In this tutorial, my aim is to cover everything you need to know about SEO link building, including ways to build backlinks and common questions you may have.

Before I begin, let’s me quickly go through some fundamentals.

- Link building is about building links FROM other websites to YOUR website, not from YOUR website to OTHER websites. You may laugh, but many newbies can’t even get this idea right.

- Next fundamental. In the SEO world, we often use the word backlink, which refers to links from OTHER websites TO your website. If you link to other websites, that’s NOT a backlink to you.

- Last fundamental. SEO link building is not just about building backlinks. It’s about building SEO backlinks. (Read this article on the difference between a backlink and an SEO backlink.)

Once you are clear on the fundamentals, let’s move on to the exciting part……

Ways To Build Backlinks

1) Google’s answer to link building

Officially, Google wants you to create great contents and/or services in your website, so that people can see the value in your website and link to you.

If you strictly follow this strategy, it may take you a long time before you can see any result.

But there are ways to accelerate the process and I shall list them below:

- Create link bait. For example, write an article on 101 ways to do something or a long list of resources. This kind of article will usually arouse people’s interest within your niche and thus link to that article. If you have a blog, put your link bait article in the Popular Article listing. The idea is to get more people to read that article and link to it.

- Provide a useful online application on your website, so that people will naturally link to you in their blogs or forums.

- Distribute free templates or scripts of any kind, such as Wordpress theme, website template, free script, free plugin etc, with a backlink to website. When people use them, they will have to link to you.

The rest of the methods are not recommended by Google. But they are proven to work and are very likely to continue working for many years to come.

2) Effective textbook ways to build backlinks

Just pick up any SEO ebook and you’ll see these link building strategies:

- Distribute articles to article directories, aka article marketing.

- Post comments in blogs.

- Post in forums.

- Create pages in Blogspot, Squidoo, Hubpages and other social networking sites.

- Adding stories to Digg, Propeller and other social bookmarking sites.

- Press release.

- Submit your link to non-reciprocal link directories.

- Exchange links with friends or other webmasters, through article exchange or blogroll exchange. Though Google doesn’t like reciprocal links, reciprocal links still count. Just don’t over do it. What Google frowns is EXCESSIVE reciprocal links.

3) Other seldom-mentioned but effective ways to build backlinks

- Create accounts in social networking sites and membership sites that show your profile in public (there are thousands of them out there, with high PR) and include backlinks in your profile. You can create as many accounts as you like. (This method is extremely spammy, but it works.)

- Create your own linking network within your domains. This is applicable to those with lots of domains. You can divide your domains into groups and cross link them. Just make sure that they are not reciprocal links. (This method can be very powerful!)

- Create a simple software and submit it to hundreds of software directories, with a backlink to your website. Most software directories have high PR. These are great backlinks for you.

4) Buy links

Although Google says “do not buy links”, buying links still work. If you want backlinks from high PR web pages (not website), buying links seems to be the only option for most people.

But use it at your own risk. I doubt Google has an algorithm to catch you. In most cases, websites are caught because someone reports it to Google.

5) Participate in link building systems

- Link exchange networks

This is the earliest form of link building system, where webmasters create a link directory on their websites and link to one another. Such links are categorized under reciprocal links (i.e. I link to you, you link to me).

This kind of link building system is infamous and Google hates it because it doesn’t provide any value other than boosting search engine ranking.

There are rumours that Google ignores exchanged links (or reciprocal links). I doubt it. Google may discount reciprocal links, but it doesn’t ignore such links.

Honestly, I am not a fan of link exchange and have never tried any. My advice is stay away from such networks because there are better and safer linking systems out there.

- 3-way link networks

Instead of “I link to you, you link to me”, 3-way link networks work by linking A to B, B to C and C back to A. To Google, these are not reciprocal links.

This is my preferred link building network and I have used it for years. The only downside is such a linking network can only build backlinks to the homepage. If you want to build backlinks to internal pages, aka deep linking, you’ll have to resort to the 3rd option.

- Content syndication system

In such a system, you will post articles to a network of blogs or websites within the system. You can view this as another form of article marketing, except that the submission process is much simplified since you are doing it through a centralized system. This is my favorite link building strategies because I can build unlimited backlinks to unlimited web pages.

