DISQUS

Des · 3 months ago

Mike,

Do you prefer wordpress blogs or regular websites for the niches that you choose, also do you just promote other peoples products on clickbank or do you promote CPA offers

Thanks
Des

Mike Johnson · 3 months ago

I prefer Wordpress blogs because you can litterally do anything with them.
I used to create a lot of static html sites, but my blogs are blowing them
all away. There are still good uses for static html sites. They tend to
last in the SERPS longer over time, but I have blog posts from 4 years ago
still getting regular traffic.

I promote affiliate and CPA offers, along with some of my own products.

Des · 3 months ago

Thanks for responding Mike your blueprint is awesome, I have been having some good success with SENuke, I was wondering what kind of themes for wordpress do you find that work best for you, do you think affiliate theme and thesis themes are the best way to go.

Thanks
Des

Mike Johnson · 3 months ago

I try to mix up my themes quite a bit. I like both the Affiliate theme and
FlexSqueeze theme. I use Thesis quite a bit too because you can modify it
anyway you want and it keeps sites looking simple and keeps the focus on the
content. I am always looking for something new and different. It all
depends on what I want to accomplish.

Mike Johnson · 3 months ago

I try to mix up my themes quite a bit. I like both the Affiliate theme and
FlexSqueeze theme. I use Thesis quite a bit too because you can modify it
anyway you want and it keeps sites looking simple and keeps the focus on the
content. I am always looking for something new and different. It all
depends on what I want to accomplish.

Des · 3 months ago

Mike,

You say that you still use Bookmarking Demon, but why would you still use it if you have SEnuke, and the same goes for what you said about the Social Bookmarking service you get from the Warrior forum, does SeNuke not provide you with these same options. I did receive an email from the SeNuke staff stating that there will be a new update for SeNuke.

Thanks
Des

Mike Johnson · 3 months ago

For exactly the reason I stated above. For example: I have this blog BlackHatSoftware.net with over 120 posts. With Bookmarking Demon, I can use the Randomization Feature and pull pages from my RSS Feed here at this site and randomly submit pages from the site on autopilot to over 100 Social Bookmarking sites, plus I have over 1000 Pligg and Scuttle Plus sites plugged in to Bookmarking Demon as well. By gradually submitting old and new pages to all of these sites, I keep my sites "Fresh" in the eyes of the search engines and my sites keep their Top Spots a lot longer because of it. The constant bookmarking of different pages makes your content appear more relevant because people are interacting with it by Bookmarking it.

Imagine how hard this would be if I had one of my 500 Post Autoblogs that I wanted to Randomly Bookmark pages. Just for one site. If you have multiple sites, the load on your personal time gets even worse.

SENuke does Social Bookmarking, but it does not do it in this way, in fact, I purposely do not submit pages through SENuke and Bookmarking Demon on the same accounts. Also, just like I said above, Bookmarking Demon is not my Primary tool for SEO. It is my maintenance tool. It can help you get indexed fast though, that much is true.

The main reason for using the Social Bookmarking service through the Warrior Forum is the same reason I use multiple services and software in the first place and it is an important thing to remember: Google and these other Search Engines know if all of your Bookmarks and links are being generated by the same accounts. After awhile, you will see a degradation in the effectiveness of those links because of that. You gain massive Authority (if you don't know what Authority Links are do a Google Search) from having multiple people (accounts) link or bookmark your sites pages. This is an essential part of the SEO equation.

I received the SENuke update as well. They have a lot of great things in store. It will be nice to see what the next improvements will be. Getting over the IE8 update seems to have been a major hurdle.

Michael · 3 months ago

What do you mean when you say "I use some of the same articles I have already spun from Mass Article Creator for this and it works great" (with Link Farm Evolution). Does it not have the ability to "spin" articles you input if you do so with the correct syntax? -->{|} Or are you taking 5 or already spun articles and distributing them out over the sites LFE creates for you? Do the sites it creates get indexed well?

Great blueprint by the way. People charge good money for half the info you just gave away. Thanks!

