Spring Cleaning

July 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
email

spring cleaningIt might be just slightly too late to call it spring cleaning, nonetheless it was time for some cleaning. I haven’t paid much attention to this particular site for the past couple of years while I worked on other cool projects, and it was long overdue for some renovations.

The main reason I hadn’t been posting much on this site was the huge pile of upfront work that had to be done before I could get back to writing – specifically switching web hosts, deleting old content, choosing a new theme, wading through spam comments, and doing a lot of design stuff.

Before I got back into posting I needed to make Fourth Floor Marketing into a home again, and that meant starting from scratch in many regards. Before I did anything else I decided that I needed to go through all of my old posts and either fix them up or simply delete them – the result was deleting more than half of my older content. The purpose of deleting all this content was to make it so that the only content on my site is stuff that I think serves a purpose – which also helps my SEO at the same time.

Google posted the following in regards to old content just after the Google Panda update:

“…if you believe you’ve been impacted by this change you should evaluate all the content on your site and do your best to improve the overall quality of the pages on your domain. Removing low quality pages or moving them to a different domain could help your rankings for the higher quality content.”

After cleaning out all of the old stuff I also needed to update the theme, as the old one was from 2007 and it was pretty clear from looking at it. I decided this time around to get a theme that I won’t have to constantly try to fix. I decided to go with a child theme based on the Genesis Framework (StudioPress) which I edited a bit to look more blog-like (this theme was originally intended to be for newspapers/magazines).

Between editing content, redesigning the site, adding new widgets, social features, and analytics packages it took about 30 hours to get the site back in working order (it was pretty messed up). The upfront time investment was definitely worthwhile as it feels like I am home again (just in a cooler, more modern home) and I am certainly glad to be back. Expect some good stuff in the near future.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: , , , , ,

SEO? Oh, I’ve heard of that before!

June 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment

seo Earlier this week I was headed down the elevator and a guy made small talk by asking what I do. As an entrepreneur it usually takes a bit of effort to get people to understand what is that I actually do. I told him that I run a bunch of websites that bring in visitors using search engine optimization techniques.  To my surprise he responded by saying: “SEO? Oh, I’ve heard of that before.”

After thinking about it for a little while, I realized that for the past 6 months, whenever I mention “SEO” or “Search Engine Optimization” to people not directly involved in the internet marketing industry the majority of them actually have a pretty good idea of what I am talking about. This was not the always the case. When I first started doing SEO in 2007 people always seemed convinced that I either worked for Google (especially if I mentioned AdSense) or they would just say something along the lines of “I’m horrible with computers” to hint that they weren’t quite following me.

What I have realized is that most people that have heard of SEO associate it with some news story, such as the J.C. Penney’s SEO story in the NY Times or Overstock getting caught buying .edu links off students and faculty. Many people have even heard of Google’s Panda algorithm change because it had enough of an impact on the average online business owner (either positive or negative) for it to spring up stories in major news outlets.

Here’s a Google Trends graph for the search term SEO over the past 6 years. While the top graph does seem to flatten off a bit in the past year I do find it interesting to also look at the bottom graph for “news reference volume” which shows a big jump starting in 2007.

 

What does all this increased publicity towards our industry mean? It means that we are in the right industry. It means that more businesses are seeing the value in showing up in Google, Bing, and Yahoo for search terms related to their own industry. Companies are hiring more SEO consulting firms and expanding their own in-house SEO teams and it means that companies are now searching for more well rounded marketing candidates that can also integrate SEO and social media into their marketing strategies.

As companies hire more SEO professionals and media outlets pay more attention to algorithmic changes the more likely it is that the next time you offer your business card to somebody they will understand what it is that you do.

The next time you are in an elevator ask the person next to you if they have heard of search engine optimization and then post your findings in the comments section!

Filed Under: SEO Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Ezine Articles Submission

August 5, 2009 By 2 Comments

Today I wanted to announce that I am challenging myself to write and submit at least 1 article per day to EzineArticles.com as well as the top 10 other article directories. I know that there are many people that write 10+ articles a day but I used to hate writing articles so this is a big step forward for me, it will probably also give me a kick in the pants to post here more often.

I will probably come closer to submitting around 3 articles a day because I will be submitting old blog posts as well as articles that I will purchase from some of the authors I have outsourced work to in the past. The goal of these articles are to boost the search engine rankings for Easy Online Money Making while driving direct traffic to my new mailing list the Fast Cash Blueprint.

I have done a little research on my most recent articles and I have found that I typically make $15 per article that I write in commissions from NeverBlue and ClickBank on average. This means that I will get an extra $15 a day if I continue to write these articles, all of which I will be investing into advertising when I finish working on my marketing book.

I have written a couple of test articles each of which gets a few hundred UV’s a month, and most of this is thanks to Google. I started basing my titles off the most searched terms in Google, for instance if you type in paid surveys it will display paid surveys online, so I will optimize my articles for that specific phrase.

In order to continuously pump out articles you simply need to get into a routine, for me I write my articles just before eating lunch. If you are writing about a subject that you find boring, then write about something that interests you instead. Don’t punish yourself just to make a couple extra dollars, and an interesting article will be better in the long run anyway.

