Newbie forewarning: most, if not all of these sites are “nofollow.” Note that this shouldn’t be a deterrent in any way, as “links are links” and they all contribute to your site’s success, especially in a world where social is influencing SERPs! More recognition (and a constant stream of it) is what you’ll be looking for these days in the world of social SEO evolution.

Note that this is not a list of all bookmarking services with buttons – just the ones that don’t suck and are worth your consideration!

Social Networking & Bookmarking Buttons for General Topics

Facebook Like button: The new “like” continues to be liked itself amongst the webmaster community. Simply insert some simple code on your site with the iconic “Like” button, and it will get sent straight to someone’s Facebook page feed when clicked. Facebook’s opportunity doesn’t have to be explained these days; therefore, it’s not something to ignore. I’ll always feel that Facebook Like works best on universally “interesting” articles, especially if it’s humorous.

• Use it if: Who doesn’t have a Facebook account these days? Hell, just use it, period! Facebook is on fire right now, and the “Like” script is unobtrusive. The audience is so huge, that it includes tons of interest level subsets. It can’t hurt to try it out!
• Solid alternatives: MySpace Share, Twitter Retweet button

Twitter Retweet button: Still a valid way to share, Twitter seems to be getting overwhelmed by the fact that Facebook serves the same purpose in a more engaging way. Regardless, it’s still a big platform that can give your articles a great deal of exposure if seen to the right user(s). Thanks to things like hash tags, your article can get further exposure based on what category it’s hashed under. Twitter continues to be one of the big three (Twitter, Facebook, Youtube) in the realm of social media analytics and sentiment analysis.

• Use it if: …you use Twitter as a part of your branding strategy. Since you’re on the site a lot, it would be a good idea to tie this functionality into your articles so that you can not only get more Twitter exposure, but more followers as well.
• Solid alternatives:  Facebook Like button

Google Buzz button: You may or may have not used it already, but it’s kind of like a social networking mash-up. Think of it as having the mobile “where in the world am I?” geo-targeting of Foursquare or GoWalla, combined with the front page feed of Facebook. It’s mostly used by tech geeks and lesser known by anyone else at this point in time. People who use the Droid and other Google-sponsored phones may have the Buzz app on it. Do individuals’ Buzz results show up in SERPs? No…at least, not at present. Technically, Buzzes go to a “user account” rather than a public web page like other popular social bookmarking sites. However, they can go viral, and Buzz is a perfect example of a ‘trust marketing’ tool, as people are recommending links to their friends (of whom trust their judgment). Don’t believe it? Just look at the Google Buzz activity that Mashable.com’s articles get.

• Use it if: …you have a lot of internet geeks, marketers or otherwise who visit your blog. Presently, they’re one of the biggest user bases of Buzz until the program becomes more publicly accepted.
• Solid alternatives: Google Wave This

Digg “Digg This” button: This site constantly evolves, and continues to be the quintessential news sharing site. Digg traditionally shines for articles that reveal something new (the newest smartphone dissected, a new planet or dinosaur fossil found, a political blunder, a bizarre tradition, etc.) or otherwise incredibly interesting or off-beat. Digg and especially the Digg community have gotten harsher on backlink-hungry webmasters than ever before – expect your submissions to be “buried” if they point to affiliate sites or promotional pages.

• Use it if: …your site deals with occult, interesting, amazing or unique situations in article or picture format, feature a Digg button on the upper left of each article page.
• Solid alternatives: Mixx button, Reddit button, Yahoo Buzz Up button, Slashdot bookmarklet, Newsvine seed
• Second string alternatives: Kirtsy This button, Propeller bookmarklet

Delicious.com “Bookmark on Delicious” link: A lot has changed beyond the old URL it was once known for (del.ico.us). It has become a major player in the social sharing world and is even used as a top social tracking metric in social analytics. Delicious is a top choice for personal bookmarking, too. It makes it easy to ‘tag’ and associate links with a nearly limitless number of tags that are limited to your imagination – a great way to classify a link with a long-tail niche term (you can use pluses or minuses in place of spaces between words in a keyword). Hey, if giant sites like Flickr use it throughout their entire site, it must be worthy.

• Use it if: …you don’t know what other bookmarking service “fits” for your site. A lot of people use Delicious, and it’s a safe blanket-bookmarking service to rely on.
• Solid alternatives: Diigo button (formerly Furl.net)
• Second string alternatives: Faves.com Fave It

StumbleUpon Submit button:  In terms of worthiness, StumbleUpon has been one of the most controversial sites amongst webmasters. Many favor the rolling bursts of traffic that it can foster, while others ridicule its inability to be part of a solid backlinking strategy due to its short-term or one-time-only results. Regardless, it’s a huge site with a community of “Stumblers” who can bring attention to your page, video or picture. The StumbleUpon button “stumbles” your site, or gives it a notch, increasing the chances of it being seen via random stumble within its category. Stumbles build an inertia-like momentum; the more stumbles you get, the more probability your site will show up at random to site users.