Mike Johnson · 3 months ago

I mispoke. I actually use the Magic Article ReWriter for this. I take the article I already have spun (with syntax {|}) and put them into LFE. LFE accepts the universally accepted article spinner syntax. LFE sites are great and I have seen some of the blogs I have created competing with my main sites for different low competition listings.

Anon · 2 months ago

Dude your RSS feed isn't updating properly, it stopped updating after your linkfarm evolution review. Its a little annoying because my live bookmark isn't updating and I always use that to check if you have anything new here.

Mike Johnson · 2 months ago

Thanks for telling me. I don't know what I did to mess it up. I did the
same thing to several of my sites and it is frustrating the heck out of me.
Thanks for reminding me since I forgot about fixing it.

Michael · 2 months ago

What is the reason you don't link to your homepage with your article submissions from UAW? And when you say you vary your anchor text for the other pages in your site does that mean each page will get 4-5 different anchor text pointing back to it from UAW sites?

I assume this is because of step one which was to pick keywords that are closely related anyway and to look more "natural" for the SE's...correct?

Mike Johnson · 2 months ago

To build credibility with Google and other Search Engines, not to mention inbound links to your site, you need to build focus for each of your pages by pointing visitors and the search engine to your site based on keywords. The keywords you choose are critical to your site's success. If you point 3000 keywords to your main page, yet when visitors get there they see something that does not relate to what they have searched for, then you are not targeting your traffic correctly. The search engines, like Google, use Spiders to check your site's pages for content. Your Keyword Anchor text needs to correlate to this content for proper search engine indexing.

Secondly, Deep Links to your content is important to show the search engines that your site's content is relevant and when you have links pointing to content within your site, it gives your site more Authority because it is then perceived that your site holds more value than a site which just has a bunch of links pointing to the home page.

Yes, each page can have numerous Keywords that point to it. It is great to do if you have the time. But the keywords should be focused and not random. That is why, as I said in the article above, your Keyword research is the most important part of this entire process. Otherwise you are just wasting your time.

Does this answer your question?

latia6 · 1 month ago

Hi Mike,
I have another question:
How do you build and manage all your logins and identities in the social bookmarking site? what is the best tool for that?
Regards

Mike Johnson · 2 months ago

I forgot to answer the main point to your question. When using UAW, you can point those 4-5 keywords to multiple pages and vice versa. This gets your pages clicked on in Google for more than just a single search term and really opens up the Long tail keyword search traffic for you. It is just a start to the deep linking process. It is not as focused as it can or should be. Each one of your page's links should be put in your author box and submitted with a specific keyword phrase that applies to the page. This works in a perfect world or if you have a small site. In the beginning, we focus on the broader keyword terms that apply to the site as a whole to get things going.

Pink · 2 months ago

Hi Mike,
This is excellent. Here are some questions.

~ Are you doing other linkbuilding like forum posting etc?

~ Why do you use your selected keywords in your articles? Shouldn't you use variations so that your WEBSITE will get ranked for the keywords and not the article directories which have more authority so are more likely to rank?

~ What are your thoughts on using Onlywire and LinkVana?

~ On no. 8..what kind of socialbookmarking service are you paying for when there are so many free ones?

~ You say you like 1000 searches a month. Would that be exact matches? And how much competition?

~ How many links are safe to build per day?

Thanks!!!

Mike Johnson · 2 months ago

Pink,

I really don't do very much Forum Posting. I did maybe 2-3 years ago, but I don't now. With the methods I use here, there realy hasn't been a need to go that route. That being said, I have purchased link building packages from Angela Edwards in the Warrior Forum for $5 per month and she has some forum links in there from time to time. Like I said, not a major focus of mine, the importance is the page rank of the sites you submit to and whether you are getting dofollow links, not the type of site it is. Google doesn't care about the type, just the content.

I use the selected keywords in my articles because it helps my site build Authority. I have completely dominated the first page in Google for some low competition keywords with this method and all of the links point back to my site. If an article directory ranks above my site's pages initially, that is fine, because eventually Google recognizes that all the Anchor text points to my site. I can't think of a site I have right now where I am outranked by one of my articles on another site.

