…That is unless you use the appropriate system of guest posting.

You see, in today’s world, it means everything for businesses to be able to get to the top of the SERPs. In many cases, the difference between the top spot and the second or third spot can mean millions of dollars. This is true in many different upper tier affiliate programs and networks (like the online school niche and the poker niche).

The problem however is that for many businesses (not just the monster affiliates that are battling for the top 3 spots) is that black-hat SEO (not something that you want to take part in anyways) just isn’t cutting it these days when it comes to getting to the top of the SERPs. Comment spam, content farming, and many other things that used to work in the past, just aren’t working anymore.

This is all thanks to the Panda update (the update that literally killed content farms as well as other SEO tactics that Google frowned upon). What Panda did was force people to become more “white-Hat” whether they like it or not.

Side Note: There will always be people that use black-hat methods. When the algorithms get better at tracking them down, they just get better at “SEO hacking” (as I like to call it) back to the top of the SERPs. You want to stay away from these types of methods and look into more white hat methods when you are choosing a company to provide a link building service as if you use poor techniques, Google will always catch up to you.

So what do I mean when I say that Google has forced SEO’s to become more “white hat” in their link building?

One of the best and most popular ways to build links these days is to populate the number of links they get to their site through contextual links that you can obtain in guest posting.

Guest posting is so awesome because you can do so many things with it, and it is really a lot more than just simple link building. It is building a brand, building relationships with other bloggers out there in the blogosphere, gaining more exposure, reaching new audiences either by using cross-promotional tactics or staying relevant to your niche, and so on and so forth.

That being said, guest posting at a high level is very hard to do. It isn’t easy writing more than 1 high quality post a day (truly high quality) as the more you write – the less you have to write about, and the more frequent you write the less frequently you have something to write about. So when I say “no, it is not possible to do a high level of volume when it comes to guest posting” I am saying that it is impossible to do it without sacrificing quality. However there are some steps to take to actually make it possible and there are some workarounds you can use to solve this problem and change the answer to “yes, it is possible to participate in guest posting at a high volume.”

Use the Right Tools

One of my favorite relationship management software programs to use is called Buzzstream (I am in no way affiliated with them, just a big fan of their product). It is software that allows you to keep track of all your online relationships – something like a backend social media platform that only you have access to. Within it, you are able to keep track of many different things automatically that you would have to otherwise keep track of manually. Data entry is a big time-killer, and you will find that when you start guest posting on a higher level, data entry can consume a large part of your day. Eliminating this time consuming task can allow you to focus more on your writing. There are all sorts of programs out there – do a little research to find one that fits your needs.

Organise Your Email

Since many times the process of guest posting begins in the email, you should make sure that this is where you are the most organised. Many email service providers (my favorite being Gmail) allow you to make labels. You should stop what you are doing right now and start creating labels that can efficiently help you cut time looking through your emails every single day. Create specific labels that make sense to organise the response emails you are getting when doing your email campaigns for guest posting.

Use a Collaborating System

An internal collaborating system will allow you to get things done faster if you are working with others so that you do not have to waste time going back and forth via email or the telephone. You can even use Google plus to do this as you are able to filter who is able to see what so easily when it comes to privacy settings!

When it comes to guest posting, it comes down to being able to get the best quality of content out there on somebody else’s blog. As long as you can do that, you can do it as many times as you would like. Just make sure that you aren’t sacrificing quality for volume.

This article was written by Philip Russell. By day, Philip helps to provide a white hat link building service over at www.inetzeal.com as well as many other SEO services like the SEO reseller service. In his spare time, he likes to contribute to the blogosphere with articles related to the Internet marketing niche, which he has spent many years working in.

1) Set Up a Facebook Page
Social media is becoming an integral part of the daily lives of many people, from teenagers to senior citizens. Setting up a Facebook page allows you to communicate with your customers through status updates and other news. Best of all, when one customer ‘likes’ your status or your page then your business is exposed to their list of friends, giving you even more publicity and customer reach. It’s free to set up a page and requires only a few minutes of effort a day to keep it up to date.

2) Send Out Press Releases
An advertisement in a newspaper, radio show or on television can cost you thousands of dollars, but it won’t cost you anything to send out a press release. If your business is doing something new and interesting or if a noteworthy event occurs, send out a press release to media outlets and they may well write a story or cover it on a show. This can get you a high level of publicity for a small amount of effort. If possible, try to include a photograph or video with your press release to maximise your exposure.

3) Old-Fashioned Fliers
With all the emphasis on social media nowadays it can be easy to forget about the tried and tested methods of marketing. If your business is in an area with a high level of foot traffic, spend some time handing out fliers to passers-by informing them of any deals or special offers that you have on at the moment. This can be especially important for new businesses, as potential customers may not even know that your business exists. You can also post fliers through the letterboxes of close-by homes. Including coupons or discounts on the flier will make people more likely to keep them and visit your business.

