quick comment i wanted to make on the fan art issue, that i would’ve put on twitter if it weren't for its stupid character limit
i really really do understand both sides. in all honesty, im not mad at all, bc i think the issue is more with twitter itself than either dream or the artists, but tensions got rlly high last night and i feel for everyone that was affected. i do wanna say tho, the twitter algorithm really puts artists at a h u g e disadvantage.
to everyone and anyone affected, pls feel free to talk to me? and if you have fan art, feel free to message me w/ it. im v far from anything resembling a big account both here and on twitter, but i will definitely boost ur art if u send it ! we really can't expect ccs to see or boost our art, just from the crappiness of social media algorithms alone, but when artists work together to help each other and such we can still make sure that all of our art is appreciated and loved by the community. love y'all !! <3 <3 <3
more hypothetical discussion and thoughts under the cut
again, i am a fanartist. i am also a fanfic writer, and i started on tumblr, so i know that bc of my experiences, im gonna be a lot less? affected? i guess by limited interactions from ccs. on tumblr, there’s no way you're gonna get noticed by ccs (which is a perk, sometimes) and when you’re a fanfic writer you really dont even ask for positive attention you really just want people to stop giving you negative attention haha
that being said, i understand people’s frustration with dream bc he hasn’t been interacting as much with art. i maintain that this frustration should be more directed to the twitter algorithm, tho.
(who’s ready for some hypothetical math?)
let’s say that an artist takes 1 hour to make one piece of art. this is honestly, really really dang fast, many detailed full pieces of art take 2-3 hours at least, and many others will take 8, 10, or even more. but we’re gonna give the artist the benefit of the doubt anyways and say that they take 1 hour.
Now how about stan accounts? Let’s say that they make 5 posts an hour. This is honestly, probably a low ball! Each post takes a few seconds to make, a lot of the time, and plenty of accounts are much more active than posting every 12 minutes. But we’re gonna, again, make this situation the best possible situation for the artist, and let’s say that the stan account only posts 5 times an hour. Even with this situation, for each post that the artist makes, assuming that they @ dream every time, he’s going to see 5 posts by a stan account.
Artists also tend to be very outnumbered on twitter, so let’s say for every artist, there are 10 stan accounts. Let’s assume that they also make 5 posts an hour. So for each artist that shows up in dream’s notifications, he’s going to see 50 posts by stan accounts.
But artists get fatigued! We’re going to go with a high estimate again with 4 fully finished pieces a day. (this is insane! keep in mind, even if we’re lowballing the time put in, this is still 4 hours a day of art. for most artists, their fully finished pieces take 2, 3, 4 hours. four pieces a day would put them at 8-16 hours of work!!). on the other hand, stan account posts take a lot less time to make, and are much less likely to make them fatigued. Therefore, we can assume that the stan accounts, posting 5 times an hour, can stay active for 8 hours a day.
What does this put us at? For every post that an artist makes with a fully finished piece of art, dream is seeing 100 notifications from stan accounts. This doesn’t even include how dream is more likely to respond to those who interact with his tweets, which is nigh impossible for artists because they cannot make a piece of art to reply to his posts in the ~5 minutes that he will look at the replies to the post he posts. I also made this situation the best possible situation for the artist. In reality, I can only make about one fully finished piece a day, and more often will go two or three days without posting. There are also far more stan accounts than artists, stan accounts are often active for longer than 8 hours and post more than once every 12 minutes. The real ratio might be more like 1 in 200, 300, 400. Just because of the algorithm, artists are pretty dang screwed.
Dream has been making efforts to help with this, such as through the dreamfanart tag! this manages to filter out all of the stan accounts, and when fan artists use it he’s going to be much more likely to see the art. even so, the amount of artists he will actually interact with is very low. it’s just the way the website works, when his notifications are definitely constantly flooded, when artists are so easily drowned out by the literal army of stan accounts on twitter. in the end, it’s really up to artists to hype each other up and support each other. My best advice for if you want more appreciation and interaction are:
1. use the dreamfanart tag! again, this manages to filter out most of the stan account activity, and will help other people to find your art if you’re a relatively new artist
2. self advertise! retweet your own art, reply with your art under people’s posts hyping up artists, dont be afraid to put yourself out there. if you want your voice to be heard in the sound of all these other accounts, you have to be loud!
3. interact with other artists! by helping and hyping up other artists, theyre more likely to do so with you. artists are a pretty small population of dttwt, and we have to support each other to get anywhere. retweet, like, reply to people’s art. follow dttwt artists and support them!
4. love your art for what you’ve already done. this is the hardest part, especially when you put hours into a piece and see it get like, less than 10 likes. i have been there, and it sucks. but your art is Good. you put your time, effort, and heart into that, and regardless of how other people respond, you did good and im proud of you. <3
a last note: i have to admit, i wasn't the most comfortable with all of the dttwt artists bullying and venting their frustrations at dream, specifically, for “ignoring” fan artists. could he have interacted more? definitely. but i dont think he was by any means trying to “ignore” fan artists. his notifications are swamped, his tl is swamped. twitter works in a way where a day or two after you make a piece of art, it’s pretty much buried and lost forever. last night he was just trying to do a good thing by shouting out some small accounts in the community. fan artists, i am a part of you, and i feel your pain and frustration, but please don’t speak out of a place of anger. it’s far too easy to say something, publicly, that you’ll regret. i do not condone any of the hate sent anywhere, especially to fan artists last night, but let’s all remember to be kind and build each other up, ok? We’re all in this together, ccs, stan accounts, fan artists. we’re all doing this because we love the dteam and the content they make. don’t lose sight of why we’re here in the first place <3
again, love you guys so much. take care of yourselves! im proud of all of you, fan artists, fanfic writers, any and all creators, as well as those of you who are just here to express your love for the dteam. be kind and support one another, ok? <3
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PIN’s: The Future of Private Link Building
1,116 Comments 20 minutes
What I’m going to reveal in this blog post is a strategy that will likely weed out a certain section of the ViperChill audience. In other words, I’m fully aware that this blog post will make a particular type of person unsubscribe from ViperChill and likely never return. It’s certainly not going to end up on the homepage of Inbound.org.
