Link Building and Social Bookmarking – a Powerful 1-2 Punch for SEO

Link building plays a vital role in every organic SEO strategy. And as things stand today, off-page SEO tactics carry the bulk of the weight as compared to on-page optimization techniques of the past. Link building is the primary weapon used in outranking your competition in search engines.

However, not all backlinks or inbound links are created equal. Google and other major search engines no longer consider simple reciprocal links valuable. As a matter of fact, the relevance and quality can significantly affect your page rank. Hang around bad backlink neighborhoods and you could be penalized. Focusing on high-quality and relevant one-way links is the name of the game now.

Link building strategies

There are several methods for one-way link building, they are:

• Directory submissions
• Article marketing and syndication
• Forum posting
• Guest blogging
• Press releases
• Paid links (see my recommendation at the end)
• Social bookmarking

This post focuses on the powerful technique of social bookmarking for link building. [Read more]

Video Killed the Content King

The headline is my clever attempt at spoofing the classic 1979 hit song “Video Killed the Radio Star” by a British band called The Buggles. The song celebrates the golden days of radio, describing a singer whose career is cut short by television. The song topped the music chart in several countries.

It was the first music video shown on MTV at 00:01 on August 1, 1981, the day the cable station was launched in the U.S. I found the video on YouTube, so here it is for those not old enough to remember and/or for those who just want a trip down memory lane. Enjoy! [Read more]

How to Use Videos in Your Online Marketing

Quick, what’s the fastest way to generate traffic for your online business?

The answer: YouTube. Videos are the fastest way to do that, especially if they go viral.

Now before you roll your eyes and run for the hills, let me tell you exactly how easy video marketing can be.

You don’t need an expensive, top-of-the-line camcorder or be a master of the latest video editing software. All you need are 3 key ingredients to make a video that gets views.

1. Keep it real. Don’t pretend to be someone you are not. Your honesty and enthusiasm are what will help sell you and your information product – not your cinema and videography skills.
2. Create a buzz: You can bet that’s what the “teenagers” are doing to get people to view their homemade YouTube videos. They tell their friends, announcing the video using YouTube’s “Share” feature, talking about it on Facebook, leaving comments on other similar or related videos in their YouTube group.
3. Be entertaining: Your video doesn’t have to be a slick studio production but it does need to entertain your target audience. If it’s interesting, your viewers decide and not you, your videos will get views. And if it’s interesting enough, it will go viral!

[Read more]

How to Use Twitter to Market Your eBook Without Spending a Penny

Everyone knows that Twitter and other social media sites are great for virtual networking. But what about using them for marketing your eBook? Social networking sites are a great way to market and promote your eBook without spending any money and doing it in low-key manner.

In this post, I want to focus solely on using Twitter to promote your eBook or perhaps a physical book and your online business.

First, let’s talk about how Twitter can be so effective. Think of it as a virtual coffee shop where you like to hang out and meet people. You interact, exchange thoughts and ideas with others from around the globe who otherwise would be inaccessible to you.

Of course, you may not always agree with everyone’s opinions but that’s okay. As long as you stay away from blatant self-promotion about your eBook or business, you’ll begin to build a community of trusting relationships. (See my post, “Golden Rule of Twitter”).

You need to grasp the true power of these virtual relationships and leverage them to generate a large following for your eBook. Don’t make it into a popularity contest just to see the number of your followers increasing everyday, that won’t do you any good.

You need to work hard at building real relationships even though you may never meet each other face-to-face. Take a look at this short video by Seth Godin and you’ll understand this critical difference.
[Read more]

Use Free Viral Ebooks To Get New Subscribers

Want to get thousands of new subscribers for your ezine without spending a cent on advertising and you’ve tried all the methods above but you still want more?

Viral marketing is the way to go! Writing viral books is nothing new, but it’s still a great way to get your newsletter noticed.

There are a few methods you can use when creating viral ebooks.

You can either create them as a free product, or charge for them and give people the reprint rights to the product so they in turn can give your product away while making some money in the process.

I prefer the reprint right route. The key here is that, once the momentum of the first book wears out, write another and another and another and another! All in the same method, all with reprint rights and all with your newsletter subscribe form inserted in them. The goal really isn’t to make money from the sales of the book, it’s to get more subscribers.

[Read more]