I noticed a viral tags post over at Gio’s blog today. I like this one better than the ‘asterisk’ viral tag schemes that I’ve seen; they seem a little cheesy to me (but effective). This one let’s you assign your own anchor text for your blog.

Viral tags are like chain letters, you add your link to the matrix and as people copy the matrix to their own blogs, your link gets picked up and you end up with backlinks to your blog. Pretty simple link generation method. The earlier you get in, the more links that will come back to you. If you add your link to the matrix and then let Gio know in the comments of this post, he’ll add your link to the matrix there (so you’ll get at least one link!).

 Follow these instructions:

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The main idea of this tagging program is to allow others that got pinged by you to easily go to your site, and copy your Anchor Text (located right after “My Anchor Text”) and URL and paste them into their ViralTags Matrix. If you follow the instructions listed below exactly, it’ll make everything easier and clearer for everyone. Thank you for your participation! Enjoy!

Instructions:

1.) Copy and paste this program as indicated.

2.) Replace the anchor text located after “My Anchor Text” with your own anchor text. Also add your own anchor text in your ViralTags Matrix. Please keep anchor text to a max of 3 words to keep the matrix size manageable.

3.) When you get a ping back from someone that has your link in their ViralTags Matrix, practice good karma by copying his/her Anchor Text (automatically the associated link will also be copied) and paste it over your ViralTags Matrix below.

4.) Encourage and invite others to do the same and soon this can grow virally.

My ViralTag Matrix

My Anchor Text: World Domination

Text Unlimited | Startup Entrepreneur Money | Hot MySpace Layouts | Pinoy Jokes | Coolest Friendster Layouts | A Great Pleasure | Gio | Struggling Blogger Ramblings | Profitable Productive Blogging | Text Quotes | Text Quotes | NafaSg | Search Useful Articles | World Domination | Revellian | your anchor text here |

Important: Once I get a ping back from you, I will add your anchor text and the associated link to my ViralTag Matrix above. As more and more bloggers copy and paste this matrix, the more backlinks you will have with your anchor text. If everybody who copy and paste from your blog does the same, pretty soon this will spread and go viral. So, the sooner you participate, the more links with anchor text you will receive.

Please follow the instructions exactly, it’ll make everything easier and clearer for everyone.

Definition of terms:

Anchor Text - Also known as Link Text, the clickable text of a hyperlink. Search engines often look at anchor text to determine what the link is about and thus infer the subject of the site to which the link points. Anchor Text can be your site or blog title or any words that would decribe your site or blog. (Ex. Transformers Blog, Autobots Online Dating, Robots In Disguise)
URL - An acronym for “Uniform Resource Locator,” this is the address of a resource on the Internet. World Wide Web URLs begin with http:// (Ex. http:// www.yourwond3rrblogg. com)
Ping (blog ping) - A notification to a web site that a blog has been created or updated.

Search Engine - see Google, Yahoo, MSN, Live, Technorati, and so on…
SERP - (Search Engine Results Page) The page of results that a search engine returns.
Google PR (PageRank) - The PageRank system is used by the popular search engine Google to help determine a page’s relevance or importance.

(ViralTags courtesy of FoundersCafe)

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Submit your sites to the Directory Network this weekend for only $25 (regularly $30).

 You can find more details at Digital Point in this thread.

The other day I mentioned that I’d tell you about a site network you can take advantage of for your link building…here it is: The Directory Network.

The Directory Network is a network of 31 directories that you can submit to just once and your submission will show up in 30 other directories. I just recently acquired this network from Aaron Nimocks, who is the one who built the network. The sub-directories all have Page Rank 3, and DirectoryNetwork.us has a Page Rank of 4. Several of these sites are expected to go up in Page Rank with the next update, and I plan to keep building links to them to keep them all strong and get them all to PR4+!

Features of the network:

•     The sites are all now on individual C class IPs (31)!
•     Submit a sponsored listing just once to DirectoryNetwork.us and your listing shows up on 30 other directories automatically. You can find the list of directories on the ‘Suggest Link’ section of DirectoryNetwork.us.
•     Sponsored listings have the main link displayed randomly in the ‘Sponsored’ sidebar site-wide and network-wide.
•     You can submit up to 5 deeplinks.
•     Links are permanent.
•     News feeds keep content fresh in all categories and subcategories.
•     Sites are not linked together.
•     Sponsored listings are only $30 to get your site listed in the entire network.
•     When you pay for a sponsored listing, I have to run a script to send the listing to the other 30 directories, so don’t expect your listing to show up in all of them immediately…I’ve been doing them within 24/48 hours.

So, for the price of $30, your site is listed on 31 directories, which provides you with 186 backlinks (31 sites x 6 links - 1 main + 5 deeplinks) from your listing’s individual page PLUS the links on the category/subcategory pages PLUS randomly displayed in the Sponsored sections on all sites. Not a bad deal! When these sites go up in page rank, you can expect the price to go up, too, so grab a sponsored listing while you can get the most bang for your buck!

For those of you that have already submitted your sites under Aaron’s ownership, don’t fret, I’ll keep your listings in the directories permanently. Same for you, BigWebLinks, your banner stays for the agreed-upon period.

If you have any questions, drop me an email from the contact link at the bottom of any of the directories, or drop a comment here.

When you’re building (ahem, buying) links for your sites, one thing you should consider are site networks. Site networks are simply a group of sites that are owned by the same individual/group/company. They’re not necessarily linked together, and it may actually be beneficial if they’re not linked together.

Why a site network? It’s basically about bang for your buck. You can often find link prices lower on a site network than buying links individually on separately owned sites. The buyer wins because they get a cheaper price and the seller wins because they effectively get more business than individual site link sales. They may be able to solidify buyer loyalty (longer terms sales) and simplify their link sales, too.

One type of network becoming popular is blog networks. With the ease of setting up a blog (even I did it), webmasters can set up multiple blogs fairly quickly, build some backlinks to get page rank and/or traffic, and then start selling blog posts across the whole network. Webmasters are even automating the posting process across the entire network to reduce their time involvement.

There’s a few things to watch out for when buying links on site networks, and Aaron Nimocks actually has a pretty good buying guide for blog networks. Most of Aaron’s points apply for any site network, too. Basically, do your homework - caveat emptor - and avoid duplicate content issues.

Coming up later, I’ll point out a specific site network you can take advantage of…