My article on SEO for blogs was featured in the March/April 2008 issue of Engage Magazine. My friends Nash and Shahar started the magazine. They do a great job making internet marketing subjects simple for small business owners.
http://www.engagemag.net/archives/Engage-Mar08Web.pdf

This is a guest post by Paul Wilson, my business partner who recently sold his blog to buy a wedding ring. I spent a good year trying to get him to blog and now I miss his posts.

Paul said he’ll start a new blog but in the meantime I’ve asked him to write for mine (and if anyone else wants to do a guest post, please contact me).

I’ll preface this by saying I’m a fan of Shoemoney and I read his blog and have met him in real life twice. I always respect that he’s worked hard and overcome personal issues as they are determined to succeed. (According to him he’s been fired, he used to be fat, etc). Over time he’s built a business, gotten healthier, built a lot of respect, and he’s openly shared a lot of his journey in an authentic way.

Jeremy doesn’t actually say he hates ALL SEOs – he just doesn’t like most of them. I wrote about how Aaron Wall loves SEO a few posts back (he didn’t say how he feels about actual SEO experts).

——- BEGIN POST BY PAUL WILSON ABOUT SHOEMONEY AND SEOs ——–

Jeremy Shoemaker (shoemoney.com) recently did a post on why he hates SEO experts (SEOs = people who are experts in search engine optimization). I know that there has been a lot said on this, but I have to weigh in.

I could not but wonder if Jeremy has lost touch with reality when I read his comment:

“SEO’s are like the 21st century car salesmen. Most are slimy and have no clue what they are talking about. They tell you you just need to put spammy keywords in your title tag, keyword tag, and write a spammy as hell description meta tag.”

Now, I will agree with Jeremy that there are definitely hacks in the SEO industry. However, you are going to find hacks in every industry. There will always be people who don’t know what they are talking about, trying to convince others that they are the “gurus.”

My good friend Jason runs JibberJobber, a legitimate business in the employment industry. Just because I receive tons of spam about slimy business opportunities doesn’t mean what Jason does isn’t viable, if not necessary.

What makes Jeremy’s post even worse, is the influence he wields. By him stating that 95% of SEO experts are “slimy” states that the industry as a whole is worthless (which I believe it wouldn’t take much to get him to admit).

To drive my point home, I recently was twittering Newspapergrl about possibly creating a monthly Utah SEO organization. Here are the responses her and I got on Twitter:

Twitter A: @paulwilson … sounds interesting but I do think that 90% of SEO is snake oil. Maybe i’m misinformed?

Newspapergirl: @Twitter A – misinformed. SEO is messier to track but it’s totally legit. You could benefit – you need to expand the reach on your site.

Twitter B: @PaulWilson There’s no need for monthly SEO meetings. Everything honorable about SEO can be learned fast. Monthly meetings are just slime.

Me: @Twitter B: I seriously disagree. I have been doing SEO since 1999, and I still learn something new with every person that I meet in my industry.

Twitter B: @PaulWilson You have to get past the slime, though. The good people will avoid a monthly SEO meeting, so all you’ll be left with is slime.

Me: @Twitter B: If the meeting is for SEO experts and sponsored by corporations like Franklin Covey, 1-800-Contacts and other corporations. Just like RMAMA. I am pretty sure we would get past the slime.

@NewspaperGrl: I am surprised the overall impression people have of SEO

@NewspaperGrl: I guess that makes it easier to rank higher for us =)

Twitter B: @PaulWilson It is possible to increase your rank honestly. SEO has been synonymous with gaming the system. Don’t brag about it.

Me: @Twitter B: You are welcome to believe what you like.

Me: @Twitter B: I personally believe SEO & SEM is a viable solution.

Twitter B: @PaulWilson Writing good content is the only viable solution. Once you start writing for robots, they’ll be the only ones reading your site.

NewspaperGrl: @Twitter B – don’t you think you can write good content AND add keywords that people are searching for? It’s usually not either/or

If you read Jeremy’s post in its entirety you will see that Twitter B is espousing almost word for word what Jeremy wrote. It worries me to see such a powerful blogger wield his influence so carelessly. For me, I see Jeremy blogging in his ivory tower totally disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday web life.

