Brad Fallon Interview with Jack Humphrey: Power Linking

In an effort to collect all my interviews, teleseminar recordings, and presentations in one place, I stumbled on an interview Brad Fallon did of me on SEO Radio.

Reminded me that there is a BIG resource of free markeitng material over there at SEO Radio!

Brad Fallon Interview with Jack Humphrey on Power Linking, Audio, Windows Media Player, 3 segments, about an hour.

Tags: audio, internet marketing, linking, podcasting, power linking, website promotion

Don't Miss Out On Free Traffic!
Subscribe to the FTR RSS feed or our email list so you don't miss out on real, traffic driving tips from Jack Humphrey!  Thanks for visiting!

Google Buys Rights to Algorithm Orion? and How to Design For It

I’ve been talking about this for over a year - How to get great search engine ranks by designing sites for their markets rather than for the engines.

I LOVE validation!

read more | digg story

none

FTR Subscribers Get A Free Link!

Top Sites has been taken down due to massive amounts of spam. Thank your local spammer next time you see them.

It has been replaced with IMNews.

—

Just added a Top Sites section to the FTR!

If you are subscribed to the Friday Traffic Report, you may enter all your sites on the FTR Top Sites List.

Categories:

FTR Member Sites

Internet Marketing Training Sites

Marketing Blogs

How to get more traffic from Friday Traffic Report Readers

1. Make sure you install the link code on your site after signing up on the FTR Top Sites page.

2. Put the code in a visible place on your site to get higher rankings.

3. Do not submit spammy, stupid, crappy, unprofessional sites - I will delete them faster than you can say “stupid.”

4. Submit sites that Friday Traffic Report subscribers would be interested in - I will send the traffic, it’s your job to make your site and listing interesting for my visitors.

5. Sites not about marketing are ok as long as they are solid, professional sites that you control and can put the link code on. FTR members use cell phones, toilet paper, drive cars, and go to college, so those kinds of sites will work too.

Got it? Then grab your free FTR Top Sites Listing!

Tags: free links, free listing, FTR top sites, linking, submit your story, top sites, website promotion

Jack’s Power Linking and Online Business Rules of the Road!

by Jack Humphrey

Reciprocal linking is dead as the web knows it. Exchanging links for nothing more than the sake of exchanging links is totally transparent to all major engines and no longer impresses them, nor your visitors.

If people want a directory of relevant links, they will go back to the search engines. A link directory on the average website is not usually an authoritative, respectable, trusted source of information.

Everyone knows people only use link directories in 2006 as a tool to try and manipulate their rankings. NOT because they truly care where their visitors end up after clicking one of the “recommended links”, if they ever find it in the first place.

Besides, if link directories were a thing of pride for webmasters, viewed as valid content, why is everyone working so hard to hide them?

Content is the main tool of Power Linking in 2006

Blogs and RSS allow us to syndicate our content around the web to EAGER users (other websites and RSS feed subscribers) who actually want to click your links.

Articles, with actual information a market is looking for, and press releases with the same, are still a hugely viable tool for Power Linking.

The missing ingredient 90% of articles and press releases suffer from is having something to say that actually impresses an intended audience.

Article and press release syndication for the sole sake of acquiring links to manipulate search engines is out.

Using them to encourage an audience to click your links is in.

The only way a savvy market will allow themselves to be manipulated is via content that is cutting edge, important to them, and authoritative.

No more $5 articles and no more lifeless, boring, grade school writing is allowed! And if you don’t believe me, go ahead and watch how your market responds to one. You will soon enough as your web statistics dwindle to nothing.

To get Power Links you must contribute to the web in some meaningful way.

Since most people are too lazy or not creative enough to accomplish this feat, the competition for good content is quite light in many, many niches.

It is worth it to think about your niche and provide content that causes the market you target to do the same.

To learn to write compelling content and propel it to all corners of your market, there is only one place that gives you both pieces to the puzzle: Content Propulsion Lab.

Gimmicks and Tricks are Dead. People who are successful online actually WORK for a living.

Notice:  Professionalism is now mandatory for all website owners (publishers) who make a living from their content.

Black hat tactics for getting search engine rankings and links are always, and have always been, flashes in the pan.

No black hat tactic still works today that worked a year ago. And whatever works now only works for eggheads and will also be repelled like all other attempts to cheat human beings out of real information for the sake of a few pennies and clicks.

Black hat only works well at any point for true geeks and socially challenged eggheads anyway. They turn around and sell us the things that worked for them 6 months ago when they have dried up whatever tactic they are currently promoting.

Buying into black hat hype is for complete fools and newbies. By the time you read about it, it has been dead as a viable tactic for quite some time.

People want an informative internet. They want quality content and services or products. They reward this kind of professionalism massively with loyalty, repeat visits, and recommendations.

The amount of work it takes to achieve a successful authority site that makes $100-$300+ per day is less than the amount of work and investment that all black hat tactics require of you to cheat the system.

This is a fact you can gamble on and ignore, or figure out for yourself. We’ve been there. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt this is true.

Black hat tactics do not save more time nor do they make more money for the people who use them than the people who build real content sites into authority sites.

