A few weeks ago I was driving down the highway. It was late at night and I was tired. The radio was starting to put me to sleep. Suddenly a song come on that woke me up – I could not believe what I was hearing. The song was that bad.

I am no expert when it comes to music. The last time I played an instrument was in grade 6 music class. It was the xylophone – I simply had to hit a a couple keys with a wooden mallet whenever the teacher pointed at me. I do not know anything about timing, rhythm or beat. But I do know how to listen to music. I know what music should sound like.

What I heard on the radio was not music – it was painful noise. No rhythm, no beat and the singing was nothing more then a girl squealing forced rhymes. I listened to the whole song just to find out if it was some kind of joke. Would the DJ admit that it was something his 5 year daughter composed and asked daddy to play on the radio? But at the end of the song the DJ only said, “… and that was The Shaggs”

The Shaggs

The Shaggs were a 3 girl band from the late 60′s. The girl’s ages ranged from 18 to 22. They had no intention of having a band, their father did. He had visions of being a big shot manager for the next big thing in music – his daughter’s band. He pulled them out of school and made them practice and play. He spent the family savings to buy instruments and record an album. The albums where distributed by the father to all the local stations.

Of course success did not come as the father had anticipated. And the reason is obvious – the music is terrible. It sounds like the instruments and singer are being thrown down a long flight of stairs. No tempo, erratic and completely off-kilter singing. The lyrics are about Halloween, a two legged dog, and how great parents are. It is simply bad music.

When I got home I was curios to find out who The Shaggs are and how they got on the radio. As shocked as I was when I heard how bad the music was, it was nothing compared to my amazement when I saw that on Amazon the album has a customer rating of 4.5 stars out of 5 and 131 reviews.

How Did The Shaggs Get On The Radio

They did not have thousand’s of hours of training, they did not have a million dollar promotion campaign, they did not have brilliant lyrics. How did they do it? How did they get popular enough to be heard on the radio?

The answer is what bloggers call a great backlink.

The famous musician Frank Zappa heard the album and publicly stated that the Shaggs are “better than the Beatles”. Why he thinks so or what he was on does not matter. What matters is that he said it. Suddenly The Shaggs were in the spotlight. People started to buy the album and listen to the music – it started to be played on the radio. Thanks to all the resulting publicity, in 1996 the Rolling Stones called the album one of the 100 “most influential alternative releases of all time”.

Terrible music but a big seller, all thanks to Zappa.

Focus on Getting the Zappa Backlink

The mantra you hear over and over again is that you need backlinks. The more backlinks you get the better chance you have of success. You might have the best blog in the world but without backlinks nobody will ever see it.

You are suppose to submit your blog to directories, make comment on other blogs, and submit articles. Accumulate as many as you can,the more the better.

True, this will increase the number of backlinks to your site. But even a hundred of these backlinks do not compare to a Zappa backlink – a backlink from a major player in your niche.

Get a backlink from the top blogger in your niche because it is worth more then the 100′s of backlinks from blog comments and directories. A nod of approval from someone famous and respected will instantaneously bring your blog into the spotlight. If they have a following of a 100,000 then suddenly 100,000 eyes will be on you.

How To Get the Zappa Backlink

Obviously the problem is getting the Zappa backlink. It is not easy and there is no step by step process to getting one. Nobody can give you advice on how to get it, there is no formula. You have to be creative and original. You have to find a way to get the attention of a big player and get them to mention you. There is the chance you will get lucky and receive one without trying, but more likely you will have to work hard for it.

A perfect example of a great backlink is this guest post. This blog is very popular with 1000′s of visitors a day. By putting in the time to create this guest post and having it accepted I suddenly get lots of exposure. The backlink from this high page rank blog can turn out to be my Zappa backlink.

You have a choice: you can either diligently spend a hours every week accumulating little backlinks that might make your blog a success over time. Or you can spend those hours going after the big score. The one big backlink that is worth a 100 little ones.

About the Author

Roman Jelinek is a new webmaster with a blog and website describing in detail what is involved in creating, maintaining and profiting from a site. Charts and statistics are used to reveal How This Website Makes Money Online. If you find the article interesting, do take the time to subscribe to his feed.

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It’s a known fact that the number and quality of backlinks a page/site gets will affect its search rankings. SEO copywriters have always struggled to write not only search engine friendly content, but also creative content that would make people want to link back. Others chose the easier, but more expensive, way of the “link marketplaces”, such as TLA.

In what follows I’m going to explain one easy enough method to boost your number of backlinks and also improve your blog’s Technorati rank. All with the help of Mixx.

Initial considerations

Those of you familiar with social media, social networking and bookmarking services have surely heard of Mixx and are most probably registered users. For those that are not familiar with this service, I strongly suggest you try it.

Not necessarily because of the traffic that it could provide – which is currently way below services like Digg, Reddit or Stumble Upon – but mainly because is one of the few services that are still not “infected” with trolls, down-voters and spammers. On Mixx you can still find content worth reading and bookmarking and also, Mixx is of great help when it comes to what I’m about to share with you.

How can Mixx boost your backlinks and Technorati rank?

The answer is simple. All bookmarks added to Mixx are “do follow” links. Sure, they are marked with rel=”bookmark”, but that does not negatively affect the link.

So, what could you do to get and make better use of those links?

1. Create a profile

And not just a profile, but rather start building a solid profile. Submit quality content, content that will attract votes. Considering that Mixx has been recently launched, compared to other such services, you can still build a power user profile.

2. You profile page

This page contains links to all stories you’ve submitted. On Mixx you are allowed to submit your own stories, but encouraged to use moderation and common sense. Again, all links are followed by search engines, the profile page is indexed and gets Page Rank. My profile page for example is currently a PR 3.

3. Power users/ Super Mixxers

It’s easier to get in touch and collaborate with power users on Mixx and just as your profile is indexed so is theirs, but only with more relevance and even higher Page Rank. After friendly helping them out, I’m sure that most of them wouldn’t mind submitting some stories for you.

4. Popular stories

And since Mixx is so “new”, you have quite a good chance of making the “popular stories” list. Success is guaranteed with a few supermixxers on your side. The “Popular” page is also indexed, links are followed and it currently has a PR 6. Get your story on the Mixx home page and you’ll get yourself a PR 7 link.

Popular and home page stories will instantly affect your Technorati rank too.

Final considerations

This article is only meant to help you better optimize your online presence and it’s not meant as an encouragement to spam Mixx. I can assure you that the Mixx masters are watching.

So, the best you can do to get in this win-win situation is:

• Join Mixx
• Submit quality and relevant content
• Make Friends
• Help out
• Get help back
• Boost your rankings
• DO NOT spam!

And while you’re on Mixx, you can also follow me.

For more information you can also read my other post on SEO link building.

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