The answer to achieving that coveted ranking is actually very very simple, the only question I have is, are you dedicated to REALLY taking on that competitive keyword? – if so then lets get started, lets learn the TRUE secret to stealing ANY top Google ranking… are you ready?

When I share this secret with you, you will ultimately do one of two things… you will either say “ohhh that makes sense” and you will begin to implement it into your SEO campaign or else you will assume its either too easy or too hard (likely the latter) and move on. The truth is that in some cases it is very very easy and other times it is quite hard, but if you stick with it and follow this method completely through it will work.

A few years ago I was working on a site for a retailer, I was using my typical link building techniques and was making progress however I learned something through that campaign that reshaped how I do SEO.  I discovered that the owners of the websites where friends with numerous people who owned the top positions for the keywords they were targeting. So I thought to myself, if I can get links from all these sites I can take out the top position and hold it easily. So I set out to do this and, belive it or not, it was actually very easy to do, I was able to take out the positions they desired and firmly place them in control of many rankings which they have ever since effortlessly held.

Perhaps your puzzled and wondering what I actually did. Well it is very simple, I decided which rankings we were targeting primarily, I then went to each webmaster on the first (sometime the second) page of Google for that term and found a way to get a link from them. Some of these sites were provided products by my client so I was able to use this to get a link, I used other methods to get the remaining links. It really doesn’t matter how you get them, you can request them politely (does still work),  you could offer to pay for the links or you could use my first method… we will discuss each of these methods in detail.

I want to move through each of these methods step-by-step and give you an idea how to handle each request you will make, if you focus EVERY ounce of your link building energy to using this method you will achieve that coveted ranking, I have not found one case where it didn’t work. But it takes dedication… like ANY real SEO achievments will.

So here are the methods:

#1. One hand washes the other
The goal using this method is either to use something you are doing for the webmaster to get a link or to create a situation where they are obligated to give you a link or at least feel like they are. This can be as simple as you providing the webmaster with leads, this is a excellent way of getting a link and is how I got some of the links for the aforementioned client’s site. It may be providing the webmaster with a bit of exposure in a way your business would have an advantage. This has to be adapted to the specific niche your in, you will need to think this out for each site… believe me though, it is well worth it to spend the time for each of the first page sites. These links are worth their weight in gold.

If the webmaster y0ur attempting to get a link from does not really owe you anything or even worse doesn’t even know you then you may have to “buy” your way to getting that link… and I don’t necessarily mean monetarily.

#2. Linkbait – they’ll swallow it hook line and sinker
I firmly believe that there is a way to get a link from nearly every authority site, however that is easier said then done… however I recommend you atleast look into finding ways of link baiting for specific sites or groups of sites which you desire a link from. You will have to research what will effectively bait a site.  It may be a tool, generally a tool, if correctly developed will generate hundreds if not thousands of links however one or two links from first page ranked sites may be worth numbers of regular links to that tool. So make sure you specifically use link bait to get links from high ranked sites, don’t just hope that they will see it and link on their own.

An article is also very good link bait, I have done numerous research articles and these can turn into powerful link baits. If you do your research thoroughly this can prove to be a super valuable link bait development method.  But again, remember to target your article to the specific sites you want a link from. If you can get those links, all other links your article might attract is just the icing on the cake.

#3. Simply request a link
Sometimes the obvious answer is the right answer… just asking for a link can sometimes get you that link.  But sometimes you have to pay for the link. Whether its a set fee for a “permanent” link or a monthly agreement it does entail risks.  I do NOT recommend link exchange at all, instead if you have linked to a site and desire a link back from them, I recommend you email them in a way that in NO WAY even hints at the fact that you have linked to them or at all smells like a typical link exchange request. Find a way of buttering the recipient up, comment on an article they have written, provide a honest and detailed testimonial of a software they sell etc.  These are much more successful attempts at gaining a link back and are much more “natural” to Google. No need to tell them you linked to them, if the link is worth anything they will notice… if not what makes you think they will be impressed because you inform them of it? I’d be insulted…

Whatever you do to get these links, you should never ever spam webmasters in any way, if they have do-follow open comments or a forum, do not use this to spam for a link. The link you do get, should the webmaster not remove it, will be worth far less than a naturally placed link on a quality relevant page by the webmaster. I can’t overstress the utter worthlessness and waste of time it is to try and spam for links.

Perhaps you had hoped for some pill or miracle drug which would give you super SEO powers but if this article has seemed a let down in anyway you need to re-read it and seriously consider using these methods. I use these methods all the time and it has turned out to be the best way to start my SEO campaigns.  I have kept it simple because the method is simple, whoever said SEO was rocket science anyways?
Obviously there are certain niches where this method would be hard and in such cases you will need to continue beyond just trying to get links from the first page for your primary keywords, because in some niches many of the first page-ranked sites will not even link to you… you should ultimately go after every site ranked in Google for the keywords you are trying to rank for. If you actively proceed with this method you will ultimately rank for the terms you desire… but again this is no miracle work. Like all the methods I use and recommend, they take time and patience however the results are well worth it.

The purpose of this article is to help you realize that you should be getting links from people who are holding positions in territory you want to hold, then keep moving back through the rankings trying to get links. Don’t worry if they are ranked on the 10th page, if the term is competitive they will still be a valuable linkback.

As always comments and emails are welcome, and of course we love to have you link directly to our articles. If you enjoyed this article please add my blog to your feed reader… if you do not have a feed reader, please join the 21st century. Goto Google.com/reader and start by adding www.1stsearchenginerankings.com to the list. That way you have instant access to new articles as soon as they are published. Thanks again for reading!

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Because essentially the same strategy works for both games… in fact the main reason why webmasters never attain success is because they don’t have a strategy… and the ones that do often have a faulty concept of it. Most webmasters do not even calculate their own steps let alone anticipate those of their competitors. So how do they expect to win? They jump into the game much the same as a amateur Chess-player does, playing moves on a whim without realizing or contemplating the final outcome of that decision or calculating the risks and benefits to such a move. And THAT is the reason why in both games we have so many losers, its not because they don’t know the game, the rules of the game or the general ideas. Its because they don’t have a strategy and they aren’t planning ahead, there focus is on NOW and they don’t see the big picture.

So how does this analogy and realization help us become better seo? Well first once we realize an error we must take steps, careful steps to fix that error. If we lack a strategy and have been running our seo campaigns half-hazardously without thinking about the consequences, if that is the case then the logical solution is to create a fool-proof strategy. But how does one start a strategy? Using the following guide…

Strategic Planning in Seo

Identify your market…
The first step is to identify your market and target. Walking into a seo campaign without identifying your targets is like walking onto a ball field and not knowing which team you are competing against. The idea that you are targeting “everything” doesn’t work, it creates an ineffective strategy and a perfect environment for failure. Just like in competitive sports you take on one goal at a time, you don’t compete against multiple teams at once. You identify your goal and that is what you fight for… that is not to say you can’t have multiple secondary goals but they should indeed be secondary.

I can hear somebody saying

“wait a second Randy, I have been targeting multiple goals for years and have been very successful”

You missed the point, the point is not that you CANNOT target multiple goals, the point is that the more goals you have the broader your playing field and the less effective you will be across the board. And by goals I am not necessarily referring only to specific keywords, I am talking about specific market strategies here. You should have a number of goals, many of which should be dependent on completion of other goals. For instance a small music site dedicated to selling hand-crafted guitars should not immediately set a goal to take on the banjo business. They should first develop strategies to take out the guitar business, one-step at a time.

So how does one identify their market? Well I suggest you do some Keyword Research to get some ideas to start from…

#1. Keyword Research, create large lists of keywords which can be narrowed down to specific keywords to target immediately, secondary keywords for later on and maybe a third list of “maybes” which you can save for later on. You should create lists of non-competitive and low competition keywords which get some traffic, you should use these to write articles and create resources, that way you are slowly building some traffic and rankings while you work on larger and larger keywords. To do this keyword research I use Keyword Elite because I find it is the best tool on the market, the most effective and the fastest. Unfortunately few tools are what they claim to be, that is why I whole-heartedly recommend Keyword Elite because it lives up to its wildest claims. If you would like a tutorial on how to do this I have written one entitled How to find low competition high traffic phrases – it details everything… however if you should have questions feel free to let me know.

If you want to just check individual keywords for traffic volume in Google than use Google Adwords Keyword Tool however I have found Keyword Elite far better in creating lists of keywords as it seems to find a larger volume of keywords to build from… so I suggest you get Keyword Elite just for this step… it has a money back guarantee so you have nothing to lose. After your first campaign you will realize how much time it has saved you and how many new prospects you have discovered that you would have likely never known about before.

#2. Develop content based on these keyword targets. Please note I did NOT say to create articles, I said content, something of value to your targeted audience. This is not to say that articles are not content… bear with me please. For instance if you are selling hand-crafted guitars then a good link bait might be to develop a tutorial/e-book detailing how to make a handmade guitar. If this resource is developed correctly and distributed correctly it alone could take you to the top for your main keywords. This is the fastest way to get to the top. People will link to valuable resources all day long… the keyword though is valuable
If you would like some consultation on creating a valuable linkbait send me a email at randy[at]1st-rankings.com and let me know about your site. I will see what I can come up with. However little research and brainstorming should turn up some good ideas… let me know what you come up with and where you feel it lacks and we will figure out something for you!

Uniqueness is everything. You need to start your site off immediately with a unique approach, a simple yet inviting atmosphere and the resources and content in demand by your niche. How do you determine this? See above under Keyword Research.

#3. Develop YOUR link building strategy
This part of your strategy is important to develop even before you start your site. I don’t think many people realize how important it really is. If you have developed your link building strategy prior to starting the site everything you do will be in harmony with that, so everything you do will compliment your link building plans… which tends to produce much higher inbound links both naturally and by request.

