Choosing the Best Free Blogs

Whenever you're first starting on the Internet, there is going to be a lot of information coming your way that seems to be conflicting. A good example of this is whenever you are first starting to put up a website. Some people will argue that static pages are by far the best type of website to establish, but to tell you the truth, that is rather old thinking. Personally, my experience has proven that it is a much better idea for you to choose from some of the best free blogs that are out there in order to get your message across to the masses.

There are a number of different blog services that you can choose from, some of which will run directly on your domain and others that are outside services which are free to use as well. Choosing from these best free blogs really depends on what you plan on doing with your business on the Internet. For example, if you're interested in getting started on a shoestring budget you can pick up an account at Blogger.com and have your blog online within just a few minutes. Since this blogging service is owned and operated by Google, you should not have a difficult time attracting traffic from the search engine.

Another of the best free blogs that you can choose from is Wordpress. You can either get an account directly with Wordpress and use their servers or you can download their blogging software and install it directly on your own servers. One of the reasons why you might want to avoid using Wordpress directly on their servers is because they do limit the amount of advertising and commercial blogging that you do. If you are simply interested in blogging in the pure form, you should be perfectly fine using the service directly. If, on the other hand, you're interested in how to make make from a blog then you most certainly should buy a domain name and put the Wordpress software directly on your server.

Whether you are going to use these blogging services on your server or on their servers is not something that should be taken lightly as the effects can really be overwhelming. If you choose your keywords wisely and if you are persistent in your blogging efforts, you can use any of these best free blogs that are available in order to take your business to the next level.


To learn how to use the best free blogs to make money on the Internet, make sure to sign up for our FREE Blogging Secrets e-Course at http://www.BloggingProductAnalysis.com

4 Kinds of Link Building Campaigns

Anyone that has spent any time studying SEO, researching algorithms or reading internet marketing blogs and forums knows that link building plays a huge role in a website’s marketing campaign. If for some reason you didn’t know that link building was such a big deal, then it’s imperative for me to tell you now. Backlinks (links pointing to your website) are considered web votes in the search engine popularity/ranking formulas. The more websites there are with links that lead to your site, the merrier. However, it does not stop there. Who links to you, why they link to you and what they say about you are arguably more important factors than how many websites “voted” for you.

There are 1,000’s of ways to build links back to your site and for a variety of reasons. Some will build links to increase rankings while others are looking to increase PageRank. Whatever the case may be, it is necessary that you understand the different types of link building.

Building Links to Increase Total Backlinks

In some industries, depending on the competition link building could entirely just be a popularity contest. For example, you could check the backlinks of your competitors rankings for the terms you are targeting and notice that they have over 100,000 backlinks compared to your 112. Also, for some search engines, having a plethora of links plays a role in your search engine positioning. Furthermore, the more links you have pointing to your site, the more paths you have for bots to find your site and to cache it. Building backlinks to increase your total in-link count in Yahoo or Google is usually done because this is something that can easily be seen by anyone online. Having a site that only has 50 backlinks says a lot. Much can be said about a site with over 40,000 links as well.

A few techniques to increase total backlinks include site-wide link building, blog rolls on blogs with a lot of posts, directory submitting and article distribution.

Building Links to Increase PageRank

Although you want a lot of sites to point to yours, you also want these sites to have high PageRanks. Google uses PageRank as a measure of importance. PageRank is an algorithm that measures how many sites are pointing to you and how many sites are pointing to those sites pointing to you and so on. Google still makes it clear that PageRank is the heart of their search engine algorithm, so getting links from websites with high Page Rank is a must. When you obtain links from sites with a lot of links pointing to them, it shows Google that a trusted domain has linked to you. Another reason you may want to increase your PageRank is because you want to sell advertising placements or blog reviews and noticed that the higher the PR of your site, the more money you can charge.

This form of link building is a very common technique performed by directories. They buy links from pages with a lot of PR to inflate their PR so webmasters will want to pay for inclusion into their directories.

A few techniques to increase PR fast is to get links from sites with a PR4 or better, sitewide/blogroll links, social bookmarking, mass press releasing, text link buying and link baiting.

Building Links that Increase Search Engine Rankings

As mentioned before, backlinks counts as votes. However it is not only the number and type of backlinks that matter, what they say about you could make all the difference in the world when it comes to search engine positioning. The anchor texts of your links are labels that help the search engines bots categorize and rank your site according to relevance. Sometimes getting a few links saying the keywords you’re going after can go a lot further than how many links you may have. So if you are looking to build links to increase search engine visibility, find relevant sites to give you links saying the keywords you’re going after for optimal keyword placement.

A few techniques to increase rankings are niche directory submissions, article distribution, link exchanges, blog reviews, links from sites already ranking for terms you’re targeting, and press releases.

