OVBlogger: Blogging and SEO

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Social marketing is getting bigger and more important every single day. The number of bookmarking sites, networking sites, video, content, and blogs is growing like kudzu all over the ‘Net. And it’s a blast!

Jack Humphrey opened Social Marketing Central recently, and it’s tons of great fun and information. You can join for free. There’s a forum, a section for the Friday Traffic Reports, which I love, and lots of other cool stuff. You should check it out at http://socialauthority.ning.com/ .

You can start a group, a discussion, and put your picture up, which goes to the “head of the class,” meaning on top of the site whenever you log in.  Pretty nifty. And lots of fun. Come over and make some friends!

And from there I found another cool place, just for small business. It’s Sta.rtUP.Biz. Check out my page at  http://sta.rtup.biz/profile/PatMarcello . Very cool. It’s like a FaceBook for entrepreneurs. Love it! Finally a place where we can place links and not get booted.

Check out both of those places. I think you’ll totally enjoy them.

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Signed up for a cool new site today–Social Marketing Central, which comes from the Friday Traffic Report’s Jack Humphrey, where else? So, yeah… I really enjoy his kind of stuff, and it’s always top notch.

So, Social Marketing Central is really a Ning network site, which is pretty cool, but it connects you with other Social Marketing buffs. You can check it out and join at:

http://socialauthority.ning.com/

You’ll get your own page, and you can add videos, and photos, invite friends, and all the other stuff you like to do at social sites around the ‘Net. This group also has a forum and a direct link to Jack’s Blog Talk Radio. If you like Web 2.0, you’ll enjoy this site, no doubt about it.

I’m going to hang out there for a while. I’m hoping to meet other Web 2.0-aphiles and learn some tips and tricks… oh, and maybe give some away while I’m at it. Let you know how it does for social marketing in about a month or so, after I learn whether it has potential for business or it’s just a fun place to be. I figure I can’t lose, right?

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Not me!

Really.

I mean, I totally love Twitter and enjoy seeing what other folks are up to all day with the Firefox plugin TwitterFox. It’s rad because I can quickly see it just by turning my attention (not even my whole head) for a split second and then, it’s over. Or, I can reply with a snarky “me” (yes, I’m a snark in real life) comment or whatever.

Generally, I only comment on other people’s Tweets throughout the day, though they have to be important. I mean, I’m picky. Really. John Reese was in a car accident in Greece! Worth a Tweet? I think so. “Hope you’re OK.” Simple. He had to make a “get the heck off the road fast move,” says he. And on with my day.

But I usually reserve my Tweets for blog posts or something cool like being interviewed by Early to Rise (which I was for the second time last week, BTW). And I don’t spend a lot of time messing with Twitter, really, because I have too much work to do.

Here’s the thing, though, and it really fries my bananas…

Some people Tweet about every stupid thing under the sun. I mean, I really don’t give a hoot what you ate for breakfast unless it’s something totally, incredibly funny or awesome. I mean, if you’re in Kawabunga and eat a tarantula or some monkey brains… Hey, that’s worth a Tweet.

But if you had cereal. Keep it to yourself, K?

So, don’t be a Twitter Whore. (I didn’t make that up, but the Friday Traffic Report had a cute video about that that I went to watch at: http://www.jackhumphrey.com/fridaytrafficreport/blog-marketing-videos/how-not-to-use-twitter-to-generate-traffic/. (Whew! Hey, Jack… That’s one long-ass URL, BTW)

Totally cracked me up, and then it dawned on me that people like that make me nuts. If you don’t have something really, really cool to Tweet about… tell your mom or your cat or someone who really wants to know this stuff, K?

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I’ve been living under a bushel basket for the past few months due to the ListBuilding.com launch.  And as I do when I”m busy, I’ll see a piece of mail that I have to read, but… I have no time. So, I flag that puppy in Outlook and wait until I have a down day to go through the messages. I had built up more than 100.

Gawd!

But there’s a message that I always read, and that’s the one that comes in on Fridays or Mondays from Jack Humphrey’s Friday Traffic Report. You know I’m a huge fan and that I’ve mentioned Jack before here, but whoa. He comes across with some of the coolest and most exciting information that (like I’ve said before)… If you aren’t subscribed, what the hell are you waiting for?

Today, work’s a little light for the first time in a while, so I’m going through my stuff and came across a message from Jack from waaaaayyyy back in January. Oh, sure. Tons of people have already seen it and put this great information to task already, but well, I’ve been painfully slow to get things done for myself. I’m running a membership site and a teleseminar series at Blogging4Boomers.com, too, remember. Right?

