Are you struggling to get social traffic to your blog?

Well, you’re in luck because I’m going to share with you a technique I came up with that will get you top rankings in Google while flooding your site with social traffic.

This is a strategy I’ve used a few times and it gets me a constant source of Twitter traffic and followers, not to mention rankings for keywords in Google.

Step 1: Choose a keyword

The first step is to choose the keyword you’d like to rank for.  I recommend targeting a keyword with relatively low competition, like 100-1,000 searches per month on Google.  You can reuse this technique to get more rankings and search traffic too.

Here are two of my favorite techniques for finding good keywords:

1. Google Analytics

In Google Analytics, you can see the keywords that sent your site traffic under Traffic Sources > Sources > Search > Organic.  You’ll probably find hundreds or even thousands of keywords that sent you 1-2 visitors.

This is a fantastic source of new keywords because you know that each of them is being searched for and they may not be easy to discover with Google’s keyword tool (that means lower competition).  All you have to do is make a page specifically targeting one.

Once you find this list, export it and run the keywords through Google’s keyword tool to get an estimated search volume for each.  Now you can pick out one that looks promising.

2. Ubersuggest

When you type a query into Google, it automatically makes suggestions for you in a dropdown menu as you type.  Ubersuggest will automatically scrape all of these suggestions for you.

One of the most effective ways to use the tool is to type in the beginning of a question specific to your niche.  For instance, if you have a blog about sewing, you could search for “how to sew” and you’ll get a ton of queries that real people are searching for like “how to sew a zipper”.

Step 2: Create Something Awesome

The next step is to put together an awesome mini-product.  The easiest way is to put together a small ebook like a report.  If you pick a keyword that is based on a specific subject, it makes it easy to write a very detailed, yet short ebook on the matter.

Sticking with the example above, a visual ebook called “how to sew a zipper” would be great.  Take it the extra step and add some bonuses to make it really appealing for visitors to download.

Bonus Tip: Whenever you’re trying to rank for a keyword, always perform a close inspection of the current top 3 results and make sure yours will be better.  Don’t leave out anything that visitors could find on another result.

Step 3: Prepare a Small Launch

Since you put all that effort into creating a killer ebook, you should maximize your results by setting up a mini-launch for your free giveaway.

1. Email Your List

This is pretty straightforward.  You should schedule a broadcast using Aweber, or whatever email service you use, to tell your subscribers about your free giveaway.

2. Notify Your Social Networks

Share the link to your giveaway on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and any other networks you use.

Bonus Tip: Use Stumbleupon’s link shortener.  This way you will automatically submit your freebie to StumbleUpon and whenever a visitor uses your link they are taken there with the StumbleUpon bar at the top of the screen.  This helps get you more ‘thumbs-ups’ and gain more SU traffic.

3. Use JustRetweet

JustRetweet is an easy way to multiply your social traffic.  You can login with Twitter and then add the Tweet that you want others to Retweet.  This is my favorite Twitter service because I can control the amount of credits others receive for Retweeting and also the lowest number of followers they can have to Retweet my Tweet.

Last time I used it I got 9 Retweets by real people with an average of 3,500 followers.

If you use the StumbleUpon link shortener you’ll also be able to view the amount of clicks your link got.

Step 4: Give it Away with Cloudflood

Now here’s the big detail I left out until now: you’re going to giveaway your freebie with CloudFlood.

CloudFlood requires visitors to either Tweet or share your freebie on Facebook.  I used to use Pay With a Tweet but I like CloudFlood much more because your visitors can enter any message they want.  This way, they still share the link with their followers, but they can say it in their own way.

When given more control, people choose to download more often.

Now to put this all in perspective, you are going to get people Tweeting about your freebie that were:

• from your email list
• following you on twitter
• from JustRetweet
• following your blog

All of this Twitter social traffic multiplies on itself as more people download and share it.  This can go on for days before the cycle dies and you’re left waiting on the next download to get the ball rolling again.

But this is why you chose a keyword, so you would have an unending supply of Twitter traffic and new followers.

Step 5: Build Links

Once you get one of the top 1-3 spots for your keyword, it’s game over.

New people will find your freebie through Google every day.  They Tweet it, more people Retweet it, and so on and so forth forever.

Getting that rank isn’t hard either because everything is in your favor.  The keyword research techniques I explained earlier will help you find long-tail keywords that are already easy to rank for, and you’re giving away a freebie = easy links.

The first thing you can do is to ask bloggers in your niche to mention it in an upcoming post.  If you’ve got some good connections they may be more than happy to help you out.  You can also take things into your own hands and write a guest post for them and link to the freebie.

