The New Rush to Local Search Help

Have you noticed? Have you received the tell-tale email that says "we can get you to the top of Google!"? It's the latest rush and if you're not a part, then you need to be. And it's not hard to get involved. In fact, you probably already know tons more than your local dentist about getting pages indexed in Google, and then working on getting them ranked higher in search.

Why this is rubbish to local businesses

When we approach businesses we don't tell them we'll get them to the first page of Google for their search term. That is like speaking in a foreign language they don't understand. It doesn't make sense and seems like a waste of time to them. What do you suppose they are really searching for from the Internet?

Customers are the Bottom Line

Yes, new customers - those who come in simply because of what you've done helping the local business get their pages and site ranking higher in Google. They don't give a flip about first page, number 10, whatever - what they want to hear from your lips is that you're concerned about making them more money.

How can the search engines make me more money

It's a fact that the lion share of the clicks go to the company in the top positions in Google. You never go searching deeper than page three - probably never more than the top 5 results. So this is what everyone else thinks as well. But what the merchant wants to hear is that these will convert into sales - not that you can get him or her to some magical position on this website. They really could care less. Money is where it's at.

Speak their language

So when presenting this whole local search optimization to them, it's important to speak their language. Don't sound like you are a lawyer. I remember when asking a friend (Brazilian) who dabbled in Japanese art work as a side hobby, some advice about getting a divorce in Brazil, they turned into a totally different person and started speaking this lawyerese that was simply a put-off. I never did do any business with them because I couldn't understand a word they were saying, even though I understand Portuguese. It was because they were using terms I didn't use nor could relate to in my day to day work. What a disappointment.

Provide value

Finally, provide extreme value. Give way more than expected and blow them away with what you can do for them online. This will make them a lifetime customer of yours and one that will sing your graces to their friends forever. It just makes sense to give.

This helps - work your plan and you'll be rewarded greatly. Ask me for advice in this.

Google Taking a Long Look at Linking

I just got back from picking up my daughter from school, and it's been three years now that I've been upset why no one does anything around the school to better control the traffic - the speeding through the school zone.

Most people don't care, is what it boils down to. Certainly most parents as they drop off or pick up their kids, they speed away at up to 40 MPH in a 20 MPH zone. And they smile at me as they speed by.

Yes, they're late for whatever. Didn't properly plan, so the kids suffer - those who have to watch out for them - to avoid being killed next to the school they're trying to get to, or go from.

On that same road, we have a school bus that picks up for the middle school close by. The bus stops, puts on the flashing lights, but time after time cars simply keep going and break the law - both speeding and passing a stopped school bus.

I guess I'm the only one that cares, because I tell other parents and they just look at me funny. I even told the principal of this Naples, Florida elementary school and he told "me" to go do something about it. Guess he carries absolutely no clout with the city or county.

But I have found something that may work.

I don't complain much about our fine city. Especially here. But the city department of roads, or whichever department is responsible for road works, has the bad habit of leaving those orange cones and portable traffic signs laying on the roadside long after the job has been finished.

One such cone has been laying on its side next to the school for over a month. They are putting in new traffic signals (not school zone signals) and maybe that's why the cone is there. I figured they won't miss it for a couple more weeks (until school ends and they can speed all they want). So late today I'm going to pick it up... or try to... and run it over to a friends home who lives right next to the 20 MPH school zone sign.

On my way to and from the school, I will place and pick up the cone and put it right in the middle of the road near the school zone sign. Sounds like a plan to me. What do you think? I'd certainly slow down near a cone.

I'll keep you updated.

With that off my chest let me tell you about Google's look into paid links. Now I've preached that you should develop a good linking network, and I've even discussed using Three Way Links for your content sites. And many of you have asked about Google's new look at this - and will they ban or delist your site if they figure you have links from Three Way Links.

Matt Cutts talks about spam in the form of web pages, and I've been preaching for years that any work with spammy pages will reap the wrath of Google. They will delist you faster than you can say Jack Flash, as Mom would say.

So my experience has been that the main reason these sites are gone from Google is that they are a spam site. It's pretty cut and dry. But some still argue that the Three Way Linking constitutes paid links that are used for the purpose of skewing Page Rank or search engine results.

I believe that if your content is original, linking from other sites is a way to get noticed by the search engine bots (see my lesson on search engines at Net Dominate). At that point the search engine can disregard the link and consider the content. And that's all. It's not necessary to penalize unless the site is spamming or irrelevant.

What are your thoughts on this?

What Are Your Results So Far?

Okay, just taking a look at some of my metrics on the 4 sites to date. One of my sites, the one about acid reflux, http://www.vt88.com/, is doing poorly. I haven't received any queries from the search engines, even though the site is indexed.

But that doesn't mean diddley squat if you're in an area that's just really saturated.

I chose "acid reflux" to show you an example of a bad niche choice. This is a condition where when you get keywords, you'll need to dig a little deeper to find out if they can stand up to scrutiny. Acid reflux alone has a KEI of 456. That's awesome, but the competition (say - heavy hitters) is fierce!