Common Questions About Link Building

1) Do nofollow links count?

No. Here’s what Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team, wrote “The essential thing you need to know is that nofollow links don’t help sites rank higher in Google’s search results.”

So when you build links, make sure that that link is not a nofollow link. You can easily identify nofollow links using Firefox plugins such as SearchStatus.

2) Do links from PR 0 sites count?

Yes. There is a myth going around saying that links from PR 0 sites don’t count. It’s a myth. What doesn’t count is if that link is from a web page that is NOT indexed by Google. If a web page is indexed by Google, it doesn’t matter whether the web page has PR 0 or PR 10. They will all help in your search engine ranking, but to different degrees of course.

Some experts say you should only post articles to popular article directories. I say NO. Distribute your articles to as many article directories as possible. I’ve gotten websites into top search results solely through article marketing alone. All links count, even if they have no PR.

3) Do links from unrelated contents count?

Yes. This is another common myth. Links from related content MAY score better, but links from unrelated links definitely counts.

4) Do links from duplicated contents count?

Yes. Links from unique contents MAY score better, but links from duplicated contents definitely count.

The only concern here is because the content is duplicated, Google may not index that the web page. As I said, links from un-indexed pages do not count.

“Kenneth, are you trying to say  Google penalizes duplicated contents?”

I wouldn’t say Google penalize duplicated contents. What happen is when Google indexes many web pages with the same content, it will only show some of the web pages and keep the rest in its sandbox. The priority usually goes to those websites with high PR. So let’s say you distribute an article to 300 article directories, probably only 200 of them are indexed. The other 100 may not be indexed and thus those links are not counted.

5) What is the relationship between PageRank and link building?

Technically, PageRank (PR) is like a vote. If a web page with high PR links to your web page, that link will carry more votes and thus add more to the PR of your web page. 0 PR doesn’t mean that web page carries no vote, it just carries lesser votes.

One thing to note is PageRank is web page specific. A PR 8 website doesn’t mean all its web pages have PR 8. So if you happen to buy links, make sure you pay for links from web pages with high PR, not just websites with high PR.

6) When submitting to link directories, can I go for reciprocal link option?

If you have done submissions to link directories, you will know that there are 3 options, free, reciprocal and paid. Don’t go for the reciprocal option. This is because over time, some of these directories may close down and you may end up having lots of bad links on your website, which can harm you SEO ranking and even get your website delisted.

I think I have more or less covered all you need to know about SEO link building. If you have other question about link building, just post your question below.

First thing first, what is an SEO Backlink? How is it different from backlink?

Quoting the definition from Wikipedia, “Backlinks are incoming links to a website or web page.”

Technically, a backlink looks like this:

<a href=”http://yourdomain.com”>whatever text or can be the url itself</a>

Backlinks are important, especially in determining the PageRank of your web page. But to rank high in organic search result, especially in Google, the most popular search engine, you need more than just backlink. You need SEO Backlink.

The difference?

Here’s my definition of SEO Backlink: “SEO backlinks are incoming links to a website or web page, with keywords in the link title (a.k.a anchor text).”

Technically, an SEO backlink looks like this:

<a href=”http://yourdomain.com”>keywords to rank in search engine</a>

For example, a website may have lots of backlinks but it may not be able to rank high in Google for any keyword it wishes. To rank high for a particular keyword, say “buy iphone”, the website needs to have lots of backlinks with “buy iphone” in their anchor texts.

A Classic Example Showing The Power Of SEO Backlinks

In the SEO world, there is a classic example that can quickly show you the importance of SEO backlink.

The example is…. “click here”.

If you haven’t known the answer, guess who ranks #1 in Google for the phrase “click here”?

It’s the Adobe Reader download page.

If you study that download page, you’ll realize that you can’t find the phrase “click here” on that webpage at all, not in the meta tag, title tag or within the content!

So why does this webpage rank #1 for “click here”?

There is only one reason: tons of other websites are linking to this webpage with the anchor text “click here” or “click here to download”.

By the way, the #1 position for “click here to download” is also the Adobe Reader download page.

Are you seeing the light now?

