If you don’t know who Suze Orman is, she is (was?) one of the most respected personal finance gurus around.
And if you missed the “mess”, it started out innocently enough. Suze Orman released an “Approved” pre-paid debit card. It was a big publicity moment for her, and should have resulted in accolades and sunshine.
But something went terribly wrong.
Without going too deep into financial details, a pre-paid debit card can be a very useful tool for certain situations, and this card compares favourably to similar card, according to many analysts. But many personal finance bloggers were “shocked” and “surprised” that Suze Orman would be recommending a card like this at all, pointing out numerous less-costly alternatives. (If you wish to read more on the details from a financial perspective, there is a good round-up of related posts at Credit Cards Canada’s overview of the issue, but here are three of my favourites:
Because Suze Orman struck back. Hard. And used some harsh language. She took on her challengers and called them names. The personal finance blogosphere is well-connected. They all read each others’ blogs and comment on them and follow each other on Twitter. If you check out any of the links I posted above, you will see what I mean.
And so, Twitter got real messy. These images are among those shared by Briana at 20 And Engaged.
You know she blew it. I am not saying that she no longer has any respect, but she sure lost a lot of it last week among a very important audience. What lessons can we learn from this?
DON’T GET PERSONAL.
What really set things off was when she called one well-respected blogger an “Idiot”. The rest of the personal finance bloggers circled wagons, especially because they had the same concerns about this whole Suze Orman Approved Card thing as the “Idiot” did.
To their credit, most of the bloggers kept it above the belt, and spent the rest of the week giving their analysis of the card itself and of pre-paid debit cards in general. In other words, they stuck to the issue, which is what Suze should have done. Did she really have a good product or was she just fleecing her starry-eyed followers?
STICK TO SUBSTANCE.
None of the bloggers (to the best of my knowledge) accused Suze of malice, and yet the whole affair left one feeling like she was trying to cash in on her celebrity status, misusing the trust her followers had placed in her and picking their pockets. All because of how she reacted, by throwing back insults rather than responding to the concerns and correcting misperceptions.
Instead of getting out her side of the story, she went off message (yes, this is sooooo like a political campaign screw-up).
RESPECT
OK, so let’s suppose you are really angry at somebody? Do you punch them in the face? Do you tell them to “Got to Hell!”. Do you call them an idiot? Of course not. No matter how angry you might be at the moment, you don’t want to burn bridges for things you will want to do in the future.
Social media is social. And it is amplified. It would be bad enough if Suze Orman had called a blogger an idiot in private. But she did it in public, in front of all her Twitter followers and, more importantly, in front of dozens – maybe even hundreds – of personal finance bloggers.
This showed at best pathetic judgment and at worst a mean and nasty streak.
Interestingly, a number of personal finance bloggers I know made comments to the effect of “I hope that was just some PR advisors that wrote those tweets, and not her.” I have my doubts. The first thing a PR person would advise her would be to stick to the issues, don’t get personal and don’t burn bridges. She did apologize later in the week, which sounds to me like she finally did get some PR advice.
If was her PR advisor, I would have tweeted back to the skeptics that they are missing the key point, and I would make that point. I would contact the blogger off-Twitter and request permission to provide a guest post – not to rebut his argument, but to explain why the card is indeed a good deal and why it is a step forward and look at all the good that can come out of it. He worst that can happen is a “No”…which would be far better than the huge loss of esteem she suffered last week. And the best would have been another platform to get her message out and at least to some degree neutralize the criticism that had been made.
By way of a wrap up, I came away with the impression that Suze Orman really does want to do something big with credit scores (which might be good), but could not resist the chance to make some nice cash from her followers. The combination of feeling righteous because she believes she is doing something positive and defensiveness due to guilt of having stepped over a line would explain her reactions.
But you and I will never know the truth behind all of this. We will only know what impression we are left with. Which is why online reputation management is so critical.
Welcome to our second “Business Blog Commenting Carnival”, an irregular feature where I share with you some of the comments I left on great posts from other blogs.
I say it is the customers. “The Customer is Always Right.” If the customer needs something quickly, I work overtime. If customers change their taste or preferences, my business better change to meet their demands.
