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Chris Berry

The Top 50 SEO & SEM Bloggers Worth Following

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Image representing Matt Cutts as depicted in C...
Image byPubConvia CrunchBase

Anyone who wants to run a serious blog or website needs solid information on the ever changing nature of the SEO/SEM game. If you’re looking to make it to the top of the charts on the web, you’ve got your work cut out for you and you’ll want every tip, trick and piece of advice you can find.

That’s why we’ve put together this list of the Top 50 SEO/SEM Experts. These are the folks you want to keep an eye on, in no particular order:

Matt Cutts – Most of those already involved in SEO know the name Matt Cutts. He’s a Google employee who specializes in SEO issues, with a passion for the prevention of link spamming. His blog is very down to earth and filled with insight you can’t get from someone who doesn’t work at Google.

Rand Fishkin – As a major contributor to SEOmoz.org, one of the net’s premiere SEO sites, Randy got involved in the Web game back in the early 90’s. He’s been invited to speak with the engineers of both Google and Microsoft, not to mention given presentations at Stanford and NPR.

Daron Babin – After starting his career at NBC TV and winning prestigious awards in the broadcasting industry, Babin turned his attention to SEO and SEM. He’s not one of the stars of the SEO world, running WebmasterRadio.

Jim Boykin – A regular conference speaker on the topics of link building campaigns and search engine marketing tools, Boykin not only blogs about SEO/SEM, he’s built tools to help marketers along on their path to success. His down home style appeals to many, but his success is even more attractive.

Aaron Wall – One of the most powerful SEO bloggers online, Wall is the man behind SEO Book, a giant and irreplaceable resource for the SEO industry. Being featured in the Wall Street Journal and a popular speaker at PubCon speaks for itself.

Danny Sullivan – Starting out as a journalist, Sullivan went on to cover search engines in a big way. He has a podcast and also writes for Search Engine Land. The scope of Sullivan’s knowledge makes him a big favorite for aspiring SEO experts.

Barry Schwartz – Another writer for Search Engine Land, Schwartz uses his blog to track the conversations taking place at the most popular SEO forums online. He’s known as one of the hardest workers in the SEO industry.

Bill Slawski – Coming from a background in law, Slawski started out part-time, but his fascination for the SEO world lead him towards a career in consulting. He focuses on ethical, proactive solutions to SEO issues and along with lots of research and experimentation yet delivers the information in a laid back way.

Todd Malicoat – With nearly a decade of serious SEO experience, Malicoat brings a lot to the table in terms of traffic generation. He’s a specialist in how to get visitors to websites and a popular speaker at Search Engine Strategies and Pubcon who’s been featured in Inc. Magazine and the New York Post.

Andy Beal – With a specialization in online reputation management, Beal is an SEO expert who’s serviced commercial powerhouses like Motorola, GlaxoSmithKline and NBC. He’s also a forefront expert on SEM, sharing his wisdom through his popular blogs Marketing Pilgrim and SEM Vendor.

Michael Arrington – You’ve probably heard of TechCrunch, the company Arrington founded after an already successful career as a corporate securities lawyer and serial entrepreneur. He’s shaped the SEO landscape in a great many ways and continues to be a major player in the SEM world.

John Battelle – You may know of Battelle’s book ‘The Search’, a landmark in the SEO world. He’s a journalist and entrepreneur who blogs from a very stripped down site about the high gloss world of Web 2.0 and other topics. His major aim is helping SEO marketers develop towards the future of the web.

Brett Tabke – With more than three decades in the computer industry, Tabke brought his experience to bear and accomplishes great things in the SEO industry. He’s noted for for coining some major basics in the Web world SEO Themes, link farms and SERP.

Rae Hoffman – Along with viral marketing, Rae ‘Sugarrae’ Hoffman took her endless hours of time spent online and turned herself into an SEO consultant. With a flashy yet effective sense of design, her blog offers the SEO crowd a solid source of effective advice for pulling traffic.

