Google has offered us many great products in the last few decades and has gained our trust in the process (well, I would say for the most part). With Google Places, Google has created a harmonious environment for consumers and businesses.

However…

What IS Google Places?

Google Places is a product that allows local and international businesses to make and update their physical business address. This information is then integrated into other Google products, like Google Maps and Google Search.

Google Places is a great way to help businesses get traffic without paying any fees for advertisements. By listing your business in Google Places, you will be able to post additional information, like photos, videos, and promotions that will help potential customers to better know your services.

Why is Google Places Better than Other Listings?

Today, people are more prone to use the Internet to search for anything they need. Since Google Places is integrated with a top-notch search engine, any business listed in Google Places will have a higher exposure compared to other business listings.

For Internet savvy entrepreneurs, this is also a great opportunity to help boost your business by using search engine optimization. By applying SEO, you will be able to increase your business’ page rank and increase exposure instantly. Speaking of page ranks, you can also get a one-up from your competitors just by listing your business in Google Places as GP listings always come first in searches.

How to Maximize Google Places’ Potential

Google always loves content, and that is the best way for you to raise your business’ ranking in Google Places. You can post video reviews or promotions to make your listing more personal, or you can also upload pictures that best represents your services or products. Adding information like directions and contact numbers will also help customers get in touch with you. In addition, Google places notifies you about how much traffic you get each time you log-in so you can get an idea of how much you have to do to improve your page.

Google Places is still relatively new and not many businesses have discovered its full potential. As of 2010, only 3% of businesses worldwide have listed their information on the site. However, with Google rapidly expanding and improving their services, more and more businesses are seeing the benefits of including Google Places in their marketing strategies. If you have a business, do not miss this opportunity. Make your listing now and see an amazing improvement in your business market.

If you`re looking for more information on Reputation Management and internet marketing related stuff, you can may want to take a look at this Skype Group.

Lest we forget, the internet was designed as a visual medium. Although there is certainly a lot of textual information presented via online platforms, people who want to read can pick up a book, a newspaper, or a magazine. They can use the internet, too, but if every page of your website is laden by dense bodies of text, it might not hold much visual appeal for your visitors.

In fact, it can be downright alienating, which is definitely not what you want. Even prestigious online journals, which are expected to be heavy on text, still break up the visual plane by adding white space, headers, and graphics, or by posting only a portion of an article text with a link to the full page, for example.

The point is, you no doubt want to provide your visitors with specific information, but you also want to make the layout of your pages visually appealing so that viewers aren’t put off by the sea of text. And, infographics are one good way to convey information in a visually friendly manner. But, you can also use them as part of a marketing strategy to drive traffic to your site.

Let me explain…

Infographics, in and of themselves, won’t necessarily bring traffic to your site. You can certainly use them to improve the overall look of your design, and many viewers will find them appealing (not to mention preferable to slogging through reams of text). In addition, visitors may be more likely to share, send, and re-post humorous, shocking or informational infographics than straight text, and this is where you can formulate a strategy that will make your infographic content do the heavy lifting for you.

You’ll find that it’s simple enough to add links to the embedded HTML coding that makes the framework for these graphic boxes. In this way, you can ensure that no matter where they travel on the web, anyone who clicks them will be taken directly to your website, thus increasing your traffic.

The trick is to create infographics that people want to share. Already these graphic images, complete with whatever information you’re looking to impart (generally in some kind of bullet point format), are more attractive to viewers than straight-up text.

For the most part, they offer a bite-size way to give your viewers what might otherwise be a sizeable chunk of gristle to chew. In the online arena, expediency is a valuable characteristic, so viewers are far more likely to share infographics than a full-text article. And, you can use graphics to convey all kinds of meaning that would be lost in translation without a tone to signal intent. For this reason, it’s easy to imbue your infographics with humor or shock value, both of which may help them to go viral (creating backlinks along every step of the way), or at least get shared more.

You might want to hire a professional infographic designer to help you out here, since the best overall value will come from a product that is not only informative and visually appealing, but also attractive in a way that makes viewers want to share it. Unless you have a background in layout and design or marketing (or both), it is in your best interest to let the pros do what they do best. If they’re good at their job, you’ll end up with some killer infographics, a more engaging website, and an increase in traffic that’s bound to do good things for your online business.

