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.

————————–

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.

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

This post is going to contain the simple, yet effective techniques I have learned during my time online to generate targeted traffic and generate sales. These are strategies I’m using for my own online business and have found to be working well and improving over time.

If you’ve been following along with us, my last post was about a struggling internet marketer who is reaching out in a desperate attempt to generate sales with his affiliate marketing website.

One of the questions asked was, “How do I drive traffic to my site that can generate sales?”

This is going to be the topic of this post, and I’ll be going very in-depth, starting with the basics and moving towards the more advanced strategies.

I apologize in advance if this turns into a very lengthy post, but please bare with me as it will be well worth your time to read through everything.

So let’s begin, shall we?

The very first thing you must understand is that everything revolves around keywords. Keywords are the life-blood of websites and how they become seen by internet users using search engines.

SEO (search engine optimization) is the foundation of using keywords effectively, and this is how you’re going to target specific internet users to generate sales online.

Rather than going in-depth on the subject of SEO on this post, I have a few previous posts that should cover this subject thoroughly enough for you to understand. Please check them out, and if you have questions use the comment section:

• Web Page Optimization
• Easy Free Keyword Research
• Discover Commercial Intention of Keyword Phrases

Optimizing your web page for specific keywords is critical and is the foundation for which you’ll build the rest of your marketing efforts upon. Seriously, nothing else matters until you’ve done this. Don’t ignore it!

One thing I’ve learned is that backlinks are KING. Okay, so content is still KING, but backlinks are a very close second, and here’s why. Backlinks to your website or web pages are what helps to drive your site or pages higher in search engine results pages when someone searches for a specific keyword phrase. See how this is coming together?

Without building backlinks to your site, you won’t generate enough traffic to your site to generate sales. Now I know what you’re thinking here. There are other ways to generate traffic without building backlinks, and that’s true. However, the best traffic is free search engine traffic, and the only way to get it is to rank on the first page in Google, or Yahoo and Bing. I’d focus on Google as it produces over 70% of search traffic across the entire web.

Now that you understand the importance of building backlinks and getting your site or web pages to the top of search engines, you now need to start the backlink building process. There are numerous ways to go about this, and luckily for you, I’ve written many posts on the subject. Here they are:

• Improve Search Engine Rankings the Easy Way
• Get 80 High PR One Way Backlinks Each Month
• Build Long-Term Traffic to Your Work From Home Site with Article Marketing
• Build Your Online Business with Article Marketing
• Forum Signatures
• Free Traffic System

Remember when building backlinks that you want to use your keywords for the web page you’re linking to. This is the only way that your backlinks are going to be effective in boosting your search engine rankings.

Okay, so you now have  a great start in getting backlinks; however, I’m not done just yet.

Well… sorta. I have a post planned that will discuss another very effect backlink building strategy and will be posted soon, so stay tuned for that.

Hopefully right now you have a solid understanding of doing keyword research and web page optimization, and how it all ties in to building backlinks. This is all part of building targeted website traffic that will result in sales.

As always, if you have any questions about anything discussed here, leave a comment below.

My next post will discuss the second question asked by a struggling internet marketer, but in the meantime, start applying the tips I mentioned today to your website, and you’ll soon see an increase in traffic and internet income.

We all know that generating traffic to your website is essential if you want to make money online. Not only this, but targeted traffic that is interested in what you have to say or sell is what really counts.

In this day and age, there are so many ways to get free website traffic it’s almost not even funny. However, most people don’t know about all the various ways in which to go about getting it for free. I even fall into this category as some methods are either new or just totally unique from what most people are teaching.

Anyway, I’m always looking to increase the traffic to my site, mainly using free methods. Let’s face it, we all like free stuff.

Not only that, but free search engine traffic is one of the best in quality when it comes to converting that traffic into money. So, when I’m marketing my site I do a lot of backlink building to ensure my website increases its ranking in the search engine. Not to mention the marketing I do is, of course, completely free.

Hey, there’s that “free” word again, and speaking of, I have a free gift for you.

I just got my hands on a new ebook titled: “30 Ways To Get Free Website Traffic in 30 Minutes or Less.” The book is actually written by my affiliate marketing mentors and provides some traffic resources I haven’t yet tried or heard of.

Instead of diving into the details about what’s in the ebook, I figured you’re intelligent enough to find out for yourself.

I’m offering this ebook free of charge to you, my readers. If you’d like to get free traffic to your website, then I encourage you to grab yourself a copy and apply the techniques that they share.

To download your free copy, simply Click Here.

There’s no opt-in or any of that stuff. Clicking the link above will take you straight to the ebook from where you can then download it to your computer, which I recommend.

Or, simply right-click the link and choose to “Save Link As” or “Save As”, depending on your browser, to save the ebook directly to your computer.

After downloading and reading through the ebook, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it, so be sure to come back and share them below…

Writing articles is an art form. Developing content for the net takes time and practice. Writing effectively and getting your readers to respond is the first benefit in building traffic. This results in direct traffic as readers are inclined to click on your link(s) in the resource box of your article.

I suggest you take a moment to visit Patricia Makhulo’s Article Marketing Made Easy post which gives you many great pointers on getting your article noticed and read.

Article marketing has two main traffic benefits: direct traffic and search traffic. Both are important and should be utilized to their fullest potential. You want to get as much bang for your buck as possible, so there’s no point in wasting a good article by only getting half the potential traffic.

Article marketing is one of the best ways to create long-term, targeted traffic to your website. I’m going to explain both traffic benefits.

An article is made up of different elements that are essential to getting direct traffic. These elements include:

• Defining the product/service you need to promote – Most articles have the purpose of providing useful information in order to pre-sell a product or service.
• Using the “useful, but incomplete approach” – Provide useful information to your readers, but make sure it’s incomplete and that they could better use the information by visiting the link(s) in your resource box.
• Using a tips list or tutorial format when applicable – If your article can be broken down into a list format, then do it. This will direct your readers along towards realizing their need for your product/service.
• Expanding on your main points to build the content of the article – as I’m doing with these key elements, provide information that expands on the main points of the article.
• Providing a closing or “call to action,” usually in the resource box, also known as the “about the author” section – Most people fail to do this. The resource box is there for a reason. Tell your readers to visit your link(s) to make better use of what they read.
• Re-reading and proofreading the article to avoid errors – Don’t do this yourself as most people fail to catch their own mistakes. Have someone proofread your article for you so that it reads well and is error free. The best thing you can do when crafting an article is to write in a clear and concise manner. You need to convey your message to your readers so that they can understand it. Your article should read as though you were talking face to face with them.

If you focus on these key elements, your article stands a much better chance of receiving clickthroughs and your website getting targeted, direct traffic. Also keep Patricia’s models in mind as they work very well too.

The other main benefit involves getting natural search engine traffic from people searching for information. Aside from direct traffic, search traffic is just as good because it’s also highly targeted. Most searches performed in a search engine are for information. That’s why it’s so important that you provide useful information to your readers because there’s a better chance that they’ll convert to a customer.

There’s two elements that you need to be aware of when striving to get search traffic as a result of your articles. As people search for information, they enter keywords into the search box. The keywords they enter determine what results are displayed.

It is your job to find out what keywords those people are searching for. I recommend Google’s External Keyword Tool. Once you determine the keywords you’re going to focus on, the two elements soon come together. The first element is writing your article for specific keywords.

You need to determine what keyword phrase you need your article to rank for in search engines so that it is displayed when someone searches for that keyword phrase. This may sound complicated, but all you need to know here is that as long as you provide useful and unique content, your article will get noticed.

Websites are primarily ranked based on how many backlinks (links pointing to your site from other relevant sites) they have. The key here is containing the keywords you need your website to rank for within those backlinks. This you can completely control with the use of your article resource box.

The second element applies to your website. This involves the use of your article resource box. While the resource box can be used as your call to action as discussed earlier, it also has another use. As you need to get your article ranked high in search engines for a particular keyword phrase, you also need to get your website ranked high for keywords as well.

While developing your call to action phrase, create a link to the web page that you want to send your readers that contains your keywords you need your page to rank for in search engines. Every article you create will contain your resource box with your call to action and a backlink to your website. You see how your resource box serves two purposes in one?

If all of this sounds a bit confusing to you, then you should read some of my other posts on SEO:

Web Page Optimization

5 SEO Tasks You Should Do Every Day

I also recommend Suzanne Morrison’s 3 Steps to Search Engine Success.

Applying these methods to your article marketing efforts will ensure direct and long-term traffic for years to come. Both forms of traffic are equally important, so don’t ignore these methods. Article marketing, when done properly, will help you build your business and set it up for long lasting success. Remember, your website must have traffic, and article marketing can help you achieve it.

One of my readers prompted me to write about the use of forums in marketing your work from home web site or products/services that you offer. Believe it or not, forums can provide terrific targeted traffic as well as long-term natural search engine traffic.

I’ve always been a fan of forums. They provide an enormous wealth of information that is completely free. You can get any question answered by those more experienced. These two benefits alone are well worth the time of getting involved in forums.

An even bigger benefit that some overlook is the marketing aspect that forum participation can bring. The marketing doesn’t come from your posts, but instead from your forum signature. This aspect, that is built into most if not all forums, is not used to its full potential.

Forum signatures should be designed to grab the attention of other forum members who read your posts. This can be tricky as you usually have limited space to create a signature, but it can be done.

A forum signature usually consists of your favorite links to websites that you want to share with others. These can also be your own websites, and that’s what this post is going to focus on.

Here’s an example of one of my signatures… http://www.warriorforum.com/members/alan-mater.html. Click on the About Me tab and scroll down till you see the Signature section.

Notice how every website or web page contains a phrase that is hyperlinked to go to the corresponding URL. For instance, I have Professional Proofreading Services linked to go to http://www.replaceyoursalary.com/proofreading.html.

The mistake I see many make is that they ignore the keyword aspect of forum signatures and just enter the URL for their website, and sometimes they don’t even have it hyperlinked! That’s fine if you’re focusing on direct traffic from the forum, but you’re missing out on the larger aspect of natural search engine traffic.

Note: Most forums have different signature rules and require specific code in order to create hyperlinked text. Be sure you know what is required when setting up your signature, otherwise it won’t turn out right.

You see, using keywords in your signature links will create backlinks to the web pages those links link to for your given keyword phrase and also boost those pages rankings in the search engines. This will create long-term search traffic, which should be your ultimate goal.

Forum participation is a great way to get your name and business or work from home web site noticed by others. But, you want to get noticed by the right kind of people. What I mean is that you want to pick forums that are related to what your business or web site offers. You want your direct traffic to be as targeted as possible.

The last MUST is providing value when posting in forums. This will ensure you get noticed and bring more clickthroughs of your signature links. Below I’ll provide a list of forums I actively post in that are related to the Internet Marketing and Work From Home niche and get a great deal of traffic from…

Warrior Forum

Conquer Your Niche

Entrepreneur Forums

Work At Home Forum

Alright, now get to work and start getting involved in forums!