This year, someone asked me for a screencast demonstrating how to use one of our products. Normally, we publish very polished videos that take a long time to produce. Not wanting to spend any time on this, I just created a sloppy screencast video that was very chatty and had some dumb jokes in it. To my amazement, that video outperformed all of our polished, videos with the slick animations and sound tracks.
I asked myself how this could be. There were only two things that set this screencast apart from our other videos: 1) it was personal and chatty, and 2) it showed people how to do something they may not have known how to do before. This led me to a realization — the market has shifted from a producer/consumer relationship to one that more resembles that of a mentor/protégé.
The difference between the 2oth and 21st Centuries is this; we now live in the Age of Empowerment, People no longer want to just buy something out of the box if they can possibly do it themselves, acquire new skills and save money. People want to know more because knowledge is power. So, the more you can empower people, the more they will like you and your products. Additionally, people no longer want to be sold. Instead of having a slick presentation thrown at them, they would prefer to be engaged by a personality they see as authentic and credible, who will help them achieve a new level of proficiency or capability. This is huge.
Although reach and frequency is still kind in marketing, the way you engage your customers should change from impersonal to personal and from enticement to education and empowerment. If you help your customers to be better and do better, they will stop seeing you as just another company trying to sell them something and start seeing you as a resource and an authority. Who knows, maybe they'll start to see you as a friend too, and that's not bad either.
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Saturday, August 6, 2016
Amazing Traffic Building Discovery
For the first time in years, I decided to search for my brand and products online as if I was someone else. I can't believe I waited so long to do this, but the results were alarming and illuminating.
First the Good:
The things that showed up highest were posts from my Google + page. If you want to drive traffic to your site and rank high with keywords, I strongly urge you to post your own product videos on your Google+ page and write something about each product using the keywords you want to get listed for. It's important to do this as often as possible.
If you have more than one Google+ page, I would do the same for your other Google identities, but don't copy and paste the same text. Be sure to change it up.
This is all I'm going to say on this because it's simple and if you're not doing it, you're just hiding from your target audience.
The Bad:
When I typed in "C4Depot reviews", I found a lot of free web domain analyzing pages which had incorrect statistics about my site. It said I had only one Facebook like and no interactions. This was clearly false, but was simply because I had never hooked my Facebook page up to my website.
If you use Wordpress, you can use an SEO plugin to create this connection. I used the Yoast plugin for this. Since I just created the connection today, I can't talk about results, but it's important to do this to make your page look legit, otherwise your customers will type in your page, i.e., "acmewidget reviews" to see what other people think of your site. Then these other site evaluation pages will show up and list your page as being risky and unreliable. So, it's important to get your social media stats connected to your website.
That's all for now, and I hope this helps.
Cheers
James
First the Good:
The things that showed up highest were posts from my Google + page. If you want to drive traffic to your site and rank high with keywords, I strongly urge you to post your own product videos on your Google+ page and write something about each product using the keywords you want to get listed for. It's important to do this as often as possible.
If you have more than one Google+ page, I would do the same for your other Google identities, but don't copy and paste the same text. Be sure to change it up.
This is all I'm going to say on this because it's simple and if you're not doing it, you're just hiding from your target audience.
The Bad:
When I typed in "C4Depot reviews", I found a lot of free web domain analyzing pages which had incorrect statistics about my site. It said I had only one Facebook like and no interactions. This was clearly false, but was simply because I had never hooked my Facebook page up to my website.
If you use Wordpress, you can use an SEO plugin to create this connection. I used the Yoast plugin for this. Since I just created the connection today, I can't talk about results, but it's important to do this to make your page look legit, otherwise your customers will type in your page, i.e., "acmewidget reviews" to see what other people think of your site. Then these other site evaluation pages will show up and list your page as being risky and unreliable. So, it's important to get your social media stats connected to your website.
That's all for now, and I hope this helps.
Cheers
James
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Nothing Succeeds Like True Love
In marketing, it's all about gimmicks and fast results. For some reason, I've never found any shortcuts that really worked very well.
It appears the real formula for success is to love what you do and to love your audience and customers. That means you are always looking for ways to give your audience something they will appreciate and engage them in a fun and interesting way. If you can only think about how you're going to get money out of their pockets, you'll be way behind the curve.
Love your customers a little more than everyone else
In my business, we have two lists; some are customers, while others are just on the list because they wanted to download something we gave away for free. Sometimes, it's nice to let everyone know that your customers are going to get something really great for free because after all, they are real customers. The idea is to make the takers jealous, so let them know how well you treat your real customers. I do this periodically by sending out a general e-blast about a product update and in that e-blast I let everyone know the people who already own that product will get the update for free. Naturally, we like to update our software products as often as possible.
Love your marketing tasks
If you're on Facebook or Instagram, be sure to enjoy the time you spend there. Enjoy chatting with people and thank them for participating. If you hate social media and pictures, then you need to find someone who enjoys this to do it for you, because it's nearly impossible to succeed at something you don't like.
In short, this is all about being genuine and authentic. Mysteriously, people can sense this and respond well to sincerity and respond quite negatively when they feel they're being manipulated. I call this "21st Century Marketing"; instead of bragging about how great you are, just love what you do; love your customers, and enjoy doing everything you can to make them happy. In almost every case they'll love you back. Monetizing this love will take care of itself, as word will get around.
It appears the real formula for success is to love what you do and to love your audience and customers. That means you are always looking for ways to give your audience something they will appreciate and engage them in a fun and interesting way. If you can only think about how you're going to get money out of their pockets, you'll be way behind the curve.
