We’ve been at this business for quite a number of years now and over that time we have tried just about every backlinking method known to man. We’ve tried authority site backlink packets, article directory submissions, reciprocal linking, 3 way links, blog commenting, link wheels, blog networks, forum posting, social bookmarking and networking, press releases and that’s just for starters.
We even paid an SEO company back in the early days to do the SEO and backlinking for us. That was a big mistake… it didn’t take long before we realized that we knew more than they did and they cost what felt like a fortune at the time.
I think our goal with all of this has always been to try to find an easy way to get backlinks but I’ve come to the conclusion that there really is no easy way. If you want strong powerful backlinks then you have to work for it. And notice I said ‘strong powerful backlinks’. Anyone can get a ton of backlinks to their website – I could email someone now and they could get me thousands of links in the next 24 hours but you can only imagine what sort of links they would be.
The distinguishing factor here is quality not quantity. One good quality backlink has more value than hundreds or even thousands of poor quality backlinks.
That’s not to say that all of those backlinking methods I’ve listed above are worthless. On the contrary, a good mix of backlinks is important so it helps to include a range of different techniques. However, what we have found is that out of all the backlinking methods we have tried one stands head and shoulders ahead of the rest. The backlinking method I am referring to is guest blogging or guest articles (or PAD if you are a James Martell student).
Guest blogging simply involves giving free articles to website owners in exchange for links back to your website.
Simple right? Too simple for some it seems or perhaps they really don’t see the value in this method. We received an email some time back from someone saying that they had read where someone had posted on a forum that although our Amazonian Profit Plan was great the backlinking section was ‘weak’. I could only laugh at that because this method of backlinking is about the strongest there is.
It may seem ‘weak’ to some because of it’s simplicity and because there are no tricks involved in it to manipulate the search engines. And it is because of this many don’t see the value in it.
They also don’t even want to try it because they know it involves work. Most people simply want to press a button and hey presto they have hundreds of backlinks. In an ideal world that would be great but so far I am yet to see any automated backlinking system that results in hundreds of GOOD QUALITY backlinks.
Even those blogging networks haven’t been much of a success. We’ve tried most of them and some are better than others of course but ultimately your links end up on blogs that have been manufactured simply to add links. What this generally means is that the content on those blogs is average to say the least and they aren’t updated very often. You will also find that your links are mixed with other often undesirable links so you are associating with a bad neighborhood so to speak. We keep trying these networks and will probably continue to try them but as yet we haven’t really found any that have been up to par.
Another thing to consider here is that Google is starting to focus on quality even more so particularly with their latest update. I can only imagine that more is coming from Google in the future so we need to be ever vigilant that we not only provide quality content but we also have quality backlinks from quality sites.
This is an industry where just about everyone is looking for a quick fix and when I say ‘everyone’ we include ourselves in that bunch. Even though we have worked hard to get where we are, we are still constantly looking for things to make it easier. But then again maybe it’s a good thing that it isn’t that easy to make money online. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it and the market would be flooded.
It’s a case of survival of the fittest – only the strongest survive in this business and usually that means those that don’t give up and keep at it despite the work. You only have to look at JamestheJusts success story to see that.
What I am getting at is that if you want to really succeed with all of this you have to be prepared to do the work and you have to be prepared to stick at it for the long haul. That means even if you haven’t made a cent in the first three months, you keep going. And even if you have only made a few dollars by the end of the first year, you keep going, And even if, like us, after 5 years you still aren’t making a full time income, you keep going.
Doing the work means that you have to stop looking for the easy way out. You have to focus and focus big time and you have to stop looking for excuses. Getting traffic is often the biggest hurdle for most and excuses abound as to why they haven’t started to focus in on that area. Even for those who have started backlinking it is often a case of spending a few hours on it and then forgetting about it for another few weeks or maybe forgetting it altogether because it is just too time consuming or too difficult, or family commitments are getting in the way or it’s boring or whatever. Boring just doesn’t cut it – if you have an excuse for not working on building traffic then you have to get past it because it really is your biggest obstacle to making money online. This was one of our biggest obstacles – for us it was all about building websites and adding content but not real much happened when it came to backlinking.
Traffic is critical to your success and to get traffic you have to work for it.
So, How does guest blogging work?
If you have a system of getting traffic that works for you then by all means use it. We just know what works for us and guest blogging works.
The first step involved with guest blogging is finding sites to submit articles to. The best sites are those within your niche. Bear in mind, when contacting sites in your niche they may consider you as their competition and may not want to add a competitors article to their site. This often has to do with what you are promoting. If you have a specific product site then it can be a little more difficult – for example, if your site is about Apple iPhones and you contact another site also promoting Apple iPhones they will probably ignore your email. On the other hand if your site is about dogs then often it is often easier to contact other dog site owners as in general these sorts of sites are not as product orientated and they see you as more of a kindred spirit rather than as a competitor.
To get around this, you simply approach sites that aren’t in the same niche but are kind of related in some way. For instance, with the iPhone example, I might contact young bloggers who talk about fashion, music and similar topics.
You want a list of sites that have a decent pagerank – we usually go with 3 and up. You can start with technorati.com to find blogs or simply use the Google search.
Once you’ve found these sites you simply send them an email asking if they would like to take a free article from you in exchange for 2 to 3 links in the article back to your website. You let them know that the article is unique and will be on a topic related to their site.
If you get a response back from them you simply write up your article (or get someone to do it for you using Elance for example) and send it to them ensuring that you have placed links to your website within the article.
As you can imagine this method of backlinking can be time consuming. It’s not the quick and easy automated type of backlinking that everyone is after. But you also have to remember that the quality of links is very strong because you are picking sites that are already favored by Google.
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Hey Paula, Hey Wanda!
I have been reading your blog for some time with great interest. I too followed the “Martel Plan” and still to this day believe that the information he offers is still very relevant and solid as is your own.
