I’ve just finished reading the June module for Tim Gorman’s Article Marketing Lifeline product (see my Article Marketing Lifeline review here) and one of the things he talks about is Article Clustering.

I had never heard of article clustering before so was really intrigued by this strategy for building links and getting both your articles and website ranking better on the search engines.

Basically the technique is similar to a link wheel in which articles, blogs and web 2.0 sites are linking to each other to provide more juice to your money site. But the linking strategy is much more complicated than a simple link wheel (which just links once to your money site and once to the previous web 2.0 site).

The article clustering strategy takes it a step further by interlinking these properties much more extensively so each property essentially get’s a boost in rankings making the links to your main site much stronger.

So how can you incorporate this into your article marketing and SEO plans?

While I haven’t read the main product that introduced this technique, it seems that the quickest and simplest ways of incorporating this is to:

1. Create your main money site
2. Build approximately two articles linking to EACH page on your main site
3. Build a Web 2.0 property (hubpages/squidoo/blogger) that links to both your main site and also to one or two articles. Do this for each page on your site.
4. Write one article pointing to each web 2.0 site you create.
5. Create another web 2.0 site that links to your money site, the first web 2.0 site and one of the articles.
6. Continue as often as you like to improve rankings

Essentially what you are doing is building a spider web/pyramid type structure whereby each new article or web 2.0 site is strengthening the sites above it. It’s like a pyramid scheme on steroids! And like a pyramid structure, whatever is at the top is generating the strength from those below it.

If you want to take it even further you can build supporting sites instead of using web 2.0 properties (or even use a combination of both).

Now that may seem like a lot of work (and it is) but generally for most low to medium competition phrases you won’t need as many links as you think you will. You might only need one or two supporting sites with articles pointing at them and your main site to achieve the rankings you want.

And of course this doesn’t have to be all on the one day, you can write one article per day, or create one mini site/web 2.0 property per day over a period of weeks and months depending on your time schedule.

Each week check your rankings and see if you have moved. If you haven’t then write more articles/ build more supporting sites. Interlink some of them (cluster them). Rinse and repeat.

Time is actually on your side with this because as the sites and articles age they will get stronger naturally anyway (especially if they all have backlinks to them pushing them up).

I actually did this to one website I have without even knowing that was what I was doing (it was one of the first websites I created and I also created articles, a squidoo lens and a blogger blog all linking to each other and the main site). That site ranks number one and brings some really good sales for the term I was targeting (before I even knew what I was doing!) – so this method does work very well.

I’ve been playing around with the free traffic system which is a site that allows you to submit a 400 word article with two self serving links to up to 30 blogs. And I have to say I haven’t been overwhelmed by it yet.

I have just chosen the free options (there is also a paid option where you get an extra link and 10 extra blog’s per article) and while I am seeing a few copies of my articles around they are usually on very low quality spammy looking blog sites.

Because I’m just testing this, I didn’t want to send the links to any of my money sites, so I’ve been sending them to HubPages and EzineArticles that I’ve written instead.

So far the backlinks haven’t significantly shown any improvement in either the EA articles or hubs.

So should you sign up?

Well, it probably can’t hurt since it’s free right? I guess the only thing it will cost you is your time to write the articles and some extra time to put in the unique spinning syntax that they use.

Of course most backlinks in my experience usually take a month or two to show any significant movement in the serps so it could be early days.

But I really don’t think you are missing out on much by not using it.

I’ll continue to test it for a few months, but really I find much better ways to get backlinks that do seem to help.

But if you want to check it out for yourself – feel free >>

I haven’t written in a while because, well, it’s making me want to throw up. Literally.

No I haven’t caught the latest computer virus . I’m pregnant. And this little bub doesn’t seem to like mummy sitting at the computer typing for long periods of time. About the most I can handle before I want to hurl is about 1/2 hour.

So my plans for creating lots of Amazon sites in time for Christmas has been diminished somewhat. But the good news is that I still made a decent income for September. That’s why I love passive income so much, you can be busy trying to explain to your toddler why mommy needs some rest time and still be earning money.

