What is this method, you ask?

Submitting a guest post. Yes! that’s it in a nut shell. It’s simple, free, trusted, quantifiable, manageable and it best of all…it works! It’s not really a novel or new idea, in fact I wrote about the practice of submitting a guest post back in August of 2008, and it holds true till today. Maybe more so! But it’s gained alot of traction as of late. Everyone is talking about it.

Why? Because a link from a similar niche, high PR (anything above PR2 is good) blog site is GOLD. Yes, my friend pure gold. So, treat a guest post opportunity as such. Think about it, for a second? When you submit a guest post, you essentially eat all the ingredients necessary for a smacking good Google meal – relevancy, pagerank, dofollow, naturalness, etc. See? It’s near perfection.

Keep the following rules (I mean guidelines) in mind when submitting a guest post on any blog site:

• find a relevant niche
• the receiving site, should have pagerank (any at all, is good)
• keep the guest post on topic
• ask first
• submit second
• write a killer article and submit only GREAT content
• thank the receiving blog site
• promote the heck out of the guest post

The great thing about guest posting is that you LITERALLY can control what site your “killer article” goes on, because you CHOOSE the blog. Yes! not all blogs will approve or even accept a guest post, but many will.

Ready to try?

Ann Smarty a well known blogger and SEO chick has recently created a fantastic website dedicated to this very topic. It’s free to join and participate. Simply sign-up, then look for guest opps in your specific niche. Remember to recip and also write some, don’t just accept them. This is bad form.

Then there’s Google and Twitter. Each one of these two sites, has great SEARCH features which will facilitate you finding solid opps. You just have to know where and how to search. Below is the where and how.

My Blog Guest.com – a site dedicated to guest post opportunities. Very nice community here as well, since the site also has a forum.

Twitter Search -Perform a simple search for guest post, and watch the madness unfold. In real time, of course. Nice!

Google Alerts – Type in your “niche plus the word guest post” and find blogs that will gladly accept your article.

Guys, don’t underestimate the POWER of this method for traffic and backlinks. There’s a reason all the A list bloggers and net marketers are all touting the benefits of guest posting right now.

It works!

Want more help, guidance and resources on guest posting? Take a look at the guest posting workbook from Chris Garrett. It contains everything you need to get started and more. A comprehensive guide (including a nifty spreadsheet) to keep track of it all, from the king of guest posting himself.

Below are my top five SEO tips for WordPress bloggers.

1. Install an SEO plugin on your blog - such as the powerful All-in-One Seo or the newer more robust Platinum SEO. These two take care of alot of the basic onsite search engine optimization you need on your blog posts and pages. (this mostly applies to WordPress bloggers)

2. Get Backlinks – it doesn’t matter if your blog is a day old or 3 months old, you can never start too early to hunt down for link opportunities. Start with relevant directories.

3. Link To Yourself – Well not exactly. What I mean is make sure you regularly link to other articles, pages and blog posts you’ve written. This creates a spider web effect that search engines know and rely on.

4. Install a Sitemap – Sitemaps are literally maps to the content on your blog, and Google loves them. My favorite way to add a sitemap to my blogs is with the Dagon Design sitemap plugin. Fast, easy and free.

5. Use a Related Posts Plugin – this action produces similar results as installing a sitemap. It lets Google know of the content on your site and how it relates to the overall topic of your blog.

These are basic but powerful ideas, don’t underestimate any of these tips. If you haven’t yet added or practiced these SEO tips, now is a great time.

You’ll rise to the top in no time.

Next Article!

Our next article will touch on the topic of: traffic generation.

If you’re a blogger and want to know how to best use affiliate marketing on your blog, read what i’ve written below, then go practice it. If you disagree with me, feel free to comment after the article.

1. Find a good affiliate network – First you need to find a good affiliate network and not good as in popular or big, but one that suits you, your niche, and your site. You will need to spend some time doing research on this, i would point you in the direction of Shawn Collins and his affiliate tips blog for a good primer on general affiliate marketing. Then i would like you to visit the directory of affiliate programs, and find one (or two) that are in your niche. Don’t pick too many, as this will overwhelm you, like it did me. Stick with just a core few.

2. Use a relevant merchant - Once you have found a suitable affiliate network, now search for a suitable merchant within the network. Look at things like banners and links available, when do they pay, how do they pay, are they somewhat established, and don’t forget to see what sort of support system they have in place. Do they have a blog, phone number, email, forum, etc? Are they easy to reach if you have questions or problems? Find an affiliate network that works for you, then work on generating revenue.