I have seen quite a lot of criticism relating to James’ methods on a few forums but I just smile to myself. Most of these ‘haters’ rarely have the gumption to test the methods or give them enough time to reap the rewards. If brains were TNT they wouldn’t have enough to blow their hats off.
Instant gratification is something of cliché within internet marketing. I have to smile to myself when I read those comments because as you have pointed out, it just means less people to fight with for the money! It’s always less crowded at the top. The strong get smarter and the weak…well they just give up.
I actually remember you posting to James’ forums all those years back when you were kind of just starting out and have to say it’s so great to see you making a real success of it. This is the main reason for my post today. You both are a great inspiration that’s for sure.
As with the PAD technique, I use it and mix it up with blog commenting. When I first started out I was apprehensive about contacting site owners, contacted all the wrong sites and got lots of blow backs. However, I adapted and treated those knock backs as distinctions instead of failures, taking what I could from any given situation. Nowadays it’s a different story. I’ve got it down to an art and I know that out of the sites I contact I am going to get, what I call, good hit rates, meaning backlinks like juggernauts!
I urge any one who doubts this method to try it and take a leap of faith. Once you gain momentum and become familiar with what you are doing and aiming for in the sites you contact you can get it down real good, like John Travolta in Saturday Night F.. F.. F.. Fever.
Just for the record, I haven’t stopped listening to Bronwyns Coffee Talk since it was first published either LOL.
Anyway, thanks for the post…another stand up piece from you both :)
“The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of understanding”
I know that many think that James Martell’s methods are a bit dated but I can tell you now that his methods are absolutely spot on especially since the latest Google update.
Everyone is looking for new techniques or tips and hints but really the basics are all most people need and the basics are ‘write good content and get good quality backlinks’. That is what James has always taught.
Hi Paula and Wanda,
Amen about the survival of the fittest. I know many of us come to making money online thinking that it is an easy way to make a living. Not unlike those who go to MLMs hoping for a shortcut to riches… might as well go for the lottery!
Too soon we get to know the truth – that, like any other business model online or off – starting your own business takes Work with a capital W. Probably the hardest work since we don’t have a time clock to scan or a boss to please.
Anyway, I remember when I first read in APP about the guest blogging, how it really hit me that it IS probably the most solid form of quality linking other than true one way linking out there. Why? Because you aren’t going to give crummy articles away that point to your site. Like you said they have to be at least as good as your own posts/content.
I am wondering though, what kind of numbers are you getting. I know it can’t be nailed down scientifically, but does it seem like one guest post works out to be like 100 “lame” backlinks? 1000? Maybe a better question would be of your strongest sites: how many guest post articles each? 5 or 10 or 20 or more?
just wondering, and thanking you both for all your help
regards, Cheryl
It’s really hard to answer that but I would agree with you when you say that one guest article on a good quality site is the equivalent of 100 ‘lame’ articles placed on poor quality sites.
When we were working on one site we just went crazy with guest articles until we were up to 120. The problem we had back then though was that we weren’t terribly focused on where the links in the articles were going to so we spread it out over multiple pages on the site instead of just a small handful. If we had focused a little more we would have ranked for those pages a whole lot quicker.
When you say “we would have ranked for those pages a whole lot quicker”, you mean with less than 120 guest articles or in a shorter period of time ?
Thanks
Yes, most likely we would have done it with less guest articles if we were more focused. And probably in less time as well.
Hi Wanda and Paula,
Another helpful post from the two “Wonder Girls”. I’ve been working on guest posts since reading your Amazonian Profit Plan and it is effective but generally slow going.
One of the problems I have is that I’ll get a request and then work really hard on producing a great article. I send it and never hear back sometimes. This is really bad as I’m thinking “did they not like it?” “Can I use the article again if they’re not using it?”
Do you run into this situation? I will send them one more letter offering to change the article or do whatever it takes to please them. After that it’s onto the next.
I got a PR5 site to let me write an article this week and that was a first. We’ll see how that affects rankings. Thanks so much.
You are doing all the right things Jerry. Congratulations for snagging a PR5 site.
Yes we do come across sites that don’t respond. Often it is just that the website owner has just been too busy to respond and a followup email does the trick.
If they don’t put the article up after a few weeks I send an email saying that as they haven’t used it I will be sending it to another site. This usually evokes a response one way or the other.
But this is quite rare as its very seldom that someone who has requested an article doesn’t use it, but it does happen.
As you say – just accept it and move on.
Funny you should mention this – I had submitted an article to a PR4 blog about a month ago and the owner was extremely slow in getting back to me. Just after reading Jerry’s comment and your follow-up reply, I was going to email that blog owner to tell her I was going to submit my article elsewhere. I then saw a message in my inbox saying she just published it!
Of course two of the three links aren’t hooked up properly but my homepage is. I asked her to fix the links, but at the rate she responded, it’s not likely. At least my homepage is linked right. Just gotta breathe and be patient and grateful it worked out! :)
Hey Wanda and Paula
Guest blogging certainly is a great way to obtain high quality, contextual links. It does take a bit more effort and you have to be prepared for some knock backs and non-responses. However, choose your blogs well and reap the rewards. Is it the most powerful?
It seems to be for both of you. My wife and her business partner have just begun their amazon journey and since I introduced them to your blog they are both avid readers…
They want to be the UK versions of you both :)
Is Guest Blogging the most powerful? Who knows, we think so. It certainly has paid off for us, so we are avid fans. Thank you for introducing us to your wife and her business partner, I look forward to hearing about their progress as they really get into it.
I am just beginning to explore guest posting, thanks to your suggestions. I might add one other suggestion here, as well. As a site owner, why not consider posting your own “Guest Post” submission guidelines and invite others to write posts for your sites. Make sure you outline exactly what type and quality of submission you’ll accept and then pick and choose among the best submissions to post. Good outgoing links can’t hurt your site’s perception as an “authority” on your site.