Matt McGee – In addition to moderating for Sphinn and editing for Search Engine Land, McGee has carved a niche for himself in local search marketing. Helping companies like Target.com got the Wall Street Journal interested in what he has to say.

Rene LeMerle – Having been in the industry for over a decade, LeMerle focuses on global search engine marketing. He’s also interested in Web 2.0 helping digital marketers get their marketing efforts to pay off.

Benjamin Pfeiffer – Known as Phoenix, Pfeiffer is the owner of Rank Smart Search Marketing renowned as an business consultant and search optimizer. A veteran in SEO, he’s overseen teams of SEO pro’s and knows how to achieve massive success with a campaign.

Carolyn Shelby – Way back in 1994, Shelby was already building websites professionally. Today, she focuses on SEO for sites that are old and outdated, taking them to the next level of performance with a complete re-launch. She’s also well known in the blog radio circuit and many SEO forums.

Patrick Altoft – With the UK’s largest Internet marketing blog, Altoft has a lot of credibility on both sides of the pond. His Blogstorm has gained him so much clout that he’s been quoted by the likes of BBC News, Wired, TechCrunch and Mashable.

Michael Gray – Having started out in the online retail market over a decade ago, Gray knows his way around the net. He blogs about loads of excellent information for SEO and it’s easy to see why he gets invited to so many conferences as a guest speaker.

Bruce Clay – One of the strongest voices for ethics in SEO, Clay has established a large company that offers SEO training among many other services. His blog hosts many excellent SEO and SEM writers.

David Naylor – Not only a digital radio host, Naylor got his start doing SEO work for major corporations. He’s focused on useability in site design and getting Number 1 rankings in the search engines and teaching others how to do that, too.

Jill Whalen – As the founder of High Rankings back in 1995, Whalen is a regular speaker at SEO conferences. As a moderator at Sphinn who’s quoted by Inc. Magazine and the Wall Street Journal, she brings a wealth of experience with her.

Eric Enge – With three decades worth of tech industry experience, Enge keep his focus on total search engine compliance, never cutting corners for solid results. He’s the author of a book called The Art of SEO and a career entrepreneur.

Andrew Shotland – After starting with a site that he SEO’d to three million visitors per month, Shotland sold his start-up to CitySearch. Now he’s an expert in the area of local search, an emerging niche within the SEM industry.

John Andrews – Describing himself as a Competitive Webmaster, Andrews began as an IT professional for a non-profit that needed to spread the word. He now shares his SEO knowledge that he’s gained working for large companies and professionals on his blog.

Vanessa Fox – A prominent speaker at search industry events, Fox not only writes about search engine optimisation, she’s also got incredible experience. She helped design the Google Webmaster Central and was a spokesperson for Google.

Eric Lander – From his woodland outpost, Lander blogs about all things SEO. He’s a specialist in both local search and truly organic search engine optimization. He’s also not afraid to be controversial in his posts.

Bill Hartzer – Having been a professional writer for the tech industry and TV, Hartzer understands how search plays a role in popularity. He’s also the administrator for SearchEngineForums.com and a consultant for large companies.

Shimon Sandler – After starting as a marketing manager for a detergent company, Sandler decided to set out to master SEO. He’s come a long ways and is now a popular guest on Good Karma podcast who brings his major corporate SEO experience along with him.

Jaan Kanellis – As an expert in both PPC and organic SEM, Kanellis has worked with big companies like Google, Yahoo and MSN. He’s a moderator at WebProWorld.com and a real asset to the SEM industry as a whole.

Dev Basu – Starting out as a teen at Microsoft Canada, Basu brings an internationalist slant to his work. He’s experienced working for businesses at all levels, helping them establish and promote their online presence.

Kalena Jordan – The founder of Search Engine College, Jordan has put her history of SEO to work for others by teaching both SEO and SEM. She now does consulting with the aim of helping customers achieve the highest ROI for their online sites.

