With Google playing mind games with SEO masters, blog owners and webmasters around the world… no one is safe from recent changes in the search results. While we can’t change how Google fluctuates web site rankings, we can make sure that we are ready for future updates and make our web sites and blogs ready for any future changes. No matter what Google does, in the end quality links and content are king. With this concept and model in mind, using the proper software to monitor and manage your sites rankings and back links are key. Today we are going to take a look at Sheer SEO Software Suite and how it can help you in the search engine rankings war!

“Research shows that 60-70% of the users of search engines will only use the results in the first page. This means that getting to the top 10 results of the search engine is critical for your business.” – Sheer SEO

Breaking Down the Features of Sheer SEO Software

As wonderful as it would be to just buy software or click a button to have our web sites ready and optimized for search engines, it just doesn’t work that way. SEO and site optimization is a continuing mission, which never seems to end. With Google updating their algorithm and rankings all of the time, having the necessary software to track these changes and monitor your sites makes the whole process a lot easier.

Let’s now take a look at the many different features of Sheer SEO and how it can help you win the war against competing sites in the search engines.

Many SEO software packages specialize in only offering a few different features and reporting options, Sheer SEO has a massive list of tools and features that can all be run through their software. You can check out the screenshot below for a few examples, but the list on their site includes many more, such as tracking rankings, site pagerank, traffic estimation, directory submissions, blog reviews, keyword density and so much more. With so many tracking features available, Sheer SEO offers a 60 day free trial to test out their software so you can fully understand it’s power and features before joining as a premium member.

Why are all of these tools and features necessary? Simply because the way web sites rank in the search engines is not a one trick formula, but a collection of many different factors. Being able to pull reports and view your previous activity and performance in directories, blog reviews / guest posting, incoming links and much more, all contributes to your overall rankings in the search engines. We can’t all become SEO masters, but through the use of seo software, we can better understand how to improve our web sites and rankings.

Sheer SEO Live Demo

We can talk about the benefits and features of software all day, but one of the best ways to see how something truly works, is through the use of a live demo.

Through the use of Sheer SEO Software Suite and it’s seo tools we can pull up rankings and traffic reports for any web sites and keywords one desires. The reports are quite simple and easy to read and understand. Using the tabs on the top of the reports you can scroll through the various reporting sections and sorting abilities. One of the problems many people have when using SEO software is that they are confused with all of the reporting and miscellaneous stats and tracking, as you can see in the screenshot above, Sheer SEO makes all of their reports very easy to understand and learn from.

The Cost of Sheer SEO Software

Just like all web sites and traffic are different, so are the ways we can track and report web sites rankings and keywords. Sheer SEO understands this all too well and have a pricing plan and membership level that is built specifically for sites and marketers of all sites. Most importantly, Sheer SEO is offering a two month free trial that lets you monitor a single domain name and up to 40 keywords. Once your trial is over, you can select from any of their premium membership plans, which range from $7 to $199 a month, based on the number of domain names and keywords you might want to track, along with other advanced features.

Try Sheer SEO Software Suite for 60 Days Free

The almighty “G” has released the Penguin and the effect on blogs especially affiliate review blogs are huge.

It’s like affiliate marketers are confused. They’ve a lot of questions traveling through their clouded minds – what’s Google really up to. How do I position my affiliate niche sites to rank better, generate income and make me happy? I need to pay some bills and Google just wouldn’t understand.

They don’t care about me, despite all my efforts to please them. I wish Google would fall in love with my niche blog – all these plights will be gone in a hurry – Oh God, help me!

I’m I speaking to you – sure, I know someone out there is lamenting over the drop in his blog. Google Penguin updates really smashed a lot of blogs and the money they were earning virtually dropped by several multiples. Are you on of such persons?

You’re not alone. I’m an affiliate marketer too. I own 2 affiliate review blogs. I visualized what Google is up to about 5 months ago, and I began to take the right steps. Fortunately, my affiliate blogs are still hot, generating gasping commissions and taking me to the bank monthly. I want to show you how to position your blog to rank higher in search engines – it doesn’t matter whether the Panda is at the gate or the Penguin in the room (I wonder why Google chooses to use weird animal names for updates).

There are 2 steps to take your affiliate money making blog to the top. It’s not going to be easy, and it won’t happen overnight. But I’m confident that when you give it a shot, you’ll bounce back fast. Let’s dive in:

1. Start Acting Like a Middleman

Every affiliate marketer is a middle man. Do you agree with me?

Unfortunately, a lot of affiliate marketers acts like the manufacturer. I mean, they literally review affiliate offers as if they own it. Their affiliate blog doesn’t sound like a resourceful site. An affiliate is expected to behave, review, and answer questions with a backup. Middlemen don’t pride themselves as the product owner; they simply lead target audience through the buying phases without sounding like the CEO.

And guess what? If you consistently review affiliate offers as if you own it, you’ll start operating with a different mindset. This mindset will be controlled by what it sees. Making money by all means becomes the meat and blood of your business – how pathetic.

The first stage of affiliate success is to recognize you’re in the ‘middle.’ Giving instructions and directing interested prospects to take action. No, you’re not pushing or pulling them to buy; you’re only doing the work you were called to do – sharing information. The sales page or store should do the selling, you’re to presell.

Several sites were penalized for over-optimizing. And the #1 reason is obvious, money-conscious thinking caused the webmaster to stuff keywords, emphasize every keyword and acquire links unnecessarily.

