Read about it in his own words: Scolbe Goes Dark…My friend Phil wrote a great post about Scoble.

I’m curious and wanted to do an informal poll. Have you ever been asked to change the link text for a link on your blog? What were your thoughts? Did you do it?

My guess is that bloggers generally won’t change the link text unless they know and/or like you. Even then they might not.

A google search for the terms “Computers Internet Blog” sent the Newspapergirl blog 41,454 hits the past week.

I blogged about a company named Drop Ship Access and noticed I now have a #3 rank for that term in Google. I must give them props for making their company name have a relevant search term in the title. That means just by linking to their URL they get a link with their keywords.

It reminds me that I need to cancel my free trial before I get charged. It also reminds me that when you’re a new ecommerce site, especially if you’re marketing budget is small, it’s a good strategy to buy a domain name that has something to do with what you’re selling. For example if I link to www.dropshipaccess.com the company has a link with the word drop ship in it without even trying.

Yesterday I sat and listened to something that has my stomach turning even today and I’m not sick (my son is – he has the flu so he has a real reason to throw up). I felt like it was right out of Dilbert.

Normally I don’t have an ethical problem with being a marketer. Why? because value is exchanged. Other times I do have a problem with marketing. Like when you feel like the person talking would sell their own soul (and yours) for money. Businesses are in business because they have cashflow, so it’s not evil to want that.

My disgust started with reading a blog post about how a Chinese toy manufacturer hung himself after Fisher-Price recalled its products. They had too much lead. At least 75% of our toys come from China and this is a persistent problem. His close friend and supplier sold him tainted paint. It talked also about how people are dying or getting sick because of the chemicals being put into products imported to the US. Poisoning children – that is disgusting.

Quote from the Unusual Business Ideas that Work Blog which talked about the things we’d do for money. It’s called, ” 42 Money Facts That Will Rock Your World.”:

For $10,000,000 most of us would do almost ANYTHING! Including abandoning our family and friends and our church. A very high percentage of us would, for that same amount of money, change our race or sex. And, 1 in every 14, would even murder someone for ten million bucks.

What’s really strange about this is, the statistics remain the same whether it’s ten million dollars all the way down to three million. For three million bucks, most of us would do the same horrible things we would do for ten million. But, guess what? Few of us would do these things for a “measly” two million.”

Guy to group yesterday: I’m always on the lookout to make more money off people. My job is to max people out completely (I wish I had the exact quote he said with a completely straight face).

Something else happened the same day same place that is still on my mind that I find deplorable. Not on the level of poisoning children. Just your regular kind of corporation speak but worse than usual. Sometimes people get very mixed up on what might be motivating or good for morale. And some don’t care about morale at all. Mine hit an all-time low being in that room hearing this. I should’ve stood up and walked out.

A business professor from the University of Michigan (the university that publishes the American Customer Satisfaction Index) named Claes Fornell – says when customer satisfaction falls, so do profits. I’m sure that employee satisfaction is also a factor in profits. It’s good business to treat customers and employees well. If you don’t invest in them, they won’t invest in you. The less trust there is between people the more expensive it is to do business.

I believe that we will answer to God how we treat people around us and how we view them. Money is money. It’s printed paper. What matters is the contribution we make to each other, not how much money we can amass. And that’s coming from me – someone who enjoys business and making money – a lot.

My brother was featured in his local newspaper for the company he started to sell discount fitness equipment. I noticed how many blogs and other sources picked up the story – and the article was just published a few days ago. That made me think that news for search engine rankings isn’t just about press releases. A lot of sites aggregate the news.

Jared called me to ask about blogging recently. This is a first. As far as I know I’m the only blogger in my family. Jared quit his job as a programmer earlier this year to sell bargain fitness equipment (this links to his site). He tells customers, now you have a way to exercise, the next step is to eat right. He joined an MLM (another first) that sells Isagenix that helps with weight loss. Talk about an upsell. I’m proud of him for his hard work. The idea started when he fixed a broken treadmill for his wife to exercise on. Jared has always been able to fix just about anything.

This is the second family member to jump into entrepreneurship full time. My brother-in-law invented and sells a ski timing system used all over the world. It’s used by the US Ski Team. I remember many years ago when they were (almost) starving. I’ve always been inspired by what he’s built and how successful it’s been. My family seems to have a few lifestyle entrepreneurs.

I visited Warmzone last week – another inspiring entrepreneur. Tracy founded the company which was profitable from day 1. I was inspired by what he’s built and the very cool products for radiant floor heating. He showed me the heated bidet – and I found it a little funny to be hanging out in the women’s restroom! I asked if employees ever come out or if they are gone for a long time. The toilet lights up in the dark and had a lot of controls. This business started out with dropshipping relationships.

Internet Marketing Tip 1: If you have an online store, try to get written about in your small town newspaper. It can do a lot for your search engine rankings. Even though you may not get a link with your keyword, still ask the writer to include a keyword phrase you want to rank for.

