The following are myths commonly associated with building backlinks to your website. If you’ve believed the lies and misconception… this will set you straight. No longer will you be among the misinformed and will now be able to spread the truth.

Let’s get right into them…

Myth Number 1: You must have “relevant” links in the same niche as your website or they don’t count or you will get penalized in some way by Google.

Of course it’s always best to get relevant links, and Google even recommends this, but you will not be penalized if you don’t, and non-relevant links still count.

Myth Number 2: If you build more than two links a day, you will be penalized by Google.

The fact is that you would have to have hundreds of thousands of the same links to get penalized.

In my previous post about the proper use of backlinks, I mentioned building 1,000 links in one day could get you banned. This was just an example and wasn’t to be taken literally; although, I should have known that it would be.

As long as your links are built naturally, with people linking to your content, you’ll be fine. As I mentioned as a reply to a commenter who disagreed with my statement in that post, you can get penalized or banned by building the wrong types of links too quickly. But, this is different altogether as getting links in this manner is completely natural.

Natural linking is a common and daily occurrence. The internet is a viral medium by nature, and it would be crazy for the biggest search engine to frown on such activity. Google’s rather smart. They know that you can’t control who links to you.

What could be frowned upon is building thousands upon thousands of links within the same niche all in one day. This could get you removed.

Myth Number 3: I can’t see my backlinks in SEO Elite, Yahoo Site Explorer, or some other “Backlink Checker” tool, so they don’t count.

The fact is that no backlink checker is going to show all of your backlinks, and it could take months before they do decide to show whatever backlinks they choose. That’s just how it goes.

However, this does not mean that the backlinks you have built haven’t been indexed and working for you. Quite the opposite. The backlinks you build will help your site way before they ever show up in your favorite backlink tool.

Myth Number 4: I have to vary my keywords, or Google will think I am spamming, and I will be penalized.

You are actually doing more harm than good because by varying your keywords, you’re spreading yourself thin. If you build 30 backlinks and vary your keywords every 10 links, that’s only 10 links per keyword, rather than getting all 30 links for one keyword.

You are losing a lot of power by doing this, as it will take longer to rank for your main keyword phrase. If you were to use the same keyword for all 30 links, your rankings would increase faster.

Don’t believe me?

Consider Adobe for a minute. Did you know that they are number one for the phrase “click here“? Millions (no lie) of sites link to them using that exact phrase as the anchor text when linking to them.

They obviously didn’t get penalized in any way, and neither will you by using the same keyword phrase when building links to your own site. Just follow the best practices of link building and don’t do anything deemed spammy, and you’ll be just fine.

The only reason to vary your anchor text is if you want to rank for similar keywords and get to number one for those as well. I recommend this at some point to increase your overall search engine traffic.

Myth Number 5: Google is going to start penalizing people using various backlink packets because they’re all putting their links on the same sites.

If you didn’t know, I use Angela and Paul’s backlink packets which can both be found on the Warrior Forum. I’ve been using them for exactly a year now with tremendous results and recommend them to anyone who has a few bucks to spare.

Since there are thousands of people using these and other similar backlink packets, there’s a myth that Google will penalize these sites based on the sheer amount of people putting their links on them.

First of all, why would Google penalize high PR sites based on what other people are doing on the site? That’s just ridiculous.

Second, Google doesn’t have the man power or resources to manually go through every site on the internet and look for “strange” activity. It’s impossible and would be a complete waste of their time.

Third, if this Myth was true, then they would be going after sites like Digg, Reddit, Propeller and just about every other social bookmark site that fits this example. This would have an adverse affect on the internet as a whole, and Google know this wouldn’t be productive for them or the internet users at large.

Bonus Myth

Myth Number 6: Leaving a link on an “inner page” that is new or has a low or 0 PR inside of a high PR domain will do your site no good.

This is just not true. It may have been true at one time when PR was new and Google’s Algorithm was set a certain way, but the Algorithm has been updated since then.

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Now, if you noticed I didn’t provide a whole lot of “proof” to back up any of these claims, if any.

Why?

Because I think results speak for themselves, and what better way to get proof than to see the results for yourself?

I recommend grabbing Angela and Paul’s backlink packets and getting the search engine results you want. Curious how they’re working out for me? Here are some screenshots of highly competitive search terms I’m ranking on the first page for:

Note: I was NOT logged into Google at the time of taking these screenshots.

