Jon Leger just moved his 1WayLinks tool from beta to full production.  As most people know, back links are incredibly important in Google (the Google search engine was initially called "back rub" for this reason).   In fact, you may recall a post I recently made about a site that I accidentally got to Page Rank 2 without content using only really weak back links.

Jon's 1WayLinks product promises to give subscribers hundreds of back links per month (750 or more) for a monthly fee.  As a subscriber, you can choose the anchor text and the URL.  It's a very cool service, and like all of Jon's products, superbly run.  I am a member, and if you are looking for back links, I recommend it.   It works great in conjunction with his 3WayLinks product.

However, it this OK?  Is it OK to buy back links like this?

Google Is Not The Law

OK -- so first things first.  There is nothing illegal about 1WayLinks. It is probably true, however, that if Google had a good way to identify the kind of links generated by programs like 1WayLinks, they would discount their weight and probably "slap" the site using them.  Why?

Google is all about money. Period.  End of statement.  Google has a board of directors that answers to shareholders.  Those shareholders invested in Google to make money.  Google's managers report to the Board, and the Board directs those managers to make money for shareholders.  Simple.  Google needs to make money on their search engine.

Luckily for users, Google management believes that the best way to make money on the search engine is to provide the best possible user experience.  The better the user experience, the more users come to the Google search engine and click on ads.

So, Google fights things like 1WayLinks because they know that people (people like me and you) are also trying to make money just like Google will try to use these tools to beat competition in their niche.  In some cases, tools like 1WayLinks can be used to cause inferior content to rank above superior content, degrading the "user experience."   As an aside, what you should realize is that having great content that users value is a good defense against actions by search engines like Google.

In any case, Google is not the law.  These are just two competing business practices

Is 1WayLinks Ethical To Use?

So, the big question (in my mind at least) is -- is 1WayLinks ethical to use?

Let's start with an assumption that Article Marketing is a valid and ethical marketing strategy.  After all, eZineArticles.com is a respected business, and content on that site is highly favored by Google.  You will recall the when you submit an article to eZineArticles.com, you are afforded 2 backlinks in the footer that must be maintained by people that syndicate (copy) your content across the web.

To my knowledge, no few people complain about the ethics of article marketing

So, how is 1WayLinks like article marketing?

• User created content. Both article marketing and 1WayLinks accept user generated content.
• Back links. Both article marketing and 1WayLinks allow back links
• Syndication. Both article marketing and 1WayLinks articles get syndicated.  In the case of 1WayLinks, the syndication is automatic.
• Human review. At both eZineArtices.com and 1WayLinks.net human review is required.

I am sure there are other ways to compare the two services, but for now I'll leave it at that.  From a web surfer's experience, the two are substantially the same.

My conclusion is that 1WayLinks.net is not that much different than article marketing.  Since article marketing is a commonly accepted business practice, I conclude that 1WayLinks is OK and should be accepted by people (and Google) in the same way as article marketing.

Have you checked out the 1WayLinks tool?  Read the sales page and tell me what you think.

Thanks,
Mark

One thing I know for sure about Google search engine rankings is that it is just about impossible to know anything for sure about Google search engine rankings.   Sometimes, it's good to know what you don't know.

How Google decides what websites appear on the front page for any particular search term is like the formula for Coke or the recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken -- it's a secret.  We know Coke has caramel in it, but the exact recipe is classified.  The difference between Coke and Google is that the formula for Coke never changes (they tried that once -- what a disaster).  In fact, the formula for Google SERPs is changing periodically as Google works to improve the experience for end users.

Of course, what you hear all the time on blogs just like this one are "stories" about what people did on their web site for their keywords that resulted in page one rankings.  I call this anecdotal evidence. It's usually very interesting, but it is almost never conclusive.  Just because someone got a page one ranking by including their keywords in the footer of their pages in flashing pink with a blue background, does not mean that you will get the same result.

