SEO 102

SEO 102 is a natural progression from SEO 101 that I posted a couple of weeks ago.

In one of the comments I was asked how I know how many times to include a keyword in the body text, how often it should be bold, how to get the perfect description and so on.

So I thought I’d show you how I do it.

I use some software called “Internet Business Promoter“.

It’s not some software that I’ve just started “using” so I can make a thinly disguised affiliate pitch to you, I’ve been using it for at least 3 years now and it’s a great tool – a bit pricey but well worth it IMO.

Before continuing, I know I said this isn’t some BS affiliate pitch for a product that I don’t actually use, but I am going to be using my affiliate link when mentioning the software, I may as well try get a tiny bit of revenue from this blog, not so I can use it to feed my hidden crack addiction (I’m very boring like that, never done drugs, never smoked, only a moderate drinker), but to help me buy shiny things for Christmas.

But anyway, here’s how I use the software.

First of all I write my content and put my site together, I write the content as naturally as possible, but in the back of my mind I’m always trying to fit my keyword/keywords in the content as naturally as possible. At this point I don’t think about the density or anything like that, I merely try and fit them in there naturally.

When I’ve done that, I upload the site to the WWW without any formatting. (Bold, italic, headlines, etc.)

I then open up Internet Business Promoter (IBP for the sake of my keyboard), and run a report on the site by clicking on Optimization > Run Report

It then analyzes the current top 10 listings on Google (or the search engine you choose) and compares them to your page. It then cleverly tells you what you can do to your page, to improve the on page optimization to take it above your competition.

It presents these findings to you in a nice easy to read report, with a percentage score at the top of the page. The idea is to get your page as near to 100% as possible, I’ve never actually got a page to be bang on 100% but in my experience 80% and above will usually go a long way to help you rank well in the organic search results.

You can see from the above picture, that the site I just ran the report on only scored 54% so that’s not too good. So how do we change that?

Well, we read the report of course

There are lots of things I can change to make it better, but I wont show you all of them as it’ll probably take all day for me to write. So I’ll just show you an example of the sort of things it tells you to do, the screenshot below shows you how I can improve my page <title> to make it more appealing for Mr Google.

It tells me that the keyword density in my <title> tag is too high, so what I need to do is have a rethink and come up with a new <title> that isn’t so keyword heavy.

When I’ve done that, I can re-run the report and see if my page score has improved.

It’s basically just rinse and repeat – run the report, implement the suggestions, run the report, etc.

If you keep doing that, then eventually you’ll have the perfectly optimized web page, ready to get you a top ranking in Google.

Don’t believe me, do a search on Google for “Lovefilm Review”.

You’ll see that the number 1 site in the organic search results belongs to me. I have many sites like that, all with page 1 rankings, but I don’t mind showing you the Lovefilm one – you can compete with me all you like on that keyword, it was doing well until Lovefilm decided to have a change of policy and banned affiliates from using the Lovefilm trademark in domain names, so I’m no longer a member of their affiliate program. So if anyone wants to make me an offer for that website, go ahead, maybe you can make money from it in some other way!

So that brings to an end this blog post, as I said, it’s not a full on affiliate pitch trying to sell you the software, it’s just an insight into what I use. If you want to check it out, then go ahead, there’s a 30 day free trial, if you don’t, then not to worry!

Thanks for reading.
Dan

It’s Back….But Not in Black

It looks like a light shade of Orange to me.

I was going to make this post yesterday but I was busy losing tups, no losing them as in “crap, where have they gone”, but losing them as in “go forth and spread your seed you fine chaps”.

I’ll admit that it didn’t take me all day, but by the time you’ve been tossing throwing them around all day my arms couldn’t really take any typing, so I retired to the TV.

But here I am this morning, arms slightly less sore, and able to type relatively coherent sentences.

So what’s back?

The A-Team?

Meatloaf?

Shell Suits?

Baked Bean Rounders?

Blankety Blank?

Gordon Brown?

No silly, it’s something with fewer explosions but more corned beef, something less of a fire hazard but more tasty, something where you just need to fill in the blanks but less useless.

^^I promise you that the above sentence does make sense….if you live inside my head

FREE MONTHLY WEBSITES IS BACK!!

