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Until you evolve your thinking about what "links" REALLY are, you risk wasting your precious time and resources on work that will lose its value in the long run.
Ever since Google invented Page Rank, human behavior has determined what websites were really "about" and which ones were more relevant than others.
Page Rank did this by giving webmasters and site owners the ability to "vote" for the sites they liked with their links.
Ever since Google invented Page Rank, human behavior has determined what websites were really "about" and which ones were more relevant than others.
Page Rank did this by giving webmasters and site owners the ability to "vote" for the sites they liked with their links.
But now, with things like social bookmarking and content tagging, EVERY web user gets to vote on the relevancy of content - not just webmasters and site owners. Anyone can Digg, anyone can StumbleUpon, anyone can blog.
And that's a great thing for marketers.
After all, it's the PEOPLE on the web that we really want to reach anyway. A spider program will crawl any and all links it finds, but it won't ever take out a credit card and BUY anything.
PEOPLE won't just click on any and every link. But they WILL click on the ones that are meaningful - the ones that promise value on the other side - the ones that are recommended by respected members of their online communities.
So with that in mind, the REAL "home run" link building campaigns from now on will continue to focus on the usual stuff: anchor text, deep linking, page rank, all that.
But successful campaigns are ALSO going to focus on finding and engaging these "tribes" wherever they are, and using your links to connect them with content that is VALUABLE to them.
So STOP GETTING LINKS... and START BUILDING CONNECTIONS!
When "tribes" form on the web, they do so more or less to gather around a theme, or topic, or idea. They gather to talk about it and collect links to resources that are of common interest.
Your goal is to find and participate in those conversations.Contribute and provide REAL value, and in the process, you'll garner attention to yourself. Of course, you can then use that attention to get traffic to your sites, get subscribers to your lists, get readers for your blog, etc.
After all, it's the PEOPLE on the web that we really want to reach anyway. A spider program will crawl any and all links it finds, but it won't ever take out a credit card and BUY anything.
PEOPLE won't just click on any and every link. But they WILL click on the ones that are meaningful - the ones that promise value on the other side - the ones that are recommended by respected members of their online communities.
So with that in mind, the REAL "home run" link building campaigns from now on will continue to focus on the usual stuff: anchor text, deep linking, page rank, all that.
But successful campaigns are ALSO going to focus on finding and engaging these "tribes" wherever they are, and using your links to connect them with content that is VALUABLE to them.
So STOP GETTING LINKS... and START BUILDING CONNECTIONS!
When "tribes" form on the web, they do so more or less to gather around a theme, or topic, or idea. They gather to talk about it and collect links to resources that are of common interest.
Your goal is to find and participate in those conversations.Contribute and provide REAL value, and in the process, you'll garner attention to yourself. Of course, you can then use that attention to get traffic to your sites, get subscribers to your lists, get readers for your blog, etc.
What will happen is that you don't just become a participant in these conversations. If you provide real value, and solid resources to these tribes, you will become a TOPIC of conversation. Members of your chosen tribe will talk about YOU, and talk about YOUR resources.
Now, enough theory - let's get into some real-world examples of how you can start putting this to work in your business starting today.
We talked about blogs earlier. Now it's important to understand what kind of role bloggers can play in their respective tribes. The bloggers are the noisemakers - they initiate discussions, distribute news, and act as a kind of general mouthpiece for their tribes.
As such, they can be a valuable asset to leverage in getting attention for your own offers, right?
So if you want to make some inroads into a particular tribe you've identified, find the people who are blogging on topics relevant to that tribe's interests.
Read their stuff. REALLY READ IT. Then comment.
Make it a BIG comment. Add value.
Now, enough theory - let's get into some real-world examples of how you can start putting this to work in your business starting today.
We talked about blogs earlier. Now it's important to understand what kind of role bloggers can play in their respective tribes. The bloggers are the noisemakers - they initiate discussions, distribute news, and act as a kind of general mouthpiece for their tribes.
As such, they can be a valuable asset to leverage in getting attention for your own offers, right?
So if you want to make some inroads into a particular tribe you've identified, find the people who are blogging on topics relevant to that tribe's interests.
Read their stuff. REALLY READ IT. Then comment.
Make it a BIG comment. Add value.
Did you agree?
Did you disagree?
Can you elaborate on anything they said?
Can you refute anything they said?
Remember, we want to focus on ADDING VALUE to THEIR website.
Did you disagree?
Can you elaborate on anything they said?
Can you refute anything they said?
