First of all apologies for the lack of posting over the last couple of weeks, work has been busy and the World Cup has pretty much dominated my evenings

So now England have been dumped out shamefully I thought it might be a good idea to discuss something pretty positive that has happened to me over this World Cup period, I NOW RANK IN THE TOP 5 FOR ‘search engine optimisation’!!!

Now that I have gained a glory ranking I thought it might be a good idea to discuss how I got there. I work with clients daily that throw massive budgets at SEO and not surprisingly get results very quick, however my blog has had very little in terms of budget thrown at it and it goes to show you can make it to the top working cheap, the results will come a lot slower though.

Altogether it has taken me 18 months to position my website there; I did a lot of the work in the early stages and as my site has grown in trust the anchor text from article directories and blog carnivals have really started to count.

The truth is, in the last 3 months I have done very little link building with most of my links coming socially and none of them anchored with the target keyword (except maybe one site wide a fellow SEO kindly gave me).I genuinely believe working to a tight budget does not exclude you from achieving results as long as you’re consistent and gradually increase your investment.

Anyway enough bragging, what I want to do now is show you my exact approach to ranking SEO wizz where it currently is (4th ‘search engine optimisation’ 13th ‘seo’),

Quarter One

The first 3 months of any blog are painful, you spend 90% of your time writing and 10% reading, however there were a few fundamentals I wanted to achieve in the first Quarter, ones that I knew would see me well in the future;

- I wanted to create a hook, so I developed some tutorials, this would ensure a nice flow of natural links

- I wanted to have at least 20 posts optimised for long tail target keywords

- I made it a must to at least get one link back to each deep page/post

I knew things would be slow at first as I have created many affiliate blogs and they have all started the same way.

Quarter Two

My blog now had enough content and I could really let Google know it existed without risking the sandbox. The idea was to get as many links to the blog as possible with preferential anchor text.

- I decided to write 100 articles

- Submitted them through Article Marketer (Now content crooner)

- Mixed the anchor text between my main target keywords search engine optimisation, seo techniques, google seo, seo consultant, seo (All of which are now on the first page of Google bar ‘SEO’ however watch this space.)

This wasn’t about getting the blog to rank, it was more about building a bulk amount of links so that I could get new content indexed faster and give myself a little bit of an anchor text push.

Quarter Three

Traffic was now picking up; Google was beginning to give me a little authority so it was now time to turn up the heat. To do this I decided to write some posts that would ensure me a way of getting links in the long term, I am talking serious viral content.

There is an important definition to be made here, some people consider viral content as a way of driving masses of traffic, the problem is going viral on stumble (which I have done quite a few times) does not necessarily mean masses of links, in fact very often it doesn’t mean any. I wanted to create content that when people did find it they would link to it.

- I posted on Bing SEO vs Google and did a small case study (I rank no.1 for Bing SEO and gain new links every week with no effort)

- I posted about Link/Ranking correlation (Linked to by SEOmoz and has delivered 1000′s of visitors and recognition)

- I also completed a monster post on SEO content writing which ranks very highly and is still my third most visited page!!

This is the back bone of my website, the posts that give a return over the long period and not just an instant traffic boost. Every website should create this type of content/product/resource, something that is going to continually get new recognition.

Quarter Four

I was really beginning to rank well now but still needed more diverse links; I had some high quality links but needed a more diverse profile. To accomplish this I;

- Submitted to blog carnivals taking advantage of preferential anchor text

- Joined new forums adding my links in bio’s and signatures (not spamming, genuine forums)

- Attempted some cross linking with other bloggers (Didn’t particularly work)

The above gave me a better profile and pushed my PageRank to 4; however I was still sitting on the second page for some of my major terms.

Quarter Five

Now I had a diverse profile and some really good quality or high PageRank links, however it was time to bulk up the quantity, to do this I:

- Created some reciprocal link partners with good online buddies

- Commented on do follow blogs with ‘top commenter’ widgets (I stopped this as it didn’t really work)

The increase in the sheer quantity of links lifted me onto the first page of Google for a lot of terms; however I still needed to add something to the mix…

Quarter Six

I knew in order to reach the top five I need those ‘trusted’ links from websites long established on Google and the only way to do this was to grovel!

