Backlinking Basics for Beginners
Welcome to the freelance writing blog post featuring the most alliterate title to date. Recently I've been helping some friends get started not only with freelance writing, but specifically with the real basics of passive income. HubPages, keywords, and backlinks all come to the front of the discussion, and it's easy for me to overlook the basics because I have been working on passive income for some time now. I believe for a lot of us this could be the case. Even after a short time working for passive income online it can be easy to not think about things like keyword research or finding backlinks, because it's all become second nature after even a short time.Also, after a certain amount of time you get used to being able to take short cuts. I've done so much keyword research I can take an educated guess at this point and with about 60 seconds of research decide if it's worth going after or not with a pretty decent rate of accuracy. But it took a lot of time to get to this point. And now more often than not I simply use the tools at The Keyword Academy to REALLY shorten up the process. Ditto with collecting backlinks (and if you're serious about your online business and have the time and money to invest, the $33 a month subscription for The Keyword Academy is ridiculously good resource. That is an affiliate link, but I believe the first month is only a $1 and if you don't like the affiliate link, then type "keyword academy" into Google).
So for someone who is a true beginner, who knows only the most basic information about making money online and SEO (Search Engine Optimization if you're really a noob...aka getting ranked high in Google), doesn't know where to get backlinks, and doesn't have the time or money to make a $33/month investment at this point, then this post will walk you through a nice simple template of actions I used early on to get backlinks to everyone of my money pages - and I still use this with new pages when I don't want to think too hard about it.
If you're a veteran at the passive income, you can probably skim or even ignore the rest of this. For anyone who feels lost as a beginner and wants a solid way to build several good backlinks to their money sites, read on or feel free to print this post out as a starter's guide.
Caveats: Many of the links further down are affiliate or referral links, but I only use these links when I get a cut of the website's %, not yours. This is also going under the assumption that you're building HubPages as opposed to websites when starting off. I'm doing this because HubPages is by far and away, in my opinion, the best way for true beginners to learn how SEO and Internet Marketing works and to see some early results to stay motivated.
If this isn't the case, I'll explain more about how that changes things (actually very little) later on in the post. Also, have a safe place to keep copies of all your log in information as you will need to open accounts in several places to build your backlinks.
First of all, you will need to open accounts at several article directories and websites. Some split income with you (InfoBarrel, Xomba) while others don't (Ezinearticles, Buzzle, Articlesbase). This doesn't make one better than the other: you need backlinks to get your money pages ranked, and the more good links, the better.
- Open accounts at Ezinearticles, Buzzle, Articlesbase, InfoBarrel, Xomba, Olive Articles, Blogger.com (gmail account needed), Wordpress.com, RedGage.com, YouSayToo.com, SheToldMe.com, A1 Webmarks.com, & Theinfomine.com
- After publishing a hub, the first step is to write a Xomba bookmark for your hub. Although there is a 50 word minimum, I strongly recommend 75 words as this almost guarantees your hub (or whatever you're bookmarking) will be indexed by Google within 24 hours.
- Find a high PR blog that gets a lot of attention (like the 4 Hour Work Week Blog) and make a relevant comment, only linking your name to your site. This isn't for a keyword - this is to get Google's attention, index your site, and get a "natural crappy" link to make the link building look natural and honest.
- Write 3-5 original articles for Ezinearticles and submit them.
- Write 1 original article for Buzzle
- Write 1 original article for InfoBarrel
- Write 1 original article for Articlesbase
- Write 1 original article for Olive Articles
- Write 1 original article for Theinfomine.com
- If the topic is something you're going to right a lot about, start a Blogger.com blog and a Wordpress.com blog. You'll eventually want a minimum of 5-10 posts each, but each post can have a link to a hub or article (not even including the blogroll for each blog).
- Bookmark your hub at RedGage.com, YouSayToo.com, SheToldMe.com, & A1 Webmarks.com.
- Create a Xomba bookmark to every single one of the articles on this list with a 75+ word description.
- Use the 4 social bookmarking sites to bookmark every one of the articles on this list.
- Write a Xomba article (not bookmark) that links to your hub or site. 400+ words is best but not mandatory - this will give you a "no follow" bookmark, which is always good to have a few.
- If you want a few more links, Google "KeywordLuv" and spend 20-30 minutes gathering blog comment backlinks using a variety of keywords related to your hub.
