Business.com Coupons:

- RTD50 gets you $50 off the regular price of a yearly inclusion in into the Business.com Directory.

- DIBUY3 will get you a 3 for 1 directory listing discount if you have a few sites to get in here at once.

I’ve been meaning to get some more resources and information up for the Business.com Directory that will save you money. I’ve scoured the web to create a list of the latest working Business.com coupons that provide some sort of ease on your wallet this year. For those of you that know the value of these links read on, and the rest of you can hear me out as to why I get all my clients listed here.

When determining if a website is a good link acquisition I take a look at a few factors to keep up the quality level. These should already be stored in your brain’s database, so if not I’ll put them out there for the folks new to all this link confusion. I use a little well know tool called SEO Quake to handle my ninja-like quality scoring factors, mainly because it’s free, quick and easy. I know PageRank is a hard quality factor these days, but there is still room for measure. I like to take anything with a PageRank of 4 or higher with some serious consideration.

Ok, so we know that PageRank isn’t the end all here. I specifically take a look at few different factors when it comes to wanting a link from a target website. My factors are age, indexing, link profile and relativity to your own niche and or business. A domain with some sort of credible history of being indexed and a legit site goes a long way towards making my brain feel at ease. Everyone who reads this blog should know by now to be peering into their links at least with the SEO Quake toolbar. I ran them through Link Diagnosis for everyone to have a look at because this is a site that has a lot of link authority.  Keep in mind this Business.com link profile isn’t their entire set, but a good indication that they pack a powerful link punch.

The next factor in the equation is the Alexa rank and how well indexed the site is. With over 65,000 categories boasted in the above picture, I see that they have over 66,000 indexed pages in Google. Just to sweeten the deal they have over 133,000 index in Bing, and Yahoo with just over 347,000 indexed pages. You never have to worry about your link going out of the SERPs, so it is money well spent. Passing the quality inspection required to get into the Business.com directory means that the results are trusted. They have built their entire business on quality so naturally the link authority followed.

I’m a huge fan of Wil Reynold’s work both on and off camera which hopefully doesn’t sound as weird out load as it does typing it…Wil always has something new and unique to say which is why I’m reposting this video here to you folks even though he’s already blogged about it. This is a short six minute video that has more link building tips in it for businesses than most blogs I’ve seen on the topic. I won’t spoil the juicy morsels of information shared in here so you’ll just have to watch it yourself. I don’t know how Wil had the time to get so damn good at public speaking, perhaps I need to get out of my link building dungeon a little more!

One of my favorite aspects about building a business and connecting in a web 2.0 world is the ability to get links while doing so. There are so many niche social networks and web platforms that allow you to take advantage of this. I don’t like listing sites to the public that often mainly because the abuse that follows in the link building world. So my intentions here are to showcase how Screept is a great place to connect with fellow site owners and programmers. I couldn’t honestly tell you what my profession title actually is…webmaster, link builder, ecommerce manager….ugh.

I’ve just started playing around on Screept and one of the lead developers is very active on there and provided me with a nice and warm welcome. You can never really have enough programmer friends when you’re in the online marketing game, and connecting with on the ball developers is just a bonus. If you do fall under the category of a legit user and do sign up to Screept, make sure you find me on there and add me as a friend.

For some reason everyone is press release crazy at this time of year so I’m always testing and trying out new sites. There are a lot of press release services out there so it’s hard to pick which one to go with, and it really depends on who you want to target. Chances are good that if your industry is big enough, there will be a niche specific distribution network out there to target. If you want to get some news out to as many people as possible, then you need to play some with of the big boys. I’ve recommended PRWeb many times before, and most of you most likely use them on a monthly basis.

I’m going to urge you to check over 24-7 Press Release for your next PR blast because they’ve got a whole other network you might want to tap into. These folks are one of the bigger players in the PR world and you get a pretty sweet deal out of what they charge. There are several press release packages that range from free to the mid hundreds which isn’t too much of a problem for most medium to large corporations. It also doesn’t hurt to take advantage of getting a link from their site alone which is quite authoritative, and is only going to do your link profile some good.

The different packages which you can see if my poorly edited photo can be seen here in better detail, but take a close look. Tons of affordable options to choose from but my choice would be the $139 package which gets you a nice report which is great for clients. The one thing  I didn’t see listed in these options was the business directory that 24-7 Press Release has on their site. It is an extra cost but if you check out the indexing rate, Pagerank on the internal pages and the Alexa of these folks then you’ll quickly see it’s worth the cost.

I always like to go through the more popular categories of news releases and sniff out their backlinks to see how the news did for them. This should give you an idea of the type of sites you may have the potential to get your news listed on. You might even be able to sniff out a few places within your industry that you can submit your news directly to.  There are always little link building gems to be found in your niche so make sure to give it a good look.

I just found out about Twollow through some tweet’s on Twitter…now let’s never say that sentence again. I know a lot of you have no need for Twitter, but for some of us it can be one hell of a business tool. I’ve been somewhat growing my Twitter account but I just don’t seem to be moving fast enough. Some of you can hugely benefit from the networking aspect but may not have the time, so here’s something to help you folks out. Keep in mind I was not paid, or will be paid, for this post so it’s up to you for some feedback.

I’m not one who wants to waste much time on there so any help is good. If you’re trying to launch successful linkbait/viral campaigns, then this tool is also right up your alley. Once you have a decent Twitter following you’ll be surprised how much easier it is to snag links. A lot of sites, apps and widgets now a days are arching and indexing retweet’d content. So the more of an influence your account is, the more random links you’re going to pick up over time.

