I started to write this article because after 1 year of running a small forum community I realize is not a simple task to maintain a forum. In a way I had luck because I start with the right forum: SMF. I didn’t had any problem at software level (mods, security patches) because SMF Team is an very active team and the they have a great community. Anyway when we start talking about SEO then is other problem and I think this problem it is with all forums. A lot of this forums are not build with SEO in mind and if are forums build with SEO in mind they probably don’t have so much features.

Advices

Anyway advices from this article are applied on all forums and not only for SMF forum.

The greatest enemy of our forums are the “Supplemental Listings” from Google. I think it doesn’t exists a very well established forum without this “Supplemental Results” in Google index. Why this “Supplemental Listings” appear ? Are a lot of reasons why but most probably is because of duplicate and irrelevant content. Some advices to skip this problems:

1.Someone started the same thread on several forums if you detect that then you can choose what to do with this thread (move to recycle, delete or leave it.). Also if someone write an entire article on your forum just check with copyscape to see if this is already existing in Google index or not. If exists it is your decision if you keep that article or remove the entire thread. Also from time to time is good to check if your articles are in other forums/blogs and if you found them in other forums/blogs try to talk with the admin from there to remove them or to put a backlink to the original article.

2.Very short threads: If SE doesn’t find anything relevant on your thread then is possible to go in “Supplemental results”.

3.Your forum doesn’t have a good internal linking structure. Pay attention on every link on your forum and if are links to non relevant pages (login/registration/calendar) add a nofollow attribute to this anchor tags. In this way you will create a tight internal linking.

4.Get rid of session ID’s and use some url beautifiers for your forum. I don’t know if this exists for every forum but I know it exists for SMF (seo4smf)

5.Install a 301 redirect in your .htacess from your non-www to www or use google webmasters tools and set your preferred domain (just for google so is good to add a 301 redirect).

6.A lot of forums have a big problem … multiple links to the same article for example forum/index.php?topic=12&message=X, forum/index.php?topic=12&prevnext=next for all this links you need to have

Some people do affiliate marketing as their full time jobs. That’s it. That’s all they do – they market other people’s products or services, collect their commissions, and live their lives as they wish. They do not have to deal with customer service, shipping orders, or anything else. All they do is promote other people’s products or services, everyday.

Other people use affiliate programs in conjunction with their own products or services, using affiliate programs as front end products, upsells, and back end products. For example, if you had an information product about weight loss, you might want to market exercise equipment, exercise clothing, vitamins, or other items or services that are related to weight loss along with your weight loss information product – to increase your revenue.

Obviously you would not want to create these items, so you would find these related products or services, and sign up for the affiliate programs, allowing you to promote them. Some people even low cost information products, such as ebooks, in order to sell high ticket affiliate products or services. Alternately, some people just use inexpensive affiliate products to enhance their own high ticket products or continuity programs, such as membership sites.

Some people are confused about what affiliate marketing actually is. For instance, many people who have products and offer affiliate programs for those products might say that they sell their product through affiliate marketing. What they mean is that they have affiliates who sell the product for them, but they are actually merchants or affiliate managers, in affiliate marketing terms.

But basically, affiliate marketing is selling someone else’s products or services through various means, for various reasons – either to earn an income, to enhance a product, or even to sell an additional product. In fact, many people use low end affiliate products as lead ins, or entry level products, for higher end affiliate products – never actually creating or promoting a product or service of their own.

Is money being made? You better believe there is! If you include all products and services that are sold through affiliates, affiliate marketing is essentially a billion dollar industry, even though it isn’t technically considered an industry in its own right. Many people don’t even consider it a career, but they are mistaken.

Right now, at this very moment, there are thousands of affiliate marketers that you have never even heard of quietly promoting affiliate products and collecting huge commission checks every month. Why haven’t you heard of them? You haven’t heard of them because they are not in the Internet Marketing products market. They are in other ‘consumer’ niches, such as weight loss, healthcare, sports, gambling, education, financial products, etc.

Now, if you have an active interest in those things, or any other conceivable thing, you have probably searched for information or products related to your interest on the Internet. If this is the case, you have most likely come into contact with an affiliate marketer, without even being aware of it. You may have even purchased a product through an affiliate marketer without ever knowing it.

Even Google has an affiliate program. That’s what Google AdSense is all about. It’s an affiliate program, but it isn’t technically called that. EBay has an affiliate program, as does Microsoft. There is an affiliate program available for just about any product that you can imagine, but not all ‘brands’ have affiliate programs – which of course is their mistake.

Affiliate marketing presents a win-win-win situation. The owner or maker of the product being sold is making money. The affiliate marketer is making money, and the customer is getting what they want or need. Everybody wins. Affiliate marketing has been around longer than you think it has as well.

Many people think that affiliate marketing started sometime after the Internet came into existence. This is wrong. Amway, Avon, Mary Kay – all of these are essentially affiliate programs, but the people who were actually doing the affiliate marketing were called distributors or representatives – and they are still called distributors or representatives to this day.

Affiliate marketing can even entail network marketing. Affiliate marketing is the act of selling a product for a commission. Network marketing also involves selling a product for a commission, but also focuses on bringing other resellers (or affiliate marketers, distributors or representatives) into the program as well. Sometimes, however, affiliate marketing also allows and encourages you to bring other affiliate marketers into the program.

One of my favorite types of affiliate marketing is known as CPA or CPL, which stands for cost per action or cost per lead. CPA is simply getting paid to have your visiting traffic to perform an action such as leave a name and email address. That is called a lead or action, when a name and email address or other information is collected. sometimes other actions such as signing up for a free trial or leaving a zip code is enough for the merchant to give you a profit. This profit can be anywhere from $1 to $50 or more for a single action that does not always need to be a purchase.

Again, affiliate marketing is different things to different people, but the goal is the same – to make money. Affiliate marketing offers you the opportunity and ability to make money without creating a product of your own.

