Article marketing is a great way to promote your sites: for every article you submit to an article directory, you typically get to place two or three links back to your own site(s), using anchor text of your choice. This results in link juice and referral traffic from the directory, and also any third party sites who pick up the article and republish it. However, many internet marketers are confused about the issue of duplicate content and what it means in practical terms for their submissions.

Basically, search engines are not too keen on returning listings with multiple copies of the same content, and not surprisingly, since this does not provide web searchers with a good user experience. So they tend to try and identify one copy of an article as the original, or preferred version, and devalue the rest in the listings. That doesn’t necessarily mean the other copies will not be listed at all, but just that they will appear lower down the rankings.

A common question that gets asked by article marketers is: is it OK to submit that same article to more than one directory? Personally I don’t see a problem with it – even if the versions that are identified as duplicates are suppressed in the search engine listings, there’s still a chance of getting referral traffic from the directories themselves, as well as any third-party reprints, and as long as they are not de-indexed completely by the search engines, you should still get the additional SEO benefits too.

Also, don’t forget that a large part of the article marketing strategy relies on your content being picked up and republished by website and ezine owners – so you’re going to have duplicate content “issues” anyway. And even if the worst happens and only one copy ends up in the search engine index, you haven’t lost anything. So there’s really no point in holding back – get your articles published as widely as possible to maximise the benefits that you may get from them!

Related posts:

1. The truth about article marketing
2. Internet Marketing: is it for you?
3. All backlinks are created equal…not!

Article marketing is a well established and effective method for promoting a website because it’s an easy way of garnering traffic and backlinks. Here’s how it works:

1. You write an original article on a topic you know something about
2. You submit it to one or more article directories
3. In return for your quality content, the directory allows you to place one or more links back to a site or sites of your choice
4. By submitting your article, you make it available for reprint by website and ezine owners seeking fresh content
5. Each time your article is republished, so are your links, resulting in a multiplication of backlinks over time – and we all know that this results in more traffic for your site, both via direct clicks on your links and via increased search engine rankings.

Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work!

In reality when people republish your article they often either remove your links entirely or make them nofollow, thus negating most of their value to you. Or at least that’s my experience, but I suspect I’m not alone in this. When this happens, your first thought might be to complain to the article directory and expect them to do something about it, but you will not get anywhere with this – the article directories’ terms of service almost always state that it’s your responsibility to follow up any violations of your copyright.

So what can you do? Well, you could simply stop submitting content to article directories, but this is cutting off your nose to spite your face. And remember, there’s nothing to stop other site owners from illegally using your content even if you only publish on your own site, so whilst this approach may limit your exposure it doesn’t solve the problem.

Alternatively you could be vigilant and make it your business to follow up every infringement, first demanding that the relevent site takes the content down, and if that doesn’t work, by filing a complaint with their hosting service. Before embarking on this approach, make sure you understand the cost to your business in time and lost productivity, and also the emotional and psychological cost to yourself.

Or you could do what I do and simply accept that the practice will continue, but not let that detract from the benefits that article marketing will bring regardless. This doesn’t condone the wrongful use of your content, it’s simply an acknowledgement that we don’t live in a perfect world but we carry on anyway.

Related posts:

1. Duplicate content in article marketing
2. Internet Marketing: is it for you?
3. All backlinks are created equal…not!

I’ve written quite a lot about how useful blog commenting is for building links to your own site, and establishing a presence in your niche. But there’s a downside to this too, particularly if you support the dofollow movement. Recently I’ve noticed a big upsurge in the number of spammy comments I’ve been getting. Because I moderate comments they don’t make it onto the site, but even deleting them wastes my time.