So, all-mighty Shoemoney what is your advice to the rest of us lowly peons:

“Concentrate on building a quality service. One that people will actually WANT TO BOOKMARK and comeback to…Its like people don’t know you can goto a web site without going to a god-damn Search Engine. When you create a good, useful service/site people will actually want to come to your site without you spamming Google.”

This is not bad advice Jeremy offers, but with so much noise on the web word of mouth generally will carry a website only so far. To believe that SEO shouldn’t be a part of your quiver of arrows is either ignorance, or willful stupidity. Google’s own page on creating useful websites shows that good content should be coupled with keyword research:

“Provide high-quality content on your pages, especially your homepage. This is the single most important thing to do. If your pages contain useful information, their content will attract many visitors and entice webmasters to link to your site. In creating a helpful, information-rich site, write pages that clearly and accurately describe your topic. Think about the words users would type to find your pages and include those words on your site.“

It truly is sad to see those, like Jeremy, live in their lofty ivory towers and scoff at us who make our living doing SEO.

———– END POST BY PAUL WILSON ABOUT SHOEMONEY AND SEOs ————–

I recommend looking at this – straight from Google for a primer on SEO for your web site:
Google’s – Making the Most of Your Content: A Publisher’s Guide to the Web

Done well SEO helps people find what they’re looking for. Most of the SEOs I know provide a huge benefit and 5% are scum.

Aaron Wall of the SEO Book blog wrote a great rant about PPC vs. SEO. He talks about how PPC (paid per click advertising) is a continual race to the top – eroding profits and starting bidding wars. Who wins? Search engines. Remember that Google makes 99% of their $16 billion revenue on advertising.

Both methods have some barrier to entry, because they’re both technical and take a certain amount of skill. SEO (search engine optimization) on the other hand is more difficult to copy. SEO is sustainable.

You start a client on blogging or an SEO strategy and they get nervous about how much time and/or money it costs and they stop. If they continued they’d see that it’s a worthwhile investment. The links don’t disappear after your budget does. However, it’s not a straight line to profit like PPC can be. It takes a slower, less direct path.
SEO shows a work ethic and builds credibility. It separates the legit long-term businesses from the get-rich-quick schemers:

This is why I like SEO so much more than PPC. Most people are too lazy to spend years researching their topic, years building a brand, years building links, and years building social and customer relationships. We are afraid of failure, afraid of success, and afraid that we are investing too much in one place. But, if someone sees me ranking in the organic results they can’t just clone it unless they know SEO well, and are committed for the long haul. In many cases, knowing SEO well means having capital, time, passion, and a lot of marketing knowledge.

Then he wrote about how if you do well, it’s easy for someone (or your ad network) to steal or copy you. Aaron had this happen – someone stole his ad copy – and here’s his response:

SEO separates out real businesses from 95% of the people buying PPC ads. The guy stealing ad copy is too lazy to compete at that level. I’ll enjoy the logarithmic growth in profits (which have been at least doubling every year) while he keeps stealing table-scraps from Google and other affiliates until his accounts get banned.

This is why successful internet marketers who are the real deal start to give away their secrets. After they’ve built their business, they can afford to tell people how to do what they do. They know most people won’t have the skills or work ethic to get where they are. Some do, but it’s a small percentage.

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I’ve been writing a lot more SEO press releases again and so it’s on my mind. I want to go over the steps of writing an SEO press release.

