• Blogging Idol, an RSS competition from Daily Blog Tips, is now live. There are over a hundred participants and the blog with the greatest RSS subscription increase through the month of July wins. Winning the Web is in the mix so be sure to subscribe to the blog.
• Attending SEO conferences is a great way to network with knowledgeable players in the industry and to learn some valuable nuggets of information. However, are they really worth the hefty price tag? Donna Fontenot does a quick analysis, and finds that the average SEO conference (including pass, airfare, hotel, food/drinks) amounts to over $4,000. Would you rather spend 2 days at a conference or 2 weeks in Aruba sipping margaritas?
• The 30 day embargo for the SMX Advanced 2008 Give It Up session is now over. Check out the session recap for more info on the juicy secrets.
• If you’re planning on creating a new site, the domain name means a lot more than you might think. It’s important to get it right the first time – for both branding and SEO purposes. Ann Smarty lays out the top tools for domain name brainstorming.
• Are you using social media Q&A sites to build exposure for your sites? Jordan Kasteler of Utah SEO Pro offers 12 of the top Q&A sites and shows us how we can leverage them for the most links and traffic possible.
• Glen Allsopp of Viper Chill released a quality ebook on Online Reputation Management. In a follow up article, he explains how to create, market and sell an ebook for branding & profits. Glen made over $1,000 in a month with his book.
• Speaking of ebooks, John Cow is offering his latest make money online book for free – Building a Business NOT a Blog!
• Digg is arguably the most sophisticated social media network and also the one that holds the most potential rewards. If you want to improve your Digg profile and have your stories promoted to the front page, be sure to check out Skellie’s latest article: How to Level the Playing-field With Digg

Internet Marketing Blog - Make Money Online Copyright 2009 Winning the Web. All Rights Reserved.



Weekly Link Roundup – July 6, 2008

• Weekly Link Roundup – May 25, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – June 9, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – June 16, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – April 20, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – April 13, 2008

• Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting is a terrific interviewer who recently released the transcript of his link building interview with Googler Matt Cutts. The interview offers some great insights and takeaways that every SEO and web publisher should learn about.
• It’s broken for a while, but the Social Media for Firefox add-on has now been fixed and re-released. The add-on shows you the vote counts on other social bookmarking networks when you’re viewing submissions on Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and del.ici.ous. It’s useful to have if you’re into building up your submissions for your social media profiles.
• Interested in local SEO? David Mihm conducted a survey of local search marketing professionals about which variables they believe most heavily influence local rankings and results. Check out the local search ranking factors to learn more.
• Donna Fontenot of SEO Scoop put out a list of search marketing bloggers that includes yours truly. If you blog about search, be sure to contact Donna so you can be added to the list.
• Rob Kerry, aka evilgreenmonkey, provides us with an ingenious grey-hat SEO tactic
  - develop links to the translated version of your website in Google, then use the google.com domain authority to rank for competitive keywords. Pretty clever if you ask me.
• I reported on a change to Google Trends a couple weeks back, but Google has taken the product to another level. They are now allowing users to look up the relative traffic volume of various websites. Compare your site to competitors in Google.
• Darren Rowse of Problogger.net had another baby and explains the power of getting personal on your blog. Congrats on your new son, Darren!
• Paul Bourque is an uber affiliate who does very well himself with his affiliate marketing campaigns. Read Pepperjam’s interview with him to get a behind the scenes look into his life.

Internet Marketing Blog - Make Money Online Copyright 2009 Winning the Web. All Rights Reserved.



Weekly Link Roundup – June 16, 2008

• Weekly Link Roundup – May 25, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – April 20, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – July 6, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – May 4, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – June 9, 2008

So with that, a new category is born – weekly link roundups. Every week, I’ll be posting links to interesting articles in the recent past. I actively follow many Internet marketing related blogs in my feed reader and this is your way of receiving direct access to the pieces that impact me most. You’ve read my thoughts on why link roundup posts are so effective, so I hope this is helpful.

