Remember when you were in high school. You’d make claim and have a friend (or nemesis) answer with “Prove it.” Well that’s the way I felt the other day when I was talking about link building and New Media marketing with a friend who is a successful internet marketing guru.

He was bragging about how cheap he could buy inbound links to boost his page rank. I argued that marketing with New Media, business blogs in particular, was more effective and a better value when it comes to generating a constant flow of targeted traffic AND top search engine rankings. Especially for the average business owner or marketer who doesn’t have tens of thousands of dollars to “pay” for links.

I’ve decided to share part of our conversation because it was really eye-opening, both for him and the coaching group I shared it with yesterday.

Before we get to the “proof” though, let me take a minute and explain why inbound links are so important to your online marketing.

Why inbound links to your site are so valuable?

It’s simple. Get enough one way, targeted, high PR back links and you will rank for any keyword. That’s why marketers spend fortunes buying links. Because links make your site rank, and rankings bring you traffic.

Everyday, millions of dollars are spent on the internet. People buy things, they buy services, memberships, they become leads for a new mortgage, they fill out forms, click ads… Hundreds of millions of dollars worth…

And who is making this money?

The people on top. The sites that are getting found by searchers are taking that money home.The ones that aren’t getting found are getting nothing.

And that is just normal links. Links that don’t carry any type of endorsement or limited niche filtering.

Graduates of our Pushbutton Persuasion™ program have been able to make connections that have a major impact on their traffic, prospect subscriptions, and sales. We’ve shown them how to go way beyond the conventional benefits of Page Rank and search engine optimization.

Once you understand how to connect with and persuade the Tribal leaders who have influence over hundreds, thousands, or tens-of-thousands of passionate followers, you’ll be able to get both passionate fans and links — for free!

So what are normal links worth?

The fact is, links are worth more than what you can pay for them. Heck, that’s why people invest in them in the first place.

Ever heard of text links services like textlinkbrokers.com or textlinkads.com?

These services charge a monthly fee per link. Take a look at this screen shot from TextLinkBrokers.com as an example.

Check out what you’d pay per link, per month… and do the math!

Even if you were to low ball these figures and break it down with very low average values, here’s what you get:

One PR 3 link for one month: $15
One PR 4 link for one month: $25
One PR 5 link for one month: $40
One PR 6 link for one month: $55
One PR 7 link for one month: $75

Now imagine you know how to connect with and get links back from leading influencers. We’ve had clients use the online persuasion skills they learned in Pushbutton Persuasion™ and applied using their BLOG i360™ system to easily get, in less than an hour or so per week:

Eight PR 3 links at $15 a month: $120
Six PR 4 links at $25 a month: $150
Five PR 5 links at $40 a month: $200
Four PR 6 links at $55 a month: $220
Three PR 7 link at $75 a month: $225

If we add that up, we get a total of $1,115 worth of links on a monthly basis.

In 12 months your site has benefited from $13,380 worth of links!

Remember, this is a real low-ball figure based on just an hour per week. And this figure doesn’t even factor in the positioning and niche leadership you can gain from the thousands of real, qualified people being exposed to you and your expertise.

Ranking stability with New Media is stupid simple

The beautiful thing about these links, is once they are up, they don’t come down. They are permanent!

And they are completely Google-friendly. That means when Google and other search engines “slap down” your competitors using black hat tactics, your rankings are secure, or even likely to improve!

We’ve seen that happen again and again, with one of our competitors in a keyword niche spending over $10,000 per month on Search Engine Optimization for their multi-national franchise. We are consistently in the top five rankings with them, and we don’t spend a dime outside our BLOG i360™ New Media Marketing system.

And when the last Google shake up occurred, they were gone — overnight. No where to be found in the top 200 rankings. It took them over four months to battle their way back up into the top 20, while our rankings stayed rock solid.

This is just one more bottom-line reason for you to embrace New Media Marketing. You can start with your business blog and move out from there. But it’s like I told my internet marketing friend; “It’s time to leave the interruption-style marketing behind and step into the New Media marketplace.

John Paul Micek is a co-founder of the international business coaching company RPM Success Group ® Inc. He and his partner Deborah are authors of the hit book Secrets Of Online Persuasion and creators of BLOG i360™; the pushbutton easy system for small business owners, marketers, and sales professionals who want to get more customers and cash online using New Media. You can reach J.P. at [krazycapitalist@gmail.com]