1. A person can double their income from $35,000 a year to $75,000
2. Obtain undivided attention with people you communicate with
3. Convince investors to give you $$$$Money$$$$ for your start-up company
4. Go from being laid off to successfully employed within a few interviews
5. Sell your product or service to someone right now to put cash in your pocket
6. Create a powerful network of millionaires and billionaires
7. Acquire that self confidence you have been searching for
8. Bring more readers to your website or blog
9. Sway your website visitors to stay longer on your site to allow the maximum conversion rate
10. Become an expert negotiator to find the best deals possible

For any entrepreneur, this book is definitely a must read and should be implemented right away. I like the way AJ incorporates assignments that easily integrate in your everyday life so you don’t have to go out of your way to learn. For a person who can barley find time to breathe sometimes, this is perfect.

The cost of the eBook is less than $20 bucks so it nothing that will dent your wallet. If you, like me, considering your communication skills to be your “ammo”, then this is something you should get right away. With the technology, information, and accessibility available to everyone on this planet, it’s difficult to become successful. It seems as if everyone can do what you do and many times at a lower rate. The one thing that can separate you from everyone else is your unique ability to communicate. Instead of placing all your focus on small things like making your websites look pretty, invest in your communication skills and network your way to a successful future.

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(Yes, others can do this for less, but youre taking a few risks:

• Unreliable people vanishing with your money
• Getting crap code and being unable to evaluate that
• Getting an ugly, non-functional design)

And thats just the first landing page – you need alternatives so you can test! A simple A/B/C split test (eg with three variations) could thus run you $1,200 - $1,800 for graphics and code. (Assuming you start with completely different designs; if you just split test headlines or hero shots or calls to action, youll probably be able to do it for just $400.)

Oh, but lets not get ahead of ourselves. You still need to buy traffic to send to those pages to test! All of a sudden, youre paying $300 for the graphics, $100 for the code, maybe another $50 for finagling stuff and creating simple variations, plus traffic! This test is starting to sound like itll cost $1000, just to do a decent job of it!

Well, not necessarily. Here are some ideas and commentary on recent SMB landing pages Ive seen.

1) Affiliate Theme – This is a Wordpress theme that comes pre loaded with various layout and graphical options, such that you can mix and match to customize your design.

The idea is excellent. I was partly happy and partly disappointed when I saw this, because my friend Tyler Shears and I came up with roughly the same idea on our trip back from SMX West, and it was a potential business / revenue stream. Now Id rather not be second to market, but I am glad that this is available, affordably.

A single Affiliate Theme license goes for $97, says my friend Dev Basu in his Affiliate Theme review (which I wish were a little more review and a little less description ), while the top line one goes for $197.

The catch with Affiliate Theme, unfortunately, is that its Affiliate Theme.

Google hates affiliates (unless theyre Google Money affiliates or Eric Schmidts buddies). Google is quicker to penalize affiliates in the organic results, and is more inclined to slap them in PPC.

Blackhats know that if their networks of sites show a footprint (a common pattern in the code), theyll get banned more quickly.

If you want to use the same code as hundreds or thousands of other affiliates for serious projects do yourself a favor and test things first. See how much of a leash Google gives you. Im speaking theoretically, but this is a risk to be aware of.

2) You can use the following process.

1. Buy these three books: (i) Dont Make Me Think, by Steve Krug; (ii) Web Design For ROI, by Lance Loveday and Sandra Niehaus; (iii) The Elements of User Experience Design, by Jesse James Garrett
2. Read the books, and understand how to make usable sites that make money.
3. Draw up a detailed wireframe for your site, based on 2).
4. Get the graphics done cheap ($50 – $100) via a freelance site. With a wireframe, 99Designs is less valuable, because the graphic artists are just painting by numbers. Its pretty hard to miscommunicate paint-by-numbers, even if your freelancer is a non-native English speaker imho.
5. Go to the pros to have the graphics coded.

As a member of the Jewish community, Im usually critical of my communitys associations for not making more use of testing and advanced landing page ideas and knowledge. Yet I saw an ad on Facebook that lead me to this very impressive page. Im guessing something similar could be done with the above process.