That’s a good idea Tammie. Getting unique content for your own site can give you a break from writing. Plus sometimes you can run out of ideas so getting other peoples views on your blog can only be a good thing.
I love reading your posts. They just inspire me all the way! I was looking for a quick fix – something I could do without guest blogging. I’m sooo glad to hear this timely article from you both.
A quick fix is okay in the short term but if you really want strong stable sites then guest blogging is the key.
Would this be the same as paying for blog links? like linkfromblog etc.. or would those also be considered as not so good?
Those sites can work because it is independent bloggers that join up. In other words they aren’t just a network of poor quality blogs thrown together by one company.
I’ve never heard of linkfromblog until your comment, so thank you for that. I’m checking it out right now.
There are no easy answers to gaining back links or getting trafic. I think it is only when a person accepts that and starts “working” at it that they move forward.
I like that you stress a variety of back links too. My believe is that it is a mistake to only target “do follow” links because when links are gained naturally (and that is what Google is looking for) most of your links will actually be “no follow”.
So don’t put too much effort into gaining “no follow” links but make sure you have some. If I see a blog where I can comment that is very on target, I never worry what sort of link I’m going to get.
I’ve made a hesitant start on guest blogging but need to do more.
I agree Dawn…only targeting dofollow links is not the way to go.
Right on. What better backlink than from a site with a PR3 or more with do follow allowed. No BS blog sites with a PR0 or none. Look for the PR3 or highers.
Recently James Martell did show on the webmasterradio.fm show (It was his last show now that I think about it) dealing with outsourcing this task. He talked about how people misunderstand the concept behind a getting a great quality backlink. And if you ever posted a job on elance, GAF, Guru,, etc… you’ll know exactly what he is talking about.
Lucky for me I was able to train a worker to do this job. It can be done. Many people just need to be taught but this has literally doubled my production as he works daily and get it done. I gain 2-5 great quality links a week from PR3 sites exactly as P&W (aka Paula & Wanda) state.
It’s not hard to do. People want instant results. Backlinking is boring, repetitive and laborious but is the way to quality backlinking. People reading this , go read Darren Hardy’s “The Compound Effect”.
As the old saying goes “What’s simple to do is also simple NOT to do”.
Outsourcing is a great way to go. We have been outsourcing this task for the past few months. Before that we were doing this all ourselves so it does make life a lot easier.
I could not agree with you more relating to quality backlinks and most certainly guest posting can bring you that quality.
I think there may be a bit of reluctance on the part of a new blogger to reach out in this fashion.
There may be a fear of rejection.(maybe I am not good enough)
Perhaps there is a bit of feeling intimidated (my blog is only getting a few visitors per week or month. How can I even begin to approach Wanda and Paula with a request to guest post?
I am still working my way through establishing backlinks through some of the ways you share in “7 Super Powerful Methods for Increasing Traffic to Your Blog”. Hopefully I will begin to have some success.
You know Wendell you have hit the nail on the head. I remember in the early days when we first started doing Guest blogging I was quite shy about approaching other webmasters to take articles. I now realize that it was a fear of rejection and it wasn’t until I could accept the rejections without taking it as a personal affront that I could really move on and tackle this method successfully.
I am also finding it easier these days because there are more bloggers and webmasters looking for quality content to boost there sites.
Promotion on the web always seems to come back to three things: 1. writing quality content; 2. relationships with customers; and 3. patience.
I have read and heard so much that says this is the next best way to make it big and fast on the web and here’s how to do it the lazy way and here’s how to do it without work, especially writing. After 3+ years in IM, I have seen none of those work well over time. It’s easy to be successful. Sustained success is the difficult challenge.
Exactly Buck, sustained success is where it’s all at. Unfortunately, sustained success can sometimes mean more work than most people are willing to tackle.
When I launch a new site I often find that a round of guest posting can really kick-start my results. As you say if you pick your targets carefully you already know Google places a high degree of trust and authority on the sites you get published on and so a new site that suddenly appears and has links from a number of these high-trust sites can catapult into the search engine rankings.
As a side note, anyone interested in guest posting can sign up for a free account at MyBlogGuest.com which will help you to find guest blogging opportunities. Personally I have made a number of connections through the site.
Thanks for the link to myblogguest.com. We will be checking it out.
Hey ladies! Just stumbled across your website! really intrigued with the amount of content you got here! I’m new to internet marketing, kind of struggling of course, spending the dollars with almost no return. Please take a look at my site at http://www.shakfromthegroundup.com. Any additional opinions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Nice site Shak. I like how you write about your experiences. These are the best types of sites in my opinion.
The one thing I can suggest for you that will make a major difference in your traffic is to leave blog comments on related sites. This works well for sites that are internet marketing related. When we did that with this blog within a couple of months our traffic jumped and we had regular readers.
Your content is good so you should be able to attract regular readers but you just need to get them there first.
Take a look at the people that leave comments on this blog and go and leave comments on their blog. You can start with Dennis Edell’s site below your comment here.
Find high traffic sites and keep at it. Spend at least an hour a day leaving comments for a month and see what happens.
2-3 links within the article, as in the body itself and not the resource box? Do you find many blogs willing to allow this?
I find that more and more webmasters are allowing up to 4 links. So I look at what they have allowed on other articles on their site. Then I change my links to fit in with their standard. So I may add two or three to the article depending on the review I am linking back to. Then I add 2 links to the author bio, one to the home page and one to my review.
It just depends on what you can get away with really.
I always state in my email to them that they can tailor the article (remove links they consider excessive) providing they leave a minimum of two links back to my site.
Hi Paula and Wanda,
I think that I may have been the one that said your method backlinking is ‘weak’ on a forum (actually, I said ‘lacking’ so maybe it wasn’t me and it is strange coincidence). In any case, let me throw in some ‘context’ here.
The forum that was mentioned is focused on backlinks and backlinking strategy. This is a more technical bunch of people, more so than other popular IM forums that don’t need to be mentioned.