Remember, we want to focus on ADDING VALUE to THEIR website.
Only THEN is it going to be "okay" in the eyes of the tribe. Posting a worthless comment will get your work either quickly deleted, or if it's a moderated blog, it won't show up at all. If you can comment and come up with a REALLY GOOD reason to link back to one of your own resources, THEN do it. Otherwise, prepare to get nowhere fast.
How do you avoid wasting time? There's a "sniff test" I like to recommend to people when considering whether you SHOULD link back to yourself from a blog comment.
If you left out ALL link text and your link ONLY said "read more" - would it actually provide value? Would it be a continuation of the conversation the blogger started? If so, cool!
If not, don't quit!
Go to your site/blog/store and MAKE a resource or post that WILL continue and expand that conversation. Let their post be part one, and your write part two on your own blog. Does that make sense? This is what I mean by PARTICIPATING in the conversation.
Let me give you a real-world parallel. Say you're a blue widget vendor, and you're at a widget convention and you have a booth at the trade show. It's the end of a long day of exhibiting, and the show is winding down. People are collecting into their little cliques and maybe deciding where to go to dinner or whatever, but you overhear some chatter about your own product, blue widgets.
These people are your target audience, they couldn't possibly be a more appropriate tribe for you to try to speak to about your offer.
So how do you approach them?
Do you just elbow into their conversation circle, business card in hand, shouting "Hey! I sell blue widgets! Buy blue widgets from me!"
No, of course not. It's rude. You'll get ignored at best, and told EXACTLY where to put your blue widget at worst.
So what's the right way?
Let me give you a real-world parallel. Say you're a blue widget vendor, and you're at a widget convention and you have a booth at the trade show. It's the end of a long day of exhibiting, and the show is winding down. People are collecting into their little cliques and maybe deciding where to go to dinner or whatever, but you overhear some chatter about your own product, blue widgets.
These people are your target audience, they couldn't possibly be a more appropriate tribe for you to try to speak to about your offer.
So how do you approach them?
Do you just elbow into their conversation circle, business card in hand, shouting "Hey! I sell blue widgets! Buy blue widgets from me!"
No, of course not. It's rude. You'll get ignored at best, and told EXACTLY where to put your blue widget at worst.
So what's the right way?
"Hey guys - did I hear you talking about blue widgets? Awesome! Did you know they are 99% more effective than red widgets of the same size? Yeah! I read that just last week in a report my company put out. You can find it on this website if you want to have a look. The URL is on my card there. My name's Andy, by the way. Nice to meet you! I look forward to talking more about widgets with you next time I see you!"
See?
Not so hard, and you get this crowd to like you by PARTICIPATING and EXPANDING their conversation. By contributing a valuable resource that is relevant to what they were ALREADY talking about, you can actually BECOME a new topic of conversation.
So, now you should have a better idea about how to tactfully make headway into tribal conversations when you find them.
But I bet I know what you're asking... how DO you find them?
Of course, you can do Google blog searches, or crawl social bookmarking sites looking for relevant tags. And that's great, you'll find a lot of potential conversations there.
But let's not forget. This might be "Web 2.0" but some things remain necessary in any link-building campaign. You MUST focus your efforts efficiently, so you should spend your time and resources on sites that will give you some good old fashioned SEO benefit AND get you involved in your niche's tribes.
So that means you have to go in and scrub your list of potential comment targets for factors like high PR, cache date, Alexa rank, etc. - all the things you would normally look for if you were purchasing a link, right?
More importantly, when we're talking about blogs, you need to make sure that comments aren't automatically nofollowed.
And of course, that's very tedious and time-consuming. You need to keep a spreadsheet, and collect all that info from various toolbars, you need to check out their source code to find out if their links are rel=nofollow. Now, even though it's a pain to do that work manually, I guarantee you it's worthwhile to identify the 20% of sites out there that will get you the 80% of the possible benefit.
Now, here's the part where I work a whammy on you and tell you about some spanking new product that will save you all the backbreaking work and time spent on researching these blogs. SURPRISE!
(Not really).
Yeah, I DO want to tell you about a tool that will make this super simple, and super fast.
Not so hard, and you get this crowd to like you by PARTICIPATING and EXPANDING their conversation. By contributing a valuable resource that is relevant to what they were ALREADY talking about, you can actually BECOME a new topic of conversation.
So, now you should have a better idea about how to tactfully make headway into tribal conversations when you find them.
But I bet I know what you're asking... how DO you find them?