Methods of Link Building (by rating)

Link Baiting 10/10 – We have discussed this briefly above however I cannot over stress the importance of creating exceptional link baits. It is the wave of the future and definitely the best of today. Focus a lot of effort on link baiting and you will find it is far more effective than any time spent on other link building methods. Link baiting is not something that can be taught but is generally unique to each niche however some of the same principles apply to any form of link baiting. And those are uniqueness, demand, relevance and usability.

If you create a article based completely off a hot article from another site do you think that will do much good? Not at all, you will be considered a copycat and nobody will link to you. You need to create something unique, something in demand and relevant to your niche and which is usable by YOUR users. If you can do this you will gain links naturally, how many will depend greatly on how unique and how demanded your article information is.

Perhaps your niche is in need of a tool, software, service or product. If you can fulfill this demand it can also be a great link bait, especially if your able to offer it free and the service is in high demand. Maybe you don’t realize that your niche is even in need of such a tool or service. Do some research and brainstorming, read blogs, forums and authority sites in your niche and discover a common resounding need… fulfill that need and you have discovered a VERY effective link bait.

I use a piece of software called Seo Elite to spy on my competitors and what link baits they are developing. I then use this data to outdo them. I highly recommend this software for this process is only… some of the other tools it offers have become outdated but it is well worth the price alone for its spy on competitors feature. Sometimes I find brilliant link bait ideas using Seo Elite and sometimes I find them by just brainstorming and following the above suggestions.

Again 1st Search Engine Rankings would love to help you develop a link bait idea. Feel free to contact us for help…

Links by Request 7/10- Perhaps the easiest to perform and yet the most discouraging is requesting links. It seems like very few people actually answer and far fewer will link to your site. This is the nature of this particular method however there are reasons why you might be doing even poorer than average. Here are some tips when you do link requesting in the future…

Here is THE method for requesting links:

Tell the webmaster who you are, what you have that is relevant to their audience, where they can find that relevant content, and why it’s relevant to their visitors.

Michael Martinez a writer for SeoMoz noted this as the only way he would accept a link request. I would have to agree, I will not consider a link request unless it offers me or my visitors something of value. I have had webmasters send me requests that I review their tools for them, some are so poorly written I never check out the product cause I feel that if you cannot write a good letter to me than your tool cannot be that great. Write me a great email explaining why it is so wonderful to ME and you have won my interest and I will look at it. Many link requests never entice the webmaster to even click the link…

Lastly on this method I highly recommend you sign your full name in a signature with your email, phone number and address… it makes you more personal. It has been shown to increase response greatly.

So do link requests still work? YES they do if they are done correctly. Above I quoted Michael Martinez. He wrote an article for SeoMoz entitled How to request links from picky sites – read that article and follow his advice. It is very good information and if you do follow it you will find it does work, sometimes very well.

Social Bookmarking 7/10 – While I don’t recommend this as direct method of obtaining links I recommend it as a method of gaining a web presence. It is the fastest way I know of letting people know about your great articles and if they agree on the usefulness of said articles then there is a very good chance you will gain links from them. So Social Bookmarking definitely has its place. I know some webmasters get 100K uniques a month just from social bookmarking sites, if your site is of tremendous value imagine the link bait power… if you develop great link baits with this kind of social bookmarking traffic you can gain 1000s of links.

Forum Posting and Blog Commenting 3/10 – this method has little link value but it does carry with it the great possibility of gaining a valuable reputation and authority in your niche. If you spend your time giving valuable advice(without spamming your links) then eventually people will discover who you are whether it be in a valid sig, via a profile link or just asking you via pm. They will come to respect you for giving your knowledge freely and will link to your site and recommend you as a authority. I rated it has 3/10 for its indirect link building benefits. But its far greater value is in the reputation you will gain.

Directory Submissions 2/10 – The problem with directory submissions is that the directories that are worth submitting to generally have a very high submission contrasted with a very low moderation rate. Which means it could be 6 months before your site is even reviewed let alone added. And those directories that aren’t so careful and who accept most “manual submissions” are worthless. DON’T submit to general directories, you will see no benefits from it. If you must go the directory submission route than find related directories with quality standards and submit your site.

Link Exchange 1/10- Does link exchange still work in Google? Yes it does but it is IMO one of last methods you should use, I don’t attempt it at all. I spend all my time working on developing link baits, requesting links and developing content on my site and I find after that I have no time for link exchanging. The worst thing about link exchanging is that you have to link back to get a link, that means that if you want to acquire 1000 links using the link exchange method than you need to find 1000 places to link back to sites. Thereby greatly devaluing the quality of your site and the value of a link on your site… also most sites that respond to link exchanges aren’t worth getting a link from. In fact I find it easier to get links via link request than asking for a link exchange. Webmasters are more readily willing to link to you for a great resource than to exchange links.

FFA or Free for all Links 0/10 – Free for all links have the same problem as free for all directories, they get filled with spam and then nobodies link is worth anything. Obviously if your resorting to FFA links you either don’t know about the other methods or your site is not good enough for the other methods… in which case if you can get a link on a FFA site then you can be sure a thousand other webmasters with equally worthless sites can do the same. Don’t even bother trying to get links from FFA sites. Don’t chase after links on “links” pages, as I said before, if they are easily acquired by you then it won’t be long before there will be a hundred other useless links on that page. And each time a new link appears on that page your link becomes less and less valuable. I rated this method 0/10 because I do not recommend it at all. Yes some links pages still pass some value but, as time goes on and more and more links appear on that page your link becomes more and more valueless… multiply this by the number of links page links you have and you can see how easily rankings can be lost.

#4. Make a splash… without scaring the fish
This is actually two parts… you want to be seen and recognized as an authority by THE authorities in your niche. This will help you build credence and loyalty. However you can get all the traffic in the world who love your content but they may not link to your site based on other factors… such as your stinking-blinking pop-up ads. This is the age of modern marvels, don’t use 90’s advertising on your site, stick to clean ads or none at all. It is better to build a large repeat visitor base then to make a few bucks now on ads. Ads can also be very counterproductive if your site is in the sales business as you may lose a sale due to an ad on your own site. Many times affiliate links will perform a thousand times better than your regular contextual ads. For instance for each dollar I make on adsense I make $100 in affiliate commissions. So where do you think most of my advertising is focused? Around affiliates… find affiliates who offer a tool, service or product you can recommend honestly and which you have tried and tested. You will sell more effectively because your readers will be able to tell you have a very well rounded understanding of what you are reviewing.

#5. Seo budgeting
It is a very good idea that you create a budget, it will help you keep a systematic approach to your campaign and keep things running smoothly. Budget link buying, whether it be direct paid links or payment for the acquisition of links. Decide whether or not you need to hire a seo/link buyer/consultant and factor this into your spending. Don’t overspend assuming you will soon have the money to pay it off, stay within your budget and you will make progress.

#6. Take advantage of a killer resource
I have seen some wicked link baits in my time and what surprised me about many of them was the lack of strategy around them. They were written/produced effectively as far as gaining popularity but the owner never received any real benefit from them. Make sure you are taking every step to monetize good content and resources on your site. I am not saying you should charge for it as that is generally less than effective. Instead try some affiliates, if you gain trust for integrity in your niche then you will be able to sell more easily. Put your link baits to good use so that the links they gain can acquire you more rankings. What good is a killer link bait which produces 20K links if they all have irrelevant anchor text… sure you’ll have a ton of link juice but a lot of wasted link value.

#7. User behavior and Analytics
While we are now aware that Google tracks user behavior on our websites(when they are able to do so) that is not what I am going to be talking about. Many webmasters fail to watch their own traffic, to analyze it and check user behavior. If you have an article which is gaining huge amounts of traffic but a great portion of that number is bouncing regularly, what is the problem? If you can determine the problem you may have solved the mystery to keeping these visitors and perhaps making some extra sales. That is however easier said than done…

If you want to use what I consider to be one of the best Analytics tool in the industry that would be Google Analytics however I don’t use their service anymore due to their factoring my user behavior statistics into ranking my site – instead I have found what I find to be a very competitive analytics tool which offers what Google Analytics does including some extra features which many of us webmasters demand, they offer all of this at a very reasonable price. Here is my review of Clicky Web 2.0 Analytics. You can use it effectively to track user behavior and find those trouble pages where you are getting large percentages of bounces. Don’t tell me you can’t afford analytics, you can’t afford NOT to have analytics.

Some webmasters can increase their conversions from 20-50% and sometimes as much as 80% just by checking their user behavior issues. It may be something as simple as a dead link or it could be much harder to diagnose but whatever it is due your best to check that problem. Clicky Web 2.0 Analytics also makes it very easy for me to check specific visitors from specific sources and determine how long they stayed at my article page before bouncing… this helps me determine whether the user/s theoretically read the article before exiting or if they exited very soon after entering the page. Why does this matter? Well if the majority of users read your article but still bounce then your article obviously either has done one of three things…

1. It has answered there question so they no longer need your site
2. It has not answered there question hence they are leaving
3. They found what they were looking for but you gave them no reason to stay on the site.

Many times you can keep users on your site you just need to figure out what will entice them to stay and continue through your site, whether your ultimate goal is to have a newsletter subscription or whether you are looking to make a sale… you need to do some research to fix these problems.

Analytics is also very effective in determining what campaigns are performing and which are not. Perhaps a certain link/ad you have purchased is sending a great deal of traffic but is performing very low in conversions. If you can’t find an on-site problem perhaps you should consider removing that link/ad from your campaign next month.

Keyword tracking is also very convenient with tools such as Clicky Web 2.0 Analytics as you can determine which keywords are converting best for you. Which are doing poorly and which are easiest to monetize, this information can be invaluable in future campaigns.