So, let me tell you an anecdote about Google page rank.

Backlinks Do Seem To Be Important

However, some themes keep coming out.  For example, we are pretty sure that Google pays attention to backlinks when determining ranking.  We believe this for at least four reasons:

• The Google search engine was originally called "BackRub" (a reference to the use of backlinks in their algorithm).
• Google Page Rank patents discuss backlinks
• Matt Cutts talks about certain backlinks being important in various blog posts and forums
• We see anecdotal evidence of the importance of backlinks

So it's that last point that I want to talk about today.  I have some anecdotal evidence I want to share.

My PR2 Website

Last January I created a site for my wife called PalsLoft.com.  My wife was going to blog about our new baby and review various baby products.  I got the site up with some bad graphics and posted two sample affilaite landing pages complete with eBay affiliate links and some text.  The home page (where the weekly blog posts were going to live) was basically empty.

Note -- I plan to work on this site some soon, so by the time you read this, it may have changed.  Here is a screen shot of what the site looked line for about nine months between February and October 2008.

To get the site going, I submitted the URL to a directory link submission service.  This particular service submitted links to "brand new directories" as they were announced in Digital Point Forums.   So the backlinks that were created from this service were pretty crummy.  They came from link directories (bad) that had no authority (worse) and were brand spankin' new (terrible).  Basically, they were junk links.

After about a month of that, I forgot about the site.  I ended up with about 70 backlinks.  I literally never touched the site after January of 2008.   Earlier this month, I checked the site and found that the empty home page was PR2 (toolbar PR), and both of the two pages linked from the home page are PR1.  Go figure.  Here is a site that has little real content and Google is ranking it as PR2.  So much for content is King.

So What?  Who Cares About A Toolbar PR2 Ranking

So, what is that worth?  Who cares about a toolbar PR2 site with no content?  Well, as I stated before, it is only anecdotal evidence.  But, it suggests that tools like Firepow, 1WayLinks and 3WayLinks that provide quality links might be worth the investment -- at least in terms of getting page rank.  The problem is, page rank does not convert directly to sales.  Traffic converts to sales.  Is this page rank converting?

Well, I am embarrassed to say that I never finished adding Google Analytics to the site, or properly set up the Commission Junction ID to track clicks and sales.  But, the AWStats seem to suggest that there is some traffic there, and that it has been growing over time.

The Bottom Line on Backlinks

The bottom line -- Build Backlinks.  But you knew that already.  If you are working on sites, your promotion strategy needs to include a backlink plan.   Based on this traffic data, I conclude that tools like Firepow, 1WayLinks and 3WayLinks that provide backlinks links might be worth the investment -- but you need to evaluate this for yourself on your own site.  As I mentioned before, the above evidence is anecdotal, and your mileage may vary.

Several weeks ago, I announced my new Article Directory Ranking List. It that time, I had a few dozen directories listed -- and I was focused on the directories that I personally considered to be the best.

Now, the Article Directory List has been expanded to include over 400 Article Directories -- all ranked by Alexa and Google PR using my "special algorithm." The ranking algorithm takes the log of the Google Page Rank +2 and multiplies it times 10,000 over the Alexa score, then adds an offset. This results in a number that ranges from about zero to around 100.

Anyway, check it out and let me know what you think.

Note that I have focused on directories that work with Article Post Robot -- almost all (but not quite all) of the directories listed can be posted to automatically using that software. Because of that, the special discount offer for Article Post Robot is still available for MasonWorld.com readers.

My goal is to have the best article directory listing on the internet, so comments, diggs and stumbles are appreciated!

Finally, note the the list is still in beta. If there is something you would like to see (that can be automated) please let me know in the comments below.

Tell me what you think!

Thanks!
Mark

From my point of view, when I promote products, I assume some risk. After all, I am essentially vouching for someone's work.  I am basically telling you that I have checked something out, so you don't need to worry about it as much.