Types of junk comments

These junk comments tend to fall into one of three categories:

1. true spam – actually this is the least part of the problem because Akismet does such a good job filtering it out. Still, the odd one does slip through.
2. auto-generated nonsense – keyword-laden, computer-generated garbage. No matter how many times you read these, they still don’t make sense. People promote these tools as the answer to your link-building needs – well, I beg to differ! For example:
   

   An Alexa site widget on a web site can improve the site’s traffic ranking and enthusiastically shared their success stories to others through their blogs… Alexa toolbar users worldwide and from other “diverse traffic data sources”…

   In some cases I guess these nonsensical comments are actually left by real people who can’t express themselves very well – either way they’re getting deleted though. If I can’t understand what it says, my readers won’t be able to either.

3. generic human-generated nonsense – these often take the form of insincere flattery, for example:
   

   I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.

   Wow, thanks! Unfortunately when you keep receiving variations on this, or even the exact same comment over and over, you start to wonder about the sincerity being expressed here!

Don’t over-optimise

I guess the take-home message here is: don’t try to over-optimise your commenting strategy. Sure, you may be able to leave hundreds of comments using these methods, but how many of them actually stick? Far better, in my opinion, to leave a few hand-crafted, thoughtful comments that actually stick and enhance your reputation.

Part of the problem here is that people believe the hype that they can get the benefits without putting in the work – whatever the activity. While this approach might benefit those pushing the comment-generation tools, I don’t believe it’s beneficial to the average blogger, or to the wider blogosphere.

Conclusion

You can use blog commenting to great effect for building your site’s reputation, as long as you leave useful comments that contribute to the discussion. But abuse it at your own risk! You will do far more damage to your reputation than good by posting auto-generated or repetitive generic comments, and will almost certainly be tagged as a spammer. Don’t say you weren’t warned!

For the rest of you – those that leave good comments that do add to the discussion – thank you! It’s actually refreshing to receive your useful input (and of course you have nothing to worry about!)

Related posts:

1. Strategic commenting
2. Strategic commenting, part 2

Two and a half months ago my Alexa rank was around 7 million; today it’s a shade over 335k. Unless my maths is way off, that’s a two thousand percent gain! And the good news is it’s still rising – the “official” Alexa rank for a site is an indication of its average traffic over the past three months, but they also show a one week average – this site’s is a little under 200k.

So how did I do it? Extensive link building? Premium content? Long hours? Well, yes actually (I’ll leave you to be the judge of the content) – but that’s not what I attribute this rise to, at least not directly. In actual fact, it took all of about 10 minutes two and a half months ago to sow the seed that is now beginning to bear fruit – I’ll give you a little hint:

That’s right, I simply installed an Alexa traffic widget.

What is Alexa Rank?

Essentially, Alexa rank provides an indication of the traffic flowing through any site on the internet. Alexa gathers data on site visitors and page views on a per-site basis and then ranks sites according to their popularity; the lower the rank, the more popular the site. You can find more details in the Alexa help if you’re interested.

According to Alexa they gather data from many “diverse traffic sources”, but their primary source is from the surfing habits of those who have the Alexa toolbar installed. Now, since it’s mostly techies who have this installed, many have noted that Alexa favours tech sites, so tough luck if your site is all about the mating habits of the lesser spotted goldfish!

Why install the Alexa widget?

That’s where installing the widget comes in. By doing so, you’re effectively turning every visitor to your site into a virtual toolbar user for the duration of their visit, and thereby providing Alexa with a pretty accurate view of your site’s traffic. This means you gain an advantage over those who don’t have the widget installed, since Alexa has to extrapolate far more in their case. But it’s not an unfair advantage – after all, anyone can install the widget. Neither do I consider it “gaming the system” – there’s nothing artificial about the data Alexa is receiving. On the contrary, you’re ensuring they receive the most accurate view of your site possible.

Who cares what your rank is anyway?

Advertisers, that’s who! Rightly or wrongly, Alexa rank is one of the primary indicators used by potential advertisers to evaluate your site. So it stands to reason it’s in your best interest to present your site in the best possible light if you hope to make some spare cash from it. Enough said.

