It is important to get backlinks to your sites. If you have been following this blog you should know this by now. First it helps the search engines find your website and web pages but secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it adds importance to your site.
It makes a lot of sense that if a lot of different websites have a link pointing back to your site it would suggest your site is a valuable resource that is worth looking at. The search engines figure that if all these other websites rate your site enough to put a backlink to your site they should rank your site higher than others about the same subject that have fewer links pointing to them.
There is an important fact about ranking websites in the search engines hidden in that last paragraph and it is this... You do not have to make the best website in the world - you just have to make it better than your competitors sites. It is all about what the competition are doing and how they are able to convince search engines their site is better than yours and what you can do to change the 'opinion' of the search engines about the importance of your webpage.
So when it comes to links the search engines are always going to look at where the links are coming from and if there is anything odd about the number or the types of sites displaying those links.
Now, DOFOLLOW links are specifically saying to the search engine spiders, "follow this link because it matters" while NOFOLLOW links are saying here is a link but it is not so important to follow. The idea came from Google and it was to reduce the transfer of pagerank to only those links the webmaster considered important.
A lot of people worry that many of the links pointing to their site may be nofollow links which means they don't count with Google and other search engines. I believe they do count but in a different way.
What do you think they will make of a whole bunch of links that are all Do Follow links? I am pretty sure it would look odd to anyone, or any search engine autobot, to see ONLY DOFOLLOW links pointing at any site. The links will still count as links but they do not transfer any pagerank. You still get a credit for a link pointing to your site but perhaps more importantly it makes the linking look far more natural and organic.
If I were a search engine and I saw only dofollow links to a site I would think there was something odd about that because it is not likely to happen naturally from webmasters linking to your site. You would expect some to be dofollow and some to be nofollow. The conclusion must be that while dofollow links are best you should have a mixture of the two types of links pointing towards your site.
Most comments you leave on blogs are likely to use nofollow backlinks but many savvy webmasters use do follow links to encourage visitors to leave comments. You can find various software programs to help you find these sites but do remember to use other, no follow, sites as well so everything will appear natural to the search engines.
If you found the secret to making money online, would you tell everybody else about it? I would say it is unlikely if you thought that other people knowing meant that you would make less money. There are plenty of ways to make money and thousands of different niches to focus on but if you had a specific answer to making money would you give it away?
So when you see people offering to sell you the secret you should ask yourself some questions.
1) If it makes thousands of dollars for a few hours work why are you selling it for $19.99,$47 or even $99? Surely it is worth more to the seller to keep and use that information than it would be to sell it even if they sold a couple of hundred copies. If it takes just a few hours to make a few hundred or a few thousand dollars it makes more sense for them to use their own system to make money rather than sell it and make less.
2)Is the system they are offering a complete package capable of achieving what they claim. If they try to sell you upgrades after you have purchased you should ask yourself if they are not being a little less than honest when the sales page claims to offer you the solution by itself. It could be they offer a way to automate the process that you would otherwise have to spend hours of tedious work to complete and that may be fair enough, so long as the sales page explains it will take you hours of tedious work unless you buy their upgraded package.
3) Is this a system that worked a year or two ago but is unlikely to work now? Many systems worked by hoodwinking the search engines in some way or another and the search engines are keen to close these loopholes as soon as they discover them.
4) How long did it take them to get all those visitors, or to make all that money. Claims like, I made xxx dollars in 1 hour 25 minutes sound great but it could be they spent 1 hour 25 minutes setting a website up and then months afterwards getting backlinks and promoting the site.
I am not picking on any particular seller or sales page here. All I am saying is that you should question any claims made and try to understand how much work will be required to use any of the plans, guides and systems on offer.
The simple fact is that most systems will work if you do it right and put enough effort and WORK into it. Yes, work. We may all dream of sitting on a beach enjoying the relaxing sound of the waves but most people who make a living online do have to spend quite a few hours actually working.
Pick a system that you understand and work at it. Focus is the key ingredient every successful person shares. You need a plan and you need to stay focused on the plan. Don't go getting side tracked by what someone with more mouth than trousers says on some forum. Many of the people who talk loudest on forums have very little actual experience and they are spouting off what they read somewhere else.
Put the effort into whichever system you plan to use and keep at it. Results may take a while to appear. Often it will be a couple of months before any significant changes will take place in the search engine results. There will be ups and downs and times when you wonder if you are wasting your time but stick with it and keep focused on each task until it is complete and the results will follow.
Learning is an important part of managing any business and you do need to stay up to date on what is happening but be careful with your time to ensure you don't end up wasting the time you could and should have been working building and promoting your websites.
The key lesson is to find the map to show you the right way and then remain focused on what you are doing and do it well until you complete it. That is the secret to success in business both online and off.
