Monday, June 21, 2010

Super Mega Optimal SEO

Hi All,

Here are some suggestions for Back Links to your site. Click the links to see the site. If any of you use any of these sites for back links, please put a comment on your successes.

1. Public Relations

2. Classified Ads

3. Video
4. Content Development

5. Getting Social

6. Directories
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Thursday, June 17, 2010

Using Word Press Template

Hey Gang,

I just thought I would share a few notes about my new website, Florida Vacation Travel Guide.

The process was a little longer than I thought. My original thoughts were going to build a site from scratch but finally came to my senses and built a site with Wordpress.

I used a template that my friend and webmaster, Carlo, from CWP internet. He helped me install, teach, and modify the template. Allen, from Cruzan concepts did the header image and graphics. It was a great team effort and it came together. The site took me about 8 weeks to get up and running.

If you have any feedback, I would love to hear from you.
God Bless,
John Mac
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Friday, May 14, 2010

Summit Driving ROI with Search and Social

Hi All,

Long time, I have not written in a long time. I was at a seminar about a Search and Social from SFIMA.

I was writing by a wild man and my notes are not the best but here it goes.

Mitch Joel talked about Social Sites....

  • Banner advertising is going down, not many clicks. This past year, the clicks on Banner Ads have gone down to 2% from the total of 1.8 billion user online.
  • Why is normal advertising going down because of social site and customer reviews. People are trusting people not advertising.
  • Information is everything. He talked about yelp.
  • You need to start really value your relationships.
  • More Grandparents than High School students on Facebook
  • Facebook is so popular because the user can share, socialize, collaborate, and most of all create.
  • 81% of online holiday shoppers read online customers reviews.
  • Reviews = Trust. Let your customer talk on website about your products. Be transparent to the world.
  • Make sure you know who you want to put your meesage in front of. Be part of Groups that you want to be in front of. Facebook groups...
  • 50% of youtube audience is over 34
  • Canadians watch over 15 hours a month of Youtube videos. Pretty amazing, considering the average video is 4 minutes.
  • Google said that 20% search is NEW each day. So new key words groups are created everyday.
  • You don't control your homepage, Google does.
  • Now, you need to get in front of your customer versus where you were looking for customers to find you.

Facebook ads are very targeted audience.

We are not marketers anymore, now we are publishers.
1. Accept the change
2. Build and share
3. Move towards open and sharing
4. Its attitudal versus generational
5. Do something now? Be sure you know why?

Your stories should be one to many - Social
Give Value up Front and be Simple

Ten Golden Rules - Jay Berkowitz
To see the outline go to http://presentations.tengoldenrules.com/  He has some great outline and very smart guy.
* He sadi to get your Facebook Vanity User Name, Twitter Name, Linkin Name. It is going to be hot commodity.
* the Facebook Like it button is going hot. Look for the Like it Widget to add to your site.
*Location Networking 4 Square
* My personal use - Pay per Post to make money to blog
*Youtube is great product sale person
* PR Web to promote your video
* Create a community >> Jay created one http://www.internetmarketingclub.org/
ning.com is low cost community network
*Google is looking for "Recency"  and site speed.
*Wine Library TV is has become huge hit on youtube

***************************************************************************
For John
Gorilla Marketing Idea - Make Bookmarks and put in books and magazines to promote your website. For example, travel website, but the book mark in travel books and magazine in a bookstore.
Travel Blog to check out http://amateurtraveler.com/
****************************************************************************
Next Speaker
  • Facebook is visited more than google
  • Get a strategy - Need a plan to drive revenue - lead generation
  • Make engaging and sharable content. Is your content good enough to share?
  • Offer exclusive content
  • Listen to your user. Listen to what they want. Are people talking on your page? Do they have complaints or praise? Get Feedback. Ask Questions?
  • Focus on Groups.
  • Buy Buy is doing a good job communicating and reacing the right audience.
  • Fan retention
  • Engage your fans in conversation
Next Speaker
The theory of facebook's Likeability
Engagement = Media X commitment
Facebook has started Likeability. what is it? Is about personalization.
How it works - Photos, Albums, Accessable
Look at Facebook Plug ins
Predictions
1. Personalization will be mainstream
2. Graph Based Commerce - Facebook shopping site
3. Geo and Mobile - Location is big and new facebook feature
4. Insight mining is going to be huge
5. Facebook ads will be everywhere. Big shift in advertising
Embrace Likeability or Else
1. Accept that notion of privacy and identity is going to change
2. Empowers consumers
3. Better analytics and measures

