Backlink Experiments / Update 1/27/2015

I realize that I haven't been contributing very much to this blog as of late, so I decided that I would get this last post out tonight and bring everyone up to speed with the things I am currently working on. The gardening blog is doing well. I am currently in the process of writing some KILLER content that I can use to get backlinks.


Backlinking is a real challenge that can really occupy a large amount of your time. The process I am using right now, is to ask fellow bloggers in my niche a specific question, then I am compiling a "giant" list of answers, and everyone gets credit that participated (in form of a link) and then they will hopefully link back to me. I have scored a couple of high DA / PA links this way, right off of blogger in fact. I also scored some Wordpress.com links which are always high DA as well.

I want to let you in on a secret about backlinks that a lot of people fail to tell you. When you get a link from a site, or if you even payed for someone to run a program and generate a lot of links for you, you have to really pay attention to what you are doing. Just because they linked to your site, doesn't mean that you are necessarily going to see any benefit (or any determent either). You need to be sure when you are checking your backlinks that:

1. Your link is indeed "dofollow"
2. That there aren't TONS of other links on the page.
3. That your backlink, is indexed by Google. 

That last part is very important.  That's the part they fail to tell you, especially if you are paying for links on a place like Fiverr.  You can get 40,000 links for around 10 dollars, but they are all garbage links, and 99% of them wont index, and the ones that do get index will actually hurt you.

Photo Credit:

   by  Frederick Md Publicity 

If you do choose Fiverr, you need to look for people that do pyramid building, and manual .edu and .gov sites.  They are going to give you the best results and have the best chance of getting indexed.

Another service I am using to get backlinks is through social media bookmarking.  There is a service called SocialADR that will submit your bookmarks to over 25 social media sites at once. It is really powerful because each time you submit something, it gets posted by a different user, so the bookmarks are going up all over the world in a very natural way. I currently pay for the 20.00 a month program which gives me enough credits and bookmarks to handle my small amount of websites. You may wish to purchase more if you have more sites, or if you have clients. I spoke with the customer service at SocialADR today, and they told me that the sites take about 1 month to get indexed. They said that they "ping" each url once a day, and they also use an automated indexing too. I don't know what the success rate is, but I will let you know in about a month when I can see if I either got backlinks that are dofollow from high PA and DA social bookmarking sites, or if it was a failure. I think for 20 bucks it was worth a shot to try for the backlinks. The actual traffic you receive from the bookmarks is really small.

Smart Passive Income Blog Review, The Shocking Truth About Pat Flynn and the Long Con

Greetings, before we get started I want to provide a slight disclaimer about what I am going to write.  I like Pat Flynn.  Pat Flynn is the person responsible for me getting off my lazy @$$ and actually doing something with my life.  That being said, it would be irresponsible of me not to share highly valuable information about my experiences with Pat Flynn, Niche Site Duel and the Passive Income Blog / Podcast.

This is an honest review of Pat Flynn.  I know this is going to make a lot of people upset, and I'm probably going to receive some hate mail because of this particular blog post.  I might even lose the 100 readers I do have, but I have no choice.  It's that important to me.  I took the time to calm down and collect my thoughts before writing this.  I want people to understand my experience with Pat so they can benefit from it (or discard it, whatever they choose).

Photo Credit:    by  The Sales Whisperer 

Pat Flynn is an internet marketing personality that had tremendous exposure over the past half a decade.  His story is truly inspirational and as a regular reader / listener of his products I can tell you that he really is a very charismatic guy. When I first found out about him, I was reading about him and Tyrone Shum and their infamous "Niche Site Duel".  I was highly driven by his story to follow in his footsteps and show the world that I was really capable of making a living exactly the way that Pat did.  Not only did I have a real desire to make these dreams come true, now I had a blueprint to follow, written by an average guy, just like you or I, the "underdog".

