Computer Solutions in the greater brisbane area.
February, 2011
Archive for February, 2011
Guest posting on other sites.
Getting backlinks to your site is one of the most powerful ways to build your online presence and improve sales. The problem most people face is just not knowing where to start to get more of this online marketing gold. Here’s one great idea;
Writing an article for another website is a great way to get an instant high quality backlink to your website. There are plenty of sites that publish stories regularly, and plenty more blogs run by individuals who would be happy for some extra fresh and original content they can use on their site.
Look for sites that do not compete with yours, but where your product or service overlaps with the topic of the site; For example, a lot of products and services would not compete with a builder, but would be of interest to the builders client base, and have some relevance for people building a new home.
Once you’ve found a prospective site, decide on what sort of article you could write for them. Make sure you are an authority on the subject, because they aren’t going to want a poorly written article for their site. You don’t even need to write it yet, but you could write a few of these, and then offer them to sites. I tend to look for the site opportunity first, though.
Then, contact the site owner and make the offer. Be to the point, don’t try to make out you are offering free content because you are a great person, tell them you thought you could offer content their visitors would appreciate, and you are looking to gain a link back to your site from theirs. At this point, consider if they could offer YOU some content too; There are many products and services that overlap in both directions, and doing an article swap is even better!
Once you have agreement, try and incorporate one or two links in the article itself, using anchor text that describes your product or service. This is the best kind of backlink you can get, one that tells Google not only that your site is worth a visit, but exactly what your site is about.
One important point; You are going to need to write a fresh article for every site that takes you up on your offer. Giving multiple sites the same copy will result in those sites being penalised by Google, and most likely, they’ll take your content down.
Let us know how you go in the comments!
Why we don’t use Google
I just read an interesting post by John Jonas about how he lost all his google stuff recently. He describes how one evening he found that his entire Google account had disspeared; When you tried the usual password recovery, Google told him there was no account matching his email address! As John uses Google for just about everything, he was pretty worried, seeing as every email, every document, his whole business, had just dissapeared!
John goes on to describe a whole bunch of steps that Google users should take to safeguard against such a time, but really, is there a case for risking your business like this? Google have, as John puts it, a ZERO policy, meaning you get zero communication from them. They can delete your account on a whim, and there is nothing you can do about it.
Personally, I would never trust any part of my business to a company for which there is zero support. A business needs someone on the other end of the phone, so when things inevitably go wrong, they can be fixed quickly and without fuss. Even better, when i can actually meet a representative of the business in person, then I know what kind of attitude they have, and can make a judgment on using their services or not.
My advice; Don’t use Google for your email and documents. There are many better solutions that don’t see all your important data locked up in a black box you can’t always get access to.