Another simple way to build links is in your comments on other blogs and you can mention it whenever relevant on any forums that you frequent.

Over time, because of the links you’ll build and naturally acquire, and because of all the social sharing, your page will eventually ranks itself at the top.  It’s really only a matter of time.

You can always  give it another dose of JustRetweet juice to pick things back up or link to it in new blog posts you publish if things get to slow for your liking.

This technique has worked out great for me, so please try it out for yourself and see how much social traffic it helps you get. I’d be interested in hearing how it’s worked for you.

The post A 5 Step Guide To Getting More Social Traffic To Your Site appeared first on Josh Kotsay's Affiliate Marketing Blog.

I wrote an initial Hostgator review more than 3 years ago, and I wanted to give a more updated, refreshed review for 2013. I purchased my initial Hostgator Baby plan in 2008 and I’ve been hosting a handful of sites on that account since that time. Within the last year, I’ve also added a Hostgator VPS account as I’ve needed the additional power for a couple of new websites I acquired.

What I’ve always appreciated most about Hostgator is the reliability of their web hosting. This is the number one criteria for me picking (and staying with) any web hosting company. I’ve been using Pingdom to monitor the status of all my websites and below you can see live, real-time stats of my 2 different Hostgator servers over the past 30 days.

While almost every web hosting company I’ve seen offers a 99.9% uptime guarantee, very few actually reach this mark. And far too many are substantially worse. So Hostgator’s 99.9%+ uptime across my 2 servers ranks it up there as one of the most reliable web hosts I’ve tried.

Hostgator Support

The other area where Hostgator excels at is its support. I mainly use their live chat channel for my support requests because I find it most convenient for me. In general, the time it takes to connect to a live support person is pretty fast. I’ve had a few instances where the wait times were 20 minutes or more, but usually I will be able to start chatting with a support person in less than 5 minutes.

More importantly though, the Hostgator support staff are quite knowledgable and patient. Which is what you want when dealing with any customer support staff. You sometimes worry when a company grows the size of Hostgator that their customer support will start to suffer. But so far, that has not been the case and everytime I’ve had to contact Hostgator support, they have been able to get my issues resolved in a satisfactory manner.

Hostgator Coupons

If you’re interesting in signing up for Hostgator, make sure to use a coupon code. Unfortunately, I didn’t take that advice myself when I purchased my first Baby Plan ages ago. So I’ve actually been paying $9.95 a month for all these years, even though the regular monthly price is now $7.96. For me, the extra $2 a month is no big deal, but for people just starting out, saving a few extra bucks can mean a lot.

First of all, keep in mind that any Hostgator coupon code you use is only valid for the first billing cycle. So while the 1 cent code might look good on paper, you are only saving money for that first month. After that you pay full price.

Instead, I would recommend using the coupon code JOSHGATOR1 to save 25% and apply it to one of their yearly plans. You’ll save quite a bit more money, and if for some reason their service is not working for you, then you can just take advantage of their 45-day money back guarantee.

Final Thoughts

Having good web hosting is essential for any online marketer. It has a direct impact on your business and bad web hosting is also a leading cause of stress! So if you’re looking to purchase web hosting for your new site, or are looking to move your site to a more reliable web host, then give Hostgator a shot. I think you will be happy you did.

The post Hostgator Review For 2013 appeared first on Josh Kotsay's Affiliate Marketing Blog.

If you have read this site for any amount of time, you probably know that I am a big fan of Jonathan Leger and his products. Both The Best Spinner and Article Builder are some of my favorite tools in my internet marketing toolbox.

Jon’s next product is an interesting keyword research tool called Keyword Canine. I’ll be writing an in-depth Keyword Canine review when it actually comes out, but for now I’m going to do a quick and dirty preview.

Keyword Canine, will be a web-based service and it currently has 3 main selling points: Keyword research, Niche Discovery and Backlink Reporting. Lets take a closer look at these 3 features.

Keyword Canine Keyword Research

Keyword Canine will allow you to do a search for any particular keyword and return you various metrics that allow you to judge the ranking difficulty of your chosen keyword, provides you with the keyword traffic stats, and a look at the SEO competition for that keyword.

Some of the metrics it will show you are:

• Average Page Rank of Top Results
• Number of Page Backlinks
• Number of Site Backlinks
• A single Difficulty Ranking score
• Availability of exact match domains
• Top 10 ranking sites in Google

Keyword Canine Niche Discovery

If you don’t have a keyword in mind, you can also take advantage of the niche discovery feature to help you find keywords to target. In the background, Keyword Canine will be continually analyzing its database of millions of keywords to find specific keywords that you can build niche sites around.

