OVBlogger: Blogging and SEO

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This is hilarious. Brian Edmondson sent it to me from Ken McCarthy’s blog. Have a laugh!

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Yeah. So, I’m an affiliate for the Internet Marketing Center, and they were having a huge launch today of an awesome product with a bunch of prizes that I knew I’d never win, but was hoping for a little cash out of the deal, you know? I mean that’s what affiliate marketing is about.

So, I wait for an announcement all day that the site’s live, and I’m thinking there are some launch problems, no big deal. But around 3:30, I get this message saying that they’ve sold almost all their packages. And if people want them, they’d better hurry up.

Well, crap. I mailed out twice with presale messages and I really don’t like to disappoint my list. That’s not good biz, eh? So, I figure I missed out on the email. I was busy today, but no, nothing in my inbox. So, I went over to the site to see what was going on and it says something about almost being sold out already, so we’re not giving you any promotional materials.

How do you like that?

Well, I don’t generally use other people’s promotional stuff. I like to tailor it, if I do, but that just said to me, Forget it. We had the big guys promoting this and you don’t need to bother…

That was kind of maddening, eh?

Made me look like a total fool to my list, too.

So, I mail out anyway, and tell them, OK, you probably can’t get this as I PROMISED you. I SAID you’d get a chance to check this product out, and I knew it was great. BUT, well…

You probably can’t get it.

Wasn’t a ploy. Was the truth. I have no idea if they even had a chance to get the product.

But I’ll bet they did.

Yep. My loyal followers got there in time. Good on them. They’ll be glad they did.

I guess I’m not as pissed off as I was.

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Over at Search Engine Watch, Marty Weintraub posted about the “diehard members of social communities who want to keep marketers at bay.” There are? Whoa.

I’ve been doing StumbleUpon posts for more than a year now for Tellman’s stuff and my own. I never had anything like that happen. But here’s the thing… If it’s so bad for marketers to post at StumbleUpon, why then, is there a category for marketing? Doesn’t make sense, does it?

I was told to “gtfo” at reddit once. But that’s pretty mild compared to the stuff that Weintraub talks about. The post was about a sale I had for people to join Blogging4BoomersinBusiness.com and the headline was a bit spammy, I suppose. “Get $20 off today only” Well… I should have seen that one coming, right?

But I’m still of the opinion that if you post to social bookmarking sites with some meat in what you’ve written, and not just sales pitch, you won’t run into trouble. Or, maybe I’m asking for it by making this post. Weintraub says that he fell into bad graces with StumbleUpon long-time users because he posted in a search blog about how much he “loves” StumbleUpon.

Heavens!

Well, it is more serious than you may think. He had to call in the local FBI.

My advice to you is that if you’re in Internet marketing and you want to use StumbleUpon, only do it as Don Crowther says for your “best” stuff. Don’t bookmark every post you make, unless it’s got some real meat to it. Otherwise, you are spamming and that just sucks. Nobody, not even we marketers like spam.

Use the social networking and bookmarking sites wisely and you can do very well in terms of getting traffic and of building a relationship with a market.

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Do you check your blog stats? I mean, I have Feed Blitz, Feed Burner, 103 Bees, and I check them all. I found out something very interesting today.

On January 16, my subscribers jumped by 155 people. One day! Hmm… What did I write about that day? “Subdomains vs. Subdirectories.” An SEO post.

I’m getting a lot of traffic for that video about embedding video in your blog. OK. That’s blogging, but also SEO, though in an off-hand sort of way.Then, I go over to Hit Tail and find tons of long tail keywords, the most popular being “stomper scribd.” How strange. But wow! I’m #2 on Google for that one. But again, SEO.

What the heck does all this mean. To me, it says that people are really interested in SEO. It seems like something they SHOULD know but haven’t really had the time to concentrate on learning. Understood.

