How to Make Money with HubPages 2: Backlinks

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This post focuses on one very effective strategy you can use to help you make money with HubPages.

HubPages, as you may know from my previous post (if you do not, just follow the link above), is a website where you can publish content and earn money for your work.

You can write just about anything you want and have the option to edit or delete your content anytime you feel like it. One of the best things about making money with HubPages is that it enables you to earn residual income for as long as the website is around, and chances are that it will be around for a long time.

There are many reasons why publishing at HubPages is worthwile if you are trying to make money online, or have a blog you want to create links to, or just want to write content for fun and earn a little pocket-money on the side.

First of all, HubPages is a well-respected site that gets a lot of love from search engines. Writing at HubPages is like having a head start in the search engine wars. This brings up an important point: One of the main factors that will allow you to make money online is traffic. Traffic is the lifeblood of internet marketing and online business.

Look at it just like the owner of a regular store would. The more people you can convince to visit your store, the more sales you will make. This can be translated into AdSense clicks, affiliate sales, or referrals in the online environment. Traffic is a key part of the game. And the more targeted this traffic is, the higher the probability of getting a conversion or having an action (click) occur. Obviously there is a lot more to making money on the internet: copywriting, branding, actually having something of value to provide, or in this case, providing useful, well-written and highly searchable content. But high traffic numbers is how websites become online money-making machines.

One of the strategies to writing on HubPages and earning money from your efforts is to publish several “hub” on the same topic. (In this respect HubPages is different from InfoBarrel, where they do not accept several articles on one subject from a single author.) The more you write about one specific topic, the more likely you will be regarded as an authority on that subject. Obviously, to be able to write a lot of “hubs” about the same thing you probably will have to be an expert on that subject. No need to worry, you can learn as you go. Writing is one of the best ways to learn things and solidify ideas in your mind.

Writing about a single topic will also give you more opportunity to increase the rankings of similar content. Say you have a 900-word authoritative hub about the best diving resorts in Australia. You spent a lot of time researching keywords, reading about the resorts, and clearly presenting the information to your readers. This can be a very good piece of content for you. If you have three, four or more related „hubs”, then you can use them to create anchor text links to give your authority „hub” little bit of a boost and create more traffic to it.

Your “support” pages should be directly related to the main authority page you are looking to link to. In the example about diving resorts I used above, these can be pieces more specific to certain resorts or diving-suits, etc. One could be about the Coral Sea Islands and another could be about the Great Barrier Reef. If the main keyword phrases (and related ones) you are working with are also strong in these pages - and even in the title - then links out from them will be even stronger.

When you create your links you want to create anchor text using the phrases you are focusing on. In the example used here, the phrase you would want to link out to your main hub would be “best diving resorts in Australia”. It is much better to be descriptive in the hotlink you create, rather than just linking with text like “see my other article about this topic here.”

You can do this with several of your hubs to create several relevant links that will give the page you want to promote more direct traffic and relevant keyword links, which in turn will help move it up the in search engine rankings. The more targeted these keywords and links are, the more likely they will be of interest to visitors and the more money you will make online.

Websites as well as web pages that adhere to web standards of copywriting, search engine optimization, and linking practices are more valuable than those that do not. If you keep in mind what potential web surfers might be searching for and do your best to create informative, well-written content that is useful, then you will be successful.

Remember that content is king and high value content will gain more natural links from other websites and more return traffic. The more effort you put into your content on the front end, the easier the entire process will be for you. When writing your hubs, take the time to make them as helpful, informative, and unique as possible.

Sign up for HubPages and start writing and earning today.

 

Related articles:

How to Make Money with InfoBarrel

How to Make Money Online with Squidoo Lenses 

Technorati-Tags: make money,hubpages,writing for money,blogging,adsense,backlinks,more traffic

How to Make Money with HubPages

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Hubpages is one of the write-and-get-paid websites where you can write about pretty much anything you want and earn money for your efforts. This is the short explanation of the site - but there is quite a bit more to it.

You earn money when there is traffic to the articles you write and the visitors click on advertisements that are displayed on the page. For this reason, traffic is one of the most important elements that will help you make money online with Hubpages. On thing is certain, making money online is not an easy feat - but there are quite a few ways to do it.

You can obviously provide a service or sell a product. You can also do online copywriting or freelance writing. But that is not for everyone. I have been watching HubPages for a while and I think that if you can learn how to use the site to make money, i.e., you learn how to create so-called “hubs” that generate a lot of traffic, convert traffic to ad clicks or affiliate sales, and rise to the top of the search engine rankings, then you will know a great deal about internet marketing. (Basically, you need to do the same things you would do with your own blog or website.) And this experience will help you a lot in whatever kind of business you plan to get into online.

In the online environment it is all about words. Words are where search engines can really dig in and find relevant information for people surfing the web. Because of this, online marketing or making money online more often than not depends on writing, good writing.

A lot has been published on the subject of writing for humans versus writing for search engines. In my mind, it is important to do both, meaning that you do have a focus on certain keywords, but you do not want to write in such a way that the content is unreadable for a human being. You always want to write for people first, and for search engine bots second. There is a lot of value in enticing people not only to read your content but to come back and read it again and/or more of it.

However, that being said, there is also a lot of value in getting visitors interested in  your work in order to encourage a click through on AdSense and affiliate links. There is nothing wrong with doing this, but if you write really hacky articles that are filled only with keywords and nothing else, your work will be weeded out by Google and sent to search results nirvana. If people cannot find your work you will not make any money.

HubPages is a good place to start your writing career because your articles immediately get a boost in search engine rankings since the site is regarded by Google as a network that produces informative and helpful user-generated content. HubPages does a good job of policing itself in terms of eliminating crap or spam content and making sure their advertising networks run smoothly and there is no fraudulent activity going on. As a result, your content will be indexed by search engines a lot faster than if you started posting to a blog of your own. It could take you months to get a few readers to an article on your own blog or website, whereas it may just take a few hours or a day or two to get readers to your hub.

How to Make Money with Hubpages

First, you have to sign up. If you haven’t yet, sign up here. Then return to this article to read the rest – I promise it will help you.

The way you earn money on HubPages is through Google´s AdSense program, Clickbank, and affiliate links through eBay and Amazon. You can also make money using an advertising network called Kontera, but do not worry about it for now because it really does not pay that well. If you are a savvy internet marketer you can also make money on HubPages with your own affiliate links to third party websites.