There will also be various filters that you can use to make it easier to sort through the list of keywords that it presents.

Keyword Canine Backlink Reporting

Finally, Keyword Canine will include a backlinks report capability. This will be integrated with the keyword research reports, or you can just type in any url you want to bring up a backlink report.

The backlink report will include a breakdown of the anchor text, page rank, nofollow/dofollow, and alive status of each of the links to the page. Blekko is currently being used as the backlink data source.

Initial Thoughts

While none of the Keyword Canine features are particularly groundbreaking, the service looks pretty interesting and I will definitely be testing out. Accuracy is the key, particular with the Difficulty ranking score and the Niche Discovery feature. If these work as promised, then Keyword Canine has the potential to be really useful for us marketers.

I have not seen any release date or pricing info yet. From looking at the feature set, I’m guessing that it will use a monthly subscription based model. As I learn more, I will be continually updating this post.

The post Keyword Canine Review appeared first on Josh Kotsay's Affiliate Marketing Blog.

I am always skeptical when I read about the various make money online systems that appear in my inbox every day. But one program that caught my eye is called the Empower Network, by David Wood and David Sharpe. This is because it was recommended to me by someone I trust, so I decided to sign up and check it out it for myself.

On a basic level, the Empower Network is a viral blogging platform. But if you dig down deeper, it is actually more than that. And if you have the ability to promote it properly, it really has the potential to make you a lot of money. Of course you are still pretty skeptical about what I am talking about, so let me explain how it all works in my Empower Network review.

What Is The Empower Network

The Empower Network launched on October 31, 2011 and in the 53 days since it launched it has attracted over 13,000 paying members and paid out over $2 million in commissions. According to Alexa, Empowernetwork.com is already the 324th largest site in the US. Pretty impressive, right? You will see why after I explain the setup.

A basic membership to the Empower Network gets you access to the viral blogging platform and it will cost you $25 a month. Essentially, it is a hosted platform for you to blog on, similar to WordPress.com or Hubpages.com. It fact it uses WordPress on the backend, so it should be familiar to most of you already.

To see it in action, you can take a look at my own Empower Network blog here:
http://empowernetwork.com/joshkotsay

How Will Empower Network Make You Money?

To see why it is considered a viral blogging platform, check out my Empower Network blog more closely. Notice the ad in the header, the sidebar ad, and the banner ad on the bottom of the page. It utilizes the Facebook comments system (which is viral in nature) and it has social sharing button everywhere. So if anyone clicks through any of the ads on the page, they get sent through the sales funnel and your affiliate id is cookie’d.

Ok, that’s great. But why should you care?

Because if anyone signs up via your link, you get 100% commissions, sent instantly and directly to your bank account. So if someone you refer purchases a basic membership you will get $25 a month recurring commissions.

Not only that, but the Empower Network uses a tiered commission structure.

You see, the first sale you make goes to you, but the 2nd, 4th, 6th and every 5th sale after that goes to your Empower Network sponsor (the person who referred you). As you recruit more people to join under you, and these people recruit their own people, you will continually be taking a cut from all the people under you. Over time, this means a lot of money for you.

And it actually gets better…

There are also a couple of upsell products that people can buy. First, there is the Empower Network Inner Circle, which is a set of audio interviews from members who are already making 6 figures a year. This is a $100 a month. Then there is the Costa Rica intensive training program which is a $3000 seminar that David Wood presented this year. This is an additional $500 one time fee.

If someone you refer purchases all these upsells, then you can potentially earn $625 up front, and $125 a month recurring commissions. And that’s just the products they offer now. There are other products in the pipeline as well which will only increase your commissions.

Now here’s the ingenious part of the system.

You can only get those upsell commissions if you purchase those products yourself. If you haven’t bought the product yet and someone buys it through your link then that commission goes up to your sponsor. So essentially you are heavily incentivised to buy all the upsells yourself for maximum commissions.

Empower Network Blogging Platform

That’s all well and good, but if the blogging platform doesn’t work, then everything else don’t matter.

What really made me interested in joining the Empower Network was the possibility of using it as a powerful Web 2.0 link building property ala Hubpages.com.

Not too long ago, Hubpages was my favorite Web 2.0 property because I could write articles on it with a link back to my site. Google loved these hubs, and I had several hubs ranking #1 for several keywords.

Now post Google Panda, Hubpages.com is no longer very affiliate friendly. They discourage the use of affiliate links and some of my hubs were taken down because they talked about topics they didn’t like anymore (like article spinning for example).

