In the world of Internet marketing our plates are pretty full, with all we have to do, like link building, keyword research, website promotion, etc… there just is not enough time in the day. Probably the most time consuming task is writing content. Not only for our niche sites but also for article marketing.

Now, before the flagship bloggers start screaming this is not meant to replace your beautifully and thoughtfully written posts! This is meant more for the money sites.

Outsourcing is a great way to save precious time and brain cells by hiring others to write content and articles and especially for those of us who have several niche sites where writing content becomes an overwhelming task.

Here is a list of the best content and article outsourcing sites for content management on your websites and blogs.

Because these sites provide original content that is copyrighted to you, you can use them for on-site content development, as well as for article marketing and submit using Article Marketer, to Ezine Articles and all the other article sites without being penalized in any way.

You can also use Copyscape to check the content for originality, all though these sites guarantee originality and copyright to you.

Some of these writing outsources are really expensive and some are quite cheap, depending on your needs there is something for everyone. 

24 Writing Outsource Sites

Textbroker - This is the one I use and it’s the best deal in town. Articles start as little as 0.10 a word and you can pick quality levels that cost a little more up to the highly technical articles.

There are tons of excellent authors for every possible niche. Basically you post a job, give the details and then writers send you the finished product to review. Once the author sends you an article you can ask for revisions and deny the article if you are not satisfied or accept if you are. I have only rejected 2 articles out of the hundreds I have ordered.

Turnaround usually within a couple of hours and they are copyscape checked by the website.

Terry Didcott - Terry is a great guy and writes quality blog posts.  200 words : $12; 300 words : $18; 400 words : $24

SEO Content Writers - $6, $10, $14 etc. based on Word Count

Quality Online Content - Starting at $3 per article.

Article Writers - Niche Store Content - Articles starting at $3.50 for 200 words. They also have package deals.

Also offer a unique service that is really a great deal: Squidoo and HUB page creation for $20 each or 5 for $90
Includes:

• 1 Hub or Lens
• Minimum of 800 words of unique content
• Relevant Images
• Keyword optimized
• Bookmarked for Indexing by Search Engines

Articles and Beyond - Starts at $8, based on word count

Have Articles - Packages start at 3 200 word articles for $12 and get cheaper

Article Authors - Articles start at $8 plus they offer press release writing, custom ebook creation and ghost writing

SEO Article Writing Pros - Single articles starting at $13, plus package deals

Articles Alive - Package deals with articles starting as low as $0.023c/word

Website Content Writing - Starts at $10 for 125 words. They offer lots of services, like, technical writing, mini sites, ebook creation, movie reviews, press releases and more.

Pricier Writing Services

Your Article Writer - Articles start at $20. Also, ebook creation, website proofreading and editing.

Article Alley - Starts at $40 per article with package deals.

Article Base - Starts at $40 per article

Constant Content - Pre-posted articles by a variety of authors with various prices for usage, unique and full rights.

Niche Content - PLR and full rights articles, prices vary and can be pricey but there are good articles.

Informative Sources - Starts at $25 per article

Ghostwriter4you - Starts at $24 for 400 words. Specialties: natural health, alternative health, inspiration and Internet marketing

Freelance Writers - Promise well researched and SEO’s content. Starts at $15 per 500 words, package deals get cheaper

Deskins Writing Service - Quotes per order. They offer in depth research and you can buy content packages to build entire sites or blogs full of content that are well researched and SEO’d

Writing and Other Website Services Bid Sites

iFreelance - Freelancers bid on your projects

BizReef - 250,000 freelancers bidding on your project. Includes, writing, web design, graphics, photos and programming.

eLance - All services, writing, tech, programmin, logos, web design and more.

Rent A Coder

For most Internet marketing endeavors there are two main subjects of great interest, SEO and traffic and images are powerful tools for both of those goals.

1. They are really good for the look of the site design, look and enhance the visitor experience, especially with product guides and tutorials of any kind.

2.  They are great for on-site SEO because they add keyword relevancy via image alt tags and this includes any header graphics for site-wide keyword relevancy.

3. They can also bring you lots of website traffic and money.

Search engines cannot read images you must use alt tags for descriptions, which should be keyword relevant to the page. By the way, it is blackhat to give inaccurate descriptions for the purpose of SEO trickery in the Alt Tags.

Image HTML Code:

<img src=”http://mydomain.com/image1.jpg” alt=”Keywords- Descriptions”>

Link Image to URL code:

<a href=”http://mydomain.com/”><img src=”http://mydomain.com/image1.jpg”  alt=”Keywords- Descriptions”></a>

The above code is for images that are hosted on your servers. With Wordpress you can upload images directly from your computer via the Browser Uploader and the Title area in the Image dashboard is the Alt Tag.

The Traffic Connection via Images

The best benefit of images is traffic. Google often shows image results when people search particular keywords.

Lately I think they must really be doing more of this than before because I have 3 new sites that have been getting a lot of traffic from Google Images and its converting to sales.

