5 Backlinking Strategies that Work

We all know, by now that there’s more to making money with lenses than just making a bunch of lenses. You have to have a linking plan as well. This can really trip people up because there are so many different ways you can create links they don’t know how to put together a plan, what goes where, or when.

I get that.

Let me run through a couple possibilities with you.

1. Article marketing.

You could create your lens, and then write another article and submit it to Ezinearticles.com, and as many other article directories as you could find. You could use software like Unique Article Wizard to automate this process.

This is one backlinking strategy, and it works… if you do it.

2. Creating content on web 2.0 sites.

You could create your lens, and then go to other free sites and create content there as well… including a link back to your lens of course. There are hundreds of sites you can add your own free content to, you just have to find them and use them.

This is a very valid backlinking strategy, and will work if you work it.

3. Bookmarking

While this is not as powerful as it used to be, you can take your lens and submit them to bookmarking sites. You will get a link back to your lens from each site you submit it to. You can find a long list of sites at socialmarker.com. You could automate this process by using a service like Traffic Bug.

Bookmarking is definitely not the BEST backlinking strategy all by itself, but it definitely adds momentum when used in conjunction with article marketing, or web 2.0 content creation.

4. RSS submission.

You can take your lensmaster feed and submit it to all the RSS directories you can find. You will only have to do this once for each squidoo account, because as you create new lenses the feed will update itself automatically at each directory ~ which is super fun. You will get a new link each time you create a new lens, or update an existing lens in each of the RSS directories.

This is yet another valid strategy to create links to your lenses. It is not as powerful as articles, or web 2.0 content, but it is especially powerful when you use it in conjunction with those strategies.

5. Linkwheel

The best possible backlinking strategy is to use all 4 of the above methods strategically with one another. This is called a link wheel. It can be a little confusing, because it has a lot of steps, and you have to be sure you know where your links are pointing and from where, but when you get the hang of it, it is a very powerful system to create links to your lenses and get them ranking on the first page of Google.

You may or may not know I’ve created a program called Backlinking 101. It will walk you through each and every step of creating a linkwheel, and thus help you create hundreds (if not thousands) of quality links to your lenses. I’m going ot be launching the program on March 1st.

There will be a bonus available for the first 25 buyers… it could be a seriously life changing bonus if you take advantage of it… but the full details I’m saving until Tuesday.

I’m going to send out an early bird email to my Backlinking Tutorials list when the product goes live. So if you want a chance at the first 25 spots and you’re not on the list, you might want to get on it. The list consists of backlinking tutorials once a week… I don’t send out post notifications or anything else to that list, just the tutorials ~ well and the advanced notice that Backlinking 101 is live.

Not having a clear backlinking strategy in place is one of the things that keeps most people I see from succeeding. It’s such an important element of the puzzle, but it’s confusing and boring and tedious ~ and people just don’t do it.

Let me walk you through it…3 assignments a week. One step at a time. See you Tuesday.

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6 Simple Things You Can Do To Make Google Love You...

How are your lenses doing? Are they getting traffic? Are they getting to the first page of Google? If they’re not doing well, and they’re not getting to the front page part of the problem may be your SEO. What is SEO? Search Engine Optimization. This is  big term but simply means, creating a lens that tells Google very specifically exactly what it’s all about.  You want Google to know exactly what your lens is about because it’s their job to find the best matching site to searchers queries, and if they don’t know what your lens is about ~ they can’t pick you.

There are 2 types of SEO. Onpage SEO and off page SEO.  Off page SEO  includes things like backlinking. If you’re onpage SEO is right, then it’s probably your off page SEO you need to work on.

This post is going to focus on on page SEO.  This means the things you do ON your web page to make Google happy.

They are pretty simple to do, but if you want search traffic they are NOT optional.  If you have a lens that is not performing up to your expectations check to make sure you have done a good job with your on page optimization. If you’ve missed some of these things, changing them could make a huge difference for your lens. These things, if you haven’t done them, are worth going back and adding or changing on your already published lenses.

1. Use your keywords in the url.

When you’re creating a squidoo lens this is a huge element of SEO. This is the first place google looks to see what your lens is about. If you don’t have the specific keywords you are trying to rank for in your URL, you are putting yourself at a serious disadvantage.