Action tracking can be very effective in determining not only what type of visitors but how many of them perform certain tasks on your site such as begin/finish an order, sign up for a newsletter, click an affiliate link, click ads, visit certain key pages etc. If you have a high percentage beginning an order but a low fulfillment than you should check for errors in your shopping cart system and annoying, useless and time consuming forms that would lose your buyers mid stream. If you have not implemented action tracking I highly suggest you do. It will help you keep your traffic and convert it into money.
One thing Clicky makes easy which Google Analytics did not is the ability to track off-site action tracking. This can be affiliate links, off-site order processing(paypal), off-site newsletter subscription etc… I think you get the picture.

I could go on and explain the benefits of Analytics but I have written several articles previously on this topic, please goto our archives and read these for reference.

This article is already getting pretty long. I struggle with the 10 step approaches, they are easy to create but I feel a lot of the meat is lost in those simple articles. So I tend to elaborate and do extensive descriptions of what I am talking about. I hope you appreciate the time I put into this article cause I can do a simple 10 step approach next time if you don’t

I didn’t list every last thing that doesn’t work, instead I tried to accurately present those steps that DO work. You can find previous articles discussing some of that or you can email us and ask us regarding specific seo questions and we will do our best to get back to you with the answers.

You can email me at randy[at]1st-rankings[dot]com and I will do my best to answer your questions.

Copyright © 2008, 1st-rankings Co in partnership with 1st Search Engine Rankings
This article may NOT be redistributed in any way, shape or form. If you would like to link to the article we would appreciate it but republication in part or in whole is strictly forbidden and 1st Search Engine Rankings will file legal suit due to any illegal reproduction of its content.

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I am writing this article for I see very few people giving detailed articles on this subject, usually we discuss seo or affiliate management but hardly ever do we include both as an item… affiliate marketing is by far my favorite form of marketing, I prefer it over any other form of advertising or marketing however, sadly many do it all wrong. Many affiliate marketers do one of two things, they advertise using PPC or else they tend to use grey hat spam techniques because their site isn’t rich enough in itselft to achieve “success” any other way. In this article I am going to present the third and in my mind most successful method of affiliate marketing and one which very few affiliate marketers ever truly reach.

The first thing you need to learn when beginning affiliate seo in any area or niche is: always create your site and content with the user in mind, forget the affiliate programs and forget the search engines… design and cater to the user, think like the user… then and only then will you be able to truly become successful and conquer the search engines for your niche…

That may sound like an oxi-moron… – “forget about the affiliate programs” – but believe me it isn’t. Many new affiliate marketers go through affiliate promotional sites such as ClickBank or CJ looking for the highest payout programs. They select the ones with the highest commissions even if they know very little to nothing about the tool/service or product they are promoting… this is one of the downfalls of many affiliate marketers. Why? Because while you will be able to sell nearly anything to some people you will lose a large portion of people who will see right through your gimpy marketing ploys, many people can tell when a site is promoting a product/service based on their knowledge and experience or when they are promoting a product or service they know nothing about. This detracts greatly from your conversions… “but don’t black hat guys do this and make a killing?” Yes many black hat guys do, they setup sites and promote products they probably never even heard of or at best know very little about, and many of them make tons of money… however nothing near what they could make if they took this white hate approach, believe me its true.

Don’t promote affiliate links, promote the subject – When I am looking for a specific type of product or service I will at times find an affiliate site and whether I stay or whether I go through their system and buy that product or service depends greatly on how well they present themselves, what claims they make and if and how they attempt to back up those claims, the profossionalism of the site and what the actual webmaster knows about the product/service and the topic in general. For instance I was looking for some software a while back, I ended up going through someones affiliate url because the guy wasn’t promoting an affiliate link he was promoting a product from experience and promoting it based on his knowledge of the subject. He was no amatuer and I could tell right off that he knew not only the product but he also knew the subject and was an expert of his niche and that is why I bought the product, the only reason I bought it and the only reason why he got the commission. So the difference between promoting a product and promoting a affiliate link is whether or not you know your stuff. This probably seems elementary to you but it is a step in a process which will bring you success… fail this area and you will lose a huge portion of conversions you could have easily made.

Perhaps the most successful ploy in this area is not just convincing the user of their need for a specific service or product but getting them excited and interested in the subject and niche as a whole… you may get visitors who are semi-interested or who think they may be interested in buying a product but they may need some nudging and some encouragement. This kind of coincides with step #4 which we will discuss later in this article but more importantly here is the aspect of creating an interest in the area you are promoting and then it will be easier to create such an interest in the actual product your promoting. Do you want to convert a few sales or do you want success? I am sorry that was a dumb question wasn’t it

I will tell you the secret to the success of a good affiliate marketer and how they can convert so well… it is very simple, they place themselves in the position of the user, they tend to promote services and products which they can honestly recommend and which they are familiar with and then they convince the user of their need of that product or service, whatever it may be. This last part of the equation is very important, you can provide information but unless you convince the user that they need what you are promoting you will not have as high conversions as you could have.

So lets take a look at the steps to affiliate success… these are the steps I use and I can guarantee they will make you successful if you follow them faithfuly.

1.) Find your niche… – many webmasters have their hands in so many cookie jars they are not truly successful in any of them. Sometimes and I would venture to say nearly all the time those who focus on one niche will become the most successful. There are many advantages to such a deployment of your resources and time. Find what your good at and what you know and begin there.

2.) Place yourself in the position of the user… if you were the user would you be sold? Many times even affiliaters(sounds like a good work to me ) who make alot of money, once they take this step find their conversions rising 10-75% – that is amazing!

3.) Promote tools, services and products which you are familiar with, which you use or would use(if you needed what you were trying to sell) and which you can honestly recommend based on your knowledge and experience with the site and service and the subject matter.

4.) Convince the user he or she needs what you are promoting, convince them that the product or service you are promoting is much better than any other service on the web… show them why they need it.
Before you can convince them of their need of the product or service it is recommended that you excite their interest in the overall subject matter… once you get them excited in the topic at large you can easily sell them on an actual product.

5.) Make it easy to buy on impulse… – many people now days buy on impulse, they see something they think they want and they buy it. Make it easy for this group of people to buy on their impulse. Make things simple, concise and easy to navigate. Get straight to the point in your articles and reviews, don’t waste 20 hours going nowheres.

6.) Stay away from alternative forms of advertising – One thing I find so counter productive is using multiple forms of advertising on top of affiliate marketing… many times webmasters will promote a product and then add adsense or other advertisements on the page which not only cluttersthe page,  but can present a less-than-professional atmosphere and will also deter the visitor from completing your goal: converting into a sale. I would rather lose 50 potential clicks by removing the adsense and have one of those 50 convert into a affiliate sale then to possibly lose an affiliate sale cause the advertisment was more appealing than the content of my site.

7.) Create a professional atmosphere… – not only should your site be clean, neat, tidy and easy to navigate but it should also appear authoritative, resourceful and less like a traditional affiliate site. There are some affiliate marketers who believe that webmasters should not do anything to make the affiliate link look any less than well… an affiliate link. I disagree, while I am honest and straight-forward I believe webmasters should do their best to hide the fact that they are promoting a service or product for which they will get a commission. I will explain more later.

8.) Learn your trade, become an authority in your niche… – I cannot possibly overstress the importance of knowing your niche, knowing your product and gaining a reputation for it. It can take time but isn’t rocket science… one of the easiest forms is by frequenting forums, blogs and networking sites related to your interest. Answer questions, become known for good quality information and people will not only begin to visit your site via your sig but they will also tell others…

9. Analytical research and implementation – Analytical data is so important and can tell you why a user is bouncing, what pages/affiliates are performing best and where your weak points are. Below I will go into a little more detail and make some recomendations on this area.

You may have noticed these steps are not strictly in order… however you should get the general idea. Many of these steps will need to be done many times over and will take time to master.

Okay I did this  a bit backwards, I gave the overall steps first and then go into the detailed analysis of each… please bear with me.

#1 Finding your niche
This is a step that will vary greatly depending on the webmaster and situation… of course your the only one who really knows what your good at, what you love to do and where your knowledge lies. Perhaps you are not very experienced in a certain niche but you are very interested in it. Spend some time acquainting yourself with the different aspects of the niche, frequent forums and blogs related to it and learn as much as you can. Don’t try and become an “expert” overnight, take time and learn. You will eventually build your experience to a point where you can give back in the same way you have learned… this is where the reputation begins.

You might want to do some number punching on a specific niche which is perhaps less competitive and yet is well trafficked. I find a tool called Keyword Elite very very helpful in such research, you would be surprised how many true gold mines I have found using this tool. Its high point is that it eliminates all that manual work and can compile large lists of keywords in minutes. If your like me you don’t have alot of time to spend in manual digging so a tool like this is essential.

Lastly stick with your niche… don’t give up if it takes a while to build up traffic and start making decent conversions, given time and adhering to the above steps you will get there if you only stick with it.
It can also be good to partner with a friend or fellow-enthusiast, you will be able to get twice as much done and you will be able to come up with more innovative strategies. But make sure you get the revenue agreement figured out first or it can lead to issues later on.
#2 – Place yourself in the shoes of your users
There is a saying that goes something like “don’t judge a man till you have walked a mile in his shoes” – you need to turn this into action, you need to mentally place yourself in the position of the user. Would you as the shopper be sold on the product or service or would you be disgusted with the setup, the annoying ads/pop-ups and the inconsistency of the content? Once you can relate to the users you have broken down one of the most challenging walls because once you know why or what makes a user leave out of dis-interest there is a very good chance you can fix or atleast improve the situation greatly.

Many webmasters have a hard time understanding how to take this step and turn it into action… its almost illusive to them. That is why it is really helpful if you are a native to your niche, it is really helpful if you are well-versed and very experienced in your niche. If so, you can use your personal experiences and can also take a look at competing sites and find out what annoys or dis-interests you and use this to better improve your site.