If you are loyal to Google guidelines, the teachings of blogs like Moz and love playing by the book, then you’ll probably realise with this article that we possess a very different perspective.
When I first started my internet journey – where I spent day and night trying to make a living online – I tried and tested more website ideas and angles than you would believe.
Today, I’m still pushing the boundaries to see what works. These boundaries most often pertain to SEO, since it’s what I’ve enjoyed the most over the last 11 years.
I’m in the fortunate position that my business it not tied to some employer who dictates how I have to do things when it comes to promoting web properties. As such, I’m always willing to ignore everything I previously thought about marketing and to be open to new ideas and opportunities.
This blog post details one such opportunity, but I realise it will not be for everyone. Not everyone is the position to implement it for their online business, and even if you are, you may question the ethics of what is coming up.
With that disclaimer out of the way, today I’m going to introduce you to the world of PIN’s. Just before I do that, I want to talk about why I think they’re necessary.
I Predict We’ve Got Four to Five Years Left to ‘Do SEO’ As We Know It
This isn’t some “SEO is Dead” article you see go viral in the SEO blogosphere every six months, but a genuine prediction based on how Google search results have evolved over the last few years.
Google make all of their money via ads so quite simply want more people to click on them (and more often). The less success people have with SEO, the more likely they are to move to Google’s advertising platform.
Long gone are the days when we’re presented with just 10 blue links on a page.
The White Space Between Search Results Has Increased
It’s known that the higher up the page a search result, the more clicks it will receive. Therefore, when organic search results are pushed further down the page they’re going to be receiving fewer and fewer clicks. Not only are they lower down now in mobile results due to spacing, but the change is being tested across desktop results as well.
The search result on the left includes the new extra spacing with the ads taking up far more vertical space than the search result on the right (graphic via SEMPost).
There Are More ‘Featured Snippets’ Than Ever Before
There isn’t much to say on this one besides feature snippets are to be found for millions of search queries in every industry imaginable. What, when, how and why questions are often answered with a featured snippet box.
This not only pushes ‘organic’ search results further down in search results, it also attempts to give you the answer right from the results page. We can argue whether or not it’s useful for searchers, but for SEO’s, it gives new meaning to having the top result in Google.
‘Map Packs’ Completely Changed Local Search Results
Some call them ‘map packs’, some ‘the local pack’ and some even call them the ‘snack pack’. Whatever your term of choice, after being introduced a few years ago SEO’s have been trying to figure out how to get themselves and their clients into the pack to compensate for a lack of expected search results.
After all, these local listings take up a large portion of screen real estate.
I’m not complaining about this change; I’m simply pointing it out. There’s no doubt it makes search results more useful and that is Google’s aim (usually) after all. While Google did reduce the listings from seven to three back in August of 2015, the redesign of the listings with adding spacing means not much changed in terms of organic results being seen.
Those Map Packs Now Contain Ads, Too
We’re not going back to Google updates of a few years ago to make a point about Google evolving. Just last month Google announced that the map / local / snack pack would now include ads, as shown below.
This image is a mockup by Barry Schwartz, though the real thing looks very similar
It’s interesting to follow both PPC and SEO guys on Twitter and see the difference in reaction. PPC guys are over the moon since it gives them more traffic opportunities for their clients and SEO guy’s, well…I’m sure you can guess the reaction.
Based on how Google’s past, it’s not one of surprise.
They Have All The Answers
The knowledge graph was released in May of 2012 and it’s almost disappointing when you don’t see it for queries when looking for quick answers. For example, when I want to see how my football team, Newcastle, have fared against Liverpool, I literally don’t have to click anywhere.
Whether you want to learn about how old someone is, what 12 x 56 is or who discovered Radium, Google has the results right there for you. As a searcher, I love these quick answers, but as an SEO, it’s just one more thing which has lessened the likelihood of people clicking on my website if it doesn’t appear in this box.
They Continue to Make People Scared of Link Building
Google are great at making people fearful of performing any type of SEO. After all, this was the company that introduced the rel=”nofollow” attribute so we could link out to websites without giving them “link juice”.
That isn’t the real headline for the article – I’ve got to have some fun in these serious posts – but Google have publicly cracked down on pretty much everything when it comes to link building. The list includes, but is not limited to:
Guest posting for links
Using directories for links
Utilising private blog networks
Adding links to website themes
Adding do-followed links to widgets
They literally created a ‘no-follow’ tag
That’s not all; they openly share how much human intervention is involved in finding people abusing the guidelines, rather than algorithmic. This tweet speaks volumes.
Anglo Rank was a small network being promoted on the Black Hat World forums.
Just think about this for a second. One of Google’s first employees (and former Head of Web Spam), worth millions of dollars, dedicated his time to actively targeting a tiny little network on some private forum just to scare other people away from doing the same.
The simple fact is that Google can’t figure out with absolutely certainty which links are earned, or bought, or manipulative, very effectively.
Now I’m not taking anything away from Google here. Their company is worth hundreds of billions and mine, well…isn’t. They have undoubtedly created the world’s most sophisticated search engine.