PPC Doesn’t Always Work

PPC doesn’t always work for affiliate marketing. First, you must be aware of the rules at the site where you are getting your PPC. For instance, Google has rules about promoting affiliate programs with Google AdWords PPC program.

Google does permit affiliate links in their AdWords, but they will only display one affiliate ad per search query, and this includes that of the parent company. They also will not allow links to replicated affiliate websites.

So, what you must consider here is that since there are other affiliates selling the same product you are selling, the chances of your ad actually being seen and clicked on are very slim. Second, if you have a replicated website for your affiliate programs, your ad won’t show at all – ever.

You must get more creative if you hope to profit from your affiliate programs using PPC. First, don’t use an affiliate link. Use your own link for your own domain, and send the visitor to your website first. You should also have them pass through a squeeze page first to collect their name and email address!

Start small with your PPC campaigns. Do your keyword research, and set yourself a budget. Work within that budget to test different ads. Also, avoid using long affiliate links. These links are obvious to people, and many people avoid them. Again, people do not like to be sold to.

Instead of using PPC to sell a product, use PPC to get qualified leads and to build a list. You will find that this is a much more economical and effective use of PPC in the long run. It may take just a little longer to make the sale, but if you are patient, you will earn more money than you would have otherwise.

Drive PPC Traffic To The Right Place

Even if you use a PPC company that does allow the use of replicated websites, or will show more than one affiliate ad at a time, where your ad does have more potential for being seen and clicked, it is important that you drive your PPC traffic to the right place.

Again, the squeeze page is essential, as this will help you build a quality list of qualified leads. Many successful marketers use PPC for this purpose and this purpose only. If you drive the traffic straight from the PPC ad to the affiliate link, you won’t have any way to contact that visitor in the future.

Further more, you will most likely be driving the visitor to a sales page that may or may not convert the visitor. It is better to bring the visitor to your site and prep them for the sale. By the time they click on your affiliate link, they should have their credit card in hand, ready to make a purchase. This typically won’t happen if they are going from Google Search to your affiliate sales page.

The majority of buyers do not start out with the intention to buy – this is especially true on the Internet. On the Internet, where everything is free (according to many people), what buyers are looking for is free information or help.

If you can provide these people with the free information that they are looking for, or free tools that help them with their problem, you’ve won half the battle. Now, you are building a relationship, and you will profit greatly from that relationship over time.

When setting up a PPC campaign, become the customer in your mind. What does the customer want or need? How can you provide them with this free of charge in order to build a relationship? At what point is the customer primed to buy?

Only you can answer these questions, based on your niche, but in answer to the last question, you can bet that in most cases, the customer is not ready to buy when they click on your PPC link! You’ve got to get them into your process, and groom them for the sale.

Affiliate marketing isn’t just a question of signing up and then using PPC to sell the product, no matter what you’ve read elsewhere. Again, it’s about building a relationship with your future customers, so that they become life long customers.

“This is why pay-per-click marketing is so important. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, it’s sometimes necessary to pay to play.”

It would be a mistake to think that affiliate marketing is a free enterprise. Once you set aside the costs for web hosting and possible web design, you don’t have many upfront costs. This is precisely the appeal of affiliate marketing, but it’s also a potential trap.

Some marketers may think that you can be a successful affiliate marketer with minimal economic investment. This isn’t true. The more money you put in, the more money you’re apt to bring in. This is why pay-per-click marketing is so important. In an increasingly competitive marketplace, it’s sometimes necessary to pay to play.

Pay Per Click Mistakes

There’s a good and bad way to go about pay per click marketing. The first thing you need to do is strategize. A mistake people make is relying too heavily on pay per click marketing, while not putting enough emphasis on ranking naturally.

Pay per click is sort of a quick fix, but what you really need to do is provide keyword-rich content on site, in addition to any marketing campaign. This is where strategy comes in — are you trying to double up pay per click with content or instead target pay per click content towards keyword searches that aren’t housed on site?

To reach that point you need to do some research. Find those keyword phrases that are most commonly inputted and which sites rank highest. Don’t be afraid to include some misspellings or odd word matchings as well, though these should be within the realm of reason.

You also have to match keywords aimed at people looking to make a purchase. So, for example, “affiliate program” is stronger than “affiliate information,” as the latter may just be looking for information, rather than to sign up for a program.

You also have to strengthen the landing page for keywords. Is the landing page relevant to the keyword? Are affiliate links easily located and appropriate? A big mistake affiliate marketers make is thinking all about the search engines, but not factoring in how that search relates to the site itself.

The main way to measure a pay per click campaign’s effectiveness is via site meter software. You need to check the exit pages in addition to the entrance pages — i.e., you need to see what makes people leave the site as well as what attracts them.

Another good piece of advice is don’t always go for the top bid. The placement of links differs for search engines, but really being in the top ten is where you should be aiming. In addition, you shouldn’t set a universal maximum bid, as some landing pages will yield a lower profit and won’t be able to make up the difference. Conversely, you can set up a high max bid for a profitable landing page.

Web hosting affiliate programs are some of the highest paying programs on the Internet. We rank the top web hosting affiliate programs and offer the best affiliate deals online. Earn easy money as a web hosting affiliate. Read our objective in-depth reviews and find the best web hosting affiliate program. Become an affiliate and start making money right away!

““In the poker niche, some poker sites pay you $300 for each player you recruit. Mortgage institutions may pay $75 for every lead, that is, your visitor doesn’t even have to take a loan for you to get paid.””

Gigantic marketplace at your reach

The internet as a marketplace is huge, and still it lies waiting in your computer. If you can reach just a tiny fraction of the world’s web visitors, you may see life-changing money rolling into your affiliate account.

Amazing but true!

No automatic success

Now, don’t quit your day job! Not every affiliate business is successful. Making a lot of money is never easy, plenty of hard work is required. Persistency, ambition, maybe a certain talent. Good ideas will help.