Get Ready For A Revolutionary One-Way Link Building System

Over the past 1 year, I’ve been working extremely hard on a powerful one-way link building system that can help you to build not just a few hundreds but unlimited backlinks for unlimited domains. (You know that I run hundreds of niche sites. If this system can satisfy my needs, I guess it can satisfy most marketers’ needs.)

The system is now completed and it is now undergoing beta testing with some 130 LeadsLeap members. Thanks to all the feedbacks from the beta members, we’re busy improving the system. I’ll keep you’re informed when the system is ready.

Today we’ve got a question about long tail keyword research from Kelvin Tan. Here’s his question:

“I would like to ask some question about selection of long tail keyword. In PLRPRO video, it’s mentioned that when selecting long tail keyword, we should look out for keyword with 100-1000 search per month and competition around 500,000. Does that mean we have to look for 40 long tail keyword for each of the 40 articles? Please advise.

Is there a guideline for selecting long tail keyword? can you explain a bit in details on how to do it. I know we can see the search via google keyword research tool . Am I correct to say that for example, we select a phrase with 1000 searches. Then I will take the phase and search in google search engine. If the number of website is less than 500,000, I will take this as one of my 40 long tail keyword for my 40 articles?” - Kelvin Tan

I will answer this question in two parts. In part 1, I’ll show you how to conduct long tail keyword research in general. In part 2, I will discuss about long tail keyword research in relation to PLRPRO.

Essential tools for long tail keyword research

Before I begin, I need to introduce to you 2 essential tools for keyword research.

1) Firefox

Firefox is an alternative to Internet Explorer. You need Firefox so that you can use Tool #2.

2) SEO For Firefox Plugin

With this plugin, you can conduct long tail keyword research and analyze websites easily. I’ll show you how.

How to conduct long tail keyword research - step by step

1) Start with a general keyword

If your niche is about “back pain”, type in back pain in Google search. Assuming you are using Firefox with SEO For Firefox Plugin, you will see something similar to the screenshot below:

2) Expand your search to long tail keywords

Click on KW Research link and you’ll get a list of keywords derived from the general keyword. The list includes long tail keywords, which are phrases with 3 to 4 keywords. See the screenshot below:

The objective is not to find long tail keywords. The objective is to find keywords with enough demand and low competition, so that you can get top rank and traffic easily. Due to increasing competition, such keywords happen to be the longer tail keywords. That’s why the focus is on long tail keywords.

Another free tool that you can use to expand your keyword selection is Google Keyword Tool. Just type in your general keyword and it will return a list of keyword suggestions with monthly search demand.

3) Check the competitiveness of the keywords

From the above screenshot from KW Research, you now have a list of keywords arranged in order of the daily search estimate. This data takes care of the ‘demand’ for the keywords.

Your job now is to check the ‘competition’ of the keywords.

Starting from the keyword phrase with the highest demand, you now have to type the keyword phrase one by one into Google search and check the number of results it returns.

Here’s a checklist that I use to check the competitiveness of any keyword phrase.
i) Search result should be less than 500,000.
ii) Some of the webpages in the top 10 results should have a PR less than 3.
iii) Some of the webpages in the top 10 results are internal pages of Squidoo.com, Hubpages.com, Blogger.com, Ezinearticles.com and/or Buzzle.com.

For example, if I do a search for “lower back pain”, at the time of writing, I get 17,600,000 search results. The phrase is not a good keyword because with 17,600,000 other websites competing for the keyword, it’s going to take a lot of time and effort to list in the top 10.

Going down the list, I found “lower left back pain”. This keyword phrase returns 446,000 search results. Not bad. With SEO For Firefox, you can see that the top 10 websites mostly have PR 1 and 2. This seems to be an easy keyword to target.

Another keyword I tried is “exercises for back pain”. This keyword phrase returns 408,000 search results. It’s less than 500,000 results. But the top 10 websites mostly have PR 4 and 5. This means although there aren’t that many websites to compete with, it’s not easy to get the top 10 ranking because the top 10 are already conquered by authority sites.

That’s about all in long tail keyword research. Not too complicated isn’t it?