• Big news: Yahoo announced a paid search deal with Google… what a turn of events after the proposed buy out by Microsoft. We won’t be seeing a MicroHoo any time soon, and it’s scary to think that Google was just handed a search monopoly on a silver platter.
• SEOmoz recently uncovered an issue in Google’s algorithm, where the search engine does not index URLs ending in “.0″. Avoid it at all costs. Matt Cutt of Google confirms this finding as well.
• An SMX Advanced session called “Give It Up” is under a 30 day blogging embargo. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to hear about some of the blackhat SEO tactics mentioned until next month. However, Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz put together his own version of Give It Up by interviewing some SEOs and getting them to spill the beans. If you’re an aspiring blackhat or if you’re just curious about shadier tactics, check out the video. If you’ve never been to a search marketing conference, you might want to read the beginner’s checklist for search conferences.
• Some of you may have heard about Lyndon Antcliff and his infamous hoax linkbait story that stirred huge controversy in the industry. Patrick Altoft of BlogStorm interviews Lyndon about his linkbaiting experiences. If you’re interested, Lyndon is launching his Linkbait Coaching program this Monday – accepting only 20 people at $400/month. Patrick isn’t bad generating traffic himself. Learn how he leveraged Digital Point forums for over 11,000 visitors.
• If you remember, I won a blogging competition against Tyler Cruz to see who could garner more votes from readers. Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips is starting up a similar competition, but on a larger scale with multiple blogs. Sign up now for Blogging Idol. I dare you… In other news, Daniel released a new Wordpress plugin called My Top Commentators which is pretty useful.
• Looking to build links through social media sites? Jeff Quipp shares his list of 22 dofollow social media sites that offer profile links. This is a great way to share your spam useful sites, while getting some link juice in the process.
• Love Search Engine Journal? Loren Baker of SEJ is offering to publicly write about anyone who posts a picture holding up a sign that says “I <3 SearchEngineJournal.com”. This is a pretty cool chance to get featured on a top search blog while whoring yourself out professing your love. I did write a guest post for SEJ so heck I might even send in a picture myself.

That’s it for this week, folks. What do you think of the new format?

Internet Marketing Blog - Make Money Online Copyright 2009 Winning the Web. All Rights Reserved.



Weekly Link Roundup – June 9, 2008

• Weekly Link Roundup – May 25, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – May 18, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – April 13, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – June 16, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – May 4, 2008

What Was Your Blog’s Tipping Point?
All blogs have a “tipping point”, a point in time when the blog hits success. Some prominent bloggers share their stories here – great for inspiration and understanding what it takes to “make it”. What’s your blogging tipping point?

Doing A Fake Story For Linkbait? Disclose — Or Face The Wrath Of Google
There has been huge controversy in the search marketing industry this week over a fake linkbait article written by Lyndon Antcliff aka Cornwall SEO that gained over 1,500 links. Is this tactic ethical? Should Google penalize for such behavior? If anything, this seems to be a case of an SEO revealing way too much information…

Social Media Power: Success Without the Frontpage
I’ve really enjoyed Slightly Shady SEO’s articles lately, and this one is no different. Rather than focusing on the front page of social media sites, this piece suggests tapping into the link potential of social media profiles. An interesting concept that I haven’t really considered before.

Rand Fishkin Interview – Social Media Marketing And Viral Marketing
Rand is definitely a guy I respect in the SEO community so naturally I am attracted to his articles and his interviews. Here he discusses the social media and viral aspects of online marketing. Great tips that I recommend you take a look at.

Interview: Guy Kawasaki on Alltop, Twitter and Blogging
Another interview with a great guy. I had the privilege of hearing Guy speak at Elite Retreat and he’s extremely interesting and unique in the way that he conducts himself. In this interview he talks about his new online project Alltop, and how Twitter and Blogging have helped his personal branding.

Internet Marketing Blog - Make Money Online Copyright 2009 Winning the Web. All Rights Reserved.



Weekly Link Roundup – May 25, 2008

• Weekly Link Roundup – June 9, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – April 13, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – April 20, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – June 16, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – May 18, 2008

Black Hat SEO Lessons: Indirect Promotion
I don’t recommend getting into blackhat SEO if you don’t know what you’re doing, but this article provides some nice insights for anyone to use. Sometimes promoting your sites indirectly (such as by linking to a page where you commented) can get you tons of exposure.