Read more from Alan Mater on Google+.

Believe it or not, there are proper and improper ways to use backlinks, and using them in the improper manner are not going to get you the results you want.

If you’re spending your valuable time building backlinks to your website, then it would be in your best interest to learn the proper usage, otherwise that’s a lof of wasted time with nothing to show for.

Please don’t let this happen to you.

The first thing you need to know is that there is a difference between a regular/plain link and an anchor text link.

What Are Anchor Text Links?

Here’s a clear definition I found: “The anchor text, link label or link title is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. The words contained in the anchor text can determine the ranking that the page will receive by search engines.”

That pretty much sums up everything I’m going to be talking about. The anchor text is essentially keyword phrases that you want your website to rank for in search engines. Got it?

Search engines, specifically Google, factor in the anchor text as part of “off-page” optimization when determining how to rank websites in their search index.

What Keywords Should I Target?

This subject has been talked about before on my blog, so here are some past posts that should help you come up with some good keywords to target for your website.

• Are You Targeting ‘Paying’ Keywords?
• Proven Strategies to Increase Website Traffic and Generate Sales
• Why Good Keyword Selection is Essential for Home-Based Business Success

Once you do some minor “on-page” optimization as talked about in at least one of the linked posts above, you’re then ready to start building links to your site and increasing your search engine rankings.

Now, as I mentioned towards the beginning of this post, there is an improper and proper use of backlinks.

The Proper Use of Backlinks

A lot of beginners think that just any link will do, specifically an plain link, and that they’ll be counted the same or equal as an anchor text link.

This isn’t true at all.

While these plain and ordinary links are counted as backlinks, they’re not given near as much weight as if they were to be anchor text links. Knowing this, you’ll now be able to take advantage of every opportunity you have to create anchor text links rather than than just a standard link.

Don’t know what the difference is?

Here is what a plain backlink looks like with no anchor text used:

Now, here is anchor text being utilized properly in a link:

See the difference?

The first link shows the full URL to the website, while the second link shows actual words that describe the site that the link is pointing to. When the second link is clicked, it will still go to the same website as in the first example.

That’s taking advantage of anchor text, where you place your target keywords in the link. Then, the more links you build up using your target keyword phrases, the higher up in search engines your website is going to rank when someone searches for that keyword.

Exceptions to the Rule

You saw this coming, right?

There are going to be times where you can’t always use an anchor text link. It just happens. That’s the nature of the internet, and it happens on a per site basis. Now, this actually isn’t a bad thing, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

There will be times where you may be on a site that allows you to put a link to your site. Some may only allow you to type in the full URL to your site, and that’s it.

My question to you is this: Do you type in your URL and get a non-anchor text backlinks, or do you just ignore it altogether and not get any backlink?

The answer I think is pretty obvious. I would much rather get a backlink whenver possible, than to give up that chance and leave that particular field blank.

NoFollow vs. DoFollow

This subject has been the center of debate since forever, and here is what I have to say about it, and what others who actually know what they’re talking about will tell you.

DoFollow links are links that Google’s spider bots will follow and index and use for their ranking algorithm. Simply put, everyone wants to get dofollow links when building backlinks because they’ll be sure to get credit for them, and they’ll help increase your site’s search engine rankings.

NoFollow links are shunned by many internet marketers because they think that nofollow links hold absolutely no value whatsoever and that it’s a waste of time to even go after these types of links.

The truth is that nofollow links do hold little value, but they DO have value, and it would be in your best interest to at least get a few nofollow backlinks.

Why?

Diversifying Your Link Building Efforts

Building links should be a natural process, done over time and in the most natural way possible. Google likes it this way, and if it thinks something fishy is going on, that can be bad news for you.

This means you don’t want to build 1,000 backlinks in one day. That’s not natural at all, and you’ll most likely get your site banned because you’ll be seen as a spammer. Not good at all.

Another thing to consider is the types of links you get, for instance: plain links, anchor text links, nofollow links and dofollow links.

The truth is that you want to get all of these types of links. It will be in your best interest to get more of the anchor text links and dofollow links, but you want to diversify your link building and keep it as natural as possible.

