What can Twittorati do for bloggers who are not in the top 100?

July 31, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 4 Comments
Filed under: Blogging, Twitter, Web Services 

I received an email this morning from Technorati telling me about a new service they have just introduced: Twittorati.

It combines the top bloggers with Twitter and currently ranks the top 100 blogs, as welll as tweets and tags.

I find it interesting to have a list of the top 100 blogs and there are a few that I’ve never seen before, so eventually, I’ll look at them and see what I can learn.

They say that other blogs will be added in the future. I wonder what Twittorati can do for those of us who aren’t even close to being in the top 100.

I haven’t had time to think about this, yet, but wanted to pass the word along and see what you think about this new service.

Act on your dream!

JD

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Finding the right keywords using an online keyword research tool

July 15, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 15 Comments
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Attracting Visitors, Sitesell and Site Build It 

For the last several months, I’ve been researching information to help me build a new website that will be found in the search engine results.

Choosing keywords is more of an art than a science, despite what some people say about it. It’s not enough to write pages on a site using topics related to the most searched keywords or the most used keywords.

If it were that simple, then we’d all buy a list of the top 1000 keywords and write pages around them.

If you’re new to keyword research, you may have used one of the online keyword research tools that provides a list of phrases that people have searched for lately. With some of them, you enter a word or phrase, and a few seconds later you get a list of related phrases that contain the words you entered along with other words.

For example, this morning I was doing some research on what people were really using when trying to find a place to eat. I’m promoting a local family-style restaurant, but could not find good keywords to attract visitors. So, I did some vertical research on words like eating, eat, food, restaurant, dining, and a few others. Over a couple of hours, I looked at a couple of thousand long tail keyword phrases that contained one or more of those words. None of them had the numbers I was looking for, however.

Later, I did a lateral search for keywords related to restaurants. This produced several hundred keywords that were found on the top-ranked pages about restaurants in Google, but which did not contain the word, “restaurant.”

After that, I researched the word, “dining,” but most of the good-ranking phrases were related to furniture, not restaurants.

So, that’s the challenge. I need to find what real people are searching for when they want to find a good place to eat. I’ll keep working on it.

Finding the right keywords

Earlier, I mentioned that lots of people look for the most searched keywords and use them when writing their pages.

That’s an important consideration, but it overlooks something equally, or possibly more, important — how many other people are doing the same thing. In other words, what’s your competition?

About a decade ago, Ken Evoy wrote an ebook called Make Your Site Sell!, where he talked a lot about being found by the search engines. He was the first author I found who talked about both supply and demand when it came to keyword research.

By writing about topics in the top searched keywords, we are doing part of it right. We’re writing about things that have a high demand — people searching for them on the search engines.

But, what about all the other people who are doing the same thing? How many other pages are there that are competing with you for those search engine results?

I don’t know about you, but I want to find just the right combination of words that have a high demand and a low supply. Then I’ll invest the time and effort to write about them.

If you have a choice of two phrases with approximately equal demand, but one has ten times the number of competitors as the other, which one would you choose to write about?

I’d choose the one with the least number of competitors — most of the time. Now and then, I write about something that I know I probably won’t rank highly for, just because I want to write about it.

I do basic keyword research, but don’t get bogged down in all the SEO (search engine optimization) discussions and postulating. I don’t have time or energy to waste trying to guess the exact keyword density Google wants. Page rank discussions leave me bored to tears.

What I want is a tool that helps me find the right keywords and then get on with my life.

This morning, I got a very pleasant surprise.

Sitesell introduced version 3 of their Brainstorm It! tool

Now, if you’ve been reading along lately, you know that I’m building a new site for promoting local brick-and-mortar businesses and the site is powered by Site Build It!, the main product offered by Sitesell.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been using the beta version of Brainstorm It! 3, but the actual current version was 2.2.

This morning, without thinking, before my first cup of coffee, I logged into Site Central and clicked the Brainstorming link.

I was pleasantly surprised to see version 3 load in my browser. As late as last evening, I had to go to the beta address to use version 3, but this morning, it’s the standard version.

I logged into the Sitesell members-only forums and found the announcement by Ken Evoy that the new version had been successfully deployed overnight.

Not only does version 3 produce better results, it’s much, much faster than version 2, even on the slow dial-up connection I have.

Everything is working as expected. All the hundreds of top-ranking keyword phrases I had in my Master Keyword List (MKL) were there. The changeover was painless and I didn’t have to do anything at all.

So, how much is the price of Site Build It! going up because of this new tool? Not one penny. We continue to get more and more functionality with SBI at the same price. You gotta love that.

Currently I have about 600 keywords in my MKL that have a relatively high demand and low supply. Over time, I’ll keep on researching, comparing, and pruning this list to make sure that I’ll spend my time well, writing about topics that Google may rank highly.

