While it’s true that backlink strategy is quite different than it used to be earlier this decade, make no mistake:  It’s still one of the most crucial ways to strengthen, improve and maintain your all-important Google page rank.

Having a strong Google page rank – and by “strong”, I mean showing up on the very first page in Google search results for your primary keywords or topic – can mean the difference between being recognized as an authority site… or never being found at all.

Why So Many Marketers Overlook the Power of Backlinks

There are 2 types of people not making the most of backlinks, nowadays…

1. Those who are stuck back in the days when simply submitting sites to directories was considered cutting-edge SEO (search engine optimization)

2. Those who take backlinks for granted, or mistakenly think they don’t matter at all

It’s not just a question of “not making the most” of backlinks, however: It’s also all about realizing exactly how powerful a strong backlink strategy can be. So what is a `strong backlink’?

Think of it this way… Suppose you applied for a job.  You arrive on your intended employer’s doorstep with a wonderful résumé… but no one who can vouch for your experience.

However, if your prospective employer asks for references, and you are proudly able to hand him a file full of letters from top professionals in your field – ones he knows well, and respects – all full of glowing recommendations… well, he’s going to bump you to the top of his list!

In your eyes, the top professionals he’s known and hung out with for the last 10-20 years have validated you thoroughly, and he now trusts your credentials – even though you may be new!

In our analogy translated to the wonderful world of the internet, it goes like this…

You    equals    Your Website, minisite or blog
The “top industry professionals” who wrote letters of reference    =    “authority” sites with good page rank and established history
The prospective employer    =    Google

Once you’ve grasped that concept, you should instantly realize 2 things…

1. Backlinks are still vitally important
2. Not just any old backlink will do! You need relevant ones that add to your own credibility!

Why Is It So Important to Please Google?

Google is still the number one search engine used by most people (when they do still actually use a search engine to find you, that is)…

Google acts as a gatekeeper, jealously guarding its search engine – and users – from spam. Just like you, Google wants to be top dog in its industry, so it cares about accuracy and quality.  And even though only an impersonal search bot initially crawls and indexes your site, Google does employ real human editors to eventually follow them, checking out elements on your site or blog such as:

• The relevancy of your inbound links
• Whether or not you seem to have used questionable tactics or attracted natural, organic links
• What value your inbound links bring to your website’s overall content.

And in the wonderful and whacky world of internet marketing, if “content” is king, then “Google page rank” is definitely the queen!

How can Google tell if you’ve used “questionable tactics”?

Back to our job interview analogy…

Suppose, instead of those glowing letters from industry top professionals – the well-known ones with sterling reputations – you offer your prospective employer a bunch of letters that are poorly written, with obvious spelling mistakes.

They all look suspiciously similar: For example, there are the same spelling mistakes in each one, as if you’d written them yourself. And instead of coming from industry professionals in your field, your “Medical Transcriptionist position” job application has letters of `reference’ from:

• A candy store, who says they used you to transpose medical records for customers
• An individual calling himself “Medical Man” and offering to sell the reader a kidney in his P.S.
• A “hospital” that didn’t quite ring true or use the right terminology, so when the employer checks it out, he discovers its address actually belongs to a fast food restaurant instead of the hospital it claimed to be

You’re wrinkling up your nose already, aren’t you?  If you were the employer, you’d toss those obviously phoney recommendations in the garbage the instant your applicant was out the door (maybe before, if you’re extra-crabby).

In other words, that particular batch of written references wasn’t worth the paper they were written on.

In fact, they did you irreparable harm!  Mr. Prospective Employer would now no more consider you than he would consider a 6-year-old as a possible serious job applicant.  (What a shame! Your seriously wonderful interview went to waste!)

Yet thousands of otherwise competent internet marketers commit virtual suicide in this way with poor backlinks every day!

What Backlinks Can Do for You

You ask in alarm: “Does that mean my inbound link from GoldenMeanieCasino is harmful?”

Back to that all-important relevancy thangg… if you are running a blog on Playing Perfect Poker, probably not.

But if you’re running a blog dealing with The Best Siamese Cat Breeders, yes. That backlink – no matter how thoughtful and honest the comment – isn’t going to do you much good, and might even hamper your Google page rank.

So, since you didn’t take any precautions to deal with poor quality linkers, you now have three choices:

1. Offend your commenter, if the comment really was thoughtful and relevant, by deleting it or not allowing it
2. Remove the hyperlink, and hope he will just think your blog did it
3. Comfort yourself by saying that you trust the commenter, and nobly leave the comment in, hoping that the Google editor might one day read it and realize your site deserves a better rank

(Since we are talking about the relevance of the linking site here – not the relevance of the actual, individual comment – that latter is a wistful hope, at best.)