You do want keyword variations, you are correct. But this is the base plan for building your site's Authority. I use the maintenance phase, which isn't covered that well in the article above to build more specific keywords for pages I want to rank. I use Bookmarking Demon a lot for this.

I use Onlywire all the time. I don't like circular link building services though. I have an auto submit plugin for Onlywire on almost all of my autoblog sites. I'm lazy and it probably isn't the best thing to do SEO wise, but it is working OK right now. I have around 20 Onlywire accounts. I have over 200 sites so keeping up with them all is very difficult, especially when I get a new good idea every other day.:)

The Social Bookmarking service I pay for is from a guy who advertises in the Warrior Forum. He has an Authority Link special where he will submit a single link with multiple ANchor Text and descriptions to around 500 SOcial Bookmarking sites. He is probably using Bookmarking Demon, but I do it because you get 5 different accounts on very different IP's, but more importantly, GEO Locations. Google is starting to map GEO's into their Bot's now, so it is a factor if you are using automation.

As for searches, you have to use broad match. As for Competition, I like less than 500,000 competing sites. It sounds like a lot, but most people don't know anything about SEO, so it is not that hard to rank if you follow the right steps.

As for how many links to build per day, I have built as many as 4000 in a day, but when you do that, sometimes you will actually see your site drop out of the rankings for 3-4 days. I thought on many occassions that I was SLAPed by Google, so I don't recommend any more than 500 in any one day, but you don't want to do this every day. Range from none to 20, then have a 500 link day. You have to be smart about it. A couple years ago you could just SPAM links every day by the thousand, but not anymore. The guys at Google visit all of the Black Hat sites to see what guys are doing to beat them. They're not stupid.

If you have anymore questions let me know.

Mike

Boris · 2 months ago

Awesome site (i've juste read every post in published in the past year , phew my eyes are sore). ANd this post is the most comprehensive. You're staying a bit shady on the whole link pyramid concept as you cannot direct all those links to your money site or you'll get banned. But you've revealed a lot already !
Yet my question is quite basic. If you have lfe which i'm definitely planning on buying, is there a point in buying blogger generator that you've recommened quite a few times. I feel the answer is know but justed wanted to check. Thanks again for this VERY valuable site.

Mike Johnson · 2 months ago

I wouldn't buy Blogger Generator anymore. The support is gone for that
program and even though Joseph Tierney, the creator, recently sent out an
email saying it still works, his support forum has turned to SPAM and the
program is filled with bugs now. LFE has it's bugs too, but they are
constantly upgrading. I think I have had it for 2 months now and it's been
upgraded like 5 times.

You are right, there are a few things left out, but not much. Mainly due to
the fact that the article is already over 1200 words, I have enough writing
to do that I would rather answer questions than just flat out write an
article about it. I think there is enough here to get anyone started on the
right path.

Louise · 2 months ago

Hi Mike, great post. I would like your opinion if you care to offer it. I wouldn't expect you to give me specific details on your sites or anything, but do you see all, or most, of your social bookmarks show up as backlinks? Tests I've been running over the last few months, seem to indicate to me that its power in Google is definitely not as it once was, which I think most people would agree on. But, at the moment, I would tentatively go so far as to say that it holds almost no weight in terms of backlinks and the juice it passes; methinks Google has seen how IM's use this tool and added something to their algorithms. The only benefit I'm seeing in it at the moment is getting GoogleBot to come over to my sites, and perhaps keeping a site relevant/popular in the eyes of Google, but I'm finding the latter is only effective with the top few bookmarking sites.

I'm also noticing that when it comes to social-boomark backlinks showing up, it's always the same couple of sites, consistently; and no matter what I do to get some of the others noticed, it ain't happening. Of course, not all links are going to show, but I've been testing lots of things, the outcome of which is making me wonder if Google are pretty much discounting certain social bookmarking sites.

Would be interested to hear your opinions on it. And whether you feel there is a value, in terms of pure backlinking, in social bookmarking, and as well your long term thoughts on it.

