Amazons New Policy Means Big Change For Direct Linking Strategies
April 7, 2009 by Erich Mosier
Filed under Adwords & PPC, All About Domains, Email Marketing, Internet Marketing, SEO You Should Know, Website Flipping
I recieved an email from the Amazon Associates program last night (April 6, 2009) stating their changes to their program. Here is an excerpt containing the two main points of this change:
“After careful review of how we are investing our advertising resources, we have made the decision to no longer pay referral fees to Associates who send users to www.amazon.com, www.amazon.ca, or www.endless.com through keyword bidding and other paid search on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other search engines, and their extended search networks.”
“As of May 1, 2009, Associates will not be paid referral fees for paid search traffic. Also, in connection with this change, as of May 1, 2009, Amazon will no longer make data feeds available to Associates for the purpose of sending users to the Amazon websites in the US or Canada via paid search. “
The first section basically says that they will no longer pay affilates that direct link to them from Paid Search like Google Adwords or Yahoo Marketing. This will no doubt take some of the wind out of the sails of products like Google Cash and PPC Ninja, although neither of them rely strictly on Amazon for sales, they both make mention of them as good ways to make quick money. I am sure that there will be a lot of people very unhappy about this and will see a dent in their earnings until they restructure.
The second section will probably affect less people, but I am sure there are a number of people making good money with Amazon datafeeds.
Obviously it must make good business sense to Amazon to do this. If those things weren’t helping their bottom line, then obviously these changes were necessary. At least they are giving their affilates a little bit of time to readjust. These changes don’t go into effect until May 1, 2009.
So if you didn’t get the email, and you happen to be reading this (before May 1), then it is time to start making some new plans on how to work your PPC campaigns.
This is why you need to diversify. Do not rely solely on one form of income. I have know many people that have been virtually wiped out when the have all of their eggs in one basket and a major change like this comes. If you are just starting out in internet marketing, be sure to keep this in mind. Create multiple streams of income from different sources. It is the only way to be truely financially independent.
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Free Online Merchant Account - Read This First Before Applying
April 2, 2009 by Erich Mosier
Filed under Internet Marketing, Keyword Research, Product Reviews, Social Marketing
I just got done watching a live UStream video cast of Howie Schwartz and Jimmy Davis talking about a Free Online Merchant Account through Imax. First let me say how much I like Howie Schwartz. I think he is an absolutely brilliant marketer and I have learned a lot from him. I don’t know Jimmy Davis but he seems like a top notch guy also.
So the main focus of this video is that there is a company offering a online credit card merchant account with no application fee.
Sounds like a good deal. On top of that, Howie will also give you $2000+ in bonuses if you sign up through his link. The bonuses are 20 products that you can sell with your merchant account. Sounds Great.
So I went and looked at this offer, because it sounded a little to good to be true. I have been a business owner for many years and have learned the importance of reading over contracts before signing anything. I recommend that you always read through contracts before signing.
Let me say, that if you are in the market for a merchant account, then this is probably not a bad deal and you may want to take a look. Visit Howies site here to learn more. (you may want to read the rest of this first however)
If you are not really in the market for one, you may want to consider how important it is that you have one now, before you jump in. I know the bonuses sound great, but reading through the fine print here is what I found.
- Although the application is free to apply, there is a $49.99 administration fee listed. It does not state when this applies or when it will be charged.
- Buried way down at the bottom, it states that once the contract is finalized, you are locked in for 3 years. If you choose to cancel before the 3 years is up, they will charge you $250 for canceling. It also implies that you could be charged an additional $250 if you breach the contract, but that part is not very clear.
- There is a $39.95 monthly charge per location. I don’t have a problem with that except that it is not clear if that would be each website. If you didn’t have a website immediately ready for it, would you start getting charged the $39.95 anyway? This may be OK, it just isn’t clear.
- On top of the $39.95 monthly charges, you will also get charged a $5.00 Statement Fee (per statement) and $5.00 internet access fee (per website). To me it sounds like you will be on the hook for $49.95 per month per website for the account. Again, I don’t think this is a big deal if you will be using it, but I wouldn’t necessarily get it just to have it.