When you are an employee, you have only one customer. You call him “the boss” or “the employer”, but the fact is that you are selling him some combination of your time, your effort and your expertise.
When you own the business, you have many bosses or employers. You call them “the customers” or “the clients”.
Indeed, most online folks really don’t think about taking things offline. But imagine the power of leaving sticky notes all over in public places: “Free download – make money online”. Or imagine handing strangers in the mall a business card that says: “A penny for your thoughts” with a penny taped to it, and a subheading: “Comment on my blog at http…”
Civility is just another word for respect, or at least for demonstrating respect. If you don’t demonstrate respect, why would anybody do business with you?
At The Mystery of SEO, I found myself speaking in quite a counter intuitive fashion…
Anthony, on the whole I agree with your approach. However, I will take issue with the web designer who rejects any client not interested in an SEO analysis. The vast majority of websites will never rank well for any search phrase worth speaking of. There are simply too many more websites than their are available search phrases, and too many websites that are already very strong in most of those search markets. And as much as it might seem contrarian for an SEO specialist to be saying this, there are so many moire awesome ways to find a website than through search engine rankings. Radio ads. Print ads. Sponsoring YouTube or offline video, pay-per-click ads , guest blogging…and so many more. Many B2B websites have a very small niche clientele that can be best reached through trade shows and trade publications. Thinking the world revolves around SEO is the myopic miscalculation fostered usually by SEO specialists; how unfortunate that a web designer has also been infected.
Yes, the typical link wheel has fallen out of favour with Google. But the newer version is a lot of work. Creating several unique articles just to get a single link (Yes, you can pay $5 or $10 to have some regurgitated baby food pounded into something that looks like words, but do you really think Google is stupider than the folks who write that crap?) So here is an alternative:
Create a good article on a Web 2.0 site. Submit it to a couple appropriate social bookmarking sites for the niche. Comment on a couple good blog posts in the niche, using the article URL as your “website”.
There you go. You have created great content, engaged with bloggers and given real link juice to your hub.
This is not a blog, but rather a forum thread that asked: “I just started working for a local law firm and Im new to SEO. Im helping out with the link building campaign. I wanted to get some advice on a good strategy for building white hat back links for a local law firm?”
I disagree that anything you do to build links violates Google’s TOS. Links represent to Google “votes” for your content. In other words, if you have content worth linking to, you should get links, because links are the natural extension of everything you do, online and offline.
1. Ask clients if they can place a little acknowledgement on their website, linking back to your website. “Thanks to LAW FIRM NAME for helping us get our paperwork in order and setting up our business. (Links are not just about Google – they are first and foremost about referral business).
2. You want you site to have great, informative content, not just sales pages (I know I don’t buy from people tryin g to push a sale down my throat). It could be tips on how to avoid whiplash or how to determine what is false advertising or anything else that relates to the areas of law you practice. Then tell the world. Should it out on Twitter and FaceBook, on StumbleUpon and Chime.in, on Tumblr and Squidoo. The more people who discover your great content, the more people will share it and in some cases those shares will bring you links and in others “social signals” that the search engines value. But best of all, again, they will bring you referral traffic.
File this one under “Do as the Pharisees say, not as they do”.
There is a certain marketing guru – yes, he is well-enough known and well-enough respected that the word “guru” applies – who recently sent me an email newsletter. Out of respect, all names have been changed in this blog post.
Before I tell you what was in that email, I should make very clear that this is someone whose opinions I respect. He always gives good advice and his newsletters are always worth reading. For the purpose of this post, it is worth noting that I frequently come across his articles posted at “one of my favourite social bookmarking websites” (OOMFSBW), and of course I vote them up.
The newsletter I mentioned earlier landed in my inbox. The gist of it was that one must be careful about outsourcing or delegating social media tasks – that one must be particular about choosing whom to ask to do such things for you.
The newsletter offered the suggestion that asking your little sister to handle your social media would be a great idea if she had taken courses in marketing communication. But it would be a bad idea if she was a high school student who likes to share cool music and daily tidbits on FaceBook.
It just so happened at the very moment that the newsletter arrived I had a story submitted to OOMFSBW mentioned above, and I was in need of a few votes. So I thought I would fire back a quick response asking him for a vote. In the context of his email newsletter, it seemed highly appropriate.
