Yesterday my business partner and I had lunch with Courtney Tuttle, a blogger and Internet marketer (www.courtneytuttle.com).Up until a few days ago I didn’t know he lived close so I contacted him and the next day we met him. Courtney is just as generous in real life as he is in his blog. He openly teaches what he’s learned as an internet marketer. He’s built a successful small business with several virtual employees.
I asked Court for a quick interview about our discussion. Sometimes I’m writing more than actually interacting, so I followed up after to get things in his own words. Keep reading to see what other topics we covered and for some excellent advice.
Please enjoy:
Q: What is the best way to make friends with other bloggers?
The best way I’ve found to make friends with bloggers Janet is by writing about them. This comes very easily to people that are unselfish and can be a huge asset. I’ve written quite a few posts that are about bloggers that I look up to and some of those posts have turned into very cool and rewarding friendships.
For an example on his blog see Top 7 Internet Marketers you Can Trust - which features Wendy Piersall and other well respected bloggers. This post is how he got to know most of them!
Q: What is the most rewarding part of blogging - to you?
Educating people on topics that they don’t understand. There is so much bad information out there it’s almost scary. I have always been honest with people about what internet marketing is and people appreciate that.
Q: What’s your favorite (most utilized) internet marketing tool?
Honestly, I’m not a big user of many tools. I do use Wordze [to find the most searched keywords] for most of my keyword research.
But I make the final decision on what keywords I want to target based on my own evaluation of the sites that rank well in Google for the keywords I’m researching. I guess I should say that my favorite ‘tool’ is testing. I have enough sites to test literally thousands of ideas and that is how I learned most of what I know.
Janet inserts - I haven’t tried Wordze.com but they really should optimize for the word Wordz - because they were nowhere on that search. Also, Court told me they have will show you what sites rank highest for the keywords you want to target and show backlinks. It also shows the rate at which they add new links. He also mentioned for less trafficked web sites, he uses StatCounter to get stats.
Q: What’s the best idea you’ve had for your business?
Getting help! Honestly I don’t know how I used to do everything on my own. I know have a group of people that help me with my day to day tasks, and that has really improved my quality of life. Increased time has helped me to think more clearly about what my business needs.
Q: How do you determine which keyword phrases to concentrate on?
Well there are a lot of different strategies that I use to select keyword phrases. For a niche blog, I choose keywords that have very little competition so that I can rank in Google very quickly. For a flagship blog, I choose the biggest and usually hardest keyword phrase in the industry because it will give me the most traffic once I get ranked in the top few sites.
Q: What’s your favorite linkbuilding strategy?
I actually don’t have a favorite because you have to have huge diversity to have success in your link building campaign. I would have to say that my most powerful link building strategy for CourtneyTuttle.com is the brand that I have created.
If you are really helping people to learn a business, they will show their gratitude and excitement by linking to you. If you aren’t giving them knowledge and skill that they can use, they probably won’t. They will start to believe in you and your brand if you can give them information that works and this will lead to praise and links. I would say that a pretty high percentage of my links are of this type.
Q: Has Internet marketing changed your life?
Well to be honest I have always approached internet marketing as pure business. I’m able to separate my life from that and other than having a nicer car than I used to, I don’t really think it has impacted my life at all. To me, business is business and life is life. I like to reserve my life time for friends and family and I try not to let my business get in the way of that.
Q: What technique for making money online consistently performs best for you?
Well I’m a web developer that likes to use a lot of diversity, but I would have to say that the content approach has always been the best model for me. My biggest skill is my SEO knowledge, and creating content sites works very well with that knowledge.
Q: How do you work for hours on end with absolutely no human interaction?
Well, to give anyone that reads this interview a little background, Janet and I had lunch yesterday and we figured out that in one area we are very different. Janet seems to really like interaction with people while she’s working. I prefer to work alone, as strange as that sounds.
To answer your question Janet, I’m just very different from most people in this area. I have a abnormally high amount of focus when I’m working on something, and distractions kill that focus for me. I can usually work two to four hours (sometimes up to 10 hours) without blinking. During some of these times that I have had huge moments of clarity that have helped my business to move forward.
To some people this trait is very strange Janet and I can understand why. Most people need constant interaction and I can understand that. As cold as this may sound, I simply don’t have that need. One thing that might to contribute to that trait while I’m working is my ability to turn off ‘work mode’.
I live with some good friends and we are always doing stuff at night. Last night, for example, there were about 15 people at my house to just hang out and watch the Jazz game.Tonight we’re having people over for game night - it’s looking like we’re going to have about 15 people again. We’re always hanging out with different people.
I don’t really feel like I have to have as much interaction during the day because I have more than enough at night. That means that during the day I can get more work done than I would be able to do otherwise and I can still be a good friend and have a social life. There are, of course, emergencies that can pull me out of work mode - taking care of family and friends has to come before anything else or you just can’t be happy.