- I leveraged all my blogging connections and friends

- I offered links from my other sites in return for a link to SEO wizz

I only managed a few however these highly trusted links were very effective, pushing my website to the top of the tree!

You see??? No Magic, no ridiculous techniques just hard work and a smart well thought-out plan and anyone can do the same, given the right skills and commitment.

What’s my plan moving forward???

Well I can’t give everything away; however I will let you know when I’ve done it

Thanks to all who read, link to, promote and support SEO wizz, reaching the top wouldn’t have been possible without you guys.

Cheers

I always worry about posting new found research as some clever dick always pops up to tell you they discovered it in 1999, however I have noticed something in the rankings recently that has made me re think Google rankings.

The Story

OK so I decided a couple of weeks ago to rank for “SEO consultant”, just something I fancied really, not the most competitive term.

Anyway….. I have obviously been keeping an eye on the rankings over the past few weeks on this particular keyword and a few more as well and there has been some pretty dramatic trends in the rankings.

One day I checked and I was 7th for “seo consultant” refreshed and I was 15th, refreshed again and I was 4th!!!

It’s not just that keyword either, I searched “search engine optimisation” I was 11th, refreshed and I was 26th and again and I was 7th.

Now rankings have always been up and down but this was a little crazier than usual.

Webmaster Tools Update

So…. Google announce the webmaster tools up date only a few days ago which explains that they are now tracking click through rates in the keyword sections of webmaster tools.

Now I don’t know how accurate these figures are and they seem to differ quite a bit to Google analytics, however the data it presents is interesting.

Just take a look at the below screen shot;

Now I am only using “bing SEO” as the example but the data establishes a few things across multiple keywords.

The first thing you notice is that out of 320 impressions I only ranked first 260 times (these impressions figures aren’t accurate as I usually receive around 600 visitors on this keyword a month), this means I don’t rank number one, I only rank there around 70% of the time.

The Old Theory

The old SEO theory determines your rank based on page optimisation and the number of links your page/domain has, the only thing affecting rankings would be competition in Google’s algorithm. I now think this is outdated and wrong, over the last 6 months I and other SEO’s have seen massive fluctuations in rankings suggesting a new way of ranking sites and determining traffic.

My Theory

Well, this is what I suspect, Google have confirmed nothing yet or any other SEO authority but the evidence I have seen strongly suggests rotational rankings.

Let me explain…. You do a search in Google on your main key term and you rank 4th, so you rank 4th??? Wrong you may rank 4th in that instance but you could complete the same search 10 seconds later and you rank 10th, a huge difference not only in ranking but the traffic too.

So… Google determines the rank of your site determined on page factors and links and then ranks you in a range of positions could be 5 – 10 or it could be position 2 to 4 pages back, depending on the person searching, there location, personalised search, time of day.

Ultimately how well optimised your site is determines how often you rank in a top position.

So your aim is not to rank in the top 5, which is now impossible, your aim should be to rank their most of the time.

What Does This Mean?

It means quite a lot.

1 – Determining traffic in a certain position is now impossible

2 – Your ranking position can change every second even if you’re searching on the same IP using an incognito window on chrome

3 – You can never say I rank number one, but only I rank number one most of the time

You see there are so many websites competing for the same space that Google has no choice but to use a rotational system like this and for all we know they may use the click through rate to decide whether your ranking gets better or worse, maybe.

I’d love to know everyone’s thoughts on this and if anyone has noticed these changes.

Testing keyword difficulty has never been a straight forward task, what do you test with? Links in? Links to domain? Search Volume? Awords Competition?

The truth is that all of them contribute toward the ‘keyword difficulty’ factor.

This is another post when I am going to sing the praises of the SEOmoz crewe, since they stopped delivering SEO services I have noticed a huge investment in their tools, mostly in making linkscape data more reliable but also tweaking the current tool box.

