Here’s a case study of what I did: I created a squeeze page on Hubpages explaining a new free service (with a referral affiliate link) that just came out. When done, I submitted the link to Digg, Yahoo Buzz, Diigo, Faves.com and Delicious. I also Tweeted a promo for this page for good measure. Within less than a half hour, it was up on Google.com ranking #3 for the affiliate program’s own name – sweet!

I’m going to give most of the credit to Digg and Yahoo Buzz – both sites are awesome for quick indexing!

Meet AboutUs

When you visit AboutUs.org, you’ll want to create your own free user account, which unlocks all of the other administrative features on an AboutUs website profile page. Start out by adding your own websites, one by one. All you have to do is type in the URL (without the www is fine; i.e., “mysite.com”) into the search box. AboutUs.org will then say that it has never heard of the domain before, and will start to create an automatic page for it. Once your new page has been generated, the URL might look a little off: simply click the tab for “fix caps” to re-type the domain name.

This page lists basic information about a website: an “about” section allows you to write a content-rich explanation of your site. Be sure to use all of your Wikipedia.org knowledge to create both internal and external links within this paragraph, to help it rank higher and be more relevant. Just be careful with the amount of external links you use; this is a moderated website, and someone will catch on to what you’re doing if you misbehave.

An “address” section allows you to post this website’s brick-and-mortar location (or P.O. Box). It’s great for a website that has an office or location, but rather worthless if it is nothing more than a website.

“Related domains” is a section that will suggest related sites based on your site’s metadata. It helps for internal ranking of your AboutUs.org page, and nothing more. These related sites don’t point outward to the sites themselves, but only to their own AboutUs.org pages.  Similarly, the “keywords” section pulls your site’s META keywords. You can add or subtract to this list. It’s always a good strategy to include both short-tail (even 1-word) keywords in here, as well as long-tail keywords.

Lastly, “External links” is a place where your Alexa.org, Whois.net and Quantcast links will be automatically included for your site. You can remove these if you’d like. I personally put a backlink to my homepage in this section, as well as links to major press releases, or even social media accounts for the site.

AboutUs as A Part of Your Linkbuilding Practices

In all, AboutUs.org is a decent free service that acts like the Wikipedia.org page you’ll never own for your site. It’s yours to modify, and the site itself is relatively o.k. with its users’ self-promotions. Be sure to make your page look and sound professional: don’t dump keyword-loaded hyperlinks and call it a day. Make your site look interesting.

Also, note that AboutUs.org will probably rank on the first page of Google for a search of your own domain name, making it fill in yet another spot on that page.

Even though it’s NoFollow, AboutUs.org is a great backlink source that should be one of your first stops after publishing yet another brand new website in your repertoire.

1. The template & logo were never changed
   How on earth am I going to have confidence in your directory or spend my time manually submitting 15 of my sites to a web directory that has a generic theme? What’s even worse is when the directory owner was too lazy to even swap out the generic logo. What a great first impression: I click your link to MyWhateverDirectory-dot-whatever and see a logo at the top that says “Sleek Theme.”
2. The directory owner looks like an SEO newbie
   Red flag #2 is when a directory owner seems to be attempting to build backlinks to their site for the generic term “web directory.” It’s a waste of your time. You will NEVER, ever appear for that term in SERPs. Think out of the box. These are usually the same webmasters who don’t even display the real name of their site on the upper left corner of it; rather, they’ll just call it “Web Directory.” If you can’t SEO your own site properly, then why should anyone bother listing their site on it?
3. You haven’t tested your own directory
   If your site can’t even accept submissions, why are you wasting everyone’s time? I can’t even put a number to how many times I’ve seen directory owners promote their new directory, then scroll down to see 10 angry replies from people who have typed out their link, description, keywords, CAPTCHA code, and then saw that the site was throwing an error after clicking “submit.”
4. If it’s a free directory, then where’s the “free” option?!
   I usually expect free directories to be, well, free. When I submit a link and only see options for sponsored, paid and recip-only, I get a bit mad. Some webmasters tell you to submit the link as recip-only, then will manually add you for free in the backend. That’s fine, but very unprofessional. If you’re going to do something, do it right: create a new radio button for “free (no reciprocal link).”
5. Mass-produced web directories
   If you’re promoting 10 new web directories in one thread, I will not even waste my time. This goes especially for a slew of directores that are all using the same generic theme and have the same category structure, and all have the same generic logo. It just shows that you’re churning out garbage that has no rhyme or reason: what’s the marketing plan or theme for each of your new directories? Oh, that’s right – there isn’t one…how charming. You don’t care, and it shows. Therefore, you’ll never be successful. You’ll probably just give up in a couple months anyway, and pull the plug on those sites, then let the (worthless) domain names expire, making everyone’s efforts in manually submitting their links in complete vain.

