planning is a must and understanding how to do all these effectively marks the top of the list. If you are just getting started in the world of Content Media don’t give up or get frustrated, just get help!