Third Search Engine Marketing Scholarship Contest Starts
The results for the Search Engine Journal Guest Blogging competition should be out this week and hopefully I win with my post – 12 Steps to Complete Search Engine Domination – From Zero to Hero in Just 6 Months. Regardless, I’ll be submitting my entry for Marketing Pilgrim’s SEM Scholarship competition with another SEO-related post. I’m going to have to come up with a good article idea fast. Some other contests to keep an eye on include John Cow vs. Garry Conn and Mike Huang’s (who does blog reviews) Mac Book Air giveaway.

Huge Growth + Talent Shortage = Increased M & A Activity
SEO and SEM are quickly growing industries with a limited supply of top talent. It makes me glad I’m involved in SEO and the future looks bright.

How to Get More Twitter Followers: Some Methods That Work
Do you have a Twitter account yet? The micro-blogging site is getting a ton of exposure and it works well as a marketing tool if you have a sizable following. Maki of Dosh Dosh shares some tips on how to increase your base of Twitter followers.

How to Supercharge Your Content With Concrete Details
Vague content is boring content. This post on Copyblogger reminded me to include vivid details in my articles to captivate the audience and keep them engaged.

Whiteboard Friday – Blogging for Higher Rankings
I’m starting to love the video series over at SEOmoz. Rand Fishkin does an excellent job explaining SEO topics and this video offers some nice tips for SEO in blogging. If you are running a blog on your business site, be sure to follow these best practices to get the most out of it.

Why do I do these link roundup posts? They are more beneficial than you think. Read more here: Roundup Link Posts Aren’t So Useless After All – 7 Vital Advantages

Enjoy!

Internet Marketing Blog - Make Money Online Copyright 2009 Winning the Web. All Rights Reserved.



Weekly Link Roundup – May 18, 2008

• Weekly Link Roundup – May 25, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – May 4, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – June 9, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – April 13, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – April 20, 2008

Will Your Website Pass a Google Review?
Do you have a strong brand that forces Google to include your site in its index? As the search engines look to purge the web of thin affiliate sites and spam, it’s becomingly increasingly important to send the right signals that show you have a quality site.

7 Habits Of Incredibly Effective Bloggers
Effective bloggers are usually habitual people who stick to set guidelines that work. This includes having something to say, projecting personality, posting regularly, engaging other bloggers, optimizing, and using RSS. If you want to see greater results from your blogging, check to see if you’re sticking to these essential habits.

Five Effective Copywriting Tactics for Affiliate Marketing
You might think that affiliate marketing is only effective when tied to PPC advertising. However, this doesn’t have to be the case. Bloggers can easily find success in affiliate marketing by using the following tools: endorsements, reviews, tutorials, bonuses, and articles. If you’re currently not utilizing any of these methods to make money online, you should definitely consider doing so.

A Secret to Blogging Success – Build Upon What You Build
Darren Rowse brings up some excellent points here. So many times we as bloggers get caught up in thinking up ideas that we never actually get to the implementation phase. It’s important to assess what we have and to build upon that rather than wishing for something unreasonable. Build upon what you have and then build upon what you build. It’s a slow process in blogging but it definitely pays off.

SEO Career Advice from an Out-of-Work SEO
Matt McGee is an SEO for Marchex who recently got laid off. Here he provides some tips for getting a job in the search marketing industry. Definitely worth the read if you plan on getting involved in search with another company or agency.

I Answered 163 Affiliate Marketing Questions
Paul Bourque aka Uber Affiliate has been great about being open with his affiliate marketing strategies and developing relationships with his readers. He recently answered 163 questions from his readers. Some of the information here is fluff, but there are also a lot of good nuggets too.

Internet Marketing Blog - Make Money Online Copyright 2009 Winning the Web. All Rights Reserved.



