Blog Blueprint Review
Overview
It seems like a lot of these blog networks tools are coming out of the woodwork lately – and for good reasons. (a) they work and (b) because they work I’m sure they make a lot of money for the owners too! Blog Blueprint is one of the newer ones, along with another favorite Linkvana alternative Build My Rank. We have received several questions about Blog Blueprint but most of them can be summarized as “How does Blog Blueprint versus Linkvana compare?” and “How does Blog Blueprint versus Build My Rank shake out?” Hopefully after reading this review you’ll have a good sense of where the three stand against each other. We use all three of these networks regularly and so feel very comfortable talking about all three in depth. If you don’t find what you’re looking for in this review, send a comment and we’ll post a reply.
Spin Away
Unfortunately Blog Blueprint, just like Linkvana and Build My Rank, does not allow you to directly put in spun content, they will however allow you to post your own generated spun content unlike the others who strictly forbid it (we highly recommend you use TheBestSpinner to spin out your content for these posts). To date, the only private blog network product that we have reviewed and used that does allow spun content is Backlink Solutions, though it does have a limit of posts that it enforces. Unfortunately, Blog Blueprint enforces a similar limitation on posts. Currently only 20 posts are allowed per day on Blog Blueprint – which equates to about 600 links per month. All things vary, but, for most people that are doing small to average linkbuilding that would be good for 3 sites at most (before you scold me, I know some of you are doing much more than that for your sites, and so are we, but a lot of people struggle to generate 200 a month). They do, however, allow and even suggest that you simply purchase a second membership if you wish to do more, we have several.
The Structure
Blog Blueprint is very similar to Linkvana in concept, but even more simplified. The simple interface is really utilitarian in design – frugal and simplistic – everything you need, but nothing more. And when we say simple, we do mean simple. There are only two pages on the entire site. A home page that shows your list of posts that have been made and their status and an add post page – that’s it. See the screen shots below. Their interface is pretty darn terrific actually – simple and straightforward. The only fault is that to reorder stuff you have to do it one at a time and you can end up where the content that is ready to publish is actually on page 2 or 3 and you think you are out of content, but in actuality it is just the case that everything on page 1 has already been published. That’s one “bug” we’d like to see them fix and just apply a different sort order on their homepage to avoid that.
So, back to how it works. It really couldn’t be much easier. You write a 100 word post (just like Linkvana and smaller than the 150 worders required by Build My Rank) which can contain one and only one link. The interface (did we mention that it was simple?) doesn’t even have an editor, just a simple “paste it in” box. But honestly, that is not a complaint. I doubt that very many regular users are concerned with pretty cosmetic stuff like that. The one oddity is that it has a proprietary format for the links rather than just using standard HTML <a> tags like both Linkvana and Build My Rank. It uses the following syntax: {anchor|http://domain.com}.
All you have to do is paste in that 100 words or more of content and then add a title and select a category and click on “Submit” – that’s it. It doesn’t even worry about tracking by domain or setting up projects or any of that “fluff” – just pure and simple linkbuilding. As with any of these networks, you’re not going to get any reports from them about where your post is published, etc. All four of these networks – Blog Blueprint, Linkvana, Backlink Solutions and Build My Rank – are private networks and, though it’s not too hard to track down your posts if you use obtuse titles or highly unique content, they’re not just going to tell you what their network sites are. We wouldn’t expect anything different and we use all four of these regularly. We would all love to have that reporting, but honestly, it’s not necessary – the “proof is in the pudding” as they say. Either you’re pleased with their results or you’re not and reports won’t make a difference either way if you’re not.
Other Features
There really are no other features. This product is simple and straight forward and doesn’t try to throw in a bunch of other features or even try to have a spiffy interface. At the moment Blog Blueprint is available as a package along with Article Blueprint and Link Blueprint, the package is called SEO Blueprint, we will have a seperate review for SEO Blueprint that will review all 3 items, however at the moment we are using it simply for Blog Blueprint. Article Blueprint works very much like UAW or SubmitYourArticle, which we were less than impressed with for distributing articles to article directory’s not blogs. And Link blueprint is a sorts of 3 way link exchange, were you add your blog and request links from others etc etc – this is not for us.
Results
Simply put, we have seen some nice results with our preliminary tests, getting us a double listing, as we were trying to do, for specific keywords that we targeted, but beyond that, it’s too early to tell for us to put our stamp on it. We are releasing this review because we have had so many inquiries about this product and we wanted to address them here on the site. We are still testing it ourselves and don’t feel ready to release anything on it just yet. It appears to be a solid offering and we have tracked down lots of the links and *most* of them appear to be on the PR range of sites they claim (however, just like Linkvana, we have found many on lower PR sites than are supposed to be in their network). Keep in mind, they have large networks and PR changes all of the time, so I’m sure we’ve just caught both of them with their proverbial “pants down” so to speak. I’m sure they regularly police this and remove lower ranking sites.