Example:

My keyword for the ironman lens is: Ironman Gravity 4000 Inversion Table

My url for the lens is: www.squidoo.com/ironman-gravity-4000-inversion-table

The url is my EXACT keyword. It is not ironman-inversion-table or gravity-4000 or inversion-table-ironman.

It is my keyword, exactly and only.

So what if you go to make a lens and someone already has your exact keyword? I would look at the lens that’s already on Squidoo ~ check it out, see what it looks like. Is it any good? Check Google and see if it’s ranking on the first 2 pages for the targeted keyword.

If it’s not a great lens, and it’s not ranking mess with the dashes in the domain. Either take them out or add them in, so you can get your exact keyword in the ulr.

If it’s a great lens, and it’s ranking in the top 2 pages I’d personal reconsider targeting that keyword. I’d probably find something else. Google is not going to put multiple lenses on the front page for the same keyword. If that lens is already there, it’s going to be tough to knock it out. Find a keyword that doesn’t have that kind of  Squidoo competition.

Dashes – no dashes?

For Squidoo I don’t think it matters. Squidoo’s default is dashes so that’s what I usually end up doing.

Sidenote:

Google’s one and only job is to give searchers relevant, unique,  targeted information for each and every search query a searcher does. So think about it this way. I go to google and I put in ironman gravity 4000 inversion table. What is google going to think is the best match to my query?

www.Squidoo.com/ironman-inversion-table

www.squidoo.com/inversion-tables

www.squidoo.com/ironman-gravity-4000-inversion table.

Yeah ~ of course it’s going to be the third one. This is why it’s so important to not only choose your keywords correctly, but use them in your url exactly as you’ve chosen them.

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2. Keywords in your lens title

Every page on the internet uses html tags in the background. This is the “title tag”. When it comes to squidoo you don’t need to know about the tags stuff,  they  do it for you automatically, but what you do need to know is that you have to use your keywords in the title.

Here’s what the code to the ironman lens looks like ~ and you’ll see the “title tag” is the title of the lens.

That gives google exactly the information they need in order to know exactly what this lens is about.

Where it says Title: in the edit area of your lens you ALWAYS want to have the keywords you are targeting.

If you don’t feel like just the keywords are a good enough title for your lens (which they are), you can always add words AFTER your keywords in the title. You always add your additional words AFTER your keywords in the title because Google gives a little more emphasis on the first 3 or 4 words in the title, so you want your keywords to be up front.

3. Use keywords toward the beginning of your intro module.

This is another html tag area called the “meta tag”. This tag provides a description of your page to Google. In squidoo this tag is grabbed from your intro module.  This is what will show up in the description under your listing in the search engine results, so you definitely want your keywords in there.  When keywords show up in the description area of the rankings they are bolded ~ this also helps bring more attention to your page.

4. Use keywords in your module titles:

In your squidoo lens you want to make sure you also use your keywords in your module titles. While your title gets its own “title” tag in html, module titles get a tag too ~ it’s called an h1 tag. This is a tag that google weighs very heavily when determining what your lens is about.

You don’t have to worry about creating that tag,  you just have to remember to put your keywords in your module and post titles.

5. Use your keyword in your content.

Obviously you want to make sure you use your keyword in your content  because that’s what you’re talking about right? So make sure you talk about it ~ specifically. It’s ok to use variations of your keyword and related keywords/terms in your content, but you also need to have your exact keyword phrase in the content as well.

In the past “keyword density” (using your keyword a certain amount per 100 words) was a lot more important. Now it really is pretty irrelevant. Just talk like you would talk to a friend and you’ll be fine. You don’t have to worry about calculating your keyword usage, just use it as you would in conversation.

6. Use your keywords in outbound links.

Links in your lens are another good way google identifies what your page is about. In your lenses you may be linking to an amazon page ~ so make sure you use your keywords as the anchor text of the link.

Using anchor text pointing to your sites is important, but the anchor text of the links on your site pointing elsewhere also count when optimizing a page.