Once you are finished writing your article proof read it twice, then submit it to EzineArticles and use your article submission software of choice to submit to other top directories. Rather than submitting to all the spam directories allow it to spread organically.

There are huge benefits in writing articles, read any marketing forum and you will find example after example of people taking in thousands of dollars in organically driven sales from articles. The traffic generated directly from articles is slightly higher in quality than PPC traffic while at the same time it provides a wealth of high quality links back to your website. Some of my articles have been republished over 2,000 times, this is exposure that would cost a fortune to buy. If you have a mailing list it is amazing for converting visitors as well, 60% of the people that come to my splash pages from articles end up subscribing.

Filed Under: SEO Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

How to Start a Mailing List

July 11, 2009 By 2 Comments

One thing that should always be a focus of you marketing campaign is developing long term visitors and customers by creating an email marketing campaign.

I have been absent from this blog for about a bit because I have been working on a project that I have kept secret until the day it was finished. I didn’t want anybody to see a half finished product, so this will be the first time that I associate my new site with myself. I am giving out a free ebook called the “Fast Cash Blueprint” which I am using as my lure to feed a double opt-in mailing list. By doing so I can accomplish multiple goals:

  • Create a long term relationship
  • Legally send out highly targeted emails to a responsive market.
  • Allow myself more flexibility as I can always test my emails to find the most effective use of affiliate links.
  • Give myself a great advertising venue for premium advertisers as well as to help me launch my book next January.
  • Share information with others on how to make money, I wouldn’t create a product that doesn’t help my readers.

The process is really quite simple to start a mailing list, you will need 3 basic ingredients: Traffic, a Landing Page, and an Autoresponder. Once you have these three, you just need to figure out what emails will suit your list the best. Unfortunately, this is a bit of an over simplification because as you know, getting targeted traffic is not a simple process. Here’s how to accomplish each of the parts of making a mailing list.

Traffic, this is the most important part of any web property. Everyone has their own ways to drive traffic to their websites so I am not going to list all of the options, but I will say that I do all of mine via article marketing. You will need some kind of incentive to make people want to join your mailing list. My hook is a 23 page ebook that not only teaches people how to make money, but it also has a “giveaway” license so that they can give it to their readers as well. If you would like, you could start out by using my book as a hook, you just can’t modify any of the content (including my name/links).

A landing page is probably the second easiest step in the process, but at the same time it is incredibly important. Unless your landing page makes people want to sign up for your mailing list, your efforts will be for nothing. I would suggest hiring a graphic designer for this to achieve a maximum effect. Take a peek at my new landing page: Work From Home Methods, it took me 1 hour to add the content into the template and use free graphics to spice it up a little bit. As for the price of the graphics and the template, I paid $60 total. I think for an hour of work and $60 that is a pretty nice looking site.

The last thing you will need is an autoresponder, for which I could not recommend more Aweber. Their support is absolutely stellar, I have talked to them about various aspects of my mailing list for the past two weeks and they are true professionals. The autoresponder allows you to create opt-in forms easily while allowing you to send emails without getting blocked by ISPs, and therefore providing extra legitimacy and legal protection. This is the easiest of the three steps in my opinion, the setup for my mailing list was effortless. I would highly suggest using Aweber, they are the best autoresponder company I have worked with to date.

Best of luck in setting up your own mailing list. This is one of the most important ways to turn your internet marketing efforts into a full time income, a targeted double opt-in list with a few thousand subscribers can sell advertisements at $1,000+ per email blast.

Filed Under: Marketing & Sales Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Death of a Marketing Legend – Billy Mays

June 28, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Today I had logged on to my Twitter page to put out some update just to get in contact with my followers, and I check the trending topics expecting to see nothing but Michael Jackson topics. To my absolute shock, my marketing idol Billy Mays was the topic of discussion, and his name was preceded by “RIP”. I took the news quite hard, Billy Mays is not only the host of the only TV show that I watch on television “Pitchmen”, but he is the reason I have this blog today.

I am a 20 year old college student that started an internet marketing company 2 years ago, which I now realize will become my future. I have no plans of working for some other company, I am loving the life of an entrepreneur and quite frankly I am doing well for myself. I realized a few days ago that the original source of my marketing interest was from Billy Mays.

When I was a kid I saw an Oxiclean commercial with the famous wow demo, and the next day when I went into bed bath and beyond with my mom I made her buy a small tub of it. We have never actually used it, and it is sitting under my sink, but we still bought it. Since that point I have been analyzing commercials and advertising ploys.

In short, Billy Mays is the main reason why I have become an internet marketer today. When I found out that discovery was launching “Pitchmen” I could not have been more excited, and I must say that I find the show fascinating. I fully intend to continue my marketing career for the foreseeable future, and I am devastated at the loss of my idol. Billy Mays products are a multi billion dollar industry, he could sell literally anything. I can only wish to eventually reach his level of success in the marketing world.

He was a hard working man that was always looking out for his family, and he will be missed. If there is something positive to come out of all of this, he died in the prime of his life and therefore he will always be remembered at his peak. My best wishes go out to his family.

Filed Under: Business Tagged With: , , ,
« Older Posts