When I first discovered LinkWorth, I thought, well this is just another one of these text link advertising companies trying to copy what others already successfully do. I know all the big brands from their advertisements everywhere and you probably have seen them also.

So why did I give them a try? Out of curiosity and to see if it would work for my websites. If you try to make money online and linkworth combines several ways to earn from your site: Text link advertising with or without a description, paid posts like this one, linked words in your content, and for your search engine marketing they help with article directory and directory submission services.

The company is new, but they have a lot of ideas they implement faster than I can keep reading about it all. As a publisher you have the choice between two payment schemes, either the standard partner option where revenue is split 70/30, or you become a preferred partner, get only a 50/50 share but LinkWorth puts some more effort in selling your ad space.

One of the huge advantages is that you as publisher set the price for ads o your page. We all want to earn from our websites, at least get the cost for domain and hosting back, and the space on you site is limited .

What I like:
- I have control of what is displayed on my site.
- Support is quick with answers to my questions.
- I can set my own price.
- Low minimum payout: 25 US$

What I don’t like:
- LinkInText is too much work right now. You have to add every individual page by filling in a form. Can you imagine doing that for hundreds of pages, me not. Support told me they work on a better solution, but so far I decided to wait until this is in place.
- The control panel is a bit confusing.

Problem: Not all directories or link partners notify you when they put up your link. And if someone just likes your site, links to it, you might only find out when you look closely at your web statistics and there are links coming in. But maybe you want to check who is linking in and from what context.

I find some really anoying sites linking to Thai-Experience, a site for volunteering in Thailand, from time to time. This organization does not want to be linked from any sites that advertise Thai girls or adult content. Google alerts notify me each time when new links pop up and I can have a look.

What is Google Alerts?

Googles Definition: "Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic."

How to set up Google Alerts?

1. Go to Google Alerts

2. Enter the topic, URL, keyword etc. you want to know about

3. Choose between comprehensive or selective monitoring. This will determine where Google is looking for changes.

4. Choose how often you want the Google Alerts to be sent to you. To monitor backlinks "as-it-happens" is the best option.

5. Insert a valid email address. This is the address all you Google alerts will be send to, so make sure you check it regularly, otherwise the whole procedure is useless.

If you get too many unrelated google alerts, you might need to fine tune your keyword. Don't use something general like "travel" unless you want to spent hours sorting and deleting. I can tell you.

It's also a good way to find related blogs where you might leave a comment with a link back to your site.

Here are two moneysaver for March:

Dotster.com: MyPR, the online PR service from Dotster, is giving away one free press mailing per customer for your press releases.

Best of the Web Directory: Promo Code: 4LEAFCLOVER
Save 20% on new:

• Directory Submissions - Save on both the annually recurring and/or the one-time review fee.
• Blog Directory Submissions - Save on the one-time review fee for blogs.
• Monthly Sponsorship Ads - Discount the monthly rate for all new sponsorship ads.
• Blog Advertising - Discount the monthly rate for all new sponsorship ads in the Blog Directory.

Promo code may be used multiple times for multiple products and services during the month of March. Remember - the code will expire on March 31, 2007.

Althought it is a lot of work, submission to directories pays in the long run. Especially if you get the backlinks to your site for free.

A great ressource is the list maintained by Dan at http://info.vilesilencer.com/
The list also has a section for niche directories. This comes in very handy for your travel site. Many of the directories in the list are still very new and have a low pagerank, but I can tell you from my experience with the directory at guiding-stars.com, this will soon change. This list drives a lot of traffic to directory sites and the consequence is a higher pagerank soon.

Another place to look is directorycritic. You will find free directories, a listing of niche directories and more.

More ressources:

webdirectory-index

Directory Tracker - here you can also keep track your submissions

Some paid directories are well worth submitting to if you need quality backlinks or want fast inclusion of your travel site into the major search engines like google, yahoo or MSN.

For me as a webmaster of several travel sites, the actual page rank in the travel category, not of the home page, matters. What good would a home page rank of 7 and a travel category page rank of 0 do my link building efforts. Especially if I look for fast inclusion into the search engines for a new site, it is important, that the page my link is on gets spidered by them often. And a page with page rank 0 might not even be included in the search results.

This list is ordered by page rank of the travel category. The homepage of these directories usually have even higher page rank. I will add new finding from time to time. So please check back from time to time or subscribe to our newsletter with all current information.

http://www.linkcabin.com/
Page Rank of Travel Category: 3
Featured links (5 additional links): $29.99 / One-time fee
Regular links (3 additional links): $4.99 / One-time fee

http://www.allthewebmasters.com
Page Rank of Travel Category: 4
Annual listing: $9.99
Litetime listing $19.95
They are part of a 15 Directories network. Listing for all 15 directories: $49.95
Discount for bulk submission available.

http://directory.v7n.com/
Page Rank of Travel Category: 4
One-time fee of $49.95

http://www.avivadirectory.com/
Page Rank of Travel Category: 5
Featured links: $74.95/year
Regular links: $49.95/year

http://botw.org/
Page Rank of Travel Category: 6
$69.95 / year
$199.95 one-time review fee