And in the context of his email newsletter, the response I got back could not have been more surprising – nor more ironic.
“This is Guru’s Director of Marketing, Jack. Guru is travelling at the moment, so I wanted to respond to your request. I didn’t understand what you were asking. I submitted the article to OOMFSBW and I friended Amabaie. If you could clarify what you are asking, that would help me to be able to help you.”
At first, I sat there stunned. Could a newsletter about carefully choosing someone who knows social media be followed up with a live example so poignantly demonstrating why it is crucial to do so?
So I explained.
“OOMFSBW is not just about submitting. You need votes. I vote for most of Guru’s stuff (pretty much any that I see). I would love Guru’s votes for the two I subbed today… (and I included my submissions URL again)”
Two days later, I received a note back.
“I understand now. I just voted for 7 articles for Amabaie.”
So I explained again.
“So also to understand, there is a limited window when the votes actually count. In the case of OOMFSBW , it is xx hours. In other cases, it is typically xx hours or xx days or a month. Just so you are aware in the future.”
As you can probably guess by now, this was total news to him. I think our friendly neighborhood marketing guru very amply demonstrated how crucial it is to delegate social media tasks to someone who knows social media.
Interestingly, I was reading the very next day on WeBlogBetter about whether one should delegate social media tasks to an intern. So, just for fun and because it is so on-topic with this post, let me share the comment I left at the end of the post.
“Hello. I would like to introduce everybody to our new company spokesperson, Rob-the-intern, and he will be managing our company’s entire reputation. Our credibility. Our image. The very factors upon which all our jobs depend. Please help me welcome Rob-the-Intern. I said, “Please help me welcome Rob-the-Intern.” Um…somebody? Anybody? “
Google Doodles, beware! Today I will share with you an exclusive radio interview with Rankless Jones*, live at the scene of the “Occupy Google” protests. After all, why occupy just a street, when you can occupy an entire website?
If Plan “B” is initiated, here are some of the unfortunate Google Doodles that we believe might be at risk, and are advised to take security precautions.
You can decide for yourself which Google Doodles are most likely to fall victim to the Occupy Google protests if the demands are not met, by visiting the Google Doodle Archive.
*Rankless Jones played by Chantalyne Leonhardt in her first international voice acting role.
Not every website is a WordPress blog. That’s a pity, because WordPress has so many handy plugins. SocialFloat is NOT a WordPress plugin – and that is good news if your website is not a WordPress blog, because this is for the rest of us.
You will surely have noticed on so many WordPress blogs a column of social voting buttons on the right or left of the page (see the right hand side of this page, for example). These “float”, because even as you scroll down the page, they stay in the same place on your screen. This makes it easy to share your content on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, etc.
That’s what Social Float does. It encourages your visitors to share your content by keeping the share buttons constantly on their screens. Why is this important?
You can generate a lot of traffic through Twitter and Facebook.
The search engines are paying attention to what pages and what websites get more shares and tweets, so it is important for SEO.
Your visitors don’t want to have to search for a share button all over your pages.
Your competitors on WordPress are using tools like this; you need to keep up.
I am making this social sharing widget available absolutely free. You can download SocialFloat here. You will get the exact code with clear and precise beta-tested instructions that even a relative newbie can add to their website.
But sometimes, spam can be really funny. Especially when it comes to pathetic target marketing (You know, like I really need my melons to be enhanced or my Brazilian to be waxed!). In that same light, consider this ad I recently received:
Italian food from a Chinese restaurant in Pakistan…targeted to a Quebec-born Hungarian guy with a German name living in Ontario. Award-winning pizza? Maybe. Award-winning marketing? I suspect that these guys would not recognize their target market even if they understood the concept.
Thanks for the laugh, guys. I’ll have mine with green pepper and mushrooms. Will you deliver in 30 minutes of less?
Those people who use social bookmarking to promote their content have long debated the merits of various sites. Usually the analysis follows the lines of…
“Well, I get more traffic out of SBsite X, but barely anything out of SBsite Y.”
“Yeah, but it take only 4 votes to pop on SBsite Y.” *See below for definition of “pop”.