But it’s not a big mystery. SEO is a mixture of common sense and a little secret knowledge. Well, heck yes, the gurus want you to think there’s a “magic” formula. There’s not, really. It’s just specialized knowledge. Like every general practitioner doesn’t know a whole lot about gynecology. It’s a specialty. Well, SEO is a specialty of Internet marketing, too.

If you’re interested in SEO, here’s a great idea for you:

When I first started studying SEO a few years ago, I found a program called Web CEO. It was free to download and use, but it didn’t have all the functionality of the paid program. Yet, it did allow me to take part of their SEO course. It was great as a starter, and enough to get some SEO going for my sites. And you can still go over to Web CEO and get a free version! How cool is that?

It’s not just an SEO course, either. You can do some pretty great keyword research using it, and a bit of optimization. Though I don’t trust it entirely to tell me how to optimize pages, I had to buy the pro version, once my business grew. And it has… big time. I have people calling to help them, and I have to put them on a waiting list. Because… SEO is where it’s at.

Stomper Net is the kicker, though. I got stuff from Stomper that made a lot of difference. I’ve been able to do things with optimization that I’m very happy about. The results are pretty awesome. But if you’re looking for a specialty, SEO is where it’s at.

Not everyone understands SEO, though. They think that you pick some keywords (any keywords), you do some on page stuff, and you’re done. It can’t possibly be that difficult. Well, I’ve written about this before in this blog. You’re far from “done” when you’ve done just the basics. SEO is a game, but it’s not a game you win quickly. You have to be in it for the long haul, and if you’re not, then just do the basics, but don’t expect to rank high in the search engines for what are called the “money” words. It ain’t gonna happen.

Plus, like Brad Fallon says, “SEO isn’t a race. It’s a marathon.” I can attest to that.

But it’s fun.

I just love seeing ‘dem stats roll in and get better and better every day.

Get WebCEO and learn some stuff. You might be hooked. But don’t tell the other SEOs I told you. They really don’t like competition.

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Did you know that your blog can be hacked via your plugins folder? I had no idea. I write, not hack.

But here’s a cool post from  Deep Jive Interests, where they say:

If you’re running Wordpress, unless you’ve already locked down your Wp-content folder with some .htaccess fixes, you may not notice that your Wp-content/plugins folder is naked and bare to the world.  That is, navigate to http://www.yourblogname.com/wp-content/plugins and you may find a directory listing of your plugins folder, files and all.  How do you fix it?  Easy.  Just upload an empty index.html into the wp-content/plugins folder and its all fixed.

Well, thank you, Deep Jive! Really hard to do, eh? I don’t want my plugins folder or anything else about me naked in public.

Get ‘er done!

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You know, I’m all for list building from my blog, but something in this theme won’t allow me to customize my AWeber form. I tried everything from shortening the name and address boxes to moving everything left, and on and on, and it still came up all FUBAR. You know?

Zo…

I used the pop-up for a while, but it was annoying, even to me! Everytime I tried to check the page, the dam-ned pop-up was there driving me nuts.

And zo…

One of my friends, Charles Burleigh from StayHomeDads.com to be exact, sent his list (which I’m on) a message about pinging and how with WordPress’s auto ping feature it pings every time you make a change to your blog. Well, we certainly don’t want to upset the Ghods of Pingdom and cause our blogs to be banned from the services.

Charles recommended Ping Optimizer from MaxBlogPress. It stops your blog from pinging more than once for each new post. Cool.

But then, I found that MaxBlogPress has more great plugins…

Notice my pop-up? There isn’t one, unless this is the 3rd time you’ve come to my blog. It will show you this cool lightbox pop up for my newsletter a time or two and then, you won’t see it again. It’s very neat. Also from MaxBlogPress, it’s called Unblockable Popup. Fan-freakin-tastic. I love it.

But…

Then…

I found the other one. See that little note at the top of the screen? It’s unobtrusive, right? Well, it rotates different text ads. I have one for HostGator running and one for AWeber, both services I stand behind completely. They rock! I also have an ad for my membership site up there, Blogging4Boomers. (I haven’t formally launched the site, but I’m proud to say that the members I have truly love it.)