So, there’s my rant on the sad state of most free directories. I think that in the past few years of submitting to directories, there are only four or five that I’ve seen that were actually decent and gave the impression that the webmaster took time to make their directory special and unique. Power to them.

With all of this talk about how intelligent search engines are, the #1 most important factor in SEO is getting quality keyword-loaded backlinks. That’s how it was in 2003. That’s STILL how it is.

Like any “cause and effect” scenario, it results in abuse. In my opinion, spending hours each day “building links” is abusing the system because it’s you building links for YOUR site – it’s not a case where 15 random people across the world have done it for you because you made something of value to them. To me, this is no different than a used car salesman turning back a car’s odometer to make it more attractive to a potential buyer.

Cheating Your Way to the Top with Linkbuilding

Visit any internet marketing forum and there’s a section about linkbuilding, and everyone is asking how they can build more links to their site. What you have here is a mania that was created by the search engines themselves: more relevant links = we rank you higher. Why bother complaining about spam? It’s nothing but a product of human nature. When a system is in place that rewards backlinks, people adapt and think of malicious ways to do it; hence, blog comment spam bots, forum spam bots, spamming articles, using Angela’s method, paid directory submissions, hacking, and just about anything else that gets a link ANYwhere, regardless of where it is.

What concerns you the most as an internet marketer internet user? Quality of results? Helpful content? If so, then why does that jerk who speaks English at a 5th grade level deserve to show up on Google page 1, because he has amassed 1,500 backlinks to a made-for-Adsense site with spun content? It’s because there’s a system in place that rewarded him for doing so. So much for “smart” search engines.

Content Linkbuilding is King

Call me crazy, but I would seem to think that the whole “good, helpful content” part was the most important factor in being a webmaster…you know, writing stuff yourself that makes sense, is helpful and serves a purpose? Unfortunately, you can write the best content on Earth and it will get dusted under the rug unless you build constant backlinks to it. Boy, it must really suck if you’re an awesome writer but know nothing about SEO. There’s another “glass ceiling” scenario for you.

What happens if search engines grow up someday and reduce the validity of backlinks down to nothingness? All of these hours we’ve taken out of our lives will be in vain. What a waste that was. Whatever new method emerges will be whatever else internet marketers will bow down to, exploit or abuse. I really don’t see this ever stopping unless search engines rank sites based on what really matters: visitor retention statistics, click through rate, bounce rate and other on-site behavior that shows a site has tangible quality.

I don’t mean to be hypocritical. I spend every morning getting backlinks for my sites. I’m guilty of doing it all: article writing, bookmarking, blog commenting, profile links and all the rest. It just pisses me off because it’s a waste of my time and talent that could be spent doing something that’s actually productive and worthwhile, like designing a new website template or writing content.

Now, excuse me while I go bookmark this blog post on Delicious :)

This is the data showing all referrals, INCLUDING search engines. As you can see, Yahoo Answers accounted for 9,408 visits from January 1st to today (November 19th) with a sweet 17.8% bounce rate. Yes, those were worthy visitors!

