Big Foot Web Marketing

This weeks Tuesday’s Tool is the Wordpress Plugin, Alinks by Headzoo. Alinks will let you define a set of keywords and attach a link to them – sitewide and instantly. Being able to create mass crosslinks on your blog can create traffic for “lost” posts, make your blog more easily crawled as well as giving pages and posts better rankings with proper use of keywords. With the ability to add Amazon links to any text you will greatly increase your potential for Amazon affiliate revenue with very little effort. Alinks used with FAQ posts will also help you educate your readers.

Simple Use of Alinks: Crosslinking

The simplest use of Alinks is to define a regularly used set of words on your site and having them to link to a specific page. For example I can set up Alinks to find all references to “Tuesday’ Tools” on my site and have them point to ‘Tuesday’s Tool Category Archive”. I don’t have to manually add the link every single time I mention Tuesday Tool. I may refer to a plugin or site often and its a hassle to stop and paste the URL in every the time. I can just have Alinks do it for me. I do this with frequently mentioned sites like Google or Digg , etc.

Having crosslinks in your blog will keep your site healthy and well crawled/indexed. Using another Wordpress plugin Related Posts also crosslinks posts with the added bonus of offering your reader related content. You should be getting into the habit of manually crosslinking to all your posts; however plugins like Alinks are a handy tools to have in your chest.

Breathe New Life into Lost in The Deep Posts with Alinks

You may have several posts in your blog that just don’t get read. The content is good but the posts are “lost” in your blog …floating around … they never quite took off like you thought they would. I suggest you get in the habit of finding those posts and creating crosslinks to them. Use more popular posts on your blog to link to your undiscovered gems. You can also use Alinks. Define a keyword or keywords phrase in Alinks and have it link to your post. It takes about 30 seconds. You will now have multiple links on your site using keywords linking to the post you want to promote.

Use Alinks Plugin To Help Readers Understand Your Posts

So many times I will write a post and use a term I am not sure is familiar to reader. I prefer to write under the assumption every post I write might the primary portal for a reader- it may be the first post they have ever read n my blog or even the first post they have read about my niche..
I can sometimes get bogged down and have trouble deciding how much to explain about a term . Using Alinks I can easily link possible insider terms to a definition, post or FAQ page. Using the Faq-tastic Wordpress plugin you can link industry terms with in-depth pages that explain a term; i.e. link “linkbait” to a page with definition of linkbait.
This will help new readers fully understand what you have written and will not turn off readers who all ready have a working knowledge with the added benefit of you being able to write a post without getting sidetracked.

Increase Your Amazon Affiliate Earnings Instantly

I cannot emphasize how important it is for you to have deep links for your Amazon Affiliate links if you want to make money. You can’t just slap up a link in your sidebar and sit back and wait for the money to roll in. The real money comes from having post after post of content on your blog that link out to Amazon ( using your affiliate ID ).
You may not have the time to write a pre-sell page for every single book or product you mention. Using Alink is a fast approach to making money from Amazon affiliate links and is by no means a substitute for harder work . . A part – some would say a major part- of making money from Amazon getting a reader to click onto the Amazon website and have an Amazon cookie with your affiliate ID sitting in their browser. Using Alinks you can add hundreds of affiliate links to your blog in minutes.

How Do I add Multiple Amazon Affiliate Links to My Site With Alinks?

In Alinks admin settings panel you enter your Amazon affiliate ID. You can then go to general set up and set up keywords and Amazon product grouping. For example I can set up term ” Harry potter” and then have Alinks create links to “Harry Potter books” whenever it finds the term ‘Harry potter” on my blog. It isn’t elegant but it does work.

Take some time this week to install and experiment with Alinks this week. It does not replace good old fashioned manually added links but it does serve a purpose and can be a valuable tool . By using it to create crosslinks and deep links to your posts and setting up with FAQ posts you will have a blog that is more user friendly and spider- friendly. Older posts may get read more often and offer value previously hidden. Use Alinks in conjunction with Amazon Affiliate links and your Amazon revenue will go up.

There are also several additional modules you can add to the standard Alinks plugin including ebay, iTunes, Commission Junction and Clickbank .

Creates links for Commission Junction. Created by Martin Brinkmann at ghacks.net.
# Tag Pages

Let me know of your experience with Alinks. If you decide to install- tell us about it and how it affected your blog ( and revenue!) .

