Many people use web 2.0 sites as part of their linking strategy because they’re considered authority sites. But most of these users are missing the mark altogether and using this strategy all wrong.

First, let’s talk about what makes an authority site, well… an authority.

An authority site is a site that, among other things:

-Ranks well in the search engines

-Ranks quickly for new keywords and pages

-Is trusted for it’s content

-Is trusted for it’s links and anchor text

-And is spidered almost instantly

Some examples of authority sites would be Squidoo, Facebook, Hubpages, Wordpress.org etc.

Here’s a typical scenario…

A webmaster looking to get a link from an authority site such as Squidoo would, first write a content rich article, then go to Squidoo and create a Lens (a page) and link that page back to the home page of the site they are trying to get ranked.

There are several major mistakes that have been made in this process.

First mistake: Most likely, the keyword or keyword phrase being used in the article, is the main keyword for the site, since the page on the site that is being targeted is the main page or home page.

Second mistake: They are linking directly to the home page of the site.

These are mistakes because: The main keyword of the site is too difficult to rank for, it is most likely too general of a term to bring any qualified traffic, and there’s no link juice on the page to pass on to your home page, even if it is an authority site.

Second, the main page of your site is going to be too general and therefore too difficult to get ranked.

You may be thinking, ok… what if I am targeting a more specific keyword phrase and pointing my Lens to an inner page of my site?

Well, you’re halfway there

Here’s what I do and it works tremendously well.

Write a unique and informative article optimized for a second tier keyword phrase – and by optimized I don’t mean spammy, I mean a very human friendly and readable article. This would be considered a money phrase because it is more targeted and more likely to lead to a sale then a general term. It is also much easier to get ranked for.

Create a Squidoo Lens like before, using the new article and link that article to a Second Tier category or money page on your site that is optimized for that phrase.

Then, and here’s where the magic comes in, write 3 or 4 similar, unique, but much shorter articles optimized for the same keyword phrase and place those on Other Authority sites such as Hubpages or Wordpress and link those articles to your Squidoo Lens.

The chances of that lens now ranking in the top ten on Google for that keyword phrase have just increased at least tenfold!

You can mix and match this strategy to capture more than one spot in the top ten as well.

For example, now write another article optimized for the same keyword phrase as before and place it on a Hubpages page linking again to your Second Tier category or money page.

Then write 3 or 4 shorter article targeting the same keyword phrase and place them on Different Authority sites, one could even be Squidoo, and link those back to your Hubpages page.

Just like with the Squidoo results before, the chances of the Hubpages page ranking in the same top ten as the Squidoo page has just increased tremendously.

So now you have a Squidoo Lens and a Hubpages page both appearing in the top ten results for the same money phrase!

By capturing the first 2-3 spots in the top ten search results, you could easily get 60% of all traffic to the search engine for that phrase!

To take this one step further, now bookmark those 3-4 shorter articles using bookmarking sites like Digg, Stumble Upon etc.

No need to worry about being banned from the bookmarking sites because you’re not bookmarking your own site over and over, you’re bookmarking different pages on authority sites.

When you’re finished, why not twitter you’re new pages as well?

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Sometimes, people don’t click on our ads even when we think they’re great. There are many different reasons for this, and that’s why it’s so important to split test your ads.

Pay Per Click engines like Google Adwords actually make this easier than ever. You can set up two or more different ads so you can see what is the better performer over time. I recommend that you take advantage of this because you might find that one ad never gets clicks and the other gets great clicks and conversions.

Once you have these results, you can delete the non-performer and concentrate on the one that’s giving you the level of traffic and sales that you want.

It’s important to keep in mind that if people are searching and your ad pops up it should contain the keyword you’re targeting. That’s because the search engines highlight the keywords in your ad, which makes them stand out more to your prospects. This is a great way to get more clicks and more traffic.

So rather that putting all your ads in one ad group and throwing in all your keywords, seperate them into smaller adgroups.

Each adgroup should contain only the keywords that appear in the title and description of the ads in that ad group.

This in turn will increase the click thru rates, the relevance of the ad and the quality score of the ad as well which Google will reward you for by lowering your click costs and over time moving your ad higher up in position on the SERPs.

By having a high quality score for each ad, you may have a higher positioning in the SERPs yet pay less than the ads that appear below you.

Pay Per Click Tip #4 will be coming tomorrow so be sure to bookmark and come back!

If you found this tip useful, click the twitter link below and send it to your tweeps…

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The best thing you can do after you’ve selected your keywords is to test them out. Don’t start out with a huge bid amount because you can quickly lose money that way.

You’ll want to start off with a lower amount to see how many clicks you end up getting. It could be that you’re not getting as many as you expected, so you’ll want to increase your bids. Or, you might find that you’re seeing some traffic and high returns.

Don’t worry — testing doesn’t take long. That’s the beauty of PPC, the results come in almost instantly. You can determine within a few days whether or not you should discontinue your ads, tweak them, or keep them going as they are.

Being cautious is the most important thing at this point, because there are way too many people who dive in headfirst with PPC and then end up with a huge bill that just didn’t pay for the kind of traffic they received.

If you do this right, on the other hand, the results from PPC can be faster and even more profitable than they are with article marketing.

Pay Per Click Tip #3 will be coming tomorrow so be sure to bookmark and come back!

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There are many people who think that in order to rank highly in search engines, they need to stuff their keyword in their article an excessive amount of times. This is definitely not the best way to attract readers or get traffic to your website.

The search engines are also getting smarter and they know when you’re trying to game them.

It is much better to weave your keywords in more naturally. This will serve both the search engines and your readers. There is no set keyword density that works well, but many experts suggest you stick to around 2% or less. That means for every hundred words you would include the keyword about 2 times.

Remember — the search engines can tell if you’re trying to stuff your keyword in your article. Their main goal is to provide a good user experience for people who use their search engine, and your main goal is to get people to your website.

It makes sense, then, that you would strive to provide good content that the search engines will like and that people find useful when they visit your website.

Article Marketing Tip #3 will be coming tomorrow so be sure to bookmark and come back!

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As I mentioned earlier, it’s very easy to get carried away and pay too much for your PPC advertising. That’s because your ad might be shown more than you expected, and a lot of people click on it. If you haven’t tested this you can lose a lot of money.

The absolute best thing you can do is to plan ahead and learn all you can about this method of traffic generation. The first step in planning is doing proper keyword research. You want your ads to be highly targeted so that when people search and your ad pops up, it entices them to click.

For example, if you are selling a certain brand of MP3 player you wouldn’t want your ad to pop up for the search term “CD player.” Instead, you would select keywords that are targeted to strictly to MP3 players.

Before you even start your campaign you need to use the Google keyword tool ( or something similar) to determine what your keywords should be.

The Google keyword tool can be found here:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

This careful planning will help you earn money instead of losing money.

Pay Per Click Tip #2 will be coming tomorrow so be sure to bookmark and come back!

If you found this tip useful, click the twitter link below and send it to your tweeps

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