A tool that was announced this week was the new keyword difficulty tool, it breaks down all the metrics for you, so if your an SEO professional there is no better visualisation tool for client proposals, in my opinion.

Just check out some of the features:-

Adwords Data

Not only does the tool give you a difficulty factor in the form of a percentage (the higher it is the harder it is to rank) but it also gives you the relevant Adwords search including broad and exact match.

This is all the information you really need when trying to determine the potential of target keywords however, it doesn’t stop there.

Page / Domain Authority Metrics

The tool nicely shows the page and domain authority of the top ten sites, letting you see exactly what you’re up against.

Page authority is the SEO metric for the overall authority of any given page on the web based on link juice and authority, domain authority is based on the entire links to the domain as a whole.

Break Down Of Links

As we should know now, all links are not equal and we need to be aware of how many links our competition have, also how much authority those links are passing.

On top of that we now know that the amount of links to a domain is almost as strong a determining factor as the amount of links to a particular page.

As we can see the tool nicely breaks down the link data showing how many unique domains are linking to each of the top ten results.

Now if you’re not an SEO or internet marketer your probably not going to pay for the tool, however if you are an SEO professional, in my opinion the tools are the best on the market.

This particular tool can be used for more than just helping clients visualise their competition within their niche, it can also be used for mass research on the SERPS for multiple keywords.

When you deal with link building day in day out you really begin to notice even the smallest changes in Google’s algorithm.

Just before Christmas site wide links seemed to be giving some real pull, then there were the in content gems that seemed to instantly increase ranking.

However, in my opinion Google has switched its emphasis again and is now putting more weight on ‘fresh’ links, links found on pages never crawled before.

Fresh links have always been precious; however the impact of them has been blurred due to large amounts of site wide link buying.

Now Google has really got its act together and not only is the impact noticeable in terms of the links we build for clients but it has also been felt in the SERPS.

Recent SERP Changes

On the UK domain Google has really shaken up the top results, penalising sites with a lot of site wide links and giving more power to exact match domains and a more diverse link profile.

Some sites that ranked on the first page for “search engine optimisation” have now dropped back on to the second page which basically makes them invisible.

Changes In Approach

So how does this change what we do on a daily basis, well here are my thoughts;

• We need to all become writers and get involved in guest blogging, reporting and writing for news sites within our niche
• Press releases really begin to make a mark, a press release can flood you with fresh in content links. You will have to pay for the best services but it is definitely worth it.
• Viral content becomes even more important, make sure everything you write can be easily shared and write news worthy content. I am not going to go over viral content again but if you’re unsure about how to write good SEO content read my article on SEO content writing.
• I have always been a fan and the new importance of fresh links makes blog carnivals priceless links

These are just a few ideas and I am sure you can think of many more, don’t give up other link building methods, but if you’re looking for a real ranking boost, get yourself some fresh links.

OK it’s not often I recommend systems or tools on SEOwizz and I have to admit this tool has been developed by a client I am currently working with, however this is a plugin every wordpress blogger should consider installing.

With the recent WordPress down time scare, it is obvious backing up all that precious content is a worthwhile exercise and before now it has consisted of emailing files to yourself every night or every week if you have a smaller blog.

Backup technology a client of Branded3 and an enterprise online backup company have just launched an WordPress Backup Plugin, which makes backing up your information easy and reliable.

Not only does the plugin have an easy to use interface but it also allows you 50 MB of space, 100% free of charge.

You can set the plugin to backup your information on auto pilot daily or whenever you want, it saves you time and of course it’s free.

Even if you don’t want to set up the scheduling you can still have backup on demand!

If you use wordpress you should definitely try this one out.

Download it here: WordPress Online Backup Plugin

Back in December I did an in-depth review of some of the best link building services around. When I say link building services I mean systems that allow you to generate content for a link, so article marketing systems, blog network systems and content spinning systems.