A less effective, but a method none the less is to have a site feedback link prominently placed on each page of the site which gives the user an opportunity to voice their opinion about your site and why they are leaving. Some sites implement a pop-up which appears when the user attempts to leave the site, while most dis-interested users will immediately click out there are a select few who may give their opinion and it could be their voices which echo the reasoning behind the mass departure of those who never responded. How you word your pop-up or site feedback page and the layout of each will determine greatly whether or not they will bring in feedback and be successful. Stick to short, straight-to-the-point forms which first and fore-most apologize for not being perfect and then ask politely for the valuable input of the user so as to improve the site. Simplicity wins everytime…

I believe webmasters should use any avenues at their disposal. I think the reason why some webmasters fail is that they are too narrow minded and insist on strictly adhering to one or two avenues when they could see far greater success if they only broadened their scope. Since the user is already leaving your site I don’t see how a pop-up is really going to effect anything however I would set it up so that returning users do not see the pop-up again… this is VERY annoying.

Lastly there is a tool I really love which will be so very beneficial in attempting to place yourself in the shoes of your users… that tool is called CrazyEgg – this kind of fits in with my Analytical step but it can be useful in determining what users are doing on your site which can give you an idea of why your visitors may be leaving.

If your still wondering “how can you place yourself in the position of the user?” Then maybe an illustration will help… This can be a hard thing to learn if you aren’t personally interested in the niche you are competing for. For instance if I were to start a affiliate site promoting cosmetics I would be lost, I wouldn’t know what to promote and I wouldn’t know how to sell them cause I don’t use them… however if I started an affiliate site for guitars or guitar accessories I would be at home… I play guitar and I love guitar. I have a good understanding of what styles are popular now days, what types of guitars would sell well in certain situations and what the better brands are. I can use this information to start a successful guitar site for my users will begin to see that I am not just a webmaster looking for a affiliate payout but I am actually infatuated with the subject I am promoting. Does that make sense?

Being an avid guitarist I find myself browsing the web often for music… if I were starting a site how could I use this potential demand and twist it into a means of converting more sales and actually gaining traffic to convert into sales? Because I may someday start a guitar site I won’t publicly share all my linkbait ideas and thoughts on this, but I am just trying to give you some ideas from which you can spin your own.
#3 Become familiar with what you are promoting
Know the pros and cons to the product you are promoting, understand what it can and cannot do and understand how it can benefit the group of people you are targeting. Use all of this information to promote the product. It may surprise you but a few negative comments can actually increase conversions. There is a saying which goes “if it appears too good to be true it probably is” – well many have that mind set and if you present an unbiased picture of why a user should buy the product as well as some of its minor faults it gives the user the idea you are being honest with them.

For instance you might list all the positives – you always list the positives and pros first – and then list a minor fault which is not likely to be that important to the user, a fault which all or most competitors share. You need to be very careful here as you can hinder your sale by saying the wrong thing but honesty truly is the best policy and you can use it to turn over more conversions if you do it right.

#4 Sell the user on your product, convince them why they need it
Of course as you probably already know this is a very very important step, if the user isn’t convinced they need the product your conversions will be low. Again there are no magic words to say that will convince the user of their absolute need for what you are offering. If however, you have followed step #3 you will be so acquainted with what you are trying to sell that you will know the points that will sell your product, what will make it stand out and what to say to convince the user to buy it. That is why it is so important to follow all these steps, many are dependant on each other for true success.

#5 – Ease of purchase, don’t let them think
I am just kidding but it is advantageous for you as a webmaster to give the user the easiest trip through your site and through the purchase, get them there easily and don’t throw rocks in the road. While most affiliate programs do not give you access to the actual checkout, you can control most of what goes on uptill this point. Take advantage of that, don’t make them wade through your 50 wonderful offers, sign-up for 25 newsletters and 10 recommendations on other software to buy. Cut out the nonesense and let them get to what they really want, you can always bug them after the purchase

#6 – Cut the extensive supply of advertising
In this day and age we are bombarded with advertising from tv, radio, internet, billboards and everywhere else imaginable. The last thing most of us want to see is more advertising, it has gotten so bad that certain forms of ads have declined greatly in conversion because the mass majority of people are becoming blinded to them. But not only is it a turn-off but it can also detract from your affiliate conversions and many times you will be losing sales from $10-200 each time a user picks a advertisement over converting into a affiliate sale.

So if at all possible keep strictly to affiliate and I also recommend you use links and informative reviews over banners and small snippets of text. The former tends to convert better from my experience. An article recommending a product or service converts quite well while banners for the same product and service can perform very poorly on the same site. Bombarding your users from all sides will lessen the effectiveness of ALL your revenue streams.

#7 – Create a professional, simple and inviting environment
I find myself more likely to buy from a site with a professional yet simple atmosphere over a site which looks like it was started by a 10 year old on a weekend. This step builds upon the last step in that we are presenting the user with convenience, an inviting and professional atmosphere conduisive to converting sales.

Keep things simple, learn from the Google example. People love simplicity and are attracted to it, don’t throw the user through hoops or present a situation where the information the user is looking for is always a “step a way” – you know what I mean, you have been in a situation like that before and you know how irritating it can be.

Provide the user with unique articles and content, don’t copy other peoples work, re-wording it so the search engines supposedly will rank it. Write your own stuff, bring innovation to your niche, build a tool or two. Whatever will enhance the user experience should be done… many times implementation of free tools will result in linkbaits which will help you achieve search engine success faster.

Back to that point I made on hiding the fact that you are affiliated… many people have given affiliate sites a bad name, there are also FireFox plugins and other software embedded on computers which converts affiliate links such as ClickBank urls from your aff id to theirs so you never get the commission. Not only for those reasons, but you also want to get the user to the affiliate page which will be much harder to do if you present yourself openly as an affiliate.  I use 301 redirects, I create a page and then use a 301 redirect to redirect it to the affiliate url. That way nobody can steal my commission, I won’t lose a conversion because a biased user doesn’t like affiliate urls and I get the user to my destination goal.

#8 – Become an authority in your niche
Webmasters are always quoting and linking to authority sites, so it is obviously something any webmaster would want to attain to. It is not however as hard as one might think to actually become an authority. It will take time to build trust and reputation and become that authority but it will indeed come if you are patient.

You should spend time at forums, answering questions, getting acquinted with prominent members and authorities in your niche. Don’t spam your url, if you are allowed add it to your signature but don’t try and promote yourself on these forums.

Spend time at the authority blogs and sites in your niche, comment on their posts, try and add new insight and think out of the box when commenting and replieing. Remember your comments will either build your reputation or disgrace it.

Social bookmarking sites are popular now days, they can be a useful means of quickly getting the word out about your site or a new feature/tool you have implemented. Don’t overuse or abuse them however.

The major thing is that you are authority material… I know a guy who doesn’t know the first thing about seo, affiliate marketing or building links. I would rank him as a newbie in those areas yet he runs a successful poker blog, he is competing in a very very competitive field without any experience in seo or marketing… how can he be successful? He has learned this step, he is an authority and people have come to respect him for it. BTW it is a hobby for him, he doesn’t have any ads or affiliates… he is only successful because it is a hobby, had he instead started as many webmasters do, with the intention of making big bucks with affiliate commissions, I doubt he would have been successful.

If you believe you have the experience and knowledge it takes to become an authority perhaps all you need is the spotlight turned on you for a short while to expose that to the world. To do this you could implement a linkbait, do or say something which is out of the norm(it is best if you can back it up) or in other words be contrary to popular opinion – this of course can go both ways – or you might discover some new earth-shaking revelation. Basically anything which gets you under the spotlight, you can use to benefit your acclaim to become an authority. You can do many things to get your name out there but once your under the spotlight, many times you need to make the best of it right away or you will lose that chance.  Also agreeing with everyone is not always the best way to become an authority, most people like independent thinkers and ideas. You should agree on proven facts but where there is doubt, try and find the truth and present it, don’t be afraid to do that.

#9 Analytical research and its effects
This is a step which you will be repeating over and over as your site grows. You will not only want to build more traffic but you will want to ensure that your current traffic is at high conversion rates and if not you of course need to answer the question, why not. Using analytical data you can determine where your weak points are, what your doing right and where you can improve. You can figure out what affiliates are performing the best and which get the highest traffic but lowest conversions… maybe your copy needs tweaking. All of this data is important and a affiliate marketer who fails to use it will never truly fulfill his or her true potential.

I have used many tools through the years. I really liked Google Analytics, it had tons of useful information but after we completed the Bounce Facter Research I quit using it. I wasn’t sure the pros out-weighed the cons so I stopped using it. I now use AwStats, Clicky Analytics, CrazyEgg, and have tried various other tools. I find that these three along with the raw logs provide me with most of my data I need. If you are willing to brave Google Analytics user behavior factoring I would recommend it, it is a very good tool and 100% free.
But how do I get traffic? How do I start ranking in Google for an Affiliate site?
A good seo will not stick to only one method but will implement multiple methods to gain wider exposure. Having said that there are methods which you will find work best for you or for certain types of sites. You should always focus most of your attention on those as they will bring the highest return on investment. My favorite are linkbaits… they tend to be the highest return on investment of any seo methods I have ever tried, they also tend to continue to attract links long after the initial launch which means it is a one-time fee with long-term benefits which pay for themselves ten times over.Many people however come to me because they can’t brainstorm any linkbait ideas for their sites and/or are unsure of implementation of those linkbaits once they are done. [plug: if you send an email to randy[at]1st-rankings[dot]com and ask for pricing and details on link bait development I will see what we can’t brainstorm for you.]
This is a very very very important aspect of linkbaiting. A poorly planned out linkbait may only work to half or sometimes less than 10% of its potential… that means if you do it wrong you could potentially be losing 90% of the effectiveness of your tool/service. Thats a huge loss! Make sure you think out each feature, each aspect of the tool, get feedback from the community, get beta-testers to test your tool and make suggestions. Do all in your power to implement their suggestions(unless they are outrageous). You will find by consulting the people you will be selling to that you can create a tool tailored to their exact needs, it will be truly effective and will be a linkbait which will continue to grow for years to come.

