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Dear Friend,

Ever heard the story of the giant ship engine that failed?

The ship’s owners tried one expert after another, but none of them could figure out how to fix the engine.

Then, they brought in an old man who had been fixing ships since he was a youngster. He carried a large bag of tools with him, and when he arrived, he immediately went to work. He inspected the engine very carefully, top to bottom.

Two of the ship’s owners were there, watching this man, hoping he would know what to do.

After looking things over, the old man reached into his bag and pulled out a small hammer. He gently tapped something. Instantly, the engine lurched into life. He carefully put his hammer away. The engine was fixed!

A week later, the owners received a bill from the old man for $10,000

“What?!” the owners exclaimed. “He hardly did anything!”

So they wrote a note to the old man saying: “Please send us an itemised bill.”

The man sent a bill that read:

• Tapping with a hammer………. $1
• Knowing where to tap…………. $9,999

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Allow me to show you where to tap.

Oh, and try not to jump ahead, even if you think you know the information – there are many golden nuggets waiting for you.

Right, let’s get started…

Keyword Research

Follow the money and you’ll make money.

How to find it?

Use the Google Keyword Tool for starters.

You can get there via GoogleEasySearch.com too (much easier to remember).

Note: If you want the facts regarding search volume statistics click here.

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Now, results can be tailored to specific languages and counties, editing this section to show results from ‘All Countries and Territories‘ is a good strategy for most.

But if you require results to be country specific simply select the country from the section below.

Enter one keyword or phrase of interest to you and then ‘Get keyword ideas.’

Next, select ‘Show All‘ under ‘Choose columns to be displayed:’

You can tell if there’s money to be made from the Estimated Average Cost-per-click (CPC) column and checking the figures displayed.

Personally, I like to see advertisers spending at least $1 per click, but really keep my eyes open for the most expensive keywords.

It makes sense that the higher the CPC for the advertiser to get into the top three pay-per-click listings, the more a successful conversion will mean to the advertiser’s bottom-line.

Note: You can change the currency from the drop-down menu on the left (just above ‘Keywords’).

As we’re going to be developing a site which benefits from free advertising aka high search engine rankings we need to take it a step further and see how much traffic the keyword is getting exactly.

Therefore, select ‘Match Type:’ ‘Exact‘ to get the exact numbers.

Personally, I like to see a ‘Global Monthly Search Volume’ or GMSV of a bare minimum of 6,000 searches, and would encourage you to look for the highest search volumes. But it depends what a number one ranking will mean to you financially. You may have little traffic and massive conversion or loads of traffic and hardly any conversions. You’ll have to think that one over.

Google agree themselves, saying: “Keep in mind that keywords with higher search volumes or more advertiser competition don’t necessarily provide more qualified leads” (it’s down the bottom here).

Note: There are many methods to doing keyword research, but the principles remain the same: find keywords with high estimated average cost-per-click, as well as high, consistent, and ideally increasing traffic.

You should be aware that some SEOs pay more attention to the column titled: ‘Local Search Volume’. However, I prefer to focus on the GMSV column as this “always shows traffic in all countries and all languages.”

Tip: Google has been known to under and over estimate search volumes, so one way you can check exactly how much traffic a keyword is getting is by doing PPC (Pay-Per-Click) on that keyword with a really irrelevant ad such as ‘giraffes’ for a ‘balloon’ keyword, and then checking the number of times your ad was shown aka page impressions over a period of time. This will give you a more precise figure and help your forecasting.

Tip: Talking of page impressions – if you add Google AdSense to your homepage (as seen in the footer of this page) you will be able to login to your AdSense account at any point during the day and see how much traffic you have (as opposed to waiting until midnight to find out with Google Analytics). This will save you many a late night.

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Next, we want to check the ‘Advertise Competition‘ column…

Don’t be put off by Google describing ‘Very high advertiser competition’ (when scrolling over) as this doesn’t mean a niche can’t be conquered. In fact, you’d be surprised just how easy it can be – more on this later.

Tip: You can check Google Trends to see how keywords are doing trend wise over time.

Interestingly, running a search for keywords ‘make money’ it reveals these keywords have been increasing consistently since 2004. Whereas keyword ‘copywriting’ has been decreasing.