So, I am pretty choosy about stuff that I promote.  Clearly, if I promoted junk all the time, people would stop listening to my advice. In fact, I usually only promote things that I have actually paid my own money for.

A while ago I paid my own money for  Article Post Robot. As you know, I use Article Post Robot for semi-automation of article publishing tasks. After looking around quite a bit, this was the best software that I could find.

Recently, however, I was checking up on the product and realized that it had not been updated for a while. I contacted the developer, and he told me a few months ago that an update was planned, but there was no firm date.  Not knowing what the future was for the product, I was thinking about pulling my ads down until the developer came through with new code.

Introducing Article Post Robot Version 1.7

Well, thankfully, there is need to do that. David from SRTSoft really cam through for me and just released a much needed update this morning. Announcing Article Post Robot 1.7. The update includes:

• A cleaned-up site list, with some new sites added.  As of this version, APR includes about 460 article directories and 54 mail lists.
• Added the option of "ArticleMS" script powered sites to the list of customized sites.  So, now when you are manually adding new sites, there are 4 kinds of sites can be added as customized sites.
• There is now a "Check Virus" checkbox option. Users can turn the software's virus checker On/Off.  No thanks -- I am voting for "ON."
• Added "Update Page Rank" feature in Article Sites table's popup menu.  This is cool, and a nice companion to my Article Directory List.
• Added "Summary" in preview window.
• Fixed a bug in spinning subtitle.
• Fixed some other bugs reported from users.

If you already own APR, you can log into your account and find the new update in the download area.  For existing users, it is free to download.

Special Discount For MasonWorld Readers

Article Post Robot normally retails for $127.  I contacted David, and he has offered a special deal for MasonWorld.com subscribers. For a limited time (I am not actually sure how long), my affiliate link is associated with a special discount.  The special MasonWorld.com price is $97 (limited time, act now, operators are standing by, blah, blah, blah).  Seriously, David tells me that the discount link only works if you come from MasonWorld.com (you have to click through from my site with my affiliate link).  If you have trouble finding the discount page, let me know.

If you do not yet own  Article Post Robot, I recommend it. The software is still not perfect in every way, but I use it and it does a great job for me.

Thanks,
Mark

In the past few months, I have written about the value of article marketing.  One of the questions that always comes up is "what article directories should I submit to."  As you know, I follow the article marketing strategy outlined in Article Marketing Domination, and I use Article Post Robot to post my articles.  Still, the question remains, "what are the best article directories."

See, the problem is that you can find excellent article directory lists, but they are out of date as soon as they are published.  After some discussions with my buddy, Article Marketing guru Josh Spaulding, I decided that what was needed was a site that ranks article directories on an on-going basis.  So, I fired up the text editor and wrote a simple Perl script to do just that.

Introducing the MasonWorld Article Directory List

I have created a script that looks at various stats for the major article directories and ranks them.  The script runs every Sunday night, providing you with a weekly ranking of the best article directories.  Currently, ranking is based on Google Page Rank and Alexa score.  However, I have lots of additional features planned, including additional ranking criteria.

Your suggestions, comments and ideas are appreciated.

When I first got started in Internet Marketing, I ran across a lot of discussion about "article marketing."  Article Marketing is often confused with "bum marketing," but they are not really the same thing.  It all seems so obvious to me now, but I remember having a hard time getting a clear description of article marketing. So, I'd like to offer you what I consider the key ideas behind article marketing. If you want to know more about article marketing, I am going to point you to my five favorite resources at the end (which are great, but not required to become an article marketing guru).

So, what is Article Marketing?

Article marketing refers to a traffic generation method that depends on submitting informative "articles" to sites called "article directories." These articles generally consist of an article body that has generally useful information, and an article resource box that contains links back to the author's site. This technique is sometimes mistakenly called "Bum Marketing."   Actually, as pointed out by Josh Spaulding, Article Marketing is one of the tools that Bum Marketers use (so named since it is so easy even a bum could do it.)