What You Should Be Doing Instead

Position your blog with in-depth and well-researched contents. Making money is good, we all want to but you don’t have to be controlled by it. Focus on what retailers and consumers want (helpful information) and the money will trail you like an angry shadow.

To rank highly on Google first page, you’ve to put the end-user (buyers, prospects, consumers, shoppers) in front – Once you can engage readers on your blog, Google will ‘assume’ that your blog is great and reward you with RICH, TARGETED AND READY-TO-BUY ORGANIC TRAFFIC.

2. Build Contextual Links Naturally

“Links are the currency of the web” – Brain Clark

We can’t deny the fact that outbound links are one of the factors Google looks for. But all links are not created equal. Recently, I discovered that when I link from authority and active blogs, my review pages starts ranking highly. It’s no longer the amount of links you build, but how relevant, how specific and where you’re linking to.

You see a lot of people build good links to a wrong page. Some folks employ search engine optimization tricks to deceive Google spider, and one of such is linking to a regurgitated page or a page that has no rich contents. Have you been doing this, stop today?

If you want to rank and enjoy organic traffic and targeted buyers, then, prepare your articles. The pages you’re linking to are important, not just the authority blog that allows you to place two links. Getting external links to your blog pages is easy – guest posting is the best way. But the problem is – how juicy is the page you’re linking to. Is it exceptional, engaging and helpful to the reader?

And secondly, contextual linking is the key to strengthening your blog pages. When you link to a certain page in the article body, you’ve done a mighty work and Google will definitely reward it. Make it flow. Don’t try to squeeze in keywords because you want a contextual link. Write naturally and from your heart. A contextual link speaks volumes to search engines. It tells them that you’re citing to a more relevant page.

If your posts are inspiring, people would share it, link and recommend it. And these activities are bringing rich links and targeted traffic from organic sources.

Take This Home

“Your blog is by you, not for you” – Michael Chibuzor

Anyone can make money promoting affiliate offers; it doesn’t matter if you’re a School Dropout or holds MBA from Cambridge. What matters is the zeal to see other people fulfill their business goals. Channel your entire energy in helping someone, a group of persons come closer to meeting their needs in life and there will be so much money coming your way.

There you’ve it, the only 2 steps needed to boost your affiliate earnings by positioning your blog to rank on Google’s first page. The tips are not tedious, I’m so confident you can do it.

Leave a comment below and meet me at the top!

This guest post was written by Michael Chibuzor, who is a Freelance Writer and founded Passive income ideas blog to help you achieve your affiliate marketing goals. Hire Michael to write guest posts, blog posts and copy to boost your sales, leads and web presence.

Running your own blog is easy… creating an authority blog and one that makes money is another! Yes, everyone talks about the power of blogging and how it can make you rich or how it can provide you with exposure to people all over the world and even create a new life and business of it’s own. Yes… all of this is possible through blogging, but only if you live, eat and breath it!

With millions of new blogs going live every day, the odds of your blog standing out from the crowd is pretty slim to none. You need to find a niche and simply kill it! Keep generating amazing content, give quality stuff away for free that others would charge you for, and show that you know what you are talking about and put yourself out there to help others… all of these efforts combined, and you may become one of the next top brands and authorities in blogging.

Not to brag, but I’ve put everything into my business and online marketing efforts for over the past 15 years. When I launched my own blog, usually my own name, I had to do the same exact thing. Now five years later and the blog is still killing it and my brand is growing more and more everything.

Please don’t take this post as a means to brag, but instead to impress upon you the sheer power of what is possible through your determined efforts when combined with blogging. Whether you are looking to make money from blogging or just want to create awareness around your passion or even become a voice within your community… it’s all possible through blogging. In this post I’m going to cover just a small fraction of what I’ve been able to accomplish since launching my own blog back in 2007.

I’ve Created a Brand of My Own

For anyone that has been following the blog for a while now, you know that the design and concept is always focused on the “Zac Johnson” toon, which has been great for branding over the years. With the dollar sign shirt, the crown and the personalization of the toon, it’s the perfect way to brand myself and make a lasting impression. Even though the blog has had several blog redesigns over the past five years, the focus on the toon has always remained the same, which always continues to build on the lasting branding and impression made to visitors of the blog.

Make sure to read one of the posts I’ve written over at BloggingTips.com that walks you through the process of how to create a logo for your site. It’s actually much easier and cheaper than you think! The best way to start branding your site and making a name for yourself, is to start on day one!

“Zac Johnson” – As Seen on ABC News

What’s the price of getting coverage on a national television station like ABC News? Simply put… Priceless! Less than two years ago I made my first television appearance on ABC News on the Tory Johnson’s Job Club show. It was pretty cool to visit ABC Studios in New York City and get a behind the scenes look at what everyone else is seeing when they are watching television at home. Once again, this was all possible due to the exposure I’ve received through ZacJohnson.com.

Speaking at Conferences Around the World

One of the best ways to build a name for yourself, is through speaking at conferences and events in your area. The first conference I ever attended was CJU 2000 in California, then the first event I spoke at was during Affiliate Force 2000, which was an internet marketing cruise. Since then I’ve spoken at many well known conferences and events such as Affiliate Summit, SES NY, BlogWorld and even did a keynote in Australia for AffiliateSyd. As you continue to speak at more conferences and build a name for yourself, this will lead to more invitations and paid speaking positions… which leads to even more networking, contacts and business.

