Yet another reason to uninstall Internet Explorer! Here’s a very cool firefox extension that I learned about from Aaron Wall’s blog. This extension works in conjunction with the Google Webmaster Tools new Links section.

This is a really awesome tool that shows you the pagerank and link text of the backlinks that Google displays. Not only that but non-pr passing (NoFollow) links are displayed with a line through them so that you can tell at a glance who’s giving you that link love. Check out the tool here:

Here’s The Tool

Note it requires the Firefox browser AND the greasemonkey extension.

Posted by David Olsen - Owner/Editor

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I received an email last night from a reader who’s interested in having some SEO work done. I won’t go into too much detail but the reader asked a typical question that SEO’ers probably hear everyday, I’m paraphrasing here but it was something like this:

Can you get me on the front page of Google?

I replied that that was a pretty dangerous question to ask and that sure I could get them on Google’s front page, and I could do it today! How? Why, Google Adwords of course.

Now, I realize that’s not what the visitor was asking for, but it reminded me of just how easy it is for unscrupulous would-be SEO’s to scam someone who’s just getting started.

Just for the record, I’m not knocking legitimate SEO’s. A good SEO absolutely has an edge over the rest of us when it comes to organic search engine placement. And, assuming the clients site is in order (sales process, landing pages etc) – an SEO can be well worth the expense.

The point is NOT everyone is honest and above board. Here’s a few things to watch out for it you’re in the market for an SEO:

Guarantees! No one, I Repeat, No One can guarantee organic search engine placement. The search engines (especially Google) are constantly looking for and hiring the best and the brightest minds in the world whose sole purpose is to find ways to serve up only the most relevant SERPs possible. —That $19.95 special …”Ain’t gonna get you top placement in anything”

Vanity SERPs – Too many businesses feel that their company name needs to come up first in the engines. So they plunk down their money and tell their “SEO”, I want to rank for “The XYZ Sucker Company”. Now there is really nothing wrong with ranking for your company name – the problem is unless your company name is also a competitive money keyword, it’s probably pretty easy to rank well for. Heck, they may even be ranking for it already. SEO’s know this and the good ones will point that out for you.

Website Submission is NOT SEO. This is something that should have died a long time ago but it’s still lingering on. I’m talking about “SEO’s” that promise to submit your site to 99 search engines and directories. First off, there are really only two or three engines that matter – so the other 96 “engines” are really just irrelevant and most are probably spam. Use common sense, when you’re searching the web you’re probably using Google – your friends are probably all using Google also right? So, if everyone uses Google, why pay someone to submit your site to FredsSearchEngine.com? Anyway, the point is – your SEO needs to be paying attention to optimizing your website, if he or she starts talking about how they’re going to be submitting your site to engines for an additional charge (or even if they’re throwing it in for free for that matter) – walk away!

This list could go on but the point is before you hire an SEO, you ought to have an understanding of what’s it all about. SEO is NOT some magical black art that can only be practiced by enlightened gurus. SEO is work, it’s a systematic process and it takes time and money to get good rankings for competitive keywords. And what most people don’t even realize is that the most important part of the whole process is NOT the optimization it’s the keyword research. If you’re optimizing for the wrong keywords top placement on Google won’t make a bit of difference.

Anyway if you’re still here and want to learn more I recommend you download Aaron Wall’s SEO Book. It’s a $67 download and it’s well worth ten times the price —it’s the Bible of the SEO world and it’s the #1 Ranked SEO Book available. You’ll not only learn everything you’ll ever need to know about organic optimization techniques, you’ll also learn about PPC optimization. There’s even a chapter on hiring an SEO. Have a Look!

Posted by David Olsen - Owner/Editor

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New features added to our favorite long tail keyword researcher…

HitTail is now translated into German, French, Nederlands and Italian. Now do international long tail search marketing in your native tongue.

Foriegn Language Long Tail Marketing

Posted by David Olsen - Owner/Editor

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When I’m looking for ideas to blog about, I often head over to PRweb and have a look at what’s new in my niche. You see, the use of press releases is an excellent way to get a buzz going about a new website or a new service or a give-away etc… So, PRweb is an excellent place to keep abreast of your Niche. Now, something else to consider, even though Press Releases have been around long before the web was in existence, the web did bring something new to the world of Press Releases…

Internet Marketing Success! Wealthy Affiliate provides keyword lists for profitable markets, marketing resources, advertising techniques, and coaching by two successful internet marketers who are making more than the average person does in a year, each month. Join Now.

Trackbacks…
One aspect of PRweb that is often overlooked is the fact that many of the press releases will give you a trackback if you reference them on your blog. I’ve used this tactic quite a bit and see a reasonably steady stream of traffic coming from these press releases for sometimes weeks after I make the post.

