Submitting Links to Websites for 100% Free Traffic

When people think of submitting links, usually social news, networking and bookmarking websites come to mind. The most popular of these, such as Digg and Reddit, can be hard to succeed on as there is a great deal of competition. However, there are some sites out there that are less well-known but can send a great deal of traffic – thousands of hits or more per accepted submission. I have recently seen thousands of visitors from sites I have manually contacted and that require manual approval for link publishing – very different than typical social media site. For two reasons, however, I am not going to list out the ones I have used in the past to do this:

1) Some of these sites are surprisingly unknown by the blogging and webmaster communities. They would potentially be flooded with semi-relevant spam were word to get out. In many cases, niche communities frequent these sites looking for links related to their interests, and these sites often have just one or two moderators.

2) Your niches probably aren’t my niches. What works for content I create will likely not work for your own. There are thousands of link-oriented sites on the web that can be found via simple Google searches. Also watch for an unsolicited source of incoming traffic – who knows, if you ping them with a similar future post they may be more than happy to link to you again.

One site I write for targets bizarre oddities, though it is often linked to from a site that mostly (strangely enough) links to porn. Why does it work? The demographics clearly overlap. So be sure to look past the overt purpose of the site and see what they are linking too. Whenever you come across a new site that posts frequent or daily link, look at what they link to and see if you have something that fits, either from your site or someone else’s.

I recommend making a list of such sites over time and keeping them in mind whenever you create new content. There are obvious and popular ones like Fark and Thoof to be sure, but there are many smaller ones that still send a ton of traffic to articles that they deem worthy of being linked to. When you find one, be patient and don’t spam – test out a link or two you think might be relevant in order to learn what they like to link to!

That all being said, if you leave a comment and (without linking – just use the site title please) let me know what your website is I would be more than happy to suggest possible sites to ping with links for traffic. I simply don’t want to announce them all here for fear of overloading sites I respect and enjoy with irrelevant links.

Advertisement

 

Share Your Stuff: Effectively and Ethically Submitting Pages to StumbleUpon & Stumblers

Recently a number of people have asked me how to get lots of visitors via StumbleUpon. To answer that question, I first need to make it very clear that I don’t see it as ‘getting’ Stumblers to ones sites per say. Instead, I share what I enjoy both what I find on other sites and (much more infrequently) what I write or create myself with others on StumbleUpon. I also send stuff to those I think will appreciate the material. StumbleUpon is a diverse site with millions of interesting, educational and entertaining pages and Stumblers of all ages and interests. Here are some steps for becoming an active Stumbler, contributing valuable pages to StumbleUpon and making sure that the people who see them are those who will appreciate them most.

(1) Familiarize yourself with StumbleUpon categories and tags. When you submit a new page to StumbleUpon (as shown below) some default popular categories appear right in front of you, though you can also look under the ‘Other’ menu to find more. The popular categories, if selected as the primary category, may lead the page to be seen by more people if it fits the category. However, if the page doesn’t fit into one of those categories and you submit under it anyway, you might find that no one appreciates it and votes it up – the submission is wasted. Your best bet is to submit to the most fitting category, then choose applicable tags. For example, I might submit a work of Graffiti by Banksy under ‘CounterCulture,’ but add the tags ‘Banksy’ and ‘graffiti’ (highly targetted) as well as ‘arts’ and ‘activism’ (more popular but also applicable).

(2) Network effectively with like-minded Stumblers: One key to success StumbleUpon, just like any social networking, bookmarking or news site – is to find people who appreciate and will vote for your submissions. There are a few ways to do this.

(a) Start by looking at who votes for your submissions and add them as a Stumble ‘friend.’ If you feel up to it, you can even send them a message and see if they’ll add you back – though many will automatically. However, if that someone has hundreds of friends they may be over their limit and unable to add you back. At the opposite extreme, if they have just a few Stumble-friends they may be someone who never adds anyone back. If you want someone who will become a reciprical friend, look for people with around 50 to 150 friends. An extension of this: look for people with similar interests or who submitted pages you like.

(b) Find Stumblers by Stumbling the keyword ‘Stumblers.’ Particularly if you’re relatively new to StumbleUpon, you may not have many Stumble-friends. A good way to start finding Stumblers (once you’ve input your own interests into the database) is to Stumble under the keyword ‘Stumblers.’ this will allow you to browse users’ pages and find people who are interested in similar subjects. You can add a lot of Stumblers with similar interests this way, and if you eventually have too many you can always remove people who don’t add you back.

(3) Send stuff to the right Stumblers: Use the ‘Send to’ button when you find or create something you think is suited to a particular Stumbler’s interests. Some things of general interest can be sent to many Stumble-friends, while special-interest topics might only be appropriate to certain people. Some Stumblers you will know well outside of StumbleUpon or interact with via Stumble-messages, and you’ll know what to send them as a result. Other Stumblers you might just remember what they have Stumbled or use their name to determine what to send them (e.g. FunnyFarts likes crass humor). In your ‘Send to’ message, give a brief description of the page, or write why you think they’ll like it.

StumbleUpon is a great way to both share what you like and what you create, but remember: it is a social setting like any other with etiquette. Don’t assume someone is going to like just anything you write – it has to be on-target with their interests. As a rule of thumb Stumblers like images and easy-to-read articles. After all, they are browsing the internet not reading a novel! Make your submissions to-the-point and add illustrations as appopriate, then submit them to StumbleUpon under the right tags and send them to Stumblers who will be interested in the material. StumbleUpon is a great way to find stuff and share stuff as long as you respect your fellow Stumbler and help them find things they will appreciate!

