For those of you who are serious about building extremely quality links and have a padded budget, I recommend checking out a service called Hosted Marketing Pages by Text Link Brokers.
Hosted Marketing Pages are an extremely powerful link-building method that are optimized pages with content relevant to your keywords. The Hosted Marketing Pages are hosted in Text Link Broker’s partner sites which are all above a Google PR5 and have between 10 and 10,000 links pointing to them.
The great thing about this service is these pages are optimized content based on your keywords. They contain embedded links that are natural looking - much more powerful than links located on the side of bottom of a page.
HMP’s (Hosted Marketing Pages) also give you more control over your online reputation. Because your adding many HMP’s across many domains with your optimized content, you build a stronger presence for your site and your reputation, helping to lower other (not so nice) pages in the SERPS along with your competitors.
So what do you guys think? Who here has tried HMP’s before and what was your level of success? Click here to learn more about Hosted Marketing Pages.
Want to talk about Hosted Marketing Pages in detail? Check out this thread in the Peter-V Forum.
Here are a few quick and easy steps I suggest to optimize your WordPress blog:
Permalinks
Permalink Settings > Custom Structure
/%post_id%/%postname%/
Mod Rewrite (Make sure you have Mod Rewrite enabled on your server)
Permalink Settings > .htaccess
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
Ping your posts
Writing Settings > Update Services
http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://1470.net/api/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.wasalive.com/ping/
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://www.blogsdominicanos.com/ping/
http://www.xianguo.com/xmlrpc/ping.php
http://www.feedsky.com/api/RPC2
In a following post I will provide my list of WordPress plugins that I use and recommend.
It’s funny how private I’ve been about my SEO techniques and where I spend my money to help optimize my clients sites. It’s not so much that I tried to hide some secret SEO technique that makes my client’s sites rank #1 on Google, its more resources than anything (which is my secret weapon).
The most valuable thing I spend my money on by far is events, website memberships and books. Of course I buy links, I pay for analytical services, content and etc but those come secondary to my budget and many times I never spend a single dime on them.
So what resources I spend my money on and recommend?
SEOmoz - Get the premium membership, well worth the money.
SEO Book Training Program & the SEO Book - Either is fine, I find the training program is a lot like the book with updated content & a community presence.
For resources that is basically it; I’ve read probably close to 100 books on internet marketing and I’m a member of probably every SEO forum on the internet but with everything I know now the only two resources that actually teach me new things are the two listed above.
As for events (physical conferences, forums, etc) I recommend the following:
SMX: The Search Marketing Expo - $1395 for an all access pass.
SES: Search Engine Strategies - $1795 for a platinum passport.
PubCon: Search Marketing Conferences - $799 for a full pass.
Forums I recommend:
Search Engine Land
Sphinn
The V7 Network
Search Engine Watch
SEO Guy
Another thing I like to do is track the experts in search engine optimization. Here is a list of people I highly respect and follow religiously:
Aaron Wall
Chris Hooley
Andy Beal
Matt Cutts
Andy Hagans
Danny Sullivan
C.K. Chung
Lee Oden
Neil Patel
Patrick Sexton
Todd Malicoat
Content baiting is a technique I have utilized for many years while building social communities and blogs. As an internet marketing consultant I am faced with many challenges while developing client’s social communities and blogs; the most challenging and important pieces to any site’s growth and success are content and links.
While I was consulting for a large student loan company, marketing a new community site, I regularly contacted webmasters for links. Because of how new the site was I constantly had issues getting other sites to link to me, the biggest reason why I had such a hard time was the lack of content. This went on for a few weeks and while I was still steadily building links, I wasn’t satisfied with the amount I was getting vs. the amount of content being produced by the internal staff.
One late night I decided to try something new, I emailed a handful of webmasters in relevant content fields and I asked them for help. I stated that we are a new, quality social-website in need of exposure and content. Instead of asking for a link, I asked if they would be interested in writing an article about their product, solution or experience and link to their site within their content. At the end of each email I added how beneficial this is to their exposure and if they would reciprocate the “love” by providing a link to us (even if its to their article on our site, I didn’t care).
Out of the 30+ emails I sent that night I received over 20 replies by the next afternoon; out of the 20 replies all but 2 agreed, linked and produced content for us. By the end of the week I had replicated this process several hundred times and the response was overwhelming - I had more content than I knew what to do with and my cup of link juice was overflowing big time!
