Bloggertizer Blog

Submitting Your Blog to Bloggertizer; a Handy Guide

2008-08-27T09:48:00.003-04:00

Upon reviewing blog submissions, I tend to see the same sorts of (inappropriate) things repeated. So here's your handy guide on how to submit your blog to Bloggertizer.

Once you're registered and logged in, you can submit your blog.

The first rule is this: if it's not a blog, don't submit it. I look at submissions and I'll inactivate it if it's not a blog. This is Bloggertizer, not Generalwebsitertizer, or Forumtizer, Classifiedadvertizer, or any other tizer. If you pass this first hurdle and you actually have a blog, the submission form is pretty simple:

blog name: Enter the name/title of your blog. Do not use all caps. If you use all caps, I will deactivate your blog because it looks like crap. Treat it like the title of a book. Rule of thumb: If a word is longer then three letters, capitalize it. Here's an: Example of how to Type a Title.

url: do I really need to explain this? Caveat: it needs to go to the blogs home page, not a sub page. URLs that aren't to the home page will result in your submission being deactivated.

blog description: Describe in a sentence or two what your blog is about. Be accurate. User proper grammar and punctuation. Don't use all caps. Don't put "My great PR 4 blog" as your description. Play this game: You're at a party and a smokin' hot gender-of-your-choice asks about your blog and you want to impress them. Use the answer you would give as the description you type here.

will accept: Use these choices to indicate the type of advertising you will accept on your blog. If you CHECK it, it means you accept that type of advertising. If you UNCHECK it, it means you don't. Yes, I felt the need to explain that for some of our more challenged bloggers.

tags: Probably the most misunderstood. You get three tags, each a max length of 25 characters, to describe your blog. When the form loads, it loads with an example in the tags field: example: windows vista, windows xp, windows os. This is an example only! If you submit your blog with these tags (and your blog is not about windows vista, windows xp, or the windows os) I will deactivate it. The game again: if said hot gender-of-your-choice person from the above party were to ask you to describe your blog using three key phrases (or less), what would you say? Type those here.

Now hit the "Submit my Blog" button. Bloggertizer pings the URL you entered to make sure it's live. If it is, the blog gets added and it immediately shows up on the home page.

Some indeterminate amount of time later, I will show up. I will look at your blog with a cynic's eye. I will go to your blog. I will decide if your description is accurate, if your tags are accurate, if the site you entered is actually a blog. If you fail any of these assessments, or if you didn't adequately follow the Handy Guidelines above, your blog will get deactivated.

If your blog disappears, that's what happened. Want to talk about it? Feel free to contact me. Include the title and URL of your blog and your email address, and I'll tell you why I deactivated it. Maybe you can fix it.

Paging Fix and Changes to Tagging

2008-08-01T09:07:00.004-04:00

I found a mistake I'd made in the paging function: fixed.

After careful thought, I decided to limit the tags used to describe a blog to three. IMO, bloggers weren't being succinct and accurate enough with their tagging when submitting their blogs. Many bloggers were using multiple tags, sometimes a dozen or more, to describe their blog. It seemed to me upon review, that after the initial few tags, the remaining were peripherally associated to the blog at best.

So now tags are limited to three. You can enter more, of course, but only the first three will be used. So when you submit your blog, give careful consideration to the tags you use to describe it. More accuracy in the tagging will be good for everyone.

The change affects only new blogs: existing blogs will retain the tags they already have (unless I decide to go through and trim, which I might do for some of the more egregious offenders).

Blog on!

Appearance and Paging Changes; Cleanup

2008-07-29T14:43:00.007-04:00

First the most noticeable - I made some changes to the appearance of the blog listing page; it had begun to look crowded/cluttered to me, and the gray background wasn't working. So I changed the background to white, took out all the borders. It definitely opened it up....

Also moved the TradeRating a bit to the right and made it bold. I wanted it to stand out more. If you have interaction with a Bloggertizer member, either as a buyer or a seller, make sure you use the TradeRating to rate the experience. It's the only way we have to police ourselves and make sure the good people get noticed. Please note you can sort blogs by the owners TradeRating. It's an easy way to find bloggers with positive reviews.

With over 1,100 blogs now registered, the paging was starting to get ridiculous, so I revamped it into a simple << Previous : Next >>. Also added listing numbers. That did a lot to clean up the presentation as well.

After all that, I scrubbed the database and deactivated inappropriate entries. For the record:

A Squidoo lens is not a blog
A HubPage is not a blog
An article at eZineArticles (or any other article bank) is not a blog
An author page at Author's Den is not a blog

All this can be summed succinctly: if it's not a blog, then IT'S NOT A BLOG. If you don't know what a blog is, learn.

Two Hand-Dandy-Bloggertizer Tips:

#1 If you contact a blog about getting a link or article, make sure you also click 'save'. It's an easy way to keep track of blogs you contacted (or tried to anyway)

#2 Make sure you aren't filtering emails from webmaster@bloggertizer.com. All alerts from Bloggertizer, including alerts about new messages, password recovery, and EVERYTHING ELSE, comes from this email.

If you have any suggestions for Bloggertizer, please let me know.

When a Blog not a Blog, More Cleanup, More Advice

2008-06-09T08:57:00.009-04:00

A blog is not a blog when it's nothing more than a blatant advertisement for some new construction condo in Brooklyn, complete with phone number and email listed in the title and description. 'Blog' removed and user blyuma deactivated.

The blog 'Prdanag' is a goner too, for tag abuse. Please be descriptive and accurate with your tags, accurate being very key here. In this case, since I don't think it's a truly blatant abuse like the previously mentioned example, I left vothanhnien's account active and just deactivated the blog. If you're vothanhnien and you want the blog to be active again, email me and ask. Be sure to include the new tags you will use that accurately describe what your blog is about.

I also went through and deactivated blogs with totally inaccurate descriptions. I want to keep hands off as possible, but at the same time I want visitors to Bloggertizer to get the impression that there is some sort of quality control. So if you put as your blog description your blogs stats (PR, Page View, etc), or if you put something so generic as to be worthless ('general blog', 'anything'), guess what? If you guessed your blog as been deactivated, you guessed right!