The revenue is split with HubPages 60/40 in your favor. It works like this: 6 times out of 10 your ID is used in the advertisements, which means you will earn on a click or sale made during this time. The other 4 times HubPages has the potential to earn money for an action taken. People sometimes think that the total revenue is just split 60/40, but that is not the case. Your ID is used randomly 6 times out of 10. It is a generous pay structure that allows quite a few people to make good money by publishing articles on HubPages.

HubPages is a good place to start writing online, and even making money online. I mentioned earlier that you will want to use keywords in your articles in order to be competitive and gain traffic to your work - because that is what you need to do if you are interested in making any money. The best way to do this is by imagining what someone would type into a search engine in order to find the information you are providing.

If you were going to write about “making money online by writing,” then you should choose that phrase as your keyword phrase and use it in your article. The next thing you need to consider is how competitive a term is. You can do this by using the Google Keyword Tool at the following URL: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

This tool will show you how many times your keyword has been searched in the past month and will give you a monthly average. It will also provide you with suggestions of related terms that may be better options for you to use because they are less competitive. It may sound a little confusing at first, but you will get the hang of it after you do keyword research a few times. You also want to look at the price paid per click, which will give you a good idea of how much money ads that will display will be worth. The figure shown is not the total that you will earn because Google keeps some of the money, but you can easily see which terms are “worth” more and which ones are worth less.

In my next post I shall go into more detail about choosing keywords for your internet writing. But for now, write down or copy and paste two or three sets of terms and how often they are searched and what they are worth. Now, type the keyword phrase into Google to see how many pages pop up. This is not an exact science but it will give an idea of how much content on the internet uses the term you are searching. If 100,000,000 pages come up, there are a lot of entries about what you are planning to write about, so it may be a lot more difficult to compete and get to the top of the search engines with your page. However, if only 250,000 pages come up, you have found a niche in which you can compete and that you may even be able to “own” by getting your page to the top. This, in short, is how you make good money in internet marketing with content and Google AdSense.

If you have a specialized skillset - and every single one of us has at least one - I highly recommend you start creating content based on it on the internet. For instance, I notice that I sometimes get a few visitors to this site who are looking for ways to make money while unemployed. HubPages is one such way. Start creating content about stuff you have expertise in. It does not matter if it is plumbing, roofing, gardening, or investing. If you can create content that is useful to people and valuable in one way or another, you will be able to make money.

Sign up for HubPages and start writing and earning today.

Once you have signed up, let me know if you need some help figuring out what to write about. I’ll do my best to help you out by giving a push in the right direction in terms of keywords and ideas.

Please read my second post about HubPages called "Make Money with HubPages Part 2: Backlinks".

Good luck!

P.S.: A very nice post on how to make money with HubPages can be found here.

 

Related articles:

How to Really Make Money with HubPages

How to Make Money Online with Squidoo Lenses

How to Make Money with InfoBarrel

 

 

Technorati-Tags: make money,hubpages,writing for money,blogging,affiliate program,adsense

How to Make Money with InfoBarrel

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Recently, after doing quite a bit of reasearch, I decided to sign up for InfoBarrel. Although InfoBarrel is relatively new – it went online in 2008 -, it looks like a good opportunity for making money and and getting valuable backlinks.

InfoBarrel is very similar to HubPages and Squidoo where you write one page topics. But InfoBarrel has one distinctive advantage over the others: You can get up to 3 ‘do-follow’ backlinks right away. You do not have to wait until you get a certain quality score before your backlinks become ‘do-follow’.

Like many others, I first heard about InfoBarrel from Lissie at Passive Income Online. She posted a great article titled “What is InfoBarrel?“ that you might want to read. It is the best discription of InfoBarrel I have been able to find so far.

Will you get paid by InfoBarrel? No. You will receive 75% of the revenue on the AdSense ads that appear on your pages and you can further monetize your content by using eBay and other affiliate programs. I guess this means that you will have to write a great number of articles in order to make a lot of money. I won´t go so far as to say that it is impossible to earn a decent income - it is just that you will have to write a lot of popular articles. And you need to know how to trigger high paying AdSense ads with your articles.

Another similarity to HubPages is that if you refer someone to InfoBarrel you get a percentage of the impressions of advertising on their articles (from InfoBarrel´s share, not the writer’s).

Since the people at InfBarrel are only  interested in serious contributors and quality content you probably won´t be able to make money right away. The Terms and Conditions state that the first 10 articles will need an editors´ prior to publication. Fortunately, they work fast and let you know within a few hours if the submitted article meets their criteria. Once you are past your tenth article all further material will be approved instantly. I guess this measure is their way of keeping spammers away.

If you are interested in InfoBarrel visit their home page and sign up at: www.infobarrel.com.

I am pretty sure that I shall be making money on InfoBarrel in the near future. It may not be through the sharing of revenue, but the ‘do-follow’ backlinks are priceless. Moreover, I have noticed that Google seems to like InfoBarrel, therefore it is quite easy to get your page(s) indexed. I hope that Google will continue to treat this site favourably, at least for a while, because it has the potential to become as popular as Squidoo or HubPages.

I’ll be writing some pages over at InfoBarrel and check back from time to time to let you know if it is really worth your while.

 

 

Technorati-Tags: make money,hubpages,squidoo,infobarrel,affiliate programs

How to Make Money Online with Squidoo Lenses

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Squidoo has had its growing pains in the past year or so but is still one of the best free ways to make money - for beginners as well as seasoned marketers. And you do not even need a blog or website of your own! There are people making money online full time just by using Squidoo. That´s how powerful Squidoo is.

To be able to make money online with Squidoo you first need to understand some of its qualities. Squidoo is a one page site that is easily monetized just by the way it is designed. Google has always been very fond of Squidoo - and Squidoo tries everything it can to maintain its favor with Google. Because Squidoo ran in a bit of trouble with Google about a year and a half ago a lot of marketers started to leave the site. But now things are running smoothly again and the guys at Squidoo have been optimizing the ability to make money online for their loyal as well as new contributors.

The best way to make money from Squidoo is by making sure that you have fully optimized keyword rich modules. Squidoo now has no-follow tags from Google, therefore your keywords are determined by the content provided. The tags however still produce value to the inner workings of Squidoo - so do not avoid them altogether. Squidoo members can help you with your rankings and backlinks within the site itself. And your „lenses“ (that´s what articcles on the site are called) are found by the tags you choose.

Squidoo runs its own AdSense ads and you are supposed to receive a percentage of the money they make off the clicks. This kind of compensation is widely used among so-called “write-and-earn” sites. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you how high that percentage is. But I do know that it isn’t much - so I don’t even worry about it.