Kyle Bunch – Formerly a contributor to AOL’s Fanhouse, Bunch went on to run Blogebrity to cover the A-list of bloggers. He’s helped develop the SEOi toolset for users at his company SEOintelligence and also runs a sports media conference.

Jeremy Hermanns – Having worked with over 50 Fortune 500 top search engine companies, Hermanns comes from a background of working at Overture/Goto. He’s currently focused on providing the finest SEO toolset available.

Karl Ribas – Coming from a background as a graphic artist, Ribas works in many areas of website marketing with a strong focus on SEM. He mixes a strong desire to create visually appealing sites with a determination to get them high in search engine rankings.

Edward Cowell – A UK native, Cowell focuses on the latest news in the organic SEO and pay per click markets. He created Search Engine War to offer a unique UK approach to marketing online and offers lots of global search information on his blog.

Erik Dafforn – The creator of the SEO Speedwagon blog, Dafforn strives to provide ‘beneath the hood’ coverage in the world of SEO and SEM. His blog regularly delves deep into technical issues that help both advanced and beginning SEO experts alike.

Kim Krause Berg – Known as Cre8pc online, Krause Berg worked for a tech magazine’s website back in the 90’s. She’s used her experience in Quality Assurance to carve a niche for herself in SEO world where she focuses on the visitor side of quality SEO results.

Lee Odden – One of 25 stars featured in the book Online Marketing Heroes, Odden has proven himself to the level that U.S. News and Fortune have taken the time to write about him. He’s focused on the combination of good public relations and SEO.

Roger Dooley – As the consultant and entrepreneur behind Neuro Science Marketing, Dooley blends his offline marketing experience with an understanding of “big picture” SEO issues. He strives to sharpen the skills of those in emerging SEM markets.

Roger Montti – As a site auditor and reviewer, Montti focuses on commentary about the search engine industry in general. He regularly helps those who need assistance building quality links to improve their SEO strategies.

David Brown – A popular podcast speaker at SEO 101, Brown formed the Top SEO Consulting firm to work almost exclusively with large scale corporate clients. His focus is providing high ROI for those he offers SEO advice to.

James Harrison – Coming from a background in Pay Per Click and Internet marketing, Harrison freelances his SEO work using his skills as a writer. On his blog he shares his successes as he works up the rankings in the SEO world.

Jeremy Morgan – With over a decade’s worth of experience developing websites, Morgan brings his history to work for him on his blog. There he offers tips for those just starting in the SEO game and covers topics like using Bing and Twitter instead of Google only.

Roy Sencio – Coming from a background in advertising and marketing, Sencio blogs about topics to help others in SEO and SEM. His primary focus is on getting solid conversions in the pay per click marketing environment.

Steve Wiideman – As a veteran specialist in both organic SEO and pay per click campaigns, Wiideman provides several blogs to offer tips and trips to aspiring SEO and SEM marketers.

Michael Guy – As the CEO of 1SEOExperts, Guy focuses on helping webmasters fine tune their sites and raise their profiles in the search engines.

Brad Fallon – As a specialist expert in SEO, Fallon’s blog offers many tactics and tips to help those who want great search engine ranks and the traffic that comes with it.

Nima Asrar Haghighi – Coming from a background of professional SEO and SEM, Haghighi provides excellent info on his blog for SEM tips and tricks that improve your search engine rankings.

Blackhat SEO: Never a Long-Term Strategy

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In the world of Internet business, just as in life offline, there are those who are looking to make a fast buck and there are those who want to earn their way to the top in order to create a lasting business venture. When it comes to SEO, these two approaches to the search engine marketing game are known as blackhat and whitehat, respectively. If you’re looking to be a serious player in the Web business game then you’re going to want to know the difference between both of these approaches and why a person or company would choose one over the other.