So, I was more speaking to the particular audience. These people tend to like complex backlinking systems and really sink their teeth into various strategies, and many of them are successful at it.
So, when I mentioned that the backlinking portion was ‘lacking’, I meant that your ebook doesn’t go too much into strategies that many of these folks haven’t already seen or heard of. That doesn’t mean your methods aren’t powerful :)
Hope that clears things up.
I’m not sure who it was Chris as the person in the email didn’t tell me so it may not have been you. Regardless, it’s okay to have your opinion so I respect that and I see where you are coming from so it’s all good!
hello to you two,
thanks for another nice article. i have a question though. i think i read you both are doing mostly review sites and work on getting backlinks to them. does this work similar? i mean – do you review e.g. the newest dog food and then try to get other site owners linking to that site in exchange for an article? i was wondering about this because i thought that it might be less effective to link to a site which has “just” one page which fits? thanks for enlightening me :-)
Yep, this is what we do. We write reviews and get other site owners to link to those reviews in exchange for a free article. If we were reviewing a dog food for instance, we would contact dog site owners and see if they would like an article.
I was just wondering why would someone share a method which is soo effective. Ain’t you just creating more competition for yourself. There are lots of niches online, but anyone can easily scale with a good outsourcing team to many different niches within a year. I don’t understand why telling others on bus strategy which works, when it can hurt you in the long-run.
There are no major secrets to our method. It is basically what people should be doing but most aren’t ie. choosing good quality products, writing really good quality reviews and getting really good quality backlinks. It’s simple really but most people want the quick easy way out so they lose their way. It’s only when you focus on quality that success happens.
I haven’t got to the point of submitting guest articles yet, but I understand why people do it. It is win/win all round, you get back links and people like me get free great content for our blogs. :)
I get most of my guest posts from myblogguest.com
Someone else mentioned myblogguest.com. We’ll be taking a good look at it within the next couple of weeks.
Yes, I have had a couple of requests for articles through myblogguest.com that were published, they seem to be strict and very anti spam (which is a good thing!).
One even led to me introducing a contact with an East African charity that I worked with, to the website owner to their mutual advantage.
Hey, Paula and Wendy:
Guest blogging is the new article marketing, would you agree with this sentiment? Or is article marketing (in your humble opinion) still a method worth pursuing.
I personally have swayed from article marketing and changed gears to guest blogging. Would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Cheers,
We’ve tried article marketing but never really had much success with it. We’ve always had better success with guest blogging. It is something we learned initially from James Martell. He was doing this way back when people were really only focusing on reciprocal linking.
Article marketing is okay as part of a linking strategy but I wouldn’t rely on it solely for backlinks and traffic. As you can see with the latest Google update this can be detrimental.
Thanks for the feedback on article marketing. It seems it’s now a dead medium and no longer as effective as it once was.
My efforts (and time) will move toward guest blogging, press releases and niche directory submissions. These have always worked well for me. Thx!
It’s great to hear from affiliate marketers who are taking this type of approach. Most of the AM noise is all about quick backlink schemes. I was beginning to think that was how it had to be done but it felt like those are same schemes Google wants to eradicate. Even if some of those schemes work post-Panda, I am guessing they won’t work forever. I’ll take the time to follow the ‘right’ route. In fact, I just received my first ‘yes’ this morning on a PR4 blog. Yahoo!
That’s how I see it Larry. The latest linking strategies can work but do they work in the long term? So in my opinion I like to stick with the stable stuff like guest blogging. That’s not to say we won’t try any of the new techniques in the future – we have to stay open-minded about it after all.
And of course don’t forget that the other benefit of getting your guest articles onto another site, is getting a slice of their traffic!
Although most consider guest blogging to be about getting quality back-links, it could be argued that it is really all about the traffic ultimately.
Increasing your traffic from a new source of ‘eyes’ is a great way of building links naturally too.
Google is not the only way to get those fresh eyeballs on your content!
That’s right Ian. If you can find a high traffic blog then you can get a lot of direct traffic from a guest post.
Actually, leaving good quality comments is also a good way to build some backlinks. However, much like writing a good guest post, it’s important to leave a quality comment.
As for guest posts, I find most sites keep to the same policy that I do on my blog. That is that I don’t allow promotional links in the body of the post itself unless it’s very highly relevant to the material. I like to keep promotional links to the author box. I think that keeps the article itself less spammy.
We like leaving comments as well Richard. It’s a great way of getting traffic especially if you target high traffic popular blogs.
Thanks for the mention. It’s funny how colored I am with link building methods, having been taught by a few other IMers and finding a method that works – guest blogging does work for traffic, for sure.
Reading right now an ebook on other, similar methods of generating traffic, only because these methods are more or less the way things should be. I just get impatient. :)
Thanks for the call to quality in all you do, you are two strong voices in my head as I run my business. Always an inspiring read.
That’s what makes working online so interesting. Everyone has their own methods for what works.
And yes impatience I think is a big problem with most people working online – we all want it now.
Hi Paula/Wanda
I have a few questions for you and look forward to reading your thoughts:
•I haven’t yet tried guest blogging due to the amount of work it takes and the lack of time I have. What I have tried though is a backlinking program whereby each month I get sent a list of about 50 forums that allow do follow links in your signatures when you register for the forum. What are your thoughts on this type of backlinking?
•The other method I have tried is a free service that submits your website pages to bookmarking type websites. Any thoughts on this?
And I have done a small amount of commenting on other blogs.
•My last question is how do you measure what works when it comes to backlinking? What I mean is how can you tell whether one method gives you better Google rankings than another method?
Thanks
Richard
First of all, you might want to read Ben’s comment below regarding how much time guest blogging takes.