All links in comments will be followed. More information on dofollow blogs and the dofollow directory.

Tags: Blog For Money, Internet Marketing and Blogs, Tuesday's Tool, WordPress Plugins by Lisa Stewart
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One of the most common questions I get asked and one of the first things a new blogger starts to worry link building. Yes, content is king , blah blah, blah but to make it in the ranking game you have to do more that site back.
I came across an excellent post by Scott Allen aka “WebGeek” , Link Building Resources it is a resource article that lists sites with high quality directories, free press release sites and a long list of excellent articles on link building with info you can really use.

When building links one of the MOST important concepts to grasp is use of anchor text, an older article on the site explains the most effective ways to use anchor text.
Keep your keywords in mind when building backlinks to your site.

Tags: Blog For Money, link building by Lisa Stewart
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Problogger posted a great topic for discussion today, What is the Biggest Mistake That You’ve Made as a Blogger? Can’t wait to read some of the more honest responses to Darren’s post. Visit get some insight on what bloggers perceive as mistakes and post your gaffs.

I wanted to share what I thought were some of the more common mistakes blogger make and my take on why and how to fix.

1. Permalinks: Not Changing or Changing Frequently

Changing permalinks repeatedly or not setting up properly. When you create a post the URL it generated. When you change your permalinks structure;ie, you read that date and title based permalinks are better ( they are) and you run to change them, you change the URLs of all your posts. Why is this bad? Any inbound links are going to pages that no longer exists. Until your blog is indexed again all search results will bring up those non-existent pages.

If you have a newer blog or a blog that has no or few inbound links to deep links or not many posts I would absolutely change from the Wordpress default structure. I may even do it with a more established blog and take the hit. I would NOT change them repeatedly.

2. Horrible Post Titles

Another pet peeve. Posts like “Update”, ” What I did today ” , ” New Idea” , ” News” are not good. There are no keywords. You have to use keywords in your post titles. You also must grab your reader’s attention and make them want to read your post. You need keywords in your post tile- your post title is also the page title and one of the most important onpage factors a search engine uses to index and place your page in search engine results pages.

3. You Are Signing Your posts as ‘Admin”

I wrote about recently in Missed Opportunity: Why Are Your Blog Posts Being Made by “admin” ? . A blog author called “admin” screams ” I don’t care” or ” I am new to blogging and don’t know what I am doing” . It is also a potential spot to place keywords or anchor text.

4. Sitewide Outbound Links

This is one of my personal pet peeves- You are literally throwing away and hurting page rank when you place an outbound link with no nofollow tags in your footer or sidebar. Every page on your site has that link sitting on it. Reserve your Blogroll tyor links for a few choice blogs or sites. Do not place links to affiliates in sidebar without a nofollow tag. Remove or add tags the unnecessary META links in your sidebar and footer ‘ ie. ” Powered By Wordpress” or links to theme creator. ( I will add nofollow tag to free theme designer AND write post about how great the theme is OR create a link for them that only sits on home page because they deserve that respect)

5. You Are Blogging in a Vacuum

You rarely link out. You don’t mention other bloggers in your field for fear you might be “helping” them. ( You are- but so? ) . You save all your ideas and concepts for writing on your own blog . You don’t post or comment on any other blogs or forums. This is NOT good. Blogging is a social medium. Your blog will not thrive without activity or interaction with others. You can post on other bloggers site- even share your precious information. You will most likely get a link back (if you comment on a dofollow blog) and if your comment offers genuine value ( not just ” Great Info” ) you will get traffic. The blog owner may notice you and mention you in one of her posts. When you are out posting on other sites and forums on your area of expertise you are further branding yourself as an expert. You MUST do this!

6. Hiding Your Best Work

Every once in a while you write a post that is truly great. You bask in the glory of it for a few days… and then its gone… hidden in the archives. Yo may get traffic from other sites who have linked to it or from search engines, however you can do more! Show it off. Have somewhere to showcase your best work. Create something in the sidebar like ” Favourite Posts” or ” Best Work” or ” Post Hall of Fame”. I just use my blogroll widget. You can also hard code into your sidebar template. Also- do not forget to crosslink from other posts.

7. You Never Look at Blog’s Stats And Analytics

You must do this, you can read about using analytics in further detail, . Why is a great post not being read? What are the posts that readers come to your site for? Develop lost article with crosslinks and create other posts that relate to it. If a topic or concept gets a large readership that use that information and create more of it and go into more detail. Where are reader coming from? If you get know traffic from search engines maybe you aren’t using enough keywords. Are you get consistent traffic from a particular site or blog? Seek out more like them and try and get a backlink.

