Backlinks are very important.

Repeat after me: backlinks are very important.

And again: backlinks are very important.

Okay, if you’re still not feeling me, you need to see how Debra build links for her websites.

Get it? now you know: backlinks are very important.

However, as said on Debra’s blog: “The easy part of link building is knowing that you need them. The hard part is influencing the right people to give them to you.” now you’ve just learned the easy part, i am gonna share with you the not-so-easy-yet-not-so-hard-part about link buildings (before you go in hard and back up).

1. A backlink stucked with other 80 outboud links in a same webpage has little value to your SEO effort, even it’s on Yahoo.com.
2. Careful with burgers that add up NoFollow tag on your back link (caution: there are burgers running business online than offline).
3. Outbound links are as important as inbound - as long as the linked webpages are relevant and have high authority in Google’s eyes.
4. Wanna get burnt by Google 3 months later? Obtain all your links from the same C class IP!
5. Wanna get burnt by Google instantly? Buy sitewide links as much as you can and make them with the same anchor text.
6. Good content = free back links (but in the first place, you need to make others found your good content).
7. Extremely good content = lots of free back links and probably an emergency outage notice from your hosting company. (not everyone can handles millions of clicks from you diggers!)
8. Link from .edu domains are damn expensive! but there’s a solid reason behind the price tag.
9. Ahhh… you people thinks those spammy links from forum signature still works (great, buy mine - i’ve plenty to sell).
10. Do not overlook image links - they are powerful when done correctly with keyword in the alt tag.

Well, obviously these tips doesn’t seem difficult to follow. nevertheless as simple as they looked, they guarded me well from many waves and i still hold these rules when i’m building links for my websites.

I sure hope they do the same for you - unless we are competating on the same SERP.

A few months back i wrote about Squidoo in web marketing in brief. i’m sure many of you guys had tried it and already roughly know what kind of creature Squidoo is, it’s now time to take this one step further…

How can Squidoo bring in more traffics for your website?

Squidoo: The next generation of article marketing

Let’s face it, who’ll make and maintain a website if the creator is the only visitor? Web traffics are the life line for a website: no traffic = no income + no motivation + no interactives + no fun = no updates on website = Dying websites…

Now, in case you’re tired of spamming commenting other’s blogs and begging your friends for web traffics, consider working with Squidoo in your web marketing. what squidoo lenses do is bring in more real visitors to your website (directly from Squidoo) as well as giving you a boost in search engine rankings. i’ll explain why here…

1. Squidoo is one of the top 1000 websites in the world

Squidoo daily reach in percentage on Alexa

Although they are new, but yep, Squidoo’s traffics among the top according to Alexa. at the time of writing, it hits 709 in website traffics on Alexa, was 600+ yesterday and was within the 200-400 range in the past few months.

Now if you compare with some of the top blogs around the world: boeingboeing.net, problogger.net, and lifehack.org (where you can comment and share some of their readership), Squidoo is well above of them. hundred thousands of people are reading, communicating, and writing on squidoo.

Comparing Squidoo with boeingboeing, lifehack, and problogger.

Best part of this? you’re allowed to put up your own content (with a back link to your website or affiliate link!) on that website for free - now how good is that? imagine the number of eyeballs you’ll attract when you run a successful lens on squidoo, imagine by using proper copywriting skills and direct the visitors to your website (or your merchant website), imagine the link baiting effects when you throw out some cool contents - that’s worth a lot of traffics dude! in fact, you might crush your hosting server by overloading the bandwidth!

2. Real traffics from search engines

There’re two ways your lens can gain SE traffics - one, by having your lens rank well on search engines; two, by bringing more link juice to your website.

Lens ranked well on Google!

Believe it or not, Google algo is biased in ranking certain top websites. some website just gets noticed all the time by google and they will rank these websites well with little SEO work done. Squidoo is one of these sites. before i continue with any explanations, i want you to look at these SERP:

Search term: Free PC satellite TV

Squidoo lens ranked #5 out of 900,000+ with little SEO work done.

Search term: Laptop Bags

Squidoo lens ranked #1 out of 2,770,000+ website! that’s over tons of authority websites and real laptop bags merchant. the high ranked lens (funky laptop bags) in fact is a highly favored lens around the squid-phere, but a popular lens with less than 1000 back links ranking higher than bunch of real laptop bags manufacturer on such competative keywords - that’s gonna be something with Squidoo.