• No distracting navigation,
• Clear call to action,
• The form fits entirely above the fold,
• The features are explained in terms of the benefit provided (career, personal development)
• Pictures act as a sample of the experience you can have
• The only obvious issue is that their button is inconsistent with the form headline. Im willing to bet the text Get More Info or some variant on that would beat Submit Now, in a split test.

3) If you do have a few hundred bucks for the design and then a few hundred more bucks for the traffic, you can do really impressive stuff.

An ad I recently saw on my favourite salsa site (which has some nice social media elements, especially for an SMB site) lead me to a landing page for my salsa school, San Tropez.

• Headline targets needs / desires
• Strong scent with logo, repeated latin dance school in Montreal phrasing etc.
• Video parallels offline live demos, which make people want to learn and become great dancers
• Video comes from national TV, and acts as social proof
• Additional social proof in Why Choose
• Bullets, headlines and short paragraphs for easy scanning.
• Clear call to action
• Simple form
• Multiple ways to contact them

Even though San Tropezs agency is a competitor in my city, I have to give props to Amauta Marketing for the sweet ass job theyve done both with San Tropezs SEO and PPC (assuming they didnt only do the landing page). I actually signed up for the school back in January after finding them via Google a few times.

In short, making landing pages is getting a lot cheaper, with numerous options available. And for those with slightly larger budgets, you can do really impressive things. Thats one less excuse not to test!

Gab Goldenberg shares advanced seo tips on his seo blog.

[The opinions of SEJ Guest Bloggers are not necessarily those of Search Engine Journal or Search & Social.]

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

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Within 4 days the homepage for the domain was showing in Bing and Google as shown below (yahoo just didnt love me enough)Im a big advocate of using sitemaps, and I think this demonstrates their effectiveness. Unless you have a really small site or really good site architecture, chances are some parts of your website arent as exposed, or well linked as others, and this helps you spoon feed the search engines your content insuring better crawling.

Thats not to say you should use sitemaps and not worry about spiders being able to crawl, because internal anchor text can play a huge role in SEO. However use on XML sitemaps as a redundant backup plan to help make sure you fully crawled and indexed.

Need SEO help with your website, look at my SEO Consulting Services

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review.

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As to the search results itself, these are now indented but the most significant change was the removal of the page size indicator. This indicator gives you an idea of how long it will take for the page to load. Google also removed the word pages from the previous similar pages link.

Was there any improvement in the loading speed? We have no way of telling now. But ii could be faster or slower. Perhaps if youre a keen observer whenever you use Google search, maybe you can easily tell whether there was any change in the speed of loading the search results or none at all.

So, any idea on why Google did these changes? Is it for aesthetic purposes? Revenue generation or what? Do you like the new look of Google search results page? Personally, I prefer the old one or maybe perhaps I could learn to like this new look once I get used to it.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

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From:Jane@WellKnownDomain.com
Subject: Purchasing Direct Advertising

Hi this is Jane from from WellKnownDomain.com we see that you run a website in the widget area and are very interested in purchasing a direct text link from you. We would like the link to be placed directly in the content area of one or more of your posts.

Hoping to hear back from you.

Jane

There are several things wrong with this type of approach:

• If I reply to the email and it doesnt bounce back, as long as the headers dont look forged its very hard to deny its real.
• If I look at your backlink profile and see some suspicious behavior like really targeted anchor text, its hard to deny you arent doing this as a regular practice.
• Mentioning things like direct link and in the content area make it very hard to deny that someone with SEO knowledge or SEO guidance isnt involved (the search engines call this intent).

If you are aware of the risks involved with these types of tactic, and still want to try them, at the very least put a layer of protection between yourself and the website. Try something like this:

From:Janet@gmail.com
Subject: Advertising Inquiry

Hi this is Janet I see that you run a website in the widget area. I have a client and would be interested in knowing if you accept advertising and what types of placements are available.

Hoping to hear back from you.