• Use it if: …your user base mainly includes bored people looking to kill time – StumbleUpon is a great time killer for people looking to discover new things. If your site is interesting enough to fit the bill, it might be a good match with a StumbleUpon Submit button. Note: I almost considered not putting StumbleUpon on this list due to the more-than-likely chance of a short term traffic burst,  but results may vary.

Social Networking & Bookmarking Buttons for Niche Topics

LinkedIn Share button (WordPress only!): Regardless if you use it or not, LinkedIn has still positioned itself as the “Facebook for professionals,” and is more notably being used by recruiters sick of bad Monster.com or CareerBuilder applicants flooding their inbox. It’s also a place where people create and join groups relevant to their background or profession; in essence, a site of niche businesspeople. This button will let LinkedIn users share your page with their entire network.

• Use it if: …your site is a job networking or job seeking site, LinkedIn Share is an obvious fit in either case.

Sphinn “Sphinn It” button: Got a site dealing with internet marketing, SEO, SEM or online business strategy? This community is dedicated to these topics, and is frequented by marketers looking for quality advice. It’s a place to get noticed for all of the hard work you’ve put into that SEO hypothesis, those flowcharts proving some kind of point about online marketing trends, or anything else that would be of extreme interest to an online marketer.

• Use it if: …your blog is primarily about internet marketing and/or any of its facets, and you write meaningful, content-rich articles that serve as valid resources.

Tip’d “Tip It” button: It’s a social bookmarking site for financial news only: the Tip It button will give your article a notch on the site, hopefully pushing your article more toward the top (think of it as a financial Digg). The best part about Tip’d is that it caters to the topics that tend to never do well on other social sites: primarily, those about law and accounting or economics.

• Use it if: …your articles pertain to topics in the fields of law, investing, real estate or economics.

Fark “Fark It” button: Fark’s purpose is to draw attention to various articles of interest elsewhere on the internet, as chosen by its site users. Sites that get the green light will make it to the front page, which is a high visibility area that may result in the dreaded “Digg Effect” of server congestion. The Fark button is simple and doesn’t include a counter; however, it gives your page a vote to appear on Fark’s home page.

• Use it if: …your material is quirky, humorous or deals with “stupid news.” Make sure it’s a unique story you’ve pursued on your own, and not just a copy of something else.

N4G News Tips link: N4G or “News For Gamers” is a social article site dedicated only to gaming-related news in the current day. The popularity of stories on N4G is signified in temperature-like “degrees.” Only the most popular articles of the day make it to the front page, out of hundreds of daily submissions.

• Use it if: …your run a video game news site dealing with game reviews or topics of interest only of today’s game releases.

Select a Button…and Run With It!

Using the guide above, choose which sharing button makes the most sense on your site.  If two prove to be a good fit, include both. Just think: many people who have Twitter also have Facebook, just like many people who use Buzz might also use Digg.

The best way to know a good combination is to look at the big sites that are already savvy on social networking: Mashable, Time.com, CNN. They’ve already done their research before making a final decision. Look at the big sites in your niche…what are they using?

If you’re a “regular” on any particular site, it would be insane not to use that site’s button on your pages. So, if you Mixx all the time and have built up an impressive profile and friend list, it would only make sense to use the Mixx It Up button on every page of your blog!

How About Those All-In-One Social Bookmark Services?

If you simply can’t or don’t want to pick one of those ‘everything in one’ buttons that create a rollover displaying multiple bookmark icons (i.e., ShareThis, AddThis, Social Marker, Add To Any, etc.) is a perfectly valid thing to do. Just beware of the fact that people are less likely to use a specific service in those buttons, and that many visitors hesitate to even use them at all. (Personally, I think ShareThis is the superior one amongst them all – it even has its own built-in analytics, and also an official ShareThis WordPress plugin).

In essence, this shows a pro and con of using specific buttons: they’re very convenient for people who use those particular services, but worthless for those who don’t.  On the flip side, all-in-one buttons are great because they include all of the popular services. However, many people are too lazy to use them, especially if they can’t find the service they use if it requires clicking the “more” link within the pop-up.

What’s the Best Place to Put a Social Bookmarking Button?

I think it’s safe to say that the most advantageous places to stick them are within the upper left corner of your body content, underneath the heading (considering you don’t already have an AdSense banner stuck there).

Otherwise, it’s commonplace to include it under the header, flushed left or right – your choice. A really bad place to include it would be away from the content, such as in the page header or in the sidebar – that wouldn’t make much sense at all.