I have used and promoted many of the networks I reviewed, one in particular was Linkvana. I promoted this service due to the fact the content on the network was 100% unique, the links were minimised and relevant and the blogs were on average 3 years old and had good PageRank.

However I have recently cancelled my Linkvana subscription and would advise anyone else to do the same.

There are a few reasons for this;

1) I have recently noticed more and more of the blogs within the network are being deindexed

2) A lot of the blogs that were indexed are becoming less relevant

3) I really think it is time to focus on quality

As well as an SEO consultant I also do a fair share of niche blogging, therefore link networks such as the one above have always been helpful when attempting to rank a niche website. However, more and more I am noticing these niche blogs are losing rankings, traffic and authority.

My belief is that Google is clamping down on niche sites with low quality inbound links regardless of the anchor text those links supply. For example, only 12 months ago you could pick a niche keyword, fire 500 anchor text links at it and get it to rank first page pretty easily, this is becoming harder and harder.

What Do I Do if I Have Niche Blogs or Sites?

Don’t get me wrong, you can probably still get a niche blog to rank using ‘cheap links’, I simply believe it will continue to get harder and harder.

My first bit of advice would be to stick to article directories for building your anchor text links, ones I particularly like are;

buzzle.com

ezinearticles.com

work.com

articleblast.com

goarticles.com

articlecity.com

articlebase.com

Just to name a few…..

Secondly, I would also suggest making use of the Unique Article Wizard, this allows pretty good coverage and the links tend to be from more relevant websites as well as article directories.

Quality Over Quantity

Niche sites are one thing but building a solid online business is completely different. You want your online business to be safe in the Google index for years and years not just for the next 12 months, therefore link building for a business has to be based on quality.

What Is Quality

I think when we are considering what makes a quality link we need to be thinking about the following;

Relevance – This for me has always been a big factor. The sites you are getting links from need to be relevant. Put yourself in the user’s position, if you were surfing a website about SEO, you would find it strange to see a ‘dog clippers’ website link stuck in the corner. I can’t imagine for 1 minute that this goes undetected by Google and have no doubt it will pass very little weight.

PageRank – Even though toolbar PR is not an effective measure of success, you can still use it to determine the quality of the page you are getting the link from.

Outgoing links – Yes if a page is flooded with tons of outgoing links you are very unlikely to get any real value from it.

Anchor Text – This is still a major factor, however as I have warned before, make it look natural. Use variations; use your domain name as well as using the target keyword.

The Problem

The problem is very simple, how do we get these kinds of links? Links like this usually come at a price and paid links are bad, right?

This is a whole other topic and for a different post.

My parting advice would be this;

Every website needs some form of optimised anchor text, stick with article marketing for this type of link, but don’t forget it all needs topping up with some quality PageRank passing links.

So many bloggers think they can simply put a blog together, submit to a handful of social sites and loads of traffic will come piling in, as I have said many times before this is not accurate.

If you are a blogger and you’re serious about making a living from blogging, then you have to invest like you would any business.

So where does Google Adwords fit in??

When I encourage bloggers to use Google adwords to give their blogs that necessary push I usually get the same responses;

“Adwords is too expensive”

“I don’t sell a product”

“How do I track conversions?”

“It’s just not measurable!”

Now when it comes to promoting your blog it is true the success of any PPC campaign can be difficult to measure but this really depends on your goals.

- Are you looking to attract readers?

- Do you sell an eBook?

- Do you have ads?

- Do you promote affiliate products?

Remember with Adwords you could fully optimise a page of your blog to promote a particular product or affiliate program and send relevant traffic straight to it.

However, even if you have no product at all you can still use Adwords to promote your blog and increase your brand and online visibiliy, let me give you a few tips about how to go about this;

Keep It Broad

When you first come to set up your Adwords campaign you are going to have to select keywords to use, then you can use keyword matching options to select either;

- Broad Keywords – This will display your ad to searches who use your keyword, any variations of it or even related keywords. This is great for branding and general exposure but not so brilliant for keeping click rates and conversion rates high.