Weekly Link Roundup – May 4, 2008

• Weekly Link Roundup – June 16, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – May 18, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – May 25, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – June 9, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – April 13, 2008

The Triple Threat Interview: Stuntdubl, Graywolf and Sugarrae on Independent Webmastering
Gab Goldenberg is an up and coming SEO who had the chance to interview 3 SEO superstars at SMX West: Michael Gray, Todd Malicoat, and Rae Hoffman. That’s a pretty impressive lineup and I’m sure one day we’ll be saying the same thing about Gab. The conversation centered around independent webmastering and how each of them creates content and develops link bait for their personal projects. I highly recommend everyone aspiring to make money online read this, whether or not you’re interested in SEO.

How to Get Piles of Links, Subscribers and Comments
Skellie continues to impress me with the level of detail and effort she puts into her posts. This one includes 18 ways to get links, 10 ways to get subscribers, and 9 ways to get comments for your blogs. Value packed post that is sure to give you some new ideas to grow your blog.

Building a Popular Social Media Profile: Seven Essential Characteristics
Social media is undeniably one of the best methods to gain attention, build a brand, and bring traffic to your sites. Maki of Dosh Dosh surely knows his stuff in this area as he has established himself on the top networks like StumbleUpon, Digg, and Sphinn. Building a popular social media profile is no easy task but the tips Maki gives in this article will put you on the right track.

Widgetbait Gone Wild
Probably one of the most effective link building strategies is to develop a viral widget that people will willingly place on their sites. The widget links back to the target site and builds authority and rankings, but as this case study suggests, it’s important to be subtle with the link anchor text and to shut up if it’s super successful.

Sitelinks at last
It looks like Google performed a major update to the sitelinks feature, the list of additional links placed under authoritative domains in the search results. Even Winning the Web received this feature this time around. Do a search for “winning the web” and you’ll see what I mean. Some of the links are a little funky right now but they should work themselves out as the site continues to grow.

The Dark Side of Online Success…Part I
Want to achieve online success and start a business on your own? It sounds great, I know, but there definitely is a “dark side” that you need to be prepared for. Super affiliate Amit Mehta provides some tips on things to watch out for once you’re working from home as your own boss. The Dark Side of Online Success…Part II

The Value of Small Daily Incremental Improvements
Building a website is hard work. It’s easy to get discouraged and to lose patience if results can’t be attained in the near future. Aaron Wall emphasizes the importance of growing in a growing marketplace and using your time and efforts efficiently to reach small incremental goals that build up in the long term. Keep at it folks.

Website Traffic Series Part 4: Faking A Website Sale
Faking a website sale? Hm, interesting idea. I know for a fact that blog sales get a lot of attention these days and listing your site (even if you don’t intend on selling) can get you a lot of visits and exposure. This tactic probably isn’t the most ethical and could do a lot of damage to your reputation if you’re caught. But still it’s definitely an option if you’re willing to take a risk with a shadier method.

SEO is Not Free Traffic
This is a fantastic article that debunks the myth that SEO is free traffic. Sure, there’s no immediate cost for listing your site in the organic search results but that doesn’t mean SEO is free or has no value. In fact, thousands of large companies are putting millions of dollars into SEO and you should be investing your time and resources into learning the field to drive targeted traffic to your sites.

Internet Marketing Blog - Make Money Online Copyright 2009 Winning the Web. All Rights Reserved.



Weekly Link Roundup – April 20, 2008

• Weekly Link Roundup – April 13, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – June 16, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – May 25, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – July 6, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – June 9, 2008

For now, here are the most interesting & most insightful articles from the past week. Be sure to read through it. There’s a lot of good stuff in there.

The Beginner’s Checklist for Learning SEO
New to SEO? This post is written by an SEO newbie for SEO newbies. Danny Dover is an intern over at SEOmoz but I’m sure he’s learning quick under the wing of Rand Fishkin and staff. If you’re interested in getting started with SEO for your own, this is a great checklist to follow.

The Five Components Of A Great Linkbait
What is linkbait? Basically, it’s anything that is created with the purpose of garnering lots of backlinks. These types of articles need to be crafted uniquely taking into consideration the 5 major components: topic, uniqueness, usefulness, quantity, and quality.