Photo Credit:    by  casperam 

I was in a horrible place financially when I made the jump into internet marketing.  That income counter that Pat has on his smart passive income blog had me so excited I really thought that everything he was saying, had to be true  That hard work could really make a "niche site fantasy" a reality.  I had access to this highly valuable information that no one else wanted to share with me. I saw his income statements, and I was reading all this chatter on forums and review boards,  and I was completely starstruck by this fantastic guy who really wanted to help people out.  After being scammed by a few different marketers I really thought that I had found a lucky break.  My time was finally here.

On the Passive Income Blog, there is a step-by-step guide on how to start a niche site!  Mind you when I started this adventure, I had no experience in web marketing.  However, I did have a lot of computer experience and I won the Dade-County programming competition back in high school.  Myself and a group of friends placed 14th in the state of Florida and I had been using a computer and programming in one language or another since the age of five.  I was confident that I would have the necessary skills to see this through to fruition.  With Pat's help I was certain that I could make 30k a month "passively" and be able to obtain all the things in life that I thought I deserved.

Photo Credit:    by  derrickkwa 

I was hooked.  I started listening to podcasts, and I started taking notes, I studied from the time I woke up in the morning, until I passed out (sometimes 2 days later) and I was eating, living and breathing Pat Flynn's marketing plan.  There was one thing I completely missed though...I was the one he was marketing to.  I bought it hook line and sinker.

I registered for "Niche Site Duel 2.0" where Pat had this ingenious idea of creating a place where new marketers could all get together and talk with each other.  We could learn from each other and talk about different ideas and tactics so that we would be able to succeed together.  What a great idea right?.... WRONG

Photo Credit:    by  Alex Schweigert 

I felt completely hoodwinked.  First of all, Pat is not even on the site.  He posted a couple posts a year or two ago when he started the site, and I don't think he has ever been seen since.  He is not there to answer questions, he is not there to hold your hand, and he certainly isn't going to write back if you message him on there.  What are you stupid or something?

There were a few members that actually made huge efforts to help people.  Not just me, but other people as well.  These people were very important to me when I was starting out, because I had no "mentor".  The mentor I thought I had, was never around.  You can email him, or leave him a question for his other podcast "ask Pat", but after listening literally to hundreds of hours of audio from him, it was very easy to realize that the chances of him getting to your question were pretty small.  I have tried to contact Pat on numerous occasions, and other than his automated marketing emails, there was only one time he ever answered me.

Photo Credit:    by  bitesizeinspiration 

I kept going...I just knew for sure that Pat would never steer me wrong and that he really wanted to help me, even if he didn't have the time to do it.  That's how much I believed (or wanted to believe) that what Pat Flynn was saying was going to guide me to success.  I knew that if I could just get a couple of things going a little bit, and then maybe Pat would talk to me.. Heck maybe even interview me on one of his podcasts because I had used his plan and become successful.

I actually fantasized about that interview in my mind, as silly as that sounds, but it's true.  I really wanted to talk to him, and I wanted to do well so that I could make him proud.  It's sad, but it's true, and I have a feeling based on his "cult" following that I'm not the only one that thought about that same interview.

Photo Credit:    by  Akshay Hallur 

So the first falling out I had was on Niche Site Duel.  Let me explain a couple of things that Pat Flynn's program is not going to teach you, and you are going to have to learn on your own, one way or another.

1. Google Sandbox - Google can take anywhere from 1 day to several months to crawl your site.  Why?  Because... there is no answer to that question, google does whatever it wants, it doesn't tell you why it does it, or how it does it.  You have no right to ask either.  Google doesn't care about you or you stupid website about widgets, but when you are first starting out, you really want google to look at it.  You can't help but think "I have the best website EVER made on the face of the earth about plumbing fittings, and I just can't believe google doesn't have me on the front page yet".  It's so exciting and you will have worked so very hard getting to that point, you really aren't prepared for the fact that it could take weeks or even months to get in the index, if you appear in the search results at all.  That's a topic for another time really.....
2.  Keywords are not as important as they used to be when this whole "niche marketing" keyword craze began.  Back in the day you could make "howtobuildabridge.com" and really get up there in the listings when someone searched for "how to build a bridge". but this is my biggest complaint, and the straw that broke the camels back for me with Pat Flynn.  Google actually penalizes you for Exact Match Domains, and Partial Match Domains.  So..yeah.. all that Market Samurai jibber jabber, and that week you spent coming up with just the right combination with traffic, and relevany, and then actually finding the domain name available that doesn't cost 3000 dollars for a premium listing?  MORE OR LESS WORTHLESS.