Free Products, Passes and Services

When you have a popular web site or blog that companies and people want to get exposure on, they may give you special deals, free passes to conferences and many times they will provide you with free versions of their software or memberships to their sites in exchange for a review. For anyone that already has a popular marketing blog, you probably already know what I mean. Many times you can get a free conference pass to internet marketing conferences just for applying for a free guest pass. This in itself can save you a few hundred dollars!

Winning Massive Contests and Promotions

Blogging can open up a lot of door ways and opportunities you may not even think about. In addition to continually being offered free / trial accounts to paid membership programs, software and other services, you can also enter a lot of contests and promotions that are only open to bloggers. Since going live with the blog, I’ve won a decent amount of contests and promotions I’ve participated in… winning such promotions as a all inclusive vacation to the Dominican Republic, tickets to Elite Retreat, Apple products, conference passes and much more. However, one of the most interesting things I’ve learned over the years from entering and participating in blogging contests and promotions… is that people are just too lazy to enter! Which in the end helps my chances of winning!

Building Amazing New Partnerships and Contacts

On top of everything else mentioned, you then have all of the contacts and new people you will meet through your blog. As many people as you think you may know, there are hundreds of not thousands of people who visit your blog every day and know who you are. This has been all too familiar from when I attend internet marketing conferences and people will come up to me out of no where and say they read the blog. You really never know who is reading your blog! It’s quite exciting and always a thrill to meet your readers in person.

Just from attending different marketing and blogging events over the years I’ve been able to network and meet (and become close friends with many) with not only some of the top people in the online marketing space, but also big name celebrities and bloggers like Marc Cuban, Pete Cashmore, Gary Vaynerchuk, Jalen Rose and many more.

You Need to Get a Blog of Your Own

Now just imagine if I stayed a quite affiliate marketer and just kept running my ad campaigns and minding my own business. Sure, this is a working model and a great way to make money, but look at all of the opportunities I would have missed out on had I not started my own blog… not to mention whatever will come out of the blog in the many years to come.

The bottom line is, this blog now has almost over 1,000 posts now is a massive resource and continues to grow every day. I get new emails and readers every day, and who knows what tomorrow will hold.

In all seriousness, growing a blog to the size of 1,000 posts and creating an authority site like this blog is today is no joke. It takes a ton of time, research, dedication and drive… and you can’t look ahead and try to rush the process.

If you don’t currently have a blog of your own, it’s so crucial that you get started today. It doesn’t matter if you are an affiliate marketer or a grandmother at home who would like to write about cats! Blogging is simple and can be whatever you want it to be. To make the process even more simple, you can even use my free blog installation service and get setup right away without the need to know how to install a blog or setup a domain name.

Here’s to the future of blogging and I hope you are ready for when the next opportunity comes knocking on your blogging door!

It’s always great to hear about how others are making big money online. Not only does it inspire us to do better, but it also expands the opportunities and reach for many marketers who aren’t thinking outside of the box. In a recent interview on oDigger, LeadsMarket‘s co-founder discusses how their top affiliates are generating over $200,000 a month in commissions through the promotion of pay day loans!

You can read the full interview at the interview link above, or review two of the most important questions covered in the interview below.

Why should affiliates consider promoting payday and cash advance offers?
There are 7 reasons why affiliates should promote payday offers:

1. Potential payouts from promoting cash advance offers is huge. Top publishers earn millions of dollars a year.

2. Unlike some saturated industries there is not that much competition to promote payday loan offers.

3. Popularity of payday loans have increased tremendously in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom mainly because of the economic recession and now depression.

4. People in need of a payday loans tend to fill out the application at an extremely high rate. Typical conversion rate from search traffic is about 70%.

5. Publishers can start promoting payday loan offers without having a large advertising budget. Email works very good for generating payday loan leads.

6. There are lots of low competition keywords in the cash advance space that can generate huge ROI for search marketers.

7. It is a great time to get started in the payday loan industry. Number of people that need a payday loan keeps increasing every day.

How much do your highest earning affiliates make in a month?
One of our publishers makes about $200,000 a month.

As you can see, the pay day loans business is doing quite well and it’s quite motivating to see affiliates generating over six figures a month from their efforts. This also shows that LeadsMarket knows what they are doing and how to turn their affiliates into true money machines! The way LeadsMarket treated their affiliates is referred to as the “Royal Treatment”.

Tell us about LeadsMarket’s Royal Treatment Program for affiliates.
We pay affiliates weekly. We have a full time in house IT stuff that can accommodate affiliate’s custom requests within very short period of time. We give affiliates lion’s share of the revenue. Each affiliate gets a dedicated account manager and technical support manager to help them with their account. We always give our top affiliates bonuses, gifts, and take them out to have fun during conventions.

So big deal… there are big players and six figure money makers with every ad network. The big question and interest is for all of the smaller players out there, and if they can really make money in the pay day loans market. This is another topic that was briefly covered in the interview.

Tell us a story about an affiliate who found success with LeadsMarket.
We signed up one affiliate from overseas few months ago. He is from a small country. We showed this affiliate the ins and outs of making money generating payday loan leads. We helped this affiliate with his website, hosting, helped set up his paid search campaign, supplied him with keywords, gave him FORMA widget. First month this affiliate made about $4,000 in commissions. Second month he made close to $36,000. He was so happy with results, he referred us 11 more affiliates from his country, some of which are his cousins whom he taught how to advertise online himself. All of these 11 affiliates are now making high commissions with LeadsMarket.com.

