Awesome to see you again! Have you already subscribed to the RSS feed so that you don't miss anything? Go ahead! Don't miss any yummy SEO/Marketing Talk!

A topic I see a lot of questions & confusion about is article marketing. So let’s discuss.

As with many types of link building and promotions, you need to determine your goals before you create your strategy.  Is your primary strategy to:

• Build backlinks
• Get click-throughs
• Primarily build backlinks with the hopes of also generating some click-throughs

Once you’ve determined what you’re after, then you can best create a strategy based around your goals.

Some people see good click-through results with article marketing and some don’t. Don’t set your expectations terribly high and don’t set them based on what someone else experiences. The key is to find out what works for YOU.

If you’re mainly after backlinks with the hopes of also seeing click-throughs, or mainly after backlinks for SEO, then you should submit your articles to a bunch of article directories, 50-100 (one article spun (50 spun articles/100 spun articles) to this number); then another spun set of articles and so on.

If you’re mainly after click-throughs, then you need to focus on what article directories are most lucrative for click-throughs.

If you opt for the primarily to build backlinks, or primarily build backlinks with the hopes of also generating click-throughs and submit articles to lots of article directories you’re likely to start increasing your search engine ranking (but you need to be doing some other types of link building too) and see some click-throughs but don’t set your hopes too high on click-throughs.

Sometimes  your article on various directories will rank highly in the search engines briefly and get you some visibility, sometimes people on the article sites may click through to your site, but whatever the case you are building backlinks to increase your site’s SE ranking.

Just be sure you understand your goals, create your strategy from there, monitor results, adjust accordingly if needed.

My personal advice is to integrate article marketing into your visibility strategy as a backlink builder (because the ultimate goal is ALWAYS to increase search engine ranking) and be happy with the click-throughs you get. If you submit your various articles to a bunch of directories then you’re getting backlinks but you’re also exposing yourself to click-throughs from the article sites if they’re going to come.

~k, Visibility Specialist
@areaK on Twitter
@areak on Facebook

Need more links? The Link Vines team will build them for you!

Forum posting is not a new technique but it’s consistently a great traffic source for blogs I use it on and it’s a multi-faceted attack. Forum posting gives you the benefit of both backlinks and targeted organic traffic.  I get a good amount of organic traffic from it…plus it’s targeted traffic because the forums I’m in are related to the niche of the blog I’m representing on that forum, and I get a good number of backlinks from it.

Whenever I check my links for a blog, I consistently see my forum links and I generally see them pretty quickly.

(And I usually get extra benefit from forums by learning some new information, getting some new ideas or finding some resources since the forums I’m in are related to whatever blog/site I’m representing them in. You may even learn about an additional problem in your niche that you can solve for people or improve on your existing site by improving your solution or getting ideas for blog posts.)

And you’ve heard that forum posting can help you become an authority in your niche, and it can. I have had people message me and say “I’ve read a lot of your forum posts and I’d like to ask you about xxxx or will you review my new xxxx” or have people go to my blog from the forum and leave a blog comment. You generally have to be reasonably active within a forum to have this happen but if you are, it truly can help boost your authority.

Not to mention, it’s a GREAT way to find people looking for a solution to a problem that you have solved for them. If you get in front of them, they’re bound to look because they have that problem. Get out there and find forums in your niche and get in front of people that are discussing and looking for the solution you have.

So, again, it’s not a big secret, it’s not a brand new technique but it’s one that I consistently see in my blog stats for organic traffic and one that I consistently see in my backlink reports.

A lot of forums will allow you to use anchor text in your signature, and if they don’t at first, they often will after you’ve made a certain number of posts. The more you actually contribute to the community the more you’re likely to get organic traffic directly from the forum.

It’s such an easy way to accomplish a number of goals: getting backlinks, driving organic traffic, getting in front of targeted traffic, establishing visibility and authority; and even gaining new ideas and resources.

I bet if you set aside an hour a day for the next 2 weeks to interact in forums, you’ll see some traffic coming in from them and you’ll see them popping up in your backlink reports.

Don’t forget about this traffic builder.

Forums are still “in”!

Are you already using forums to increase visibility? What have been your results thusfar?

~k, Visibility Specialist
@areaK on Twitter
@areak on Facebook

Need more links? The Link Vines team will build them for you!

photo credit: Tifa^

photo credit: Rego – twitter.com/w3bdesign

Comment Luv is a Wordpress Plugin that shows some love to your commenters by adding a link to their last blog post under their comment. It’s a nice little thank you to your commenters and it’s also an encouragement for them to leave comments.

I think it’s nice to show people a little love back and to give them a little incentive to comment. Personally I love comments and enjoy people interacting on my blogs, so why not say thanks and let them get some luv? A lot of my favorite bloggers use Comment Luv.