How to install the Alexa widget

It couldn’t be simpler. Simply head over to the Alexa Site Widgets page, select the style of widget you’d like, plug in your url, and paste the resulting code fragment into your site’s html or template.

Thanks where thanks is due – I first heard about this from Yaro Starak. At first I was really sceptical, but I guess you can tell I’ve gotten over that now! Thanks Yaro.

Let me know how you get on.

Related posts:

1. How not to comment
2. Bing traffic converts well

Since I talked about dofollow commenting the other day, I’ve been involved in a few comment exchanges about the benefits of installing the Dofollow and Top Commenter plugins. The benefits for commenters are fairly obvious – you’re rewarded for your comments with free backlinks. The benefits for the host blog are perhaps not as obvious, but I’ve definitely seen an increase in the number of comments on this blog since installing both these plugins a few weeks ago, and have hooked up with a few new blogs (new to me, that is) as a result. I imagine it’s the same for others.

Finding dofollow blogs

That’s all very well, but as a commenter, how do you identify these blogs amongst the vast ocean of nofollow ones? I’ve heard of a few methods, for example doing a Google image search for the you comment, I follow graphic which some sites display. There are also several sites that publish lists of blogs using these plugins – see Yan, Peter and Simon’s for example. These are pretty hot posts with lots of interaction – precisely because they’re providing some very useful information – they may be all you need to comment effectively, but for me there is one missing ingredient – the ability to search for specific topics and information in the lists.

Targetted search

I use Google a lot for doing research, finding other blogs in my niche, etc. But there is no way of telling from the search results whether a particular site gives dofollow links or not (and if you’re intent on commenting, this would be useful information, I think). That’s where my Dofollow Search Tool comes in – it only searches blogs that have one or both of these plugins installed. In other respects it works just like a regular Google search: just put in your search criteria and hit enter. I’ve also built in an option for you to notify me if there’s a blog you’d like included in the scope of the search, or if one that’s in there no longer provides dofollow links.

What do you think?

Please give it a try and let me know what you think. Are there any improvements you’d like to suggest? I’m not promising I’ll be able to accomodate all requests, but I’ll certainly consider them!

If you find this useful, please spread the word so more of us can enjoy the benefits of dofollow commenting!

Related posts:

1. Strategic commenting, part 2
2. All backlinks are created equal…not!
3. How to stay safe online

A couple of weeks ago I outlined my strategy for strategic commenting – go ahead and read it if you haven’t already – the key for me is building relationships with other bloggers. Taking over the world one blog at a time, if you want.

But with any strategy, even a good one, there’s normally room for improvement, so while last time I spoke about my philosophy of commenting, today I’d like to mention a couple of tactical tips you can apply to maximise the benefits of your comments to your blog’s authority and traffic. They’re actually closely related – I’ll give you a little hint: neither involves nofollow links…

Nofollow defined

You probably know what nofollow’s all about already, but just in case you don’t:

…nofollow is an HTML attribute value used to instruct some search engines that a hyperlink should not influence the link target’s ranking in the search engine’s index…
- Wikipedia

Most blogs use it by default in their comments section, and what this means for you, the commenter, is that although some readers of that blog may click through to your site, the link won’t benefit you as far as search engines are concerned. This is obviously not very good if you’re trying to get your content listed higher up in the search engine results (and if you’re not, you should be!).

The good news for us commenters is that there’s a bit of a revolution going on – many bloggers believe that nofollow is evil, against the spirit of co-operation that defines the internet, and will ultimately do more harm than good.

There are two nifty WordPress plugins that work around this in different ways: Dofollow and Top Commenter (actually there are several implementations of Dofollow, but they all do more or less the same thing).

Dofollow plugin

This simply strips out the nofollow tag from your comment link on a blog that has it installed, so that you benefit in terms of search engine juice, as well as any traffic that may result from people following your link.