Content baiting has proven to be a fantastic way to kick start the growth of many types of sites. One very important part to this technique is how you communicate to the potential content providers and link providers. If you really feel there will be a mutually beneficial connection then say that, let them know how you like their site and how you would love to give back to them for making you laugh, teaching you or getting you a better deal on your insurance. Ask them for their help and give them yours, people will respect you if your honest and sincere.
Good luck and please let me know if you’ve used content baiting, I would love to hear your hit and miss stories.
Here is a quick and easy way to track page names in WebCEO’s HitLens analytics application by changing a couple variables in the tracking script. This works perfectly in Community Server 2008!
First let’s take the original code generated by HitLense:
<!–WEBSITECEO:BEGIN:{764EEF2E-BC11-45CF-8627-300CE1BA2219}–>
<!–
Do NOT modify this script to avoid traffic misrepresentation!
Web CEO 4 0300/1
Code initially inserted into: “index.aspx”.
–>
<script type=”text/javascript”><!–
// hitlens v1.2.7
function hitlens_embedded() {
var id = 123456;
var pc = 0;
var PAGENAME = escape(”);
var CONTENTGROUP = escape(”);
var TRANSACTION = escape(”);
var TRANSACTION_ID = 0;
var ORDER = escape(”);
return “id=”+id+”&pc=”+pc+”&p=”+PAGENAME+”&gr=”+CONTENTGROUP+”&tr=”
+TRANSACTION+”&trid=”+TRANSACTION_ID+”&ord=”+ORDER;
}
//–></script>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”/webceo.js”></script>
<!–WEBSITECEO:END:{764EEF2E-BC11-45CF-8627-300CE1BA2219}–>
Now lets add a quick line of code to the var PAGENAME = variable:
var PAGENAME = document.title;
What this will do is pull the page’s title and post it in HitLense.

The default tracking code HitLense generates also throws in the following comment that needs to be removed completely:
<!–
Do NOT modify this script to avoid traffic misrepresentation!
Web CEO 4 0300/1
Code initially inserted into: “index.aspx”.
–>
Also make sure to leave the var pc = 0; at 0. The var pc is a unique page identifier, if you use specialized tracking (like above) instead of the wizard-driven setup then you’ll definitely need to keep it at 0 or your going to run into some problems.
Your final tracking code should look like this:
<!–WEBSITECEO:BEGIN:{764EEF2E-BC11-45CF-8627-300CE1BA2219}–>
<script type=”text/javascript”><!–
// hitlens v1.2.7
function hitlens_embedded() {
var id = 123456;
var pc = 0;
var PAGENAME = document.title;
var CONTENTGROUP = escape(”);
var TRANSACTION = escape(”);
var TRANSACTION_ID = 0;
var ORDER = escape(”);
return “id=”+id+”&pc=”+pc+”&p=”+PAGENAME+”&gr=”+CONTENTGROUP+”&tr=”
+TRANSACTION+”&trid=”+TRANSACTION_ID+”&ord=”+ORDER;
}
//–></script>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”/webceo.js”></script>
<!–WEBSITECEO:END:{764EEF2E-BC11-45CF-8627-300CE1BA2219}–>
Good luck!
As you all know I am an avid user of Web CEO for my SEO/SEM solutions company. Although there are a few other tools and applications I use, Web CEO is by far the most powerful and stable application I have ever used in this field. I easily spend the majority of my day using Web CEO for just about all steps of my search engine optimization for all my clients.
Become an expert in SEO quickly and easily:
* Web CEO software package consisting of 12 potent tools to organize your efforts
* Professional Training Course in Search Engine Marketing to learn all the best practices
Web CEO is a full-range search engine optimization software with advanced site troubleshooting and web analytics functionality. Here are a few facts about Web CEO:
The choice of 440,000+ businesses.
Web CEO stands on guard of the rankings of IBM and Motorola. These companies have no right to make mistakes. What about you?
Simple and user-friendly.
Packed with powerful features, Web CEO still can boast an ultra user-friendly interface that turns a novice into an SEO expert right away after installation.
Completely Safe.