With my EmpowerNetwork blog, I think I have found my replacement. It is completely affiliate friendly and you can pretty much post whatever you like on your blog. You can promote other products or just use the link juice it provides to help your other sites rank better as well.

I mentioned earlier that Empowernetwork.com already ranks as the 324th most visited site according to Alexa. By the same measure, Hubpages.com is ranked #207. In less than 2 months, EmpowerNetwork.com has quickly climbed up to become one of the most powerful sites on the internet.

Empower Network Blogging Results

I’ve only been a member for a short period of time now, but I am already encouraged by the results I have seen so far.

Here is an example of one post I have written:

http://www.empowernetwork.com/joshkotsay/blog/articleranks-vs-traffickaboom/

Almost immediately after posting, it ranks #1 in Google for the keywords:

ArticleRanks vs TrafficKaboom
TrafficKaboom vs ArticleRanks

Sure, it’s not the most competitive keyword, but they are targeted, buying keywords that will help me earn some additional commissions. But more importantly it tells me that Google already sees EmpowerNetwork.com as an authority site. And it’s easy to see why.

Need some additional proof? I also put together an Empower Network bonus package and posted it as a blog post here:

http://www.empowernetwork.com/joshkotsay/blog/empower-network-bonus/

Shortly after publishing this post, I’ve started ranking #1 for the Empower Network bonus keyword as well.

In the Empower Network training, they tell you, you have write a post to your blog every day. So in theory, every member is doing this and building links to their content and trying to get their posts ranked higher. And as more and more links are being built, the EmpowerNetwork.com becomes more and more of an authority site.

As I continue to write more posts on my blog, I will be sure to keep this Empower Network review updated with my latest results.

EmpowerNetwork eWallet

One big question I get all the time about the EmpowerNetwork is with receiving payments. Previously, the Empower Network relied on the premise that it could get all of its members Merchant accounts. What happened is a long story, but needless to say things didn’t work out so well.

And while EmpowerNetwork did support receiving payments from Paypal (which I had been using) and AlertPay, they really wren’t reliable options either.

So the two Dave’s went back to the drawing board and came up with an in-house eWallet system for accepting payments. It costs an extra $19.95 per month, but now every member is instantly approved for the EmpowerNetwork eWallet and they can start receiving commissions instantly. Oh and it works internationally too!

At first glance, new members may be put off by this extra $19.95 fee. First of all, keep in mind that this is much cheaper than a regular Merchant account which can cost upwards of $30-40/mo.

But what about Paypal which is free?

Actually, Paypal isn’t free. You see Paypal makes money by taking a cut out of each transaction, as much as 4% from looking at my own account.

So lets say you sold an Empower Network Basic Membership + the Inner Circle and Costa Rica upsells for $625. Paypal would then take $25 of that commission off the top, which is already more than what the eWallet would cost you.

So the more memberships you sell, the more money you will be losing via Paypal. That is definitely not a good business model for you.

Empower Network Final Thoughts

With all the hype you see written about it, you may think that the Empower Network is a scam. But from what I’ve seen so far, I think it seems legit to me. The blogging platform is good, the training is useful and the system as I understand it appears viable.

While I am still a new member of the Empower Network, I am pretty excited about the possibilities. If you already are an influential person, with a loyal following already then I can see you making a ton of money with it right away. Just show people how you make money with it, and you can easily get your followers excited to sign up under you.

If you are just a regular guy like myself, then seeing results might take a little more time. But I think with a little bit of work, the Empower Network has the potential to make you some serious money if you can promote it right.

I’ve also put together a nice Empower Network bonus package for anyone who joins our team. Not only will I personally help you to learn my link building system, you will get a bunch of other exclusive goodies as well.

Ready to get started with the Empower Network?

1. Watch the sales video and pay close attention to how well their sales funnel works.
2. Check out my Empower Network Bonus.
3. Join my team and start your blog.
4. Receive your bonuses and let me help you start making money.

If you have any questions about the Empower Network, please leave your comments below.

The post Empower Network Review appeared first on Josh Kotsay's Affiliate Marketing Blog.

One of the blog networks I have been using for a long time now is ArticleRanks. At first glance, it may seem similar to other public blog networks out there, but it does have a couple unique features that make it worth using. Not only that, but I’ve done some case studies with it that show I can get results with it. So in this ArticleRanks review, I am going to share with you what makes it one of the more effective blog networks you can start using.

