Backlinking for Dummies (or Just Beginners)

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
  

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Write 3-5 original articles for Ezinearticles and submit them.
4. Write 1 original article for Buzzle
5. Write 1 original article for InfoBarrel
6. Write 1 original article for Articlesbase
7. Write 1 original article for Olive Articles
8. Write 1 original article for Theinfomine.com
9. 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).
10. Bookmark your hub at RedGage.com, YouSayToo.com, SheToldMe.com, & A1 Webmarks.com.
11. Create a Xomba bookmark to every single one of the articles on this list with a 75+ word description.
12. Use the 4 social bookmarking sites to bookmark every one of the articles on this list.
13. 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.
14. 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.
    

That's it. Is it a lot of work? Yes - but everything online for making money is. Is it difficult or hard or confusing? No. This is very easy, and you can completely skip the Blogger.com and Wordpress.com steps if you feel like it. If you're a true beginner, I might even recommend that. When you're further along with Internet Marketing you'll understand how to use those better, anyway. If you have a website or blog as opposed to HubPages, then just follow these steps, except add a HubPage and then go through all these steps for the HubPage, too, to make that a much stronger page, which will make it a stronger link.

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!

Start Freelance Writing Now!

Get Writing Now to Get Paid Later

Hey all, first of all, thanks for the large number of supportive e-mails. This has been a very difficult year for my family, and the amount of personal notes wishing us well has been very touching. Second, this is going to be a pretty quick post because I have a full and busy week on my plate. So one question that keeps coming up no matter how many posts I write is this: How do I get started? What's the most important thing I need to know? I feel overwhelmed with information, what should I do?

These are all valid questions, and if my answer sounds harsh, I don't mean it to be. But these types of questions are symptoms of what seems to me to be a larger epidemic among writers and/or would be writers. A lot of people want to write for either a part time income, an emergency stop gap in this recessionary economy, or as a full time income. Freelance writing is hard, but it has a lot of allure. So here's my answer:

GET STARTED, NOW!!!

That's it. There is nothing more important than that bit of advice. Here's one of the things about writing online that I love: there's always an "edit" button. You learn by doing, and by failing, and by learning from those failures to become ridiculously good at making money and succeeding consistently.

This doesn't mean you shouldn't keep learning - but don't freeze up. Writing online is all about persistence, work, and time. If you want to know what you have to do to really get your online freelance writing career going, then here's your step by step guide to getting started by the end of today:

1. Sign up for eHow, Constant-Content, & HubPages. If you're ambitious, consider signing up for Associated Content and Xomba, as well.
2. Prepare ideas for 10 eHow articles (10 how to articles), 5 "normal" high quality articles on something you're interested in (for Constant Content), 5 "laid back" articles for Associated Content, and 5-10 articles for Xomba (or Xomblurbs - basically social bookmarking with a small original description you can use to earn with AdSense)
3. Start writing and publishing. Don't ask another question, don't read another blog post, don't do anything else until you get those articles up and online.

There, now you're started. Yes, there are tons of things you will need to learn to eventually make a full time living online. Yes, you will need to learn stuff like SEO, keywords, passive income, how search engines work, online writing, and multiple income streams - BUT this should NEVER EVER stop you from getting started. Not to be crude, but it's like that old saying: if you wish in one hand and crap in the other, which fills up first?

Freelance writing, especially freelance writing online, requires work and time. The more you write now, the more you learn along the way, the better a writer you will become, and the more ability you will have to speed up your online income when you really figure out what you're doing.

Recently I wrote a post about getting started freelance writing in college, and I think that writing post topic will deserve a deeper delve soon since it no only applies to college students, but to online freelance writers in general. And this blog does provide a TON of information for writers and beginning freelancers, and I'm glad. I want to be a good resource.

But if you haven't started your freelance writing career already, bookmark this blog, sign up for those sites, and get writing. You can learn the rest along the way, but if you really want a chance to make decent money writing online and to start your own online freelance writing career, then get started today...as in NOW!