DO NOT put your blog's PR in your title or description. Bloggertizer checks the blogs PR when it is submitted and updates PR values once a week. You know what? PR's change! And when you brag about your blog being a PR 4, and it's not, it sort of makes you look like a liar.

I recently wrote a post about some things a blogger should do to increase the chances of a drawing the interest of an advertiser. One of the main things I mentioned was using proper grammar. Yes, I'm going to pick on someone. The description for the blog titled 'unik':

its about reference and health information for the profesinal at the medical expecialy for the medcal doktor

Looking at the blog itself, I see it isn't an English language blog. That being the case, I think the user made a mistake by not mentioning that, and the description he wrote, while entertaining, is unlikely to generate any business.

Think of your blog listing as an ad. Be concise, be accurate, and be enticing. You are trying to get advertisers interested, not give them a reason to stay away.

Tips:
Use proper case
Use proper spelling
Use proper grammar
Be descriptive and accurate

Just these things alone will set you apart from the majority of listings and raise your chances of attracting the interest of a paying advertiser.

Spam from Ganesh

2008-06-05T07:18:00.003-04:00

User Ganesh sent a bunch of spam recently, where he was offering to place a link on his site in exchange for payment.

Hi friend. I would like to add your site link in my site. If your interested means Contact me and send me the payment.

In other words, he's not looking to buy, he's looking to sell, and while I don't have a problem with being proactive, I do have a problem when the message is spammed out to dozens of users.

Look, if you have a well-ranked blog about widgets, and you see another blog about widgets on Bloggertizer, and you want to send the person a message offering to place a link on your site in exchange for a link on theirs or a payment, that's OK. Sending a canned, spammy message out to dozens of users with blogs that aren't even related to yours is not.

Ganesh, your account is deactivated. If you got a message from Ganesh, don't bother replying; he won't be able to log in to get it.

Clean Up, Update, and Advice

2008-06-03T08:53:00.006-04:00

I went through the blogs today and did some pretty stiff deactivation for sub-par submissions. Most of the 'blogs' I deleted weren't even blogs, they were regular (albeit spammy) sites or false submissions, i.e.: Entertainment News title that led to a web cam site. All in all, I deactivated about 20 sites.

I try to keep my involvement in submissions pretty minimal. I rely on the community to let me know when a blog is inappropriate. If you come across a blog submission that doesn't belong, please click the 'Report' link and let me know. I review all reported submissions and take pretty swift action.

I got an email the other day from a blogger wondering if anyone is getting any business through Bloggertizer. The short answer to that is yes, some bloggers are, but most bloggers aren't.

The better ranking blogs are getting business. There also seems to be a lot of link exchange activity going on as well. But all the activity, both for links and posts, seems to be limited to the better ranking blogs.

If you, as a blogger, want to see more business through Bloggertizer (or any other pay-per-post service), there are some things you need to do.

First and foremost, you need to increase your blog's popularity. Not many people want a link or post on a blog that has a zero (or none) when it comes to PageRank. Same thing goes for indexed pages or Alexa rank. The prevailing thought is "What good is a link on a blog ranked 7,000,000 in Alexa, or with no pages indexed in Google?" The answer? Not much.

So as a blogger, if you want to earn with your blog, you need to increase its popularity. Write more original articles, do some link building, syndicate through FeedBurner or some other aggregator.

More Traffic = More Exposure = Better Ranking = More Opportunities to Make Money

It's simple in theory, but difficult in application.

No one wants a post or link on your 'blog' where all you do is 'review' different credit card application sites. Everyone coming to you blog knows it's bullshit and you're an affiliate driving traffic to credit card sign ups. Same goes for 'dating site reviews' and 'product reviews' and 'breakthrough medical miracle' and all that other crap. Everyone knows it's fake. So don't be fake.

No one wants a post or link on a blog where the author obviously doesn't know proper English grammar (or the grammar of whatever language they are writing in). Sorry, but that's the way it is. If you want to make money blogging, you have to be able to communicate clearly and concisely in whatever language you are writing in. Does you understands what am writing too you about?

No one wants to read about the newest and greatest Make Money plan you just 'discovered'. If your blog is one big advertisement for some bullshit scheme, don't count on making any money with it. Visitors can spot your 'infomercial', fake-ass blog a mile away.

Write well, write often, be original, and be credible. That's how you build traffic and links, and that's how you can get your blog to the point where someone will pay money to be on it.

SPAM From User business33

2008-04-29T06:56:00.009-04:00

A user going by the user name business33 recently sent a message to dozens of Bloggertizer members using the subject lines:

CashBlasterPro
Web 2.0

Message:

Hi,

Heather Tollison here... You have got to see this - WOW!

I found this new FULL INTERNET UPGRADE technology that is about to upgrade THE ENTIRE INTERNET to Web 2.0 standards and IT'S FREE! FULL Social Networking functionality on EVERY WEBSITE on the internet with a click of a button.

This is going to change the entire Internet OVERNIGHT.

Plus, they are giving away ONE MILLION DOLLARS to spread the word about it - and you can get a share for helping - NO COST!

Check it out at:
http://www.web2wow.com/business33
http://www.web2upgrade.com/home/site.html

Let me know what you think or if you have any questions.

Thanks,
Heather Tollison

I've deactivated this individual's account. If you received a message from this member, please ignore/delete it.

Bloggertizer is intended for use by legitimate bloggers and advertisers seeking to exchange services. Bloggertizer allows anyone with a legitimate email address to register. This means the community will get that occasional 'bad apple' who will abuse Bloggertizer's free service.

Whenever you get what you consider to be a spam email, use Bloggertizer's contact form to let me know and I will take action.

Thanks-

Edit: Seem business33 got in again and sent some more spam. The login function wasn't screening for active versus inactive due to my commenting out that section while testing. I've fixed that....

Are Blogs or Articles Better For SEO?

2008-03-31T06:31:00.000-04:00

By Anthony Gregory

In the last year or so blogs are starting to outpace ezine articles when it comes to getting your SEO keywords across to search engines. Is there really a big difference between the two formats when it comes to SEO?

