Search Engine Optimization

Link to Profit with InfoLinks and Other Free Online Tools

By Alan N. Glazier, OD, FAAO

InfoLinks is a tool to generate money–for your practice–each time that someone reading your blog or practice web site clicks on links to other web sites. Other tools like Digg and Reddit can boost links to your site from the sites of others.

In order to have a significant online presence, our practicehas invested time and funds in creating compelling contentfor ourweb site and social media pages. One small way to offset some of that investment is to utilize InfoLinks.This free service pays me every time a person clicks on a news item in my blog to visit the site the news item originally appeared in. Here is how my practice utilizes InfoLinks to generate about $3,000 a year with the potential for even more profit.

How Does InfoLinks Work?

InfoLinks creates “links” to specific keywords within the content you create, usually a blog or web site post. When clicked on, InfoLinks pays you for the ability to use your content to drive traffic to their advertisers. It is entirely free to sign up for InfoLinks. You can register for it at www.infolinks.com.

InfoLinks Tracks Clicks for You–and Then You Profit

Once you sign up, InfoLinks provides an HTML code for your web site developer to put behind your web site or install as a “plug in” for your blog, and the words that make up links to other web sites that InfoLinks wants to track are then automatically tracked. The payments go directly to your credit card or PayPal account and you get a monthly or quarterly report. No software is necessary, but setup might need to be managed by your developer if you don’t know how to create “plug ins” for your blog or add HTML code to your web site.

I usually make between one to three cents per click on an InfoLink-tracked link on my site, depending on how important the keyword in the link is to their advertisers to drive traffic. I generate about $3,000 a year using InfoLinks, but that is on a standard type of blog. If one day I wrote a blog that went viral and got thousands or tens of thousands of views I could make more money much faster.

There are no privacy issues to worry about such as the copying of your address book as Infolinks does not connect to your address book or any other lists. It is solely interested in driving business to vendors who pay it for keyword rights.

What Other Tools Can Be Used In Concert with InfoLinks?

It’s always a good idea to use bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit, Delicious or other sites to create links to yours. Unlike InfoLinks, these other tools do not directly generate revenue via use of links, but enable you to draw more visitors to your sites by spreading your links onto other sites. You can also comment on blog posts and include your links with the hope that they get approved and go live.

How Else Can I Profit from Links to and From My Site?

ODs aren’t aware of all the resources available to spread the “gospel” about their links. A great place to start is my new web site, Eyegregator.com. This site has most of the social links and hundreds of industry blogs where you can read, comment and enter your links with the hopes of achieving back-links to your sites. This helps you improve your position in search engine optimization. ODs also generally don’t know that it is NOT OK to pay someone to get links for you.It is obvious to Google who is using paid link services and they penalize your position in search listings if you are creating false links (those that are paid for), creating too many links too fast or creating links from junky unrelated web sites to your site or vice versa.

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Alan N. Glazier, OD, FAAO, is owner of Shady Grove Eye and Vision Care in Rockville, Md. He also is author of “Searchial Marketing: How Social Media Drives Search Optimization in Web 3.0.” To contact him: AGlazier@youreyesite.com.

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