Janet

If you get a response and it looks promising then follow up with a SECOND email inquiring about placement within posts and if they offer on-site tracking or if you can use your own direct tracking URLs. You really dont want to give away the domain until as late as possible, and you are comfortable the person on the other end isnt going to NARC on you. Until you give away the domain theres no direct connection between you and the target domain and deniability is still an option. I understand that this way takes much, much longer to do, but IMHO giving up your domain and signaling your intent to buy links with an SEO mindset in a first contact email is a kamikaze move. If you use your noodle there are other ways you can put barriers between the website you are buying links from, but dont ask cause Im not telling.

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis Wordpress Theme review.

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If marketers can start a conversation on those networks, beyond ads, the return is even greater. They will naturally build a following, which will in turn produce qualified backlinks and content. The SEO implications are huge if social media campaigns can be successfully implemented and maintained.

A few niche strategies a company can use to create their brand presence in search results is by doing the following:

• Stake out the desired keywords
• Use pay-per-click advertising to get your sales pitch across
• Optimize top-level pages for the desired brand keywords
• Get linked in to the most popular and industry-related directories, using the brand concepts in the description

Following these guidelines will help you gain a higher page rank organically. Rather than marketing, intrusive marketing that is, at your customer, prime customers (those who are ready to buy and are specific to your niche), you need to make sure they find you. Using search marketing you can meet their needs rather than hitting them with intrusive marketing. And if you are ranking well organically, there is an assumed authority that you are a leader in a specific field.

• On May 27th at the Google I/O developer program Google has what is the press calls an Oprah Moment and gives away FREE cell phones to all attendees.
• Within 1 hour of the giveaway the phone finds its way up on Ebay with a starting price of $200.
• This phone receives 29 bids and has a final selling price of $760
• Within the 24 hours after that phone is given away Android receives approximately 50,000 new links.
• It doesnt require a huge leap of faith to assume that at least 1 and quite possibly many more of those links can be directly attributed to Google giving away a cash in kind gift valued at between $200-$760.

For Matt Cutts feelings on this be sure to read You and A with Matt Cutts from Outspoken Media, Aim Clear, and SEO Gadget.

Why does this matter, I run a website ViralConversations.com the purpose of the website is to put free gifts in the hands of bloggers, the exact same way Google did with the android phone, yet I have had to modify my FAQ to tell all bloggers to use nofollow on all links or risk a google penalty, while Google gets to corrupt cell phone searches with impunity.

How does this show that Google is profiling SEOs and not the rest of the blogging world? How else can you explain high profile A-List bloggers like Robert Scoble and Sarah Lacy accepting free all expense paid trips to Isreal and not getting penalized? How can Guy Kawasaki get loaned one, two, three cars in three years and still be within Googles guidelines . How can lending Guy Kawasaki an Audi Q7 for three months in exchange for him blogging about it be OK but I cant connect bloggers with people who want to give away a pair of sunglasses? Matt Cutts says The closer you get to money for links, the higher risk we consider it. Go to any rental car agency ask how much it is to rent an Audi Q7 for three months, youll have your answer how close it is to the money.

The other cop-out we get is the link wasnt influenced by the money. When Matt asked TechCrunch Editors about this post featuring someone who was recently a paid sponsor on their blog they said it wasnt influenced by the advertising. First off Matt Cutts running around asking everyone on the internet what their intent is, just isnt going to scale. Secondly after getting in trouble a few minutes earlier for selling straight links on the CrunchCam do you think he was going to fess up to running an advertorial? Would You? Dont be fooled Techcrunch knows the value of the link:

Fair Use Vs. Free Speech in the Internet Age: The Lane Hartwell Problem
The currency of the Web, after all, is the link.

What we have is a pattern of behavior that closely mirrors racial profiling. Assuming someone is terrorist because they are of middle eastern decent, assuming someone is guilty because they are black, or assuming all SEOs are guilty of being link brokers just because they know the value of a link, its all profiling and its all wrong.