Blogs are shorter, more concise and supposed to have an insider's point of view. They are also hot content that is intended to be timelier. Articles on the other hand are more thorough, informative and accurate. Articles are expected to be more detailed than a blog. Articles also have a more detailed, authoritative tone and could be backed up with more references or citations than a blog simply because it can be thousands of words longer. A really lengthy blog would be 1000 words but most are between 200 and 600 words max. Articles can be as long as twenty pages.

If your business is dependent on factors that change constantly, such as the stock market then blogs are definitely more valuable to you. However unless your blog is highly ranked articles have a better chance of being seen by more people on the Internet. This is because in an article you have more of a chance to reinforce and repeat yourself and genuinely elaborate on what it is you have to sell.

If you have a product or service you want to promote then it is probably best to use an article. If you need to get on a soap box about an issue to do with your product or service, create a blog. While both are often ranked well by the search engines, you're ultimate goal is to convert the user utilizing as many methods of persuasion that you can. This is why it is a good day to submit articles to both submit ezines and to have a blog to cover all of your bases.

Anthony Gregory is a SEO and Website Marketer. He can be contacted at: Sales (at) Brilliantseo.com

Lucrative Blogging - Latest 4 Interesting Steps to Jumpstart Your Blogging

2008-03-03T08:11:00.002-05:00

Lucrative Blogging - Latest 4 Interesting Steps to Jumpstart Your Blogging
By Sean R Mize

Blogging is the new news hub nowadays. People are increasingly turning to blogs for their source of information. The important thing is that you have to love writing for writing itself. Blogging can become a chore for others, because they have no passion for writing in the first place.

With that in mind, you can be ready to start your blogging adventure with the following steps in mind:

1. Make a checklist of what you want in a blog host. Examples are: ease of use, photo and media hosting options, format, social networking integration, etc. Blogger.com and Wordpress.com are best for words-mostly, while Multiply.com is best for media blogging with social networking.

2. Set up your account, and tweak the settings. The free blog hosts already have templates ready for your use. If you don't like their templates, you can always get other templates from websites like Finalsense.com, etc.

3. Determine what you want to write about. Unless you are doing a personal journal blog, you have to stay focused on your chosen topic or theme. More so if you eventually want to go into professional blogging.

4. Write! You got into blogging because you love writing, don't you? If ever you hit a rough patch in your idea-generation, or if you are facing plain old writer's block, all you need is a webcam and a microphone, and you can blab your afternoon away. Then, post it instead of writing something. Blogging is not restricted to the written word. You can be as free as you want with whatever medium.

Either way you choose to go about it, blogging is a medium that is here to stay. With blogging, you will be able to reach more people, be able to express yourself verbally, and reach a wider audience. Follow these steps, and you'll be on your way to blogging with pleasure!

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, 'Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide'

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 1574 articles in print and 11 published ebooks.

How to Start a Blog and Make Money Online

2008-02-27T13:29:00.001-05:00

How to Start a Blog and Make Money Online
By Suzanne Morrison

If you are new to the internet and wondering what an earth this blogging craze is all about, or if you already have your own website and you’re wondering why everyone keeps advising you to start your own blog, read on. I’m going to explain to you what a blog is, why you need one, how to set it up, promote it and of course, make money from it.

Blog is short for “web log” and is similar to an online diary or journal. The craze of blogging began in the very late 1990s and has started to become more and more popular over the last couple of years. Almost everyone seems to have a blog these days, from CEOs of large companies to webmasters, from world travelers to teenagers. Even my Dad has his own blog now! A blog allows you to communicate informally with people via an online journal, but it’s more personal and unstructured than a website and easier and cheaper to set up than a website.

If you have your own website, but haven’t yet started a blog you can easily start one using a free service such as Blogger or WordPress. Try to post to your blog at least once or twice a week on topics related to your website. Blogging will help your search engine rankings and open up the communication channels between you and your visitors or customers, encouraging them to interact with you and give them a reason to return to your site in future.

If you don’t have your own website and are looking to set up a blog quickly and easily I recommend opening a free account with Blogger. You can blog about anything you like, for example a hobby, a vacation, your home town, something political, a sport or your business. Just be sure to pick something that you are interested in and knowledgeable about. You can host your blog for free on Blogspot – all you need to do is pick a name that is relevant to the topic of your blog. Once you have set up your profile and chosen a template, blogging is as simple as sending an email to a friend.

There are many ways to make money from your blog, but here are a few ideas to get you started:

- Google Adsense - this is free to join and easy to set up. The ads will match the content of your blog and you will get paid every time a visitor clicks on an ad.

- Affiliate Programs – sign up for affiliate programs related to the topic of your blog and display links to related products on your blog. Clickbank, Trade Doubler and Commission Junction are good places to start, or do a Google search for “affiliate program” + the topic of your blog to find more affiliate programs. Whenever someone clicks through your affiliate link and buys a product, you will receive a commission. If you are knowledgeable about your topic you could also write product reviews to help increase your affiliate sales.

- Sell Advertising Space – if you have a popular blog you can charge people to advertise on your blog. This could be in the form of a text link, a banner or a graphic.

You are not going to make money with a blog unless people can find it. As soon as you have started to post to your blog it’s time to start promoting it. You can get your blog noticed by…

- Submitting your blog to blog directories – just search for “blog directories” in Google

- Asking other bloggers to exchange links with you – you put a link on your blog in exchange for a link from their blog.

- Writing an article related to the topic of your blog and posting it to article directories. Remember to include an author’s resource box with a link to your blog.

- Pinging blog ping services every time you make a new post – pingomatic.com and pingoat.com are two sites you can use to do this.

- Participating in forums related to the topic of your blog. Put a link to your blog in your forum signature.

Finally, once you have your blog monetized and you have started promoting it don’t forget to post regularly. The most important aspect of every successful blog is frequent posting, so be sure not to let the virtual dust gather over your blog!

Suzanne Morrison blogs regularly on various topics including travel, home business and internet marketing. Visit her Plug-In Profit Site blog to find out how she makes money online.

Make Money with a Site by Offering Free Services

2007-12-27T15:44:00.000-05:00

As I've promoted Bloggertizer in various forums and sites, one question keeps coming up: How are you going to make money with a free site?