Another keyword of interest is ‘SEO’ which is seriously on the up, but ‘Search Engine Optimisation’ is way down — I assume more and more people are becoming familiar with the shortened term.

Tip: Google Insights is another great tool which provides more detailed info should you require it, and is great for helping gauge interest in pertinent search terms. Click here to see examples of how you can use it.

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Personally, I recommend you choose one main keyword and three or four keywords you’d like to rank for too. But you can rank for as many keywords as you’d like, it just depends how good your link building skills are – more on this later.

Tip: To check the keywords your competitors are targeting right-click on their homepage and select ‘View Page Source‘, then ctrl + f and type in keywords — it doesn’t always work, but in many cases you’ll get something like this:

(these are the keywords from YouTube.com’s Homepage)

“A Man Who Does Not Think for Himself Does Not Think At All”

- Oscar Wilde

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Keyword Research Checklist

• High Estimated Average Cost-per-click (CPC)
• High Global Monthly Search Volume
• Increasing Search Volume Trends

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The keywords ‘protein shakes’ as seen below is a good example of what we’re looking for:

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Warning: the biggest mistakes I see people making are to target keywords which will take months, if not years to rank for e.g. ‘health’ … as well as targeting a really long-tail keyword with low to no traffic e.g. ‘homemade protein shakes company from Shanghai’

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Upon identifying profitable keywords which meet our keyword research checklist, we’ve got to take things further and do the necessary…

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Market Research

Okay, we’re going to need the Firefox web browser for this next bit as it has all the plugins we need.

Please install:

1. SeoQuake
2. Quirk Search Status
3. Alexa Statusbar

Here’s the SeoQuake guide showing the respective parameters.

And here’s a video showing how Quirk Search Status can be used: http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&v=SV0JIfh-xbE

These plugins will help give us an overview of the keyword’s competitiveness.

Once they’re installed all we’ve got to do now is switch on SeoQuake (do this by clicking the icon in the bottom-right of the screen) and just run a normal search in Google for your chosen keywords.

You’ll see a horizontal box appear below each listing in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). All that we need to do now if pull in the data. We do this by clicking ‘Request Parameters.’

Be sure to switch off SeoQuake after searching as Google doesn’t like us repeatedly using this tool.

You should now have a screen of search results with key information below each listing provided by SeoQuake.

There are three key factors we’re looking for here. Two are provided with the help of SeoQuake, and they are:

#1 – ‘PR:’ (Page Rank)

We’re looking for the PR of all the sites. If the SERPs are displaying 0′s, 1′s, 2′s, and 3′s, we can likely conquer the market quickly.

Note: If you see PRs 4, 5, and upwards, don’t be concerned as the next two factors have more significance.

#2 – ‘L:’ (which shows the number of links pointing to that particular web page)

If I see sites with figures less than 1,000 showing next to the ‘L:’ – that means there are less than 1,000 links pointing to that web page, and from my experience this is a good thing for us as we can likely conquer the market quickly and easily.

The other key factor is:

#3 – Permalinks.

If I see permalinks, this tells me there are few website homepages competing for the keyword – which is good as they’re almost always more powerful than permalinks.

Having said that, if you see just website homepage URLs this is not a problem as we’ll see in the next step.

Note: The title tags are also a giveaway as to the market’s competitiveness, however, they’re not as important as the aforementioned factors.

Note: We’re doing these steps just to get a snapshot of how competitive the keyword is.

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Market Research Checklist

• PRs of 0, 1, 2, 3
• Inbound links less than 1,000
• Permalinks

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Here’s an example of a keyword which largely meets our keyword research checklist, and market research checklist. The keywords are ‘alpha male.’

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Here’s another example of a market which fulfils our criteria. One which looks even easier to conquer. The keywords are ‘how to lose weight in a week.’

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Here’s a snapshot of the market for keyword ‘health’ – this is a market we’re very unlikely to conquer. Just look at the number of inbound links and PRs. Nuts.

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TASK: Before going on: take a moment to do some market research on the niches you’re already in and get a snapshot of the market. Often people comment that progress has been slow because they didn’t fully appreciate how competitive the keywords were when they started optimising for them.

Conversely, you may find some great keywords out there with weak competition you can exploit. Just a take a moment now to do some market research on your keywords.

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“God Is in the Details”

- Ludwig Miles van der Rohe

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We’re not done yet. We’ve now got to take our research a step further and see just how powerful the inbound links are to the respective listings in the SERPs.

This is the last and most important research step…

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Link Diagnosis

Next, we want to assess the real key to online success… LINK STRENGTH!

Many internet marketers out there will tell you it’s all about getting high PR backlinks… WRONG. You want high link strength backlinks.

But how can we calculate link strength?

By using this formula of course: (PR + 1)³ x 4 / outbound links

Don’t be concerned, we have a tool that will calculate this for us :-) … And it’s one of my personal favourite webmaster tools of all, it’s called: Link Diagnosis

I cannot stress how important this tool is to your online success. When I first started using it I wasn’t that impressed until I started running report after report after report and seeing why sites were ranking highly and how easy most markets are to conquer.

You’ll quickly discover that many sites are ranking highly in the SERPs because of just one link. And it’s because this link carries so much link juice aka link strength that their site is doing well.

Tip: Open a Free account with Link Diagnosis to save your reports, you can then load them quickly and easily at a future point in time.

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Let’s use the SERPs top 10 listings for keyword ‘SEO’ as an example now. I think it’s safe and fair to say the top 10 SEO companies in the world are likely to know what they’re doing.

Don’t you agree?

Thus, we shall draw some conclusions from a link diagnosis of the site’s ranking:

#2 – http://www.justsearching.co.uk/

and…

#10 – http://www.ihaveawebsite-nowwhat.co.uk/

Note: Your SERPs will display different results depending on where you are in the world, but I’m showing:

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Okay, having just run the link diagnosis reports on the ‘Fastest‘ speed (took quite a while as these sites have A LOT of backlinks) it’s clear why JustSearching.co.uk are ranking #2… They have three link strengths of 500 (seriously strong), and over 50 links with a strength of over 100.

Quite frankly: this is one of the most powerful websites I’ve seen.

Note: Before running reports ensure your settings are like this, with all the respective factors ‘ON‘

Note: If you’re running a diagnosis on a permalink, as opposed to main website URLs, then ensure ‘Site Settings‘ shows ‘Single Page‘.

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Now, let’s get back to our results:

What do you notice from the screenshot?

The links with the most link strength generally have just the one ‘Outbound Link’.

Taking this further: it’s all good and well having a high link strength link to your site, but to rank for your keyword you need to ensure that your keyword is used as the anchor text for your link.

JustSearching.co.uk has a ridiculous amount of websites linking to them with the anchor ‘SEO’, 159 in fact.

Therefore, Google knows to rank them highly for this keyword, and because of all the link juice they’re seen as an authority site.

Note that the total strength of their site’s homepage is 25,481. Nuts.

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You can use this code to display your anchor text:

<a href=”URL”>Link Text</a>

e.g.

<a href=”http://www.affordableseoconsultants.com/”>SEO Consultant</a>

(It will show up on your web page like this: SEO Consultant)

Just replace the site with yours and the anchor with yours.

Here’s another example:

<a href=”http://www.affordableseoconsultants.com/”>Affordable SEO</a>

(It will show up on your web page like this: Affordable SEO)

See here for more.

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Looking at the ‘I Have A Website Now What’ website we discover:

This site has only 14 link strengths over 100

And again: the main ‘Anchor’ used is ‘SEO’

Nowhere near JustSearching.co.uk, although it must be said that to have a site this powerful (3,857 strength) is an achievement in itself, and in many other markets it would be ranking in the top three, if not first, for sure.

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I hope this example gives you an indication of the need for link strength and not necessarily high PR backlinks. Although the two are likely to come together, there is no use for a high PR backlink which carries no juice for you.

Too many SEOs and internet marketers have struck lucky and gone on to proclaim it’s all about high PR backlinks in my opinion.

I hope also that this example shows just how competitive the ‘SEO’ keyword is.

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TASK: Before going on: take a moment now to run a link diagnosis report on your site(s) and then those of your top competitors. Often people comment they didn’t realise they had such powerful links linking to them and how weak/strong their competition are. Do it now.

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“Don’t Wish it Was Easier – Wish You Were Tougher”

- Jim Rohn

Do-Follow vs. No-Follow Debate

Q: As a lover of your training, a quick question if I may. Some high link strength links are no-follow, do you take this into account or does it make no difference in your tests?

A: I personally will let the do-follow vs. no-follow debate rage on and stick with do-follow whenever possible.

I think you’ll find when you start to run link diagnosis reports again, and again, and again (it’s rather addictive and incredibly fascinating) that do-follow do indeed carry more significance.

Having said that, if a no-follow high link strength link is available I wouldn’t leave it lying on the table!

Domain Names

By now you may want to start a website, and if so: choosing a domain name is going to be a priority for you.

From my experience it’s best to get your main keywords in your domain name to give yourself the best possible chance of ranking quickly and easily for that keyword with minimal backlinks.

This is key for several reasons.

The main one being because Google places a BIG weighting on the domain name. If you can get a keyword rich domain name then fantastic (!) This will save you link building to your site. And even if you have to link build, say if your market is competitive, you will have to spend less time than your competition doing it.

For example…

Were you to start www.HowToLoseWeightInAWeek.com and just add a few web pages of content, say an about page, privacy policy, terms and conditions, disclaimer, etc. this would likely throw the site straight into the top 10 for that keyword. The market is weak as we’ve seen earlier.

A little link build later and a number one ranking would be yours.

As with most highly searched keywords – the .com domains have been snapped up. However, many .net, .org, .co.uk, etc. are still available. In fact, only a few days ago I snapped up a .net domain for a competitive keyword which gets 90,500 GMSV and it got ranked position #38 in the SERPs with just the standard and infamous “Hello World!” WordPress blog post you’ve likely seen.

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I should also mention that although it’s not impossible to get JohnSmith.com to rank highly for keyword ‘SEO’, experience tells me a domain like JohnSmithSEO.com will rank more easily over competitors for that keyword as it has SEO in the domain name.

This is of course assuming SEO.com/.net/.org etc. isn’t within your budget.

Note: if you decide to go for a domain name which doesn’t have your keyword in it then you’ll likely need more link strength with your keyword in your anchor text than your competitors.

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Personally, I buy my domains with GoDaddy.com (got to love the owner Bob Parsons) and before checking out head on over to RetailMeNot and get a voucher code for them to knock the price down some more. Averaging about $7.67 a domain it’s pretty cost-effective. Having said that, I did once manage to get a coupon code which enabled me to buy a .com domain for $3 or so. How cool is that?

Tip: .com domain names are the most valuable in the English speaking world. I’d always side with a .com TLD (Top Level Domain) as it’s much easier to brand, and when people think “www dot”, they think “dot com.”

Here’s what the TLDs mean in case you ever wondered:

.com = commercial enterprise

.net = network

.org = non profit organisation

.info = information

.biz = business

.eu = European Union

.mobi = for mobile devices

There are also country code extensions, called ccTLDs, which are useful to identify websites geographically, for example:

.co.uk = United Kingdom

.de = Germany

.fr = France

.ca = Canada

.us = United States

Regarding domain name buying, essentially, the more searches the domain name gets the more it’s worth. The best known marketplace and where a lot of the big action takes place is Sedo.

Oh, and as a side note, you may find DN Journal and Just Dropped interesting resources if wanting to keep up to date with the domains market.

If you’re after hosting, I strongly recommend HostGator. They’re excellent value for money at just $9.95/month to host unlimited domains, and their customer service is frankly amazing. When I was starting out I’d frequently use their live chat, and found their reps always willing to help and go far beyond what’s expected.

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Once you’ve got your site up and running you’ll need to implement some…

On-Site SEO

BIG Tip: Every letter in your title tags counts. Use them wisely, especially your homepage’s. The search engines put a big weighting on what they see here. After all: they predominantly see only words. See a post I’ve written on title tags here.

Use your meta tags more for the user’s eyes, with a powerful headline in there to attract attention and increase your Click Through Rate (CTR). If you can get your keywords in there too: go for it, but focus on enhancing your title tags as much as possible.

If you’re a blogger, or are likely to have many permalinks, see a post I’ve written about permalinks here.

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Indexing and Pinging

Q: Do you know how I can get new sites I set up indexed in Google quickly?

I’ve found submitting to Webbieworld a good strategy. This will not only get you indexed quickly and easily, but also dozens, if not hundreds of backlinks too.

Note: WordPress users adding new posts will automatically have their content pinged to Ping-o-Matic! which helps getting indexed.

You should be aware: pinging your sites regularly will have spiders come crawling, so if you’re updating title and meta tags for example and want to have the updated version of your site in the SERPs pinging is great. Pingler is my favourite as there’s something really satisfying about watching the screen (try it and you’ll see what I mean), Pingoat is another I like too.

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Time for some…

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Link Building

Applying the Pareto Principle to SEO I can testify that roughly 80% of SEO success comes from 20% of the causes – namely: link building.

And that 80% of link building success comes from 20% of the links.

Crucial to your online success is going to be knowing the rules regarding link building, so it’s best to be aware that Google takes over 200 factors into consideration when rankings websites in the SERPs. And that…

Content Is King

Google say this is one of the best methods to increase PageRank, see ‘Understanding PageRank’ here: http://services.google.com/breeze/webmasters/googleforwebmasters/

I’ve seen sites get as high as PR3 with hardly any backlinks just based on the quality of their content: so get writing, and get writing for human eyes.

Be sure to read this post on title tags, and this post on permalinks before going mad on adding content to your sites… your on-site SEO will benefit greatly if you apply the tips well.

You’ll note from the above video that Google also recommends…

Forum Posting

… so get involved in multiple forums. And be sure to make the most of your forum signatures by linking back to your website(s) with your anchor text if possible.

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Now that we’ve discussed these two methods of link building Google says they like, we’ll cover some more well known strategies and then get down to the one which will likely help you most.

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Website Directories

Q: Is submitting to website directories beneficial?

A: Yes and no.

Yes if you can get in Dmoz, but don’t hold your breath as that’s likely to take you months unless you know a moderator, and even then in many cases there’s not much link juice to be had. The main benefit here apart from a little link juice is the perceived value of being in the directory which will increase the price of your website(s) should you ever decide to sell.

The Yahoo! Directory is another which is often talked about, but overrated in my opinion. And the $299/year is scandalous. Remember: pretty much any site can get listed in website directories which means the outbound number of links on the pages are significant, meaning link juice is simply non-existent in many cases.

Having said that, you can occasionally find an online directory which will carry a little juice for you, these will vary from niche to niche and you almost always have to pay to be included in them.

Tip: Running a link diagnosis on your competitor’s websites often reveals if there are any website directories in your niche and the link strength they carry.

The only real benefits I see with website directories are reinforcing your anchor text, getting different IP addresses linking to you, looking more natural, and the odd bit of traffic here and there.

Having said what I’ve said, I do like to submit my sites to the top 100 Free Alexa ranked directories for the above benefits and because the price the company charges is very reasonable.

All in all, I use it to mix things up a bit, but would much rather spend time getting quality links.

Note: if you’re prepared to do a reciprcoal link with a website directory i.e. you link to them from your site, then they’ll link to you from their site: you can get some very good link strength e.g. 100+ … But again this is only available in some niches and with certain terms usually applied e.g. the web page you link to them from must be PR1.

Note: you may find the following code useful. Simply replace “your keywords” with your keywords, enter into Google and go.

“your keywords” + “add url”

“your keywords” + “add site”

“your keywords” + “add website”

Blog Commenting

I have a rather simple and effective strategy for blog commenting: I have my VA type in whatever keywords I’m targeting in Google, and then go through the first 100-500 (sometimes even more) listings (depends how big the market is) leaving thoughtful comments with my main keyword as the anchor text which is often determined by the commenter’s name.

The only factor that is taken into consideration is the fact that they’re ranking well already for the keywords being targeted which means the homework is done for you.

Just as an example, were I to target ‘make money on the internet’ or ‘how to make money online’ I would have my VA type these keywords into Google, then go through every single result… Some will be website homepages, and some will be a blog post with comments allowed.

I get her to focus on the latter and then start posting thoughtful blog comments with my keywords as her name for the anchor.

Some markets will have pages and pages of such blog posts to comment on – others will not.

Having said that, if you’re going after some decent keywords (and I suggest you do) then you’ll find enough to keep your VA busy too ;-)

Once done, run Link Diagnosis reports on all well ranking competitors and add in your blog comment to any blog comments they have too.

