Last night I attended a seminar on social media and the leader announced, a facebook killer was being developed. There’s been a lot of talk too lately about member backlash. The real question according to Chris Crum however, is whether facebook is too big to bail. In other words, do we all have so much invested that no matter what facebook does, we have to protect our stake and our relationships, our equity in the network? Let me know what you think. Personally I think it will be replaced at some point, but it will probably be several years from now.
Not Enough Competition
One of the the things every SEO service provider must confront is the unique quality of each job. I am amazed at what I have to do to move some websites up the Google ladder. For example I have one client who is a pioneer. She has little or no competition. I should be jumping for joy right? Well, sort of. You see there is a problem with “making your own game” as Chris Brogan calls it. If what you are doing is truly new, then people are probably not searching for it. Fortunately this can be a good thing too because traditional media loves new and unique stuff. We have been having no problem getting her interviewed on local TV stations and in local newspapers. But what about her website? The answer is not simple; it’s a matter of leveraging local coverage by putting video and quotations in the content of the site and blog and then using social media tools like Twitter and facebook. YouTube is also an obvious answer and we have lots of plans to exploit the viral power of our videos. But you learn very quickly to either wear many hats or do a lot of outsourcing. It’s exciting but different than my usual problem which is too much competition.
Too Much Competition
Too much competition is the usual issue but here each website is also unique. For example, what if you discover your client has a couple of thousand backlinks, but terrible onsite SEO. Do you spend your time leveraging all those backlinks or take the time to correct page titles, descriptions and headers. It is really an art and the art comes from balancing the clients expectations with the available budget and an experienced assessment of what will bring in the most bang for the buck. Trouble is, making big changes frequently takes time and you better make the right choice because the clock is ticking and you and your client want results. I personally have worked miracles, in a few days, for some clients at the local level. And I would encourage developing the local market if it makes any sense at all. But ranking for some keywords requires wizardry and time, so you need to have a very sophisticated understanding of the competition.
I’ll be talking more about my bag of tricks in future posts, but one important trick is to realize there are few off the shelf solutions that make a difference. So get creative and start making up your own game. It takes real art to make SEO equal ROI. What do you think? I would love to hear your take on this issue. Do you have any trailblazers that have too little competition and no search volume?
An Internet Phenomenon
DSM Publishing is an internet phenomenon, both in terms of its remarkable success and in terms of its influence on the web marketing industry. New Energy Communications is excited to talk with Samantha Milner, co-founder of DSM Publishing
New Energy: How did you get the idea to try making money online and what makes you so passionate about your work?
Samantha Milner: I have always had a great passion for making money whether it is online or offline. As a child, my parents were self-employed and I used to watch my Dad with all of his successful ventures with thoughts of doing similar things when I grew up. You could say, I had it in my blood and at age eight, I was renting out my Dad’s videos in the school playground.
I have always wanted to earn money and I first got the idea of making money online via eBay, like many people before me. I started off by selling offline manuals showing people how to make money on eBay, over ten years ago, and then it escalated from there.
After selling my own goods on eBay, I saw the opportunity that it offered the average person; so that they no longer had to struggle in order to pay the bills. But what I learned from eBay is that with fees being so expensive, like on the internet in general, you have to find a niche to make it work for you.
There is no point opening an eBay account and trying to sell DVD’s or children’s clothing because there are millions of other sellers doing the exact same thing right in front of your nose. Unless you have an amazing pot of cash, you will not make it competing with the big boys.
I started off by selling in niches, and from this I developed my own websites using the experience I had developed on eBay and the profits to make it possible for me.
You can read more about my first money maker for free in this PDF file:
New Energy: We’ve tried systems that promise high traffic and quick money on the web. Your approach is different. Your e-books actually enable people to make a profit. How did you develop this approach?
Samantha: I believe that too many people are sold a fairy tale without thinking it through properly. They honestly believe that they will make six figures within 90 days and have a Ferrari parked in their driveway.
Through my products I show people how to make money online and base it on products that I currently follow the systems of. I will only sell ebooks for systems I currently implement in my business on a day to day basis. When I learn something new, I will write about it with lots of screenshots so that other people can follow my methods.
I wrote an ebook in 2009 showing people how to create mini products from scratch allowing them to start their own income streams and it has become my best selling ebook of all my time online.
It is called Mini Launch Profits. The reason why it is successful is because it shows people with little effort how to make amazing profits from master resell rights. It is a simple system that requires little work and gives the average guy in the street the chance to make it online; and from this, it will give them the experience to go onto bigger and better things.
I also base my products on myself – if I was starting out online, this is what I would want to achieve and this allows me to pass on my online experience to others.
New Energy: A truly outstanding feature of DSM Publishing is all the free materials. For example, your books on Aweber and WordPress have really helped us get started. How can you afford to give it all away? And even when you do charge, your prices compared to the competition, are very low. Aren’t you afraid that your subscribers will learn too much and no longer need you?
I am glad you have enjoyed my Aweber and Wordpress tutorials which I loved putting together as I learned so much using the sites. When I looked on my statistics the Wordpress report has been my biggest download for the last 18 months, and with more people than ever wanting to start their own Blog, I can see why.
But you have to look at it as the whole picture: My Wordpress report along with all my other reports that form my 24 hour series, have each made me five figures online. As a marketer, free reports even without opt-in, can earn you a lot of money online and are one of my best income streams on the internet.
You see when people download the free report there is the chance to purchase resell rights to these reports at the one off price of $9.00 and then include their own viral links in the product. I find that for every 100 people that download this product, 18 will upgrade their purchase –– giving me the chance to regularly earn money from these reports.
Not only that, but people who have the books, also have my website details within the product and several affiliate links bringing money regularly into my bank account. Even though this report has now been in publication for over a year, I still get monthly commissions through Hostgator; so as far as I am concerned, it is one of my best selling products.
But by selling it in this way I am able to give many people a free report without even opting in to receive it. If there is one way of building free traffic, it is viral marketing, and you can find out more about my viral methods by clicking here.
I love teaching my readers new things and those that have bought from me, trust me, and stay with me for a long time. In internet marketing, there is no such thing as learning too much; ask any internet marketing guru and they will all agree!!!
When I learn something new, I will pass this information on to my subscribers through my free products, newsletter and premium products; and as an internet marketer, I always feel like I will never run out of products.
I am writing a new ebook at the moment about a subject that is hot right now, and I am sure two years down the line they will turn into new systems to tap into.
I wrote a free Twitter Ebook just over a year ago now and that was a new craze that was sweeping the internet and I am sure it won’t be the last!
I also like offering great value for money, so that people can break into internet marketing without worrying about the cost of it.
New Energy: We’ve tried to explain to people the importance of Twitter for business. When did you realize its potential as a business tool?
Samantha: I must admit I didn’t take Twitter seriously at first. I thought it was all hype and didn’t offer anything of value.
Then I got chatting to a fellow internet marketer, and he asked me to join him on Twitter, as it would be more fun chatting than via email. I set up a profile, added my website link and started chatting about internet marketing. Two days later I had over 1,000 followers and several orders all coming from the one link from my profile.
I just couldn’t believe that one source of social media could be so powerful; and then posted a selection of my products as tweets on Twitter and watched as the cash rolled into my ClickBank accounts.
I have been using Twitter ever since and love the interaction it gives you with your clients –– it is just amazing. It’s also very good as an affiliate marketer to make money online, because the traffic levels are huge. I could very easily take someone off the street with no internet marketing skills and train them on Twitter, and have them making money in the space of a couple of days!
New Energy: In the web marketing field, it’s tempting to outsource repetitive functions like social media submissions, but it’s also risky. What is your view of outsourcing?
Samantha: I adore outsourcing, and it is a major part of my business. When I realized that daily jobs were taking up four hours a day and I didn’t have the time to complete all my work, I new something had to give.
From experimenting with outsourcing though, I have learned that for every 10 staff you hire 3 will be bad. You have to learn to get over this, and move on to the next good one, and to treat the staff that is good at their job, like gold.
You can hire quality staff for as low as $0.50 an hour, and this allows the guy with the small online business the chance to have full time staff without it feeling like it is draining all his income.
New Energy: For an existing business with a product or service, what is the best and quickest way to make more sales on the internet?
It is hard to say one way that will help a particular business without viewing what they are doing at the moment. Providing their sales copy is of good quality, it should always be down to the more traffic = the more sales.
You should always have a sales funnel in place so that you can actively add subscribers, increase your affiliate promoters and sell your product all at the same time. You also need the point of entry to be the sales page, or the free report and build constant traffic up on this page.
I recommend that if you want to build up your traffic you can do the following:
*Free classified adverts
*Forum posting
*Blog commenting
*Article writing
*Social media
*Social bookmarking
*Squidoo Lenses
If you are stuck for time, you can follow just one of the methods above, or all of them for the best results.
New Energy: Besides blogging and using Twitter, what other Web 2.0 strategies would you recommend?
Samantha: I am a big fan of the FaceBook fan pages, since they not only increase your SEO, but also help you build a presence through web 2.0 marketing. If you use keywords with your FaceBook group you will also have the chance to dominate Google at the same time.
Having a FaceBook group also allows you to have fun. Through following a few FaceBook strategies you can actually play games as you build up your traffic, and how many jobs would allow you to do that?
I also recommend that you take up social bookmarking too, as it gives you the chance to highlight your web pages and bring you a flow of targeted traffic.
New Energy: Many of our readers already have websites. What advice can you give that will help them get more targeted traffic?
Samantha: For targeted traffic the best way for long term goals is through SEO. Nothing will ever beat this either now or in the future. I have been using SEO for a long time now, and you will soon realize that with a little effort, you can have very targeted traffic.
If you have a low budget start with, hire an assistant to do all the Angela’s Backlink Packets for you, and build up your SEO gradually through a range of keywords that suit your product or service.
Then you will be able to build your website traffic up and then just keep it at the top of its game.
New Energy: If a person is new to web marketing, can they still make good money? If so, how long does it typically take before they can start making a profit?
Samantha: I would say that it is very easy to make good money in the space of ninety days to the point where you will be able to quit your job. You need to be motivated and be self-disciplined, because when you work from home there can be many distractions.
There are many niches online to make money in, you just have to find the niche that is right for you. For example, if you worked in teaching English, teaching people how to write excellent sales copy will come naturally to you.
I often teach people through the internet marketing superclass how to start their own online business. It is amazing to watch, as the weeks progress, how well their business grows.
If you like to find out more about Samantha Milner and her income streams make sure you visit:
The Samantha Milner Blog
The Free Twitter Ebook
Make Your First $250 Online
The Internet Marketing Superclass
We at New Energy Communications have certainly enjoyed finding out more about internet marketing and how you’ve built such a thriving online business. Thanks for taking the time and making it easy for so many people to follow your example.
I just found a new micro-blogging tool called “Cinch”. It’s pretty cool because in addition to being able to do a podcast, you can also add video. I shared it on Facebook and it added it to my profile page. I can see how it might be useful for web traffic because it allows you to just use you phone to create content. It’s always easier for me to create contend as a spoken word rather than writing it down. I would rather just say it and then edit it later. The more content you create, the better off you are, provided your content is interesting, funny and or useful. If the video part of the service works well then I could see Cinch as a great way to video blog. Two more features deserve mention. First, there is an iphone app and a way to build your network. So you could actually use your cell phone to interview people. Plus you can upload photos as well as videos. Check it out especially if you like using Twitter.
Make Your Website Pop!
The first of three steps, is to start blogging. Here are 8 reasons why you need to sharpen your pencil.
1. You get to write about what you know, your business specialty, and as a result your website will always be fresh and changing.
2. Your blog can be part of the menu on your website, so when people go to your blog they will get a chance to look over the rest of your website. And that’s the point; its all about keeping people’s interest and getting them to tell their friends about it. Like a giant leads group.
3. Search engines favor blogs. Every time you write a post that’s another page for Google and Bing to index.
4. Because you are writing about your field you will gradually become known as an authority. Everybody wants to go to the top dog in the field. Think how useful this could be to a mortgage guy or an investment adviser. You become the authority in your city.
5. You don’t have to pay anybody every time you want to add content or edit it. You become the master of your web world.
6. Blogs give visitors the opportunity to know you before you hit them with the sales pitch. Give them useful information and they will start looking around your site to see what else you have to offer.
7. The blogger culture encourages reciprocal linking, so as a blogger, you are more likely to get linked to. People get psyched about helpful or entertaining information and want to share it with their community. Make sure you link to the blogs you like as well.
8. If people start linking to your site, Google will push your rank up, maybe even to the first page. It all depends on how cool your content is and how often you post.
Objections?
Let’s deal with objections first: if you don’t have time to blog, have an employee do it. If that doesn’t work, hire someone to do it for you. But make sure you start. Have New Energy or someone else to create an optimized WordPress blog for you and start ASAP.
Objection number 2: What does a phone system installation guy need a blog for? Answer: What does a phone guy need a networking group for? Ask yourself this: If you could be on Google’s first page and be seen as your city’s number one authority on phone installation, wouldn’t it be good for business?
A little known fact: Google is trying to dominate the information business; all of it. They want to provide you the best possible answer for everything you need. They would love to recommend you, but you have to help them out a little.
Step two: Be nice to your friends Bing and Google
Help Google out by making sure your website is search friendly: Google got to be the best search engine by acting like a very efficient librarian. Their job is to give you the most relevant answer to your search question. Notice I did not say most accurate. Accuracy can get you into trouble because frequently what you ask for in your search is not what you want. Google is the best at understanding what your really want. They frequently even ask you questions like ” did you mean to search for golf clubs?” when you actually typed in “Golf cubs”.
Bottom line: Google does a great job, but if your website is not set up correctly, it can’t find you and neither can your customers. Don’t be like the bad teenager who puts a book on the wrong shelf just to play a joke on the librarian. 90% of the websites out there make it hard for Google. The ones that cooperate are the ones you see on the first page when you do a search.
So here are three rules for making your website friendly:
1. Rule number one: Make sure each page has a unique description. This description is what Google uses when it brings up your site in a search result. It is the reason people click on your website instead of another one. So make it sound interesting. If you have a unique description, it will be a tempting click but more important, visitors will remark about it –– tell their friends about it.
2. Rule number two: Make sure each page of your site has a unique title that refers to the page’s content. Most of the sites I see have only one title for all the pages. The title is the sentence or phrase at the very top of your browser. It is not your web address. Doing this incorrectly is a grave mistake because it is one of the two clues that is most important to search engines. Mess this up and you are invisible. I have an SEO client that is huge in their industry, but they don’t show up in the SERPs (search engine results page) when I search logical keywords for their industry. They don’t show up because the titles of their pages don’t refer to the actual content of the page. And in some cases they have the same title for several pages. I am changing the title tags on all their pages so they have a chance of getting found.
3. Rule number three: Decide what you want your visitors to do and give them an incentive to do it. On the web there’s a lot of free stuff and your website has to compete with all those free goodies. Figure out how you can afford to reward people and make sure it’s offered on your website. Most small business sites don’t ask visitors to do anything. Small wonder they don’t get results. I ask all my clients to have a measurable call to action, like a form where visitors can provide their email address. This has three benefits; first it gets you a mailing list you can use for email marketing; second it allows you to measure whether people are responding to your site. If people aren’t doing it, you know you need to make some changes. The third benefit is that by completing the form and providing a reward, you and the visitor are now in a business relationship. You are no longer complete strangers; you have completed a transaction even if no money was involved. By delivering on your promised incentive you proved that you are honest and reliable. The next transaction could be for money.
The third crucial step:
The third step is to sign up and participate in some form of social media –– Twitter, Linkedin, or Facebook.
Unless you are a nut like me, it’s better to concentrate most of your efforts on just one, so you can really take advantage of all the ways it can help you leverage your business. My personal choice has be Twitter although I belong to Facebook and Linkedin as well. I have about 1400 followers on my photo page and over 3000 on my web marketing page. I recently started a fan page for New Energy Communications and have been participating for a while in the Linkedin groups.
So what has this gotten me.?
1. I’ve met a lot of interesting people who have taught me a lot about the web and photography and even how to run my business. That’s the great thing about Twitter. People help each other.
2. I’ve been offered the chance to be a partner in starting a new web portal which I turned down.
3. I met a graphic designer who runs an online magazine, and he asked if he could publish an interview with me about my photography business. The interview was posted and got more interest than any other person he has interviewed. It also landed me photo job with a local ad agency where we flew down to Florida to do the shoot. And just last week it led to a job with one of the top five annual report companies in New York.
4. The design magazine interview with me is now the featured article on that site.
Finally, the interview gave me an idea to start interviewing people and posting to this website. I’ve already interviewed one web marketing great, Zeke Camusio, which dramatically increased traffic to my site, and it received visitors from 11 different countries. In addition I am in the process of interviewing another luminary who has 65000 followers on twitter.
So the beat goes on: Using the principles I’ve mentioned has helped me get ranked the number one internet marketing company in Hartford, according to Google.
So jump in, start blogging, fix your website and push the social media. It works if you take the three steps and make it easy for search engines to find you. In the meantime, if you have questions about any or all of this let me know. I would be happy to answer questions.
What steps do you think are absolutely necessary? Are there ones I’ve left out, or ones you like to hear more about? Let me know.
We just published our press release for this new website and are in the process of moving everything over to this new URL. That was yesterday. Overnight our rank has skyrocketed. Not only that, both the legacy site and the new site are listed repeatedly . The press release appeared as number 3 on Bing right after other organic listings with this site as number 1. But wait, there’s more: these press releases stay around for a long time, especially if you have done something remarkable. The best gift I can give you is to point you toward PRlog. Here is our release.
How would you like to use your phone to create blog posts? It sounds good to me, although I haven’t followed the directions to create mine yet. If I have not mentioned it yet, blogging is one of the 2 or 3 most powerful weapons in your arsenal for getting traffic. Let me explain: Google loves content. When you blog, you are creating content that hopefully others will want to read. I know from experience if you use Wordpress, your pages will be indexed quickly especially if you come up with a catchy title. Your categories and tags will help as well. The hard part is consistently creating content. Now comes a possible answer. I don’t know if you are like me, but I create a lot of content just talking to friends and business associates that never makes it to print. It seems a lot easier just to speak about what I know than to write about it. If you feel the same way, you will probably like this solution I found on MakeUseOf . The only issue I found was that the Google Voice part of the formula has some rough spots. So even if you don’t set up the whole automatic system to blog from your phone you can use part of this tip. Personally I am just going to use it as a way to convert thought into text and then edit it all in my Wordpress dashboard before I post it.
So if you don’t have one, get a Google Voice account and start talking. BTW, let me know what you think of the whole solution.
Zeke Camusio is a serial entrepreneur, Internet marketing expert, published author, speaker and founder of The Internet Marketing Blog.
As part of New Energy’s commitment to provide as much value as humanly possible to business owners and DIY internet marketers, we are conducting a series of interviews with the web’s best and brightest. Our interview starts with a man that is an amazing source of energy and wisdom: Zeke Camusio.
The Interview
New Energy
What inspired you to start your first company and become an entrepreneur?
Zeke Camusio
I was always a little different from the rest of the kids in my school. They were playing around and I was trying to sell them stuff! I tried being an employee but I never lasted more than three months. I always wanted to change the way things were being done and if something didn’t make sense to me, I just didn’t do it; I didn’t care what my bosses told me to do. I wasn’t going to get very far up in the corporate ladder.
I love the freedom I get from being an entrepreneur. I work really hard, but I decide when I work and what I do. It’s great!
New Energy
Your blog for The Outsourcing Company called “Lets Do It!” is an incredibly useful resource for business marketing on the web. What motivates you to share your discoveries and how have they been received by the web community?
Zeke Camusio
At first it was a marketing tool. I wanted to show people how much I knew about Internet marketing so they would hire our agency. Now we’re doing great and although we don’t desperately need more clients, I love it so much that I keep doing it. It feels great to know that every day I’m helping over 10,000 business owners become more successful. Also, I receive a lot of praise for my articles and that makes me feel very good.
New Energy
Your experience as a serial entrepreneur is very exciting. Can you share some of the factors you look for when you are thinking about starting a new business?
Zeke Camusio
The way I do business is very different from the way most people do it. I like businesses that you can start with no money and in less than a month. I like going after very defined markets where products with poor marketing are being sold like crazy. If a company that does poor marketing is very successful, that’s a great indicator for me, because I know that if I use my marketing skills right, I can take over the market overnight.
I have a very good article written on the topic here: http://www.theoutsourcingcompany.com/blog/entrepreneurship/how-to-choose-the-ideal-business-to-start/
New Energy
Is this a good economic climate to start a new business, and what advice would you give people who plan to launch in 2010?
Zeke Camusio
It’s always a good time to start a business. When people tell you they’re waiting for “things to get better” so they can start a business, that’s just an excuse. My advice to those people is, “get started! If you have a great solution to a real problem, people will buy it no matter what the economy is like.”
New Energy
The Outsourcing Company has a down-to-earth approach for getting results on the web which promotes trust. You even provide DIY tips so people can do their own web marketing. What made you realize that companies want a complete solution rather than a group of isolated services like PPC and SEO?
Zeke Camusio
There are over 50 different Internet marketing tactics. No business in the world should use them all. But, I do teach them all and tell business owners how they can tell which ones they need for their business.
New Energy
Your Blog seems to lean toward social media and Web 2.0. How do you integrate these services with more traditional advertising techniques that companies are already using?
Zeke Camusio
Business owners need to separate all their marketing campaigns and measure each one of them. This is the only way you can learn what works and what doesn’t. You can link offline advertising to your website and Twitter to a magazine ad, but at the end of the day you need an effective system to track each of your marketing campaigns.
New Energy
New Energy likes to employ web PR as part of the SEO mix. How would you rate PR as a tool for building traffic and search engine rank?
Zeke Camusio
Press releases can be very effective but 99% of people use them wrong. The most important tip I can give you is this, “make sure your press release is newsworthy.” In other words, think about why would a journalist want to write about you. Do something cool and unique and then write a press release about it.
New Energy
Last question: As a serial entrepreneur, has your concept of what makes a good business changed from the time you started your first company up to the present with The Outsourcing Company?
Zeke Camusio
Absolutely. I started The Outsourcing Company eight years ago, when I was 19. I’m 27 now. I used to think that as long as your stuff sells, you’ll be fine. Now I learned that you need to be good at managing your finances, your cashflow and your people. This is a blog post I wrote on how I learned seven very valuable lessons from mistakes I made: http://www.theoutsourcingcompany.com/blog/entrepreneurship/7-business-lessons-i-learned-the-hard-way/
New Energy Communications would like to thank Zeke for taking the time out of his super busy schedule to talk with us for this interview. Make sure to check out Zeke and all his links. You will be happy and more profitable when your do. Also make sure to share this interview with friends. Thanks Zeke!
Zeke Camusio
CEO – The Outsourcing Company
www.TheOutsourcingCompany.com
Blog: www.TheOutsourcingCompany.com/blog
zeke@TheOutsourcingCompany.com
Your links are not always the best indicator of a site’s relevance. This is especially true when talking about SEO on blogs. Your tags on a particular subject can act as a table of contents when a visitor arrives at your blog. But interestingly enough as Matt Crum points out, the pages that contain a list of articles on a particular topic do not score well in Google’s ranking. In Crum’s example all the articles on SEO referenced by that tag on the webpro blog do not rank highly even though there is a well spring of meaty posts there. So does this mean you should not use tags with your posts. I definitely believe you should use those tags because your visitors will use them intuitively and spend more time on your site. Google is not the only source of relevance or utility on the web.
There is certainly a lot of twitter advice, but let me say something that works. Treat twitter like a conversation at a party. Too many people just keep posting away and wonder why they are not getting more followers or results. You need to to engage with folks, find out who they are, make friends. If they drop the ball you might have to pick it up again after they say something new that interests you. That’s why they call it social media. I’ve met some really great folks on Twitter and miss them when I get too busy to check in. Building your circle of friends can be fun as well as profitable. Of course you can overdo the trivial stuff. If all you talk about is what you had for breakfast, that is pretty boring. I think the key is to be in conversation. Take an interest in your fellow tweeple. They will likely return that interest and who knows where that will take you. I will say this, it is pretty cool being part of a party where I can talk to over 3000 people and just maybe connect.