- There are also another set of fees listed under “Miscellaneous fees” , just before the $250 cancellation fee mentioned above. Again it is not clear when or how these apply and that is what makes me nervous. $25 Documentation fee, $150 Research and investigation fee, etc.
I think the final thing that bothers me about it is there is no contact page, or even visible contact information, to be able to clarify any of these things. No phone number, no email, nothing.
I eventually found some contact information listed at the bottom of the program guide:
The bottom line is “look before you leap”. If you are in the market for a merchant account, this is probably a pretty good deal. Their processing rates look a little high, but not terrible. (I would try to get some clarification as to what their “Non-Qualifying” limits are as those seem a little steep.) Oh and another note, if you do apply, make sure you click the “review you application” section at the bottom of the application before submitting or you will get an error.
This is nothing against Howie Schwartz. Like I said, I like Howie a lot and I have learned a lot from him and usually buys whatever he puts out. (Take a look at his Underground Traffic Society if you are just starting out. You will learn a lot and have access to some pretty cool stuff.) But this isn’t one of his products, it is just something he is promoting as a (I assume) JV partner. He usually has the best interests of his students in mind, but this time, it seems a little questionable. I hope it doesn’t come back to bite him.
So why am I telling you all of this and possibly raining on Howie’s quick cash parade. Because I have a lot of loyal followers of this site and I will always try to protect them best I can. I am thankful for them and want to make sure that they have the best chance at success. It may not seem like a lot of money to some, but for others $50 a month for something your not going to use is a lot. And $250 to try and get out of it can be way to much. Been there done that.
Personally I have been using Paypal’s merchant program for years and have been very happy with it. Their pricing is very competitive (the lowest I’ve found), their transaction percentages are low, and they don’t try to hide any extra fees from you. Everything is very up front. And PayPal integrates easily with a lot of different shopping carts because they already have it built in to them.
I hope you find this useful. Please leave me a comment, especially if you have had any experiences with this company or others that someone may be able to learn from. A lot of people read this blog and you never know who you might help.
Update:
A friend recommended a new company to me, expensus.com, that looks like it may be ok. I don’t have any information on them. Does anyone have any experience with them, good or bad? Mail this post
Google Adwords Explained - How Ad Auction Bidding Works
April 2, 2009 by Erich Mosier
Filed under Adwords & PPC
Google Adwords is a major money making avenue for many internet marketers. Combining PPC with CPA offers can be extremely lucrative. I know several people that are making well over 5 million a year just using CPA and Google Adwords. But unless you have done it for a while, it is not exactly clear how to determine how much you should be paying for each click.
If you currently run Adwords ads, or are planning to, here is a great explanation of how exactly the the CPC (cost per click) prices are determined. It involves a combination of the Max CPC bid, quality score, and other factors. It really makes more sense when you see it rather than me trying to explain it. So watch the video below of Hal Varian, Googles Chief Economist, as he explains the how’s and why’s of what you pay per click in Adwords.
Target Market Research - Google Insights For Search New Features
April 1, 2009 by Erich Mosier
Filed under Adwords & PPC
Google Insights for Search has some cool new features to help you better target your marketing efforts. These features allow you to mine more granular data to better focus your target market research.
World heat map: The cool world heat map feature is a graphical display showing search volume by regional interest.
New data sources: You can now get data from additional sources such as Google News, Google Image, and Google Product search sites on a global scale. This gives you a more well rounded look as to what the world is searching for, and again, you can break this down regionally.
Category Suggestions: Google insights will now suggest categories for your terms. This will help you find other ways people may be searching that you might not have thought of.
U.S. Metros: Google insights will now let you drill down to specific metro areas in the U.S. to allow you to better geo-target your marketing, particualarly useful with your Pay Per Click Advertising with Adwords.
Here is a short video from Google giving you a quick rundown of how you can use Google Insights to better target your market research and advertising.
Get The Insiders Guide To CPA Marketing Profits FREE- CPA Report
March 27, 2009 by Erich Mosier
Filed under Adwords & PPC, CPA Secrets
If you are interested in getting into promoting CPA (Click Per Action) offers, then fill in your email address below and I will send you a link to a FREE 89 page CPA report written by one of the top CPA marketers, Gauher Chaudhry.