But as I said earlier, it’s far easier for them to get us to police ourselves than it is for them to police us.
Big Brands Dominate the Long Tail
As SEO becomes increasingly difficult and searches are more and more dominated by big brands, the long tail will be the final frontier of search traffic opportunities.
When I said we only have a few years left to do SEO as we know it, the long tail will be where the majority of SEO’s focus their time through on-site SEO changes and content marketing.
While we’ll still have opportunities for SEO to ‘work’, long tail search results just don’t seem to be as diverse as they were in the past. It makes sense to me that Google have some kind of ‘filter’ whereby if they’re not sure what to list for a search result, they simply show more results from an authoritative site to be on the safe side.
Logically, this makes sense, but as an SEO, it could be a worrying sign of things to come. You can see this lack of diversification above in my screenshot of the map packs as well, with Yelp dominating the first three organic search results.
The Lack of Diversity in Search Results Will Only Get Worse
If you’ve only found ViperChill recently then it was likely because of my recent article, How 16 Companies Are Dominating the World’s Google Search Results. It has been shared thousands of times on social media and been read over 40,000 times, making it one of the most popular articles I’ve ever written here.
In the article I highlighted how Hearst Media were using their brands like Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan and Woman’s Day to point footer links to a new website of theirs, BestProducts.com.
That strategy, which would get the rest of us penalised, continues to work incredibly well.
“Just follow the Google guidelines.” Why?
Since that post, I was also contacted by a few people associated with the brands I had featured. One of those people I talked with was Tre who works in the growth department of About.com. I had already mentioned in the article how About planned to spin off into many more verticals over the coming months, which he confirmed.
I admit I’m being a little pedantic with my highlighting, but when you’re Director of Growth for About.com you’re going to share which terms are driving traffic to one site with the team that is in charge of another.
I appreciate Tre’s replies and I’m sure there’s only so much he can say, but About.com’s real goal with their spin-off’s is to no doubt own ten search results, instead of one.
PIN’s: My Version of Fighting Back While I Still Can
When I talked about why I started using private link networks and then continued to use them after Google’s “crackdown”, my primary reason was very simple: Writing quality content and getting ‘whitehat’ links wasn’t working for me. I was being outranked by people with crappy link networks who could build their own ‘relevant’ links on a whim and I decided to fight back.
You could view PIN’s in a similar light. I am utilising them because we’re not competing on a fair playing field, and what is supposed to work is very rarely what ranks, at least in the industries that I operate in.
While I don’t wish to reveal those exact industries, let me give you an example closer to home, with ViperChill.
I will say in advance that this is a search term I really don’t care about ranking for. I have no idea how many times it’s searched for each month and honestly, I doubt it gets many searches at all.
Here are the search results for the query, ‘Future of blogging’.
My site is usually either in 10th or 11th for that term, yet by every SEO standard metric I should be number one.
I have more links to the page ranking than anyone else
I have more ‘domain authority’ than most other pages
My title tag seems more relevant than half of them
Yet in order to get more traffic for this search term, which I think I ‘deserve’ from a 10,000 word article which took me weeks to put together, all I have to do is one thing.
It’s not getting more links. It’s not improving my on-site SEO. It’s not building better connections with influencers.
All I need to do to get my traffic back is to add a sentence to the start of the article which says ‘Last updated: July 25th 2016‘.
This is a search result where how recent an article was posted is more important than whether it’s actually a good page to rank.
I don’t actually have to update the article; I literally just need to make it appear to Google – thanks to that one sentence – that my article was updated recently. This one sentence, this ‘trick’, would bring me back the ranking I feel I deserve. (Though, again, I doubt this even gets searched for. It’s just an example).
This is not theory. If you look at the first sentence of my WordPress SEO guide that’s exactly what I’ve done before, with great results.
This little change is not too dissimilar to what I need to rank in other industries. I don’t need better on-site SEO. I don’t need to build natural links from relevant sites through content marketing. I simply need to add more domains to my private link network and write more guest blog posts.
Yes, these are both tactics that are looked down upon by Google, but they still work incredibly well. In 2014 when I covered Google’s crackdown on private blog networks I did mention that they would now be less likely to care about private link networks.
In my exact words:
What I expect to happen is that Google will ease off looking into private networks. The damage is mostly done.
Why? Because they’ve already made people scared to build them. The best way to deal with people trying to game the system is essentially making us as a community police ourselves so we don’t try to game the system in the first place.
The continued use of private link networks and guest posting for SEO is part of the reason why I will get a lot of criticism from this post. How to implement these tactics more effectively, which I’ll talk about later, will be the larger reason for criticism.
The Approach to Take
One of the first ideas I had when I started out online was to assemble a team of people who could work together to build a huge website. At the time I was following the growth of TechCrunch and Mashable and saw how quickly they were able to grow thanks to having a team of writers.
My idea was to essentially connect a team of people who all worked on one website and in return everyone had a percentage ownership. The logic being that working as a team would result in the site growing faster and even if revenue or a sale price was split, we would have more success than working on our own.
It’s a similar idea a number of ViperChill readers had after reading my last article on the small number of brands dominating Google search results.
While it’s a nice idea, in theory it doesn’t work so well.
Some will want to dictate the direction of a site that others don’t agree with and more importantly, some people will put in far more work than others. If you’re writing more content than others and your articles are getting better traction, you’re going to want to increase your ownership compared to someone barely putting in any effort.
There is another option you can utilise if you wish to team up with others though, and that’s a PIN.
It comes with all of the benefits of creating your own team, without the downsides of worrying about who is contributing what work.
What the Hell is a PIN?