To make sure my images show up in correct keyword search results I name the image file in detail, for example:

SonyEricsonMobilePhone.jpg
SonyEricson350.jpg

And, I also make sure the Alt Tag is there with the correct descriptive words.

I launched a new site last week and within 4 days I had something like 2,000 visitors all coming via Google Images and 6 sales and that is pretty good for a new site. I think this is especially good for shopping sites that use product images.

What I like to do is place at least 2-3 images on my content pages that are related to the topic of that page. They really make the content pages look better and more professional, especially with guide type pages.

I also make sure to have several images on my home pages like around the welcome message, that is a great place to provide keyword relevace for the sitewide keywords.

Just a quick post for those of you who want to check the speed of your websites and also analyze any issues that maybe causing slow loading of websites and blogs.

Google has a developed a cool free website tool called Page Speed that works with the Firefox add-on Firebug, and it analyzes your websites and offers a list of problems that cause slow loading websites, which we all know are an irritant and can cause visitors to leave before they even enter.

This tool also tells you how to fix these issues for faster load times.

Learn more at Google Webmaster Central Blog - Page Speed and get make sure to get the Firefox Firebug Addon as well as Page Speed, which, has very user-friendly instructions for install as well as use of the tool.

Time and again I see little niche sites using trademark brand names in their url’s. This is a truly reckless and a very stupid thing to do.

Here you are spending valuable time, working hard on your site designing, promoting, link building and your site has high search engine rankings and making you money and then the brand name company notices you and it’s over. At the very least your site will have to come down and at worst the brand name will sue you for copyright infringement.

It is illegal to use any copyrighted brand name trademark within the url or as the name of a site, many people do not even think of this fact and find great keywords that include brand names and use them.

Most of the big companies have a long page of legal terms that list all their trademark names and their variations and they clearly state how they can be used.

When doing keyword research for Internet marketing we inevitably come across tons of great keywords that use trademark names and especially within the electronics and computer niches, Apple ipods, Dell laptops, Sony, Acer laptops, the list is endless and it is really tempting to use them in the url because the ranking power increases greatly when using keywords in the url, but for the long term this is way too risky.

I was reading a blog post the other day, I didn’t save it or I would link to it, but the marketer made the mistake of using Dell in his url and Dell had contacted him and demanded he take his site down. Of course, the site was ranking on page  1 for the keyword, which is how Dell noticed him, and making money and now that’s all over.

Did he have regrets? Of Course! It’s just not worth it.

Can You Rank Without Using Keywords in the URL?

Yes, but it will usually take more keyword anchor text backlinks, how many depends on the competition for those keywords.

So there are two choices:

1. Choose similar non-trademark keywords for the url and do all the on-site optimization for the trademark kw, such as h1 tags, keyword density, title tags etc… and focus your link building to get lots of anchor text links with the trademark keywords.

This is the best option when you come across really highly searched for trademark keywords that have low competition, well worth the effort.

2. Choose completely different keywords within that niche that do not have trademark names.

Lately, I have been hearing from a lot of people who are struggling with getting higher search engine rankings. Mainly this is happening to them because while they find highly searched for keywords, they are not evaluating the competition correctly. Any Internet marketing campaign starts with keyword research, but doing the proper evaluation of competing sites for those keywords is crucial for rank success.

In a nutshell if you want higher search engine rankings you need to identify the competition for respective keywords in the right way as part of an overall keyword research strategy.

It is not a crap shoot and luck has nothing to do with it. It is true that higher search engine rankings depend a lot on keyword anchor text backlinks, but higher search engine rankings are also closely related to the proper gaging of competition for those keywords.

Higher Search Engine Rankings with Keyword Research

Once you find a keyword, you must look at the competition in two steps, both of which are crucial for higher search engine ranks.

1. Google that keyword like this: allintitle:”keyword”. Many people are not doing this, they just search for keyword, this is a mistake.

Searching with the allintitle “keyword” gives you much more precise results of the true competition for the keyword, because it only includes those sites that are trying to rank for those keywords and the results show you those sites that have the keyword in their header/meta/title tag.

But when you search for just the keyword alone then you get all the sites that just mention that keyword on their site in some way and they are not using it site-wide as their main keyword. Those sites that just mention the keyword are easily overcome, as the SE’s, and especially Google will give your site much more relevance and weight as your site uses the keyword site-wide.

So those sites that just mention the keywords will not be your true competition. The allintitle:”keyword”, will show you the true competitors for those keywords that you will need to overcome for higher search engine ranks.

Example:

laptop = 202,000,000
vs.
allintitle:”laptop” = 18,300,000

Big difference there that can make or break the decision to use a certain keyword and how easy it will be to rank for it.

2. Look at websites on the 1st page results. Many avoid doing this, another mistake! See what sites are sitting on page 1 of SERPS and specifically their Page Rank. If they are mostly PR0 - PR3 then the job to get to page 1 and achieve higher search engine ranks will not be very difficult. But, if page 1 is full of PR4, PR5 + sites then it will be difficult to outrank these sites.