The best way to make money on Squidoo is by either using their monetizing modules or by using your own methods of monetizing your content. For instance, there are a couple of modules like eBay and Amazon that you are supposedly great money-makers. However, the successful marketers do not use their modules for them.

If you are an eBay or Amazon affiliate or partner you can place you own affiliate sources  within and around the content you create, thereby receiving a greater percentage of the money earned.

This is what an eBay affiliate ad looks like when inserted into Squidoo:

This will allow you to make money online from eBay for full affiliate pay instead of having to share with Squidoo.

The same holds true for Amazon. Instead of only earning a portion of the money from Amazon by using Squidoo’s Amazon Module you will earn the full commission. Here is another example:

The more of these individual ads you run the more opportunity you will have to earn money.

As I have already stated, Squidoo runs the AdSense Ads and you really do not make money online from these ads, but now Clickbank offers their own ads that you can make money with. These are called HopAds. Go to Clickbank and look for the HopAd Builder.Using it, you can build text ads or tabbed ads.

This is an example of text ads:

Your affiliate id will be integrated within the code of the Clickbank HopAds.

Squidoo stopped allowing iframes some time ago, but now there is a way to ad your opt-in forms into Squidoo. If you are among those who specialize in email marketing the opt-in form is a huge benefit on Squidoo. If you publish great content you will get a lot of traffic from search engines and inside Squidoo itself. Being able to capture these leads is a plus. Just offer a free upload or free information and you are good to go. Everyone likes free stuff!

Here is an example of an email opt-in form:

If you are interested in finding out how to add an opt-in form on your lens just follow the link. Click the following link if you want to know how to ad Clickbank HopAds. You will have to leave your email address to receive the manual for adding Clickbank HopAds. Neither one of these methods cost any money.

There are a few more things you need to know before you get start your money making career on Squidoo. Because Squidoo is a one page site, you will definitely want to be focusing on those longtail keywords. This will help tremendously with your PageRank in Google. The traffic may not be as high, but you will be getting a more targeted traffic (meaning more visitors who are looking to buy). Also, when thinking Squidoo think products. Services do OK but you will make money online faster if you use Squidoo for products.

If you are using Squidoo for link building keep in mind that not all modules have “do follow” tags. The “do follow” list includes these modules:

Introduction
Text/Write
Poll (remember you can hyperlink your answers!)
Featured Lenses
Text/Link Lists
Text/Link Plexos (although I don’t recommend that you use these because
it’s link leakage)

Squidoo has a wide range of possibilities when it comes to making money online free. Along with the ability to make money with your Squidoo lens you can have unlimited lenses. Most people start out having a lot of lenses on one account which is a big mistake. Fortunately, they give the opportunity to move lenses around to other accounts. This one of the options built into Squidoo itself. If you are seriously interested in making money you should take care not to have too many lenses on a single account.

There is another great money-maker available to you with Squidoo: Lense flipping! You cannot only move lenses around between different accounts - you can also sell lenses. Lens flipping is a lot like site flipping, but way easier. All you need to do is change one lens to a different lens account. Squidoo lenses are selling for hundreds of dollars - and they don’t even have to have high PR. You can build a well optimized lens (or 3, or 10) today and sell them tomorrow. You would be surprised at how easy this is and how much money can be made by selling lenses. This is an easy way to make money online fast. And all for free.

Good luck!

 

Related articles:

How to Find Suitable Affiliate Programs for Your Blog

How to Find the Right Affiliate Products to Promote

 

 

Technorati-Tags: squidoo,make money online,blogging for money,affiliate programs

How to Add a PayPal Donate Button to Your Blogger Blog

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If you are interested in receiving a few bucks in exchange for all the hours and the hard work you are putting into your blog, then you might want to consider adding a PayPal donate button to the sidebar of your Blogger blog. Adding a donation button will (hopefully) encourage some of your loyal readers to say a big thank you for helping them out and/or entertaining them. Not everyone will donate, but once in a while a generous soul will voluntarily give you a little financial encouragement.

In this tutorial I shall show you how to add a PayPal donate button to the sidebar of your Blogger blog. There will be no need to change the template, so this should be fairly easy.

1. Sign up if you do not already have a PayPal account.

2. Login to your PayPal account.

3. Click on the Merchant Portal tab.

4. Choose Donations from the list of key features displayed in the right sidebar of the PayPal Website Payments Standard option (the first of 3 payment solutions).

5. From the PayPal Create a Payment Button screen choose Donation from the dropdown menu at Step 1 if it is not already selected.

6. Stick with the default button unless there is a special need to customize it.

7. Choose the currency depending on your needs and location.

8. Choose the Donors enter their own contribution amount radio button unless you want to have a set amount.

9. Make sure that the Secure merchant account ID radio button is selected. This will prevent spammers from getting hold of your email address.

10. At Step 2 it is worth saving your button.

11. At Step 3 customize your checkout page by allowing donors to write a short comment by selecting the Yes radio button to special instructions to seller.

12. Select the No radio button for customer's shipping address.

13. Select the Create Button button.

14. Once PayPal has created the donate button code copy it by right clicking your mouse and choosing copy (Ctrl + C).

15. Log out of PayPal.

16. Login to your Blogger account if you are not already logged in.

17. Go to Layout --> Page Elements.

18. Click on the Add a Gadget link in the sidebar.

19. Choose the HTML/Javascript widget from the list provided.

20. Paste the PayPal donate button code into the Content box of the dialog box that appears by placing the mouse inside the box and right clicking the mouse and then paste (alternatively Ctrl + V).

21. Select a title like "Buy Me a Coffee Today!" or whatever you think works best.

22. Click on the Save button.

23. Drag and drop your new donation gadget into the spot you want it to appear in.

24. Hit the Save button to make sure your changes are saved.

25. Click View Blog to check your new PayPal donate button in the sidebar of your Blogger blog.

26. Try out your new PayPal donate button by clicking on it. You should be be taken to the PayPal Checkout screen.

In this post I have walked you through the steps necessary to add a PayPal donate button to your Blogger blog.

Good luck!

 

Technorati-Tags: paypal,donate button,add gadget,monetize blog

Better Google AdSense Placement for Blogger

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In this post I´ll show you another way to increase the performance of Google AdSense on your Blogger blog by further extending the choice of placement options of your Google ads. All it takes is just a little adjustment of your Blogger template that will give you one more placement option for your AdSense ad blocks.

