EzSEO Newsletter # 67
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EzSEO Newsletter # 67
Andy Williams ez SEO
ez-search-engine-optimization.com
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This week:
1. Why the weird Aweber links in my newsletter?
2. Niche Blueprint Update
3. Finding the true PR of a page?
4. Six Lessons for Getting in the “Right Mindset” For Starting Your Own Business
5. Maintenance nightmare - multiple affiliate sites
Another week has flown by. My cold is still lingering, but I do feel a whole lot better now. Thanks so much for all of the cold and flu remedies you sent me.
This week I “met” a very successful online marketer. Colin McDougall is well known to many who have read John Evans Success Alert eBook.
Colin sent me an article he wrote, and it struck so many chords with my own online experiences that I decided to do something I have never done in this newsletter - publish someone elses article. You can read that in part 4 of the newsletter.
I also answer a readers question about Page Rank, and offer some advice on how to reduce site maintenance.
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1. Why the weird Aweber links in my newsletter?
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Some of you have written to me asking why I have funny aweber links in my newsletter. Are they cloaked affiliate links, or just a way of making long URLs short?
Well, the answer is simple. Aweber (who send out this newsletter for me) allow publishers to automatically convert all links in a newsletter into tracking links. That means that I can track which links my readers click on, and thereby gauge interest in particular areas.
If I discuss a topic and provide a link for more information, I can see how many click on that link. If a lot do, I will go into more depth on the subject next time. If very few click the link, I move on to new pastures.
This feedback is useful to me. None of your personal info is collected when you click on a link, just how many people clicked.
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2. Niche Blueprint Update
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This is very frustrating. The next Niche Blueprint has been ready for over a week now, but I cannot release it. I promise you this is not some marketing ploy to try to get you into a “feeding frenzy”. I really have hit a brick wall, and am waiting for others to get back to me on a couple of issues. Until they do, I cannot release the Niche Blueprint.
If you are waiting for the release, please be patient. Also please don’t email me asking if you can pre-buy it, you can’t.
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3. Finding the true PR of a page?
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I had an email “conversation” this last week which I feel others may benefit from “listening in” on. Here it is in summary:
“Andy
Why is it that xxxxxxx ranks so well on Google for the phrase xxxxxx xxxxxx when it has a PR of 0. The other top results have PRs of 5 and 6. Is Page Rank becoming less important?
Graham”
My answer to Graham was to go back and read a previous newsletter where I discussed just this. In issue 48 I discussed anomalies in PR and backlinks. You can read it online.
In reply, Graham wrote back:
“Andy
If Google are not telling us the real PR values, how can we find out the PR of a site? This is making link exchanges much more difficult. How are we supposed to know whether a link partner is good if we don’t know their true PR?
Graham”
and my reply went something like this:
“Graham,
Google released backlinks and Page Rank data to the webmaster community. However, in doing so, they unleashed a monster.
SEOs quickly reverse-engineered the Google algorithm which showed how important both backlinks and PR really were to high rankings.
Every SEO and his cat went out to increase backlinks, and increase PR to their sites. Knowing the Page Rank of another site was fundamental in “manipulating” the PR of your own site. Knowing the linking structure of other sites was fundamental in beating the system and getting your link structure just right for top rankings.
SEOs were manipulating the results using information that became available as soon as Google released PR and backlink data.
Why does Google dislike this? Well, Google wants the best pages to rise to the top of the rankings. A best page might be described as the page with the most relevant content for the search query that was run at google.com.
As webmasters became better at manipulating PR and backlinks, more and more rubbish began to surface in the top results, and that remains today. Pages ranking well only because a good SEO did his or her job, not because the page is the most relevant.
This is why Google have removed your privileges and no longer gives accurate PR or backlink data. They don’t want you to have it any longer. They have it in their database and use it for ranking purposes, they just don’t tell you that information any more.
As to your question about how to find the real PR if Google toolbar does not show it - there is no way. This is information that Google own, and they have no obligation to give it to you. By hiding this information, Google probably hopes that webmasters will give up the obsession of PR and backlinks, and concentrate on providing quality content that searchers will find interesting - content that adds value to the net.
So how do you know if a link partner is a good one? Simple. Look at their website and see if it is quality or rubbish. A quality site will always be a good link partner, a rubbish site will never be a good link partner.
This is how Google always envisaged PR and backlinks working together to pick the best pages for search results. Sites vote for others based on quality of site, not because of what benefits you might get for providing the link.”