The harsh reality of marketing on the internet and backlinks? It’s kind of like attending a Hollywood premiere…

If you’re an up-and-coming starlet, you want to be seen partnering up with Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie (depending on your gender).

You don’t want to be seen with a drugged-out ex-bit part player, who hasn’t been in a movie for forty years.  Especially if there are disreputable stories circulating about his unprofessionalism, trouble-causing capacity and seedy personal life.

So now that we’ve got the issue of backlink relevancy and quality dealt with, is “credibility” the only benefit of using well-optimized backlinks?

Absolutely not!

It’s a major issue, of course, but there are other benefits you may not yet have thought about…

1. Credibility – how trustworthy you are

2. Authority – how expert you are in your website’s subject

3. Popularity – Let’s not kid ourselves: Popularity counts with Google, as well as in Hollywood!

4. Page Rank – Great backlinks mean you vault to the top of the “list” – Google’s front page. And that’s where people will find you!

5. Keyword power – Not only do you vault to Google’s front page, you do it for the keywords that will bring you the right targeted traffic.. potential customers for your products

6. Traffic – Authority sites are quoted. They pull in noticeable and significant traffic.

So it’s all about:

• Being yourself… but dressing for success
• Being seen with the “right” people – ones who can boost your career
• Not being seen with “wrong” people who can scuttle your reputation or weaken your authority
• Bringing value and relevancy to your content, your website – and most of all, your readers

Fortunately, there are ways to boost your backlink power, and it all boils down to attracting not just the right potential customer or client… but also the right reader and comment-maker.

You need to be aware of anchor text, and how you use it.  (For example, turning the words “click here” into a link, while perfectly harmless, isn’t going to advance your page rank one iota – you seriously can do better than that by using one of your best long-tailed keywords – one that would seem totally natural.)

You also need to set up your blog so that you encourage commenters to link with text that works to your best advantage (as well as considering how to best filter them).

And you need to know how Google works with static sites – and the sort of backlinks you should (and should not) include.

Take the time to do a modicum of research.  Get rid of or replace your weak backlinks with more powerful keywords and phrases. Encourage great comments by providing great original content. And avoid anything manipulative or artificial.. but do take advantage of common sense and shrewd, honest backlinking tactics.

Your positive results may surprise you!

And do you dream of gradually having more and more free time — time you can spend with the kids at the beach on hot summer days, instead of churning out reviews for your sixteen affiliate niche blogs?  Time you can put into business dreaming, brainstorming and planning, rather than reactive running around (always feeling one step behind)?

Do you dream of one day being able to retire — while still making a healthy income from your business?

Then outsourcing is definitely for you — even if you’re just getting started.

Are you a writer who cannot keep good financial records?  Then hire someone to manage your bookkeeping.

Is your passion affiliate marketing — but you hate writing articles, posts and other content?  Then hire a ghostwriter.

Do you love product creation but loathe customer service?  Then hire a Virtual assistant to manage customer complaints, refunds, questions and requests (your “Help Desk”).

You don’t have to be one of the specific examples above, however:  Almost any online entrepreneur can start by hiring a VA to perform day-to-day, administrative tasks.

But no matter what you need to outsource, be aware that using the right contractor can:

• Save you time
• Increase your profits
• Allow you to access top-level service quality
• Reduce overhead (no office, extra equipment to pay for, etc.)
• Provide you with specialized skills — instantly
• Eliminate the need to train or learn
• Improve your business efficiency
• Allow you to tailor the services you access to your budget
• Help you brainstorm and grow your business
• Add to your value in your customers’ eyes
• Provide an objective overview and fresh insights
• Easily solve problems you would still be struggling with
• Lift the burden of day-to-day tasks off your shoulders
• Prevent burnout and overwork
• Leave you time for a balanced lifestyle

When you stop to consider all the benefits of outsourcing, why wouldn’t you want to build it into your business plan right from the beginning?  To sum it all up in a nutshell, the best outsourcing contractors make you money.

What is the Difference between an Outsourcing Contractor and an Employee?

An outsourcing contractor is an independent, self-employed business professional.  She takes care of her own tax responsibilities.  You don’t have to pay benefits or sick days or vacation time, and generally you won’t be governed by as many laws or requirements as you would with an employee.

Another important difference:  An outsourcing contractor will in all likelihood have other regular clients but that doesn’t mean she won’t be devoted to your interests — after all, your success is ultimately her best success.  And your word-of-mouth recommendation only enhances her reputation.

The best outsource contractors bring professionalism and specialty skills to your business, saving you huge learning curves (and the misery of having to attend to tasks that, at best, just aren’t your cup of Java and, at worst, you loathe and despise).

An outsourcing contractor uses her equipment, not yours, so you don’t have to outlay cash for a second computer or office space.
She is the one who has to keep up with new technology and trends in her area of expertise, while you happily truck along, doing what you do best in your particular area of expertise.