Good article directories have great traffic and strong Google page rank, so publishing your information there increases the chance that people will see and read what you have to say. Additionally, article directories allow people to copy and republish their articles, provided the article is unchanged and the resource box is preserved. This means that your article with your links could end up on multiple sites with lots of exposure.

There are literally hundreds of article directories, the most famous of which is eZineArticles. (As an example, you can see one of my articles about Viral Marketing.) The fact that there are hundreds of article directories opens up the possibility of submitting your article to many directories and multiplying your exposure. (There can be downsides to this, however, as we will discuss below).

Two Sources of Traffic

The beauty of article marketing is the possibility of two complementary sources of traffic. This is a key point that is often not understood. When you initially submit your articles, if they are well written, you should expect that they will be spread and read. If you write an effective resource box, those same readers will want more information and click the links in the box.

This simple idea generates immediate traffic to your site. Eventually, as the article ages, it may fall lower in the article directory as it gets buried by newer articles on the same topic. This usually means that click-through traffic from articles will fall off as a function of time. Sometimes articles go viral and the clicks keep coming, but this is not usually the case.

Not to worry. Now your article has spread around the net with links to your site at the bottom. Google sees these (correctly) as backlinks to your site. Done properly, these backlinks can help you rank for the pages that the links are pointing to. So, while your direct click-through traffic is falling off, your organic search engine traffic will increase. Pretty cool, eh?

A word about content and keywords

There are lots of things to think about when you are writing articles for article marketing. Most importantly, you need to have a keyword strategy for the content on your site and the content in your article. It may not make sense to directly compete with your own website, for example. Rather, you may want to choose keywords for your articles that complement the content on your site.

For example, if you have a site on "blue soap," you may want to write an article on "green soap" knowing that people interested in green soap will also be interested in blue soap. You need to think about this carefully.

Earlier, I mentioned that you could submit the same article to multiple directories. You can, and I do. But you need a strategy for that as well to balance the effectiveness of the submission against the impact of duplicate content. Google expects syndicated content to be duplicated, but there are still tradeoffs that need to be considered (beyond the scope of this brief article).

Article Marketing Resources

As promised, here are five resources that I actually use for article marketing. I have purchased these tools myself. Don't misunderstand me: you can be successful in article marketing without any tools. These are the tools that I personally use to improve the quality and productivity of my article marketing efforts.

• Article Marketing Domination. This is an excellent eBook by article marketing guru Josh Spaulding. This eBook covers all of the details that i have glossed over above, and is a complete reference. You can do article marketing without knowing all the details, but you will get lot better results if you have all the facts. Most things in life are like this.
• Article Post Robot. A tool for submitting articles to multiple sites. It is really tedious and boring to submit the same article to 50 article directories. Article Post Robot automated this process. This is not the most elegant tool on the planet, but it works very well for me on over 50 article directories (the software supports many more).
• Instant Article Wizard Pro. IAW Pro is an amazing tool for article research. I just learned about this tool this week, and have used it a few times with incredible results. Basically it searches the web for research on your keywords and mashes the pieces together in reasonable sounding paragraphs. Cuts article writing time down by a factor of ten or more in my experience. Even if you have no intention of buying this thing, you have got to see the video.
• Micro Niche Finder. One of the most important parts of Article Marketing (not really covered well in this article) is keyword selection. I use Micro Niche Finder for all my keyword research.
• Josh Spaulding. OK -- he is not a resource, actually. He is a person - a really nice one. Josh is my "go to guy" and mentor for Article Marketing, and the author of Article Marketing Domination.

The Bottom Line on Article Marketing

Article marketing is a great way to promote your website, affiliate products or affiliate program. By writing an article that delivers value and offers a subtle mention of your affiliate product or critical keywords, you're well on your way to getting the proper exposure for your promotion (whatever it is). Simply put, Article Marketing is a great way to promote your business online.