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4. Six Lessons for Getting in the “Right Mindset” For Starting Your Own Business
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by Colin McDougall
Believe it or not your childhood attitude towards a fence shapes your business mindset. As you’ll learn from my experience starting a business, having the right mindset is the key to being an entrepreneur. It’s all about being a fence hopper instead of a fence sitter.
Remember being a kid? Did you sit on a fence and dangle your legs or did you hop right over that fence? The answer matters. It reflects your outlook on life. If you’re like most kids you sat on the fence wiggling your legs while giggling with a friend and day dreaming, talking about all your big plans for life. The problem is most people never get past the fence sitting phase, even though they grow up and get jobs.
When I was a kid, I loved hopping over fences. It was fun to climb to new heights and see what was on the other side. But like most folks the majority of my adult work time has been spent sitting on the proverbial fence at the same job, day in and day out, waiting for the pension, figuring I’d be there the rest of my life.
But one day I took a good hard look at my life and realized I wasn’t meeting my financial or lifestyle goals. I wanted more than the same old paycheck and the same old hours and the same old headaches. As I began working towards starting my own business, I embodied the Nike mantra, “Just do it”. This mantra is the fence hopper, and entrepreneurial mantra. Yet, oddly enough for most people it’s, “I will, I will” followed by “I won’t, I won’t.” The problem is fear, self-doubt, insecurity, lack of support, and tools erode the dream of owning their own business before it’s even given a chance. I faced these same concerns.
Confidence/No Fear
Early on, I realized to succeed required getting in the “right mindset” to be my own boss. This involved getting over self-defeating talk and convincing myself I could do it. There is an expression in sales if you fake it long enough you believe it. The reasoning is that by acting confident, you become confident. So for me it became a matter of selling my self. Like any good sales person will tell you, to be good in sales you need to know your customers’ hot buttons, earn their trust and value and meet their needs. I sold myself on the idea of going into business for myself, but that didn’t take away the realistic fears and insecurities.
When I started the business there was no paycheck, no set date when the money would arrive, and even worse I worried that the money might not show up at all. This became my biggest fence to climb.
Contending with my own self-doubt and insecurity was one thing, but hearing the negative concerns of friends and family voiced over and over made matters worse. In their eyes I was working a “good job”, and they didn’t understand why I wanted to trade a secure paycheck for uncertainty. All I heard was “you can’t do that” and “that’s too risky”. Those kinds of comments worked against me for the first six months and threatened to undermine the entrepreneurial “can do and will do” attitude.
Friends and family didn’t understand the kind of business I started known as affiliate marketing, but they felt qualified to tell me, “If I could make money online it would probably be illegal or at best immoral.”
What they didn’t realize is that affiliate marketing is a $14 billion industry. (Source: Marketing Sherpa) and is expected to grow to approximately $230 billion by 2008. (Source: Forrester Research)
Supporting Your Endeavors
Aspiring entrepreneurs need the support of their spouse or partner. Fortunately, my wife is 100% supportive. I know some people, who sadly enough, will never succeed because their spouse runs around saying things like, “That’s a waste of time”. If your spouse or significant other is angry you’re spending time working on something other than your “real job” its going to be difficult to start a business and work around the negativity they are harboring.
Getting The Tools
When you start something new it’s hard to know ahead of time what tools and knowledge you’re going to need. Combine this with a natural resistance towards spending money on an unknown venture and you’ll likely wind up lacking something that’s essential to your business.
For instance, my first attempt developing an online business utilized a free domain name and web hosting which hampered my ability to have a professional looking web site. Plus, I felt overwhelmed entering a new industry and market. There was simply too much to know and I didn’t know where to obtain the right information to make the business venture a success. When things looked their bleakest, instead of abandoning my plans, I found help and that’s when the success began.
Knowing When And Where To Ask For Help
Reading the motivational book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki provided numerous insights. The top four principles entail:
“Work to learn and not to earn” mindset
Form relationships with people who are successful and willing to pass on their knowledge
Being successful requires making a personal investment.
Working a job you will not get you ahead financially
By following these principles I worked out a deal with a business colleague. I agreed to work for free while he taught me the ropes. With finances tight it made more sense to donate time instead of placing myself under financial duress. Thanks to his generosity I’m now successful in affiliate marketing with numerous specialty web sites including: credit cards, area rugs, and hockey equipment.