Types of Outsourcing

Almost every task in your work-at-home business can be outsourced.  The trick is to pick the right professional — one who specializes in the task you’re handing over.

Here are some popular types of outsource contractor you can use:

• Virtual Assistant
• Social Media Manager
• Marketing Consultant
• Project Manager or Co-ordinator
• SEO and Traffic Specialist
• Bookkeeper
• Customer Service Representative
• Research Assistant
• Ghostwriter
• Copywriter
• Website designer
• Graphic designer
• WordPress Designer
• App Creator

It’s important to remember that each of outsource areas listed above can be broken down even further, in order to make sure you end up with a specialist.

For example, a VA could offer services in one or more of the following areas:

ookkeeping and financial planning
Article marketing
Podcasting

(Further down the road, you may even need to hire a VA to manage all your other VAs, projects or outsource contractors!)
A graphic designer could specialize in blog theme headers and theme backgrounds… or solely in eBook covers.  A ghostwriter could specialize in re-writing PLR… or creating eBooks for you… or writing your blog posts or website copy.

Not all ghostwriters or copywriters re-write PLR or create sales pages, just as not all virtual assistants are experts in social media.

Even when one does specialize — for example, in maintaining your list via autoresponder management — you might want to choose a VA that is an expert in handling your particular autoresponder service.   Otherwise, you may find yourself paying for her learning curve, if you hire one that is an Aweber expert but who has never before used GetResponse to handle your GetResponse account.

Tasks You Can Outsource

You can outsource everything if you want, but you should start with tasks that:

• Bleeds time you could more profitably or enjoyably spend elsewhere
• Does not directly bring in money
• Leaves you frustrated
• Knocks out your energy or discourages you
• Feels like a chore
• Tempts you to procrastinate
• Makes you realize you need to “learn” more about the subject or how to perform the task

Of course, you may still need to learn more about a subject if it’s vital to your business… but outsourcing gives you the luxury of not interrupting your business flow in order to break off right at that point to do so.

Outsourced tasks will depend entirely on your unique needs, interests and passions, so it’s essential to identify what directly makes you money, when you tackle it… and where you lose money in your day-to-day operation.

For example, if you are a ghostwriter, writing content for clients would be something you’d want to initially do yourself — especially if it puts you “in the zone” and makes time fly by… whereas submitting 100 articles to 25 directories feels more like non-creative donkey work.  It can easily eat up a morning and keep you from making money.  Article submission is therefore a task you could easily outsource to a Virtual assistant.

(Later, however, a good ghostwriter may need to hire ghostwriters of her own to serve different client needs and interests, successfully growing her business.)

Many online entrepreneurs have commented that the best part about using independent contractors is the flexibility it provides.  Outsource contractors can grow with your business, and you can pay as much or as little as you have available.

In fact, you can use them to grow your business.  Without outsourcing built into your plans, you risk becoming a “one trick pony”, forever repeating a simple, ground-floor strategy.  If this is exactly what you want and you don’t need to be permanently self-sustaining, income-wise, there’s nothing wrong with that, of course.  But most likely, you have definite goals and dreams in mind that involve more success than you’re currently achieving.

Outsourcing allows you serve a wide enough client base that your business will not suffer, if one client quits the game (and they do — and often it’s nothing you did wrong; it’s where that client is at in her life, right at that moment.)

If you put all your eggs in one basket (relying on one main client), chances are you’re heading for disappointment one day.   Yes, you’re going to actively build and elicit client loyalty, but there are so many factors outside both your control and your client’s that blind faith in one client continuing forever is not realistic.

Besides, you want your client to succeed — or if yours is not a business-to-business model, you want those products to generate a huge demand for more.

And what will you do when you can’t keep up with the orders?  (Remember, more sales mean more service.)

What if you get sick?  Want to go on holiday?  Have to deal with a family emergency?  Practising good, regular outsourcing habits means that your business is much more likely to run like the proverbial clockwork.

So consider outsourcing for your business right from the moment you plan it.  Right now, make a list of all the tasks you find onerous, difficult or draining — all the ones that not only don’t directly make you money, but actually stop you from making it.  Make a plan for how and when you’ll start handing each task over.

Consider using a portion of your start-up capital to move past hurdles that have the potential to keep you stuck indefinitely.  If you don’t have start-up capital, plan to save a portion of your profits for outsourcing that one, problem task as soon as possible.

Mark a date on your calendar indicating when you want to start each outsourcing phase, and repeat your goal to yourself every day.  Be specific:  (“I want to be making $400 monthly profit in six months and invest $200 in Virtual Assistant Mary Jo Berry’s silver package deal to handle my article marketing and social networking.”)

Remember, investing in outsourcing could be your smartest money-making strategy yet.

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