Operation Bob

Logic tells me that I make my living off of online content, therefore the more my content is consumed, the better off my checkbook will be.  Going a step further, the more people who know my stuff is out there, the more views it will get, and so on.  You get the idea right?

Hang on to that thought for a sec.  Meanwhile I’ve been researching my brain into a knot trying to figure out this Google PageRank deal.  It’s very simple, yet very complicated and of course very important.  The bottom line is that links to your content increase it’s PageRank.  But, not just any links, important links as judged by Google.

OK, bring both thoughts together now and what’s the mission: links.  It’s much easer said than done.  We need real links from quality sites.  Not link mills, cheap links, links from sites with no juice, you get the idea. 

It’s been a lot of work and I’m afraid I’ve just scratched the surface.  For anyone that has no idea where to start, here are some places to start…

• Social Networking sites. - If you have a MySpace, FaceBook, Spaces.Live, etc, why not put your link on there?  If you don’t have one they only take about 10 minutes to create.
• Free Pages. - I doubt these carry a great deal of juice, but what can it hurt?  I stick with well branded operations like pages.google.com.  Word of caution though, don’t make your free page just an ad or keyword plug.  Search engines are getting smarter and looking for real content.  Therefore, anything you post online should be useful and meaningful.
• Directories. - I avoid the link mills and free classifieds.  Been there, done that, doesn’t work.  But large, serious, human-edited directories like the Yahoo directory can be very helpful. 
• Social Bookmarking. - Not to be confused with Social Networking, although some seem to morph together.  I’m talking about digg, del.icio.us, stumbleupon, etc.  Mark your content and if you’re lucky others will help you spread the word.  If not, at least you’ll have a link on a reputable site.

Those are the obvious trees of low-hanging fruit.  If you have any other suggestions to add, please comment so we can all benefit from each others’ experience.