You will learn how to place Google AdSense between the header and the first post. This will allow for a huge variety of Google AdSense ads to be added, the 728x90 leaderboard probably being the most suitable. No technical knowledge of Blogger is needed to make the necessary changes.

How to Add Google Adsense Between the Header and First Post

If you are serious about increasing your earnings from your blog you should try to place a full length advertising banner between the header and the first post. For instance, having a 728x90 leaderboard in this prime position can be very effective. (Depending on the template you chose the 336x280 large rectangle might also work well.) To add a Google Adsense unit to this position take the following steps:

1. Sign in, then navigate to Layout --> Edit HTML.

2. You might want to Back up Template as a precaution.

3. Check Expand Widget Templates box.

4. Find the following lines of code:

<div id='crosscol-wrapper' style='text-align:center'>
<b:section class='crosscol' id='crosscol' showaddelement='no'/>
</div>

5. Replace

showaddelement='no'

with

showaddelement='yes'

6. Save template.

7. Navigate to Layout --> Page Elements.

8. Click on the Add a Gadget option that will now have appeared between Blog Posts and the Header.

9. Choose Google AdSense and Add Leaderboard 728x90 (or any other ad format). Save.

10. View your blog. The new Google AdSense Unit should now be showing between header and first post.

Here is an example of a 728x90 Leaderboard between the header and the first post and the top of the sidebar. (NOTE: all examples taken from my German language blog.)

In this post which is part of a series on ad placement in Blogger blogs you have learnt how to add Google AdSense between the header and the first post. As this is a prime position for a 728x90 leaderboard ad unit I have concentrated on showing you how to add this Google AdSense ad unit to your blog.

Good luck!

 

Related articles:

How to Place AdSense Ads in the Middle of Blogger Posts

Placing AdSense Ads Inside Blogger Posts

Optimizing AdSense

Placing AdSense Ads between Blogger Blog Posts

 

Technorati-Tags: adsense,ad placement,monetizing blog

 

How to Place AdSense Ads in the Middle of Blogger Posts

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The method described below will work well with IE, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.

Most of you will probably be familiar with the famous Google AdSense heat map which shows the areas of your website or blog where you should place advertising in order to maximize your profits. Oddly enough, there is no mention of a placement in the middle of your posts.

Why?

Because by default Blogger, the blogging platform owned by Google, does not offer a way to break a post in the middle (or someplace else) so you can place an ad there. But, if you search the Net thorougly, you will find that quite a lot of webmasters have managed to put ads in that position and report a significant increase in profits.

While I cannot as yet confirm a considerable increase in profits when an ad is placed in the middle of a post, I´ll nevertheless explain in this post how to place Adsense in the middle of Blogger posts.

How to place Adsense in the middle of Blogger posts

The solution to this problem is quite simple: You only need to move the post body around the advertising code, which is easily achieved with a bunch of JavaScript and a couple of DIVs (divisions). Just follow these directions:

1. In your Blogger template: Dashboard –> Layout –> Edit HTML –> Expand Widget Templates

Find the tag <data:post.body/> and replace it with the following code:

<div expr:id='"aim1" + data:post.id'></div>
<div style="clear:both; margin:10px 0">

<!-- Your AdSense code here -->

</div>
<div expr:id='"aim2" + data:post.id'>

<data:post.body/>

</div>
<script type="text/javascript">
var obj0=document.getElementById("aim1<data:post.id/>");
var obj1=document.getElementById("aim2<data:post.id/>");
var s=obj1.innerHTML;
var r=s.search(/\x3C!-- adsense --\x3E/igm);
if(r>0) {obj0.innerHTML=s.substr(0,r);obj1.innerHTML=s.substr(r+16);}
</script>

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Do not forget to replace <!-- Your AdSense code --> with the ad code provided by Google Adsense. Also, the ad code needs to be converted before you can insert it.

2. In every blog post:

Place the special comment

<!-- adsense -->

in the exact spot you want the Adsense ads to appear.

That´s all!

Frequently Asked Questions:

1. Does this method violate Google´s Terms and Conditions?

Definitely not. Answering a direct support request Google stated this method doesn't violate any of their program policies.

2. What if I forget to put  the <!-- adsense –> comment in a post?

Nothing. The advertising block will appear in the traditional position as defined in your template before you implemented this modification (in most cases just below the title).

3. What happens on Blogger home page and archive pages when several posts with the <!-- adsense --> comment appear together?

Exactly the same thing that happened before this modification: The Google Adsense service automatically inserts up to 3 AdSense blocks per page in your posts. That means only the first 3 posts (in a top-down order) on your home page or archive pages will show ads.

4. Is it possible for me to automate the insertion of AdSense in the middle of my posts without having to manually place the <!-- adsense --> comment?

Yes, it is. But you will have to replace the JavaScript code listed above with the following one:

<script type="text/javascript">
var obj0=document.getElementById("aim1<data:post.id/>");
var obj1=document.getElementById("aim2<data:post.id/>");
var s=obj1.innerHTML;
var t=s.substr(0,s.length/2);
var r=t.lastIndexOf(" ");
if(r>0) {obj0.innerHTML=s.substr(0,r);obj1.innerHTML=s.substr(r+1);}
</script>

 

Notes:

You may have heard of a couple of different approaches to solve the stated problem that sound simple but, unfortunately, are not working:

1. Copying the AdSense code directly into the post.

This does not work because Blogger will warn you that it is prohibited to insert JavaScript code inside a post (or show some kind of error warning). Bypassing the error warning by flagging ‘Stop showing HTML errors for this post’ will not get you the desired result.

2. Writing a JavaScript to move the AdSense code block in the middle of your post.

This method is prohibited by the Google Adsense Terms and Conditions because you have to modify the AdSense code itself. If you do it anyway, no ads will be shown (you will get an error information stating the website or service is not available).

 

The method described above also works with other advertising systems, like Yahoo! Publisher Network (YPN), Microsoft adCenter, Chitika, AdBrite, and a host of others.

Thanks to Eblogger Tricks.com.

Technorati-Tags: ad placement,adsense,blogger posts,monetizing blog,adsense inside blogger posts

Placing AdSense Ads Inside Blogger Posts

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Google AdSense is the main source of revenue for the vast majority of bloggers. If you are among those using Blogger to host your blogs as well as using AdSense as your primary ad network, you should blend your ads with your posts so your visitors will focus more on your ads, resulting in more clicks and therefore more revenue for you. Showing Adsense ads between two blogger posts is not really that effective, because people tend to overlook that part. But if you place the ads within the post, they will get noticed and there is a real chance for a better CTR (click through rate: the percentage of visitors to your blog who actually click on one of your ads). You can easily customize your blog to show AdSense ads inside your posts, aligned either to left or right.