In terms of the backlinking program you are referring to, we have tried them but not in a big way. We kind of find them a bit spammy in some ways because what it entails is signing up to forums simply to add a link and not contribute in any major way. We are still undecided really but in terms of backlinks they aren’t too bad but we haven’t really noticed that they provide any sort of dramatic improvement in our rankings. It’s hard to provide a definitive answer because we tend to mix up our links a bit.
And the bookmarking services can be okay. It’s good to spread your links around so adding to social bookmarking sites can help.
You can’t really measure anything unless you are specifically only using one method of backlinking at a time and most people rarely if ever do that. We only know that guest blogging works because that’s pretty much all we did in the early days and why a lot of our sites are still quite strong even though we have neglected a lot of them over the years. We did do reciprocal linking in conjunction with that but that went out the window years ago and is pretty much worthless now.
Thanks for your reply Paula.
I will start looking for some guest blogging opportunities.
Richard
I recently followed your advice on using Guest blogs as a backlinking method. I emailed about 20 sites in related niches which all up took me about 30 minutes.
Of those 20 sites, I had about 6 rejections, 2 sites accepted and the rest I didn’t hear back from. It then took me about 40 minutes to put together the 2 articles for the sites that accepted.
From that I received 1 PR5 link and 1 PR4 link from authority sites in related niches.
I would have got more link juice from those sites than I had from the hundreds of crappy links I’d spent hours and hours building in the previous weeks and it shows in the SERPS too.
You’re also spot on about google… Recent updates have shown that quality matters and as google gets smarter and smarter, these junk profile backlinks and link farms aren’t going to do anything for rankings.
The people who are willing to put in the work to get these quality links are not only helping their sites in the short term, but also proofing themselves against changes in the future.
That’s great to hear Ben. Just imagine getting a few pagerank 4 and 5’s each week. You just don’t get that with most other methods of backlinking.
When you combine this with a bit of blog commenting, a press release every now and then and some social bookmarking/networking it really builds up to a strong website.
Also Ben, try sending a second email to those sites that you never heard from. Sometimes they just need a reminder.
Hi Paula,
I’ve been reading your blog for weeks now and I should say that your (and Wanda, of course) tips and tricks are extremely helpful for me. Just now in your reply to Ben you talk about Press release. This is the thing that still like a puzzle for me for years since I begin my blogging journey.
I wonder if you can shed some knowledge about writing a press release? For example, my blog is all about technology/hardware/gadget and I wrote a review on certain kind of monitor. so how exactly a press release will work on my review and how to promote it?
The best way of seeing what you can write about is to browse the PRWeb site(http://www.prweb.com/recentnews/)for ideas. You’ll see a lot of product related press releases on there so just see what they have written about in their reviews.
We will also write about this in a blog post in the near future.
Yeah, this is basically a form of article marketing. Just that you are using someone’s ezine here, rather than a common directory. But it does have its own benefits.
It’s definitely much stronger than placing on article directories in my opinion especially since the latest Google update.
Hi Ladies,
I have been diligently following your guest posting process for the past few months and have had some success with it. In February and March, I was able to get just over 40 articles accepted and posted on a variety of high PR sites – Yay! With 2-4 links in each article, I’m excited about the # of links I now have pointing to my 3 review pages.
Now I am just waiting for Google to find the links and reward my hard work by moving my reviews up a bit in the SERPs. *Fingers crossed*
As a stay at home Mom with little ones at my feet, I am finding that 20-25 articles is the most I can do in a month. Should I be trying to do more or is this pace acceptable? Do you have a certain number of guest articles that you like to do per review page (for fairly competitive keywords)?
You are doing well to get 20-25 articles up per month.
There is no set number of articles that you need to do per review page. The reason there is no set amount is that there are so many variables to take into account like the competition first of all. You might need 1 article to rank in the number one spot in Google for a keyword or you might need 100. Just don’t stop to even think about the numbers and where you are ranking – just keep sending out those guest articles.
I’ve always wondered what the etiquette was as far as guest blogging was concerned. So submitting the same work to both the blog owner and article directories is frowned upon, huh?
Exactly Sonny. Submitting the work to a blog owner and article directories is a definite no-no. When an article is offered to a blog owner it is always on the proviso that it is unique and will not be used anywhere else.
When we receive guest posts, we run a check to make sure they haven’t been used elsewhere. For one thing, we don’t want to be penalized by Google for publishing duplicate content, plus we want our information to be unique and of benefit to our readers.
Hi Wanda
Do you use software to test that the article is original content or just use Google to search on phrases within the article?
We use Google to search on phrases within the article. By putting quotes around the phrase Google will return exact matches, so I usually try it with and without quotes.
Ive been doing SEO and backlinking for quite a while now and I must say this is definitely one of the best methods out there !
Ive not started using it yet cuz I’m still doing some researches and definitely am going to use it soon!
thanks for sharing your article really helped me !
Its good that you have been doing some backlinking Giochi. Every bit of backlinking that you do helps your site gain strength. Thank you for your comment.
Hi Paula and Wanda
I have another question for you please.
When it comes to adding comments to peoples blogs or guest blogging, if the blog is hosted on wordpress.com (which has a PR ranking of 9) does the PR ranking of wordpress.com help us, or is it the PR ranking of the sub domain that is the blog that is important?
I hope that makes sense.
Thanks
Richard
I doubt that the PR of wordpress.com would pass through.The PR of the sub-domain is where you would receive the benefit from. So whatever PR the site that you approach has is what will apply.
That’s actually an interesting plan. I always thought, if you had a blog and set up a sub-domain, the PR filtered throughout, no?
Hi Paula and Wanda,
I was just wondering whether the Google Product Search listings which have been showing up more and more lately are affecting your traffic and/or Amazon sales? Thanks, Rachel
We haven’t noticed anything Rachel.
I would like to hire someone to write a 1000 product review. Since this is my first time can you tell me what should I expect to pay for that? I am trying to decide whether I can afford to hire someone or just do it myself. I live in the US. Thanks so much.
