Alright, we’re ready to start demolishing our competitors in the search engine rankings, eh? In part one, we explored our niche, ran some keyword research and got our game plan ready. In part two, we set up an effective landing page to prepare us for search engine rankings. Lesson learned: it’s a lot easier to rank for your targeted phrase if you have a page or post to point things to, rather than your main domain name.

So we have our research, we have our targeted term and we have a page to point traffic to… what’s next? That’s right. Marketing time! I’m a big proponent in what I like to refer to as “friendly” marketing strategies. Essentially, you can get those high Google search engine rankings by getting your targeted term linked. Half of this link juice should come from your friends and bloggers you know, and half should come from “bum marketing” of random articles and posts around the internet. This combination can easily get you that #1 ranking you’ve been dreaming of!

What We Want

Before I get into a few “friendly” marketing techniques, let’s discuss briefly what we want to do. Google’s ranking metric involves a lot more than just content. In order to rank highly in Google searches (which means higher traffic and more money in your pocket), you need to be well received. Google ranks websites by the amount of, and the quality of, links that you have pointing to your blog from other sources. While you could go around grabbing links from other websites pointing to your landing page, you are better off locking in high-quality (high PageRank, etc.) links back to your website.

One more thing, in order to boost your SERPs, we want things linked like this: targeted term. Get it? When you write articles, link your targeted term to your landing page! When you exchange links, link your targeted term to your landing page! When you write up a guest post… guess what?… link your targeted term to your landing page! For me, this would mean I am looking to link my phrase, make money online, back to the landing page I had set up. Now let’s get started!

Friendly Marketing #1: Link Exchanges

As a blog owner, chances are you already have a blogroll set up. A blogroll is where most writers exchange links between other writers they like in their niche. This is a mutual exchange and a great way to increase the amount of traffic back and forth between websites. Typically, these are linked with the name of your website… but most people will be more and willing to change things up for you.

So the first niche marketing strategy to increase your SERPs is to ask anyone who is exchanging links with your blog to change the anchor text to your targeted phrase, and to change the URL destination to your landing page. It shouldn’t be hard to get this accomplished, as everyone you need should be on your own list. Go around and email people the changes, and that’s an instant 10-15 average links back to your website on your targeted phrases. If you are a good blogger, these are probably high-quality links and it can really put you on the right track!

Friendly Marketing #2: Make A Compelling Case Study

What’s one thing that a lot of bloggers want? Free, original and high-quality content for their blogs. If you can provide this to them, chances are they will be more than willing to get you a nice link back to your website. So here’s the concept: you make a list, a case study or anything popular that will look nice and compile it in a .txt or .doc file for download. Essentially, what you plan on doing is offering a free high-quality article to anyone that wants it, and make it available for download. Though the post is excellent original material, you will get your time made worthwhile by including your targeted phrase somewhere in the post and linking it to your landing page.

One example I found of this was on MoneyBites.com. Max prepared a list of Market Leverage contest sponsors since they were running a TON of contests that month. Other bloggers wanted to re-publish the list he made, so they downloaded his file for free and did just that! Since Max hid his hyperlinked anchor text in the “free case study,” he got a free backlink that Google sees as a major plus in rankings.

This is a method that honestly isn’t used a whole lot in the blogging community. If you can make some quality content that will get redistributed around the net (on authority websites preferably), you are going to see your SERPs increase dramatically.

Friendly Marketing #3: Start a Guest Post Campaign

Going with the theme, generating content for other bloggers is never a bad thing… and you will see your stuff posted successfully in a majority of your attempts. Many people like to take the route of guest posting to get this goal accomplished. Essentially, in a guest post you write something general, typically using a list, about the niche you are in. This should be something smart, creative or witty… basically a space filler for another blogger who would rather take a day off.