Building Links that Generate traffic

So we can build links to increase PR and we can build links to improve our rankings. However, isn’t the ultimate goal to generate traffic? It’s easy to build links to indirectly generate traffic via the SERP’s and to forget about generating links that send visitors. While some links may increase your PR or even help your search engine positions, links that send relevant traffic directly to your site from a site related to yours could be a better investment than building links in hopes to get some love from the search engines’ proprietary algorithms.

A few ways to generate traffic via backlinks, is through affiliate marketing, paid links, links on pages with top Alexa rankings, reviews from bloggers with a lot of subscribers, forums in your industry, social networking and press releases.

While all of these techniques are valid, the important thing to remember is that major search engines like websites that generate traffic naturally. So not only do you have to figure out which route you want to take (if not all of them), you should also devised strategies that will give your website a natural link building profile.


Backlink tips provided by James Harrison; Link Building Expert & Online Marketing Specialist.

Using social networks for search engine marketing

Some businesses have been reluctant to adopt social networking as a marketing strategy, with companies even blocking access to social networks as part of company policy. Whilst this may seem a good move when trying to keep employees busy doing their jobs rather than completing their Facebook profile, marketing and communications departments have been slowly but surely become more frustrated at lost opportunities.

Social networking is an innate human trait, and in the business world, networking is vital. Hence the rise in networking events, business network breakfasts and so on. Moving this online was inevitable with the rise of the Internet, and businesses who fail to engage in the social network world with a cohesive marketing plan are more than missing a trick.

There are now many case studies of well-known brands who are successfully using social networking, not just for raising brand awareness and PR, but also for getting in contact with new and existing customers, for promoting products and services, offering white papers, freebies, coupons and discounts, and possibly most importantly, for listening to feedback from their customers.

Some companies have been flamed for the lack of interaction on blogs (for instance, disabling or removing comments), and it has not taken long for the lessons learnt by the likes of Johnson & Johnson and the damage allegedly done to reputations, to sink in. Businesses are realising that, whether you like it or not, your customers are sometimes going to make negative comments about your company, products and services. Those comments are going to be out there on the Net, and the realisation that they are better made in a place where you can at least spot them and respond is dawning on many of the large brands.

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Ecademy are different types of social networks, but each is valuable if it is the right tool for the job for your company, and is included in a marketing strategy that understands the opportunities and limitations of each network.

Twitter for instance is a great place to disseminate news about your products, to make an offer to your followers, to easily contact your customers at minimal cost, to create a following and conversation. The brand that is Stephen Fry has become synonymous with Twitter in the UK, and as a least cost marketing tool has proven very effective, bringing Stephen's products to a global audience with very little effort. It has also minimised the costs, in both time and money, in dealing with customers and followers through more expensive channels, such as advertising, email, website updates and so on.

Facebook is being used successfully by many global product names to create fan pages and product pages, which then offer viral opportunities when the product is pushed through users' feeds, thereby bringing in more fans and 'groupies'. Facebook users are no longer just bored teens, and many silver surfers are also using Facebook as an easy way to share information with friends and family. This means that the Facebook demographic has changed, and creating pages or groups which are of interest to a particular target audience, geographic region and so on is a desirable, low cost strategy for many businesses.

LinkedIn is primarily a business network, and whilst being effective in bringing your business to the attention of others in the same sector, it has wider uses. Firstly, the chance to develop contacts with your suppliers, potential suppliers and customers, and others within the industry. The value of these contacts can never be underestimated, and there are many deals brokered through LinkedIn which would have been difficult or impossible without some expensive real world networking at conferences etc. Another aspect of LinkedIn which is frequently overlooked by the business world is the ability to create or join groups, where both promotion and discussion are the norm. By contributing to discussions, your company or yourself can be seen to be an expert in the field, and this in itself is valuable in online promotion. Additionally, there are many groups for promotion of products or services, as well as recruitment for specific sectors, and these add to the arsenal of promotional spots for articles, white papers, jobs, discounted services and so on.

Ecademy is similar to LinkedIn but, having been established for longer, has a wider range of available opportunities within its website, reaching both on and offline. Ecademy can be more time-consuming purely because of that, but equally as valuable as LinkedIn when seeking business contacts, and opportunities to bring your knowledge and expertise to a wider audience.

As with all these networks, it is essential to put time into the developing of relationships and holding conversations in order to reap the rewards. It is vital to remember that this must be a two way process. Hard sell will not work on any of the social networks, just as it is not a popular mechanism in much of real life. It is very much about giving first and foremost, and acquiring respect from your peers, customers, followers, as well as listening and showing an interest. The payback can be huge though if you are successful, and many of the internet marketers who tweet are garnering increasing amounts of custom by regularly talking as well as listening.


Phil Robinson is an experienced online marketing consultant and Founder of ClickThrough Marketing - an international Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing agency