Love your customers a little more than everyone else
In my business, we have two lists; some are customers, while others are just on the list because they wanted to download something we gave away for free. Sometimes, it's nice to let everyone know that your customers are going to get something really great for free because after all, they are real customers. The idea is to make the takers jealous, so let them know how well you treat your real customers. I do this periodically by sending out a general e-blast about a product update and in that e-blast I let everyone know the people who already own that product will get the update for free. Naturally, we like to update our software products as often as possible.
Love your marketing tasks
If you're on Facebook or Instagram, be sure to enjoy the time you spend there. Enjoy chatting with people and thank them for participating. If you hate social media and pictures, then you need to find someone who enjoys this to do it for you, because it's nearly impossible to succeed at something you don't like.
In short, this is all about being genuine and authentic. Mysteriously, people can sense this and respond well to sincerity and respond quite negatively when they feel they're being manipulated. I call this "21st Century Marketing"; instead of bragging about how great you are, just love what you do; love your customers, and enjoy doing everything you can to make them happy. In almost every case they'll love you back. Monetizing this love will take care of itself, as word will get around.
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Two Years Later...What's Changed in How I Market Online
Two years ago, I set out to market my 3D site, C4Depot.com and was pretty successful all things considered. I would like to mention some hits and misses I made over those years.
Feeder Sites are NOT a Good Idea Two years ago, prevailing wisdom said you should pick URLs that would match what people were searching for and build sites to catch that traffic. I actually posted on this, and while it made sense two years ago, it is no longer a valid strategy.
Building a bunch of feeder sites is a looser's game for a number of reasons. First, everyone, including search engines love authenticity and hate the opposite. A real site that is the living, breathing representation of a business will always outperform a site that is only built to catch traffic no matter how good your URL is.
Secondly, if one site is difficult to maintain with new content, then multiplying that for every feeder site you have is pretty much impossible to accomplish unless you have a staff of people to help you. Google is pretty smart at figuring out which sites are legitimate and which ones are just dead hooks floating in the water.
Initially my feeder sites were very successful in directing traffic to our primary site, but apparently Google caught on to that strategy, and overnight, our feeder sites dropped in rank from #1 on Google to completely off the radar. Our primary site, C4Depot.com, however, did not drop, but has gained steadily since then. Why? Because C4Depot.com is a real site which is supported with YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook content and is updated on a fairly regular basis. We also work hard at driving traffic to our primary site and Google sees that. The feeder sites which were just dead billboards in cyberspace were flagged as such by Google's algorithm and were punished accordingly.
So, my advice for marketing a web page as of this day is to focus on one site and don't build a bunch of other sites hoping to catch traffic.
Don't Be Afraid to Blow Cash on Advertising
Granted, most of us don't have a ton of cash, but look at it this way. If you have a site and spend $1,000 marketing your site on Facebook and only sell $500 in product, but get 500 people to opt-in on your site and get 500 likes on your Facebook page, that means you spent $500 to build a legitimate list of 1,000 people. That's pretty good groundwork for your future marketing.
I know spending money is painful, but I would recommend spending $100 dollars at a time on Facebook until you stop getting the market penetration that you desire. Each time, you can target a different country and monitor your results. We have steadily increased our Facebook ad campaign spending each time we release a new product, and it seems to work well for us. Currently, between Facebook and our opt-in list, we can now reach over 12,000 qualified customers.
Engage Your Customers Frequently on Social Media, but Don't Bother them With E-Blasts
It's always a good idea to connect with your fans via your site blog or social media, but don't send them e-mails every week unless you have something really good to share with them. I reserve sending out bulk e-mails only for new product releases, free give-aways, and a reminder that a promotion is about to end. In each case, there is a notification about an expiring discount that can be grabbed. One thing I hate is getting too many e-mails from some ambitious marketer, so I try not to be one. Again, blogs and social media are a different story, so use those as often as you can.
Make Friends with Other Movers and Shakers in Your Industry and Partner Up
Lastly, there's always someone out there with a bigger list than you have. Give them something you've got that they can profit from and promote on their site. This can be done using affiliate plugins that give your affiliate marketer a piece of each sale. If you do this, you can get a quantum boost in market penetration overnight even if you don't make much cash. Remember, your list is your crown jewels, so a bigger list is always a better one.
That's it for now. Next time, I'll talk about my experience with Shopify.
Cheers
James
Thursday, January 2, 2014
The Free Give-Away Really Works for List Building
When we launched C4Depot in 2013, we had good success building "likes" on our Facebook page by offering some free software tools. After a few months, we had approximately 3,000 "likes", but after the initial splash, the new likes died down.
Concurrently, we installed two opt-in forms on our web page; one was called "Opt-in Pop" which is a pop-up window with an opt-in form which launches automatically when someone lands on your site. We also had an opt-in squeeze form which comes standard with our WPeStore shopping cart module. Between those two squeeze forms it was a slow build to get confirmed opt-ins, and took the entire year to get 2,000 confirmed registrants using the squeeze forms. This was largely due to two reasons: 1) we spent most of the year focused on generating paid-for products, and 2) a squeeze form requires someone to not only register on your site, but to also confirm their registration via e-mail. This extra step of confirming a registration is probably the cause of attrition. Nevertheless, a real e-mail address is far more valuable than a Facebook "like" for future marketing.