I am not going to mention the site or the keyword in this article but you can use the same principle to create your own linkbaits… there was a guy who created a site, from all outward appearances it was not very much different from most of his competitors… but in fact it was different. While his competitors were paying per month for links and seo(some were paying from 100-500K for seo) this guy was putting his money into a linkbait, a linkbait which just over a year later landed him at the top of a multi-million dollar industry term. If this sounds like a fairy-tale it isn’t, this is a true story and believe it or not it happens more than you may think and a year may be all a well planned affiliate marketer will need to conquer the industrys most competitive terms.

What made his site stand out, how did he acquire such a heavily targeted and heavily competed industry? It is quite simple really, everyone was competing in the same way… few were using inovative seo, most of them were just paying for links. This guy however was building a linkbait, it was a free service, a service which literally hundreds of his competitors had already tried… “Hold it… I thought you said it was an innovative idea” – I did indeed. Remember this, an idea can either be inovative in and of itself or it can be implemented in an inovative way. There are many people who have used the idea of webmasters before them and yet they alone were successful… it is not only the idea but how its implemented and how it is promoted that will truly create success. History bears record to this.
I truly hope I did not overwhelm you with information but did indeed provide you with some steps to take to better your affiliate seo and have helped place you on the road to success.I am more than willing to help you if you have questions… while I am very busy and my fees are generally not cheap I will do my best to setup a consultation, help you build a linkbait or whatever you may need.

Because of time constraints I could not write this all in one sitting so it is logical to assume I forgot something… if that is the case feel free to drop me a comment and let me know when I was sleeping and i’ll do my best to update it
I also wrote this article with the hope to rekindle a lost interest in webmasters, help them get back to affiliate marketing and give them steps to achieve success. My goal was not to map out a complete system but to give them the steps by which they can create goals, goals which they will over time complete all of.  I have no doubt theses steps will work for anyone in any niche… I hope they have been helpful to you.

Again drop a line or comment and let me know what you thought of the article… also drop me a line requesting a certain topic if you’d like.

Copyright © 2008, 1st-rankings Co.
This article may NOT be redistributed in any way, shape or form. If you would like to link to the article we would appreciate it.

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Most of us who have been on the internet any length of time are aware of the main types of link building. I will list them and then go into each one and explain why or why not you should use each.

• Reciprocal links – You get a link and I get a link and… unfortunately its not as good as it sounds.
• One-way links – Definitely the best link ever, Google sees one-way links as very valuable and there is no way they will ever have negative effects on your serps as reciprocal links can.
• Link Baiting – The idea or implementation of a tool, service or content in such a way that it attracts links without the asking. By far the very best link building idea, it sure beats buying links and it is all natural… Hey even Matt Cutts is for it so it must be good
• Three way link exchanging – IMO a risky link building idea and many times implemented in such a way that it is not all that hard for Google to figure out. It does work though and is better than link exchanging if done right…
• Paid links – This is for webmasters who have fat wallets, they can just dish out money and get high PR, high authority links without doing any actual work or can they?
• Spamming – This is probably the most common and frustrating link building method… the use of forms, forums, blogs and other public community sites to spam a link hoping that the site either automatically accepts all submissions or has a poor moderating team who will fail to catch and moderate the spam.
• Link requesting – This method has gotten alot of flak and even though it has a very small success rate it is still IMO a very good method to use which I shall explain later on in this article.

Reciprocal linking is a very common method of link building even though Google has greatly devalued it. Is there a place for reciprocal linking? Most certainly is, when you link to a site because you love what it offers and want to share it with your visitors and the other site does the same for you without either of you knowing… I can hear webmasters laugh and question “Haha and you really think Google knows whether or not it was a planned reciprocation or not” – I most certainly do… when was the last time you found a site you liked and decided to link to them… okay you found your deepest links page and stuck their link on the very bottom correct? Somehow I am doubting that. lol – I take it you got the point

When webmasters like a site they tend to write articles about the site and link from prominent places on their site.. So yes I think google can tell when a link exchange is worth something by determining the location and prominence of a link on a site, relevance and how many link exchanges are taking place. The days of link exchanging with anybody are over… that will do little for you now days and can even harm you.

I am not saying that link exchanging via links pages is totally valueless, I am saying it is getting very close to that and too risky for me. Sites which create literally 100s of pages of links for the sole purpose of increasing their rankings are going to find it to be worthless. A links page which is linked to from your home page and does not appear to be orphaned and which links to only a few and quality and related sites will still be valuable to you however very few such sites exist who are willing to reciprocate. Most sites worth reciprocating with are not interested…

IMO the days of reciprocal link building are dead and gone and unless you are playing Google as a game and are not interested in becoming a success I highly suggest you move on to greener pastures.

One-way links – Now that is a broad topic. It would include many of the aforementioned methods of link building such as link requesting, paid links, link baiting and others. I just want you to realize the importance that one-way links have on a sites success… without them you will get nowhere. If you do not have atleast a few good quality, related, authority one-way links I highly doubt we will see you too much at the top of Google. Google values such links very highly, unlike MSN and Yahoo which seem to like large quantities of links whether quality or not.

Link Baiting – Ahh my favorite link building method and in my mind the far easiest(takes mental power ). I figure it this way, you need to be offering something worthwhile to convert the traffic you currently have into sales correct? Well if you need worthwhile content/tools/services to convert traffic then why not put extra time and effort into them to turn them into linkbaits? Kill two birds with one stone scenario.

If you do not have content/tools/services which are in high demand than you will likely lose alot of your traffic so gaining traffic should not be your objective. Your objective should be to convert the traffic you already got and bring in targeted traffic. The best way I know to do this is link baits… I have never seen it fail. A good linkbait converts extremely well.

Most people agree with me on this and they want to create a link bait but fail to do so because of one or two obstacles. Some webmasters are afraid it will not work, others are afraid it will cost too much money and the cost will outweigh the benefit. And then there are those who can’t seem to think up a link bait for the life of them. My suggestion is to first of all analyze the top competitors in your industry, figure out what they have, what they offer, what they want to offer, what their customers/users are saying and last but not least find out what they do NOT offer and how you could improve on their neglect.

Use this information against them… do they offer tools which are popular? Hire some people to go through the tool and find problems, find ways to improve on their idea and create your own tool with marked improvements. Be sure to go through forums, blogs and authority sites looking for professionals who will give you tips and ideas to use as linkbaits. Many will and reward them later with a free beta of the tool. Ask your users what they would like to see on your site, what does your site lack to make it the best site in the industry? Get feedback and then implement the suggestions if and when possible.

The same principles can be used for articles and content. Go through your competitors content and look at their articles, find flaws, find issues that they do not fully explain, find questions they don’t answer, find problems which are not answered but for which an answer is in high demand. Make use of their faults and write better articles…
On this note I should mention copy law and tell you to start articles and tools from scratch… don’t copy competitors word-for-word or you will likely get in a law suit and be in a bit of trouble

Be unique, appeal to the masses and you got yourself a wicked lot of magnetic power. If you need suggestions on a linkbait try our open Seo Experts Forum

Three-way link exchanges – This method does work and if done right Google will not be able to figure out very easily however many slip up on this and many three-way link exchanges go foul because they are careless. I think Google is beginning to look for patterns, patterns which will allow them to discount the value of three way links and perhaps penalize webmasters for even using such a method… if you do try it I recommend you watch each link in the exchange… alot of three-way link exchange services are offered by webmaster who use their own domains which in my mind is risky. Once Google finds out that a certain domain is a hot spot for un-natural link building don’t you think that any outbound links will be suspect as well? Don’t you think that domain will be watched closely?

I myself have not gotten into this aspect of things. I have seen sites get penalized badly from using this method and although I think it is quite possible to do it well and not get caught I don’t think it is worth the time involved… I think linkbaiting is much more beneficial and there is no risk involved with link baiting while three-way link exchanging is indeed risky.

One last thing on three-ways. Like most link exchanges three-ways tend to get back-burner link positions, hardly ever do you see three-ways between high authority pages. When such an exchange does occur I would venture to say Google would not have reason to look into it. Think about it, how valuable is a link if it is stuck on a links page among 100s of other links pages? Whether reciprocal linking or three-way linking I think the position your link and your partner’s link is placed will have a great deal of weight in determining whether that link has value or not. For one-way links this does not matter as much, Google still discounts the value of one-ways on such pages but for link exchanges Google can tell that there was nothing natural about it. Atleast that is my theory and so far it seems to play out in how Google works.

Paid links – Paid links are perhaps the easiest and fastest way for a webmaster – with money – to achieve higher positions in the serps. It does however carry risks and is costly… you may pay $5k/month for a number of links that a 10K linkbait would have gotten 100 times over… again we need to bring the cost / benefit ratio in to the equation. Is it really worth it? To the pros outweigh the cons? I honestly don’t think so. Paid links can be discovered by Google and are discounted to nothing…. also sites found to be selling paid links can and have been penalized and/or banned by Google. I also have reason to believe that sites whose primary source of link value is found in paid links have and are being penalized.

Having said that Google “can” find paid links I must admit they cannot find everything and alot of paid links have not and cannot be discovered by Google. Think about it… how would Google know a link was paid for? Lets see, perhaps if words such as “paid”, “sponsored”, “advertise here”, “buy a link” etc appear next to a given set of links, perhaps Google can use this info against them. But lets say that such indicators do not appear, lets say to all apparent purposes the link in question appears to be natural. How would Google know?

There is only one other way I have come up with that Google can and does find paid links… that is to go through sites that offer link brokerage services. Many of these sites can be viewed by anybody and anybody can see what links are being sold. I would think this would entail alot of manual work but there has been evidence to support this theory… not enough to prove it but enough to make it worth looking into.

