Mark Mason just posted this on his blog.  He is giving away FREE BACKLINKS to anyone who needs them.  And the best part its free.  You read that right… FREE.

This is all in an effort to show folks the results you can get from using 1 Way Links from Jonathan Ledger. Mark is going to give away 21 free do-follow back links to any 3 URLs that you choose (7 links to each of 3 URLs).  Not bad if you ask me.  And whats more impressive is the exposure Mark is getting from this offer.

If you dont know what 1WayLinks is… in a nutshell its a blog network where you can get hundreds if not thousands of backlinks to your websites. If you havent seen it yet. Go to Marks Blog about FREE BACKLINKS and check it out.  Follow his instructions and get yourselfs some free traffic. Then after you see the results, purchase 1WayLinks from Marks affiliate link.  Its the least you can do for the free bump in traffic Mark is giving everyone.

I love this business. There are some really cool people in it and Mark Mason is one of them. Now its time for me to go.  I have an article to write so I can get me my 21 free do-follow back links.

– So, why are you still here? Go to Marks Blog about FREE BACKLINKS and check it out!

Well I did it.  I took the plunge and started using FirePow to begin managing all of my niche sites and blogs.  I’ve debated it for a long while, trying to justify the cost and of course waiting for my next affiliate check to come in to pay for it

Mark Mason of MasonWorld explained it best by saying that if this tool can save you an hour a day of work, and that hour is worth at least $10 dollars to you, then it has paid for itself.

So my first impression?  Its amazing! I was able to import one of my existing blogs in no time and have already added new content and generated a few backlinks.  Most all of my sites are hosted at Hostgator and adding all of my login settings to manage my sites was a breeze.

The accompanying blueprints and tutorials are outstanding as well.  Andrew Hansen provides lots of great information and tips for finding profitable niches.  Thorough step by step info on how to do the research needed to have a successful niche without wasting your time.

I’m in the middle of moving many of my sites from BANS to WordPress and FirePow looks like the perfect tool to help me in my task.

I still have a lot of reading left to do, I’ve only scratched the surface with what it can do. I’m really interested to learn the blog network and see how that works.  I’ll write more as I learn more.

If you would like to see more reviews of FirePow – check it out at MasonWorld.com.  Mark Mason has been using FIrepow and has some great posts about it on his blog.

Many of you know that I’ve used Build a Niche Store (or BANS) to build quick eBay affiliate sites.  BANS allowed me to take my first step into affiliate marketing and enabled me to make money quickly online. I still recommend BANS for anyone just starting out. Its fast and easy to understand. However there are several problems with BANS that eventually become more problematic as you try to grow your sites.

BANS is great for quickly creating thin ebay affiliate sites, the problem is that Google hates thin affiliate sites.  BANS also is not very good at content management.  Yes you can add content and extra pages, new store pages, etc., but really WordPress is by far superior.  One solution many people have done and that I do is to integrate both WordPress and BANS together in the same web site.  Both BANS and WordPress are written in php, so with a little tweaking you can get BANS and just about any WordPress theme to play nice together in one seamless web site.  But this raises another problem.  It can take a lot of time to cram these two applications together to make it look and behave right.  Another problem is that it takes a good bit of html and php experience to make it all happen.  This is definitely not something for everyone.

Building websites should be easy.  You need to have a way to get them up and running fast so you can concentrate on link building and content.   So to solve these problems and create a feature rich website quickly with lots of great content with WordPress (by the way Google loves blogs and WordPress) I’ve been spending a lot of time to moving my sites to a straight WordPress install with the phpBay plugin.

phpBay is a great WordPRess plugin, very similar to BANS in that it allows you to setup ebay affiliate pages on your blog.  Its very simple and easy to use and it works great with WordPress.  The biggest difference with phpBay versus BANS is that you have to setup each page individually.  BANS on the other hand would create an entire site full of product pages in a matter of minutes.  When I first started my niche business I was super excited to have an entire site built so quickly.  But now that I’ve grown, I really prefer to build my pages by hand.  I can set all of my keywords and phrases exactly the way I want them, put some good relevant content on each page for indexing, and ensure my link text is optimum for deep linking.