“Hey, does anybody know on which site the links are DoFollow?”
“On both, I think, but only if you pop.”
Well, here’s a new reason to use social bookmarking websites. We have been helping a client with a campaign to end penny production in Canada. This is all about visibility, engagement, differentiation and cresting an identity in a niche that is otherwise pretty bland – credit card applications. Of course, we put the story on a number of social bookmarking websites. The story sat on Kirtsy for a few days. Then it popped. Among my next Google Alerts for “Canada penny” came the post on Kirtsy and a related post on PFbuzz, as well. Interestingly, the post on PFbuzz had popped three days earlier. I am not sure what this means.
What I do know is that Google News is picking up more stories from social bookmarking websites, specifically when the stories pop. This really is not surprising – a story popping is a great way to distinguish the cream from the crap. But this does appear to be new, at least the first time I see it happening.
POP your stories
What are some of the most important things you need to do for your stories to pop?
Make sure the story is good quality. That means substantive. That means original ideas and new information. That means well written.
Make sure all your submissions are quality. You will develop a reputation, and when people see your avatar, they will pay attention.
The title is important. Make sure it’s enticing so that people want to check it out.
Vote for other people’s stuff. Yes, people will return the favor. Nobody votes for stuff left by a hit-and-run marketer.
Comment on other people’s stuff. It’s a great way to get noticed. Make sure your comments are substantive and add to the discussion – you want to be noticed as someone of interest, not as a pest.
Invite some friends to join the community. Not only are they your natural supporters, but others will appreciate that you have helped grow the community.
Don’t be shy to ask for help. That’s what Twitter is for: “Can you please check out my latest sub at SBsite X? Votes, comments, shares appreciated.”
* “Pop” stands for “popular”. Stories that are voted “popular” usually pop to the front page of social bookmarking websites. On many sites this is called being “published”.
SUMMARY: The Free Traffic System is NOT what the name sounds like. It is an effective platform to build editorial links on keyword-relevant pages across multiple domains of mixed quality. And it’s free.
Readers who know me well might be forgiven for raising their eyebrows at something called “Free Traffic System“. After all, I am probably the person you know who most vociferously opposes any SEO approach that involves automation. So I should lay to rest that I am not reviewing a “system” in the sense of what it might sound like. In fact, I think the word “platform” would be more appropriate.
Some of you surely still have your eyebrows raised because you know I put little stock in all those traffic machines that send huge swathes of untargeted traffic, which for most niches is pretty useless . The fact is that this “system” does not send any “traffic” directly. Traffic does result from the promotion it helps you do, but this really is a system – er, I mean … a “platform” for promotion of your website, your company, your credibility, your blog posts, etc.
If you’ve let down your eyebrows, get ready to raise them again, because this world-renowned cheapskate who avoids paying for any SEO or promotional tools he can possibly get away with, has just upgraded to the “Pro” version of the Free Traffic System, which is not cheap by anyone’s measure. However, after using the free version these past two months, I have been impressed enough that I am convinced it is worth paying (against my cheapskate instincts) for the even more effective Pro version. So, yes, technically it’s free (but no longer for me). But more importantly, it’s effective. And it’s even more effective (I’ll explain how later) when you upgrade to Pro.
(Complete disclosure at the end of this post.)
Free Traffic System could use a name change
So this really should not be called the Free Traffic System (I know a name like that sells in the Internet Marketing community, but it cheapens what is in fact a much more sophisicated approach); it should be called the Effective Promotion Platform. Right. I shall petition the owner for a name change. In the meantime, let me tell you…
• what FTS does
• how it works
• who can benefit most
• any downsides?
• the differences between the free and pro versions
Please keep in mind as you read this that the process is NOT automated. I might call it semi-automated, but really the only automated part is distribution. The really big time-saving is in searching for link-building opportunities. What FTS gives you is instant access, saving hundreds of hours of searching for linking opportunities.
In simplest terms, the Free Traffic System is a platform for spreading your content across multiple blogs run by multiple owners. It is a cross between article distribution and guest blogging. The basic steps are as follows.