I know  some of you want to get creative, and tell a story with your lens ~ which is FINE ~ but you still have to find a way to do it within the framework of on page SEO.  You can tell a story that converts all day long, but if you never get traffic then there’s no one to read it or click your links.

If you have questions about on page SEO please feel free to ask in the comments section and I’ll do my best to answer your questions.

How to Write Quality Articles for Product Lenses

Now that you’ve got your lens done the real work begins. The writing. There’s a bunch of writing to do to create the backlinks your lens will need to move up the search rankings of Google. We’re talking about articles to submit to directories, blog posts to add to the free ad blogs, blog posts to add to your blog network. Dang. It can seem overwhelming, and even more so when you’re lens is about 1 single product. I mean, how on Earth are you supposed to write all this content for an Ironman Gravity 4000 Inversion Table?! Right?

Never fear ~ there are ways, easy ways you can get this done.

One of the easiest ways is to think about what the product does for you, figure out the benefits of the product. Once you know the benefit you can think of other things that also provide that benefit, and then create a great little article. Here’s how you can outline the article. (whether it’s going to be a real article being submitted to a directory like EZA or a short post on one of your blogs or someone else’s ~ this will work)

paragraph 1. Introduction ~ What is the benefit you’re trying to accomplish?

Paragraph 2.  Identify 1 way you can accomplish the benefit.

Paragraph 3. Identify another way you can accomplish the same benefit.

Paragraph 4.   Identify how your product type creates this benefit. (your product area)

Resource box. Discuss if they choose option 3 (your product area) they might want to try your specific product (and create a keyword anchor text link back to your lens) and why.

Here’s an example of how I did this for the Ironman  inversion table lens using How to manage back pain without drugs as the benefit.

Ok ~ that’s not so hard for an inversion table, or a coffee pot, they have some pretty obvious benefits, but what about other stuff that doesn’t have such obvious benefits??

I thought I’d look through some categories at Amazon and give you some benefit ideas to get your creative, out of the box juices flowing!

TV/Video ~

Benefits Ideas:

Make your fella happy: 1. mow the lawn for him 2. Make him a special dinner 3. Take the toddler out somewhere during the big game/race/sporting event.

more family time: 1. eat together 2.  do projects together 3. create family game night

save money by having entertainment at home: 1. eat at home to save money 2. use coupons for your groceries 3. walk/bike to school/work

Flat screen in particular ~ make sure you toddler can’t tip the tv over on themselves (toddler safety): 1. safety gates at the top of stairs 2. lock up chemicals 3. cover outlets

Camera/Photo ~

create memories: 1. create scrapbook pages for family events 2. Set up special “family holiday days” 3. family game night

Bedding:

Get a good nights sleep: 1. don’t drink coffee late in the day 2. No tv in the bedroom 3. create a sleep time ritual

Vacuums:

manage allergies: 1. change sheets regularly 2. netti pot to clean sinuses 3. elderberry concentrate

Toys:

Improve fine/gross motor skills: think of different activities that also do this.

Help learn to share: think of other ways they can learn to share

use the imagination: think of other things that help them be imaginative

Crafts:

create family heirlooms: how else can heirlooms be created?

make some extra money: other ways to make extra money?

Fitness Equipment

Lose weight: other things they can do to lose weight

Feel better about yourself: other things that make people feel good about themselves

save money working out at home: other ways to save money in the household budget

Jewelry

show her you love her: other things you can do to show women you love them.

create a special memory: other ways to create special memories

You see, your articles don’t have to BE ABOUT your product ~ they can be about a topic that is relevant to your product, and then you just mention the product. These articles are more likely to resonate with a wider audience than an article that just lays out the features of the product as described in the “product description” at Amazon.

Using the benefits of a product to create a real, helpful, actionable article is a great way to get good links, and traffic to your lens. The key is to really look for the benefits.  The benefits go way past the features your specific product has ~ benefits are not about the number of pixels, or what exactly your product does ~ it can be about how it makes a person feel, the effect it has on other parts of their lives.

So before you just go right for the basic product review, think about what else your product might do, and try writing an article about that!