Every time we would launch a new product to our less than 2,000 list members, we would see a spike in sales for that 24 hour period. This was really great, but developing paid-for products is very time consuming and sometimes it would take two months to create a new product. There had to be a better way to make money than just developing new products and launching them to a small audience.
Spending your valuable time producing free give-aways to generate traffic is a difficult mental and emotional hurdle to make. My temptation was to always attach a string to the free give-away in hopes of making a sale. My associate, Kyle, on the other hand, had a clearer vision of the passive income model and after repeated conversations, finally convinced me to focus more on traffic rather than launching paid products.
To that end, we created a free download page which can only be accessed using a password which you receive when you confirm your registration to our site. We then publicized this page along with a follow-up broadcast with a video featuring our best new free give-away product. We launched the broadcast on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and to our own list. The page and video for the give-away area here: C4Depot Back Room. Amazingly, for the first time, we got reTweeted by several people and we saw an immediate spike in confirmed opt-ins on our site; eighty new members for one give-away to be exact.
Since the quality to your list is always high considering your list only consists of people who voluntarily agreed to join your page, it is safe to say that your online revenue is a function of the quantity of subscribers to your list. Therefore, to state the obvious once again, it is more important to build your list than it is to have new things to sell. Think of it this way: what is more difficult; to produce a new product or to present an old product to a new person? I think the answer is obvious. For this reason, building traffic by giving away valuable free content may be counterintuitive and difficult on an emotional level, but it is the model for generating traffic, building your list and generating passive income online.
Concurrently, we installed two opt-in forms on our web page; one was called "Opt-in Pop" which is a pop-up window with an opt-in form which launches automatically when someone lands on your site. We also had an opt-in squeeze form which comes standard with our WPeStore shopping cart module. Between those two squeeze forms it was a slow build to get confirmed opt-ins, and took the entire year to get 2,000 confirmed registrants using the squeeze forms. This was largely due to two reasons: 1) we spent most of the year focused on generating paid-for products, and 2) a squeeze form requires someone to not only register on your site, but to also confirm their registration via e-mail. This extra step of confirming a registration is probably the cause of attrition. Nevertheless, a real e-mail address is far more valuable than a Facebook "like" for future marketing.
Every time we would launch a new product to our less than 2,000 list members, we would see a spike in sales for that 24 hour period. This was really great, but developing paid-for products is very time consuming and sometimes it would take two months to create a new product. There had to be a better way to make money than just developing new products and launching them to a small audience.
Spending your valuable time producing free give-aways to generate traffic is a difficult mental and emotional hurdle to make. My temptation was to always attach a string to the free give-away in hopes of making a sale. My associate, Kyle, on the other hand, had a clearer vision of the passive income model and after repeated conversations, finally convinced me to focus more on traffic rather than launching paid products.
To that end, we created a free download page which can only be accessed using a password which you receive when you confirm your registration to our site. We then publicized this page along with a follow-up broadcast with a video featuring our best new free give-away product. We launched the broadcast on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and to our own list. The page and video for the give-away area here: C4Depot Back Room. Amazingly, for the first time, we got reTweeted by several people and we saw an immediate spike in confirmed opt-ins on our site; eighty new members for one give-away to be exact.
Since the quality to your list is always high considering your list only consists of people who voluntarily agreed to join your page, it is safe to say that your online revenue is a function of the quantity of subscribers to your list. Therefore, to state the obvious once again, it is more important to build your list than it is to have new things to sell. Think of it this way: what is more difficult; to produce a new product or to present an old product to a new person? I think the answer is obvious. For this reason, building traffic by giving away valuable free content may be counterintuitive and difficult on an emotional level, but it is the model for generating traffic, building your list and generating passive income online.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Great Ad Rotating Plugin for WordPress
If you've got an e-commerce site, two things you're going to want to do is offer free stuff to increase traffic, and make sure you advertise your flagship products on your own site. For example, offering a gardening tutorial is a great place to advertise your magic fertilizer.
If your site is driven by WordPress, one plugin that has worked for me is AdRotate. I had some difficulty getting this to work due to a lack of documentation, but once I found the right tag to use for my ad, everything worked fine. Here's a clip of the code that worked:
AdRotate will permit you to cycle through a group of ads where you want people to see them. Remember: you know what's on your site, but a new visitor may land on a page and not know the answer they've been looking for is on a different page of your site. Cycling ads in the margin is a great way to boost sales.
Cheers
James
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Friday, September 20, 2013
Clipart for Sparkol's VideoScribe — New Site Launched: SVGClipart.com
You've all seen those promotions where a hand sketches a cartoon while you listen to a voiceover. Well, now it's possible to download clipart that you can just drag right into Sparkol's VideoScribe without doing any time-consuming editing to the clipart. SVGclipart.com has just been launched so anyone can create an animation using an auto-drawing whiteboard application.SVG Clipart
In this video you'll see how SVG Clipart.com provides clipart and cartoons in scalable vector graphics format to draw cleanly and efficiently in auto-drawing programs such as Sparkol's VideoScribe. Welcome to SVG clipart.com — a library of clipart elements designed to draw cleanly and efficiently inside auto-drawing programs such as Sparkol's Video Scribe which you can find at sparkol.com. If you've ever used a program like video scribe, you know that it only accepts the Scalable Vector Graphic file format. Our cartoons can be opened and edited in Adobe ILlustrator, and have been carefully constructed to draw smoothly and efficiently inside Video Scribe. Here's one of our cartoons being drawn now. You can see how nicely these cartoons will tell your story and engage your audience. Converting an Illustrator file to draw properly in a whiteboard application like VideoScribe takes a lot of time and effort, and if you've ever tried to do that, you'll know how much time our cartoons will save you. We also have talented cartoonists, so if you need a special graphic created, be sure to send us an e-mail. Thanks for visiting.