You can pay as low as $5 an article but you get what you pay for when it comes to hiring someone to write articles. We use Elance and just recently posted a job for 10 articles at 500 words each. The bids that came in ranged from $50 up to $450 for all 10 articles. We chose a writer whose bid was $160 because she actually had the knowledge we needed for those articles.
We used to have a fantastic writer that would write between 800-1000 words and we paid her $20 per article.
It will all depend on the experience of the writer. Just do your homework and ensure that they provide samples of their work prior to you accepting their services.
Hi Paula and Wanda
I have a semi-related question to this subject for you please.
With respect to pubishing articles on my own websites by guest bloggers, how close to my subject should those articles be.
If for example I had a website promoting a diet product, would articles by guest bloggers on other health related subjects (such as swimming, running, 20 things to look for when choosing a gym, etc) be useful for me to build content, or should the guest blog articles be closer to subject/product that I am promoting?
Also, if the guest blogger was writing about treadmills, for example, would it be frowned upon if at the bottom of the article (or within the article itself) I added some Amazon advertisements for treadmills using my affiliate link? i.e. Should I just publish the article as it is submitted (with the authors links to his/her website only), or can I add my own advertisements within that blog post in the hope that if someone reads the article about treadmills, they decide to click on my link through to Amazon.
Thanks
Richard
If I had a diet site I would be happy to receive articles on swimming, running etc as they are related. But it is really up to you, if you want them specifically related to dieting then that is what you need to tell any potential guest blogger.
As for the links in the article, it is your blog so you can do whatever you want. As long as you let them know up front, it will allow them to decide whether they still want to give you an article. Most won’t care as they simply want to get a backlink to their site.
We generally don’t add Amazon links within the article but we will often add an Amazon image that links to Amazon at the top of the article because most times the guest bloggers won’t provide images.
Thanks Paula
I have asked you a few questions now, and every time you (or Wanda) have taken the time to reply. I really appreciate it.
The posts here are great and incredibly helpful, but the comments are even better. I learn a great deal from reading the replies to the questions people ask. I just wanted to say thank you to Paula and Wanda for all the effort they put into this.
Thank you Russell – that’s really nice to hear.
Hi, Wanda and Paula,
I totally enjoy reading your blog. I just wanted to mention that to a website owner, it is a nice feeling to have someone ask to have a guest blog or article on your site. It lets you know that others think your site is worthwhile. Thanks!
That’s right Linda. It really indicates that your content is good and your site is strong.
Hi Paula and Wanda
Thanks for this post. It really makes lots of sense. I think after building my sites I always stop at the backlinking. I really do not like doing it because it does not make sense just going around posting your link like spamming. But this way it does makes lots of sense. After all Google is right, the internet should be a source of information, and building backlinks the other way does not really provide the information.
So do you go in more detail in your course, and do you go into much more details on how to write the reviews, and contents you will build on your site
Thanks
Andrea
If you want to get traffic to your site Andrea, you have 3 choices:
1. Pay Per Click – good luck if you can get this right without losing a lot of money.
2. Networking – By networking I mean leaving comments, forum posting etc, in order to build up a following.This really depends on your niche but it is extremely hard to build up a following for a product based website.
3. Backlinking – the more quality backlinks you have the more likely you are to rank high in Google for your keywords and therefore the more traffic you will get.
If you aren’t doing the first two, then you are left with the third. That means you have to make backlinking your priority. It’s not spam if you do it the right way – ie. guest blogging, press releases and social bookmarking.
Linking is how the internet works – if you don’t get your links out there then nobody is going to find your site. So try not to think of it as spam – think of it as a means for people to find your website. If you have developed worthwhile content then you should be proud to get your link on as many other websites as possible.
And yes, we do go into a lot more detail on how to go about guest blogging effectively and how to write the reviews from start to finish.
Hey Paula,
You had mentioned that you will be working on a post about press releases. Has that come out yet? Really looking forward to it.
Not yet Charles but it will be one of the next few we do. Thanks for the reminder.
Hi Paula and Wanda
I have decided to dedicate the next month to backlinking and have a question for you regarding commenting of other websites:
Most of the websites ask you for a name, email address and website when you post your comment, and obviously there is no point in commenting if you can’t add your website, but my question is, do you use your name, a pen name, or do you enter a keyword/phrase in the name field – given that the link gets created against the ‘name’.
i.e. if I am linking to my website about DVD players, is their more benefit if I enter my name as ‘DVD Players’ than if I enter it as ‘Richard’?
Thanks
Richard
Generally you don’t get a backlink by leaving a comment only because most blogs are set up using nofollow so leaving the keyword in the name probably doesn’t do too much anyway. However some think that search engines will still follow the link through so it doesn’t hurt to do it if you can get away with it.
I normally don’t just use the keyword on it’s own because the owner of the blog will generally delete a comment left like that. Instead I use a combination of my name and the keyword. For example “Paula from Affiliate Blog Online”.
So you might use “Dave from DVD Players”.
(You can read more about nofollow here – http://www.affiliateblogonline.com/2008/08/03/what-is-dofollow-and-nofollow/)
Thanks Paula, thats a really good tip. I too had wondered about the ‘anchor text’ in the name field in comments.
Keywords alone are obviously ‘spammy’ but your idea should just about pass……see above lol!
Hi Wanda and Paula
Two weeks on and I am still reading this post :0)
As another commenter mentioned further up, the article is great but the comments are icing on the cake, giving more context to how people get stuck and avoid doing what we should be doing.
Count me as one of those who has been stuck.
But last night I read this article (again) and after watching my two hundred or so articles hand-written for sites like ezine articles basically get washed down the drain (as of 1st May Panda really started to affect me) I will be venturing into guest blogging as of today.
Wish me luck.
Cheers
Inger
The beauty of guest blogging is that you don’t have to rely on one website for your backlinks so even if one of the sites you have an article on goes down, you still have articles on plenty of other sites. It’s not as risky as sending your articles to one website like ezinearticles.com for example.