Authority sites get sold for hundreds of thousands up to tens of millions of dollars.

Black hat sites are black holes and money pits that can never be sold for figures above. This also is true beyond the shadow of a doubt and learned from experience. Take it or leave it.

There is no easy way to make money online…Period.

By making money I mean full time income with real assets that build until you can sell out for major amounts of money when you so choose.

This is true whether you are black or white hat. Work is work and there is no Big Red Button that you can click on to have money spilling out of your CD bay.

Laziness and total reliance on others for ideas for authority sites, content, marketing tactics, and even general success tactics results in exactly no results, wasted efforts and money, and extreme regret that can follow you to your grave.

(Or at least back to your day job where you will likely suffer under the yoke for the rest of your life.)

Sound harsh? It is. Yet people try to cheat in a system that is boiling over with money to be made legitimately every single day.

The writing is on the Wall Street. No major company on the web has gone public or sold for millions by following the leader.

Look at all the big companies that were tiny one year and explosive the next who went public or were sold outright for tens of millions of dollars and you’ll see what I mean.

All were based upon completely original ideas or at least successful twists on old ideas that utterly rocked the web in some fashion.

Think you can’t “utterly rock” the web or at least a fairly large niche market on the web?

Neither did ANY of the people who are now multi-millionaires as a result of taking their ideas and running with them.

And before that, having the gall to even think creatively outside the norm of the day.

All internet success stories share something in common and it is partially rooted statements like…

“Then I got the idea that…”
“All of the sudden we had the formula…”
“We completely stumbled onto this service, but would never have gotten there had we thought and acted like everyone else was at the time…”

All paraphrased things I have read in magazines and on blogs and interviews for years. All basically the same story.

If you aren’t shooting for THAT kind of success, you are a follower. Followers can make money and many do. Just not the kind of money leaders and innovators make.

One thing is true above all else: people do not hack or trick their way into this kind of success. There’s not a single story of monster success that includes a person who cheats the clearly laid out game rules online.

Anything that comes to mind, like the biggest spammers in the world, does not fit the mold of real success.

First of all, you cannot be considered a success if you are a blatant criminal. Kind of takes the glory out of your accomplishments right off the bat.  Your cell mate will not be as interested in how you commanded hundreds of spam servers around the world to do your bidding as much as how good you look in denim.

Secondly, if there was any real money to be made online by cheating people and businesses (that was also stable and long-lasting) there would be tens of thousands doing it, not a relative handful of kids, child-like adults or flat-out criminals.

Only 2 year olds expect something for nothing. 2 year olds and a great many internet users (mostly immature kids) who dream that there is some gaping hole in the rules that they can take advantage of to siphon scads of cash from.

On Hype

Something that is simply true and holds merit as a system for truly making money online does not need 1200 exclamation points to make sensible people believe it is viable.

On the next sales letter you read, do a “Find on this page” and just put “!”. If the results displease you, you just saved a lot of time reading nothing of importance at all.

Death Bed Confessions

What do you want to look back on fondly when your time comes? Chances are it is not a moderately successful stint in network marketing that you will want to recall in your final moments.

Nor will it be anything you got in life with no effort. Because no matter how much temporary success that may bring you, something for nothing never holds real value to the recipient.

Just look at the values of most trust fund kids and you’ll see what I am getting at. Being born rich and completely spoiled is not something I would foist on anyone other than my worst enemies.

And you can also be “born rich” at 25-30-40+ years old. It’s called the lottery, and it is as likely to happen for any given person as a stupid, empty, scam tactic is to work for someone online.

If you have sincere desire to truly succeed with an online business, you absolutely without question must mature quickly as a real business person.

Many people do that at sites like Content Publishers Alliance. Professionals are born there every day of the year. It is no coincidence that wealthy, fulfilled, proud business people exist there as well.

Tags: advice, blackhat, internet marketing, rants, website promotion, writing, writing for the web

30 Day Tags Review

Tagging and social bookmarking sites appear the same on the surface with few apparent variations.

Dig a little deeper and you will find differences aplenty.

Take 30DayTags.com for instance.

Here you can simply submit your site and fill out details and tags to run your site under.

No membership needed (they all seem to want you to join up before you even see if being a part of that community is worthwhile!)

Not 30 Day Tags - simply visit, submit, and let the market decide if you are worthy to stay on top.

For those of us who strive to write relevant, useful content, this is no deterrent.

For spammers, it can be quite frustrating having people vote on viagra ads they submit because there is no positive gain whatsoever in the social bookmarking world for spammers.

Which is funny that such a simple solution to spam could come about by letting the “people” decide rather than robots.

Not a single robot has ever been written that spammers cannot defeat.

The only thing that CAN defeat them is human presence.

And innovative sites like 30 Day Tags put the humans back in charge of the web!

Tags: blogging, bookmarking, Content Syndication, internet marketing, marketing product reviews, promotion, reviews, service, social bookmarking, tag, tagging

What is Podcasting?

Found a good primer on Podcasting on another blog called Content Site Building today. 

This should clear up some cobwebs for those of you still looking to figure this Podcasting thing out!

 

Tags: 5. Podcasting, podcasting

Controversy breeds discussion and traffic!