The next thing to consider are the sites you get links from. Getting a link from a non-relevant site, meaning a site that has nothing to do with your site, will be weighted lower than getting a link from a site that is relevant to yours. However, with that said, the Page Rank of the site is also a factor to consider. If the PR of a non-related site has a very high PR (PR 4 or higher), then it would be in your best interest to get a backlink from that site.

Now that you’ve absorbed all of this information, you’re probably wondering where you can get backlinks that are going to help your website increase its search engine rankings.

Where to Get Backlinks

This subject has also been covered pretty extensively in the past, so below are all of the posts I’ve ever written on how to build backlinks to your website. I encourage you to take some time to read over them…

• Get 80 High PR One Way Backlinks Each Month
• How I Get Backlinks to My Blog Posts Resulting in Sales
• 30 Ways to Get Free Website Traffic In Minutes
• Improve Search Engine Rankings the Easy Way
• Build Long-Term Traffic to Your Work From Home Site with Article Marketing
• Steps to Building a Successful Online Business – Article Marketing
• A Better Alternative To Article Marketing? Give Free Traffic System A Try
• Marketing Your Work From Home Web Site with Proper Use of Forum Signatures

So now you should have a strong understanding of how to use backlinks properly and how they are used to increase search engine rankings, and also where to get quality backlinks for your website/s.

I would now like to turn it over to you. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, leave a comment below…

If you own a website, then you’re probably aware of the term backlink. It’s in every website owner’s interest to become familiar with backlinks and how they affect your website and overall online business.

What Are Backlinks?

Backlinks, which are sometimes called inbound links, are incoming links to either a specific web page or an entire website (home page). These incoming links to your website are important to search engines because their ranking algorithms measure the number of backlinks a website or web page has and ranks the web pages with more backlinks in a higher position.

Consider each backlink a vote for your site or web page. The more backlinks you get, the more votes you have, and search engines are going to rank your website or web page higher in their search listings.

Why Do I Need Backlinks?

Your goal as a webmaster and online business owner is to get as many “votes” for your website as possible so that it becomes popular in the eyes of search engines.

Once your site becomes popular, it’s then considered an authority. Obviously this is important for every website owner as they’re goal should be to stick out and stand above the thousands of other websites in their chosen field (niche).

How Do I know How Many Backlinks I Have?

There are numerous tools to determine how many incoming links a website has. Utilizing at least one of these tools is important as this will help you analyze not only your own progess but also your competition.

I personally prefer Yahoo! Site Explorer. You can view all the web pages indexed by Yahoo! Search, view the most popular pages from any site, view the total number of backlinks to a site, and more.

Now, another method to check backlinks is to login to your Google Webmasters account. I highly recommend getting an account as you can learn a lot about your website and how it’s indexed, discover any errors that your website is causing, and much more. The problem with using your Google Webmasters account to view the number of backlinks your site has is that Google doesn’t show all of them. Supposedly, they’re supposed to now, but people are still reporting different. So, I would say to use Yahoo! Site Explorer for the time being, or you can also use one of these other tools:

• http://seopro.com.au/free-seo-tools/link-checker/
• http://validrank.com/pages/backlinks-checker.php
• http://www.seocentro.com/tools/search-engines/link-popularity.html

Your goal with getting backlinks is twofold – You want as many backlinks to your site as possible, and you also want to get more backlinks than your competition, which is any website in your niche that is currently ranking higher than you in search engines for your targeted keywords.

What’s Next?

My next post is going to cover the relationship between backlinks and search engine rankings and how to properly use backlinks to get the most positive affect from them.

Still not sure what importance backlinks serve? Got any questions regarding backlinks or anything else? Go ahead… ask away…

I know I promised a series of posts about backlinks, keywords, etc., but before I get into that I wanted to post my income from July and also update you on some new projects. First, let’s get to the earnings…

Income from ReplaceYourSalary.com

• ClickBank: $69.14
• PayDotCom – $140.85
• Angela’s Backlinks: $45
• Paul’s Backlinks: $12
• Yarie: $16.18
• Google Adsense: $33.61
• SFI: $17.54
• Project Payday: $13.50 (commissions earned from promoting the program, not actually using it)
• AdFish – $29.40
• ResponsiveData – $24
• Ads – $90
• FlexSqueeze WordPress Theme – $38.10

Total = $529.32

Income from Internet Marketing Services

It’s been a pleasure to be able to work for a highly successful internet marketer. I’m able to learn from and apply the same strategies to my online business, all of which I’ve blogged about here at one time or another.