Top Commentator plugin

This doesn’t reward every comment with a dofollow link; rather it does so only for the most prolific commenters on a site. The advantage this gives you, the commenter, is that often these top commenter lists are displayed in the sidebar or footer, meaning they are present on every page of the site! The downside though is that you don’t stay at the top of the list forever – eventually you will be overtaken by other commenters unless you comment frequently.

Now if you can find blogs that use both plugins and/or have decent PageRank…

Why be a sucker?

Why do some blogs allow themselves to be “taken advantage of” like this? Well, if you think about it, they benefit from increased traffic, as other bloggers come in search of links. And because dofollow bloggers tend to moderate their comments more than most (for obvious reasons), would-be commenters won’t get far without at least skimming the content. So basically they’re getting more eyeballs on their posts, more pageviews, and thus have more options for monetizing their sites (revenue is proportional to traffic).

How to find Dofollow and Top Commentator blogs

Ah-ha, the million dollar question! Well, some sites maintain lists, like Yan over at thou shall blog (which by the way uses both these plugins).

You can also find them at dedicated dofollow search pages like CommentHunt (thanks to Barry Wise for the tip).

Update: This site now hosts its own Dofollow Search Tool to help you find Dofollow and Top Commentator blogs – enjoy!

And I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that this blog uses both plugins too! So what are you waiting for…get commenting!

Related posts:

1. Dofollow Search Tool is online
2. Strategic commenting
3. All backlinks are created equal…not!

Links back to your site (or backlinks as they are commonly called) are a critical determining factor for the amount of traffic you will receive. But not all links carry the same weight – some are definitely more valuable, and thus more desirable than others. As is often the case, the most valuable links are also often the most difficult to procure…but that doesn’t mean the lesser types do not have their part to play.

What makes one link better than another?

There are several factors to consider when comparing the relative value of different links:

• Positioning. Where a link appears on the page has a direct bearing on how likely it is to be clicked – that’s why the best place to put ads on your site is “above the fold” (ie visible without having to scroll down). Links that are inline with the main content are also more likely to be clicked, because they are an integral part of what is being communicated to the reader, and the eye is drawn along by the flow of text. Conversely, links that are in the sidebar (particularly lower down), footer, or way down the comments section will receive fewer clicks simply because they are less visible.
• Authority. The more popular a site is with humans and search engines alike, the more weight it lends to its links. So, all else being equal, a link from a site with good PageRank and high traffic is much better than one from a new, low-traffic one.
• Follow or nofollow? Normal (follow) links are a vote of confidence from one site to another in the eyes of search engines (well, Google anyway, the only one that really seems to matter these days), and result in some of the linking site’s PageRank being bestowed onto the target site, with a resultant boost to the target’s standing in the eyes of the search engine. Nofollow links do not have this characteristic, and for that reason are vastly inferior to the former kind.
• Longevity. This relates to how long a link survives. Normal inline links generally last indefinitely (as long as the site does, anyway), but there are other kinds which have shorter lifespans. I’m thinking particularly of things like paid-for links, and Top Commentator ones.

Which kind of links are the best?

By this definition, the best kind of links are inline, above the fold, and from an authoritative site. No surprises there, but the reason they are the best is because they tick all the boxes I’ve just mentioned. By the same token, links from comments low down the page are probably some of the least effective ones you can have because they are generally ignored by search engines, and most human readers don’t get that far.

This situation changes a bit if the blog you’re commenting on uses dofollow links though, because then at least you’re getting some SEO benefits from the link, even if not actual traffic. And this could be further improved if the site you’re commenting on has good PageRank. See my article on strategic commenting for more on this.

Conclusion

As I mentioned earlier, the best kind of links are also the hardest to get – because they’re out of your control. The way to get them is to network effectively, and in the meantime focus on getting those that are within your control – social bookmarking, blog carnivals, and commenting relentlessly, particularly on dofollow and Top Commentator blogs.