Before I answer that, I'll digress into a little history. I started my Internet income journey in 2000 with a simple site containing hard-coded affiliate links in a directory format. Over time and as my programming skills advanced, I moved to dynamic sites pulling from databases stuffed with vendor datafeeds.

These sites were fairly successful, until the big search engine affiliate purge in early 2006. First Google, then Yahoo, then MSN.... my network of sites quickly dropped off the search results pages and my income plummeted by over 90%.

With the advantage of hindsight, I can see the error of my strategy. I was building sites to make money, not to attract users. My sites didn't provide any real, repeatable service. People dropped in via an organic search result, clicked through my site to the product they wanted, and bought at the destination site.

I didn't see them again until they did another search for that product. Once I lost position in the SERPs, I was doomed. I wasn't getting any repeat traffic. One by one, these once profitable 'traffic direction' sites fell out of the search results, leaving me with a network of over 60 sites that went from 3,000 visitors a day to around 50.

Now you're asking: I thought you were going to tell me how I can make money with a free site? What does that story have to do with anything? Here's the lesson:

Don't build a site to make money. Build a site to get traffic. Specifically, build a site to get repeat traffic. Once you get enough traffic, making money is easy.

So what kind of service should you offer? Look for popular sites right now that offer a service for a fee, then build a site that replicates that service for free.

How to Come Up with Website Ideas 1

2007-12-10T08:50:00.000-05:00

Want to start a website? Can't come up with any ideas? Believe it or not, getting an idea for a web site is the easiest part. Taking that idea, building a working site, and creating a user base is the hard part.

I was at a Holiday party recently (it's that time of year) and part of the compulsory activity is the greeting, you know: grip and grin, nice to meet you, oh you're a Cracker Barrel manager Me? I'm a web developer. A light began to gleam in his eyes.

"Really? A web developer? What kind of web site?"

I shrugged. "Pretty much any kind."

He sidled a little closer. "I have an idea for a web site," he said.

"Really?"

He nodded, lowering his voice. "How about I tell it to you, you can build it, and then we can split the money it makes."

I appeared thoughtful. "How about this," I finally said. "How about you build it and keep all the money."

"Why can't you be more tolerant," my wife said as the guy walked away in a huff.

True story, and it's happened more than once. Ideas are cheap, but if you haven't gotten past the hurdle of how to come up with them, here's one of the best ways to do it.

Start with a web site you already like BUT is missing one thing you wish it had. Now go build that site.

See? I told you it was easy.....

A few real-world examples:

The Digg founder was a SlashDot user, but didn't like the fact that only approved editors could submit links. So he built a site where ANYONE could submit links.

The guy who built PlentyOfFish had used various match-making web sites and had gotten tired of paying for a membership. So he build a dating site that was free.

CraigsList aggregated online services (mainly classifieds) that (at the time) usually charged a fee, and make them free.

Some folks liked the Wish List feature of various sites, but wanted a way to build wish lists from all sites. WishListr was born.

These are a few examples of sites that hit it big by taking an idea that was already firmly entrenched in the landscape and adding or changing one thing. No doubt there are countless websites out there that started by mimicking the functionality of another site with something simple added.

What are some of your favorite sites? What feature do you wish they had that they don't? Now... why aren't you building it?

How to Write Effective Articles and Blog Posts

2007-11-27T07:17:00.000-05:00

In this article, I'm going to give you tips on how to write an effective article for a blog or any other web site. Not one of those I'm-all-emo and need-to-vent diary blog posts or articles, but an organized methodology you can use to quickly and effectively communicate, the type of post written by marketers who approach writing articles as a business communication.

As a military officer, I'm often called upon to write memos and briefs. Most of these memos are intended to pass important information to higher ranking officers. Here's an interesting fact about high ranking military officers (and anyone in a senior position): they are notoriously short on patience.

It's not because they are impatient, mind you, it's because, in the course of a day, they have a lot to do. The must sift through an enormous amount of information and be able to intelligently discuss that information with their bosses and make appropriate decisions. And the higher you go in the military (or any other organization), the more demands there are on the person's time and the less patience they have for unimportant information.

You can think of visitors to your blog as the people you work for. They want the important information and they want it now! If you don't give it to them, guess what? There are a gajillion other sites in the search engine results they will go back to.

So here's the secret to writing effective articles:

1. Tell the reader what you are going to tell them ("In this article, I'm going to give you tips on how to write an effective article for a blog or any other web site.")

2. Establish your expertise and justification ("As a military officer, I'm often called upon to write memos and briefs....")

3. Tell them ("So here's the secret to writing effective articles...")

4. Tell them what you just told them (coming up)

In this article, I told you about the secret to writing effective articles. I talked about why it's important to be organized and concise in your written communications by making sure you present the information using an easily understood methodology that reinforces the information.

The easier you make it for your "bosses" to understand what you're telling them, the more likely they are to return to you in the future to learn more.

How to Choose a Good Blog to Advertise On

2007-11-19T08:12:00.000-05:00

Blog advertising is still a fairly well-kept secret in the Internet marketing landscape. Used properly, blog advertising can be very beneficial to the Internet Marketer. The key to blog marketing (and, in fact, the key to most marketing) is to do your research.

Here are some you can use to help you find the best blogs to advertise on.

Niche
Blogs are typically organized around a niche and usually maintained by people who have expertise in that niche. Readers of such a blog tend to be interested in that subject - that's why they're reading after all!

So before you contact a blog owner about advertising on their blog, make sure it's related to what you want to want to advertise. Advertising your Web Design business on a site about parenting probably isn't going to bring the return you're looking for. You'll get a lot more bang for your marketing dollars if you focus your marketing within the niche of your product or service.

As far as any sort of boost to your organic search engine position, links from related sites are much more likely to show a positive influence than links from unrelated sites.

Integrity
A blog should have - or at least give the appearance of - integrity. Read a few of the posts. Are they convincing? Do you believe what the blogger has to say? Does it sound truthful? Honest? Are they well written?

If you answer 'yes' to these questions, most other visitors to that blog are probably answering 'yes' as well. That's the kind of blog you want to be on.

Writing Style
A blog with a clumsy writing style, full of grammar and spelling errors will negatively impact a reader's perception. How can you build trust of expertise when the individual writing can't even spell?