Total = $120

Income from Proofreading/Re-writing/Editing Services

As I said previously, I’ve gotten a decent amount of freelancing work last month. It’s great to be able to provide a high quality and much needed service, and it’s been an honor serving my clients. You can learn more by visiting the link below.

• Proofreading – $63

Total = $63

Income from Re-writing Service via David Hurley’s PLR Article Service Membership

It has been an honor to be able to partner with David, a good online friend of mine, and provide the re-writing portion of his article membership. To learn more about his PLR article service, visit the link above.

Total = $75

Total online income from all sources…

$787.32

July is my best month yet. Getting closer to my goal of $1,000 in a month. I know that if I spend more time marketing that I could get there quicker, but I’ll admit, I’m sometimes lazy. It happens.

Anyway, I have some updates for you on some new projects I’m working on.

I have entered into the niche Adsense site arena and got my first site up. I won’t link to it here for multiple reasons, but it’s a niche that has potential to bring in some decent money from Adsense. I’ve only begun building backlinks to it, but it’s already on the first page of Google in the #4 position.

I hope to get it to the top spot shortly so that it will get more traffic and start to get clicks. Testing and tweaking will most likely be necessary. I’ll keep you updated on the performance of that site each month.

Also, I’m planning on entering another niche once my micro niche site starts bringing in some revenue. This niche won’t be micro and I won’t be using Adsense to earn money, but it’s a niche with barely any competition and a lot of hungry buyers. I’ll promote a single Clickbank product and create a funnel for visitors to get them to the order page.

That’s about it for now. As always, feel free to leave your comments below…

Creating an internet business website is just the first step to a long road of making money online. Once your website is up and you’re ready to do business (regardless of what business you’re engaging in), it is then time to market your online business.

The first part of marketing effectively on the internet is making sure your website looks professional. There’s no sense in spending time driving traffic to your site if it’s not appealing and people just leave right away. I recommend using WordPress as your website platform and then buying a professional WordPress Theme that you can customize.

Once your website is squared away, it’s time to get the word out. I’m a huge advocate of article marketing and is the primary marketing method that I use. The simple reason is that it works, and it works well on many levels. Articles bring in direct traffic, but they also add backlinks to your site and can be syndicated across the web by others providing even more backlinks and direct traffic.

Another effective marketing method is using videos. Now, I must admit that I don’t use this method near as much as I should, but I’ve noticed in the past that it has brought in traffic. If used correctly, video marketing can be used to generate leads for your business and bring in sales. Plus, videos can also provide backlinks to your content.

One thing you need to understand if you hope to rank well in search engines, specifically Google (which should be your ultimately goal), is that Google is looking for new and relevant content. What this means for your website is that it should be updated with new and relevant content on a regular basis. And, if you took my advice about using WordPress, you’re ready to use your website as a blog, which makes it exceptionally easy to keep updated with fresh content.

Another component that your online business should have is a newsletter. This allows you to keep your visitors and potential customers up to date with what’s going on. This also allows you to market products and services that are relevant to your site and newsletter.

As you probably noticed when I covered article and video marketing, I mentioned about getting backlinks. Once everything is in place and you’re ready to get traffic to your internet business website, backlinks are the glue that will hold everything together.

Search engine rankings… Traffic… Sales…

Backlinks are the key to everything. I can’t stress it enough. Article and video marketing are just two of the many ways to build backlinks to your site. AND… building backlinks through many varying marketing methods is the key to marketing your online business effectively.

My next posts (I don’t know how many yet) are going to cover backlinks in much detail. Everything is going to be broken down into segments, starting with what exactly backlinks are and the proper use of them… all the way to how to get them and much more.

This was spurred due to an influx of questions in my email inbox from people reading my blog and asking about backlinks, Page Rank, keywords, etc. I figured there is a good change that maybe some of you have similar questions or concerns, so I want to address everything publicly so that you’re all aware about this stuff so you can apply it to your own internet business website.

Be on the lookout for the first installment coming soon.

