Proxy Experiment Updates

I have been working on finding hosting as this is the most important part of the proxies. Everything else will follow suite if they are stable and I get a good price. I plan on making a guide which I will post here detailing exactly what I do to setup the proxies.

More people then I thought have no clue how to do that as I was creating over some proxy related posts on various forums. I already have some domain names to use but might register more and redirect the others. I like to get brandable domain names since they can be used for anything down the road. Getting a .com is also very important to give it a better reputation and make it stand out from the millions of .info proxies out there.

Posted in: Blog, Increase Traffic, Make Money Online | Date: December 12th, 2007 | Posted by: Derek | 2 Comments »

SEO Case Study Results

About half way into the month I began a SEO Case Study to build the most backlinks and popularity out of the blog in a short period of time. Here are the results from the study. To build backlinks I did a combination of directory submissions, blogroll exchanges, and submitted to a bunch of blog related websites. Although I did not meet most of my results they were pretty difficult and I came close on most of them. I could have done a bit more work on the Technorati rank which I spent almost no time with since it should go up naturally as people link to the blog.

Goals

Backlinks: 250
Alexa Rank: 65,000

Authority: 100
Rank: Top 75,000

People Count: 5,000

Results

Backlinks:

Alexa Rank: 434,718 (obviously not accurate since it is  by 3 months, 1 week average 119,555)

Authority: 25
Rank: 331,293

People Count: Unknown (Waiting for it to updated)

Posted in: Case Studies, Increase Traffic, Make Money Online, SEO | Date: December 1st, 2007 | Posted by: Derek | No Comments »

Five Tips to Increase Directory Approval Rating

Even after the recent pagerank update caused many sites to have a decrease in their pagerank it is still very important to submit to directories. I am not saying to go out and submit to thousands of general directories, make sure that they are related to your websites niche. In my case I found a bunch of quality blog directories and submitted there. Of course some did not approve me for a number of reasons, but here are some tips that I used to increase the chance of getting in at some of the best directories. Keep in mind that paid directories to not guarantee free inclusion, sometimes even these will deny you if the terms are not followed. Always look for Deep Link Directories over the regular ones as these carry a far better SEO benefit even though the price is a little higher to get into them. Most Deep Link Directories are paid and have a fee to get listed in them.

Keep the Wording Simple

Most directories do not want a long drawn out title that looks like a sales pitch. Keep it simple and use the keywords that you are looking to boost in the rankings. For instance I was using SEO and Marketing Tips as my title. It was simple and straight to the point. When it comes to descriptions this it up to you. Most directories prefer longer descriptions, about 200-300 characters should do.

Follow The Rules

The Terms Of Service are very important, read them over become submitting your site. If the directory requires the website to be written in english and contain no adult or illegal content then be darn sure that your website complies. Otherwise you are just wasting time and if they allow these sites then the search engines are likely to hit you with a penalty for being listed with them. Even if not mentioned every directory wants to contain quality websites. Nobody wants ones that are on free templates, filled with spam, or made for adsense. Have a friend or family member review your site become submitting it, if they do not like it then a webmaster defiantly will not either.

Use The Correct E-Mail

Using the @yourwebsite.com for submitting to all directories will increase approval rates for a few reasons. It shows that you indeed are the owner of the website and builds a higher level of trust in your website with the directory owner. Without him talking to you it proves to him that you own the site and are not one of the spammers that are too often clogging the submissions to directories.

Submit A Limited Amount

Submitting to thousands of unrelated directories will do no help. You also will have a very tough time tracking which ones approved you and which ones did not. Submit to about 10-15 directories at first. Submitting to many at once may cause Google to penalize your websites search engine positions (SERPS). Nobody wants to end up getting hurt from submitting to directories.