1. Assemble the facts, news angle, and begin writing.
   To me, the best quality press releases involve actual interviewing, on the phone. There is so much more information you get by talking to someone. Sure, you can use email and that works, especially because you can’t misquote and you have a record. However, when you interview the right person, their passion for the subject can shine through and you can capture that essence in your writing. It also makes the story unique. But it takes longer.
2. Identify the keyword phrase or related phrase you want to optimize your press release for.
   This can be easy if you already know the phrase but most of the time you need to do keyword research to see the competition and demand for a keyword phrase. You may want to go for a niche keyword that you can rank for more quickly. If you choose something like “Internet marketing” then you’re up against at least 100k other web sites who want to rank for that. That’s a long-term investment.
3. Incorporate the keyword phrase into the press release.
   You need to make the keyword phrase an anchor, use it in the first sentence, title, and body of the press release. Don’t overdo it or it will look like spam. There are times I take an existing press release from a PR firm and add SEO. Otherwise you may want to start out with keyword phrase first rather than adding it later. I like my press releases to read well and the feel of them to come through first and then add keywords.
4. Submit the press release to a press release distribution service.
   This sounds easy, but this is almost as much work as writing the press release. Each press release service has different rules according to how much you pay.
   Links – Some won’t allow links, most regulate how many links your press release can have. Even the process of creating links is different for each service (and not always intuitive).
   Optimization in the code (you can’t see this because it’s just for search engines) – You might need a list of 20 related keywords and write a summary with keyword phrases. This is SEO that no one sees but is very important.
   Categorizing your press release – You may need to categorize your press release by subject and geographic areas.
   Social media optimization – You may be able to add tags or other aspects, like Digg, Delicious, etc.
   Attachments - If the service (like PRWeb) allows attachments, images, podcasts, etc, you need to identify and upload those.
   Timing- Most of the time you need to submit your release a day or more before you want it to go out. For the media, you want to make sure that’s not on a weekend.

I’ve crafted a great press release for search engines and for people. I know that my editorial score will be high so there will be upwards of 50k (conservatively) clicks. Then they change it so it sounds right to them (but messes up the search engine optimization piece). Sometimes legal, a few VPs, and directors have to buy off. That can seriously affect the success of your release (and takes much more time).

I’ve written press releases for newspapers and the media and we just faxed or emailed them to a list. Not much thought after writing except to target the release to the right people. Writing for search engines is much more technical and takes quite a bit more time.

Feel free to add information that I may have overlooked, or reference your posts about SEO press releases. Within the SEO industry we know a lot and none of this is news to you. However, I wanted to distinguish the difference between regular press releases and SEO optimized press releases.

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As I was catching up on my blog reader today, I did a double take on this revelation: Sam’s Club (or WalMart) offers Internet Marketing services. The company that offers the services is called Innuity. It’s not new but I’ve never heard of it until today. I spoke to them to find out more.

First, Sam’s Club members get a free web site. It will be yourbusinessname.samsbiz.com until you get your own domain. 5 pages, content only (no shopping cart). For $10 a month you can get a CMS template ecommerce site. For $900 they will design the site (you write the content).

If you want to run PPC advertising to your site, for a minimum of $50 per month for 6 months, they will set it up in 4 days. Google only unless you want to spend more ($200+). About 15% of this is administration fees and the rest is for your ad budget.
Otherwise there are SEO services of $500 per month for a minimum of 6 months. That includes an article a week and landing pages for your top keywords. Basically building links.

So does this mean Internet marketing has officially hit the mainstream? And who is doing the work? Are the services any good? Anyone tried it or have any insights?

Next thing you know they will offer business blogging and email marketing

Update: Innuity is quite saavy, despite the connotations of working with Sam’s Club. I got two emails from them the day I wrote this post (without so much as a trackback to alert them). They have 30,000 clients and focus on taking “enterprise” level internet solutions to the small business owner. Like most SEO companies, their target market – small business owners – often don’t know they need or can afford Internet marketing.

They have larger clients that include well-known companies like: Overstock, ADP, and Amazon.

My friend Boris at the SEO magazine Search Engine Standard let me interview him by email about how they got started. He is also offering newspapergrl readers a really good price ($4.95) on a subscription. So if you know any SEOs, this could make a great gift. It would be great reading for small businesses trying to understand how search marketing can help their business.

The idea for the magazine started because 5 years ago not many people knew about search engine marketing. That presented a problem because the company sold a product called AdWatcher (www.adwatcher.com), an ROI tracking and click fraud management tool. A little early in the game, they needed to inform people about search marketing so they started a web site and later published a book (Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing Handbook). The book sold about 5,000 copies during the first year or so – not bad, especially for a first book and self-published.

Later, Andrey Milyan, who is currently the editor-in-chief for Search Marketing Standard had the idea of a quarterly magazine about search engine marketing. Milyan was working as an in-house SEO at a Bridal magazine at the time. Now two years later they have a staff of 7 people and the magazine is going strong. Boris reached out to me several months ago and keeps me updated, which is another great way to publicize your product (find bloggers who write about the subject and reach out to them).
Boris set up a coupon code so you could subscribe to Search Marketing Standard, and get a 67% discount, which makes a 1 year U.S. subscription cost just $4.95 (International – $6.60). Use coupon code: 67PILGRIM (I asked him to make it available for Marketing Pilgrim writers too. If your company wants to offer a special discount for your product, please contact me, I think this is a great idea).

