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…

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…

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

It’s no secret that Facebook is an excellent source to make money online. With over 400 million members, the money is there for the taking. Many online marketers have come out and said that Facebook fan pages are currently the best free way to make money on the site. This is because of their viral nature. In this article, I am going to discuss an effective technique for increasing fans on your page with the intention of taking it viral.

The first time I discovered Facebook’s viral nature, I was looking at my news feed. A friend of mine had joined a pretty funny group. I clicked into the page out of casual curiosity and found out that the page had only been running for the past 24 hours, but had managed to have over 100,000 people “Like” it. I refreshed the page to see how fast its rate growth was, each time I did, at least 100 new people had joined. Over the next week, more than 1.5 million people joined that page as fans gave the owner exposure to all of their news feeds when they placed a message on the fan page.

So how do we create this incredible viral effect? The first way is to gather enough members in a short space of time. The rule I like to use is that if you can get a fan page to 20,000 people within four days then the page will go viral.

The best way to get these first 20,000 friends is to use a method which I like to call the “Rapid Movement Method”. It consists of utilizing the fans of other pages in order to help build your fan page. Look for fan pages which have similar subjects to yours and about 100,000 fans already (we want these pages so that we can tap into their growth while it’s still happening). Some fan pages will have the contact details of the admin. But if they don’t, you will need to ask them to contact you using the “Discussion tab”. This option which the majority of Facebook fan pages have gives you the opportunity to get in touch with the owner by placing a quick comment asking the administrator to contact you. When they do, you have the chance to negotiate a price for the post. If you have got it right and your topic is one which could potentially go viral, then you can expect your page to grow to a stage where you can use it to make money online.

Sam Bakker has been making money online for the past 7 years. If you would like to get a free copy of Sam’s new Facebook marketing report visit his Internet business website now.

I took the weekend off (3 day weekend) to celebrate Independence Day and enjoy being with family and friends. It was great to just put business aside and relax and enjoy myself. The fireworks show in State College at Beaver Stadium was amazing; one of the top ranked shows in the nation. It was a blast… no pun intended.

I took pictures throughout the show along with a 40 second video of the finale. If you would like to check them out, just add me as a friend on Facebook. Otherwise, one of the pictures I took is to the right.

As much fun as I had, it’s time to get back into the swing of things. June was a rather busy month, and I’m excited to see just how many posts I had last month. If you happened to miss any of them, you can find them below…

June Comment Contest – Win Cash and Prizes!

An Unforeseen “Benefit” of 3-Way Link Exchanges

It’s Official – Alan Mater is an EzineArticles.com Expert Author

How Blogging About Internet Marketing Can Make You Money Online

New Blog Theme – I’m Using the FlexSqueeze Wordpress Theme

Why You Should Incorporate Exercise Into Your Work From Home Routine

May 2010 Income Report

Why Good Keyword Selection is Essential for Home-Based Business Success

What a Man, a Dog and a Leash Have to do with Internet Marketing

Transcription Crash Course Review – Become a Home Transcriptionist Today

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photo credit: Amy McTigue

The other day I was running at a local park, ya know, since I’m serious about this whole exercise stuff. We have two parks in the area; one is closer than the other, but the one I run at is much nicer.

There’s a lot of wildlife around (a ton of ducks and little ducklings and very friendly squirrels) which makes running in a park so much more enjoyable than running through a development or through town. I recommend doing so if you have a local park nearby.

On this particular morning I was determined to run two miles, which I proudly did. At about the one and a half mile marker, something strange caught my attention.

The particular park attracts a lot of other runners, joggers and walkers, including people that like to walk their dogs. Well, I came up on a man who was walking his dog. I don’t know what kind of dog he had, but it was rather small and was on a leash (all dogs have to be on a leash).

They were standing next to a short cement wall in which the dog wanted to jump up onto to see down toward the creek where the ducks were. The man decided to help the dog by picking the dog up by its leash, rather than bending down and literally picking the dog up.

You read correctly…

He didn’t pick the dog up like most people would… He pulled up on the leash until the dog lifted up off the path and onto the cement wall.

I almost tripped over my jaw as I saw this right as I was passing by. I don’t know how tight that collar was, but I can’t imagine that felt very good for the little dog. It could have been strangling its neck for all I know.

After my run and on the drive home, it hit me…

Many internet marketers these days are like that man I saw. They hold their leashes in hand and attempt to pick up everyone they can with it, all the meanwhile strangling them. This causes people to resent them and turn the other way. Certainly not the way internet marketing is supposed to be.

Let’s look at some prime examples of what I’m talking about.

The first comes in the form of email spam. You have people shoving their business opportunity or product down your throat, some of which you never agreed to receive email from. Complete turn off… agreed? Makes you hate them all the more, right?