For a better click through rate, it is highly recommended that you to blend the ads with your blog’s colour combination. Do not use odd or too deep/light colours. Highlighting your ads means you are manually trying to keep your income low. Check out the screenshot below.

How to Show Adsense Ads inside Blogger posts, wrapped with post text

1. Login to your Blogger Dashboard.

2. Navigate to Layout --> Edit HTML

3. Check the box next to 'Expand Widget Templates’

4. Search for the line <data:post.body> inside your template (Ctrl + F, then enter the line into the search bar).

5. Add one of the following codes just above it.

           To show your ads aligned to left:

<div style='float:left; margin-right:5px;'>

YOUR ADSENSE CODE

</div>

          To show your ads aligned to right:

<div style='float:right; margin-left:5px;'>

YOUR ADSENSE CODE

</div>

        

6. Make sure to replace YOUR ADSENSE CODE with your actual AdSense ad code.

7. Save the changes.

8. That´s all!

 

IMPORTANT NOTICE:

Do not forget to convert your Adsense code here before adding it to the above code. Blogger HTML does not support AdSense ad characters, therefore you need to convert it.

Now all of your blog posts should appear with AdSense ads positioned inside the text. The best ad formats for this location probably are 336x280 or 300x250, but that depends on the template you are using. Just play around with the ad formats until you find something that suits the overall look of your blog.

Good luck!

 

Related articles:

Optimizing AdSense

Google AdSense Myths Exposed

 

Technorati-Tags: adsense,adsense inside blogger posts,ad placement,monetizing blog

Optimizing AdSense

Your Ad Here

 

If you are interested in blogging you are without a doubt aware of and maybe even know a little bit about Google AdSense. If not, then here is a chance to find out. Google Adsense is the most widely used advertising method on the internet and a virtual “cash cow” for the Google empire. Advertisers pay Google to publish ads on sites of Adsense members that have topics related to the product or service they themselves are offering. Google gets a majority of the profit, bloggers get a relatively small percentage. It is kind of a take-it-or-leave-it deal. But if you are already a member of one of Google´s many services like Google Mail or Blogger, you might as well take advantage of it and make some money on the side. You have no control over which ads will appear because Google automatically determines and publishes an ad related to the topic of your blog. If you do not like a particular ad, the most you can do is to exclude the URL of the ad from appearing on your site through an option in your Google Adsense account.

How do you get paid for displaying AdSense?

It is very simple. As soon as a visitor clicks on one of the Google ads that are published on your blog you will get some money. Usually just a tiny fraction of what Google is paid by the advertiser. How great your chances are that those ads will be clicked depends on the amount of traffic your blog gets. In short: The higher the number of visitors to your blog, the greater your chances of getting paid.

Is it easy to make money using AdSense?

Yes and No. A resounding yes - if you have very high traffic. Because the more traffic you get the higher the probability that visitors of your blog will click on one of your ads, especially if your blog's topic happens to be one of the high-paying Adwords keywords (* will be explained below). No, if your blog is the exact opposite of what I just mentioned.

Do's and Don't in using AdSense

The major no-no when using AdSense is clicking your own ad. Or having someone clicking the ads for you. It is what they call click fraud. Google has some mysterious high-tech way of determining if you made those clicks yourself or if you had somebody click it for you. Here is a little example: A good friend of mine, who used to have a successful blog, one day received an email from Google informing him that he has just been banned and all his earnings – more than $350 – have been forfeited because Google found the clicks made on his ads to have been made with fraudulent ident. What happend was this: his ex-girlfriend was pissed off and clicked on the ads from her computer which he had previously used on occasion to access his blog. There was no chance of proving to the people at Google that he was in fact innocent.

There are a lot of Google ads tips out there. One trustworthy Google AdSense “guru” is Joel Comm of joelcomm.com. He offers great video tutorials (that can also be found on Youtube) on starting a blog as well as his Google expertise.

On the positioning of ads: the "heat zone" (please read this article as well)

There is an area of the page SEO (search engine optimization) experts call the heat zone. It is the area statistics show to be the most likely visitors to your blog will focus their eyes on. Since this area is where they frequently focus their eyes on, it is only wise to place the items that are most important to you and of the greatest interest for the reader right there. If the attention of your readers is focused on a spot of your page, it is almost for sure that they will click on whatever happens to be in that area. If you are the type of blogger who would want to maximize the earning potential of your blog (and who wouldn´t), what you need to do is position the ads in the "heat zone", the area your visitors will be interested in and look at first, in order to increase the chances that they will click on the ads. Still a mystery? Want to know what this "heat zone" looks like? And where it is?. Okay. The heat zone is shaped like a capital F. What does this mean? It means if you are interested in maximizing your Adsense earnings, you need to position the ads on your blog in the shape of an F. For example, one big leaderboard ad on the top of your homepage either above or below your banner (below is better, so the visitor won´t take your blog for just a page full of ads). Second, one 160x600 vertical banner ad on the left side of your content. And finally, one ad in between you posts or, if you know how to, you can integrate a Google ad within your post. (An instruction on how to do this can be found here.)

Of course, you will need to decide if if this works with the layout of your blog and your content. Remember, this advice is just based on statistical data and everyone is free to decide if they want to monetize their blog or strictly focus on blogging only. If you are interested in monetizing make sure to monitor the performance of your ad. Do not be afraid to experiment a little with the positioning of your ads (all ads, not just Google Adsense) to see what gets you the best results.

Placing anything and everything you want people to notice more inside the capital F-shaped heat zone is always a good choice, be it widgets, links, ads...

The simple rule is: Place your most important stuff in the heat zone because it will get noticed first and more often than any other areas of your blog.

A few additional tips:

1. With Google AdSense, it will take 2 clicks from a visitor to earn you some money. For you to actually earn, whoever clicks your Google ads will have to be interested enough to click on something on the page he was taken to. If he or she does thus, it should make you an amount of around $0.50 or more depending on the cost per click of the specific ad.

2. Following is a list of high-paying keywords or ads that will pay big bucks if clicked on. There are some bloggers out there who blog about these topics for purely monetary reasons. Most combinations of these terms with common words also tend to pay well. If you choose to blog about these topics you are guaranteed to make more money than with other themes, simply because advertisers pay higher prices for ads with a connection to these keywords which in turn means higher pay for publisher and bloggers.