Regards,
Mark

Last week, I updated you on my Niche Super-Site Project, History of Elvis. My strategy of going after long-tail keywords paid off, and I demonstrated a front page ranking for history of elvis using link directory submissions. (It is important to remember that there are links from this site to the Elvis site as well). This organic search engine ranking is starting to "pay off." In the last 30 days, most of the traffic to the site has come from search engines as seen below:

It is interesting to note that 15 searches in the last 30 days came from AOL and MSN. I never pay attention to those engines, but I have heard it said that the people using AOL and MSN are generally less computer saavy and have higher conversion rates than their Google bretheren.

What are people searching for?

In any case, it is not surprising to see that the google searches are hitting for history of elvis. As of this writing, I have moved up from the number 10 spot to the number 7 spot. Other search terms that are starting to hit include some products:

This is cool, because you will recall that I enabled this site with and eBay store using phpBay and other affiliate products using PopShops. This probably means that I need to revisit my keword strategy. As it turns out, Elvis is not a great niche for Adsense revenue because the amount of money you can get from each cleck is low.

Value of Elvis clicks

As you can see on spyfu.com, this is not a great niche if you are going after PPC revenue.

So, no one will get rich collecting money from Adsense on this one.

Next Up, Article Marketing

In my next post on Elvis, I'll talk about Article Marketing. After reading Article Marketing Domination, buying a copy of Article Post Robot and outsourcing the creation of 20 Elvis articles on Scriptlance, I am ready to roll!

Talk to you soon.

Best regards,

Mark

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Several months ago, I started a case study of the Elvis Niche. I built a site, added content, and demonstrated that I could rank for a very long tail keyword with no competition. As I mentioned in that post, I felt like there was no stopping me after I ranked for “Elvis Aaron Presley Collectible Necktie”, and I announced my intention to attack higher competition phrases — “elvis presley collectibles” (74 searches per day), the “life of elvis presley” (226 searches per day) and “elvis presley history of” (4383 searches per day). My plan for ranking was to use Link Directories and Article Marketing.

Well, I have not started my article marketing, but I am accumulating backlinks

Backlinks Make The Difference

Because of this post series on niche sites, I have quite a few backlinks for terms similar to "history of elvis" and history of elvis presley or "elvis presley history of". A quick check of Google shows that we are magically on the front page! Woo hoo!

Obviously, the next goal is to move up the page.

Using Link Directories - OK or Not?

Sometimes, you learn as you go along based on the advice that you get. One guy that I trust recommended that I use free link directory submissions as a way to get backlinks. When these directories are new (and free), they have very low page rank. Once they get older, the page rank may increase, making the link more valuable. This takes a long time.

I tried to figure out if this was "white hat." According to Google's Webmaster Guidelines, they recommend:

Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.

Now, free link directories are not exactly "industry specific expert sites," but it is pretty clear that Google does not consider all link directories to be bad. When these directories are new (and free), they have very low page rank. Once they get older, the page rank may increase, making the link more valuable. So, I'd be interested in your comments regarding the acceptability of free link directory submission (and the effectiveness).

Next step is article marketing as described in Article Marketing Domination.  I've hired someone on ScriptLance to write some content for the site, and I'll be writing about that experience in a future post.

Thanks, Mark

Be sure and check out these related posts.

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So far on our journey to build the Niche Super-Site we have discussed:

• Definition of the Niche Super-Site case study
• List of Niche Super-Site design goals
• How to select your niche
• Choosing your keywords
• Choosing a domain name
• Setting up your niche site
• Making things look nice
• Installing Plugins
• Getting listed in Google
• Making Money with phpBay
• Adding PopShops to your site
• Adding Adsense
• Adding Amazon Omakase Widget
• Adding a favicon

We really need to start turning our attention to traffic for HistoryofElvis.com, but I wanted to start a small test first. Everybody always talks about long tail keywords, and they can be important for making money in a niche. In fact, Caroline Middlebrook has an excellent article on Long Tail Keyword Research that you should check out.