Of course, you can do Google blog searches, or crawl social bookmarking sites looking for relevant tags. And that's great, you'll find a lot of potential conversations there.
But let's not forget. This might be "Web 2.0" but some things remain necessary in any link-building campaign. You MUST focus your efforts efficiently, so you should spend your time and resources on sites that will give you some good old fashioned SEO benefit AND get you involved in your niche's tribes.
So that means you have to go in and scrub your list of potential comment targets for factors like high PR, cache date, Alexa rank, etc. - all the things you would normally look for if you were purchasing a link, right?
More importantly, when we're talking about blogs, you need to make sure that comments aren't automatically nofollowed.
And of course, that's very tedious and time-consuming. You need to keep a spreadsheet, and collect all that info from various toolbars, you need to check out their source code to find out if their links are rel=nofollow. Now, even though it's a pain to do that work manually, I guarantee you it's worthwhile to identify the 20% of sites out there that will get you the 80% of the possible benefit.
Now, here's the part where I work a whammy on you and tell you about some spanking new product that will save you all the backbreaking work and time spent on researching these blogs. SURPRISE!
(Not really).
Yeah, I DO want to tell you about a tool that will make this super simple, and super fast.
BUT before you go grumbling off in a huff - don't sweat it. It's f-ree - 100%.
A lot of you have probably heard me speak about (or even with) Jason on the subject of articles and syndication for the purpose of link building. Jason's been in that game for a long time, and has built some of the best and most-used software to help with those methods.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't using at least one of the tools he's developed in every single one of my businesses.
And now, I'm going to start using THIS one - it's called "Comment Kahuna" and it will prove to be a LIFESAVER when you get serious about using blog comments in your "Web 2.0" linking strategies.
He's got a sweet video on his site showing exactly how it works, but I'll give you the quick version.
I'd be lying if I said I wasn't using at least one of the tools he's developed in every single one of my businesses.
And now, I'm going to start using THIS one - it's called "Comment Kahuna" and it will prove to be a LIFESAVER when you get serious about using blog comments in your "Web 2.0" linking strategies.
He's got a sweet video on his site showing exactly how it works, but I'll give you the quick version.
- Type in some keywords.
- Find some blogs that match those keywords.
- You'll know which ones will pass link juice, AND how much
(the software sniffs for nofollow tags and PR rank). - Automatically post your comment on those blogs right from the
software interface.
That's it. No cross-referencing a bunch of statistics, no time wasted on blogs that won't pass on value. Plus, there's easy and quick posting, letting you move onto the other parts of your business that need attention.
Now, I have a warning for you. This tool COULD allow you to become a comment spammer, but I'm not giving you this resource so you can go out and tick off all the bloggers out there.
These bloggers are potential allies - if you help their websites be BETTER by contributing good stuff, they can become evangelists for your cause. There is no better form of word-of-mouth than when the tribal noisemakers start singing your praises.
So PLEASE - use this tool responsibly. In fact, you shouldn't use it exclusively to link back to your own stuff. Identify ways to build connections between related tribes. Strengthen those contextual and semantic connections. Improve the sites you comment on by strengthening the network of links between them.
Now, I have a warning for you. This tool COULD allow you to become a comment spammer, but I'm not giving you this resource so you can go out and tick off all the bloggers out there.
These bloggers are potential allies - if you help their websites be BETTER by contributing good stuff, they can become evangelists for your cause. There is no better form of word-of-mouth than when the tribal noisemakers start singing your praises.
So PLEASE - use this tool responsibly. In fact, you shouldn't use it exclusively to link back to your own stuff. Identify ways to build connections between related tribes. Strengthen those contextual and semantic connections. Improve the sites you comment on by strengthening the network of links between them.
Why on earth would I want to waste time working on some other site's links, Rakesh?
Good question. If you increase the value and authority of sites like these by linking them to each other, your OWN links to your OWN stuff become even more valuable.
If you're commenting on all the blogs your tribes frequent, and you're cross-linking your comments, you start to spread that traffic around. You get a chance for repeated messaging, and you increase your chances of saying something that will really resonate with individuals.
Now, you don't even have to find an existing niche. You can actually start to link together a cohesive and highly populated niche simply by effectively connecting these related tribes together.
Does that make sense?
Now, if Comment Kahuna didn't make this stuff so easy, I wouldn't recommend you waste ANY time on this advanced cross-linking stuff. You simply wouldn't have the time.
But that's the beauty of this tool. It is so fast at doing the grunt work, it allows you to REALLY get creative in the way you distribute your messages and offers to your audience.