Have you ever met a critic that had produced anything, good or bad, in the industry he/she critiques?

Yeah - me neither.

I was just reading a Time Mag critique on the Davinci Code.  Nothing political or religious - just a movie critique (how refreshing THAT was at least!)

Anyway - the guy just rips the movie from story line and book-to-movie adaptation problems.  Mainly that the book was too dry and light on what we as movie lovers like to see in a movie.

In all I agreed with some of what the critic said, but for the most part my attitude was “What’s THIS guy know about it?  Why did I just read his whole article if I didn’t care for his opinion on the subject?”

Then is dawned on me.  When we write reviews and critiques, people read them whether they like your opinion or not.

In fact, as I thought about my reading habits on this subject I realized I don’t agree with most critics about much of anything.

I wouldn’t know that if I didn’t read all their stuff.  Which made me think that reviews on websites are important for far deeper reasons than comparison shopping can explain.

People read things they don’t agree with politically, philosophically, morally, ethically, religiously and so on.

They (we) read them to keep up on what the “opposition” is writing about the things we enjoy, love, hate, or are indifferent about.

We are snoopy, as a species.

This is something to consider when you are creating content.  We tend to always want to appeal to everyone and be everyone’s friend that comes across our stuff.

This is fine if you want to write pure drivel that takes a stand on nothing to avoid pissing someone off.

Which brings up that old saying, “if you’re not pissing someone off, you’re not in business.”

Your “fans” will only become fans if they can identify with them and support THEIR feelings on a subject.  This will alienate some people but draw people who agree with you closer to you-  making them more likely to identify with you and trust your judgment on product or service recommendations.

I learned long ago to take sides if I wanted to get anywhere in business.

Have an opinion!
Be forthright with it!
Don’t hide behind politically correct statements designed not to offend ANYONE or you won’t ATTRACT anyone to you.

Opinion and frankness are very important in writing content for many niches.  Water down your message to protect the sensibilities of people who aren’t likely to buy from you ANYWAY, and you will lose the interest of the people who WERE likely to be your customers as well.

That’s my opinion anyway.

Tags: authors, content, Content Syndication, creating content, reviews, syndication, writing, writing for the web

We told you so - Video killed the text ad star!

Vindication! 

My partners and I did some seminars last year talking about internet marketing predictions for 2006. 

One popular prediction was about the direction video was taking in internet marketing campaigns and how things were changing fast.

Now Google is adding video to Adwords so that advertisers can put their branding on the same level as TV ads, sort of.

One blogger asks the appropriate sort of question:  (paraphrased)

Is this going to upset the level playing field we little guys have enjoyed alongside the big corporations with simple text link ads?

It stands to reason that companies will start throwing serious coin at high-level productions to show on the Adwords network.

Our answer is:  Technology to produce high-end videos to compete with corporate America is cheap, and we know how to use it.

That’s why we created Content Propulsion Lab.  So that the little guy could be ready for this obvious next stage in internet marketing.

The writing IS on the wall:  All those predictions you ignored last year, deciding not to perfect your chops in utilizing video for marketing, podcasting, and killing some of the text on your site…them chickens have come home to roost!

 

Tags: adwords, Content Syndication, internet marketing, podcasting, video, website promotion

Tag and Ping Exclusive Pre-Release Call

The call today for something that is going to rock the internet marketing world this summer was chock full. 

150 participants got an inside scoop on a system for linking and driving large amounts of traffic to any site on the web.

It’s white hat, but far more effective than any black hat technique anyone has ever invented.  It’s call “Tag and Ping” and until June 2nd the ONLY people who can get it are my subscribers!

The call will be posted here tomorrow if you weren’t one of the lucky 150 to hear from the creator, Sean Wu, as myself, Peter Lenkefi and Mark Braunstein grilled him on his new radically effective traffic driving techniques.

Don’t want to wait for the call?  Check out this exclusive offer below along with bonuses no one will get when it is launched June 2nd!

Download Tag and Ping before the rest of the internet gets its hands on this masterpiece of creativity and website promotion.

[tag]tag and ping, sean wu, tagandping[/tag]

Tags: blogging, sean wu, seanwu, tag, tag and ping, tagandping, tagging, website promotion

Freakishly cool tracking system: MyBlogLog System

I have to say, this was a major find for me.

Tracking where people come from and where they go on this monster of a site has been hellish with regular hosting stats.

They just didn’t cut the mustard - AT ALL!

Then I found the coolest little program I have seen all year for bloggers who want to track and follow their visitors.

MyBlogLog tells you:

• Where your visitors came from
• Where they went after hitting your site
• Page Views
• What link exactly that they clicked on from another site
• Unique readers

If you have a blog, and especially a big blog, and you want to know what people think is the best stuff ON your blog so you can keep doing it, do NOT do anything else until you grab this tool.

Advice:  It is far better to get the pro service.  Good lord, it’s only $3 a month!

Grab MyBlogLog now and gain SERIOUS insight into the traffic flows on your blog!

Click on the little doohickey below…

 

 

    

Tags: blogging, tracking, visitor stats, visitor tracking, web stats

Next Page »