Ryan Moran

Whoever said that Cleveland was not beautiful was not at my condo this week.

Important note: this video does NOT do justice of the awesomeness of what was outside. It was the most beautiful thing in nature that I have ever seen, and the shots that I got only captured a glimpse of its greatness (I apologize for my “epic” writing style today, but this was pretty sweet).

Yes, This Is The view From My Living Room

I live right on Lake Erie and get some unbelievable shots of the sky, of clouds hovering over downtown Cleveland, of sailboats gliding outside my window, and powerful wind gusts off the lake, but this topped them all…

It started as a half rainbow far over the lake, and it was brightest rainbow that I’ve ever seen. I snatched a photo of it

with my camera. It came through bright and vivid on the camera, even though the rainbow was literally hundreds of miles across the lake.

View From The Dining Room

(You’ll also see that the second rainbow began to peak its head over the first.)

Keep in mind that that is hundreds of miles from shore.

As the weather continued to break, the began to stretch toward shore and across downtown Cleveland, and it got more and more vivid. Other people took notice as well, and a group of people started gathering outside.

Eventually, it stretched all the way across Downtown Cleveland, and it enveloped the entire city.

Again, it’s hard to relay exactly how massive this double rainbow was, or how humbling it was to see, but it stretched all the way from across the lake, back to shore, covering all of downtown, and all the way past most of the southern suburbs.

In attempt to capture the full scope of it, I shot this video from the deck of my condo:

Unbelievable.

Just had to share.

This is my cleverly disguised affiliate link for Ryan Deiss’s Perpetual Traffic Formula. Click here to see the Q&A that he put on to reveal the details of how this product will change your business.

Perpetual Traffic Formula launches tomorrow, Wednesday, July 28th, at 3 PM ET. If you haven’t been following the launch (that is, the free stuff that is given away during the madness), here’s what you’ve missed:

1) Free report that explains the changes that Google has been making. (Hint: links are becoming less important, while activity is becoming MORE important.) Grab the free report here.

2) Cherry Picker Software – this will help you find “bum marketing” keywords with the click of a mouse so that you can get in front of instant traffic. (No opt-in required for this one.)

3) Google Authority Codes – these are the same codes that I use to find highly relevant .edu and .gov links, which will supercharge your link building campaigns.

As you know, I’m an affiliate for this launch, so I’m going to make a couple of bucks. That money will be used to fund a road trip, in which I hope to MEET YOU.

That’s because I’m giving away two super awesome bonuses for those who buy Perpetual Traffic Formula through my affiliate link.

Bonus #1: You’re going to get free access to my new affiliate marketing product, The Affiliate God, which will be taught in a classroom format. If you’ve followed me for any length at all, you know that affiliate marketing is my crown jewel online, and TAG has been in the works for YEARS. You’ll be blown away by the new format – I’ve considered charging as much as $197/month for this product, but those who grab PTF through my affiliate link will get it for free.

Bonus #2: Hopefully, we’ll get to meet in person. This can come in one of two ways: first, we can meet if you live in one of the cities on my road trip (to be determined). And second, if you happen to attend any of Ryan Deiss’s events this year, I will be there, and we’ll grab lunch there. Heck, maybe we’ll even tear up the town and cause a scene together.

That’s my shameless plug for Perpetual Traffic Formula, and the bonuses that I’ll be giving away in the process. This has been a tough year in terms of my personal life, and meeting you will make my year better!

I appreciate you,

Ryan

As part of my linking strategy, which includes article writing, social profile links, and some text link ads, I recommend a heavy emphasis on authority links from .edu and .gov links.

Google sees links on .edu and .gov links as authoritative – even though they’re almost always free to get. Getting “authority links” is one of the challenges in search engine optimization, and most people resort to buying them. Truth is, all it takes is punching a few search codes into Google to find sites that allow you to put a link there.

Here are three of the ways that I get links from .gov and .edu sites (tip: they are usually the same types of links that I’d get elsewhere, they just *happen* to be really, really authoritative):

1) Social profile links

A lot of government and education websites will use social networking applications on their own websites, and they leave them open to public access. That means you can create a profile on a government or education website and link back to your stuff (using your anchor text) on the social profile. Do that a bam! you’ve got a link from a government site. Use these search codes government links that allow links.

2) Blog comments

Similar to the social profile links, education and government websites often allow their employees or their students to have blogs. When you comment on these blogs, use your keyword in the “name” field and your website as the URL, and you’ll have a comment link back to your site on a .edu or .gov link.

Some .edu and .gov blogs will require you to have an account with them first. In some cases, you can get a double-whammy here, because you can create an account with the site (and include a link on your profile) AND now post comments to all the blogs on the site. Score! See this walkthrough of how to put comments on .edu and .gov sites.

This concept also works with news reports. If an authority site releases a new report, you can often comment on it and leave a link back to your stuff. These are often “no-follow” links, but that largely does not matter.

3) Forum links

Especially in countries outside the United States, governments use forums among their employees and to facilitate discussions. These forums are often wide open because they are on public scripts, so you can walk in and start commenting on the topic. Just include a link in your signature (or a link in your forum profile – or BOTH) to get the link juice from the .gov or .edu backlink.

You’ll notice that these linking strategies aren’t much different than traditional backlinks – the difference is the authority of the sites that the links are on. Some will argue that one high authority backlinks is worth as much as hundreds of low quality backlinks.

Few people, however, dig deep enough to find these free backlinks from .edu and .gov sources, but a few search strings will bring back more than enough for you to dominate the first page of Google.

See ya on the first page!