Thanks again for the kind words, and for those of you who I know have been making a killing on Constant-Content. More will follow soon, but don't let another day go by without doing at least one single thing to move yourself a little bit closer to success.

Summer Writing Update | Brief eHow Review

Summer Writing & Brief eHow Review

Update 04/05/2010: Due to a hugely unpopular move by eHow and parent company Demand Studios, there no longer is an eHow writing program open to writers. If you're looking for other ways to break into writing online, I suggest having a look at my Constant-Content Review or Demand Studios Review (which may also need updating depending how this all goes down). Avoid Helium.com, and keep hacking away at the dream. It may have gotten a little bit harder as yet another employer chose not to respect their writers, but keep at it.

Original freelance writing blog post & original eHow review
First of all, thanks to everyone who has left comments or sent encouraging e-mails. It always feels great to know people are reading your writing, that you're getting some great positive support, and that you're making a difference and helping out. I also want to congratulate those of you who have been doing very well on Constant-Content - an extra few hundred a month is nothing to sneeze at and one of you just cleared $500 in about 4 weeks. Very impressive.

For those of you who haven't read the last post, or caught wind of it elsewhere, I'm in the middle of a major writing marathon. I'm trying to really push for a shift from conventional freelance writing to more of a passive income/residual income mode of making a living writing. I have AdSense blogs, affiliate sales, etc. helping in this pursuit, but I'm naturally a writer first, and so a lot of my focus is trying to really build my online writing in places where it can earn me a good residual income.

So far in 9 days (not counting today because I'm still working) I've wrote 36 articles on eHow, which is right on schedule for my 3.5/day average to make my summer goals, 10 hubs for HubPages for the challenge (putting me behind my ideal schedule), as well as several miscellaneous articles and about a grand in freelance work that's above and beyond my normal weekly projects. Between trying to prepare for a move and everything else going on in the personal life, it's not a bad effort.

Which brings me to a brief review of the eHow website, which I haven't given a thorough look at yet on this blog. After spending long enough writing on this site to give it a fair shake, I have to say this: I'm a Big fan.

One of the things I immediately like about eHow is that it allows you to build a passive or residual income, something that is much more difficult to do with many other online writing websites. In other words, if you write a good article that continues to get traffic, then that article is going to continue earning money for you long after you've finished writing it. It has taken me a few months, sped up by buying and studying (the then available WriterGig's ebook on improving eHow freelance writing earnings) I strongly recommend buying a copy for anyone interested in making a serious passive income with eHow. It's worth the buy - especially since the advice in there had me recoup my investment in one month, so there's not a lot of risk.

Another thing I love about freelance writing for eHow: it's a very easy format. Since the "how to" set up of the website sets up the template for every article, it's very easy to whip up an article in 15-20 minutes if you know what you're talking about. For writers like me, this format helps organize my thoughts, which is not always my strength. For writers who really like step by step formats, they're just going to thrive.

Another plus for eHow is that it can be considered its own income stream for individuals who are also working towards the full time residual income online. What's this mean? The income you get from your articles is from splitting any advertising revenue your articles generate. But you don't use your own AdSense account. This means that your AdSense earnings and eHow earnings are completely separate streams of income. Just as with anything else, diversifying is the key, so having eHow as an income stream is very helpful in the overall writing goals.

Another giant plus is that eHow has a really active and good online community. There are a lot of helpful people here, and you find out pretty quickly that making a lot of money on eHow isn't a random thing: there are several hard working writers on this site who make a very good monthly pay out, and also are often more than willing to share advice with newer less established writers.

Finally, I really enjoy eHow because I've seen solid gains in earnings every single month I have wrote articles for them, and eHow is an authority site. What does this mean? It means Google sees eHow as a trustworthy site, so articles you write for them are more likely to show up high in the search rankings, which brings more traffic, more exposure, and more income. When you're learning about Internet Marketing, AdSense, or how search engines work, you'll learn why this is such a huge deal.