In this video you'll see how SVG Clipart.com provides clipart and cartoons in scalable vector graphics format to draw cleanly and efficiently in auto-drawing programs such as Sparkol's VideoScribe. Welcome to SVG clipart.com — a library of clipart elements designed to draw cleanly and efficiently inside auto-drawing programs such as Sparkol's Video Scribe which you can find at sparkol.com. If you've ever used a program like video scribe, you know that it only accepts the Scalable Vector Graphic file format. Our cartoons can be opened and edited in Adobe ILlustrator, and have been carefully constructed to draw smoothly and efficiently inside Video Scribe. Here's one of our cartoons being drawn now. You can see how nicely these cartoons will tell your story and engage your audience. Converting an Illustrator file to draw properly in a whiteboard application like VideoScribe takes a lot of time and effort, and if you've ever tried to do that, you'll know how much time our cartoons will save you. We also have talented cartoonists, so if you need a special graphic created, be sure to send us an e-mail. Thanks for visiting.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Google Keyword Planner — A More Accurate Reflection of Global Keyword Searches?
If you're familiar with the Google Keyword tool, you'll notice it's gone and has been replaced with the Google Keyword Planner
If you're interested in the details of the changes to this tool, I recommend this article from Andre Alpar's Search Engine Watch blog which goes into depth on the topic.
The most noticeable thing about the Keyword Planner is how many fewer global searches any phrase will get. For example, right before the Google Keyword Tool was taken down, the keyword phrase "cash back" and "back-cash" both produced identical monthly search results of over one million searches per month.
The Google Keyword Planner produces a much lower number of 22,000 for "cash back" and the phrase "back-cash" gets 70 global searches.
Which tool was producing more accurate results? Nothing useful is showing up in the rumor mill, however, in the past, the Keyword Tool was criticized for producing bloated global monthly search figures. It's more likely Google is trying to reduce the number of people seeking to "game" the system using longtail URL phrases with transposed words. In all likelihood, the new Keyword Planner is producing more realistic numbers. To produce more accurate search results for their users, Google needs to discourage people from choosing URLs only for the purpose of attaining page rank. To do this, both the Google algorithm and Keyword Planner need to work in sync. Since "back-cash" now shows significantly lower global monthly search results than "cash back", it probably means the Keyword Planner is delivering more accurate numbers for global monthly searches and is a more accurate reflection in how the Google algorithm is working and how keyword searches are being conducted.
The false sense of elation we've been feeling when we've found a URL with high keyword traffic in the past, will now be replaced with a more realistic sense of frustration as domains which get legitimate keyword searches will be harder to find using the new tool. Sometimes the truth is hard to take.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Niche Selection
Late this spring, I helped a friend create a web page within a very competitive area. We grabbed the domain a longtail URL using the old Google Keyword Tool (yes, it's gone, I noticed this just today) showed a significant monthly volume, but with high competition. We launched the page without any video and to this day, our URL has not shown up on the front page of Google.
In contrast, our smaller niche business, Cinema 4D Models (c4d3dmodels.com) is doing exceptionally well. I attribute this to the fact that the C4D site is a smaller niche with far less competition. Additionally, we have used many videos to promote each URL we own with targeted landing pages and video.
My conclusion is this: achieving good page rank inside competitive categories is not only difficult and time consuming, but without a persistent and well-rounded marketing effort, may prove to be more frustrating than profitable. If you're trying to rank in a competitive category and don't have time to create videos and perform all the due diligence I've written about in this blog, you may be better off buying your traffic by launching a press release. I've never done this, so I can't vouch for it, but for $300, it may do more for your page rank than spending thirty hours of your time trying to build traffic in your off hours.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
What Has Worked for Me So Far
Over the past seven months, I would divide everything I've learned about internet marketing into two three groups:
1 Fundamental Internet Marketing (juicing the search engines and SEO)
2) Ancillary Internet marketing (social media)
3) Tools (tips, tricks and gimmicks)
Using the Google keyword tool, I've selected my URLs based on the traffic the keywords I'm targeting are already getting before I purchase them. Since I'm not selling that many products, I've purchased URLs for each product and launched a website for each product using high traffic, longtail URLs. As a result, I now rank on the first page and sometimes at the top of Google for the keywords I've targeted.
Cinema 4D Ocean (cinema4Docean.com)
Cinema 4D Lighting (cinema4dlighting.com)
Cinema 4D models (cinema4dmodels.com)
I have more in the pipeline waiting for their own websites.
Regarding #2, Facebook proved to be a useful tool to jump-start my website, but seemed to lose steam over 90 days, proving to be too expensive for long-term marketing.
#3 is where the bulk of internet marketing gurus try to make their living; selling little marketing helpers, software and tools. I've found there's pretty much a Wordpress plugin for nearly everything, and if you can't find a Wordpress plugin that does what you're looking for, you should hire someone in Pakistan to write it for you, because that's where you'll make some money.
I'm currently working on a back-link building plugin for Wordpress. It's not cheap and will take over a year to write (because I'm poor), but that's one thing I haven't seen yet in a Wordpress plugin.