Goal Setting And Balance
Figure out a time commitment that works for you and your family. By devoting just one hour per day to building the business, while working the old job I found balance. While the time might sound small it worked and became a daily goal.
Goal setting can get out of hand if you’re goals aren’t realistic. When I didn’t meet my monetary goals by a certain date I became angry, due to the “job mentality”. By being both the boss and employee the insecurity and anger set in. Instead of letting the emotions wreak havoc take time to examine what went wrong and why you didn’t achieve the goal. As you get better at running your business it gets easier to figure out ways to achieve goals in a realistic timeframe.
Testing the “Own Business Mindset”
The real test came when I made the decision to quit the “real job”. With the resignation letter in hand all the childhood messages: go to school, get good grades, obtain a high-quality job, stay employed until 65, and retire with a modest pension all these words of advice rattled my plans. Shaking those beliefs ingrained throughout the better part of my life proved difficult. To get past the fear I reminded myself of companies like Enron, where employees took the safe route only to lose their pension and livelihood. Plus, I looked around at all the companies downsizing and outsourcing eliminating countless jobs. I realized the idea of a secure job ‘until you’re 65 is a myth and that security is what you make it, not what some one else provides.
Running my own business there’s always another fence to climb over to reach new heights of financial success; the income keeps getting higher, just the way I like it.
Article provided by Colin McDougall - A successful online business entrepreneur . If you need a bit of motivation to get going on your own business feel free to e-mail Colin (mcdoog2112@shaw.ca) Word At Home Jobs
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5. Maintenance nightmare - multiple affiliate sites
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When I look back over the years I have been an affiliate marketer, I see one glaring mistake that I made. When building pages, it was very convenient to put pages together by adding lots of individual product links and merchant’s description by copying and pasting from Commission Junction. Pages were built quickly and I could get a lot of pages online quickly. Some days I would build 10 pages, and each could have 5 or 10 product links per page.
Think about that. 50 - 100 links added to my site per day. Over a month, my site might grow by 150 pages. Conservative estimates are that I would add 750 links to my site every month.
OK, now here is the chruncher. When I started out, I had no idea that links expired, and regularly. After a few months of site building I seemed to be on a treadmill of checking links, and updating. I no longer had time to add new pages. I would visit some of my pages only to see the images no longer showing up. Clicking the link took me to a page not found error.
I suppose I deserved this. I was adding copious amounts of spam to the internet. I would create a page based on a theme, add no unique content, just 5 or 10 product links with merchant description that I plucked from Commission Junction.
Those sites no longer make me any money. The links are probably all out of date, and I am in the process of pruning out the sites, and re-writing them using a different site/page model.
Simply put, I now use merchant links on only a handful of pages in each site. This means that maintenance is limited to only having to check 5 or 6 pages a month for each site I build. The full model is outlined by James Martell’s handbook (a new 2005 version has just been released).
A lot of people are concerned about James’ methods since a lot of his sites got banned. I do not believe they were banned because of any strategy outlined in his book, but my theories on why are another story.
To me, his site building model is valid now as it was when he wrote the book. As with anything, information can be abused, and using techniques that could get you banned probably will. Maybe this is why Martell ran foul of Google - pushing the limits of the technology he used, and trying out borderline techniques that Google found out about.
I know one thing for sure. The sites I have built using the technique outlined in his manual are making money, and good money at that.
The only section of his manual I do not agree with is his criteria for reciprocal link-building. Any link needs to look natural, and I believe the criteria he set for link partners makes his sites stand out as unnatural.
Martell’s PAD technique (Martell gave it a name, but a lot of us have been using this technique for a long time) largely eliminates the need to reciprocal linking anyway, so that would solve the issue of reciprocal linking.
I cannot go into details on his techniques, since they are copyrighted to James Martell. However, if you ask me what the best guide for building profitable affiliate sites is, I would have to say there is currently only one choice
It is not cheap, but I know it is worth every cent - as long as you use the information and get into the right mind-set for success that Colin talks about in his article (section 4 of this newsletter).
Oh, and if you do take the plunge and buy Martell’s book, or any other sytem for that matter, stop buying every new thing that comes out and use the information you purchased. Stop hoping that every new infoproduct that comes out will reveal new techniques that take less work for success. Long term success can only be achieved by hard work.
Well, that’s it for another issue. If you want to read the recent issues of this newsletter, you can read them online at this blog.
For older newsletters, you will need to visit the old archives
Have a great week!
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