In the meantime, if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below…

This summer is going by so quickly… too quickly. July was a crazy month for me, mainly due to the fact that my fiance broke up with me. That was tough emotionally and physically. It took a while to get over the fact and finally move on. I knew that if I didn’t… my professional life would suffer dramatically, and I didn’t want that.

I’m back on track with some exciting new things going on. I’ll update you on them later on. For now…. let’s take a look at the blog posts from last month…

June Comment Contest Winners!

Adapting Your Style: Make Your Writing Work for You

Is Your Blog Grabbing Your Visitors’ Attention?

How to Increase Fan Numbers on Your Facebook Fan Page

Anatomy of Credit Card Processing

Take a second to leave a comment on any you may have missed. I hope to do more sponsored posts in the future as it adds a different flavor to the blog, as pointed out by Jason. The guest posts are also a nice addition, and I hope you’ve been enjoying them so far. Expect to see them around frequently.

Got any comments, questions or concerns, leave your thoughts below or send me an email.

Thanks for being a reader here, and I’ll see ya soon.

The following is a guest post by Sam Bakker. If you would like to guest post on this blog, please contact me.

If you are new to internet marketing and would like to learn affiliate marketing it is important that you first understand that making money online is a skill and in order to learn that skill you need to learn the process first. Once you learn the process you can begin down a path similar to most successful internet marketers.

I got talking with a student of mine the other day; we got into a debate about what an affiliate marketer should do when they first start online. A little confused by our differing views, I had a good think about the cause of this debate and it soon became quite obvious why it had happened. It was because my student was recalling information from a previous system which he had learned from someone else, this system differed slightly from the system that was working for me and I was subsequently teaching him.

This debate really nailed in a point for me, there are several systems available to learn to get started in affiliate marketing however if someone who is new to the internet decides to conduct extended research over a number of different systems then it can really lead to a ton of confusion, overload and worst of all a sense of not knowing where to start. This confusion often leaves newcomers who want to learn affiliate marketing in the dark because the simply don’t know what’s right from what’s wrong and many end up waiting years before they take action.

So what is the key to your success as you start to learn affiliate marketing?

It’s quite simple really; learn a system you are comfortable with that you know you can be effective in. Once you have done that then the next thing that you need to do is find someone else who is effective using the system you have chosen. This is important because they can help you through the sticky points that will be to come as you implement the system. Once you have found someone successful to follow and you have decided on a system you will focus on, you then need to learn each part of the system in detail.

Learn the system until you have a complete understanding for what you need to do in order to succeed. Finally take focused, consistent action in order to reach your goal of making money as an affiliate marketer and do so as soon as possible.

If you are able to take in and understand what I have run over in this article then you will save yourself a lot of time and stress at the start of your internet marketing career and you will most importantly of all learn how to be an effective affiliate marketer.

About the Author: Sam Bakker has been online marketing for the past 7 years. If you are new to internet marketing and would like to learn about how to start affiliate marketing, you can sign up for Sam’s newsletter and free website guide at his learn internet business website ModernCogs.com.

If you know anything about me at all, you’ll know that I can’t stand hype. You’ll also know that if and when I promote an opportunity, there’s usually very good reason for doing so, and it’s because I truly believe in it and feel that you will benefit from it.

For the past month there’s been a lot of buzz regarding AshMax, and I honestly hadn’t heard about it until I got an email from someone wanting to pay to put up a banner on my site. I had then emailed him back and forth several times talking about AshMax and why it’s different than anything else out there.

Well… this guy (who will remain anonymous) is very close friends with Ash Mufareh, the creator of AshMax. He got in right from the start (it’s only been out just over a month) and is already seeing almost a $1,000 monthly income (not bad for only a month). He said I should take a look into it and at least take the free tour to see what it’s all about.

So I did…

I’m very skeptical when the “next best thing” comes out, and I don’t want to waste my time, and especially yours, reviewing something that will be a waste of time, and money. That’s not the case here. After reviewing AshMax extensively and learning as much as there is to know about it, I wanted to provide a full, detailed review.

My review will be as non-biased as possible, and I’ll leave out all the hype. I’ll leave it up to your discretion whether or not AshMax is the perfect work from home opportunity.

So what exactly is AshMax?