A quick definition of blackhat SEO is that it tends to be geared towards scoring big amounts quick, short term money. The methods used are intended to trick the search engines by using deceptive techniques and fool Web surfers into clicking links to visit sites that they otherwise might never think about clicking. While it’s not always true, blackhat techniques sometimes go hand in hand with malware, viruses, spam and other criminal or borderline illegal techniques. While the methods and tactics employed vary, the key point to remember about blackhat methods for making money online is that all of them involve some level of trickery for either man or machine and are designed almost exclusively to make cash as quickly as possible.

Many people are attracted to blackhat SEO because it’s said to be easier than whitehat. This can be true, but many times you first need to buy expensive software to perform the methods. These software programs may work for a limited time, but it’s not uncommon to find out that the program you paid a good deal of cash for only ends up working for a few months or maybe even just a few weeks. If you’re looking to pull in massive traffic, a blackhat program may at first look to be the ideal solution to yank visitors into your site and crank them through your Pay Per Click or affiliate sales pages. If we’re completely honest (which is a core component of the whitehat approach) then we have to admit that yes, blackhat can earn big money. However, the method must be changed constantly and using blackhat to turn a website into a cash cow is absolutely a short term venture. Once you’ve earned some money you’ll end up having to shut the site down and build a whole new site to keep your income stream up and even then it’s unlikely you’ll be able to pull this off with any level of consistency. Blackhat SEO ends up being very similar to treading water, it’s a lot of work to keep yourself afloat and you still won’t go far.

While whitehat SEO appears to take more work, in reality it pays off better over a longer period of time and your earnings rise, they don’t plummet due to penalties from the same search engines that you need to make a living from. The people who develop and maintain search engines have entire divisions of their companies dedicated to eliminating websites and marketers who pollute the Internet with garbage links and spam style websites. You’ll be going up against an army of folks who are paid to lock blackhat sites out of the upper echelons of Internet commerce and if you’re publicly exposed for your actions you’ll most in the industry completely unwilling to work with you, much less cut lucrative deals that the Web business is famous for.

Besides, let’s face it, having to crank out lame website after lame website ends up getting old, especially after you figure out that you’re doing more work than the whitehat guys in the long run. This and the fact that the future holds more challenges for blackhat, rather than less, makes whitehat appear to be not only more ethical, but a more attractive choice for earning money all around. As the search engines increase in sophistication they will come to resemble the human mind more closely and that’s bad news for those who have build miniature empires based on the ease with which we can trick computer programs right now. It’s an uphill battle for smaller and smaller profits while over on the whitehat side profits continue to rise for everyone rather than only the major players.

If you can provide a genuinely good product or service that people want they’re going to want to see what you have to offer, they’re going to want to do business with you or your company, and most importantly, they’re going to want to repeat that business over and over again. Repeat business is how individuals and companies thrive at the commercial level. A solid reputation continues to become increasingly more crucial for those doing serious business on the web. It’s no longer about bold, colorful text and ‘click here now!’ style advertising. Internet users are becoming more savvy and the more they experience the negative types of marketing thrown at them, the more wary they’re going to become. Building trust online has become the absolute must for anyone seeking to build a business with a Web presence. There’s no real future in scamming, especially since legally, it’s becoming much riskier to trick people online no matter how insignificant that deception may seem to the person hoping to score some easy money.

As you can see, the future is definitely going to be whitehat all the way, not just because it’s the nice guy approach, but because it makes sense. No one wants to feel cheated and everyone wants a great deal. Those who can offer a quality experience are going to thrive as the global Internet population keeps on rising. Make sure you consider which path you want to take before you set out to earn a living from the Internet and keep in mind, you get what you pay for and reap what you sow. If you keep your business clean, valuable to the consumer and run honestly you’ll get the fruits of that labor. Black Hat

Ubiquity on the Internet

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There’s a saying that you only exist if you can be found on the first or even second page of Google. I want to go as far as saying that on the Internet, your brand (meaning the product you market, or even something as personal as your blog) should be ubiquitous. In trying to explain to a friend who does marketing his company, I tried removing him from the paradigm that “we want people to come to our site and maybe use online ads as a drive to site effort.”