Think about how you discuss things with members of your own tribes. Are you a member of any niche communities - based around hobbies, or maybe even a professional network? How does your tribe discover resources? How do you share them?
If you're commenting on all the blogs your tribes frequent, and you're cross-linking your comments, you start to spread that traffic around. You get a chance for repeated messaging, and you increase your chances of saying something that will really resonate with individuals.
Now, you don't even have to find an existing niche. You can actually start to link together a cohesive and highly populated niche simply by effectively connecting these related tribes together.
Does that make sense?
Now, if Comment Kahuna didn't make this stuff so easy, I wouldn't recommend you waste ANY time on this advanced cross-linking stuff. You simply wouldn't have the time.
But that's the beauty of this tool. It is so fast at doing the grunt work, it allows you to REALLY get creative in the way you distribute your messages and offers to your audience.
Think about how you discuss things with members of your own tribes. Are you a member of any niche communities - based around hobbies, or maybe even a professional network? How does your tribe discover resources? How do you share them?
Answer those questions, and then figure out how you can get your taget market's tribes to discover YOUR stuff and make your stuff WORTH sharing.
Stop getting links, and start building connections.
What do you guys think? Have I given you some food for thought? Here's your chance to take a crack at this.... See you Next Time..
PART-2
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So, In the above Posts , we talked about how you need to rethink your linking strategy to focus on building real connections rather than just plastering links all over creation.
Here's a summary of how I think we can ethically and profitably build connections in our niches:
Here's a summary of how I think we can ethically and profitably build connections in our niches:
1. Identify "tribes" of people with common interests that we want to target with our messaging.
2. Find the bloggers in those tribes who have readership and influence, and who regularly write about your niche topics.
3. Of those tribal blogs, identify the ones that will also give you SEO benefit through linking (primarily, blogs that don't add rel=nofollow to links in their comments).
4. Comment on these bloggers' posts and REALLY contribute and add value. Link not only to your own resources on the subject, but help strengthen the tribe itself by cross-linking these bloggers to each other.
2. Find the bloggers in those tribes who have readership and influence, and who regularly write about your niche topics.
3. Of those tribal blogs, identify the ones that will also give you SEO benefit through linking (primarily, blogs that don't add rel=nofollow to links in their comments).
4. Comment on these bloggers' posts and REALLY contribute and add value. Link not only to your own resources on the subject, but help strengthen the tribe itself by cross-linking these bloggers to each other.
That's it. By practicing this kind of linking, you not only get the SEO benefit of keyword-rich links in your comments, but you visibly serve a community of active web users.
You strengthen tribal communities in your niche by connecting people to information they really want, whether you're the source of that information or not.
On top of that, you will trigger really strong reciprocity and goodwill in the bloggers whose sites you contribute to regularly. You add value to THEIR sites with your comments, and you send THEM traffic by recommending their sites to other readers.
Pretty soon, the most visible and influential members of your target tribes are going to jump at the chance to work with you.
Here's where we'll take your new CONNECTION-building strategy to the next level.
We're going to talk about Article Marketing. Now, I know most of you are already familiar with article marketing to some degree. But this (just like last time) will put a new and different spin on what you may have tried.
The most common article marketing practice involves placing articles up on major article directories like EzineArticles, GoArticles, and ArticleCity. And that's great. If you're already placing your niche articles there, keep doing it. If you're not, you should start.
The main reason you want articles in those directories is because the search engines love them, and it's quite likely your articles will rank for your keywords if you wrote them well. If those pages rank high, and they link back to you, it's an instant SEO boost. It's because of that SEO benefit that posting articles to directories is still a worthwhile and vital part of an SEO link-building strategy.
Now, some folks proclaim that by putting your stuff in these article directories, webmasters who need content will pick your stuff and publish it on their site or in an email newsletter, with your link intact. You get instant traffic! Hooray!
Well, the sad fact is that most of the time, your content WILL get picked up from article directories, but it'll be unscrupulous webmasters who scrape out all your links and use their own. You may get an occasional ethical webmaster who really does use those directories according to the terms and conditions, but in my experience - it's becoming rarer and rarer.
So, that being the case - YES - put articles on the directories - all the articles you have EXCEPT your very best ones.
Put the lower-end keyword-targeting stuff up on the directories, but reserve the long, feature-style human interest ones , for your new allies.
Pretty soon, the most visible and influential members of your target tribes are going to jump at the chance to work with you.
Here's where we'll take your new CONNECTION-building strategy to the next level.
