The tutorials titled “Link Building for Traffic and Profits” are intended to give new and experienced marketers a number of techniques to boost your site listings in the search engines.

In addition to the new monthly update, there’s a core of foundation materials which will help you optimize your online business for growth.

Check out the: Internet Marketing Cookbook

PS: The linkbuilding module will be available till 30th September and will be replaced with a new module on 1st October.

Content: Identifying key issues, especially challenges and problems within your industry and offering a solution to those questions builds your reputation as a problem solver. Experts are those with expertise at solving problems.

It also builds goodwill and encourage reciprocity and a “pay it forward” mentality from those who have benefitted from your advice (which leads to a viral/linkbait effect if they distribute/syndicate your content).

Content was one of the major issues that I discussed with veteran journalist and former editor-in-chief of Revenue magazine, Lisa Picarille, for this week’s Friday Podcast. It’ll appear on Friday.

One of the easiest ways to brand yourself is by starting a blog and start putting out quality content.

One major issue I have with bloggers, especially affiliate marketing/internet marketing bloggers is a tendency to excessively sell ad-space or run banners on their blog. If more than half the screen real-estate is dedicated to ads/banners, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Are you more interested in making money, or providing information.

Looking at your signal-to-noise ratio (content vs ads) and maintaining a 80% content : 20% ad ratio will create a great user experience. Going beyond a 50% content vs 50% ad ratio is pushing the limits.

Guest author and guest post: If you’ve established a reputation and are seen as credible, take the next step to approach the top 10 channels/outlets in your niche and offer to guest author on their site – whether it’s a news site, a content aggregator or a blog.

If you are known and the site publishes guest posts, you stand a good chance. If not, it’s back to step #1.

In the affiliate marketing context, specialist magazines like FeedFront which comprises an online and print edition can provide great visibility.

Public speaking: Speaking at industry-specific events and related events are a good way of getting your name out there. It’ll also help put you in touch with potential partners.

I know some marketers are reluctant to go this route because of a fear of public speaking. If so, start small as many of these events have small group discussions or breakout sessions. If addressing a couple of hundred people sends your heart rate pounding, you might volunteer to be a discussion leader for a small group session.

Networking (and following up): Whether you’re meeting people online, or at a face-to-face event, you’ll build up a network of contacts. The challenge that holds people back from more effectively leveraging on their connections is a failure to follow up. When was the last time you got an email or card within 24 hours of meeting someone?

If there’s a contact that could help you build your business, be sure to stay in touch, ping them when you have something relevant to discuss and the relationship will naturally develop.

Author a book: This may sound difficult, but if you’ve ever had a 2 or 3 hour conversation about a particular topic, that content you shared would easily fill a 200 – 250 page book.

On the average, speaking and consulting fees increase between 50-100% after you’ve had a book published (physical books, not e-books). So it might be worth the time and effort.

Build a community: Finding like-minded individuals and organizing them into a community is a good way to network, share expertise and work on joint projects together.

Finding someone to step up and set up a social network or forum is the major challenge because everyone is “always” busy. Instead of waiting for someone to take the first step, why not step up to the plate?

Integrity: This is the big one in my opinon. Do what you say. If you say you’ll do something, even if it’s as simple as sending out a list of bookmarks, you should do it. With the anonymity and virtual distance created by the internet, it’s easy to make a lot of promises and not keep any of them.

Instead, stand apart from the pack and followthrough.

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For tips on building your online business, check out the InternetMarketingCookbook. For blogging tips, visit Secret Blog Weapon.

The one limitation I faced, similar to everyone else, is having enough time to work on my business and being able to answer questions that blocks a new marketer getting started.

It was at the Affiliate Summit earlier this year that I sat down with Danielle Nagami (AKA MsDanielle) to see if we could help create a resource site for newer internet marketers.

Enter the Internet Marketing Cookbook – a resource site/monthly newsletter that aims to give you access to tips and techniques to help you grow your online business.

The site will feature monthly updated content which build on MsDanielle’s strength’s in pay-per-click traffic, search engine optimization and other forms of traffic generation. While I’ll be focused on social media, product development and affiliate marketing.

If you’re a newer internet marketer, be sure to check out the:

–> Internet Marketing Cookbook

You may already know that in addition to this blog, I own a network of content sites.

In particular, Internet Marketing Cookbook has been one of my pet projects.

But in the past couple of months, with the activity surrounding Affiliate Summit West and a couple of new projects I was working on, I didn’t have time to manage all my sites.

So it seemed like a good idea to have an Asia-based unemployed programmer who claimed to have “extensive dotcom experience” manage a couple of my sites.

I was more than a little shocked when I discovered the changes he’d made to the sites. For one, he’d installed a script which made the text rotate in a ghastly manner.

In fact, a fellow marketer commented that the site looked ghastly, and if it was meant as a joke.

Worst still, the Internet Marketing Cookbook members area had several time sensitive offers listed. BUT they’d never been announced.

“Why didn’t you announce it to the list?” I asked.

“You were in the US and I couldn’t meet up with you” he said.

I gave him a piece of my mind, especially since I was contactable by email and phone.

But the cardinal sin had to be locating the free eBay auction success offer which expires on Feb 5th hidden at the bottom of the page.

I promptly made him move it to the top, where it’d be more visible.

So the lessons learned are this:

• Quality and reliable outsource talent can be difficult to find.
• Closely monitor your outsourced efforts, especially during their first two projects.
• If necessary, have someone monitor their efforts if you’re busy.

From the looks of things, WordPress might provide a better content management solution, compared to a static HTML website.

PS: The eBay Auction Success offer (a great value in my opinion) expires on Feb 5th and is accessible here. [Valid only for US addresses]