Although it isn’t perfect, and I have to use my own intelligence and intuition when comparing which long tail keyword phrases to use, the new version three of Brainstorm It! is already a very nice tool in my Internet marketing arsenal.

Of course, it comes at no extra charge with a Site Build It! subscription.

It almost makes keyword research fun.

Act on your dream!

JD

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One down, many to go

July 9, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 6 Comments
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing, Amazon, Blogs, Websites 

It’s been a busy week around here.

In addition to working to bring a new site online (that won’t have any affiliate ads and very few Adsense ads), I’ve been busy rebuilding one of my oldest websites, JohnDilbeck.com.

That’s the site where I really started to learn affiliate marketing and online marketing, in general. It’s where I sold my steel roses and started making real money with Amazon.com.

Sadly, however, it had suffered years of neglect and looked like an abandoned flower garden that once was beautiful, but eventually became clogged with weeds and overgrown bushes.

I’ve been intending to rebuild JohnDilbeck.com for some time, but — at over 1,500 pages — the task was daunting and I never seemed to find the time to tackle it.

Over the years, I’ve tested lots of things on that site, and some of the pages looked horrible, when I looked at them with fresh eyes.

Mitch and I talked about that on a previous post where we were talking about Site Build It and I mentioned JohnDilbeck.com as an example of a site that more than earned its way. He mistakenly thought it was powered by SBI, but it isn’t. It’s just a standard Linux-hosted static website. Most pages are plain HTML, but a few are PHP so I can do some things that could not be done on a standard HTML page.

Well over 600 pages of the site were built specifically to bring in Amazon.com commissions. Now that Amazon has terminated my association because I live in North Carolina, I didn’t want to be sending anyone their way at my expense with no hope of generating any revenue from it.

That was the incentive to tackle the project.

Fortunately, I build my large static sites using a programmable database, and each major section has a template through which I process each page. That means that it’s probably easier than it sounds at first. Still it was a big task.

Part of the task was made easier when I would look at a major section and decide that it just wasn’t worth updating everything. As a result, instead of rebuilding hundreds of pages, I deleted them.

This will probably play havoc with my rankings in the search engines, but it will probably be easier on anyone who happens to visit the site.

I had Amazon.com ads on just about every page on the site, and now I think there are none, or only a few. There may still be pages where I recommended a specific book using a text link.

Eventually, I want to get back to that site and try to build it back to its former place of importance in my marketing efforts.

At least, now, it’s prettier and maybe easier to use.

I’m prejudiced, because I love that site. I don’t think I can really see it with fresh eyes after editing it for about 10 years.

I lost a lot of good information in the process, and killed what was one of my longest-running blogs. I did save lots of information in the database, so some of the information I didn’t have time to update now may make its way back onto the site in the future.

We’ll see.

So, that’s one site (mostly) cleaned up, and many more to go.

Sigh.

Act on your dream!

JD

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New website to go live this week

July 5, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 6 Comments
Filed under: Advertising and Marketing, Sitesell and Site Build It, Western North Carolina 

This is only tangentially about affiliate marketing, so you may or may not be interested in reading it.

I know of quite a few people who regularly post about how much, or how little, they earn from affiliate marketing, Google Adsense, and other related advertising and marketing methods.

I’m not going to name any names and I’m not trying to embarrass or put anyone down. That’s not at all the point of this post.

What I want to do is to offer an alternative viewpoint, for a change. Maybe you’ll agree, maybe you won’t, but I welcome your comments.

I am not loving affiliate marketing right now.

I’ve stated previously that I live in North Carolina and that Amazon.com dropped me as an affiliate a couple of weeks ago. I’m not going to talk about that here – see my recent posts if you’re interested.

What I am going to talk about is how many people are putting in a lot of work for dismal returns. I’ve done it myself, in some cases.

Yes, the opportunity to earn an excellent income from affiliate marketing exists, but most people do not achieve it. Some people earn tens of thousands of dollars per year, and others earn pocket change.

I’ve been fortunate to do okay with affiliate marketing over the years. I never got rich, but I could pay the bills and afford to stay home and take care of Mom when she needed it.

After she died last November, I’ve been re-evaluating my affiliate marketing business.

For the last six months, I’ve been brainstorming and planning a new set of websites for promoting select local brick and mortar businesses in Murphy, NC.

The cornerstone site will go live this week, but it will take several months of hard work to reach its potential.

I have to thank affiliate marketing for the skills that I’ve learned over the years that will make this new site successful. In some respects I won’t be doing much different than I’ve been doing over the last decade.

However, in one particular respect, it will be very different.

I’m getting paid up front.

For years, I built websites, communities, forums, and blogs to talk about a variety of things, with the goal of monetizing them through potential affiliate marketing commissions.