Still not convinced? Here’s an infographic to help explain it better:

Source: Web Marketing Group

When it comes to developing a successful search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, you can’t afford to make educated guesses. This is especially true if the majority of your company’s financial transactions are performed from your website. A/B testing, also referred to as multivariate testing, or split testing, takes much of the guesswork out of creating high conversions and sales rates. Historically, this type of testing has been used in email campaigns, banner ads, and landing pages. But, now you can use this type of testing to measure the results for any aspect of your website. A/B testing lets you test aspects of your website to get the maximum conversion rates possible. In the case of most e-commerce websites, conversions often mean increased sales traffic, which essentially boosts the bottom line of your company.

How A/B Testing Works

Most commonly, A/B testing involves measuring several different versions of a feature on your website to see how they perform. The test starts with a control measured against several variables of a website function or feature. For instance, say you want to see how a “Buy Now” button performs on your website. A/B testing lets you test different versions of the button to see which version of the button produces more clicks. Not only should quality A/B testing measure clicks, but it should also measure how many clicks resulted in completed transactions.

A/B Testing Applications

There are many online services and web apps that let you easily perform these tests. These applications measure the number of visitors that click on each version of the website feature, and measure that against other versions. This not only takes out all the guess work of deciding on website changes, but it can also measure how each version of the website feature produces sales results. These applications can also measure how many users completed transactions through each sales funnel. Since these web-based apps are popping up all over the place, you’re likely to see more and more turnkey solutions for website variable testing.

Two of the more popular a/b testing applications available today are Visual Website Optimizer and Affiliate Prophet. You can visit their web pages to find out more…

http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/
http://www.affiliate-prophet.com/

Commonly Tested Website Elements

Web users are sometimes unpredictable. It’s difficult to know what they will intuitively like from one moment to the next. The slightest change in color or page layout can seriously affect your website’s traffic. While you can use variable testing to measure almost any aspect of your website, there are a few commonly tested website elements. In most cases, this includes copy text, website color schemes, page layouts, video content and website images. These are all easily testable website elements that require very little effort to measure over a short or long period of time.

How Common is A/B Testing?

Some of the largest companies in the world use multivariable testing to measure the effectiveness of website features to drive sales traffic. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find a successful website or web service that doesn’t use A/B testing to measure sales funnels. Some of the most popular websites using website element variable testing processes include Amazon, Google, BBC, eBay, Microsoft and Zynga, a popular social media-based gaming company.

Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adriarichards/2833996099/sizes/m/in/photostream/

About the Author:

Tech writer EJ Parfitt has been writing for a short time now and has already picked up steam with several tech websites and local news sites. During his free time, you’re sure to catch him competing in local chess tournaments in downtown Fort Lauderdale FL.

The following is a guest post by Louise Banks. If you would like to write for this blog, please checkout the guidelines here.

Social media is a useful tool for driving traffic to a website or blog. It is just one of many marketing strategies a business owner utilizes to increase the number of site visitors and, ultimately, sales. By using social media correctly, you bring more traffic to your site without depending on search engines such as Google.

There are a few simple ways to use social media to get the results that you want.

1. Social Media Options

There are numerous social media sites available. Because using social media is so time-consuming, you want to make effective use of your time. Although Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are the three main social media sites, you may do better with Squidoo, YouTube or another site. To make the best use of a social media site, you need to understand how it works. You accomplish this by focusing on one social media site at a time instead of trying to use everything at once. Your will like some social media sites better than others. The smart thing is to try the one that you believe your target customers use the most and start with that one. You can then add other social media sites over time.

2. The Bio or Profile Section

Use the bio or profile page of any social media site you use to describe what you can do for potential customers. Detail the benefits and the value you offer to help them achieve their business goals. Briefly mention your experience, but don’t focus the bio on yourself. Think about what your ideal customer wants to know. Also use search engine optimization to increase the likelihood your targeted audience finds the profile. Write bio or profiles pages for any social media sites that you use.