Gauher is the creator of Pay Per Click Formula and has been around since the beginning of internet marketing. I have gotten a lot out of talking to him over the years. His methods are solid and his ideas on mobile marketing are right on the cutting edge.
This report has a lot of good information CPA marketing and I highly recommend it. It covers everything from:
- What are CPA offers
- Landing pages
- Traffic tactics
- Ad copy strategies
- Testing and tracking
and a lot more.
As I said before, its free, so you have no reason not to get it. So just fill in your email address below and I will send you a link where you can get Gauher’s Free Report “The Insider’s Guide TO CPA Marketing Profits”.
PPC Ninja Review: Ancient Secrets Of Pay-Per-Click Revealed
March 27, 2009 by Erich Mosier
Filed under Keyword Research, Product Reviews, Social Marketing, Top Product Reviews
Another new product from fellow internet marketer Christian Weselak. PPC Ninja. I have enjoyed watching Christian move up in the ranks in internet marketing circles for the past couple of years. One thing I noticed when talking with him a various events is that his ideas are so simple, but so effective at making money. No big tricks. No big secrets. But so obvious that most people either miss them, or dismiss them. They think, “that’s to easy. There is no way that will work.” But lo and behold, it does. I have used many of his methods that I have gotten out of him over the years to make a bunch of money in PPC.
Now I know that PPC is not something that is for everyone. So if PPC is not your thing, then I recommend that you skip PPC Ninja and stay with what you are comfortable doing. There is nothing wrong with doing what works for you.
But if PPC is your thing, or you would like to learn how to make a pile of cash in PPC marketing, then I would highly recommend taking a look at PPC Ninja.
Click here to visit PPCNinja website!
I called Christian up a couple weeks ago and convinced him to let me have an advanced copy to take a look at (ok really I just asked). Here is what I have to say about it. WOW! I was actually surprised at how many of his methods he included. He definitly didn’t hold anything back. I figured like most people, he would have kept the best ones for himself, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.
Thanks to my advanced copy (remember kids, networking is very important in this business) I was actually able to try a couple of his methods to see how they worked. I was able to start generating a solid $200 a day after about a week. Certainly not the most money I have made online, but a nice little addition none the less.
Alright you are probably wondering what exactly you are going to learn from PPC Ninja. Well here is a quick rundown of what you will be getting.
Pay Per CLick Ninja eCourse
OK when I said there were no “secrets”, that wasn’t entirely true. What I should have said is that to the people that have been doing this for a while, like me, there aren’t any (or very few) secrets. But to someone just starting out, or maybe only doing it for a couple of years, there are actually quite a few. Being able to learn them now without having to go through the pain of trial and error like most of us…that is priceless.
Anyway, I am not going to list out everything that is included. You will be able to read all about that in the sales letter. No point in being redundant.
Pay Per Click Ninja Video Course
These are a set of 7 videos of Christian showing you his complete thought process from beginning to end. A lot of good information in here. I was able to pick up a couple of good ideas from these that I started using.
Again, I’m lazy and don’t want to write out everything in them. You can read the sales letter on launch day if you are really that interested.
And here are the bonuses that he is giving you with PPCNinja:
Bonus #1: Google Content Network Domination
Bonus #2: Interview with Michael Campbell
Bonus #3: How to make money with PPC and CPA offers
Bonus #4: One Year of Updates
The first 3 bonuses are nice to have, but not really necessary to making the most of PPCNinja. The real meat of the course is in the first two items. And actually you will find enough information in just the eCourse to let you quit your day job.
The forth bonus (updates) I think will be very beneficial. The internet marketing landscape is constatntly changing, so being able to keep abreast of new techniques can be extremely helpful. Most of us “old timers” share stuff with each other at events, but these are $5,000-$10,000 events that most people don’t have access to.
As much as I would like to freely share some of these things with you on this site, I just couldn’t do that to a friend. Maybe after the newness wares off and these things are no longer considered “secrets” I may let a few nuggets of wisdom out here and there, but you certainly don’t want to wait that long.
Click here to visit PPCNinja website!