Sure you may be concerned about spam but you can install something like Askimet that will catch most of it (I usually scan my Aksimet every few days because occasionally it catches non-spam comments) and are you going to just shut your blog off from the world in fear of spam? Blogs are meant to be interactive so let them take their natural course and help you build and engage with a community. And when others see people leaving comments, it’s encouragement for them to get in involved in the discussion too so don’t be scared of them, embrace them.

But now Comment Luv also gives YOU some more link luv! Install Comment Luv and register at http://comluv.com and you’ll get to create a profile over there AND:

• You can add your site so that every time you comment on a blog that uses Comment Luv you’ll get up to 10 links from chosen sources.
• You get your own blog over there (do you smell MORE links?) Tip: add a blog post and link it back to your site & add yourself to your blog roll.
• You can also purchase credits (really cheap but not necessary) to do some different things like register more sites or choose a static post that you always want to show when you comment on a blog that has Comment Luv installed.

If you’re always looking for new ways to get link juice this is a great way to accomplish 2 things: encourage readers to comment & say thanks to them for doing so AND to get YOURSELF some more link love! Go ahead, it only takes a few minutes to set up and start spreading, and getting, link luv!

And then come back over here and comment on your first Comment Luv enabled blog and get those links rolling!!

~k, Visibility Specialist
@areaK on Twitter
@areak on Facebook

Need more links? The Link Vines team will build them for you!

photo credit: seelensturm

So I’m always reading around forums, blogs and social networks; listening to what people say, think, and have questions about.

I saw someone ask about the fairness in link building. It was something to the effect of if you’re busy building good content and your competition is busy building links to outrank you, how fair is that? I’m sorry but this is the marketing world and all is fair in love and marketing.

Yes, you should build good content. But yes, you have to have links too. You can build good content for 2 years but if your competition builds enough links in a matter of months, they may just outrank you (I only say ‘may’ because there can be other contributing factors but you STILL need links).

We’ve done campaigns where a client puts up a new site and even though their competition has been around for who knows how long, we catch up to them with links. Do I think it’s unfair. Nope, you gotta do what you gotta do to get to the top and get those clicks. And I’m oh-so certain the competition is doing their fair share of link building!

It’s simply not just about how good your content is. Now don’t get me wrong, the better your content is, the more people are likely to link to you and help you spread the word so that ultimately you do get links but it’s a question of whether or not you care to wait for years potentially to get enough people to link to you on their own to rank you on the first page (unless you’re some HUGE name or brand, you may be waiting that long).

We all want to be found, we want to be on the first page, we want clicks, we want visitors, we want profits from our hard work … all is fair in love and marketing.

~k, Visibility Specialist
@areaK on Twitter
@areak on Facebook

 photo credit: Daquella manera

First, is your site optimized for mobile phone viewing? If not, download one of the Wordpress Mobile plugins. I’m using Andy Moore’s Wordpress Mobile (optimizes site for viewing, lets you give your site links preferred anchor text so people know exactly what that link will give them, pick preferred color scheme, lets your mobile Google Adsense & Admob ads show up, lets you show your Mobilise links, enables you to create “Mobile ONLY” posts and pages, & more) but there are a few others out there too.

Here’s a screenshot of the color layout choices:

These plugins make your Wordpress site optimized for mobile viewing…and they really need to be, it’s 2010 & we’re turning to mobiles & smart phones for more and more of our online browsing & searching. If your site doesn’t show up properly on mobiles, or is unorganized and “jacked up”, you could miss potential readers, clickers & buyers.

You can also submit your mobile optimized website to mobile social bookmarking sites like Mobilised.net.  Mobilised even makes it easy to submit links from your phone via Twitter (doubt I’ll be going through all this personally, but at least they’re giving options to those who are heavily relying on their mobiles for most everything these days). They also give you a badge that you can put on your site to allow others to vote for your site, just like a Digg.

Mobile social bookmarking isn’t huge yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if we see it grow pretty soon. Am I bookmarking on them? Yup. Can’t hurt, I want mobile browsers to find my content & easily view it so I’m there. If it can improve visibility, count me in!

Some of our standard BMing sites are now offering mobile versions. Other MSB (mobile social bookmarking sites) include:

Mobiseer looks pretty promising.

Linkius, Mobleo, Pretty straight-foward mobile social bookmarking.

Phonefavs lets you go mobile w/existing bookmarks; also includes mobile directory & more. (Currently a paid service but I’m curious to see how long that lasts; they may have a hard time competing w/free services)

MDelicious makes your bookmarks easily viewable w/mobiles so be sure you’re bookmarking either via Del.icio.us or the mobile version.

There are a few more floating around out there, some seem to have transitioned or be in transition and some don’t seem to know what they want to do with themselves but I suspect someone will figure it out soon. Sites like Mobile.Tappity.com look a little confused and TapTap.net gave me a headache, but I suspect some others will get it right like Mobilised seems to have.

Bookmarking may not be what it once was but it’s still a nice addition to your link building and visibility efforts. Just make sure your site is optimized for mobile viewing so you don’t miss those mobile visitors!

~k, Visibility Specialist
@areaK on Twitter
@areak on Facebook