My friend Eric Holmlund will be releasing a brand new PLR (private label rights) product on 25th March. I always like the products Eric offers as well as the launches he does. This time, for “Real Guys Real Money”, he’s teamed up with Paul Counts and Jeff Wellman to offer a stellar product which you can learn from and resell as your own.
I’ll be doing a full Real Guys Real Money review at my new website, including the product and the launch sequence itself. If you want to follow along, please visit the site, subscribe to the blog and enjoy the ride! I may even offer a bonus for Real Guys Real Money!
With the release of the Fast Traffic Blueprint, I explained the technical requirements of success in a step-by-step blueprint for getting free traffic based on a personal 12-month case study.
When you think about Internet success strategies more deeply, it’s easy to see that what’s required to get tons of free traffic, leads and sales can be summed up in a simple phrase… “niche leadership“.
What Is Niche Leadership?
Niche leadership means staying up-to-date with events in a niche, sorting the “wheat from the chaff” and informing your readership about any important new information. A leader aggregates news within a niche and sifts it to find the valuable information, then adds their own thoughts, usually cross-referencing information from other sources and stories.
In this age of inter-connectedness it also means offering that information in whatever format your reachership chooses to receive it, from videos on Youtube, tweets on Twitter, updates on Facebook, blog posts for people who visit your blog or subscribe to your RSS feed, podcasts for people who like to download and listen to a commentary, email mailouts to subscribers and so on.
Bye Bye Content Farms
It’s no longer enough to just be publishing on auto-pilot using either duplicate content from article directories, regurgitated press releases or “spun” content injected into your blog. Those types of blogs offer nothing useful to the reader and are of no value. Google recently slapped “content farms” for just that reason. It’s also no longer enough to just be offering content one way. People can consume your content in a myriad of ways, so you need to be there for them, on whichever device they choose.
Why Be A Niche Leader?
When you accept the mantle of a niche leader, you start acting in a way that leads to natural links, natural search engine rankings, natural “follows”, “optins”, “retweets” and “likes”. You naturally build that elusive quality that Google calls “authority” as well as leverage “freshness” and “trust”. The biggest benefit, for a business, is that people BUY from people whose recommendations they trust.
Yes, it’s hard work being a niche leader, but that’s where the bar is set nowadays. As “old school” SEO merges with “Web 2.0″ social interactivity, the winners are the people extracting the signal from the noise, adding pertinent commentary and rebroadcasting it for others because they’re the ones adding value.
What do you think? Add a comment below. I’ll leave comments open for a short time.
After only 24 hours, here are some of the comments about our new product, Fast Traffic Blueprint…
“Fast Traffic Blueprint is one of those rare products that I think all serious Internet marketers should own.” Martin Avis
“…The material is excellent and very well priced.” James Schramko
“I highly recommend getting a copy today” Jeremy Gislason
“This (without doubt) is the single, most valuable, documented traffic “success” story I have ever witnessed.” Chris Freville
“I was lucky to grab a copy in pre-launch some weeks ago. Read it in one sitting. Put the lessons to work. And my blog has benefited from the traffic surge.” Dr Mani
“Neil… is one of the few guys out there that really gets it and is worth paying attention to!” Mike Liebner
Ezinearticles just published information at their blog in an apparently knee-jerk reaction to Google’s recent algorithm change… they’re going to add nofollow to all article links, even the bio-box!
Let’s back up a little. EzineArticles (EZA) are one of the oldest article directories. Authors favour EZA submissions as they are quickly spidered, indexed and a good source of traffic and backlinks.
Recently Google announced a slap for “content farms” which they say only “noticably” impacts 11.8% of their USA search results, yet traffic to EZA dropped like a rock (“Last month, we served 57 million unique visitors. Next month, that number may be in half.”). OUCH
Within TWO DAYS of the google announcement, Chris Knight, CEO of EZA announced a plan of action which, unsurprisingly, includes rejecting a higher percentage of articles, considering raising the minimum word count of articles, targetting “advertorials” etc. But the two interesting changes, to my mind, are…
“…evaluating ways to reduce the number of ads per page to improve the perceived user experience“.
Yes, that’d made sense because there’s nothing like five different Adsense blocks and extra, unidentified, “sponsored results” blocks to make a page look spammy!
“The rel=”NOFOLLOW” attribute will be added to all links on all articles very soon.”
What a peach! Did someone at Google lean heavily on EZA? Surely two days isn’t enough time to evaluate potential changes to your system unless you already know the change that need to be made.
In reply to people querying the reason for adding “nofollow”, Chris said…
“My gut feeling is that those links have carried no real value in at least 2-3 years now. I have no data to back it up. I do however know of plenty of competitor websites that have implemented nofollow already.”
Hmm. No data to back it up, yet his “gut feeling” is that the links have been worthless for years? OK. That wouldn’t be a cover for being leaned on to implement “nofollow”, would it, Chris? The fact that other directories have implemented “nofollow” does NOT mean that webmasters don’t like dofollow links, it means that either they were also leaned on, or they saw the writing on the wall and used nofollow to avoid getting Google slapped!