Read a few of the posts to make sure the blogger knows how to write correct English (or whatever other language you are marketing in).

Web Presence
Do your research! Check the blog's Page Rank, Alexa Rank and other factors that let you know how well trafficked the blog is.

You should also check search engine indexing factors for the Big Three (Google, Yahoo and MSN), such as the number of pages indexed and the number of back links.

The greater presence a blog has, the more potential there is for your advertising to generate positive results.

Remember, blog advertising is more than just putting as many links or posts on as many blogs as possible. It's definitely a case where quality os much more important then quanitity.

These tips can help you make sure you get the most of your advertising dollars!

Inbound Links Part 4: Link Prices

2007-11-16T09:08:00.000-05:00

So how much should you pay for a text link? Most links are sold on a monthly rate, although you might occasionally see weekly. Many webmasters offer package deals, like a discount if you buy more than one month at a time.

It's important to remember that the length your link is on the page makes a difference in how much value it brings to your site in terms of assisting your search engine ranking. The minimum you want to keep a link in place is 3 months; I recommend 6 months or even more to get the maximum search engine benefit.

But how do you know you're getting a good price? Links aren't like going to the store and buying something off the shelf, where you already have a good understanding of its value. How do you value a link?

There are a number of factors to consider when trying determining how much you should pay for a link:

Traffic
How much traffic does the site get? The more traffic, the higher the price the site can get. One place you can check is Alexa. Although Alexa traffic numbers are skewed toward the types of site webmasters and Internet marketers visit, it can still give you a general idea of the traffic the site is getting. Another place to check is TrafficEstimate. Simply enter the URL of the site you want to check and it will return an easy to read graph charting that site's traffic.

What Page is the Link on?
Home page links are almost always more expensive than interior page links. Is the link only on one page or on every page in the site? Run of site (ROS) links are usually more expensive than single page links. Keep in mind a lesion from my Part 3 article though: ROS links probably won't be much help when it comes to enhancing your search engine positions. However, if your goal is pure advertising (getting people to click the link vice a link to enhance your search engine positioning), ROS can offer an economic solution, especially if they're on a site very closely related to what you are advertising.

Location of the Link
Where the link is located on the page can affect the price. The most visible spots (header, left or right column above the fold) cost more than the less visible (footer and below the fold). Above the fold means visible when the page loads, below the fold means visitors would have to scroll to see that part of the page.

What is the Site About?
If the site is a very competitive niche (poker, travel, electronics for example), the links might be more expensive to a site with similar stats, but a different topic.

PageRank
Although you should always consider relevancy first when purchasing a link, the PageRank of the site and/or page will definitely affect the price. The higher the PageRank, the higher the cost. Are higher PageRank sites worth the higher price? Some say yes, some say no, which leads me to think that sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren't. You'll have to experiment for yourself. My personal technique is to go for lower PageRank (3 - 5) at lower prices.

The Number of Outbound Links Already on the Page
The more outbound links there are on the page, the less the link should cost. Too many outbound links can dilute the referral power of the page and result in search engines not valuing the links. I'd recommend not putting your link on a page that already has 10 or more outbound links. There's also the risk that too many outbound links, especially links aggregated in one place on the page, are easily identified as paid links, and you want your link to appear as natural as possible.

All of these factors contribute to the pricing of a link. Just as with any purchase, you should shop around. You'll probably find a wide discrepancy between link prices even though site might have similar statistics.

If you are purchasing links for their advertising effect, you can quickly determine if they work or not. Purchase the link and then see if anyone is clicking it. If not, no need to renew it.

Links purchased to help with search engine positioning are harder to evaluate. First off, you'll have to keep the link in place for a more extended period of time (at least 90 days). Then you'll need some way to see if your site is climbing the rankings for the search terms you're targeting. Even if it is, you probably won't be able to assign a specific benefit to any one link.

As I mentioned in Part 3, a hand tool is DigitalPoint's keyword tracker.

Once you register, this tool lets you enter your keyword phrases and monitor their position in the top three search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN). Add your site and then add your top keyword phrases. Run a report BEFORE you start your link building campaign. As you execute your campaign, run the report on a regular basis to see if it's having any effect on your positioning.

Here's another tool you can use use to get a rough idea of link price. Although I wouldn't take the prices it suggests as gospel, it provides a way to compare prices among different sites and can give you some idea of link cost to start with.

Do your research, consider the factors I wrote about above, use the tools I recommend, and you're sure to locate some good linking deals that will benefit both your marketing and search engine positioning efforts.

Inbound Links Part 3: Buying Links

2007-11-14T07:52:00.000-05:00

In Part 1: The Factors I wrote about the factors behind why inbound links are so valuable to your web site. In Part 2: Reciprocal Links, I explained why reciprocal linking has pretty much gone by the wayside as an effective link building strategy. Here, in Part 3, I'll offer some considerations to maximize your return when it comes to purchasing links.

Relevancy
The site and page you're buying the link on should have relevancy to the page you're having it link to. Buying a link to your Internet Marketing site from a Real Estate site won't give you nearly as much bang for your buck as the same link purchased on a site about Internet Marketing. The site you are buying on doesn't have to be exactly the same topic as your, but it should be related.

An additional bonus of a link on a related site is not just that it can help your search engine placement, but can also result in visitors who click the link and visit your site. Why? Because it's related to why they are there in the first place.

Lastly, making sure your link is relevant lowers its profile and the chance that the search engines will think it's a paid link. A link from a home improvement blog to a power tools review site seems reasonable from e thematic point of view, while a link from that same home improvement blog to a site about skin care does not. Such a link would be more vulnerable to search engines classifying it as a paid link and degrading any positive influence it might have on your site's search engine ranking.

Anchor Text
The anchor text is the readable part of the link (<a href=http://YourSite.com/>Anchor Text</a>). When purchasing links, you should use your top keyword phrases as the anchor text for the links. However (and this is a big however) be sure to vary the anchor text.