Long tail keyword research for PLRPRO users

All PLRPRO niches come with complete keyword research in an excel spreadsheet. Frankly, I seldom conduct keyword research for websites built using PLRPRO. In most cases, I simply use the keywords used in the PLR articles.

Some of the keywords may be competitive. But I don’t really care. Most of the keywords are long tail keywords anyway. I am very lazy when it comes to making money from Google Adsense.

So, if you want to conduct your own keyword research for all the 40 articles, by all means, go ahead. You should get better returns. For me, I didn’t do it.

Final note about long tail keyword research

Long tail keyword research is important. But besides the long tail keywords that you ‘intentionally’ optimize for, you will also get traffic from other long tail keywords that you never think of. While such traffic is not significant, the sum of these ‘insignificant’ traffic can add up to a few hundred traffic to your website.

I recently (not so recent actually, about 3 months back) discovered a truly one way link building service that works like a charm and I am excited to share it with you.

Why one way link building?

You should know that one of the best ways to get traffic is by getting many top keyword rankings in the search engines. To get a top keyword ranking, you need to have good one way links from different websites linking to your keyword page.

That’s why one way link building is one of the most important tasks in search engine optimization.

How to get one way links?

About 3 months back, I came across a one way link building service called LinkVana.

How LinkVana Works?

In simplicity, LinkVana allows you to submit short articles (100 words) with your anchor links in them to a network of blogs. All the blogs are on different IP addresses with Page Ranks.

There is no limit on the number of posts (and thus one way links) you can make. Technically speaking, you can have hundreds of one way link to any webpage you like, including your Squidoo page.

So if this service really does what it claims, LinkVana is going to be a Link Nirvana!!

And it IS a Link Nirvana!! Let me show you……

The most honest LinkVana review

Here was what I did 3 months ago to test this one way link building service:

I have a poor-performing 40-page Adsense website and it was generating about $20 Adsense income a month. (See my May earning)

I posted 40 100-word articles to LinkVana, each article link to one of the pages in my 40-page website. In other words, I submitted 1 post for every page of my website. I did it on the 5th of June 2008.

Please note that LinkVana will not post all the links at the same time. In my case, I set the system to post 1-3 links a day. So it took the system about a month for all the links to be posted. Yet, I was already seeing immediate result in June.

See my June earning from the website…

All the 40 posts were completed in June. In July, my Adsense earning from this website exceeded $100.

Ok, money aside, let’s look at the traffic stat for this website.

The traffic began to increase in June (the month when I started building 1 one way link to each page of my website) and remained stable in July and August.

The screenshot below shows you the top 10 search engine keywords for the website in May (before I use LinkVana) and in August (2 months after I use LinkVana).

You can see that with just 1 post to each page, I’m starting to get top rankings in many keywords that I’m trying to target.

Another interesting note is that I’m starting to get more traffic from shorter keywords. Before using the service, I’m getting traffic from 4- to 5-word keywords. After submission, all my top 10 are 3- to 4-word keywords.

Frankly, I feel like hitting an SEO jackpot!

What would happen if I continue to build more one way links to this website? Remember, there is no limit on the number of links you can build using LinkVana.

I stopped my experiment on this website at this point because I wanted to post links to ALL my other websites and see if the results are similar.

I have close to 100 websites and you can imagine it will take me some time before I complete all the submissions.

I am not even half way through the work but based on the progress so far, I’m already experiencing 13% increase in my total Adsense income.

LinkVana subscription costs $147 a month. Not cheap. If not because someone I trusted recommended this one way link building service to me, I wouldn’t even give it a look.

LinkVana membership is limited to only 300 members. At $147 a month, I don’t think it will be taken up fast. But don’t take too long to make your decision or you’ll regret when the door is closed.

Special bonus for those who take action

A bonus for those who take up this one way link building service.

If you subscribe through this link, I’m going to give you my Linkvana Blueprint. In this blueprint, I will show you how I set up LinkVana for 100 websites. Doing it for 1 website is easy, but doing it for 100 websites easily will need some tricks. Once you’re subscribed, simply email the receipt to support[at]leadsleap[dot]com, with the subject “My LinkVana Bonus”. I will email you the blueprint personally.

Happy one way link building!

Today I’m going to share with you how I get one of my old websites back to top 10 in Google, spending very little time and money.