Mike Johnson · 2 months ago

In terms of Backlinking I think you are exactly right. I don't see very
many social Bookmarking sites which are value added as far as backlinks go.
The few and the proud are sites like Digg, Mixx, Newsvine, and Reddit. I
found that the more stringent the Bookmark approval process, the more value
added the link tends to be. There is value in Social Bookmarking as a whole
though. As I said in a previous comment, I use Social Bookmarking for
maintenance. Constant Social Bookmarking makes Google look at your site and
makes it think you are relevant. That is almost as important as the
backlinks themselves. With all the backlinking I have done for this site,
you would think I would have 50,000 backlinks or more, but I think I had
only around 11,000 on one site and another said I had 3500 backlinks. What
SEO means is constantly changing.

jonathan koenig · 2 months ago

Hey Mike,
I just wanted to say I appreciate this post immensely. I think I have read it 10 times, and I have made it my new bible for the next web site I am building. I am doing it word for word and then testing the results =). It is probably the best article I have ran into yet, and I really appreciate you going out of your way to give us some pointers. BTW I bought a few products through your affiliate links to say thanks.

Oh and can you possibly tell me who you hire to do your articles and bookmarking?
banned916@gmail.com

Mike Johnson · 2 months ago

I appreciate it. I hope it helps. There is so much junk out there that I
thought I needed to write something decent.

If you look in the Warrior Forum at http://www.warriorforum.com and go to
the Warrior Special Offer section, look up a Profile for "The Rich Jerk".
He has the best Authority Link Bookmarking service there. Also, look for
Angela Edwards backlink packages. She does great work and you can get them
for only $5 per month. As for my articles, I have a dedicated writer that I
hooked up with from India via Get a Freelancer -
http://www.getafreelancer.com

I hope this helps.

Mike

jonathan koenig · 2 months ago

Hi mike,
Thanks for the fast response, I appreciate it. I was just curious what percent do you usually spin your documents to?? I am using magic article rewriter to spin my articles and I am getting them to about 50% spun. But I worry that may not be enough. I then am sending the spun articles out through UAW... do you think that the spun articles will give non duplicate content back to my sites if they are only spun to 50%?

Mike Johnson · 2 months ago

50% is good. 70% is great. When building backlinks, especially through UAW, 50% is good enough because the way UAW changes up the articles will enhance that percentage as well. If you are trying to get an article ranked, you want at least 70% or higher, but for backlink building, 50% will do just fine.

machgroup · 2 months ago

Hello Mike,

I am relatively new to IM and have found your post to be extremely informative! Probably the best information I could get on backlinking without paying a huge amount of money for coaching! Thanks!

I have bought SEnuke (through your link! :D ), and I realise that it will be very useful to create backlinks for my niche site. The problem is that I can't afford the variety of software that you use, and so am confused as to how best to promote my site.

Is there a way to use SEnuke to earn money to cover its cost? In the sales pitch they talk of finding keywords, writing articles and sending them to all of the websites that you can with an affiliate link attached...

What is your opinion on this?

I am basically trying to find a way to use SEnuke to make enough money to cover the cost of itself, while it promotes my main niche site over time.

Any advice would be great! Thanks Mike for the awesome blog!

Alex

Mike Johnson · 2 months ago

You could use SENuke to promote Affiliate links very easily. That is a sound strategy if you are focused on a particular niche and are promoting 4-5 programs max. You don't just want to scatter links everywhere. The same keyword focused ideas still apply, you just have to focus them purely through SEnuke. That being said, you should have a base domain where you Cloak your links. You do not want to promote pure affiliate links anywhere anymore. Always cloak, either through a php redirect or a tracking program. I recommend a tracker so you cansee the success rates of your links and modify your techniques accordingly.