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Learn Search Engine Optimization: SEO Tutorial Guide -Marketing
March 23, 2009 by Erich Mosier
Filed under SEO You Should Know
SEO… what is it?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. In essence, it is a game that websites play with Google to achieve different goals. The goal of the website is to get placed as close to the top of the Google rankings (SERPs) as possible, thereby getting the most traffic. Google’s goal is to provide their customers with the best, most relevant results that they can. Each side takes turns trying new things, and trying to achieve their goal. Sometimes it’s fun and sometimes it’s frustrating, but unfortunately in the life of an Internet marketer, it is something that cannot be avoided.
So what exactly is Google’s algorithm. Here’s a little secret that most SEO experts won’t tell you… we have no idea. Well okay, that may not be exactly true, but the fact is nobody knows exactly what the algorithm is or how exactly it works, except for Google. However by testing and trying new things over and over we have been able to determine, fairly accurately, how the algorithm works and what it is actually looking for when it looks at a website.
One other thing to keep in mind is that the algorithm is constantly changing. So when you hear about somebody getting a Google slap, basically it means that Google has made a change to their algorithm, so it’s time for everyone to go back to work and try to figure out exactly what the change was. There are many ways that you avoid getting Google slapped, and we talk about them on the other parts of this site. Because the algorithm is always changing, you should never consider SEO work on your site complete. It is always an ongoing process.
So you may also be wondering why we’re talking specifically about Google. There are obviously many other search engines out there such as Yahoo and MSN.
Why not a guide on those? In short, volume. Google is, by a wide margin, the undisputed king of the search engines. Not only does the power its own search engine, but it is also responsible for powering several other search engines on the web. For instance, if you have a top ranking in Google, you also have a top ranking on AOL, Netscape, EarthLink, CompuServe, Lycos, IWon.com, Go.com, and AT&T Worldnet. That accounts for roughly 70% of all search engine traffic to websites.
The key to SEO is relevancy. You are trying to make your website the most relevant for whatever someone types into search box. The more relevant your site appears to be to Google, the better your ranking will be in the SERPs. Another important factor is the importance of your page. Page importance is determined by the quality, and quantity, of links that point to your webpage from other websites. It is estimated that inbound links account for roughly 60% of your ranking.
The Google algorithm (what we think we know)
According to most experts, including myself, but Google algorithm has two major components.
On page factors (keywords)
The algorithm looks at how, when, and where keywords are used on the page. This determines page relevance.
Off page factors (links)
The quantity and quality of inbound links to your site from other sites determine your page importance. This is also a factor in Google PR (PageRank) values.
Although the PR value is important for some things, in general it is not something you need to worry about. I’ve seen many PR 1 sites out rank PR 4 and 5 sites in the SERPs.
To top things the Google algorithm looks for
It’s estimated that the Google algorithm looks it over a hundred different criteria. We will not try to name them all, because as stated earlier we don’t know for ure. However the following is a list of things that we are absolutely sure make a difference in SEO of your site. They are listed in order of importance.
-
Anchor text-the keywords that are used, both on your site and for inbound links, as anchor text are weighted the most heavily. You want to make sure that your most important keywords are being used in your link text both on your site and on the websites that are linking to you.
The more competitive your search term, the more important this is.
- Title Tag - Always use your main keywords in your title tag. Try to place them as close to the beginning of your title tag as possible, preferably at the very beginning. Also capitalize the first letter of ever word. I am not exactly sure why, but this has just become the standard practice.
- Headings (H1, H2) - you want to make sure to use your main keywords as headings in your text. Your main keyword should be in your H1, and your next important keyword should be your H2.
- PR – actually your PR of your site is not as important as the number of one-way links that you have pointing to your site from high PR sites. This is really the only place where PR makes a difference. I have heard it said, although I cannot vouch for its reliability, that it takes a hundred PR1 links to equal one PR6 link. You can take that with a grain of salt.
- Number of words on your page – some say that a page only needs to contain a minimum of 200 words. Personally I recommend that it be a least 350. The more words on your page, the more Google likes it, the better chance you have a ranking well for a variety of different keywords.
- Time between updates – Google like sites that are updated regularly. At a minimum you should try to update your website at least once a month after you have about 20 pages of content. Before that I would update more regularly.