3. Useful Content and Information

Getting traffic to a site helps tremendously, but some times this traffic is short-lived. In some cases using Digg or Reddit will increase traffic substantially for a day, but to get continuous targeted traffic to your site, you need to offer value to current and future customers. By interacting with the social media community, taking part in conversations, answering questions, posting comments on forums while providing a link to your site, you increase traffic. You can also write informative articles or blog posts and provide links to these pages. By using social media in this way, you establish yourself as knowledgeable in your field and you build a reputation that helps bring traffic to your site for the long-term and on a consistent basis.

Social media is a great way to drive traffic to a new or established website. But with so many social media outlets available, it is important to choose the platforms that best suit your business needs. All social media sites have their advantages and disadvantages. The best way to know if a social media site is bringing in consistent traffic is to check the site analytics. You need to know what methods offer the most benefits and traffic. Its takes time to discover whether Twitter, YouTube or LinkedIn brings in the most traffic, but this information is worth the wait.

About the Author:

Louise Banks is a copywriter with experience in writing sales letters and other marketing materials for small businesses. She is also a contributor for Degree Jungle.com a college student resource.

At the beginning of every month I do a recap of last month’s blog posts. I also include a few of my favorite blog posts from other bloggers I follow. This gives you a chance to catch up on any posts you may have missed here, and you also get to check out some awesome bloggers that provide valuable content that’s worth reading.

I always recommend leaving a comment on any posts you find helpful. Comments are also great if you have a question you’d like to ask. Either way, they let the blog owner know you appreciate their time and that there are people who actually read their content.

With that said, let’s take a look at last month’s post on this blog…

September 2011 Blog Posts on ReplaceYourSalary.com

Most of these are guest posts, so be sure to show the authors some love by leaving a comment.

How to Get Health Insurance When Working From Home

4 Skills That Will Help You Land More Freelance Writing Jobs

5 Things About Working From Home I Wish I Knew When I Started

3 Things I’m Grateful for as a Blogger

Top Tips: Increasing Your Web Traffic Through Unique Online Partnerships

Is Google Counting All of Your Hard-Earned Backlinks?

Blog Posts Around the Web

Here are some blog posts I’ve found from other bloggers I follow that I hope you will find helpful. Take some time to read these as well.

TechChunks gives us 5 really good reasons to have a blog for your business. I can’t imagine running a business these days without a blog. It is an integral part of online communication that cannot be ignored.

Andrew Walsh details 3 very common Google Keyword Tool mistakes that a lot of people make. Avoiding these mistakes can be the difference between making money online and making nothing online.

If you use Google Adsense at all, you may be interested to know that comment spam can get you banned from Adsense. I didn’t know about this, so thanks to Dennis for pointing this out.

That’s all for now. This month I’ll be discussing tips for WordPress bloggers, so stay tuned for that. You’ll also get to read content from more awesome guest authors as they just keep lining up!

The following is a guest post by Kaushal Gandhi. If you would like to write for this blog, please check out the guidelines here.

As an online blogger, you need to know your unique advantage that sets you apart from fellow-bloggers and constantly provide extra value, over your competitors, to build a strong and loyal visitor-base. That apart, increasing your web traffic is crucial to your longevity in blogosphere. Online tie-ups help deliver that extra value, giving you a leading edge.

Top Benefits of Online Alliances

Expands Your Audience Profile

This gives you easy access to a new set of readers. Browse through the comments on your prospective partner’s website. Greater the degree of unfamiliarity, better are your chances of attracting more unique site visitors.

Leverages Third-Party Endorsements

Promoting your partner amongst your audience and being endorsed in return, across different online platforms benefits both parties.

Maximizes Product Awareness

Endorsements by your partner allows you to promote your product/services to a much larger audience. Joint marketing initiatives including special discounts, helps you capture your alliance’s audience.

Enhances Your Brand Image

Tying up with reputed online names helps you reinforce your credibility based on your association with your online partner.

7 Tips for a Winning Online Alliance Strategy

1. Creating the right product is essential. If needed, tie-up with a partner whom you trust and are confident will give shape to your vision.

2. Marketing schemes like bonus deals with complimenting products; special discounts for users of a particular site and/or contests on your partner’s sites can help increase your traffic.

3. Make guest comments to cut ice with unapproachable bloggers. Start by commenting on their blog, gradually working the relationship to a comfortable level.

4. Identify a suitable alliance whose content compliments yours, and enhances your content value. This way you can barter ads and exchange visitors.