As you can see, there is plenty of success and great training behind all of the affiliates and affiliate managers at LeadsMarket. I highly recommend you take a look at the full interview and also sign up for LeadsMarket and talk with their affiliate team to see how you can be one of their next big success stories!

Is your blog currently in a rut?

Are you looking for that one creative way to massively grow your blog and online business this year?

Look no further, because the answer is here. And as you’ve probably guessed, mobile is that answer.

The rate at which mobile usage is growing every year is stunning, and I’m pretty sure it’s only a matter of a few years before mobile internet dominates standard internet usage completely; I know that sounds bold, but I have solid data to back it up.

Mobile Internet is Exploding Now, and You Need to Catch On!

Yeah, mobile internet is really exploding right now.

In the past few years alone, mobile internet has experienced such a huge growth that it has been predicted that mobile internet usage will take over desktop internet usage in 2014. Yes read that again; it means 2 years from now.

If that wasn’t enough, you’ll be surprised to hear that mobile payment firm Square, has experienced a significant growth of over 25% in the past month. That’s a 25% growth in only one month, leading to an additional $1b+ in yearly revenue.

If you reread the above paragraphs, and you try to verify the data they’re linked to, you’ll notice they both have one thing in common: mobile. Both of the above facts prove that mobile is exploding, and right now is the time for bloggers to start venturing into it.

Of course, it wouldn’t be too late tomorrow, but those who capitalize on the opportunity now will reap the rewards forever.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, here are 3 creative ways to use mobile to grow your blog today.

1. Create QR Codes for Your Blog, and Start Marketing Your QR Code like Hell

Do you know what the next best thing since mobile is? It’s QR codes!

Fun fact you should know: 14 million mobile users scanned a QR code in June 2011; that’s 14 million people, in only one month, and for a new technology, too. You should expect that number to have doubled now.

What is a QR code?

A QR code, also known as Quick Response code, is a two-dimensional barcode that can be read using smartphones and dedicated reading devices, that link directly to text, URLs, emails, and phone numbers.

In other words, instead of having to remember thelongesturlinthewholewideworld.com, you just have to scan that simple image and you’re taken there. It’s that simple.

QR codes are booming right now, and it works in such a fancy way that everyone with a QR reading device wants to use it.

Create special QR codes for individual pages on your blog, your homepage, and other important aspects of your blog and you just saved your readers a few seconds of their time, which can add up on the long run.

How Can QR codes grow your blog?

QR codes are very popular and fancy, and a good way to expose your blog to a new audience.

A lot of people would probably never care about your blog, but you can get them to care by creating a QR code.

Print your QR codes on paper, give it out to people as flyers, stick it on popular notices and sign boards, and submit it to a QR code directory – that’s one smart way to grow your blog with QR codes!

2. Create the Best Mobile Design, and Distribute it Online

Yep, this is just like creating a very unique theme and submitting it to CSS galleries, other than the fact that themes are pretty much common these days.

Quality mobile designs are rare, and people just go for the generic designs lately. Create the best mobile design you’ve ever seen, and make sure it speaks a lot about your brand.

Create awareness about your mobile design, how you came about the idea, what it took to get it done, and how you plan for it to evolve in the future.

Peers in your industry will see this and blog about it, and some people will even come to you for recommendations about a good designer.

Doing the above alone won’t be enough, so you have to take it further. Once your mobile design is ready, start submitting it to dozens of mobile design galleries, and word will spread from there.

This alone will lead to additional hundreds or thousands of visitors daily, and word will spread from there.

Of course, you might not get the best kind of traffic, but you can expect a few of the visitors you get to stick; hundred additional quality readers to your blog a month for free, just for having a good design doesn’t hurt. Now, does it?

3. Create a Mobile App

Do you know the cool thing about apps? It’s that they can help your business grow exponentially.

iTunes is currently one of the biggest mobile directories in the world today, and the Android marketplace recently surpassed 500,000 downloads in a day.

These are cool opportunities you can capitalize on.

A few dozen additional visitors a day from iTunes wouldn’t hurt, and when you add more to it from the Android and Blackberry marketplaces, it’s only a matter of time before the traffic becomes significant.

Create the best mobile apps that make it easier for your readers to get more of you, submit the apps to iTunes and other app directories, get your readers to use them and rate you highly, and expect huge traffic increases for your blog as a matter of time.

What Do You think of the above Creative Ideas?

Of course, none of these ideas is groundbreaking, but you don’t need groundbreaking ideas to succeed online.

You only need ideas that work. And the ideas above work.

What do you think about the above ideas? Do you have any more mobile ideas that can help your blog grow?

This guest post is written by Paul T, an expert at helping people get SIM only plans.

With more and more web sites and blogs getting the axe from Google Adsense, it means there going to be a lot of people looking for new ways to make money with their blogs and traffic. Besides creating your own products and selling your own ad space, writing sponsored reviews is an excellent way to make money with a blog.

Social Spark is one of the top choices for when it comes to finding high paying and quality names and brands that are looking to gain exposure and quality reviews from blogs around the internet. The difference between Social Spark and other blog review networks out there, is that Social Spark is run by Izea and they have massive reach and can pull in high end advertisers that are willing to pay a lot of money for exposure on your blog.

Who is Advertising through Social Spark Reviews?

