We all know links are crucial to the success of our lenses. It’s links that move them up the search listings to the first page so we can get traffic. We also probably know that link building is tiresome, boring and monotonous. However, it’s something that must be done.
There are tons of ways you can build links ~ however ~ I’ve recently come across a way that you can easily create links over a number of high quality platforms ~ all at once, super easy.
I love super easy.
I must say I blew this method off for a long time. I thought it was something those fancy “iphone” people did. I barely have a cell phone so I really didn’t think it was for me. But, guess what! It IS for me. I’m loving it, sending out content, getting links and all in less than 5 minutes a day.
I’m going to post a few videos down below to walk you through the process. There’s a little setup in the beginning, but it’s relatively painless, and within 30 minutes you too will be putting out fantastic links on some of the best sites around.
Don’t worry too much about his talk about the upcoming modules ~ we’re just looking at the platform part. (It is fantastic information ~ so if it gets you excited go ahead and listen ~ it’s all free at the Challenge.
What is Posterous?
Ed talks a lot about using his iphone to mail in his content. You can use any email service. I use gmail! It has a text editor ~ so you can easily add anchor text links, bold, images, videos etc. All you have to do is hit send!
When adding video to your email post you only have to add the url ~ not the embed code.
I hope you’re getting excited about this! When it finally clicked for me… BAM!
Setting Up Posterous
Let’s start auto posting! Adding sites to Posterous.
I would not worry about setting up a facebook page ~ he’s showing people how to set up a network to promote an entire niche site they are doing ~ a facebook page is not quite as appropriate for promoting a wide variety of lenses.
I hope you see how powerful this Posterous network is, and what a fantastic way it is to build backlinks. If you have questions about the process please ask them in the comments section. Tuesday I’m thinking about running through some of the ways I use this network to promote some of my sites. If this sounds good ~ please let me know.
Take note of the type of posts he is making to his posterous network. (this was the part that knocked me over with a feather) They are not 300 word articles…. Short, interesting, posts. Think about it.
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You know building links is super important. I recently found a great website to help build more links to your lenses.
It’s called shetoldme.com. It is a bookmarking site similar to Digg in that people can vote up or down your submissions.
Unlike Digg it welcomes product related submissions as well as being ok with you submitting your own stuff. Our kind of site ~ right?
It is also an ad revenue sharing site ~ which I’m not sure is going to add up to much, but it could be something.
It’s super simple ~ just create a new account. Acceptance is not immediate ~ but it only took overnight for me, and someone else said it was only an hour or so.
Once you’ve been accepted ~ grab the url for the lens you want to submit.
Log in to SheToldMe.com and you’ll see a link to add a link/story.
Click the link and a page will show up where you fill in your info.
Just fill in the url. Add your title (make sure you use your targeted keywords you found in your kw research). Then create a description. I just write a little bit about the product or why someone would want to check the page out. The description has to be 200 characters, which is only a couple sentences.
Just below that you’ll be asked to choose a category ~ unfortunately there aren’t a ton of categories, so just pick the one that is most closely related.
Then choose your keywords ~ I’ve been picking wider keywords and not adding my exact kw here. Ex. ironman gravity 4000 inversion table is the kw I used in my title (that’s my targeted keyword) I would use inversion table in the tags section.
The tags section is connected to their site ~ it links to other related “scoops” on their site. I dont’ want to compete with them for my main keyword. Make sense?
When you’re done click “send it now” and you will create a scoop. The title and the read–> link both turn into keyword anchor text links that point to your lens.
There is also a place in the profile section to add a website. A link to that website is created on every scoop you create ~ so great links to that site as well.
This site offers do follow links and appears to be doing quite well for people ~ just one more quick and easy way to create another link to your Christmas Cash lenses.
I know day after day I harppreach encourage you to properly link your lenses so you can get ranked in the search engines and get traffic and make sales.
I’ll be straight up with you here… I suck at linking. I hate it. I find it super tedious and BOORING. I have recently picked up an additional accountability partner to really kick my butt on linking and staying focused on one element of my business.
With the knowledge I would have to face him at the end of the week and tell him if I did or didn’t do… I decided to make a spreadsheet. You know how much I love to check stuff off.