- “Phrase Keywords” – These will activate your ad when a your keyword is used or any variation in the exact order. This is a much better way for increasing conversion rates but can mean a low click through rate.

- [Exact Match] – This means your ad will be activated only when the exact keyword search is used. Brilliant for maximising conversion and click through rates.

So which type of keywords do you think should be used to promote a blog? Well if you are selling a specific product you will probably want to go with the phrase match, however if you are simply trying to give your blog some exposure you need to stick to broad matches, this makes sure you get a good amount of impressions and your clicks are as cheap as possible.

A blogger’s main aim is to increase readership, if you can get 1000 clicks for 9p thats £90 spend, and you convert 10% into readers, this basically means you could increase your readership by 100 every month for £90. Obviously conversion rates are not all the same but if you create decent content and have a compelling opt in box there is a good chance your conversion rate may be higher.

Placement Ads

Ever since Google Adwords introduced it, this has been one of my favourite ways of attracting blog readers.

It allows you to place your adwords ad on targeted pages that are in the adsense program, so how are you going to take advantage of it?

Really easy, search for one of your main keywords and search down the top 20 results, then make a note of the ones that use adsense, and target them in your placements. You may even know popular blogs within your own niche that use adesense without searching for them, target them too.

Out of all the advertising methods this has made the biggest impact on readership and blog activity. The clickers are already reading a blog before they click your ad, this means their more likely to convert if your content is up to scratch.

Just a couple of final things to finish with.

If your aim is to increase readership then you need to create huge keyword lists, this ensures your using as many long tail keywords as possible and getting clicks for the lowest amounts. For this I suggest you head over to the Google Keyword Tool.

Do a “website keyword search” and this will show you all the keywords that relate to your sites content. It will even display keywords in keyword groups so you know exactly how to group your ads. This is just the starting point though, I want you to use the keywords it suggests to create huge keyword lists, take every keyword and run it through a descriptive search, this will give you a huge keyword list to start your campaign with.

Remember to keep the keywords in the groups the adwords tool suggests.

This will ensure you keep your campaign as relevant as possible and it will keep your cost per click down. Don’t increase your cost per click to accommodate for the expensive keywords, stick to a certain amount per keyword, some keywords may become ineligible but we are not looking to increase quality score here, just looking to drive lots of traffic through low cost clicks.

If you are thinking to yourself, “I am not paying money to promote my blog!” Then you are probably not going to be a successful blogger, you have to invest in this game.

When we first start out with our internet businesses it is very hard to prioritise different tasks that need to be complete. Do we build links? Write content? Spend time in social sites? Advertise? Optimise conversions?

The truth is at some point you will probably need to do all those things, however working online has its wicked little temptations that really don’t add anything to the success of your website and business.

There is that much advice online that new webmasters really don’t know where to turn and I wanted to address some of those things that are a waste of time and don’t really matter.

Obsessing Over Your Alexa Rank

Many bloggers/webmasters refer to Alexa as being a valuable source of information and many advertisers rely on it to ensure they are getting a good deal. The truth is Alexa is a highly flawed piece of data and tells you very little about the popularity of your site.

Alexa only counts visitors that use and have downloaded the Alexa toolbar, therefore if your traffic is not high in social visitors your Alexa rank is likely to be low, despite the fact you may get 10,000 search engine visitors a day! Sites that have a high Alexa rank are usually those linked with a social aspect of the web.

As a new online business owner or webmaster, I would take little notice of the stats on Alexa, maybe check it every month just to get an idea of traffic trends, but forget the rank.

I have to be on the DMOZ and Yahoo Directories!

The amount of times I actually here this is quite worrying, “Some guru told me I had to be on these directories in order to be noticed?”. This is false and many a high ranking sites are not listed on these directories.

Sure these are highly trusted pages that Google crawls, so make sure your website is well designed, clear and offers genuine information and submit it! Once you have done this forget about it, it really isn’t worth the worry or stress of checking every month and resubmitting all the time like a mad person.

Daily Analytics Checker

I have mentioned this before but feel it is worth mentioning again.

