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Thanks! Eoin

Since making money on the internet is the reason people want to start an Internet Business, it’s time to take a look at what’s involved.

I’ve already mentioned some of the first things you need to do to get started with your online business, but it’s now time to take a look at what is going to make the money?

What are people going to willingly … even happily, give you money for?

Take a look at this video to see some basic steps to finding out.

In my next post, I will show you how to see if people want this information.

Yesterday, I removed my Alex Jeffreys students Blogroll from this blog.

Before I did it, I e-mailed everyone (I think) that was on the Blogroll and informed them of my decision. I received many replies to that e-mail, wanting to know why I decided to do it and why I didn’t just use a “No Follow” PlugIn for the Blog.

This post is to explain why.

Why I removed the Alex Jeffreys students Blogroll

I  decided to remove the blogroll when I realised there was no SEO benefit and when Alex revealed that our blogs are supposed to be Stand Alone and not a group.
Why bring people to your site, so they can go to another students site?

From my experience and the feedback I’ve received from the SEO experts I rely on for up to date information, the only way we would have had a major problem with Google, is if we had tried to put a few 100 links on it.

If we had been able to keep the number of links low, and because we clearly marked our Blogrolls, Alex Jeffreys Students, I would expect that any investigation would have seen that we were not trying to deliberately do anything wrong.

In that situation, the most Google would probably do is give no “credit” for the backlink.

I don’t know this for a fact, but it’s the best I could come up with, as we wouldn’t know for sure unless Google decided to take action.
‘NoFollowup’

I don’t agree with a blanket ‘NoFollowup’ policy, if I decide to link to a site in my blogroll, I want the site to get any benefit it can from the link. The same way that I would like to get the benefit of any backlink to my Blog

There is a built-in No Follow to the parts of Wordpress that I want a No Follow on and I’m happy with that.

Backlinks

One Way Backlinks are links to your web site or blog from another web site, blog, Search Engine, etc. That your web site or Blog does not link back to.

One Way Backlinks to a website are the strongest links you can get, especially if the link is from an authority site.

Two way linking, I link to you, you link to me, are of little value, so I actually want one way backlinks to my site.

So our Blogroll links wouldn’t be worth a lot, as they were two way links.

That’s it, it was a business decision, nothing personal.

Eoin

Once you start using Twitter, you’ll find that there are a LOT of posts on screen. It can make twitter look totally disorganised.

How do you keep an eye on the people on Twitter that you really want to get updates from?

There are two method that I have used.

The first is using Twitter Profiles. basically, you just go to the person’s Twitter Profile and bookmark the page, in it’s own special folder. Then, when you get the time to catch up, just use the bookmark to go to profile and read the person’s past messages.

The second method is to use software to do the job, the best so far seems to be Tweetdeck.

After you install it, it allows you to make groups, and you can move followers into smaller groups in the software, to minimise the clutter.

A great feature of Tweetdeck is it opens automatically opens windows for your @replies and direct messages sent to you, so you don’t miss a message from someone.

As I mentioned before, I’ve been using Twitter since 2007, so I’ve had time to find what works best for me and personally, I’ve found bookmarking better,  but I do think it depends on the individual, as many people couldn’t do without Tweetdeck.

Here is some more information on using Twitter.

Who will Follow you & How do you get Followers?

Basically, people will normally follow others based on their profile …
so, for example, if your profile gives a link to your “Bee keeping” web site, or you mention “Bee keeping” in your profile …  most of the people that follow you will be interested in ….
… yes … “Bee keeping”

If you post interesting sites you have visited, relating to “Bee keeping”, and “Bee keeping” information, then people will probably keep following you and even look out for your posts.

You can of course post about your “Bee keeping” web site or blog also, but not all the time.

So your Twitter Profile is very important, make sure you have a link and some information about who you are.

You can also find interesting “Twitters” to follow, Use http://search.twitter.com/ to search for something you have interest in and you’ll be surprised what you find.

Other ways to use Twitter

Twitter has a lot of uses, none of them obvious until you start using it.

Say for example I need information on a topic, I can send a message via twitter to my friends and if any of them know anything about it, they send back a message.

I see this happen all the time on Twitter and you’d be surprised how fast you get the information you needed.

In business, it can be used to keep in contact with clients or customers that are on twitter, but you need to be careful and never sell to people on Twitter, or people will stop following you.

The very point of Twitter is that anyone can just follow you, and un-follow you, so any slip up can cause you to see followers disappearing.

Twitter Etiquette

With regard to Twitter Etiquette, the main one is that if you are responding to someone on Twitter and the conversation is of no value to anyone else, it’s better to use direct message instead.