Next Speaker
Before going Social
Set Goals
Get a Strategy
Start campaign
Tactic >> Social >> Facebook
Build your brand

Build content First with Youtube, Photobucket, Blogs >>> Then build facebook, linkin, Twitter >>> Invite Existing Customer to Engage >>> Marketing Intergration (email, mailers, advertising)

Talked about Youtube
Video >>> Make a PreRoll and Make a Post Roll for the videos I make.
He said to use Corel Pro X3
He uses a Flip Camera
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Tuesday, February 9, 2010

A Guide to SEO

Hey Guys,

Here is another class I saw at the Affiliate Summit. It was young guy, Joshua, and owns FullSpeedSEO.com and really liked what he said. Check it out.

How Do I Increas My Ranking
  • Analyzing Your Niche
  • Dominating the Niche
  • Tracking your Progress
Who Do I need to Optimized for?
Unless you have compelling evidence not to optimize for Google, its best to do what they like to see, and let the other catch on.
Searches
  • Google 66%
  • Yahoo 16.2%
  • Bing 8.8%
  • Aol 3%
  • the rest 7%

Picking a Domain Name
If you have not bought a domain name, Use Google Keyword tool to try to find highly search versions of your main keyword.  Use the Global Search and Use EXACT match.

If you already have a domain name that you are not willing to change, that's alright. Domain name is only 1 of about 200 ranking factors. Remember sites like, ebay, Aazon, and Zappos all rank for keywords not in their domain.

Don't makeyournametoolong.com

A wellplaced dash is fine, like expert-changes.com but avoid-lots-and-lots-of-dashes.com

If you are geographically centric business, it much easier to rank Houstonfloorpolishers.com than floorpolishers.com

Is your website optimized? (boring)
  • Main Keyword in title tag
  • H1 . H2 Tags
  • Meta Description tag

Do you have a site map?
Keywords in the first 250 words of text.
Pro tip: A CMS (content management system) like wordpress will do almost all of this for you. Wordpress has been known to follow google advice closely. <<<<<

Optimizing Wordpress
Google Sitemap Generator
All in One SEO pack << talk about this before
Popular Posts (for last x days)
Lose the Default theme
Woo Themes ($20 / month)
Page.ly - managed wordpress hosting with premium themes ($15/month), upgraded, patched, and backed up.

Page Optimization
  • Use Google Keywords tool for additional terms you might want to rank for. Use the broad match option.
  • Use in the Google KeyWord Tool the ~operator before you google queries for related ters. le ~dog, ~collars
  • make sure you page loads fast, consult google webmaster tools
  • Increase time on page via "related posts" or Additional Products at the end of pages

Off Page Optimization
It is better to have 1 really popular website than 30 "zero" page rank sites.
To become a Authority Site: Relevant Links and Authoritative links coming to your site.
Don't be freaked out about page rank. Its a macro metric. Its better to be "0" PR with lots of visitors.
Focus on building a profile of high quality one way links
Trust your list ranking, not y our page rank.

Where Do I Get Links?
Guest Posting
Social Bookmarking (Digg, Stumbleupon)
Various Profiles (youtube, slashdot,etc)
Twitter aggregators
facebook fan pages
Sites you make (mini nets)
Link Bait >> this is any media that gets people excited, in any capacity, about the content of that media, and inspires them to link back to it so their discourse on the subject is relevant.
Examples >> Contests, Viral Videos, Creative Web Applications (mobile apps), be evocative
From Matt Cutts "Link baiting sounds like a bad thing, but expecially if its interesting information or fun, it doesn't have to have negative connotations. I hereby claim that content can be both white-hat and still be wonderful "bait" for links."

Link baiting is the reason your website needs a blog.
This is reason you should probably have mini net made about your niche.

Link Building
Blog Comments
CommuntLuv - Dofollow plugin for WP
Look for "footprints" if you find something
Social Media
Submit Great Content. Diggers are snobs, rightfully so.
Your twitter followers will want to blog/link great content, give it to them! Don't mislead them with your profile though. I personally hate lots of off topic tweets.
When all else fails.. look where your competition gets their links. Yahoo.com site: theirDomain.com
Sitesnatcher <<<

SEO Tools
Rank Checker - Free from SEOBook
SEO information on SERPS >> great for assessing competition in a niche
DoNotFollow Fire Fox Plugin
CODA Development Software

Thats it for what it is worth. Also, Alex, reported to me you could not post on these blog post and I fixed it. Please post and put your website in the post. As we read, one way links will help and this blog is a tool to help you!!

God bless,
John
Swimming with the Dolphins in Miami
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Saturday, February 6, 2010

Affiliate Direct Links from Email

Hi Guys,

You may not know this but I thought I would share this with you. I had created an email where I put the affiliates link directly from the email to the affiliate company, Viator.  It was part of my strategy to earn more money. I was wondering way, I only got about 10 sales all last year. We send out 1000s of emails a month. So I was expecting so much more.

When I went to Las Vegas and I talked to the manager of Viator. She told me that in the Viator agreement, I could NOT email direct links to viator. She told me its in their agreement statement with me, but I never read it. I wasted a whole year without any sales from them. So came back and I started to create Activity landing pages for each location so the customer would have to go there first and then click to Viator. Well, I created, Things to Do in Dominican Republic page and it worked. I got my first sale this week. Believe me I was very excited.

But when I was in Vegas I asked the manager of Expedia if it was OK to direct link from emails and she said it was OK.

Just thought I would share this with you because I lost a lot of sales ( i think) because of this mistake.

God Bless,
John
PS Curtis copeland told us at the meeting, to upload photos 960 pixel
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Friday, February 5, 2010

Masterblaster Monthly Meeting

We had a good turn out last night, John - Neyrot Photography, Me - Swim with the Dolphins Miami, Rich - Fish Oil Direct, and Curtis - Copeland Photography.

We had a good time talking and eating for a little while, My wife Shakira, from Remax Fort Lauderdale, gave us some good eats and then we moved to the office to discuss the internet and business.

Some points:

John Neyrot.
He showed us his new website, http://neyrotproductions.com/ This is his first website he is building from Dreamweaver. The learning curve was hard for him because he was a MS frontpage user for years and now switching to dreamweaver. Its taken him about 2 weeks of reading and watching videos and now he is getting the hang of using dreamweaver. What do you think of his site? This site is to promote him better and for his salesperson to sell him better.

Also, John showed us a big written and photo spread in Moves Magazine. I looked online for the article but its not there yet. It was a great spread about 10 pages.

John Mac
Asked for some help in Wordpress. Curtis and the guys gave feed back on uploading photos to wordpress. Wow, I have been doing it the hard way a long time.
We also talked about the plug ins for Wordpress. The one everyone needs is Askismet for spam. I showed the Flickr plug in and we discussed about flickr. Flickr is social / photo sharing site and we were discussing the pros and cons of the putting the photos there. We agreed that putting a watermark on your photo was worth it.

Curtis mentioned about Disqus (a social blogging tool he uses). I looked at the site but I really don't understand yet. Hopefully Curtis can explain more in future about his site.

We also talked about setting up a Gravatar for your blog. That is something I would like to do. A Brand for my image. Maybe Curtis can talk about this more too.

Curtis
Discussed about his struggle from switching from his website to a wordpress  and buying a template. We all encouraged him to move forward with wordpress.

I think that is it. If you guys can add anything, please do.
God Bless you all and see you in two weeks.
John

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Thursday, January 21, 2010

Affiliate Summit - Monetize Blogs for Affiliate Marketing

Hi guys,
We had a panel to speak on monetize your blog.

  • Ben Spark - Does a photo blog - Tim Jones  - Murray Newlands 
  • Some of the basics of blogging - all the panelist use Wordpress - This is the leader
  • Make sure you set up Permalink Settings on Word press. This is where By default WordPress uses web URLs which have question marks and lots of numbers in them, however WordPress offers you the ability to create a custom URL structure for your permalinks and archives. This can improve the aesthetics, usability, and forward-compatibility of your links. A number of tags are available, and here are some examples to get you started.
  • Word press has plugs in you should use.
    • All in One SEO
    • Google XML Site Maps
    • Broken Link Checker
    • Best Posts Summary
    • Word Press Stats
    • WP Super Cache
    • WP-DB Back up
    • Askismet << a must for spam
    • WP Contact Form III
    • E-Mail Respond
    • Disqus
    • Tantannoodles Photo Updates from Flicker  
    • Tweet this << Automatically send out tweet posts
  • There are so many plug ins for word press
  • Guest Posting is a big thing in the Blog world. This where you post on someone else's blog your material and you get the back link to your site. If you get this, this could be huge for your google ranking.
  • Try to find at least 10 blogs and have all 10 blogs try to link to each other
  • Try to Link to Deep pages within the blog
  • To Monetize your Blog, you can
  • How to Plan and Grow
    • The Tighter the Niche the Better
    • Build the Community
    • Valuable Content
    • Build for the Long Term - Remember, its your readers site. Let them build it
    • Consist value for the reader
    • Movement to Video - You build a lot of trust with Video
  •  Building the Blog
    • Recommend to get customizable Template 
  • Example of Blogger that had success
    • Tricia Meyers - She was a lawyer, now full time as a mommy blogger. twitter >>@sunshinetricia, tricia@sunshinerewards.com, blog>> www.tricia.me
    • When she finds a hot topic, she gets the key word, domain, server, and wordpress development within a few hours
    • She showed her Twight Blog 
    • This blog is all about selling stuff
    • Banners
      • Look for Merchants from Affiliate Networks
      • Hot top Banners 125 X 125
      • Customize 120 X 600 works well
        • Static Banners
        • Auto Update Banners
      •  She does a lot of product reviews
      • She uses the Pop Shops - plug in for word press >> for product feeds
      • She really like Ebay affiliate because you can almost find anything there. She suggested to sign up with Ebay directly because you can get better widget and tools.
      • Also with Ebay, you get paid for every new member that signs up
      • She uses a PHP Plug In from Ebay that automatically pulls in products to page - the latest aution items - 5 items
      • She uses Widgets from Amazon - Also uses the Share A Sale Widgets
      • Other ways she is making money
This is the area I was most impressed with. Everyone is Blogging. The show focused a lot of attention toward this group of people. I plan to be one too!!
God Bless,
John
Dolphin Blog 

Tricia responded to email I sent to her and I want to put her answer in my blog post.
Here are the answers to your questions:

1. You mentioned that you got your wordpress free templates from a program / company called thesis. I searched and searched and could not find anything on this. Can you help me where to find these free templates? It’s actually not a free theme. If you want a free one that is decent, you might want to check out Cutlines (it’s what I have on the Twilight site). The one that I mainly use is DIY Themes Thesis. http://diythemes.com/  I paid the $164 to be able to use it on as many sites as I want as long as I stay a developer.

2. When you said at the mentor session, you can turn around and build a blog in 1 hour I was really impressed. I just want to make sure the steps you do are....
Topic >> Find Key Words to Build >> Get Domain >> Buy Server >> Find Wordpress Template >> Build Site and Content >> Promote Sight  To launch the site in an hour, I have a couple of cheats. One is that I already have my server. And the Thesis theme. So I just 1) find my topic, 2) buy the domain, 3) install WP on the domain along with my “set” of plugins that always use, 4) customize the keywords and the colors/logo. The first couple of times it definitely took me longer because I had to learn which plugins I wanted to use and how to customize Thesis. Now it’s just second nature. I also then link to it from my main blog so that Google will find it within 24 hours.

 
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