We're going to talk about Article Marketing. Now, I know most of you are already familiar with article marketing to some degree. But this (just like last time) will put a new and different spin on what you may have tried.
The most common article marketing practice involves placing articles up on major article directories like EzineArticles, GoArticles, and ArticleCity. And that's great. If you're already placing your niche articles there, keep doing it. If you're not, you should start.
The main reason you want articles in those directories is because the search engines love them, and it's quite likely your articles will rank for your keywords if you wrote them well. If those pages rank high, and they link back to you, it's an instant SEO boost. It's because of that SEO benefit that posting articles to directories is still a worthwhile and vital part of an SEO link-building strategy.
Now, some folks proclaim that by putting your stuff in these article directories, webmasters who need content will pick your stuff and publish it on their site or in an email newsletter, with your link intact. You get instant traffic! Hooray!
Well, the sad fact is that most of the time, your content WILL get picked up from article directories, but it'll be unscrupulous webmasters who scrape out all your links and use their own. You may get an occasional ethical webmaster who really does use those directories according to the terms and conditions, but in my experience - it's becoming rarer and rarer.
So, that being the case - YES - put articles on the directories - all the articles you have EXCEPT your very best ones.
Put the lower-end keyword-targeting stuff up on the directories, but reserve the long, feature-style human interest ones , for your new allies.
That's right - we're going to take your best articles and approach your tribal bloggers (especially the ones with blogs that have some authority). If they're active members of their tribes, and they're active posters, they know it can get tough to come up with good content to keep their readers happy.
If you're already a solid contributor to their sites, now is the time to offer them a UNIQUE and UNPUBLISHEDarticle for their site. They get f'ree, high-quality material that their readers will value, and you get a byline with links back to your own site.
This is one of the most powerful traffic generation methods I know. Of course you get the machine-benefits of SEO in this case, because you're getting your links on niche authority sites.
But the real benefit is that you are putting your best content in front of your most qualified audience, and while you're at it, you're building powerful alliances with influential members of your niche.
Do you think this sounds hard?
This is one of the most powerful traffic generation methods I know. Of course you get the machine-benefits of SEO in this case, because you're getting your links on niche authority sites.
But the real benefit is that you are putting your best content in front of your most qualified audience, and while you're at it, you're building powerful alliances with influential members of your niche.
Do you think this sounds hard?
"How will I get all these guys to want to post my articles?"
You know what? You only need ONE to post for you. Then, you contact the other possible targets and either send an email to say,
"Hey - I wrote an article about blue widgets that your readers might like and John Doe over at the Widgets Blog was kind enough to publish it for me. I just thought I'd let you know so you can hook your readers up. If you're interested in publishing any of my future articles about blue widgets, I'd love to speak to you about a unique, unpublished article I'm working on right now. Thanks!"
After you get the first one, the rest should be happy to line up to share in the f'ree quality content you want to provide to their readers.
So where can you go from here?
If you're already regularly having your content published on different niche blogs, why not try to leverage for more prominent placement? Maybe work out a deal for a permanent homepage link? Why not seal a deal for a regular recurring spot so you can start to REALLY engage that blog's audience?
Are you more worried about your bottom line rather than exposure?
If you have an affiliate program, do you think it would be hard to sign these publishers up? You're already giving them great content - do you think they'd be opposed to getting paid to publish it? Some might, sure. But most of the time, you'll have a much more friendship-based relationship with these guys rather than a business one.
So where can you go from here?
If you're already regularly having your content published on different niche blogs, why not try to leverage for more prominent placement? Maybe work out a deal for a permanent homepage link? Why not seal a deal for a regular recurring spot so you can start to REALLY engage that blog's audience?
Are you more worried about your bottom line rather than exposure?
If you have an affiliate program, do you think it would be hard to sign these publishers up? You're already giving them great content - do you think they'd be opposed to getting paid to publish it? Some might, sure. But most of the time, you'll have a much more friendship-based relationship with these guys rather than a business one.
And if they see they get paid for something they were already doing, I can almost guarantee that they'll be more willing to mail for you or post for you every single time you ask.
Remember, you've been a long-time contributor by this point. You started with commenting, continued with unique content, and proceeded to full on linking and affiliate relationships.
If our last newsletter was about building connections instead of links, this newsletter is about cultivating and strengthening those connections.
You want to find all the sites that cater to your niche and weave your own stuff through them. And if you use a little brainpower, it's not even that hard. You're simply creating mutually beneficial situations, and everyone really does win!