Do you wake up and check your Google analytics every morning? Then flick to your adsense account or some affiliae programs? Then a quick check of your link growth?

OK stop, looking at these stats is not going to make them go up any quicker and I bet if you took that time that you spent checking your stats and put it into something more worthwhile you would become successful much quicker.

Set aside a couple of hours a month to look at your stats, simply to make sure you’re getting picked up on the right keywords and to take advantage of any unexpected ones. Also look for any significant drops in traffic, identify the reason and make sure you put it right. Your traffic analysis is one of the best ways to notice changes in Google’s algorithm and the visibility of your site online, do check it but only once a month.

I Must Read 10 Articles A Day!

Many webmasters believe the best way to succeed online is to read other blogs, that is the way to make them succeed!

No, seriously there is no issue with reading blogs and taking in the information, but do not become obsessive with it. If you read blogs everyday of the week this is too much. Again like the analytics, set aside some time to catch up in your industry. Maybe select one evening a week when you go through your inbox or RSS feed and take in the weekly posts. It’s good to be on top of industry news and views; however it is a massive waste of time if you are reading blogs more than actually working on your own business.

The Social Bug

I am not a social junkie but do use it, well facebook, twitter and a little SU here and there. It can be a great way of building online friendships and communicating with likeminded people.

HOWEVER, if you are tweeting, stumbling, updating, digging; every single day, then you are wasting a lot of time for very little results.

I wrote a post on why social media is overrated a few weeks ago and I stand by a lot of the points I made. You see social traffic generally does not buy, or should I say converts far less than genuine search traffic, therefore your time should be focused on finding relevant search traffic not social. The people who buy from you generally don’t spend their time on twitter and stumble.

When it comes to social media, I like to have a good dig through it once a week, pardon the pun! Reply to friends, ask questions, publish your work, it is actually a great way to get links.

Multiple ‘Link to me’ emails

Ok you’re a new webmaster, you know you need links so you jump on the first piece of advice you read and start emailing relevant sites only to find no one replies.

Writing emails when you first start out is a complete waste of time, why?

a) Your site has no authority or PageRank yet so why would anyone want to link to you or get a link from you?

b) Webmasters do not take kindly to random emails out of nowhere asking for a link.

You need to build your sites link portfolio first, then when you think you have a site worthy to link to, normally after 4 – 6 months, then do the following;

1 – If you find a site that is RELEVANT to yours then read it, find out about the product, service or mindset of the webmaster.

2 – Don’t just dive in and email for a link, first attempt to build some kind of relationship with the webmaster, “I like your info, but what do you think about this?” or thank them for providing such a great resource. Build a friendship then you are more likely to get a link.

I think the problem with the online mindset is that many do not see their time as a commodity. They think they can waste time because their not spending money.

Your time is precious and what you decide to do right now will determine where you and your business are next year and years to come, charter your course and value your time.

I am an SEO at heart, I love the internet and Google and the way in which anyone, even those of us with limited means, can promote our products, services and even ourselves.

One of the key concepts of being successful online is understanding how to become authoritative in your given industry, how are you going to gain trust and convey your expertise.

The Main Problem

One of the main issues with today’s blogging world is duplicate information, blogs that simply publish the exact same news over and over and over again. No new angles, no new points of view, no unique news, research or scandal, simply rewrapped, duplicate content that you can read on hundreds of other sites.

Many people read authority blogs such as Copyblogger and Problogger and basically re-report the content from various posts.

If you want to stand out, if you want to be a better blogger and become an authority resource you cannot simply copy your way to the top.

Just to make myself totally clear on this point, many top bloggers have taken certain actions which have lead to their success, however I am specifically talking about their content, their articles and their news. Copying a success strategy is different to being one of the many online echoes.

You Don’t Need To Be Einstein To Build Trust and Authority

So you have an area of expertise, you offer services or a product, maybe you simply want to display your knowledge in a given area?

It is important to remember that you’re not going to do yourself any favours by making yourself sound smart, bare with me here.