I, for one, am always happy to get great material from Stumble-friends. Join up, add me as a friend and send me your stuff – whether it’s yours or you just found it!

 

Three Best Tools for Seeing How Your Site Ranks for Critical Keywords

There are three great web tools for looking quickly and easily at how well your site is ranking for keywords you are targetting. Of course, there are many such tools, but these three in particular are commonly overlooked and each can help you assess and improve your site in different but valuable ways. Whether you are working on free SEO or paid PPC ads, these are all worth looking at:

(1) Website Grader is a great site that, as a free service, does a few valuable things all at once. First, it checks your site’s general statistics on Google, Technorati, etc… More importantly, however, it shows you how you rank for keywords you are targetting AND compares that to other sites which YOU define as your competition. The tool also looks for gaps in your page structure or other problems with your site that may be hurting your rankings or keeping you from turning up higher on search results. Of course, as the name suggests, it also creates an overall ‘grade’ for your site based on this combination of factors.

(2) Google Site Related Keywords is a great way to see what Google itself thinks of your site. You simply enter your domain name then wait for Google to browse your site and return what the GoogleBots decide are your top keywords of choice. If you aren’t turning up on search results, this can help explain why. This site, for example, returns top keywords like ‘page rank,’ ‘search engine’ and ‘blog’ – a good sign that I have targetted the right keywords and that Google has a good idea of what this site is about! Google thought this site was about funny and weird humor, which is partly true, while it originally thought this site was about fine art, not street art.

(3) Stealing Competitor Keywords is a great way to get ahead of whatever sites you may be competing with and outranking them on search engines by seeing what they use! As the linked article suggests, it might be best to sign up for a 1-day trial (quite inexpensive) and do a lot of searches in that first day.

 

One Final Google PageRank Post

I assume everyone is as sick of thinking about the impending Google PageRank update (slated for this month – August 2007!) as I am. If you’re concerned about your PageRank and fretfully trying to predict it, just remember: it isn’t all about incoming links and their PR value. Most people focus on that particular part of a very complex equation. In fact, Google looks at a number of factors that many folks don’t realize in determining PageRank. Here are two that may surprise you:

(1) Relevance of Outgoing Links: Amazing but true, Google looks at not only who links to you but who you link to! If you link to every kind of site under the sun, Google won’t know what to think your site is about (yes, I’m attributing ‘thought’ to the mindless GoogleBots!). Also, if you link to too many low-PR sites Google might not believe you to be an authority in your niche.

(2) Other References to Your Site: buried deep within Google’s patent applications are strong pieces of evidence that suggest Google scrapes even non-indexed sites, follows no-follow links and even checks emails for references to webpages. So, if there is a lot of buzz about your site, you might find that your Google PageRank turns out higher than you thought it would!

With that said, I swear I won’t write another post about PageRank until after the update!

 

Interlude: Tips for New Bloggers

OK, I’ve added some pretty new bloggers (but with interesting blogs and blog concepts, so check them out!) to the blogroll here so I feel a little compelled to throw out some tips for getting started with blogging. Yes, you can find tips for blogging all over the web but most sites will try to sell you something – and if you haven’t noticed: there are exactly 0 ads on this site. So here goes:

1) Find blogs you like, subscribe to their feeds, fave them on Technorati, and leave comments on them. Make those comments relevant. Feeds and faves will help you easily keep track of new posts on these blogs you like, plus if you feed/fave a blog it helps their rank – so tell them when you’ve done it! Some blogs with ‘do-follow’ will give you a PageRank boost for your troubles, but in other cases it’s just a way to get a feel for the blogosphere and will help you get to know bloggers who you can ask questions of and get tips from.

2) Don’t overload your blog with ads and buttons too early. Put a few things up, the things you really want people to click, and add and subtract as you go. Too much stuff looks spammy and can make it so people won’t click anything. If you watch your Google or MyBlogLog analytics (both of which you should be signed up for by the way,  with an MBL widget on your site too!) you can watch what people click, where it is on your page, and adjust accordingly. Also, think about your goals: you probably aren’t going to make a ton from AdSense right away, so think longer-term and put up buttons like Technorati faves and FeedBurner buttons like you see on this site to build up the readership and popularity you’ll need to earn more in the future.

3) Carefully choose your blog tagline. This has two incredibly important functions: it both tells your readers right away what the page is about and helps Google and other search engines know as well. It is much easier to rank for things in your blog title – so choose those phrases carefully, and change them as the content of your blog changes. For more keyword/SEO tips see recent posts on this blog.

4) Link out to get links in. Linking to relevant blogs and websites will help get their attention. Most veteran bloggers have various ways to see who is linking to and talking about them, and they will perk up and pay attention if someone new comes into that mix. However, don’t expect linkbacks from big-time sites like TechCrunch, of course – look for successful bloggers who still interact with their readers.

5) Get the right bookmarking and stats tools on your site. I recommend checking out the beta test for the Romlet blog widget, which is a brag badge, bookmarking tool and stats counter all rolled into one. If you’re not getting many visitors you can opt out of the public stats portion, but the widget will help you track in real-time where your traffic is coming from. Ther’es nothing worse than getting a big hit from a social news site and finding out about it too late to vote for it or ask your friends and fellow bloggers to! The MyBlogLog Recent Visitors widget is also a must-have – it lets you see who is visiting, then trackback to them and thank them for showing up. Together these two widgets cover a lot of the basics, and are better than cluttering a blog with all sorts of stuff.

That’s it for now – feel free to ask questions or add to this list!