- How quickly are you getting links – although a lot of links are great, getting too many links in a short period of time can be a bad thing. Google may look at this as you trying to cheat the system. When getting links, try to get them at a steady pace.
- Age – how old the site is, and how old links pointing to the site are also play a factor in your rankings. Obviously if you have a new site there is nothing really you can do about it. All you can do is to work on the above factors and do the best that you can.
The best thing to remember when doing your SEO is to "look natural". Almost all of the SEO factors can be overdone. By looking either excessive, unnatural, manipulative, or spammy, you risk poor rankings by Google, or in the worst case having your site deindexed. There is a very fine line between doing it just right and overdoing it. If you think you might be overdoing it, just tone it down a little, and remember to "look natural" and pretend that Google doesn’t even exist.
Please leave me a comment and let me know if this was useful.
Keyword Research: Find The Best Keywords With Free Research Tools
March 23, 2009 by Erich Mosier
Filed under Keyword Research
Keyword Research: What You Need To Know About Keyword Research
Keyword research is the most important aspect when deciding which are going to be writing about. Of course you can writes about things that you are interested in, but if you are concerned about being ranked in Google, then keywords is where your initial focus needs to be.
Why is keyword research so important? Well, because when somebody does a search in Google, or any of the search engines for that matter, what they type in the search box is what the search engines are going to be looking for. So if your page and your content do not relate to what they are searching for, you page will not come up in the results. Remember, relevancy it key.
So what kind of keywords should you go after? Basically what you’re looking for are the keywords that you have a chance of ranking for and have a decent amount of traffic. Just because a keyword gets a lot of traffic, especially because of traffic, doesn’t mean that is a word you should be going after. What it usually means is that it is going to make it harder to be able to rank decently for that keyword.
For instance, take words like “shoes”, “insurance”, “lawyer”, “dentist”. All of those get a tremendous amount of traffic, but there are two problems with them.
- There is so much competition for them, it would take years to be able to rank for them.
- They are not “buying” words. They do not show that the searcher is far enough down in the buying cycle to be really serious about buying something.
You are better off to go after long tail, or not as popular, keywords when you are trying to write your articles. Long tail keywords are generally words that have 3 to 8 words in them. The benefits of long tail keywords is that:
- There is generally less competition
- They show more of an intent to buy
The big downside to long tail keywords is that they don’t get as much traffic.
So for example, a keyword like “shoes” may be get difficult to rank for but “red shoes in North Dakota” may be quite a bit easier. It may get a lot less traffic, but on the other hand it is something you may be able to actually rank fairly high for.
I’ll will put it this way:
it’s better to be ranked higher for a low traffic keyword and get some traffic, than to be ranked lower for a high-traffic keyword and get no traffic.
So how do you start keyword research
Well there are a lot of tools out there to help you with your keyword research. The three that I’ve found work best are these:
All three of these are free and all of them worked very well for your initial keyword research. As you get more proficient and start earning more you can go and get paid tools, even if the paid don’t do that much more for you. I still use all of these free tools even though I have tools that I pay for as well.
The Problem With Tools
The problem with any keyword tool is that all they are really giving you are estimates. They all look at different places and at different times. What they are all they’re doing is trying to guess how much traffic a particular keyword is actually getting. That is why using multiple tools for your keyword research is the safest way to begin. But you still have to use your brain to be able decide what the best keywords are going to be. There is no better tool than the one between your ears. You’ll learn this over time and will become more and more natural to you, but at first it may be a little confusing.
Basically you need to take any of the numbers that they give you with a grain of salt because you will often see wide differences in the amount of searches that they all predict. Sometimes they are pretty close, but most times they are vastly different.
How To Analyze your Keywords
There are two aspects that you need to look at when analyzing your keyword. The first is how many people are actually looking for that term (search volume). The other aspect is competition for that keyword. If there is too much competition, you will have a very hard time trying to rank for that particular keyword.
Here is the system that I follow when doing my keyword research.
First open up a browser that supports tabs, either Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer 7 or 8, or Opera.