A PIN is a play on the acronym PBN, which is commonly referred to as a private blog or link network.
I’ve received my fair share of critics over the years for talking about PBN’s and their success – and continuing to build them – but there’s a reason I do: They work.
I simply don’t believe that playing by Google’s rules is always going to get me the results I want. In some industries I wouldn’t make the money I do without them. I don’t use them for clients, but do for my own websites.
Going forward, I think PIN’s are going to be crucial to my success in certain industries, and I think they are going to be crucial to a number of people reading this as well.
PIN, stands for Private Influencer Network.
Before you think that just means making some “friends” online and building up your connections, allow me to continue.
I define a Private Influencer Network as a group of people looking to rank their websites in Google in similar industries (but not the same) who work together to help each other reach their objectives.
Essentially, they use any opportunities they have to build links (such as private blog networks, guest blogging, interviews, blogger round-ups) to send backlinks to other people in their network. In return, other people do the same for them.
The end result is that for the work you would do to build ten backlinks, you can get twenty to forty (of the same quality) in return.
A $100,000/m PIN Operating Right Under Your Nose
I first came across a Private Influencer Network a little over a year ago. A few ‘influencers’ in a particular field were using their private blog networks to – quite simply – link to each other.
I didn’t think much of the tactic at the time, until I found another example of this happening just a few months later.
Then three months after that, I found my third example. This time it really got my attention.
A group of just five people (from what I could tell) were ranking in one of the most profitable industries online and undoubtedly making over $100,000 per month in the process. I operate in the niche, which is how I found their collaboration, and know the numbers very well.
This is when I started working on building my own, PIN.
Finally, the idea to write this blog post came to me when I found yet another PIN. One of the members of this network is one of the most well-known SEO’s on the planet and is reading this article. He already “knows I know.”
If you follow the SEO blogosphere, you’ll undoubtedly know who he is.
One of the sites they are promoting also very likely also makes more than $100,000 per month. I’m not involved in the niche, but I know others who are and with the rankings they have, those numbers wouldn’t surprise me.
I reached out to the owner of the ‘money site’ they had all teamed up to promote. I keep a private database of paid link opportunities and one of them costs more than $10,000 per year. I found their website there, so sent the main owner an email.
One months revenue spent on link building is a small price to pay when you’re doing huge numbers thanks to gaming Google.
While some would view four to five guys linking to each other to make more than $100,000/m from a one-year-old website as shady and unethical, I’m personally impressed at how well they are crushing a very competitive niche so quickly.
While there is a chance that a PIN could be “outed”, the last two examples I found were so well put together that I’m almost certain I was the only person who connected the dots.
If you’re not trying to rank in an obvious industry that’s constantly monitored by SEO’s – like blogging and internet marketing – the chances of your PIN becoming uncovered are relatively low. Much lower than having your private blog network discovered.
As you’ve probably already figured out more succinctly than I am at getting to the point, members of a PIN use any opportunity they have to ‘link out’ to take care of their whole team.
While I’ve been fairly slow on the uptake to building my own PIN, I have been slowly building them in a few industries over the last few months and I’m excited to see what the future holds.
I didn’t want to write this blog post until I had a better understanding of how to build and manage them, because managing them is actually the most time-consuming part.
You have to make sure everyone in the network is pulling their weight and giving (and getting) equal opportunities. Opportunities, of course, is code for links.
A Real-World Example of How a PIN Works
One of the websites I find myself checking for ideas and inspiration is Entrepreneur.com.
I recently found an article on the website, published by a contributor and not a staff member, which could serve as a great example for how PIN’s work.
Let me say it in bold (for those just skimming) that the example below is totally legitimate.
I’m highlighting it because it’s natural, but could have been used in a non-natural way.
While the screenshot below might be the longest ever embedded by me into a blog post, there is something much more important that I have to say about it.
There is no specific reason I have singled out this article. It was simply the first article on Entrepreneur.com when I was looking to give an example for this post. Proof of that is the date. This article is going live on July 25th whereas this article I’m featuring below is from July 22nd.
It just happened to be a great example to see a PIN (or what could be a PIN), in action.
I made the article a little shorter than the original (the screenshot was long enough, I know) but you can see the majority of it here. The first thing you’ll notice is four mentions of Weekdone. Unsurprisingly, these are all links to the company that the author works for.
A good guest article, utilised for a PIN, will link to other recommended resources that are connections of the author. The links should be relevant, but also to other people in your network so that you are ‘owed’ a link back.
Now on the surface (without my large logos stuck over the text) this looks like a totally normal article (albeit with a little overuse of linking back to the authors employer). If you do a little more research, you’ll learn that the other two highlighted companies, Zlien and Mavrck, are actually clients of Weekdone.
In other words, Weekdone likely earn some bonus points from their clients for mentioning them in an article on Entrepreneur.com. I see nothing wrong with this and it’s a one-off occurrence so it’s not done for SEO manipulation; I’m just trying to show how a PIN link looks without actually revealing one.
Essentially everything looks natural until you look under the hood. It’s normal for a client to talk about a company they use, as shown below where the relationship continues.
Once again, I’m not saying they’re doing anything wrong here. It was one of the top articles on Entreprenuer.com as I was finishing up this article (the post is only three days old) and happened to make a good example.
The truth is that Entrepreneur.com, along with Forbes and the business sections of the Huffington Post, are great resources to see mini PIN’s in action. The people who write content for these sites generally try to get as much out of writing for them as possible.
They link to their friends, and their friends link to them.
A PIN in Action
I wanted to create a graphic for this section but your understanding of the concept is far more important than your ability to decipher my poor Photoshop skills. Before it gets a little bit crazy, I have assumed that there are just two ‘influencers’ in your private network.