Cheers
Jamie
1 Fundamental Internet Marketing (juicing the search engines and SEO)
2) Ancillary Internet marketing (social media)
3) Tools (tips, tricks and gimmicks)
Using the Google keyword tool, I've selected my URLs based on the traffic the keywords I'm targeting are already getting before I purchase them. Since I'm not selling that many products, I've purchased URLs for each product and launched a website for each product using high traffic, longtail URLs. As a result, I now rank on the first page and sometimes at the top of Google for the keywords I've targeted.
Cinema 4D Ocean (cinema4Docean.com)
Cinema 4D Lighting (cinema4dlighting.com)
Cinema 4D models (cinema4dmodels.com)
I have more in the pipeline waiting for their own websites.
Regarding #2, Facebook proved to be a useful tool to jump-start my website, but seemed to lose steam over 90 days, proving to be too expensive for long-term marketing.
#3 is where the bulk of internet marketing gurus try to make their living; selling little marketing helpers, software and tools. I've found there's pretty much a Wordpress plugin for nearly everything, and if you can't find a Wordpress plugin that does what you're looking for, you should hire someone in Pakistan to write it for you, because that's where you'll make some money.
I'm currently working on a back-link building plugin for Wordpress. It's not cheap and will take over a year to write (because I'm poor), but that's one thing I haven't seen yet in a Wordpress plugin.
Cheers
Jamie
Monday, April 29, 2013
Don't Overlook the Obvious
I've been studying online marketing for half a year now, and it's surprising the obvious things that are not that obvious.
Today, I was a bit floored to find out how easy it is to learn what Google wants from your web page. In fact, they tell you.
The Google Webmaster Academy is something anyone interested in SEO should become familiar with.
Webmaster Academy - Webmaster Tools Help
More stuff to read, but this is coming from the horse's mouth, so it will be well worth your while.
Cheers
Jamie
Today, I was a bit floored to find out how easy it is to learn what Google wants from your web page. In fact, they tell you.
The Google Webmaster Academy is something anyone interested in SEO should become familiar with.
Webmaster Academy - Webmaster Tools Help
More stuff to read, but this is coming from the horse's mouth, so it will be well worth your while.
Cheers
Jamie
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Using a Business Directory to Drive Traffic and Attract Clients
In one day I installed a new a business directory site that cost me nothing.
3D Animation Group | Cinema 4D Talent Directory
If nothing else, it's a great web 2.0 site to add backlinks. And if you can attract your target audience to join, you're killing two birds with one stone by building your client list at the same time.
I simply activated a dormant domain on GoDaddy and installed Wordpress with two clicks. When Wordpress was finished installing, I found this free business directory plugin called "Business Directory Plugin" of all things. Adding PayPal functionality and other features costs money, but being able to get up and running while getting used to the plugin without spending money up front is great.
I highly recommend Business Directory Plugin.
Cheers
Jamie
3D Animation Group | Cinema 4D Talent Directory
If nothing else, it's a great web 2.0 site to add backlinks. And if you can attract your target audience to join, you're killing two birds with one stone by building your client list at the same time.
I simply activated a dormant domain on GoDaddy and installed Wordpress with two clicks. When Wordpress was finished installing, I found this free business directory plugin called "Business Directory Plugin" of all things. Adding PayPal functionality and other features costs money, but being able to get up and running while getting used to the plugin without spending money up front is great.
I highly recommend Business Directory Plugin.
Cheers
Jamie
Thursday, April 4, 2013
George Brown's Predator Software - A Preliminary Review
I just spent $800 for the new Predator software by George Brown, the author of the Google Sniper SEO strategy. For people who are into SEO, George Brown is a credible and well known name in the industry.
The webinar which launched this software pretty much blew my mind. Predator is presented like a digital matchmaker on steroids. It is essentially an e-mail extractor which can also send bulk e-mails. If I could get the software to work as pitched, it would be a digital marketer's dream come true. Such a tool would essentially eliminate the slow process of list building which is currently built upon creating sites and driving traffic through paid advertising, blogging, writing articles and other painful, costly and sometimes risky endeavors.
I was disappointed to quickly learn the webinar was not live as promoted and the release was actually just a rerun of a previously video taped launch back in 2012. The webinar states that only fifty copies of the software would be sold, but that is clearly not the case, as it had already been released before. This was either a deliberate deception or an oversight. Either way, it caused an unnecessary ding in George Brown's integrity.
So far, with the exception of Craigslist and Yahoo Local, I've been unable to get the software to produce usable results for my keyword searches. When searching major search engines, the search either never finishes, produces no results, or produces URLs with no e-mails. This is disappointing considering that most ads in Craigslist request that you not contact the advertiser with solicitations and offers; which is exactly what Predator does.
After submitting a support ticket, I was told the search engines had changed causing the software to not work as it had done previously. Hmmm. So you didn't test the software before launching your webinar?
I saw no way of recouping my $1,200 investment (first and second licenses) any time soon with the software in its current shape, so I followed the refund instructions from my support ticket. Since I did not purchase Predator from Clickbank, I had to go to American Express to get my cash back. The American Express agent was surprised to inform me there would be no investigation into the claim, suggesting I wasn't the only one who had called them.
My take away from this is to be very careful about what you tell your customers and to guard your online reputation as it is your most valuable asset. Also, be very careful about charging a premium price for your product as this will increase returns and cancelled sales.
I'll still be interested to learn about future improvements to Predator, but even if George Brown spent $100K to build Predator, $800 is a pretty steep price to pay for a utility that really only helps you become a professional spammer.