Dont believe that Google profiles known SEOs read this post on SEOMoz from Mathew Inman where he talks about Google pre-emptively banning sites hes involved with. As Jeremy Lubke said Google is determined to make any scalable link building process blackhat.

Weve been discussing and debating this for years and at this point is pretty obvious Google isnt going to change their policy. However what we can do is band together and continue to point out where google profiles SEOs and educate more people to Googles inconsitant behavior.

My advice to you dont involve anyone with SEO experience in any of your link building tactics, have it run entirely by a public relations person, and you should be fine, Google lets them get away with murder or at least giving away free cars, cell phones, and all expense paid trips in exchange for links.

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Get Started the Right Way

When I started using Twitter, I went about it the wrong way. My user name wasn’t my name and I tried to create a profile that wasn’t tied to my company or me. Because of this no one really paid attention to my Twitter profile and cared about what I tweeted. So if you are new to Twitter, make sure your profile represents you.

On top of that you need to make your profile is inviting. For example you want to use a picture of yourself and design your profile instead of just using the generic designs Twitter gives you. And when doing so make sure you take into account colors, because you don’t want it to be too distracting and causes people to ignore your tweets.

Building a Following

When you first sign up for Twitter there are two ways you can get followers. The first is the quantity route and the second is the quality route. If you go for the quantity route you can do a few things:

• Look for people you already know.
• Tweet your blog, so every time you write a blog posts it goes to Twitter. You also want to make sure your twitter profile is linked to from your blog.
• Offer your followers freebies and gifts. The more you offer to them, the more people will follow you. A good way to do this is through contests.
• Every time someone tweets you, make sure you respond to them.
• Put your Twitter name in your email signature.

If you are looking to get quality users, you can:

• Identify and follow the experts in your industry.
• Gain people’s friendship by doing things such as replying to their tweets.
• Always give more than you take by doing things such as giving other people advice and when they ask for it.

The Art of Tweeting

As you probably already know, I don’t tweet too often. I have only made a few hundred tweets in a year to 2 years. After reading Twitter Power, I finally understood how I should be tweeting.

• Follow Twitter etiquette. For example you never want to spam (which I have done), you want to give credits when retweeting, and most importantly you want to stick with 140 characters (don’t create multiple tweets to get across a message).
• You want to join the conversation. I always just tweeted what I wanted, but my profile never grew. The main reason for this is because I never joined the conversation and contributed to it.
• Make sure you are interesting on Twitter. If you want to tweet crap, that’s fine, but you will probably gain a lot more followers if you are interesting.

Conclusion

There is a lot more great information that you can learn by reading Twitter Power. I personally loved it so much that I recommend you get out there right now and buy a copy. If you don’t you will regret it!

By the way, you should also Twitter about Twitter Power.

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Have Your Own Website

If you would like to be an affiliate, much business opportunity will give you personal website as your rep tools which it will be customized to your name, id, etc. This is to your advantage, since you don’t have to put in any effort to design or host your website. But remember, since you do not control your website, you can’t modify it and put anything on your own to enrich or optimize the content. Besides, most pre-customized websites are very similar to each other and the layout is beyond your control; this makes it difficult to get indexed by search engines. Therefore, to give good rankings and popularity to your main website, it is advisable to get some free or paid hosting and design your own website.

Another great avenue for exposure is blogging. Personally, I think blogging is very resourceful as well as easy. It can be used as a resource for sharing many ideas including publishing personal and business related thoughts. Blogs are generally easy to update and give creative and personalized templates to choose from. Personally, I like Blogger.

Why is content the most important thing in optimizing your website? Because no matter how beautiful and attractive your website looks with animations or banners, you must understand that the content holds the main role to be indexed in search engines. Putting big banners and abundant links of affiliates in your website will not get the results you are looking for. You must focus on what your main business and what you want to offer the most. Offering too many products or services is not advantageous. Giving good quality, informative content, and using simple words in short paragraphs and simple language is to your best interest.