The yellow box is your money website (the website you wish to rank in Google).
The brown boxes are private blog sites you own (optional).
The grey boxes are link opportunities you’ve created through guest posting or similar.
While the graphic is admittedly not the prettiest (I did warn you), the concept is very simple.
Some of your private network domains will point links to the other influencer in your network, as will some of your guest posts on other websites.
In return, the other influencer will do the same for you.
Once you start adding more people to your network, things get a little bit more messy, but the principle remains the same.
When I try to visualise this with four influencers as part of your PIN it gets a little ugly, but here goes.
The golden rule you need to remember is this: If you receive a link from someone from a specific source, you need to replicate the link in kind.
So if you receive a link in a guest post from someone in the network, you need to give them a link from a guest post you write.
Essentially meaning that the work you do for 10 links for yourself gets you 30-40 links in return. This number varies because sometimes it’s a bit risky (such as using blog networks) to link out to the same sites which are linking to you but you still receive more links than you would have without your network, for essentially the same work.
The Types of Links Which Are Shared
I originally tried to write these guidelines as if there were four people in a PIN but it became a little bit too complicated to read (and write). Instead, I’ll assume there are only two people in your PIN and show you what types of links you could generate or other ways to help each other.
If there are more people in your PIN, which I highly recommend, then understand that Influencer #1 will sometimes link to #2, while #4 sometimes links to number #3 and so on. It’s basically just varying the following link opportunities to keep things fair for everyone.
The types of reciprocation that can take place.
You can tweet or Facebook share an article from another influencer
You can retweet or publicly thank another influencer for mentioning you
You can utilise a guest post opportunity to link to a relevant quote or article from another influencer
If you use build private blog networks, you can use some to link to other influencers
If you find articles where comments drive traffic to your site, you can inform other influencers
When being interviewed you can link to a relevant quote or article from another influencer
Sharing link opportunities you find on your site they can utilise for theirs
Offering website design advice
Utilising Web 2.0 properties to give links and get the same in return
If performed properly, there is no reason to hide that you have a connection with other influencers in your niche. The only thing you would have to care about is that the obvious mission for having these connections is to help each other’s search engine rankings.
If you are outside of the internet marketing world you don’t really have to worry about other people finding your private link networks, but always keep a few rules in mind to avoid footprints.
Ready to Build Your Own PIN? Here’s My Advice
If you see the benefits of utilising a PIN for your own search engine rankings, and actually getting more than rankings in return, then here’s my advice for setting one up.
A PIN Must Have a Leader
As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t want to write about this topic until I had attempted to do it myself.
My short but relevant experience tells me that there has to be one person (or two at most) who is in control of the group you gather together to make sure that everyone in the team is pulling their weight.
In other words, you need to make sure that the people who are receiving links are doing their part in giving them as well.
The leader must also make sure that members of the team are active. It’s no use everyone playing along for the first few weeks while the idea is hot and then dropping off the map.
Bringing Together Your Team
While some of you may be excited about getting started on this – and some horrified that I’m even talking about it – there’s one important caveat to keep in mind.
Do not bring anyone into your team who has never shown any self-drive in terms of search engine optimisation.
If someone:
Doesn’t already have a website they wish to rank
Doesn’t regularly produce content for their own sites or others
Doesn’t have at least a basic knowledge of SEO fundamentals
Don’t invite them to be part of your network.
I assumed this would be the case from the start of building my own, but I’m even more sure of it after trying to get other people excited about the idea who weren’t actually willing to contribute to the rest of the teams’ success as a whole.
A simple test to see if someone would be right to join your network is to send a candidate over to this article and have them read about this concept for themselves.
If they don’t immediately “get” the idea and they don’t reply with something like “I can see this working well” then it’s not someone you want on your team.
You shouldn’t have to convince anyone to work with you. They should see it for themselves. If they’re against it because of ethical reasons, then that’s totally fine (and understandable) but again, it’s a sure sign that they’re not someone you want in your team.
As far as communication goes, there are a few platforms out there that would be useful.
You could create a Skype group where people get together. I certainly recommend that everyone get on a call together at least some point to make sure you all understand each other’s roles.
Slack is another good option, as you can keep up to date via their mobile app and have a history of previous agreements.
A private Facebook group is another good option.
Both Slack and Facebook allow there to be a leader who can add or remove members to the network.
The platform is really up to you. My only recommendation is not to lay out all your plans in Google Docs ;).
Take One Step Back from Your Current Niche
It should be obvious but I’ll state it anyway: You don’t want to work with people who are targeting the same keywords as you.
However, you still want to connect with people who are in a relevant niche (I’ll give you the chance to connect with ViperChill readers at the bottom of this post). For instance, if you’re promoting your real estate website then it makes sense to team up with other realtors, just not for the same region.
If you’re in the weight loss niche then it makes sense to collaborate and grow your audience with other people in that niche, but target different keywords and / or promote different types of products and services.
Whatever niche you’re in, imagine you’re shopping for that specific industry on Amazon but go back one category to find people to work with. Again, I’ll give you the opportunity to find PIN partners at the end of this article.
Footprints are Hard to Find, But Still Be Careful
From the PIN’s I’ve discovered and the ones I’m working on myself, I’ve found you really don’t have to be too careful when it comes to leaving some kind of footprint. After all, it doesn’t ring any alarm bells when Copyblogger keeps mentioning Problogger or Mashable keep linking to TechCrunch. It’s “natural” and something you can expect from the owners of websites who have developed friendships with each other.