1. You create content, much as you would for article distribution.
2. You fill in the forms, much as you would for article distribution.
3. You select the blogs you want your content to appear on.
4. The bloggers decide whether to accept your content.
Step #4 is a crucial step to keep in mind. You do get instant access to the blogs, saving hours of searching; you do not get guaranteed or automatic access. It means two things.
First, the bloggers are folks like you and me – a myriad of blog owners around the world, with a myriad of domains across a myriad of IP addresses. Take note, that is important for SEO.
Second, if you submit crap, they won’t accept your “guest post”, so it really is worth investing the time and/or money in creating good quality articles.
Detailed review of the Free Traffic System process
Let’s look at the process in more detail, because there are some elements built in that might seem small, but are nevertheless very important.
The first information that goes into the submission for are the URLs and the anchor text.
As you can see by the screenshot, you are allowed two links per submission in the free version of the Free Traffic System. That might be your home page and a link to a specific blog post or product in your eCommerce site.
Notice how both the fields have height? You can add as many keyword variations for each link as you want, and each one will become the anchor text for the link. What this means is that if you add 5 different “keywords”, one fifth of the blogs you submit to will feature each keyword as an anchor text. From an SEO perspective, this is great because we all know that anchor text variation at least to some degree is important. The one caveat is that all the variations have to fit into the same spot in the text of your article.
Even more interesting is that you can have multiple URLs for your two links. What this means is that if you add 2 different URLs for one of the links, half the blogs you submit to will feature each URL. This works only when the anchor text can be used interchangeably between the two URLs. For instance, we have a page about book writers and another page about ghost writers. We could put both of the URLs into the %LINK2% field, and include keywords that easily apply to both URLs. From an SEO perspective, this is great because we add variety and spread the deep-link love better across the domain.
The title is crucial
Next we enter the title of the post. From an SEO perspective, the title is important because it is often used for …
• The post title
• The page title <title>
• File name
• Internal linking anchor text
• Anchor text from external links
From a duplicate content perspective, then, it is crucial that each instance of the article have a different title. There is special code (easy as pie, don’t worry) to “spin” the title so that you have a different title on each blog you submit to. The image below shows a part of the code and some of the variations that are spun out of it.
Please note that you still have to use your brain to input the information, which is then automatically spun into multiple variations the information you input, not your brain).
The example above is what I would consider the lazy way to do it. The title is worth more effort than that, and in a future blog post I will share some advanced spinning tips. In the meantime, this works.
Content is truly king
The next step is to submit the content, the body of your article. What should you write about? If you are a blogger, take any of your recent blog posts and rewrite them. You need at least 450 words to qualify for both your links.
If you suck at writing, we can write a very high-quality post for you; please let me know. If you are even more of a cheapskate than I am, you can go to Freelancer.com for articles but be warned – quality counts if you want your article to be accepted, and when it comes to writing, you get what you pay for.
Now you are ready to submit…No, wait! Not yet. There are two things you need to do to your content before pasting it into the form.
First, you need to inset your two links. One of the really exciting things about the Free Traffic System is that your links are not consigned to a “resource box” after the end of your article. You can place your links wherever they fit. I strongly advise placing them at different parts of the text, at least one of them in the first half of your post. This sort of placement tends to be more valuable from an SEO perspective (these are often called “editorial links” – look it up).
Second, you would do well to spin your article or at least parts of it, so that you are not submitting identical content to 30 different blogs. There are automated spinners (Yuck!) that spew out, well, what you would expect a machine to spew out. FTS offers a convenient link to one of them. It does take time to manually spin an article (at least an hour the way I do it), but I believe this is highly valuable for long-term SEO value.
However, automatic spinning is better than no spinning at all – just double-check the quality. In a future blog post, as I mentioned above, I will share some advanced spinning tips.
Now you are ready to submit it and preview various versions of it. Each time you hit preview…
You will see different anchor text for your two links, and you will see different versions of your article if it has been spun.
Choose your tag(s)
Next, you get to enter one tag in the free version, so make it the most relevant keyword. If you know anything about blogs and tags, you will immediately understand the value of this from an SEO perspective. I won’t go into the explanation here.
