Generating Backlinks

[dmiller90]

Dave,

First of all, I'm flattered, but I'm already married.

The act of submitting to article directories has no direct connection to Google. Many do so for the pleasure of writing about subjects they have a passion for, and some don't even use backlinks.

That would be like saying google owns every article and news directory in the world.

If you submit to directories, and your article with a backlink is used by a webmaster for content, then google may or may not give you credit for that content.

You can submit to hundreds of directories, and never receive a single backlink credit, if nobody utilizes your writings for content, or places a "no follow" tag, or "no index" tag on the product if they do use it.

A "no Follow" may give you a tiny bit of juice, as your web address in your link will still be read, and indexed, but not followed back to your site. I don't know what formula google uses for "no follow" tags, but I would guess maybe 50 "no follow" tags equal 1 direct backlink.

And isn't Dave advising his client to submit articles to directories in effect, creating the duplicate content he's claiming is bad? I guess it's different when he says it's ok.

Yes, Dave helped Peeler Insurance conquer the world of internet rankings in 45 short days.

If it were only that easy, Dave, and thousands of others in the field of SEO, would already be retired and living the life of luxury.

Most all new web sites, and the tweaking of old web site content produces an impact.

It's fresh and new product in the eyes of the search engines, that gets read, and indexed.

I have 62 web sites up and running, of the 62, I'm still working on only my main web site for SEO. Been working on it since July.

Part of it's because I'm lazy, the other part, because it's a very time consuming process.

I started in July with no backlinks, and now have around 280 or so.

I have a link directory that is only insurance & health related that has more than 8500 links in it. More than 150 hours of work.

The adsense ads in my directory also pays for all my hosting costs for the year, and contributes dollars to my Pay Per Click ad campaign.

I have an article directory that I'm just now starting to get ready to fill. That will contain 100's of insurance and health related articles, and will reach into the 1000's within a 2 years or so.

My link & article directories will always be an on going process. That's where my fresh relevant content will come from. Every week I will add to both directories.

My traffic started at 350 unique visitors a month in July, and peaked in September with 1200. 106 visits being my best day so far. Averaging between July, and yesterday at about 932 hits a month, with a growing trend.

That's just one site, the others range from a low of 18 visits a month to 50 or so, with little to no SEO yet.

They are next in line. I plan to utilize the same process, but with different links and articles, not duplicate content.

I believe I have around 120 pages or so indexed by google now, and when the articles go live, that will be in the hundreds of pages of relevant content.

A 5 to 10 page web site properly optimized, will never compete with a 100 plus page site properly optimized.

I fully understand that SEO is a process, and not an event.

Once again, You just wasted a whole page of a bunch of myths. See the difference between me and you, I get paid for what I do and say. You just think you know what your doing.

 

[Charpress]

Let's say you write an article entitled "The 5 Myths of Annuities" that is 4 paragraphs long. Let's further assume it is a good article that is timely, well researched, and interesting.

Next, let's say you submit it to a service that puts the article out there for availability and the article is initially picked up by a couple of Web sites for inclusion. Let's further assume these are highly ranked sites, maybe one even is a small college with a strong MBA program and has an .edu domain.

The placement of the article with the service is irrelevant. What is relevant is the number and quality of sites that carry your article and link back to you. In this case, so far, you have some quality links that Google and others will like.

Now, let's say that other strong sites use the article from one or more of the first sites. Finally, let's say that USA Today reproduces the article on their online site. Google absolutely loves you now plus the exposure in USA Today results in further mention or reproduction and/or links to the USA Today article of about 6,000. A huge success from the article. This does not happen every day, but it does happen. It did in this case.

No, it wasn't me, unfortunately, but I am familiar with the case and no, that wasn't the name of the article --but the real article did get into USA Today. It took about 3 months for this to happen and resulted in a huge amount of exposure.

But let's not forget, the article itself was very, very good. Just throwing something out there will result in squat.

In my own experience, several years ago I mentioned something to a friend who has a very successful blog. He quoted what I said with a link to my site. Joi Ito, who is a very, very, big deal picked up the quote from my friend's site and Joi also linked to me. Within 3 hours, I had 2,000 links to my site from all the people that quoted, re-quoted and linked my original quote.

This can work amazingly well and it doesn't take a SEO genius. Most of this is common sense. Write good stuff and get it in from of the right people. Oh yeah, and don't forget a good bit of luck.