Where you have to be careful is primarily with private blog networks and not creating footprints of clearly linking back and forth to each other from the same sites at all times. Of course, you don’t have to use private networks, but remember for each link you give out, you can get three to four back, so it can dramatically speed up the process of ranking your site.
You Need to Know How the Microphone Works
And how to sing.
One of my favourite authors, Daniel Priestley, said the following in his book The Key Person of Influence;
You don’t need to know how the microphone works, you need to know how to sing.
He was referring to the technology behind the microphone and how, when it was first invented, your time would have been better spent learning how to sing than how a microphone worked, if you wanted to reach a lot of people.
When it comes to ranking in Google, I don’t think that’s the case. You need to know how the microphone works and how to sing.
There are going to be people who worry I’m encouraging armies of people to come together to take over the Google search results.
The truth is that I don’t believe people who can’t sing – in this case, can’t produce great results for search engine users – will have much long-term success.
There’s no point putting all of the work into your PIN if the end result is going to be a crappy website.
The third example of a PIN that I mentioned earlier now easily does in excess of over $100,000 per month. What I didn’t yet tell you is that they built a fantastic resource for their industry. The site doesn’t have many pages (less than 50), but each one genuinely solves a question that a particular searcher is looking for an answer to.
I don’t view utilising a PIN as a way to “sneak” up the Google results and send thousands of visitors to an ad-riddled website.
Instead, I see it as a way to help you start getting great content noticed that could attract natural links once it is.
I mentioned at the start of this article that I would likely weed out some of the audience of ViperChill. I want to make it clear though that I’m not trying to help people with shitty websites rise to the top of Google.
While I believe there is a great opportunity here, it isn’t easy. Turning the concept into reality sounds much easier on paper (or in a blog post).
The truth is that when it comes to making money online, most people are, quite simply…lazy.
They may be excited about this idea for a few weeks but if you’re going to use this to rank in an industry worth ranking for, you should be aiming for keywords that take a few months to get any serious traction for.
Links Aside, The Connections You Build Can Be Invaluable
I’ve already briefly talked about the other benefits this kind of network can have, besides link building.
You can connect with people who have a genuine passion for your industry who in turn spur you on to put more work into your site and help you improve your online ventures. Whether that’s giving advice on your design, your writing, your strategy or anything else.
Working online can seem lonely at times, especially if your offline friends don’t have an inkling to do anything online. When you’re aiming to make money from your web projects it’s nice to find other people on the same journey.
In my future of blogging post a few years ago, one of the most popular on the site, I mentioned how some bloggers had worked together to help grow their respective audiences in the same industry.
TechCrunch and Mashable grew incredibly quickly at the same time while investors were putting more and more of their money into web-based projects. They mentioned each other thousands of times.
Smaller operations – though still huge – like Copyblogger and Problogger would guest post on each others’ sites, promote each other’s products, send traffic to each other via their email lists and essentially enhanced both of their own images through their connection.
I took the time to actually figure out how many times some sites mentioned each other, which you can see in the graphic below.
While links were a key factor in all of these partnerships, I wouldn’t essentially class them as private link building. Most of the links didn’t include any specific anchor text and they weren’t to random affiliate sites or anything like that. All of them were trying to build authoritative online businesses and found someone with a similar passion on the same journey.
While TechCrunch and Mashable were almost in direct competition with each other, they still highlighted the stories that the other site got to first. Michael Arrington later sold TechCrunch to AOL for $25m. Pete Cashmore is still the CEO of Mashable though according to Politico.com, is trying to sell the site for around $300-$350m.
That’s a partnership that certainly paid off for both of them. Pete holding out six years on his sale seems to have been a smarter choice, however.
A Facebook Group to Find PIN Partners
For what is probably a very limited time only, I’m giving access to a private Facebook group where people can assemble together to potentially build their own Private Influencer Network.
I don’t want the comments here to be full of pitching opportunities, so let’s take this elsewhere to see what industries you’re working with. To be approved for the group you must leave a comment here with your Facebook name or put your Facebook initials at the end of a comment. Facebook will likely recommend the group to people who have no idea what PIN’s are and I don’t want to do a lot of moderating.
Don’t reveal your exact niche when you start a discussion, just simply zoom out of your niche and reveal a higher category that you would like to work in. You can find the group here (remember to comment to be approved).
Thank you, as always, for reading.
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‘Are You The One?’ Recap: Last Week They Took An L, But This Week They Bounced Back Kinda
Welcome, welcome, welcome. After last weeks very entertaining trainwreck, I gotta say I was pretty fucking pumped to revisit the AYTO cast. Nothing makes these recaps easier to write than failure of other people. Lucky for me, this cast not only fails but also does some straight-up stupid shit in the process. I mean, between Tyler and Carolina these recaps practically write themselves.
Anyways, Im drinking cheap wine and my laptop is charged. Lets begin now.
AFTER BLACKING OUT AND LOSING A SHIT TON OF MONEY
Carolina has produced enough tears to give the town of Flint some clean water. Shes literally moving from one location to the other just fucking sobbing. Joeys pretty upset toonow hes a loveless trashman. Sad!
They are both like kneeling on the floor, praying to sweet baby Jesus that they can overcome this horrible hardship of losing your love of two weeks. Joeys low-key kneeling down to pick up some trash off the ground because you cannot take the man away from his livelihood, goddammit.
Kathryn/Rushboobs is like ARE WE DONE?? to Ozzy and its like, uh, is this a trick question? Oh duh, I forgot shes an education major from FSU. Someone needs to basically fucking spell out how this game works for her.
Ozzy tries to let her down easy and she storms off because how dare he try and focus on the whole object of the game!?