Having trouble figuring out the benefits and how to put it all together in an article?  I’d be glad to help you ~ this is exactly what we do over at the KISS Club! There’s some amazing things coming out of that community ~ we’d love for you to be part of it!

Best of… Getting Traffic to Your Lens

I’m out of town today… getting the holiday festivities under way. I have been getting asked quite a few questions about building links for lenses and getting traffic to lenses so I thought I’d revisit some of my favorite posts on these topics.

Getting your lens indexed.

This step can freak people out, but there are some simple things you can do to help the process. Then sit back and relax. Your lens will get indexed.

3 Easy Steps to Get Traffic:

You’re going to start seeing a pattern in these posts I’m sure. Here’s the reason why (it’s a closely guarded secret so shhh…). You don’t have to do a million different things… you have to do a few things consistently.

Using Posterous

Posterous can be a fantastic way to build some links and get traffic to your lenses. It can be a little confusing, but once things are set up you can build links lickety split with it.

Using Posterous as your linking network

Setting up Posterous and building links with it

Using directories, and bookmarking

The best way to do this is with some automation… it’s just not worth the time and effort it takes to do it all by hand. But there is a great tool ~ that’s pretty cheap you can use to do it.

Link building with directories and bookmarks

A Simple Linking Plan

This post outlines the exact steps I use to create links and drive traffic to my lenses. It is a straight forward plan, and there’s plenty of information to get you started on each step.

Step by Step linking plan

Well there you have it… I hope reviewing these posts will help you get on track with your link building and getting more traffic to your lenses.

Even though it’s almost Christmas please remember that the work you do all year adds up and makes for an even better year next year. So don’t give up… keep on taking action and it will pay off. Also… remember your lenses will continue to make sales throughout the year ~ maybe just not at the level they do during the holiday rush.

Happy Holidays.

5 Easy Steps to Get Your Lens Indexed

Once you publish your lens the next step in the process is to get Google to know it’s there. This is called getting your lens “indexed”. Google is basically a huge index of all the sites out there in the world wide web. Every second tons more sites go live and the little Google bots go out there to find them. This can take some time ~ these bots have a lot to look at.

You can help the bots find your new lens, and get Google to see it with a couple pretty simple steps. The key to getting indexed is creating a path for the bots to follow. The bots are always looking for new content. They “spider” sites regularly checking to see if there’s anything new out there. This is to your advantage. This is how you create a path, or trail for the bots to follow right back to your lens.

1. Find a site that is indexed already ~ one that has a lot of new content regularly so the bots are likely to be there often looking for new stuff.

This could be any number of sites.

Free ad blogs
popular blogs
Article directory
Twitter

These are just a few sites you can  use to help the process.

2.  Create some content on that site and link back to your lens.

Once you’ve found a site that gets plenty of bot attention (it’s regularly updated with new content) you want to create some content and include a link back to your site.

Free ad blog ~ create a post and publish it on the site. In your post include a link to your new lens. (make sure you use your targeted keyword as the anchor text of your link)

Popular blog ~ go and leave a comment. Make it a good comment, related to the content of the post. Use your lens url in the “url field”.

Article directory ~ this way takes longer because you have to get your article approved, but it will work, and it will be a nice link back to your site. Make sure you use your targeted keyword phrase for the anchor text of your link. This doesn’t have to be EZA ~ there are a number of quality article directories that don’t take as long as EZA to get your content out there.

Twitter ~ this is one of the simplest ones and I find it works GREAT for indexing. Just write a quick tweet and include the link to your lens. (you could also do this for facebook)

3. Ping your new content.

This is a little trick that will help the search engines find your new content. You can go to pingomatic.com and put in the url for the content you just published and then choose services to ping and click send ping. This will notify all those places you’ve put up new content and will help the spiders find your content faster.

There is also a bookmarklet for pingomatic. It’s  a little thing you drag into your favorites bar on your browser. Then you can just click it from any page and it will automatically ping that page for you. This makes it super easy to ping new content you publish. I highly recommend you grab it. (it’s free)

4. Carry on with your promotional plans.

Your lens will get indexed. I promise. It may take 6 hours or it may take 6 days ~ but it will get indexed. However long it takes there’s no sense wasting time waiting. Continue your promotional efforts ~ build links ~ it will only help.