This type of technique takes some time to develop, but when it kicks in (if you promote using decent content) you could see a steady stream of affiliate commissions. I actually have used this technique to work on Tier 2 commissions by promoting affiliate programs that pay on 2 levels. This lets other people make money for you.

latia6 · 1 month ago

Hi,
Great article, a lot of information. I am new to IM and have some sites up for quite a while, being a .net programmer I built them in .net.
SO I invested a lot of my time in programming and not in SEO, in the past weeks I started doing SEO and read alot in some BH forums.
I have one question:
What tools do you use to track the rankings of your sites and keywords?
Any recommendations are highly appreciated.
Great site and this post rocks!
Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge

Mike Johnson · 1 month ago

I use Google Analytics, but I also use Statpress Reloaded on my Wordpress sites to let me know how visitors are finding my sites and how. I have been testing out Matt Callen's new Visitor Spy tool and it is pretty good. A little slow, but it adds some good insight into on Page SEO and if it is working. I also use builtwith.com and Compete.com to check some of this stuff as well. I like to compare results and see what the averages are. One thing I have learned in Pagerank is not a requirement for success. My ALexa Rank is more of an indicator to me than Google rank.

slainte · 1 month ago

Hey Mike

Great post, along with everything else on your blog I might add :o)

Can you please clarify one thing for me. In your Strategy you talk a lot about building links into your content (longtail) pages i.e. non home-page links. At what stage of the process do you start building links into your home page? I did see some mention of Home page links in the section on Article Directories but apart from that I didn't see anywhere else.

I'm just trying to get it clear in my mind at what point you decide that you have done enough 'support' links to the longtail keywords which will then add power to your main keyword, which I assume is on your home page? And whether your site will ultimately end up with something like, for example, 70% of links to content pages and 30% to home page.

Crikey, I hope all tha makes sense?



Thanks and all the best

Paul

Mike Johnson · 1 month ago

That makes perfect sense. In fact, this method should be considered your base. During the Directory submission section I described above, you are only pointing those links to your home page and not to a "long tail" page. During this phase I also use high PR links to my home page to boost my overall Authority. I think I posted this in a previous comment as well. Directory and other high PR placements are where I focus strictly on the home page.

slainte · 1 month ago

Many thanks Mike.

cyberseo · 2 weeks ago

Hi Mike, I must say this post rocks! Thanks you for sharing deep into your profitable backlink/SEO model. You are a rarity in that you took the time to openly share your SEO methods with us. Seriously, most people would have sent me to a paypal link to get what you have published here.

I have read through this post about four times already absorbing what has been written. My question is this: You say that when using UAW, I should submit 3 to 4 article sets each week right? Can you please share with us the distribution rate setting that you use for UAW? Do you set each article to go out at 50 per day?

Mike Johnson · 2 weeks ago

Yes, you want to send out in minimal bursts to take advantage of UAW's
backlink building, yet not alarm Google that you are creating tons of
backlinks fast.

Thanks for the Comment!

Mike

cyberseo · 2 weeks ago

Hi Big Mike,



This is Darrell from Phoenix. Hey, I spent a lot of time reading over your
blackhat blkog. I know you recommend several types of software and have
reviewed several kinds of software for getting backlinks. I currently use
UAW but I recently heard that UAW articles are having problems in Google.



I am looking for a program that will help me get backlinks to my affiliate
websites using the power of auto-submissions to the article directories.



In your experience, which is the best software that you would recommend that
I get? I am sure that there’s one by now that you are completely sold on
and use the most. You talk about several on your blog, so I am looking for
the most effective at getting strong backlinks to boost my search engine
rankings.



Please let me know okay?



Darrell

Mike Johnson · 2 weeks ago

Honestly I use SENuke 90% of the time for my Submissions just like this
article says. It has done me well and SENuke continues to get better. If
it isn't broke, don't fix it right? UAW is changing things around right now
to counter Google and bring more authority to their links. Their new stuff
looks to be really on track and awesome. As a member you should already see
these changes and the improvements. I am a long time member and I love it
for building backlinks and the improvements right now are sound.

I don't care about articles ranking in Google. I care about the value of
the backlinks.

Thanks.