But people live from their affiliate businesses, and some affiliates are extremely successful. The people behind this site have been extremely successful. In this article we’ll show you how to make your affiliate business boom.

How it works

Starting up an affiliate business is very easy:

• Build a site, if you don’t already have one.
• Sign up with a few profitable affiliate programs that are related to your site.
• Link to the affiliate programs from your site using your personal tracking links.
• Generate traffic to your site
• Make your visitors want to buy the products of the affiliate programs.

That’s it. If you can do this, your visitors will click on the links and purchase products from the affiliate programs - and the commission goes right into your affiliate account.

How to find the best affiliate programs

The most profitable affiliate markets

According to our experience, the biggest paychecks are delivered to affiliates in the following affiliate markets:

• Poker
• Mortgage
• Education

In the poker niche, some poker sites pay you $300 CPA for each player you recruit. Mortgage institutions may pay $75 for every lead, that is, your visitor doesn’t even have to take a loan for you to get paid.

Merchants in these areas early realized the gain in paying others to do their marketing. Very high commissions have attracted lots of affiliates, and they have been very successful.

Sounds tempting? Check out our toplists and reviews in the poker, mortgage and education segments!

Tough competition in lucrative niches

If you don’t have a site, you need to decide which niche to work in. Choosing a niche involves several questions, such as which niche offers the biggest potential profits and which area you’re genuinely interested in.

Some affiliate markets turn over really big money, while others are much smaller. Making big money in a small niche isn’t a given, of course. On the other hand, very lucrative niches come with very hard competition.

Finding the most profitable niche might require pretty deep considerations. Some successful affiliates did put huge efforts into this analysis before even starting up (or buying) their site.

What makes you tick?

Don’t close your eyes to the importance of personal motivation. When the workload is huge and success comes in very small chunks, working in an area that you care for makes a difference. For most of us, love of money isn’t the prime mover.

It’s easier to promote things that you like.

Primary success factors - things you must do

Build a good site

Your site is your tool. When a person enters a site, you have only a couple of seconds to catch her. The site must be well organized and have the right look and feel in order to make visitors stay and take action.

Make sure that your site leads the visitors to the Buy button without hassle. Invite them to take action (such as making a purchase), and don’t let them off the hook once you have their interest. This is called conversion.

Taking action must be easy!

Create great content

Good looks aren’t enough. For your site to generate income, it needs to accomplish two things:

• Attract a lot of visitors (traffic)
• Make visitors purchase (conversion)

This is primarily done by filling your site with really good content and good usability. It should be relevant for the visitors, and it should encourage them to purchase from your merchants (marketing).

Search engine optimization

If you have chosen to attract mainly organic traffic, that is, through the search engines, the content also needs to be search engine optimized (SEO).

Rule the net with good SEO copy

Search engines pay more and more attention to text quality. Relevant and well-written text doesn’t only wins your readers’ heart, it helps you rank in Google and drives traffic to your site.

Write for your readers - and for Google. It’s called SEO copy.

Advertise and build traffic

Another way of attracting traffic is by paid ads and links. The main arena for this is called PPC (pay per click). You place an ad on another site and pays a small amount each time a visitor clicks on your ad.

The biggest PPC market for affiliates today is Google Adwords. You decide how much you’re willing to pay for each click and set a cap for your total spending - so there’s no risk for cost explosions. Some web hosts give away free Adwords checks when you place your site with them.

Notice that affiliate programs often limit where and how you’re allowed to advertise their products - they don’t want you to interfere with their own advertising.

Buying a site vs starting from scratch

For private persons and small businesses, the easiest and least expensive way to start a new affiliate business is to set up a new domain and build a site from scratch. It requires time and effort, but your capital investment can be close to zero.

If you have some resources and want things to happen fast, consider buying an existing site. Old sites may have a built-in credential with the search engines (page rank), and they may even have some traffic already. With the right actions, you can get an old site up in speed very fast.

Give luck a chance

So, that’s the short version of how to make big money as an affiliate. Successful affiliates can lead very nice lives, with lots of personal freedom and job satisfaction. Anyone with internet access can try their luck as an affiliate, but of course success is never certain.

One thing is certain though: you cannot succeed if you don’t try.

Trying is easy, and it costs almost nothing. If you try and fail, what’s the worst that can happen? This list shows the consequences of the worst case scenario:

• Nothing happens

As you can see, this is pretty much the same as if you don’t try =)

Top five affiliate programs

If you’ve decided to give it a go, why not check out the top five money-generating affiliate programs all categories? Maybe one of them is the starting point of your new career.

1. Full Tilt Poker - Super-strong brand with really great payouts
2. Poker Stars - Promote the best online poker site
3. Word Tracker - Top keyword software for affiliates
4. Webhosting Buzz - Fast growing business with unbeatable commissions
5. Text Link Ads - Really hot software for anyone with a website

haha. Simple but hard to do

that’s all.

Many website owners and SEOs (search engine optimizers) believe that trading links is the most effective way to build the hundreds of links necessary for good search-engine ranking. But there’s another way to build links that deserves your attention: content distribution.

A time-honored way of getting one-way inbound links to your website is to distribute content, usually articles, for other websites to publish in exchange for a backlink. Most often, the backlink is included in an “author’s resource box,” which is a brief “about the author” paragraph promoting the author’s site.

Content distribution has usually been thought of as a website promotion strategy rather than an SEO or link-building strategy. But there are good reasons for adding content distribution to your SEO toolkit.