We're really going for the long-term strategies here - by really spending time in your niches, you get to know the players, and more importantly, they get to know YOU. You become the preferred provider of your product or service because you're one of THEM. You're a trusted and active member of their tribe - not some out-of-towner with a snake-oil pitch.
If our last newsletter was about building connections instead of links, this newsletter is about cultivating and strengthening those connections.
You want to find all the sites that cater to your niche and weave your own stuff through them. And if you use a little brainpower, it's not even that hard. You're simply creating mutually beneficial situations, and everyone really does win!
We're really going for the long-term strategies here - by really spending time in your niches, you get to know the players, and more importantly, they get to know YOU. You become the preferred provider of your product or service because you're one of THEM. You're a trusted and active member of their tribe - not some out-of-towner with a snake-oil pitch.
Never forget - markets are people.
What "Web 2.0" is doing now more than ever is allowing those people to talk to each other, so find where they gather, and join the conversation.
Contribute regularly and wisely, and you'll even begin to STEER some of those conversations your way.
If you cultivate the relationships you build through contributing, then your business will be the first and last name on the lips of your tribe when they decide to buy... or better yet, when they make a recommendation. :)
PART - 3
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Before we get into Part 3, I wanted to let you know we're going to be talking about Traffic Kahuna, which Jason Potash and company are releasing today.
In the previous parts of this series, we focused on the idea that as internet marketers, we need to:
Stop building links, and start building connections.
We talked about how through creating connections between ideas, and developing relationships with site owners and bloggers, we can essentially take on a shepherd role in our niche markets.
We can steer the tribes we target by helping them develop their niche interest.
If we use this strategy wisely and ethically, we can practically use OTHER people’s web properties as part of our own lead generating funnel.
We are no longer perceived as an outside force - like a door-to-door salesman imposing on their community.We instead become a valued member of that community, associated
not with marketing messages, but rather with being a valuable resource of information - as well as a provider of products and services.
See, by making our own connections in our marketplaces, we can capitalize on other people's resources to do all kinds of things: We can better educate consumers on our chosen topic, slowly
turning them from someone with a mild interest into a hot prospect.
We can create an impression of expertise by portraying a consistent personality across multiple "tribal" sites in our niche markets.
And of course, let's not forget that even though we've changed our thinking - we are actually STILL building links. Now, if you've been following along, we recommended a f'ree tool called "Comment Kahuna" that when used correctly, can help you efficiently engage your chosen audience and save you a LOT of research time.
Well, the same folks that made "Comment Kahuna" are releasing a service today at noon called "Traffic Kahuna" and I think that it will prove to be an incredibly valuable resource for
helping us create quality CONNECTIONS with our consumers AS WELL AS building quality links for the Search Engine spiders.
Remember how I spoke to you about how we can consider internet communities as "tribes" - small groups that cluster around common interests.
Well, what Jason and company have done is shepherded their own "tribe" around a common interest, just as I've been trying to teach you to do. Their tribe consists of webmasters that collectively operate over 1000 websites and actively post to over 500 blogs.
And here's where this tribe becomes valuable to you:
The common interest of all these site owners is a hunger for QUALITY CONTENT.
In exchange for this quality content, they're willing to trade QUALITY real estate on their sites (pages that have a high PR) and they're willing to give QUALITY one way links (with no “nofollow” tags).
Now, I'm sure you've seen this kind of "link building" network before, but the flaws in those systems were numerous.
The primary problem is that most of the blogs and sites in those networks were primarily owned by the network operators, and they existed ONLY as content billboards for their members.
The sites in those networks really had no traffic of their own, no communities of value that visited regularly.
Add to that the fact that the network operators were typically unwilling or unable to police the submissions from their customers.
So, what you ended up with were spammy sites, filled with unrelated, untargeted, duplicated posts, and worse - just crummy content.
Sure, you may have been able to get some limited benefit from those links as you're essentially "tricking" the search spiders into thinking you're popular with all those links.
Heck, it's probably still working pretty well. But that's a short term strategy. Over time, any PR value those network sites may have had is quickly leached away, and any REAL value you may have tried to provide is leached away and wasted as lazy, unethical marketers bury your stuff in worthless crap. See, that old way was focused on getting LINKS, but had no thought at all towards building the kinds of valuable CONNECTIONS that web users actually want to see.
And that's why Traffic Kahuna is different. Jason and crew KNOW the problems of using that old Web 1.0 "link-getting" model. After all, they've been using content syndication for the SEO benefit for years. They are recognized experts in that area.