Another example of this – I was trying to sell something on Craiglist, and it clearly has “this seller does not allow commercial contact” (something like that). So, I get an email asking if I had sold my item yet, and I replied, “no.” Right away I get another response from the person, and the email went something like this: “Don’t sell it! Instead, sign up to blah blah blah…”

Yeah, you get the point. They were promoting some website in which they wanted me to sign up for. They got their leash around my neck and strangled me. Hate it when that happens!

Next, you have scuzzy sleezebags using forums and instant messaging services like Skype to spam you with products and services you have no interest in. They “strangle” you right from the start, and you do what any normal person would do. You delete them and/or report them for spam. There’s no being “friends” with them because they have no interest in that.

Here comes my favorite (quite the opposite)…

Thanks to social media and allowing people to connect and meet new people, we now have a whole new breed of marketing spam. I see this a lot on Facebook and have fallen victim to it myself.

Someone said it perfectly when they said (I’m paraphrasing here)…

“When you want to be friends with people and you click the ‘Add as Friend’ button, that button doesn’t say ‘Add as marketer.’”

What this means is, when we add people as friends, we should become friends with them, not a marketer who’s only interest is to get as many people as possible to join our “awesome” business.

It’s important to build relationships with people. Once you have that relationship factor and have built up trust with that person, then you can mention your business and what you do.

The whole point of social sites is to be social. Yes, they have features in place that make it easy to market our businesses, but you first need to be social with people. People will respect you more for it, and they’ll be more inclined to hear you out and check out your business and what you do later on.

Some final advice…

Don’t be like that man where he strangled his dog with the leash, even if it was only for a second or two. First impression is everything, and it only takes a few seconds for you to ruin your reputation online. Strangle enough people, and you’ll find yourself out of business very quickly.

How are you marketing your business online? Have you ever been the victim of marketing spam? Or, have you ever been like that man and strangled others in an attempt to make a quick buck? Share your thoughts below…

This is a guest post by Sam Bakker. If you would like to guest post on this blog, please Contact me.

When I first started my own home-based business a few years ago, I thought that no matter what my first home business website would work. I thought I had everything important in place and the website was looking great. But the reality of my situation had to sink in eventually; even though I had an excellent website, and what I thought was successful home business information I was missing visitors, rendering my online presence useless.

Two years later, I took a second look, but this time with a careful look at all options. I would learn about Search Engine Optimization and how it can influence a business. Through it, I was able to add life to my websites as well as a sizeable amount of money.

If your website is currently suffering from a lack of visitors, the first place to look for answers is your website’s keywords and their search engine performance. Often we can build links for our website, writing content with the intention of ranking it. But none of that will matter if you don’t have the right keywords. There is a lot of money to be made in internet marketing if this step is taken seriously.

First of all, check the keywords you decided to compete for when you started your campaign. Review their usefulness and relative competition. Once you have done so, visit Google’s Adwords Keywords tool or use WordTracker. These tools will help you see clearly where opportunities in your niche could be for keywords.

If you are able to find some additional keywords that you should be ranking your website for, construct a plan outlining what on-page and off-page content will need to be produced. This is to get your website appearing on the front page for that term. Once your plan has been completed, stay focused on the job at hand. To rank higher in the search engines, you need to be consistently taking action.

As internet marketers, we often get excited and dive into projects without spending enough time working through our foundations. Looking for keywords is an essential step; a website cannot succeed in the search engines without it. Make sure you take the time to review your website’s keywords and take action if necessary so that your website doesn’t stay hidden from your potential customers.

About the Author: Sam Bakker has been in the internet marketing industry for the past 7 years. If you would like to find out more about Sam or learn some free internet marketing tips then you can visit his website at SamBakker.com

As promised yesterday, here’s the list of May’s awesome blog posts that you may not have gotten a chance to check out or comment on. BTW, there’s only 9 days left for a chance to win in this month’s comment contest, so check out these posts and get commenting!

Without further ado, here they are:

Free Teleseminar – Learn How To Build A Profitable Business In Today’s Economy – This post will be updated whenever there is a new teleseminar scheduled. Right now you can register for the one on June 23rd.

5 Things to Consider Before Publishing a Guest Post on Your Blog

My Blog Guest – An Active Community of Guest Bloggers and Blog Owners

Don’t Make The Same Stupid Mistake I Made… Seriously! – You definitely want to check this post out… One of my toughest website lessons ever learned is talked about here. Don’t let happen to you what happened to me.

Where Do You Get Images and Photos For Your Website or Blog?

There you have it. If you haven’t yet checked these posts out then I invite you to do so.