Open up four tabs
(if you are using any of the above browsers, just click on the links and they should open in new tabs automatically)
Tab #1: Google’s Keyword Tool
Tab #2: Wordtracker Free Tool
Tab #3: Keyword Discovery
Tab #4: Google Search Page
If you are logged into Google with iGoogle or something like that, you will want to log out, because your results may be skewed otherwise.
Go to your first tab (Google Keyword Tool) and type in your initial keyword (whatever it is you want to rank for). For this example we will start with the word “shoes”. Type in the Captcha and click on GET KEYWORD IDEAS. The initial results look like this:
There are some setting you will want to change. Up above the results is a dropdown box that says “Choose columns to display”. You want to make sure that you have “Show Estimated Average CPC” showing in your results
Your results should now look like this
The next thing you want to do is to sort your results by “Approx Avg Search Volume”. You do this by clicking on it at the top.
Now your results look like this
Depending on what your goals are and how you are planning on monetizing your page, the important columns you will be looking at will be different. If you are looking at monetizing strictly with Adsense, then you want to look at the “Estimated CPC”, “Advertiser Competition”, and “Aproximate Avg Search Volume”. If you are going to be doing affiliate marketing (not PPC) then you are mainly concerned with “Advertiser Competition” and “Aproximate Avg Search Volume”.
When researching for Adsense, here are a couple rules of thumb.
- Your average CPC should be a minimum of .75. Remember that Adsense only pays you a portion of what they are getting, so you want this number to be as high as possible to have the best chance of making the most money.
- Advertiser competition should be has high as possible. They higher the advertiser competition, the more likely it is that the Estimated CPC will be accurate. The lower the competition, the lower the actual estimated CPC will be, regardless of what it shows in the results. You will learn that with experience.
If you are doing affiliate marketing, then the Avg CPC really doesn’t make much difference to you. You just want to make sure that the advertiser competition is high, because that tells you that there is some money in it. If there are a lot of people bidding on a keyword, there must be money to be made. Keep in mind that what Google shows you is not always accurate. Later I will show you another trick so you can check how accurate the Advertiser Competition really is.
Here is another rule of thumb I use when doing quick keyword research. I only look at keywords with Average Monthly Search Results less than 18,000. I have found, in general, that these will be the words I will have the best chance of ranking for. Remember this is a rule of thumb and not an ABSOLUTE rule. There are many exceptions to this rule that you can find if you look long enough. However, in this guide, we are focusing on FAST keyword research. After you learn this, you can take as much time as you like.
OK, so here’s one we can try that looks pretty good.
It is kind of long tail (3 words), has a CPC of over .75 (.95), has good amount of advertiser competition, and good search volume.
Now we will look at WordTracker
Looks like it has pretty good search volume (remember that WordTracker shows DAILY results)
It also looks like there are a number of other keywords that may be worth looking at as well. We will want to make note of them to research later.
Next we will look at Keyword Discovery and see what their results say.
It looks like we have a winner so far. We also notice that some of the same results are coming up in Keyword Discovery that were just in WordTracker. Again, we want to make note of that fact for later.
Well our research so far has shown us that this keyword is definitely a possibility, so we can keep going. If our results in WordTracker or Keyword Discovery had shown 0 or 1 results, we would probably want to start over with another keyword.
Next we go to Google. As I said before, if you have an iGoogle Account, you will want to log out of it first.
What you need to do now is to type into the search box, your keyword surrounded by quotes, like so:
“name brand shoes”
What you will be looking at is in the top right hand corner and will look something like this.
What we see here is that there are 386,000 other sites competing directly for this term. Here is another rule of thumb. What you are looking for are results less than 20,000 competing pages. Anything more than that and you will have a hard time trying to rank. You want this number to be as low as possible.
So looking at this, we have found out that this is not a good keyword to try and rank for. But remember the other terms we ran across earlier. We can try one of those. Lets try “discount name brand shoes” and see what happens.
Looks like we have a winner. Only 15,300 competing pages. And from our previous research we already know that it is a term that people are searching for. We could go back and double check in the Google Keyword tool, but it is probably not necessary.
Ok remember earlier I said I was going to show you a little trick to make sure the numbers Google was giving you were accurate. Here is what you do. Down at the bottom of the PPC ads on the right, there should be a link that says “More Sponsored Results”.
