Posted via email from davidleigh’s posterous

Posted via email from davidleigh’s posterous

Yesterday Google added starred results at the top of the page. And today – in Firefox for me at least – gone is the light blue bar under the search box and in comes a sidebar that doesn’t appear to switch off.

Do I like it?

Not much; but I’ll probably get used to it and it may be a test that doesn’t get rolled out widely anyway.

Having tested the service myself I can vouch for its effectiveness, but it is relatively expensive for what is really a simple idea. I therefore decided to write up the process for a virtual assistant instead; the by-product of it is this post.

Link wheels are similar to “the butterfly” linking model that Michael Campbell talked about in Revenge of the MiniNet. The difference between them is whereas the butterfly consists of a number of self hosted mini websites, the link wheel is usually made up of a single post hosted on Web 2.0 properties, although it can mix both self hosted and Web 2.0 hosted content if preferred.

If you have any concept of Internet Marketing then you’ll appreciate the value of backlinks. A link wheel creates a number of backlinks to another webpage; it consists of a number of “spoke” pages Web 2.0 pages – typically 4 to 7 different properties – that provide one link to the “hub” page that you’re trying to boost in the search engines and a second link to the next “spoke” page in the link wheel.

Over time a number of link wheels can be interlink to further focus the PR on the “hub” page you are trying to boost. While this hub can be a page on your website or blog, I prefer to link to another Web 2.0 site or article.

If you’re familiar with the Thirty Day Challenge model (overview above), where a website is linked to from a variety of Web 2.0 properties, each Web 2.0 property would become a hub for a number of link wheels:

Now that’s starting to look complicated. But it isn’t really – it’s simply process that should be done over time to build up content on the Web 2.0 properties and social bookmark all those Web 2.0 properties (preferably using Traffic Bug or something similar).

In fact, it can get slightly more complicated than that, because if your site needs further link love each of those Web 2.0 properties can then become the hub for a new link wheel.

The advantage of linking to a Web 2.0 property instead of directly to your own website is that there is a degree of separation between the link wheel and your site. If Google picks up on your link wheel your site is less likely to be penalised thanks to the Web 2.0 “buffer” zone.

The problem is that although the task is simple, it is time consuming – most of the time is taken setting up accounts, adding content to the Web 2.0 sites, adding backlinks to the hub and next spoke site and with social bookmarking – hence my need to outsource.

Anyway, in my next post I’ll discuss what Web 2.0 properties to use, and how to go about setting up your first link wheel.

Image courtesy of Danard Vincente

The product is simple; a list of 5,000 (or thereabouts) web properties where you can obtain a backlink, including but not limited to blog comments and forum posts. The list is categorised in several ways, for instance a list of dofollow blogs; PR8 backlinks; .edu domains.

Along with this list are some simple instructions consisting of Getting Started Guide (7 pages), Daily Actin Plan (1 page), Instant Indexing Guide (3 pages) and Link Building Power Tips (3 pages). The instructions are designed to be straightforward to implement, without the filler content found in so many Internet Marketing products and a key message is this is how to do it – now do it!

This is one of the biggest problems faced in Internet Marketing – there are hundreds of products and tens of thousands of internet marketers. However, owning products doesn’t equate to actually putting it into practice and that is one point really stressed by Lynn and Paul.

The product is suitable for Internet Marketers of all experience and has been designed to be easy to outsource – I’d advise you to go through it a few times like I did to get an idea of what it’s all about at first, but several days of spending a hour backlinking is a real chore.

Building backlinks is one of the core elements of any SEO campaign and essential to rank your pages for anything remotely competitive. However, finding pages to get links from is a real pain and I’ve never been very happy with the results of any of the SEO tools I’ve used when trying to find good backlink targets; 5000 Backlinks makes it easy to select a list and get to work, leaving comments that add to the conversation.

On the down side, Power Tips mentions getting 10-20 links each day spending an hour per day (although elsewhere it mentions 20 links in two hours) – I’ve tried the system for an hour per day over a two week period and there is no way I could get close to that. By the time you’ve trawled through sites until you find something that is a) remotely related to your niche and b) you can make a sensible, non-spammy comment the maximum I’ve managed is five links in an hour and often less.

That quibble aside, if you want to simplify your link building, whether you want to do it yourself or outsource, 5000 Backlinks is an invaluable and cost effective resource – after all five links in an hour is far better than none. While it is hard to get the number of links claimed in the instructions, it will certainly save you time and money by eliminating the need to go out and find those blogs and forums for yourself.

I definitely recommend it.

Click here to learn more about 5000 Backlinks

At the weekend I was down in Valencia where I met up with the rest of the “Spanish Crew” (above), who I met at Ed Dale’s conference in Manchester back in November. While there was a social element to the meetup and we went to the MTV Arctic Monkey’s gig, a lot of it was spent discussing a project that we’ve been working on for the last 10 days or so.

Now, while we had planned on starting a project together, as we definitely have complimentary skill sets, an opportunity came up the week before last that was too good to ignore. And so we’ve had hours of Skype conference calls in which we’ve really knocked out ideas into shape, looked at different possibilities, knocked holes in our ideas, re-thought them, pushed them, prodded them and kicked them into shape – now simply known as the big plan.