3. Write killer (affiliate product) articles on your blog – One of the best methods to generate revenue in affiliate marketing from a blog, is to write good articles on the blog. Incorporate some affiliate products into the article, just make sure the products are RELEVANT to your readers and your niche.

4. Promote that article – After you’ve written your killer article with a few affiliate products incorporated, make sure to promote the article. Tell your blogger friends about it, submit to social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. Then submit the article to social bookmarking sites like Stumble Upon and Digg to garner some possible traffic and or backlinks. Also don’t underestimate the value of blog carnivals, these are fantastic for generating links back to your blog.

5. Rinse and repeat - Now do steps 1 through 4 about once a week or so. The frequency will be dictated by your posting schedule. If you post 3 times a day, then obviously you can do more. But if you post once a week, affiliate marketing articles should be less frequently. Keep a good balance, do not annoy your readers and visitors.

The most important thing to remember in affiliate marketing is that you need to have a foundation in place first. Since this article is directed at bloggers, the foundation in your case, would be your awesome blog. Establish yourself as knowledgeable in your niche. Not an expert, but knowledgeable and resourceful.

I’m not an expert by any means, but i relate my knowledge and my resources from experience. I’ve been blogging since April 2007 and have become quite savvy on the subject. i hope you have enjoyed this article and learned a thing or two.

Have Questions?

Do let me know any questions you have or general comments on the subject of affiliate marketing as it relates to bloggers.

photo credit: Yodel Anecdotal

Several of my fellow blogger friends, wrote a post on their blog, with their comments and thoughts on the infamous pagerank update. There was the fat cupcake eater or is it the kid who eats fat cupcakes, who wrote on his rise to PR 3 in 7 weeks. Then there was the British bloke who has an affiliate blog, but rarely writes on affiliate marketing, who got his cherry popped with a PR 2.

Then there is the crazy American who can sell ice (and ebooks) to (blind) eskimos, who came in with a respectable PR 2. And how can i forget the site flipper cum laude, SuiteJ, who flipped his first blog in record time, and made an impressive profit. Well done, Jay.

As for me (with my army of blogs), some went down from a PR 2 to PR 1. One shot up to a PR 3, and two others stayed at PR 2. So quite a mixed bag. Oh! and this one, my network blog, stayed at PR 3. Final shout out goes to the most prolific blogger i know, no, not Darren Rowse, but Max from Zedomax.

The guy is a blogging machine. Take a look here, here, here, and here.

Why did G34 Media Stay At PR 3?

It is my belief that G34 Media stayed at PR 3, because i didn’t actively seek out backlinks. Plus this past quarter i didn’t write much on it, so in turn not many link opportunities were availed of. As you know pagerank is all about (quantity and quality) of backlinks.

Anyways, that is my theory.

What Are Your Goals For The October 2008 PR Update?

My goals for the next rank update include:

• writing more valuable articles
• having bi-weekly contests
• actively seek out backlink opportunities via various methods
• and basically just step it up a notch.

My overall (short and long term goals) revolve around making and sustaining an online income of around $3000 a month.

Currently my MMO projects include:

Blogging

Freelance Writing

Domains

Site Flipping

Via the 4 MMO projects mentioned above, i will take stock in December 2008, and see where im at. Am i meeting, exceeding, or not making my goals? We will see, and as usual i will provide regular updates here, so you can follow along.

Reader Question

How did you do with this last rank update? Did you learn anything on this PR update? And what are some of your overall goals for years end? Share below.

To recap, what they don’t teach you about link building is that with little effort, you can work your way into the Top Commentator list by commenting on other blogs with similar niche.

Once you are in that top list, you will gain sitewide link and get to enjoy the PR juice from the said blog. All you need to do is to be active and engage in the discussion by not spamming leaving quality commentary.

This is an excellent link building tip from Yan, over at Thou Shall Blog. (btw: PR3 blog)

One easy way to build backlinks on your blog, is to climb on the Top Commentators list, that some blogs have on their sidebar. Comment regularly on blogs that have it installed, but not just any blogs, but ones with decent PR.

If you run a blog with some decent PR on it, and are looking for an easy and free way to thank your most loyal commenters, you now know a solid option. They get an awesome backlink, you get awesome comments. Everyone benefits.

Shout out goes to Yan for this tip, as i did not know this. Yan has gone above and beyond, by also creating a list of top PR 3 and Pr 4 blogs that have the TC widget installed. (This is a must bookmark list)

P.S. I do plan on installing the Top Commentators WordPress Plugin on this blog. As you will notice, this one is currently a PR 3. Look for it soon, and ramp up your backlinks here in August.