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Search engines use inbound links as a measure of a page’s quality.  Higher quality pages usually have more inbound links, and also usually appear higher in search engine results.  When your page shows up higher in search results, you get more traffic.  Getting more traffic to your website will make you more money.  It’s that simple!

Getting started with link building can be difficult, and you might want to hire an expert.  If nobody visits your site now, it is hard to imagine somebody linking to your site.  The good news is that link building campaigns are very effective, and worth the time.  Here are a few link building tips that you should consider right away!

1. Use a blog to generate content regularly! Effective link building campaigns should always focus on producing relevant content.  If you have a regular old web site with no new content, you are in trouble.  No new content usually leads to very few links.  Blogs are easy to use, and allow you to write new articles as easily as sending an email.  No html code is necessary!
2. Link to other good sites! You would be surprised how often people follow different paths to reach what they are want.  If you have the best list of links on one of your web pages, people actually end up using your site instead of going directly to their destination!  Other webmasters notice this, since most good sites have tracking that shows where their visitors came from.  If they see that people came from your site, only good things can happen.  Don’t be afraid of linking to other sites! This is mostly Google’s fault with their pagerank system.  Some people think that linking to another site helps the other site, but hurts you.  It doesn’t!
3. Asking for links is a part of link building! Most likely, if a webmaster has never heard of your site, they won’t give you a link.  Ask as many relevant sites as you can, and see what happens.  Even in the worst case scenario, this strategy produces traffic when other webmasters look at your site to see if it is any good.
4. Link baiting works! Link baiting means producing content that generates attention for your page.  There are many specific methods for generating attention, and most of them fall into the category of publicity stunts.  As a link building strategy, link baiting has a few different goals.  Perhaps try running a contest, where contestants need to visit your page!
5. Add your link anywhere you can! You can post classified ads using Craigslist, Backpage, or others.  If you are trying to hire a new employee, include a link in the ad.  Generally these links will be nofollowed, which means that search engines aren’t supposed to improve your site’s search results position with these links.  Who cares!  They still look like a regular link to 99.99% of people, and they will still go to your site.

Stay tuned for more ideas on the subject of link building strategies.

WordPress does not include the meta description tag in the html code generated for your blog posts.  The “Excerpt” box available under your post can easily be used as the content of the meta description tag.  It is easy to add to a wordpress blog.

1. Go to your wordpress admin dashboard.
2. Click on the appearance link on the left sidebar of your dashboard.
3. Click the “editor” link under the appearance link.
4. You should be in the Edit Themes editor now.
5. Select the “Header” theme file from the right sidebar. (header.php)
6. There should be a <title> and a </title> tag somewhere in this file.
7. Immediately after the </title> tag, or on the next line, place the following code:<meta name=”description” content=”<?php the_excerpt() ?>” />
8. This code will fill the meta description tag with any text you entered in the excerpt box when you make a post!

I hope this helps you get what you want into the meta description tag!

I have been asked many times about whether or not it is possible to make money by writing in a blog.  The short answer to whether it is possible is yes.  The more complicated answer is that almost nobody makes money with blogs, and if they do it isn’t much.

The basic idea behind making money with a blog is the following:

1. Write something.
2. Put an ad on your blog.
3. Profit.

It wasn’t supposed to be complicated, but I can make it that way:

1. Write something that is worth reading.
2. Find somebody willing to put an ad on it.
3. Wait for somebody to read it.
4. Profit.

Ok, that’s a little more complicated, but still not realistic.  Let me be honest:

1. Write something that is worth reading.
2. Hardly anybody is going to read what you write.
3. Write some more, and keep writing regularly, and maybe people will start to read something.
4. Still, hardly anybody is going to read most of what you write.
5. Something you write gets a few readers through a Google or Yahoo search.
6. You place an ad that is most likely Adsense, or another pay-per-click type.
7. A reader clicking on an ad gets you at most a few dollars.

Now, the truth about your competitors:

1. Many more people are good at making money off the internet than you.
2. Good articles make money, but you probably won’t get any of it.
3. Somebody smart notices that you wrote a good article or blog post.
4. Your post gets copied, probably many times.
5. The copies will be higher in the search results than your original.
6. Readers will click on the ads on somebody else’s page.
7. They cash the check before you even notice there is a problem.

That’s just how it works.  Unless you are a reporter for CNN or something, don’t expect to make any money.  You could always join the dark side and just copy some articles yourself too, but don’t expect that to work either.  Stay tuned for a few good reasons why.