Anyway, this is a semi-brief update because things are still crazy here. Thanks again to everyone reading, and I can't recommend eHow enough. It's a fantastic place to write for a long term passive income. Best of luck to everyone, and keep writing through the recession. Freelance writing is a long term endeavor, but it's worth it.

This Recession is Hard on Freelance Writers. Too.

Freelance Writers Are on Hard Times, Too

Usually during the past decade and change, a recession was not something that freelance writers had any reason to fear. In an odd pattern, technology had made it so that many times freelance writers were doing better in recession than out of it. When full time writers at companies were let go, and internships cut, the work still needed to get done.

Why pay an employee $15 an hour for an article (if employees on pay roll were even that proficient) plus paying 1/2 of their Social Security taxes (which all companies do for employees), plus pay matching 401-k, plus pay for the vacation days and sick days being piled up, plus unemployment taxes, plus pay for any insurance or bonuses when you can pay a freelancer $13-14 an article for the same level of work or better, with none of the extra expenses? Using a freelancer also eliminates overtime.

Because of this, during minor recessions many freelance writers would actually see more work, be able to charge fair market prices for their work, and actually make a pretty solid living without the same level of effort that it took when jobs were more scarce.

But this recession, which was barely prevented from being blown out into an all depression, things are different. This is the first time I've ever seen a dip in the economy that not only affected freelance writers the same way as every other profession, but flat out leveled a lot of the consistent work that I was used to seeing out there. Many of my friends who freelance said the same thing. Some saw their incomes slashed in half or worse, and the competition for the scraps that are still around is as fierce as it's ever been.

The "what to do about it" question is hard. Some writers are re-opening Guru.com or Elance.com accounts that they had ceased needing to use. Others have had to cut back heavily on the at home expenses. I lost my full time writing position (and dream job) back in November. I freelance a lot more to make up for the lost income, but I had to put all my student loans on deferment and am working harder than I've had to for the jobs that are available. There are more quality writers willing to work for less to fill the gap. My average hourly rate has also dropped from $16-18 an hour down to $10-11. There's simply not as many willing buyers at the higher level anymore, especially since there are good writers who are dropping down to the latter level, which is causing an avalanche effect.

So if you've been a fairly successful freelance writer and are now struggling, don't take it personally and don't question yourself. Right now it's a hard time for most freelance writers. All you can do is keep at it, build some passive income sources to help over the long term, and build yourself a solid base. If you can make it in this economy, you'll absolutely thrive when it starts to bounce back. If you're a beginner, don't let this post discourage you. If you can start from scratch and make it in this economy, you'll thrive when things turn around.

I just wanted to write this post because I haven't seen a lot of writing about how the current economy is affecting freelance writers, and I think this is a fair subject. Is online freelance writing still a place where people can go to make a nice side income, or even a full time income? Absolutely. But right now it is harder than it was 12 months ago, and I think it's important that writers of every level understand what the freelancing situation is right now.

That's all I have for now. I will say don't give up. The past month work has really picked up for me, and it's decent paying - not "oh holy shit I need to make rent by Friday" gap jobs. I've also noticed that ALL of my passive income streams (Associated Content, Constant-Content referrals, Squidoo, HubPages, AdSense, Affiliate sales, eHow, etc.) have increased for the third straight month. This is why passive income and making money online with more than one source is so important. Even if I did nothing for the next month, at a worst case scenario ((and when I say worst case, I take that phrase to a ridiculously improbably level)) that combination will still net me over $300.

During a recession that's nothing to sneeze at, especially when it's all coming from work that's been done and over with for months, if not years. Read this blog, including past posts, and if there's anything you want to know, don't be afraid to contact me. I'll help if I can. I'm a firm believer in what goes around comes around, and something at least akin to karma really does work in the Universe.

Until the next post, I hope everyone reading this is doing well, and don't be afraid of freelance writing during a recession. We all have to work through this, and the pay offs will be huge if you can just stick with it.