Related posts:

1. Strategic commenting, part 2
2. Collect traffic and backlinks by participating in Blog Carnivals
3. Dofollow Search Tool is online

Blogging is at least as much about building your network of relationships as it is about producing great content. Of course quality content is a necessity – without it no amount of marketing will get you very far. But it’s not sufficient by itself, not when there are literally hundreds or thousands of other blogs competing for the same audience as you.

Image courtesy of pshutterbug

Now, one of the most common techniques for gaining exposure and building traffic is commenting on other blogs. Nothing new there – you’ve probably heard the same advice plenty of times already. But today I’d like to examine this in a little more detail, to maximise the benefits to you and your blog.

Think relationships, not traffic

When I comment on someone’s blog, I try to have in mind the goal of building a relationship with the other blogger, not merely using them to get a link. You might think that sounds very noble of me, and perhaps it is, but my reasoning is that in the long run I’m likely to benefit far more in terms of backlinks, traffic, and comments on my own blog if I spend some time getting to know the guy or gal on the other end. This is as opposed to randomly commenting here and there, but staying essentially anonymous in the process.

Think about some of the blogs you read regularly – I’ll bet you have some idea of who the blogger is behind the posts you read. As you follow a blog it’s almost inevitable that you build up a mental picture of the author, as they reveal personal tidbits here and there. Whether you like it or not, blogging is a personal medium. If you want to become the next Darren Rowse, Yaro Starak or John Chow, you need to become known.

Strategic commenting

So here’s how I do it:

1. When I land on a likely-looking blog, I like to spend a bit of time reading a couple of posts, the About page etc, to get a feel for the site.
2. Then I’ll leave a comment or two or three if I feel I can add something.
3. With some sites I’ll leave it there, but if I feel there’s potential for taking it further, I then subscribe to the blog’s feed.
4. I’ll make a point of revisiting the site a few days later, and see if there’s anything new. If so, I may leave another comment or two.
5. By this stage, I should have gotten the other blogger’s attention. Chances are they will have checked out my site and left a comment or two in return. If they have, the next step might be to try and link up to one of their posts (when the right opportunity presents itself); if not, I probably won’t push it any further.
6. I like to try and hook up with them via other social channels too – StumbleUpon, Delicious, MyBlogLog, etc. This really helps to cement the relationship.
7. And so on. It doesn’t always work out, but when it does I’ve added another site to my network! Like any relationship it takes a bit of work to maintain, but this is how I build my blog empire (Ok, no empire yet, but you get the picture).

9 Tips for strategic commenting

• Leave only comments of the highest quality, or you might get noticed for the wrong reason!
• Be personal. Reach out to the person behind the blog. Use their name if possible.
• Be sincere. There’s an old saying that goes “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all”; most of the time I think that’s good advice, but sometimes I feel the urge to hurl after reading one sycophantic comment after another, don’t you? It’s possible to politely disagree with someone too – just don’t do it to deliberately stir up a fight, and try not to alienate the recipient.
• Get yourself an avatar. More and more sites these days are using them (those little pictures next to people’s comments) – including this one, and they help to reinforce the personal aspect of networking.
• Comment within your niche. For SEO purposes, it’s best to have links coming from other sites in the same niche as yours, so concentrate your networking efforts there too. Plus you’ll probably have more in common with the other blogger.
• Target blogs you respect. Just like you probably wouldn’t hang out with someone you despise, try to link up with blogs / bloggers you can respect.
• Stick within your peer group. You have a far better chance of forging links with blogs at a similar level of authority to your own; getting noticed by an A-lister will be much more difficult because everyone’s trying to hit them up for something. Ask yourself: what’s in it for the other party? Still, that doesn’t mean you can’t try for those that are a little further along than you.
• Target other bloggers who’re actively reaching out themselves. Blog carnivals, forums and social sites are good places to look.
• Don’t hit and run. Build relationships, not just links.