Sure, that may be a sound strategy … 5 years ago. The age of social media has allowed brands to be as ubiquitous as the bloggers who advocate them. So yeah, a good old corporate site won’t hurt, but why aren’t brand managers using services like Twitter, Plurk, Flickr, Facebook to full advantage? As a marketer, one good piece of advice to remember is that these tools — social media, web 2.0 or what have you, should be used as landing pages for your main site. Develop these tools well, and you will see your main site grow. I find it funny that advertisers still don’t make best use of these FREE tools and decide instead to spend ad dollars. I’m not saying these guys shouldn’t be advertising — I’m just saying that they aren’t being ubiquitous.

Life After Blogs: What’s Next in Social Media

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The Death of Blogs

There has been quite a bit of buzz around the Internet lately about the death of blogs. This discussion is fueled in part by the recent departure of some high profile bloggers from the blogosphere. The irony of this discussion, of course, is that much of it is occurring on blogs.

Fallen! Fallen! Oh, how the mighty BLOG has fallen!

The arguments that blogs are dead usually center around several key points.

  1. The growth of high-traffic, high-profile, multi-author blogs destroys any hope for the average individual blogger to be discovered and gain any meaningful audience.
  2. Newer forms of social media, like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr make the need for personal blogs obsolete.
  3. The never-ending comment spam, coupled with comments from obnoxious readers, simply require too much energy and time.

These observations are completely accurate based on my experience with blogs and the Internet.

The Trouble with Blogs

Comment spam and obnoxious people hiding behind the pseudo-anonymity of the Internet serve to deter many people from starting or continuing their blog. Even when the comments are not spam it is hopelessly frustrating to see an endless stream of comments that prove the person leaving the comment did not bother to actually read the article before firing off a comment.

The advent and rapidly growing popularity of multi-author blogs and high-traffic blog networks make it very difficult for the new blogger to gain any significant audience or to achieve reasonable search engine placement. Further, multi-author blogs are able to deliver quantity of content due to multiple authors and quality of content by having multiple authors with different specialties. The average solo blogger simply cannot compete against mega-blogs and sites like Wikipedia for search rankings and traffic.

Are Blogs Really Dead

The question must be asked though – are blogs really dead? Is there really no future on the Internet for blogs?

Nothing lasts forever – especially on the Internet! However, blogs have redefined how people communicate, obtain and interact with news, and even elect presidents (in the US). Blogs have become an integral part of the Internet landscape and it is certainly hard to imagine them going away any time soon. Blogs (to use the term loosely) have further become an entrenched part of the Internet as blog platforms like WordPress have increasingly seen double duty as both blog platform and CMS. WordPress is my blog platform of choice and my CMS of choice because of the power and flexibility of the program. So where does the blog end and the CMS site begin?

I suspect that part of the problem is that blogs were overhyped as the ultimate solution to online publishing. This situation is reminiscent of the dot.com boom of a decade ago. The technology was (and is) destined to become a major player in the emerging Internet economy – but the hype needed to be tempered by reality.

Blogs Still Have a Pulse

Despite the challenges associated with blogging I believe the humble blog is not really dead. I suspect we will witness a continued evolution of blogs for some time as blogs continue to be integrated into the Web fabric. For instance, many CMS-powered websites now also have an integrated blog. Many social media sites also offer integrated blogs for their users. Blogs as we know them may eventually decrease in popularity as newer forms of the blog emerge but the blog is not likely to be buried any time soon.

Comment spam is a significant problem for bloggers. Anti-spam measures can help (Akismet, etc.) but are always an imperfect solution as spammers continue to develop new methods to beat the filters. Comments can also be disabled or restricted to registerd users. Some social media fans will chafe at this suggestion but, for many sites, this is the best solution to the spam and unwanted comment problem.