5. Provide links; offer co-registration. Links are one of the most common and effective techniques for provide access to new users, whilst offering existing users quality and relevant links.  Recommending your online partners on a page that shows-up immediately after a new user registers on your site, is a good way to guide traffic to their sites too.

6. Tap your alliance’s network to build your own. Request to be introduced to those that matter to you. Networking sites suit this purpose.

7. Highlighting each other’s milestones helps forge long-term associations. Both parties enjoy the benefits of being promoted every once in a while on each others site.

While these pointers are to help you get started, exploit your creative, rational and intuitive skills to manage your blog. Also, do not loose track of the most important obligation towards your visitors – CONTENT VALUE. It forms the base which supports all your other initiatives, without which even the most brilliant alliances will fall through.

About the Author:

Kaushal Gandhi is Director at Aaris Internet Solutions Pvt. Ltd. Aaris is SEO company in India. Kaushal has conceptualized SEO Traingulation Method to get desired ranking. In addition, he is also a passionate blogger and writes on diverse topics such as Search Engine Optimization, PPC Management and Social Media.

I know, I know, it’s been live for a little while now. And, don’t worry, I’ll spare you the boring details about Google’s new social button that’s supposed to be the arch-rival to Facebook’s “Like” button. You can read all the intricate details about it here, straight from Google’s mouth.

+1 Blog Posts

This post is an announcement to let you all know, my readers, that I have decided to implement the Google +1 button on this blog. It is now LIVE on the blog. You can find it at the top of each post, on the home page as well as each individual post page.

Why?

Because it’s new. I like to try new things and see how they perform. Also, it’s Google we’re talking about. They’re the biggest search engine, period. If they implement a new change that could affect website rankings and overall website traffic, I think it’s best to pay attention and play their game.

Social Search and Impact on SEO

Will their new introduction to Social Search take hold? I really don’t know. Should we care? Yes! At this stage it’s only an experiment, but it’s possible it could be here to stay.

There’s a lot of hearsay floating around as to how this is going to affect SEO and the way personalized search engine results are served. I really don’t want to get into all of that here as plenty has been said about it elsewhere. But, if you want to learn more about the Google +1 button and the future implications it could have on search, I recommend you check out these links:

• Google competes with Facebook Like button
• Everything you need to know about Google +1
• How Google’s +1 button may change SEO

That should provide everything you need to know about the +1 button.

Now, if you’re interested in adding it to your own site or blog, it’s actually real simple.

How to Add the Button to Your Site or Blog

For those of you who run a static (non-Wordpress) site:

Log-in to your Google Webmaster’s Account and follow the simple instructions: http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button/

For those of you who run a WordPress blog:

Garry Conn offers simple to understand instructions to add the button to your posts and pages: Google +1 Button.

Now you’re set. You’ll be able to invite your friends and website visitors to click and +1 your sites, blogs, and blog posts.

And, if you found this post helpful, I’d appreciate some +1 love from ya if you have some to spare. *hint, hint*

The following is a guest post by Jonathan Scott. If you like to write for this blog, please contact me.

No matter what you’re trying to sell on the internet, you need traffic. If you want to make money, you need to get it in front of people. The internet is the best solution when it comes to selling stuff  because you can sell to the entire world. But, you need traffic, otherwise you’re not going to sell anything.

I am going to give you some tips on how to generate more traffic fast while helping your search engine rankings at the same time. Everything I’m about to show you is completely free and works very well.

When getting traffic to your website, you want traffic quickly but you also want to be around for the long haul, right? Here are some strategies that will allow you to do both.

Press Release Marketing

A lot of people don’t think their website or what they are offering is worthy enough to do a press release. If you think that, let me tell you that you are wrong. You have just as much to offer as a Fortune 500 Company. Press releases offer you the opportunity to get A LOT of traffic and backlinks fast.

You get this traffic because the press release directories you submit to syndicate your press release to other websites automatically. If you do a search for just about anything these days, you will notice a news section within the search results. With the right keywords, your press release could be sitting nicely on the first page of Google, Yahoo, or Bing in as little as 24 hours.

Here are some press release sites to submit to: PRWeb (Paid, but the BEST), PRLog.org, Free-Press-Releases, I-Newswire, and 1-888-press-release.

Social Bookmarking

This is a great strategy for both traffic and backlinks. A Good amount of people search these sites looking for information, tips, and advice that they may not find via the search engines. Take DIGG for instance. This site gets massive amounts of traffic. The key to sites like DIGG is submitting content that will get promoted and moved up to the homepage.

To do that you want to submit content that has a really good chance of getting to the home page. Submitting your own website will not make this happen. People on these sites like entertaining, controversial or newsworthy topics that they can actually comment on. Submit things like your press release, videos, or a guest blog post you did. Some other big players in social bookmarking include Stumbleupon, Del.icio.us, and Reddit.

Video Marketing

This is huge! I put this third because it takes a little longer to put a video together if you have never done this. You DON’T even need expensive software to do this. Are you on a PC? Use Windows Movie Maker (it comes free on every PC). Are you on a mac? Use iMovie. Free tools are great. Use them!

Video Marketing is huge because we now live in a video society. From YouTube to HULU to NetFlix online movie streaming. It’s no longer foreign to go online to watch a video, movie or TV show. As the world uses the internet more and more to watch videos, this gives you an opportunity to show them what you have to offer. And, it’s all Free. If you’re not sure how to create a simple video, get this Traffic Training Course that walks you through the whole process.

Some great video sites to submit to are: YouTube, Vimeo, Revver, and 5min.

Article Marketing

Article marketing will never be dead. I don’t know about you, but I still see Ezine Articles in the top 5 of some search results. Other article directories have the power to get ranked highly as well. Submitting your article to the top article directories gives you great high authority backlinks, and you get traffic from these sites as well.

Here are some top article directories to submit to: Ezine Articles, Go Articles, Articlesbase, Article Dashboard, and ISnare.

Forum Marketing

Forum marketing is great when it comes to backlinks and improving your search engine rankings. Of course you want to participate in your niche forums. Participating in your niche forums is a great way to find new customers, and you also learn what is needed in that industry. That gives you an opportunity to fill a void and quickly become an expert in the niche.

But, I use forums for backlinks. Just make sure you use your forum signature correctly to get the backlinks.

These are a just a few great ways to generate targeted traffic to your website and increase your search engine rankings at the same time. I have more secrets to show you in my new Step by Step Traffic Training Course. You get 12 hours of video showing you exactly how to generate traffic fast and increase your search engine rankings. I haven’t even talked about software marketing, pad marketing, classified ads, RSS Feeds, or Web 2.0 websites.

If you’re like me, seeing is believing and I learn better by seeing and then doing. Take advantage of this amazing video training. Watch over the shoulder of an SEO Professional as you are shown step by step how to properly do the things I just talked about and more. What’s great about video is you can watch it over and over again until it sinks in. Go check out this awesome Traffic Training Course and learn how to get targeted traffic in as little as 24 hours. Go there now.

About the author: Jonathan Scott is an SEO professional who has been helping small businesses and individuals generate more quality traffic and get high search engine rankings since 2006. He has a new step by step traffic training video series showing you how to get traffic fast and increase your search engine rankings at the same time. Check out his traffic training course.

Recently I’ve been getting a lot of questions related to getting traffic to a website, search engine optimization (SEO) and building backlinks to a site. My email and Facebook inboxes have been flooded with all kinds of questions, so I thought it would be great to post them here in case you had similar questions.

The topic I’m going to cover in this post will have everything to do with getting traffic to a site, for the most part. Some questions may stray a little into the other areas I mentioned, but for the most part they deal with traffic.

I’ll quote the questions and answers, and if I have anything to add, I’ll post it below that to keep Q&A’s separate from my afterthoughts.  Confused? You’ll see what I mean.

Traffic Q&A’s

Question: My site for the main keyword is #1 on Google. The local searches Google shows 6000, the webmaster tool as well. So I suppose it would be 6000 divided by 30 (month days) = 200 visitors per day. However, with Google Analytics I see that my site visiting only 70 unique visitors per day? My webmaster tool shows Search queries – Impressions – 6,600, Clicks – 1,000. Is this some kind a rule that if Google shows some number of searches you will never get all visitors to your site and must be divided by two?

Few times I have tried to change the description, but nothing happened.

Answer: When using Google’s keyword tool, those monthly search numbers are only estimates. So, sometimes they may be accurate, sometimes they may not be. The only thing to do at that point is to start ranking for other related search terms which will increase your overall traffic.

Afterthought: Another thing you want to remember is that just because your website may be in the number one spot, you still have the Sponsored Listings to compete with along with the other natural search results. Granted, being number one is going to bring in the majority of that traffic, but not all of it.

So, as I recommend, start trying to rank for other terms as well to increase your overall traffic.

Question: Maybe you could advise what should I do to fix this problem.

On my Google Webmasters account, I see that on my site, which is on #2 spot, have a very small amount of clicks – 73, but impressions – 1900. I’m wondering that here should be something not right, I understand that Google shows my website’s link – 1900 times, but visitors clicking on it only 73 times, am I right Alan?

What should I do to get most of those clicks from those 1,900 impressions?

Answer: My first reaction would be that the ads being displayed on your website aren’t targeted to the content on your site. Or, the people coming to your site aren’t targeted for the content on your site, assuming the ads are relevant. That would be where I would start.

Afterthought: You could also try Adsense Section Targeting so that more relevant ads show up on your site. I recommend reading through what it is and note the caution if you do implement it.

Question: Hey, do you know much about buying traffic to your website? Is that a bad idea, or do you recommend it?

Answer: I have nothing against it. However, make sure you do some homework and have a budget for it. You can easily lose money if you don’t know what you’re doing it. I’ve done it in the past… made some money, lost some money.

I’ve heard Yahoo and MSN are pretty good, so those are possibilities too. I’ve never used them, though, only Adwords.

Afterthought: Yahoo is pretty much non-existent now, and MSN is now Bing. So, I’m not sure where the PPC side of things stand for either as I haven’t looked into it since these happenings. The majority of people do use Google Adwords, though.

Question: Hey, I was wondering if you would be able to help me improve my Google ranking? I know it wont be easy, but I would LOVE to get my page to appear on Google page 1 at some point within the next 6 months. Is that at all possible, under such a competitive keyword phrase like ‘keyword‘?

Answer: Sure, I’d be happy to help. That term is going to be very tough after looking at the sites currently on page one. Perhaps there is a long-tail keyword you could shoot for? This would help you rank faster and at the same time position your site to be in a better position to rank for your main keyword. That’s just my thoughts.

Afterthought: I always recommend going after long-tail terms especially if your niche is very competitive. For instance, my niche is the ‘work from home’ niche, which is SUPER competitive. It could take you months or years to be ranking well and earning money for that exact phrase, unless you targeted a long-tail phrase instead. FYI, my site is on page 2 of Google for the ‘work from home’ keyword.

Question: Yeah I thought something as common as “keyword” would be too tough to compete with, but I do like your idea of using a long-tail keyword phrase. Do you have any suggestions as to what I could go for? I was thinking terms like “keyword1“, or “keyword2” etc… would you think it is possible to appear on page 1 under those kind of search terms?

Answer: I haven’t checked Google page one to see what all sites come up, but it’s something to start with. I use this tool: https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer.

This tool is very handy to find the number of searches per month. Make sure to check “[Exact]” match type. Then, go to Google and type in the search terms you want to see the competing sites for. That should give you an idea of what you’re up against. Also look at the total number of sites that come up. The less the better.

Afterthought: Some people will tell you to search for the keyword with quotes when looking up your competition. This is fine; however, no one searching for that keyword is going to put it in quotes, so make sure to also do the search without quotes to get a total number of competing sites. The numbers will be significantly different from each other.

Note: I don’t proclaim to be in expert in any field, including how to get website traffic. I only speak from personal experience and what I’ve done and am doing to get traffic to the sites I have, including this one.

If you seek professional advice or the wisdom of a “guru”, you won’t find it here. Search Google.

Final Thoughts

These questions covered a wide variety of traffic techniques and strategies, but I realize there are so many other topics that could be discussed regarding traffic.

Ask Your Question

I’m turning the floor over to you now…

What do you want to know about getting traffic to your website? What question/s do you have that weren’t covered in this post?

Leave a comment below with your question/s or you can contact me directly.

I look forward to answering your questions!

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.

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