When people naturally link to your site, they will use a wide variety of anchor text words and phrases. You want to mimic this randomness as much as possible. Pick the top ten, or twenty (or even more) keyword phrases and focus on and making those the basis for your links. Change the order and add other words to mix it up as much as possible while always keeping the focus on the main words you want to rank for. Say your site is about Blue Widgets. You might vary the anchor text as follows:

Blue Widget Reviews
Buy Blue Widgets
Blue Widgets for Sale
Blue Widget Model #44554
Blue Widget
Blue Widgets
Retailer, Blue Widgets
Blue Widget Store
Get Blue Widgets Here
Blue Widget Sale
Etc...

Occasionally using the URL of your web site as the anchor texts works too, since that's what many people use when they put a link on their site.

The last thing you want to do is buy a bunch of links all with the same anchor text! Having the appearance of a naturally occurring linking pattern will give your campaign the best chance of success.

Site-wide Links
Site-wide links are also called Run of Site (ROS) links. ROS links are a link on every page in the site. There's a general agreement among webmasters that ROS links are not as beneficial as a link from a single page.

Nothing signals a paid link so much as a link in the footer of every page on a site pointing to an off-site location. The other disadvantage? ROS links on a site with thousands of indexed pages can suddenly show up as thousands of links to your site, indicating an unnatural linking pattern. You usually can't vary the anchor text on site wide links either, so that could trip another flag.

Rather than ROS links, I recommend sticking with one link from one page.

Where the Link Leads
When buying links, not only do you want to mix up the anchor text, you also want to vary the URL the link points to. Have some links lead to the home page and others to interior pages. A good, general ratio to follow would be 60% pointed to your home page and 40% pointed to interior pages.

When you purchase a link and point it to an interior page, make sure the anchor text is relevant to the content of the page.

IP Address
Back in the day, when the Internet was young (and I was younger), one of the more common tricks was to buy a bunch of domain names and host them from the same IP address using host headers. The enterprising webmaster would then interlink those dozens (some times hundreds) of sites. The result was instant back links from a bunch of different sites.

When the search engines caught on, webmasters got smarter. They put their sites on different servers at different locations across the country. Although this method could (and still does) work, it requires dozens of sites on dozens of geographically separated servers, all with different WHOIS info (since it's suspected that search engines consider WHOIS info now). All those sites won't be of benefit if the WHOIS info shows they are all owned by the same company or individual.

Search engine algorithms are smart enough to look for relationships between IP addresses and WHOIS registration information, so when you purchase your links, make sure you purchase them from a variety of owners with a variety of IP addresses.

Link Age
For the most part, natural links don't come and go in a short span of time. Once a webmaster links to a site, that link tends to remain there a long time.

Purchased links, on the other hand, tend to come and go with more frequency, so search engines might follow a new link, but not yet count it when it comes to your ranking. If you're purchasing links for their search engine affect (and not just for pure advertising) and you're buying them on a monthly basis, I recommend a minimum of 6 months.

I've read the opinion in a few places that the suspected 'golden' age is 90 days, so I'd go twice as long to be sure. Even better are permanent links, but most sites don't sell them. Why? Because they make their advertising dollars by selling links, and if the links they sell are permanent, that limits their revenue potential.

PageRank Considerations
Webmasters have a tendency to go for sites with a high page rank, but picture this: After a few months, your new site has six inbound links, all from PageRank 6 sites or higher. Does that sound natural to you? Me either.

So when buying your links, my suggestion is to not even consider PageRank other than to make sure it's not a 0 or grayed out. There are a lot more PageRank 3 and 4 sites out there than 6, 7, or 8, so it would make sense that the majority of inbound links to your site come from sites with a lower PageRank.

What about Directories?
If the directory isn't a PageRank 0 or grayed out, I say it's OK to submit to. It might not help, but it won't hurt.

Topical directories are your best bet. Don't pay for a directory link unless the site is several years old, has a Page Rank of 5 or higher, and is very well indexed. If you know which page your link will be on, check to see if that page is indexed in the search engines and if it has a PageRank.

Some directories are so big and have their sub-sub-sub pages buried so deep in the site structure that your link might not even be discovered by the search engines. Check the listings already there too: make sure they are good, clean listings. Human edited directories are the best.

Number of Links on the Page
Google comes right out and says in their guidelines to limit the number of links on a page to 100 or less. There's a lot of discussion in the marketing community about just what they mean. But it's not too hard to find well ranked pages with more than 100 links.

What you want to check for is the number of links on a page that lead off site. If a page has more than 10 or 15 links leading off site, I'd be reluctant about putting my link there as well. Not because I think it would hurt, but because I'm not sure it would help; the links on such a page might be devalued because the search engines would suspect the links of not being natural.

Is Your Link Campaign Working?
Before you begin your link purchasing, go here:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/keywords/

Once you register, this tool lets you enter your keyword phrases and monitor their position in the top three search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN). Add your site and then add your top keyword phrases. Run a report BEFORE you start your link building campaign. As you execute your campaign, run the report on a regular basis to see if it's having any effect on your positioning.

Another thing you want to do is track the traffic coming to your site. There are thousands of traffic tracking sites and software packages out there, but here's a free one I use:
http://www.statcounter.com/

Register for your free account, add your site and add the code to your site. Now you can see the traffic coming to your site and where it's coming from. You can see what search terms people are using to get to your site. All this will be useful in helping you fine tune your keywords, content, and future marketing efforts.

If done right, link purchasing can significantly enhance your search engine position, resulting in a significant boost in traffic to your site.

Keep at it, keep optimizing and one day it will be YOU who's selling the links and making the advertising dollars!

Inbound Links Part 2: Why Not Reciprocal?

2007-11-12T08:28:00.001-05:00

In Inbound Links Part 1: The Factors, I wrote about the main factors that apply to inbound links: anchor text, link quality, link volume, time to appear, and link age. I also briefly discussed the catch 22 of launching a new site: how can you get inbound links if you can't get ranked so people can find it?

Ultimately, to rank well in search engines, you want lots of inbound links from quality, established sites with varying anchor text. You want these links to build up over time and not all at once.

The traditional method of link building was reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking is where webmaster trade links: you link to me, I'll link to you. There are three main problems with this approach:

1) Search engines degrade the value of reciprocal links because there is a very high probability that such links are not natural.