Anyway, the pop up is called MaxBlogPress Stripe Ads .

And they have several others. This post is getting kind of long, so I won’t describe them all, but you have to check these out. All of them ROCK OUT LOUD!

Go to MaxBlogPress’s Home Page via this link, oh, and guess what? All these popups are F-R-E-E!

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Hey!

Do you wonder who’s coming to your site?

How about what they click on?

And then, there’s where did they come from?

What keywords did they use to get there?

And on and on. Statistics are the most valuable tool that you can employ in your business to see what’s working and what’s not. Want some very cool sites where you can get these things and more free?

Here some sites I use or will be using imminently:

Google Analytics: This site is the bomb. There’s a ton of free information in Analytics, and if you get the plugin Google Analyticator, it’s simple to get stats for your blog. Just go to Analytics, set up a campaign for your blog, and put the UA-### code into the space provided under Options/Analyticator. This rocks! However, don’t totally depend on it. Sometimes, the stats are questionable. That’s the reason you need stats from so many places to get a totally rounded picture.

103Bees: I’ve written about this site before, and it’s great! For example, I go there today and find out that this blog ranks #2 in Google for embedding video for “Traffic Geyser vs. Tube Mogul.” And how about #8 for” embed video into WordPress” or better yet, number 1 and 2 for “allinoneseo.” Freakin’ cool! Get a 103Bees account!

Hittail: I joined this site a while back, and forgot to put the code on my blog. Duh. So, though it offers some pretty cool stuff, including keyword suggestions, I’ll let you know how I like this one in a week or so.

Crazy Egg: This one is fun. You can see what people clicked on and where they looked when they came to your blog. Shows you exactly where their cursor landed and where they clicked and such. Very cool.

Robot Replay: Whoa. Did you ever want to be a fly on the wall? I mean, check out what your visitors are doing with this site. I just signed up to see what it will do. Interesting.

and a bonus…

MyBlogLog: you can get very cool stats from MBL free, if you want them from like, yesterday. If you want them up to the minute, it’s only $3 a month. Check out the widget on my sidebar. You can show your readers. (Hi, Jack Humphrey!) And you can see what’s clicked on most. Plus now, you can make a widget that’s all about you. Great site! One of my absolute faves! I’m going to sign up one of my clients tonight. I told him he absolutely HAS to have this one. You do, too.

So, that’s a few of the great stats sites. In another post, I’ll give you a few more.

Stats are not just a great way to help move your business forward, but they’re tons of fun!

I know. I’m an SEO. We’re a peculiar bunch.

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Does it make a difference?

According to Matt Cutts of Google, it does. Google now thinks that subdirectories are the way to go, as in

• YourDomain.com/subdirectory

vs. the Subdomain which would look like:

• subdomain.YourDomain.com

Last year, we heard that it was better to use the subdomain because Google was using subdomains on its sites like analytics.google.com and maps.google.com. It seemed to be the way to go.

This year, the Analytics subdomain redirects to the subdirectory, but the subdomain for Google Maps remains the same. Cutts said that Maps was “different.” Yes. I see that.

But isn’t tracking “different” from search? I’d say yes.

What’s an SEO to do?

Bend like a willow.

And decide what your purpose is going to be for the URL.

Markus Merz blogged a great bit on what to do when. And rather than post all of it, check out the Performancing Blog.

I think these points he made were most important:

• Always use a subdomain for website testing
• If a website flies well in a subdomain you should consider a unique domain for it.
• Only use subdirectories to structure pretty related content.

Otherwise, it’s probably a wash, unless you want to bend to the will of the Google ghods.

It’s totally your call, but I think that the three rules above are a pretty good rule of thumb.

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I just read a very cool post over at Jack Humphrey’s blog, The Friday Traffic Report. He’s on kind of a rant about all the Internet marketing gurus charging an arm and a leg for products that they know 90% of the people who buy them will never use.

Yeah. He’s right. But…

It’s not the gurus’ fault that people are too lazy to take action. It’s just the way of human nature.