Here’s what I found… (and it surprised the heck out of me)
I haven’t been doing half the linking I think I thought I was doing. YIKES.
I had general terms on my spread sheet, free ad blogs, wp blogs (my own network I use for linking) etc. I found I quickly became confused by what I had and hadn’t done for each keyword I was working on, and quickly realized I generally quit this linking process long before it is actually complete. HMMMM…
I changed my spreadsheet, and added each specific site I link at so I can make sure I have linked for each keyword/lens. This has helped the confusion and it really made me realize how much I haven’t been actually getting done.
So my guess is, and this is just a guess, if I ain’t doing it, neither are you. Which just might explain why some of my lenses don’t rank ~ and yours as well.
I have this crazy brain that says “If I don’t do it, it’s cheating” which thus far has really eliminated me using any kind of automation.
Since I’m doing more and trying to spend less time I’ve realized I have to let go of that. If a tool can do a bunch of the things I’m doing ~ exactly how I’m doing it ~ except by itself without me ~ well DAMN ~ let it do it!
This software does the RSS submission, directory submission, bookmarking submission, pings, and more. These are all things I would do if I could get my stuff together and actually do it, I do currently submit to RSS directories, but look at all the additional links I am now getting by letting it do it for me!
Anyway, I thought this software would be super expensive, but it’s not. It’s very affordable and actually gets the job done. I still do my own linking through other sources, but this is where I start now. The machine doesn’t get bored. It doesn’t give up half way through because it doesn’t feel like doing it anymore. It gets it done, over time, nice and slow and steady ~ just like I like it.
If you are having trouble getting your linking done I highly suggest you try traffic bug for at least 2 months. It will take time for all the links to get created, and even a little longer for Google to find them all, but it will happen. With the level of competition we use for Squidoo lenses it shouldn’t take much more than traffic bug to get your lenses ranking.
Just so you can see exactly what I’m doing (and I’m still doing a lot of doing) here’s my linking spreadsheet. (it is an excel spreadsheet. You’ll need excel to open it) It’s exactly what’s printed out and on my desk right now ~ today’s my Squidoo day so I’ll be linking my brains out. If you want to have the boxes printed out so you can make your checks inside boxes here’s the instructions.
I spent an entire day a month or so ago going through and researching every link building process I could find. Traffic bug fit all my requirements and was about 90% cheaper than the next closest option. This is a new site, but it is working quite well thus far. I know for a fact the price will be increased, so if linking software is something you’ve been thinking about I suggest you get it now while it’s still very affordable ~ it probably won’t be for long.
Last week at the Kiss Club one of the members decided to start a 52 Lens project. Her goal is to do 1 lens a week for the next 52 weeks. I, of course, thought that was brilliant so I joined in. There have been other people who have said that goal is too intimidating to them, but they are doing what they can along with us!
So anyway… I took a moment to really look at what I do to build links to my lenses once I get them finished so I could put it in a nice little outline that anyone can follow. Here it is. I’ll do a brief outline and then go back for more explanation below.
My Link Building Process
1. Submit lensmaster feed to RSS directories
2. Write posts for 5 to 10 free ad blogs.
3. Add post to my blogger blog.
4. Add a link to the lens in the sidebar of my blogger blog.
5. Add post to my christmas related wp blog.
6. Comment on 5 to 10 blogs using commentluv.
That’s about it.
Holy crap. I just checked Google for my targeted keyword for the lens I did this week and it’s already on page 1!!
Well that’s exciting ~ I’ve been so busy I hadn’t even checked to see if it had been indexed yet, and there it is on page one.
Anyway… back to linking. (but you see how choosing a long tail non competitive keyword works, right?)
RSS Directories
This only needs to be done once. But I put it in here so that if people haven’t done the work involved they will do it. It is one of the easiest and fastest ways to get some link action going! If you don’t know how to do this part check out this post: What is RSS and How to Use it.
Free Ad Blogs
These are fantastic. These are blogs people have set up that allow you to create your own content. This means you can write a post and include your links to your lenses within the content. This is awesome because in content links count a little more than links found without content. This post outlines the free ad blogs I use.