Now comes the fun part (What, haven’t you been having fun yet?) OK, OK, you got me there. I love to write, so for me the fun part was actually up front. But we are now at the action part. You’ve written your content. You’ve filled in the form. Now it’s time for you to…
Select your blogs
This is done by entering keywords into the field…
The Free Traffic System will then spit out a list of blogs and categories within blogs that contain the words you listed. For instance, in the example they offer, you will get a list that includes every blog with “finance”, “money” or “loan” in its title OR with a category name that includes “finance”, “money” or “loan”. The image below gives an example for you.
A few things you can see right away. You get to see the titles of the blog and the titles of the categories, but that’s all. No eyeball test for quality (there is an obvious reason for that). No PageRank data (that would be a nice easy feature to integrate, but I suppose it would lead to too much clustering and it might actually be better this way).
Based on the titles, you can pretty much tell if a blog/category is appropriate for your article. You get to select one category in each blog, up to a maximum of 30 blogs in the free version. If you choose wide, sweeping terms (like “money” and “finance”, for example), you might end up with too many to choose from. If you choose terms that are too narrow (like “payday loans” and “cashflow”) you likely won’t have enough choice. Once you’ve played around with the system a bit, you’ll find the right balance.
Since you can’t tell what quality a blog is before you choose it, is it really worthwhile? Yes. If you have written good quality content and targeted the right blogs and the right categories effectively, your article will be accepted. I just took a look at my stats for an article I submitted12 days ago (while I was still using the free version). So far, 26 blogs accepted, there was one error in communication and three blogs are yet to be accounted for. Not bad. Plus, these are keyword relevant links on keyword relevant pages on keyword relevant (or at least topical) websites.
Once the article is live, you can search Google, Yahoo and Bing for it, and you can see the value of the various blogs. My experience is that there is a wide range of quality and PageRank, some cluttered with Google ads and some crisp and clean. Some that nobody reads, some that have an active community. Some that just sit there, and some that are promoted on Twitter and FaceBook.
And they are all worthwhile, because you want links from a variety of quality websites, not just from top-ranking ones. Read my counterintuitive post on why you want sucky links, too.
The obvious answer is anyone who is building links. This is a nice addition into the mix, to keep getting a variety of different links from different websites on keyword-relevant pages. However, if you are a blogger or someone currently submiting to article directories, you can benefit even more, because you’ve already done the work of researching and writing, all you have to do is tweak the article and submit.
The other type of website that really benefits from this type of platform are hard-core commercial websites, such as eCommerce or brick-and-mortar companies with boring websites (you know, industrial services like machine tooling or sanitation or backhoes). These types of sites are hard to attract natural links (unless you are extemely clever about link-bait), so this makes a welcome addition to the link-building opportunities.
Are there any downsides to the Free Traffic System?
There are always downsides, and even a wonderful tool used improperly can be ineffective, possibly even dangerous. If you rely only on one link-building method, it is much less effective than a multi-facetted approach.
FTS should be part of your link-building strategy, not the whole thing or even the major part of it. You still need to create great content on your own site. You still need to attract links to that content. You should still submit to directories and comment on blogs. You should still exchange links with related, non-competing websites. You should still do social bookmarking and spread your content on Twitter and FaceBook. You should still post to forums and answer questions online.
If you don’t spin your content or spin it poorly, you might end up with a lot of duplicate content – probably not enough to get your website banned, but enough that it will probably drag down your rankings.
Why did I pay to upgrade to the Pro version?
There are many reasons to upgrade to the Pro version of Free Traffic System from the Free version, and as you might guess they are all on the website in a slick sales pitch. Don’t be fooled; there is only one reason, and that is mucho more links. Sure, they promise a bunch of future benefits. Nobody upgrades for that. They promise faster review and support, but my experience is that they give fantastic turn-around time even to free members.
No, there is one reason why someone would upgrade, and that’s for the extra links. Let’s do a little math. Here is a quick comparison of the three elements where Pro members get a better deal than Free members:
FREE: two links in each article PRO: three links in each article
FREE: one tag for each article PRO: five tags for each article
FREE: each article submitted to 30 blogs PRO: each article submitted to 50 blogs
How does this all add up?