Multi-author blogs do present a formidable challenge to new bloggers. Competing for search engine placement against established mega-blogs is a tough challenge. However, this does not mean that it is not possible to compete with established blogs and websites. The blog does level the playing field and provides a voice to anyone willing to invest the required work to make it happen. Blogging in the context of an established network (HubPages, Squidoo, and Associated Content are a few examples) provides a free and easy way to blog while taking advantage of the traffic of an established network. This can greatly increase a new blogger’s traffic and exposure. New bloggers can also compete by focusing on a niche, by writing in a unique voice, or by providing a perspective or information other similar blogs do not provide. Competing with a mega-blog is somewhat like a mom and pop store competing with WalMart. Many small operations will not succeed because they fail to differentiate themselves sufficiently to build a loyal customer base. Independent blogs, like independent stores, can always deliver unique value to their customers.

What’s Next After Blogs

What is next in the world of social media? What will replace the venerable personal blog? The transition appears to already be underway. Social media sites like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Delicious, and a host of others, offer a synthesis of photos, videos, blogs, status updates – in other words, lifestreaming. Blogs are optimized around text rather than multimedia and, while it is now possible to integrate a variety of multimedia into a personal blog, many people find the technical challenges too great. Social media sites facilitate the integration of mulitmedia into a personal web portal – usually at no cost to the user.

The most recent trend that I have seen in social media is toward convergent media. There are several social sites now providing convergent media services. I have recommended YUDU several times recently as a great example of a convergent media site. The idea of convergent media is that multiple types of media are all hosted in one online space, including text, pictures, audio files, video files, and web bookmarks. This appears to be the direction that personal blogging is headed. Lifestreaming is an obvious trend but is based on collecting various posts, videos, photos, etc., from a variety of sites to display them all in one place. Convergent media sites like YUDU, on the other hand, allow users to collect all of this together in one place to begin with rather than posting in different places and then needing to stream the various media together afterward.

Long Live the Blog

Blogs provide a unique communication and publishing medium that has revolutionized the way the world communicates, shares with friends and family, conducts business, obtains news and information, and even elects presidents. Blogs have become thoroughly integrated into the fabric of the Internet and, as the technology continues to evolve, promise to become even more integrated into the Web. The blog may look different as it evolves and newer forms of social media and convergent media emerge, but it is unlikely that the blog will disappear altogether in the near future.

Are blogs dead? Absolutely not! Are blogs changing as the technology matures and evolves? Absolutely! Blogs may look very different (and may even cease to be called blogs) as the technology matures and evolves and is integrated with newer media forms but, ultimately, blogs are here to stay. The growing popularity of sites like YUDU, Twitter, and Facebook prove that convergent and social media have earned their place on the Internet.

[Link – WIRED]

5 Tips to Turn a Blog into a Business

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Some people start a blog purely as a hobby, but little do they know when they have gathered quite a few of loyal readers, they can turn the blog into a lucrative business. Either that, or the big corporations are going to take advantage of them.

Receiving a press release in your email is a sign that nowadays businesses realize the value and influence a blogger can bring to the table. From a mommy blogger to a guitarist who shares their rants and tips, all of them build the kind of relationship none of the big corporations have.

The problem is in finding the right approach to turn the blog into a business. Many people worry about that because as a personal brand, they may put their names at stake if the readers think they are too aggressive in selling and monetizing their blog.

Here are 5 tips that can help you start turning a blog into a business:

1. Adopt the right mindset
When you turn a blog into a business, it is easy to focus too closely on the money part and lose focus.

For instance, this is one of the reasons why affiliate marketing is getting a bad name.

People are recommending products with higher commissions, despite the quality, just to squeeze more money. Credibility and trust are two most important things for a blogger, so make sure you don’t ruin it.

In the long run, you are going to make more money if you only promote products that you personally believe in.

And yes, now you know that box of diapers you received in the mail is only a sample, a small cost that they spend to tap into the relationship you’ve worked so hard to build.

You can turn that into a business deal… without sacrificing integrity.