Post to my blogger blog
A long time ago, I don’t remember when I started a blogger blog called How to… Life’s little instruction manual ~ or something like that. It seemed like a great way to be able to cover just about any topic I could create a lens on, and I have. :) It doesn’t get traffic (I don’t think ~ I’ve actually never checked), I don’t really build links to it, I don’t do anything with it. It was the beginning of my “link network”. It was the place where I could go to link to my new lenses, and still is (one of those places).
A blogger blog of your own is a fantastic asset ~ and you probably made one to get your amazon affiliate id ~ so use it!! It doesn’t have to be fancy, it doesn’t have to be pretty, it doesn’t have to be much of anything other than a place you post so you can get yourself a link (or few ~ if you use the sidebar and a post).
If you don’t have one or have questions about using your blog this post will probably help: How to create a support blog.
Just remember, don’t get caught up in this blog ~ it is a tool ~ it’s not really a “blog”. You update content when you do a new lens. K?
Add a link to my blogger blog sidebar
Here’s a video that will show you how.
Add a link to my Christmas wp blog
I started this Best Christmas Gifts blog a couple years ago while I was following the “Info Product Killer” strategy. I wasn’t exactly doing IPK ~ because I was actually using lenses instead of building websites ~ because I didn’t know how to to build the kind of sites he was doing, but the strategy of having a “Christmas blog” or hub for all my other stuff works quite well. It’s the same concept as the How to blog ~ it’s just hosted by me on wordpress.
This site actually does pretty well in the search engine rankings and gets quite a bit of traffic during the holiday season ~ so it’s a bit different than the blogger blog ~ it actually makes me money.
While on the blogger blog I don’t really link to amazon (because it doesn’t get traffic) I do link to amazon via links and images on this blog.
Now if you don’t have hosting and aren’t ready to jump into it yet, don’t stress ~ it’s not going to make or break you ~ but it is nice to have a network you can rely on to build links. (but you can also do this with free blog platforms, and I’m going to do a post on that next week)
Comment on commentluv blogs
I love to read blogs ~ so it only makes sense for me to leverage that time I spend “goofing off” by making it useful to me as well. Reading commentluv blogs is how I do that.
What is a commentluv blog?
A commentluv blog is a blog that uses the commentluv plugin. When you make a comment and put a link to your lens in the url comment field it will create a keyword anchor text link to your lens below your comment. (It pulls the title from your lens) So you have a link with your name, but you also have a link using your keywords ~ 2 links for one comment. (This blog happens to be a commentluv blog ~ so make sure you’re using your lens links in the url field when you comment)
The key for this strategy to work is to make thoughtful, quality, content rich comments. You have to add to the conversation, you can’t just write “Hey nice post”. That kind of comment will be considered spam by a lot of blogmasters (including myself) and will be deleted. People who run commentluv get a lot of extra spam and they can get a little extra ruthless when moderating comments.
If you want to know how you can find commentluv blogs check out this post: How to find commentluv blogs ~ the finding part is about half way down the post.
These blogs do not necessarily have to be about your lens ~ or related to your lens ~ although if you can find somewhat related blogs all the better. I commented on my favorite “food related” commentluv blogs for this last lens I did. It was about a cooking tool, so food and cooking go together. It’s really your comment that is important. Even if your site doesn’t exactly match as long as you are commenting on the POST you’ll be fine.
So that’s it, that’s what I did this week to link up my newly built lens. (Even though it is currently on page 1 I do not expect it to stay there. It will bounce around for a while, but I’ve found that lenses that are on page 1 in the beginning will end up back there after the bounce, so that’s good news.
If you’d like to be part of the 52 lens project ~ join us at the KISS Club! There’s lots of Squidooers there.
If you have questions about this process, feel free to ask in the comment section.
One of the biggest problem a lot of people have is coming up with content to use in link building. Building links is a very necessary part of lens building. If you don’t build links to your lens you won’t rank in Google. If you don’t rank in Google you don’t get free traffic. You don’t get free traffic, you don’t make sales.
It all hinges on building or creating enough links pointing at your lens to bring it up in the search results for your keyword.
This can be time consuming, and is my least favorite part.