You may be asking yourself, what type of high end companies are actually buying review services through Social Spark. Many of them you will already know, such as… American Greetings, AT&T, Disney, Samsung, Kraft, GoDaddy and more. There are actually two open reviews in my account right now from the Fellows and Scotts brands, which are both well known and high end.

How Much Can You Earn with Sponsored Reviews?

What’s great about taking sponsored reviews through Social Spark is that you can actually negotiate with the advertiser. Many advertisers will contact you directly to advertise on your blog, but if they pay isn’t high enough, you can then “negotiate” a new deal. The advertiser will usually get back to you, as they are looking to get exposure for their brands and bring in new customers.

Payments range anywhere from a few dollars, all the way up to $500 per post if you are accepted as a premium network blog!

How Do Advertisers Find My Blog?

Once you sign up for Social Spark and add your web sites and blogs, you will then be in their directory of sites that the advertisers can see. You will also be asked to sync up your Google Analytics so the advertisers can see and verify your traffic. The more traffic and higher ranking your blog, the higher payouts you can expect to receive. In the end, the advertisers and brands are looking for quality sources to gain incoming links, build relationships with readers/customers and create brand awareness.

All the Other Good Stuff…

There is a lot to be said about sponsored reviews and blogging, but Social Spark already has all of that covered. When the FTC and news came out that blogs would have to offer full disclosure on “paid reviews”, Izea was extremely happy because they already had all of this in place. This is another reason why they can attract such high paying advertisers and well known brands.

Bloggers… What You Need to Know!

As mentioned, with Google Adsense wiping out accounts and taking your funds with them, many bloggers are looking for new ways to make money with their sites. Choosing to use a network like Social Spark will open up new revenue paths that will pay you on a much higher CPM and placement rate than Adsense ever will.

It’s all about building authority blogs and web sites that rank well and provide quality content for your readers. As a blogger you wouldn’t want to accept every sponsored review that comes along, but only those you are interested in and are relevant to your blog.

Jon Social Spark and see what offers are available for you and your site.

Recent changes to Google’s privacy policy were the talk of the town recently – could they have anything to do with the de-indexing of many large sites recently?

Getting Google to notice your website is a lot of hard work at the best of times and a little like trying to get that enigmatic girl across the room to notice you. There are countless different techniques we can use and there’s loads of advice on which of these is the best, but ultimately if Google should change its mind on what it considers the ‘right way’ to promote your site then this is going to result in your effort being for naught.

This is something that blog networks now know all too well. The idea behind a blog network is simple – that a number of blogs will agree to link to each other in order to share link juice and to help them to gain more visibility on Google. In rare cases some will even share advertisers across the blogs.

This idea is sound in theory, but in practice it fell foul to the machinations of many a black hat SEO strategist who saw this as an opportunity to quickly ramp up the PR of a new site – simply get involved in a blog network and you’ll suddenly have a ton of reciprocal links from other high-powered sites and Google will take notice.

But Then…

Until just recently when Google, with the wrath of a slighted God, smote those who would try to take such short cuts. Hundreds of sites were seemingly over-night ‘de-indexed’ from Google so that they lost all of their sticking power in Google.

And because so many of these sites were completely reliant on Google for all of their traffic, it is no surprise that several businesses folded as a result (not least the ones that were running the blog networks such as BuildMyRank). Largely this could be seen as a smart move by Google to get rid of more spammy sites, but there certainly were some innocent victims involved – and several sites using blog rolls (just listing their favorite blogs – which often would be reciprocal due to the friendly nature of the blogosphere) were  similarly penalized.

How Did They Do It?

The question though is how did Google accomplish this? And more pressingly – could it have anything to do with their new privacy policy? Google has released their new privacy policy which states that information will be shared across their services – such as Google Analytics, AdSense, Google+, Search, Googlemail etc etc. The official line is that these policy changes are there to help provide a more seamless experience for users so that they might get recommendations that are more tailored to them etc – but could Google also be using this privacy policy (which has been called into question by EU officials as breaching their privacy laws) in order to improve their algorithms?

While there’s no way to know for sure, it’s certainly something of a coincidence that Google chose now to strike all of these blog networks – just as they had the legal means to use all that data. And to find and de-index each of the sites by hand would have been a hugely laborious job…

What This Means

As the dust settles there will of course be some very unhappy webmasters and bloggers without a home. In some cases it’s deserved, but in others it’s a genuine shame – especially those people who received damaging links completely innocently. Sometimes it seems when Google acts out in such ways with so little warning, that they forget how many people are dependent on their service to make their livelihood.

The most important lesson to take from this – other to be weary of the new privacy policy and to be very careful how you build your links – is that it’s pure folly to be too reliant on Google for all your traffic. Make sure you have a clear picture of what your business would be and how it would carry on if Google were to de-index you tomorrow. Because it could happen…

This guest post was written by Jeet, of GetLinksPro.

It’s been a few weeks since I first wrote about Google Adsense banning my account and graciously taking the money that I was earning in my account. It wasn’t much, but money is money and it’s always nice to have…. however that isn’t the topic for this post. Instead we will discuss how getting banned from Google Adsense can be a good thing.

It’s important to note that I really hadn’t been using Google Adsense for the past several years to generate any significant income. The sad part is that my account was super aged and had more personal meaning than anything else. It was one of my first big money accounts, with over six figures in earnings over the past decade and was loaded with tons of great stats and memories… nonetheless… we move on. Instead of sulking and being sad, as internet marketers, web site owners and people in general… there is a gold lining it nearly everything, which is the end focus of this post.