OK, no excuse.

Here’s the deal: HubPages. Do you know what they are?

HubPages is a Web 2.0 site where you can build “hubs,” which are sort of like Squidoo lenses. You add text modules, video modules, Amazon modules, etc. And just generally build a hub around a topic. It’s totally fun. I have one over there about cats. In fact, I’m a cat junkie and have several Web 2.0 sites about cats and a couple of blogs and whatever.

So, back to my story.

I find this message in my Inbox from Jack that says “Get More Traffic to Your HubPages.”  I’m all for that! And whoa. Very cool. I find not one but 7 Hubs all about getting traffic to your hub. Pretty neat. I’m certainly going to take some of that advice. Instinctively, I think I already have some of that going from my SEO background, but I don’t care what stage Hub Meister you are, you’ll find some information to turn you on.

The first Hub by Mark Knowles–”How I Got My Hub to Be on Google’s First Page“– is really great.  Mark gives you a virtual recipe of making it happen. We’ll be adding that cool advice to our own Hubs (and Tellman’s).

But all of the Hubs in that blog post are totally cool, and you should definitely check Jack’s post and every single one of those Hubs out…

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So, if you’re a fan of Jack Humphrey’s like I am, you’ll be subscribed to his Friday Traffic Report.

If you’re not… What are you waiting for?

Jack has a really cool little piece of software called “Utility Poster” coming out and I’m drooling.

Check out his video:

http://tinyurl.com/6qxbu7

Man. I love riffing off other people’s posts. I mean, I don’t do it every day, but when I read something that’s really cool, I love to let my readers know about it. This is one of those times.

This software finds blog posts around the ‘Net with the keywords you give it. I mean it comes back with hundreds of posts! If you optimize for the keyword in your post, whatever that is, and then, use Utility Poster to do the rest, you’re almost guaranteed top ranking for the keyword in a matter of minutes.

Utility Poster isn’t available just yet, but whoa. I’m in line line like one of those crazy people that camps out for rock concert tickets.

Don’t step on me, dude!

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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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Isn’t that just like Web 2.0? Constantly changing and morphing into something we want it to be? Well, my theme wasn’t behaving like I wanted it to and…

The pink theme was “pretty” someone told me. Well… It was too girly. I guess I’m a girl. Well, last time I checked, eh? So, now, it’s down to bidnez.

I’d worry that I’ll confuse readers, but I know a) that my readers are really smart and b) oh well. The other theme just wasn’t working with WordPress 2.3.1 and there’s another update that my web host doesn’t have yet. When I change that, things may go all kaflooey again. Who knows?

But thanks for putting up with me. I figure that if Jack Humphrey can change things a lot, well, so can Pat Marcello. Of course, Jack has way more blog traction than I do and he’s way more famous than little me, but heck. Follow the masters, right? Isn’t that so, Jack?

What’s on the agenda today?

Long-tail keywords. I just wrote something about that for Tellman’s blog (http://listbuildingblog.com) and I mentioned that they work, and they do. I’ve used them for Tellman’s sites and for outside clients and they will pull in some traffic. You just have to be aggressive in using them.

But never use any keywords, unless they make sense. Don’t ever try to stuff in keywords and make your writing sound silly. People hate that, and so do search engines.

So, I digress…

Nancy Andrews has a video that says long-tail is B. S. that you can rank without using long-tail phrases and says she does it all the time. I agree with that, too. If you have great backlinks out the wazoo like she does, then you’re bound to do better than a site that uses long-tail keyword phrases without great backlinks.

I say it’s a combination of both. If you go to SEO Digger at http://seodigger.com and plug in “InstantADDSuccess.com” you can see how many keyword phrases we rank for, and many of them on the first page. Do those keywords get any traffic? Some of them do, yes, and it’s the combination of hits from various keyword phrases that get us on page 1.

We don’t have a lot of backlinks, but we do have some that are good. I worked on that for a long time, too. So, what works?

Whatever works for you. I say a combination of things. Long-tail and not long-tail keywords; getting one-way backlinks, especially from quality directories; articles using your keyword phrases; and blog postings using the keywords, too. You just have to keep the system going.

Even when you get on page 1, guess what?

There’s another SEO trying to knock you off.

So, keep on keeping on. That’s about all you can do.

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