Cheers
Jamie
The webinar which launched this software pretty much blew my mind. Predator is presented like a digital matchmaker on steroids. It is essentially an e-mail extractor which can also send bulk e-mails. If I could get the software to work as pitched, it would be a digital marketer's dream come true. Such a tool would essentially eliminate the slow process of list building which is currently built upon creating sites and driving traffic through paid advertising, blogging, writing articles and other painful, costly and sometimes risky endeavors.
I was disappointed to quickly learn the webinar was not live as promoted and the release was actually just a rerun of a previously video taped launch back in 2012. The webinar states that only fifty copies of the software would be sold, but that is clearly not the case, as it had already been released before. This was either a deliberate deception or an oversight. Either way, it caused an unnecessary ding in George Brown's integrity.
So far, with the exception of Craigslist and Yahoo Local, I've been unable to get the software to produce usable results for my keyword searches. When searching major search engines, the search either never finishes, produces no results, or produces URLs with no e-mails. This is disappointing considering that most ads in Craigslist request that you not contact the advertiser with solicitations and offers; which is exactly what Predator does.
After submitting a support ticket, I was told the search engines had changed causing the software to not work as it had done previously. Hmmm. So you didn't test the software before launching your webinar?
I saw no way of recouping my $1,200 investment (first and second licenses) any time soon with the software in its current shape, so I followed the refund instructions from my support ticket. Since I did not purchase Predator from Clickbank, I had to go to American Express to get my cash back. The American Express agent was surprised to inform me there would be no investigation into the claim, suggesting I wasn't the only one who had called them.
My take away from this is to be very careful about what you tell your customers and to guard your online reputation as it is your most valuable asset. Also, be very careful about charging a premium price for your product as this will increase returns and cancelled sales.
I'll still be interested to learn about future improvements to Predator, but even if George Brown spent $100K to build Predator, $800 is a pretty steep price to pay for a utility that really only helps you become a professional spammer.
Cheers
Jamie
Building Quality Backlinks: Workflow Overview
Even before I got into internet marketing, I knew backlinks were important to achieve page rank. There are some dodgy ways to buy backlinks, but I've never tried this and from what I've heard about this strategy either backfiring or not working at all, I've been hesitant to try it.
I just finished reading a good article from Smart Passive Income which outlines a strategy for building backlinks. I'm going to quickly go over it here. Essentially, the idea is to write articles that point to intermediary sites which then point to your flagship site.
Build Your Destination Site
It's assumed you already have a site you want to direct traffic to, so let's move on.
Build Your Web 2.0 Sites
You do not want to point your links to your final destination site. The reason being that building hundreds of backlinks overnight can flag the Google algorithm that something dodgy is going on. For this reason, you want to point them to your Wordpress blog, or your Blogger page, or some intermediary site that will take the heat instead of your flagship site.
A web 2.0 site is just a site that is interactive on some level. All blogs can receive comments, and so that makes it a web 2.0 site as opposed to a static page that is read only. Facebook is also a web 2.0 site. This is just one form of site you can build. You can and should also build static sites as well.
In my situation, I want people to go to a specific page on my flagship site to buy a specific plugin for lighting scenes inside a 3D software package. Yesterday, I built a Google page for this plugin. This is the perfect page to send my backlinks to. Realistic Cinema 4D Lighting. Here's another example: Cinema 4D Lighting
Write Your Links Correctly
Do NOT write your links like this: http://c4d3dmodels.com.
DO write your links with proper focus keywords in your anchor text: Cinema 4D 3D Models and Resources
Below is a snapshot of backlinks:
Royalty Free Stock Photos : James Group Studios
Internet Marketing Tips Internet marketing blog; tips I've picked up
Reputation repair and promotion : Repution Promotion
Cinema 4D 3D models and resources : C4Depot
Cinema 4D Models : Cinema 4D model collections by theme
3D Ocean Generator for Cinema 4D : Infinite Ocean for Cinema 4D by C4Depot
Realistic Cinema 4D Lighting : Studio Kit Pro for Cinema 4D
Royalty Free Christian Stock Images : TrueVine Images
Write a Unique Article
Write something with real content your target audience would like to know about. Make it original and something you can be proud to attach your name to. Your article should be between 350 and 600 words.
Spin Your Article
Make similar versions of your article so Google doesn't flag you for spamming the net with duplicate content. Use software to do this. The Best Spinner is a highly recommended tool but only works on a PC. If you're a Mac guy, you'll need to use Boot Camp or your spouse's computer.
Upload Your Articles
Upload your articles with links pointing to your secondary blogs and sites. Those will then point to your primary site.
I just finished reading a good article from Smart Passive Income which outlines a strategy for building backlinks. I'm going to quickly go over it here. Essentially, the idea is to write articles that point to intermediary sites which then point to your flagship site.
Build Your Destination Site
It's assumed you already have a site you want to direct traffic to, so let's move on.
Build Your Web 2.0 Sites
You do not want to point your links to your final destination site. The reason being that building hundreds of backlinks overnight can flag the Google algorithm that something dodgy is going on. For this reason, you want to point them to your Wordpress blog, or your Blogger page, or some intermediary site that will take the heat instead of your flagship site.
A web 2.0 site is just a site that is interactive on some level. All blogs can receive comments, and so that makes it a web 2.0 site as opposed to a static page that is read only. Facebook is also a web 2.0 site. This is just one form of site you can build. You can and should also build static sites as well.
