DIRTY LITTLE SEO TRICKS-ARE THEY WORTH IT!

Using SEO tricks to get your website high rankings in the search engines is one of the most talked about topics circulating the internet these days.  And people are trying to beat Google for search engine traffic.  Think about this for just a second, Google is a multi-billion dollar company and has some of the best people working for them.  How do you think one person or a small team can beat out such a big company?  Answer is, you probably can’t and you will be spinning your wheels, wasting your time and money trying to figure all their rules out.

Sure your website might see some traffic for a bit and them blammo, you suddenly start to see a decline.  The Google Slap as marketers call it, has beat you.  All that work for nothing, and it could actually hurt your site in the long run.  I have tried these sneaky little tricks myself on a test website to see how some of these work.  I spent a little money, but what I saw was nothing mind shattering.  And this was for a keyword with moderate competition.

Google has a set of rules they want every website to abid by and if you break that trust, they will break your website.  But you can work with these set of rules and work them to your advantage and I can prove it to you with a website that is ran by one of my good friends.

He has had this site for several years with some traffic, but not what he has seen in the past year.  Keep in mind both he and I run our websites using Quansite, which is a wordpress blog platform, but we pay a monthly fee that comes with a ton of features including built in SEO factors.  The best thing with this system is you get to focus on your content and not how to fool Google.

What he started doing is ramping up his blog post frequency along with writing good quality content about hot topics in the news.  What’s more hot right now than smart phones?  In fact he wrote a blog post about the upcoming Samsung Attain and with using NO dirty little tricks is sitting on page 1 of Google.  Just a little hint….Google loves fresh content on blogs. Here are some of his stats over the past year:

• Alexa rank from 19,000,000 to 1,273,143
• U.S. rank from 1,600,000 to 215,705
• Google page rank from 0 to 2
• Traffic from almost nothing to 700 visitors a day
• 26% of visitors are new with a returning rate of 74%

Here are some screenshots from his Google Analytics account.

That’s pretty impressive, right?  Exactly.  And no rocket science involved.  At times his website will hit 100 visitors by 10am and this number will continue to grow with no trickery and good solid content.

So this just goes to show you if you work with Google and not against them you can see very impressive results.

What are your thoughts on this hot topic?  Speak up and leave a comment on your own experiences.

Talk soon,

Post to Facebook

NON-TEAM MEMBER MATT KENSETH HELPS JEFF GORDON CLEAN THE FRONT GRILL OF DEBRIS

If you weren’t able to tune into Sunday’s race at Michigan, you didn’t miss much at all.  It reminded me of a California or Pocono race.  Just a lot of left turns with not much action, although it did end up in a green white checker finish due to the one and only Kurt Busch nailing the wall and sending him to the garage.  Actually, that was about all of the action happening were drivers hitting the walls out of the corners.  And of course Carl Edwards having problems early on and knocking him out of the points lead.

The biggest thing that surprised me was Jeff Gordon was running good until he started overheating due to debris in his grill.  Which could have clearly taken him out of the race with engine failure.  Jeff keyed in on the mic and asked if Matt Kenseth would pass him so he could draft to remove the crowd trash from the grill.  As you know these two have had there problems in the past, so I was amazed Kenseth actually helped him out.  Teammate Mark Martin also helped Jeff out late in the race to clean yet more debris out of his grill, although Mark seemed a little less reluctant to help out.

Not much good stuff happening in Michigan this weekend and unfortunately, the other of the Busch brothers blues band took the win.

What did you think of race and what was your take?

Talk soon,

Post to Facebook

NASCAR CORNER GOSSIP COLUMN HAS OFFICIALLY LAUNCHED

I have been a big fan of NASCAR since about 1993 and started following Jeff Gordon from the start.  You can find me every Sunday on the couch during the start of each race with laptop geared up with the in car scanner and generally a cold beverage while the guys make all left turns.

So I incorporated a little bit of my passion into my blog where I can do a little gossiping about what’s going on in the world of the sport and post a little summary of that weeks race.  You’ll get a little bit of Bush brothers bashing I can guarantee it.  And I’ll start with this past weeks race at Watkins Glen.

Everything seemed to be going just fine watching the drivers riding around the track being introduced, but strong storms came through and were unable to get the track dry in time to get the whole race in.  So it was postponed until the following Monday.  Unfortunately I was unable to catch the race, but what a finish at the end with the big wreck.  All and all, it was good to see Ambrose win over either one of the Bush brothers.  Although it would have been nice to see my boy, one of the best road course drivers, take the win.

Talk soon,

P.S. You would be amazed at the what both Bush brothers talk about during the race listening to their in car audios.  Bashing how bad the car is, pit crew and even the crew chief.  It amazes me how the team can put up with such shit.  And after the race, if you don’t get to listen in, they just smile for the camera’s and say how good their team and car is.  It’s like they don’t even know fans are listening in.

Post to Facebook

HTC PARTNERS WITH BEATS ELECTRONICS’. WHAT WILL APPLE DO?

Big news in the gadget world today.  HTC has teamed up with a big name in speaker technology, Beats Electronics’.  They said they need to get into the mobile marketplace and HTC now has an advantage because smartphones are not known for their great speaker systems in them.  So in my mind this is a great move for HTC.

HERE IS MY TAKE

When I first stepped into the iPhone world with the 3GS, I noticed that the speakers were not all that.  And as I started using it more I wondered why the biggest player in smart phones put such shitty speakers in them.  A sleek phone like this should have been accompanied by quality speakers.  Now I’m a huge fan of Bose speakers and have a set of their in-ear buds that I listen to my music with.  Bose is top notch and if they figured out how to put their technology in a confined spot like an ear bud and still have that crisp clear sound, then surely they can fit this tech in a smart phone.

So I made a prediction a while back that Apple would someday team up with Bose to offer a high quality speaker system with the iPhone.  Now that HTC has teamed up with Beats Electronics’, I think Apple will be looking into competing with this.  It may not be Bose, but I think they will start looking for partnerships with a high quality company to offer better speakers in them.  Cost will be the biggest factor in this decision, but if Apple can partner with Bose, WOW, the iPhone will jump to the next level.

In keeping up with the iPhone 5 rumors, as of now there is no talk about a better speaker system, just cosmetic changes.  So this may not happen soon, which could be a downfall for Apple, but we’ll hope and wait and see.

Here is Engadgets take on HTC partnering with Beats Electronics’.

What do you think? Let us know.

Talk soon,

Post to Facebook

If you’ve been watching the news lately you may have heard that Groupon is using a marketing technique to change the way we eat, shop and basically live our lives, so they claim.  I picked up on one social media strategy that you can use in your social media management business and start implementing right away.

Groupon Social Media Sales Strategy

This technique is rather simple.  Talk to your clients and find out which days of the week they have the least amount of business and offering deals on those certain days, driving more traffic into their store.  As a social media manager you can use this to your advantage and offer fans on your clients Facebook pages or followers on their Twitter account a discount or whatever deal you can think of on days they see the least amount of traffic.

It’s a short, sweet and too the point message, but I wanted to share it with you.  This is just one way to help your clients, so get creative with this concept.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Talk soon,

Post to Facebook

I have found one of the best place to start outsourcing your projects for your site or blog.  Maybe you need a banner, a nice logo, a video edited or maybe you need some article marketing done.  Whatever the project is, you can probably find it here and cheap.  A little website called Fiverr offers a ton services through contracted professionals looking to help you create whatever you need.  The best part about this, other than it’s free to join, is that all projects are $5.  You may be thinking that you get what you pay for.  I agree, accept with this.  You can get some really nice projects done for the five bucks that you pay.

Every “contractor” on the site tells you what they offer and sometimes include samples for you to look at.  I think one of the best features that FIverr has included is the rating for each contractor.  You get to see how they are rated before starting any project with them.  Not only do you get to see the rating, but also the comments that buyers have made to each of their jobs.  Very nice feature.

So before you spin your wheels on those how to video’s, check out Fiverr to outsource it.  You can’t learn everything, that’s what a team is for.  You focus on the business and have an outsourcing team to do the stuff you don’t have time to learn how to do.

P.S. As I recommend Fiverr to get started with outsourcing to learn how it’s done, I highly recommend after getting your feet wet and learn how it’s done, you will need to move on to some of the bigger outsourcing companies.  Instead of just one contractor you can get several to bid on your project and have a bigger selection to chose from.  The two that almost all marketers are using these days for their bigger projects are Odesk and Freelancer.

Talk soon,

Post to Facebook

Sure, everybody would like to make money on the internet once they know how great of a lifestyle it can produce.  I mean who wouldn’t?  Make enough residual income from the internet that you can tell your boss to shove it.  It’s the American dream.  No more boss, debt, better living, bigger house, nicer car, whatever your flavor might be.  But I’m here to tell you a little somethin’.

I’ve been online for about two years now and yes I’ve made some money, so yes it’s possible.  You see all the gurus telling you how easy it can be.  Just buy this, do this and your bank account will grow.  But I’m here to tell you right here that is ain’t that easy.  You have to look at this as a business and not a get rich scheme or overnight success, although it has happened.  It’s going to take work, many of hours of taking action and quite a bit of time to make it happen.

You can’t just buy a product, put it into action real quick and blamo, money, money, money.  There is a ton of shit you are going to have to learn.  How do I know, cause I’ve done it and am still doing it.  I currently have two sites and one of them is a site I created as a case study.  I bought an affiliate product for my case study that gave me “canned” blogs from hidden niches that make money, but not a ton of competition.  I picked one from the list I knew I bit about.  I bought the domain, got some hosting through Host Gator and uploaded the files.  I had an idea, from experience, what I was doing so it took about 30 minutes to set up from start to finish.  So in less than an hour I had a complete blog with all the goodies.  Here’s where it gets interesting.

I then started my research on how to attract the some REAL traffic to the site.  And let’s just get this out of the way.  Yes you can use the free stuff like social media and forum commenting to get traffic, it’s free and fun and I do recommend this being a part of your marketing, but not your only funnel.  I have found in this new age of new media marketing, that getting into the top page of a search engine like Google for the keywords people are searching for in you niche is where it all happens.  And if you don’t have a nice stash of cash to throw at PPC like all the gurus do, your only option is SEO, or Search Engine Optimization.  And this ain’t easy either.  To rank in the top page, it’s going to take a lot of research and work to get there.  I’m not talking just a few hours, but sometimes weeks to figure it all out.  Just sayin.  So back on topic.

I used Market Samurai to help me with most of my SEO research for this niche case study blog.  And what I found was it was going to take some effort to get traffic, but it’s possible.  I’m still in the early stages with this so I will keep you in the loop on my findings.  The cool thing about this case study is that I’m outsourcing all of it, even blog posts.  I’ve hooked up with a site called Fiverr.  It’s free to join, but the super cool thing is that everything is $5.  Yes only five bucks and you can get some quality outsourcing by doing a little digging.

Now onto the products the gurus are selling you and what you need to be aware of.  First there is quite a bit of trash out there, but there are some real winners too.  Your going to have to turn on your bullshitometer to siphon through this.  I will tell you this, don’t buy a bunch of products that sound like the next big thing and never implement the strategies they give you.  Pick one and stick to it.  If you keep buying and not taking action, your business will never take lift off.  You’ll start getting frustrated trying to learn everything under the sun right away and quit, never a good idea.  I’ve seen my share of products out there, but here’s one thing to keep in mind.  Sure they are selling you an incredible product that if implemented right could give you great results.  But guess which part is hardly ever included…….HOW TO GET TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE, TARGETED TRAFFIC!  I’ve just seen one that has great potential.  It was an all in one blog stop shop by a very well know internet marketer and his price was good.  It was a point a click system and very easy to get your site up, running and easy to work with, but if you can’t get the traffic to your site, it’s just a pretty site sitting out in cyberspace and nobody knows it’s there.

So what I’m telling you is that you need to be able to get a buttload of high quality targeted traffic to your site to make internet marketing work.  People out there searching for answers that you have.  Solutions to their problems.  That’s all an internet marketer is, you provide a solution to their problem.

I’ll leave you with that for right now.  And you may be telling yourself, do I have what it takes to really make money on the internet.  Well, you can do this if your willing to put in the TIME.

UPDATE:  I talked above about getting ranked high in the search engines.  Well, Google’s new algorithm change has been announced and has been nicknamed “farmer”, which could dramatically effect your SEO efforts.

Talk soon,

Post to Facebook

I purchased the new software program Auto Traffic Hijack and have been using it for about a couple days.  I wanted to give you the low down on what the hype is all about and if it’s for real.  You probably, like me and thousands of others, received an email promoting this thing.  I had been on the lookout for an automated program like this so I popped on the price tag.  Another big marketer just released a similar product that he was using himself and decided to release it, but the price tag on it was…………..you guessed it, $1,997.00.  And it seemed to be using similar tactics.

So here’s the skinny.  The system allows you to answer questions in batches from Yahoo Answers, which is a huge free traffic source.  It works for any niche that people are asking questions about and the best part is that it doesn’t even have to be in your niche.  Just search Yahoo Answers for a question in a particular niche and find an affiliate product with good gravity through clickbank that would solve their problem.  You can answer as many questions as you want and the system takes over and posts your answers with your affiliate link.  Your answer will be generic in nature unless you know something about it of course.  One of the cool features of Yahoo Answers is that each time a question is answered the person who asked the question gets an email each time they receive an answer to their question.  So if you were to answer twenty questions, you just sent out twenty emails with your affiliate link to a highly targeted lead.

I wish I had more to report at this time, but that’s all there is too it actually.  Pretty simple and straight forward.  It doesn’t take a lot of time to learn, set up and run.  And so far the conversions for click through seem pretty good.

Talk soon,

P.S. Auto Traffic Hijack seems like a very easy to use tool to get up and running and a simple way to make money online as an affiliate marketer.

Post to Facebook

After being in the business for over 10 years, one thing still gets my goose is that people are still coming into this industry being sold on the fact that they are buying into this “business in a box” theory.  And even folks that have been in this business for many years are still trying to find that golden ticket in their box.  Here’s a clue………it ain’t there.

Sure, you get a box delivered to your door with all the goodies to get you started, so they say and I agree to some extent that this box does contain a few pieces of helpful information, but nothing that’s going to get you out of debt or live that life you dream of.  They just don’t put that six figure stuff inside there.  So what are you to do?  Well, the one thing, and the most important thing, that they, including your upline, forgot to tell you is that you are in a network marketing business, not a network business.  Yes, you have to network with people to get your business get off the ground, but you also have to learn how to market to them, meaning your prospects.  Which means that you need to learn marketing skills.  The kind of marketing skills that will draw your prospects to you and understand what they need so you can provide the solution that they are after.

So here’s what I got for you.  Remember when in the movie Back to the Future Marty keeps telling the ole’ Doc, “That’s heavy”?  Well, I will be teaching my subscribers in my tribe a jam packed e-course that goes through this “heavy” psychological marketing strategy that will blow your mind.  This is something I’ve never unleashed or taught before.  And it has not been taught this way to the network marketing industry.  First a little disclaimer that I’m not a psychologist or do I have a degree in psychology.  I didn’t just come up with this stuff myself either, I have taken this type of marketing strategy that I have learned and now will show you how to apply it to your network marketing business.

I want to give you the chance to come join us in this mind blowing marketing stuff before I start the course, Effortless Influence, next week starting on Monday, October 18.  I know this may sound kind of hyped up, and I hate hype as much as you do, but hype usually comes with a price tag.  And I don’t have one on this stuff I’m teaching you.  The reason for not posting this on my blog is because it’s rather lengthy and I don’t like make my posts on my blog very long, for a reason.  Also, I want to be connected to you through email if you have any questions.

So what you want to do next is sign up above and you will be automatically entered into the course, plus you get some other free goodies.

We shall talk soon,

P.S.  Here’s a little hint on what the first subject will be.  People buy with emotion, not logic.  So I will show you how to use these emotions to connect with your prospects.

Post to Facebook

Many network marketers think there is some sort of magic trick on how to stuff your inbox full of qualified prospects, when in reality it’s a very simple.  Matter of fact it’s all around you and you may not even know it.  The next time you land on a website, you should see this little gem right in front of you.  I want you to understand how incredibly simple this is, so I’m going to get straight to how to stuff you inbox full of all the qualified prospects you need, so you don’t have to go buggin’ your friends, family and wasting money on those bottom of the barrel leads, as I like to say.  You need two things:

1.  An Autoresponder (I like to use Aweber)

2.  An Upfront Product to Give Away

That’s it.  That’s all you need to get the ball rolling.  With the autoresponder you set up an opt-in box on your site or blog where you will give away your upfront product in exchange for your prospects name and email address.  Once they opt-in, you have now created a lead that has came to you which changes the whole game in this industry.  Your prospect has found you and not you chasing them down.  HUGE gamer changer!

The key to this whole process is your product.  You have to entice your prospect with something cool to give them.  This product has to have some value to it though.  It can’t be something lame.  For instance, I see many people giving away the e-book Think and Grow Rich as their product. ( That’s what I started out with)  It’s in the public domain and can be given away.  I actually purchased this book at Barnes and Noble many years ago and could have got it for free.  So this has some value to it and your prospects can gain a lot of knowledge by reading it, not lame.

So what do you do if you don’t have a product to give away.  Well first, be creative here.  There are many ways to have an upfront product of high perceived value.  You could go to the public domain and grab something there or use a Private Label Rights product you have purchased.  These are great, but I always go towards products that you create because you have more to gain with them.  So, you could create a short 10-15 page report on something you have learned and can teach others to do.  Other things you could do are: make an e-course that educates others that can be distributed every day through your autoresponder; create a short five day video course; find an expert and interview them for an hour.  I like the last one because you become like an instant Oprah, so to speak.  You are the voice of your prospects and asking questions that they would like to know the answers too.

So, put on your thinking cap and turn on your creative mind.  There are several ways you can get an upfront product to give away to your prospects.

Talk soon,

P.S.  I chose to go the interview an expert route.  I came up with six questions that frustrated prospects want to know the answers to and asked an expert in the industry if I could interview him to get his tips, tricks and secrets.  You can check out his answers by signing up at my blog.

Post to Facebook