There are plenty of free places you can create these links, especially since the advent of all these web 2.0 (user generated content) sites. Let’s look at some:
Free ad blogs:
These are blogs that people run and allow you to put posts on. They make money off of adsense but you get to put links in your content so it’s a win/win.
Here’s where it gets tough. You have to write a unique article for each of these sites. While it doesn’t have to be a 500 page article it should be at least 200 words ~ and some have a 250 or more word limit.
If writing is not your thing, this could take a whole day.
Being able to create quality content to add to these sites with your link is key to your success.
There are tools out there, like PLR (private label rights) that you can use to make this process easier, but if you want to make it even easier this is it.
Yeah I know the name is a little hokie, but it comes from Jonathon Leger ~ who I respect and have bought many products and services from. I watched the video of how this thing works last night and even though I haven’t bought and used it (because writing a lot isn’t really that tough for me) I can see that it works, and works very well.
It is basically a template. It has pre-written sentences, and you fill in the blanks with specific words that relate to what you’re writing about. It will auto fill some of the blanks for you based on blanks you’ve already filled in.
You can save your article, and hit refresh and it will create an entirely new article from what you already did in the template.
You have the ability to choose how long of an article you want, the type of article template you want to write, add spinning to the article itself, and so much more.
If writing was an issue for me I would be jumping on this. I’m still debating about it, just because it seriously creates unique 300 word articles in under 5 minutes (more like 3 minutes).
If writing and linking has been your “stuck” point I highly recommend you take a look at the video (it’s 13 minutes long but goes really fast) and see if this might get you over that hump.
Remember… free ad blogs are only the first round of links to build.
There’s also…
blogger blog posts
hubpages
blog posts on your own blog network
Google knol posts
Wetpaint posts
Article directory submissions
In a Web 2.0 world the ability to create unique content is a huge factor. If you can get that part down pat, you’ll be miles ahead of the rest. Once you get the content creation part down building links is easy ~ and once you get the links, well… then comes the traffic!
Got a question today over at the other blog. It’s a question I get a lot and SWORE I had done a post on, but I guess not. So here’s it is.
The question:
Hi Jackie!
I was looking over your mind maps and i noticed that you said in the “create links” section, to ” do not use keywords in title. ? Could use explain this to me and anyone else that is perplexed? Because that is one of the things that i do to get links back to my lenses so that i can get traffic from google BEFORE the lense is indexed.
Have I been doing something wrong all this time? Talk to me! Please!
Thanx!
The answer:
There are a few things you need to think about when you’re writing articles to post to EZA.
When you’ve decided to target a specific keyword for a lens you want to get it indexed, and you want to build links to it. For sure.
However, you don’t want your article on EZA to rank better than your lens. If you use the exact keywords you are targeting as the title for your EZA article that is exactly what could very well happen.
I say don’t use the keyword in the title, and I mean that, but what you DO want to do, is use them as the anchor text in your links back to your site in the resource box.
Having your keywords in the title of your article that is going to help get your lens indexed ~ that doesn’t really make a difference. It’s having a very relevant link in that article ~ with relevant keywords, and pointing to a relevant page that’s going to get you indexed and ranked better in Google.
If you use your keywords in the title you’re going to end up with an article on EZA that’s ranking above your lens. This is not such a great thing.
It’s not a great thing because then people have to do this:
1. click on your article.
2. read it all the way through
3. read your resource box
4. feel compelled to click the link to your lens
5. read your lens
6. feel compelled to click a link to the product in your lens.
That’s a lot of reading and a lot of clicking people have to do before they get to a place that can make you any money.
You want to use your EZA article to get traffic to your lens, but not at the expense of your lens’ ranking.
So what do you use instead?
You use something that’s relevant or related to your topic. You can use a benefit of the product and write about that, you can use a feature of the product and write about that, you can use an experience you had with the product and write about that. (Here’s a post that will go into that in more detail.)
THEN…
In your resource box you push them to the lens using your targeted keywords in the anchor text. This gets them to the lens (for more information ~ or for reviews ~ or for whatever you’re using to get them there in the resource box) AND it helps your lens rank better in Google by using the keywords in the link.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions ~ I’ll try to help clarify.
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