Photo Credit:    by  Craig Key 

You might be saying to yourself at this point "Robert you are crazy, keyword research is important and maybe you just can't use exact match domains, but it's still important"... NO ITS NOT.. The words that I tried to rank for were not important.  It turns out the page that holds the number 1 spot for those keywords... DOESN'T HAVE THE KEYWORDS ON IT........ ANYWHERE.  It doesn't have the exact match for those keywords in the copy... it doesn't have it in the title, or in a meta description, or in a filename of a picture.. or an alt tag...or ANYWHERE....AT ALL... so ... ya.. once I figured that out I got extremely mad that I spent real money buying a domain name that was hurting me based on Pat's emphasis on how important the keyword research tool was. 

I sure am glad I spent that money on the market samurai (I used Pat's Affiliate Link) to buy a tool that does absolutely, positively NOTHING to help me.  It's another marketing ploy for a product that accomplishes tasks you can do for free with the Keyword Planner.  Yeah yeah, it has suggestions, and can generate keywords, but they are 99% of the time keywords that aren't relevant to what you are trying to sell.  You can argue this all you want, you know it's true if you have used the tool yourself.  The tools offers "competition" etc.. it's all a bunch of hogwash.  It has the "possible income" section where it calculates 50% of the traffic for the #1 spot for the word, then shows you how much you would make if EVERY SINGLE PERSON that visited your site clicked an advertisement.  That's never going to happen, google would ban your account if it did.  Again, no explanation on this point.  Pat never talks about the fact that keyword samurai is flat out lying to you.  Why would they do that?  Because they want you to see how much you "could" make in a hypothetical situation that will NEVER exist and you will actually believe that you could make 1000 dollars a day in advertising for a specific keyword that google doesn't want you to optimize for.  Oh thank you Pat for endorsing this bunch of lies meant to purposely mislead people into thinking that this fantasy of "iloverubberducks.com" can exist!

Photo Credit:    by  xddorox 

Anyway so back to the duel.  Before I knew that I was not only wasting my time with a keyword/domain combo that was hurting me, and before I knew that google might take a month of Sundays to actually crawl my site, I was on there day and night, posting, trying to find out as much information as possible, and I made the biggest mistake I could have ever made....

I posted to the forums, and allowed people to see my site.  The next day I woke up and logged on to see that I had been de-indexed on google and on bing (where I was #1 for my keyword at the time)... not only that, I had a pile of garbage backlinks pointing to my site... I had a manual action against me in webmaster tools, and someone had just launched a site called:  "yourexactsamesite.org"... and it was in the front page of bing already and it looked like a cut and paste job right off my site.  I was crushed completely.

Photo Credit:    by  photosteve101 

I then realized that someone with ill intentions had crushed me based on the information I provided in the niche site duel forum.  I realized that I had made a horrible mistake that I Was not going to be able to correct.  Was it my fault?  Absolutely... 100% my mistake.  I didn't understand that there are a great number of people involved in internet marketing that are really horrible people.  I learned that I could never share the site names that I am working on, because this will happen over and over again.  I was really upset because I had just started finally making money with the site and some of the things I was trying were working.  Pat was nowhere to be found, and instead people used his website to hurt other people trying to start out in business.  Way to go Pat!

I am really mad at Pat at this point, and I sent an email to him saying something along the lines that "I will never buy one your products, or ever use your sites again" and he actually wrote me back.  I don't have the email anymore, but I remember him telling me that he "doesn't sell anything" and blah blah blah.  Now I know better, he does sell things.  He sold eBooks, he sells affiliate links to all the trash he's promoting on Passive Income Blog, but I bought in one more time.  I was just so excited that he actually emailed me that once again I said to myself "he has to be a good guy, he really wants to help people do this".