Last post I promised I’d write more about Linkwheels, but since then the creator of them has said that they don’t seem to work as well anymore I thought I’d concentrate more of different linking strategies and how to improve your sites rankings.

I must first say that I’m no expert on this however. But the good news is that you don’t have to be. In fact there isn’t any exact scientific formula that you need to use to rank your sites well.

One site might only take a handful of links from article directories to rank it on page one. Others might need a more elaborate set of supporting sites to get there.

The biggest question many people ask is ‘how many links do I need to get my site to page one in Google’.

The answer – As many as it takes.

Yes I know that’s a little vague, but there are so many factors that you need to consider here. Both on page and off page SEO.

I’ve already talked a bit about onpage SEO in this blog before – you know the drill – try and get your keyword in your domain name, use it in the headers tags and text and even the image alt tags and so forth. Also add related words and phrases in your text as well. And the big one – make it original. (Yes I know people will argue that you can get duplicate content ranked – and yes you can but it takes lots more work so save yourself some time and just write an original post).

Ok so now to off page SEO or more importantly BACKLINKS.

The real key to ranking well is to get as many natural looking anchored backlinks to your site from good quality related sites. Quality links will always win out over quantity, but they are much harder to get (and Google knows this). So how do you get them?

Getting Backlinks
1. Check out the current sites for your target keyword and see if they have link exchanges. Most do not – but every now and then you’ll get lucky. A blog roll link isn’t as great as an inpost link – but it does all add up.

You may even be lucky enough to get a big site to link to you naturally. Do a happy dance if this happens.

2. Write articles and submit them to places like ezinearticles and infobarrel. Especially ezine – Google loves them. Plus you can usually get some bonus traffic as well. I have one article that I wrote at the beginning of the year that has had nearly 30,000 views and over 5,000 clickthroughs.

That’s pretty rare though, most of my articles only get a few hundred views but even so, while the extra traffic is great, the main reason I write articles is for the backlinks to my site. With EA you can give two links. I usually link to the home page and an internal page with each article. Over time this really ads up.

3. Create support sites. I’ve started creating a lot of support sites to my money sites and it has really helped improve rankings. I mainly use web 2.0 sites for my support sites. So hubpages, wordpress.com blogs, sometimes squidoo (although not so much as squidoo tends to rank poorly these days), blog.com, blogsome.com, blogger.com, weebly, wetpaint .. the list goes on. You really can find a lot of great places to start a free website or blog that will help support your main sites.

p.s. I’ve also noticed that hubpages has lost some of it’s google love lately – so I now only use them as support sites, not money sites themselves.

With all of my sites, I try and create good quality original content. I experimented with spun & auto generated content a few months back and it didn’t help at all. It’s worth your time to build up your support sites properly (and send links to them as well) so your money sites get stronger.

Think of it like a pyramid. The more strong support sites you have propping up your top point (your money page) the higher you should rank.

Really that’s it. No big secret – but it does take work.

Some of my support sites are linked to each other, some not. I don’t have a linking pattern – it’s quite random. If I think a link works then I’ll add one, if not I don’t.

Some support sites are monetized, some aren’t. Again I will only monetise a support site if it makes sense to.

All the support sites are related to the money site, but not necessarily exactly the same. For example. Let’s say my main niche was exercise equipment. One support site might have fitness tips, another might be specific exercise machines. Other’s might only be somewhat related in the health and fitness industry.

I do target specific keywords in the support sites though, they are not just random posts. Often times the support sites will rank really well on their own anyway. That’s good. I don’t even mind if they get higher than my money site – it will all even itself out eventually.

I no longer bother bookmarking or digging my sites or submitting rss feeds anywhere.

I now just focus on content and backlinks and that’s pretty much it.

Keep it original, keep in random and keep at it.

See you at the top

About a month ago I told you that I was undertaking an experiment to see whether I could get duplicate content ranked in google. 