While the big plan is top secret – we have run it past a few people and yesterday received an extraordinarily positive response – it got me thinking about how I got to be spending so much time working on this project and the key steps that led me here.

Part of it is lifestyle design, although I didn’t know it at the time. But it goes back further.

When I was first exposed to the internet in around 95/96 I saw huge possibilities and knew it was going to change everything. So, after playing around with it for a while and getting a company webs site set up I decided I wanted to work for an ISP – that didn’t quite happen initially.

Then, in December 1997, I met a fantastic girl from Barcelona and I soon became an easyJet frequent flier. By April 1998 I was working at Demon Internet where I eventually became Product Manager for ADSL prior to its UK launch; and then to Bulldog Communications, which paid fantastically well, but was the worst job I’ve ever had.

One thing the Bulldog job did allow me to do was save like crazy; in May 2001, after working there for 8 months I quit and on August 12th 2001 I moved to Barcelona. That sounds like a big step, but in fact moving to Barcelona was easy – the difficult thing was taking action and actually telling my boss that I was quitting.

Not having a job lined up – or even any idea of what I was going to do next – I was playing around with websites again. In January 2002 I received a phone call from the sales director of a hotel booking website – he wanted me to include a link to his site on my Barcelona related site in exchange for commission on any referred sales.

Since it was easy to do, I added the link and thought nothing of it; at least not until the next month, when he phoned me to tell me I’d made 4 sales!

That was the point I knew I could make a living online

Fast forward to 2007. I’d suffered badly from combination of luck and my own mistakes. I’d been earning some pretty good money, but had been wiped out when Google gave my main website a penalty that knocked it way out of the results.

After flailing around for a while I tried Adsense Arbitrage, which worked well, but I knew it wouldn’t last; and when I saw people being kicked out of Adsense I decided enough was enough. Once again looking for some way to replace my lost income, I signed up to Stompernet SIMPLE. It cost me $1 for a month of internet training; I really dived in and signed up for the $97/month program afterwards.

While SIMPLE had some serious flaws in it, I was introduced to Ed Dale through it. Although I didn’t follow the 30 Day Challenge in August 2007, I did follow what he was doing; and in September 2007 I joined Immediate Edge run by him and Dan Raine.

The next big decision was to attend Ed’s “Coming Home” seminar in Manchester at the end of November 2009. While I was there to boost my knowledge of internet marketing, I was hoping to make some contacts; in fact, while the content was excellent, the biggest benefit was in the contacts – that’s why I was in Valencia last weekend, currently the last link in a chain that began with me finding the internet in the mid 90s.

So, what’s the key?

Good question. I’ve had good luck and bad; made good decisions and bad; felt elated and downtrodden; and it’s been hard work, but it’s been fun.

Above all, while I have had to change direction or modify my plans, I have never given up.

I’ve been a member of Dan Raine’s Immediate Edge program since September 2007 and learned some amazing stuff about internet marketing.

It probably isn’t everyone’s cup of tea because techniques are researched by their labs and presented as conclusions are drawn, which is a long way from the 30 Day Challenge from where many people looking to join will be coming.

Ed Dale created the 30 Day Challenge Plus as an entry level into the more advanced stuff, but still people have found it difficult to cope with the Edge.

That’s where the Edge Blueprint comes in

Designed to take internet marketers with some experience and some results, the Edge Blueprint aims to walk you through the entire process to earning enough money to quit your day job.

The good news is you can try it out for free by joining up now for the first few lessons, including a webinar on Saturday. If that sounds like your thing then go to the Edge Blueprint now.

Click here to find more about the EDGE BLUEPRINT

I went to the Arctic Monkeys gig at Sant Jordi Club  last night. It was a great gig – here is the opening song, Dance Little Liar – enjoy!

Vodafone 3G USB key advert by Frankie Roberto

Vodafone 3G dongles are a wonderful invention, allowing me to run my businesses from pretty much wherever I like armed only with a laptop. Just as well because in August, which is one of my busiest months of the year, I spend 4 to 5 weeks on the coast.

In the old days I used to make do with internet cafes, but these days I don’t need to leave the comfort of my holiday apartment.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, since our existing Vodafone dongle is permanently loaned out I needed a new one to test Vodafone’s service in an area. Visiting the website of Vodafone Spain I went through the order process but was surprised to find I wasn’t asked for credit card details – or any other payment method either.

E-commerce without payment????

Needless to say, I was extremely sceptical that I’d actually receive the goods so pleasantly surprised when I had a delivery a few days later. The curious thing was that I was expected to pay the delivery man.

Are people in Spain really so suspicious of online fraud that they won’t enter their credit card details on a website, even when it is as large and well known as Vodafone? Perhaps.

But, what is to stop me ordering Vodafone dongles for all my neighbours? And why didn’t they make it clear on the website that payment would be made at the time of delivery? Perhaps they did tell me. But not clearly.

Without traffic your website is wasted, but I bet when you had your site designed they didn’t tell you that designing a website is the easy bit.

Getting a website to rank well is hard, and as the internet matures it is going to get harder still. What you need is someone who will review your site and work with you to implement the changes required to make sure that the search engines love your site; someone who understands the requirements of your business and gets the job done.

Click here to learn more