Internet Marketing Tip 2: Think of ways to offer a complimentary product or service to your customers (affiliate marketing).

Bonus Tip: If you want me to write about your company in my blog, be sure to show me your most unique product!

It wasn’t that long ago when if you said you wanted to be a writer people probably saw you as a dreamer. Or, someone who begged to be poor. I always wanted to be a reported – until I saw how little you got paid and the kind of hours you’d have to put in. I knew one who almost missed most of his children’s births because he had to get a story.

Now there is the internet! Search engines love original unique information. With Adsense and other ways of getting paid for content, writing is becoming a real viable career for more people. People can blog a few hours a day and make enough to quit their day jobs. The news is full of bloggers who are calling for a union.

About a year ago I said I wanted to blog for a living. And now I blog so much I don’t know if I’ll ever need to leave my house again. Not that I want to stay in my house all day. But blog posts can be scheduled ahead. Most blogging isn’t time sensitive. And blogging can pay well. I think it’s only going to get bigger. Combine writing with some technical skills and SEO knowledge and you’ll be employed as much as you want to be.

If you’re a writer, start blogging today. It will improve your writing and give you exposure if you learn how to build community online. If you’re already blogging and want to make money, please fill out my contact form. Tell me what you blog about and provide a link to your blog along with some of your interests.

My favorite writer who makes her living is blogger Penelope Trunk. I sometimes wonder if she is writing fiction or what she says is real. Her life sounds fantastic – as if imaginary. You have to read this post that made me rethink my life. The bed bugs part is hilarious. I think it could be a children’s book.

I wrote a blog post about building trust online. Trust makes business work. People do business with people they trust. Please read the post and leave comments here or on the post itself. Let me know how you build trust on your web site or online store.

Thanks Paul Wilson for this link so you can make any page of your site accept comments. That means you can add user-generated content. People often trust other consumers more than they trust a company.

I had lunch today with my friend Henry at http://www.ishowstogo.com – they sell movie downloads for LDS movies like the Singles Ward.

If you type in “LDS movies” in Google you’ll see about 4 ads (Google Adwords) on the right hand side. I bet that these are cheap – maybe 10-25 cents a click. One ad on “the Singles Ward.”

As I demonstrated a blog post ago (or so) I can rank on more specific keywords like Utah affiliate marketer (or woman affiliate marketer) much easier than I could on affiliate marketer. Same with your ads.

Jeremy Palmer has some great videos on doing pay-per-click advertising. Make sure to look at what ads are coming in at the top of the list when you do a Google search. The top ads are in the yellow shaded box. You must not only bid competitively but your ad must get clicked on to make it into that position. These are the best written ads. Study them. Get ideas from a related industry and apply it to yours.

Get a massive keyword list for every possible niche, including local name (state, city, area). Get misspellings and even URLs for related companies (some people can’t tell the difference between an address bar and a search bar so they type a URL into Google). Try putting spaces in or removing spaces, dashes, or abbreviations.

When you have a niche that is very specific you can basically buy traffic using Google Adwords. Someone types in something and your ad shows up. You pay when someone clicks on the ad and you can get very targeted traffic to your site.

Please digg this article for Henry. He’s just getting into social networking. If he were writing this he’d put a keyword in the title of this blog post. But I’m talking about his site from an internet marketing point-of-view.

I’m getting a kick out of this search engine ranking tool on Shoemoney’s blog. It’s addicting. You type in a keyword phrase and your URL. It tells you where you rank in some search engines.

This is where I rank for the term: Utah Bloggers:

Google 11
MSN Search 9
Yahoo! 0
AltaVista 48

Fun facts: I’m #15 for Utah internet marketing – almost the front page. I rank higher for newspapergrl than my actual name Janet Meiners.

More Google rankings:
#87 on affiliate marketing. #2 for Utah affiliate marketing. Looks like through my blog, without actually doing it on purpose, I’ve branded myself as a Utah expert in these areas. I’ve lost a lot of ground on “Jeremy Palmer” but rank fairly well for “super affiliate Jeremy Palmer.”

What could you brand yourself as an expert in for your state? I need to change my title tags.

Today I was talking to my colleague and he said he had an ecommerce degree. He said something that triggered a memory. About 4 years ago I was one of the people who interviewed him to work at a paper company I worked at. The bosses wanted to hire him. I wanted to hire Paul Wilson. Now I’ve worked with both of them. And, in both cases it was the best choice for each person. Of course who knew at the time.

My boss never liked Paul (for some reason) and only hired him at my insistence. Sometimes I wish I knew where they were so I could send them a thank you note. We only worked together a few months and both quit for other opportunities. The company was sold and the office here closed. This is where I was introduced to internet marketing. It felt life-changing and it was. Paul and I kept in touch and now we’re business partners and having a great time. Serendipity.