2. Provide value in your offer
In certain niches, the audience is less Internet savvy. If it is possible to add value to your offer, it can be very helpful.

For instance, while promoting a product, you may do the work on their behalf first by hunting bargains and research on the reputation and service of the various online stores.

There are a lot of ways to add value to the offer.

3. Sell ad space
This is the easiest way to start monetizing your blog. If you partner with ad networks, it also becomes quick and easy. Securing sponsorship is also not uncommon for popular blogs. Once you get going with this approach, you may choose to manage this yourself though.

There are pros and cons related to ads on a blog, but in my opinion, you should never apologize for those ad checks. You take the time to share information and time is the single most limited asset. Only if you make money that you can spend more time on your blog.

4. Educate yourself about this business
A business is a business is a business. A lot of strategies in real world business can be applied online, but there are also specifics.

For instance, learning how to convert more prospects to customers through education and email autoresponder, placing ads strategically to increase value and result for the advertisers, and so on. Certainly you want the ads to be effective for them to keep running the ads.

5. Networking is key
Bloggers usually work alone, but they also need to network with other bloggers. Not only that makes them feel less isolated, but also to seek opportunities — directly or indirectly — to grow their traffic and business.

Once you get yourself out there, you will never know the opportunities that are coming your way. Let’s not forget that bloggers are more likely to link to others who they already know and trust.

How do you make money blogging? Share your experience and tips with us in the following comments.

7 Places to Get Backlinks and Build Blog Authority

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For online marketers, blog promotion is all about link building. Well, mostly. No matter what you do, your ultimate goal should be to get more links to boost authority of your blog.

As you may already know, that helps your search engine rankings and also get you referral traffic from the originating sites or blogs.

Note: Before building links, it helps if you optimize your blog first. Fortunately, nowadays most of the work is just one time process. Although keyword research and content production are on-going activities. You can read more about this in my guide on Whitehat SEO for blogs.

In this blog post, let’s focus on getting traffic and increasing authority from search engine standpoint.

1. Other blogs
Blogging is about communication and interaction. Most blogs have enabled comments feature, so you may be able to participate and leave your comment. Don’t underestimate blogs with nofollow, they may send you potential traffic too. People who have seen what you have to say and click through are nothing but interested readers.

Guest blogging and link baiting are two other methods to get backlinks from blogs.

2. Forums (discussion boards)
The thing about links from forums or discussion boards is not about transferring authority by spamming the forums with as many posts as possible. The signature link at the bottom of each of your contribution is a chance to get your blog seen, but…

Building credibility in the forums is very important if you want to get other forum regulars to click and go to your blog.

3. PR sites
Press release is still an effective way to not only reach out to other media, but also to get inbound links from high authority sites.

Nowadays, the value of the links makes bloggers use it solely for link building. The extra exposure is a bonus. Done right, exposures certainly are more valuable but those can be hard to achieve if you have no experience in pitching a story to editors.

4. News sites
Getting into New York Times, Wall Street Journal and other huge news sites is a dream come true for all bloggers, but you may not start at that level.

There are lots of smaller news sites that are hungry for stories and may accept submission. Getting your own weekly column and bringing steady stream of traffic and backlinks to your site are not as hard as you think. After all, you are already a writer for your blog.

5. Directories
Directories, blog specific or not, are still great for inbound links. If you can get into DMOZ, or can afford Yahoo directory, they may help boost the authority of your blog.

Forget about the traffic from directories. Most of them won’t send you many visitors, but they are still great for backlinks.

6. Social media sites
Social media are all the rage nowadays. While some of them start to put nofollow attribute to the a tag, they may still worth the effort.

Social bookmarking sites, for instance, have the potential to send you hundreds, if not thousands, of unique visitors overnight. Generally, they have short attention span though. You may not be able to turn them into customers or make them click on the ads because they are quite savvy.

Despite what others have said about social media sites, there are ways to make use of this type of traffic. At the very least, it may help you increase page views, which is good for advertisers who appreciate branding.