To speed things up whilst doing this keep your eyes peeled for permalinks as opposed to URLs in the ‘Page URL‘ column of the Link Diagnosis report. Oh, and be sure to rank by ‘Link Strength‘ to get the most valuable first.

Tip: Many sites will allow you to preview your comment before it goes live, so be sure to check your anchor text is active. And then double-check after just do be sure. The thought of leaving link strength lying on the table pains me.

Tip: The plugin we installed in FireFox, Quirk Search Status, comes into its own here by showing the no-follow links. Simply right-click on the icon in the bottom right of FireFox and select ‘Highlight Nofollow Links.’

BIG Tip: If you can get your blog comment approved on a do-follow blog post which at a later point in time stops allowing users to post comments you can get some decent links which are not easily replicable.

For example, this blog post: http://www.commoncraft.com/friday-funny-snl-dont-buy-stuff-you-cannot-afford stopped allowing comments in early 2009 and is now PR4 and giving a link strength of 33 to all the blog posters.

A well-known site which closes comments 90 days after publishing posts is ProBlogger.

You may also find the following code of use, simply replace “your keywords” with your keywords:

“add+to+this+list”+”your keywords”+site:squidoo.com

inurl:blog “responses to” “your keywords” … this will search for any site with “blog” in the url and “responses to” and your keywords on the page. The “responses to” is a good way to find blogs that have comments open.

inurl:blog “your keywords” “comments closed” … this is like the one above but eliminates all sites that say “comments closed” on the page.

Tip: Switch on SeoQuake and request parameters to get a snapshot of all the PRs and inbound links of the respective pages. This will help filter things down even further.

.edu and .gov Backlinks

Q: What are your thoughts about blog commenting on .edu and .gov sites to get backlinks?

A: Benefits include being able to get some respectable link juice/strength for free.

Having said that, I’ve found in most cases it to be too spammy, easily replicable by your competition, and you’re lucky if your comments get approved as the administrators of such sites can be really anal about approving comments.

Nevertheless, should you choose to pursue this strategy you may find the following code of interest. Simply replace “your keywords” with your keywords, enter into Google and go.

site:.edu inurl:blog “your keywords”

site:.gov inurl:blog “your keywords”

site:.edu inurl:blog “post a comment” – “you must be logged in” – “your keywords”

site:.gov inurl:blog “post a comment” – “you must be logged in” – “your keywords”

Guest Blogging

Q: Is it worth it?

A: In the long-run, yes.

For example, if we look at http://www.amazing-cover-letters.com/ and run a link diagnosis (takes a while) we see the site has a link back from http://www.quintcareers.com/effective_cover-letter.html which is now PR5 and giving a link strength of 123.

Predicting whether your guest blog post will attract the necessary links to give you juice in the longer term is tough though, so sticking to blog posting on authority sites where you can will likely help.

Tip: At Text Link Ads and Digital Point blog posts are for sale where you can benefit from writing them and getting your anchor text in the posts two to three times. This is great for reinforcing your anchor texts and getting backlinks which are not that easily replicable. Hosted Marketing Pages (HMPs) is the term for these as I understand it.

Social Bookmarking and Article Writing

Q: Do you know any good social bookmarking and article writing services?

A: Try http://www.submitedge.com/ … you may also find this code useful if you’re an article writer and want to see some successful articles to help writing your own: your-keywords site:ezinearticles.com “This article has been viewed 2000..199999″ “Article Submitted On: * *, 2009″

Personally, I feel article writing is beneficial to get leads, reinforce anchor texts, getting different IPs linking to you, and looking more natural – but for the time and monetary investment I feel other methods are much more effective.

Nevertheless, here’s an article directory list.

Press Releases

Press releases are one of my favourite methods to quickly get loads of different websites linking to you with your anchor text. Although the link strength is non-existent in most cases this method has lots of leverage.

It’s entirely possible that a well-written press release, capturing just one journalist’s attention, who publishes it in a national newspaper could literally make you a millionaire overnight. Be sure to check out this press release list.