I thought I’d give you an update to let you know how I was doing.

The site in question is not under my control (it is an online store) and all affiliate’s have the exact same store, the only difference being the affiliate id on the end. 

Therefore I can’t change the content nor do any onpage SEO on it.  But was I able to rank it (including my affiliate id at the end so I get credit for any sales) in the search engines?

Before I started this challenge I was nowhere to be found in the SERPS (or at least not in the top 200 – I stopped looking after that).

Around 26th April I finally found myself ranked at No. 192 .. and since then I’ve been slowly climbing the serps.  Today I am at  No. 81 in Google for my main keyword, and have been getting a lot of little hits and long tails as well.

Ok, so I’m still not high enough to get any significant traffic or sales (I have only had one sale in the last month via that site – total commission around $30), but I’m pleased enough with the results that I’ll continue my backlinking campaign and see where I am in another month.

Overall I’m still very confident that I’ll be able to get this online store much higher and my goal is to get it on the front page (if that’s possible).

I’ll keep you posted ..

We have all heard about the duplicate content penalty that Google imposes on websites that contain the same (or very similar) webpage’s than another. Some way it’s a myth and it only applies to your own website, and others swear that it is real and true.

Google itself has denied that there is any penalty for dupe content but what happens in reality? Can you rank duplicate content in the search engines?

For starters, just look how many news stories break with all the same (or very similar) content and all of them seem to do fine in the rankings. Most regional newspapers print online the same story practically word for word – straight off the newswire with no real consequences. Or is there?

From my own experiences this is what I’ve found when I’ve submitted the exact same article to more than one directory. In the first two weeks, practically every article ranks only and I can nearly always find multiple copies (often up to 100) listed in the Serps.

One month later about half of them are still there, and about two to three months later, perhaps only two or three remain.

So what does this tell us? Here is my opinion and findings:

Google wants to show readers the most relevant content that it can and therefore may show the latest news or new stories multiple times but this won’t last for the long term.

Over time G seems to move most of the dupe content to the supplemental index and only display what it considers to be the most relevant or most authoritative version of that content.

So while it won’t actually penalize your site for having duplicate content, it will place your pages that it considers copies in the supplemental index and only display those pages it considers the authority for that content. You duplicate page might rank, but it certainly won’t be in the top 10 pages in Google’s index.

So how do you get YOUR page, even if it is duplicate content, listed high in the search engines?

You’ve got to make Google think that you page is the authority and the others are just copies of yours. Many people assume that Google does this by date, and if you’ve placed the content on your blog first before you submit your article to article directories then you’ll get the ‘authority’ of that article.

That’s not true.

Google will give the highest weight to the page that it deems the most important, the one that has the most authority.

And how do you get this authority?

BACKLINKS

Yes it’s all a big popularity contest. When it all comes down to it, the web page with the most links pointing to it, is usually the one that Google will show in its index.

If you want your page to list high in the Serps rather than another you need to point some links at it.

How many links does it take?

Who knows? That depends on your competition and how many links they have got to their pages. It might take 1 it might take 100.

Don’t believe me?

Currently I make a commission from a website (actually it’s an online store) that displays the exact same content for every member who is part of it. The idea is that we send our customers our ‘store’ link which is really just www.store.com/tracey, www.store.com/jane, www.store.com/debbie and so one.

I have no control over the content of this site, but I believe I can get my ‘store’ ranked high in the SERPS.

There are hundreds of members I believe, and none of them have any idea about SEO (most of them are stay at home mums). This is a great opportunity for me.

I’ve just started this experiment and with only two links I already have 23 pages listed online. They don’t rank very high yet, but I haven’t really started attacked it. I plan to let you know my progress as I go.

I believe that I’ll be able to get my store listed high in the search engines within a month and start making sales (and commissions). I may even be able to knock down the official store – we’ll see.

Anyway I’ll let you know my progress in one month’s time and we’ll see if you really can rank duplicate content in the search engines!