OVBlogger: Blogging and SEO

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Wow. I remember when Firefox was new and nobody wanted to use it. Me. OK. Me.

I went kicking and screaming into Firefox on a dare. Someone (I don’t remember who) told me to try it for 7 days and if I didn’t like it, well…

Like it? Hmm… That’s a bit mild. I adore Firefox! In fact, if it was a man, I’d marry Firefox. OK… That’s a little too weird. But…

Not only is it more secure, it’s so customizable. Firefox has a bunch of totally cool add-ons that you can use, especially if you’re into SEO. So, let me tell you which ones I use and you can check them out when you’re getting Firefox (because I know you’ll want to after this, right? LOL):

Search Status: Gives you Google PageRank, Alexa Ranking, and Compete ranking for every site you land on, right there on your lower toolbar.

SEO Quake: This is my favorite add-on of all. Puts all the info (number of links, pages indexed, page rank) from the top 3 SEs (Google, Yahoo, MSN), the Alexa Ranking, Date of Origin, Whois, and much more right at your finger tips. Works with Google search results as well as individual pages. This one really rocks! Trust me. Just download it. You’ll love it. Just be sure that your Firefox version is up to date. Downnload the most recent version of Firefox first.

StumbleUpon Toolbar: If you’re a blogger, you can’t afford not to see the power in Web 2.0 social bookmarking sites. StumbleUpon is one of the bigger and better sites in Cyberworld.

Tab Mix Plus: Gives you the ability to do more with your tabs than Firefox naked. You can order tabs the way you like, for instance, and with session manager, you can decide if you want the same tabs to open when you re-open your browser.

CoolIris: Lets you preview a web page before you go to the trouble of opening it in another tab. So, let’s say, you just want to check out a link or that you have to go back and forth from link to originating page. CoolIris is great.

FasterFox: Just gives Firefox a little extra power. Think of it like adding STP to your browser.

Forecast Fox: For keeping an eye on the weather, something important here in Florida between June and December. (Hurricane season, my friends.)

Foxmarks Synchronizer: This one’s awesome for syncing your desktop and your laptop’s Firefox bookmarks. This add-on just runs in the background, which is totally cool, or you can force it to sync. I love this feature. When I go to my laptop, I know that whatever I need is going to be there. Wish they’d come up with something like this for RoboForm. I know there’s RoboFormtoGo, but it’s just not the same. There’s too much work. I love my bookmarks being there and just wish my passwords could be, too.

IETab: If you’re like me, when you design a site, you may forget that it may not look the same in IE as it does in Firefox. (I do that all the time. “Pat, why does the blog look all wanky?” Pat rolls her eyes. Duh.. “I forgot to check it in IE.” Not no more!) This plug-in allows you to check what your page looks like in both browsers without opening IE, too. Awesome!

I have a few more, but these are my faves. If you have a favorite Firefox Add-On, I’d love to know about it! Just post a comment and I’ll try it out, report on what I’ve found, and rate it here!

But the bottom line is like…

Firefox rules!

Popularity: 20% [?]

I got a message from Si Usher today about John Reese’s new program, Blog Rush. How it works is that you give Blog Rush your RSS feed details, put a bit of code on your blog and you’ll see what happens in the black widget box below. You show other people’s feeds, and so, in turn, they show yours.

You might want to check it out. It’s free.

http://easyseotricks.com/BR-OVB

Get in early and sign some other folks up to get even more benefit.

Popularity: 10% [?]

I’ve been consulting with people about list building and whatever help I can offer for a few weeks now, and find it to be rewarding. When I can tell someone to move up their opt-in box on their blog or to change their META tags on their website, to use article marketing to help them get traffic, or whatever little piece of advice I can give them, they’re grateful and really appreciate the help. To me, that’s the reward part. I remember what it was like to be floundering around, not know what the hell to do. Plus, we’re building tons of goodwill for Overcome Everything, which is great.

But here’s what really gets under my skin: When I talk to older people who’ve been scammed. It just pisses me off. I mean, it’s really confusing out there, and when some people see how much money has been made in these super-awesome programs, they buy into them. What they don’t realize is that the only people making money with these Ponzi schemes are the people running the scams.

I talked to one sweet lady today that had wasted more than $2K on a program with NO product. Nada. And that to me constitutes Ponzi. They’re selling nothing but hot air and bullshit. And they’re taking tons of money from older folks. Heck, I’m an older folk, and I have to admit that when I first came into Internet marketing, I didn’t know the ropes, either. Some of that stuff looks really awesome, you know?

But it’s shit.