But before I tell you what I did, let me give you a brief background about this particular website.

I have a niche website that I created back in 2004 and it has been in the top 10 in Google for a competitive keyword for years.

To give you some idea, that ’single word’ keyword gives 6,900,000 results in Google, i.e. more than 6 million websites are fighting for that keyword.

A few months back, I realized that the sales from the website dropped. I suspected that my ranking in Google had probably dropped. Indeed, it dropped out of the first page into the second page. The exact ranking was 12th position. Just missed the top 10 by 2 positions.

To regain my top position, I needed to get lots of backlinks fast.

Thus, about 2 months back, I engaged a freelancer to submit the website to 1000 link directories for less than $30. That’s all I did.

A few days ago, I realized that sales from the website increased. I went to Google and checked. Indeed, I’m back to the top 10. I’m now in the 7th position.

From this experience, I once again prove that directory submission is still a viable promotion method.

Some Advice In Website Creation

When I first started creating niche websites to profit from Adsense and affiliate sales, I followed the advice of the ‘experts’ - follow your interest.

I wrote very good articles and each website took me one month of intensive effort!

Soon, very soon in fact, I ran out of interested topics and I had nothing to write. It took me a while before I decided to create websites using Private Label Articles.

I’m glad that I made that decision.

The traffic and earnings from some of the websites created using Private Label Articles outperform those ’sweat and toil’ websites I’ve created.

For example, one of the websites I’ve created using Private Label Articles is now consistently generating more than $500 a month from Adsense. The highest record was $700 in one month. It took me only a few hours to create the website and a few hours to promote it.

I’ve tried at least 4 different Private Label Article services in the market and there is only 1 that worth my time and investment. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), that website will be closed on 30th June 2008, i.e. it will stop accepting new members after 30th June 2008 (but existing members will still continue to receive new articles). When it reopens, probably after 3-4 months time, the same service will cost you double.

If you are just starting out but are committed to build some passive income online, I suggest you grab this PLR service that I use before it’s closed to the public and ‘naively’ follow the instructions laid out by them, especially their 90-day challenge as well as my step by step guide. If you can just do that, you will thank me one year from now.

This post is about how to use pingback/trackback to get more links and contents for your blog.If you have a blog, you probably have 2 important things to ‘worry’ about.

1) Finding/writing quality content to post to your blog

2) Getting quality links to your blog

Here’s a proposal on how you can have both at the same time!

The idea is to use the pingback/trackback feature that comes with a Wordpress blog.

Here’s a typical scenario:

- Person A writes something on her blog.

- You read her blog and have some afterthought.

- You blog about your thought in your own blog (hence more content for your blog).

- You either pingback or send a trackback to Person A’s blog

- Person A’s blog receives the pingback/trackback and displays it as a comment to the original post, linking it back to your blog (hence another link juice for you).

Now, for this method to work, 2 things must be ready:

1) Person A’s blog must allow trackback and pingback

2) Ideally, person A’s blog sets “DoFollow” for her trackback and pingback.

How to know if a blog allows trackback and pingback?

Simple, just check out the blog and see if there’s any trackback or pingback links. They are either in the comments section or a section on its own (like LeadsLeap blog).

How to know if the trackback/pingback has “DoFollow”?

If you use Firefox, you can install a plugin called SEO For Firefox. The plugin will highlight links with “NoFollow”. Any link without “NoFollow” is “DoFollow”.

If you use IE, change to Firefox! (How is my humour?)

How to create a pingback or trackback?

1) First, it should be enabled in your wordpress blog. You can do that by logging into Options » Discussion - and making sure there is a check mark next to Attempt to notify any Weblogs linked to from the article (slows down posting.).

2) Next, write a post and link back to the original post.

In most cases, Pingback will happen automatically and there is no need for you to send any trackback.

If you have any difficulty in pingback or trackback, refer to this excellent guide.

A note on “DoFollow” trackback and pingback

Wordpress blog, by default, has “NoFollow” trackback/pingback link. If you own a blog and would like to advocate “DoFollow” for trackback and pingback, you can install Dofollow Trackbacks Plugin.