Consider ending your article with yet another social bookmarking venue, rather than making your visitor scroll all the way up to the top to access it.

Perhaps certain bookmarking services do better under an article than above it? How about a quick way to have your visitors publish your link on their Facebook feed with a “Facebook Like” link right after your article’s conclusion, while the awesomeness of your article is still fresh in their mind and potentially of interest to their friends? These are the tests you should perform.

Whatever button ‘fits’ with your site should be considered an overall part of your site’s marketing strategy. It’s a tool that makes your site become easy to share on a specific social bookmarking service, as opposed to hoping your visitors will copy and paste the link into their account. Using the more relevant service will mean more pleasing results – do some due diligence and decide which one makes the most sense for your individual sites!

The instant I saw that email from the hacker, I immediately went into my FTP and simply selected all files within the account and deleted them, then pointed the domain name to my Parked domain parking account. What I saw afterward was pretty amazing.

The traffic was skyrocketing – the domain went from 1 hit per month to over 1,800 hits per day. How can this be? I jumped on a free backlink checker to find out. The result: my stagnant domain name, which had zero backlinks, now has 296 backlinks with anchor text ranging from “cash advance” to “Honda Accord parts” terms.

What the hacker originally did was to create spam threads on the forum, then create a virtual “linkwheel” by pointing links to those spam posts from other forums that he spammed. Obviously, the webmasters of those 200+ forums hadn’t noticed the spam threads he had created.

A good deal of these spam backlinks came from .es and .de forums that he hit. In turn, a vast majority of my traffic was coming from Spain and Germany as as a result. That sheds light on the value of backlinks from geo-targeted domain names and their rankings in those countries.

What I was really interested in was seeing a dip in traffic (I never thought I’d say that…). From its peak, the parked page was getting around 1,800 hits per day. Now, a little over a month later, it’s getting around 480-500 hits per day – all of which are from Spain.

Those worthless backlinks are still pulling in decent traffic; but unfortunately, it’s garbage traffic for topics that have nothing to do with the domain name. Still, it’s pulling in about a dollar a day in clicks – I suppose that’s the only bonus to this whole fiasco. The bad news, of course, is the fact that this is going to be a difficult mess to clean up when I want to actually make something of this domain name someday, and get it to rank for relevant keywords.

Beyond the obvious moral of the story, which is “don’t neglect forum upgrades unless you’re not serious about the forum,” the other one shows the desperate measures that hackers are taking to manipulate SEO. Hacking sites to get linkwheels pointed to backlinks from spammy forum posts? If they’re not automating these attacks, then they’re really wasting a lot of their own time.

On the flipside, a lot of forum admins out there aren’t doing their job!

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.

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.

A fairly simple 5-step process gets you through the basics of creating an account (no e-mail verification needed…nice!), adding backlinks to your site, RSS feeds and social networking accounts, including a blurb, and finally, creating a domain name (Check mine out at pixelrage.magntize.com for an example).

If you needed a way to post all of your contact information on one page in the fashion of a .TEL domain name, or if LinkedIn is too in-depth and inclusive for your purposes, then Magntize is a viable alternative.

The only thing I don’t like about this site is its name. Who on earth can remember how to spell “Magntize” without first trying “Magnetize”? Maybe I’m just being bitchy.

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.

I’m sure that most of the backlinking strategy and tutorial articles you’ve read all say the same thing: put your link in your forum signatures in forums that relate to your site topic, bookmark your sites, submit articles that point back to your site, post in blog comments and point to your site, build a following on Twitter and Facebook, etc. Guess what – practically none of this applies when you’re backlinking to your affiliate site. Why? Because all of these venues are filled with people like you – entrepreneurs, affiliate & internet marketers and domainers. Guess what, they are the first ones who are looking to steal niches and copy what you’re doing.

Antisocial Marketing

It could be that I’m overly paranoid (I am, and I admit it) – but I don’t want to put a link to my affiliate site anywhere near *any* location where an internet marketer is going to see it. The more you advertise your links in other places where internet marketers are, the more competition you’re going to create, since they will not only a) steal your niche, but b) steal your target keywords, c) do a reverse-backlink check of your site to see your linking strategy, and d) scrape and re-hash your content. Don’t believe me? Don’t put it past today’s internet marketers. They are simply ruthless and out to make yet another dollar per day.

Another ongoing fear is to put a link on a site within the same category where someone will look at it and say “holy crap! eBay has an affiliate program – people SELL these things on eBay? …and I can make commissions on this stuff?!” and you’ve just created yet another competitor-slash-BANS/PHPbay user. Yes, I have a sickening level of paranoia. What’s even worse is if this new competitor is someone who has many years of experience in the industry of the product you’re selling, and can provide better content than you can.

The only thing that matters the most right now in SEO, unfortunately, is link building. More links = better, it’s a simple equation. Descriptive anchor text is where it’s at. Since you will probably never get a high quality backlink for an affiliate site (just being a realist here), you’ll have to get oodles of low-quality ones to make up for it.

In affiliate marketing, you will want your site to rank for “selling point” long-tail keywords; the keywords that people type in while their credit card is out and are looking to buy immediately. The biggest mistake that I made in the beginning of my career is to rank for 2-word keywords, thinking that more traffic would equal more money. I was dead wrong. It just meant lots of web hits that amounted to no sales whatsoever. Start ranking for the keyword strings that a point-of-purchase customer is typing in, and you’ll be much more successful.

When it comes down to promoting an affiliate site, these are the tactics I’ve found to be the best strategy:

1. Free directory submissions: Most people hate them and complain that they provide no value, link juice or anything else. I beg to differ. I’ve gotten some very decent long-tail rankings which have brought in hundreds of dollars per month (no joke) just by submitting to dozens of free directories on a weekly basis, BY HAND. Yes, do it by hand and tweak it a little bit each time. Don’t point the same link to your site, it’s not going to help. In other words, one link should say “Discount widgets for less,” another says “The widget store” and yet another: “Widget sale.” Well, don’t use those annoying salesy terms, but think of something more professional…you get the idea. The main point is that search engines are seeing terms that all use a particular keyword in there, AS WELL AS synonyms of that keyword. That’s the one you’re looking to rank for, and these variations are all being inspected to cherry-pick that keyword.
2. Link building via social bookmarking: It’s a no-brainer. Bookmark every single affiliate store page to Delicious.com, use good tags with dashes in between them, dump your delicious account via the “export file” option and find other bookmarking services that accept delicious.com imports. Rinse and repeat, but use variations on the other bookmarking sites you use. I prefer to open up the delicious.com dump in a notepad file, and edit the titles a little bit, then submit the file. Once again, they key is to get ‘different backlinks’ that use the same general keyword. Do it over a period of a month – don’t bookmark all of your site’s pages at once on many sites at once, it will look spammy to search engines.
3. Strategic blog commenting: I don’t have to tell you this, but blogs almost always let you comment on posts by using a “name”, “website URL” and “email address.” Make your name be your site’s name, and your URL be your affiliate site. Write something useful and never, ever mention your site. The backlink is already there – it’s going to be your hyperlinked username. Newb warning: yes, it will be nofollow…but the day you learn that there’s nothing wrong with nofollow is the day you’ll be a better backlink builder :) When choosing blogs, look for ones in your product category that are very outdated with a blogger who is not very internet-savvy: believe me, there are many out there. The key is to sneak a link in the comment area of someone who is not going to know what affiliate marketing is, or probably even bother to click the link to your site.
4. Article writing: These will be the most powerful backlinks you’ll ever get. Write articles on Hubpages, Squidoo, EZine articles (be careful, it is an internet marketer’s hang-out), Blogspot, WordPress.com and other similar sites. If at all possible, set your account up so that it is isolated from the community as much as possible – don’t link out to others, don’t go crazy with tags, and don’t participate. This antisocial marketing approach minimizes the possibility of another internet marketer seeing what you’re doing and stealing your idea. Some webmasters like to top it all off with a nice ‘link wheel,’ which consists of building backlinks to your backlinks, which were originally pointing to your site.
5. Authority directory submission: I left this one for last, because it is expensive. It is possible to get an affiliate site listed in directories like Yahoo Directory, Best Of The Web and JoeAnt if you fit their guidelines – and all three of these are highly respected. This, of course, depends on your ability to swallow a hefty cost for the sole purpose of getting linked to from a good directory. The traffic will be nearly non-existent, but my personal strategy is “it’s all about the anchored backlinks,” not the residual traffic. When being listed on a directory, it helps to have a keyword term as a domain name. That way, you’re killing two birds with one stone: getting a backlink from a decent site, and getting a backlink that has the keyword you want to rank for (note that directories never let you have a listing that has anything except your website name as a backlink).

Remember one thing, the goal here is to advertise your affiliate site. Everything you’ve heard about social networking is a mute point – nobody is going to give half a crap about helping you promote your affiliate site. It simply will not be successful in a social marketing environment, unless you have some really wacky and interesting idea like a risque niche t-shirt site. All of the rules have changed. This strategy involves being unseen, and building backlinks in the shadows of the night.

Keep working at it and you’ll amass enough backlinks to get your sites ranked for helpful long-tail keywords, hopefully within pages 1-2 of major search engines after a year or two. Did I mention that most affiliate sales sites need a good couple years to start being successful? Patience is a virtue with affiliate marketing. Good luck with your stealth linkbuilding strategy – let me know if you have any other tips to add!

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.