As a complete aside, saying "Caroline Middlebrook has an excellent article" is completely redundant. Every word on her site is excellent. But, I digress.

Anyway, I thought I would run a test. Let's see if we can rank for a really long tail phrase on HistoryofElvis.com. The phrase I have selected is

"Elvis Aaron Presley Collectible Necktie"

Now, those of you on the other side of the pond will notice that I have intentionally selected the Yank spelling of Collectible. According to Wikipedia, although "collectable" is the spelling listed first by the Oxford English Dictionary, and is standard spelling in British English, the dictionary observes that the "-ible" form is also valid, and has come to be common spelling in the United States.

A quick check on google confirms that there are only 200 pages answering to this search, and none of them match very well. Additionally, a look at the Adwords keyword tool confirms that there is no search traffic and that there is no competition for that phrase. So, this should be like shooting ducks in a pond.

So, I have created a page on HistoryOfElvis.com with the following characteristics:

• Page title tag is Elvis Aaron Presley Collectible Necktie
• Page title is Elvis Aaron Presley Collectible Necktie
• Keyword meta data is set to variations on the target phrase
• Description meta tag is set to include the phrase 3 times.
• Page slug is elvis-aaron-presley-collectible-necktie
• The phrase Elvis Aaron Presley Collectible Necktie appears in the copy many times
• The page is linked from the HistoryofElvis.com home page
• There is lots of related product copy on the page

Now, to keep from passing page rank from masonworld.com to this page, I am not linking to it from here.

So, I launched the page today. You can find it from the HistoryofElvis.com main page of you are interested. Let me know what you think. I will report back the results in a few days (or you can check google yourself).

Thanks,

Mark

Topics remaining on my list for this niche super-site series include the following:

• Traffic strategy
• Really long tail keyword test
• eZineArticles Content
• Write your own content
• Set up AA404 plugin
• Set up a pseudo-link-directory as pillar content
• Remember to back up your data.
• Comment Kahuna
• Secure WordPress
• Blog by email
• Great podcasts
• Running adwords ads
• eBooks
• Other marketing ideas
• The 50 site checklist
• Others…

If you have a topic that you would like to see added to my list, please feel free to leave a comment. Thanks!

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So far on our journey to build the Niche Super-Site we have discussed:

• Definition of the Niche Super-Site case study
• List of Niche Super-Site design goals
• How to choose your Super-Niche

Remember, our overall goal is to build a niche site that returns $2/day in residual income in the Elvis Presley niche.

Before we rush out and buy a domain name, we need a keyword strategy. Now that we have settled on Elvis Presley, let's hop over to Wordtracker.com and see what they have to say about The King and his Keywords.

If you sign up for the Wordtracker free trial you can access their competition search tool. If you enter the starting phrase elvis presley, you can then pick your 30 favorite phrases returned for further analysis. The 30 phrases come from analyzing the keywords from 100 other "elvis presley" webpages.

The results are very interesting.

Based on the KEI (a measure of the goodness of the keyword), people want to know about history of Elvis -- they are searching for elvis presley "history, born, death, funeral, etc.". So, for now, let's decide that our main keywords are:

• elvis and elvis presley (these are implied but very competitive. We will not try to rank for these. Some day, if our page rank is high, we might make the first page for these (but not any time soon).
• history of elvis and history of elvis presley
• elvis born/birth/death/funeral
• elvis presley born/birth/death/funeral

As a note, let's remember the other top keywords (KEI greater than one with some traffic) and try to create a page for each phrase. More on that later. Also, note the misspelling of Presley (as Presly).  We are also going to want to add some keywords specific to the affiliate programs that we will be offering (like eBay through phpBay).

See you tomorrow when we'll talk about registering a domain!