In my situation, I want people to go to a specific page on my flagship site to buy a specific plugin for lighting scenes inside a 3D software package. Yesterday, I built a Google page for this plugin. This is the perfect page to send my backlinks to. Realistic Cinema 4D Lighting. Here's another example: Cinema 4D Lighting
Write Your Links Correctly
Do NOT write your links like this: http://c4d3dmodels.com.
DO write your links with proper focus keywords in your anchor text: Cinema 4D 3D Models and Resources
Below is a snapshot of backlinks:
Internet Marketing Tips Internet marketing blog; tips I've picked up
Reputation repair and promotion : Repution Promotion
Cinema 4D 3D models and resources : C4Depot
Cinema 4D Models : Cinema 4D model collections by theme
3D Ocean Generator for Cinema 4D : Infinite Ocean for Cinema 4D by C4Depot
Realistic Cinema 4D Lighting : Studio Kit Pro for Cinema 4D
Royalty Free Christian Stock Images : TrueVine Images
Write a Unique Article
Write something with real content your target audience would like to know about. Make it original and something you can be proud to attach your name to. Your article should be between 350 and 600 words.
Spin Your Article
Make similar versions of your article so Google doesn't flag you for spamming the net with duplicate content. Use software to do this. The Best Spinner is a highly recommended tool but only works on a PC. If you're a Mac guy, you'll need to use Boot Camp or your spouse's computer.
Upload Your Articles
Upload your articles with links pointing to your secondary blogs and sites. Those will then point to your primary site.
Create More Blogs that Point Directly to Your Site
Use the article you've made and post unique versions on free blogs which point directly to your site.
Thanks to Smart Passive Income for the strategy.
Cheers
Jamie
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Wordpress Plugins for Site Optimization
Caching and optimizing the site is important to keep the site running fast. WordPress is a dynamic database driven site using php and makes connections to the database to show web content. The database on shared hosting is on a remote shared server which has built in latency. This process can causes longer load times and uses more server resources such as RAM and processor time which is also shared by other websites and can be limited. These plugin will optimize your WordPress sites performance and improve your users online experience.
Here are tools below to optimize you sites.
WordPress suggests using these WordPress plug-ins right away.
WP-DB-Backup : On-demand backup of your WordPress database.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/
BackWPup gets a 4 star rating, good reviews and came pre-loaded on my Wordpress site. It is the one I am currently using
BackWPup gets a 4 star rating, good reviews and came pre-loaded on my Wordpress site. It is the one I am currently using
W3 Total Cache : A very fast caching engine for WordPress that produces static html files.
P3 Profiler: Our WordPress® Performance Profiler Plugin creates a profile of a plugins' performance by measuring their impact on your site's load time.
WP-Optimizer: WP Database Optimizer. This plugin allows for automated scheduled database optimization
If the above links don't work, go to:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/@godaddy.com
http://wordpress.org/support
http://codex.wordpress.org
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/@godaddy.com
http://wordpress.org/support
http://codex.wordpress.org
Tech Tools
Free Website Performance Tool and Web Page Speed Analysis:
http://analyze.websiteoptimization.com
http://analyze.websiteoptimization.com
helps you develop a faster, more efficient, and all-around improved website experience for your users.
To browse your site outside of your network/ISP thought a proxy:
http://megaproxy.org
To verify the IP address you are using on your network:
http://www.whatismyip.com/
To verify the IP address you are using on your network:
http://www.whatismyip.com/
You can also use free third-party tools to determine the site's performance and to make a plan for your next moves.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Don't Make this Facebook Advertising Mistake
I've just launched my second Facebook ad campaign and have been stunned with how poorly it has been performing. We've been getting tons of likes, but almost no conversions. I called Facebook to see what the problem was and was told that targeting more than one country in the same ad campaign causes a "glitch" to occur in the Facebook system (whatever that means). I was told that removing all of the countries but one should solve the problem.
We'll see.
Jamie
We'll see.
Jamie
Thursday, March 28, 2013
IM and SEO "Gurus": a Brief Rant
I've been up to my eyeballs in SEO and Internet Marketing tips and tricks and "inside secrets" being peddled by so-called "experts" for nearly half a year now. If I actually read all the e-mails and watched every webinar solicitation I get in my e-mail every day, I would do nothing else. Yesterday, I spent nearly thirty minutes watching a webinar that offered no usable information. I must say, I'm getting pretty disappointed.
Getting visibility and rank on the net is the same as money in the bank, so there must be tens of thousands of people trying to convince other people they can get your site to rank if you just give them your money. Most of us are either new to I.M. or oblivious to how it works, and as a result, we're pretty gullible. It's like the Gold Rush all over again, but in electronic form. One guy will sell you a pan for $10, someone else will sell you their video on how they pan for gold, another guy will tell you where he found some, and so on ad- infinitum.
What I'm finding is that there is only so much you can do for free. You can build your sites, optimize them, and do everything right and still not rank as well as you'd like. At some point, some heavy lifting needs to be done. This is when you need to pay up. Even running a Facebook ad campaign is not free.
I was just approached by Vocus, the company which owns Web PR. For $5,000/year you can submit unlimited press releases online. I'm pretty sure this strategy will work because they have a relationship with Google, and unlike many other free press release outfits, they will actually submit your release and get it online. Still, $5K is pretty steep, and a big gamble for most of us.