Paula:
I’ve started searching for sites related to my niche to guest blog for and have a question. I’m finding that a good number of sites already have “submit articles” pages on their website with instructions.
Do you think this is any less legitimate than actually having to send an email to the site owner with an offer to write an article? It would seem like these sites would be overwhelmed with submissions – which is maybe a good thing as they can pick and choose…
And yes, these sites are PR3 and above.
Your thoughts are appreciated.
Thanks
Stephanie
What we normally do in these situations is email the owner of the site first before sending an article. I do this just to make sure the site is still being maintained and they don’t have a huge backlog.
Hi Ladies,
Well, I am in the thick of back linking! I am spending most of my time either posting articles on my sites or contacting websites to post my articles.
It is a slow and steady climb and reading your post has helped me put it into perspective. How long it takes, be persistent, and above, don’t stop or give up.
Many times I need to take a break, but not for long and I always come back to it. Your story has inspired me to persist.
Leigh
Excellent Leigh, you are doing what most people don’t so stick with it. It will pay off in the end.
Hi Wanda and Paula, after buying the Amazonian Profit Plan, I followed your tip and began guest blogging. I found a website that connects websites looking for guest bloggers, and guest bloggers looking for homes for their articles, so luckily I have not had to work so hard to find quality websites to write for in my niche. This gives me some good backlinks to my blog.
Your other tips have also been very helpful. You two are a great resource for other internet marketers….thank you!
Ken
A few of those guest blogging sites are popping up now which is great. Do you want to share the website with us?
I know someone who has used, http://myblogguest.com/
and had a good experience with it.
Hope that helps.
Thanks Paula. I hope you will continue to inspire us to create back links, since it is the most important and tedious part of the whole internet marketing business. It is nice to know there is someone out there rooting for us.
Leigh
Hey ladies! I’m curious as to your opinion – can it be harmful to have too many articles on one site? I just got going on doing PAD articles and I’ve got one site owner who loves the articles I’ve written (two for him in the last two weeks) and is asking me for more. He said he’ll publish anything I send him. Can this be detrimental at all? I’m absolutely excited about it, since he owns several sites I can contribute to, but I’m just curious if I should limit the number of articles.
The most we have submitted to the one site is around 8 to 10 articles and haven’t noticed any problems.
But it’s hard to say whether it can be detrimental or not. I wouldn’t think so but who knows what Google is thinking.
Personally we wouldn’t submit more than 10 to a site.
What sort of quality would the articles have to be..say ezinearticles standard or do you have to come across as a bit of an authority in the niche ? I am looking at blog commenting as a backlinking strategy that is slightly similar but it seems very hit and miss whether the website owner will accept the comment. I like the PAD idea but have always put it in the too hard basket compared to other techniques…will have to set some time aside for it.
If you want to get good quality links then you need to approach good quality sites. And good quality sites will want good quality content.
So ezinearticles quality is probably not good enough.
Thanks for the info! I used to use Mark Cuban’s blog for some high powered backlinks… Unfortunately, they disabled comments for now :(. I’ve tried guest blogging, it’s kind of a pain getting a hold of people though. Any tips?
Guest blogging is a numbers game. You are going to be ignored/declined more times than you will be accepted so you really have to just keep at it. I wish there was an easier way but it’s worth it in the end because you can get some really good quality backlinks from it.
Thanks guys for all the great info you put out, I’ve finding some really useful stuff here and inspiration.
Do you all have any opinions on link farming? It seems people create a few different websites within their niche and then they build links by interlinking the sites together. Just wondering because I’ve been looking at some of the methods competitors in my niche are using to building links and some of them have a massive amount of back links(in the high hundreds) coming from a couple selective sites, and the sites that they link to really have that low quality feel to them, obviously just being used for linking. Their main money making sites are ranked pretty much at the top for high traffic keywords. Just wondering if this a technique Google allows or is it just a matter of time before these guys get called out for it. It would suck to put allot of work into building a good site and then have google take you out of the rankings. So i’m on the fence about doing something like that once I get my site built.
So far it looks like the PAD method is the way to go. Thanks again for sharing.
This technique has been used for many years so Google is well aware of it and they don’t like it. Which means that if they are found out for doing it, their sites will be penalized.
I just found your blog and find it very informative and most of all ethical. It’s taken me years to decide on starting an affiliate site precisely because I don’t want to pretend that I am an authority when I am not, however I have come to the conclusion that few businesses manufacture their products, that in fact most are retail stores that trust others to do their advertizing. That said I also have noticed that the web is taking a new direction and marketers are presenting themselves in an honest light. You are such an example.
I am doing research on a possible business to start and I am focusing on Amazon. THese are a few of the Qs I have: If you choose an Amazon product, say t-shirts, what’s the best way to promote the item: a WordPress static site, a blog or their aStore? Also, isn’t it hard to review a product such as t-shirts? And, are there any product categories you would stay away from?
I appreciate your feedback,
Isabel
You might have a tough time writing lengthy reviews for t-shirts – there is only so much you can say about them. But then if your reviews are unique and not many other people are reviewing t-shirts then you would probably get away with shorter reviews.
I personally would steer away from reviewing t-shirts only because the average price is around $15-$30. So your commission won’t be that great and you will have to sell a lot of t-shirts to make a decent income.
We prefer to stick with products over $150. That’s just a ball park – you can go lower.
And there aren’t really too many product categories that we would avoid – maybe some of the products in the electrical area (like laptops for instance) as you only get a maximum of 4% commission from Amazon plus they tend to be superseded quite quickly so you are regularly updating reviews to keep up.
As for the site, it doesn’t really matter. You can have an WordPress blog, html site, aStore, Squidoo lens, Hubpage or whatever. The site really doesn’t make a difference. We just prefer WordPress as it is easy to use.