To be honest I wasn’t aware it had gone anywhere, but I’ve now been informed that Free Monthly Websites 1.0 has been taken away by Tiny – only 3 other people will get that joke, and none of them read this blog, what a waste.

So 1.0 has now been replaced, not surprisingly, by 2.0 (I have it on good authority that 3.0 will be the next one)

It’s sad to see 1.0 being turned into dog food but we do have to learn from the past, and we have to admit that 1.0 did have it’s faults.

It was like a cat we once had, it was very friendly, but it kept falling over.

Free Monthly Websites (FMW) 1.0 was friendly enough to snuggle up to, but you did need a bit of HTML knowledge to edit and personalize the websites. Whilst my own personal view is that you really should have some basic HTML knowledge if you are doing anything online, I’m not here to judge you, and if you don’t have any HTML skills then FMW 1.0 would have been a bit of a challenge for you.

It was also limited in what you could do with it, the creators of FMW (John Thornhill and Dave Nicholson) hadn’t really been marketing for all that long, so didn’t have much of an idea about what worked and what didn’t when it came to the websites.

But 4 years on, they are a lot wiser – John has come to realize that it’s not possible for Sunderland to be anything other than a mid-table team, and Dave now understands that Alan Shearer isn’t a bloke that comes to my house to clip sheep.

They are also a lot wiser when it comes to Internet Marketing.

After the feedback they received from FMW 1.0 customers, they’ve put their minds together and come up with 2.0.

The main aim is to keep everything as simple as possible, so FMW 2.0 has been built on an engine that I know a lot of you are already familiar with, it runs the PlanetSMS/Planet Divinity eBook and software websites. So everything is controlled via an online admin area, this means:

1. No HTML!
2. No MySQL Databases

I suppose it’s kind of like WordPress, but tailored towards an all in one solution for creating content rich affiliate websites.

I’m getting hungry, and when I get hungry, I tend to fill out the posts with a screen shot. So allow me to introduce you to what the admin area of a Free Monthly Website will look like:

I was going to take another screen shot of the front end of a site, but I’ve had some Monster Munch and the hunger has subsided.

Plus there are tons of screen shots on the FMW website that you can take a look at, saves me cluttering up cyber space with duplicate images!

I’m sure there was something else I was going to say, but can’t for the life of me remember what it was.

So for now I’ll have to leave you with my closing statement about Free Monthly Websites.

Free Monthly Websites 2.0 is a great update to the original. It takes all of the good points of 1.0 and builds upon them to turn FMW 2.0 into a much better all round system.

If you were a FMW 1.0 customer, then you’ll probably have already signed up, but if you are a newbie and are wondering what all the fuss is about, please go ahead and check it out. It does exactly what it says on the tin – you get a free affiliate website every month, no strings attached!

Thanks for reading,
Dan

P.S. D9 Hosting now has a Facebook page….and we may actually use it, so please feel free to “Like” us!

If It Looks and Smells Like a Turd…

I should be sat eating a nice ham and egg sandwich now, but instead I’m on here thinking how best I can communicate what I’ve just seen.

I’m not an irrational angry kind of guy, but I’ve just seen a video that made me think to myself “What a couple of *****”

It’s a recorded phone call between two Internet Marketing syndicate members and was recorded in the build up to the launch of a product called “Video Boss”.

The recording includes more heavy breathing than 2 asthmatics making a porno, but the content goes a long way to exposing what these guys really think of their customers (you and I) so stick with it. There’s also a hilarious comment in there about some magic mushrooms (coz drugz iz well cool lolzpmslrofl!!), so at least they are putting all those immoral earnings to good use.

If you want to see what sort of snakes that are behind these massive launches, there you go, might make you think twice about buying anything from them next time?

And I know I may get a few angry unsubscribes for “ratting out” these guys, but come on, how can anyone with any kind of moral compass not feel just a little bit pissed off with the way these people conduct themselves. If you have a blog or a mailing list with any kind of following, would your readers appreciate it if you let them into the kind of crap that’s been going on lately?

I can’t go without quoting the original source, if you’ve never come across the SaltyDroid site before, have a read through, it’ll take you a while but it’s a real eye opener, which side of the fence are you on?