How Getting Banned from Google Adsense Can Be a GOOD Thing!

Granted… there is nothing good about getting banned from anything, especially if you had owed money in your account and that also gets taken away. However, with more and more internet marketers and site owners coming out with their own stories every day about how they are getting banned from Google Adsense, it an lead to some improvements in your every day business life. Instead of looking at the negatives of getting banned from Google Adsense and potentially looking at just giving up, here’s a complete spin on the concept…

Share Your Stories and Become a Voice

Since going live with my first post a few weeks back, I’ve had a lot of people email me and even link back to the site from several articles across the web. Heck, I was even listed on Problogger today as a result of the story. I’ll gladly take that type of exposure any day. Back to what I was getting at… the accounts getting banned from Google Adsense is nothing new, and many people wouldn’t know this unless people were making this public and sharing their stories. Spencer Haws was another well known name who was doing a nice amount of volume with Google Adsense, then had his account banned as well. Behind just the few of us, there is a long tail of names going through the same experience with Google.

Remove the Clutter, Increase the Gain

I must admit… For years I’ve had a massive amount of domain names and niche web sites floating around the internet. This would result in most of the Google Adsense revenue that would trickle in, but it would also result in hundreds to thousands of dollars every month to renew all of the domain names. Once my Google Adsense account was banned, I simply said “Screw it!”… I no longer wanted to waste time with all the little sites and ideas I had over the years, and if there wasn’t any PageRank associated with the domain names, I simply let them expire. The result? A lot less headaches and annoyance, while also allowing me to focus on the projects that matter.

Better Monetization and New Partnership

This one goes out to the many other people who were running Google Adsense, or still are. There are plenty of ways to monetize Google Adsense, and if you are willing to lose your traffic for just a few pennies, you really need to learn about better ways to monetize your traffic and site content. As mentioned, since I was banned from Google Adsense I also removed a ton of the clutter and smaller sites I had laying around. This allows me to focus on bigger long term monetization, such as product build and working with direct advertising and branding.

Life After Google Adsense…

As the terms and conditions say, once you are banned from Google Adsense you are pretty much banned for life. IF you have a serious business and were chugging out mega money with their platform, you have two different options. The first is to create a new company name and business, then sign up for a new account… but don’t associate it with your sites in your banned account. The other option is to move on (like I did), and just forget about Google Adsense and find better options that allow for better profits and growth for your sites.

The bottom line is, Google Adsense is going to make millions of dollars every day for millions of people around the world… and their business is legitimate and makes it EXTREMELY easy for any web site to start making money without any marketing knowledge. With that said, there is a reason why Google Adsense is so stupidly easy to use, and that is because they are taking a huge chunk of the profits. It’s up to you to decide how you will monetize your sites and if you would rather be lazy and make a few dollars with your current ad system in place, or put in the time and work to make more money and grow your web sites and business to new levels.

You can tell people how to start a blog, create an ad campaign or even provide them with a step by step business plan… but in the end, how many people will actually follow through? The answer is, NOT MANY. The majority of people are just too lazy or give up way too fast. Yes, blogging is one of the easiest ways to start a web site… but there is a reason why most blogs fail and fizzle out to nothing and never make money. Setting up a blog is nothing compared to what it takes to grow a blog and make it into something special.

You’ve created a blog, produced great content and have a few hundred readers and some people are actually leaving comments on your blog… but your revenue and goals for the blog are still nothing. It will usually take at least a year or two to build yourself as an authority in any niche, and that’s a low estimate. Another problem that many bloggers just starting out have, is that they don’t have money to invest in advertising and getting people to their site.

So what’s the solution… Guest Blogging! Sure, you’ve heard of guest blogging before, but how many of you have actually spent the time to create a quality guest post and search out a quality blog for you to possibly get featured on? Most likely very few of you.

The truth is, guest blogging is free and for anyone who isn’t taking this opportunity seriously, it’s a big business mistake.

In this post we are going to highlight some important questions and answers about guest blogging, while also covering some guest blogging secrets and killer resources that are around the web.

If you’ve been struggling to grow your blog, make money online and become a niche within your market, this is the perfect guide for you.

Guest Blogging Guide and Questions

Before you start guest posting on your own, you need to make sure you have a good idea how guest blogging works, along with the proper etiquette and expectations from blogs that allow guest posts on their sites. Guest blogging isn’t just about getting inbound links, it’s a complex process that can grow your blog and brand by leaps and bounds… but if you go about it the wrong way, it can also come back to haunt you. The follow questions are some of the key points and discussions that you will need to know to become a successful guest blogger. Also be sure to check the killer resources at the bottom of the page, as this full post and resources are really the only thing you need to become a successful guest blogger.

- What is guest blogging?

Guest blogging is the process of writing original content for blogs on the internet. The majority of blogs that are looking for guest post writers, will want at least 400 words of original content, a topic that is targeted towards their audience and provides value to their site. In exchange for providing a guest post on another blog, the guest writer will usually receive an author section at the bottom of the blog post, along with one or two links to their web sites or blogs.

- What are the top blogs for guest blogging?

