Archive for September, 2007
lurksteraz on September 17th, 2007
Wow, apparently Blog Rush is the new thing.
Here is a blurb from the ‘About Us’ section of the site:
“BlogRush is a free service that was created to help bloggers solve their #1 need:
More Readers For Their Blog.
By adding the BlogRush Widget to a blog, a blogger can get instant distribution for their latest blog post titles across a network of related blogs.
BlogRush users earn “syndication credits” (the right to have their blog post titles shown inside a widget on another related blog) based on their own traffic (loads of the widget) as well as the traffic of other users they refer to BlogRush. Users can automatically refer others to BlogRush via special links on the widget, as well as through the promotion of a special referral URL they are given.
BlogRush is a “Cooperative Syndication Network” that rewards its users for their contributions to the network — from the impressions they provide of the BlogRush Widget to the referral of other users through 10 ‘generations’ of activity and the impressions of the widget that they provide. BlogRush was designed to be incredibly viral and to provide its users with tremendous distribution leverage to receive exposure for their blog content (onto related content blogs) that they could never achieve on their own; at least without a massive advertising budget.
BlogRush is the brainchild of Internet entrepreneur, John Reese. Mr. Reese is the founder and CEO of Income.com, a soon to be launched social network and media company for entrepreneurs. BlogRush is the first Web property of the Income.com Network, a network of sites and services to help entrepreneurs and business owners succeed. Income.com is based in Orlando, Florida.”
lurksteraz on September 16th, 2007
I’ve decided to write a little post about keyword research tools that I’ve used. I ran into a couple people that thought they were gods gift to the SEO world and everything they talked about were solid gold and they would never be wrong. When we talked about researching keywords, they were only using one tools, Yahoo Keyword Selector Tool. Well, I didn’t have the heart to tell them as this gave me an edge, but if you didn’t know, Yahoo hasn’t supported this tool in a long time. I think it’s been since January for an update. So this makes the counts a little skewed as well as seasonality being reflected.
These guys also tried to convince me that the counts were for natural search only. I had to laugh and walk away for a second. YST uses paid numbers and inflated a little to get people to buy more keywords for PPC. Although the numbers are a good reflection of a particular market, they shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Next we had talked about the Trellian keyword tool. If you have ever used this tool, it’s pretty good but limited. Anyways, these guys were trash talking the service to no ends. From the search counts being not accurate to they charge too much yet they still used it. Personally, I like this service, but everyone has their opinions. This service gathers their keywords from ISPs. One important element though is the search counts are from about 2 million users. So, do the math on 2 million users compared to however many internet users…. I think I forgot to tell these about this factor…ooops!
Now I didn’t really try to argue or attempt to correct these guys, only for the fact that they thought they were the hottest shit since sliced bread and offered no real knowledge and were just negative. These kind of people drive me nuts. I may not be the best SEO blue ribbon winner of the universe, but damn, common sense has to play a role sometime.
lurksteraz on September 11th, 2007
Well, the wife and I decided to take a trip from Arizona to Bend Oregon to scope out real estate. I’ve never been to Oregon, so if you ever get a chance, I would highly suggest going their.
So we flew into Portland and checked a few areas around the airport. Then we drove over the bridge to Vancouver, WA. Very nice place with alot of older homes. We then drove down to Salem to check out homes in the surrounding areas. They weren’t bad, but not quite what we were looking for. We found ourselves heading over to Bend, and all I have to say is Wow! We stayed there for 3 nights and we both love it. You can’t beat lots of trees, great weather, and all of the outdoor activities that are available.
So now my wife is hard at work trying to scrounge up some real estate. I guess this means I’ll have to either telecommute from my current job, find a new agency in the area OR work for myself. I’m loving the idea of working for myself but freaked out about the unknown. I’m kind of a creature of habit of wanting to have a secure job, medical insurance for the family and so on. I’m in huge debate with myself on what to do. Knowing I can probably take some contract jobs for quick cash is OK with me, but there is still that unknowing factor of not being able to pay bills.
My goal now is to save every penny I make from affiliate marketing, stash into some high yielding bank bank(ING) and save as much as I can to make this move. How could I pass up the chance to live someplace where I could hike, camp, canoe, mountain bike etc in the spring and summer and snowboard in the winter with a quick 40 minute drive? This is like a dream playground for anyone into outdoor activities. A little harder to do when it’s 115 degrees outside. Just to give you an idea of Arizona; this year broke the record of something like 35 days straight OVER 110 degrees. DAMN HOT!!
I’ll be sure to post progress on our dream move, but probably won’t happen for another 7-12 months or so.
lurksteraz on September 6th, 2007
So, since my background and profession is in Natural Search Marketing. I thought I would share some of the problems I see when people are “SEOing’ their websites and offer some suggestions on what has worked for me on my websites (not this blog).
1. Targeting 40 keywords for one web page: This is just stupid. For one, your keyword density is going to be all out of whack. Second, hos are you going to fit all of these keywords on one page? My tip: Target anywhere from 3 - 5 keywords per page. This allows you focus on one main keyword and find derivatives of the same term while keeping in mind they are terms people are actually searching for. Remember, you won’t get traffic from terms nobody is looking for.
2. Placing all of your keywords above the sites’ main body: Ugh! don’t you hate it when you visit a site that has a ton of keywords all stacked on top of the main page body. Normally these are in Bold and separated by hyphens. My Tip: actually try to work these keywords into the body copy and also into header tags. There is some importance to these.
3. Tiny little text at the bottom of pages and same color as background: Oh Brother! Although this isn’t as intrusive as the keywords above the body, but this is also annoying. When you visit a site and the page you’re on looks like it’s a million miles long and when you scroll down and there appears to be nothing there. CTRL+A reveals alot!
Well, these are just a few of the annoyances I see on some sites and I’ll post more later. Feel free to comment on some of the stupid things you’ve seen.
lurksteraz on September 6th, 2007
Thought I’d share this with you. Derek B has hit another home run with one his posts about Building An Authority Affiliate Site .
I do have to say one thing though. I’ve been reading alot of blogs about affiliate marketing there is alot of crap out there. I think DB’s site is one of the most informative I’ve read and will continue to read. I’ve noticed that there are blogs out there that all they mention is how good they do with affiliate marketing and how they have every toy known to man, yet offer nothing really informative. “I went here, I bought this” kind of posts are inspiring, but at the same time offer no substance for truly learning the craft of affiliate marketing.
Anyways, that’s my rant for the moment.