Link Baiting

These videos are a great example of link baiting in my opinion: http://www.strattoncraig.co.uk/ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6wRkzCW5qI

The following list is also up there too, and admirably has achieved a number one Google ranking for keywords ‘make money’: http://www.experienced-people.co.uk/1042-top-ways-of-making-money-online/

Reviewing Products/Services

Q: Is it worth it?

A: Yes, especially if your review is on the website’s homepage and you have an active do-follow link to your site.

For example, if we look at http://www.instantsalesletters.com/ and run a link diagnosis (again, takes a while) we see the site has a link back from http://www.mastercopywriters.com/ which is now PR3 and giving link strength of 43.

Interestingly, this is the highest link strength link to the site which “…generated $200,000.00 in less than 2 years.”

Paid Links

They are indeed against Google’s terms of service, but contrary to popular belief not all paid links violate the guidelines – click here for the facts. Ultimately, it’s up to you to weigh up the risks and rewards of such a strategy.

I personally interpret Google’s words as saying as long as it’s not your sole link building strategy and you don’t use it excessively you’ll be okay. The problem is you can’t be white hat if you use paid links, but you can’t rank well without them.

Clearly many webmasters value renting and/or buying links as sites such as Text Link Ads are becoming more and more popular. There is also a thriving marketplace at Digital Point where you can buy, sell and trade links

Having said that, if you’re going to enter a niche and want to rank quickly and easily, a simple way to capitalise from your competitor’s hard work is to simply go after the most high strength links your strongest competitors have. That in itself will likely get you on the first page of Google, and likely above them.

Nevertheless, often to get the most high link strength links you’ll need to contact the webmaster. If you can’t contact the webmaster through the site, you can run a WhoIs check using www.who.is and then e-mailing them directly if their e-mail address is displayed.

Asking for a permanent text link on that particular web page (the one giving your competitor the link strength) or from their main homepage (a sitewide link) will likely work out more cost-effective for you in the long-run as many webmasters want to quote you prices to rent links monthly.

BIG TIP: Run a Link Diagnosis report on sites where links are for sale before purchasing. Most sellers price by PR, but as we know this doesn’t necessarily guarantee better strength. In many cases you can pick up some great links which sellers really undervalue.

What I’m getting at here is if a PR4 website has only a few inbound links I wouldn’t side with it over a PR4 site which has several seriously high link strength links to it.

BIG TIP: Take it a little further and also run a Link Diagnosis report on any outbound links (different sites) you see (hope that makes sense). This will give you an indication of what link strength you will benefit from.

BIG TIP: I frequently see websites as high as PR4 and PR5 with just one inbound link of link strength 100+. In many markets you’ll only need one. So make it a good one.

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Do your best to keep in coming links relevant. The more web pages they have, generally speaking: the better.

You can check relevancy using our old friend Google Easy Search, selecting ‘Website content’ under ‘How would you like to generate keyword ideas?’ and hitting ‘Get keyword ideas’. If it churns out a load of related keywords to your niche: go get the link!

Q: I get the feeling this [paid links] will be expensive or hit or miss, some people may not be so willing, especially if they view you as a competitor?

A: I’m afraid to say (and it took me some time to realise this): free methods are unlikely to get you the results you need… money talks.

You’d be surprised how many webmasters are willing to give you links to your sites once they’re incentivised – even your biggest competitors. In fact, they’re more likely from my experience. Currently there are 1,047 “publishers” on Text Link Ads with an Alexa rank under 50,000.

Frankly, some of the best sites out there are happy to offer paid links as they’re rankings are cemented.

Here’s an example I just found on TLA: “The site offers articles, tips and thoughts on everything about personal development. This is a high quality blog with 4200 RSS readers and over 3000 visitors per day.”

Cold Call E-Mail for Paid Links

Q: How would you recommend I word the e-mail when cold calling on site owners to get paid links?

A: Hi,

I may be interested in advertising on your website http://www.abc.com

Can I ask how much it would be for a permanent text link on the homepage?