If it is not there that means that there are less than 10 people competing for that keyword, which is a bad sign. If it is there, click on it and see how many people are actually competing.
Ideally you want to see as many as possible, but anything over 20 is great.
So our first round of research was a success. We found a keyword with commercial intent that we should be able to rank for. Now all you have to do is lather, rinse, and repeat. And we only did this with one. You will probably want a list of 10 to 20 to do at a time. It will save you a bunch of time.
Another thing to remember is be open to new possibilities for keywords. Don’t fall in love with your keywords. If it doesn’t fit within the criteria you set, toss it out and look for something better. There is always something better out there.
Once you have your list of 4-6 keywords that fit within your parameters, you are ready to start writing your article, post, or whatever it may be.
Happy Researching
Erich Mosier
To download this page as a PDF, click here.
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SEO For Blogs-SEO Tips To Improve Your Google Rankings for Blogs
March 23, 2009 by Erich Mosier
Filed under Blogging Tips & Tricks, SEO You Should Know
Wordpress Bloggers SEO Guide
Although there are a lot of different blogging platforms out there, Wordpress has become the most popular among them. The two main reasons for this is are its ability to be customized and the number of plugins available to add additional functionality. However, right out of the box, a clean installation of wordpress leaves a lot to be desired, at least from a SEO standpoint.
By making some adjustments, you can increase the effectiveness of your SEO to help improve your rankings in the search engines (a.k.a. Google).
Theme
The first decision to make is which theme to use. There are so many to choose from, sometimes it can be a little overwhelming. The theme should not only look good and convey the appropriate feel for your blog, but you want to make sure that it is structured in a way to take full advantage of SEO. For instance, you ideally want your navigation (sidebars) on the right-hand side. The reason for this is that it increases your opportunity for relevance by making your text the first thing the search engines see.
Depending on your site’s navigation, you may need to have your navigation along the top. If this is the case, just try to make sure to use good keywords as your categories or pages in your navigation. This way, again, it will help to show relevance to the search engines by being the first thing they see.
Permalinks
In the default installation of Word press, the URL of your post will be shown as a number:
http://yourblog.com/?p=321
what you actually want is your title (keywords) in the URL
http://yourblog.com/your-article-title
Both are valid and the major search engines do not have an issue indexing dynamic content anymore. However, when considering a SEO, you should remember that it is better to have your keywords in your URL to help increase your relevancy. So by making sure that you are using permalinks, you increase
your chance of getting seen.
To make this change, using version 2.7.1, under SETTINGS click on PERMALINKS.
Select CUSTOM STRUCTURE under Common Settings and type this:
%postname%
And that’s it. Your URL will now use your post title and help to increase your relevance for your main keyword.
If you would like more information on how to customize your permalinks, you can visit the wordpress codex here.
Page Title
Another one of the most important factors in your rankings is your page title. You always want to make sure you have your top keywords in your title. You have 65 characters to pack as much keyword power as you can into a readable and compelling title.
To help in managing your titles, I highly recommend the ALL-IN-ONE SEO pack plugin. It allows you to override title, meta-descriptions, and meta-keywords, as well as other important aspects of your page.
For information on the proper settings, see my article on how to configure ALL IN ONE SEO plugin correctly.
It is possible to do this manually in the code, but with every template being a little different, it makes it hard to do a good lesson on it. Besides, it is so much easier to just use the plugin. Why make life harder than it needs to be?
Headings Structure
With blogs there are two separate aspects to dealing with headings, the title of your blog and the headings in your posts and pages.
Header Headings
By default, your blog title is usually set as a H1 tag and the tagline is set as an H2. These are what show up at the very top of your blog page. You can change your blog title and tagline by going to SETTINGS GENERAL.
Depending on your blog name and domain name, this may or may not be an issue. If your domain and blog name include your main keywords for your site (what you are trying to rank for) then this is a big deal. If you blog name and domain name have nothing to do with what you are blogging about, then it really doesn’t matter.
