EzSEO Newsletter # 63
January 16, 2005 by Andy
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EzSEO Newsletter # 63
Andy Williams ez SEO
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This week:
1. Niche Blueprint update
2. 2005 prediction
3. Google toolbar – PageRank?
4. Subscriber questions
Hi again
Doesn’t time fly? While I was answering my emails this morning, I realised that my daughter will be 4 months very soon. It is funny how fast they grow up. She is now beginning to realise that those things at the end of her arms are actually HER hands, so she is grabbing anything and everything and shoving things into her mouth. She is also becoming very vocal, and not only makes the usual sweet baby noises, but also growls like a dog. We have two dogs, so maybe she is learning their language first!
This week has seen an exciting development in the Niche Blueprints some of you have been so patiently waiting for – read below for more details.
Also, the new SEO Detective section I started in this newsletter a few weeks ago, seems to be very popular according to the feedback I have been receiving. I have decided to make it a regular feature, but, I am not going to be including it this week – I have been far too busy with other things.
Hopefully next week we can analyze some other top pages. If you find a page, and cant work out why it ranks so well, send it to me and I will analyze the best one next week.
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1. Niche Blueprint update
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On Friday, I released the first Niche Blueprint to a select audience – my SEO Website Builder customers. If you are an owner, you can download it from the members forum.
Feedback so far has been positive with one person writing:
“Have just briefly gotten through the content! Kudos to you! Truly outstanding work!”
I am still getting feedback at the moment, but will be releasing the first blueprint to all of my subscribers as soon as I have made some of the suggested changes. This first one will not cost you anything, it will be yours as a gi.ft. Expect to see an announcement in your inbox sometime this week.
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2. 2005 prediction
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I am sure you have all heard the expression “Content is King”. I first heard this phrase from Ken Evoy, and to be honest, did not follow that route with my own sites. In the past it has been far too easy to throw up sites that made money without much effort on my side, e.g. merchant datafeeds allowed me to put up sites with 1000s of pages in as little as an hour.
However, with increasing amounts of spam in the search engines, mostly due to scripts and software that spew out thousands of pages in minutes, search engines are wising up, and banning or penalising sites that don’t offer their searchers value.
My prediction for 2005 is that search engines (primarily Google, but followed by Yahoo & MSN), will perfect their filters so that these sites just wont be indexed in the first place.
What does this mean to you?
Well, if your business model is to put up sites using tools that spew out low quality pages (by that I mean pages that don’t offer something of value, e.g. those annoying pages with nothing but search engines results listed), expect to see your business decline in 2005.
2005 will be the year where only those websites with truly unique content will survive.
For those of you who think content sites are too much work, I wonder whether you are serious about your business.
Are you in for the long haul, or are you in for the short-term gain? That is a question only you can answer, but why not start at least one large content site now, so that if my prediction does come true, you will at least have some income while you rebuild your business?
OK, OK, I have heard some people saying “I make X amount using tool Y, and yes, my sites get banned, but I put up another within a few hours and which will replace the income lost from the banned sites. It works, so stop complaining about this tool.”
Well, what happens when this technique does stop working and those new sites you throw up don’t make you money? Your income could go from thousands a month to ZERO. Are you prepared for that? This time will come, so don’t say you weren’t warned.
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3. Google toolbar – PageRank?
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I have mentioned a couple of times that the PageRank on Google’s toolbar seems to be updated only about once every three months now. This is making analysis of top pages more and more difficult, especially when you consider that Google doesn’t show all of the backlinks when you check.
Now, there seems to be another spanner in the works. A couple of people have sent me details of their own websites that seem to have a unusually high PR. For example, there was one site with a PR of 4, yet only two low PR links pointing in (the author knew for certainty that these were the only links to his site).
Another site owner emailed me to say that while their PR had gone from 1 to 5 (even without new incoming links) during the last update, their rankings had not improved, and wanted to know why. On looking at this site, I could not find more than one or two backlinks from low PR sites. My guess is that this PR is not the real PR, and Google’s toolbar is displaying false information, possibly deliberately.
Why would Google deliberately give webmasters false PR information? I wrote about this a few newsletters ago, but cant find the issue. However, if you search Google for “google pr & backlinks” the same article (published on ezinearticles.com) comes up in the results, so read it there.
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4. Subscriber questions
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The following question fits in nicely with this issue since my 2005 prediction is about content.
“Hi Andy
I have a question if you have time. In the last newsletter you mention Gary Antosh’s article writing book Web Content Made Easy. I am an owner of his other eBook, How to Create Content Fast, so do I need his new book? Is it the same stuff re-hashed?”
My answer:
In “How to Create Web Content Fast”, Gary explains how to hire authors to write content for you.
In his new eBook “Web Content Made Easy”, Gary explains how anyone can write THEIR OWN articles.
The difference between the two books is simple. One explains how to get authors to write content for you cheaply, the other explains how you can write your own.
As for the question, “Do I really need this new book?”, my answer is no, you don’t. If you are happy with the way you write your own articles and have a formula that works for you, stick with it. This book is for those who are struggling to write their own content.
A point I have tried to emphasize in recent newsletters is this:
Find someone you trust, read how they do something and copy their techniques. If it works, stop looking for something better as it wastes time and costs you more money. Buying anything and everything just leads to information overload, and this leads to paralysis. Once you find something that works, stop your search, and apply that information.
OK, another related email I received in the last week was this:
“Dr. Williams,
I am very interested in buying Gary’s eBook Web Content Made Easy, but I own Jim Edwards eBook “Turn Words into Traffic”. Do I need Gary’s book as well?”
Now, what do you think my answer to this email should be?
Here it is:
“Hi
Have you used the information in Jim’s book? Is it working for you? If it is, then why are you looking for another book on the same topic? I personally have read Jim’s book and know his techniques work, so my advice is to re-read his book, follow his techniques, and get that content written. Stop looking for other books, or you will never get anything finished. Too much information is dangerous and leads to overload, and inaction!”
This email is a typical of a lot I receive. People asking me whether they should buy X or Y, yet they have similar products and have not done anything with them.
If you have purchased one book, and not done anything with that information, what makes you think that you will use the information in a second book? It will just sit on your computer gathering dust, like all the other stuff you have bought.
To summarize….
If you are looking at writing your own content, but think you cant, I recommend you buy either Jim’s book, or Garys second book. If you want to learn how to hire authors to write content for you, get Garys first book. Confused? Well, here is a “flow chart” to help you make a decision about what to buy:
1. Are you already writing articles that are getting good traffic?
If yes, then Don’t buy anything.
If no, then go to question 2.
2. Are you looking to hire people to write articles for you?
If yes, then consider buying Gary’s eBook “How to Create Web Content Fast”
If no, then go to question 3.
3. Are you looking for help on writing your own articles?
If yes, then consider buying either “Turn Words into Traffic” by Jim Edwards.
or
Web Content Made Easy by Gary Antosh (my favourite).
If no, then ignore this flowchart.
Incidentally, for those of you who think buying articles costs too much, here is a little study I conducted on one of my own sites. I bought 100 articles and monitored the income. Those articles cost me a one time fee of around $600. Those 100 articles are currently making me around $500 a month. Do the maths and I am sure you can see how hiring authors can quickly pay off if you have a little money to invest up front.
Well, that’s it for another issue. If you want to read the recent issues of this newsletter, you can read them online.
For older newsletters, you will need to visit the old archives.
Have a great week!
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