ArticleRanks 2.0 relaunched in June, 2011 and it featured a newly revamped interface and some significant changes to it’s membership plans. Like other public blog networks, Article Ranks allows you to submit spun articles and add links back to your sites (up to 3 links per submission).

ArticleRanks Membership Options

ArticleRanks now has 3 different membership options and it is still one of the few blog networks left that allow you to make submissions for free. There is a catch though. You have to add your own sites to the ArticleRanks network to receive content. Depending on the page rank of the blogs you add, you will build up credits which you can use in turn can be used to submit your own articles.

Until very recently, I had been using the ArticleRanks free plan and it is still quite effective. The downside of the free plan is that you are limited to promoting only 5 sites at a time. Article syndication rates also seem lower on the free plan than the paid plans. So with the free plan I was typically getting my articles sent out to about 20-30 blogs per submission.

If you decide to go with a paid plan, you can choose between the Starter and Pro Plans. The Starter Plan is a very reasonable at only $39.99/month. This allows you to promote up to 10 different sites at a time. The Pro Plan is quite a bit more expensive at $89.99/month. However, this plan allows you to promote unlimited sites and send out unlimited articles. So which plan you choose, depends on your link building needs.

If you only have a couple sites to promote, then the free and Starter plans are perfectly fine. If you have a lot of sites like I do, then you may want to opt for the Pro plan.

Using ArticleRanks

ArticleRanks uses the standard { ~ } syntax for its submissions. It does include its own internal spinner, but I normally use Vita Vee’s Ultra Spinnable Articles or the Super Spun articles generated by Article Builder and there are no problems directly submitting either one. If you are trying to use your spun articles across multiple networks, I would suggest you use this SpinnerTools site to help you convert your articles to the appropriate ArticleRanks syntax.

ArticleRanks has a fairly standard submission interface, but I’ve always felt it’s slightly inefficient. For example, trying to preview your article is a multi-step process that is hampered by the fact that the ArticleRanks server seems to be consistently sluggish and slow.

The interface is also pretty quirky with certain browsers. For example, when using Google Chrome, it messes up the formatting of your articles until you save it and re-edit again. This is not a show-stopper, but you will probably save yourself some grief by using Firefox instead.

ArticleRanks Results

ArticleRanks does have a large established network of blogs. It is mostly a mix of user contributed blogs and blogs added by the ArticleRanks owners themselves. The PageRank of the blogs are not particularly high and I have found that the average PR of sites in the network is less than 1. However the IP diversity of the network is pretty good which means you will be getting backlinks from a wide range of IP addresses which is very important for good rankings.

For a more in-depth analysis, you can check out the ArticleRanks case study we did over at the Link Building Lab. I even show how I was able to rank a site I built from scratch just using ArticleRanks submissions.

One nice feature that ArticleRanks has recently introduced is the fact that it now build backlinks to your submitted articles. That’s right, backlinks to your backlinks. It uses social bookmarking sites to do this, and it is certainly something that does improve the indexing rate of your articles. This is a nice advantage that ArticleRanks offers that many other blog networks don’t.

ArticleRanks Pros

• Use for free if you submit sites to network.
• Good network IP diversity.
• Automatically builds backlinks to backlinks.

ArticleRanks Cons

• Buggy when using with Google Chrome.
• Slow and quirky submission interface.

ArticleRanks Final Thoughts

I have been using ArticleRanks for a long time now, and I am still quite happy with it. It is a reliable blog network that consistently delivers good results. I do wish they could somehow fix the general slowness of their server, but for now it’s just something to deal with.

If you are just starting out with building backlinks using blog networks, then ArticleRanks is certainly one of the first networks you should try. Start yourself out with the free plan, and then upgrade from there when you need to.

The post ArticleRanks Review appeared first on Josh Kotsay's Affiliate Marketing Blog.

I just got an email from Brad Callen, talking about the upcoming launch of his new product, SEO Link Monster. This new sevice is a collaboration between Brad, his brother Matt Callen and Dori Friend.

• Skip Down To My February 7th Update
• Skip Down To My February 25th Update

I honestly don’t know much about Dori, but I have bought many of Brad and Matt’s products in the past. Two of them that I have used quite a bit are SEOLinkVine and My Article Network. Both are popular blog networks that have done a good job in the past of increasing the Google rankings of many of my own sites.

As everyone who reads this blog knows, I pretty much test every link building system or service that comes out. So even though the details about SEO Link Monster are scarce, I am now eagerly anticipating the launch when it comes out on February 7th, 2012.

I will probably be first in line to fork over my money for it, sight unseen.

What Do We Know About SEO Link Monster?