I learnt a really important lesson at University through 2 separate experiences;

1) When I initially put an essay together I would try my best to make it as complex and professional as possible, using big words, complex theories and long winded paragraphs. My results were average to say the least and I was shocked considering the effort that had gone in. I later had a meeting with my tutor who explained that I was trying so hard to make my piece of work authoritative that I was missing out on some plain and simple principles, I changed my approach and attempted to make my work as straightforward and logical as possible, this did the trick and my grades started to increase.

2) As you will probably know you attend endless seminars at University and you always had your favourite teachers. Surprisingly the most popular teachers were not always the teachers with the most authority in a particular area; the best teachers were those who could convey complex principles in a simple way. Seminars that involved a tutor who had this skill were packed with students where as the others were made up of 4-5 students.

My point? Just because you have expertise in a given area your aim is not to baffle your readers with your extreme abilities and knowledge, visitors come to learn and most are not going to have such focused knowledge in your area of expertise, if you want to be an authority in a given area you have to learn to speak to the masses and not just the few people who are on the same level as you.

When was the last time you read blogs like Problogger and thought to yourself “wow that was deep, I’m confused”? Not very often I am imagining and that is because the articles generally speak to the masses. Do you think Problogger would have 100,000 subscribers if all the info was so complex only the top bloggers could really understand it?

Some More Points On Being An Authority

Never dismiss an idea for a post without thinking it through- Many times we have things on our mind that we dismiss, thinking “everybody knows this”, well sometimes they don’t, sometimes the things that seem simple to you are not so simple to others, so be open minded about your topics.

Stand up for yourself- Many follow the crowd either because it is easier or because they are afraid to say what they really believe. If you don’t agree with a specific point then say so, you are never going to stand out if you are travelling in the same direction as everyone else, plus you never know, once you voice your opinion other’s may gain the courage to follow.

Research your industry- No this does not mean re report from other authority blogs, but do research the points these blogs make, add your own personal twist to concepts and practices.

It’s not easy standing out in a world full of experts but whether you’re a blogger, marketer or other online business owner you need to put yourself out there and you are not going to do it by being the same as everyone else.

OK lets address the first issue, SEO wizz grew up! Yes I was up until 4 am this morning with David from Quixotic Media cleaning up the last few bits of the design. I know many of my readers use the thesis theme and if you want a top notch design for a reasonable fee you should head on over there and see what they can do for you.

The new design is all part of my strategy for 2010, 2009 has been a good building year for SEO wizz but it is now time to take things to the next level and make a challenge on the SEO big shots in the UK and anywhere else for that matter. I think the design incorporates commercial and social interests quite nicely and will be perfect for the marketing push I plan on rolling out in 2010.

So I guess now is as good a time as any to take a peek at what 2010 may have in store for us and how we should be approaching our online strategy.

Nothing Changes

Throughout all the years I have been working in the SEO industry the basics never really change;

1) Create a quality resource, product or piece of content

2) Ensure Google can access the site and deal with any broken link issues

3) Keep you site architecture as flat as possible, linking to your most important pages from the home page

4) Keywords need to be in all the major areas title tags, body, images and I would still utilise the h1 and 2 as good practice

5) Generate links through content distribution, link partnerships, viral content and blog entries

6) Do it over and over again until you win

These are the bones of SEO, sure there are a number of technicalities hidden within each area but don’t be led astray by the ‘just write great content crowd’ – you need links and you need to emphasise the relevance your site has to key phrases.

Define What You Really Want To Accomplish

This is particularly a problem for bloggers, I have lost count of the amount of people that have emailed saying “I am blogging about making money online and need loads of traffic, how do I get it?”.

First off I think how original, secondly I think well what is your business plan??? To publish low quality or regurgitated content and hope the links and traffic are going to come flooding in??

You need to be smarter than that if your plan is to build a business out of your site.

It’s not just bloggers though, how many derelict ecommerce sites are there out there floating about?? Tons!

So if the online business world is for you then I would start by asking myself the following questions;

How much do I want to make?