AshMax was created and founded by Ash Mufareh, the top Global Domains International (GDI) marketer in the United States. If you haven’t heard of the GDI opportunity before, they’re one of the oldest and most well-known multi-level marketing/networking marketing (MLM) companies on the internet, having started back in 1999.

Now I know what you’re probably thinking. “Not another MLM!” Yeah, there’s a lot of them, but GDI has stood the test of time and there’s a reason why they’re still very popular today. That reason is because they’re an honest company and have built a solid reputation for offering a great service along with one of the most popular opportunities online.

While I was taking my free tour of AshMax, I was quite blown away. It’s new and different and designed like no other program I’ve ever seen before. I was starting to realize why there has been so much buzz about it for the past month.

Here’s the basic gist…

Ash Mufareh is the top recruiter for GDI and wanted a way to leverage on the success of GDI and also FreewayToSuccess (FTS). Both are two well-established programs, are very successful, are familiar names to most online marketers and are 100% legal and certified by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission). No scams here!

AshMax is simply a free system designed to help you build your downline in both companies in the most ingenious way I’ve ever seen.

How Does it work?

1. When you sign up for the free tour, you have 7 days to check AshMax out as well as learn more about GDI and FTS. There are complete guides and videos to walk you through everything. If you don’t complete steps 1 & 2  within the 7 days, you’ll be booted out of the system.

There’s a third step that requires referring 5 people to AshMax within 20 days. If this isn’t done, you’ll be booted out of the system as well.

Steps 1 & 2 involve signing up for GDI and FTS under your AshMax sponsor. That’s it and is very easy to do. Only takes a few, short minutes to complete.

AshMax in itself is not an affiliate program or MLM. It simply is a tool to help you build your downlines in GDI and FTS, by forcing the people you refer to AshMax to sign up under you and actually take action. Consider it a way to get GDI leads and FTS leads and have them actually do something. Those who don’t take action are purged out of the system. It’s an ingenious way to ensure the members are really serious about this business when they join.

2. There is a 5X5 matrix compensation plan, and all that’s required of you is to sign up 5 people. Of course, it would be in your best interest to sign up more than that, but 5 is the minimum requirement. This shouldn’t be too hard of a task if you know anything about internet marketing. If you don’t, I’m here to help.

What Are The Products?

GDI is a successful domain hosting company (.WS domains and others) that sells domain names and web hosting packages. FTS  gives you big discounts when you shop online for food, clothes and other consumer products.

GDI costs just $10 per month, and FTS costs just $15 per month, totaling a small $25 per month investment. Once you refer just 5 members, you pay nothing out of pocket.

Why Does AshMax Work So Well?

1. The system is designed to ensure that only the right members stay in this program, with each member playing an important role to help build up a team of successful members, both in GDI and FTS. Plus, AshMax is free to join.

2. The 5X5 matrix makes it a fair system because it limits the depth and the width of your team. You will most likely get some spillover (members referred by the people in your upline). This means you won’t have to work to get these members, but you should continually work to refer people yourself. In a filled matrix, you can expect to be paid $22,300 residual income. That’s monthly income. I’ve seen the compensation plan, and it makes sense. Take the free tour to see it for yourself.

3. Everybody in your team has a vested interest to see each other succeed. So, this means if you belong to a good team, you could find people ready to help you including getting you new members before your 20 days are up. That person can be me, and I’m already building a solid team.

4.  By integrating GDI and Freeway2Success into AshMax, it frees you from having to promote them individually, helping you achieve your goal much faster. The system is built in such a way to help you achieve this.

I’m not going to tell you that this is the perfect work from home opportunity. In fact, there is no such thing. Every opportunity is different, and there are many different avenues one can take to get to the same destination. Your success with any opportunity weighs heavily on your ability to learn and put into action the necessary steps.

Having said that, after taking the Free Tour and learning all there is to know about AshMax, I have paid my dues and signed up with the GDI  Opportunity and FreewayToSuccess because I truly believe that this can help anyone who is either struggling to build a GDI downline or FTS downline or who is struggling to just get ahead online.

If you’re serious about making money online and working from home, sign up for free and join me and my team as we help each other reach the $22,300 income level within 100 days.

I hope to see you there! I’ll be providing my full support and help for everyone that joins me and is serious about building a real business and making real money online.

Don’t delay… Take the FREE Tour Today!