Kam, the girl with the grey/purple hair as my mom calls her (like, mom its a three fucking letter name), is like “OKAY EVERYONE STOP FUCKING CRYING.” I am Kam, Kam is me.
Rushboobs cant help that she has a lot of feelings and the fucking mentality of a 14-year-old.
Tee is like “I WANT A BOYFRIEND WITH A BRAIN.” And when you want an intellectual boyfriend the first place you should go is an MTV reality show. *cough, cough BULLSHIT cough*
Shes into Oswaldo, who is low-key hot but also looks like Austin Ames friend from (the one in the middle). YEAH, I KNOW, IM FUCKING RIGHT.
He is talking about how he wants to be a businessman and watches Animal Planet because knowledge is power. Yeah, I bet watching episodes of is really going to put you ahead in your fuckin career.
Honestly, I cannot hear him saying anything besides diner girl.
THE CHALLENGE
Can I just saylots of slow motion running this season. We get it. You use special effects.
The game involves the casts social media and they have to answer questions based off their profiles. Apparently they all are fucking crazy online too, further solidifying the fact that they will never get jobs in the real world.
Except Joey. Trash collecting doesnt have a lot of requirements to it.
They all are asked the same questions and need to find the answer for their partner in a maze like web that Ryan so cleverly calls the inter-net.
Whenever Ryan says something fucking cheesy that cast cracks up like its the best shit theyve ever heard. I imagine producers are standing behind them with like guns pointed to their backsfucking laugh at Ryans pun or Ill murder your family. Carolina, shed a tear if you need help.
Thats not really a thing, you fucking idiots.
It goes like this:
Question: Biggest turnoff in a guy?
JOEY: I know KARI likes a guy who listens, because I listen.
ALSO JOEY: I know KARI likes a guy who eats food because I eat food.
Joey, be a doll and never speak again. Thanks!
Question: If I won the lotto what would I buy?
NORMAL PEOPLE: A plane ticket anywhere in the world!
NORMAL PEOPLE: I would donate to charity!
NORMAL PEOPLE: I would pay loans!
HAYDEN: ME BUY LARGE TRUCK.
Question: Whats a gross habit you have?
OZZY: Im just here to fuck Carolina, so Im picking the first thing I see
*picks wipes boogers on the wall*
CAROLINA: Omg he knows me so well!!!
Note to self, never, ever go to Carolinas booger house.
Hayden and Rushboobs get in first, Joey and KARI get second. To make it even more awkward, Ozzy and Carolina get third. Oh, I love this.
Ryan tells them they are all going hiking with monkeys and Ozzy has to act excited, like he doesnt do that every other day.
BACK AT THE HOUSE
Michael is like I WAS AN EMT BUT I QUIT BECAUSE OLD PEOPLE, AM I RIGHT? Thats like being like I WAS A VET, BUT ANIMALS, RIGHT? Michael, further implicating himself as unemployable.
Gianna is like, still having a lady boner over Michael and Hayden has developed a city on Friendzone Island where he is now the mayor. Shes like, laying all over him and totally loving the fact that hes more whipped than a girl in BDSM porn.
Carolina is in love with Ozzy faster than President Trump can delete the LGBT Rights page from his website. Quite suddenly, hes the hottest guy in the house and she liked him the whole time she was with Joey. Hmm, sounds like alternative facts.
Shes like “MY PARENTS WOULD LOVE YOU” hes like “mmmm okay, Booger rubber.”
Also, when talking to the camera separately, Carolina seems like the most boring person literally ever. Was she on a sedative? Why do I feel like they put her on this show like, mid-wisdom teeth removal?
Rushboobs is pounding wine, honestly same, while Ozzy and Carolina start making out.
Tyler, this seasons resident fuckboy, is like Shannon is fun and flirty! Which is the way of saying easy! Shannon, you seem nice, but when you speak I want to throw myself in front of a fucking train. Her voice truly sounds like everything annoying in the world just took a massive shit in her vocal chords. Did she do the voice over for Bubbles in ?
Taylor is like “dafuq is this?” And straight-up calls Tyler out. Shes like you didnt even get to know me very calmly and Tyler is like WOAH.
TYLER: YOU ARENT MY GIRLFRIEND
TAYLOR: I know, I just wanted to get to know you because you seem cool
TYLER: WOW, WHAT A CRAZY BITCH
Rushboobs is talking to Ozzy about how she still cares about him and shell never forget the 14 days they had together on a reality show, where everything is pretty much superficial.
Carolina comes in hot and is like “RUSHBOOBS DOESNT KNOW IF IM GOOD FOR OZZY OR NOT! not even understanding that they arent talking about her.
Joey comes in to defend Rushboobs and mostly just shit talk Carolina. Joey starts yelling at Carolina about how she juggles guys and shes crazy and all this other bullshit. Joey, pull your tampon out and quit being a little baby about this. Move the fuck on. Youre a single trashmanyour life can only go up from here!
Joeys like “WHY DONT YOU TAKE A FIRST CLASS FLIGHT HOME WITH OZZY!!!!” And its like, ooooohhh good one, bro, and Ozzys like uh, Im from here. Ozzys mom will be picking him up after the show, thanks for the concern though.
Shannon is talking to Tyler and I swear I have heard more interesting shit come out of a Baby Born doll. Why do you sound like you survive on a diet of rainbows and helium? Whatever, they annoy me. Moving on.
THE DATE WITH ALL THE LITTLE BIRDIES AND THE MONKEYS
They go to play with the monkeys and Carolina is like we took food out and the animals attacked us. Wow, groundbreaking.