Guest blogging is really an unwritten rule on the internet. Almost nobody openly requests guest posts, but you should find that by emailing content around and asking, you can get your articles placed on top blogs for free. With every guest post, you’ll be able to, again, slip in your anchor text cleverly linked to the landing page we set up. Don’t want to write these “fluff” posts? Why not hire a freelance writer to do this for you! There are plenty of places to go if this is your cup of tea, and I think that Digital Point forums are a great place to start looking.

Bottom Line: You have the tools to market your blog to the top of the Google search engine results. Remember, to rank high for a specific keyword phrase, we need to partake in targeted marketing techniques like the three “friendly” niche strategies I have laid out here. Next week we will get into “bum” marketing… the other (and just as effective) technique to bump your blog to the top spot on the results page.

-The Net Fool

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Ask and you shall receive.

After an overwhelming response to the Net Fool’s October Spectacular, I have decided to modify the rules surrounding the contest. Specifically, things are now open to everybody! I was under the false impression that I could only track members that had been signed up under my account. I’ve been working with the guys over at Market Leverage over the past few days, and they have agreed to help me track those of you who already have accounts with Market Leverage.

What does this mean? If you are an affiliate at Market Leverage, email Dina (ML Rep) at dina@marketleverage.com and you will be automatically tracked and added to the competition. This could be no extra work on your part, and you could come out with a fantastic prize! Right now, nobody I am tracking has earned anything… so if you earn $1 to this point, you would get a brand new Nintendo Wii! Easy, eh?

The Contest Has Been Extended Until November 15th!

“But wait! Now I don’t have enough time left to earn!?” Don’t worry… I hear you! For those of you who weren’t in the competition before and now know the new rules, I want to encourage you to start getting your affiliate accounts with Market Leverage active. Those of you who haven’t signed up yet, now’s the time to register a free account with Market Leverage! I’ve even extended the ending date from the 5th to the 15th to get you guys some more time to beat out the competition.

What the heck is Market Leverage?

One of the most recession-proof industries has been internet marketing. With an affiliate network like Market Leverage, you are given a whole control panel with an arsenal of offers from interested companies and advertisers. Essentially, you are being paid to promote products and services for other companies to people you may or may not know. If you are good, you can set up pages and pay for ads off Google to get directed traffic. When someone signs up or buys a product through your affiliate link, you get commission from Market Leverage. It’s a simple process that can net you hundreds of thousands of dollars every month if done correctly. ML is the best company in the business, and if you sign up they’ll be more than happy to get you started on the right foot!

Promote the Contest… Win a Prize!

In an effort to boost marketing to The Net Fool’s October Spectacular, I would love for anyone and anyone interested to add my banner ads to their website. While I would love to give prizes to everyone, I simply can’t dilute the pool that much. So, any website that either adds a banner to their website for 30 days or anyone who makes a post about the competition linking back to the contest page and has at least 100 RSS subscribers… will get a free copy of my $15 eBook, “Work Smart Get Rich!”

A free eBook, just for filling a space on my website…. nice!

Here are some creatives to use:

• 125×125 Banner
• 468×60 Banner
• 220×205 Banner

In addition, I may throw a link or two your way in link love if you give some good press. I want to encourage a friendly competition, so now everyone can enter and earn money with Market Leverage to try to score a new Nintendo Wii, a Flip Mino, a $50 Gift Card or a copy of my eBook “Work Smart, Get Rich!”

Stay Bullish!
-The Net Fool

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There’s a new feature at The Net Fool!

I’ve decided to add a support system to theNetFool.com as an alternative means to communicate. I get emails from interested users every day, and having a back up support-only system in place will definitely cut my work time. Now, instead of using the contact form for every type of request, I am going to split up personal inquirys and business questions by using a help desk/ticket system to handle the latter.

Why The Change?
This move came on the discovery that one of my online buddies Joe, from IMWithJoe.com, was using a help desk on his website to direct users toward a friendlier solution. While this is a bit different from mine in its purpose, I feel like it is generally just as useful. For Joe, he uses it as an integrated solution for all of his online business. Since The Net Fool is now up to 700 returning readers, I feel like having a dedicated system to serve you guys is the right way to go!