FREE:
Each article has two links. The article appears typically on its own page, a page in the main blogstream, a page for the tag you define, a page for the category you choose, and a monthly archive page. So that’s two links on five pages, for a total of 10 links. Let’s suppose your article gets picked up by all 30 blogs, each with 10 links …that equals 300 links across 30 domains. In real life, there will be errors. For instance, in my example above, I got 260 links across 26 domains. Not bad considering I paid nothing, it took me only a couple hours, and these are valuable one-way editorial links (including laser targeted deep links).
But check this out…
PRO:
Each article has three links. The article appears typically on its own page, a page in the main blogstream, one page for each of the five tags you define, a page for the category you choose, and a monthly archive page. So that’s three links on nine pages, for a total of 27 links. Let’s suppose your article gets picked up by all 50 blogs, each with 27 links …that equals 1350 links across 50 domains. From a single article. Wow! Of course, in real life, there will be errors. But for my money (and I did pay!), this is worth upgrading for. The funny thing is that on the Free Traffic System website, they claim that a Pro member can gain up to 900 links per article. Huh? Why are they underselling themselves?
I asked, and was granted, permission to embed their upgrade promo video on my blog, so here it is:
So in summation, I highly recommend this to webmasters, bloggers and link-builders. It is a quick and easy way to add a ton of one-way editorial backlinks with a very small amount of work.
My one BIG caveat is to not get seduced by how easy it is. Do it right, so that it really works for you. And keep doing other forms of link-building, even if this seems easier and more effective, because you want a great variety of different types of links.
Disclosure statement: The links to Free Traffic System in this post are affiliate links. That means that if you click through and sign up, I benefit. This in no way influenced my recommendation; I first decided to pay for the upgrade, then decided to add the affiliate links (I would be crazy not to!) You don’t have to use those links to sign up, but obviously I would be extremely grateful if you do. Thank you.
Once again, we’ve improved The Bookmarketer by adding four very unique social bookmarking gems: BizSugar, MMO, Tipbo and Kirtsy.
TheBookmarketer is a blogger’s best friend, making it easy for readers to spread the word about blog posts they like. Two lines of code posted into the template for single posts, and they have instant access to post a link and recommendation to your blog on 75 websites. In addition to popular social bookmarking websites like Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Mixx and Delicious, your blog posts can now be easily added to these four new social bookmarking gems.
BizSugar is a vibrant community of bloggers and others who share blog posts and news stories related to small business and sales. They typically share stories related to managing a small business or freelance operation, marketing both online and off, human resources, motivation and more. One thing that makes this a vibrant community is that submitters don’t just sub and run; many take the time to look at others’ submissions, vote and comment. Only small business related articles.
MMO is a young community of mostly bloggers interested in sharing tips and stories related to making money online. Although fairly new, it is quite vibrant and for that reason has been added to The Bookmarketer. As with BizSugar, what makes this already a vibrant community is how submitters don’t do hit-and-run submissions; they take the time to review, vote and comment on other people’s submissions, too. Only articles or posts related to working online, please.
Tipbo is a unique social bookmarking service. Although it does not cover a single niche – you can submit articles about knitting, hockey, dental fillings, closing a sale, or the best way to pickle and iguana brain – it accepts only one type of article: tips and advice. So news articles, stories, biographies, funny videos and images are all out.
Kirtsy is also a somewhat unique social bookmarking service. Although it accepts the full range of topics and in pretty much any form, you don’t have to be a member to vote (although only members can submit items and leave comments). And there is no voting button. A simple click on the title is all that is needed to vote. In many ways, this makes it a must-use service for bloggers who can share the submission via Twitter or FaceBook.
And I should not miss an opportunity to remind you that if your blog is Canadian, you really should be submitting posts also to http://www.Zoomit.ca (and voting for other good submissions while you are there).
Believe it or not there are still some businesses – no, make that many small businesses – that have not yet grasped the importance of SEO to their profitability online.
For that reason, we have put together a white paper on why small business needs SEO. In fact, we have taken it one step further and explained how small business can benefit from “holistic SEO”.
But don’t worry, it’s an easy read, just 10 pages with lots of graphs and charts.
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Reputation Management: How Suze Orman Jeopardized Hers
Believe it or not there are still some businesses – no, make that many small businesses – that have not yet grasped the importance of SEO to their profitability online.