Original Video Source: Strong language warning

http://saltydroid.info/syndicate-shit-storm/

Update: The Salty Droid website is getting hammered by traffic (as you can imagine!) since this video was posted, so getting a connection to it may be a bit hit and miss, but if you keep trying you should eventually get on

I have Nothing To Say

I’ve got nothing to say, so what should I do?

I feel guilty for not writing anything on the blog for the past few weeks, but without anything of value to write about, I’m stuck.

I’ve had a few JV offers that I may or may not talk about in the future (have any loyal readers or mailing list subscribers noticed how long it’s been since I promoted anything to you?), but nothing that really warrants me spending an hour putting together a blog post containing silly pictures with even sillier captions.

So what I’m going to do is use this blog as the WordPress gods originally intended, I’m going to just randomly jot down a few things as they come into my head about life as a full time marketer and a 25 year old (it was my birthday last week, where were my presents?) company director.

As you will probably already know, I run D9 Hosting with my business partner Paula Brett, and back at the start of the year we had a big meeting to discuss some changes that we’d been mulling over for a while.

One was to look at getting some technical support help in, as I was getting somewhat over run with support tickets, and the 2nd was to look at our entire network infrastructure. Don’t get me wrong, there was nothing wrong with the existing network, as I’m sure customers reading this can confirm, but there were a couple of nagging issues that could have caused problems in the future had we left things as they were.

So we decided to go ahead and hire some technical support staff, and also started to research options to improve our network.

To cut a long (boring) story short, we ended up moving to a new datacenter in Florida that should (fingers crossed!) allow us to offer more services and provide us with a more stable network – if you are a D9 VPS or Hybrid customer, keep an eye on your mailbox in the next 10 days or so for a cool new feature we are bringing to you at no extra cost!

We first hired our new staff in June, and spent the next couple of months training them, and we also completed the DC migration at the end of July/start of August, but during that time both me and Paula were incredibly busy, and worked stupid hours. I think for a few weeks my shift hours were 9am – midnight!

But I didn’t mind, and I think this is quite an important point.

I actually enjoyed working those hours, because I was working at something I enjoyed doing.

Since the staff training and migration has been completed, the work load has gone down again. The staff are answering support tickets, and the servers are now running smoothly in the new DC, and payments from the 6,000 websites we host are coming in daily, so basically you can say that I’m “living the marketing dream”.

I have a profitable business running on just about auto-pilot.

It’s the thing people dream about, well, I’ve lived the dream and I’m now going to shatter it for you.

No Matter How Much Money You Make On Auto-Pilot, Doing Nothing Is Soul Destroying!

Of course, just my opinion, but for the past couple of weeks my workload hasn’t been enough. The money has been coming in from both D9 and my other marketing stuff, but I’ve been well and truly bored out of my skull – it hasn’t helped that I’ve torn my groin so can’t play football for 2 – 3 months, but that aside, I need to work!!

I was actually so bored yesterday that I went on an 8 hour wagon trip down to Sheffield and back….and noticed that a lot of new wagon (lorry) trailers now have curved rooves to streamline them in an attempt to save fuel, which I thought was a somewhat ingenious idea.

Whilst writing this I’ve remembered a saying my Grandad always used to say, I used to think he was crazy, but he’s right:

Busy Days Are Happy Days

No matter how much money you have, you still need to do something to occupy your time. Look at all the millionaires in the world, if they wanted to they could sit back and do nothing all day whilst they continue to make money on auto-pilot, but they don’t, they prefer working.

I appreciate I may be coming across as a bit of a jerk, I know there will be a lot of you reading this who’d love to be in my shoes but as I’ve said before, it’s just my opinion and I’m standing by it, having everything run on auto-pilot whilst you sit back and relax is a really soul destroying way to live your life, the brain needs some sort of stimulation every now and again!

Luckily I’ve snapped out of “bored” mode now, and am working on setting up a VM master and then converting some existing nodes into slaves as part of our new VPS/Hybrid ideas, so that should keep me busy for the next couple of days. After that I’ve got an eCommerce website to do for a regular web design client of mine, then I may even pull my finger out and create a couple of new sites of my own.

So thankfully the quiet time hasn’t lasted too long, THANKFULLY!