SEO Benefits of Distributing Content vs. Reciprocal Linking Alone

• Links come faster. You send an email with your article to a relevant website owner. That’s it. No adding links to your site and then checking and re-checking for compliance. That means you can get more links from the time and resources you spend on link-building.  
• Links are not always available through reciprocal linking. Many website owners simply refuse to do reciprocal linking. Content distribution is one way to reach this large segment of website owners.  
• Links are one-way. Many SEO experts believe that reciprocal links may be “dampened” by the search engines; i.e., they will not help you rank as high as one-way links. Of course, reciprocal links are still valuable, there’s a just a question of how valuable they really are.  
• Links per page are fewer. Many SEO experts believe that the higher the number of links per page, the less SEO value each link has. When a website publishes an article, the author’s backlink is often the only live link to another website on that page.

Distinct Non-SEO Benefits of Distributing Content

What makes content distribution a truly special method of link building is that it’s the only method where the non-SEO benefits may even outweigh the SEO benefits:

 

• Website building. If you create special content for your link-building campaign, you can publish it on your site. As a general rule, the more content your site has, the more search engine traffic it will receive. Just publish the article and get it indexed in search engines before distributing it, which should help you to outrank your republishers in search engines for that same content.
• Traffic generation. The links in distributed content generate traffic in the form of highly qualified leads: people who liked what you had to say. Distributing content gets you traffic even when it doesn’t get you a link. If your article gets picked up by a large-circulation email newsletter, you will get a flood of highly qualified traffic.
• Authority. Distributing content is the only linking campaign method that can make the recipient website and its owners appear authoritative. There are thousands of internet gurus who owe their lucrative reputations entirely to the articles they’ve distributed.
• Mindshare. Distributing articles is the only linking campaign method that can help you spread an idea. This makes article distribution invaluable for launching new products or services.

Drawbacks of Content Distribution

Of course, nothing good ever came easy. Any website owners who are looking for SEO magic beans will be disappointed by content distribution:

 

• Desired anchor text is not always available. Unfortunately, the content management systems most widely in place today make it easier for website owners to accept content as text rather than HTML. This means that many website owners simply have their content management system convert a URL into a live link, rather than taking the time to code in the anchor text. Still, an experienced content distributor can usually find ways around this problem to make sure that many if not most of the links use anchor text.

• Results are variable. Content distribution is not quite as sure a thing as reciprocal linking. The site that publishes your article has to like not only your site, but also your article. This is especially true for the passively-generated links that come from content clearinghouse websites. But results can vary the other way, too: an article that catches on will yield more links than you ever could have gotten through the same investment in reciprocal linking. In order to minimize the risk of content not catching on with website owners, you should make sure your content is high-quality, and also plan for a large content distribution campaign: the more content you try, the more likely you are to find a winner.
• Requires significant investment. You need high-quality content, expertise in content distribution, and quite a few work-hours to distribute the content and track the results. Of course, the cost has to be weighed against the cost of reciprocal linking, which is also significant. These costs can be mitigated by outsourcing the entire process from soup to nuts to a content distribution specialist. Costs of outsourcing content distribution compare favorably with costs of outsourcing reciprocal link building.
• Requires special expertise. There are numerous newbie pitfalls to distributing content, from improperly formatting articles to writing a bad introductory email to accompany content submissions. You generally have to have done numerous campaigns to truly get the feel for it. Again, this requirement has to be weighed against the real-world requirement of special expertise in other link campaign methods. Again, this drawback can be mitigated by outsourcing your project to a specialist.

In short, there are benefits to both reciprocal linking and content distribution. All things being equal, you should use both. Still, content distribution is the only one method that carries substantial non-SEO benefits as well. Plus, a professionally managed content distribution campaign may even yield greater SEO results than reciprocal linking would for the same investment.

You owe it to yourself or your clients to add content distribution to your SEO-toolkit–before the owner of the next highest-ranking site finds out about it.

Sometimes overlooked, the Directory is a valuable resource in any link builders armoury and should not be underestimated. Directory submissions are a simple way of getting your preferred anchor text, along with some supporting content, placed on a large number of different sites.

Many directories are free to submit to, though there are often paid options should selected pages or featured links be requested, but a simple free link is still by far the most popular choice. The list of directories below are all free submission and are well worth adding your own sites to. Just select the category most suitable and add your information. These directories have always been quick to approve submissions to get your link working for you as soon as possible.

Link Directories

Method two :

Hopefully you already use most of these, but if only 5 of these tips get you a new link, that is 5 links you didn’t have yesterday!

Just FYI, the tip is bold, with examples linked underneath. Thanks to everyone who took time to build tools, write content, and generally be willing to help the SEO and SEM communities. A special thanks to Andy Hagans and Aaron Wall, who wrote the 2006 version.

All links open in current window, so bookmark this page.

On-Site Content Creation

Content creation is without a doubt my favorite way of creating great backlinks. The reason these links are great is that you don’t have to ask for them or buy them, they come naturally, are defensible, and last indefinitely.

1. Write an authority article. (Without a doubt the best way to gain deep links.)
101 Ways to Build Link Popularity in 2006
40 SEM 2006 Predictions
Why that site with 50 backlinks beats your site with 1000 backlinks
10 Mistakes that Will KILL a Forum

2. Write great linkbait. (This is the ultimate for 2007.)
The Link Baiting Playbook: Hooks Revisited
Andy Hagan’s Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and Social Media Marketing
How To: Linkbait Your Blog

3. Use numbers in your titles. (People like numbers.)
5 Tips to Increasing Blog Traffic
3 Solid Gmail Productivity Tips
Put Your Best Foot Forward: 19 Gorgeous Website Footers
Top 10 Link Popularity Services

4. Spend 10 hours and put together a huge list. (The link value will be worth the effort.)
Huge List of 390 Search Marketing Blogs

5. Say nice things about people who link out. (My momma always said, “If you can’t say anything nice, you won’t get links.”)
WBP Testimonials
Thanks Jim Boykin
Back from Boston Pubcon

6. Start something crazy like “Blogtipping”. (Good job Easton! Blogtipping has been around for about 6 months and has almost 200k results in Google.)
Blogtipping @ Google
Blogtipping - The Beginning