Anyway, I continued with the podcast.  I continued taking notes.  I tried harder and harder to make it work just like Pat said it would.  But I started to find out, It doesn't work like Pat says it works.  In fact all that old outdated information doesn't work at all.

OK so if that's true, I should have listened to everything and get all the new info and still be able to do it right?... Well no, not exactly, now I had this messed up site, that had all these things that I originally done incorrectly and I didn't have the plan anymore. Because the original plan doesn't work, and maybe if you sat there and took notes (which I did) out of every podcast and corrected all the things that have changed, maybe you could do that, but after 6 months of VERY hard work, I had given up hope.  I didn't want to rewrite his plan.. I wanted to know how the it works right now... not read about how great Pat Flynn has it for him and his family while all of us suckers read his piles of worthless content.

Photo Credit:    by  land_camera_land_camera 

I was played like a fiddle.


I know that I failed at this because of myself.  I know that Pat is not the reason I failed.  The reason I failed is because I put faith where I shouldn't have put faith.  This person never updated all that messed up info, because it ranks well and I'm sure he wouldn't wanna pull the plug on the money maker.  I feel that he has a responsibility to his followers to update these things and put together something current that works, instead of leading people on each week and bringing on some other marketer that runs an affiliate site.

It's not realistic, he is praying on people's false hopes.  He's selling snake oil, and I don't care if he says "it's all free"... because it isn't.  It comes at a price to the people that blindly follow him.  I guess he really doesn't care about anyone like I thought he did.  If he cared, he would update that stuff, and not let people run themselves into the ground trying to execute a plan that will not work.  I mean put together a current plan and sell it...I would buy it... there are 10's of thousands of people that would buy it.

The Most Important Things I Learned From Pat Flynn's GIANT LONG CON SCAM

Don't share your links and projects with people on the internet (or in real life).  There are people that will crush you on purpose just for fun.  Heaven forbid you actually have something profitable then they will really go after you.

Photo Credit:    by  Will Scullin 

There is no blueprint for web marketing success.  It's all a bunch of people that want to take your money by preying on the fact that you are desperate and you want that "dream" of owning a ".com" that makes you billions.  It's especially bad when the person thinks they can "outsource" everything and just pay people to do it all for them.   I'm not saying you can't outsource...because you can, in fact you HAVE TO if you want to succeed at this.  But you also have to be really involved, there is no "passive income" on the internet, you're gonna work your ass off to see it to fruition.  I am seeing success now, I making enough money to live on and it was originally Pat that got me going in that direction.

What wound up working, and how it "really is" is not what Pat describes or sells.  He's just a marketer that is selling hope.  I got upset because I am a good judge of character and I am not the person that typically gets scammed.

If you want to learn more about making money online, email me at voicesmicro@gmail.com.  That's all I have to say... no sales pitch.. We can talk about your goals, your expectations, where you currently are in your journey, and I will tailor a custom plan to get you on the right path.

Niche Marketing, The Market Samurai and Keyword Research

by Robert Leavitt

Establishing if Niche Marketing is right for you:

So you want to learn about keyword research and niche marketing?  The market samurai provides a powerful too to be able to research keywords easily.  Remember you can do this for free with Google's Keyword Planner, but it's cumbersome to use and in recent years they have made it much more difficult.  This is why programs like Market Samurai and Long Tail Pro are SO useful.  Some argue that keyword research is the most important step when planning a niche site.  Some also fail to tell you that keyword research is important to planning every single post!

Niche Marketing

The first step is to sit down with a piece of paper and a pencil.  It's time to brainstorm.  You want to make 2 columns, the first labeled "strengths" and the second labeled   "flaws".   You should try to come up with 10 things for each side of the list.  It is important to be brutally honest with yourself here.  If you try and "stretch" the truth, you are really only lying to yourself.