That’s it in a nutshell. Do you agree or disagree with anything I’ve said? Or have I left something out? Feel free to add your 2c worth in the comments below.

Related posts:

1. Strategic commenting, part 2
2. How not to comment
3. Dofollow Search Tool is online

This morning I was checking out my stats in Google Analytics, and noticed that I’ve been getting a little traffic coming from StumbleUpon. Great stuff! But I wanted to know which article(s) were generating the buzz; unfortunately I had no idea how to find out. I tried the obvious: I tried searching StumbeUpon itself for my domain name, but that didn’t get me anywhere.

Now, I do happen to know how to find a specific page in Stumbleupon: simply navigate to http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/ and append the url of the page you’re looking for (thanks to Terence Chang for the tip). This can be quite a handy way of finding out who submitted your article, what they said about it, what category it was put in, etc. But still, the thought of repeating this for each of my posts to try and find which one(s) had been stumbled didn’t fill me with great excitement. So I decided to try to find the answer elsewhere.

Google Analytics to the rescue

Whilst I’m aware there’s quite a lot of depth to the information presented by Analytics, I tend to use it fairly superficially – generally just to get an idea of traffic volume, where it’s coming from, and what my most popular content is. Occasionally I drill down a little bit to see which keywords are sending me traffic from search engines (OK, Google), but not much more than that.

But I had an inkling this may be the way to find what I was looking for, and sure enough, after just a few minutes of poking around I found the answer. Here’s how to do it:

1. In Analytics, navigate to Traffic Sources > Referring Sources
2. Select StumbleUpon from the list of referring sites
3. Select Landing Page from the Dimension drop-down list, and voila! you should now see a list of pages that have received traffic from the referring site, along with numbers of visits to each page, and some other information.

You can obviously apply this same process to any referring site, but I think it’s most useful in the context of social bookmarking, because

• You don’t get any pingbacks from these sites
• Often social “links” do not show up in search engines either

I hope you found this useful – I certainly did. If you did too, why not give it a Stumble and share it around? Also, you may wish to check out my article on how to drive traffic to your site using StumbleUpon.

Related posts:

1. Stumble your way to a Rush of traffic
2. WordPress statistics plugin
3. Increase traffic to your blog with Social Bookmarking

This whole month I’ve been struggling to get this blog to show up on Technorati. I’ve been pinging them every time I’ve done a post; I’ve even pinged them manually, all to no avail. Every time I’ve checked their blog directory, I’ve been greeted with this put-down:

I Googled the message to see if anyone else had the same problem, and perhaps a solution. It seems I’m not the only one to struggle with this, but the general advice seemed to be to manually ping the service. Well, not me. Manual pinging made no difference whatsoever.

Claim your blog

Eventually I decided to try the other option suggested by Technorati: claim your blog. You have to sign up for an account to do this, but Technorati were claiming this would put my request “into the high priority queue”, so it seemed worth a shot.

Signing up was quick and easy, and to claim my blog I simply had to enter my blog’s login details, which Technorati assured me they would not retain.

Guess what, it worked! Suddenly I was Technorati’s long-lost cousin. In fact they “found” my site so fast I thought there’d been some mistake. But no, it appears there really is a high priority queue!

Was that so difficult?

After all that I was left wondering what all the fuss had been about. After all, Technorati is supposed to be a “real-time blog search engine”, so why hadn’t it been able to find my blog? Then I found this recent entry on their own blog, and it all started to make sense:

Large volumes of splogs (spam blogs) and non-blogs ping us in ever increasing numbers. While only a small percentage get through our filters, it is still enough to negatively impact the Technorati experience for everyone. Splogs can show up in search results and blog reactions. Additionally, the high volume of junk pings slows down our systems.

So it comes down to a question of credibility, and as long as you’re willing to manually vouch for your site, it’s still easy to get listed on Technorati.

No related posts.