7. Offer awesome resources, free. (Everyone likes, and links to free.)
Free Vector Web Page Elements
WBP Free Internet Marketing and SEO Tools
Internet Marketing and SEO Tools Compiled
Free Vector Stuff

8. Spellcheck everything, twice. (I plead guitly guilty.)

9. Link to others, and they’ll link back. (Most of the time right?)
Speedlinking at Technorati
Speedlinking by Problogger
Speedlinking by Dane Carlson
Pay it Forward Tuesday

10. Design an award worthy blog or website. (Not just a site you like, a site everyone likes.)
CSS Beauty
CSS Zen Garden

11. Create a contest in your niche. (These don’t have to be SEO related.)
Nigritude Ultramarine
v7ndotcom elursrebmem
Dave Pasternack

12. Say something stupid. (Jeremy did it best.)
SearchEngineJournal doesn’t link?
The Top Ten Most Practical Superpowers

13. Write a complete “How To” resource. (They get dugg frequently.)
How To: Make a Killer Photo using 8 Simple Composition Rules
How To: Achieve the Perfect Post Frequency
How To: Evaluate If The Free Laptops and Plasma TVs Giveaways Are Scams
How To: Theming your Ubuntu desktop
How To: Comment to the Top

14. Release a Firefox extension. (Make sure you support it.)
Performancing Firefox
FoxyTunes
Google Pagerank Status

15. Interview your industries experts. (Make it easy and quick for them.)
Interview with Google’s Matt Cutts about Next-Generation Search
Five Link Development Experts: A Group Interview

Off-Site Content Creation

16. Presell and content pages. (My content page on your site.)
PreSell Pages - Striving for the Perfect Link
Pre Sell Pages - a Better Way to Rent Sitewide Links
Pre Sell Pages vs Site Wide Links
A Positive Step Forward in Link Strategies

17. Write and submit articles. (Don’t forget your byline link.)
“5 ways to use your Business Cards more effectively” (514 Google results)
EzineArticles
GoArticles
iSnare

18. Submit articles to specialized sites. (Big sites in your niche, ESPN, SEJ, Scrapbook.com, etc.)
Sometimes these sites will pick up your article and feature your link in the byline.

19. Write and submit a press release. (Don’t forget your byline link.)
Optimizing press releases
PR Newswire Testing SEO Press Releases
Next Level SEO: Press Release Optimization
Benefits of an SEO Press Release

20. Offer to be a guest blogger. (Almost anyone is up for free content.)
How to be a Good Guest Blogger
How to Get Guest Blogging Jobs

Spending Money to Build Links

Spending money isn’t anything new for 2007, but it can still be effective.

21. Buy under the radar direct links. (You can email website owners asking to buy links.)

22. Buy in-content links on old pages. (Ask to buy a certain word on a certain page, make it simple for the owner.)

23. Buy old sites and link to your site. (Can be expensive.)
Screw the Sandbox - Buy an old site
Today is the Right Time to Buy Old Sites…

24. Pay for a sponsored post. (I usually pay $5-50+ for a small footer link in a post.)
Top 10 Reasons Why Proposals Fail
Looking for a VPS

25. Buy direct directory listings. (Some directories are better than others.)
Yahoo! Directory ($299/yr)
Business.com ($199/yr)
StartingPoint ($99/yr)
Best of the Web ($69/yr or $199 one time)
Joe Ant ($39/yr)
Aviva Directory ($50/yr or $75 one time)

26. Pay for bulk directory submission. (You can find people willing to submit your site at forums usually for less than $20 to 400 directories.)

27. Trade something for a link. (Often times you can buy an office staff pizza on Friday in exchange for a link on their website. Or maybe you can sponsor an office contest or promotion in exchange for publicity on their website.)
Buy, Borrow, Beg, and Barter: Techniques for Link Development

28. Pay a link builder. (This will involve substantial cost and results aren’t guaranteed.)
WeBuildPages
Todd Malicoat
Andy Hagans
Eric Ward

29. Send your product to potential reviewers at no cost to them. (I wrote a review for a flash drive that had military grade encryption because they sent me a 512 kb model.)

Finding Free Links

30. Post your link in forums. (Use footer links on forums that allow links.)
DigitalPoint Forums
Webmaster Talk
SEOChat

31. Post your feed in forums. (Many vBulletin forums show your latest post (on your blog) by your name, in your “User CP>Options scroll down to the bottom and put your feed address in.)
DigitalPoint Forums
Webmaster Talk
SEOChat

32. Comment on blogs. (Pick a reasonable number, and try to post that many every day.)

33. Submit to generic directories. (Directories without major branding.)
Easy Google Search
DirectorySEO
Fresh Directory

34. Submit to the big free directories. (Everyone’s invited here.)
DMOZ
HAABAA
Ezilion
AddURL

35. Ask for a link. (You’d better have a good resource, or be the authority in your niche.)

36. Sign guestbooks. (I know this just reminds you of Geocities, but there are thousands of guestbooks on sites with PR that are abandoned. Go get yourself a free link.)
Free Template guestbook

37. Find out where your articles are shown, and offer exclusive content. (This only works when real sites, not article-only sites, pick up your article. Explain why an exclusive piece would benefit them.)

38. Ask friends to read a new post, and reference it if they like it. (This can go over really well if you are well connected.)
New blog recommendation
Blog Recommendation
Blog Recommendation - The Housing Bubble Blog

39. Leave a testimonial. (Do it for every product you use, be specific when necessary.)
Testimonial Generator (just a joke, write your own…lazy.)

40. Support a non-profit website/company. (Make sure they have a website and will link you first.)

41. Build a website for a non-profit organization. (I’ve built 3 non-profit websites. You might also get paid for this work.)
The Resource Partnership (link at bottom)
South Shore Conservatory (designer didn’t link himself!)
American Vaulting Association (link at bottom)
IRCPS (link on left sidebar)

42. Form partnerships with online “friends”. (I have 6 people on my gmail chat list that I chat with regularly, I don’t mind asking for a link to a new site, or a great post. In exchange, I Digg their articles, post links to their good articles, etc.)