The advantages of Installing a help desk at your blog

To me, there are really two sides of advantages once you install a help desk or ticket system connected to your website of blog: your clients, and you! The downside risk is slim, and the only thing I can really think of is that it might increase your workload a little bit. However, if people are going to ask a question… they are going to ask a question. So why not organize things a bit, eh?

Help Desk Advantage One - The Client
This blog is centered around helping you make money online. So I thought: “how can I do this better?” The obvious solution was to provide more ways for you to get in touch with me to get your questions answered in a timely fashion without having to check back on some article that I happen to write. I know that a lot of you are interested in many topics, many of which I have already written about. Because of this, the new help desk provides a one-stop resource for you to ask questions and see some commonly answered questions already displayed!

Help Desk Advantage Two - Personal
I have to think about installing and maintaining a support system from the stance of a blog/site owner. So if our workload increases, what could the advantage possibly be to adding things to your schedule? Firstly, it could be argued that questions won’t really “increase”… they will simply come more organized. But really, any for-profit blogger in this niche will realize that most of their revenue comes from referral sales. By providing a support system, you are going to increase your reputation among your readers. If you have readers that like you a lot and rely on you for advice, they are much more likely to convert on offers you propose and re-visit your site for recurring traffic. Because of this, I call help desks a win-win situation.

Free Integrated Support Systems for You!

The question now is: where can I get a free support system for my blog? If you have a little spending cash, I recommend buying the Kayako Support Suite. I have used this extensive system on multiple websites and it is truly the best. However, I feel that bloggers would be much better suited with a free resource. I am using the discontinued version of “Maian Support,” which is now a paid system as well. Because of this, let’s take a look at a few free options still available for you to try out!

• OsTicket Support System
• Crafty Syntax Live Help
• Help Center Live
• PHP Support Tickets
• Support Logic Helpdesk
• Support Services Manager

These are some good names that you should check out to see which you like best. I feel like having a support option on your blog other than the contact page may be a creative way to spark some viewer interest at your website. You notice now that I have added the “Have a Question?” button in the sidebar. It’s discreet, but effective. As a website owner, I want people to know that they can come to me for help. This mutual trust relationship makes websites much more ethical (and profitable), so give it a shot!

-The Net Fool

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Jim’s posting on time this week?!?
Impossible… YES! And it’s Sunday…
…so here comes some LINK LOVE!

It’s that time of the week again, and time to recap what has happened and what is to come. I had a busy week from the start, as a contest ended and a contest started. But not only that, the stock market (once again) crashed to smithereens in the face of the highest reading on the VIX (AKA, the “fear index”) in history. So people are scared now right? Well well well… looking like a mighty fine time to get some capitulation off our lows, at least temporarily.

“What’s this talk about the stock market Jim? Spare me the jargon, and get me some link love!”

Right right, sorry. Let’s get back on track. Here are five of the best articles that I came across this week, the week ending October 11th 2008, and a few reasons to read them. Things are getting hectic, but lets settle down and run through some link love!

• Benjamin Patton - You Need a Custom Robots.txt, So Let’s Make One
• Chris Guthrie - How Much Money is an RSS Subscriber Worth?
• Uber Affiliate - The “Next Level” of Affiliate Marketing
• Ian Fernando - MySpace Ads: The First Case Study
• Suite J - Website Flipping: Outsourcing 101

Let’s kick it off with my man Big Ben, who wrote about making your own custom robots.txt. Making this file could prove an effective way to get Google to index your pages, so check it out! Chris Guthrie did a neat study where he compared blog earnings to number of RSS subscribers to see how they worked together. Uber Affiliate wrote a pretty informal post about how to bump up your affiliate marketing to the “next level.” I doubt he’ll show up to comment here (despite my efforts), so let’s just bombard him with links till he gives up, eh? One of my favorite marketers Ian Fernando gets in to MySpace advertising in a quick case study you should see. Finally, sweet Suite J gets into outsourcing your projects, and offers up some cool tips to boot. Great work this week guys, looking forward to more.

Stock Market Update
Ouch. Again. The good news this time around is that we had a nice reversal in the Dow Jones leading into the weekend… giving investors high spirits as we closed things out down just a percent and a half after falling more than 700 on Friday. In fact, the 1000-point spread between lows and highs was the largest in history! This just goes to show once again how volatile things are getting out there.

International turmoil is getting quite out of hand, and the American markets actually aren’t bad at all compared to the overseas exchanges. The dollar continued to rally (as did the Japanese Yen) in the face of a crashing market, which was quite funny. However, you have to consider how other markets are volatile. Since the U.S. Dollar is such a reliable currency, people are buying it hand over fist to maintain liquidity.

We got that international rate cut that we were looking for! Many central banks around the world lowered their rates (borrowing from bank-to-bank) in an attempt to ease credit concerns and increase buying/lending interest to fuel the globablized economy. The United States Federal Funds target is now at just 1.5%… though I feel it should be at 1% where Alan Greenspan (the former chair of the Federal Reserve) had them during the last crisis (9/11). Despite all this, the market sank that day. Fantastic. This pretty much describes the markets, eh?

What’s Happening ‘Round the Blogosphere?
As most of you know, I launched my October Spectacular contest where you can win a Nintendo Wii and a lot of other really cool things. Unfortunately, it seems that the market has been cornered and a lot of my readers are out in the cold. Because of this, I am in the process of re-negotiating terms. Perhaps I can change around the contest structure and get the rest of you on board to win one of these fabulous prizes.

What’s with all the irrelevant posts? I don’t want to name names… but there are so many people nowadays posting random stuff to their blogs… we’re talking politics, video games and poetry… that it begs the question. What were you thinking?! People like to justify these posts in the following way: “well I got a lot of traffic to those posts!” and that’s fantastic… except that random hits mean nothing. If you are running a blog for the sake of making money off it, you should go out and get a $6/hour job selling lemonade because it’s probably a better use of your time. Blogging is for leverage, not immediate profit. Therefore, unless you have visitors that are interested in your product… you aren’t getting sales. Bottom line. Your thoughts?

A pretty slow week over all from the blogging world. It would appear that the online world is becoming a more and more attractive place to try and make money online after many people have lost their jobs or are trying to secure their finances. This pans out well for bloggers! If you still don’t own a blog, you are missing out. I can hook you up with a free Blog Domination Package if you are interested.

The Week Ahead
I had planned on posting a part three of my Keyword SEO series, but have been slacking. So, I am hopefully going to have that post out sometime this week. In addition, I’ve still got that controversial article to work on. I have the idea, I just need to sit down and knock it out! This should be a fun way to gauge just how serious bloggers are about their work… but enough hints for the day. I am planning on focusing down on the financial markets this week. I feel that there will be a BIG reversal this week, and I plan to use that to sell out my stakes and jump into some double-short ETFs, which is essentially betting on a market decline.

As always… stay bullish on the net!
-The Net Fool

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I still remember the first time I got a “trackback” on my first blog. I thought… “what the heck is this?” This initial reaction is exactly how 90% of bloggers view trackbacks coming from other websites to their blogs. The fact is: trackbacks can be good, trackbacks can be bad, and trackbacks can be exploited for money.

[...] I just stole your traffic! [...]

Money?! Really!?

That’s right. Hitting trackbacks is an all too common blackhat SEO method to secure lots of traffic in a small amount of time. It’s quick and effective (when done correctly), and can really leech a good portion of your traffic. Because of this, I’d like to spend the day today to explain to all of you exactly what the function of a trackback is to your blog… and how you should go about deleting or accepting them to your website.

What is a Trackback Anyway?

Trackbacks were actually originally developed for the “MovableType” blogging platform. Since then, the technology has been adapted in WordPress and Blogger blogs to increase their functionality. The original creator, SixApart, wrote: “In a nutshell, TrackBack was designed to provide a method of notification between websites: it is a method of person A saying to person B, “This is something you may be interested in.” To do that, person A sends a TrackBack ping to person B.”