If you decide to do that, write a comment below to let our readers know you advocate “DoFollow” on your blog. Who knows, some readers may decide to read your blog and pingback to your blog

Final note

You are welcome to link to LeadsLeap blog and get a pingback or trackback, provided that you don’t spam. For LeadsLeap members, you can add your referid to the link. It will pingback to the original post.

There is an SEO theory which suggests that mass directory submission will get your website into Google sandbox.

The basic idea is if your new website has too many links all of a sudden, usually due to mass submission in a short time, your website will be ‘jailed’ by Google.

Is it true? Let’s find out in this little test that I’ve done.

In my test, I built 3 40-page content websites and then did the following IMMEDIATELY:

- For 2 of the websites, I bookmarked them at Digg and Propeller (as what I usually do to promote new websites) and submit them to 1000 link directories (outsourced).

- For the third website, I only submit them to 1000 link directories. Forgot to submit to Digg and Propeller actually.

After 3 days……

All three websites got indexed in Google, one with 100% of the pages indexed and the other two with 50% indexed.

From my experience, it is unusual that new websites get 100% indexed. Usually, if your website has 40 pages, about 10-20 pages will be indexed initially. I believe this is because there isn’t enough link popularity for the new site.

But in this test, one website got 100% indexed. Is it a coincidence or it’s the effect of 1000 directory submission? Em…

How about the traffic?

There is a surge in traffic to all 3 website in the first few days. This is expected because link directories owners are evaluating the website for listing.

But after 7 days……

One website average about 20 visitors a day and the other two websites average about 40 visitors a day.

Frankly, I like what I’m seeing.

To give you an idea, my other websites with ’slow’ link building process are getting 5 to 10 visitors a day initially. These 3 websites are really having a great start.

Are all the traffic from Google?

Not really. Two websites have most of the search engine traffic from Google. One has most of the search engine traffic from Microsoft Live. Besides search engine traffic, te websites also have traffic from Digg, Propeller and tons of link directories.

The websites are now 2 weeks old and the traffic has been pretty consistent.

From this little test, I’ve yet to see any sandbox effect on these 3 websites as a result of mass directory submission.

On the contrary, I’m seeing Search Engines giving my websites more priority as a result of more initial links.

Will Google ‘jail’ the websites after some time? Well, only time can tell. But I’ll surely keep you informed.

Have you got any similar experience before? Or you ever got your website thrown into Google sandbox as a result of mass link directory submission? Feel free to discuss below.

Many new marketers fail to start because they are not sure how to promote a new website.

So today I’m going to show you step by step what I normally do when I start a new website.

Before listing down the step by step instructions, I need to clarify that what I’m doing is to promote 15 to 40 pages Adsense website or product review website. It can be a static site or a blog.

“Why is it important to clarify on this?” You may ask.

This is because you can start many kinds of websites. Adsense or product review website is just one easy way to make ’small’ money online, but when you have 100s of these little sites, it’s more than enough to quit your job!

Other forms of website you can start include a squeeze page to build list, a mega service site like LeadsLeap, your own product site such as your own Clickbank product etc. The strategies required for these kinds of website is different from promoting Adsense or product review website.

For one, you can’t do any form of joint venture for Adsense or product review sites. You can do advertising, provided you know what you are doing. But search engine optimization is a surefire free traffic source that you can rely on and once you get such traffic, it’s going to serve you for years!

So in this article, when I say promoting a new website, I’m really talking about promoting it to get search engine traffic.

I’m not going to talk about on-page search engine optimization here. You can read it somewhere else or if you post a request below, I’ll probably discuss it in my next blog post.

Today, what I’m going to share with you is off-page optimization, which is all about building link juice to your website.

Ok, I hope by now you get the whole picture and are ready to see the simple steps that I use for all my little sites that are enough to earn me a full time income.

Step 1 - Bookmark 1 page of your website at Digg and Propeller

This is the first thing you should do once your website is ready. Just choose any 1 page and bookmark it at Digg and Propeller. This will get your website indexed by Google, usually in less than 3 days.

Warning: Don’t bookmark more than 1 page and if you have tons of websites that look similar, make sure you open different accounts to bookmark or your account may be suspended. I have my account suspended twice! Technically speaking, you shouldn’t bookmark your own website. But if you do it under the radar, it is the fastest way to get your website indexed.