Next, http://www.lxmart.com/ is doing well with the phrase "gold investments". This one was easy because right now there is a rush on gold. With China and India becoming more and more of economic powers, they want gold - and gold is hard to mine and find. The dollar isn't so strong either, so prices of gold are at all time highs. A few of the keywords I've focused on were showing right up there in the search engines (and we only started a few days ago). But right now they are not in the first few pages for search.

history of bullion market
gold industrial purposes
rules of buying gold
karat gold jewellry
californian gold jewellery
9 karats

This fluctuates and is to be expected when the site is new and has no reputation. When the articles I've created for the site start becoming distributed, the site's reputation will improve.

The next site, Three Best Dogs, is doing well. Here's a few URL's to show search results based on terms I'm focusing on:

the best miniature dog
mini dachshund tea cup
list of small dog breeds and thier characteristics
teacup breed of dogs that dont shed
ideal dog for single person

That's a few. You can see how well this site is doing. It's just going to grow. How this is different from acid reflux is based on some work I am doing. I've started compiling keyword lists on specific topics then running them through this psychological part and have found these work much better.

Lastly, http://www.abbey-properties.com/ is site 4. It is doing well. I'm including news stories, rewritten, of course, to make the site more appealing.

Take care and we'll have a new lesson later in the day.

Fastest Way to Get Into Google

Just a quick note - my site number 1, the one on acid reflux at vt88.com, has already been indexed by Google. The best way you can tell if your page is indexed, is to pick off the first sentence of the page/article, and look it up in Google search using quotes. Here's an example:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Day+after+day,+millions+worldwide+suffer+from+symptoms+caused+by+acid%22

Check out the Google cache and you'll see it was cached four days after I posted it. That's pretty good.

One of my secrets using Blogger type blogs is to make full use of the Labels for each post. These always give me more entries in Google search for a variety of topics. That is always good.

This is all to say that what we're doing here, if you're following my methods, will get your site in the search engines in little time and people will start coming to your pages.

Day Seven - Site Four

It's raining cats and dogs here and just a great time to get some work in. I've been showing you a scheduled way to put up a number of websites with great content and get them profitable for you by the end of the project.

Today we're at day seven and it's time for website number four. Have you thought about what you're going to create? It is easy to get articles - you just need to make sure they are rewritten to they are nothing like what is currently on the Internet. You can probably do a better job anyway.

Now you'll need five articles, so hope your fingers are rested and you're ready to go. We'll also need a full domain name and website to post the five articles to, so make sure you have that ready to go.

As far as articles, I have to stress again that you need to be thinking of something that many people search for, but where there's not a ton of content already written on that subject. And what is too much? Well, when you search, the results is how many pages that keyword appears on (of pages indexed in the search engine). So even though there are over a hundred thousand results - don't worry - you can quickly get near the top of the heap if there is not a lot of competition (millions of pages).

Take for instance a site I have on Immigration. I registered this domain long ago when a friend of mine from Brazil won the Green Card Lottery and brought his whole family to the United States. Today, I post to it almost everyday and it is well indexed and I already get a return on the site. And it's just going to grow!

How do I know? I am using the same formula that I'm using here. And you'll learn as the course goes on.

My website number four is about foreclosure. I didn't like the topic 100 percent, but I thought with the level of interest on this topic, I'm bound to get some of the traffic doing what I do.

Day Six - Site Number Three Complete

Today you should have site number three up and done and looking complete. I am happy to report, at least when I checked it, the Yahoo Publisher Network ads were working well on my third site about where to find good puppies. The problem with YPN ads is that because of their limited inventory, you won't have as many geo-targeted ads as Google. Back in 2006, YPN was for me, top notch. The ads running were relevant. You got good CTR because of this, and man, the payout was really good - sometimes $5 a click. Those days are gone for now, but the formula I am spelling out for you works well, too. The idea is that you're going to have enough content out in the search engines. I can't stress enough how important it is to be patient and not to cut short or modify the steps.

So today, go back over your three sites and make sure everything is working, links, ads, copy makes sense and looks great. It you want me to take a look at any of your sites, drop me an e-mail.

Tomorrow, get ready for website number four. We're going to get that fourth website up and running with fresh content not found anywhere else on the Internet.

Watch How It's Done - Google AdSense Earnings

You don't have a list, like a lot of those jokers who advertise to buy their package. They got a following because one person who had a list, advertised to that list and thus created a new list... and so on. If there's a way to make a list quickly with a site and a little bit of traffic - I'd like to see it. It just doesn't happen... and therefore the list guys get richer from your $47 or $97 or $997, and you can't figure out how to make it work. Will they let you advertise to their list? Keep dreaming.

So, here's a little experiment that you can surely do, using a website, Google AdSense, some nice content, and some elbow grease... work. If this doesn't work, you're not putting in the work.

I don't expect to see life out of this for at least six months - but maybe we'll get lucky. In any event, this is how it's done and what has been making many a good living for a long time.