2) Reciprocal link building takes a lot of effort. You have to research to get a list of sites similar to yours, check their stats to make sure they are a good sites, initiate contact requesting the link, confirm the link goes up, put a link on your site, and occasionally go back to check and make sure the site hasn't taken your link down.

3) It's generally accepted that inbound links can't harm you (although they might not help), where you link to definitely can. Just because the site you are linking to now has a good status in the search engines doesn't mean it will later. If one of the sites you link to ends up getting slapped with the 'bad neighborhood' penalty, the outbound link on your site can cause you some damage.

A few years ago, reciprocal link exchanges were all the rage. These services enabled you to easily find willing link partners as well as way to confirm link placement and permanency. As the value of reciprocal links decreased and the threat of 'bad neighborhoods' increased, these services shrank or disappeared all together.

In today's Internet marketing landscape, the one-way, purchased link has replaced the reciprocal link as the main tool of effective link building.

Stay tuned for Part 3, where I'll write about the methodology behind effective link buying....

Inbound Links Part 1: The Factors

2007-11-08T13:23:00.000-05:00

It's no secret that inbound links are what make or break a site when it comes to search engine positioning. The more inbound links you have from quality sites, the higher your own site will rank. If the anchor text of those links and the theme of the sending site are related to the theme of your site, you'll get even more of a boost.

But building links is tough. In today's competitive market, you have to do something to get your site noticed. Once your site has been noticed, judgment will be made by the court of public opinion. If your site gives visitors something they find valuable, they will tell people and, occasionally, link to your site.

When it comes to inbound links, there are five main factors:

Anchor Text
Anchor text is the actual words that make up the link. These words are very important. They should relate to your web site and, most important, should vary. A lot of links with the same anchor text gives them the appearance of not being natural links, but rather links that have been purchased, swapped for, or automatically generated.

To keep search engines from mistakenly (or correctly) classifying your inbound links as not natural, use as much variation as possible in the anchor text of those links. When a thousand inbound links to your site show up, all with the anchor text of "buy widgets here", it's pretty apparent to the search engines that these links aren't natural.

When I do link building by commissioning blog posts, my preference is to not make any anchor text recommendations at all. I like the blogger to check out my site and come up with his or her own anchor text. In cases where the blogger is insistent that I proved anchor text, I provide a list for him or her to choose from instead of giving the same links every time.

Link Quality
Where a link originates from is very important. A link from a popular, well-trafficked site that's been online for years and already ranks well in the search engines is worth a lot more than a link from your friend's new blog. A few 'quality' links will do a lot more for your rank than a bunch of links from newer, less established sites.

PageRank is factor link builders use to determine the 'quality' of a site. Other things to look at are how long has the site been around, how many pages does it have indexed, and how much traffic it gets.

Link Volume
Link volume is the number of inbound links. Generally, the more inbound links a site has, the more important it's determined to be, as long as it doesn't run afoul of the two factors mentioned above.

Time to Appear
There's discussion among webmaster about whether or not how quickly links appear is considered. If a few thousands back links to your site appear all of a sudden, all with the same or close to the same anchor text, it will probably send up a red flag.

Other factors come into play here as well: is it just a link? What's the content around the link? What the quality of the site it appeared on? How does the theme of the site it appeared on related to your site? Did the links show up all in a clump (over a day or two) and then nothing? These are all reasons why you have to be careful with any sort of automated link building approach because natural links tend to build up over time and typically don't come all at once.

Link Age
How long a link has been around is also a factor. Links that are only there for a month or two will probably not help when it comes to enhancing your site's search engine position.

When most search engines discover a link, they'll keep an eye on it for a while before they give any credit too it. This is specifically to combat link buying, so that you can't buy a link on a highly ranked site and see an immediate result. There's no consensus on how old a link needs to be before it counts, but there is consensus that the longer the link has been there, the more value it has.

Summary
It's easy to find discussion on whether or not inbound links can hurt a site's ranking. The generally accepted theory is that they can't, since a web site owner has no control over who links to them. Personally, I'm not so sure. It never hurts to be careful, so before you purchase a link on any site, check the stats on it: Page Rank, Alexa Rank, number of pages indexed in Google, Yahoo and MSN and the number of back links showing in Google, Yahoo and MSN. I recommend staying away from sites that don't have good numbers.

Although ranking sites using inbound links as a factor on the surface seems democratic enough (the web community votes for what it likes by linking too it) it creates a catch 22: if you can't get your site ranked so people can see it then how can they link to it so it can rank?

Enter the process I'll discuss in Part 2, link building.....

Blog Editing Functionality

2007-11-07T07:10:00.001-05:00

I've added blog editing functionality!

To edit any of your blogs, click on the 'Manage Account' link. You'll see a new selection in the left hand column of management page when it loads: 'My Blogs'.

Clicking that link will list any blogs you've added to Bloggertizer. Each listing has an edit button which, when clicked will take you to a form where you can make any changes to your blog listing.

Why You Should do Blog Marketing

2007-11-06T13:58:00.000-05:00

Blog Advertising is a very effective way to reach online audiences and compared to other forms of online advertising can be very economical.

A post, link, or other ad on a popular blog can be viewed hundred, if not thousands of times a day. If you do your research and advertise on blog related to your website, product, or service, this could mean reaching a huge audience of customers interested in what you offer.

Yet online advertisers still seem to be wary of blog advertising. Considering the facts, this seems a strange position to take:

Fact: Many blogs can deliver over a million impressions a week.

Fact: A blog with 1,000 (or even fewer) readers a week can be influential if one or more of its posts spreads through the blogosphere.

There are three types of ads you can run on a blog, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.

Links
Topical, on-target links can not only drive traffic, but - if you target your anchor text - also contribute to organic rankings. In order to provide a boost to organic results, a link usually needs to be present for a minimum of three months... the longer the better.

Links are typical sold (on blogs and elsewhere) on a weekly or monthly basis. A link on a very popular site can be hundreds or even thousands of dollars a month. Good deals are available though, if you do your homework. Text links on moderately trafficked blogs with a PageRank of 3 or 4 can be had for as little as $10 a month.

Articles
It's a not-so-well-kept secret that many bloggers will 'sell' posts on their blogs. A typical paid post will run from 100 - 300 words and contain from 1 - 3 text links to your site.