How a Good Title and Description Can Make or Break Your Social Media Submission
On social media sites, titles and descriptions are everything. Think of online dating. Usually the photograph of the potential date is all you have to judge on. If you like what you see, you’ll probably try the date and see how it goes. In the same way, you’ll be attracted to social media articles with catchy titles and informative descriptions. In fact, I admit to occasionally voting up stories solely based on these titles and descriptions…

Cow For Sale
John Cow is a JohnChow.com clone that has risen in popularity over the past year. The site has over 1,500 RSS subscribers and ranks pretty highly for “make money online” and #1 on Google for “john chow” (since the actual JohnChow.com site is banned). The site generates an average of $2,500 per month and the owner is selling mainly for personal reasons (he’s moving). If you’re interested in buying up a popular “make money online” site, here’s your chance. The minimum bid is $25,000 and the BIN is $50,000.

SEJ Guest Blogging Competition : Win Over $9,000 in Search Marketing Prizes
If you frequently guest blog on other sites for exposure, here’s an opportunity you can’t pass up. Not only will your post be featured on Search Engine Journal, a top blog for SEO and SEM, but you have a chance of winning over $10,000 in some awesome prizes. Not quite the level of Winning the Web’s Craziest Internet Marketing Contest You’ve Ever Seen, but it’s looking to be a great contest. Look forward to one of my own posts making it on there soon.

The Top 5 Ways to Generate Traffic With Less Work
Skellie is back from a mini blogging vacation and offers up some good traffic tips in this post. Exchange guest posts, promote in your daily tasks, utilize in-post networking, write “best of” ebooks, and build a mailing list.

The 5 Biggest Mistakes I Made In My First Year Blogging
Courtney Tuttle has done an amazing job bringing up his Internet marketing blog to the level it’s at today. Here he lists his biggest mistakes that he made in his first year of blogging. I think they’re modest mistakes considering that he’s still very successful, but definitely something to look at. On the flip side, his partner writes about the Top 4 Things Court Did Right in His First Year of Blogging.

How NOT To Leave Blog Comments
Speaking of blogging success, Caroline Middlebrook has seen good results taking an approach of blogger camaraderie. One of the best things you can do as a blogger just starting out is to leave insightful comments on other blogs in your niche. Here Caroline describes how NOT to leave blog comments.

Website Traffic Series Part 3: Leave Comments on Other Blogs
If you like Caroline’s post, I recommend you read Daniel Scocco’s thoughts on the matter over at Daily Blog Tips. He takes more of a traffic-oriented approach to commenting.

6 Ways That Bloggers are Like Rappers
Believe it or not, bloggers are more like rapper than you’d think. It’s only a matter of time before we start coming up with names like Snoop Dogg, P Diddy, Eminem, and Dr. Dre.

Blogging Under False Pretenses to Become a Crime in the UK
It’s official people. Blogging is a media force to be reckoned with – at least in the UK. Blogging under false pretenses is now illegal. This just goes to show how far blogging has come in the past 5 or so years. More reason for you to get in now while it’s still in the early stages.

8 Reasons I Am Successful, And You Are Not
I met Neil Patel at Elite Retreat last week, and the guy definitely knows how to do his marketing with some swagger. At an age of only 22, he’s seen great success. Here’s why he’s successful and you’re not.

38 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started In Marketing
The guy’s been marketing for 13 years now so posts like this definitely carry some merit. “No one has a clue how to market anything. We are all winging it. It’s just that some are better at winging it than others.”

Five Reasons Twitter is an Essential Social Media Tool
It seems that everyone in the Internet marketing niche have been bit with the Twitter bug. I’m still trying to get used to it, but I definitely see potential in it. In fact, the founder of Rocketboom puts his twitter account on eBay and it’s now going for over $500.

That’s it for this week. There’s a lot of content there but I think it’s definitely worth the read. I’ll be doing this every weekend so you guys will always have some good Internet marketing food for thought to take your blogging/business to the next level.

Internet Marketing Blog - Make Money Online Copyright 2009 Winning the Web. All Rights Reserved.



Weekly Link Roundup – April 13, 2008

• Weekly Link Roundup – May 25, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – June 9, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – May 18, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – April 20, 2008
• Weekly Link Roundup – June 16, 2008