Next gather a handful of close friends.  One of them can be your wife or significant other and have them repeat the same exercise, except instead of writing about themselves they are going to do a "strengths" and "weakness" column also evaluating you!

Now you can do this last part one on one, or in a group.  Group takes less time and is usually more productive. Take turns comparing your results with the results of the people who know you well..  Are you lying to yourself?  This exercise will also help you determine how well you can accept constructive criticism.  Are people around you not understanding where your head is?  There are no right answers to this and it's not a test, it's just an exercise to help  you evaluate your current position in life, and whether a "work-at-home-Dad" environment is the right thing for you.  If you find your answers contradict the goals you are hoping for, it may be necessary to work outside of the house.  Not everyone is suited for this, otherwise, everyone would be doing it!

After you have written down your strengths and weaknesses go ahead and make a "passions" column.  You can then write down the things you are passionate about.  Have you ever thought "I really love golf clubs, and I know a lot about them.  I should make a website about golf clubs!"  This is the time to write down these ideas.  Though what I am about to share with you probably will go against everything you have ever learned from a "guru" or "self-help program or speaker".

When it comes to niche marketing, your ideas are not important unless you are planned to shell out a lot of money for aggressive marketing campaigns.  Let's face it, if you had the kind of money to establish a completely new product, you probably wouldn't be reading my "don't punch a clock" blog.  You would be busy running your empire.

The Market Samurai

This is really hard to digest, because it doesn't seem to make sense at first.  Let me try to clarify.  When you have an idea, even if its a unique idea that is 100% original and your are certain that you can get it out in the hands of the public that it will change the world and I tell you "it doesn't matter what your idea is because it's all about the 4 golden rules" you may throw your hands up and walk away from me in disgust.

Market Samurai

I am telling you right now, that I very rarely ever pursue an idea first.  I do it the other way around.  I find the keywords that already meet 3 of the 4 golden rules, then I add content that is relevant to those specific keywords. You will need a tool like Market Samurai to do this, They have a trial period and you will not only have access to the program but you will also gain access to the "dojo" which is the learning center.  The keyword research section of the program will always be free, but if you want access to the other tools the market samurai provides, then you will have to pay for it.

The dojo will teach you the 4 golden rules and the reasons why niche marketers fail.

The four golden rules of keyword research are:

• Relevance
• Traffic
• Competition
• Commerciality

If you have an idea but it doesn't fit these 4 rules, it will fail on the internet.  That "if you build it they will come" attitude is completely wrong on the internet.  In fact seldom do I have ideas that I want to test on the internet.  Instead I use the Market Samurai to identify terms that people are ALREADY searching for. I then make sure it is relevant to what I am trying to promote (or I just gear my content to BE relevant to a specific keyword), it has acceptable levels of competition, and lastly that the keyword is "commercially viable".  If your keyword is "don't buy anything on the internet" and you have 10,000 unique visitors a day. It's going to be hard to make any money with that keyword.  You have to really pay attention to that rule.  They will give you dozens of other examples and what to look for.

The Market Samurai, and the dojo, completely changed the way I approach niche marketing.  The best thing is not only does the tool work, but they offer the dojo and education center 100% free.  If you pay close attention to what these gentlemen are saying and do your research accordingly, success will follow.  I was skeptical at first, but I did my research carefully and gave it a shot.  I also didn't let myself get in the way.  I can be very defeatist and throw in the towel early.  This time I did not do that. I kept pushing and pushing, and trying out things until I found a system that does work!

You will need a Google adWords account to use Market Samurai.  Even if you don't have a website yet, you can make an adWords account.  It is vital to your keyword research and it's also the way you would launch a "paid advertising" campaign on google.

Please comment and let me know how this tool is working for you.  I will respond to questions and comments and help as best I can.  Stay tuned for the next section and what to do after you pick keywords.  Don't be in a hurry though, the keyword selection process is the most important step in this whole process.  Really take your time to understand the keywords, how they relate to the four golden rules and what your target market is.  Think hard and long before you make this decision.  It can make or break you.

You can learn more about Robert Leavitt on his Google Plus page.