Insurance, mortgages, money, health (also terms like cancer, obesity, etc.)

Other godd topics to blog about are (in no special order): relationships, self-improvement, gossip and/or scandal (especially if you can povide pictures), sports, cars, technical gadgets, fashion, beauty, healthcare.

One tiny problem: many, many people are already blogging about these topics.
Good writing about a not so popular theme might get you more visitors than a badly written blog about a top theme.

3. Blend the colors of your Google ads with the colors of the area where you want to place them. It will look more natural to your visitors and thereby increase the likelihood of them clicking on the ads. Wonder how it should look like? Just take a look at the ads on this page.

Please read the Google AdSense terms and conditions page and program policies to get detailed information.

 

Related article:

Google AdSense Myths Exposed

Technorati-Tags: adsense,ad placement,monetizing blog,blogging for money

Make Money By Adding Banner Ads to Your Blogger Blogs

Your Ad Here

 

One of the things that makes Blogger such a great blogging platform is the ease with which you can add advertising to your Blogspot.com blog and make money from it. In this post I shall be discussing how banner advertisements on your Blogger blog can create passive income for you. By banner advertising I mean advertising in addition to Google AdSense or AdBrite or other contextual ad services you may have already added to your Blogger blog. For information on adding Google AdSense to your blog please read my articles on Google AdSense.

Banner advertising is FREE - And Banners Do Make Money

It is no secret that you can make quite a bit of money by placing banners on your site provided you choose your merchant program(s) carefully and have enough people accessing your site. In my experience, once you reach around 100 unique visitors a day it is high time time to add a few banner ads to your blog.

How to Make Money from Banners on Your Blogger Blog

Affiliate marketing banners are designed to make money for the publisher – in this case: you. In order to place a banner on your blog the affiliate program provides you with a snippet of code to add to your template which makes the banner display and identifies you as the publisher. When a visitor clicks on a banner on your website that click is recorded as originating from your site and you make money as a result of that click. Depending on the merchant program that you have signed up for you will earn a commission for providing a lead, or receive a percentage of the sale.

An Example of How Banners Work

After having placed a banner ad on your Blogger blog your site gets 100 visitors in a day. Out of that 100 people 5 people (hopefully!) click on a banner which takes them through to the merchant's website. From those 5 people one person makes a purchase of around $50.00. Assuming your commission is 10% of the sale you have just earned $5.00. It really is that easy.

Making the Most of Advertising Banners

To make money from banner ads you need a lot of traffic because only a small percentage of your visitors will take any notice of the advertising on your blog and a still smaller percentage of that pool will actually buy anything once they click. Therefore it is really important that you focus your energies on building site traffic. If you need to grow your traffic read my articles on tips to increase traffic to your Blogger blog.

Of course you do need to choose your affiliate banners carefully as obviously some ads will have more appeal than others. To some extent this is a matter of trial and error, as you can never be completely sure how a banner will perform until you try it. However, you can increase the odds of success by choosing merchant programs that are related to your blog in some way. For instance, if you blog about golfing then advertisers of golfing equipment or golfing vacations would be a good place to start.

How to Add Affiliate Banners to Your Blogger Blog

Adding affiliate banners to your blog is pretty easy. In most cases it is just a matter of copy and paste, and pretty much anyone should be able to do this. Please read my article providing step by step instructions on how to Add Affiliate Banner Ads to the Blogger Sidebar of your Blogger blog if you are unsure. If you want to place a banner in the header of your blog please refer to Add an Affiliate Banner to Blogger Header.

Disadvantages of Banner Ads

Too many banner ads can give your visitors the impression you are just in it for the money. So make sure you do not go overboard with too much advertising that will overshadow or detract from the content of your blog. Keep in mind that less is more - so place your banners ads strategically on your blog. Very good results can be achieved by placing a small cluster of about 4 banner ads (usually 125x125) somewhere fairly close to the top in the sidebar and a 468x60 banner in the header. The header is obviously the prime position for an effective banner advertising campaign. Read more about how to place a banner ad in the header of your Blogger blog in my adding banners to Blogger series of posts.

The other main problem with banner ads is that they encourage visitors to leave your site - and as everyone knows one of the hardest jobs is to attract the visitor in the first place. Do you really want them to leave your site before they have had a chance to look around? I do not think so. Therefore, only place banner ads on your blog that you are confident will reap you some rewards, otherwise forget it. You might actually lose traffic if you provide too many inducements to leave your site.

Banner Ads Make Money

In this post I have told you about banner advertising on Blogger blogs. You have learned a little about how affiliate programs work and how you might use banner ads on your own blog to make extra money. For tutorials on adding banner ads to your Blogger Blogspot blog please refer to Add Affiliate Banner Ads to a Blogger Sidebar and Add an Affiliate Banner to Blogger Header.

Good luck!

 

Related articles:

8 Tips for Using Affiliate Programs on Your Blog

How to Find the Right Affiliate Programs to Promote

Technorati-Tags: blogger tips,blogging for money,affiliate programs,banner ads,affiliate marketing,income streams,monetizing blog

 

Google AdSense Myths Exposed

Your Ad Here

 

My articles on Google AdSense on Blogger blogs are among the most popular I have written so far. In this post I am going to I discuss the 6 most common myths concerning Google AdSense that, hopefully, will help you get real about monetizing your Blogger blog with AdSense.

Google AdSense Myths Every Bloggers Needs to Know About

There are countless myths concerningGoogle AdSense which may lead new bloggers in particular into believing that all they need to do to become instant internet millionaires is to place a few Google dd units on their blog or website. Unfortunately, the reality is quite different – especially when you consider that 95% of all blogs receive less than 100 visitors per day. Adding Google AdSense to your blog can and will generate some income, but you need to be realistic about what to expect. In the following paragraphs I am going to expose the 6 most common myths about Google AdSense:

1. Google AdSense is a Get Rich Quick Scheme

False. Only a small percentage of bloggers manage to make a living from their blogs. While it is possible to make at least a bit of money from Google AdSense ad units, you have to bear in mind that making money from your blog is dependent on many factors such as types of advertising, placement of ads, quality of blog content, regular posting, number of articles, SEO, backlinks to your site, number of visitors to your blog,… The more articles you write, the more posts will be indexed in search engines like Google,Yahoo and Bing, which may lead to increased traffic and, in turn, to higher income. The bottom line is that for your ads to be effective your blog needs to receive a lot of traffic. Therefore you should concentrate your efforts in this area and make sure that your blog is worth visiting because building a loyal readership is of utmost importance.