There is of course those who report sites for selling/buying links and Google does follow up on these reports and does penalize sites submitted via such reports so the neighborhood watch has been enacted and it may be your neighbor who causes your paid links to be found out by Google… that is the only way I can see Google getting really good at detecting paid links but again what appears to be a natural link will likely be treated as such.

Spamming for links – It used to be quite easy to spam for links… it seems a few years back forums did have link value and until an seo contest destroyed any value forums did have, they were a great source of back links for many. Many people either manually spammed or had a automated program which did it for them. Unfortunately people still do it and even though there is much more spam protection for blogs and forums it does still get through and many links get posted un-moderated for what little good it does the spammer.

Most blogs now use nofollow on all blog comments so there is no value coming from them… many forums also implement this but even those which don’t will pass very little value as Google has pretty much banished them from passing value. So what good does link spamming do? Haha none actually… there are unsecured forms where links can be spammed and they will be posted without moderation and they will get some value… however because of the ease at which the form can be spammed it is likely that thousands of links will pile up pretty fast and that first link will be valueless.

This is why many sites notice a rise in rankings from spamming but over time they drop to nothing. This of course goes for link exchanging and three-ways as well… as more links pile up the value of your link goes down and down.

Link requesting – Still a method but many go about this so wrong… they write a letter and send it to 500 webmasters… some of them are smart enough to use the webmasters name on each letter but this has gotten a little old since there is software which is really good at finding that info and sending automated emails to 100s of webmasters within seconds.

Link requesting has indeed gotten a bad name, now most link request emails end up in the dump before they are even read. The only people who respond to these, are webmasters of the same caliber who also have a site which does not seem to be able to get links from any other method. Such people will respond.
But there is a method of link requesting that works and it works really well… I know I am pressing linkbait heavily in this article but I have to, it is the ULTIMATE LINK BUILDING METHOD and if my article is to be accurate I must push it. The best form of link requesting is when you have something to offer the requestee, when you have something worth looking at and when the email is personalized to each webmaster it is sent to. NO I do NOT mean changing a few words to make it sound “personalized”. I mean actually personalizing the email… also flattery works well. Flatter the webmaster, mention specific articles that have taught you so much. Then appeal to his pride by asking him/her to review a tool, service, product or content you have recently created and explain that you want a professionals opinion and that is why you came to him/her.
I would post what I use but I don’t use a template, I find the webmasters email and I start out writing by what I know of that webmaster. So each email I send out takes time and is personalized and believe it or not when the webmaster gets it the email actually looks real, like it wasn’t typed out by a robot and it actually makes the webmaster feel like he is worth something. That is the only way I have found to get through and actually get something out of a link request.

Now that we got an understanding about the major types of link building maybe I should give some tips on actually doing the link building part.

Act natural – What value do you think a link has if it looks un-natural? Very little in my mind… when link building keep this in mind, if the link looks un-natural maybe it is not worth paying for or reciprocating for. But keep in mind, when able to get one-way links you should not be afraid of penalization from having an un-natural link. As long as the page is indexed in google and there are not hundreds of links on that page you will get some value from that link.

Article publication – I did not go into article publication above so let me briefly give some pros – that may be hard – and cons of this method. The biggest downfall to article link building is probably the fact that the page your article is on will likely only have one or two links and those will be from the site it is placed on which means until or should I say if that page becomes more important and gets a few good backlinks the value you get from that link will be very small.

Also posting multiple articles to one site is not a good idea, it is a waste of good material(I am of course assuming its good material ) which could either be published on your site or even on other sites which would be much more beneficial in the long run.

My suggestion is to publish content on sites not article directories, find a site which wants a writer(some pay and give a link) and write some good stuff for them. This method usually is worth a great deal more and alot of times the value only increases as more people link to your article and as the site gets bigger.

Awards and medals – Gain an award and you will likely pick up links from a number of sites right off and as you feature your award it will also attract links. These awards can be for nearly anything but should be from prominent and respected websites in your niche.

Bad neighborhood links – Try not to affiliate yourself with such sites. Stay away from adult, gambling and related sites unless of course your site is in fact one of them. Even though I doubt Google will penalize a site just because it has links from bad neighborhoods I do think that a large percentage of bad neighborhood links can result in loss of authority and may even have a negative effect on your sites ranking. I think sites which have a few authority links should not have this problem but don’t play with fire… stay away from them as they will not be of benefit to you.

Create your own directories for links – Some webmasters will create a directory and use this directory to build links to their other sites. They do this by requiring either a reciprocal link… the user must link to Site B for a link on Site A(being the directory)

For this method to work the directory owner should host the directory site and the site being linked to on different hosts so that google can not associate them as being affiliated. Also you will need to build the directory upto a PR3+ to really get anybody interested in submitting. This method does work and can help you but again you have the same issue we discussed earlier… most links gained by this method are stuck on large links pages so you get very little if any link value. My suggestion to combat this is to moderate all link submissions before accepting… make sure it is worth doing.

Different C-class IPs is a good idea – Try not to acquire tons of links from sites in the same C-class… such as buying bulk links from one webmaster who may own multiple sites under the same C-class. Try to get links from unique sites, different C-class ips.

Directory submissions – Submit your site to Dmoz and Yahoo directory – even though it is $300 – but except for that I would not pay for any other directory submissions. If you can get them for free than that is fine although again I must reiterate that links which can be obtained so easily will drop in value quite fast and there will be no long-term benefits there. If you find high PR directory pages in a niche-specific directory then it may be worthwhile to pay a few bucks for a link there but I would be mighty careful as most directories are not worth paying for or even submitting to for free. Google is killing directories now days so I would steer clear of them.

Before submitting I recommend you do a lookup for both the directory domain and the page your link will/would appear on and make sure it is indexed… you can do this by searching for site:directorydomain.com – Google is breaking down on directories now days and I think the day is here that directories will become as valueless as forums.

Edu/Gov juice – Get links from .Edu/.Gov pages, many say they are not special except that they tend to have larger amounts of backlink power however I think it also has to do with Google giving them more authority. Whatever it is they are very valuable and if you can get some links from edu/gov sites you should definitely go for it.

Find high PR link partners and pay them off – I love this one and it works quite well… I am sharing it because most people won’t use it because they are afraid of wasting their money. But honestly it is one of the easiest methods to get links.
You have two options.

1. Manually go through Google or Yahoo and do searches to find high PR links pages. You can do this by searching for terms such as “inurl:links.html keyword”(substitute html for php/asp as well and drop the ’s’), “keyword add link” etc.

2. Use a tool like Seo Elite which finds a ton of pages very fast, gives PR data, IP info, contact info and other useful tidbits. It allows you to look for pages with a set min PR or Alexa(if you want traffic) – I use this quite often and it sure beats manually looking up them. It finds the sites but I wouldn’t use it to send emails. I would do all that manually.

Once you find the sites – either method will work although the second is definitely worth buying – find the contact information and send them an email offering the webmaster from $2-30 for their link depending on PR and how many other links are on the page. Most sites who will accept link exchanges will accept $2-5 for a link instead and these links tend to be very valuable even though they are indeed on links pages. But make sure you do not do this on sites who accept free submissions without link exchange as they will be spammed and your link will be worthless.

You can also use this method for high authority sites by doing searches on Google using “site:authoritydomain.com keyword” to find pages related to your site. Once found contact the webmaster offering a sum of money to have a link on that specific page. For the first method a one-time price will do. For this method sometimes the webmasters want a monthly fee so you will have to determine if it is worth it. This is the best way to buy links though as Google can’t figure it out. Sorry Matt!

Getting away with paid links – Don’t pay for links on sites which use words such as “advertisement”, “paid links”, “sponsor”, “sponsor us for a link”. Such as words could be used to discount the value of links on the page and you may not get any search engine value out of the deal.

Interlinking your sites – I recommend you do so with caution. I also recommend you host each of your sites on a different C-class ip. Interlink related sites but try not to go overboard by interlinking all your sites, this can cause you problems you do not want to deal with.

Internal pages – Obtain links to internal pages over your home page… Google can determine patterns if the mass majority of your links are to your home page since most of the time the demanded material is not on the home page of the site but is on one of the internal pages. So vary your links going to internal pages as well as home page so that there are no patterns and the link love is spread across your whole site. I think this also helps establish value.

Language specific links – I find the most important factor in ranking in a language specific search engines is links from sites which are in that language. If you want to rank a page on a spanish engine you should get a few spanish links to that page. Keep in mind I do not recommend mixing sites… want to broadcast to the spanish population? Start a separate sub-domain(better yet another domain under their ext) and translate all your work for them.

Link life – This is a factor I speculate Google will use more and more to establish patterns in finding paid links. What is the average life-span of a link to your site? Do links to your site tend to last only a month or so? Do the majority of your links get recycled after a certain amount of time? Could this tell Google your either paying for links or your site is going downhill? Either way I can see only negative effects here. I would be careful about gaining short-term links, I think the long-term results may not be very good.

Natural selection – (Hey think I can rank for Darwin’s theory of evolution? Hmm lets see… ) – Obtain links in as natural a manner as possible. This is not to say that having an un-natural link or two will harm you but a number of authority natural links will establish your sites authority and I believe this is a major part of ranking for high competition keywords.

Pay for a review – Money talks and it is not that hard to find bloggers who will for a small sum blog about your blog/site and of course link to it. If you post on forums such as DigitalPoint and SitePoint you will find many. Again you will need to look at each offer and decide if it is worth accepting or not.

Reciprocal linking – Only reciprocate with related sites and do so with sites which will give you a link on a prominent page or atleast a links page with very few other links and ONLY related links. Google is getting better at this game and links pages containing links to anything are getting discounted more and more and you can indeed be penalized so be very cautious. Also check the site, make sure it is indexed and cached and make sure the page your link will appear on is indexed and cached… keep in mind pages which are dropped will sometimes still appear to have a PR.