One other thing that concerns us with this network is that it has received a lot of attention. The bad part of this is that if too many people are using it everyone gets worse results. As an example, one of the posts that we found of ours was on a blog that got 27 posts to its homepage in just a few hours. Only 10 stayed on the homepage. So what that means is that your post would be on the homepage for maybe only 4 or 5 hours before it fell off and if Google didn’t pick it up in that short window your benefits will be far less than expected. In the end, it won’t matter, as either way your content will end up on a PR0 page on the same PR3 site. So perhaps this is just semantics. However, in our testing with our favorite Linkvana alternative Build My Rank, it had posts staying on the homepage for several days but we suspect that will change as well as more people begin using the network, plus remember BB touts only PR3 or higher blogs – that’s impressive.
What We Don’t Like About Blog Blueprint
We have a couple of complaints right now but they dont prevent us from recommending Blog Blueprint at this time. The primary one is the limitation of only 20 links per day. We are using Blog Blueprint extensively and have multiple accounts, however, that limitation is pretty tough for us and we’re not big fans on that approach. We would much rather see them limit the customers and grant full access to those that are using it than limit the use for everyone. Various other private networks like this go through periods where they “shut down” and don’t allow new members in order to preserve the integrity of the network. While the Blog Blueprint price is very affordable (the cheapest of the three with content and features factored in), this limitation of 20 links can make it expensive if you have to buy multiple subscriptions to support your linkbuilding efforts, however if 20 a day is all you need, this is the one to choose for you.
Our other concern is with the size of their network. Clearly, no one publishes these details, but we’re concerned about this with Blog Blueprint because we see so many posts cycling through the blogs and staying on the homepage for such a short period. That makes us wonder just how many blogs are behind the curtain or, perhaps, there are just way too many users. Hopefully things will shake out soon and they will address these two issues.
Pricing
The pricing on Blog Blueprint is available for an astounding price for what you get – Linkvana is at $147 a month, Build My Rank is at $59 a month and Blog Blueprint comes in at $67 a month – BUT You get all PR3 or higher blogs, plus an article distribution network, and Link Blueprint as well. This is an outright bargain. The problem is that, as mentioned above, with the limitation of 20 links per day, it can actually be expensive. In other words, if you buy two copies to get more linking, then you have already surpassed the price point of Build My Rank or Linkvana which features unlimited linking, however if 20 links a day will suffice this is a no brainer.
Blog Blueprint Bonus Offer
Blog Blueprint is a very potent Linkvana alternative, and we have been using it for months with great results. However it wont do you much good without some content to post to Blog Blueprint. If you purchase Blog Blueprint via our link we will send you ten (10) FREE 100 word Blog Blueprint posts each month you stay subscribed to BB. The articles are provided by ArticlesOnTap.com, so you can be assured they are top quality, 100% unique articles ready to post. You will also receive a 10% off coupon code for any future orders of articles from ArticlesOnTap.com. You wont find a Blog Blueprint coupon here, but the ArticlesOnTap coupon will come in very handy for content. To redeem your bonus simply follow these Blog Blueprint Bonus instructions. Once we confirm your purchase was made through our link, you will receive your bonuses.
Forget writing content, finding link partners, evaluating and testing the best networks - just let us do it for you cheaper than you can do it yourself. Get a mix of link types, unique content, high PR links, a monthly Press Release - plus reports and rank tracking.
On June 2, 2010 Ivan wrote:
Before using blog blueprint tested it on 4 keywords, 200 – 500 exact search volume.
For 2 of the keywords (singular and plural) moved from 17 and 16 to to 6 and 6.
For the another set of 2 keywords (singular and plural) moved from 6 and 6 to 2 and 2 positions.
The results are very positive and the price the right.
On the flip side, the process for submitting content is 100% manual and there’s no way to set it to trickle, you have to go in every day and add your stuff. Would love to see a better way to do manage posts.
On July 6, 2010 Fred wrote:
Not sure why more people have not commented or ranked on Blog Blueprint – this service has been off the charts for me. I agree with the majority of your review, and I have seen way better results than I did with just Linkvana. While Linkvana was working to some extent, I didn’t get the extra jump I needed until I added Blog Blueprint to the mix. It looks like they have renamed it SEO Blueprint and are selling it as SEO Blueprint, it is also available with their IMA product which is how I got access.
On July 6, 2010 Fred wrote:
One final note, for the above commenter Ivan. I would like to see a way to trickle the posts as well, only if they allowed more than 20 posts a day. As it stands I get 20 post a day out, so need to trickle for me. I guess if you have a smaller site without much linkbuilding going on you would want to trickle, but I spin out a weeks worth of content at a time and load in 140 posts at a time which covers me for a week at 20 a day. You could do this on a monthly basis I suppose, but I want to be able to control my links on a weekly basis in case I have to adjust things. Thanks for the great site Troy and Mike!
On July 6, 2010 admin wrote:
Thanks for the great comments Fred. I agree on the trickle rate, we do the exact same thing, as we have discussed with you before. We load BB up with a weeks worth of posts and let it fly at 20 a day – that becomes our trickle. But it would be nice to control it.
Also BB is currently available through SEO Blueprint for $67 a month or as part of IM Advantage for $147 a month for those wondering what you mentioned. We have both.
Thanks
Mike
On July 6, 2010 Troy wrote:
Ditto on the “thanks” Fred…
FYI, one advantage of getting Blog Blueprint via the IM Advantage is that you get automatic integration with their Social Blueprint product as well which gives you “links for your links”. This is a great way of maximizing the number of links that get indexed and giving you more links for the same effort. You can also use Social Blueprint on it’s own for any of your other URLs…
Troy
On July 7, 2010 Michael jackson Ringtones wrote:
I have been using Blog Blueprint for a couple of months and so far the results have been pretty good for me. I got it as part of IMA myself, its great they are finally offering it up as an SEO Package now.
On July 9, 2010 Larry wrote:
Joined SEO Blueprint for about 4 days now and its easy peasy!! Thanks for the recommend!
On July 11, 2010 Adam wrote:
If you had to choose one… would you choose Blog Blueprint or BuildMyRank?
I notice that you have them as a tie, but which one have you seen better results thus far?
On July 11, 2010 Troy wrote:
As always, the answer isn’t quite that simple… There are many items which you have to weigh into your selection. Blog Blueprint uses 100 words instead of 150 words and is very spun content friendly – that means less content costs. Build My Rank, on the other hand, doesn’t have a limit on the links you can build with it like the 20 per day limitation of Blog Blueprint. Build My Rank also builds links for your links – important for making sure your posts are indexed. You can do this with Blog Blueprint as well, but you’ll need to buy via the IM Advantage product which includes the Social Blueprint that is a separate product, yet integrated in this package. FYI, the IM Advantage includes much more as well – it’s a pretty interesting package and we do use it ourselves. With that combination Blog Blueprint builds links for your links as well. In terms of overall quality of individual links I would say that Build My Rank packs more punch. However, if you’re not giving it a lot of fresh content that won’t do you much good. In the end, like always, there are several factors that you have to balance. Don’t forget that the most important factor of either is that you must feed them content and keep the links flowing.
Sorry that’s not as direct as you were probably hoping for Adam, but the truth is it’s rare that you have a “clear” winner – there are always factors that influence the choice ultimately making it a personal determination of what’s best for your particular needs.
I hope that helps…
-Troy
On August 19, 2010 Tia wrote:
I’m so mad that I just purchased Blog Blueprint, not through your link!!!! I didn’t get the bonus!
Total bummer.
I will be tracking the results, because it’s important for clients. For sites that already have, say, 2500 links, it’s kind of a big deal to know that when the links get to 3000, those extra 500 came from Blog Blueprint, does that make sense?
The only way they can justify not doing any reporting is by saying, ‘if you’re using blueprint, you shouldn’t be using anything else.’ And if we were all doing that, we could easily tell if it was working. But, I’m not just using blueprint, so I’ll have to do reporting.
One thing I like about UAW is that at least they give you a link you can use to search Google for all of the articles they’ve published on your behalf.
That said, I love Blueprint for the simple fact that even without a spinner, I can crank out 100 words on anything in just a couple of minutes. I find it easier to do that 20 times than to use a spinner and risk rejection, thus adding time.
Cheers, and a GREAT review,
Tia
On September 7, 2010 Moiskixtuttox wrote:
Very Interesting!
Thank You!
On September 13, 2010 D.W wrote:
Hi Troy,
I’m thinking of switching from BMR to BB, and would love to have your bonus.
This means if I buy through your link, I get half of my post quota already each month, right?
Oops, double post , please delete the earlier one. Thanks
On November 15, 2010 Jay wrote:
Hi Troy,
I have been using Blog Bluprint for the last 2 weeks to check out the strength of there network. And, if I’m completely honest here, I think its a complete joke.
I tracked down about 30 of my articles and discovered some shocking footprints…
1, All blogs are using the same wordpress theme!
2, All blogs have the exact same categories!
3, All blogs have 1 link per post.
4, Many blogs will be sharing the same spun content.
There is no way anyone here can say that Google is too dumb to pick up on these and devalue the links. I highly doubt anyone is getting good serp gains from using this network.
On December 13, 2010 Jamshaid wrote:
My greetings, I have a request for owner Mike to please write a detail post on Social bookmarking:
1. Its role in SEO
2. Its role in backlinks indexing.
3. A recommendation of a software program to make this job easy.
4. How much social bookmarking is needed for these types of links, Private and public blog networks, article directories.
5. And clarify the myth that “If a url on which your link exists is not bookmarked to major social bookmarking sites like digg etc then it is not going to be benefical “
On September 1, 2011 Chris wrote:
I was thinking of buying BB, but after reading Jay comment, i would turn to BMR. After all, i didn’t hear anybody say a bad statement about it!