I did all the work, posted the links, and paid for everything – all for free.

Then, I hoped someone would find the sites, be persuaded that something was what they were looking for, and then purchase through one of my links.

As a result of all this work, I would receive a commission on the sale of the product.

Maybe.

Sometimes.

Not always.

Still, I earned enough to keep going – but I’m a frugal kind of guy.

Earlier this year, I realized that my circumstances had changed. Expenses were going up, income was coming down and that’s never a good pair of trends.

When your outgo exceeds your income,
your upkeep will be your downfall.

I cut my expenses to the bone and started looking for a new business model.

Now, I’m almost ready to go live with the new site.

What is significant is that in the month of June 2009, alone, I earned more from the new site than I did from affiliate marketing for the past several months combined. In fact, if I leave out commission checks from Sitesell for commissions on sales and renewals of Site Build It!, I earned more last month from this new site than I did from affiliate marketing all year.

(Google Adsense ads also played a significant part in my revenue this year, but that’s not affiliate marketing.)

Based on some testing I’ve been doing, I know that I can help these local brick and mortar businesses attract more customers and I’m going to help one of them in each business category. I’m not going to work with national chains or franchises, only with locally owned small businesses.

One of the things that drives our local economy is real estate sales and it is by far the most hotly contested and competitive environment in online marketing for our town.

Last week, I agreed to work with one local real estate agent and I won’t work with any more. Remember, only one business per category.

Some people think I’m cutting my own throat, but I’m pretty sure I know what I’m doing.

Several other business owners signed up, too.

So, with no live site, and working with only a mockup, my new sales rep generated more income in one month than I have from all my other sites combined, some of which have been online for over a decade.

That’s the beauty of getting paid up front.

I don’t know if I’ll abandon affiliate marketing

I haven’t made this decision. I know that I’m dropping underperforming merchants and Amazon.com dropped me. I expect others to drop me because I live in NC.

Depending upon how things go over the next several months, I may decide to concentrate entirely on promoting local businesses in the small mountain town that is near where I live.

There are two thoughts on this.

One: don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Diversify your income streams.

Two: put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket! I believe it was Thomas Edison or Andrew Carnegie who gave this advice.

I’m not entirely sure which direction I’ll be going on this.

I’m tired of working for free or nearly nothing

I do know that I’m tired of spending all my time and creative energy working for companies that don’t pay me for the work I’ve done.

Most limit the length of the cookie, the size of the commission, and have all kinds of loopholes to make sure I don’t get paid – and that’s if other affiliates aren’t stealing the commissions that are rightfully mine.

I’m tired of it.

With the single exception of Sitesell. They go out of their way to make sure that anyone who purchases from me remains a lifetime customer and I get paid in the future for every renewal and additional purchase they make.

It is the only affiliate marketing relationship I have that has increased in revenue over the last several years, including this year when I saw dramatic drops in my income since September 2008.

There’s a reason. Whether you like to hear me say it or not, Site Build It! works, when we follow the guidelines and take the time to build our sites properly.

Some say that it’s crazy to pay $300 per year for all that SBI offers when I can put up a WordPress blog for practically nothing. But, I’m disagreeing more and more with this.

That’s why I’m powering this new site with Site Build It!

It offers everything I need at a very reasonable price of less than a dollar per day.

You see, I intend to build a real business, not a hobby.

And, to do that, I’m going to help other real businesses attract new customers, bring back existing customers, and earn more money.

In the long-run, what they pay me will be a bargain.

And, to top it off, without even having a website yet, while working from a mockup I created, my new sales rep was able to generate more than enough income in June, alone, to pay for a subscription to Site Build It! several times over.

I don’t give actual numbers for my traffic or income, so don’t bother to ask. That’s between nobody but me and the IRS.

Will it work?

Only time will tell.

I’ll go live with the site this week, but it will take several months of hard work to make it – and the offline marketing that will go along with it – as successful as I’m hoping it will become.

I’m confident, however, that this is going to be effective and that we’ll have local business owners happy to renew over and over again. I’m looking for long-term relationships with them that build over the years, and I’m going to do everything in my power to make it happen.

I’ve learned something very important from Ken Evoy. Plan your business and then implement it over time. Always under-promise and over-deliver.

This is the very opposite of all the breathless, excited hype that is all-too-prevalent in many areas of Internet marketing.

What’s the future of this blog?

I don’t know.

It’s not looking very bright, though. And neither is the future of several other blogs and websites that are devoted to my affiliate marketing business. I already know that several will be shut down as soon as I can get to it, because it isn’t worth the time and effort to repurpose them.

This blog may survive, but only time will tell.

What do you think?

Is affiliate marketing going to play a big part in your business plans for the rest of this year and into 2010?

Do you feel like you’re getting adequate compensation for the work you put into it?

Act on your dream!

JD

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