Not much really.

So far, I have just heard that it is going to be some sort of automated link building system combined with a huge link building network. Is it going to be a brand new network or will it be a part of SEOLV or MAN? That will be interesting to find out when it launches.

Brad has also mentioned that SEO Link Monster will be scalable, meaning that the more members join, the better results everyone will see. I’m also very curious to see what this means.

Price-wise, it looks like the service will cost $47 for the first 30 days, and then $147 a month after. This puts it in the same pricing range as SENuke X and LinkVana.

As more details come out, I will keep this SEO Link Monster review updated with the latest info. And of course when I get a chance to test out the system myself, I will put together my full, in-depth review as well.

SEO Link Monster Review – First Impressions

*** Feb 7, 2012 Update ***

Well, I just signed up for my account a few minutes after launch. After purchasing, got hit with several upsells, downsells and OTO’s which I just skipped over.

The SEO Link Monster interface looks pretty familiar and they seemed to have taken a lot of elements from SEO Link Vine. It comes with a built in article spinner and you also get access to a desktop software app called Rankerizer to help check your keyword rankings.

Submitting your articles is extremely streamlined. All you need to do is input your spun article title and spun article content. No need to select any categories or any other options which is actually pretty nice.

The one obvious thing that is missing is a preview function so you can see how your articles will look. The workaround is to Save and Publish your article first. Then you have the option to view your article and edit it again if you find any mistakes.

Of course I’ve only just started to use SEO Link Monster and I don’t have any hard data on it at the moment. But here are some of the things I know about it so far.

• It’s a private blog network.
• Mix of PR0-PR3 blogs
• Will distribute to a max of 14 submissions per day
• Gives you access to all your posted urls

If you want to play around with it yourself, $47 for the first month seems like a pretty good deal. Whether it’s worth $147 a month after that is hard to say, but at least you will have a good opportunity to see if it works for you, before you make the decision.

*** Feb 25, 2012 Update ***

Unfortunately, after 2 weeks of testing, it looks like SEO Link Monster is experiencing some major issues. One of them being that many of the sites are articles have been posted on have suddenly become de-indexed by Google. Until they fix this problem, I cannot recommend anyone to use this network.

Please visit LinkBuildingLab.com for the full story, plus a look at some alternative, safer blog networks that you can use instead.

SEO Link Monster Bonus

My partner in crime Chris has put together a really nice looking SEO Link Monster Bonus package for anyone who buys through his link.

Unlike other bonuses that are sure to be out there, it’s not the same, old junk that everyone else is offering. Check it out if you want to make the most out of your SEO Link Monster subscription.

The post SEO Link Monster Review appeared first on Josh Kotsay's Affiliate Marketing Blog.

Article Builder is a new software tool developed by Jonathan Leger that will help you generate unlimited amounts of articles with a click of a button.

How does it do this? Well Jon has created a massive database of categorized titles, introductory paragraphs and tips and snippets that have been extracted from a huge library of PLR content.

All these elements are combined to create a highly readable article that can be used for a wide variety of purposes.

How Article Builder Works

Article Builder is an online tool, so you can pretty much access it from anywhere. The interface is pretty plain, but that’s because it’s so simple to use.

To request an article, you first need to select from one of the available categories. Currently, there are 52 different categories ranging from Internet Marketing to Dog Training to Nutrition.

Content gets added to the Article Builder database weekly, and if enough people request a category, it will get added into the system. At launch there were only 23 categories, but a month later it has more than doubled.

Next you can input in an optional list of subtopic categories and choose your minimum word count. Article Builder can generate articles from 300 to 1000 words long.

Finally specify how many articles you want it to generate and press the button to spit out your new piece of content.

There are a couple of Advanced Options you can also set that I wanted to highlight as well. If you want to use Article Builder to generate articles you can use for blog networks like Traffic Kaboom and Authority Link Network, you can check the ‘Spin articles together’ option that combines all the article intros, body snippets, and conclusions together using spin formatted text. There is also the option to generate articles with the same number of paragraphs, which is perfect for Unique Article Wizard users.

How I Will Use Article Builder

When I saw the email about Article Builder, my first thought was that it would be the perfect source of content for a link building networks like Build My Rank or Linkamotion. Instead of paying around $3 for each 300 word article, why not use Article Builder to provide the content?

To put Article Builder to the test, I decided to test it out with Build My Rank. This is a good case study for Article Builder, because BMR is quite strict about accepting unique content. For the purposes of this review, I submitted a total of 16 articles generated by Article Builder. I also did make sure to proofread each article thoroughly and made appropriate edits to ensure that the articles read well.