Give it a FREE 7 day trial right now!
Website: http://www.twollow.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/twollow

One of the TLD’s I haven’t really paid much attention to is the .int code. We’ve all heard the debates about .edu and .gov links being more juicy that anything else. While this is only true if the site itself has got all the right elements to be what is called “authoritative”. The one thing I noticed about most of the sites allowed on the .int domain code is that these are serious websites with a lot of trust. There are over 60,000 pages indexed in Google from the .int TLD which means there is definitely some room for link building if the shoe fits. Scoring a link from a site on this domain code will most likely only be possible for 5% of you, and you’ll need to hunt hard.

So why am I talking about this domain code at all? Well basically after some backlink profile snooping I noticed a travel site getting a link from a very juicy page. The .int domain code is reserved for international treaty-based organizations so you know that the chances of these sites being an authoritative source is very high. Just make sure to turn on SeoQuake if you have it to make life easier. I say that only 5% of you will be in the position to acquire links from these websites.

You’re going to have to dig deep to find ways to connect with these organizations, some you may have already worked with in the past. The only advice I can offer is to see how other businesses are sniping links and take it from here. This is something you can’t spam, and you know that if you qualified for a link it is coming from a trusted source. If you’re part of a very large corporation, then who knows what opportunities that are hidden out there in the land of .int.

There are a few things you can start checking (pr6 links page..not too shabby) out to give you an idea of the little gems out there. A good deal of organizations have a links and or resources page, so if your company happens to be involved why not see if you can get a link?

I’ve been slowly pushing our new 2.0 Press Release service known as PR Buzzer and it has been building up nicely although slowly. Our press release service is aiming to combine the usual PR services and include it with a wide variety of other news services in the social webosphere. We’re proving a free release to businesses around the world with only one catch, that you are an actual business. A lot of the free press release services are cluttered with a lot of spam and our goal is to keep it out.

With the free press release on PR Buzzer you get your news distributed through our current network of partners which includes broadcasting on our Twitter account. With your press release you also get included into our business directory which keeps track of all your releases. We’re currently programming in a custom RSS feed for each company profile so you’ll be able to pull your company news in where ever you like. Over time your business profile will rank nicely and provide you with an extra link from a trusted news source.

To get your free press release just fill out the order form for the free one, but if you need a press release written we’re only charge $50 USD with the free promotion instead of $100. We can have your release and company directory listing sorted within 2-3 business days. Once you have an account you will be able to forever send in a free release over our network even when this promo runs out.

I just saw this mini conference being held by SEM Portland on the 9th of February….so only a few days folks. I’ll hopefully catch anyone in the area who hasn’t heard of these folks just in case they want to catch what looks like an amazing panel of speakers. I’m almost on the verge of catching a flight since it’s only a 60 minute one from Vancouver here, but work is keeping my bogged down as usual.

What made me want to write about this event was the link building topics being discussed. Instead of the usual boring basics it looks like they’re going to be getting into it deep. As you can see from the list of guest speakers below there is no shortage of talent.

On February 9th, a panel of link building experts, will take us through:

• Getting between the cushions: Finding links where they’ve always been. – Ian Lurie – Portent Interactive
• Writing & Promoting Link Bait – Scott Fish – EngineWorks
• Utilizing your existing network for links – Blu Drobushevich – Amplify Interactive
• Automating Link Building (tools, widgets, etc.) – John McPhee – Anvil Media
• Building Links to Your Links – Scott Hendison – Search Commander, Inc.

Check out the rest for details, hotel information and the really affordable costs – http://www.sempdx.org/blog/events/february-event-link-building-six-pack/

It has been a very long while since I’ve posted in this category so it’s about due time. There has been a steady stream of really high quality link building posts out recently so I’ll try and link the cream of the crop. Wiep does this consistently so for a much better set of weekly link building recaps be sure to check him out. I have a couple really good posts coming out so this is just filler for now.

1) How to Drive More Links Via Public Relations via Buzzstream

2) Linkfromdomain – A Linkbuilding Tip For Use at Bing.com via Will Critchlow

3) An Experiment in Paid Link Building Tools via Melanie Nathan

4) Linkable Asset Inventory: A Starting Point For New Link Building Campaigns via Garrett French

5) Hotel Link Building Resources via Linkbuildr

6) Pulling A Kesey (Or Link Tripping Filters) via Linkspiel

7) Link Building Gems from User Behavior Patterns via Jennifer Van Iderstyne

8) Things to consider when adding Linkbaiting to your Online Marketing strategy via Fresh Egg

9) The Most Effective Approach to Contacting Link Partners for Authoritative Links via The Gman

10) Sticky-Wiki Dos and Don’ts: How to Improve your Chances of Maintaining an Incoming Link on Wikipedia via Ann Smarty

I thought I’d start having more fun and post some stuff from our office from time to time. Most of you only hear me ranting on the blog but everyone else here keeps pretty busy and behind the scenes. We’re working on a few podcast episodes at the moment which will introduce everyone else. There are only four of us here and our office looks pretty bare for how long we’ve been here. I couldn’t get the work done without everyone here so enjoy some of the pictures even though they’re pretty boring.

Kevin is on the left and he’s our programmer who just happens to be good at accounting a well…We all suspect he’ll eventually commit suicide from all the math, statistics and frustration. If you’d like to have a widget coded up and make Kevin’s life even more busy then get in touch. The other Ryan on the right is manager of the linkbait and social media marketing end of things and he’s the guy getting your content viral on all the social news sites.

I think the magical number of whiteboards is 3 and we enjoy staring at them despite how much more efficient my iPhone and netbook are. You’d normally see Geoff  in this picture if he didn’t decide to sleep in and work from home today…I figure I can tease him about it a little even though he’s got more work done than I today.

This is my desk at the moment which looks kind of bare on one end and messy as hell on the other. All I really need is my netbook and Starbucks so I keep a pretty clean desk. My home office looks a lot more professional, and by professional I mean dual LCD screens and really big speakers.