But that’s not the part that interested me. He said that he gives 110% to the people he mentors. He wrote:

“I guess what I am getting at is that I know me. And people who have paid big money for my services know from that experience that I give everything I’ve got. They can tell there’s a country boy deep down inside me that blushes when he gets paid so much just to tell folks what he knows about marketing. And they ALL walk away appreciative and very much fulfilled from the experience. I make doubly sure of that. (Almost to THEIR embarrassment at times.)”

I’ve learned that from Tellman. The List Building Club is all about giving people value. We give them content that rocks. We give them the ability to ask questions and have them answered twice a month on calls. We offer tons of quality stuff.

But it’s only $29.99 a month. I’d say that’s what Jack’s getting at. It’s not about greed. It’s about giving value. I believe in that, too.

And so, it’s how I’ve modeled my site Blogging4BoomersinBusiness.com . I have clients that email me reguarly and I mail back to them the minute I can and answer their questions. If it’s too involved, they can find me on the phone every Monday night. I want to be there for them, you know? I have one member who told me today…

“WOW! Pat. You’re not only my favorite blog and SEO mentor, but you’ve taught me so much about interrelationship marketing. If everyone were like you, they’d have customers for life.”

Well sure, it’s flattering, but what makes me feel really good is knowing that I helped someone move forward. I remember stumbling around feeling stupid 4+ years ago when I got into Internet marketing. And I don’t want people to do that.

I really want to help them, and I love doing it.

But I can see where someday, I may not have the time to do as much as I’m doing today. And then what? Will I be one of those $2,000 product gurus who never gets near their customers?

I don’t think I will.

Part of the fun of being smart at Internet marketing and having information to share is sharing it. If I can’t do that, I don’t think it will be fun anymore.

Money’s nice to have, but it doesn’t pay the soul.

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I joined Scribd last week because of watching the Stomper Videos. I thought that would be really, really cool as a professional writer. So, I went in and added a couple of articles for myself.

Then, I decided it would be a cool place to add some articles for Tellman, too. So, I put one up. But I made a horrible, horrible mistake. I should be tied to a stake and whipped. Gasp! I added an author’s resource box.

I’ll admit it was a really dumb mistake. It was already on the article and I think it’s the only one I have in the 280+ I’ve written over the past 20 months that has one. But I was in a hurry and didn’t think about it. My bad. My very, very bad.

It had a link.

The following day, I get this email from Scribd telling me that I was banned and so was my IP address (!!!) because of breaking their TOS, that a whole bunch of uptight Scribd users complained. Oh, bad, bad me. It was my fault. But they said I did it “repeatedly,” which was a bunch of B.S. because I had only submitted ONE article. I wrote to them and explained that it was a stupid newbie mistake and swore an oath that I would never do it again. And of course, I wouldn’t, but they don’t know me and have no reason to trust me, evil person that I am. I mean, I should be drawn and quartered, too.

But then, I got another email, and it basically told me that because all of us slimey SEO types (my words, not theirs, but that was the gist) trying to put stuff into their database they have a ZERO tolerance policy. Apologies aren’t acceptable and basically, I’m screwed.

So, I wrote back and asked what about other people (meaning me personally) using Scribd at the same IP. Should they be penalized for a dumb mistake, too?

I just got another email.

Tough shit is what it said. (Again my words, not theirs, but that was the gist. Oh, it was very polite, don’t you know.) To quote: “We can only ban the IP address that the router shares with the Internet, even when it affects otherwise innocent people.” So, that means that if you work in an office somewhere and some guy on the 4th floor does something that Scribd doesn’t like, WOE BE TO YOU.

That’s pretty anal. Isn’t it?

So, beware. Don’t do one single thing that Scribd doesn’t approve of–like ever–or you’ll find yourself out in the cold. Banned for life.

I don’t think that’s at all fair. But it’s their site and they can run it the way they see fit.

However…

Scribd can kiss my SEO…

heart.

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