Did they get approved?

Yes, all 16 articles were approved by Build My Rank. Not only that, but all 16 of the articles were indexed by Google too.

Pretty good, right?

What I’m really looking forward to however, is the next update to the tool which promises to be amazing. Basically, Jon is making some changes to the Article Builder system so that every article generated will be guaranteed 75% unique. This will be an incredible feat if he manages to pull this off, and I really hope he can do this. If he can, there is no doubt in my mind that Article Builder will be the ultimate link building tool.

The only downside to Article Builder right now is the amount of categories available. As I mentioned, they the number of categories is available is growing, but at the time of this review, there are still some categories that are not available that I would really like to see.

Final Thoughts

I have some high hopes for Article Builder, which is why I went out and bought it right away. Jon always releases great products (The Best Spinner, Instant Article Wizard), and he does a great job of keeping them updated too.

While $297 a year doesn’t sound cheap at first, you have to understand that writing content yourself is time consuming and paying for it will cost you way, way more. Lets say you use it to generate 5 articles a day and 1825 articles a year. That comes out to about 16 cents per article which is an amazing deal if you think about it.

So, if you really want to boost your link building by providing yourself with an unlimited source of content, give Article Builder a shot. It is certainly a product that is worth investing in.

The post Article Builder Review appeared first on Josh Kotsay's Affiliate Marketing Blog.

Easy WP SEO is a WordPress plugin that helps you optimize your posts for on-page SEO. If you want to rank well in the search engines, then you probably know that on-page SEO is an important factor to consider. In my experience, a well optimized site will have a much easier time ranking for competitive keywords than one that is not.

One of the major reasons to use Easy WP SEO is that it will grade each of your posts for a variety of common on-page SEO factors and give you an easy to read SEO score. By highlighting the important factors that you are missing, you can easily improve your content structure quickly and painlessly.

There are quite a few of these types of WordPress plugins out there, including Scribe SEO, SEOPressor, and others. The Easy WP SEO WSO has been getting some rave reviews though, which is why I decided to try it out.

In this Easy WP SEO review, I’ll take you through what the plugin can do, and how it’s going to help you out.

How It Works

After installing the plugin, you will notice the new Easy WP SEO panel on your Edit Post page. Here is where you can see the SEO Score and Keyword Density of your post.

Nothing displays here though until you specify the primary keyword you are trying to rank for and then Save Draft or Publish your post. You can refresh your scores whenever you update an existing post as well.

Once your post is analyzed, you can look at the various on-page SEO factors that the plugin is checking for. A green check means that you passed, while a red check means you failed.

Easy WP SEO doesn’t just work with new posts. You can also use it to grade the existing posts on your site.

This can be done by using the Manage Keywords settings page. Basically it lists all your posts and gives you a field next to each to input your primary keyword. If you have a lot of existing posts, like I did for JoshKotsay.com, the process can take you awhile. But it’s not too bad, and it’s really a one-time thing.

What Makes Up the SEO Score?

Easy WP SEO looks at 23 different on-page SEO factors to analyze. Some of the important ones include.

• Keyword in title, permalink url, meta description, headings and image ALT attributes.
• Minimum content length, keyword density.

Most of the on-page SEO factors I agree with and I’ve already been incorporating into my posts for years now.

However, there are a few that I don’t think matter like, like Keywords meta tag contains keyword.

What’s nice is that I can turn off these specific factors I don’t like if I want. And when I do that, they are no longer counted toward my SEO score.

I can also modify other factors like keyword density and minimum word count. So instead of the default setting of 300 words, I could change it to 500 if I thought it was a better threshold to use based on my own experience.

This flexibility is extremely important, and one of the things I like best about the plugin. The SEO landscape is constantly changing, so being able to adapt the plugin to what’s currently working is extremely important.

Other Easy WP SEO Features

Easy WP SEO can also do some other cool things.

You can have it automatically bold, italic, and underline your primary keywords. And have it automatically add your keyword to the ALT tag of any images you add to your post.

The plugin can also generate LSI keywords for you. These are basically related keywords and sprinkling them throughout your site can also give your on-page SEO a boost and help your content appear natural to the search engines.

Final Thoughts

After installing Easy WP SEO on this site, I found that in general, my on-page SEO is pretty good as I usually follow most of the guidelines that Easy WP SEO looks for.

But still, the plugin makes it easy to identify posts where I did not do such a good job so I can go in and change them.

