Make Money Blogging - Step 9 - Backlinks & Advertising Your Blog

<< Step 8 - New Content <<

Now it's time to open the gates and let the flood of traffic come rushing toward your blog!

Once you have a big following you won't need to advertise as much but in order to get a continual flow of traffic your blogs need to show up in the search engine results.

Your blogs won't rank high in search engine results unless they're seen as a valuable source of information.

And one of the biggest deciding factors on your blog's value is how many different websites are linking to it.

It might seem odd to you that you can actually make money from blogging, but you can and you should Sign Up to HubPages so that you can follow this 9 step process and start making money online with me!

You need to advertise each and every one of your blogs but you don't want to link to them from just any site.

You want to have links to your blog from a TON of different high quality websites. If high quality sites link to you then your quality is raised by association.

Think of it this way, if a bunch of intelligent and well-liked people recommend you as a source of information then a lot more people are going to want to come to you. A high quality backlink is like a recommendation from a trusted source.

But if the only place you're getting links or recommendations is from the prison yard (or very low quality sites) then people and search engines may avoid you.

The more high quality "recommendations" you get the higher you'll rank in search engines, which means more people will "hire" you as their source of information.

You also don't want to get in the habit of using reciprocal links because they're not as valuable. That's when you link to someone's page and they link to yours in return. You DON'T want to do this!

You want to get one way links to your blogs.

Over time, other people will link to your blog but the best way to get one way backlinks is to advertise your blog yourself.

For those of you on HubPages: Remember to use your tracking URL when you link to your blogs so that you get credit for new users.

Since you took the time to go through each and every step of the method I laid out for you, I'm going to give you the exact link strategy I use to advertise every one of my blogs!

You need a solid link strategy so that advertising for your blogs is laid out for you and you can quickly go through the process. So feel free to copy my link strategy or you can even add to it in the comments below.

Here's where you should be advertising...

• MySpace (blog, groups, bulletins)
• Facebook (groups, wall)
• Twitter

If you're not already on these sites, then you're missing out on A LOT of traffic!

What you'll want to do, when you advertise on MySpace and Facebook, is give a three sentence summary for your blog (I usually use the first 3 sentences of my blog) and then include a link under that summary with a title like "Read More about (your blog subject) >>".

On MySpace you'll want to post this to your blog, in a bulletin and then in groups that focus on the subject of your blog (even your own group if you have one).

On Facebook you'll want to post this to your wall and in groups that focus on the subject of your blog. But BE CAREFUL, you can't post quickly or in a lot of different groups on Facebook! If you have your own group on Facebook then you can even message all the members of the group at once.

On Twitter you'll only be able to include one short descriptive sentence and then a link to your blog. You'll probably want to use a URL shortener like TinyURL so that you can include your link. If you're on HubPages, they provide you with a shortened link for each of your blogs.

People are on these sites every single day and they're interested in what their friends are doing. In fact, at this moment Facebook is ranked #2 for the most trafficked site in the world! So bring their attention to your blogs and get a flow of social traffic to them!

Also, if you have A Personal Blog outside of your money making blog, then it's a good idea to post to it just like you would on Myspace or Facebook, especially if it's focused on the subject you wrote about.

• Digg
• Delicious
• Reddit
• Diigo
• Searchles
• Multiply
• Yahoo Buzz
• BlinkList
• StumbleUpon
• Spurl

On social bookmarking sites you'll include your link, a title and some places will require a description and tags.

The bonus to using sites like this is that people can rate and comment on your links. The more popular your links are the greater the chances that your link will end up on the main page of the site. This could mean A LOT of traffic for you!

• YouTube
• Facebook (profile, group)
• MySpace
• Blip
• Break
• Dailymotion
• eBaum's World
• Graspr
• GrindTV
• Howcast
• Metacafe
• StupidVideos
• Veoh
• Yahoo
• Viddler
• 5min

If you are creating your own videos specifically for a blog that you're writing then you'll have to upload it to a video site first. DON'T FORGET to include a link to that specific blog in the video's description so that people who view your video on that site can go to your blog to learn more!

And you can increase the amount of traffic you get from video viewers by uploading that video to many different video sites!

People watch videos every single day; they're entertaining and easy to absorb. In fact, at this moment YouTube is ranked #3 for the most trafficked site in the world! Tap into that and redirect some of that daily traffic to your blog!

• deviantART
• Flickr
• Panoramio

If you're taking your own pictures to use with specific blogs then you may also want to upload those pictures to photo sharing sites. DON'T FORGET to include a link to that specific blog in the picture description so that people can read more about the subject behind the picture.

People are searching for images every day, so tap into that flow of traffic too!

Some sites even allow you to input the GPS coordinates of the location where you took the picture. This can help your pictures get more traffic (which means your blog gets more traffic) because your images will show up when people are using sites like Google Maps. When they get close to where your picture was taken, map sites like to display these images to people to show them what's in the area.

If you follow this 9 Step Program I've laid out for you from start to finish with each of your blogs then I guarantee that your blogs will start showing up on the first page of Google's search results for a handful of keyword phrases.

You are now on your way to creating a residual income stream from your blogs!

So go ahead and get started.

Start getting high quality links to your blog!

A few months back I took it upon myself to experiment with HubPages and see how profitable it can really be to blog with them.

I honestly believe that this experiment was the turning point for the success of my blogging.

I'm sure that most of you on HubPages have heard of the Hub Challenge before, but my aim was to see if I could write 31 high quality hubs (blogs) in 28 days.

I wanted to see if I could write at this pace and how it affected my traffic and ultimately my income!

Ever since then, my earnings have continued to rise...

If you're interested, check out:

My Blogging Experiment