This outline is very basic, it uses basic social bookmarking, blog commenting, and article marketing to get a solid group of links. HubPages is a very strong website that tends to rank very well right off the bat and FAR better than an independent site or blog starting from scratch. If you follow this group of instructions, you already have 15-18 backlinks, even with no Blogger Blog, no WordPress blog, no Keyword Luv commenting. A decent amount of these directories even split any AdSense earnings that your articles might earn. Aside from Xomba and InfoBarrel this rarely happens, but every little bit extra helps.
Most of those are do follow, with just enough no follow to make your site look really good to Google. With a HubPage, this can often be enough to start ranking well, especially after some time passes. The steps are ordered by importance, so if one article directory is ranked in step #3 and the other is step #8, then the backlink you get from #3 will be stronger than the one you get from #8.
I'm not saying this is the best way to gather and build links, but it is a great backlink starter template for those of you who want to learn about Internet Marketing and SEO but don't have a lot of guidance. Now there's no excuse. Go make some hubs, and use this guide to get them all some backlinks. Remember that the sheer number of hubs and money pages you have does matter, and time is a very big factor when it comes to ranking a page at the top of Google, which is how your pages will make you the most money online.
By all means, keep learning and keep reading from the many incredible resources that are online, but there's no excuse now. Go to HubPages, start building hubs, and use this template to gather backlinks. No fear!
I'm not saying there won't be a learning curve, and as you learn more online you'll almost certainly go back and touch up your old sites and/or pages (I still do), but when you really know what you're doing and understand down the line from having more experience, you'll definitely be glad to already have a great base of backlinks. It makes everything much easier! Hopefully that helps out and if anyone has any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments section.
Good luck and enjoy the extra results this work will bring to your efforts!
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Its nice Blog.online affiliate marketing is also the name of the industry where a number of different types of companies and individuals are performing this form of Internet marketing, including affiliate networks, affiliate management companies, and in-house affiliate managers, specialized third party vendors, and various types of affiliates/publishers who promote the products and services of their partners.
ReplyDeleteGreat article. Why not include affiliate links to http://shetoldme.com/referral/736880db and http://www.yousaytoo.com/JadeDragon/?13075 - these are mine if you want to use them instead :)
ReplyDeleteHey Jade,
ReplyDeleteI put them in there. Someone mine as well get some credit for any sign ups that happen, and I just choose not to use social media much anymore (it's a 80/20 time vs. results thing for where I'm at right now). Thanks for the comment!
I've been reading your blog for awhile, but this is my first comment. Thank you for the wealth of information you provide! You lay out the passive income process in easy-to-understand, actionable steps. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteHi Mandy,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the kind words. Hope you find this post and many others useful. Take care!
Hello, Master Dayton of obvious Jedi Power, I bow in your humbling presence and ask you a very stupid question. I, as a newbie, made the idiotic mistake of trying to open two different username accounts with google adsense. I found out very quickly that that is a huge no no when it comes to the terms and conditions. But, as a newbie, I didn't really read that extremely long list of technical jargon. I just accepted the terms and went about my business. If I was smart enough to read the contract I wouldn't have gotten caught up in the ehow fiasco. What I'm asking, in a long winded way, is whether or not there is still hope to make money the way others are who have adsense in their arsenals? What ways would you suggest to fill in that gaping hole? Do you think they would allow me another chance if I can prove how very stupid I am? Is there a stupid clause in the contract that google doesn't let everyone know about? In all seriousness, please help. I just don't know what to do.
ReplyDeleteHi "Always Hopeful." There are a few things you can do. The first is to look at making pages that emphasize Amazon products. Done correctly, this can become extremely profitable. There are other ad based advertising like Yahoo ads or Chitika, or even Clickbank. That said, there is still a chance you can use AdSense. You'll need to form an LLC and use that company's EIN (employment identification number) to apply for AdSense - and if you want an extra layer of anonymity to make sure, file the LLC and make it under the name of a DBA, which is "Doing Business As." Basically you can make up a name to legally do business under for that LLC - which gives you 2 layers of protection from Google finding out it's you. This requires some up front investment, and you'll have to file a report every few years, but between this and Amazon based sites, you could still do well online with passive income. Hope that helps.
ReplyDeleteGreat article for the newbies in the freelance writing world. I am going to give this a try, and see how it works.
ReplyDeleteHi
ReplyDeleteI am in the process of doing just about everything you suggest with my 15 Hub articles. I still don't understand the purpose of writing 1 article for Olive, infobarrel, etc and have them hooked only thru Xomba and the social sites. How do these articles create backlinks back to my hub articles, unless Xomba and the social sites cross match the other hub articles?