I would hazard a guess that Google probably suggested using “nofollow” way back in time, only for EZA to say that editorial checking of articles would be enough to keep out low quality content. But now Google have laid down the law, and EZA is going to comply. Sorry, chaps, no linkjuice here anymore.
As the linkjuice from EZA dies, the <strike>article marketers</strike> “content farms” lose juice and their Google rankings tumble, which was always the name of the game for Google.
Here’s what EZA said about nofollow when it was rolled out in 2005…
“We’re strongly considering using this new attribute…not only for the EzineArticles BLOG, but for the BODY of the articles within our site.
We will not use this technology for the RESOURCE BOX (as that is considered payment to the author for sending us their content), but we are strongly considering adding the rel=”nofollow” tag to ALL URLs within the BODY of any article.”
Times change, eh? So much for “payment” for the authors.
(note: links to EZA have been nofollowed on principle)
Next week we’re going to start offering our “Fast Traffic Blueprint” ebook, where we go through our case study of starting a blog from scratch and getting over 100,000 free visitors in the first year with just 100 blog posts!
Oh, and this was to a UK-specific blog in a technology sub niche… not exactly a global market like, err, “Internet marketing”!
If you’d like to see proof of the blog traffic, I’ve got a “Proof Report” and “Proof Video” waiting for you at the Fast Traffic Blueprint page.
If people have to block content spam manually, that means Google can’t (yet) do it algorithmically. Of course, the “blocked sites” data is sent from Chrome back to Google so they can, hopefully, find a way to tweak their algo to automatically stop content farms from spamming their search results.
As article spinning gets more and more subtle, the line between genuine content and content farms is becoming more and more blurred. How Google can hope to do more to distinguish between the two types of “content”, even with user-input, is hard to see.
When you take into account LSI, content length, site quality, PageRank, domain age, authority, trust, keyword density, original v duplicate content, bounce rates, internal link patterns and all the other variables that Google measures yet they write on their blog, “people are asking for even stronger action on content farms and sites that consist primarily of spammy or low-quality content“, I don’t see what more they can do.
We tried to get this domain when it dropped about ten years ago, but failed. Now, after some persistent inquiries over the years, we’re happy to announce that we’ve bought the domain…
We’ve been helping people achieve their Internet Success goals since we started selling our first ebook back in 1997.
Technically, I don’t think anyone called them ebooks at the time, I know I didn’t! Fifteen years later we have a domain name that reflects what we’ve been doing the whole time and will continue to do… help you achieve Internet Success.
We’ve got a celebratory sale running for 72 hours at the new website, so take a look if you’d like some of our bestselling products at pennies on the dollar and a personal email consultation.
Submitting your site to Best of the Web (BOTW) is a fast and easy way for you to increase visibility with major search engines as well as generate targeted traffic and leads. Take advantage of the 20% discount and get listed in a relevant category within the internet’s oldest directory!
The BOTW Blog Directory applies the same editorial rigor used for our original directory, creating the Internet’s most authoritative directory of quality blogs. If you have a blog and need it to pop, submit it today for only $119!
Discount offer and Promo Code “FEB20” is valid through February 2011 and only applicable to the BOTW Directory (botw.org), BOTW Blog Directory (blogs.botw.org) and BOTW UK Directory (botw.org.uk).
As you may know, at this blog we like keeping you up to date with the latest BOTW coupons because we think that Best of the Web are one of the few directories where getting a listing provides a genuinely useful link. To help you save a few pounds/dollars when signing up we’ve been reporting new BOTW coupon codes since 2008.
Request your BOTW listing in Feb 2011 using the code FEB20 for a 20% discount.
I was just asked the question, “What Does It Take To Succeed Online”? Assuming the meaning of the question is to build a long-term profitable business, here’s what I think…
To be successful online takes many personal attributes, some of them are rarer than people expect, which is why true success online is difficult to achieve.
Let’s look at some of the personal attributes…
Determination. Who can succeed long-term without this? Starting and giving up multiple times is practically endemic with wanna-be entrepreneurs and with society at large as we desire “instant gratification” ALL the time! Who wants to persevere over many hard months to build something profitable and sustainable? Not many people, which is why most wanna-be entrepreneurs will fall at this first hurdle.
Personal communication skills. Yes, even sat behind your computer, you’ll need well-honed communication skills to interact with people via email, twitter, video messages, facebook updates etc. You still need to know how to communicate with a variety of people, from customers and prospects to coders, project managers, outsourcers, web hosts techs etc etc. If you’re abrasive, aggressive or incoherent, you probably won’t get very far on the journey to success. On the other hand, being polite, helpful and friendly will open many doors.