Depending on your niche, the top blogs in your market will be much different from other niches. Some of the most popular blogs on the internet such as TechCrunch and Mashable accept guest blog posts, but they need to be extremely high in quality and it also helps if you have a great list of references or an already established brand. An updated list of over 100 blogs accepting guest blog post was recently released. The majority of these blogs are internet marketing and tech related. No matter what niche you are in, there are plenty of high level blogs and many of them are likely accepting guest posts. Take the time to write to each of the top blogs in your niche and see if they are accepting guest posts.

- What is the best way to approach a site that accepts guest blog posts?

The way blogs accept guest bloggers can vary. On my sites I use a simple contact form, where I will talk with the guest writer before accepting their posts. Other blogs will allow you to sign up for a WordPress author account on their site, which you can then write up posts through the WordPress area. If the content is approved, the blog owner will publish your content and you will be able to add future posts simply by logging into your account and writing new content.

If you are going to be sending an email to a blog owner about posting your blog content, you should make the email personal, short and sweet. The majority of large blog owners out there get a lot of email and they don’t have time to go back and forth on every email they get. Write something personable about how you like their blog, read it often and would like to contribute a guest post. If they don’t have an author registration on their site, it’s best to include your full blog post within the email. You do not want to send an email that says “Can I guest post on your site?”, then follow up again asking what to write about etc… this is wasting the blog owners time and just making you look like an annoyance. You can see a sample of this writing practice on our “7 Major Tips to Be a Better Guest Blogger” post.

- What are the benefits of guest blogging?

The benefits of guest blogging are huge. As mentioned earlier, as a guest blogger you will gain back links in your author section at the bottom of most guest posts. Not only can these links help with seo and rankings in the search engines, but it will also help drive people back to your site. It’s one thing to write a guest post that gets accepted, but writing a killer post that people really enjoy and comment on, will make them that much more likely to click on your author links and visit your site.

Another benefit of guest blogging is simply getting your name out there. There really is no better and more cost effective way to get your name, content and picture out to thousands of readers just for taking some time to write up a quality article. One people start seeing your name and content on various other blogs, you will find that your branding and credibility continues to increase with time… as does your own blog’s traffic and branding.

- How can I become an authority through guest blogging?

Becoming an authority in any niche take a lot of time. Don’t expect to throw up a blog and become an instant success over night… or even within a few months for that matter. Many bloggers will need to write killer content and be at the top of their game for years before they become established and an authority. The keys to becoming an authority in any space, is knowing everything about your market, while also providing your readers will content they are just waiting to read. Tutorials, guides, news and interaction are all key factors to becoming an authority, and it also helps to grow a mailing list and start your branding efforts from day one.

- How can I make the most out of my guest blogging efforts?

When writing guest posts, it’s not simply about writing a post, sending it out to a blog and getting a link back. If that is your end goal, you are missing the point. First off, you want to make sure that you are writing something really great that people are going to want to read, benefit from and SHARE. The next important thing is that you interact with the people that are reading your content. If people are leaving comments, make sure you take the time to respond to all of them. It’s also a good idea and courteous for you to share your guest blog posts with your own social networking audiences. This is a great way to spread your content around while also helping out the blogs that are publishing your content.

Can I outsource guest blogging?

There are plenty of guest blog services out there, and they are also many reason why you may or may not want to use them. A few reasons why you WILL want to use them is simply because they will save you a ton of time and do all of the dirty work for you, such as contacting blogs, writing articles and getting them approved and live. Some reasons why you may NOT want to use outsourcing for guest blogging is that it will cost you money, and if you are using your personal name or branding, you probably don’t want articles and content being spread around that says it was written by you when it really wasn’t.

If you are looking to have guest blogging done to bring attention to a blog or web site simply for link building, guest blog services range anywhere from $15 to $200 per guest post published. The huge price difference is based on article quality, the authority and ranking of the sites that are posting articles, and within what niche.

Great Free Guest Blogging Resources

As you can tell, guest blogging is quite powerful and when focused on enough, it can really propel your business and brand to new levels. With that said, it’s important to spread around some of the best guest blogging resources around the web, along with interesting posts and articles on the topic.

• 

  My Personal Guest Posts on Other Blogs – I’ve written a couple thousand blog posts across my own personal blogs, but I’ve also been doing some guest blog posting as well. Not only is it fun, but it’s also spreading my blog and brand to other blogs and audiences that might not have heard of me year. This page features some 30+ articles I’ve written for various blogs across the internet.

• YoungPrePro.com – What if I told you the God Father of guest blogging was actually a young kid? Well, he might not be the God Father, but he is freaking awesome at guest blogging. I first talked with Bamidele Onibalusi a couple years ago and he has written for many of my blogs. Onibalusi is a 20 year old kid from Nigeria, who just started his blog back in April of 2010 and is already making a few thousand dollars a month through his blog, guest blogging and writing services. I’d like to think my 30 guest blog posts are impression, but Onibalusi has well over 300 guest blogs posted in the past couple of years!
• 100 Blogs Accepting Guest Posts – The best way to get started with guest blogging is to simply get started right now. BloggersPassion.com released a great list of 100+ blogs that are currently accepting blog posts. The list also include the Alexa and Google PageRank for each blog. The list is made up of most social media, internet marketing, design and finance related blogs.
• My Guest Blog – I  haven’t used this service yet, but I’ve seen a lot of people talking about it. You can join My Guest Blog and start networking and setting up guest posts with other blogs in their network. They also have a few guest blogging learning courses that you can download.
• ViperChill Guest Blogging – ViperChill has a great blog post full of information and case studies about his guest blogging experiences, along with a break down of all the benefits and link building power behind guest blogging. This is a quality post full of referral traffic stats, example blog emails and much more.
• Guest Blogging Guide 101 – Michael Chibuzor is another well known guest blogger, with over 500 guest posts under his name. In his guest blogging guide you will walk through the same steps Michael takes when writing and looking for quality blogs to guest write for.
• How to Build Links Through Guest Blogging – Niel Patel has put together an excellent step by step walk through of the process behind guest blogging, along with providing some useful resources and tools for tracking an writing great blog content.