Step 2 - Write 5 articles and post to as many article directories as possible

Some of the directories you must “hand” submit to are Ezinearticles, ArticleDashBoard, Buzzle, GoArticles.

Next, take up a lifetime membership here and submit all your articles there. From my experience, 5 article submissions will give you 100-200 backlinks.

Step 3 - Submit your website to link directories

There is an argument on whether submitting to link directories is still effective as a form of link building. I’ve been doing it since 2006 as an integral part of the whole process and frankly I’m not sure what would happen if I stop doing it. Maybe one day I should try!

However, one thing for sure is the links count. If you do a link search for some high PR sites, you’ll see that many links come from link directories. If you believe that every link to your website will help you in your search engine ranking, submitting your website to link directories is a great way to get tons of one way link.

You can either do it yourself, which was what I did when I first started, or if you have the budget, get a freelancer to submit for you. You can get some cheap bargain here.

Step 4 - Set up 3 way link exchange

You probably are familiar with 3 way link. Yes, it’s one of my favorite tools too. If you are new, 3 way link is a little too ‘expensive’ for you. The price is $47 a month. Get it when you have 10-20 websites.

That’s all I do whenever I launch a new Adsense or product review site. Even without step 4, just by doing step 1 to 3 will get your website to PR 2-3.

What can you do with a PR 2-3 website?

Well, besides making money from Adsense and affiliate sales, you can sell link and make another $20 a month from each website you own. You can read about selling text links in this post.

One of the hardest things in online marketing is probably to get your online business of the ground and let it run on autopilot.

Although I’ve done it before, it is still a big challenge for me whenever I start a new website.

Today, I’m going to show you how a new website put a simple twist to an old concept and achieve extraordinary results in less than 3 months.

The website that I’m talking about is Qassia.com.

Qassia is a new website started in January 2008. But today, it ranks 4,762 in Alexa ranking and has more than 4000 webpages listed in Google.

So what is Qassia?

Why are people crazy about it?

More importantly, what are the marketing mechanisms that are making people crazy about it?

Let’s see……

If I were to break down Qassia into its simplest form, Qassia is nothing more than a combination of an article directory and a link directory. (For newbies, some examples of article directories are ezinearticles.com and goarticles.com, and some examples of link directories are DMOZ and Yahoo!Directory.)

If you were to start another article directory or link directory, chances are you are going to fail because the idea is no longer novel and there are thousands of them out there.

Think about this: If you were to start an article directory, how are you going to find thousands of people to submit articles to your directory, especially when you are just starting.

But Qassia has done it. Qassia is hardly 3 months old, yet thousands of people are happily sending their unique articles to Qassia and eagerly promoting it to other online marketers.

The secret lies in its credit system.

Qassia positions itself as a free link directory that gives you unlimited one-way backlinks to your website for free. Why do webmasters like one-way backlinks? Well, backlinks are good for two reasons: 1) for direct traffic, and 2) for better search engine ranking.

The catch is in order to achieve better ranking for your backlinks, you will have to earn credits.

The more credits you earn, the higher your website ranks in their link directory, which translates to more web traffic to you (both direct traffic and search engine traffic).

See the twist in the system? That’s why people are working hard to submit articles to Qassia.

Similar to all other successful websites, Qassia also has a referral system. It’s the same old story. The more referrals you have, the more credits you earn and the higher your website ranks.

Does this concept work?

Check out its Alexa ranking. It’s moving up superbly fast. This means the website is receiving lots of traffic.

If you do a search on Google.com by typing in site:www.qassia.com, you can see that it already has more than 4000 pages ranked in the search engines. Most of these are articles submitted by its members.

Whether this system is sustainable or not is too early to conclude. But it is set for a great start and I believe there is a great deal we can learn from this website, especially its marketing strategies.

This website is currently in closed beta and everything is kept secret to the public (I’m not sure if it’s another well-planned marketing strategy). There is no way you can signup Qassia unless you are referred by an existing member.

If you want to signup this website and see for yourself some other brilliant marketing strategies they’ve used, you can sign up through this invite-only link: http://kohym.qassia.com/.