Savvy Affiliate

An Incredibly Easy Way To Get Backlinks And Traffic

If you are a new site, or even an established veteran, you should consider taking part in group writing projects as a way to get some easy backlinks to your site and to get some new visitors.  The basis behind a group writing project is simple, one blogger has an idea that he would like other bloggers to write about.  He assembles all the submissions in one spot and links to the bloggers.

What is great is that all the submitters tend to link to eachother.  In fact so far the single most linked to page on this site is one that I submitted to Probloggers group writing project.

So who hosts group writing projects?  Where can you submit? - Although group writing projects tend to be sporadic, here are some of the ones that I have seen in the past.  Subscribe to these bloggers feeds and chances are you will see the next one that pops up

• Instigator Blog- Had a group writing project on productivity
• Daily Blog Tips - Has ongoing group writing projects.  New ones are added periodically
• ProBlogger - Every now and then has a group writing project.   This is a good one to submit to.  It will result in a lot of links
• Blog Carnival - Basically a one stop shop for group writing projects.  Go there and check it out.  Maybe host your own

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Participate In The Blogging Community In Order To Make Money.

If you want to be a successful blogger, it is important to participate in the blogging community.  You need to develop relationships with other blogs and other bloggers and rise in the search engine rankings together.

Trackbacks and Pingbacksare a powerful tool in order to do this.  They let the other blogger know that you have linked to them.  Many bloggers will follow that link back to the source.   As such, careful use of trackbacks and pingbacks to the right blogs can greatly increase your traffic.

But if you are a new blogger, how do you find whom to trackback to?   One problem that new bloggers have is that they don’t have relationships with any other blogs.  How should they find the blogs to begin with so that they can start to form the relationship?

That is where Technorati comes in - When you are writing a post you often look for other blogs who talk about the same subject to link to.   However doing a Google search can often turn up results that aren’t from blogs, or aren’t recent.   Using Technorati ensures all your results are from blogs, and that they are all new.  Since technorati only indexes blogs, and it sorts the posts chronologically, using technorati to search for other blogs to link to works very well.   The best part is, that since the posts you are linking to will be new, there is a better chance people will see your trackback and follow it to your site.

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Most of Your Hits Will Come From Keywords You Never Though Of

 I recently posted an aritcle about Expanding Your SEO Targets about how you need to carefully watch how you are ranking in keywords in order to make sure you are ranking well in many different keywords, and not putting too much effort into one.

Well it turns out that John Chow has posted a very similar article on Long Tail Keywords - This article states that the majority of your search engine traffic will come from keywords that you aren’t targeting.   More than that, they will come from keywords that you never even thought of.

Luckily it turns out there is a web tool which helps you manage all of your keywords, and suggests to you what keywords to target next.  That tool is HitTail.  The best news is that the service is free if your webpage gets under 100,000 hits a month.

So why can this tool benefit you?    Well although it is good to target a specific keyword, there are many many obscure keyword combinations out there that are going to hit your site.  In fact Google says that nearly have of all the searches done on its service are unique.    So in order to drive the most traffic to your site, you have to do more than just rank for one keyword.  You have to have a wide, broad presence on the web.

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It Is Easy To Find What To Target…

But What Shouldn’t You Target?

Part one of this series on how to pick out the best keywords details a couple good tools that will help you find out what keywords get hits.  Obviously you want to target highly searched keywords for your SEO.  But what should you avoid?

The biggest thing to look at when hunting for keywords is the competition.  Say you find yourself a good keyword.   For example “Make Money Online”, should you target it?    Maybe, maybe not.  

The next step after you find your keywords is to see who are you competing against.   After you pick your keywords do a quick Google Search and see who the top hits are.   In this case I look for “Make Money Online”   and find that I am competing against

Bidvertiser - PR 7

John Chow - PR 6

Problogger - PR 6

Do I really want to compete against those three in this category?   Not Really.   I need to find a less sought after set of keywords, at least to start.

So I haven’t found my ideal keywords yet, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t find yours.   What should you look for?

1) Competition is sites with low PR - Obviously you don’t want to compete against higher ranking sites for the exact keywords they are targeting.  If a high PR site is at the top of a specific keyword, try targeting a similar keyword that doesn’t have as much competition.  At least until you get your own rankings up.

2) Keywords which land on an interior page of another site - If the top keywords land on subpages of sites, that means that no one is specifically targeting that keyword for their main page. You want to compete against sites who are just ranking for that keyword by chance.  You don’t want to compete against sites who are specifically targeting the same keywords

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Rank In The Right Ones And Your Rich

…. Rank In the Wrong Ones, Not So Much

Picking the right keywords to target for you search engine optimization is very important.  After all, it doesn’t do any good to be #1 in for some words that only get a few searches.  Although ideally you could be the top spot for all the keywords in your niche, In reality you can only target one or two at a time, so you have to choose the right ones.

So How Do You Know What Keywords Get Hits?

Luckily there are some handy tools out there which will help you find out which keywords are hot, and which are not.