Yahoo Answers gave us a 0.49% conversion rate. Considering that a “conversion” is when someone signs up with our company, and we make around $1,000 per month in royalties from their services, that’s a welcome return from a totally free service that costs us nothing to advertise on.

Just imagine if you were pulling in this volume on an “easier” business, like a retail site, or any website where you sold products instead of services.

Here’s the even more impressive chart:

It’s the same data as before, but for “referring sites” only, with search engines excluded. In this case, Yahoo Answers was #1. #1 by far. It beat out our #2 referrer, a company-owned mini-site (of which I’ve blurred), which had 3,000 fewer visits than Yahoo Answers. Yahoo Answers even beat our Wikipedia page (yes, our company has our own dedicated page on Wikipedia).

There’s one really important and quite possibly shocking aspect I need to mention: nobody here at corporate does anything whatsoever on Yahoo Answers. Just imagine if we had a team of people who used it daily and promoted our company. These results have happened with no effort whatsoever! Of course, my company has an established brand name and we get a good 7,000 web hits per day. It helps when your brand name is known well enough to prompt people to go somewhere on the internet and ask “Is Product X worth it?” or “What do you think of Product X?”

How to Use Yahoo Answers Effectively

For the at-home entrepreneur or affiliate marketer, it would be lunacy not to use Yahoo Answers to promote your site. Just please don’t be an idiot. If you leave a response like “click here:” and include your link, you’ll look like a jerk and you’ll make your intentions blatantly obvious. Respond with a good 5-6 sentence paragraph and be helpful. Then, offer your link in the “source” box, and move on to another question. You’ll need to be level 2 in order for your hyperlinks to show up on Yahoo Answers; otherwise, they’ll be worthless text links. With that being said, “level yourself up” by answering questions each day (you can only do so many before you fill your daily quota). It’s worth your time.

Once you have the ability to leave some real hyperlinks behind, you’re set. The more helpful you are, the better your chances are of getting a thumbs-up, or even better: voted “Best Answer.”

There’s one main reason why you’ll want to get voted as the “Best Answer.” Your post gets cemented to the top of that Yahoo Answers page forever. All Yahoo Answers pages get locked after a certain time limit – so, you can get a permanent backlink (or “free advertisement”) to your website on Yahoo Answers. It’s NoFollow, but any internet marketer who has a brain knows that NoFollow links are totally fine. Besides, the traffic you’ll funnel from a high-ranking Yahoo Answers page is worth its weight in gold.

Think of it this way: someone asks “Is Product X worth it?” You happen to be there to answer the question before its time limit is up. You write a super-helpful blurb about how “Product X” is worth it, using relevant keywords for on-page optimization of that Yahoo Answers page, without sounding spammy. You’re the only one on that page who submitted anything other than some crappy 5-word answer. Then, you insert a link under your review, and submit it. Awhile later, you return to see that you’ve been voted “Best Answer.” The page itself is locked, and nobody else can leave replies. A year later, “Product X” becomes all-the-rage again. That old Yahoo Answers page named “Is Product X worth it?” is already on Google page 1 for the phrase “product x.” People click it, and the first thing they see is your review and link.

It’s money in the bank.

For starters, this is a paid program. The good news is that it’s merely $5 per month, and you’ll get an email with a few handfuls of sites in which you can register on and point a link to your site from. To get the first month free, be sure to register through Warrior Forums post on Angela’s Backlinks rather than doing so directly though Angela’s website. When you register, you’ll have to wait until you’re manually added into the program, and sent your first packet.

When it finally arrives, you’ll get a few links that point to direct-download ZIP files, containing a description of the method, with screenshots of this month’s websites. The screenshots show you exactly where you have to go to create your account and set a backlink. Before you do anything, however, you’re warned not to be spammy. I think we all know that a fraction of everyone using this method are going to completely ignore that message and do whatever the hell they want, regardless (and they do).

