BackLinkFast.com

Even more than Facebook, Twitter is fast becoming the social networking site of choice for virtually everyone who wants their presence known online. Twitter was developed as a micro-blogging platform that allows users to post text-based messages, or “Tweets” up to 140 characters that are then sent to their followers, or subscribers. While the vast majority of Tweets are personal in nature, the marketing potential of Twitter is fast being recognized, and using Twitter to market your blog can mean a quick, easy to use, and free way to increase your web traffic.

The simplest way to use Twitter to market your blog is by getting people to become your followers, and tweeting them every time you create a new post. Advertising your Twitter account on your blog, topic-relevant forums, through article submission, and on other websites can get the followers to sign up, and then simply sending a tweet can inform them all to check out your latest blog.

Using Twitter, however, can certainly get more creative than that. Likely the more creative you get, the more interested your followers will become, and the more traffic you will draw to your blog. Engaging your followers, soliciting their input on your blog’s topics, and asking for reactions to your posts can gain more interest than simply advertising your latest blog. It is also important to reply to your followers, both on Twitter and on your blog. Making your readers feel like you value their input will keep them coming back, and may even gain you some of those ever valuable backlinks.

Now that you have decided to enter the new world of social networking, avoiding the temptation to over tweet can be difficult. Setting up two twitter accounts is one way to prevent your followers from feeling like they are being spammed. This allows your readers to sign up for tweets that simply update them on new posts, or for those that are interested, receive more information, like appearances you may be making, relevant industry updates, and general responses. This will keep your follower interested and not overwhelmed. Just don’t forget to include a link to the blog too!

Blogging in today’s online marketplace can be big business, and WordPress is the leading blogging platform used. Like Blogger, WordPress blogs can be simple web logs that you can access and update through the WordPress website. This, however, is an option primarily for personal use blogs. What makes WordPress the choice blogging platform for professional and revenue based blogs is the downloadable blog creation and maintenance software.

Being open source software, WordPress’ coding and applications are very transparent and flexible, and can be used by both novice and expert alike. PHP and MySQL driven, WordPress is also compatible with most web hosting options and Content Management Software, making it ideal for use with virtually any web hosting company.

The WordPress Backlink plug-in is just one of the many plug-ins available for this open source blogging platform. Essential it works by allowing you to trade backlinks with other bloggers, and keeps track of both the number and rank of each of these backlinks. By filling out a form, bloggers can link their related blog entries to yours. There is also a feature that allows you to approve the backlinks filled in, keeping your backlinks relevant, and preventing your content from becoming part of the growing spamdexing epidemic. Google and Yahoo both are cracking down on sites that use spamdexing tactics, and this feature allows you to maintain control of your blog.

So while the WordPress Backlink plug-in can offer another great way to keep track of your backlinks, and can be a good introduction to web analytics for your blog, there are some limitations to the type of data that you will get, and little help analyzing exactly what the results mean. For this, you still will need to use a more in depth web analytics tool, such as Google Analytics, or the software that is available to you through your web hosting package.

With the ever increasing number of websites appearing online that create revenue from ad space, and the spike in software programs available that offer to track and analyze your web traffic, Google Analytics is the easy to use, and free option that is definitely worth a look. In fact, it is currently the most popular web analytics tool used according to Wikipedia, and is used by some of the most successful websites around to keep track of their online presence.

While Google Analytics has been around for a few years, its success essentially lies in its use of fairly simple technology to accomplish the task. Primarily it uses java script, time-stamped cookies, and an implementation code called ga.js. This allows the data to be collected and tracked, as well as analysed.

One of the benefits of Google Analytics is that there are multiple ways to analyze your data. It offers reports that are customizable depending on the type of data you want to know, and how you want it displayed. It is also very functional with other types of software that you may already be using, or that are part of your web host’s control panel; a feature not often found with free analytics tools. Another feature that makes this an excellent free web traffic tracking option is its ability to not only track direct web traffic, but related traffic, such as hits from social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, as well as through multimedia searches for your site’s images and videos, and even more importantly, search engine hit results.

Another great feature of Google Analytics is both the free and paid support options they offer to help maximize your web traffic. Their site has an extensive Help Centre that contains numerous articles and blogs from industry and Google experts that help you use the product. They also have an active User’s Forum where many question you may have can easily, and quickly be answered. They also offer email and telephone support if needed; a rare service in the world of free online business. If you require more professional, or intensive help in analyzing your web traffic data, or with your search engine optimization and web marketing strategies, Google Analytics also offers paid services from authorized consultants.

Google Analytics does offer a great product and service; however, there are a few limitations that should be kept in mind, especially if it will be used as your only web analytics tool. Google Analytics can often be easily blocked by privacy software that block or deletes tracking cookies. This however, is the major issue with most tracking software available, and it certainly does not affect the overall rating of this web analytics tool in general. Overall, Google Analytics is a highly useful tool that all webmasters and web marketing professionals should seriously consider.

Company: BackLinks.com

Services: Buy & Sell Text Links

The Rundown

Backlinks.com exceeded my expectations within 15 minutes of registering as a new user (advertiser). The advertiser’s user interface is very straight forward. You can add your sites very quickly without having to worry about writing long descriptions and lists of keywords. Simply enter in your site URL, your desired anchor text, and select from the large (but manageable) list of website categories. Click next and you’ve just added your first site.

Once your site has been added to their system, click select links to begin finding relevant backlinks to your website. You will be brought to a page which lists all categories, or you can simply search for the type of site you’re looking for. One click later you are presented with a list of websites related to your selection. I was impressed on the speed of the backlinks.com system, there is almost no wait for returning search results and I must say they’ve built up quite a large and impressive clientele.

Anyway, back to the process. You are now shown a list of sites,  each site is labeled by their brief description, followed by Google Page Rank, whether or not the link will be on a homepage or subpage, and the cost of the link. But the best feature, which sets backlinks.com apart from the rest of the link marketplace; click the description of any website and you are shown the URL of that site, but don’t worry it is in the form of a “CAPTCHA” type of image. This ensures that nobody is penalized by search engines for intentionally purchasing or selling links.

Pros

• Rapid sign-up process
• Great user support
• Quality, categorized web sites
• Shows URL’s but in a secure way
• Pay, and get paid fast via PayPal

Cons

• Limited sorting capabilities
• Confusing User Interface

Overall I have become a fan of backlinks.com and will continue to use them for backlink building. I have already purchased 3 high quality links for $15. As far as results go, well I have already seen a 3 position jump on one of the keywords I used as anchor text through backlinks.com not to mention several clicks (some unexpected traffic). I would highly recommend these guys to any SEO or backlink building professional.

Goto BackLinks.com Here

Company: LinkDiagnosis

Services: Free tool to examine your link competition

The Rundown

Analyze Back Links

This is a great tool for examining your site’s back links. The best part about LinkDiagnosis is that it’s 100% free to use with no restrictions. Just go to their website, enter the desired URL, and click Start. It normally only takes a minute or two for most sites(depending on the amount of back links to the site you’re examining). After the brief wait you are presented with some extremely useful data. It shows your total unique back links, a unique back link is defined as one unique domain name linking back to your site.

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