Another guy had bought into some kind of “gifting” scheme. God, that scared me. And I may have gotten a little too exuberant about the folly of it all and pissed him off. I felt bad about that, but in time, he’s going to see that what I said made sense.

Grr. Makes me furious, and I’ve seen it once too often.

And these slimeballs prey on the gullible. They just take people’s money without thinking twice about it. They should be shut down and frickin’ crucified!

So, I’m on a mission… I want to make things easier for us Boomer folks. I want people to realize the power of the Internet, when you take the time to build a business. Nothing happens overnight. Nothing.

I’m building my business again, almost from scratch. And it’s going to be oriented to people like me, who may have retired and want more income or maybe they’re just transitioning from one career to another. Whatever it is, I want to help in any way I can in any niche that exists.

Heck, we Boomers have had a hard row to hoe from the minute we were born. There were always too many kids in our classrooms. We fought to get into college. There were no jobs once we got out, and well… It’s always been just too many of us. I often wish I’d been born a little earlier or a little later. Being part of this giant cohort of ours just sucks.

But… I haven’t allowed it to stop me, and I know there are tons of people out there that are just like me. They’re smart. They’ve had lots of business experience. They’re ready to learn something new.

I really want to help.

To be continued…

Keep watching.

Popularity: 10% [?]

So, like I go to my comments, and who’s reading my blog?

Mark Joyner.

I’m like, “Wow!” and flattered and sputtering, and what a boost today to see his comment. There’s no one I respect more.

Hell, I want be Mark Joyner.

Think I’ll get a Mark Joyner suit.

And when I put it on, what will happen? People will love me. They’ll also think I know everything (though Mark says he doesn’t, I smile).

But then maybe I’ll get a Tellman suit, too. One day, be Mark, the next day Tellman. Oh, and what about Ben Mack? Then, I’ll be able to do magic, too! (He’s really good at that, and he eats fire. Now would that be fabulous, or what?)

Wow. This is getting better and better.

But you know, it takes more than a suit. Right?

Modeling successful people is a very quick way to find success. Tellman says to do it blindly, to pretend you’re stupid and just follow someone else’s system, step by step, even when you think you know how to do some things better.

So… I’m going to be doing just that.

And, if you’re interested in learning more from me and from some very cool people who are really, really smart… stay tuned. It’s all coming together, and I’m extremely excited about it. Already bought the domain. Already wrote out the plan.

Now, the squeeze page and sales letter…

Hmm…

Gotta get a Mike Morgan suit for that.

Popularity: 19% [?]

I do quite a few consultations in my work at Overcome Everything, mainly with people who either haven’t started their online businesses or who have, but are just spinning their wheels.

There’s no shame in that! I did it myself for about three damn years, and I could kick myself for every day that I did. And when I think of the money I spent! Sheesh.

The folks I talk to are no different from me. They want to do well. They’re smart. They’re trying, but nothing’s happening! A lot of that comes from confusion. This guru selling this and that guru telling you that their whatever is the latest, greatest and whatever.

Well, you know… All that stuff IS pretty good. And, if you buy it and actually USE it, you may come out all right. But here’s the thing. It’s all just very confusing, when you don’t know who’s right and who’s leading you down the greenback path. Some people will do that to you.

Here’s the thing: YOU don’t have to let them!

What Tellman tells people is to listen to ONE person. Just choose one of the “guru” types that you feel simpatico with. He even says, “It doesn’t have to be me. It might not be me.” But he encourages everyone to pick one person to follow. When you do that, it cuts down on so much of the white noise, and you’re able to focus.

Worked for me.

I’m pretty pleased with how my business is going these days. I’m making friends, not selling products. Oh sure, I want to make some money, just like everyone else, but when I do, I want it to be from something that I’ve tried myself and that I use every day or from someone I trust.

Just today, for instance, I got an email from my friend Tim Whiston. Now, I’ve know Tim for a few years, and he’s an awesome writer and site designer. He’s selling pre-made, ready to go websites, and if he made them, I can tell you that they’re pretty frickin’ awesome. (Check his stuff out at http://easyseotricks.com/TimRocks-OVB ) I don’t mind recommending him, but I won’t do it just because I want to make a few bucks. It’s not worth it. If something doesn’t work or just plain sucks, who do you think people blame? Me, that’s who.

And they’ll blame you, too.

Don’t sign up for affiliate programs, just because you can. Don’t get other people to plunk down their money just because they’re clueless newbie-types. Make sure that if you offer something that it makes sense. And be a friend to your fellow marketers. If people can trust you, you’ll do much better in the online marketing world. That’s a fact.

Popularity: 10% [?]

The big news is that there’s an upgrade to WordPress, and if you have an installation on your own server, you should upgrade for security reasons. I used to blow that stuff off, until I lost all my databases. You don’t want that, trust me. Just go do the upgrade. If you installed via Fantastico, check your web hosting account and as soon as the upgrade becomes available, do it.

Just be sure that after you’ve upgraded that you check the installation. I did one on my old blog and it blew out the template. I had to change it. But it’s more important to be secure. The hassle of customizing a template to your exquisite specs, though, can be a pain. I’m getting really good at it, though. I completely revamped the template for Tellman’s List Building Blog because as it was, it just didn’t fit our needs.

Also today in the world of me… Stomper Net Ultra. I’m excited. Learning and getting down to the core of SEO is my mission. I just love that stuff, and it really does produce incredible, targeted, unique visitors to your site–free. What’s better than free?

I used to think that SEO was too much trouble. Really. I thought that messing with META tags was just a big pain in the butt that didn’t amount to much. But… if you really get into the guts of SEO, you find that it’s way, way, way, way more than that. It’s like a big jigsaw puzzle and every action you take just fits in to this grand scheme. The more actions you take in a positive SEO direction, the more powerful your puzzle will be and the more and more traffic you’ll get to your site over time.

When it comes right down to it, it’s all about the list building, but it’s more about the traffic. You can have the greatest, highest converting squeeze page in the industry, but if no one sees it, so what?

Kevin Hogan’s newsletter was awesome as always. If you haven’t subscribed, do it. Today, Kevin presented an interesting image in one of his articles. He said that if each site on the Web was one page in the yellow pages, and if you stacked enough yellow pages books to fill 20 three-car garages, you might have an idea of how huge the Web is. The trick is in getting people to visit just one of those pages–yours. Imagine how hard it is to find without working at getting people to find your site!

Wow. So, I’m thinking… It’s pretty awesome to make it to page 1 of search. To be #1 on all three search engines at the same time is even way cooler. SEO. All the stuff I’ve done over the past 14 months has taken us to that point. It was a long time, but look at the results.

Stomper Net rules! And I don’t even get a commission to tell you this. All I can say is that it’s worth every single penny of the $10K they charge for admission. It helps you to get that one little page in those stacks and stacks of yellow pages to be seen.

You can’t afford to overlook SEO. It’s a long-term strategy that pays off–big time.

Do you have the blogging blues? Get over it.

Popularity: 24% [?]

The weekend is about over. Pity. I’ve finally gotten off my ass and done some things for my own business. For the past year, I was working so hard for Tellman that I just wanted to take some time off on the weekends, you know? I’ll now call the past year my “intensive training” period.

If I could begin to tell you how much I’ve learned over the past year, it would take me hours just to figure it all out. I really thought that when I started with OE last year that I knew a lot, that I was a veteran because I’d been around for three years. Oh, granted, I’m a good tech person and I did know some stuff, but after three years, I had just begun scratching the surface of marketing. It’s huge!

The funny thing is that now that I know so much more, I feel as if I don’t know ANYTHING. I mean, there’s just so much to learn and every day brings a new education about this, that or the other thing. Internet marketing is truly an adventure, and I don’t think it’s possible to know everything about it. I mean, you can be a Mark Joyner or someone like him and know just about everything, but I’ll bet there’s things I know that Mr. Joyner doesn’t. For instance, I wonder if he can take a blog template and totally customize it so that it looks nothing like it did when you started.

Probably. I really do think he knows everything.

But my point is…

You don’t have to know everything. You need to constantly be learning and growing, but if you try to learn too much at once, you’ll just explode! You’ll get so hyper-confused that you’ll just shut down and not learn anything at all. So, stop buying stuff because you just heard that it’s the latest, greatest thing online. Don’t do that to yourself!

When you learn enough to know who the players are, it’s time to concentrate on one “guru’s” philosophies. Just buy that person’s course and study it, and follow that person, until you’re ready to move on. The problem is that there’s just so much to learn that it can be incredibly overwhelming. Slow down. You don’t have to learn everything at once. I learned that from Tellman. It’s what he tells his coaching clients, and I can see how right that advice is.

Thank heaven. My brain’s working 24/7 now.

Gotta get a bigger brain.

Be #1 at the three top search engines for your main keyword at the same time. I did it!

Popularity: 11% [?]

Well… I had my first, my very own telseminar today. It was about article marketing and SEO, and was really fun. I mean, I’ve been on calls with Tellman, which rocks totally because I’m a “teacher” at heart. I love to show people how things work. I taught for the Institute of Children’s Literature for 5 years, helping people to write for kids.

That was a lot of fun, and I took the job very seriously. But I just got overwhelmed by the books I was writing (I did 4 in as many years) and trying to teach, too, so I had to leave that behind in 2003. I missed it, but now, I’m teaching people other things in a totally different way. I have to say that I like talking much better than typing out lessons. And then, there’s the whole Q&A benefit. I was never sure if my written teaching was clear enough. At least on the phone, people can ask any questions they have. That’s awesome! I love to help people get it, you know? Just feels right.

The really cool thing is that I got a phone call from someone who had been at the seminar and just wanted to tell me how much she enjoyed it. I was totally touched. Thanks Alyson, if you’re reading this! I appreciated that call more than you know.

Plus, I think I have a new product. More on that soon…

But I want to know your questions for the next teleseminar. If you’re on my list, you’ll automatically be invited, so if you aren’t on my list opt-in to your right.

So… please let me know what you want to know more about…

Learn to Write Great Articles for Your Blog

Popularity: 7% [?]

I’m loving it.

We hit #1 today on all three major search engines–Google, Yahoo, and MSN–for “list building.” Since Tellman’s the list building ninja, all I can say is “WAhoo!”

Now, on to bigger and better terms.

But the low-hanging fruit terms do give you traffic. The whole key is to build for a lot of terms at the same time. We’re ranking for ADD and several variations of such. SEO Digger is showing that we rank for 100 terms on the first page. Hmm… But it’s not accurate.

When I go to Google, I don’t see our site. But “yak canada”? I mean, come on. So, don’t rely on SEO Digger, which in its defense, is still in Beta. I hope they get it working well because it can be a great tool. It’s nice to show the boss, if nothing else.

But here I am looking down the page at Google, and BOING! Did anyone notice that they’re now putting 20 results on a page? Or is it me? I don’t think I opted for that. Must be new.

Interesting.

Is it so they can put more AdSense on the page? Or, is it so they can mess with us?

That Google. Always messing with our minds.

So, what’s all this mean? Interesting day in SEO world. That’s all.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Well… that’s simple. He’s my boss.

Lots of people wonder about Tellman. Does he care about people the way he portrays that he does? Is he really as smart as people say?

Hell yes.

When you talk to Tellman, you’re getting the real thing. He’s bright and funny, and just a nice guy. I had a customer tell me today that Tellman’s a rare breed, that he cares more about the people he helps in business than himself. You know, that’s so true.

Yesterday, I was on his coaching call, as I have been for a year. I’ve only missed one call in all that time because almost everyone who works for Overcome Everything, including me, was in L.A. at the time, at the How to Think Like a Marketer seminar. The seminar was something I couldn’t pull myself away from. Bill Harris & Brad Antin are old school marketers who tell you EVERYthing you want to know about marketing and then some. It was just awesome, OK?

But I digress… Yesterday, I’m on Tellman’s call, and he was talking to one of his clients. Now, this guy just took Tellman’s Perpetual Marketing Machine and ran with it. I mean, he took ACTION. Nothing happens if you don’t do that. I mean, The Secret works, but you can’t just sit around and wait for good things to happen. You have to get in and PUSH hard.

I’m doing it again…. Sorry.

OK, so he’s got this guy on the call (his name is Jason and you’re going to be hearing lots about him), and Jason said he’s hosting a teleseminar series. Tellman asked who he had lined up already and Jason told him a couple of people, one of them being my good friend, Andy Duncan. So, Tellman says, well, I’ll be on a call, and wait… Ben Mack, are you on the line? So, he gets Ben involved. Then, he says, and I can get you Brian Edmondson. Let me check. So Brian comes into it. Then, Tellman says he needs to have me on the call, too, and BOOM! Jason has a ready-made telseminar and there will be bigger and better people than me, I assure you. That’s pretty exciting. Tellman just got Jason’s list building and he’ll be making affiliate sales the whole way. It’s so cool.

When it comes to honesty and integrity and the will to help other humans, Tellman Knudson’s your man. He rocks.

If you’re going to pick one person to follow, pick Tellman.

If you’re struggling and don’t know what to do to make things work, pick Tellman to help you.

You deserve it.

And no, I wasn’t paid to type this. The whole Overcome Everything organization is filled with the same kind of people and I’m honored and pleased to work with them every single day. I’ve never had so much fun.

That’s it. I’m spilling my guts. It was one of those kinds of day. I really look forward to waking up in the morning. You never know what the day might bring, eh?

Be well and make lots of money!

Blogging Rules, Ya Know

Popularity: 7% [?]