43. Create an awesome tool. (This is just one example of the many free tools out there)
Mom’s Salary Wizard (PR6, over 100k links to this page alone.)

44. Send targeted emails. (Make sure the first email asks a question, or helps them. Then ask for a link.)

45. Create a Del.icio.us account and start tagging. (Del.icio.us Popular Pages can send as much traffic as Digg.)
My new Del.icio.us page

46. Talk to manufacturers or retailers that you buy from about linking to you. (This could work with #36, leave them a testimonial.)

47. Post a listing on Craigslist. (Posts below are pretty spammy but do have links.)
Grand Opening Sale!!! Modern style furniture, Sofa, Platform beds…
ResumeOutlet.com - Resume Writing Service for Sale (Website + Domain) - $3000
2005 Chevrolet Impala Sedan! Like New! Pic! Look! - $13999

48. Post a helpful post with a link at Google Groups. (Gotta love the straight html links.)
300 Links, PR of 1?

49. Post link spam helpful posts to Yahoo! Answers. (Do they ever moderate this stuff?)
SEO: What words come to mind?

50. Join your local Chamber of Commerce. (Every city has one.)
Orlando CoC
Madera CoC (could have links)
Palm Desert CoC

51. Join the Better Business Bureau. (Join your local chapter, most have a directory of members with links.)
Central California BBB
Northern Nevada BBB

52. Talk to similar but non-competing businesses offline, and ask for a link. (Explain how, by linking to you, their customers will see their site as the complete resource and are more likely to return.)

53. Create a free template or theme. (Wordpress or CSS/XHTML are both popular in the free template sector.)
Kaushal Sheth
615+ Wordpress Themes List
Free CSS Templates

54. Review a product or service. (Bonus points if you have authority in the niche, and are one of the first to review it. Many times you’ll rank right behind the product.)

Search for text-link-ads.com and you’ll find:
Site #4 - Opinions on Text Link Ads.com
Site #8 - Text-Link-Ads.com Review

Best Practices for Gaining Links

55. Have a privacy policy. (Every reputable company does.)
Privacy Policy Generator
Create an Online Privacy Policy (From the B.B.B.)

56. Create a contact page. (Mine is coming…I never said I was perfect!)
Contact Seattle Times
Contact Intel
Contact Apple

57. Don’t post spam content. (This includes PLR articles, only RSS feeds, or just “borrowing” content.)
Stolen Content: What to do first
How to Stop Those who are Stealing your Content
DMCA @ Google

58. Hire writers who are better than you. (Especially important when you have multiple sites and don’t know what to do.)
How to Locate, Hire, and Work With an Article Writer
GetAFreelancer

59. Get 1 link per domain. (Sitewide links are SOOOO 2006.)
Get 1 Link and Go! Drive By Linking

60. Stay ahead of the curve. (You’ll get thousands of links if you have the first and oldest site about new technology.)
TechMeme

61. Link out, especially to blogs. (I always read people who link to me. Technorati keeps great track of who is linking to you.)

62. When writing, never lose sight of the “Super Digg”, and write accordingly. (Who doesn’t love a good super digg?)
Anatomy of a Super Digg

63. Install a page translator. (Anyone have a recommendation?)
WordPress Plugin: Automatic Machine Translation for Your Blog
Plugins/Translations and Languages - Wordpress Codex

64. Submit to a sub-category on Reddit. (Submit to the sub-cat and the homepage.)
Get ‘er Dugg - A Comprehensive Guide to Going Viral on Digg (Scroll down half way and look for “Going Viral on Reddit”)

65. Ping appropriate sites with every new post. (Wordpress and Typepad make this easy.)
List of Ping Services
RSS Ping List
Pingoat

66. Be creative when link hunting. (You’ll be getting links nobody else is even asking for.)
Want a Free .edu Link? How about 64,200?

Thanks for taking the time to read this! Like it? Please link to it and bookmark it!

I hope you enjoy it and feel free to share your own tools and services in comments (I’m sure I’ll have missed some). update - I’ve been adding your suggestions and we’re now up to over 130 blog tools and platforms.

If this is your first time to ProBlogger you might like to subscribe to my free weekly newsletter (see the top of the left hand sidebar) or RSS News Feed.

A

AdSense - contextual ad program by Google
Adbrite - sell text ads
Amazon Associates - popular affiliate program
aStore - add an Amazon Store to your Blog
AdGenta - text ads by Qumana (see ‘Q’)
AdRotator - WP ad rotating plugin
Akismet - Comment Spam Fighting Tool
Adhearus - pay per click advertising
AdWords - the advertisers side of AdSense - many bloggers use it to promote their blogs
AzoogleAds - advertising system
Audio Blogger - adds audio to your blog

B

Build A Niche Store- add an eBay store to your site
Bidvertiser - bid based advertising
Blog Ads - blog advertising network
Blog Jet - blog editing tool
Blog Desk - blog editing tool
Bloglines - Web based RSS feed reader
BlogPulse - blog search tool
BlogPolls - tool for putting polls on your blog
Blog Poll - another blog poll tool
Backpackit - useful organizational tool
Blogger.com - blog platform
Bloggers for Hire - bloggers looking for work and potential employers looking for bloggers
BlogSitter.net - service for find guest bloggers while you take a holiday
BlogBurst - syndicates bloggers content for mainstream medium
BlogFlux - blog services portal
BlogRolling - a blogroll management tool
Blogbeat - blog metrics tool
Blogger Jobs - a blog following the advertising of blog jobs

C

Chitika eMiniMalls - advertising program
CrispAds - blog advertising network
Creative Commons - copyright licenses
Copyscape - tool for checking for content theft/plagiarism
Clicksor - advertising program
Clickbank - library of many affiliate products
Commission Junction - collection of many affiliate programs
Casale Media - advertising solution