What do you reckon, is the “make money on auto-pilot” dream as good as it sounds when it becomes a reality?

….Or have I just won an A* for writing a load of old bollocks

The Part I Played In Destroying The Global Economy

After a lot of soul searching I’ve come to the conclusion that I played a part in destroying the global economy.

Yep, Freddy Mac Daddy and Fanny Mae (Quoted from @TurnerDigital) have got nothing on me.

So what have I done to be associated with such good company, have I been short selling company stocks, lending money that didn’t exist in the 1st place to people who couldn’t afford to pay it back even if they lived for another 150 years, or something far more Dick Dastardly?

Well, here it is, my public admission, in true AA style:

My Name Is Dan Thompson, and I’ve Stopped Buying Things

Not things completely, I still eat and wear clothes, I also still buy random gadgets and crap T-Shirts, but over the past 2 years the amount on Internet Marketing products I have purchased in almost 0.

I say almost 0 because I’m sure I purchased something last year, but as you can tell, it didn’t leave a lasting impression on me.

So with my new “anti buy stuff” attitude, I’m slowly destroying the economy, the money I’d be giving to Marketer x for their brilliant new “How to rank 1st on Google whilst eating pizza with Cameron Diaz whilst she does Donuts on a remote air field in Southern England” is no longer going into their pocket, and in turn that money isn’t going to their local crack dealer, and that money isn’t then going into their local McDonalds….or wherever crack dealers eat nowadays, it’s a vicious circle.

If everyone was like me, imagine how much worse the economy would be.

But why have I stopped spending money in the IM niche, I used to spend money when I 1st started, so why stop now?

Well, I’ve come to this conclusion – since I’ve stopped buying all of these big launch eBooks that contain “an unmissable new secret that’s so secret I may have just made it up to sell this overpriced PDF” you’d have thought my earnings would have evaporated to nothing, I mean if I don’t use this amazing new technique then I’m clearly going to fail.

But that’s not the case, I still make as much, if not more now than I ever did when I was buying every IM product that I was offered.

Those initial products I purchased to help get me on my way were great, but there comes a time when you have to stop following instructions and think for yourself. I’ve realized that there’s only so much information you need to get started as an online marketer, so once you have that basic understanding the only thing that’s stopping you is yourself, if you have a basic understanding of how things work then get out there and put your plans into action, free yourself from the shackles of overpriced crap!

It’s like driving a car, when you first start you read up on the theory behind it all, and you then go for lessons, and eventually you take your test and are allowed out into the big bad world…..full of horse riders, cyclists and caravans……

Once you’ve done the theory and passed the test, you start to drive on your own, and if you make a mistake you learn from it and know not to do it again.

So basically what I’m getting it, is that once you’ve got the basic understanding of everything grasped, and your hosting and auto-responder in place, is it really worth buying anything else?

I can understand purchasing products and services that make your life easier – graphics, PLR articles, “make your life easier” software, and so on, but if you are a competent marketer already, do you really need any more theory guides, wouldn’t you be better going off and researching something on your own – and then you could be the one selling your “secrets”

For example, last week whilst foraging through the internet, I noticed that a highly popular script in a particular niche that I’m active in has no rampant affiliates promoting it, so I can get in there and make affiliate sales on the script, and also some hosting sales on top of that – hosting is a fundamental part of the script.

And to promote this, I’m not going to use a top secret technique from an eBook, I’m going to do something that I’ve tried and tested over the years and that I know works:

1. Create website where I share my experiences of the script with the readers, and post a few “how to use it” guides

2. Drive traffic to the site via organic Google results, as I’ve shown you how to do umpteen times on this blog

3. I’ll get affiliate sales from the product, and sales from the hosting

4. Bingo, job done!

5. Total cost of project – $8 for the domain name

I haven’t actually created the site yet, so I may be setting myself up for a humiliating fall, but I’d like to bet that if we come back in 6 months time, the website will have made me at least a few thousands dollars, none of which would have been possible if I’d have still been reading my way through a badly written PDF telling me “what I must do to succeed”.

End of minor controversial blog post, I think there’s a point in there somewhere, if not, just have fun looking at my illustration of a car driving into a wall, notice how I remained un-sexist by not implying the sex of the driver.

Bye for now,
Dan

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