Search term: How to make YouTube video looks great

Squidoo lens ranked #1 out of 8,760,000.

I mean, tons of lenses rank well on Google!

The same goes with SERP of naughty tee shirt designs (ranking lens here), smoothies recipes (ranking lens here), promote your ebay store (ranking lens here)…. and the list goes on and on.

I am not talking about low niche keywords like ahyap sucks but i am talking about highly searched, competative keywords like laptop bags! and i’m seeing that squidoo lens, with little SEO works done, can outrun the other 800pounds gorilla website in just a very short time!

Free link juice, anyone?

Why buy text link ads for link juice when you can get it free from Squidoo?

A PR5 webpage cost $20 - $50 on text link ads - i’m talking about USD and that’s monthly price. $20 equals to about RM60+ here in Malaysia and you can buy a very nice piece of steaks at TGI Fridays! why pay to the link ads broker while buying text link ads from them might endanger your website on being banned from google? now on the other hand, squidoo lenses can pass you link juice, help you to gain more traffics with no cost at all. which is better? you tell me.

Don’t believe me? check out these squidoo lens PR:

• Pirate Costumes PR3
• Custom T shirt designs PR3
• Apple iPhone review PR4
• How to write article that gets people to read it PR4
• Jean Grey Phoneix PR4
• Funky laptop bags PR5
• Grow and promote your ebay store PR5

What’s interesting about this is that with Squidoo current link structure, new lens will get link juices (or PR) as day goes by. take my lens on Custom T shirt designs for example, there’s little work done in promoting the lens except keeping it updated and fresh; but eventually, the lens get respectable PR in a very short time. reason being i believe, is because that your lens is more ‘visible’ on squidoo (aka link) when you keep your lens fresh. this in turn, increase your lens link popularity.

What does all these mean to YOU?

Now you knew squidoo lenses get ranked well on SE, gain (and pass) link juices easily, and can attracts millions of traffics in very short time - what does all these mean to you? how can we gain from squidoo? how can squidoo helps in your web marketing plan?

The baby step is simple, start a lens now. what brings you to the next level is that you must maintain the freshness of the lens and staying productive in building more lens.

There are tons ways to benefits from squidoo… in fact, i see unlimited ways used by lensmaster, all you need is to be creative (and of course, some hardwork). for the quick kick off on your creative mind, here’re what you can do:

• Link back to your website from Squidoo lens.
• Always write with SEO factors in mind.
• Make your title, lens URL, and lens tag are keyword rich.
• Lensroll all your lenses to share out link juices and visitors.
• Be active among lensmasters for future JV possibility.
• Start a squid groups to promote your lens (and in turn, your website).
• Include sales phone number or affiliate links on your lens, example.
• Be creative with the HTML code to attracts more return visitors.

I guess that’ll be enough for you to get started. so what’re you waiting for? Start a squidoo lens now. i’ll keep you posted with more squidoo web marketing tactics in the future. By the way, it took me around 5 hours to construct and research for this post and it’s free - make sure you make good use of it, okay?

I enjoy (and as part of my job) cranking out new ideas for website or business ideas and i do that all the time. i can easily fall into the thinking mood regardless where i’m: on the bus, in the washroom, chilling out in pub, before falling asleep…

But as much as i like to dream, i always filter these ideas with my inner reality scan by asking one simply question:

Is there a demand? or, can i create a demand on this idea?

My post on soufulow’s blog, squidoo lens, and CafePress pages (yes, all mine!) had monopoly the top 5 spots for Google SERP on Streamyx Sucks Tee.

Nice monopoly huh? but it hardly brings me even one visitors! i’m not surprise. come’on, who else are there to search for “Streamyx Sucks Tee”?

This makes a good example in: no demand = no profit, regardless how *revolutionary* you think your idea is.

It’s a norm that we human tends to be biased and tends to think our own idea is good, thinking that our idea can be the next Google or Digg. however, what matters most is that does the majority are into our new idea. before any utopia-talk started, an initial reality check on the demand-supply is a must.

So what were you saying again… a solar-powered torch light? does it really has a demand?