Domain Name is Your Business Name

Try the best you can to get a domain name which describes your business well. Your domain name must be used as your main and most important keyword for people to find your website or what you offer. If you like to sell cheap fragrances (perfumes) for women, for example, let your domain name be www.cheap-perfumes-for-women.com. Avoid putting unrelated names and descriptions since they will hurt your ranking in search engines. If you would like to list your website on a directory, make sure you pick a company name that starts with letter the A or number 1 so that it gets listed at the top.

Use Strategic & Targeted Keywords

The next step is to evaluate your content and keywords with good care. Pay extra attention to important keywords which you think will be used by people to find your site. Use these most related keywords to focus on what your business has to offer. Don’t just focus on single words, people like to search by using certain keywords with phrases. Collect good keywords with low competition. Use Wordtracker to test your keywords. After you get your preferred keyword, put it as title of your website and as the first words in sentence of your beginning paragraph.

Put Brief Descriptions

Give a short and clear description at the beginning of your website, informing your website content and what your business offers in brief. Don’t forget to emphasize your main keyword here. However, be sure to avoid excessive use of keywords in your sentences. This can hurt your online reputation as having higher density keywords in a sentence and is usually flagged as spam within search engines. Always ensure to write in proper language utilizing well structured sentences.

Give Important Note to Fonts

Give bold, italic or under strike to your important links, keywords and phrases. Search engines will give you a good rank based on your emphasis of certain keywords or phrases. An example of this using within a link can be: Enhance your knowledge and get more information at : [a href="http://www.yourmainbusiness"][strong]Your Business Name[/strong][/a].

If you are not familiar with HTML, pay a visit to Web Monkey. Web Monkey provides a good start for HTML beginners.

Link Popularity

Link Popularity is known as the number of websites that link to your website. And it is become one of the key factors that helps search engines determine your relevancy for a search term and index your website there. Gaining links from other sites has proven to be a popular method for people seeking to improve their search engine rankings. But not all the links to your site will be good links for you and measured by search engines. If it comes from a popular and reputable website, sure it will give you good performance, but you must avoid faulty links that come from spammer or link farm sites. If you can’t get links from important sites, just try to have it from the same content and your own related site.

Some good links can come from joining forums or writing articles. Sign your name at the bottom of your postings and be sure to include a signature that includes a link to your website. But more than all, natural links will follow if you give quality content and good features on your website. If your website is appealing, people would like to link to your site voluntarily.

Weve heard of many SEO scams that make a lot of promises, take your money and then disappear. They show on their sites fake examples of previous work, they pretend to have a lot of experience in the SEO field, but you end up losing your money and your trust. Due to this, weve decided to inform you about 5 easy steps to make the best choice when hiring the best SEO company:

Reputation Check you need to be able to verify their previous work. There are many who say theyve made a lot of work for site X and they pretend the high ranking of this site is the result of their own work, but the question is Can they really prove this? So, the first advice is to be sure you can check the previous work of the SEO firm you intend to use.

Discuss Expectations you need to be 100% sure that you understand exactly what the SEO company does for your site. The ranking improvement process is a process which takes long and depends on many factors. Dont hurry to start the work if you dont know what you will get after the work is done. Its better to know what to expect and you will know how to measure the quality of the work. So, the second advice is to discuss every detail with your SEO company before moving ahead with the project, so as to know what to expect at the end of the SEO project.

Finalize Pricing be sure how much you will pay for the SEO work that you receive. Many SEO companies use many tricks to hide fees, monthly maintenance packages that you will need to use after they finish the project. So, knowing exactly how much you have to pay will help you manage your money and avoid unpleasant surprises. Discuss all the price details before starting the project.

Track Progress once the project is started be sure to set up different milestones to be able to check the projects evolution. It is better to be up to date with the progress of your project. Verify the progress of your project on a regular basis.

Perform Checks & Balances after the project is finished, be patient for the results. You should verify the delivered work and have it coincide with what you agreed in the beginning with your SEO Company. Then you should have patience to see the SEO results ranking improvements. This will usually take time because the built links need to be indexed by the search engines and your site has to be reevaluated. After the SEO project is finished, ask the SEO company how to monitor and what to expect as a first result.