I suggest you subscribe and grab a coffee or tea and read up. My next posts will keep you linked on how you can really make money with AdSense.

Let's get started.

Search Engine Fun and Facts

When I started using FidoNet for messaging back in the late 70's and early 80's, I was surprised how easy people forgot their niceness and were ofttimes brutal. Haven't you found that? Especially in forums! Woah, people can be downright mean.

If that happens to you, where damaging data is posted somewhere about you, there are things you can do. I recommend first asking the webmaster to remove the negative comment. Remember to not fall in the same trap and get all negative about the offending person. Explain the issue and many webmasters will oblige.

Find pages that talk well about you or your business and link to those from your website. This will give them strength and make them rise higher in the search rankings. Don't forget links from the social network sites.

Hop over to AboutUs.org and create an article about your site. If you're big enough, you can create an entry in Wikipedia, like I did for World Wide Mart. Wikis get listed when someone searches for that name. Make sure you don't spam the Wikis. WWM is a good example of a nice entry.

I'm often asked for testimonials on products that are used for business on the Internet. Feedback is one of the strongest supports for your product or website. If you get good feedback, tell the world about it. Use ConsumerReview.com, Epinions.com, or similar sites.

It's important to keep your website first in the search rankings. One of the best ways is to use smart linking which I talk about in great detail on this blog.

Let me know if you have any questions and we'll chat more soon.

SEO Tips - Found in Search Engines

My eyes are glazed over from all the "SEO advice" sent to me and lodged in the nooks and crannies of the web. Take a look - over 9 million entries just in Google. Enough to make your head spin?

I was fortunate enough to hear Mike Murray of FathomSEO talk about his top SEO tips, and since I haven't discussed this in a while, I thought I'd go over what I feel are some of the best. Mike had a list of 8 tips, but I'll make this an even 10, incorporating his with mine.

Before you get into this too much further, let me tell you a couple of things. First, SEO is hard work. It entails a lot of coding, time, and testing. But, the work can payoff... just don't give up, as many do, before payday. And, secondly, don't take my word for it - or someone else, either. Get the general consensus; the collective wisdom of SEO and use that. (That's what I do, so maybe you can follow what I say, he he).

1. Have keywords in the domain name. This is one that no only works with ranking, but also plays highly with the algorithm AdSense uses to put ads on your page. No, don't forget context/content - but domain name scores higher.
2. The age of the website. Forget the age of the domain name. It's rather, how long have you had that content up and available on the web? How many quality inbound links do you have? How often do you update your website? I covered how valuable old domain names are - and how you can bypass months of hard work by mining expired domains.
3. Quality of inbound links. This speaks for itself, but ranks higher than content and Page Rank. My rule of thumb is try to secure links of a PR higher than yours. Make sure that page (link) has no more than 15 outbound links. And above all, make sure it comes from a site on the same topic as yours.
4. Consistency of source code. If it's just you, you probably don't have to worry because you code all your pages the same. However, if a team works on a site, make sure everyone codes the same - i.e. same URL format, alt text, simplicity - this is so the bots can crawl your site without problem. Inconsistency is a red flag.
5. The amount of content on your page. There are dozens of opinions on this, but most gurus agree on 350 words. Again, know that because of your high quality inbound links, you can rank right up there in the top for a page with little content.
6. Work on your home page. If you have little time to work on your website, make it all work on your home page - it's the most powerful page of your site.
7. Change up your text. Murray says this is useful because you can miss keywords by not carrying another iteration of them, like plurals, etc. Change it up a bit and track your results.
8. Study page cache trends. Okay, this is a good one because many don't do this. In Google, you can easily see the Cache of the website which is what Google saw on that date. It's cool to click on the text version of the cache to see what the bot picked up. You want frequent caches. If your caches are not frequent it is because the search engine doesn't know your page is there, or because each visit nothing has changed. Pretty soon the visits die down to once a week, once a month.
9. Title tags. Try different things, keywords. You can get away with saying: Great SEO Tips from a SEO Master. There we used "SEO" twice. Is that title tag stuffing? No. But stay away from something like: Great SEO Tips - SEO Tips - SEO TIPS for you. That's stuffing. I know it's November, but remember - don't raise a red flag or you'll get your turkey cooked.
10. META tag "Description" formula. Here's my advice, and Murray agrees; Use your keywords, company name, and then why you are different from and better than the competition.

I've followed these rules and found you can get even a Blogger blog ranking high, with a PR of 5 or more, and cached every three days or so. As I look through the logs it's amazing to see where traffic comes from.

For instance, on my post about Sam's Club Christmas Catalog, I noticed a click from Sam's Club home office on the very day of my post, November 3!

Another experiment I did, early on, was to put the words How to Raise a Parakeet in H3 tags and held a spot on page 2 of Google's SERPs until after a few updates concluded there was no info about parakeets on the page. But try the same entry with quotes, "How to Raise a Parakeet", and we're #1 in Google. Of course, nobody searches that way.

Work on these 10 and let me know if you have any questions! Let's get your pages noticed.