Traffic Kahuna OVERCOMES all of those problems and it does it by providing a HUMAN-GUIDED focus on QUALITY.
See, the sites in the Traffic Kahuna network are all REAL sites with REAL audiences. They aren't just billboards for plastering up whatever anyone feels like. All these sites have a real interest in maintaining their audiences by providing fresh, and VALUABLE content.
Because of that, an article, review, and link from THESE sites are for the long term. They won't be buried by spam, because they will be part of a targeted resource aimed at SPECIFIC niche communities. These are sites built not just for spiders, but for TRIBES.
Webmasters have joined this network because they want to better serve their VISITORS. They are NOT just added by the network owners to provide a place for their customers to put more links.
Now, the Kahuna folks know that these webmasters are already busy, or else they wouldn't have a need for an automated, QUALITY content solution.
And that's why on the Kahuna side of this community there are actual GUIDELINES for quality content, ENFORCED by human editors.
Jason and the gang are FULLY COMMITTED to shepherding this tribe, and their aim is to BUILD QUALITY CONNECTIONS between marketers like you and me, and webmasters who already cater to the tribes we want to target.
In the same way that the f'ree Comment Kahuna tool allows you to find related blogs and post to them, Traffic Kahuna is going to allow you to bypass a lot of what I talked about in Part 2, and give you a DIRECT outlet to these valuable community sites.
You'll have a centralized place to manage your content, and YOU decide where to place it and what links you want. Of course, you need to meet their guidelines for quality, but I'm assuming
if you've kept up with this series, you know that quality is of the utmost importance anyway. I don't think any of our readers are out to junk up the internet.
But here is the BIGGEST reason I think Traffic Kahuna will succeed - both in the short AND long term: It's because they NEED you. And I don't just mean that Jason and crew need your money to line their pockets.
You are HALF the equation - without marketers and vendors that have messages they want to spread, the network has NO VALUE for the "tribe" of content-hungry webmasters.
They are creating a real, mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship - one built on an expectation of quality and trust. The very foundation of what they aim to do is JUST what I've been telling you.
They don't sell links - they foster CONNECTIONS.
And if it was from anyone else but Jason Potash, I wouldn't be so trusting that it could be pulled off.
Jason has the same attitude as I do - as ALL of StomperNet does - when it comes to content. Good marketing is about finding a group of people that want the same thing, and then giving it to them. And though SEO is one method of doing that by manipulating search results - the REAL focus should always include going to where the people ARE and interacting with them directly.
Traffic Kahuna aims to do that and MORE, and they open to the public today.
Now, don't think that the f'ree Comment Kahuna tool was some sort of take-back. You can keep right on using that tool as long as you want. But if you are finding it valuable - do your business a favor and give Traffic Kahuna a shot.
This network has the same kinds of values that we used when building our exclusive StomperSCORE system, so if you're not a StomperNet member, this is probably as close as you can get to having the same kind of benefit.
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In the previous parts of this series, we focused on the idea that as internet marketers, we need to:
Stop building links, and start building connections.
We talked about how through creating connections between ideas, and developing relationships with site owners and bloggers, we can essentially take on a shepherd role in our niche markets.
We can steer the tribes we target by helping them develop their niche interest.
If we use this strategy wisely and ethically, we can practically use OTHER people’s web properties as part of our own lead generating funnel.
We are no longer perceived as an outside force - like a door-to-door salesman imposing on their community.We instead become a valued member of that community, associated
not with marketing messages, but rather with being a valuable resource of information - as well as a provider of products and services.
See, by making our own connections in our marketplaces, we can capitalize on other people's resources to do all kinds of things: We can better educate consumers on our chosen topic, slowly
turning them from someone with a mild interest into a hot prospect.
We can create an impression of expertise by portraying a consistent personality across multiple "tribal" sites in our niche markets.
And of course, let's not forget that even though we've changed our thinking - we are actually STILL building links. Now, if you've been following along, we recommended a f'ree tool called "Comment Kahuna" that when used correctly, can help you efficiently engage your chosen audience and save you a LOT of research time.
Well, the same folks that made "Comment Kahuna" are releasing a service today at noon called "Traffic Kahuna" and I think that it will prove to be an incredibly valuable resource for
helping us create quality CONNECTIONS with our consumers AS WELL AS building quality links for the Search Engine spiders.
Remember how I spoke to you about how we can consider internet communities as "tribes" - small groups that cluster around common interests.