D

Del.icio.us - social bookmarking
Digg - social bookmarking
Drupal - blog platform
DomainsBot - a tool for finding domain names
Digital Point - useful forum for webmasters

E

Ecto - blog editing tool
Expression Engine - blog platform
Endo - News aggregator for Mac Users
Ether - lets readers book a consulting call with you from your sidebar

F

Feedburner - RSS feed management tool - also provides Feed Advertising
Feedster - RSS search Tool
FeedDemon - RSS reader from NewsGator
FeedBlitz - email blog and RSS subscription service
Flickr - photo sharing and hosting
Flock - a browser with in built blogging
Furl - social bookmarking
Free Blog Polls
FilmLoop - free photocasting network
Feedpass - RSS management - integrates with AdSense
Favicon Maker - make Favicons from photos

G

Google Analytics - Metrics Tool
Gabbly - add chat to your blog
Google Reader - RSS reader
Gnoos - Australian made blog search tool
Google News - tracking news - many use it as a source of content
Google Blog Search - Google’s…. blog search
Google Sitemaps - get indexed in Google

H

Haloscan - a free commenting system for blogs (a little dated but I was a tad desperate for a ‘H’

I

IntelliTXT - In text advertising
Ice Rocket - blog search engine

J

Jar (as in Tip Jar) - many bloggers ask their readers for donations/tips - but few make much from them

K

Kanoodle - Advertising program
Kontera - In text advertising
Keyword and Backlink Tracker - Search Engine ranking tool

L

LiveJournal - Blog Platform
Linkshare - Affiliate Program

M

Mars Edit - Blog Editing Tool
Memeorandum - Tracking and Aggregating news from blogs
MyBlogLog - Metrics Tool
Mint - Blog Metrics Tool
MovableType - Popular blog platform
MeCommerce - Sidebar shop - in beta
MSN Adcenter - Coming Soon - Contextual ads

N

NewsGator - RSS News Readers
Nichebot - keyword research tool
Nameboy - domain name generator
Nucleus CMS - open source blog platform
Netvibes - RSS News Aggregator
Netscape Beta - Social Bookmarking Tool

O

Only Wire - social bookmarking service
Overture Keyword Tool - keyword research tool

P

Performancing - great blog, firefox blog editor and metrics tools
Pheedo - RSS advertising
Post2Blog - Blog Editing tool - blog using Word, IE or Firefox
Pingoat - Pinging Tool
Pingomatic - Pinging Tool
pMachine - Blog Platform
Paypal - Payment tool - used by many affiliate programs and ad systems to pay publishers
PPCalc - Paypal Fee Calculator
PubSub - service that notifies you of new content
Photobucket - image and video hosting

Q

Qumana - Blog Editing Tool

R

Rojo - RSS feed reader
RocketPost - Blog posting tool
Right Media - advertising
Rmail - subscribe from any RSS feed to email

S

Sitemeter - a free website stats tool used by many bloggers
Six Figure Blogging - learn to make money blogging (one of my blogging resources)
Shoplinc - add a Chitika store to your blog
Scoopt Words - service to sell bloggers content to mainstream media editors
Sitening - Search Engine ranking tracker
Sparklines - sidebar widgets/graphs
Skype - VOIP tool for networking, podcast interviews etc
Spam Karma - WP comment spam tool
Sitepoint - Forums for webmasters
Slide - photo hosting, slideshows etc
SoloSub - RSS feed management tool
Squidoo - good alternative place to put content, make money and promote your blog
Snap - a preview tool to give your readers a preview of external links on your blog

T

Text Link Ads - text link advertising system
Technorati - Blog Search engine
Topix - News service - used by many bloggers to find stories
TagCloud - tool for making tag clouds
TinyURL - make long URLs tiny ones
TypePad - Hosted Blogging Platform
Tribal Fusion - Impression Based Ads
3bubbles - live chat on a blog

U

Unobtrusive Sidenotes - a way of putting sidenotes in your posts

V

ValueClick - Impression Based Ad Program (was FastClick)
Vizu - blog polls tool
Vox - a new blogging/social bookmarking platform from Six Apart (in beta)

W

WordPress - Blog Platform - very popular
w.bloggar - blog editing tool
Webpad - web based text editor
Weblogs.com - recently updated blogs - aggregator
WebmasterWorld - forums for webmasters

X

Xanga - Weblog Community

Y

YPN - Contextual Advertising Service
Yutter - RSS/Blog Subscription Service
YouTube - Video Hosting/Sharing
Yutter - RSS/Blog Subscription Service
Yahoo News - Tracking News from around the Web

Z

Zookoda - RSS to Email and Newsletter tool
Zoudry - blog editor

There were quite a few responses to the question - some of which went a little unnoticed as they were moderated until I got home. So I thought I’d summarize some of the main themes that arose in the discussion with a few quotes from those who left comments.

For the full series of comments see the post - but here are the main themes listed in no particular order except that they are vaguely the order that people submitted them in (keep in mind that these ideas come from readers - not all of them will be for everyone):

1. Comment on Related Blogs - raising4boys writes - “Commenting on related blogs is probably the most effective strategy early on in the process. And responding to comments when people leave them on your blog (this encourages them to keep coming back).” And from Brody - “I visit other blogs in my niche, add them to my feed and participate in the discussion on their blogs via the comments. Writing interesting comments often gets people to click through to see your site.”

2. Join Forums - elprezidente writes - “I’ve found that one very quick way to infuse readers to a new blog is to be active in discussion forums related to your blog topic. Locate posts that ask for help with something you are familiar with and share your experience.”

3. Write Effective Post Titles - Aziz writes - “Simple and to the point. The title should create an instant urge to read the entire post… But of course it should be related to the topic of your blog”

4. Interviews - Ollie writes - “One example being to interview fellow bloggers who are in the same niche as me. This has gone down well, and has been great for both myself and the interviewee as traffic flows between us.”