The first tool which I like to use is the SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool.  This is a handy tool which gives you the combined search popularity on Google, Yahoo, and MSN.   Pop a couple of different keyword combination in there and it will bring up that keyword + variations on that keyword.   You can pick the best few and go for it.

Is that to much?  Want something easier?

The other, incredibly easy way to determine keyword popularity is to type the keyword in the Google Toolbar.  Watch the suggestions that it brings up while you are typing.    These suggestions are other popular keywords.   If you type in a keyword that didn’t come up on the suggestions, then chances are not too many people search for it.  So why bother?

For instance when I use the tool and type in “Savvy Affiliate”  I get no results.  Hence I shouldn’t be aiming for that keyword?   What are better keywords for my blog?   “Best Affiliate Program” or “Make Money Online”

So you checked out your keywords, picked one that got lots of hits, now you’re done right?    No!   My next article helps you find out if your keyword was a good choice.  How is the competition?

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Why Be The Top Of One When You Can Be The Top Of Many?

Any blog that wants to make money should spend some time focusing on Search Engine Optimization.  As such you should focus your efforts on becoming the number on result for a few specific keywords.  But what should you do when you are at the top of those keywords?

When You Max Out On One Keyword, Branch Out- Although it may seem like a obvious statement, many bloggers don’t continue to do research on the keywords that they are targeting after they begin.  Many bloggers pick a few keywords that they want to be #1 at, and they keep plugging at those keywords, even after they have achieved their results.

The thing About SEO is, you have to be on top of it always.  The people who are best at SEO are constantly monitoring their stats to see where they are ranking for specific keywords.   If one keyword that they are targeting isn’t paying off, they will switch to the next one.  Once they max out a keyword, they will expand their selection.

Take John Chow - he is link baiting and attempting to become the number one result for Make Money Online.  And it makes sense, as Google shows that he is currently #2 for that search.   However, can you believe that once John reaches the number one spot, as I’m sure he will, that he will continue to link bait for make money online?  I sure don’t.

What Will John Do When “Make Money Online is Tapped Out”- Well although I don’t purport to know what someone as evil as John will do, I imagine that he will slightly shift his focus for linkbaiting.  Although he is #2 for “Make Money Online” he is only #3 for “Making Money Online”  so he could easily switch to those keywords, and drag much of his search rankings with him.  He might then switch to a keyword as “Making Cash Online”

The Trick Is To Continuously Expand- Although it isn’t possible for any one blog to dominate all the possible searches, that should still be your goal.  The best way to do that is to pick one keyword and target it.  When that keyword is maxed out, pick a slight variation of that keyword, and then pick another variation.  If you target an entirely new keyword, you may have to start from the bottom again.  But by gradually shifting your targets you can maximize how many different keywords you rank well for.

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I am participating in Problogger’s Group writing project, both as a way to hopefully build up some backlinks as well as get to know more people in the blogging community. This group writing project is to write a Top 5 Post… about anything what-so-ever. Problogger has encouraged bloggers to link amongst themselves with some of the posts which they like the best.

As such, here are some of my favorites

Top 5 Ways To Become A Millionaire - Nothing groundbreaking in this advice, but still sound

Top 5 File Compression Software- I personally use the first two, winzip and winrar.  And can’t decide which I like better

Top 5 Cash Flow Mistakes- If you are starting your own business, or trying to blog as a business, these are things that you need to watch out for

Top 5 Ways To Save Money Without Noticing - Think of it as your latte factor.  Times 5

Top 5 Tips For Writing Blogs -  I personally need to work on 4.  I need to work on 2.  I need to work on 1.  And, after rereading those last three sentence, I guess I need to work on 3 as well.

 ….

Of course, there would be more.  But hey, after all, this is a top 5 contest!

And if you are curious, here is my submission

Top 5 Tools Every Blogger Should Use

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Need some help with your blog?  Daily blog tips is hosting a new project, ask them for help and they may choose to spend a week helping your blog!

 Daily blog tips is quite a useful site, they know what they are talking about.  If they choose to help your blog it will be a great improvement for you, so go ahead an apply

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Short On Time? Make the Best Use Of It

If you are like the average blogger, you are short on time.  You could improve your webpage a lot more if you have more time.  But how can you get it?

One of the easiest ways to make the most of your time is to combine your blogging activities.  Most bloggers spend a fair amount of time reader other people’s blogs and websites.  They do this for a couple of reasons,

1) The enjoy what they are blogging about

2) To get ideas for their own blog

I recommend adding a third thing to the list

3) To network with other bloggers.

Most people would say that they do network with other bloggers.  But do you do it for every article you read?  Do you do it at every website?

Think of it this way, you spend 2-5 minutes reading a blog how much additional time will it take to leave a comment at the bottom of the blog?  30 seconds? 

30 seconds seems like a small price to pay to get the attention to your site that commenting gives.  I know that I have gotten some of my most loyal readers through comments on their sites. 

The bottom line is, if you take the time to read a blog, take the time to comment on it.

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