The netbusinessblog recently posted about the ever-debated topic of duplicate content and asked readers to weigh-in.

Check it out here.

Google as posted the transcript from their JuneTune live chat, plus the recording, and the presentations on Personalized Search and Case Sensitivity in Web Search.

According to some accounts, there were over 400 webmasters participating.

This is a must-read and a must-listen. You WILL learn a lot, I promise!

Transcript - Recording - Personalized Search Presentation - Case Sensitivity Presentation

As Jeremy Schoemaker pointed out on his blog Saturday, Google Trends now has web site traffic data!

And as he points out, more people have the Google Toolbar installed than all others (Alexa, Quantcast, Compete.com, etc.) combined probably.

Check it out here.

Ann Smarty with Search Engine Journal wrote a good FAQ post this week about Google XML Sitemaps.I often get asked the million dollar question: Will Google Sitemaps help or hurt my site?

Well, the short answer in my opinion is help…or at least NOT hurt it. It will not make you #1 on Google for your primary keyword overnight. But it will help index some of those lower tier pages, which are often the pages with the best content after all, right?

Ann answers many more questions in her post, so give it a read here. And have a GREAT weekend!

From Sam Harrelson, a recap of the link-buying debate between SEO Expert, Wil Reynolds and Mahalo CEO, Jason Calacanis, complete with video of the “throwdown.”

The question, should you buy links?

Click here to read the post and view more

Anik Singal, with Affiliate Classroom, one of our recommended resources, wrote a great article about article marketing. For some, this is new information, for others a review and a reminder. Either way, it’s a quick read and definitely should nudge you to do article marketing…if you are not already!

Click here to read the article

That is good question, however, the real question is, “how do you get converting visitors to your website”?

You can send thousands of people an hour through your site without a single insurance form submit. Unfortunately, you will not make any money that way. So, you need targeted website visitors to see your banners and links. People who might be looking for insurance now or people who will need insurance quotes sometime in the future.

There are really only two options for this type exposure. Pay Per Click and Search Engine Optimization.

Pay Per Click

PPC is expensive, the competition is great and the industry leaders dominate the market. The big insurance companies will pay any amount for a visitor if they are branding their business and trying to dominate their specific insurance market. These same companies can also be seen on television and are often heard on the radio.

My daddy use to say that banks and insurance companies have all the money. He was right and trying to compete with these guys on a PPC level will make your money disappear quickly. This is not to say that all paid placement is unattainable, just that some places are going to be out of reach for many affiliates. Obviously, Google, Yahoo and MSN are on that list. You will find the most competitive advertisers on page one of these search sites.

What about page two or page three? Give it a try. The costs will be significantly reduced on each click and using a good landing page may well produce profitable conversions.

Search Engine Optimization

Personally, I recommend you apply your affiliate links to a themed website or blog that can reach searchers organically without paying for clicks. This is a much harder proposition but a great deal more profitable in the long run. I believe all of you reading this now are looking for a long term opportunity. If you dedicate yourself to an easy business model, the income will come.

The easiest way to SEO any website is through a blog. Blogs are favored by search spiders for a variety of reasons but the main benefit to a blog is quick and easy publishing. Insurance covers a wide variety of topics that can easily be blogged. Anything related to home, auto or health can be blogged and monetized through the HometownQuotes insurance affiliate program. These three “products” alone cover literally thousands of broad and niche topics.

Some of you have years of experience in fields that many people search for everyday. Blogging allows you to communicate with these people about your experience while putting free website visitors within eyeshot of your affiliate links.

Blogging may not be the answer for some of you just as PPC may not be an option for some as well. However, if you are serious about the earnings potential available through HometownQuotes, together we can find the right fit for you.

Obviously there is much more to marketing the HometownQuotes opportunity than I have listed here. I just wanted to drop a quick post to hopefully stir some conversation and get some feedback.

Also, please email me your questions. I will be creating a separate category for questions where I will be providing answers on a regular basis. Our business is growing. There is no reason why you can’t be a part of our success.

I have been asked to contribute to this affiliate blog by those in charge at HometownQuotes. It is the least I can do.

Before I begin, I thought a short introduction might help.

I am Terry, Bartimus on here and several other forums and blogs. I do the SEO for HometownQuotes and it is thought that my experience and knowledge could be useful to the affiliates for HTQ. I am more than happy to answer any SEO related questions and will post any questions and my answers on this blog for the benefit of all.

I will also be posting regular SEO related information in the weeks and months ahead. So, make sure you keep visiting this blog and feel free to contact me at anytime.

Email me at terry [at] hometownquotes.com

Many of you have heard this I am sure, but man have things been busy. Anyway, I am back as much as possible!So Google is killing paid links. This is bad news for some of you and great news for others. Long story short, is this proves once again that Google is doing the right things and is out to get the best search results. WebProNews began speculating on it back in September (article here) and recently the “rumors” have been confirmed. Affiliate forums (like ABestWeb) , SEO forums, webmaster forums, probably even recipe forums, are buzzing about it!

For all the conspiracy theorists and those who feel like they got caught by surprise…

Google has never hid that this was inevitable. They even tell you here, here in their guidelines, here, and here.

That all being said, I do feel for those hurt by this but I hope the lesson learned is to follow the rules…there is no substitute for just being really good at doing things the way they tell you to!

While catching up on some news today I found a great post with EVERY keyword suggestion tool ever made in the history of man…or something close to that!

Check it out here

This tool seemed a bit unimportant at first glance but then I thought that it might really be useful if you are looking for really good links!

If 2 or 3 of your competitors have a link from a site, well you need that link too!

This tool, the Common Backlinks Tool, allows you to enter up to 10 domains and get a list of the common backlinks for the sites.

The information does seem to slightly dated, but it’s very helpful after all!

SubmitYourArticle has come out with a duplicate content preventer of sorts called Article Leverage. I have no proof that this thing works but thought this was too cool and possibly helpful not to pass it on.

Have you tried it? Let us know by leaving a comment!

Check it out here

If you are into backlinks (and you should be) this is a pretty cool tool - the Class Backlink Analyzer

I tried it on our site and it shows some insightful stuff about the links we have and the quality of them.

Check it out!

Matt McGee with the Small Business SEM blog provides some great tips (once again great for newbies and a good review for you SEO gurus out there) on how to do the basics of SEO in one hour.

In his post entitled “How to SEO your site in less than 60 minutes” you will find some obvious basics and not-so-obvious quick tips on SEO.

Most of the checks are very quick, but NOT doing them can cost you a lifetime of being relegated to the 8th page on Google.

Make sure to check out the comments as well.

Seriously…they (and by they I mean Matt Cutts) want to know what you think of the webmaster guidelines and how to improve them.

Check out Matt Cutt’s post and the comments

On that note, if you have not read the Google Webmaster Guidelines, Do so! If you have not read them in the last 3 days, do so now. Believe it or not, Google actually does want to help you, if you are a legit site with a legit purpose. They want good sites to rank high.

So how do you rank high on Google? As you hopefully already know, there is no secret. But Google actually gives a pretty good idea on the webmaster tools section. Read up on it. I can only imagine if you follow their “rules” and suggestions, it just might actually work!