Do Your Maths

Google AdSense itself says it is difficult to predict earnings, but there are some general rules to guide you. For instance, if your blog receives 100 visits per day your likely revenue from Google AdSense will probably be about 10 cents per day, assuming that 1 in 100 people click on some form of Google advertising on your site and the page CTR (click-through-rate) is about 0.20%. Over a year that equates to about $36.50. Not a fortune in anyone's book. Likewise, if your blog is fortunate enough to receive 1000 visitors per day you are looking at an annual income from Google AdSense of about $365.00.

100 Visitors per day = Earnings $36.50 per year

1000 Visitors per day = Earnings $365.00 per year

5000 Visitors per day = Earnings $1825.00 per year

10000 Visitors per day = Earnings $3650.00 per year

But be warned - the above figures are an optimistic view. You have to keep in mind that quite a lot of your visitors will be repeats, and the likelihood of a repeat visitor clicking on an ad unit is less than that of a new visitor. Considering this, your earnings could be much less.

Google AdSense and Affiliate Marketing

As stated above, roughly 95% of all bloggers have less than 100 visitors to their blog a day. If your blog falls into this category then Google AdSense alone is not enough for you to quit your job and become a full-time blogger. You will need to display other forms of advertising on your blog as well before your blog work will start to pay off. Check out my article on other forms of advertising that may be suitable for your Blogger blog, including displaying Affiliate Marketing banners.

Affiliate marketing banners are another form of advertising. Consider that if 1 site visitor in 100 actually buys something worth $50.00 you will immediately earn $5.00, assuming you receive a sale commission of 10%. Even if only one in 500 clicks through to the merchant and buys something you will still be ahead of the revenue earned from Google ads for the same number of visitors. ($5.00 from Affiliate Marketing versus 50 cents from Google AdSense.) In many ways Affiliate Marketing is a more profitable marketing strategy than having heaps of Google ads on your blog. However, in my experience a good mix of both is the way to go.

2. Displaying More Ads on a Blog Will Earn More Money

False. Some bloggers mistakenly believe that placing as many Google AdSense units as possible on their blog will yield higher earnings. Sadly, this is NOT the case at all. By putting more ad units on your blog you may actually reduce your earnings. There is a risk that the highest performing Ad units will shift to positions that are less frequently clicked on. For instance, while the top right hand corner is a prime place for an advertising banner because it gets viewed by the most people it is also a spot that tends to get disregarded by savvy visitors who recognise it as an advertising zone and therefore avoid it. At the same time a 336x280 ad unit with a higher CTR is likely to display Google ad units which pay less because the highest CTR has been transferred to the 468x60 or 728x90 ad unit.

3. More Traffic Equals Higher Google AdSense Earnings

Not necessarily. Depending on the content of your blog it might not always be possible to drive a lot of new visitors to your site and you might have to rely more heavily on repeat traffic. However, due to the familiarity of the ad placement on your blog repeat visitors are less likely to click on your ad units than new visitors. While you can expect more clicks on your ad units as traffic increases there is no guarantee that Google AdSense on your blog will deliver the kind of earnings you might expect.

4. The Format of Google AdSense Ads is Not Important

False. The format of the ads you display on your blog is very important. You can earn more from some ad formats than others. For instance, it is generally considered that the wide Google AdSense ads (336x280, 300x250 or 250x250) perform best. I like to position one of these directly above or inside my first post.

Link units can be profitable too – if strategically placed. One of the best locations for link units is in or just below your blog header, as many people are used to looking there for a navigation menu. A 728x15 linked ad unit just below your horizontal navigation menu will very likely yield good results.

5. The Placement of Google AdSense Ad Units Does Not Matter

On the contrary - where you place your Google AdSense ads can be critical to making money from your blog. One of the best places to position AdSense is above what is known as the fold. The fold is the top area of your blog visible to your visitors without them having to scroll down. A 336x280 ad unit in this space works well because on arrival at your blog visitors immediately see what they are looking for and click on it. If your blog is about mountain biking, for instance, then Google AdSense, being the content based advertising program it is, will very likely serve up ads about cycling equipment, cycling tours etc. For your visitors seeing exactly what they are interested in on arrival is a definite bonus which may lead them to click on your ad unit.

6. To Make Money from a Blog You Need to Add Google AdSense

False. While Google AdSense is by far the most popular Advertising Network around it is not the only advertising option. There are some good alternatives like AdBrite and Chitika. Let the type of blog you have govern your decisions about which advertising mix you employ rather than just going for Google AdSense because its the easiest.

In this posts I have discussed 6 common myths about Google AdSense that every Blogger (Blogspot.com) blogger should be aware of when placing Google AdSense on their blog. This article will hopefully help you do a reality check and make you realize that while you may be one of the 5% of bloggers sitting on a goldmine Google AdSense will not transform you into a millionaire overnight.

Good luck!

 

Technorati-Tags: adsense,affiliate marketing,moentizing blog,make money,blogging for money

12 Great Ways to Get More Inbound Links

Your Ad Here

 

In today’s tough race to the top of the Google SERP’s (Search Engine Result Pages), there are a number of factors that can help you earn one of those coveted spots. While certain techniques may get you better results than others (based on your industry and level of competition), there is no questioning the power of links.

There are a number of methods, some common and some yet to be discovered, you can try out to help increase your link density and search rankings. In this post I have tried to outline some of the more common techniques webmasters and bloggers can use to increase their site’s popularity.

1. Reciprocal Links

Reciprocal links used to be a huge asset and played a significant role. Today, fewer and fewer sites are making use of this technique as it is thought by many to have no significant role in the eyes of Google. This is simply not true. While the overall value of reciprocal links may have declined over the years, they can and will still help your rankings - if done correctly.

The key with reciprocal links is very simple - relevance. If you trade links only with highly relevant sites, it will increase your site´s ranking. But there are some things you need to watch out for: ensure that the links returning to you (inbound links) are search engine spider friendly, that they are placed on pages with as few links as possible, that they are contextualized, meaning the content on the page - and preferably the site as a whole - is related to the content of your link and site.

When you contact a relevant site to ask for a link exchange, keep the email personal to help grab the attention of the blogger or webmaster. Most link exchange emails are spammy automated submissions and are deleted without being read. Write the subject as well as the entire email in such a way as to entice the user to read on, but keep it short. Offer to put their link up first, or even better yet, put it up before you contact them.