5. Try again…

If you find after a week or so your lens is still not indexed ~ and you’ve done the first 3  things mentioned above, I’d go through and do them again. New content. New pings. That should do it.

***** Word of warning *****

Do not obsess about this. Your lens will get indexed. I have never seen a lens NOT get indexed. Even if no links were ever built for it. Squidoo happens to be one of those highly spidered sites. It will be found. Just do the basics you need to do and continue to promote your lens. When  you’ve done the promotion you need to do, move on to the next lens.

There is no point in sitting around obsessing over one lens, when in that time you could publish another one.

Using a Posterous Network for Your Lenses

I hope you were able to see the huge benefit in setting up a posterous network. Today I thought I’d get into a little more of the nitty gritty, how I do it stuff, which will hopefully answer some of the questions you’ve asked.

1. Think of a general way to encompass all your lenses.

I do mostly product lenses, so they could all be thought of as gifts, Amazon offers great deals on products so they could be thought of as great deals. I do reviews of the product in each of my lenses so they could all be thought of as reviews.

Think of something ~ one overall topic that encompasses all your lenses. This is going to be your network theme.

2. Set up your posterous account ~ using your network theme to determine the name of your site and your username.

3. Go in and set up all the sites you want Posterous to post to. Use your network theme for these sites as well ~ for your site name and username.

ex. My posterous account username for my lenses is Best Gifts Ever. This is the general theme of all the other sites that it posts to as well. In fact, I’ve used the same username across the board (for the most part).

4. Fill in your profile.

When you’re setting up all the blogs/sites you can have posterous post to make sure you’re filling in your profile information. You can use a pen name if you want, but make sure you fill something in when you can add a website. You can pick a lens, or a blog or whatever it is you need to help get a boost in the search engine rankings ~ the links from these profiles are already showing up in yahoo site explorer for the sites I’ve  used… so it’s an important step.

Add an image ~ make it look good. You don’t have to use an image of you. For the best gifts theme I used an image of a gift wrapped box ~ it sticks with the theme and gives me some anonymity since I am using a pen name I don’t want this network linked by my regular social media picture.

5. Start posting.

If your network theme is gifts then start making posts about giving gifts.  I recently did a lens on the composter I have ~ so I wrote a quick post (in gmail) about a great gift for gardeners. I included a couple sentences, a link to the lens, the video that I did for the lens (although I mostly use other people’s videos in my posts. I just happened to have done one for this topic), and a link back to my Christmas blog with anchor text related to gifts for christmas that I’m trying to rank for.

It takes a couple minutes ~ really. A couple minutes. Don’t overthink this. A couple sentences, a video or an image and a link or two ~ make sure to use your targeted keyword phrase as the anchor text of your link. This is very easy to do when using gmail ~ just highlight your keywords and use the little chain icon to create the link.

6. Add some other stuff too.

If you come across something interesting ~ a great deal, a great gift idea ~ even if you haven’t done a lens on it go ahead and shoot out an email to posterous. It only takes a second and the more you give to this network the better it will be. The better it will work for you.

What if I have different niches?

If you can identify an overall theme for your lenses you only need one posterous network (ie. gifts, reviews, deals). If you have lenses (or a website) that are totally different than the product lenses ~ and are about a whole other topic you might want to set up a second posterous network.

This is only necessary if you really find yourself living in two worlds. I have 2 networks. One is a gift theme and one is a kid theme ~ this is where I connect with other parents around some of my other sites and interests. Some of my lenses will go through the kids network ~ but most of them won’t.

When you set up a second network you can add an additional email address to choose in your gmail account. (Go to your gmail “settings” and then to “accounts and import”. It will allow you to add another “send mail as” address. When you go to send a post to posterous just choose (from a drop down menu in the email writing area) the email you want to send it as ~ which will correspond with the email address you used for the specific posterous network you want to send your post to.

Here’s a quick video that shows how I create posts to send to my posterous network.

I hope I’ve answered your questions about using a posterous network for your lenses. If you questions I didn’t answer or need clarity ~ just ask in the comments section.