If your domain and blog name DO include your keywords then there are a few things you will need to do. Depending on your graphic ability, or sense of style, you may want to customize your blog and make your entire header into a graphic. Which means not using any text. Here is one of my favorite examples:
The upside is that you get to have it look anyway that you want. The downside is that you are losing some SEO power. Fortunately there is an option to help balance out this dilemma.
Manually adding hidden H1 and H2 tags
By adding these lines to your header.php file you can use a purely graphic header and not handicap yourself in regards to SEO.
<h1 style=”display: none;”>Blog Title Goes Here</h1 >
<h2 style=”display: none;”>Blog Tagline goes here</h2 >
AdSense Optimization -Tips To Make More Money With Google Adsense
March 23, 2009 by Erich Mosier
Filed under Adsense Secrets
The most important thing is that you want your ads to be where they are looking. How do you know where your readers are looking? In short, you don’t. But we can make some educated guesses and use some tools to help us find out.
Heatmaps -The best places to put your ads
So what is a heat map? A heat map is a way to show the most likely places that people click on ads. Using data that Google gathers from all of the sites show their ads, they have been able to develop a map show the best places for your ads.
What the map shows is that the strongest performing ads are right in the middle (dark orange), while the weakest performing ads are shown in yellow. One thing you should notice is that the majority of the best performing ads are located above the fold. Also ads that are placed close to rich content (images, videos, etc.) and navigation tend to do better.
Keep in mind that this is just a recommendation, and does not guarantee that these places will improve your CTR ( click through rate). You will need to decide based on the layout of your site and other factors where the best place to put your ads is.
Usability Testing - Know where your readers are clicking
Similar to the concept of a heatmap, but these are direectly tested on your website to see where people are clicking.
There is a company name Crazy Egg that you can set up an account with and track your sites. As of this writing, their plans range from $9 per month to $99 per month depending on how many visits and how many pages you want to track.
Make sure they see it - Always have an ad unit showing above the fold
It’s a well-known fact that the majority of people that visit websites spend their time above the fold. What this means is that most of what they spend their time looking at is what they first see when a site comes up. Anything that they have to scroll to see is not considered above the fold. Unfortunately, what is considered above the fold varies depending on the individual’s screen resolution of their monitor.
So while a person with a 17 inch monitor with resolution set to 800 x 600 will see something like this:
A person with a 22 inch widescreen monitor with a resolution set to 1680 x 1050 will see something like this:
So it’s important to keep in mind that just because what you are seeing on the screen when you are setting up your site, is not necessarily what everybody will see. Most people will assume the lowest common denominator (800 x 600) and make sure everything is above that. But again, the choice is up to you and it will depend on how your site is laid out.
Here is a handy free tool that will let you test your site on various size screens:
Tips and Tricks - Sneaky but useful
- Put an image close to your ad unit. People will always look at an image on a page, no matter what the text is on the page.
- You can also put it next to a button, like a "submit" button, a "next page" button, or any other type a button and it works on your page.
- Next to a search box may also be a good place to put something like a link unit.
Eye Tracking - Find out where they are looking
Eye tracking can be a bit of an expense, but depending on your budget and your expected AdSense revenue, it may be worth it to invest in having some eye tracking done on your site.
Like heatmaps, eye tracking determines where people are actually looking at your site, as opposed just to where they are clicking.
What Eye Trackers Can Do
- Tell whether users are even looking at the screen.
- Tell whether users are reading or scanning.
- Learn the relative intensity of a user’s attention to various parts of a web page.
- Determine whether a user is searching for a specific item.
- Compare user scan patterns.
What Eye Trackers Can’t Do
- Let you know whether users actually "see" something.
- Prove that users didn’t see something.
- Determine why users are looking at something.
- Test everybody.
If you are ineretsted, here are some good sites related to eyetracking:
Remember to make sure you are not leaving any money on the table when it comes to your AdSense revenue, as with all things in internet marketing, you need to be constantly testing. Don’t be afraid to try new, or "out of the box" ideas. You never know what may work in your particular situation.
That is one of the reasons Google is such a successful company. They know that they don’t know everything and they are willing to try every idea. They don’t turn any idea down until they test it. And they don’t stop testing until they know it will absolutely won’t work.
Best of Luck
Erich Mosier
Please leave me a comment and let me know if this was useful.