For every new subscriber until Dec. 10th who uses the coupon code, they’ll donate $1 to Toys for Tots.

You’ll hear more about this as the day approaches, but Paul Wilson and I are going to speak at the Utah New Media Conference this October. We’ll cover blogging basics – what blogging is and what it can do for your business. The conference is free.

Save the date: October the 18th from 1:00 – 3:00 at the Salt Lake Community College Miller Campus

www.utahnewmediaconference.com.

If you can’t wait to learn more about blogging (I’m probably hitting the wrong group) you don’t have to. Paul Wilson quit his job as a successful sales/marketing guru at Oracle last week and is now independent. He’s consulting with companies on their blogging strategy, and other SEO techniques. If you’d like to talk to him about your business, please fill out my contact form using the link above (you don’t have to live in Utah).

After you’ve built an online store or web site and optimized it for search engines, the next step is to build links to your site. This post goes over the top ways to build links to your web site:

1. Submit to directories using the correct category and keywords. This isn’t to get traffic to your site but to get your new site into search engines. If you wait for this it can take months.

2. Write articles and link them back to a relevant page on your site. Again, use your keyword phrases, not the URL as the link text. The point here is to create valuable information related to what your site is selling or about.

3. Write press releases and link back to your site or a page of your site. This is for news, not information.

4. Post on blogs and forums with links back to your site. Each forum has different rules and so read them. If you break the rules people are not merciful at all. Contribute something of value or you’ll be looked on as a spammer and your post will be deleted.

Read the whole article for more ideas, but these IMO are the best. You can buy links, but I’d just ask for a link first.

If you type in Mat seo in Google you’ll find my friend Mat Siltala’s home page. I thought I was all over the internet! I need to create a page on www.janetmeiners.com linking to my linkedin page, MySpace profile, Delicious bookmarks, Facebook page, et etc etc.

Mat is the smartest SEO expert that I know. I got to know him through his SEO blog. Frankly, I thought he doubled as a bouncer at rock concerts. But, no, he’s an SEO expert. I have good reason to kiss up, he’s going to be famous someday. He should be speaking at conferences.

MarketingSherpa gave some great tips on how to land a speaking gig and how to maximize the effect. I challenge Mat to speak at an SEO conference next year. He’s good at teaching complex subjects in a straightforward way.

How did I get to know Jeff Barr? How did I get to know Jeremy Palmer? Wayne Porter? I heard them speak at conferences. It’s often worth it to talk to the people whose speech you liked. I really enjoy talking to the speakers and giving feedback. They usually appreciate it too.

If you have experience getting speaking gigs – let us know how you got started.

Paul Wilson wrote about a tool that shows you how much money you could make on your blog if you used Google Adsense. It’s called Adsensemeter.com. According to that tool I could make around $1000 a month. He compared me against some of my peers. As I’ve mentioned before my friends at BuzzBooster pay their mortgage with AdSense revenue.

I haven’t put Adsense on this blog because I think it’s ugly. It interferes with the writing – which already has little aesthetic appeal. My blog in general is very much based on information. You’ll see I have affiliate ads (thank you to anyone who has bought from my blog). They are pretty ugly. But my friend Mat says, who cares. I guess I do care.

So what do you think? Should I turn on the AdSense ads and see what happens? I think I’ll turn on MightyAdsense – a Wordpress plugin – and test it out. Would it make you leave me?

I’m a little surprised that Adsensemeter doesn’t have any links to how to optimize AdSense for your blog. It seems to me, when you see the potential you want to know exactly how to. They are missing out on a chance to write articles with AdSense ads on them. Or sell ebooks or other eproducts all about AdSense. They could team up with Joel Comm, AdSense king. I just don’t understand why they are not capitalizing on this when their tool is focused on capitalizing.

P.S. – This post is a rebellion against SEO. So please excuse the funny links. I’m just feeling burned out on it today. I spent too long trying to explain it to beginners.

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