Stop Getting Links – Part 3

Before we get into Part 3, I wanted to let you know we're going to be talking about Traffic Kahuna, which Jason Potash and
company are releasing today.

In the previous parts of this series, we focused on the idea that as internet marketers, we need to:

Stop building links, and start building connections.

We talked about how through creating connections between ideas, and developing relationships with site owners and bloggers, we can essentially take on a shepherd role in our niche markets. We can steer the tribes we target by helping them develop their niche interest.

If we use this strategy wisely and ethically, we can practically use OTHER people’s web properties as part of our own lead generating funnel.

We are no longer perceived as an outside force – like a door-to-door salesman imposing on their community.

We instead become a valued member of that community, associated not with marketing messages, but rather with being a valuable resource of information – as well as a provider of products and services.

See, by making our own connections in our marketplaces, we can capitalize on other people's resources to do all kinds of things:

We can better educate consumers on our chosen topic, slowly turning them from someone with a mild interest into a hot prospect.

We can create an impression of expertise by portraying a consistent personality across multiple "tribal" sites in our niche markets.

And of course, let's not forget that even though we've changed our thinking – we are actually STILL building links.

Now, if you've been following along, we recommended a f'ree tool called "Comment Kahuna" that when used correctly, can help you efficiently engage your chosen audience and save you a LOT of research time.

Well, the same folks that made "Comment Kahuna" are releasing a service today at noon called "Traffic Kahuna" and I think that it will prove to be an incredibly valuable resource for helping us create quality CONNECTIONS with our consumers AS WELL AS building quality links for the Search Engine spiders.

Remember how I spoke to you about how we can consider internet communities as "tribes" – small groups that cluster around common interests.

Well, what Jason and company have done is shepherded their own "tribe" around a common interest, just as I've been trying to teach you to do.

Their tribe consists of webmasters that collectively operate over 1000 websites and actively post to over 500 blogs.

And here's where this tribe becomes valuable to you:

The common interest of all these site owners is a hunger for QUALITY CONTENT.

In exchange for this quality content, they're willing to trade QUALITY real estate on their sites (pages that have a high PR) and they're willing to give QUALITY one way links (with no “nofollow” tags).

Now, I'm sure you've seen this kind of "link building" network before, but the flaws in those systems were numerous.

The primary problem is that most of the blogs and sites in those networks were primarily owned by the network operators, and they existed ONLY as content billboards for their members.

The sites in those networks really had no traffic of their own, no communities of value that visited regularly.

Add to that the fact that the network operators were typically unwilling or unable to police the submissions from their customers.

So, what you ended up with were spammy sites, filled with unrelated, untargeted, duplicated posts, and worse – just crummy content.

Sure, you may have been able to get some limited benefit from those links as you're essentially "tricking" the search spiders into thinking you're popular with all those links.

Heck, it's probably still working pretty well. But that's a short term strategy. Over time, any PR value those network sites may have had is quickly leached away, and any REAL value you may have tried to provide is leached away and wasted as lazy, unethical marketers bury your stuff in worthless crap.

See, that old way was focused on getting LINKS, but had no thought at all towards building the kinds of valuable CONNECTIONS that web users actually want to see.

And that's why Traffic Kahuna is different. Jason and crew KNOW the problems of using that old Web 1.0 "link-getting" model. After all, they've been using content syndication for the SEO benefit for years. They are recognized experts in that area.

Traffic Kahuna OVERCOMES all of those problems and it does it by providing a HUMAN-GUIDED focus on QUALITY.

See, the sites in the Traffic Kahuna network are all REAL sites with REAL audiences. They aren't just billboards for plastering up whatever anyone feels like. All these sites have a real interest in maintaining their audiences by providing fresh, and VALUABLE content.

Because of that, an article, review, and link from THESE sites are for the long term. They won't be buried by spam, because they will be part of a targeted resource aimed at SPECIFIC niche communities. These are sites built not just for spiders, but for TRIBES.

Webmasters have joined this network because they want to better serve their VISITORS. They are NOT just added by the network owners to provide a place for their customers to put more links.

Now, the Kahuna folks know that these webmasters are already busy, or else they wouldn't have a need for an automated, QUALITY content solution.

And that's why on the Kahuna side of this community there are actual GUIDELINES for quality content, ENFORCED by human editors.

Jason and the gang are FULLY COMMITTED to shepherding this tribe, and their aim is to BUILD QUALITY CONNECTIONS between marketers like you and me, and webmasters who already cater to the tribes we want to target.

In the same way that the f'ree Comment Kahuna tool allows you to find related blogs and post to them, Traffic Kahuna is going to allow you to bypass a lot of what I talked about in Part 2, and give you a DIRECT outlet to these valuable community sites.

You'll have a centralized place to manage your content, and YOU decide where to place it and what links you want. Of course, you need to meet their guidelines for quality, but I'm assuming if you've kept up with this series, you know that quality is of the utmost importance anyway. I don't think any of our readers are out to junk up the internet.

But here is the BIGGEST reason I think Traffic Kahuna will succeed – both in the short AND long term:

It's because they NEED you.

And I don't just mean that Jason and crew need your money to line their pockets.

You are HALF the equation - without marketers and vendors that have messages they want to spread, the network has NO VALUE for the "tribe" of content-hungry webmasters.

They are creating a real, mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship – one built on an expectation of quality and trust. The very foundation of what they aim to do is JUST what I've been telling you.

They don't sell links – they foster CONNECTIONS.

And if it was from anyone else but Jason Potash, I wouldn't be so trusting that it could be pulled off.

Jason has the same attitude as I do – as ALL of StomperNet does – when it comes to content. Good marketing is about finding a group of people that want the same thing, and then giving it to them. And though SEO is one method of doing that by manipulating search results – the REAL focus should always include going to where the people ARE and interacting with them directly.

Traffic Kahuna aims to do that and MORE, and they open to the public today.

Now, don't think that the f'ree Comment Kahuna tool was some sort of take-back. You can keep right on using that tool as long as you want. But if you are finding it valuable – do your business a favor and give Traffic Kahuna a shot.

This network has the same kinds of values that we used when building our exclusive StomperSCORE system, so if you're not a StomperNet member, this is probably as close as you can get to having the same kind of benefit.

If you ARE a member of StomperNet – this service is going to augment whatever link and connection building you're ALREADY doing, and hopefully it will save you valuable time and resources along the way!

Thanks for reading along with this series. If you missed Parts 1 and 2, please check them out here on the StomperBlog – and while you're at it, leave us a comment. We'd love to hear what you think!

Until next time, Keep Stomping
~Andy Jenkins

P.S. Traffic Kahuna opened for a limited release already last January, and they sold out in 14 minutes. I'm not trying to make a scarcity play here, but with such a high focus on quality, Jason and co. may limit the amount of people they let in, so don't wait too long. They open at NOON today.