Further, a look at the source code of these trackbacks reveals that PRweb is NOT using the fabled “NoFollow” tag. Which means, Google CAN follow these links and CAN give you a PR (as in Page Rank) boost. What’s more, PRweb is an authority site with a homepage Page Rank of seven; make no mistake, this is one of the trusted sites that Google spiders everyday!

Now for a real-world example:
Here’s an example of a Trackback I received for a post I did back in December:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/12/prweb486905.htm

The PRweb page above has a Page Rank of 4, if you follow the link through to my post you’ll see that my page has a PR 3 – most of the Page Rank has to be from my PRweb trackback since my Homepage is only a PR 2 .

…That’s all I’m saying on this one, use the technique if you want, tell your friends about it… Just please …speak kindly of me .

Posted by David Olsen - Owner/Editor

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I don’t know why but no one seems to be talking about this…

About a month ago, I signed up for several pay per post websites. My plan was to do a comparison of the major players for a series of review articles. However, almost immediately, I noticed something pretty interesting …I’ll tell you about that in a few minutes, first let me explain how these sites work…

These sites are pretty straight-forward. An advertiser (website owner) enters a post request. In this request, they specify the number of posts they want to buy, the minimum number of words they want in each post, some specifics on where they want their backlinks to go (including the link text) and the tone and subject matter of the post. They then set a price they’re willing to pay for each post.

Once the post request has been approved (and this can take a couple of days), it goes out into the system where it can be seen by the bloggers. The bloggers review the request if they decide to accept it; they make a unique post to their blog following the instructions of the advertiser. Next, they notify the pay per post website.

The pay per post website then monitors each post to verify that it meets the advertiser’s requirements.

Now here’s the interesting part, while doing my research I noticed something… There seemed to be a lot more bloggers then there were posting opportunities…

In fact, as of this writing, one of the major players in the industry has exactly 68 open posting opportunities. Another of the big sites doesn’t even seem to have enough to keep their existing bloggers …blogging.

…Can you say Supply and Demand.

Well, I quickly realized that the real opportunity here was in buying the posts —Not writing them! I like to experiment, so I quickly signed up as an advertiser for one of these sites, I threw together a request for ten posts about “affiliate marketing” at $5 per post. A few days later, I received an email telling me that my request was approved, by the following day all ten requests had been filled – I know this because I started seeing new backlinks in the “Incoming Links” section of my control panel when I logged in that morning. A quick trip to the pay per post site, confirmed this.

Here’s a couple of permanent links that I received for $5 each:

http://internetmarketingreview.org/blog/2007/01/17/affiliate-marketing/
Homepage is pr 4

http://onlineprofits4moms.com/2007/making-money-selling-other-people-products/ Homepage is PR2

Now just to drive the point home, for $50 (plus $16.25 paid to the post broker), I received backlinks from ten different blogs spread out all over the web. Each of these posts is unique and my backlinks are NOT buried deep within some reciprocal link directory – they are PR passing backlinks each nestled within a brand new blog post..

…And keep this in mind, I rushed through my post request. I could have put additional restrictions in to ensure that my posts were from blogs within certain categories or I could have denied posts from sites like blogspot or myspace, I could even have even specified the PR of the sites I wanted posts from. The point is I got some good results without really even trying…

Give this a shot, I bet you can get some sweet backlinks without the hassle of doing regular reciprocal linking and for a fraction of the cost of buying old fashioned text links.

Here’s two sites I recommend:
Choose one, create an advertiser account order some posts and see what happens.
Click Here To Try Blogsvertise
Or Try Payperpost here!

Good luck and let me know how you make out.

Posted by David Olsen - Owner/Editor

Don't forget to get your SEO Success Guide! My FREE Ecourse that Will Show you how to beat your competition on Google and the rest... CLICK HERE!

Here’s five interesting posts from the Internet Marketing and SEO world:

1) Here’s a great post from Tropical SEO about Link Baiting Read Andy Hagans’ Ultimate Guide to Linkbaiting and Social Media Marketing Now.

2) From the Official Google Webmaster Blog, here’s the official post about the new Link information in the Webmaster Tools section. Read Discover your links Here.

3) From Blogging To fame comes an interesting read, 10 Essential Assessments for your Blog, Clinch the Competition Now!

4) Here’s a post From Warrington Webworks about linking out to quality sites; The Value of Links on websites

5) Last but not least from Shoemoney comes: Google Adwords Arrow Trick To Increase Click Through Rates, where he outlines a very cool trick he does to increase his PPC click-thru rate. Good Read.

Posted by David Olsen - Owner/Editor

Don't forget to get your SEO Success Guide! My FREE Ecourse that Will Show you how to beat your competition on Google and the rest... CLICK HERE!