If you answer is ‘as much as possible’ then stop. You need a target, a goal, something to aim at or else the chances are you will fall apart in the first year when you’re barely making $10 a month with adsesne.

Set a goal of income, a reasonable amount, then if you make more you have over achieved.

How are you going to make it?

It is no good thinking content will win all, I’ll paste ads everywhere and be a ‘click’ millionaire!! Time for a reality check.

Search traffic takes time to build and social traffic will not click your ads or buy your affiliate products, it’s a fact unfortunately.

So decide what products you are going to promote, how you’re going to build an opt in list, are you going to promote services? If you’re going to use affiliate links don’t just simply paste them on, sell them in a few articles beforehand.

One word of warning on affiliate products, do not sell them if you haven’t used them and found them to be of good quality. Your readers will never forgive you for selling a scam.

Test the product, illustrate how you benefited from it, and show the results… your conversion rates will be far higher.

How are you going to get traffic?

Erm SEO??

Yes you are going to continually optimise your pages; however you may have a product to sell right away, why wait?

You could use banner advertising on relevant blogs, google adwords or even free ads, depending on the nature of your product.

Don’t sit back and wait for pure search engine traffic, go out and get it if you believe you have a product that converts.

Are you going to use social media?

This is a tough one for purely commercial sites, will it really do them any good? My opinion is no, unless they have something to offer the social scene, which in my opinion they should.

Social media is not going to drive home sales or even give you tons of links, however what it does is give you an ideal opportunity for users, clients and industry experts to interact with your brand. It allows you to answer concerns quickly and sell the benefits of your service or product easily.

Social traffic will not turn into sales, but if your brand is out there, this means there is a good chance your company will get mentioned within context and this could lead to a word of mouth referrals.

Many of you may think I am anti social media, I am not as you can clearly tell from some of the widgets on this site, I simply believe in using social time sparingly. Many webmasters indulge in the hope it will lead them to riches, this is not the case, social media is exactly what it implies, the opportunity for you to socialise with others in your industry and with those who share similar interests.

No Investment, No Reward

Something that I learned quickly all those years ago is that if you’re not willing to invest you have lost already. The investment doesn’t have to be huge but you have to be willing to take it.

So many webmasters don’t want to pay for a nice design, for tools that cost more than a dollar or for recurring membership fees; some even think it is a waste of time paying hosting and for a domain. Granted there are scammers out there that will sell you big piles of rubbish, this is one of the online learning curves I try and prevent people from feeling when I write this blog, it can be really harsh.

My advice here is to find a reliable resource, and then use reliable resources that the initial resource recommends. Also don’t just buy, look for reviews before hand and any reviews that simply sell the product are probably scams. It’s a tough world but you have to be willing to push through it to succeed.

Plan your budget before hand, how much can you spend per month on;

1) Hosting and domain name
2) Advertising
3) Link Building
4) Design and functionality

Once you have this sorted the only other investment is your time. Don’t try and cut corners, software cannot write you a viral piece of content. Put your all in this is your business now and the rewards are real.

Believe You Can

If you are thinking “I’ll give this online thing a try” you’re going to lose.

If you are thinking “If I can make some money free, then I’ll invest” you’re going to lose.

If you are thinking “I’ll just build it and they will come” you’re going to lose.

If you actually believe in your business model and are willing to invest your time, money and talents into making your online dream a reality then you will more than likely win, even if not at first your attitude will drive you there.

I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have had sites that have flopped and I have felt like jacking it all in, but every time I learned something new, I developed a new skill set and still am learning and developing monthly if not weekly. You have to be willing to keep betting on yourself, that’s the difference between those who do and those who don’t.

Making a living from your online business is not guaranteed however the possibility is a reality, in 2010 bset a goal to take your site to the next level, double your investment whether that investment be your time or your hard earned money.

Keep reading SEOwizz and have a fantastic new years eve.

All the best to everyone for 2010!!! See you at the top of Google!!

p.s. Sorry for the post length I got carried away.