It may seem like a lot more work to build your site this way. I don’t think anyone like to do things the manual way, but from my experience, I really am saving a lot a time building my sites this way.  I no longer have to recode WordPress themes to work with BANS. I don’t have to go back through each and every page to rewrite and change default keyword structures and link text. I can build out product pages and product catagories in a way that best suits my readers.  And the best of all, I have WordPress to management all of my content.

So far I completed three of my niche sites to use only WordPress and phpBay.  I was able to get these sites finished a lot faster than if I would have tried to integrate BANS and WordPress together.  And you know? phpBay is cheaper than BANS too.  $49 for phpBay -  $97 for BANS.  I think you get the point.

Okay,  I need to get back to moving things over to phpBay and making my sites profitable again.  Oh and did I mention that there is a phpZon too?  This is a great plugin made by Wade Wells (author of phpBay) that does what phpBay does only with Amazon products!  I love WordPress!!!

Untill next time – I hope you all are having all the success you diserve.

Joe

A friend just introduced me to a new image editor, similar to Photoshop, and asked that I take a peak at it and let him know what I thought.  I was a little hesitant because I really love Photoshop, it does everything I need and more.  Why would I want to look at anything else? The only problem with Photoshop is that it is EXPENSIVE!  There are other free tools that do that same thing as Photoshop, like Gimp and Paint.net – but still nothing beats Photoshop…. until now?

Introducing Pixlr

Pxilr- is a new online image editor. Do you catch that?  ONLINE image editor.  I was blown away when I first saw it.  I went to their web site and simply clicked on the image of the product and I was in the tool.  Right from my browser I was in a really nice, fully functional image editor!

Now, I have to admit, I havent run it through its paces comparing directly photoshop with all of Pixlr’s features – but just the ease of use alone for quick and dirty cropping or images, making little adjustments on the fly…  this just can’t be beat.

Check it out for yourself and if you have a chance.. stop back by and let me know what you think!

Take care,

Joe

Today I want to do a review of The Ultimate Link-Building Report by Josh Spaulding.  First off I have to admit I’m a bit biased when it comes to digital information products published by Josh. Everything I have read by him has been no nonsense, no fluff, straight to the point answers to Internet Marketing business questions. I am a member of his personal coaching forum and have purchased his other products including, $5 Minisite Formula, New Age Email marketing, and Article Marketing Domination. Each of his products focuses on a particular area of building your online business and answers the many questions we all have in these areas.

His newest report, The Ultimate Link-building Report, focuses on one of the most important aspects to driving traffic to your site and making money – and that is creating back links and link building strategies.

I have to tell you right now before I go any further, I don’t recommend products that I don’t use myself. I have read this front to back and if you are the least bit unsure about the best way to build links, what the many ways are to build links to your site, or want to know what works and whats does not work – this is a must have report. (and I’m not just saying that because I’m biased – this is an everyday reference you need and I’ll tell you why)

First off Josh does a fantastic job of reviewing a brief bit of history so that you are fully aware of how we all got to where we are today with the current search engine technology. He then quickly moves into explaining what Proven Link Building Methods that work, describing what they are and which ones work better than others.

He also fully explains what NOT to do when link building, WHO you should not to build links with with, and how to determine fair link exchanges. He even includes some examples of what to say when making link exchange requests.

There are lots of ways to build back links to your site and I think he must have covered every single one of them. From commenting on blog posts, article marketing to “link bait”. Its in in here, straight to the point with no BS.

Now granted you can get a lot of this same information from other sources. After all, we do have the Internet and much of this is out there. But there is a lot of junk out there too and what Josh does is puts together the real deal in one reference.

In summary

This report is a great single reference of Proven Link Building Methods That Work.  It covers every aspect of honest link building imaginable in a no nonsense, no BS way, showing you step by step how to build successful back links that will drive traffic to your site.  I wish I would have been introduced to Josh earlier,  I would have saved myself a lot of time, effort and money.