Link Bait, Content and Legal Stuff - Day 9 of COWpetition

Now that our blog is installed with the proper theme and plug ins, we need to start putting everything in order.

With a new blog, a huge mistake that a lot of marketers make is they focus all their initial energy entirely on the index page, this is where they target the majority of their links and optimization. This is not an effective viral launch strategy and we can prove that by pointing you to sites like digg.com and stumbleupon… how many diggs or stumbles are actually linking to the index page of a blog… VERY FEW!

Part 1: Link Bait

With a brand new blog, your focus, in our opinion, should be on creating what is referred to as a “Link Bait” page. When we first create our blog, it is our usual strategy to have it completely non monetized and focusing all its attention initially on the “Link Bait” page for the first 30 days. We usually do not monetize the blog initially as we have proven to our selves that it increases link building effectiveness (people are more willing to link to a new site that offers just good info rather then to one that is hammered with ads). Another reason we use this strategy is a blog is usually not starting to earn revenue for the first few weeks because the traffic is not really at a point to where it is worth while and in our opinion it is better to sacrifice a few dollars in potential ad revenue to get more back links.

The other reason for not monetizing is we want to finish analyzing the keywords with Affiliate Elite to understand what our focus keywords for making money need to be and then we want to start creating the content focused on monetization (affiliate stuff).

With GamerzReviewz we did not follow this strategy of not monetizing the blog due to the fact that we only have 30 days and we do not have time to come in later and start testing different things (you will notice the ad placements have already changed a few times as we are testing them) but it is highly recommended that you do not monetize your site during the initial launch phase.

So with the Link Bait page, the focus is to provide something that is very attractive to others and entices them to not only link to that page but also share it with others. So many times we have seen people submit a generic article or the homepage to sites like digg and then they cry that the system does not work. Well no kidding it does not work when you are submitting useless information that is not exciting to the readers. Who would ever digg a PLR (private label right) article or something some outsourced help in India wrote that cant speak a word of English but qualifies as a Elance.com writer.

You need to understand that with the evolving internet and Web 2.0 (actually some are even saying Web 3.0 now ) the real power is in using solid Link Bait content with the social sites. The best way we can describe this is it is like pulling the string on a kite to try to get it into the air, when you pull hard on the string the kite jumps up into the air… but then what?

This is when the wind MUST take over and lift the kite into the clouds or else it crashes back down to the ground.

When you submit content to social outlets, if the content is garbage, then the initial boast you give it will be all that it has, and once the initial promotion stops, the content will drop like rock. On the other hand however, if your content is worthwhile, then others will grab onto it and your link growth will explode.

How to Make a Link Bait Page:

A Link Bait page can really be anything you want. It can be…

• an article
• a song
• an image
• a video
• a contest
• software
• or anything else you can think of.

The idea however is it must be something worth while so people will want to link to it and share it with others.

A great article that gives some good detail on creating a “Link Bait” page, is at…

http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/linkbait-beginners-guide/

For our site we needed something that we knew would cause a lot of buzz and offer a lot of value to the potential buyer of this blog in the long run. Back links of course are very valuable but have a mailing list is much more valuable and so we needed something that could accomplish both goals and therefore we decided on a contest that would require contestants to provide us with both emails and links. We wanted to ensure that we targeted people that were in the gaming market and offered something we know that the majority of them would love to win and so we offered a new gaming system. The problem is when you have a contest, often people do not want to share about it because they want to win and the more they share the less chances they have to win. To counter this we made it so there was a worth while incentive to not only opt in to the mailing list but also share about the contest with others.

You can check out our “Link Bait” contest page at…

http://www.gamerzreviewz.com/contests/win-a-ps3-xbox360-or-wii-with-gamerzreviewz/

One last point on “Link Bait”… make the page easy to read and come alive. Put some images in it if you can, make sure to bold certain points and even blockquote a really important point or two. It is also important that you keep the paragraphs to no more then 3 sentences each… this makes the content easier to read.

Part 2: Start Posting Your Content

Now it is time to start adding some of your content. The purpose of this content is to just give some food to the search engines while your site is getting started. We are not going to promote the site yet, we are just wanting to add the content.. we still have to fix up the navigation. Also if you just had one page (your link bait), it is not much for the search engines to bother with and also your readers will be pretty turned off, because you will not appear much of an authority on the topic. You want to appear as some what of an established site

In the previous post we talked about creating content and so we are not going to go into any more details on it here.