7. .edu and .gov sites
These sites deserve their own mention because search engines weight links from these TLDs (top level domains) more than others. Some SEO experts may disagree, and it may at best be a small difference.

But still, getting links from these sites, especially those with aged domains and high authority can only mean good things. If nothing else, consider those links as a balance for your link network or profile across multiple TLDs.

I know there are more sites for blog promotion and to get inbound links. If you have others in mind, feel free to share with us. Also, what are your favorites?

Scour- New Search engine in town

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Recently I came across search engine called scour, which claims that users will get paid to search on their search engine. I was bit of confused about this idea of getting paid to search so i decided to give it shot.

What’s new in scour?
Scour combines search results of google, yahoo, msn and display it when you do the search query. It asks you to comment on the search result. It asks you to vote as “thumbs up” and “thumbs down” for the search results you get. This way they improve their search quality & users get better results for the popular keywords.

How it works?
You’ll get point for every search query you do in the search box, and the points are reflected in the top-right navbar.You’ll get points when you vote either positive or negative against the search result. You can maximum vote 4 times on given search queries to get your points counted. If you voted more than 4 times to help the scour search engine then that system will not count your points. Also whenever you write comment for the search query you’ll be rewarded with the point.

How scour makes money?
Your voting & commenting on search results work like Digg for scour. This filtered search result is valuable for any search engine as it saves their time to index the whole internet. Such data can be used to improve existing algorithm as well as for commercial use it is good as well. Any searh engine company will make lot of money with such a data. Because, they get better filtered search results, this filtered results are much more valueable as they can sell this resultset at much higher costs than they pay to their users for using their service. Search engine like cuil, google or any other search engine will definitely be interested in scours data.

How good it is for the users to earn money?
If you refer others you’ll get 250 points or so, by referring your friends you can earn 25$ when you reach 6500 points. The level of 6500 points looks impossible for the casual surfers, but when it comes savvy users it is the level that they can achieve in short period. So this is definitely not suitable if you search for the 20-30 terms a day.Even though you vote or comment with your 20-30 queries ,reaching to the 6500 points looks hard in month or it again depends on your free time. One point to watch out for is it uses javascript & ajax effects with search results so it also slows your browser down.Which makes it harder to get more points while your working or surfing multiple sites as browser will hogg for more memory with scour on.

Where’s the referral link?
I could have given the referral link and can earn worthy points but No, sorry i don’t want to direct others to such a service. You can check it out for yourself at scour.com for more information.

Do let me know what you think about scour?

Abandon Adsense … Everything you need to know to run your own credit card affiliate site

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With Adsense lowering payouts and Adwords upping their strictness, and more and more advertisers moving to a CPL model, everyone who bought into the content site dream are now feeling the squeeze. If you’re in that boat as I see it you have three options:

  • (A) Ride your content site to its bitter end 24 months from now
  • (B) Fold up shop and get out of the internet marketing game
  • (C) Stretch your skillset and get into something where your existing strengths can be utilized

If (C) looks like the best choice to you, one of the best alternatives is turning to affiliate sites as a hedge. For anyone who has navigated the worlds of online education, dating, insurance, debt consolidation, and other affiliate verticals, you’ll know that probably the most accessible and established vertical in true affiliate marketing is credit card leads.
Setting these sites up is relatively simple and straightforward, but there are a few information hurdles you’ll need to get through to be able to do so. So if you’re planning on entering the affiliate space, you should definitely read:

The Credit Card Affiliate Site Setup Toolbox: 70 Essential Tools

The article walks you through the various available affiliate programs as well as as how to setup a site running them. I can say from personal experience that actually getting these affiliate program people on the phone and getting yourself integrated into their programs is easier said than done. CardOffers in particular is very hard to get a hold of. But this article will at least give you the lay of the land, and you’ll know enough to set up the sort of basic credit card reviews sites like the one this article is produced on. In addition, here are a few more regular reads for those who want to educate themselves on entering the affiliate world: