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| Saturday, September 19, 2009 | |
Learning is the one of the KEYS to success. A lot of what I use online I have learned long ago (at long ago in the Internet world...). However, I am still learning. There is a great quote, I don't know who made it but is says "if you aren't learning, you are dead" and online nothing truer for your business.
One of the BEST learning experiences I have had in the last year is using Free Traffic System. If you do ANY article marketing or Blogging, this program absolutely ROCKS!! I have learned to "spin" articles to avoid duplicate content, they post to other member's Blogs, I even have them post other's articles on my Blog. It has been a totally wonderful and enlightening experience!! My traffic has increased incredibly, and key word/SEO benefits are fantastic! If you want to LEARN something new and truly REAP REWARDS from a traffic perspective Free Traffic System is for you. You won't regret it if you LEARN how to use it.
I am still working on My Internet Millionaire Project and I have to say, this is a case of "Do as I say, not as I do". Getting consistent traffic comes from daily building of momentum, As a weekend marketing warrior, I lose that BIG TIME! If you work at home you have the ability to set up daily tasks to keep it moving and growing. If you aren't doing that then you should accept the fact that you are probably a hobbyist and not really trying to build an online business/presence/income.
I have also come out of MLM Retirement t work on TVI Express and MyMandura. I love both products (who doesn't love a week hotel stay at a 3-5 star hotel for vacation???) and the compensation plans are excellent. One builds FAST returns, the other is a work at your own pace. MyMandura even has a Millionaire's club! That fit's right in, don't you think?? The plan is based on a three year business plan.
And for #3, I will be promoting them both on HelloHello.net. Thier platform for upgraded members is phenomenall!! It is WordPress based, so the SEO properties are fantastic! "Gurus" on the net have long used it for sales pages and other projects for the benefits, HelloHello.Net now makes that a possibility for everyone. You can even generate an income there as a free member, just for socializing (YES..It is an AWESOME Social Network), Blogging and doing what most of us do online everyday. I am truly excited about it and hope any of you that recognize WordPress Power will come along for the experience.
That's it for now-get cracking!! Let's make money!
Marianne
Guruette On The Net
Blogs, WordPress and Google
By Scott Van Achte (c) 2009
It's no secret that a continually updated website with new content being added regularly stands a good chance of doing well in Google. One of the long standing methods to regularly expand a site's content is through the use of a blog.
While there are numerous platforms to choose from for managing a blog, few can compare with the immense flexibility offered with WordPress, and at a cost of free, the price can't be beat either.
Google likes fresh new content, and setting up a blog on your site, assuming it is updated often with interesting and relevant material, can be one of the best things you can do to help out your search rankings. The beauty behind WordPress is that there is a wide array of totally free plug-ins you can easily install that will make your blog totally search engine friendly.
The following are some basic guidelines and essential plug-ins you should consider when you install your WordPress blog.
Template Design
The first configuration you need to do is work on customizing the design template to match your existing site. I suggest finding a template that matches as closely as possible to the look you are going for then work on tweaking its graphics, colors, and other particulars till you achieve the desired appearance.
Most of your changes will occur in the header.php, footer.php, index.php, and page.php files in the theme editor, however, the theme you install will dictate which files actually need to be updated. You will also need to make some adjustments to your CSS file. These changes all involve working with code and graphics, and are most likely left to a professional.
Once you have your design set up, the rest of the customization is considerably less technical. The following are suggestions that most people can do themselves and you probably will not need an expert to help you here.
Settings
Permalinks
The next thing you need to do is customize your URL's. You do not want the default post URLs ("pageid=#") as they are simply not search friendly and you want your default names to have some meaning to them. While you can customize your URL's with various plug-ins, you may not always think to do this, so be sure to have a default you can live with.
Under the settings tab in your dashboard, clíck on permalinks. Here I suggest choosing one of the settings that includes the post name. Including the month and year is totally optional as it will have little to no impact on your search rankings, but you definitely do want to include the post name.
WWW or no WWW
With WordPress, there is no need to worry about the www vs no www redirects. It is handled for you, but you do need to select which variation you want, and it's very simple to do. Under "General Settings" you will see two fields; one for "WordPress address" and the other, "Blog address". Ensure that both these fields include the "www" (or not), whichever you prefer, and that's it. (I always recommend using the "www" version of your URL as most people linking into your site will use it, and this will help keep a consistency among your site.
Required Plug-ins
There is an almost endless supply of free plug-ins out there that you can add to your site ranging from photo galleries and spam protection, to social media integrators for Twitter, Facebook, Digg, and others. While many of these others will benefit your blog and search rankings, the XML Sitemap, and SEO plug-ins are truly essential.
SEO Plug-in
When setting up your new installation, the first plug-in you need to install is one that will allow for totally customized title, meta description tags, and page URL's. There are a number of tools that do this ranging from the widely popular "All in One SEO Pack" to a relative newcomer "HeadSpace2".
While I personally have yet to try HeadSpace2, it is high on my líst, as it has been recommended by many industry professionals as the best WordPress SEO plug-in. For any new blog installation I highly recommend this plug-in be installed right away.
XML Sitemap Plug-in
To the best of my knowledge, HeadSpace2 does not have an XML sitemap option, and as such I highly recommend "Google XML Sitemaps" . This plug-in will automatically generate XML sitemaps for you on the fly and submit it to Google every time you add, delete, or update a page or post. This helps ensure that Google has the latest information at all times. It's a very simple plug-in to install and configure and once setup, you can forget about it and it will do the job for you.
A well optimized site loaded with relevant content can do very well in Google if setup correctly. The power of WordPress can make this process incredibly easy so all you have to worry about is writing those great articles and selling your customers. The plug-ins and functionality of WordPress are endless and when installed correctly can make the optimization of your blog considerably easier, increasing your chances for top rankings.
About The Author
Scott Van Achte is the Senior SEO at StepForth Web Marketing Inc.; based in Victoria, BC, Canada and founded in 1997. You can read more of Scott's articles and those of the veteran StepForth team at http://news.stepforth.com or contact us at http://www.stepforth.com, Tel - 250-385-1190, Toll Free - 877-385-5526, Fax - 250-385-1198
| Friday, December 19, 2008 | |
Many of the top Social Networks are adding "connections" to each other. The latest and most exciting is Squidoo offering a connection to FACEBOOK. Squidoo already connects with Twitter, both for following and searching. You will see them both on my own lens Guruette On The Net.
This makes Squidoo one of the most incredible Web 2.0 tools out there. I utilize it to obtain front page listings for my clients. If you aren't a member, join from my page. I'll visit, rank and "lensroll"(link to your lenss). You can even utilize Squidoo to make money, or use it for a primary web site. The lenses (like a blog but nicer) have some real staying power in the SERPs.
Twitter and FACEBOOK are the TOP social networks for marketing. I am still a fan of MySpace although the support functions there really need some help! These are important to your online and offline businesses, so come and join me, or add me where you are already a member. We can work together to help your businesses.
2009 is the year to really get going. With the current financial crisis in the US, many will need ANY opportunity to make an income and the Internet can provide that for some who are willing to work at it. Join my free email series to start your social marketing foundation so you will be ready for the incredible things to come. You can subscribe on my site, Guruette On The Net.
Have a happy and HOLY Holiday. REMEMBER: JESUS is the REASON for the SEASON!
Marianne
Success Consultant
Guruette On The Net
Key Words: Social Marketing, SEO, SERP, Squidoo, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace
| Sunday, November 23, 2008 | |
This was in my email box this morning. It is from Yaro Starak. If you have been online for any length of time, you will recognize the name. He is a Blogging "GURU" and this article really makes sense to me. It is true for everyone out there, whether Blogging or building a Multi-Level-Marketing business. I am posting it for your consideration. With the help of publishing here at Quikonnex, and the topics that will be coming up you will be able to accelerate your traffic even more!!!
Happy reading,
Marianne
Success Consultant
http://www.GuruetteOnTheNet.com
Is your goal to become a full time blogger?
Do you like the sound of blogging for a living?
Yeah, me too. At least I did anyway. But then I
learned the truth. I don't like doing anything
"full time".
Even something as fun as blogging is not an
activity I would want to do for the majority of my
day. I like variety in my life and while I want
blogging to be a part of it, I don't want it to be
the main labor. I want to do it because I like it,
not because I need to do it to make a living.
I remember when I first decided to become a
serious blogger. I monitored some of the other
professional bloggers, the guys and girls making a
living from blogging. Darren Rowse
[www.problogger.net] was of particular influence
on me because he was doing very well, had started
off as a complete Internet beginner and was from
Australia like me.
I tried to emulate Darren's blogging style. I knew
I had the skills to do it and in fact more
experience than Darren in a lot of ways because I
had been working online for over seven years while
he started much later. I had plenty of material to
blog about so I knuckled down and committed myself
to posting multiple articles every day.
It didn't last long.
Maybe I was lazy, maybe I was blindly following
someone else's lead without really thinking it
through. Whatever the reason I wasn't cut out for
writing blog posts each and every day. My blogging
strategy had to change...again.
Darren and many other bloggers are machine-like in
how efficient and how frequently they can pump out
good content for their blogs. These people work
hard. They enjoy solid rewards for their labor,
but my motto is not to work hard, but to work
smart, so I needed another way to make blogging
work for me.
REALIGN YOUR GOALS
I'm going to assume you are like me. You blog, you
want to blog, you enjoy blogging and you want to
increase your blog traffic. Most importantly you
want to do it quickly and efficiently and not
waste time putting energy into activities that
don't produce fantastic results.
The first thing you have to do, and this is what I
did when I decided full time blogging wasn't for
me, is to decide what your blog is for - what you
want to get out of it and consequently what your
audience should get out of it as a result?
I decided that I would use my blog for two main
activities -
1. To dump all my knowledge built up from years of
working online into article and audio format. I
wanted a repository of my skills and experience.
2. To increase my exposure and enhance my
credibility - to improve the "Yaro" brand.
With these two goals in mind I went to work
producing some big meaty solid how-to articles,
stuff you would read in books and manuals on
Internet marketing.
I didn't bother blogging too much about news or
linking to other blogs in my industry at this
point because those activities were not aligned
with my goals. I wanted my best stuff out there so
other people could learn from me and I could
demonstrate that I was an expert in my field.
In your case your goals should dictate what you
want to achieve with your blog.
If your blog is designed to help you get freelance
writing gigs, then publish lots of original
creative articles.
If you are interested in selling your consulting
services then go to work putting out articles and
case studies on the work you have done.
If you want your blog to become the news source
for everything related to Michael Jackson
celebrity gossip then aim to post multiple
news-bite sized articles per day.
The point is to define your objectives and work to
your goals. Don't follow someone else's goals just
because they appear to be doing well.
THE LAZY BUT SMART BLOGGER
I want to be clear about one point - you *don't*
have to work hard to be a successful blogger.
You don't have to post an article each and every
day. You don't have to create something of
'genius level' creativity each time you blog.
Ahh, see, now you can relax.
Of course if you don't write articles you won't
get traffic but as long as you post something
interesting, creative, practical or valuable every
once and a while your blog readership will
increase. People that like your work will look
forward to it regardless of how frequently you
post. A little anticipation is a good thing.
When you start to post regularly, not hourly or
daily but at least weekly, people adjust their
expectations accordingly. Remember you don't owe
anyone anything when you blog. Blogging is only
about putting in as much effort as is required to
meet YOUR goals.
If you post new articles six times a day people
will start to expect it from you. You will start
to expect it from yourself and blogging will feel
like a job because of pressures to publish a
certain amount of new content each day.
Now if that's your goal, that's fine, just
remember you can change things if you find
yourself suffering because you set unrealistic
goals. Don't ever feel obligated to do anything.
In my case I started to post between one and two
big articles per week and about one or two
podcasts per month. I'd also do a little news
linking or track-backing of other articles I had a
strong interest in during the "heat of the
moment". I could brain-dump my thoughts quickly
and effortlessly into a blog post whenever the
inspiration hit me.
I did most of my early foundation blogging while
at work. I worked at a computer help desk with
Internet access so I could blog in between helping
people at my job.
I ended up blogging collectively for maybe 2 hours
per day on average and I still managed to grow my
blog traffic to 1000+ daily readers within a year
and then 5,000 by the end of the second year, and
I didn't have to post each and every day to do
it. There is a smarter and easier way to get blog
traffic.
Here's to your blogging success,
Yaro Starak
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com
| Saturday, November 22, 2008 | |
The following article offers some great tips. If your Article Marketing and or Blogging is going to take you where you need to be, this is excellent information. We will be using it here in this channel to help you improve your marketing results. Have a good read and a great weekend!
God Bless YOU!Marianne
Success Consultant
http://www.GuruetteOnTheNet.com
http://www.InternetMarketing-Mavens.com
http://www.2EZ2BuildTraffic.com
How to Begin Keyword Research
What is a keyword?
It's anything people type into a search engine. It could be made up of one word or several keyword phrases joined together. Every person uses their own method of searching, and that makes anticipating those keywords that will connect their websites with the right visitors very difficult. Keyword research starts with the understanding that finding lots of related keywords that deliver targeted traffic is the ultimate goal of any keyword research.
Sending thousands of visitors to a site who have no interest in your product, let alone in buying it, is just wasted effort and doesn't do any good for your business. If possible, we want to find the customer who has a clear knowledge of what they want and is close to buying something soon.
We would ideally want a few visitors who are seriously looking to buy in the near future. In order to achieve this, we want to find the least competitive keywords with the highest number of searches that are the most relevant to our website.
If you are just starting out, it definitely would be to your advantage to target lower competition terms. Having success with low competition terms will lead to increased confidence to target more competitive terms with higher search volumes.
Thinking like your customers
Thinking like your customers is easier said than done.
All merchants are guilty of thinking in terms of features and specs of the products and not thinking in terms of benefits it can provide to the customers.
You know your business and market too well. The industry jargons and slang are in your every day language. No wonder when you start your keyword research you have a very narrow keyword focus. You become your own worst enemy in exploring other ideas.
Here is an example: what is the most popular search term, "cheap flights," "cheap seats," "low fares" or "discount fares"?
As you can see it's not that simple to pick the best keywords, is it?
The hardest part of keyword research is to keep an open mind about all possible search methods people might use to look for the same thing. Keyword research is part science, part intuition, and imagination. Since we can't get into the heads of every possible potential visitor to your site who may be interested in your products or services, we have to rely on keyword research tools to tell us what people actually search for and how often.
There are a handful of very powerful keyword research tools that are worth using, but the amount of information you can mine from them is mind boggling.
Another great resource for proven keywords is to look at your competitor's website. We are talking about finding the highest ranking competitors on the search engines using your target keywords. Once you find the top 5-10 competitor sites, perform a quick review of their keywords on the web pages.
This can be a lengthy and slow process, but luckily there are free Keyword Analyzer tools that can dig up keywords from your competitor's sites in a snap. We'll cover in detail how the Keyword Analyzer can be used to add hundreds of keywords to your keyword research project.
Keyword research is like a job interview process
In order to find the right candidate you may need to interview hundreds of applicants to find the perfect fit for the job. Well, the keyword research process is very similar; you have to cast a widenet first to capture all the possible combinations of keywords known to man. Even then, it's almost guaranteed you will discover new keywords you have missed in the original research only a few weeks earlier. What this tells us is the keyword selection and refinement process never ends, or at least it should not end until you are happy with the number of visitors you are receiving to your site.
Where and how to look for keywords
In order to find the best keywords for our website we need to gather information from a variety of resources. Some of these resources may include:
Brainstorming: Getting your brain to go on a magic carpet ride is one of the best ways to find relevant keywords for your website. Don't just settle for asking the obvious question, what does my website sell? Ask questions such as: "What is this product made up of?" or "Who is using my services?" or "What problems do my products solve?"
Finding the main and secondary keyword phrases should take less than a month for even 2 or 3 websites. This does not mean your keyword research has ended forever, but finding the 4-5 word long secondary key phrases can be done with the free keyword research tools if your budget is tight.
Free keyword research tools: You can gain access to the powerful and free Google external keyword tool to expand your keyword list. Unfortunately the Google external keyword tool only gives a search volume indicator instead of the actual search numbers. Another very valuable feature in Google external keyword tool is the "Site-Related Keywords" finder. By simply entering the website URL of your competitors, you can find out in seconds which keywords they target on their web pages.
Another free keyword research tool available without creating an account is the Overture keyword inventory . As of now, August 2007, this tool only shows the January 2007 search volumes as it's being phased out, but Yahoo! is promising a replacement. If you have a Yahoo! Search Marketing account you can still gain access to their keyword tool albeit without the search volume numbers.
Related search terms suggestion tools: One of the fastest ways you can find hundreds of related keywords is to use online lexical or thesaurus tools.
Creating a large initial keyword list that includes a large number of synonyms and acronyms is essential to effective keyword research. Discovering related phrases that are not simply stemming from the original keyword term is a cornerstone of semantic latent indexing . Semantic indexing can be described as the grouping of related documents based on not only direct relationship between words, but the meaning of the words as well.
Some of the search engines provide a related search command list in their search results. Try Clusty by entering a search command and take a look at the "clusters" side bar. You can get dozens of ideas from the keyword clusters by playing with different combination of keywords. You can also visit Technorati a well known blog aggregator and social media tagging site to help unlocked your brain and generate new keywords. Enter a search term and observe the "Related tags" section directly under the search results.
Visitor statistic reports: These can be generated from web server log files or from script based visitor statistic programs. This can help you uncover new keywords for your website by discovering what the visitors are typing into the search engines to find your websites. In some cases, you'll find keywords you didn't expect to come up for in the search results. You should further research those keywords and uncover new keyword niches.
Site search engines: This can be a great source of new keywords and a potential data mining source. As well as further analysis of the average number of keywords, keyword length and other important keyword metrics.
Top ranking competitors: These websites are already well optimized and contain keyword rich web pages. Why not leverage their efforts and harvest the best keywords for your own website? With the help of the SEO Studio keyword analyzer you can extract hundreds of keywords from their META keywords and HTML page content in seconds.
A few examples of good keyword selection practices
Selecting the best keyword takes experience and a little know how, but it's always helpful to see how the pros do it, so here are a few basic steps for keyword selection.
Using your favorite keyword research tool Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery or the Keywords Analyzer, type in the main keyword phrase. Start with the broadest possible search terms, this way there is less chance of missing keywords that might otherwise be overlooked.
Look for 2-4 word key phrases that have at least a daily search volume of 200 or more. Since the top 3 sites will receive 60 of all searches, it follows you can expect at least 120 or more unique visitors for those keywords phrases. In some cases, you may want to lower the minimum search volume threshold to as low as 50 if the search term is well targeted for your business.
At this point you should have at least 20-30 really good secondary keywords in your basket.
Hopefully most of the keywords you have selected will have little competition. Some of the keyword tools we have recommended will also tell you the amount of competition for each keyword, but you can also verify these numbers manually by typing the search terms into the search engines with quotes.
It's very important that you use quotes around the keywords to let the engines know you are looking for an exact match. The rule of thumb we use to assess keyword competitiveness is around "100,000" websites. Anything above a hundred thousand results is fairly competitive and requires a fair amount of optimization and link building.
| Saturday, October 25, 2008 | |
I provide professional marketing services and when I find a tool or info that will help others online improve their success rates, I hop on board. I share what I know to help others.
You can view some of the new tools for marketing on my website, Guruette On The Net.
I am working with an incredible group of people to get started on TEACHING online marketers some of my tricks. It will put your Blogging or article marketing on STEROIDS, and you won't even have to do anything but post like you do now. I am talking about Quikonnex (name derived from Quick Connects).
The tools they develop are truly GENIUS and can do so much for any marketer. The benefits seem to just happen without too much effort on your part. I will be writing for my channel here with help for anyone that is SERIOUS about marketing. I will also be promoting the NEW Worshiper, an incredible Branded Desktop Application developed by Quikonnex .
It will be a great way to see the capabilities of a BDA (branded desktop application) for your own business. A closed system for your team to use for TRAINING, communication-the possibilities are endless. When it is ready I'll be back to tell you about it. I look forward to helping others online improve their businesses, I hope you'll come along!! You can get started by subscribing to my channel through the Quikonnex link and keep an eye out for what is coming. It's free to subscribe and will let you start learning a few great things on your own!
Have an awesome day, God Bless YOU!
Marianne McEachern
Success Consultant
Guruette On The Net
Key Words: article marketing, Blogging, internet marketing, branded desktop application, training
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