Thanks Paula, one other thing, I recently run into a video that explains how to embed or swap an amazon aStore to WP. In doing so can one still add articles to that site? I understand that the aStores have no SEO that you can tweak but maybe once in a WP page, the WP plugins that help with SEO and traffic etc., would in turn pass those attributes to the aStore? Don’t know if I’m clear enough or if I understand the workings of an aStore.
I’d appreciate your thoughts and/or clarifications on this subject.
BTW Polo t-shirts for men sell for as much as $160… if made in Italy up to $196…
Isabel
I must admit I don’t know enough about aStores either. I know we have tried them on a couple of our WordPress blogs by just embedding the code. Doing it that way allows us to have an aStore and also add other articles and reviews to the blog.
And that’s great about the t-shirts – definitely worth pursuing if they are in that price range.
Hi Paula and Wanda,
I have been working on my site and am getting close to trying to market it. I still have a little bit to go before I am ready to contact other site owners and had a question about guest blogging. Do I create one article and submit to many sites or do I need a number of articles? I have a number of articles and thought that I would send out the first one to several places and then when it’s time for another to those same sites, I submit the next one, and so on. Do I have that right? I just wondered because I thought that guest blogging meant that you submit one article to one site and the next article to the next site, etc. Thanks so much for your help.
You create one article per site. You want the article you give to a site to be unique.
Most site owners will not want duplicated content and there is really no point using duplicated content anyway. Google is getting very savvy about it and it really won’t benefit you much by doing it.
Hi,
Couldn’t agree more to you. A lot of bloggers neglect guest blogging. They have not yet found the treasure in it. This is definitely the most powerful backlinking method if done correctly and consistently.
I think that a lot of people give up on the process too quickly. After all it is time consuming, finding sites willing to take an article,writing the article, submitting it and then monitoring to see that the article has been put up on the site. But as you say Veronica, it is definitely the most powerful backlinking method there is.
Hi,
do you use the PAD software that James has available or do you use your own resources to find guest post opportunities?
Thanks
Yes we do use James Martells PAD software to find guest sites. We also use the Wordtracker Linkbuilder Tool. And we also manually search by using Google. So I guess we use a mix of different products to find guest blogging opportunities.
Great stuff Paula,
have you found the PAD software to be worth the outlay? and are the sites included all of a good quality and worthy of approaching for a link?
The software saves us a heap of time finding sites because they are all sites that will accept articles. And they are all good quality.
We don’t use it for the management part however as it doesn’t suit our needs. We work a little differently so the workflow doesn’t quite work for us which is why we also use Wordtracker Linkbuilder to keep track of everything.
However, James is still working on it and I can only see it getting better.
Thanks Paula!
Hi,
do you use the PAD software that James has available or do you use your own resources to find guest post opportunities?
Thanks
We use a combination of James’ software, Google and the Wordtracker Linkbuilder software for finding guest post opportunities.
Could you please provide more info about James’s software for PADs and what it does ? Thanks !
It’s still in beta but basically it does two things:
1. It provides a database of over 2000 sites that accept articles. This doesn’t mean that if you email them they will take an article but they are more likely to because they have accepted articles in the past.
2. It manages your guest blogging campaigns. So you can keep track of when you email sites and send out articles and so on.
At the moment the second part doesn’t work well enough for us. Our workflow is a little different so we don’t use that part of it. However, James is in the process now of making the workflow more in line with what we do and he predicts that this will take about 6 weeks of development work.
hmm, i’ll gues it works a shot, thank you Paula & Wanda.
I have been trying to get into guest blogging for a bit now. This article on finding blogs using technorati is what I was looking for. I had no idea on how to find blogs that were interested in guest blogging. Thanks for the advice. I thought I had to wait until someone was asking for other bloggers, I guess its best to contact them. The early bird gets the work so to speak.
You can also find blogs in Google by just typing in a related keyword and then the words “submit article” or “add an article” or similar.
For example, if your website is about dogs you could search for sites that accept articles by typing in the following into a Google search:
– dogs submit article
– dogs add an article
– pets submit article
– pets add an article
– dogs add your article
– dogs guest articles
One thing that I can tell is you need to build quality articles and with the software of James and Wanda, you can notch your rankings on Google.
Yes, quality is the key Mike. Google loves quality content.
Great articles, I’ve read this word by word for 3 times, and is reviewing my backlinking strategy. Actually, the core of backlinking is actually building trust to people, and also of course to google. guest blogging method is not a fast easy way, but that really might get quality backlinks. I’m going to try and keep this way. Thanks again for your great sharing.
“…the core of backlinking is actually building trust to people”
That’s a beautiful way of saying it.
I m working on live streaming for sports i need the traffic on my site so yet i did’t got any source of backlinking in site to insure the traffic for my site if there is any solution then please inform me as soon as possible
The solution is in the blog post above Naveed.
Many thanks Paula and Wanda,
I’m relatively new to affiliate marketing and have only recently discovered your blog. It’s very helpful to see some of the more complicated areas of affiliate marketing explained in some depth. I have struggled with the concept of effective backlinking and this post has been very helpful in this regard. I’m realising it’s about the quality of the backlinks rather than the sheer number of them. I’ve bookmarked your site and hope to read more valuable posts!
Quality is the key to everything on the internet. If you focus on quality in everything you do then you will succeed.
Hi,
I am reading through your course, which I think is great. I also starting reading your posts here, and was wondering what you think about Unique Article Wizard and the quality of links you get from using them?
Thanks
Ian
We’ve tried UAE, but it’s not something we would use again. The articles are submitted to article directories and we don’t see much value in submitting to article directories these days.
I haven’t ever used technorati to search for guest posts, but the website doesn’t pull up for me. Is the website dead now, or are there just temporary problems with my computer/the site? I want to try it out, as I have a really hard time finding *quality* blogs to post on!
Just try again Emma. Maybe they had a glitch but it’s working for me now.
Thank you Paula! I just tried again, and it is working now! Must have been a server problem or something! I’m excited to try it out!