The SEO News Blog from Pat Marcello

I’ve done some advertising with Google AdWords, but it usually ended up being more expensive than it was worth. Oh sure, I got optins and sales, but they were either break-even or only marginally profitable. I don’t have that “special code,” I’m afraid. It takes a lot of trial and error to make it work really well than I have to spend at this point. I mean, I know I can make it if I focus on it and nothing else. But remember, I work for Tellman.

But…

Working for him has its perks.  Well, lots of them actually, not to mention he’s a great guy. (In case you don’t know, he’s running across the country for Homeless Teens and well… in his bare feet. Pretty cool… go donate at http://RunTellmanRun.com. It’s a very worthy cause, and well… bare feet, people!)

Anyway… Tellman got me to go through Frank Kern and his cousin Trey’s “Screw Google” course, and I have to say that it’s great! It’s short enough to run through in a few hours, and the information inside is easy to follow and really spot on. It’s typical Frank Kern style,  of course, and he’s one of the LEAST boring people to watch no matter what he’s doing. He just has that kind of personality that makes you smile. (It’s a no-brainer that he and Trey are cousins, either. They even sound alike. Both of them are good at teaching and keeping things light.)

The course is based on PPC advertising with Yahoo, and I have to tell you that after having worked the AdWords stuff for OE and myself, I find Yahoo to be 1) less anal and 2) far less expensive. My most expensive click to date has been around 12 cents. Plus, I’m getting tons of optins and I don’t have a mega keyword list, either. I have a very select group of keyword phrases that I’ve tested and know work for my & Tellman’s product, Spider Language, which (in case you don’t hang here regularly) is a basic course on SEO. continue reading »

Keyword discovery is the most important activity you can do for your business, and you really should start before you set up your site. A lot of new business owners overlook this, but it’s vital! I mean, you can go back and change things later on, but why not start right?

You really only need 3 to 5 really solid long-tail (very specific)  keyword phrases to concentrate on and to make your mark in search. Save the 500-word lists for AdWords. We’re talking about your website now. Less is better.

When you have them chosen, you need to use them in various anchor text phrases pointing back to your site — in articles, press releases, etc. And hopefully, you’ll have some people pointing back to you with the same keyword phrases naturally. Google likes that a LOT.

Anchor text is nothing more than a keyword phrase that’s hyperlinked, but it’s important that you vary the usage and that you don’t use the same phrase everytime. So, add a word, like I’ll use “SEO News blogging” or “WordPress information,” like that. The reason is because anchor text passes “reputation” to your site and you don’t want the search bots to think that every link pointing back to your site is a self-serving link, even if it is. Remember the “natural” thang? Well… it matters.

Anyway, today I was noodling around at some of my favorite keyword places, not discovery engines per se, but places where it just adds a little help to see if you made the right choices. You want to know that your keywords are solid. So, let’s talk a little about them… continue reading »

I’m often asked, “Pat, what are the best article sites on the Web?” There are definitely some in the forefront, in my opinion.

You can’t go wrong posting to EzineArticles.com. They run a tight ship, the content has to be quality or their editors don’t take it and everyone knows EZA. It’s got tons of traffic coming to it every single day. That’s my #1 place, for sure.

GoArticles.com is good because they still allow you to add anchor text to your articles. (Hyperlinked keyword phrases.) This is great for SEO, and provides reputation for your site. The worse thing you can do is to link “Click Here,” as it gives you little SEO benefit at all. But having an anchor text link (as you see above with “keyword phrases”) from a good site is worth the effort of submitting at all.

ArticlesBase.com is making its way to the top. The site now sports a PR5 and an Alexa of 810. Very strong. (Lower is better with Alexa.com) So, adding articles here is also a good idea.

But also think about social content sites like Squidoo, HubPages.com, and Scribd.com, which are all great sites to submit your content pieces.

Don’t bother submitting to any site that has a high Alexa, say over 100,000. That’s pretty much a waste of time because those directories/sites get little traffic. Stick to submitting to places where people will see your stuff and click on your link to come to your website.

Also stay away from Google Knol. I read an article today saying that it may not make it to its 2nd birthday as traffic has dropped so dramatically. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but here’s the thing: Keep an eye on which sites are rising in popularity and which sites are waning. Things change over time, and you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket and then, have the basket fall apart.

iSnare.com is another good option. For $2 U.S., they will distribute your content to 40,000 websites, newsletters, and ezines. That’s not to say you’ll be placed in all of them because it’s an editor’s decision whether or not to accept your piece, but for $2, you really can’t lose.

Article marketing is still extremely powerful. Using it for SEO purposes is critical, and the cool thing about it is that your articles will stay online, bringing traffic and boosting your reputation and SEO forever.

If you don’t like to write, get someone to do it for you. Just don’t underpay. Sure, you can get folks with little command of the language to write for $1, but the articles won’t be much good. You want someone who understands your niche and who can write in your language. The going rate for a good article? About $10 at least. If you want a solid SEO article, you may have to pay around $15. But it’s worth it to have an article that will keep your reputation strong. Put a bunch of garbage out there and you know what they say…

Garbage in; garbage out. Not very helpful to your online success. You want to build your reputation as an expert in your niche. Nobody will buy it if you’re putting out poorly written articles that make no sense.

For that reason, also stay away from article spinners, unless you review the articles and make proper changes to them before submitting. Don’t just let a site or software spin articles and pop ‘em out there. You’ll hate the results. Most spinners don’t work, but there are a few that might and they require rewriting of your article paragraph by paragraph. I’ve done that for Overcome Everything, and I can tell you, it’s a LOT of work.

Unless you plan to do nothing else, my advice is to write or buy two good, solid content pieces a week and submit them to one of the sites I mentioned above, and you’ll still achieve excellent results over time.

A simple question keeps popping up from folks in my corner of the universe, so… I thought I’d address it here. Lots of people may be wondering about the same thing. So, here’s the question:

What’s more important–the number of subscribers to your feed or the number of subscribers on your email marketing list?

To the seasoned veteran of the marketing wars, it’s a no-brainer. Of course it’s the mailing list!

Why?

Well… when you get names and email addresses into your autoresponder, they’re yours. You can do whatever you want to do with them. You can email the folks every day. You can move the data to another autoresponder. And you can use the list for joint venture propositions, right?

Your list is the MOST valuable asset that your business owns. The people on your list should be cherished and treated with respect and given tons of great content so that they will know you, like you, and trust you.  When you have a list of loyal subscribers, you really have something. You’re holding money in your hands.

An RSS subscriber is great, too… don’t get me wrong. I hope you subscribe to my RSS feed, and I also hope that you subscribe to my mailing list. But let’s face it. Until you actually put your trust in me. Until you tell me who you are and what your email address is, you’re a stranger.  I know little about you.

Oh sure, I might know what reader you’re using. I might know the pages that you viewed. I may even know what keyword phrases you typed into the search box to find me before you subscribed.

But I don’t know what you’re really interested in. And, on a whim, you might hate something I write and disappear from my circle of influence forever.  Yes, you can do that from my email list, too, but you probably won’t be as quick to hit the unsubscribe button, if you have spent years on my list and I’ve been a true provider of cool stuff. You’re not as impulsive in severing that connection.

So, what should a good blogger do? Have both. Give everyone who comes to your blog the opportunity to subscribe to both your RSS feed and your mailing list.  Every blog should have an optin form placed conspicuously at the top of the sidebar, and right below that, a way to subscribe to its feed. The person that subscribes to your feed today, might come back several times to read what you’ve written and then, decide to join your mailing list, too. They get a chance to decide who you are and whether or not you’re worth paying attention to.

So, the bottom line is…

All subscribers are valuable, and I appreciate each and every one of you. You’re why I’m here. Oh, sure, sure… I want to make money. That’s what we’re all doing here. But I look at they money as a side benefit of being able to help folks to do what I do. When I can teach folks things to help them be more successful online and they come back to me and tell me what a difference I’ve made in their lives… that’s totally something that money CAN’T buy.