Employing Google API and cutting-edge human emulation techniques, Web CEO makes the optimization process absolutely safe for you and your site. Some of the important tools you will find in the package will help you:
* Get suggestions for new keywords relevant to your business and research your own keywords
* Get optimization advice and tweak your Web pages in friendly editing environment
* Create link partnerships
* Keep track of your site’s rankings and links
* Get comprehensive real-time visitor reports
I’m sure your looking at this like I just wrote a sales pitch but if you’ve read my blog before you’ll know I don’t sell a damn thing. In addition to that fact - WebCEO is free! Just download, install and get your rank on.
Download the free edition of Web CEO and get access to the Training Course now!

In addition to Web CEO’s awesome application and training program I totally recommend that you grab the latest copy of SEO Book by Aaron Wall. It doesn’t matter how much you know about search engine optimization/marketing, SEO Book is by far one of the best (if not THE BEST) reference and training materials available today.
That. Just. Happened.
I use a great application called WebCEO to track and manage various parts of my SEO/SEM efforts. As much as I would like to get into how awesome their software and support is I would rather talk about the people behind WebCEO.
A couple days before Christmas I received an envelope from Kherson, Ukraine. I wasn’t sure why I had received a letter from the Ukraine considering I don’t know anyone from there, I thought it was some sort of mistake or just a marketing piece. I opened the envelope and pulled out a very rich and shiny holiday card with a little WebCEO logo at the bottom. I figured it was just a holiday promotion printed in the masses - I was wrong.
I opened the card and found a long, had written letter addressed to me - wishing me a safe and happy holiday season. The letter was well written and by the looks of it not rushed at all. In addition the letter never once mentioned anything about business, their products, money, or a holiday deal - just a letter hoping and wishing I have a wonderful holiday. WOW.
Now this is what I call great marketing, you see they didn’t have to mention what they are about or what they are selling - not even a holiday coupon or discount - just a hand written personal letter directed to me. It made me feel great! I was very impressed with what I saw and very happy to be a customer of theirs. More importantly (for them) it made me think about WebCEO and their products.
In my opinion this is the kind of thing that separates companies apart; even though there aren’t many comparable applications to WebCEO available today I would stick with WebCEO regardless. Something like this shows me (the customer) that I am important to them and they care about me and my business (which they do).
Take note of this guys, a great marketing campaign with little cost and a bigger impact than you could imagine. Thank you WebCEO - Happy Holidays!
Being that I am an SEO I need to see live stats and information all the time; fortunately for me Firefox has a lot of great tools for free and extremely easy to use.
SEO tools for Firefox:
1. Search Status: This toolbar provides extensive search-related information about a site, all conveniently displayed in one discreet and compact toolbar. I use everything this tool has to offer but my favorite feature is the display of site’s Google PR, Alexa, and Compete at the base of my browser.
2. SEO for Firefox: Aaron Wall from SEOBook had this neat little tool developed and I love it. Tons of stats show for every listing in Google’s SERP whenever you search anything. This tool has to be one of the best SEO tools out there and without it a lot of my time would be wasted.
3. Social Media for Firefox: I already posted about this but this tool is worth the time to write about again. You can see my original post here but for those of you SEO/SEM Social Network guys like myself this tool just rocks and is definitely a major time saver.
Here is a list of other extensions I use including a few other SEO/SEM plug ins:
- SEOpen: This tool packs a ton of SEO tools, most I use daily.
- SEOLinks: Neat little tool that shows link stats with mouse over.
- Link Checker: Don’t get caught with broken links again.
- ShowIP: Love this tool for when I swing DNS records.
- ServerSpy: Great extension to show what type of server & version the site is hosted on (i.e. Apache 2, IIS 7.0, etc).
Over the last few months Aaron Wall from SEOBook has been making many anti-Google comments regarding SEO. Matt Cutts, Google’s leading Spam Engineer, has been faced with such topics like “SEO equals spam” and “How to buy organic ranks in Google”. I think it is important to get people involved in this discussion and try to make some sense of this. I of coarse have my own opinions regarding many of these discussions and arguments between the two but I would love to hear what you think.
I do think that Aaron Wall and his new wife are trying to stir the pot a little and get some linkbait. Aaron has a lot of knowledge in SEO and I don’t think he will just throw things out there with no thought. I also don’t think Aaron would do anything to piss Matt Cutts off considering Matt helped Aaron when Aaron was getting sued from a business/client of his…
Matt Cutts
Aaron Wall - SEOBook