For anyone who is active in the online media and social networking world, you probably already know about Klout. In the world of online marketing, having a social media presence and sense of branding and authority around your name is everything. I’ve never been one to take a huge advantage of social media and using social networks to their fullest advantages, but lately I have been getting more active. Since 2008, Klout has been measuring authority online and basically gives you a score and rating based on your overall presence, reach and influence online.

What is Klout?

If you don’t currently have a social networking account like Facebook, Twitter or Google+, you might not have even heard of Klout, or even care what it is. While Klout won’t really get you anything special, it is a great way to see how you stack up to the competition of online marketers and other voices in the world of social media. The full definition for Klout can be seen below.

The Klout Score measures influence based on your ability to drive action. Every time you create content or engage you influence others. The Klout Score uses data from social networks in order to measure:

• True Reach: How many people you influence
• Amplification: How much you influence them
• Network Impact: The influence of your network

How to Check Your Klout Score

If you are already tracking your Klout score, you probably already have a good idea where you are ranked. If not, you can sign into Klout.com right now with your Twitter or Facebook profile and it will sync up all of your accounts and provide you with a score.

As mentioned earlier, I was never really focused on using Twitter, Facebook and Google+ for interacting with others, besides posting about the latest blog posts and other cool stuff I came across online. So a couple weeks ago I started getting more active and it’s actually been quite beneficial as it’s been getting me active with some new people and a great way to share information and resources. Before all of this, my Klout score was sitting around 39 for a year or so. Now that I’ve been pretty active (mainly Facebook), you can see my Klout score is up to 54, up nearly 16 points in the last 30 days.

What Determines Your Klout Score?

The way Klout comes up with a score for you and your account, is how active you are in online social networks and how people are responding to your content. If you are reaching a lot of people and they are “liking” or “retweeting” your content, this is a good thing and would increase your score. True Reach, Amplification and Network Impact all play major factors in your overall Klout score.

• True Reach: How many people you influence
• Amplification: How much you influence them
• Network Impact: The influence of your network

You can see my track reports for the past month below, all of my factors have been on an upward trend since being more active in the major social networks.

How to Increase Your Klout Score

There is nothing magical about increasing your Klout score, it’s more about being active and providing quality content to your followers and being an influencer online. In the graph below you can see my activity on Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Clearly the most activity is through Twitter and Facebook. I use Twitter for mostly blog updates, Facebook for interacting with others and sharing content… and I still rarely use Google+, as I still don’t see as much overall activity from everyone I’m following through there. Still, this can all be improved, which would probably push me into the 60s on Klout.

Last year Mashable wrote up a post on 7 Surefire Ways to Increase Your Klout Score. I’ve highlighted their key points below.

• 1. Build a network. The key to increasing a Klout score is similar to finding success on the social web in general: Build a targeted, engaged network of people who would be legitimately interested in you and your content.
• 2. Create meaningful content. Adopt a strategy to create or aggregate meaningful content that your network loves to share with others. Provide links!
• 3. Engage. Actively engage with others in a helpful and authentic way. Ask questions, answer questions and create a dialogue with your followers.
• 4. Don’t scheme. Any gaming behaviors that fall outside the basic strategies will eventually catch up to you. For example, specifically targeting conversations with high Klout influencers will probably be more annoying than successful. If you keep focused on your network strategy and your content strategy, you’ll succeed.
• 5. Interact with everyone. Don’t be afraid to interact with Klout users with lower scores – it won’t hurt your own score. In fact, it helps build their score and in turn makes you more of an influencer.
• 6. Publish. Remember, you don’t have to make a movie or be elected to office to have power now. All you need to do is publish. Access to free publishing tools such as blogs, video and Twitter have provided users with an opportunity to have a real voice, so take advantage of these many platforms.
• 7. Keep at it. Don’t be discouraged by your score. It’s more important to just enjoy your social media experience and let the chips fall where they may.

Top Klout Score Users in the Blogging & Internet Marketing Space

When using and looking through Klout, you can set your account up as an authority in different niches and topics. Other users can also award you with “K+” points, which will rank you higher in these fields. You can look through Klout and view the top users in these area, and how they are ranking over all. I thought it would be a cool idea to list some of the top bloggers and internet marketers in the Klout world.

As you can see, some of the top influencers in the affiliate marketing and blogging space are already some well known names that you may already recognize, such as Darren Rowse Shawn Collins, Brian Clark, Missy Ward and Chris Brogan.

Increase Your Klout and Follow Me on the Social Networks

If you aren’t currently following using Klout, be sure to log in to their site today and find out what your score is. Also, if you aren’t currently following me on the major social networks, I would be glad to see you join and I will most likely follow and join you as well!

• Facebook – http://facebook.com/zacjohnson
• Twitter – http://twitter.com/moneyreign
• Google+ – https://profiles.google.com/105474291318164632556