Once you have your initial content (at the bare minimum start with at least 15 unique posts), you will add them as individual posts to your blog. Make sure to organize the posts into categories and rename the default category to something that relates to your site.

Part 3 - Update Your Blog Theme

This is very important because it helps to make your blog recognizable for the niche you are pursuing. Often people just use a WordPress free theme and leave the images that are included and so you may have a city scene for the top banner on a blog about “Back Pain”.. not really a good idea.

The first step (if your blog has a header image) is to update this header image… which is very easy to do.

Step 1 - Mouse over the image and right click your mouse. The image more then likely will be a background image, so select “View Background Image”

Step 2 - Now right click on the image and save to your computer. You will also want to note where the image is located because you are going to upload to that same location on your server. An example of the location is…

http://www.yourblog.com/wp-content/themes/yourtheme/images/header.jpg

Step 3 - Edit the header image, keeping the original size and include some images that relate to your topic.

Step 4 - Upload the image to over write the original.

Now it is time to start setting your blog up to get ready to go live.

Part 4 - Updating Your “About Us” Page

The “About Us” page is an often ignored and under used page that really is something that helps build a lot of credibility with your site. This is especially true when it comes to trying to sell to people because you need to ensure you create a sense of trust with the readers by either explaining your qualifications or by relating to them.

There are two ways we go about creating an “About Us” page…

• Talk about the Person: If you are interested in building yourself as an authoritative person in this field then this is a perfect place to create a resume of sorts. Explain why you created this blog, what the blog is for, why you are an authoritative source for information in this niche and maybe a little bit of personal info like where you are from and also add a picture of yourself.
• Talk about the Site: If you are not interested in personally being known as the author of the blog (branding your name) then instead of talking about the person behind it you can focus on the blog directly. We still recommend you include an image on the page. For this type of page you will want to stick to the facts of the blog only, what it is created for, where they should go on it, what they can expect from it and why it is a resource they should use.

How to Create the “About Us” Page…

Step 1 –> Click on “Manage” and then “Pages”

You do not need to create a new page here since WordPress automatically created the about page right off the start.

Step 2 –> Click on the page titled “About Us”

Editing a page is no different than a post, the only thing is you do not assign a category.

Step 3 –> Once you have created the page, you will want to shut the comments “OFF”. Simply scroll down to the “Comments & Pings” and un-check the boxes and then select “Save” button.

Part 5 - Creating a Privacy, Terms of Use and Disclaimer Page

We think that often people look at the Internet as a “personal” item and that our blogs are our own private things that we can safely share with others. The sad thing however is this is 100% not true and there are thousands of rouge lawyers out there just waiting for the perfect opportunity to pounce of some poor unsuspecting victim.

The best way to protect yourself from this is first and foremost, seek legal counsel on anything you are not sure of. Next you will want to make sure you use content that you have legal rights to use, meaning you created it and have the permission to use it… this includes images, videos and articles.

You also want to ensure you have the proper legal documents on your blog such as a “Privacy Policy”, “Terms of Use” and “Disclaimer”. These are extremely important because they clearly lay out the who, what, when, why and how that surrounds your site so you can be protected.

There are a lot of sources you can use to create these pages that are both free and paid. Do not just copy and paste something from another site, make sure to get a custom one for your business and we personally recommend the “Internet Lay Compliance System” which does cost money but it covers you from A to Z.

To create these pages, you will simply create pages in your blog.

Step 1 –> Go to “Write” and then “Page”

Step 2 –> Create the individual page and then make sure (like the about us page) you shut off the comments and pings.

step 3 –> Click “Publish”

OK, we think this is enough for this post… we actually have loads more but we will break this into another post in which we talk about navigation, call to action and the robots.txt

Hope you found this post useful and as always please give us your feedback, comments or questions

Learn How to Kill Your Competition, Make Loads of Money Online and be Entered to Win Over $3000 in Great Prizes All for FREE? Click Here to Learn How NOW!

Copyright JohnCow.com - All Rights Reserved