8. You Ramble. Often. And Off Topic

I can be guilty of this. Sometimes post can go on.. and on.. and sometimes we feel it necessary to share all about our cute cats are on a technology site. Posting that you are a new dad is one thing- posting your birth plan and videos is another .Ask yourself- if I was sitting next to myself at a party would I get up a leave?

9. You Are Not Hosting Your Own Blog

This gets mentioned in every single “mistakes list” for a reason. Its redundant to mention yet again- but- HOST YOUR OWN BLOG.
This should have been my #1. This has happened to a lot of people- they start a blog on blogspot or wordpress.org because they think is hard to set up their own or they started blogging as a lark. Trying move it later to your own ISP host is a HUGE hassle.
If your blog is new I would set up your own host now and move everything over. If your blog is older I would also pursue moving.
Why should you move or host your own blog? If you are thinking of monetizing your blog (make money blogging) you will be severely handicapped when some one else owns your blog. Most will not let you use Google Adsense- and enormous potential source of income. Take the time to learn how to set up your own blog- its easier than you think.

10. Erratic Postings

Posting incessantly for days and then nothing for weeks. It is hard to find your groove as well as keep up interest if you are running multiple blogs. Some way sto stay on track- have a schedule. To keep your blog “healthy” post a minimum of 2 posts a week.
If you are running multiple blogs organizing your time and create posting schedules that you can stick to. You can also post date you posts, write generic posts and have them published by changing the time in “Post Timestamp” . Do not start every post with ” I am sorry I haven’t posted in while” and then list a tale of woes.
I know some bloggers will warn readers they will be away, however I think that posting on a public blog that you will not be home for weeks is a bad idea. Announcing that you and your family are leaving for Disney World tomorrow may not be prudent, so keep this in mind.

11. Bad Ad Placement/Too Many Ads/ Cluttered Site/Lost Content

Trying to find a happy medium with ads will be tricky. Some blog visitors will abhor any adds. Most people will be fine with a few well place ads and nearly everyone will be turned off by sites that look like a Las Vegas strip of flashing banners and ads. A common problem I see is all ads and no content above the fold. Literally the entire upper portion of the site is solid ads ( or almost all ads) and not much content and reader has to scroll to find anything of value.

Lots of superfluous widgets and doodads in your sidebar are to be avoided. Ask yourself if they are ADDING value or taking away value. This is sometimes hard to tell as well and sometimes you just have to try and see if it works for you. I have put up widgets I thought would take off and readers would love only to find out they were just taking up valuable real estate. I have also thought they would be a waste and then put them up and later found they had value that didn’t occur to me..

Where is Best Place For Google Adsense Ads Anyway?

There is science to ad placement with payment per click type publishing like Google Adsense and beyond the intended scope of this article. Generally I like a leaderboard in header and square in left sidebar and another one in the post above or Google ads wrapped in the post. These placement get played with constantly.
Google also will curb number of you because they will only publish 3 sets of adds on any given page. Use common sense or ask some one you trust whether you have too many ads. Maintaining a balance of ads that makes your site profitable over a site that loses you potential revenue because of reader tune out is something you have to work on.

How Did You Do? Are You a Blogging Disaster?

Chances are you are guilty of some of the mistakes. All bloggers have made one or more of these mistakes in their blogging career. If you are making one of these mistakes it is out of not knowing any different. Th good news is now you know and can fix. The process of blogging is organic and you can’t know first learn how to do everything and them start. You learn as you go. Don’t let fear of making mistakes stop you from blogging- or anything for that matter.

Tags: Blog For Money, Internet Marketing and Blogs by Lisa Stewart
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Problogger has on his site blog network opportunity for bloggers from Today.com.
Here is link for the info on his site : http://jobs.problogger.net/view/1191
From what it says you are paid to blog, period. Initially 3 months of 5.00/post max one a day for a 150 word post.
Looks like they are looking for content for their Adsense Ads and advertising, similar to About.com.

Not much.. but if you lost income by getting your page rank got zeroed out by Google or you’re looking for ways to pick up a bit of pocket money while you build up your OWN blog revenue might be worth a look.

Tags: Blog For Money by Lisa Stewart
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