4) Set Up a Blog
If you have an online store then you want people who search for items that you sell to be able to find it. One good way to increase your online presence is to set up a useful blog. Rather than simply trying to sell your products, focus on giving helpful advice to people who could benefit from the product or service that you are selling. Not only does this make you seem knowledgeable and engender feelings of goodwill towards you, but it also increases the chances that your articles (and so links to your online shop) will be shared by readers with their friends.

Marketing a business without spending a lot of money can be a challenge, but by putting these tips into practice you can vastly increase your publicity without spending much money.

Rachel is a business blogger currently on the lookout for businesses for sale.

There are a number of common optimisation problems that you should be aware of.

Look at your source code

Looking at the source code is probably the first thing that you should do when trying to discover the optimisation problems your website might be dealing with. For example, you can see if your code is using the H1 tag correctly, along with other tags. This is very important as the search engines need to see these tags in order to determine the ranking position your website earned.

You can look at your source code by using a tool or piece of software that will look over your website code very quickly. It will then tell you which meta-tags you should be using. Using SEO tools are very useful ways to increase your rankings in the search engines.

Watch your rankings

Constantly checking your rankings in the search engines is another problem that many webmasters deal with. This can waste a lot of time during the day and is not very productive as rankings are unlikely to change on a daily basis. Instead of this, you can check your rankings on a weekly or even monthly basis.

Web content

Content is very important when it comes to optimisation for the search engines. Content is important in order to increase the quality of your website, and therefore your readers. If you provide fresh and unique content to your readers then you will gain very good rankings with the search engines (when you also use keyword optimised text). It is very important that you strike a good balance between the content and the keywords, so that it doesn’t come across as spammy.

On page optimisation

As well as the content on your website, you also need to look at the other factors that will influence your optimisation. These things are known as on page SEO factors. For example, the title of each page should contain the main keyword phrase of that particular page. Ensure that you title each page according to the keyword, as this is how both the search engines and readers will find your pages.

Also ensure that the first sentence of each page contains the keyword phrase. This is because the search engine robots scan the top of the page first to find out the subject matter of the web page.

Aim to make your content as natural as possible, but add a few extra keywords in there for SEO purposes.

Headlines

With Twitter you only have 140 characters, so many times your tweet can serve as a long headline, which is a very effective method of use. The best marketers are able to use good headline writing skills in order to grow their Twitter followers, as they use tested psychological concepts. If you want to understand this then simply look at any good sales letter and customise the headline for your own tweet.

Display your personality

Don’t try to be someone that you’re not on Twitter. This is something that many people get trapped by as they imagine they need to put on a false persona to attract a growing list of followers. This is not the case. It is now much better to be authentic and to show your true personality. This will let people know who you really are and get to know you.

Always tweet in a way that is a natural part of your personality. You can be funny, honest and genuine at the same time. Obviously not everyone is going to like you, but you are looking to develop a set of followers that connect with you and will follow you for a long time.

Look at trends

You can build your followers by finding and identifying certain trends that are occurring. Trends are likely to be issues that other people will find very interesting, so it is a great way to start up a conversation with your followers and attract new ones. It is important that you focus on trends that are in some way related to your business or niche market. You can always find a way to connect certain issues to your niche market, as long as you think creatively.

Be helpful

When using Twitter, you need to think about ways that you can help other people. This is a great mindset to adopt, and will quickly help you to increase your number of followers. There are many ways that you can be generous to other Twitter users. For example, you can answer questions that other people have asked, you can check websites for usability or take the time to complete a survey. You can also use a little time to review products, services or to offer news on new opportunities available on the Internet.

Support other users

All businesses on Twitter want to build their followers and generate leads to their website. If you can offer support then you will gain followers, as many people pay attention to this. It costs you nothing to promote other businesses, so you should make tweets that offer entertaining remarks or reviews of other products. Everyone appreciates support and it says a lot about your character.

1. Interact with your consumers. The internet can be likened to a two-way street where it’s not just the businesses who can reach out to consumers but the latter can air their suggestions and complaints for businesses to respond to as well. One easy way for local businessmen to market their business to prospects and consumers is to capitalize on this by providing useful information and giving reasons for how consumers benefit from purchasing goods or availing of services from them.

2. Optimize your keywords for a specific area. This is especially important because you are operating a local business which means that optimizing for keywords without place modifiers, although still useful, does not have to be necessary. This is because you do not your website to show up in the first page results for the entire world to see; you just need your website to rank high for local searches.

3. Claim your Google Places listing. This search engine giant has been wooing local businesses and it’s time that you take advantage of this. When you run a search which includes a place modifier, you will notice a map in the results page as well as seven to eight links to local businesses. The organic results are pushed at the bottom of the results page. With the help of local searches, local businesses can rank higher than most websites, an easy way to increase visibility and traffic to your local website.

4. Add your contact information in each page. The reason for why consumers are online researching for different local businesses is because they do not know any establishment which sells the products they are looking for. They’re willing to buy something but they first need to know where your store is located. For this reason, make your contact information visible in every page to save them the trouble of finding it.

Your author Chris likes to write about local search marketing services and provides lead generation services to small businesses with his company local business marketing