Mike

latia6 · 1 week ago

Hi,
I read most of your blog and I enjoyed it very much.
I would like to know if you outsource the article writing and the spinning or just the articles and then you spin them?
Which services do you use? Can you recommend a good article writing service.
Thanks
latia6

Mike Johnson · 1 week ago

I do normally outsource my article writing, but I write some of it myself as
well when I have time. I use 2 writers I found on Guru.com and one writer I
found on Freelancer.com. I now have relationships with all of them where I
give them work on a regular basis. These 2 sites have thousands of writers
like this and it is easy to find quality writers there who will bid on your
projects.

Mike

Blogvertize · 3 days ago

Hi Mike,

A quick question if you don't mind..?
I have just taken a look at this Social Bookmarking Demon & yes it seems to be an amazing piece of software.

However we all know that the vast majority of Social Bookmarking / Networking sites are now using the "nofollow" meta tag, which, for those that do not know, means that any URL/link the search engines discover, that has the "nofollow" meta tag included, in most cases will not be crawled or followed !

There are a few exceptions that will actually follow a link regardless of the "nofollow" meta tag, but I am not aware of any that will actually recognise such a backlink or indeed that will pass any link juice / page rank to such a link..?

That being the case, I would love to know in what way you find this software a benefit in obtaining backlinks...?

Regards Steve

Mike Johnson · 19 hours ago

I don't use Social Bookmarking as a "Backlink" tool. I use SOcial
Bookmarking as a Rank Management tool. I can flex my current rank of search
listings by submitting to social bookmarking sites. The ones that matter
that is. Yes, you are right, they have nofollow links on a bunch, but the
sites listed with Bookmarking Demon and SocialBot are focused on DoFollow
sites. Social Bookmarking to big sites like Digg and Mixx can have a
serious impact on your website's ability to move up in the listings. I use
it for every launch of every big product I do affiliate bonuses for and I
litterally watch my rank change. It is a beautiful thing.

Mike

emmaburge · 9 hours ago

Hi Mike,

Thanks for this very insightful article. To give you an idea of my background, im intending to implement this strategy for my blog to try and get more hits for potential freelance modelling work. So, although im quite informed compared to the average person in my industry, im no expert, and i got a bit confused by some points of your article.

My main points of confusion are:

1) I have only the budget to use Market Samurai and SENuke, and can trial a good article rewriting program. Is this plan still for me as i may not be able to use the other software so may have to skip steps - i know id have to skip directory maximiser and Link farm evolution steps.

2) If this stil is for me, the one thing confusing me is: those extra keywords you search for after youve established your 4 related keywords to your base keywords, and how these extra keywords come into play in this SEO plan:

"I place each one in the Google Search tool again and see all of the related keywords that go with them." - so you search for more keywords related to your 4 keywords that you found from the intial base keywords? How many do you look for? And what do you use these extra keywords for?

Further quotes below come from intial confusion over those extra keywords you search for after youve already got your 4 main keywords.

"All of these either have the keywords in them and they have the related keywords." - i dont quite undertsnad this sentence. when you say 'the keywords in them' are you refering to your base keywords, or your more specific 4 keywords that youve got from your base keywords? when you say 'and the related keywords' do you mean 'or the related keywords'? And by related keywords do you mean the keywords related to your more specific 4 keywords, or the 4 keywords related to your base keywords?

"I use the spin feature in UAW to ensure I cycle through my 4 keyword anchor text phrases across each article, so I spread all of the keywords across all of the articles." - and do you mean by this that you vary what keywords you use within your anchor text across different variations of the same article? by 'keyword anchor text phrase' do you mean simply a link containing some of those 4 keywords you established within step 1, to the site youre trying to promote?

Sorry this is such a long post. I have also tried to bullet point your strategy in my own words as a test. It would be very helpful if you could clarify the above for me or even more so if youc could take a look at my bullet pointed version to see if i am getting what youre saying right.

Thanks so much for your time. I very much appreciate it.

Emma

Mike Johnson · 5 hours ago

Emma,

I don't have time to answer all of this right now as I am traveling. When I
get a chance over the next few days I will answer your questions.

Mike

emmaburge · 4 hours ago

Thanks very much Mike, will really help me. Enjoy your travels, and please feel free to email me rather than turning your comment section into a full blown Q&A!

Emma