Happy Canada Day!
Posted on July 1, 2008
Filed Under canada, holidays | Leave a Comment
To all of my Canadian friends and readers, I would like to wish you a wonderful Canada Day. In fact, I’d like to join you in celebrating by taking the day off myself. If I didn’t just get back from a long weekend in Las Vegas, perhaps I could pull it off, but given that I will be off again Friday, I guess I need to get some work done.
Three Keys to Success in Online Marketing… and Life in General
Posted on June 25, 2008
Filed Under search engine marketing, Internet Marketing, online marketing | Leave a Comment
Today a friend emailed me asking my thoughts on a popular marketing program designed to help people have success online. I won’t mention it, but it’s not unlike many of the other programs out there. It will give you the mechanics of what you need to succeed in Online Marketing, but it won’t put it into action for you.
The keys are putting knowledge into action. As I wax philisophical, it’s really not different than success in any other arena in life. With that, here are the 3 keys to success.
1. Get Started. It is far better to have a work in progress than a dream. You can and will learn as you go, and what people fear most (people finding their site before it’s perfect), is the best thing that could actually happen to them - and an evidence of success. When I look at my first site, it’s horrific, then I recall that I made a monthly residual income from that site, often exceeding $1,000 and think that’s not too shabby.
2. Stay Focused. We’ve all heard this one, and it’s true. When you look at some of the most successful people out there, they have the ability to exercise amazing focus. My primary qualification for giving this advice is the fact that it has been one of my biggest struggles in life (they call it ADD).
3. Be consistent. I always tell people, if you do “something” (anything) on your Internet Marketing to-do list every day, you will succeed. One of the best things that you can commit to doing is blogging often. Ask any professional blogger, such as Darren Rowse, and you will hear that when they started, the not only wrote blog posts daily, but multiple times per day. It’s one of the fastest ways to establishing authority and building an online community related to you your product or service, and best of all, will result in more “free web traffic” than most people realize.
We Guarantee Top Search Engine Rankings AND Targeted Web Traffic
Posted on June 24, 2008
Filed Under search engine marketing, paid search, pay per click, pay per click search, small business websites, top 10 listings, targeted web traffic | 2 Comments
Many have disputed whether or not a search marketing firm should guarantee search engine rankings and I have often been on that bandwagon. I think what people mean to say is that no one can guarantee organic search rankings because there are so many factors involved, most of which are beyond anyones control.
I have obtained, and continue to obtain and hold several organic top 10 search engine rankings for multiple websites across all of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN). What I tell my clients with regard to ranking organically is “a top ten listing is the goal, but we certainly can’t make any guarantees up front”. While I fully understand what the search engines are looking for, what I cannot control is the competition and how aggressive they will be in employing the exact same strategies as I so. Once we begin the campaign we can see what the results are, know more about the competition and what they are doing, and know what strategies to focus on.
If someone really presses me for a guarantee, I will do explain to them how it can be done knowing that I can make good on it 100% of the time. It’s often costly, but here is the secret (ok, it’s not really a secret)
If a client wants to “buy” their way to top-ten listings on all of the search engines, I am more than happy to assist. It’s not difficult to estimate the average cost per click for each search engine, and then just determine either the total search volume, or base it on how much traffic they want, or how long they want to be in the top ten.
The reality is that no one should ever employ this strategy exclusively. It can be costly and with the growth of online advertising, it will only get more expensive. There are far too many effective ways to obtain organic traffic to not include organic search in your overall search marketing strategy. This is a common error I often see site owners or rookie Search Marketing Practitioners make.
Many people get hooked on Paid Search because of the ease of entry combined with the ability to see immediate results - namely targeted web visitors that convert. My advice is not to get hooked on Paid Search and lose site of the fact that it is a component of overall search marketing, not the end all. Even if your business model works well driving paid search traffic and converting a percentage of it, wouldn’t you rather increase your profit margins? Keep in mind, that most of us have competition and the good times may not always be what they are today (just ask anyone in the real estate business).
We are in the process of fine tuning our “SEO Starter Package” which is a search marketing campaign designed for new web launches and combines the elements of organic search (keyword research, site coding, directory submissions), with paid search, and includes PPC & directory fees and ongoing link building and Pay Per Click Management. For sites and business that qualify, the cost is $18,500 for a 12-month campaign - which includes $6,000 in Pay Per Click Fees and roughly $1,500 in Search Engine Directory Fees. It is designed to reduce the often high up front costs by spreading all of the fees out over a one year period. As well, it allows for immediate generation of targeted prospects, with the goal of increasing revenues from the start and giving you an immediate return on investment. Every website is different, and not all will qualify for this package. Some sites that do not need directory submissions will only need certain services such as link-building, and others who already employ strong SEO, may just want to add Paid Search Services, or enhance their current PPC campaign. whatever you need, we have a solution - and a guarantee!
How Did Google Find My Blog?
Posted on June 10, 2008
Filed Under blogging, bloggers, blogging basics, blog tip | 7 Comments
Back in the day, when you launched a blog, you had to go out and tell the world you just posted something on your blog by using a ping service like PingOMatic. Today, platforms such as WordPress have these ping services built in to them.
The upside is that all you need to do is write and the ping services will be alerted and your content will make its way into cyberspace. But, what if you aren’t ready for the world to see your masterpiece? This actually came up the other day as I was working with a friend on his blog. He got a comment from someone he used to know (ok, date) who said she just found him. Now this is a whole different blog post, but my first comment was that she could not have found him unless she was looking for him. Unfortunately, romance was not in the air, but as I was driving down the road I began to think about what had happened(yes, sadly, I think about this stuff ALL the time). I know my friend had not intentionally sent any traffic to his blog because he was working it and wasn’t ready to have anyone see it yet. Then a light went off… “those dang ping services”. When you want them to find you, they don’t and when you want them to not find you, there they are telling everyone that you aren’t ready for business.
So how does one stop this from happening while you are building your blog?
1. Remove all ping services from your blog. In WordPress, here is how you would find them:
Options >> Writing >> Ping Services (at the bottom of the page)
2. Using a Robots.txt file to disallow all search engines. This would essentially block the search engines from indexing the site.
3. For advanced users ONLY. Edit the Robots META tag in your Blogs source code. WARNING: If you don’t what you are doing, messing with source code can take your blog down and you may not be able to recover it (especially if you don’t know what you did to take it down). Coding is precise, adding or omitting one little character can have a dramatic effect on the outcome.
I hope that is helpful.
Happy Blogging!
Web Traffic Team is Looking for Additional Strategic Business Partners
Posted on June 3, 2008
Filed Under business development, freelancers, straegic partners | Leave a Comment
As we continue to grow, we are seeking new partners to help us serve our clients. We have lots of good stuff in the works including a new release of my book, Internet Marketing Secrets from the trenches (sorry the current version is WAY outdated), a solid small business training program, and new search marketing tools. To carry out our mission, we are seeking the following types of partners:
- Web Application Developers
- Facebook Application Developers
- WordPress Theme Designers
- YouTube Video Developers
- Web Designers
- Software Developers
We are a small and lean firm and currently rely on partner firms to help us keep costs down by not trying to employ consultants that may not stay “working”. As we continue to reach more and more small businesses and non-profit groups, we want to have partners in place who can assist our clients. Here is what we look for in a partner firm:
- Integrity. Without integrity, you’ve got nothing.
- Skills. If you have integrity and no technical skills that doesn’t help much. I had a former pastor who (said on this topic) “sure I’ve got integrity, but you wouldn’t want me to try and fix your dishwasher”.
- Professionalism. If you are a skilled developer but can’t speak to a client without “zero and ones” and can’t write without using “l33t speak”, don’t quit your day job, and make sure to keep your project manager happy so they can do your communicating for you.
- Freelancers and small firms. Bottom line, lower overhead.
- Must be US Based. This is not to discriminate as I know there are many SOLID overseas firms that do quality work. Currently, we are seeking to develop relationships with US based partners. And I have to be true to my theory that SEM will help boost the US economy.
If you have any interest, please contact Anthony Kirlew at 800-453-9290 or anthony(@)webtrafficteam.com.