Related links – Related links are worth much more than unrelated links and will be much more beneficial to your site authority. A PR3 related link can pass more value and help you more than a PR7 unrelated link. And please do not send me emails with graphs of how the Google PageRank works. I will ignore your rubbish, I have seen this and I know it for a fact. PR does not effect a sites positioning, relation does.

Quality means everything – Where is your link placed? Is it prominent on an authority page or is it stuck on some links page? Quality links placed prominently will be given more value than a link on a higher pr page which is not prominent and which is not an authority.

Vary anchor text – Don’t use the same link text for all link requests, link submissions or link exchanges. Vary them, believe it or not a variety of anchor text will improve your rankings better than if you use the same anchor text for all submissions. A varied link text gives an assumption of a natural state.

Seo myths or realities?

Gaining too many links at one time can cause penalties – This is not true. It can raise flags which can trigger filters such as the deceased(what I believe to be) sandbox filter however these are not penalizations and will not effect the long-term ranking in Google. The idea of this theory is that submitting to 100’s of directories can cause such a penalty… this is quite interesting since directories tend to moderate submissions over a period of 1-90 days so your 100 submissions could turn out to be only 1 every few days or at most a couple a day. I think we can safely say this theory is BUSTED!

Obtaining links from sites unrelated to my niche will harm me – Interesting theory but it ends there… there is no evidence to support this and it is illogical to assume google would penalize any site which had a link from an unrelated source. In fact most sites which are worth anything have many links from unrelated sources so this one is definitely BUSTED!

Reciprocal linking can get me penalized or banned by Google – This appears to be very true… I have seen sites drop like stones and for nothing can they regain their positions. They seem to get stuck around 950 or 31 in Google which appears to be a penalty IMO. Read a forbes article on how a successful jewelry site saw the wrath of Google.
If you start getting some authority links and then submit a reinclusion request they seem to reinstate most. Don’t hold your breath though.

While finishing this article I was looking at what others had wrote about it and I found an interesting article from SearchEngineLand which I found of interest for your guys so here it is: Quality Link Building : Social Links, Reciprocal Links and .edu & .gov Links

I hope you learned something from reading this “Ultimate guide to link building” and I hope that it is indeed just that. If you have questions or want an answer to a specific question not answered here please comment and I will add it to the list. Thanks for reading my blog!

Copyright © 2007, 1st-rankings Co.
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I will attempt to answer these questions as well as set everyone straight on the value of directories. I have heard everything from directories are valueless to directories are the next best thing to chocolate. Both of these comments are false and I will show you why.

I also want to take a moment to note that we are preparing a large list of directories for your benefit. This list should be anywhere from 500-1500+ directories. I will keep you posted on that development as well.

Do directories still hold value?
Yes they most certainly do. Some pass very little value but most do pass value. The highest value directories are not necessarily the ones with the highest PageRank(toolbar that is) either. Generally higher PR sites are worth more but not always. The highest valued directories are the niche directories targeted towards one specific topic. An seo directory for your seo site will definitely pass more value than a one-fits-all directory link.

The best directories are those with a clean structure. Where the pages are well optimized. For instance a targeted yet short url instead of a php string of gibberish. With targeted title and quality descriptions of each listing. Some directories require you have a description of atleast XXX+. This breaks up the links a little more and creates more content on the page which passes more value to each individual link.

Directories which will accept any site even if they are submitted in the wrong category or even if they are low quality trashy sites. I believe that outbound links play a role in valuing. Which means if the directory links to trashy unrelated sites on the same page as yours it lowers your links value. I have been criticized for this idea by webmasters but I could care less. Yes it is a theory but so far all results have proven positive so I am going with “it does have value”.

Be aware that if you do not use any other methods of linkbuilding, in the future your directory links may be dis-valued and you could lose rankings. Why? Because new sites are listed all the time. The more links the less value placed on each link, especially if some of those links happen to be irrelevant or trashy.

Is there a specific way to submit to directories?
Well yes and no. There are simple guidelines you should go by. First never use a automated tool. Most quality directories will discover this and will not approve your listing. Those that do approve your listing will likely pass little or no value to your site. So stay away from the automated submissions. They aren’t worth it.

Do you own the site your submitting? Setup a new email under that domain. Use it to submit to all the directories. Some of these directories, believe it or not sell your emails so don’t be surprised if you suddenly get trash in your inbox. Wait a few weeks or so after your last submission and delete your email you just created. That way they can’t send you anymore trash. Make sure however that you have already confirmed all the submissions that require confirmation.

Instead of checking the PR of the directory try checking the quality of it. If any kind of garbage is accepted you don’t want a link there. Some directories are on auto accept. These type generally get a lot of crap which lowers their value greatly. Before submitting check a few categories to make sure everything is generally quality and relevant to each topic.

To combat spam(or maybe just to steal your value) some directories play dirty tricks such as placing nofollow attributes on your link or using redirects instead of direct links. It is however quite easy to identify if a directory is doing this.
Goto a directory. Browse a category and put your mouse over one of the listings. Now press down on your mouse button but don’t let up. Look down at your browser status bar. It should appear as http://mydomain.com. If instead it appears as a redirect then they are sapping your value.

Also goto the source for one of the category pages. (CTRL + U for FireFox) – If any of the links look like this the directory is also stealing your value. Value will not be passed to a site if the link appears like this. If the “rel=”nofollow” is anywhere in the ahref link you will not get value. Do not submit to directories that do this.

<a href="some URL" rel="nofollow">text that's linked</a>

Last but not least I should mention the big directories. Try and get in as many big directories as you can. Such as Dmoz, Google directory etc. A quick search on google will identify the large ones. If they are PR7+ paying a few $$ for a link may not be a terrible idea. But be careful. Money can go fast this way and appear to bring very little for the money so try and stay with the free quality directories.

Definitely try and get a listing in Dmoz. They say “submit and forget”. This is true for Dmoz. If you sit around waiting for them to accept your site you may very well be sitting for a good while. Don’t submit your site unless it is quality and preferably has some unique feature that other sites don’t have. If it doesn’t they will likely deny the request. Resubmitting over and over will just get you a ban.

The Yahoo Directory is also one that is often talked of. I personally can see quite a few more profitable ways to spend $400. I have not seen where it gives much value but maybe I missed something. I would suggest you work on getting free directory links and use the money for either high quality paid links or on Aaron Walls Seo E-Book.

As always I recommend natural linkbaiting over these types of linkbuilding techniques. It is much more affordable, fast and easier. Of course some sites are almost impossible to create linkbait for. In these cases directories are your best bet. But whenever you can linkbaiting is the best scenario.

Copyright © 2007, 1st-rankings Co.
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Someone is bound to ask what the heck is linkbait? Well it is the art of fishing for backlinks. It is when a site creates a bait which acts like a magnet to attract links from other websites. This can be an awesome article, controversial article, or some sort of unique tool. Any of these methods work very well. In this article we will discuss how to create a linkbait, any pros and cons and its effectiveness over other forms of linkbuilding. You won’t want to miss this article.

How effective is Linkbaiting? – Linkbaiting is the most effective form of linkbuilding. Generally links gained using this method only increase in value so you don’t have to worry about massive disvaluing. Sometimes small webmaster sites will link to your linkbait, at this point the link has only a small amount of value but as time passes that site grows and the link from it grows as well. In this case overtime your value from that specific site would increase which effects your rankings positively. Now not all links achieved through linkbaiting will increase like this. But overall most are not disvalued.

What forms of linkbaiting can I use?
These are the most common methods: Writing a killing single article or series of articles(a series generally does much better), a controversial article or a tool. Is one better than another? Not necessarily. It depends on the article or tool. Depending on that either could perform best. Tools generally cost more to produce but if they are unique and in high demand they can become a massive linkbait. Especially if your offering it free while the competition charges.

A killing article as a linkbait
If you don’t have the writing skills or education in that specific niche you might consider hiring a writer. But keep in mind that article writers generally write general articles which can be found anywhere on the web so any articles written in this manner will most likely not turn into a linkbait. It is best for you as the website owner to write the content especially if you have a good knowledge of the topic and have a passion for it. Without those two elements your articles are likely to be dull and un-interesting or at best just another same ol’ same ol’ article.

Does your site offer a service or tool? Is this service or tool basically the same as many competitors sell? Consider writing articles about how to use this service/tool, a step-by-step guide on using your service. It depends on the service you offer whether this will create a linkbait however. It also depends on whether your competitors do it and if yours is easy to understand, and covers all aspects of the service/tool. I have an example here but won’t post it for selfish reasons. I have had this idea for a linkbait for one of my sites for over a year now and still haven’t gotten around to implementing it.

Write a controversial article
Write a article on a subject that is controversial, where you are likely to get links from sites that agree and sites that disagree. This form of linkbaiting can work extremely well if done right. Some black hatters also use this method. They write an article of some sort which is controversial and it creates a bait for links. These articles are usually on subjects such as ‘how to manipulate msn search results’ etc. However they are usually a little more tactful than that but I was just giving you an idea.
Usually if your site is a quality resource it can implement at least one of these two methods.

Creating a unique tool
This is also a form of linkbaiting. Create a tool that is unique and in high-demand and you may have created a huge linkbait. The downside to this form over the other two is that it generally is more costly, but then it can also be very cost-effective in the end if the tool does become popular. Your tool does not even need to be new, just add a new twist to something that is old. Sometimes that can be the best kind of linkbait. Make your tool easier to use, cheaper/free, more features, appealing to the audience who is demanding it and your on your way to creating a monster.
Creating a guide, faq and easy help system can also help it blow the the competition out of the water.

How does the world find out about my linkbait?
Very good question. Large sites can write articles and they get picked up within minutes literally and published all over the place. For a small site it may seem almost impossible for anyone to find out about your linkbait whatever it may be.