First, time is on their side, they are aged and have authority and logistically it will be difficult to catch up. Second, it will take tons more effort and many more backlinks to get to page 1 because you will have to outrank those those sites. I am not saying it can’t be done, but, it is very hard and any seasoned honest SEO will tell you to look elsewhere.

Also, look at their Yahoo backlinks, age of domain and number of indexed pages, all are good indicators of their strength and how difficult it would be to out rank them.

If you look at page 1 results for allintitle:”laptop”, you will see that it’s all authority sites and no way that a small niche site could ever get to page 1 for that keyword.

These steps should be taken not only for your site-wide keywords, but also for the keywords you will use on your inner and sub pages, that is if you want higher search engine rankings for all your website/blog pages.

Tools for Evaluating Page 1 Results

There are two great browser add-ons that will give you all necessary information to evaluate those sites on page 1 directly from the SERPS. These tools are also vital for any Internet marketer to have because they show all possible information about any websites on the web, including your own.

SEO Toolbar for Firefox - Aaron Wall’s (of SEOBook) SEO Toolbar for Firefox browser shows all pertinent info for whatever site you are viewing, like highlighting no-follow links and pages, page rank, number of index pages in major search engines, site age, Alexa, DMOZ listed, Yahoo backlinks, MSN links and lots, lots more. Must Have!

SEO Quake Toolbar - Similar to the Firefox SEO Toolbar, shows pertinent SEO and Internet Marketing information for any website but this one is available for both Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Both of these when enabled (one click on their icons from the browser status bar) will show all selected information in SERP results under each website listing.

They are both similar, however you really need both, because only the SEO Toolbar highlights all no-follow links in red on any website. And, only Seo Quake places the information toolbar at the top of any website page you are visiting and not just in the SERPS so you can view all those stats on a page by page basis.

Make sure once you installed these, to activate them by clicking their icons in the browser bottom status bar, when they are on they will be in color, when off, they are black and white.

Now go get some higher search engine ranks!

A reader emailed me and asked for some advice about internal links:

“link titles” - that extra fill-in-the-blank box when entering a link in a post? Is there any value or is it just something nifty for the reader to mouse over?”

First, he is referring to Internal Links that are links back to your own home page and sub pages within your site’s content with the keywords you are targeting and want to rank for in the anchor text. Learn more at: The importance of Internal Link Building for On-Site SEO.

Purpose of Internal Links and
Title Tag vs. Anchor Text

1. Internal links are good for SEO. But, for SEO purposes the title tag is useless, the keyword anchor text is key to relate the page you’re linking to for the keyword you want it to rank for.

2. Improve Bounce Rate. Internal linking improves bounce rate (the rate at which visitors leave your site) and gives readers more stuff to browse on the site thereby keeping them there longer. The Title Tag, which shows up when the reader mouses over the link, is used for this purpose and is crucial to captivate reader interest and get them to read the contents of those links.

So, for example, while the anchor text (the keyword I want that page to rank for) may be Website Traffic, the Title will show more detail about the link, such as “Website Traffic that Converts are You Missing Out?”

Also, it is irritating to read a page and see internal links and not have any clue what is there, it is always good to give your readers a sneak peek.

Title Tag Code

Most softwares, including Wordpress have a fill in box within the add link area for the title and then it will automatically code in HTML, but here is how the code looks:

<a title=”Sneak Peek” href=”http://domain.com/”>Anchor Keyword</a>

Here is how it looks live with the title tag appearing with a mouseover:

No-Follow/Do-Follow Link Attribute

In Wordpress and most website software links created within text are automatically Do-Follow. For Google, when links are Do-Follow you are passing page rank juice to the url in the link and in essence giving it a vote of confidence helping their SEO efforts vs. No-Follow simply means that Google will not follow the link nor assign any rank to it based on your link juice to them.

When to add No-Follow:

For internal links you always want to pass your own internal page rank, also for reciprocal links and other sites that you may want to give a Google strong backlink to.

But, in reality there are several links that you may not want to do-follow and those need to be set manually as no-follow.

Examples for No-Follow:
Affiliate Links (should always be no-follow)
Authority/Reference sites cited to support content
Referral sites provided for readers
…and any other sites that you don’t need to waste PR juice on

Manually Adding No-Follow Link Attribute:

To add the no-follow attribute you need to go to the HTML source of your web page, in Wordpress it is done in the post/page editor by clicking on the HTML tab and manually adding “rel-”nofollow” as shown below:

<a title=”Sneak Peek” href=”http://domain.com/”rel=”nofollow”>Anchor Keyword</a>

Free Headers - Must See!

By the way, I did not want to do a separate post on this, but you have to check out this website I found with free website/blog headers at: Free Web Page Headers. They are simply gorgeous with tons of themes and absolutely free, just right click and save image as and then resize to fit your needs in a graphics software such as Gimp Image Software, which, by the way is also free, quite famous and a complete graphics/photo editing software.