Technical skills. OK, you may not have to learn PHP or how to reboot your apache web server, but if you’re a technophobe who can’t FTP and is scared to learn how, this isn’t the business for you, unless you’re great at outsourcing (see personal communication skills). Having a web-based business means rolling up your digital sleeves once in a while and learning how to install WordPress or claim a domain name. In fact, whisper it, but I expect that most people with long-term successful digital businesses like doing the tech stuff once in a while!
Product creation skills. Yes, you can make money via Adsense. Yes, you can make money as an Amazon affiliate. BUT, you control more variables when you have your own products, your own affiliates and your own customer list. If you’re making money solely as an affiliate of a real-world company and profits for them are falling, don’t be surprised when they axe their affiliate program or start their own websites to compete directly with their own affiliates. And the worst bit? If you’re their affiliate, they KNOW your websites and can find out which keywords you’re ranking for and quickly create pages to out-rank you. So, for long-term online success, sell your own products wherever possible.
Resilience. Over the long term you’ll face many challenges. Being able to get up, dust yourself down and start again is part of becoming successful.
Patience. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Google doesn’t care about your new site and will happily sandbox it for several months if you build too many links too soon. Your opt-in list will grow slowly at first. Your web-traffic will grow from a trickle to a stream to a flood. Growth over time is the name of the game, and is one key to being successful online.
Ethics. If what you’re doing to make money doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t going to be successful long-term even if it’s technically not illegal. Many marketer’s online and offline stray over the ethical line to sell more widgets short-term. I suggest you don’t. If you’re making money while helping people, you’re more likely to continue to be successful over many years.
Leadership. If you’re helping people by distilling knowledge, offering superior services, recommending useful resources, you’re being a leader. People trust, respect and buy from leaders, not clones or mimics. Be a leader and your business is almost guaranteed to succeed.
Have you noticed a drop in Google organic SEO traffic for any “local” search phrases, for example, “holiday cottage cornwall”?
Most likely, if you run any sites that got traffic from “local” search, you have.
It’s been a while since Google rolled out their new “Google Places” listings based on Google Maps locations in the search engine results (it was tested in Aug 2010 and rolled out in Oct 2010). At the time it caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth for anyone doing SEO on the 20% of daily searches that Google says have a “local component” because the Google Places listings jumped in ahead of the organic seo results accompanied by a huge map with pinpoints for local businesses that Google thought you may be interest in visiting, meaning a number one Google organic listing suddenly fell to roughly position five or six.
Now Google has rolled out an even more aggressive version of Google Places (see above image, click to enlarge) which positions the map ahead of the Adwords ads on the right-hand side of the page and fills almost the whole of the left side of the page with what looks like organic results but are actually enlarged listings from Places, meaning the first organic result fall “beneath the fold”.
Why are Google doing this? For a number of reasons…
First, by showing actual, verified local businesses in response to “local” searches, Google thinks it’s giving the user a better experience.
Second, the organic results which are unverified and potentially SEO’d to high rankings are pushed out and therefore the Google user avoids a potentially negative experience from a visiting an organic result.
Third, Google also sees this move as its way to compete with social media such as Facebook Pages and the new “hotpot” will take this one step further by allowing you to add friends, rate the local businesses and get their recommendations, all on your mobile phone (available as an app on the iphone and, of course, Google owns Android)
Fourth, after businesses have claimed their local listing, Google offers them the opportunity to add photos, videos, coupons, menus to their listings using their “tags” service from which Google makes money. Google is also testing the ability to automatically set up Adwords ads for the local businesses using Google Boost based on the information it has about them which would be another money spinner.
SEO Changes For “Branded Phrases”
Nike Brand Results
We see a similar “crowding out” effect when searching Google for company names, or closely related searches… the top three or four results will all be from the same website.
See the search results for “Nike”, left. On the first page of results, different pages from Nike.com command the first four places.
Google is effectively suppressing most of its search index in favour of the one website deemed “official” when your search relates to a company name, brand or slogan.
SEO Changes For “Shopping Phrases”
Shopping Results
Finally, there are the “shopping results” when you search for product names, which are fairly unobtrusive at the moment, but will they grow into another way to crowd out organic results? My guess is yes.
Google Checkout
Currently uploading to Google Base is free, but the whole trend at Google seems to be moving toward verification with charges for enhanced listings. Of course, one existing way to enhance your listing in Google Product Search or on Adwords ads is to use Google Checkout.
What These SEO Changes Mean For You
Here’s fair warning to anyone aiming for top Google organic rankings… beware of Google’s trend towards serving results from established, “verified” businesses to “crowd out” any results from new and unverified websites. In one area after another Google is showing that it wants verified, genuine businesses to be listed in preference to unverified websites. We see it from the local, shopping and brand name results down to requiring privacy policies for Adsense websites. It’s only going to expand, so take a hard look at your web-presence and see what you can do to project a corporate image.
My friend Eric Holmlund will be releasing a brand new PLR (private label rights) product on 25th March. I always like the products Eric offers as well as the launches he does. This time, for “Real Guys Real Money”, he’s teamed up with Paul Counts and Jeff Wellman to offer a stellar product which you can learn from and resell as your own.