Well, what Jason and company have done is shepherded their own "tribe" around a common interest, just as I've been trying to teach you to do. Their tribe consists of webmasters that collectively operate over 1000 websites and actively post to over 500 blogs.
And here's where this tribe becomes valuable to you:
The common interest of all these site owners is a hunger for QUALITY CONTENT.
In exchange for this quality content, they're willing to trade QUALITY real estate on their sites (pages that have a high PR) and they're willing to give QUALITY one way links (with no “nofollow” tags).
Now, I'm sure you've seen this kind of "link building" network before, but the flaws in those systems were numerous.
The primary problem is that most of the blogs and sites in those networks were primarily owned by the network operators, and they existed ONLY as content billboards for their members.
The sites in those networks really had no traffic of their own, no communities of value that visited regularly.
Add to that the fact that the network operators were typically unwilling or unable to police the submissions from their customers.
So, what you ended up with were spammy sites, filled with unrelated, untargeted, duplicated posts, and worse - just crummy content.
Sure, you may have been able to get some limited benefit from those links as you're essentially "tricking" the search spiders into thinking you're popular with all those links.
Heck, it's probably still working pretty well. But that's a short term strategy. Over time, any PR value those network sites may have had is quickly leached away, and any REAL value you may have tried to provide is leached away and wasted as lazy, unethical marketers bury your stuff in worthless crap. See, that old way was focused on getting LINKS, but had no thought at all towards building the kinds of valuable CONNECTIONS that web users actually want to see.
And that's why Traffic Kahuna is different. Jason and crew KNOW the problems of using that old Web 1.0 "link-getting" model. After all, they've been using content syndication for the SEO benefit for years. They are recognized experts in that area.
Traffic Kahuna OVERCOMES all of those problems and it does it by providing a HUMAN-GUIDED focus on QUALITY.
See, the sites in the Traffic Kahuna network are all REAL sites with REAL audiences. They aren't just billboards for plastering up whatever anyone feels like. All these sites have a real interest in maintaining their audiences by providing fresh, and VALUABLE content.
Because of that, an article, review, and link from THESE sites are for the long term. They won't be buried by spam, because they will be part of a targeted resource aimed at SPECIFIC niche communities. These are sites built not just for spiders, but for TRIBES.
Webmasters have joined this network because they want to better serve their VISITORS. They are NOT just added by the network owners to provide a place for their customers to put more links.
Now, the Kahuna folks know that these webmasters are already busy, or else they wouldn't have a need for an automated, QUALITY content solution.
And that's why on the Kahuna side of this community there are actual GUIDELINES for quality content, ENFORCED by human editors.
Jason and the gang are FULLY COMMITTED to shepherding this tribe, and their aim is to BUILD QUALITY CONNECTIONS between marketers like you and me, and webmasters who already cater to the tribes we want to target.
In the same way that the f'ree Comment Kahuna tool allows you to find related blogs and post to them, Traffic Kahuna is going to allow you to bypass a lot of what I talked about in Part 2, and give you a DIRECT outlet to these valuable community sites.
You'll have a centralized place to manage your content, and YOU decide where to place it and what links you want. Of course, you need to meet their guidelines for quality, but I'm assuming
if you've kept up with this series, you know that quality is of the utmost importance anyway. I don't think any of our readers are out to junk up the internet.
But here is the BIGGEST reason I think Traffic Kahuna will succeed - both in the short AND long term: It's because they NEED you. And I don't just mean that Jason and crew need your money to line their pockets.
You are HALF the equation - without marketers and vendors that have messages they want to spread, the network has NO VALUE for the "tribe" of content-hungry webmasters.
They are creating a real, mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship - one built on an expectation of quality and trust. The very foundation of what they aim to do is JUST what I've been telling you.
They don't sell links - they foster CONNECTIONS.
And if it was from anyone else but Jason Potash, I wouldn't be so trusting that it could be pulled off.
Jason has the same attitude as I do - as ALL of StomperNet does - when it comes to content. Good marketing is about finding a group of people that want the same thing, and then giving it to them. And though SEO is one method of doing that by manipulating search results - the REAL focus should always include going to where the people ARE and interacting with them directly.
Traffic Kahuna aims to do that and MORE, and they open to the public today.
Now, don't think that the f'ree Comment Kahuna tool was some sort of take-back. You can keep right on using that tool as long as you want. But if you are finding it valuable - do your business a favor and give Traffic Kahuna a shot.
This network has the same kinds of values that we used when building our exclusive StomperSCORE system, so if you're not a StomperNet member, this is probably as close as you can get to having the same kind of benefit.
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