 

[Aaron_4SIGHT]

Dave, it sounds like you know what you're talking about, but you might want to 'police' SEO threads with a softer stick!

Also, remember that Google and SEO aren't the only source of traffic to your site! Sometimes SEO folks forget it, but people click on links too. A well-placed article on About.com, for example, will bring you lots of good traffic, even if the article is duplicate content.

 

[RayGroupInsurance]

Wow, I'm glad there's been such a good response to this but sorry to start a fight. Thank you to everyone for your advice, I'm still a little confused though. I've read and heard that having the exact same article on 300 sites won't do me much good because Google knows people are out their abusing article submission sites.

I know Google doesn't control those sites as The New Guy stated, but Google does decide which links count and which links are the most important. It seems like it would be better to write an article and submit it to 1 or 2 sites and than tweak the article a little and submit it to 2 more. If you repeated that process it would take a little more work but it seems like you might be able to fool the googlebots.

 

[wildcat]

Earlier this year I was able to get my wordpress site/blog up to the 3rd spot on google for the search term "Tonik Rates" (pretty good traffic). A friend helped me to get started with the wordpress site, gratis. Most of the work was consistent content. Not a ton of info but consistent. It took about two months to get to the third spot. I was only able to convert a few which was frustrating. I soon stopped adding content and quickly fell off the radar.

Looking back, it was a mistake to stop working on the blog. I keep telling myself to get started again, even if it is just a little at a time. I don't know if it was dumb luck, but it was pretty cool being ranked for a while.

Converting, now that's a different story.

 

[Alston]

Regarding Dave.

I had the pleasure of some email exchanges and a long phone conversation with him last month.

I know enough about SEO to make a living promoting my own sites. I'm still swimming in the shallow end of pool, but I'm no neophyte.

I learned very quickly that Dave is swimming in the deep end.

Whatever you think of Dave, don't think that he doesn't know SEO.

 

[RayGroupInsurance]

I would appreciate anyone that knows about SEO to take a look at my site when you have some free time and PM or email me any suggestions you have.

I listen to some SEO podcast's and try to read an article or two everyday but I think I'm over just dipping my toes in the shallow end with a life jacket on.

 

[The New Guy]

Regarding Dave.

I had the pleasure of some email exchanges and a long phone conversation with him last month.

I know enough about SEO to make a living promoting my own sites. I'm still swimming in the shallow end of pool, but I'm no neophyte.

I learned very quickly that Dave is swimming in the deep end.

Whatever you think of Dave, don't think that he doesn't know SEO.

The only problem I have with Dave, is Dave thinks Dave, is the only one who knows SEO.

Nobody here other than Dave has ever claimed to be an expert, yet he has never posted any of his product.

Just criticism of others, and never an ounce of advice, or what he would do to help. At least you, and others offer advice.

The only site of his I did see, was just a norvax template poorly optimized, with only two backlinks.

At least when I post, I back up my posts with my product, and my results. Good or bad.

SEO is not rocket science, it is however, an ever changing time consuming event. It's the sum of the whole, and there's no single magic bullet.

I'm here to learn, help, and enjoy. I don't need to undermine others to make me feel good about me.

 

[Salary_Guard]

As far as the original post about posting on hundreds of article submission sites, you can do it, but its not really worth the time. Most of those directories are set up and created by the same people giving out and selling the submission software. I know, I tried them for a while, they are all laid out exactly the same, have low rankings, and have received no views or traffic. I used a submission software for my first few articles, then stopped, and went with the top 10 sites available. I have a couple thousand views on my articles now. I have about 9-10 articles published in the last month or so, and about 60-70% of my site's traffic is from the articles.

My goal is to have about 250 live articles in the near future. (I need to be more dedicated to writing) From my tracking that I have now, that should give me a ton of visitors every day just from articles.

Being high on search engines is great, but it is not the only way to drive traffic to your site. SEO is just a portion of online marketing. There are other things to do.

 

[Charpress]

I think maybe there is some confusion between the idea of posting articles on sites that just statically have your article sit there with a link back to you and submitting your article to a service that puts your article out there where it can be picked up by information consumers --that is, sources that are always looking for good content. I'm talking specifically about article marketing through companies like ezinearticles.com, although there are several other good ones. Make sure you spell the site correctly because bogus sites are using the common misspellings and it is hard to tell you are not at the real deal.

They do charge fees for submissions, but it is well worth it if you have material that is marketable.

Look at the alternatives carefully and do your homework.