2. Purchasing Links

Google has been devaluing links, and in extreme cases, even penalizing sites for selling links, but there is no denying that this technique still works as many sites have climbed to the top of the SERP’s by way of buying links.

A lot of high profile sites such as major and local newspaper publications and magazines sell text links, yet nobody seems to be penalized for it as the publications rank well with high PageRank and the sites they link to rank well as a result.

If you choose to purchase links back to your site, check out how they are linking back, how relevant they are, and try to find out how their site is treated by Google as well as other major search engines. If you see other sites that appear to have purchased links from them, check their backlinks and see if the linking site appears (although it may not be displayed as Google offers very little of this information to the public these days).

It is assumed that if penalties will arise from the sale of links, that only the selling site will be penalized. Even if this is the case, Google’s policy could change at any moment, so be warned that this could potentially come back to bite you.

3. Quality Content

Believe it or not - it works. If you fill your site with original, valuable content, you will get some people linking to your site on their own. While you can not base your entire linking strategy around this concept, as it could take forever to get enough links, rest assured knowing that if you follow this strategy, some will link.

4. Start a Blog

Everyone and their dog seem to have a blog these days, and for good reason - they work. Blogs help you create a never ending stream of content, and if updated regularly (at least once a week) and written well, you will find people will link to it. Not only that, others may pick up your blog through your RSS or Atom feed - which can result in an increase in both links and site traffic. Be sure to utilize your Digg, StumbleUpon and other social media accounts within your blog to help gain a little extra attention.

5. Social Media

Promote your site as well as your blog using various social media tools. When someone "Diggs" or "Stumbles" your content you can not only get a link back to your site from the media platform, but you can also see additional traffic generated by this. The more people bookmark or recommend your article, the more traffic you can get, and the higher the value of the link.

Creating company profile pages on platforms such as Squidoo, Facebook, MySpace, and even uploading photos and videos to YouTube and Flickr, can all count as backlinks to your site - so be sure to utilize these platforms to the fullest extent. DO NOT use these networks to spam them full of links, just to inform and entertain. Build unique relevant content and become a member of the community, and you will find your links will become much more valuable.

6. Article Syndication

When you write highly relevant articles, submit them to any known article aggregation websites in your chosen field or major general portals such as ezinearticles.com. When submitted to the right sites you can drive traffic and increase your links. Again, be sure to include a link or two within your article so you get some backlinks (if allowed).

7. Press Releases

Press releases are still doing wonders. Whenever your business hits a milestone, releases a new product, or has anything worthy of a press release, issue one through the services of PRWeb (Unfortunately, not a cheap service. Only think of doing this if you have money to spend.) You will get a link back to your site, and you may also get some targeted traffic from interested parties.

If your press release happens to qualify as significant news, you may also find bloggers and other writers referencing it and linking to it from their articles, providing even more value. Make sure that you include deep links back to your site with every press release. Links from within the bio are helpful, but those integrated into paragraphs of the release itself are worth much more.

8. Comments

I know, I am going to get a lot of flak for this one, but if used wisely, it can help. If, after reading a relevant blog entry, you have something useful, constructive, and worthwhile to say, leave a comment and include your link if the option is provided. A comment like: "Nice post" will not do, but if you have something to add or contribute that others may find interesting then go for it. These links can add up, and they do add a bit of value. Do not stuff your comment with keywords, keep it natural - and use your real name.

9. Forum Posts and Signatures

This is an area where you may be able to grab a few links, but it is also one you need to be careful about as it can backfire quite easily. Going out and wildly posting in random forums and including your link is NOT recommended.

This method can be useful if you establish yourself as a solid contributor to a particular forum directly related to your industry. Once you are established, and people know and trust your name and understand that you are not just one of the spammers, you can consider adding your link to your signature file as well as including the odd link in your forum posts. This will allow you to get the occasional relevant, inbound link. It is advised to check with the terms and conditions of the specific forum before you start. Some do not allow links of any kind.

10. Testimonials

You see them on many sites that offer products or services, and quite often they include a link back to the submitter’s blog or website. If you have used a product or service, do not be afraid to write a testimonial for the company´s website. In many cases online businesses will post your testimonial along with a link. The testimonial helps that business instill confidence in their customers and you get the valuable backlink.

11. Directory Submissions

Yes, it is still a good idea to submit your site to the major directories. While DMOZ can be very difficult to get into, but once you are there, it is like gold and will play a part in your top rankings. Yahoo directory has a very high price ($299), but can also provide you with a valuable inbound link. Consider submitting to the major directories as well as any industry specific directories. These links add up and will contribute to your site’s ranking.

12. Link Bait

Most of us have heard the prase thrown around for a while now, but the technique itself has worked long before the phrase "link bait" was coined. Why all the hype? Because it works.

Take a look at your website, your business, your industry. See if you can think of some way, any way, to attract people to link to your site. You could sponsor a contest, add an elaborate and unique tool, write a controversial article, provide something useful for free (ebooks are always a good choice) - whatever you do, do it well and promote your effort to the max, then people will naturally link to you.

 

General Rules:

Before you actively seek out a link from a specific site do some investigating to ensure that the site is not spamming or using any black hat techniques. If they are, stay away.

If the link you are seeking is merely an attempt to boost your link density, then do not forget to check out how they are linking to other third party sites.

Does the site use the ‘rel=nofollow’ attribute? Are the pages your link would appear on blocked by the one or all of the search engines, or do they use the robots Meta ‘nofollow’? Are they using other techniques that would not allow a spider to follow them (such as JavaScript, Flash, or frames)? If so you may want to move on.

A note on Google PR (Page Rank) - the PR you see on your toolbar or on a PageRank checker is outdated. While it can give you some insight, just because it says 0, does not mean it is. Also what has a PR of 0 or 1 today, could be a 4 or 5 tomorrow. Do not use the PageRank of a site as your sole means of deciding if you should obtain a link or not.

Summary

Using any or all of these linking methods will help you to increase your link density. There is power in diversification. Use variations on anchor text and descriptions, use inline text links within articles, and gain links in as many different venues as possible. By being diverse, your site will stand the best chance of being around well into the future.

Today, blogs are huge and can be a strong asset, but what would happen if tomorrow Google decided to ban blogs? Highly unlikely, but it could happen. And if it did, would your site survive? By being diverse, your site has the best chance to survive any change.

Good luck!

 

Technorati-Tags: inbound links,links,free links,backlinks,more traffic,pagerank,seo