The power of a blog post can be immense: a post typically lasts for the life of the blog - that means links in posts are permanent. Visitors to the site might not realize the post is actually a paid article. A positive 'review' article on a well trafficked blog can add some serious buzz to any marketing effort.

Some blogs are willing to post articles you've written yourself, others prefer to write them from scratch. While usually more expensive than links, articles can be had for anywhere from $5 - $100, depending on the popularity of the blog and whether or not you are requesting an original article.

Some bloggers consider posting for hire as selling out and refuse to do it. Others will only write a review about a web site or service they believe in, and then there are some who will write anything for pay. Do you research to make sure the blog is right for you before you contract for a post on it.

Banners
The banner ad has been around almost as long as the Internet. There's a reason for that: banner ads still work. You have to be creative with placement and the message, but a targeted banner ad on a niche blog can yield good results.

Banners, like links, are typically sold on a recurring fee basis, with prices differing according to the size and placement of the banner, as well as how long it will run. Some blogs charge by the month regardless of impressions, others charge by impressions. Banner ad prices tend to be similar to that of link prices when bought according to time. Impression pricing can run from a dollar or less per thousand impressions, up to $8 - $10 dollars.

Blog advertising should be a part of any online marketer's arsenal. Find blogs related to your niche, try a few links, posts or banners, and watch the traffic roll in!

Blogger Signup Special

2007-10-24T16:34:00.000-04:00

I've decided to run a Blogger sign up special! The easier $5 you'll ever make!

If you're a Blogger:

Register at Bloggertizer
Add your blog(s)
After you add your blog(s), simply write and post a 150 - 300 word articles about Bloggertizer and I'll pay you $5!

RULES

Blog MUST be a PageRank 3 or higher
Post MUST be minimum 150 words
Post MUST contain minimum 2 text links back to Bloggertizer
No redirects or rel="nofollow" tags
Proper grammar and spelling required!
1 post per blog
As many blogs as you want, each post earns $5*

After you make the post, simply mail the URL and your PayPal email to webmaster(at)bloggertizer.com. I'll confirm the post, check it against the rules, and send you your $5 if all the blocks are checked.

The Asterisk!
*Posts on multiple blogs must not be cut and paste of each other. They must be different. This is for original, unique posts only

Bloggertizer Gets Visible PageRank Graphic

2007-10-20T18:06:00.001-04:00

Big news (at least to me)!

I just finished adding a way to display page rank right in the blog listing. Used to be you had to click the info icon - you still do to get the rest of a blogs stats (Alexa Rank; indexed pages in Google, Yahoo and MSN; and back links in Google, Yahoo and MSN).

I also added PageRank to the sort options, so if PageRank is important to you, you can now sort blogs by PageRank, from highest down.

I hope this makes it a little easier to find the blogs you're looking for when it comes to blog advertising!

Why Build Bloggertizer?

2007-10-19T20:50:00.000-04:00

It's interesting me to understand the genesis of ideas, and since I'm egotistical, I figure you might want to know the story behind Bloggertizer.

About a month ago I launched a new site, [shamelessplug]Tizags Online Bookmarking[/shamelessplug]. I wanted to market it by getting bloggers to write a brief reviews containing keyword targeted text links back to the site.

When I searched, a few sites kept turning up: PayPerPost, Smorty, and Blogsvertise were the main ones. Sign up as a blogger and they would match you with advertisers wanting posts. You write the posts and get paid. As an advertiser, you register and submit your proposal. Once the article is done and posted, you pay the service and they in turn paid the blogger (keeping a cut for themselves).

Seemed good for advertisers, but... personally, if a post on my blog sells for $10, I like to get the whole $10, not $7 for me and $3 to some service who hooked me up.

The idea bulb (albeit a dim, low wattage one) went off and I thought: "How about a site where bloggers and advertisers can hook up, work out their own deals, and the blogger gets to keep EVERYTHING he earns."

So I took the custom programming I did for the Tizags site and modified for Bloggertizer, the main changes being:

custom script to do live stat lookups on the blogs
private messaging system to keep member emails private to the public
rating system to keep people honest

The best part? Bloggertizer is totally free, for both the advertiser and blogger.

If you own a blog, and are willing to accept advertising on it and want to earn some extra money, you should register and add it.

If you're an advertiser, I've worked hard to make it easy for you to find blogs in your niche.

Try it out and let me know what you think!

I'm Calling it Official - Bloggertizer is Live!

2007-10-18T19:27:00.000-04:00

Last Friday I ran a pre-launch promotion in Digital Point to kick off Bloggertizer going live. I invited 20 bloggers to register their blogs and asked them to poke around the site and make sure everything worked.

There a few wrinkles, but I go them sorted out easily enough. A few kind bloggers even sent some traffic my way with posts regarding the launch of the site.

Tomorrow marks a week since the pre-launch and I'm calling it: Bloggertizer is officially live. I'm sure I'll do more tinkering as time passes, and probably add more features at the request of the community, but everything seems to be stable and working.

So what is Bloggertizer anyway? I'm glad you asked....

Bloggertizer.com is a FREE blogger/advertising matching service like PayPerPost, Smorty or Blogsvertise, but without any fee. It's for:

-Bloggers who want to earn extra income with their blogs
-Advertisers interested in purchasing blog posts or links

How it works for bloggers
1. Register
2. Add your blog(s) (Title, URL, Description, Tags)
3. Respond to advertiser looking to buy posts or links
4. Earn extra income by selling posts or links

How it works for advertisers
1. Register
2. Browse or search to find blogs you want to advertise on
3. Click 'Contact' to contact the blog owner
4. Get traffic and generate 'buzz' with blog posts and links

Bloggertizer cuts out the middle man and leaves the deals up to the blogger and advertiser to work out.

Features:
Browse Blogs by tag, date added, blog name, blog owner, or TradeRating
Search Blogs by keyword(s)
View a member's TradeRating
View live stats for each blog with a single click (PageRank, Alexa Rank, Pages and Back links for Google, Yahoo and MSN)
Message Center (only share your email if you want to)
Hide blogs, users or tags
Save Blogs and create
Friends
TradeRating to keep users honest

Try it out and let me know how it's working!