5. Persist - Dan Norman writes - “Persistence is key. After starting up a new blog last month and letting go of another this month, I notice that traffic (quality traffic) doesn’t happen over night. On my last site, I think it took 6 months before ASK.com found me.”

6. Connect with Local Bloggers - Rob O writes - “The other thing I’ve been doing just recently is connecting up with other bloggers in my city and the neighboring towns. We’ve got something of a link exchange going and a nice side-effect to this is that I/we have discovered that there are quite a few more bloggers and/or website authors in the area than ever expected.”

7. Give Away Free Stuff - Peterandrej writes - “I’ve had some success with giving away free stuff, like free templates for WordPress. It doesn’t give me lot of new readers, because my blog is written in Norwegian, but the templates give lots and lots of new links to the blog, giving it a much better pagerank in Google, which in turn should mean more readers from search-engines.”

8. Be Opinionated - Trent writes - “Be opinionated, but encourage opposing viewpoints in the comments. Opinionated makes you interesting - encouraging other perspectives makes you essential.”

9. Ask Questions of Other Bloggers - Trent also writes - “Ask questions of other moderately successful bloggers and try to network. If you shoot too high, you’ll often get blown off because these people have so much stuff to read and deal with.”

10. Use Trackbacks - Maki writes - “Sending highly creative and penetrating trackbacks about a blogger’s original post.”

11. Advertise - Mike Panic writes - “Buy advertising space on related websites.”

12. Educate Readers about RSS - Mike Panic writes - “With the most recent blog I launched I created a page in WordPress called Feeds which not only has the RSS icon on it but a description of what a “feed” is and what are some of the most common ways to subscribe and use feeds, mostly pulled from a CC article.”

13. Offline Promotion - Mike Panic writes - “Talk to friends, family and coworkers about them… you’d be surprised how much the traditional way of “networking” really does work…. also Business cards, depending which blog I’ll post on a community board at a grocery store.

14. Search Engine Optimization - Michelle writes - “Properly optimizing my blog has been a big boost to my readership. Once I figured out how to play around with SEO I started getting a regular 25-35% of my hits from Google.”

15. Quality Content (mentioned by many) - ilker writes - “Posting only quality content.. obviously! Better posts are discussed more, increasing both the number of comments and references in other blogs.”

16. Blog Carnivals - Slade writes - “submitting posts to Blog Carnivals”

17. Memes - Leanne writes - “I’ve picked up a handful of wonderful friends and readers through initiating the “Thursday Thirteen”. Yeah, a meme. Bloggers want to know about bloggers, not just the business aspect of it but the *person* writing the blog. Reading a quick list of “getting to know me” type tidbits gives me instant inside information on whether or not I will become a regular visitor. Some participants have used it solely to gain business, but frankly I think that turns people away. People are interested in people first, and what they do second. It works.”

18. Frequent Posting - baggage writes - “I also try to post frequently. I find that the more I post, the more readers I have. The less comments, but the more readers.”

19. Guest Bloggers - Random Good Stuff writes - “I invite other bloggers to guest blog and allow always one link back to their site. I have 3 active guest authors … and in return they link to my site from time to time.”

20. Get Links from Other Blogs - Jamdo writes - “Getting mentioned on other sites and blogs in the same niche, I think, has been the best way to get a readership who keeps returning to a blog. Make contact with other bloggers in yoru niche via comments, email, AIM, skype, homing pigeons - whatever.”

21. Newsletters - Adrian writes - “The Zookoda newsletter provides nice spikes and people tend to forward the newsletter to their friends.”

22. Social Networks - Ilya writes - “Submit your story to Digg and reddit and, regardless of whether it makes the front page or not, you get 50-100 free hits. The easiest way to generate quick exposure. Failing that, comment frequently on blogs that you like. With any luck, the blog author will want to find out more about you, follow the link to your blog, and perhaps write a post referencing one of your posts.”

23. Pitch Your Posts - Marty Weil writes - “I view other bloggers as a PR pros view journalists working in traditional media. I reach out to bloggers using tactics successfully employed in the world of professional media relations. For instance, I “pitch” specific posts that they might find adds value to topics they are writing about. I also send email introducing them to my blog, but only if there’s a good fit between my blog and theirs. The key is to be very selective in approaching the “media gatekeeper”–just as successful and smart media relations people do.”

by Darren Rowse

There are numerous reasons why this might happen ranging from being hacked, to having a server outage, to not backing up a blog and losing data etc

Another common reason for loosing traffic is when Google (or some other Search Engine) tweaks the way that they rank sites and your blog’s position for some (or all) keywords falls (or even disappears).

I’ve had a number of readers write to me in the last few weeks telling me that this has happened to them and in panic asking for advice.

Here is how I usually respond:

Firstly - I feel your pain
Suffering a major fall in traffic as a result of Google changing their ranking algorithm is not a pleasant thing and when you dig around a little you’ll find that most experienced webmasters have experienced it at one time or another. The first time it happened to me my traffic (and income) plummeted to a third of what it was in December of 2004. It hit me hard and almost knocked me out of blogging for money.

The second major hit that I’ve taken happened earlier this month when within the space of a couple of hours the traffic (and income) on my biggest blogs went to one tenth of normal levels and my blogs completely disappeared from Google’s index. Once again it was a fairly frightening experience (although I’d learnt a lot from last time it happened and have diversified my income quite a bit since).

What should you do when you lose your Google traffic?

OK - so you’re not alone - that might be a little comforting - but it doesn’t fix anything. What should you do? Here are a few things I advise out of my own experiences. This advice is written for people who have not being trying to game Google. If you engage in black hat SEO then it might be that you’ve been banned or penalized for doing so - I’m not aware of what you should do in this case. The following is probably more helpful for white hat SEO types who have had some bad luck: