OVBlogger: Blogging and SEO

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Yes, I know. It’s been very quiet here in Marcelloland.

I’ve been working like a Tasmanian She-Devil spins on something very special.

But I want to get my sales letter to be just right so that people understand what my new site has to offer. I want them to appreciate the value.

And it’s damned hard.

Copywriting isn’t my strong suit. Maybe because I’m a straight writer, and I’m just used to presenting the facts in what I hope is an interesting way. I just can’t seem to make the transition from talking to people to getting inside their heads and telling them what they want to hear. Isn’t that really what copywriting is about?

So, it’s hard for me, and I’ve had some of the very best teachers in the biz. It’s rather embarrassing!

I just want to say, look… I know a LOT. I can teach you a LOT, and it’s stuff that will help you to make money and to have a very strong online business. But that doesn’t quite cut the muster, now does it? LOL

But it’s the truth. I love to teach.

In fact, I was on a call last night with more than 280 people doing just that with Brian Edmondson. He does bi-monthly calls, usually just question and answer calls for The List Building Club and either I or Kyle Battis help to keep him company and from having poor Brian’s throat close from talking so long. We were on for 2-1/2 hours last night! Anyway, it’s something I love to do, and something you can benefit by.

If you haven’t signed up for The List Building Club yet and you’re new and still struggling, you’re wasting time. Go over to http://listbuildingpower.net right now and get a month’s membership for $1. You’ll see the value immediately. That club rocks, and I’m not saying that from a purely subjective stance. Even if I had nothing at all to do with that site, I’d still say that it’s the best newbie site online, hands down.

But that’s what I’m interested in doing for the blogging world. If you’re new to blogging, add my feed to your reader right now. Bookmark this site. Get on my mailing list above.

This is going to be da bomb!

Popularity: 43% [?]

For those of you in the United States, I wish you happiness and all the love and support you deserve. I thank you for being a reader. And I’m thankful that I have an open mind… I got that from a high school English teacher named John Holveck, and he doesn’t even know that he created a writer. I often wish I could tell him. But anyway…

I watched The Secret movie again today. I haven’t done it for about 18 months, and what amazed me is that I came away with renewed enthusiasm and a total sense of well-being. My thoughts are positive and my outlook for the world I’m creating is rosy, very rosy.

Have you watched it? How long ago? Are you still struggling to make this Internet Marketing business work for you? You can. And it’s pretty simple. You just have to believe that you can.

My affirmation story is very simple. So, for Thanksgiving, since you have a minute, let me tell it to you.

In May 2006, I watched The Secret movie, and changed my attitude about everything. I quit worrying about the economy and how it affected my family. I stopped worrying about my business. I did what The Secret advocates. I started acting as if I already had what I wanted, and things just started happening–good things.

In July 2006, I heard Tellman Knudson on a call. I often attended his calls because he was so full of enthusiasm. There was never a “can’t” when it came to him, and I had admired that quality since his first call with List Crusade. I listened to every one of those calls, as they were happening. If you haven’t listened to these audios, they’re pretty incredible. You should.

Anyway, in July 2006, Tellman was having a call about something mysterious like he does, and I was intrigued by his email. I decided that I wanted to listen. He Zegarniked me!

I don’t even remember what the call was about now, but it was something inspiring, as always. And I believed in Tellman because he had done it. He had made $800K his first year and that was pretty incredible. Obviously, Tellman KNEW the secret. I saw him as a positive influence, though the funny thing is… I didn’t know him at all. Not at all. He was a stranger, 25 years younger than me, but he had his shit together, you know? Age is only a state of mind. I’m like 25 in my head, so it kind of works.

Anyway, at the end of this call, Tellman, who had just opened his coaching program The Black Diamond Line, talked about it and how the members could talk to him one-on-one and have all their questions answered. Wow. Just to have someone put me on the right track about things was exactly what I needed. I was making a little money, but it wasn’t worth mentioning.

Then Tellman started talking about all the incredible bonuses that would accompany membership, like the Perpetual Marketing Machine and Viral Marketing Chemistry Set, and man, I was sold. I had decided to go for it, as long as it wasn’t too expensive, like $100 a month, even. I mean, those two program alone sold for thousands of dollars. But $100 was a big investment for me at the time.

Well…

When he gave the price of $497 a month, I was like a deer in the headlights. I mean, I saw the advantage, but though I was overwhelmed, my first thought was… So what? Go get that credit card you just paid off and swore not to touch again… ever. My other self said, “Are you nuts?” But I told that dumb witch to shut up and didn’t listen her.

This was the serendipitous moment, the moment that I had to seize, just like The Secret said I should.

And I did.

And my life is so much different from what it was before that call, I can’t tell you. I now work for Tellman, as you know if you’ve read this blog very much, and got to meet all the incredible people at Overcome Everything. Working with them is a true pleasure and an honor. They rock… every single one of them, so…

I’m grateful for The Secret. Without it, I’d never have taken that chance. I’d never have met Tellman or Jodi or Teal or Kyle or Brian or Sarah or Donna or Johnny or Lindsey or Andrea or Victor. And I wouldn’t have met the new star on the horizon, Torger, the precious little boy who has no idea yet how lucky he is. He will.

So, in addition to my incredible family, my husband Pat (yes, we’re both Pat) and my daughter Shannon, my sister and brother-in-law and their huge family, whom I miss very much today, I’m grateful for Overcome Everything.

The law of attraction. It works.

And watching The Secret every now and then doesn’t hurt, either.

Kevin Hogan often poo-poos The Secret, and though I respect him very much, he thinks that you can’t just sit back and wish for things to happen. Well, I agree with him, but I had that in mind when watching again today. What they say is: You have to take action. You have to do the things that will put you in the direction you want to go in. So, that’s it. It’s not a mumbo-jumbo type approach, really. I mean, there’s a LOT of the metaphysical involved, but you have to work at what you want and at least POINT yourself in the right direction.

Only Aladdin was lucky enough to find a lamp.

Popularity: 30% [?]

So, I saw this post on keyword research in my Blog Rush widget that interested me. Why are you not surprised? I read all the SEO stuff I can find, but particularly like SearchNewz and SiteProNews which keep me up to date on the newest of the new. Love that. Cutting edge is so important in the SEO game.

But a lot of people are totally terrified when they hear S-E-O. They think it’s just too complicated and that they don’t have time to mess with it. It’s really not that complicated, though it does take some daily massaging of a system. Yet, everything I do on a daily basis has to do with traffic generation. Right? I mean…

I write articles

I write blog entries

I place links

I ping & tag at social bookmarking sites

On page factors for SEO are probably the least of what I do. If you have a good keyword title, like this: Keyword 1 - Keyword 2 - Keyword 3, a good description that is mainly keywords (try to avoid stop words like the, an , for, etc.), and your keywords at a density of around 2% in your copy or content on the page, that’s pretty much it. Heading tags with keywords in helps and a few other little adjustments, but that’s not the be all and end all of SEO, folks.

To me, SEO has to do much more with what’s going on outside that’s pointing in.

Blogging is really hot for that right now for several reasons.

Blogs are search engine friendly. RSS feeds are totally text and each post you write is like another page of your site. More pages = higher page rank.

But you have this whole social networking thing going on right now. I mean, make a diligent post about a problem people are having and solve it for them, and you’ll be popular. Plug it socially and watch your traffic. After a few months, you’ll be getting more comments and more people coming to your blog, day after day.

The blog is what sends them to your meat & potatoes site.

And so, that’s what I’m all about today. I want you to start thinking about MY meat & potatoes membership site. It’s just about ready to open, and I’ve called it Blogging4Boomers. That doesn’t mean that younger or older people can’t join, it just means that I’ve consulted with lots of Boomers over the past few months, and realize that they need help.

Oh, yeah… And I’m a Boomer. So… I can relate to that age group like only a Boomer can.

They need to know how to install a blog, how to make it look pretty, and how to monetize it.

They need to know how to navigate the Web 2.0 environment.

They need to know how to write (which I taught for 5 years, don’t forget, so I’m really good at that), perhaps, and definitely how to post the right way for the best benefit.

I’m going to show people all those things and much more. Right now, I have a library of content just waiting for me to open the doors. Videos, articles, audios, mindmaps, and a forum, where you can come and ask me any question you wish. It can be about blogging specifically, or it can be about something else Internet marketing related.

Call it a kind of “coaching” for a very reasonable price. I plan to hold weekly calls to do just that, live and in person. I’ve grown fond of that system since doing calls with Brian Edmondson for the List Building Club. I can see how much value people derive from them and I really love teaching and helping other people.

I can’t tell you how many people I’ve helped with blogging, and it’s a lot of fun, but my time is limited. I want to help many more people and I want them to see the power of blogging and how they can make it get them on the track to prosperity. I’d love to make everyone rich, and maybe take in a little for me at the same time. Nothing wrong with that, right?

So, keep your eyes peeled…

We’re going to start it off with something very, very special.

Just keep watching…

Popularity: 56% [?]

I remember when I first started with Internet marketing. I had no idea what an autoresponder was, but I had the general drift of the term. Someone sends and email and they get an automatic response. Simple, right?

I had no idea of the power behind a really good autoresponder.

I wasn’t thinking about whether people would get my email.

I didn’t worry about whether or not it allowed for multiple lists, and so on…

I’ve come to understand, over the course of the past 4 years, just how incredible and important your autoresponder is.

In fact, though I had started list building before I met up with Tellman, I never realized that your list is your most important business asset. Well, actually, I think Mike Paetzold started that for me. I once heard him say that he was concentrating only on building his list and why. Mike’s a really smart guy, and when he talks, I always listen. Mike’s the reason I started building a list, really, but Tellman showed me its power.

So, in the beginning, I figured that any old autoresponder would do. I signed up for one that was like $8.95 per month, and I was happy enough with it. Of course, I had absolutely NO idea about who was getting my emails, whether or not they were clicking on my links, and the whole thing was a little difficult to navigate. But well, I thought it was perfectly fine, until…

It just went down. No note from anyone to say they were re-designing or fixing or whatever, just PLONK! Down. All the names I had collected went pffttt!!! Except…

I was smart enough to have saved my list just the day before. It wasn’t pre-meditated, I assure you. It was pure luck. I’m not methodical about backing things up like I should be, though I’m much better about it now than I was a few years back.

So, what did I do?

I went shopping for a new autoresponder. I had some messages from Tellman and Alex Mandossian and people like that and noticed that they were using AWeber. I thought, well… if it’s good enough for those guys, it must be good. And so, I checked it out. $19.95 a month! At the time, I was making enough to survive online, so I figured it was a huge expense. LOL

You might be doing that, too. Or, you might be thinking that you can buy autoresponder software for a one-time expense and be done with it. Bad idea. Maintaining your own list is a lot of work. Not only that, but when a spam complaint arises, you have AWeber backing you. They just rock.

So, if you don’t have an autoresponder yet, you need one. Don’t waste time trying to figure out which one’s best. It’s AWeber, hands down.

Check it out here:  http://easyseotricks.com/AWeber or click the button on my sidebar.

I advertise AWeber because I stand behind them.

They have the best customer service.

They have the best deliverability.

They have the most flexibility. You can have as many autoresponders as you want!

Plus, they even call you to welcome you when you sign up. How can you beat that? They really do seem to care about their customers, and why I’ve been one for the last 3 years.

AWeber just rocks.

Trust me on that.

Popularity: 41% [?]

Before I was so rudely interrupted by an illness that laid me flat for a few days, I was busy giving folks some information on linking. I’m out to prove that it’s not dead.

So, what’s the last form?

Forum linking.

How many forums do you belong to? Are you current with any of them? I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t had much time to be a forum friend lately, and it makes me sad. I used to spend some part of every day in Net Marketing Forum, where there is a really helpful bunch of people whom I miss a lot. I also belong to Conquer Your Niche forum, Warrior Forum, and the Copywriter’s Board forum. I just couldn’t keep up with all of them or any of them lately, but I really do plan to get back and to post to at least one of them every day.

Why?

Because it’s not just the great friends you make, the other really incredible benefit from posting in forums is your ability to add links back to your website. They’re one-way links, unless of course, you link back to the forum from your site. I do occasionally, as I did in this post, but as a rule, it’s better to have the links coming in, rather than going out.

The trick to forum code (usually) is that it’s not HTML, it’s what’s known as BBCode. How simple is that? Anyway, this is what a link to this site looks like:

[url=http://ovblogger.com]Blogging - Internet Marketing - SEO[/url]

No quotes. No a href=, just simple here’s the URL, here’s the anchor text. Bingo! Links. Links that point back to your site from every post you make or have ever made in the past. How cool is that?

What should your link say? Keywords, keywords, keywords. You’ll notice that right away in the example above. You can be more creative, for sure, but use your main keyword phrase as anchor text and the SEO benefit is huge.

Search engines love anchor text. They can sort out the URL and see that it relates to the hyperlinked term. Makes things pretty simple for them.

So, here’s what you should do. Pick one forum or a few forums, but be sure they’re in your niche. Learn the lay of the land. By that I mean, don’t post anything, until you’ve read several posts and the rules. If you barge into a community of people  like a rocket in a tea shop, you’ll come back a little crispy. People don’t appreciate posters who just barge in and act like they own the place.

Forums usually have an “Introductions” thread, so be sure to make that your first stop. Let people in the forum know something about you, and don’t be embarrassed to say that you’re new. If you are, it will show anyway, so if you tell people that up front, they’ll be more likely to be patient when you post something really dumb. I know you won’t do that because you’re really smart, but…

There are folks who will come in, acting like they know it all, when they don’t know squat. That’s a really bad position to be in because you’re going to be called on it. Instead, ease into things and you’ll be amazed at how kind other people can be when given half the chance.

But once you feel comfortable, have introduced yourself, and have something valuable to contribute, then post away!

Choose one forum per day and make 5 posts. Either start a new thread or contribute to an existing one. If you are a newbie, ask questions. But maybe try a search for the topic first. Some questions have been answered and re-answered in some forums so many times that the “regulars” or people who are there every day get really sick of the same questions and the same answers. Try to be a little sure that the question you want to ask hasn’t been asked 10,000 times before.

But just have fun. Make friends. And avoid being a forum lizard. Don’t let it take up too much time or you won’t have time for your business. Just limit yourself to 5 posts a day, even if the state of the world is being decided.

Forums can be great, if you use them wisely. You can make friends and learn a lot. Plus, you’ll get all these wonderful, valuable one-way links coming into your site.

Forums really are the Neutron Bomb people!

Popularity: 66% [?]

I was over at Propeller today tagging a blog post, and I thought, OK, so people are reading and plugging and tagging at all the other Web 2.0 sites we know because we found some information that pleased or satisfied us. Great.

How do we know it’s right? I mean, if somebody just takes it into their head to write about pygmy ponies with blonde manes, what qualifies them? I mean, do they just know about these things or do they really KNOW about them? I’m sure there are some writers who do enough research to know that what they’re writing about is real. Of course, you never know these days. Even people at the NY Times make things up.

But how many people are taking some of what they read as verbatim, when it’s nothing more than guessture or supposition? Kind of scary when you think about it. Talk about your Urban Legends.

Some of this stuff is legends of cyberspace.

How do you tell the difference? Hmmm… Your first bet would be to look at the writing. If it sucks, that’s almost a dead giveaway. People who are passionate about a subject can usually talk or write about it with ease. I’d say the majority of them. You know how you put your heart & soul into something that you could discuss all day long just because it’s fun.

But here’s the thing… Just because someone has 230 Diggs or 5,000 Stumbles upon, that doesn’t make the information right. It could be, it’s true. But it’s the ‘Net, people. Come on. Relying on sites like Wikipedia, for example, is just ludicrous. Do we really want the overwhelming insanity that we call the Internet to shape things that are so important? I mean, do we really know how many people voted on something because it was good or whether they’re just in the same buzz group?

Information is great, if it’s real. If it’s just information pretending to be real because a group of people say it is, then… to me, it’s totally useless.

Stop wasting bandwidth.  Choose your Stumbles and Plugs wisely. If someone asks you to tag something, only do it if it makes sense to you. If what they’re asking you to tag just reeks, then, don’t do it.

Simple?

Popularity: 40% [?]

If you’re new to Internet marketing, you may not know this… WordPress used to allow comment URLs to be followed by search engine spiders.

Yep.

That was in the not so distant past.

Well, somebody decided pfffttt!!! Not happening. Not gonna take it. And, they came up with this marvelous little plugin called “Do Follow.” When you install and activate it, it allows all comments to be followed by the spiders.

I think it’s only fair. Right? I mean, when somebody comes to your page and is kind enough to leave a comment, the least you can do is allow the search engine spiders to follow it back to their website and give them credit for a one-way link pointing back to their site or blog.

So, I use “Do Follow.”

Is it a spam attractor? Perhaps. But when you have Akismet working well, who cares? You just delete the spam. I don’t get a lot, but Tellman’s blog gets hundreds of spam comments every day. I just NUKE ‘em.

Here’s what you can do… Go and get Firefox, if you don’t use it. Then, get the add-on called “Search Status.” Then, when you see it in your toolbar (looks like an “at” symbol, but with a “q”), right click and be sure that it’s set to highlight “no follow” links. Then, when you see a blog and all the links aren’t pink, you’ll be able to comment and know that you’re getting SEO advantage as well as having your say.

Popularity: 52% [?]

I’ve been writing to my list about linking and telling them why it’s not dead. We talked about listing your site in quality directories yesterday. Places like DMOZ.org, Yahoo Directory and JoeAnt.com will still get you the desired results–of having a one-way link pointing back to your site.

Today, let’s talk about article marketing. Whoa. Total power.

You get an air of expertise in your niche.

You get traffic from the link in your resource box. Providing your article is well-written, of course. People will follow your link to get more of your great information, especially if you’ve helped them to solve a problem.

You get SEO benefit from the one-way link pointing back to your website.

How cool is that? Article marketing is the bomb, and the benefits far outweigh the effort. Hate to write? Pay someone to write for you. It’s less expensive than you might think.

Tomorrow… Where 2.0 people live.

Popularity: 50% [?]

I don’t know Ben Mack very well, though we did spend some “group” time at a conference in LA awhile back. I found him to be highly, highly intelligent and someone that is full of mystery and interesting thoughts and information.

Ken McArthur wrote about him a while back, wondering why Ben wasn’t clearly communicating.

My take is that it’s not that Ben tries to be “superior” or “cloudy,” or anything like that. He’s just Ben, and that’s how he thinks and he communicated on a much higher level than most “regular” people.

So?

It’s not Ben as much as it is everyone else. He scares them. Hell, he scares me a little because he’s so frickin’ smart. And he’s a magician. I’ve seen him perform tricks about two feet away, and well…  You can’t trust magicians, right? LOL

But here’s an interview with Dave Lakhani, the master of persuasion, talking about Ben and why he’s the way he is.

http://boldapproach.typepad.com/bold/2007/11/ben-mack-decons.html

And he should absolutely stay that way.

Popularity: 49% [?]

Have you been over to 10³Bees yet? (That’s 10 “cubed” bees, not 103 bees, so like 1,000 bees). What does it do? Well, it’s kind of like Google Analytics. When I first looked at it, I thought, why would I need it? But then, I figure there is no such thing as being too rich or having too many stats. I’m a real stats geek.

So, I’ve used it on my blog. Let’s see what it does for me.

10³ Bees is supposed to tell me what the longtail phrases should be for my blog, based on my posts and what people search. Neato. But it will also tell you where to put your AdSense (on what pages specifically) so that you can get more AdSense income, and other cool things like that. Great.

I’m not sure that’s important to this blog, but if I like what I see, I’ll add it to my clients’ blogs. Let’s see how that goes.

Also, the recent renovation at BlogRush is pretty cool, too. The stats are much better, and they’re well presented. It’s not hard to see exactly what’s going on, but there is a video. I haven’t had time to watch just yet, but I plan to do that tomorrow. Anyway, cool beans, Mr. Reese & Co. I’m getting lots of exposure and some traffic. I see it getting better and better over time, as more people catch on.

Still no word on why List Building Blog got bumped. I’m going to resubmit it this week. I can’t imagine why. The widget was high on the page, the content is killer, like 200+ posts on list building and Internet marketing, and it looks really good, too. And then…

WordPress decided to upgrade again. The theme isn’t WP2.3.1 compatible and neither are two others that I recently changed. Argh! Every time I get things the way I want them, WHOOSH!!! Something comes along and means I have to start over. This blog is being cranky now, too, and if you’ve been reading, you know I just revamped.

Expect more changes.

But then, that’s what keeps us interested, eh? Good thing I love blogging. I even like the customization part of getting a theme and making it the way I want things to be. I almost had a red theme here yesterday, but I was smart. Before I started changing things, I put a sentence into the Write blank and tried to save it. When I got an error code, I saw right away that the theme wasn’t 2.3.1 friendly, either.

So, save yourself a lot of work. Put it up, test it with a quick save, and if it doesn’t work… keep looking.

Here’s to keeping things static in the Blogosphere for a while, guys.

Popularity: 58% [?]