Probably the most useful feature for me, is identifying the keyword density of each post. Now, I don’t normally subscribe to the theory that there is an optimal keyword density value that you should always follow.

But I do like to know if my keyword density falls in one of the two extremes. Too low or too high. Easy WP SEO helps me do this really easily.

So all in all, I really like Easy WP SEO. It is super flexible, and it does a good job doing what it’s supposed to do. If you have never given much thought to on-page SEO before, then I think you will really benefit from installing this plugin on your sites.

Unlike Scribe SEO which requires you to pay a monthly fee, Easy WP SEO is only $37 for an unlimited site license. That is a really good deal, and I think it will definitely help your search engine rankings if you use it.

The post Easy WP SEO Review appeared first on Josh Kotsay's Affiliate Marketing Blog.

I just saw the announcement by David Ford he’s rebranding PPVPlaybook and changing its name to AffPlaybook.

PPVPlaybook has been one of my favorite membership sites since it started around January 2010. It’s been the best source of PPV information since it launched, and it has really grown in the almost 2 years since then. Some of the case studies and follow along campaigns on the forums are the best I’ve seen anywhere.

Over time, the site has really evolved quite a bit. As the site has grown, new sections have been added for PPC, SEO, Media Buys, Email Marketing and Mobile. That’s why the new AffPlaybook name makes a lot of sense and I think it has the potential to become the premier paid forum for affiliate marketing in general.

Along with the name change, it looks like David is planning to bring some awesome new changes to the forums. Once the switch is made, I will update this post with a fully updated and revised AffPlaybook review.

The post AffPlaybook Review appeared first on Josh Kotsay's Affiliate Marketing Blog.

Traffic Kaboom (TK) is a backlink blog network started by Jason Potash and Jason Katzenback. It launched in its current form in March 2011 but many of the blogs in the network have themselves existed in some form since 2006.

I’ve been using Traffic Kaboom regularly since it first opened up, so in this review I’ll share with you how it works and how it stacks up with other blog networks.

How Traffic Kaboom Works

Traffic Kaboom is a public backlink network and it claims to have several thousand sites in its network. Blogs can be added to their network through their Auto Blog Buddy Pro plugin. To build links, you submit articles in spintax format and TK will drip-feed your articles across its network of blogs. In fact, it uses the exact format as Authority Link Network does, so you can submit one article to both services very quickly.

Traffic Kaboom uses a 8-step wizard to submit your articles. Once you get used to it, it’s pretty easy to navigate, although I would prefer a more streamlined process of submitting my articles.

The article dashboard is pretty informative as it lists each of the articles you have submitted along with the status of each article, and how many times it has been posted so far. It will even track your Google rankings over time for your primary keyword which is very cool.

Traffic Kaboom has moderators which will look over each submission before approving it to go live. The moderators are relatively strict, and I’ve had articles rejected for reasons like including “irrelevant” links in my article. There also is an automatic duplicate content filter which seems to do the job well.

All in all, I consider these good features as it prevents blogs on the network from being overrun by crappy articles, and ensuring the links you do build maintain their value.

Traffic Kaboom Results

As I mentioned above, I’ve been using Traffic Kaboom for a long time. The biggest advantage that it has over other link building services is the amount of number of different blogs each submission gets distributed to. In my experience, many of my submissions get submitted to over 100 blogs. Just for comparison, Authority Link Network only goes out to 15 blogs per submission.

There are a couple of things I don’t like about Traffic Kaboom though.

First, I’ve noticed that posts sometime get submitted to the SAME blog multiple times. In one instance, I was able to locate 7 different versions of my same article on one blog.

Second, the blog network itself is not particularly strong. I’ve found the majority of blogs in its network are PR 0 and PR 1. Although, this is a general problem you will find with any blog network that allows anyone to submit blogs without restrictions.

Does Traffic Kaboom work?

With that said, I’ve experienced really nice results with Traffic Kaboom and it gives some credence to the “more links is better” camp. I actually did a Traffic Kaboom case study over at the Link Building Lab where I took a brand new site, and got it ranking in the first page of Google for two keywords…using only links built with Traffic Kaboom.

I started this case study back in March, and the rankings have held relatively steady more than 7 months later… without any further submissions beyond the initial case study.

Final Thoughts

Traffic Kaboom cost $147 per 3 months which comes out to $49 a month. This is right in line with other popular backlink networks like SEOLinkVine and My Article Network.

All in all, I’m happy with my investment in Traffic Kaboom, and I will continue to use it as a regular part of my link building efforts.

The post Traffic Kaboom Review appeared first on Josh Kotsay's Affiliate Marketing Blog.