Internet Marketing in 10 Minutes

Today I’ve been inspired to write a few posts for my blog that takes a closer look at the advantages of looking at the Google Webmaster Tools for the different websites I built or manage.

The first thing I noticed was that this part of Google has undergone an update and navigates a lot cleaner then it did previously. I know my habits when I log into this service so I have no doubt Google changed navigation based on what happens to be the most popular patterns they’ve tracked us doing.

For example, after selecting a desired site, it takes you to the typical Overview page that looks familiar but I notice a new link towards the top that takes people to the sites ‘Top search queries’ section. You can still get to this page the same way you did before with some minor navigation changes but it is nice to be able to skip right to this page.

The top search queries part of webmaster tools is what I like to visit often by the way and this is why I believe Google has made these changes based on user activity. I may be wrong but a lot of people probably look at this part of webmaster tools.

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This post is going to look a little messy with a lot of bolding but it is done for a reason as you’ll see when you get to my closing paragraph.

I’m not one to buy into keyword density. This is something that the search engines have long ago figured out was being manipulated by Internet Marketing individuals. Keyword density is the practice of including your desired keyword term(s) multiple times within pages content so that a certain ratio of content and those keyword term(s) exist.

While keyword density may not be a factor to consider anymore, it does help if you actually include the keyword within the content of your page. Google is smart enough to put two and two together but it is a much nicer approach if you simply mention your keyword within the content.

If someone searches for say, “Content Writing Advice” then it would make sense to make sure they read something about the topic itself. Don’t short change yourself by not mentioning your keyword term visibly through out your content.

Writing captive content is one thing but being able to write content that is keyword rich is another thing. Before writing your content, my advice would be to figure out what your target audience is going to be searching for to find you and then write your content around a few of those terms on each page. It is simple writing advice but you’d be surprised at how many people miss this small but important step when writing content.

Notice that in my above remarks I stated that Google can put two and two together but it is nicer if you simply mention the keyword? I’ve taken advantage of doing both of these in this blog post. The keyword I used as an example is mentioned within the content and so are the parts of the keyword. I’ve bolded each full or partial instance so you can see what I mean by putting two and two together.

• Uniqueness: 1.0
• Overall Rating: 1.0
• Usefulness: 1.0

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When I first decided to sign up for Sphinn it wasn’t without some thought put into it. Not every Sphinner is a Rustybrick or DoshDosh and feels completely comfortable putting out their views only to have them judged by their peers. I’m sure even these two even question from time to time what others are going to think about something they publish.

I was excited about getting involved in a community that wasn’t over saturated like Digg has become. However I was nervous at the same time because Sphinning isn’t the same as posting on a forum or writing on your own blog where it may or may not be seen. What I realized was that everything I posted on a social network would be seen by others and my thoughts and opinions would be criticized by others or adopted by others.

For my first few Sphinns I had decided to play it safe and the results were poor at best. Those two posts were confirmation at first that no one wanted to hear from someone who had little to no reputation.

The third and fourth posts happened when I discovered I could Sphinn other articles not written by me. The first was an ever popular list titled, “101 Resources to Help You Build a Better Web Form” and the second was an article by Danny Sullivan titled “Supplemental Results Have Gone Supplemental”

I’ve had the pleasure of seeing many popular names come to my blog over the last two months. I can also say that a well known public figure in the industry didn’t agree with what I had to say and then I had nerve enough to stand my ground. I am glad that Jill Whalen commented on a post I wrote titled, “The Dirty Truth About SEO”. I think I grew up a little that day in regards to not worrying about what others think about what I write just so long as I’m not so far off base as to saying retarded things.

Gone are the days when people completely rely off of the latest industry newsletter from a handful of different sources. We live in a world where RSS, Blogs & Social Networks are quickly spreading and are being utilized by hundreds of thousands if not millions of users. We happen to be in the leading industry in regards to being able to see all of this technology unfold before our very eyes. I plan on making myself known through Social Networking and I owe a large part of that to the environment Sphinn has provided me.

Getting involved has been the single most important decision I’ve made to enhance my career objectives. I’ve established business connections, made friends and have put myself on the line to all that read my Internet Marketing blog. My advice to anyone in any industry is to make a commitment to be involved; It’ll be worth your time and effort.

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Writing content that is appealing to the people you want to target is going to be an essential part of your planning when building a website. You have to be able to sell your product or services not only visually but through the way you describe what you have to sell.

Yes you’ll get some attention if you put up a photo of a celebrity or showgirl touting your product or using your service. We all know that sex is one of the leading angles used by major companies to close the deal. However photo’s, design and even bells and whistles are not the only factors you should consider when attracting interested buyers.

• The first rule when writing content is to determine what kind of keyword is most likely going to be searched when someone comes looking for the product or service you have to offer. Once you know that the first thing you want to write about is that discovery.

  Because I work with real estate agents the biggest thing I personally see all the time is an agent talking about themselves, their credibility and their professionalism. I’m sorry but YAWN! There is a time and a place for such content and that is usually an about page. While most of my clients have moved away from that practice, I’ll encourage you to not fall into that trap.
  

• The second rule I try to live by is that of making the content read well. My English teacher in college always told us to read our essay’s out loud before turning them in. Do you pause? Do you go back and read something more then once? Do you start to get a droning voice where it would appear that even you are getting tired of your own content?
  
• The third rule is to include sensible call to action verbage within your content. People expect this! You are probably not making a website just for shits and giggles; you want to make money just like anyone else would. Invite visitors to look at your inventory or service plans; if they didn’t want to know more about these things then they won’t be reading your content to begin with.
  
• The fourth rule I have is to not make anything live on your website until it has been checked for spelling, grammatical errors and punctuation. This is the biggest mistake you can potentially make as it shows your professionalism and thoroughness. While there is understanding for an occasional error here and there, if your content reads like a train wreck then that’s what you’ll have… a train wreck.
  
• The fifth and final rule I’ll add to this blog post is to be sure to use formatting to spruce up the content if there is a lot of it. Underlines, bolding, italics, bullets and even header & sub headers will help prevent people from getting bored with your site.

• Uniqueness: 10.0
• Overall Rating: 10.0
• Usefulness: 10.0

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Thanks to the capabilities of the Internet we are able to obtain so much information about our visitors and use that information to appeal to them. Why not use that information and play on their egos or possible interests through the content of your website?

Anyone that knows me will know that I’m not one to encourage or promote the adult industry but a perfect example of using information provided to a website is unfortunately a dating type site called adult friend finder. I’m purposefully not linking to it but if you are interested you are more then welcome to Google it. Anyways, if you go to their website you’ll see that it will tell you something along the lines of, “Meet people looking for sex in Riverside”. All you need to do is change out Riverside with your own city and there you have it, a perfect example of a websites ability to display something specific to my own needs.

A former co-worker of mine, SEO Hotshot Kid Disco aka CK Chung also has a nice feature on his blog that initiates every time you visit with an Internet Explorer browser window. What happens is that a script checks to see what browser you are using and if you are not using Firefox it will cause a drop down advertisement asking, “REALLY?! Why are you using Internet Explorer?… Use Firefox! It’s a helluvalot better…”

Another great example for people who build affiliate websites would be to take advantage of knowing where the visitor came from through the referring URL. With a little creative programming or perhaps off the shelf programs that can do this for you, you’ll be able to realize that a visitor came from NFL.com (or other sites) and display sports ads (or other ads) on your site.

These don’t always work as there are ways to restrict what information is passed to a web server when you visit a website. However a large number of people don’t know they pass this kind of information to website owners so I’d say it’s pretty safe to utilize this kind of effective marketing on just about any website.

To get started you’ll have to do your research on server side data collection and then learn how to manipulate that data in a real time environment. There are many possible ways of setting this up. Kid disco most likely uses javascript, the adult dating site most likely gets their data through server side data. Either way, a little research, some programming or off the box product (if one exists) and you are on your way. Have Fun!

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Today I received a forward from one of my real estate clients. The e-mail was titled “Social Networking Fatigue”. Since I had just sent her an evaluation geared around some additional Social Networks she could be taking advantage of I figured I had better read the e-mail and be prepared to provide her with something else or choose to encourage her to proceed.

It turns out that the forward wasn’t a complaint about more Social Networking at all. Instead it was an article she had found on a popular real estate news site called Inman. The article asked the question:

…does anyone know a Realtor who has sold a home from Facebook or MySpace?

Good question; I certainly don’t know if any of my clients have landed a closing from their Social Networking efforts. However I also feel that the two example sites are not appropriate for real estate agents to expect serious buyers from.

What I do know is that a report came out over a year ago stating that over 80% of home buyers start their search on the Internet. I also know that almost all of that 80% start their search on their search engine of preference.

I’m pretty sure we can find a real estate agent that has successfully closed on a home thanks to their networking efforts online. The author of the article I’ve read may not have given Active Rain a fair enough chance to work for him. Active Rain is a Social Network for real estate agents and it isn’t uncommon for an agent to pass on referrals through this network.

So I’ll restate the question so it is a little more geared towards the general Social Network public:

Does anyone know anyone that makes a living off of selling services or products from Social Network type websites?

 

I’m fairly confident that others make money off of Social Networking through Google Adsense and other advertising systems like AdBright.

There is plenty of money to be made from Social Network Marketing however let me point out the biggest advantage of this kind of marketing… it isn’t the ability to make a direct sale through the Social Network, while that is a nice side affect it simply isn’t the purpose. The biggest benefit is reputation building / management. Youre reputation is what will bring in a good deal of money depending on which niche you are involved in.

Reputation alone can make someone money. Becoming an authority in any industry can be accomplished through Social Networking efforts. I’ve made a small amount of money through my Social Networking efforts and I’m starting to become known a little more within the industries I work in. I may not be making as much as others right now but I can’t say it hasn’t been fruitful.

So, how are you taking advantage of Social Networks in order to make money? It is possible, all it takes is commitment and patience along with a little advertising. I’ll be Sphinning this blog post for example in order to get it posted on the Internet Marketing related Social Network Sphinn. Others will most likely Sphinn the article and it’ll potentially ‘go hot’ which will drive more people to read the article.

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Today I was checking eight keywords to see where they rank within Yahoo for the top 1,000 positions. I do this on Google, Yahoo & MSN for new clients so we can have milestones along the way.

This is normally an easy process for me because I set the search results to display maximum for each of the three search engines. In Yahoo I am able to display 100 results per page.

Imagine my surprise when I received this:

Sorry, Unable to process request at this time — error 999.

 

I’ve never seen this error so I thought at first that it was something internal with Yahoo. However I asked two of my co-workers to see if they can conduct any searches and they both were able to. At that point I cleared my cache, deleted my cookies and all that fun stuff. Same error! I even tried using firefox and still I get the same error.

On the error page there are a few reasons given as to why I might be seeing this page. The one in particular that stood out has this to say:

This problem may be due to unusual network activity coming from your Internet Service Provider. We recommend that you report this problem to them.

Now I know there are measures set in place with Yahoo that helps prevent automated quarries. I’ve used Web Position Gold for the purposes of reporting on numerous keywords for years now and there has always been a built in time delay for Yahoo.

So what gives? Is Yahoo tightening their detection of automatic quarries or am I just too damned fast at what I do? Personally I think they are looking to reduce bandwidth costs and therefore are tightening their detection programs. I’ve been doing this kind of search on Yahoo for a few years now and I’ve never had this problem.

Yahoo should look into virtualization through VMWare instead of risking user experience

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I’ve just returned from a trip to Las Vegas where my wife and I stayed at the Westin, gambled with high ambitions and watched several shows on the strip. We were living the high life on a limited and planned budget. Needless to say, I didn’t leave town as the next lucky millionaire; how sad and unexpected!

This blog is about 10 minutes of SEO, SEM & Internet Marketing. It isn’t meant to be too personal so coming up with a post that let people know why I haven’t posted in about a week was a challenge. How do I tell people I’ve been in Las Vegas and talk about Search Engine Optimization at the same time…?

Well who would have thought that it would only take me 10 minutes to think of a tie in? I’m going to share my views as to why Internet Marketing in general IS a gamble and it ISN’T a quick route to success.

The Gamble

If you’ve spent any amount of time working as the marketing specialist or even with a marketing specialist you’ve probably come to realize that some things work for some people and some things don’t work for some people. You’ll also know that, in one way or another, everything you do or don’t do will play a role with your success or failure with your Internet Marketing.

Another gamble with Search Engine Optimization in particular is finding a company that offers a guarantee. Marketing firms may have fantastic track records and incredible recommendations from current and previous clients but not even these companies can guarantee organic rankings. You can call, write or e-mail 10 other Internet Marketing companies and you’ll find that none of them can offer a guarantee when it comes to organic rankings within the search engines.

Note: Since most of my readers are fellow SEOers, I might suggest reading an earlier post found in my archives titled, “SEO Money-Back Guarantee”. This will give you some ways to address the guarantee question without offending the potential client.

The Quick Route to Success

I’ve marketed plenty of real estate agents over the last two years and one common theme I see with most of them is that they often think it is a one time push and that is all it takes. If that was the case I’d be able to take care of so many more clients and have a HUGE client base to use in my portfolio.

The truth is that there is a lot of research involved and then a game plan that has to be ironed out followed by the actual implementation of that game plan. Once all that is said and done we then have to monitor to some degree or another our rankings, conversion ratio, pages that cause a visitor to leave and even what our competitors are doing. If you think that isn’t time consuming enough then also consider in that if you are relying completely off of search engine optimization that you’ll have to monitor how the search engines are evolving. Since they are always adapting and changing the way they look at our websites this means that there is no quick route to success on the Internet.

The Winning Hand

Having the ability to reach potential customers on a national and global scale with a reasonable amount of investment involved is going to give you better odds then Las Vegas will when it comes to the success of your online business.

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If I was to build a website that was basically a how-to for creating illegal sweatshops and reference Nike with a link then I’d expect to receive a CnD (Cease and Desist). However to be told I have to link to a company in a certain way or else they are going to take further actions against me is just down right retarded.

Some websites have valid claims to controlling how people link to them. For example they don’t want people saying that they endorse the company without prior written permission. If that company has a registered Trademark for a phrase or saying then they can request the Trademark be removed from a website.

However what they can’t do is request that I stop linking to them with the following example:

“Today there are many different financing companies and services. Some are just ok, others are fantastic but over all you will need to find a company with your best interests in mind.”

I haven’t used the companies registered Trademark therefore they have no authority over the links I give them.

Companies with an authority website have others naturally linking to them. These companies don’t go out and buy links within directories or get local mom and pop shop type websites to link to them as their primary source of link building. Instead they get national exposure and professionals within the banking and real estate industry referencing them all the time. I’d venture a guess that almost all of their in bound links are natural.

When a company enforces a linking policy, they may actually be hurting themselves because of their requests being unreasonable or impractical. It may be easier for a website owner to just remove the link and be done with them. For example, I received a recent e-mail from a company complaining that a link on my site to theirs opened up in a new window. They mentioned that it is clearly stated in their linking policy that the link must open in the same window. Well guess what, I have my own views on best link building practices and that is that I can cause links on MY website to open in any which way I want them to open. I’ve since decided to remove that link from that particular website and sent that company an e-mail letting them know that the problem has been resolved and how.

The bottom line is this… A company or website is only successful because of word of mouth in some form of marketing or another. If a company wants to cut off the hand that feeds it then that is the risk they are going to have to be willing to take. They should pick their battles wisely because in the end they may end up losing the war.

- Disgruntled website owner

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You’re probably thinking of T-Mobile’s newest marketing promotion. I’m actually talking about who’s in the top five positions for your prime keyword. However wouldn’t it be nice if we could specify who belongs above the fold and who doesn’t? I can see it now…

Here is a noble Internet marketing concept that some people may not have considered. Go to Google, type in your target keyword and proceed to check the first five websites listed. Do any of those five websites have advertising options that you can take advantage of?

In my primary niche I run into non competitor websites ranking for terms that I’d like to be ranking for but haven’t exactly achieved that goal yet. More often then not I find chamber of commerce sites, city specific portal websites and directories like Dmoz, Yahoo Directory and BOTW.org.

All of these types of websites tend to have advertising opportunities and are pretty decent to take advantage of.

So what are you waiting for? Who’s in Your Top Five…

• Uniqueness: 10.0
• Overall Rating: 10.0
• Usefulness: 10.0

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