Use Directory Lists and Services

These can be helpful and save time rather then finding them all by yourself and submitting for endless hours. Some may like submitting it themselves, using autofill you can submit to most directories in under a minute. With the services for a few dollars someone will submit to a large number of directories manually. Most of these services are poor quality and submitted to a large mass of directories which is not what you want. I have been experimenting with them and the results are not clear how helpful they are at this time. By subscribing to my feed you will have instant access to the list of best paid web directories and the best free web directories.

Posted in: Blog, Increase Traffic, Make Money Online, SEO, Search Engine Marketing, Web Directories | Date: November 27th, 2007 | Posted by: Derek | 1 Comment »

Article Directory List

As I promised a few days ago I was going to start making some quality lists that people could use as a resource and spread about the net. Here is my first one featuring the best article directories in order by popularity. I also took the time to include a brief description of the site and a direct link to submit. Write your own quality content before submitting, they do not like duplicate articles. Make sure the articles are in the correct category. Some of the most popular topics are health, nutrition, business, and news articles. I suggest writing about one of these if you have interest in that topic.

EzineArticles.com
The most compressive database or articles online with over 75,000 authors writing new ones everyday.
Alexa Rank: 640
People Count: 4,381,823
Submit

SearchWarp.com
Writers community for do it yourself and current events commentary.
Alexa Rank: 7,728
People Count: 407,734
Submit

WebProNews.com
For Articles related to business, search engines, technology and web development.
Alexa Rank: 7,068
People Count: 296,241
Submit

Buzzle.com
Buzzle is comprised of a dynamic network of authors and content contributors who we proudly refer to as our Intelligent Life on the Web
Alexa Rank: 9,375
People Count: 1,035,965
Submit

GoArticles.com
GoArticles is one of more than 15 web sites comprising the Jayde Online Network, most of which focus on niche areas of particular interest to webmasters, marketers, newsletter publishers, authors and entrepreneurs.
Alexa Rank: 7,127
People Count: 73,993
Submit

ArticleBase.com
Featuring over 243,128 published free articles, by 29,241 authors.
Alexa Rank: 10,503
People Count: 171,714
Submit

ArticleCity.com
Large database of quality articles. A known name in the industry.
Alexa Rank: 20,536
People Count: 94,150
Submit

ArticleAlley.com
We have been collecting articles and been writing our own articles since 2002, our collection became so large that we decided the time was right to build a site dedicated to these articles, and to encourage and promote authors to submit fresh content.
Alexa Rank: 19,631
People Count: 78,037
Submit

IdeaMarketers.com
Article community where YOUR ideas shine.
People Count: 50,775
Alexa Rank: 21,399
Submit

iSnare.com
Over 40,000 pubishers and thousands of article sites.
Alexa Rank: 15,949
People Count: 57,277
Submit

Article Dashboard
The Internet’s Premier source for article distribute. Submit articles and start your own article directory.
Alexa Rank: 10,159
People Count: 38,469
Submit

Posted in: Freebies, Ideas, Increase Traffic | Date: November 26th, 2007 | Posted by: Derek | 2 Comments »

Stumbleupon Social Bookmarking Case Study Update

After going off the results from the Stumbleupon experiment that I started yesterday I was very surprised at the results. I only submitted 2 of my blog posts and the traffic nearly tripled, I plan on doing a few everyday to keep it steady for the next week. The bounce rate was actually lower then the days before. This leads me to believe that it may actually work with blogs, in the past I have used it with forums, proxies, and web hosting. Proxies worked great and got me thousands of uniques just from one time. As expected it did nothing for the forum in terms of registrations and view time. The amount of time that visitors stayed on the site only decreased by about 40 seconds, which means that the users are actually reading my posts. I even noticed a few people blogged about the post after reading about it on Stumbleupon. That means that I also increased the backlinks.  Take a look at some of the results below and let me know your experience by making a comment!

Bounce Rate Lower

 Unique Visitors 3x Higher!

 Sources Stayed the Same!
United States, United Kingdom, Canada are Top 3

Posted in: Case Studies, Increase Traffic, Make Money Online, Social Networking | Date: November 21st, 2007 | Posted by: Derek | No Comments »