Regards,

Your Name

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Link Building Checklist

• Do-follow
• Relevant
• Outbound links low
• Link strength high
• Anchor text
• Permanent

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Recommended Link Building Strategy

• Add quality content to your website
• Get forum posting
• Submit to the top 100 free Alexa ranked directories
• Submit keyword and anchor text rich press releases
• Get blog commenting – run Link Diagnosis reports on the websites ranking in the top 10 SERPs for your keywords, and then go through all their links ensuring you add your blog comment where possible too
• Get high link strength paid links – run Link Diagnosis reports on the websites ranking in the top 10 SERPs for your keywords, cherry pick the highest link strength links and then approach the website owners for a paid link
• Consider .edu and .gov backlinks, guest blogging, social bookmarking, article writing, link baiting and product reviews should time permit

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Q: Sam, this all sounds so logical. Can I ask if there are any other link building methods?

A: Buying existing sites with PR is an excellent strategy. And one I can testify does work.

In fact, a friend of mine recently bought a forum solely for the link juice from its thousands of pages (!) … As far as I’m aware it cost a little over £1,000 and has helped contribute significantly to his top 10 ranking for a seriously competitive keyword. A keyword with 823,000 GMSV and $4.57 Estimated Avg. CPC.

Note: although having ownership benefits allows for much more control, pursuing this strategy is not the most cost-effective. It should be considered nonetheless as your return on investment is what matters most.

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Another strategy which works well is to create a handful of websites with relevant content. Second, third, and fourth blogs for example.

Then either wait for the PR to kick in – PR2 and sometimes PR3 is achievable within 3 months.

Or…

Build backlinks to those sites and then link the sites to your own. Essentially backlinking your backlinks.

Note: how quickly you want results will be a deciding factor.

Also note: many sites which achieve top rankings attract links once they’re there – as they’re seen more, and seen to be an authority by more people. So if you’re paranoid about supplementing your existing links with paid links you can always take them down once you’ve attracted others.

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“A Jug Fills Drop by Drop”

- Buddha

Good Luck

I hope you’ve gained genuine value from this training.

If so, I’d be delighted were you to become an affiliate, and you’re also more than welcome to link to this site with any of the following anchors: Affordable SEO, SEO Consultant, SEO Consultants, SEO Guru

Alternatively: Tweeting, Digging, and Stumbling the homepage would be most welcomed :-)

Final Tip: Get your main keyword in your name when marketing online.

Reason being that having run so many link diagnosis reports one begins to see that when people link to you, they link to you often by your name e.g. See John Smith here. In many cases these links are giving tremendous juice, but the anchor text lacks beneficial keywords.

Were you to market yourself as John SEO Smith your keyword would be in the anchor text when people link to you, naturally being much more beneficial to your rankings.

Run a few reports on some well known bloggers and internet marketers and you’ll see what I mean!

Sincerely,

SEO Sam

Director

Affordable SEO Consultants™

P.S. I’d like to leave you with some words I found meaningful and I trust you will too:

“To Know, and Not to Do, is Not Yet to Know”

- Zen Saying

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Quick question for you. Do you think/know that if a competitor has a total link strength of say 2,000 then if we got a link strength in total of say 2,200 would we outrank them? Worth testing if we don’t know. I suspect we would everything else being equal.

A: The way I see it is this: if you can get a total link strength of 2,200 – you can get a total link strength of 3,200… I’d encourage you to go that bit further to cement the ranking and not risk Google dancing on you.

What’s more, you’ll have first mover advantage over your competitor(s) should they try to reclaim top spot.

Q: Quick question: I have found that Link Diagnosis is almost always wrong with the “outbound” links number thus making the link strength number incorrect based on the formula. Is there anything more accurate?

A: The outbound links only counts one link for each domain, in other words only the unique backlinks. So, for example, if there are five links on a web page all pointing to the same domain – that will count as one unique backlink, and not five.

Having said that, bugs can occasionally slip through the net at LD, so feel free to report them here. I’ve found the LD support staff to be very helpful and prompt in replying.

How to Check Your Competition Some More

Q: Do you know how I can find out what keywords and where my competition are getting their traffic?

A: Sure, try Compete.com – you can get some pretty interesting information for free. Getting an account will really open your eyes!

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Feedback

Firstly, thank you for taking the time to go through this training.

I’d like to ask a favour if I may – keen on improving and delivering maximum value for yourself and others I’m keen to hear your thoughts as to how I can do so. If there’s anything you’d like expanding on or you have a beneficial suggestion be sure to let me know. I’m a firm believer in candid feedback and tough love so whether good or otherwise feel free to get in touch.

Regards,

Sam