Don’t forget… The comment contest ends on June 30th at whatever time at night I check the list for the final time. Right now Cebu is commanding a strong lead with Mici close behind. It’s anyone’s game at this point. Don’t give up now!

I realize June is almost over, but I had so many things going on the beginning of the month. Between rolling out the new theme, posting a guest post, getting guest posts out to other blogs… and the list goes on.

I had already planned on getting May’s income report out late, and I still need to do a May blog post roundup, which will be published tomorrow. Things may seem a little screwy, but trust me, it’s all planned out.

Let’s get right into May’s earnings:

Income from ReplaceYourSalary.com

• ClickBank: $13.06
• Angela’s Backlinks: $18.75
• Paul’s Backlinks: $8
• Yarie: $32.87
• Google Adsense: $20.06
• SFI: $15.71
• Project Payday: $3 (commissions earned from promoting the program, not actually using it)
• AdFish – $21
• ResponsiveData – $12
• Homepage link – $150

Total = $294.45

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 = $160

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 – $30

Total = $30

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 = $57.50

Total online income from all sources…

$541.95

P.S. Only 10 days left until the end of June’s Comment Contest!

The following is a guest post by Sam Bakker…

I recall when I first started trying to use blogging to make money online. I had arrived at the entrance of a cyber metropolis armed with an idea and a daft look on my face. It was a multifaceted space teeming with online users, all I had to do was establish myself and I’d be crowded with customers in no time. I had bought a product that would teach me how to build a home-based business. It told me I should start a blog and begin sharing with the rest of the internet world how to be successful making money through a home-based business.

I opened an account with Blogger.com and put my hands to the keyboard. For two months I typed away, completing a design and posting content up on a daily basis. For all this effort, I had one member and no sign of traffic. My blog was floating around in an alleyway when I wanted it to be across the street from Facebook. I wasn’t making money and my website wasn’t going anywhere.

It wasn’t until a year later that I found out (and corrected) what I had done wrong. In this article today, I am going to discuss what mistakes I made in my first attempt to make money blogging online and how you can avoid them. By dodging these classic mistakes, your journey to success will help you obtain an internet marketing lifestyle that is greatly to your advantage.

Firstly, it must be said that before anything else, you must plan out what your blog’s central focus will be. As is the general nature of entrepreneurs, we get an idea and jump in head-first without planting a base for ourselves. Planning is essential especially when it comes to blogging; you not only need to identify your audience and the value you can offer them, but you also need to find effective keywords.

Keywords are the driving force behind a blog’s organic search engine traffic. You need to find the most effective ones using a tool such as “Google Adwords Keywords” to research. This will show you where you can get your search engine traffic from and what terms will be most profitable when it comes to making money. If you launch your blog without keywords in mind, often Google will struggle to place you in the index. Much of the time this means that your blog’s potential is capped very early on and your chance of getting decent traffic flow from Google is reduced. Be sure that you conduct the appropriate keyword research for your website before buying your domain name.

When you first launch your blog online, it feels great. However, now the challenge is in getting it seen. In order for search engines to rank your website based on targeted key terms, you will need to generate some external links back to your website. Use websites such as Ezine Articles, Squidoo and write for other websites in your niche to get your blog rising in the search engines and producing traffic.

Use these tips to ensure that your blog doesn’t end up like my first one, gathering dust along some forgotten nook in cyberspace. Instead, implement the techniques I have discussed with you here to get your blog off to an excellent start.

Sam Bakker has been making money online for the past 7 years. If you would like to find out more about Sam Bakker or internet marketing you can view Sam’s website at SamBakker.com

Aside from the usual perks you receive when you become an Ezine Articles Expert Author, I wasn’t aware that they actually mail you some goodies as well. Pretty nice of them actually. You can see the cool coaster on the left, and I’ll post pictures of the mug below.

Inside the mug was a packet of gourmet coffee, which I’ll never use. If you want it, leave a comment or email me with your address and I’ll ship it to you free of charge. I only have one, though, so be quick about it.

It’s nice to get perks like this, and I’m sure all the other Expert Authors feel the same way. It helps to encourage authors to continue sending their articles and makes them feel appreciated.

Becoming an Expert Author really isn’t that difficult, and if you’re serious about making a name for yourself and your work from home business, then cranking out, say 60 articles, shouldn’t be all that difficult. If you can’t or don’t like to write, just outsource the work for a small fee.

No matter what you do, incorporate article marketing into your daily, or weekly, marketing habits. You’ll establish yourself as an “Expert” and build targeted traffic to your site. And, you’ll build quality backlinks to your site which will increase its ranking in Google.

Okay… here’s the cool mug.

I know you’re all jealous…