She and Ozzy start making out and its like, could you just chill for a second? There are fucking animals eating corn off your head.
Joey starts complaining to KARI about Carolina and shes like I think you still like her. KARIs in med school man, dont fuck with her. Also, she can literally see into your mind with those big-ass eyes of hers.
Hes like “I SWEAR ON MY LIFE IM OVER IT! I SWEAR ON EVERYTHING I HAVE EVER LOVED THAT I AM SO OVER THAT HORRIBLE, HATEFUL, CRAZY BITCH CAROLINA.” The trashman doth protest too much.
KARI leaves because she doesnt need this bullshit. She can fucking read minds and save people. Time to move the fuck on.
Am I watching ? Because I swore I just heard Joey say can I steal her for a minute? Joey, do not fucking try to hybrid my reality shows rn!
He pulls Carolina aside and is like KARI WONT TALK TO ME BECAUSE OF YOU!!! Uh, wait what? Carolina starts yelling and this is just a goddam mess. Honestly, the sexual tensionyou could cut it with a knife.
Ozzy goes to save Carolina before she starts rubbing boogers all over Joeys face.
THE TRUTH BOOTH
Carolina and Ozzy are in the Truth Booth, thank god. Put me out of my fucking misery.
But wait, Ryan offers a deal where they dont send Ozzy and Carolina and they take $150,000 bucks instead. But if they take the money, they can never send those two in the truth booth again. Damn Ryan, back at it again with the shitty trades.
The house is divided with Kam being like CAROLINA IS CRAZY TAKE THE MONEY and everyone else being like hmmm idk.
Ryan asks Derrick, who is like the unofficial spokesperson of the house, what their plan is and they decide to not take the truth booth trade. Damn, Ive heard stupider shit come out of Kellyanne Conways mouth.
And lookie here, NO MATCH.
Moral of the story: Listen to Kam. Listen to me. Never make a decision on your own. Bye!
Carolina is crying again. Someone put a Brita filter under this bitch.
Rushboobs is like wow this is so sad *smiles* *dances* *throws flowers around the room* *throws party*
Joey and Rushboobs bond over alcohol and their hatred of Carolina and start flirting. This is how it goes, I shit you not:
RUSHBOOBS: Stop!
JOEY: No, you stop *leans in closer*
RUSHBOOBS: No, you stop *leans in closer*
ME: NO SERIOUSLY, FUCKIN STOP.
Ive seen better flirting skills from a fucking third grader. Where did you learn to communicate with the opposite sex, Rushboobsyour students? Joey, I dont even want to know how your livelihood has affected your lovelife.
Tee is like “I CANNOT WAIT TO FUCK OSWALDO,” and its like, wow okay. Shoutout to her parents. But also, do you girl #womensmarch
KARI and Tyler start talking. Tylers playing the role of the victim like I cant help that every girl wants to bone me! wow, life must be so hard for you. How do you even get up in the morning?
Tyler is hot though, dammit. Always the pretty ones. KARI ends up straddling him and they go to bed together. Well. Okay then.
Meanwhile, Kam and Eddie are hanging out and giving me couple goals. If they arent a match Im fucking throwing hands.
MTV: Kam and Eddie, you are not a couple
ME: CASH ME OUTSIDE, HOW BOW DAH
THE MATCHUP CEREMONY
The girls pick tonight so hopefully it wont be too much of a shit show.
Rushboobs picks Joey, a trashy match made in heaven.
Tee picks Osvaldo, the knowledgeable son of a bitch. I imagine he is just whispering animal facts into her ear all night.
Hannah picks Derrick/Kellyanne.
Casandra and Jaylen. Yawn.
Kam and Eddie, because duh.
Shannon picks Tyler. Yuck. Ryans like Tyler, hows it going? And Tylers like “I GOT TO KNOW KARI INTIMATELY!” Okay. Not the question but whatever. So classy. Goddam, I want to kiss your face but also hit it with shovel???
Hes like I was sauced and tries to act like it was a drunken thing. Very cool of him. And STOP USING THE TERM SAUCED. Like I literally just picture you rolling around in marinara.
KARIs like fuck it, yeah I gave him a handjob. Wow, okay MTV youre really doin the damn thing. Honestly, who hasnt given a regretful handjob?
Taylor is crying because shes like wait you never even spoke to me! Everyone, including me, feels bad for Taylor because like, Tylers fucking gross.
Tyler: The funny thing about a conversation is give me a handjob.
Tylers like I guess Im the bad guy and its like, hmmm, what gave it away? I shall play you the worlds smallest violin. Can you hear it?
Carolina picks Hayden and Giannas like “WTF NO.”
Gianna picks Ozzy and Ozzy literally looks like he wants to kill himself. Relatable.
Alicia picks Mike. Cool story.
Taylor comes up and crying and Ryans like how do you feel? Uh how do you think she fucking feels? Is the crying not a clue? Shes like I feel disrespected but honestly, when am I ever not. This is like a speech from a movie.
TAYLOR TO TYLER: But waiting for you is like waiting for rain in this drought, useless and disappointing. (name the movie)
Taylor picks Michael as her perfect match.
Andre is like “Taylor is hot and sad. I make happy. We bone. Yay!”
Im endorsing that couple RIGHT THE FUCK NOW.
Andre and KARI are left.
They are all like we cannot get another blackout! and Im like just fuck me up, fam. Give me another blackout, make my goddam day.
But alas, they get 4 BEAMS. Not bad for a bunch of pretty degenerates.
Cant wait to see what fuckery next week holds!
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from ‘Are You The One?’ Recap: Last Week They Took An L, But This Week They Bounced Back Kinda
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