Forum posting…
Not for the link but for the authority and reputation and visitors. For a new site posting at related forums with quality posts and information can be a good way to build up authority and the popularity of your site. Other webmasters will start linking to your site based on the quality of your posts and before you know it you will have tons of webmasters just waiting for new content to link to.
But keep in mind that links should be placed only in signatures unless the rules state otherwise. Forum spamming puts a very bad light on you and your site.

Blog commenting…
Similiar to forums as alot of times the links may be nofollowed and have no search engine value however can have a great effect on your web presence. Find relevant blogs and post quality comments about the topic and put your link in the URL field and NOT in the post comment unless you know the owner of the site and they allow it. If your comments are not quality your commenting will be in vain.

Letting the world know…
This method works best for unique high-demand tools. This is when you contact webmasters who publish related content. Let them know about your new tool and ask for feedback. NEVER ask for a link. Butter up the webmasters by making him/her feel like their opinion is crucial to the success of your site. Ask for their honest feedback, suggestions and comments. If the tool is paid send a free version to the webmaster. Let them know you are contacting a few elite related sites which for professional feedback. Let them know there feedback will be used and they will be featured on the site as a contributor. Some won’t go for this but most will at least check out the tool. Make sure you have good documentation on the site and previews. This encourages users to look further into it.

Whatever you do remember that linkbaiting will never hurt you and on the contrary may be the best form of linkbuilding you could ever use. For some sites linkbaiting is not quite feasible however maybe for your site it is. I hope this article was of help in understanding how to get started. If you have questions or would like professional consultation send me a email. Please also take a look at the following recommended resources on linkbaiting:

RandFish on the Two Kinds of LinkBaiting
Aaron Wall on linkbaiting strategies

If this article was helpful please let me know. If you did not understand something or you think I could have added more info let me know.

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What comes to mind when you think of 'reciprocal linking' or 'link exchanging'? You probably think of two sites who link to each other for mutual benefit. A great percentage of these sites put your link on a 'links' age which you probably do as well. Is this hard to do? Is it hard to gain reciprocal links? Not really. Even if you stick strictly to relevant sites it is very easy to create a massive list of sites to reciprocate with(in most niches). My question is if it is so easy should it be valued very high? The answer is no and Google has already figured this out. Traditional reciprocal linking is greatly dis valued by Google and in fact can get you banned if you link to a bad neighborhood, now this is highly unlikely to happen with most sites unless you get into link farms and the like. At best it can ruin your authority because your linking out to all this trash. I say trash because most sites will link to anything for a link back.

But I have a theory about another kind of reciprocal linking which is not so dis valued and may actually pass a considerable amount of value assuming other factors such as relevancy also play a part on the site. Here is my theory. Content link reciprocation is the highest valued reciprocal linking. No I didn't just say to exchange articles. What I mean is place your reciprocal links on content pages or in other words pages worth something. Links pages are near worthless.

Sites like seochat.com, devshed and other sites link their sites together but it is all open. They don't try to hide it on a links page or hide it from Google. I have a theory that reciprocal links directly on your pages pass more value especially if surrounded by content so exchanging articles can be a good idea but keep in mind that both sites should be related. Think about it, who is going to link to your links page or the links page YOUR link is on? If backlinks are what ranks pages isn't it logical to assume that a page with tons of reciprocal links but no inbound links to that page will be considered useless by Google and the value of the links on those pages will plummet? This is very logical thinking and is exactly what Google ha done.

I think if you exchange links and even give one-way links in this manner and only accept this kind of reciprocation in return your value will be much higher and you won't have to worry as much about Google dis valuing your links. But the biggest reason I am bringing this up is because of posts I find in seo forums. Webmasters are worried about linking their sites together for fear Google will penalize them for it. The short answer is they don't. I link my sites together and have no problems. The secret is in how you link and who you link to. Linking your flowers site with a gambling site is not a good idea and will be useless to you. Use your brain and try and keep things as relevant as possible. If you accomplish that you will not have to worry about Google penalizing you for trickery.

Lastly I want to warn you against using automated linking tools. They don't work. You may gain rankings but they won't last. Why not spend your time gaining natural links to your site which will last and may grow in value over time. This kind of linkbuilding will put you in a position which you are more likely to be able to hold. I am not saying you will never lose a ranking but I am saying that your rankings will be much stronger. I have never done any linkbuilding for this blog. So any links it gets are generally pretty valuable. And so my rankings rise slowly but I have not so far lost one ranking on this site. Not one. The value of linking is in where the link is placed, the relevance of the site and of course its backlinks. So next time when your reciprocating take these facts into consideration and move wisely. You'll be glad later that you didn't clutter your site with a bunch of worthless reciprocal links.

I hope you enjoyed the article. Let me know what you thought.

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In our Seo Elite Review series we will learn about all the features of this program but in Part #1 we will be looking at Feature #1 Analyzing Backlinks using a specified Search Engine.

So lets open up Seo Elite assuming you purchased it. If not then read the article and I am sure afterwards you will decide you need it. If so I will be offering a coupon as well so lets jump in.

We are going to start a New Project and select the first method which is ‘Analyzing Bcklinks using a specified search engine’
In Step #2 we will type our domain or competitors domain which ever we would like to analyze.
Step #5 we will leave it at #500 as we shouldn’t need to analyze anymore than that.
We will now use the search engines Google and MSN. Under Step 7 we will select all the check boxes except ’skip all onpage links’.

Now we begin the report. We can check the progress of the report at the top left of the screen. If you have a fast connection you can goto preferences and change the max number of sites to analyze at a time and how many totaly connections are allowed.

Once the report is finished we can start analyzing the data. At the top right of the screen click ‘Report View’ We now get the list of backlinks pointing to the site we just entered. On the far left we have the search engine each was returned from. Then the page our link is placed on which is a live link so you may click it and it will open your browser to view the page your link is on. Useful if you want to see where it was placed. Next is the IP address of the link. This is very very useful for determining whether a competitor really has 500 unique backlinks or if instead our competitor just owns 500 sites. If that is the case and they are all hosted on the same IP the value will be considerably lower and we may have found a little problem with their ranking fortification.

And the next column is ‘linked back’ Again this can be useful for determining if our competitors have a bunch of one-ways or if most are recip links. If alot of his links are recip and we can get some good one-ways we might be able to outrank them easier than we thought. I should also mention quick that by clicking on the title of the column for example ‘IP’ it will sort the list in order of IPs so you can see what sites have similar or identical IPs.

The next column is the ‘Page PR’ This tells us what the PageRank of the link our page is on. As PageRank has no effect on rankings its usefulness is limited. But atleast we know each of our backlinks PR. The Alexa Rank takes up the next column.
And then we have the ‘Page Title’ column which tells us the test used in the title of the page our backlink is on. This is also very helpful as the title of the page plays a part in the importance of the backlink. If our keywords are in the title it may give us more value.

And our next column is the ‘Anchor Text’ – This column tells us the anchor text used to link to my page. This is also a major factor in the importance of a link. The tool will also tell us if it is a image link or if it is a redirect which won’t pass PR.

We are down to the ‘Outbound Links’ column – This one tells us how many links are going out from the page that is linking to us. Again this is also part of the factoring of importance of our backlink. A page with many useless backlinks will give less importance to each however a page with 10 quality related outbound links may give you more importance than a page with just 1 so you may have to do a little more research on some of your backlink pages to see how quality they are. At this point Seo Elite cannot determine this for you.

The ‘Total number of links’ column tells us just that the totaly number of links on the page our link appears on. This includes outbound links and links to other pages on the same site.

We then have the whois column which allows us to easily find the whois data of a site within one click.

The next column is the ‘link value’ column which tells us the estimated value of the backlink. This should not be considered totaly accurate but as a guide. It is figured by the PageRank and totaly number of links on the page so you make your judgement on its trust. It is pretty good however at determining a pretty good idea of a links worth.

Now spend a little time analyzing your competitor and making your battle plans. Once your ready we will take a look at the Analysis View.

Okay now we are in the Analysis View. This allows us to see why our competitors might have that edge on us. We can see the keyword density for the whole page, H1/2, body, title, anchor text and more.
I have decided for this report to use dogup.com which is a site run by a friend of mine. Lets analyze the site and figure out what he is doing and what he isn’t doing.
(CLICK HERE FOR LARGER IMAGE)

Above I have selected in blue(using Photoshop) some of the keywords he might be targeting such as dog, dog names, dog dating and dogup(the company name). I then went down to the bottom of the screen and clicked ‘Add Keyword’ and typed them in there so I could get additional data on the site.

Here is what I found out. Dogup is the second highest percentage of times used as the Anchor text for backlinks to dogup.com. This is one reason if you can make sure your keywords are in your url as more often than not your backlinks will use your domain name. 6.8% of the time the backlinks to the site have the teh keyword ‘dogup’ in the title. Which the total number is #4. I also found that 20% of those webmasters linking to dogup use the word ‘dating’ somewhere on the page and 9.3% use it in the Anchor text to Dogup. The number in parenthesis () is the total number of pages that use it for example 76.7% use the word ‘com’ in the anchor text which is 33 pages(or backlinks).
As you probably alreadly realized this info can be extremly valuable in deciphering the worth of your competitors backlinks and what there highest target is. If most of your competitors backlinks don’t have correct anchor text you just may have found a way to beat them. We only anaylzed one site here but we could have found some of dogups competitors and analyzed their data to see where dogup could improve or where the competition has made a dreadful mistake. In this case we could have used the ’save results’ button and loaded the data later to compare.
As you have found out just this one feature alone can provide so much data. I hope you have found this article useful and it has helped you learn how to use Seo Elite a little better. Please post your comments and questions on Seo Elite.

If you would like to purchase Seo Elite click here. This product normaly costs $167 but if you purchase it using this link I will send you a rebate of $20 after the purchase. This rebate will be sent by paypal only so unless you have paypal you won’t get the rebate. And this rebate is only offered by me. Feel free to check around.

Read Seo Elite Review #2 – Find and email high PageRank link partners

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