So yeah, a trackback is essentially an alternative to commenting. Anytime you mention someone else’s post and link to it, they will receive a “trackback” notification (also called a “ping”)… basically letting the original blogger know that someone else is plugging them. This is a very useful tool, and it makes my Sunday Link Love all the more popular and useful. The only downside is that trackbacks make it quite easy to score a free link. It is an attempt to create a sort of “authenticity” to comments, but has been skewed (and even faked entirely) as a spammers tool in many cases.

The WhiteHat Use of Trackbacks

Trackbacks are the most useful thing since sliced bread, and make blogging so much more interactive than it would be ordinarily. So naturally, the WhiteHat use of trackbacks is two-fold. It is now possible that any time you write about someone else’s blog post, you will be leaving a real time link on their post back to your more recent article. The other side of the coin is that it creates a very authentic and friendly blogging atmosphere where people can get some attention where they wouldn’t ordinarily.

Say I am writing about this or that (as I do) and someone comes along and writes about my post, recommending it (or bashing it!). Because of the trackback feature, I am going to notice that you wrote about and linked to my blog. Since you helped me out, I’m likely to check out what you had to say. This is a fantastic way for smaller bloggers to reach out to the big boys and gain some media attention for free. By being a bit generous about your linking, it won’t be long before you are getting friendly linking activity from other bloggers in your niche interest area.

The BlackHat Use of Trackbacks

A little disclaimer: I don’t do this, and do not advocate you doing this either. The following methods I am about to outlay are considered BlackHat and could potentially get you banned from Google or otherwise disciplined.

This is why you come to The Net Fool, isn’t it? I am not going to pretend like everyone here is using WhiteHat trackbacks to be responsible bloggers. Not at all. In fact, there is a mass exodus of bloggers that use the functionality of pinging posts just to gain a traffic boost where it is not deserved for their sole benefit. Let’s talk about the other side of things, and how a lot of people are using trackbacks to make money.

The beauty of trackbacks is that few people actually understand how they work. This is one of the reasons I am writing this today, to inform! Since nobody knows what a “ping” is, very few bloggers actually delete the trackbacks that come in… believing whole-heartedly that someone actually enjoyed what they wrote and linked to them! What fools!

Using blog commenting to spam is out of touch, since people will always realize a spammy comment… but won’t necessarily pick up on a spammy trackback. Links created by trackbacks are two-way reciprocal links, and this is a problem that BlackHat folks have to deal with since two-way links do not hodl the same “link juice” that one-way links do. So, BlackHat’ers have had to devise a way to manufacture one-way trackback links to optimize their linkage.

The primary program used to automate the task is “Trackback Spider,” while there are some other slower tools like the manual form on Wiz Bang Blog. After you find a blog with the trackback feature enabled openly, you could potentially generate a whole slew of trackback links that are one-way pointing to your blog. This is basically, well, cheating. Which is exactly why so many people doing this get busted.

Arm Yourself With Knowledge!

Obviously, now that you know what people are doing with trackbacks, it is going to be a lot easier for you to defend your blog from these traffic leechers. There are two ways to defend your blog from ping attacks… spam guarding and completely disabling your website. Obviously, option one would be to turn off trackbacks completely… which you can do in your admin panel options settings. I don’t really recommend this unless you are getting absolutely pounded by trackbacks on a daily basis and can’t keep up with your spam protection. As was implied, the other method is to install a spam plugin to blog any potentially hazardous comment or ping that comes in. I use Akismet, which works quite well!

Bottom Line: Trackbacks can be a great blogging tool, or your worst enemy. If you are a BlackHat SEO kind of person, chances are you are using trackback pings to send big inflows of traffic to your blog for free… getting you lots of hits, which translates to lots of money in your pocket. I use trackbacks to send out link love to deserving bloggers, and I absolutely love the tool’s functionality as an emerging blogger’s best friend.

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