Additionally, I'm currently speaking with a programmer in Pakistan to build a back-link building widget that is really going to be a community of people who will share each other's links on their sites. I'm confident that between a solid back-link strategy and a press-release campaign, you can get the rank you need. Sadly, it will not be free.
If you're one of the few people who stumble across this blog, feel free to send me a message if you'd like to share a subscription to Vocus.
Cheers
Jamie
Getting visibility and rank on the net is the same as money in the bank, so there must be tens of thousands of people trying to convince other people they can get your site to rank if you just give them your money. Most of us are either new to I.M. or oblivious to how it works, and as a result, we're pretty gullible. It's like the Gold Rush all over again, but in electronic form. One guy will sell you a pan for $10, someone else will sell you their video on how they pan for gold, another guy will tell you where he found some, and so on ad- infinitum.
What I'm finding is that there is only so much you can do for free. You can build your sites, optimize them, and do everything right and still not rank as well as you'd like. At some point, some heavy lifting needs to be done. This is when you need to pay up. Even running a Facebook ad campaign is not free.
I was just approached by Vocus, the company which owns Web PR. For $5,000/year you can submit unlimited press releases online. I'm pretty sure this strategy will work because they have a relationship with Google, and unlike many other free press release outfits, they will actually submit your release and get it online. Still, $5K is pretty steep, and a big gamble for most of us.
Additionally, I'm currently speaking with a programmer in Pakistan to build a back-link building widget that is really going to be a community of people who will share each other's links on their sites. I'm confident that between a solid back-link strategy and a press-release campaign, you can get the rank you need. Sadly, it will not be free.
If you're one of the few people who stumble across this blog, feel free to send me a message if you'd like to share a subscription to Vocus.
Cheers
Jamie
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
The Straight SEO Dope from GoDaddy
While on the phone with GoDaddy technical support today, I got talking about SEO and my tech e-mailed me a really great list of SEO tips. I'm including it for you.
A list off some SEO tools
All Top: http://seo.alltop.com
Matt Cutts Blog: http://mattcutts.com/blog
Directory of Search Quality at Google.com
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Research
Aftermarket.com: http://aftermarket.com
A premier online marketplace for aftermarket domains
A premier online marketplace for aftermarket domains
Thought Convergence: http://thoughtconvergence.com
Monetize, individuals buy and sell, and businesses research domain names on the Internet.
DupeFree: http://dupefreepro.com
Check for duplicate content and LSI keywords
Nimble http://partners.nimble.comLeverage the latest customer relationship management (CRM) technology to close the sales, marketing & customer service loop.
SocialMaker: http://socialmarker.com
Submit to social networking sites
Copyscape: http://copyscape.com
Make sure your site isn't being copied and creating duplicate sites and content
NicheBotClassic: http://NicheBotClassic.com
Online keyword research to find the right keywords
Online keyword research to find the right keywords
Google Trends: http://google.com/trends
See search volume trends
Google Analytics: http://google.com/analytics
traffic measurement and interactive reporting...
Google Webmaster Tools: http://google.com/webmasters
Provides you with detailed reports about your pages' visibility on Google.
Tweetdeck: http://tweetdeck.com
Consolidated social networking
Web Boar http://www.webboar.com/ See what search engines see about your domain
Internet Officer http://www.internetofficer.com/seo-tool/redirect-check/ Checks redirect status, e.g. 301 redirect, 302 redirect or HTML redirect (meta refresh).
DomainTools: http://DomainTools.comMost comprehensive collection of domain name ownership records in the world!
Internet usage for Web users from most to less percentage of time online according to Google?
- Search sites
- Commerce sites
- Communication sites
- Content sites
What is keyword prominence and how does it effect the SEO efforts?
Keyword prominence refers to the fact that keywords placed in important parts of the webpage are given priority by the search engines and are a factor that determine the webpage relevance with respect to the keyword. Search engines give keywords more weight and prominence if they are placed within any of the following locations of the webpage.
Keyword prominence refers to the fact that keywords placed in important parts of the webpage are given priority by the search engines and are a factor that determine the webpage relevance with respect to the keyword. Search engines give keywords more weight and prominence if they are placed within any of the following locations of the webpage.
As an SEO technique, keywords should be placed in all of the below listed locations to increase the page relevance for the keyword in the SERPs(search engine results page) .
- Title of the webpage
- Header, subheader of paragraphs
- In the file name (within the URL)
- Near the start of the page or right at the top of the page
- In the start of the new PARA
- Within the meta tags of the webpage (such as the description & keywords metatags)
How should keywords with two or more words be ideally placed within the webpage?
If you are to place keywords that consists of two or more words, such as IQ test (2 words), you must try your best to mention the keyword as "IQ test" whenever possible instead of the situation where you might place the word IQ separetly and the word test separetly. Therefore if your keyword is actually a phrase, always refer to it in the way you would like to target the keyword for the page. The search engine will see the keyword "a test of IQ" very differently from "IQ test" so make sure you always refer to your keywords accurately. If you must split the words within your keyword phrase, always try to keep them as close as possible to one another. This is termed as keyword proximity and helps the search engine to interpret a relationship between the keywords. While discussing the relevance of proximity it must also be mentioned that some search engines also attach importance to the existence of independent words that make up the keyword phrase within the webpage. Therefore taking the above example of IQ test, you should include the word "IQ" at various places within the webpage and the word "test" at other places. Doing this would satisfy the more discerning aspects of the search engine algorithm of various search engines that are looking for more proof than the simple presence of the exact keyword (i.e. IQ test) in the webpage.
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