How Angela’s Backlinks works

Some of the websites included in Angela’s Backlinks packets require a simple free membership account to be created, and your link to be included within the “My homepage” field. Other accounts give you a free blog with your account, which is where you can include a good 200-word post and a keyword-loaded link to your site. Lastly, other sites have forums where you can simply include a link to your website in your forum signature (you don’t have to write a post for it to work – just the link being there is enough).

I started off with five of these sites before I called it quits for the day, then followed up by pinging the profiles I’ve created — this was not in the directions for Angela’s Backlinks, but something I took upon myself to do. Since I have an affiliate site that has been suffering for two years in regard to ranking for a particular three word keyword, I was more than willing to try out Angela’s method and see what it can really do.

Where does Angela get these links from?

It’s probably not rocket science. I’m sure that all she does is search the web for terms like “Create an account” or “Register,” and make a list of sites that have the highest PR. In fact, I can bet you money that this is what she does. It’s really something you can do on your own for free, unless you’re incredibly lazy and are willing to shell out $5 for someone else to do it for you.

Do I have faith in backlinks pointing to my site from free member profiles? Hell no. Are these valid PR6 adn PR7 backlinks? Let’s be real. They’re gray-bar PR (that’s less than PR 0). The home pages of these sites are PR6 and 7, but that’s neither here nor there. Angela herself claims to have made page 1 of Google for highly-competitive keywords using this method…not to mention, the endless forum posts that have actually praised their own results…so, who the hell am I to say it doesn’t work! I can’t argue with results.

As with any backlinking campaign, you won’t be seeing results instantly. Monitor them over the course of a month, and take note of how many SERP positions you’ve jumped. One testimonial claims to have gone from SERP #100 to the 20′s after thirty backlinks from Angela’s Backlinks packages.

Think About What’s Happening Here…

Something about Angela’s Backlinks sets off my spidey senses. There’s no way that this method will last forever – I think that deep down inside, we all know that. Google is far too smart these days, and there’s no doubt that if you had a room full of Google engineers and muttered the words “Angela’s Backlinks,” you’d get immediate facial expressions. Many have claimed this method to be “grayhat”, and I agree. It’s the act of creating accounts for the sole purpose getting a backlink, and never returning again. It’s annoying to website and forum owners. It annoys me when people do it to me. How does that differ from spam bots who mass-target vBulletin forums? It doesn’t. That’s why I don’t envision this method lasting long.

It’s not without saying that the method is already popular. Here’s a similar article on SEOmoz that also describes the process. I’ve even attended a presentation at SMX East this fall, where a speaker explained a concept called “barnacle SEO,” which involves getting 3rd party sites to “glue themselves” to page 1 of a Google result that include backlinks to your site.

One thing I’ve noticed about Angela’s Backlinks is that you’ll have to act fast when her packets are delivered to you. I’d say that 40-50% of the sites in her packets catch on to what’s happening (most likely, these poor webmasters are seeing that they are getting inexplicable “spikes” in their registrations) and will turn on manually-approved registrations, or remove their blog or “my website” fields in user profiles.

Regardless, enjoy it while it lasts. I can’t see how it can result in a Google penalty; if anything, these links will most likely water down to nothingness with a new Google update.

This is a great tool to use for doing anything from setting up UK-based affiliate sites, to writing UK-targeted articles or even registering .co.uk domain names.

Note that if you’re a Yank, you’ll want to research keywords in British syntax (i.e., “favour” instead of “favor”). You can research both variations and note the differences…it could provide some interesting results.

We can only hope that Google will create this tool for more countries and regions; so far, there’s only one for the US and for UK. If you need to do additional keyword research in other countries, you’re pretty much stuck beyond using Google Insights for Search. It’s nowhere near as in-depth in terms of keyword results as the Keyword Tool, but it will be a big help in providing insight into rising search terms in practically any country of the world that uses the internet.

There’s one thing I’ve been noticing for service-based businesses: they tend to convert at a much higher rate on Yahoo than on Google. Why? My last job was in the legal field, and conversions were being tracked through a sales CRM system, as well as Google Analytics. It turned out that our organic and paid traffic from Yahoo converted twice as much as it did in Google. My current job is in the education industry, and has identical results: an average day will bring about 70 Google conversions, and about 120 Yahoo conversions.

Why Doesn’t Everyone Default to Google?

There can be several reasons that show why this happens. Who is your audience? What is their demographic (especially age and gender)? Remember how new laptops and desktops came pre-loaded with garbage-ware, and internet browsers that point to MSN.com as their home page? People have been subjected to that for years. Perhaps they never bothered to learn how to change their default home page in a browser, and have simply gotten used to MSN.com as the years went by, making it be their top choice.

The same for Yahoo – it was everyone’s website of choice in the 1990s, B.G. (Before Google). It became a household name. Just like how I still use Mapquest instead of Google Maps — regardless of the fact that Google Maps is better — I’m a stubborn brand-loyal Mapquest user. Hell, I used to have a co-worker who only used Dogpile for her search engine. Why?! Who the hell knows.

If your audience consists of parents, the elderly, or others who aren’t hip to the modern-day internet, the chances are that they’re still using a lesser-visited browser platform, too. There’s only one way to find out, and that’s by tracking conversions using the trio of Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft AdCenter. Remember, a conversion is any action you specify – it doesn’t have to be a “unit sold.” It can be a forum registration, a visit to a specific page, or a download of a file or PDF. Set this parameter, let a month or two go by, and see which search engine is converting for you.

Personally, I feel that many internet marketers use Google to see what their competition is up to, virtually ignoring the other two biggies. Beat them to it, and go for the easier goal of getting at the top of a Yahoo or Bing SERP. After all, selling more products sure beats getting more worthless page visits.

An interesting topic coined “barnacle SEO” discussed using websites that “cement themselves” to Google page 1 SERPs: mainly sites like Merchant Circle, Superpages, Yahoo Local and others. By optimizing (and even promoting these pages) through traditional SEO and backlinks, you can ensure multiple page 1 Google listings for a brick-and-mortar business, since they will all act like legitimate doorway pages pointing back to you.

This further emphasized how important it is to embrace local marketing. It’s a relatively new feature with low competition, and an easy way to dominate search engine rankings for local searches including “[keyword] city,” “[keyword] zipcode,” “[keyword] town,” etc. Of course, this is entirely worthless if you’re an affiliate marketer, or are working solely on the web without an actual office space that has its own street address.

Another hot topic was the new canonical tag, which is supported only by Google at the moment. This tag allows you to indicate which page should get the initial “credit” amongst others that are using duplicate content. It’s a must-use tag if you’re copying and pasting a press release on multiple websites. Engineers for Google, Yahoo and Bing were present to answer questions. Google released an early statement that the canonical tag would not be recognized across different domain names after an angry venting from an audience member, which prompted room-wide applause.

Exhibitors, for the most part, were search engine marketing and link building firms. Notable firms (at least to me) who’ve shown up were Moniker.com, PRWeb, Website Magazine and last but not least – Microsoft sent a small Bing team to increase awareness for the new search engine…definitely one of the more notable website releases for 2009.

My day concluded after attending a keynote presentation from Ben Huh (the guy who created the whole “I Can Has Cheezburger” meme). As much as I personally cannot stand that website, you have to have nothing but extreme respect for Ben. He achieved what we all have wanted to do our whole professional lives: invent a subculture and a website that has created a permanent mark on internet culture. Best yet, as he motioned, the content is user-generated and virtually requires nothing more than managerial babysitting. As with most successful people, I am fascinated by tales of their failures before the huge success had ever happened: he mentioned his highs and lows, credit card debt issue, business mistakes, and eventually, the turn-around that led to a massively visited site with a huge amount of advertising and merchandising revenue.

Overall, SMX is a great show to attend. If you ever plan on going, be sure to attend the seminars. I was really happy to see that the general theme was for intermediate to advanced SEOs and internet marketers, cutting out all of the mindless newbie stuff that we already know. The lectures in the main expo hall are mostly self-promotional, with little value for those not looking to buy a new SEM service, though. This certainly is not a cheap show to attend, with one ticket costing around $650 – make sure your company can flip the bill next year!

Think about link building for a minute. How often do you link to someone else’s site with a dofollow link just for the hell of it? Not very often, because you’re probably into internet marketing to some degree, and you probably have the “what’s in it for me” and “this guy’s just going to get my visitors and ad clicks” attitude…that’s ok, it’s only normal.

However, I’m willing to bet that you wouldn’t think twice about linking to a .edu or .gov site, because you know the process that they had to go through to get that extension, and that they are the “real deal.” You also have no regret in doing so, because these two extensions include non-profit sites, and your instinctive selfishness as a marketer doesn’t kick in due to that fact. The point I’m making here is not accusative, but is a general consensus: lots of webmasters link to these sites, that’s just the way it is. Regardless of if they say “last updated: June 1995″ and adorn their page with 15 point Times New Roman with a gray backdrop, they probably get steady traffic, and a degree of search engine praise. We all know about those old .edu’s that seem to be cemented at the top of a Google page 1 search result…it’s in your best interest to get your link onto one of those! Forget about page rank for a second…we’re talking about a residual traffic source here.

How I Got an .EDU Backlink

First of all, this might eliminate most of you, but your site should deal with a topic that is related to something that can be found on a .edu or .gov. If your site is about something in the legal, medical, agricultural field or likewise: you’re in luck. There are plenty of .edu’s and .gov’s on these topics. You’ll have to find one that has an “additional resources” or “related links” page. That’s where your chances of getting listed are best. It’s how I did it with one of my project sites, which was in the legal field.

If you’re attempting to get a backlink to an affiliate or other sales site, you might not even stand a chance: educators and webmasters of these high-caliber sites are not going to want to help you sell books or other trinkets. They want to provide their visitors with high quality, helpful educational resources. Make sure that’s what you have.

This is what you have to do:

1. Think of the keyword you want to rank for. Don’t think long-tail…this is all about short-tail, difficult-to-rank-for stuff. For instance, how about “physical therapy.” It’s an impossible term to rank for, but it sure would be nice to get a backlink for it from an authority site if you have an all-encompassing physical therapy-related site. Make sure your home page is professional and easy to navigate. Be ready to show off examples of masterfully-written articles in clear, concise and professional language that are ad-free.
2. Find a .edu or .gov site that has a section where they link to other related sites, and email the webmaster.
3. Mention that you have a recommendation for their external links/resources page, and offer yours. If you’re brazen enough, simply give them your home page link – that’s the real money backlink to have. Also, offer a few sub-pages for examples as to why this site would be a good inclusion. Make sure your email sounds professional, since the person who receives it is either going to be a professor of some kind, or a government employee. If you sound sincere and un-salesman like, you just might get accepted, and see a shiny new backlink from one of these sites.

If you do happen to get the backlink, then congrats! You’ve gotten a trophy achievement in backlinking. From that point in, simply monitor the traffic coming in from this resource. Personally, I have gotten up to an additional 20 hits per day from one particular .edu site. It’s not shabby at all, and I have even begun to rank for a major 2-keyword term that keeps rising as the months go by (I don’t attribute it solely to getting an .edu backlink, but I certainly was “put on the radar” after I got that backlink!)

Why .EDU Backlinks Are Awesome

Before, I mentioned that .EDU and .GOV backlinks aren’t God, by any means. They might not count more than some regular old link from any other extension. However, what they will give is residual traffic. Most of these .EDU’s are getting Google page 1 treatment. Think of a traffic funnel – these old, crappy sites are passing on visitors to whomever else they’re linking to (which could be you). In this case, it’s all about being seen. Maybe you will never get the rankings these .EDU’s have gotten, but it’s sure nice to get some of their trickle-down traffic.