Social Checklist – What to Do When Starting a Money Site
Whenever you start a new money site, you want to assign a pen name and establish an identity who is the author of that site. It is even a good idea to do this for each and every blog you create for promoting your money site. The idea is that the best way to assure Google that your website is getting links by people other than yourself, is to show that each blog has an individual author identity. This shows that your money site is getting editorial votes, as links earned, based on how great your content is — and not that you’re out there building links to your own website (even though you are). Going the extra mile can mean a huge ranking boost, so it pays to do it right.
How should you go about doing this? I’ve thought a lot about the best route to take in establishing an author rank. We’re going to sign up to the big 4, Google+, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Some of these (Google+ and Facebook) will require phone verification, and even Twitter will request this if your IP address has created other accounts recently. I’m an American expat that moved to the Philippines, and here (for a dollar) I can pick up a disposable phone number. Chances are you won’t find phone verification as easy, so you may have to buy phone verified accounts on the internet or ask around your circle of friends to borrow a phone.
Google Plus
Start with Google+ It only makes sense, because you will end up with an email address, from which you can use it to sign up to Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. Back in 2014, Google+ passed a billion users (and over 359 million active users), so it is a solid network to both derive traffic to your money site and influence your rankings via positive social signals.
This won’t work if you’re only creating blank stubs of pages. You should completely fill in all information possible. Google is going to use the information on your Google+ account in order to begin evaluating an individual author rank for your pen name identity. Your profile should be full of information that links your to the niche that your money site will be about. From the places you used to work, to the wording of your profile bio — everything adds up to tying a particular niche to your author rank.
The one feature you absolutely need to fill out on Google+ is to click on Profile. At the bottom (in the left hand column), you will see “Links”. In that area, there is a section titled “Contributor to.” Type in the URL of your money site, and click submit. You have just associated any author rank that your Google+ accumulates to be credited to your money site.
Next, you want to go back to your money site and create a site-wide link back to your Google+ account. Some may be concerned that you’re wasting pagerank, but you’re not! A strong author rank is going to do just as much for you, if not more, than whatever pagerank is lost by linking to your profile. This goes for the LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter pages we’re about to create as well.
Next, you will go sign up a profile for LinkedIn. Complete it as fully as possible, including where you used to work and every other question to have as complete a profile as possible. The idea is that you are cementing the identity of this online persona. Whatever information you enter for LinkedIn should match the data you entered for Google+. Google will begin building a persona for this identity in their author rank algorithm. LinkedIn is where you will create professional associations and have Google ascertain which niche your pen name is involved in.
You will become a member of every group, where that group is related to your niche. For instance, lets say your niche is Forex. You will want to join every Forex group. Now, LinkedIn doesn’t allow browsing of members, so Google doesn’t know who is a member of these lists unless they’re posting to discussions. So then, to let Google know that you’re an active member of these groups, you will engage in the discussions these groups are having. That will create the link back to your profile. These are do-follow links, so you also build up the pagerank while you’re establishing the niche relation of your pen name identity.
By participating in groups, you build your author rank. You also build up the authority of your blog on LinkedIn (LinkedIn allows members to have their own blogs, at least in some geolocations). From your blog, and from your bio, you will link to your money site, again, transferring the credibility of your author rank back to your blog. You will also link to your Google+ identity, and as soon as we create them, you’ll link to your Facebook and Twitter identities as well. By connecting your “big 4” social profiles together like this, your author rank is increased and associations are made between all your social accounts.
Next, sign up to Facebook. You will notice many similarities between Facebook and LinkedIn. You can create posts on both platforms. You can join groups on both platforms. Just as you signed up for every relevant group on LinkedIn, you will want to do the same on Facebook. Join every group that is relevant to your niche. Create blog posts within those groups. You then get links from the group back to your profile, strengthening the relevancy of your author rank to a particular niche.
You will link from Facebook to your other main profiles, as well as to your money blog. It is a good idea to follow others in your same niche, and hopefully you will receive their follow-backs. Your data will appear on their timelines (occasionally), and Google will strengthen your profile’s identity by associating your niche focus with those who have friended you.
Twitter is important for the sake of retweets and being retweeted. Begin by following people in the niche you have selected. Occasionally, retweet the things that others in your niche have tweeted. This establishes a connection in relevancy for your Twitter account and the niche you are involved with. Make great tweets yourself, and if you are lucky — others who are in your niche will retweet you, again creating signals that your profile is relevant to a particular niche.
Inside the bio, link to your Google+, LinkedIn, Facebook, and most importantly, to your money site. By interconnecting all of your big four social accounts, and linking them all to your money site, you derive the most author rank possible and attribute those positive signals to your money site.
Build Links To Your Profiles
This is crucial. You want to participate on all your social sites to show that you are currently active. Next, feel free to build links to your four profiles. When you comment on relevant blogs, build links to your profiles. It only makes sense to do this, as you link with a comment saying who you are, to comment with your pen name as anchor text and dropping a link to one of your social accounts.
This builds up your author rank even more. It is vital that these links are relevant to your niche. This not only builds your author rank, but establishes the niche that your identity belongs to.
Why bother building up author rank? This is the future of SEO. The direction that Google wants to take is that of establishing who each and every author of content is. Google’s Eric Schmidt admitted this is the goal in his 2013 book “The New Digital Age”. Matt Cutts said that Google was getting better at attributing author rank to pages, also in 2013. Two years later, Google has certainly gotten better — and it only makes sense to optimize for author rank going forward.
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